Biology Intelligent Design

Vox offers three “unexplainable” mysteries of life on Earth

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In three podcasts at Vox:

How did life start on Earth? What was the series of events that led to birds, bugs, amoebas, you, and me?

That’s the subject of Origins, a three-episode series from Unexplainable — Vox’s podcast that explores big mysteries, unanswered questions, and all the things we learn by diving into the unknown. – Brian Resnick (March 1, 2023)

The three mysteries they offer are:

  1. Where did Earth’s water come from?
  2. How did life start in that water?
  3. What is life anyway?

About that last: Science writer Carl Zimmer offers “The problem is, for each definition of life, scientists can think of a confounding exception. Take, for instance, NASA’s definition of life: “Life is a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.” But that definition would exclude viruses, which are not “self-sustaining” and can only survive and replicate by infiltrating a host.”

217 Replies to “Vox offers three “unexplainable” mysteries of life on Earth

  1. 1
    Nonlin.org says:

    I wonder if humans are “capable of Darwinian evolution”. Can we see some proof?

  2. 2
    Alan Fox says:

    I wonder if humans are “capable of Darwinian evolution”.

    Individual organisms, including humans, do not evolve. The evolutionary process occurs with changes in allele frequency within populations.

  3. 3
    Nonlin.org says:

    Then is NASA brain dead when they propose/fall for this “test”? How do you propose they do it? Step by step please.

  4. 4
    Alan Fox says:

    How do you propose they do it? Step by step please.

    Cart before horse. Data before interpretation. There isn’t any yet.

  5. 5
    bornagain77 says:

    The origin of human beings from primitive ape-like precursors is one — just one — of the definitions of “evolution” that the public and the media carry around in their heads. Not surprisingly, the iconic transition from ape to man is the first, second, third, and fourth image produced by a Google image search for the term ‘evolution’.
    https://www.google.com/search?q=evolution&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiL2oOXo9H9AhVqzMkDHRWmCDsQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=evolution&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQDFAAWABgAGgAcAB4AIABAIgBAJIBAJgBAKoBC2d3cy13aXotaW1n&sclient=img&ei=rxYLZMvGBOqYp84Plcyi2AM&bih=728&biw=1440&client=safari

    Yet, the supposed evidence for human evolution is far from being a slam dunk for Darwinists.

    In May of 2020, via an article from the American Museum of Natural History, (which is certainly no creationist organization), it was stated, ““Humans are storytellers: Theories of human evolution often resemble “anthropogenic narratives” that borrow the structure of a hero’s journey,, but unless grounded in testable hypotheses, they are no more than “just-so stories”,,,, “When you look at the narrative for hominin origins, it’s just a big mess — there’s no consensus whatsoever.”

    Scientists Conclude: Human Origins Research Is a Big Mess – Günter Bechly – May 10, 2021
    Excerpt: Finally, the article concludes with this gem:
    “Humans are storytellers: Theories of human evolution often resemble “anthropogenic narratives” that borrow the structure of a hero’s journey to explain essential aspects such as the origins of erect posture, the freeing of the hands, or brain enlargement (166). Intriguingly, such narratives have not drastically changed since Darwin (166). We must be aware of confirmation biases and ad hoc interpretations by researchers aiming to confer their new fossil the starring role within a preexisting narrative. Evolutionary scenarios are appealing because they provide plausible explanations based on current knowledge, but unless grounded in testable hypotheses, they are no more than “just-so stories” (167).”
    Hardly any ID proponent could have said it better. Fancy storytelling in the style of Kiplingesque “just-so stories” is indeed a hallmark of the soft science of modern evolutionary biology in general, and paleoanthropology in particular.,,,
    In this press release the senior author of the new study, Sergio Almécija, a senior research scientist at the American Museum of Natural History, is also quoted as offering this remarkable admission: “When you look at the narrative for hominin origins, it’s just a big mess — there’s no consensus whatsoever.”
    https://evolutionnews.org/2021/05/scientists-conclude-human-origins-research-is-a-big-mess/

    And as the following video reveals, and as is typical for Darwinian ‘just-so stories’, the ape to man icon is based far more on unrestrained imagination than it is based on any actual substantiating scientific evidence.

    Human Evolution: The Monkey Bias (Science Uprising, EP8)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGzXAgFSbnk

    As the following 2021 articles stated, “(artistic) hominin reconstructions vary in appearance considerably”,,,

    Visual Depictions of Our Evolutionary Past: A Broad Case Study Concerning the Need for Quantitative Methods of Soft Tissue Reconstruction and Art-Science Collaborations – Feb. 2021
    Excerpt: Flip through scientific textbooks illustrating ideas about human evolution or visit any number of museums of natural history and you will notice an abundance of reconstructions attempting to depict the appearance of ancient hominins. Spend some time comparing reconstructions of the same specimen and notice an obvious fact: hominin reconstructions vary in appearance considerably.,,,
    The role an artist plays is also analyzed and criticized given how the aforementioned reconstructions have become readily accepted to line the halls of even the most trusted institutions.
    https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2021.639048/full

    As a leading researcher of the 2021 paper further noted, “I expected to find consistency in those reconstructions displayed in natural history museums, but the differences, even there, were so severe that I almost thought all previous practitioners had never encountered a single hominid reconstruction before commencing their own.”

    Human ancestor ‘Lucy’ gets a new face in stunning reconstruction – Laura Geggel – March 03, 2021
    Excerpt:,, reconstructions of Lucy, the Taung child and other early humans were made by artists who made assumptions that aren’t testable with current science, including whether these ancient species looked more like apes or modern humans, and how their soft tissues, including their muscles and the thickness of their skin, appeared. These reconstructions are often found in natural history museums and are meant to educate the public about human evolution.,,
    ,,, the researchers,, found that many reconstructions “have been largely unchallenged by the scientific community and displayed in museums with very little empirical evidence to support them,”,,,
    When they looked at depictions around the world, they found that every museum’s version of Lucy looked very different, review lead researcher Ryan Campbell, a doctoral student in the Department of Anatomy & Pathology at the University of Adelaide in Australia, wrote in the blog. “I expected to find consistency in those reconstructions displayed in natural history museums, but the differences, even there, were so severe that I almost thought all previous practitioners had never encountered a single hominid reconstruction before commencing their own.”
    A previous analysis of reconstructions of 860 hominins (a group including humans, monkeys and their extinct close relatives) from 55 museum displays showed remarkable inconsistencies, even those depicting the same individuals.
    https://www.livescience.com/lucy-taung-child-facial-reconstructions.html

    and as the following article noted, “a great deal of ‘scientific/artistic licence’ is inappropriately used in ‘hominin’ reconstructions.,,,”

    Ancestor bias – Museum depictions of ‘human ancestors’ challenged—by evolutionists
    by Philip Robinson – Nov. 2022
    Excerpt: A team of researchers recently looked at artistic renderings of humans’ alleged ape-like ancestors. They openly discussed a wide range of issues of concern in how these are depicted.1
    The team noted that there have been very few ‘hominin’ fossils ever found. In fact, they highlighted that the total number of finds is less than the number of anthropologists active today. So, comparing reconstructions of the small number of individual hominin finds is relatively easy.,,,
    In wanting to appear to present a coherent and convincing story of evolution, a great deal of ‘scientific/artistic licence’ is inappropriately used in ‘hominin’ reconstructions.,,,
    In fact, australopithecines in many respects “clearly differ more from both humans and African apes, than do these two living groups from each other. The australopithecines are unique.”4 Also, they did not, as many believe, walk upright in the human manner.5
    https://creation.com/museum-apemen-challenged-by-evolutionists

    Imagination and speculation, not science, plays a far larger role in ‘artistic reconstructions’ for human evolution than the general public is aware of. As Boyce Rensberger wrote in the journal Science, “Unfortunately, the vast majority of artist’s conceptions are based more on imagination than on evidence. But a handful of expert natural-history artists begin with the fossil bones of a hominid and work from there…. Much of the reconstruction, however, is guesswork. Bones say nothing about the fleshy parts of the nose, lips, or ears. Artists must create something between an ape and a human being; the older the specimen is said to be, the more apelike they make it…. Hairiness is a matter of pure conjecture.

    Paleoanthropology
    Excerpt: Dr. David Pilbeam is a paleoanthropologist who received his Ph.D. at Yale University and Dr. Pilbeam is presently Professor of Social Sciences at Harvard University and Curator of Paleontology at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.[3] In addition, Dr. Pilbeam served as an advisor for the Kenya government regarding the creation of an international institute for the study of human origins.[4]
    Dr. Pilbeam wrote a review of Richard Leakey’s book Origins in the journal American Scientist and he stated the following:
    “…perhaps generations of students of human evolution, including myself, have been flailing about in the dark; that our data base is too sparse, too slippery, for it to be able to mold our theories. Rather the theories are more statements about us and ideology than about the past. Paleoanthropology reveals more about how humans view themselves than it does about how humans came about. But that is heresy.”[5],,,
    In regards to the pictures of the supposed ancestors of man featured in science journals and the news media Boyce Rensberger wrote in the journal Science the following regarding their highly speculative nature:
    “Unfortunately, the vast majority of artist’s conceptions are based more on imagination than on evidence. But a handful of expert natural-history artists begin with the fossil bones of a hominid and work from there…. Much of the reconstruction, however, is guesswork. Bones say nothing about the fleshy parts of the nose, lips, or ears. Artists must create something between an ape and a human being; the older the specimen is said to be, the more apelike they make it…. Hairiness is a matter of pure conjecture.[13][14]”
    https://www.conservapedia.com/Paleoanthropology

    As Earnest A. Hooton of Harvard stated, “alleged restoration of ancient types of man have very little, if any, scientific value and are likely only to mislead the public”

    The Fragmented Field of Paleoanthropology – July 2012
    Excerpt: “alleged restoration of ancient types of man have very little, if any, scientific value and are likely only to mislead the public”
    Earnest A. Hooton – physical anthropologist – Harvard University
    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....62101.html

  6. 6
    bornagain77 says:

    And as if grossly misleading the public with ‘artistic license’ was not bod enough for Darwinists, it also turns out that the overt racism of Charles Darwin himself,,,

    “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla”
    – Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 1874, p. 178

    ,, it also turns out that the overt racism of Charles Darwin himself is ‘systemically’ present in these misleading artistic reconstructions of human evolution in natural history museums.

    Human Evolution as a “Path to Whiteness” – November 24, 2021
    Excerpt: Do Your Own Google Search
    I had never thought of this before. In contemporary museum displays and other evolutionary depictions, just as in Darwin’s Descent of Man and in the notorious Civic Biology textbook that was at issue in the 1925 Scopes Trial, human origins are portrayed as an upward progress from dark to white. Neanderthals, however otherwise “primitive” (which is questionable in itself), are shown as light-skinned. And maybe they were, but modern man — Homo sapiens — is almost invariably white and European, not African or Asian. Check out some examples from around the Internet, here, here, here, here, and here. (links on site) Do a Google image search for the phrase “human evolution” and you’ll see many others.
    Just a coincidence? Or is Darwin’s racist legacy still with us today? You tell me. For a deeper exploration of that legacy, see John West’s documentary Human Zoos.
    https://evolutionnews.org/2021/11/human-evolution-as-a-path-to-whiteness/

    Moreover, if we rightly ignore these highly misleading, even systemically racist, artistic reconstructions that Darwinists have put forth in museums, and look soberly and dispassionately at the scientific evidence itself, we find that the scientific evidence itself contradicts the Darwinian ‘narrative’,, and it contradicts it at every turn.

    Jan. 2022 Fossil Record refutes human evolution
    https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-fox-news-adam-and-eve-are-compatible-with-evolution/#comment-744141
    Fossils and Human Evolution (full series) – Casey Luskin – Oct. 2022
    https://evolutionnews.org/tag/fossils-and-human-evolution-series/
    Sept: 2022 – Genetic Evidence falsifies the claim the humans evolved from apes-like creature. And falsifies it in a ‘hard’ manner.
    https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-evolution-news-did-life-first-arise-by-purely-natural-means/#comment-765765
    Darwinists simply have no evidence that morphology, and/or biological form, is reducible to mutations to DNA.
    https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/evangelical-scientists-getting-it-wrong/#comment-740247
    Population Genetics falsifies, instead of confirms, Darwinian claims for human evolution
    https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/christian-darwinists-must-now-backtrack-re-adam-and-eve/#comment-741335
    Human exceptionalism falsifies Darwinian claims for human evolution
    https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/evangelical-scientists-getting-it-wrong/#comment-740249
    Darwinists, (in what makes the ‘problem’ of explaining the origin of the human species pale in comparison), have no clue whatsoever why “I” should even come into existence as a “person” with a unique individual subjective conscious experience, but are instead reduced to arguing that my sense of self, my “I”, is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’
    https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/casey-luskin-the-mytho-history-of-adam-eve-and-william-lane-craig/#comment-740568

    Thus in conclusion, the claim from Darwinists that humans evolved from some ape-like creature is found to be almost entirely, if not entirely, based on untethered imagination and ‘artistic reconstruction’, rather than on any substantiating, much less any compelling, scientific evidence. In short, the ‘narrative’ of human evolution belongs far more to the realm of Alice in Wonderland fantasy and fairy tales than it belongs in the real world of empirical science.

    Genesis 1: 26-28
    Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’
    So God created humankind in his image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.
    God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’

  7. 7
    jerry says:

    There will be no progress on this site till everyone uses the same definitions.

    For example, what does the term “evolution” mean. People will use it differently from one sentence to the next and sometimes within the same sentence. If it just means change, it is a trivial word.

    Similarly, “natural selection” which is just what happens anywhere in the world is used differently all the time. So any rime someone uses the expression, all they are doing is saying what happened, happened. A perfectly useless term.

    Then there is the term “Darwin” that is used in all sorts of variations without any thought of the meaning in a particular context. Just what does the term “Darwinian” mean?

    Then there are words for which there is no accepted definition. One here is “life” but like “evolution” and “natural selection” are used all the time with the user unaware of the context in which it is used.

    Then there times we use definitions and don’t know it. For example, “2+2=4” is a definition but people then question this without understanding it’s a definition. Adding two and two must equal something. We call that thing “4” so it is just a definition.

    There are other terms such as “theory” and “science” which are rarely used with common definitions. But we confuse the different meanings of each as if they were the same.

    But that is UD where understanding is definitely not an objective.

  8. 8
    martin_r says:

    Jerry, I completely agree with you. The definition of terms.

    Recently I came across a term “Phenotypic plasticity”.
    Biologists claim, that blind cave fish, the way how it lose its eyes, is an example of phenotypic plasticity. And I always thought, that it is an example of Darwinian evolution :)))))))))

  9. 9
    relatd says:

    Ba77,

    Starting in the 1960s, the idea of ‘cave men’ was widespread. Yet I wonder what men did when no natural caves were in the area. But back to the 1960s. These cave men were shown with heads/skulls with heavy brow ridges. Strangely, as the decades passed, depictions of these allegedly early men upgraded to make them indistinguishable from “modern men.”

    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/rethinking-neanderthals-83341003/

    What is sorely lacking is a comparative study of skull shapes. The various racial groups, from Caucasian to Negroid to Asian, show marked differences. I have yet to see side by side comparisons, with angle measurements, showing representative skull shapes for each.

    The just-so stories included drawings by Ernst Haeckel that were widely published and which appeared in textbooks until the 1990s. They were fraudulent but confirm the idea that the theory of evolution was worth far more as a means of spreading atheism than in spreading any scientific ideas. So here we are, in the midst of evolution promoters, who, as far as I can tell, are part of a planned effort to promote atheism since ‘evolution’ requires no God in order to function. Even the origin of life itself is still promoted as happening through the chance combination of inorganic chemicals with perhaps a little help from atmospheric gases and a lightning strike or two. All of that can be duplicated in a laboratory today. It could even be simulated using a computer program.

    Haeckel’s fraud has been reveled but some people are too trusting and do not look beyond the textbooks they had in school.

    https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo18785800.html

  10. 10
    jerry says:

    phenotypic plasticity

    From what I understand phenotypic plasticity is just genetics.

    So it is not an example of Evolution (capital E). I include epigenetics as a subset of genetics. Phenotypic changes can be caused by allele changes or epigenetic processes.

    There is obviously phenotypic differences between species. But how that arose is still a mystery.

  11. 11
    relatd says:

    Jerry at 7,

    Why not lead by example? Post all those definitions.

  12. 12
    jerry says:

    The term “evolution” just means changes by a change in alleles or epigenetic effect. It is completely part of modern day genetics. It is also consistent with the concept called micro evolution which is just genetics (includes epigenetics.)

    The term “Evolution mean tiers 2 and 3 of this discription of life changes which was put forward 17 years ago here. No one disagreed with the distinctions made here but it can certainly be refined with better examples and descriptions.

    https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-argument-from-incredulity-vs-the-argument-from-gullibility/#comment-40952

    That is why I try to use a capital “E” anytime I am referring to what the debate is about. It is definitely not about the small “e” which only has relevance to genetics.

    Natural selection is described in the following comment

    https://uncommondescent.com/origin-of-life/paul-davies-on-the-gap-between-life-and-non-life/#comment-775881

    Essentially it is just what happens when a system has been disturbed after one of its elements takes on a new value. For ecologies, the new values may be environmental or the introduction of a new species or a new allele version of a species. All three could affect the allele version of a species that becomes predominant.

    Darwin is the most egregiously misused term on this site. Darwin was a lay scientist who had some insights that have proved useful. These insights have also been exaggerated by many as to their implications. So when using any expression that includes some form of Darwin, it is best to indicate which insights are being used.

    Darwin had little knowledge of biology since at best it was primitive at the time. No one knew exactly what a cell was or what the implications were. So give him credit for some of his insights but also the evidence is that his ideas has little to do with Evolution but a lot to do with evolution or genetics.

    So Darwin’s ideas are definitely real and relevant to genetics. His ideas have no meaning for Evolution because the changes necessary for Evolution to take place are far beyond what genetic process can accomplish.

    Darwin is not someone to malign but he is also not someone who changed science much. Give him credit where it is due but with the understanding that the ideas he put forward had value but not to Evolution.

    So the lesson here is not to mock or disparage Darwin but admit his ideas are useful for a very important science, namely genetics. But then emphasize that his ideas have proven fruitless for Evolution.

    The last word that needs a careful definition is the term “theory.” It must be distinguished between the forces of physics which are continually operating and those by intelligences which could be one time events. To think that both are the same thing is ludicrous.

  13. 13
    jerry says:

    The above definitions are probably not precise enough and modifications should be debated until there is general agreement on each.

    I am sure there are other terms and each may have different variations that should be delineated so everyone knows just what the other means. My guess is that this will not happen.

    The definition of “theory” is especially problematic. It could range from the “wave theory of light” to “the Butler did it” with a lot of examples in-between. We tend to use the same word for all.

    Aside: ID is closer to the “Butler did it” than to the “wave theory of light” so why use the same word for ID as for an area of particle physics.

  14. 14
    martin_r says:

    Jerry,

    the term “phenotypic plasticity” is just another Darwinian conjecture, very similar to “natural selection” conjecture. Darwinists had to invent this term to somehow justify their misinterpretation of reality. The term “phenotypic plasticity” is just another example of Darwinian damage control. They can’t admit that the ability to lose eyes “at will” — to save energy — is just another designed feature. It can’t be more obvious, especially when so many other evolutionary unrelated species living in caves have this ability (e.g. beetles and spiders). Moreover, there are other examples of “phenotypic plasticity”, e.g. adaptive (real time) color change of peppered moth’s larvae (I bet that adult peppered moth and other moth species work the same way as its larvae, can change wings color “at will”).

    Jerry, I always wanted to ask, are you a creationist, a ID proponent, a theistic evolutionist or something else ?

  15. 15
    Alan Fox says:

    Haeckel’s fraud has been reveled but some people are too trusting and do not look beyond the textbooks they had in school.

    Hmm. Historian of Science, Robert J. Richards wrote a paper (PDF) that questions whether fraud ever occurred.

  16. 16
    bornagain77 says:

    AF at 15,

    Hmm, and Charles Darwin himself conceded that it can be seriously questioned whether his theory even qualifies as a ‘true science’ in the first place.

    ,,”I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science.”,,,
    – Charles Darwin to Asa Gray – 18 June 1857
    https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2109.xml
    ,, “What you hint at generally is very very true, that my work will be grievously hypothetical & large parts by no means worthy of being called inductive; my commonest error being probably induction from too few facts.”,,
    – Charles Darwin to Asa Gray – 29 November 1857
    https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2176.xml

    “In response to a letter from Asa Gray, professor of biology at Harvard University, Darwin declared: “I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science.” When questioned further by Gray, Darwin confirmed Gray’s suspicions: “What you hint at generally is very, very true: that my work is grievously hypothetical, and large parts are by no means worthy of being called induction.” Darwin had turned against the use of scientific principles in developing his theory of evolution.”
    – Richard William Nelson – Darwin Then and Now – Anti Science Irony – 2011

    Of supplemental note:

    Countering revisionism—part 1: Ernst Haeckel, fraud is proven
    by E. van Niekerk – 2011
    In 1997, a ‘bomb’ exploded in the face of all those evolutionists who so fondly kept on using this evolutionary ‘icon’, when embryologist (and evolutionist) Dr Michael K. Richardson and his colleagues published a variety of real photographs of the relevant embryos.5 These drawings of Haeckel were later compared directly to the actual photos, and they were found to be far more different than everybody even thought. Richardson also published photographs of species additional to those which appeared in Haeckel’s popular embryo plates. This showed that Haeckel conveniently used those which tended to look more similar, while ignoring those which were different.
    Although a minority of honest evolutionists have appreciated Richardson’s work, such as Stephen Jay Gould, Scott F. Gilbert (author of developmental biological books) and Paul Dombrowsky (a specialist in rhetoric), the embarrassment was just too severe and the iconic embryos too beloved among textbook authors to let things stay as they were. Robert John Richards, a professor of history at the University of Chicago, made a concerted attempt to rehabilitate not only the history around Haeckel, but also the very embryo sketches themselves. In 2008/9 Richards published a book and a paper in which he made some serious attempts to clear and clean up the name of his hero, Ernst Haeckel. My paper will look mainly at the works of Haeckel and the scientific issues around them, specifically set out in Richards’ paper named Haeckel’s Embryos: Fraud not proven.6 Where necessary, related issues will be discussed.,,,
    On investigating Haeckel’s illustrations technically, it becomes clear just how many things Haeckel distorted in the embryo illustrations. His dishonesty can thus not be denied.
    http://creation.com/haeckel-fraud-proven

    Icons of Evolution 10th Anniversary: Haeckel’s (Bogus) Embryos – January 2011 – video
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAC807DAXzY?

  17. 17
    jerry says:

    I always wanted to ask, are you a creationist, a ID proponent, a theistic evolutionist or something else ?

    Definitely, an ID proponent.

    Let’s just say I am interested in truth and believe ID represents that. But people here want to define ID in lots of ways. For example, it has nothing to do with religion but they want it to be closely associated with their religion. Not illogical but ID can be associated with lots of religions. For example, there is nothing in ID that points to a triune God so Christianity is not the only religion justified by ID.

    “Creationist” is another word that needs a definition. It is ill defined on this site but means one thing to the general world, Young Earth Creationist. The term “theistic evolutionist is also badly defined but outside a very small community, no one has ever heard of it.

    Does anyone here know, that scientists and philosophers justify Darwinian Evolution by showing “creationism” to be obviously wrong. An absurd bit of logic because ID is not creationism and ID and Darwinian Evolution do not represent a totality of possibilities. ID is discredited constantly by associating it with creationism which as I said nearly everyone associates with Young Earth Creationism.

    From what I understand, theistic evolutionists are all over the lot. There used to be a few that came here to comment. It seems that their beliefs are based on it had to happen naturally somehow and is driven mainly not by the evidence but by opposition to YECs who they associate with ID.

    Aside: I am definitely not a YEC and probably not what’s called an old earth creationist, whatever that is. I have no idea how design was instigated in this universe nor does anyone else using science. They will appeal to Genesis but that definitely is not ID or science.

    It’s a mystery.

    I am on record that if ID wins the day, (highly unlikely given the strategies used to justify it) the real food fight will begin.

    Aside2: I’ve written several times that both life and complex life could have arisen naturally but science seems to strongly suggest otherwise. But a creator who is powerful enough to create this universe, certainly has the knowledge and ability to make it happen. For example, with initial/boundary conditions at the origin of the universe.

    I’m not saying it happened that way, just that’s it possible that was the way.

  18. 18
    jerry says:

    the term “phenotypic plasticity” is just another Darwinian conjecture, very similar to “natural selection” conjecture

    Neither are conjectures.

    They both happen naturally. I point out that “natural selection” happens all the time but is essentially trivial. So why not admit it. It represents truth and is obvious to the average person.

    People including Darwin witnessed that there were physical changes that took place over time within a species. For example, there are 7 foot and 3 foot humans with different musculature, skin color, hair color, and facial shapes. Their understanding of genetic cellular process were basically nil.

    So they use the expressions plasticity to describe the process. They reasoned that If it could take place within a species that eventually small physical changes would lead to a different species. Obviously wrong given our knowledge of genetics today but a reasonable speculation in the mid 1800s.

    Now they will say some genetic changes will eventually cause physical changes. This will then lead to a new species as new genes with varying alleles get added to a genome that cause even more physical changes.

    No evidence for this but this is the speculation. That’s what most modern evolutionary biology is about.

    I have nothing against research that seeks these answers. A lot of it has led to epigenetic research which is valid and 100% consistent with ID. Some of these epigenetic effects definitely lead to what would be called plasticity changes.

    Aside: I believe truth is what will win out. But how to establish that truth? To deny the obvious such as natural selection is the worse possible strategy. Instead emphasize that it is true but all the evidence is that it is trivial even over millions of years.

    There is zero reason to denigrate Darwin. Just acknowledge he was right but only on minor things. Modern genetics depends on many of his ideas. Give him his due but say modern science shows these ideas as very limited. That’s true.

    People are scared of the truth on both sides of the argument. For example, I see little evidence of pro ID people seeking it here.

  19. 19
    Ford Prefect says:

    Alan Fox writes:

    Hmm. Historian of Science, Robert J. Richards wrote a paper (PDF) that questions whether fraud [Haeckel’s em to depictions] ever occurred.

    I would say that the most that could be claimed is observer bias. Unlike the depictions of Jesus as a light skinned, light haired, blue eyed man. In the latter case, there is almost certainly some level of intentional deception involved.

  20. 20
    Origenes says:

    Relatd: Haeckel’s fraud has been revealed but some people are too trusting and do not look beyond the textbooks they had in school.

    Alan Fox: Hmm. Historian of Science, Robert J. Richards wrote a paper (PDF) that questions whether fraud ever occurred.

    What Does Richards’s Article Argue?
    Bob Richards admits that Haeckel’s infamous drawings show “considerable disparity” from photographs of embryos, and at one point acknowledges that Haeckel “egregiously erred” in at least one of his early embryo drawings. evolutionnews.org

    Ford Prefect: I would say that the most that could be claimed is observer bias.

    embryologist Michael Richardson: “one of the most famous fakes in biology,”

    Stephen Jay Gould: “Haeckel had exaggerated the similarities by idealizations and omissions,” … “in a procedure that can only be called fraudulent,” … “simply copied the same figure over and over again.”

    The journal Science: “generations of biology students may have been misled by a famous set of drawings of embryos published 123 years ago by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel.”

  21. 21
    Alan Fox says:

    Stephen Jay Gould: “Haeckel had exaggerated the similarities by idealizations and omissions,” … “in a procedure that can only be called fraudulent,” … “simply copied the same figure over and over again.”

    Where did the Gould quote come from, Origenes?

  22. 22
    Alan Fox says:

    Just to be clear, I’m querying the accusation of fraud. Everyone makes mistakes and Haeckel owned up to some inaccuracies and mis-judgements.

    Also evolutionary developmental biology is a productive field of research.

  23. 23
    Origenes says:

    Alan Fox @21
    Stephen Jay Gould, Abscheulich!(Atrocious!), NATURAL HISTORY, Mar. 2000, at 42, 44–45

    Bonus quote:

    Matzke, Gross: “Haeckel did exaggerate similarities in very early embryos of different species, and his figures, or derivatives of them, have appeared in a few textbooks.”
    [Nicholas J. Matzke & Paul R. Gross, Analyzing Critical Analysis: The Fallback Antievolutionist Strategy, in NOT IN OUR CLASSROOMS: WHY INTELLIGENT DESIGN IS WRONG FOR OUR SCHOOLS 40 ( Eugenie C. Scott & Glenn Branch, eds. 2006).]

    SOURCE

  24. 24
    Sandy says:

    Unlike the depictions of Jesus as a light skinned

    Jesus was born from a Jewess but what are the physical qualities of his Father?

  25. 25
    Ford Prefect says:

    Sandy writes:

    Jesus was born from a Jewess but what are the physical qualities of his Father?

    According to Christianity he is not physical. A better question would be, was Jesus haploid or diploid?

    But this is deviating from my original comment. Why does Jesus tend to be depicted with the physical/racial characteristics of the people where the depiction is made? In the Bible he is never described as being different in any physical way from the general population. So, any significant deviation from a typical mid-eastern Jewish person (darker skin, curly dark hair, brown eyes, etc), would be an intentional deception.

  26. 26
    bornagain77 says:

    AF at 22: “evolutionary developmental biology is a productive field of research.”

    Developmental biology has no use for evolutionary presuppositions.

    On the problem of biological form – Marta Linde-Medina (2020)
    Excerpt: Embryonic development, which inspired the first theories of biological form, was eventually excluded from the conceptual framework of the Modern Synthesis, (neo-Darwinism) as irrelevant.,,,
    At present, the problem of biological form remains unsolved.
    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12064-020-00317-3

    The Diverse Early Embryonic Development of Vertebrates and Implications Regarding Their Ancestry
    David W. Swift – July 21, 2022
    Excerpt: contrary to evolutionary expectations, the phylotypic stages of different vertebrate classes arise in radically diverse ways. This diversity clearly counters the superficial appearance of homology of the phylotypic stage, and the plain inference is that vertebrates have not evolved from a common vertebrate ancestor. The diversity extends through all stages of early development—including cleavage and formation of the blastula, gastrulation, neurulation, and formation of the gut and extraembryonic membranes. This paper focuses on gastrulation, during which the germ layers originate and the vertebrate body-plan begins to form.,,,
    https://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2022.1/pdf

    The earliest events leading from the first division of the egg cell to the blastula stage in amphibians, reptiles and mammals are illustrated in figure 5.4. Even to the untrained zoologist it is obvious that neither the blastula itself, nor the sequence of events that lead to its formation, is identical in any of the vertebrate classes shown. The differences become even more striking in the next major phase of embryo formation – gastrulation. This involves a complex sequence of cell movements whereby the cells of the blastula rearrange themselves, eventually resulting in the transformation of the blastula into the intricate folded form of the early embryo, or gastrula, which consists of three basic germ cell layers: the ectoderm, which gives rise to the skin and the nervous system; the mesoderm, which gives rise to muscle and skeletal tissues; and the endoderm, which gives rise to the lining of the alimentary tract as well as to the liver and pancreas.,,, In some ways the egg cell, blastula, and gastrula stages in the different vertebrate classes are so dissimilar that, where it not for the close resemblance in the basic body plan of all adult vertebrates, it seems unlikely that they would have been classed as belonging to the same phylum. There is no question that, because of the great dissimilarity of the early stages of embryogenesis in the different vertebrate classes, organs and structures considered homologous in adult vertebrates cannot be traced back to homologous cells or regions in the earliest stages of embryogenesis. In other words, homologous structures are arrived at by different routes.”
    Michael Denton – Evolution: A Theory in Crisis – pg 145-146

    Evolution by Splicing – Comparing gene transcripts from different species reveals surprising splicing diversity. – Ruth Williams – December 20, 2012
    Excerpt: the papers show that most alternative splicing events differ widely between even closely related species. “The alternative splicing patterns are very different even between humans and chimpanzees,” said Blencowe.,,,
    http://www.the-scientist.com/?.....plicing%2F

    “It’s a Mystery, It’s Magic, It’s Divinity” – Casey Luskin – March 22, 2012
    Excerpt: “The magic of the mechanisms inside each genetic structure saying exactly where that nerve cell should go, the complexity of these, the mathematical models on how these things are indeed done, are beyond human comprehension. Even though I am a mathematician, I look at this with the marvel of how do these instruction sets not make these mistakes as they build what is us. It’s a mystery, it’s magic, it’s divinity.”
    – Alexander Tsiaras
    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....57741.html

    “The mere fact that a firefly comes from a single cell that then develops into a firefly puts it in a completely different league [from an iPhone]. That doesn’t happen with smartphones. Factories make smartphones. Fireflies come from fireflies and come from an initial fertilized cell. It’s absolutely mind-boggling. We have no idea how a single cell produces an adult. These things are marvelous.”
    – Doug Axe – The Problem with Theistic Evolution – video –
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkAxRY41ndU

    Intelligent Design and the Advancement of Science – Brian Miller – December 11, 2017
    Excerpt: Thom concluded in his book Structural Stability and Morphogenesis that the process of development should be thought of as being controlled by an “algebraic structure outside space-time itself” (p. 119). Likewise, Robert Rosen argued that life can only be understood as a mathematical abstraction consisting of functional relationships, irreducible to mechanistic processes. He observed that life is fundamentally different from simple physics and chemistry. It embodies the Aristotelian category of final causation, which is closely related to the idea of purpose. The conclusions of these scholars challenge materialistic philosophy at its core.
    https://evolutionnews.org/2017/12/intelligent-design-and-the-advancement-of-science/

    Ask an Embryologist: Genomic Mosaicism – Jonathan Wells – February 23, 2015
    Excerpt: I now know as an embryologist,,,Tissues and cells, as they differentiate, modify their DNA to suit their needs. It’s the organism controlling the DNA, not the DNA controlling the organism.
    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....93851.html

    Here is an excellent powerpoint presentation by Dr. Jonathan Wells, starting around the 15:00 minute mark, showing that the central dogma of Darwinian evolution, which simply stated is “DNA makes RNA makes protein makes us”, is incorrect at every step.

    Design Beyond DNA: A Conversation with Dr. Jonathan Wells – video (14:36 minute mark) – January 2017
    https://youtu.be/ASAaANVBoiE?t=876

  27. 27
    martin_r says:

    BA77 @5

    Hairiness is a matter of pure conjecture.

    as to Darwinian museum artists … That is exactly what all these biologists, paleontologists, anthropologists and all the other “-logists” are … artists …. romantics … story-tellers … natural science graduates …. who never made anything …. it is a grotesque … it is absurdly absurd that this sort of people research/investigate the most advanced technology on this planet … it is insane …. no wonder that these people are permanently wrong … whatever they said, later it always turned out to be wrong … not only these people are extremely biased, what is even worse –they are not qualified to investigate biology … yes, that’s right. Biologists are not qualified to investigate biology. Because biology is all about engineering. That is the reason why these people are permanently wrong …

  28. 28
    Sandy says:

    Ford Prefect contradicting himself:

    Ford Prefect
    According to Christianity he is not physical.

    Also Ford Prefect in the same comment:

    So, any significant deviation from a typical mid-eastern Jewish (darker skin, curly dark hair, brown eyes, )person…

    PS:Inform yourself and don’t write nonsenses. There are Jewish with blue eyes not many but are. You just generalized common features of Jews to 100% of Jews.
    PPS: The Supernatural birth of Jesus should give pause to any logic regarding physical features of Jesus.

  29. 29
    martin_r says:

    Jerry @17

    Definitely, an ID proponent.

    Let’s just say I am interested in truth and believe ID represents that. But people here want to define ID in lots of ways. For example, it has nothing to do with religion but they want it to be closely associated with their religion.

    Jerry, of course ID has a lot to do with religion. If you are an ID proponent, you have to BELIEVE in a designer, a creator — whoever it may be. You believe in a creation. You are a creationist. That is the fact. I have to agree with those atheists who claim that ID is just another word for Creationism.

    One more note:

    Few days ago, there was an article published at ICR.org by Randy Guliuzza. I like this fellow engineer very much, because he can see things and give it the right names …

    Here is the article title:

    Mutation-Selection: A Calamitous Creationist Concession

    this is the part I like:

    … The fact is that creationists have been playing Darwin’s game, on his field, by his rules …

    For instance, when it comes to the extraordinary biological changes observed in finch beaks, flightless birds on islands, or even peppered moths, creation scientists have historically failed to provide a biblically consistent and scientifically sensible alternate explanation for them—or even a new hypothesis. For decades, we’ve interpreted things like the loss of eyes in cavefish by applying the same ill-conceived, scientifically foolish narrative gloss of random genetic mutations that are mystically acted on by Darwin’s conception of natural selection …

    https://www.icr.org/article/mutation-selection-calamitous-creationist

    an excellent article …. I can only agree with Guliuzza …. Darwinists have been misrepresenting the reality for 150 years and Creationists/ID proponents still parroting some of this stuff …

    As to Natural selection, you wrote:

    I point out that “natural selection” happens all the time but is essentially trivial. So why not admit it. It represents truth and is obvious to the average person.

    Yes, it is obvious and self-evident that broken /sick species die. It is a common sense. You don’t have to call it names – it is a common sense. Darwin misrepresented the reality from the beginning, that is why he had to invent this term … and now Darwinists and some Creationists/ID proponents use this term permanently to explain the origin of the most sophisticated technology on this planet …… Natural selection did it :))))))))) Natural selection …natural selection …. look what natural selection can do … look, … natural selection can solve the most complex engineering challenges – like to design an autonomous self-navigating flying systems :))))))))) Natural selection did it … Send future aerial engineers home … close technical universities …. leave it to natural selection :))))))))

    Guliuzzia is right … many of you play Darwin’s game ….

    PS: as to phenotypic plasticity … of course it is a conjecture … it is a trick. Invented by Darwinists to trick lay or not very smart people. A peppered moth caterpillar can “see” background color with its body and then adjust its body color to fit the background color. Jerry, you think that this is an easy feat ? Do you realize how complex engineering problem it is ? But it is easy for a Darwinist (like you). You give this problem a name “Phenotypic plasticity” … problem solved ….

  30. 30
    jerry says:

    as to phenotypic plasticity … of course it is a conjecture … it is a trick. Invented by Darwinists to trick lay or not very smart people. A peppered moth caterpillar can “see” background color with its body and then adjust its body color to fit the background color. Jerry, you think that this is an easy feat ? Do you realize how complex engineering problem it is ? But it is easy for a Darwinist (like you). You give this problem a name “Phenotypic plasticity” … problem solved ….

    Thank you for your opinions.

    Just as an aside, there is no way anyone could call me a Darwinist. And yes, I appreciate how intricate life is from the cell to all the coordinated systems in advanced forms of life. It is very much like engineering and it would take an extremely advanced intelligence to create them.

    How and when It was done is a mystery.

  31. 31
    JVL says:

    Martin_r: A peppered moth caterpillar can “see” background color with its body and then adjust its body color to fit the background color.

    If that is your interpretation of what unguided evolutionary theory says then clearly you’ve never understood it, at all. Which means your arguments against it are unfounded; you are arguing against a stance that no one takes.

    To be clear: the idea is that moths whose colour is highly contrasting with the background are easy to spot by predators so that the ones who blend in better have a higher chance of survival and therefore produce more of the next generation. It’s a very simple concept but you seem to have completely missed it.

  32. 32
    Alan Fox says:

    A better question would be, was Jesus haploid or diploid?

    Indeed, and the result of having only one set of chromosomes (haploid) is no Y chromosome…

    …and Jesus would have been a woman!!!

  33. 33
    jerry says:

    The new “it’s not a lie if you believe it” is “it’s not a lie if it’s carefully selected facts taken wholly out of context to create an intentionally misleading conclusion”.

    The art of lying and belittling another.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/pmarca/status/163471936930017208

    How often does both sides of the argument here do this? One side admits it has no religious beliefs while the other side professes to be based on religious beliefs and theoretically should be bound by it.

  34. 34
    martin_r says:

    JVL @31

    Perhaps it is because of my bad English, but let me clarify once again …

    Of course, I understand the advantage of not being seen by predators … to blend in …
    Creator of peppered moth understands this advantage too :)))))))
    THAT IS THE PURPOSE OF CAMOUFLAGE – TO “BLEND IN” :)))))))
    THAT IS WHY OUR CREATOR ENGINEERED THIS CAMOUFLAGE FEATURE :))))))

    I am just trying to explain, that Darwinists invented a fancy term “phenotypic plasticity” to justify the existence of this camouflage feature, because it doesn’t fit the classic mutations-selection theory…

    The same for blind cave species – according to Darwinists, another example of phenotypic plasticity. In reality, these species can switch off their eyes development “at will” — to save energy.

    Again, this has nothing to with Darwinism or natural selection. These species will switch off their eyes development anytime when there is no light. Will happen anytime with our without your natural selection or Darwin :)))))))

    BECAUSE ALL THESE FEATS WERE DESIGNED THAT WAY.

    And it doesn’t matter how many more fancy terms will Darwinists invent … You people were misinterpreting reality for 150 years….

    Do you get in JVL ?

  35. 35
    whistler says:

    @Martin_r :
    If you want you should focus on God , let atheists alone .Ever if you are right about atheists/darwinists you are wrong on the approach(your attitude make darwinists more frozen /opinionated in their approach and secondly make you proud-because you keep comparing yourself to lower standard atheists and not to saints that are the right standard to compare yourself. ) 😉

  36. 36
    JVL says:

    Martin_r: I am just trying to explain, that Darwinists invented a fancy term “phenotypic plasticity” to justify the existence of this camouflage feature, because it doesn’t fit the classic mutations-selection theory…

    Hmmm . . . let’s look. Here’s the definition of phenotypic plasticity from Wikipedia:

    Phenotypic plasticity refers to some of the changes in an organism’s behavior, morphology and physiology in response to a unique environment. Fundamental to the way in which organisms cope with environmental variation, phenotypic plasticity encompasses all types of environmentally induced changes (e.g. morphological, physiological, behavioural, phenological) that may or may not be permanent throughout an individual’s lifespan.

    The term was originally used to describe developmental effects on morphological characters, but is now more broadly used to describe all phenotypic responses to environmental change, such as acclimation (acclimatization), as well as learning. The special case when differences in environment induce discrete phenotypes is termed polyphenism.

    In reality, these species can switch off their eyes development “at will” — to save energy.

    Well, I’d like to see your evidence for that. Plus: how can an organism turn off its eye development ‘at will’? I mean, what is the mechanism? How is it done? Can you create, in a lab, the exact conditions so as to trigger that reaction?

    Do you get in JVL ?

    Do you know what ‘get in’ means in Britain?

  37. 37
    JVL says:

    Whistler: you keep comparing yourself to lower standard atheists and not to saints that are the right standard to compare yourself.

    Especially if the Saints didn’t do science.

  38. 38
    PyrrhoManiac1 says:

    @25

    A better question would be, was Jesus haploid or diploid?

    Haploid. That’s why his middle initial is H.

  39. 39
    Ford Prefect says:

    PM1 writes:

    Haploid. That’s why his middle initial is H.

    Then he was born a biological female. Perhaps he self-identified as male at an early age and Mary, being the progressive she was, arranged for testosterone shots to prevent breast development and permit facial hair. Jordan Peterson would be appalled.

  40. 40
    JVL says:

    PyrrhoManiac1: Haploid. That’s why his middle initial is H.

    Ah, I thought that was for Harold. You know: Our father, who art in heaven, Harold be thy name.

  41. 41
    martin_r says:

    JVL,

    Do you know what ‘get in’ means in Britain?

    A typo. I meant “do you get it JVL” ?

    In reality, these species can switch off their eyes development “at will” — to save energy.

    Well, I’d like to see your evidence for that. Plus: how can an organism turn off its eye development ‘at will’? I mean, what is the mechanism? How is it done? Can you create, in a lab, the exact conditions so as to trigger that reaction?

    The evidence for this designed feature is, that many evolutionary unrelated species lost their eyes the same way independently. E.g. blind cave beetles, blind cave spiders and the famous blind cave fish. And who knows what other species have this ability.

    This can be explained only by design. Speaking of a lab experiment — I WOULD LOVE TO SEE SUCH AN EXPERIMENT. AND I AM 100% SURE HOW IT WILL END. ALL THE MENTIONED SPECIES WILL LOSE THEIR EYES “AT WILL”… and most probably, if there is light again, they will regain the sight. The only question is, if it will happen in 1 generation, 2, or more generations. My bet is, that it will happen in 1 generation.

    And what is the mechanism for that ?

    From an engineering point of view, it could be as follows: First, there has to be some light sensitive sensor(s). Most probably that sensor(s) is located in cave fishes’ eyes. Or on its body (like in peppered moth’s caterpillar case). At low or zero light, this light sensitive sensor triggers an epigenetic change — it puts epigenetic marks on DNA to silence gene/genes responsible for eyes development.

    This is from an mainstream paper:

    Loss of eye tissue in blind cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus), which occurs within a few days of their development, happens through epigenetic silencing of eye-related genes, according to a study led by the National Institutes of Health

    I have also mentioned the other example of “phenotypic plasticity”. The peppered moth caterpillar.
    The mechanism is pretty simple …

    from a mainstream paper

    The ability of larvae of the peppered moth has surprised scientists. A new study has shown that the caterpillars of the peppered moth are able to slowly change colour to match the twig they sit on, a phenomenon known as phenotypic plasticity.

    or

    In a new study, researchers of Liverpool University in the UK and the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Germany demonstrate that the caterpillars can sense the twig’s color with their skin. Caterpillars that were blindfolded changed the color of their bodies to match their background.

    … I BET, THAT ADULT PEPPERED MOTH CAN CHANGE THE COLOR “AT WILL” THE SAME WAY ITS CATERPILLAR CAN DO … no Darwinian evolution, no natural selection needed … just design. When the background color changes for some reason (e.g. industrial pollution), adult peppered moth will change its wings color “at will” to match the new color. (Are you aware of, that during that industrial pollution, other 100 moths species changed their wings color to dark too ? It wasn’t only the peppered moth. Such a coincidence :))))))

    Again, all these features have nothing to do with natural selection or Darwin’s evolution. This change will happen anyway. With or without natural selection. It is a designed feature – an adaptive camouflage. You people (Darwinists) have been misinterpreting the reality for 150 years. That is why you had to invent that “phenotypic plasticity” term. Because you were surprised by the ability of these species — but all these abilities can be only explained by design.

    PS: you posted a definition of “phenotypic plasticity”. One may ask, what is the difference between the definition of Darwinian evolution and the definition of “phenotypic plasticity”. To me it sounds entirely the same :))))))))

  42. 42
    Sandy says:

    Especially if the Saints didn’t do science.

    🙂 You seem to be lost. Science doesn’t help to improve your morality, science brings you vanity and imorality…and the delusion of knowing the truth.

  43. 43
    JVL says:

    Martin_r: The evidence for this designed feature is, that many evolutionary unrelated species lost their eyes the same way independently. E.g. blind cave beetles, blind cave spiders and the famous blind cave fish. And who knows what other species have this ability. This can be explained only by design.

    No, it can also be explained by the ability to see not being highly favourable to generations upon generations of whatever species. AND it would say that the lose of eyes happened over long periods of time not suddenly, by force of will.

    So, what evidence do you have that the lose of eyes happened quickly by force of will?

    My bet is, that it will happen in 1 generation.

    Do you have evidence that any such transition has happened within one generation?

    At low or zero light, this light sensitive sensor triggers an epigenetic change — it puts epigenetic marks on DNA to silence gene/genes responsible for eyes development.

    Like how? What kind of ‘epigenetic mark’ could turn off the production of eyes in one generation?

    If you have the evidence that what you suppose happens then we can talk. Do you have such evidence?

    Also, you do realise that by claiming that epigenetic changes change cause radical morphological changes you are undercutting one of the basic ID premises: that major morphological changes require too many genetic changes to have come about naturally, they must be designed by an outside designer.

    If epigenetic changes can, say, eliminate eyes in one generation then can epigenetic changes, willed or not, create new body plans?

    Also, if force of will can eliminate eyes in one generation then why can’t humans, via force of will, become taller or faster or smarter in one generation? Can I ‘will’ my offspring to have green eyes? Can I will my offspring to have blonde hair? Can I will my offspring to be immune to polio?

  44. 44
    JVL says:

    Sandy: You seem to be lost. Science doesn’t help to improve your morality, science brings you vanity and imorality…and the delusion of knowing the truth.

    I’m not lost; I was making a sardonic comment. I guess you missed that.

  45. 45
    martin_r says:

    JVL,

    one more note regarding the mentioned blind cave fish experiment.
    I would like to supervise it. Because I don’t trust Darwinists. They cheat all the time …

  46. 46
    martin_r says:

    JVL

    AND it would say that the lose of eyes happened over long periods of time not suddenly, by force of will.

    long period of time :)))) here you go – 1 generation… like I said … and I swear I wasn’t aware of the following paper:

    Progeny Of Blind Cavefish Can ‘Regain’ Their Sight

    The study suggests that genetic engineering can override, at least in part, half a million years of evolutionary change in one generation. Blind cavefish whose eyes have withered while living in complete darkness over the course of evolutionary time can be made to see again

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080107120911.htm#:~:text=The%20study%20suggests%20that%20genetic,evolutionary%20change%20in%20one%20generation.&text=Blind%20cavefish%20whose%20eyes%20have,be%20made%20to%20see%20again.

  47. 47
    martin_r says:

    JVL

    AND it would say that the lose of eyes happened over long periods of time not suddenly, by force of will.

    long period of time :)))) here you go – 1 generation… like I said … and I swear I wasn’t aware of the following paper:

    Progeny Of Blind Cavefish Can ‘Regain’ Their Sight

    The study suggests that genetic engineering can override, at least in part, half a million years of evolutionary change in one generation. Blind cavefish whose eyes have withered while living in complete darkness over the course of evolutionary time can be made to see again

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080107120911.htm#:~:text=The%20study%20suggests%20that%20genetic,evolutionary%20change%20in%20one%20generation.&text=Blind%20cavefish%20whose%20eyes%20have,be%20made%20to%20see%20again.

  48. 48
    JVL says:

    Martin_r: I would like to supervise it. Because I don’t trust Darwinists. They cheat all the time …

    You should do that experiment then. It wouldn’t be that expensive. Buy some guppies at your local pet shop and have a go.

    The study suggests that genetic engineering can override, at least in part, half a million years of evolutionary change in one generation.

    Genetic engineering is not an epigenetic change though is it? Also, what does ‘in part’ mean? Have you actually read the article? You do realise that most of the link you published is not necessary. And that no epigenetic conditions were invoked.

  49. 49
    martin_r says:

    JVL

    You should do that experiment then.

    yes, perhaps I should. And with spiders, shrimps, beetles as well …

    Genetic engineering is not an epigenetic change though is it

    I agree, however, it shows that such a change is “technically” possible in one generation. That is all what I wanted to say.

    Anyway, and like I said many times, you Darwinists have been misinterpreting the reality for 150 years. Blind cave fish or peppered moth is just one example …

  50. 50
    martin_r says:

    JVL

    here you go, 2023 article

    Eyeless Spiders and Other Arachnids New to Science Discovered in Israeli Caves. Seven species of spider previously unknown to science have been discovered in caves in Israel. Two of these subterranean species aren’t just blind, they’ve lost their eyes entirely. The other five still have eyes, but they’re degenerated.

    like I said … a designed feature … It can’t be more obvious ….

  51. 51
    JVL says:

    Martin_r: yes, perhaps I should. And with spiders, shrimps, beetles as well …

    I think you should.

    I agree, however, it shows that such a change is “technically” possible in one generation. That is all what I wanted to say.

    The article describes how different collections of fish who lost their site owning to different genetic modifications, when cross-breed, can create offspring who can see. In other words, some of the offspring will NOT have the genetic changes which led to blindness. How is that controversial?

    Two of these subterranean species aren’t just blind, they’ve lost their eyes entirely. The other five still have eyes, but they’re degenerated.

    How is that indicative of design? Some have no eyes anymore. Some have degenerated eyes. How long did it take for the eyeless spiders to lose their eyes? One generation? Any evidence for that?

  52. 52
    martin_r says:

    JVL

    My beMy bet is, that it will happen in 1 generation.

    Do you have evidence that any such transition has happened within one generation?

    I don’t. But I don’t think that it is that important — whether this change will happen in 1, 2 or more generations. What matter is, that the ‘energy saving process’ has been triggered and is in progress …

  53. 53
    martin_r says:

    JVL

    when cross-breed, can create offspring who can see. In other words, some of the offspring will NOT have the genetic changes which led to blindness. How is that controversial?

    obviously, these epigenetic marks can be or are reset by the cross-breading process.

  54. 54
    martin_r says:

    JVL

    Two of these subterranean species aren’t just blind, they’ve lost their eyes entirely. The other five still have eyes, but they’re degenerated.

    How is that indicative of design? Some have no eyes anymore. Some have degenerated eyes. How long did it take for the eyeless spiders to lose their eyes? One generation? Any evidence for that?

    How is that indicative of design?
    It is simple – the process of sight loss started in a cave – where is no light. This process did not start on the surface. This process was triggered by lack of light. Nothing to do with Darwin or natural selection. This process will always start over and over again when there is no light. That’s how it is indicative of design.

  55. 55
    JVL says:

    Martin_r: I don’t. But I don’t think that it is that important — whether this change will happen in 1, 2 or more generations.

    You don’t think having evidence is important?

    obviously, these epigenetic marks can be or are reset by the cross-breading process.

    The article (which is not the actual research paper) describes genetic changes, NOT epigenetic ‘marks’.

    What are epigenetic ‘marks’? How do they affect the genomic expression? What chemical structure do they have?

  56. 56
    martin_r says:

    JVL,

    forget about everything I wrote so far.

    Focus on the following:

    the process of sight loss started in a cave – where is no light. This process did not start on the surface. This process was triggered by lack of light. Nothing to do with Darwin or natural selection. This process will always start over and over again when there is no light. That’s how it is indicative of design.

  57. 57
    JVL says:

    Martin_r: the process of sight loss started in a cave – where is no light. This process did not start on the surface. This process was triggered by lack of light. Nothing to do with Darwin or natural selection. This process will always start over and over again when there is no light. That’s how it is indicative of design.

    The whole idea of unguided evolution is that allele frequency will change partially influenced by environmental conditions such as lack of light. I don’t see what not being on the surface has to do with anything.

    Eyes are ‘expensive’ organs to have; they consume lots of resources. IF they are not being used then an individual with defective eyesight will not have a disadvantage finding a mate and creating offspring AND, in fact, may have an advantage if they have more bodily resources to commit to other things. Slowly, over generations, IF there is an advantage to NOT having sight, the sightless organisms will outcompete the sighted organisms.

    This is all really simple and easy to understand. AND it makes sense. You don’t need to hypothesise some unfound programming or an unfound programmer; by Ockham’s razor the unguided hypothesis is the most parsimonious, i.e. it has the fewest unknown processes.

    Why don’t you do your proposed experiments and see what you get?

  58. 58
    martin_r says:

    JVL

    The whole idea of unguided evolution is that allele frequency will change partially influenced by environmental conditions such as lack of light.

    wrong … you don’t seem to understand your own theory. Darwinists claim, that mutations are random — can occur anytime, in various DNA locations, and it DOESN’T MATTER WHETHER THERE IS OR ISN’T LIGHT. And then, your natural selection allegedly kicks in, and allegedly selects those mutations that can help survive in no light conditions (in our model case).

    I hope you agree with this … This is the main idea of your theory.

    But this is not what is happening in real life. In real life, if you put these species into a cave, where is no light, they will lose its eyes. EVERYTIME. NO LIGHT enviroment triggers this change. EVERYTIME.
    THIS PROCESS NEVER STARTS ON SURFACE.

    DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE ?

  59. 59
    martin_r says:

    JVL

    Why don’t you do your proposed experiments and see what you get?

    let’s pretend, that I already made these experiments … the result is, that all these species (fishes, shrimps, spiders, beetles) lost their eyes … everytime when there wasn’t light. In one or two generation.

    How would YOU interpret these results ?

  60. 60
    JVL says:

    Martin_r: Darwinists claim, that mutations are random — can occur anytime, in various DNA locations, and it DOESN’T MATTER WHETHER THERE IS OR ISN’T LIGHT.

    You’re missing my point: the allele frequency in the population changes based on which DNA configurations have some advantage OR, at least, aren’t fatal.

    And then, your natural selection allegedly kicks in, and allegedly selects those mutations that can help survive in no light conditions (in our model case).

    IF a particular DNA configuration incurs a benefit that leads to more offspring then it will have a better chance of growing in number in the population.

    In real life, if you put these species into a cave, where is no light, they will lose its eyes. EVERYTIME. NO LIGHT enviroment triggers this change. EVERYTIME.
    THIS PROCESS NEVER STARTS ON SURFACE.

    Why would it start on the surface where there is light?

    DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE ?

    I understand what I am saying.

    let’s pretend, that I already made these experiments … the result is, that all these species (fishes, shrimps, spiders, beetles) lost their eyes … everytime when there wasn’t light. In one or two generation. How would YOU interpret these results ?

    But you didn’t run those experiments so we don’t know what you would get.

  61. 61
    Origenes says:

    Martin-r

    In real life, if you put these species into a cave, where is no light, they will lose its eyes. EVERYTIME. NO LIGHT enviroment triggers this change. EVERYTIME.
    THIS PROCESS NEVER STARTS ON SURFACE.
    (…)
    the result is, that all these species (fishes, shrimps, spiders, beetles) lost their eyes … everytime when there wasn’t light. In one or two generation.

    How would YOU interpret these results ?

    Pre-programmed response to the environment. This has nothing to do with random mutations. Clearly.

    As a final example, fish residing in cave environments display distinctive traits such as reduced eyes and pigmentation. The standard evolutionary story is that these traits gradually developed through natural selection. But experiments over the past decade on the effects of exposing fish to cave-like conditions are changing the narrative.

    Rohner et al. in a 2013 study raised A. mexicanus embryos in water with low conductivity mimicking cave conditions. The embryos developed into adults with significantly smaller eyes. Corral and Aguirre in a 2019 study raised A. mexicanus in different temperatures and different levels of water turbulence. The variant conditions resulted in adult fish differing in vertebral number and body shape. For instance, fish raised in more turbulent water displayed more streamlined bodies and extended dorsal and anal fin bases that improved their mobility in that environmental condition. And Bilandžija et al. in a 2020 study raised the same species in darkness, and the fish developed many cave-related traits such as resistance to starvation and altered metabolism and hormone levels.
    [source]

  62. 62
    hnorman42 says:

    I think I can make an analogy that will clarify the logical aspects of the arguments here although I have almost no understanding of the biology involved.

    Imagine that you’re looking at a printout of the iterations of a Dawkins-type weasel simulation. You’ve settled down expecting to see how the computer grinds away at letters that don’t match the target string.

    You are surprised though to see that instead of grinding away, the target phrase is reached in one or two iterations. Now, if you’re a confirmed materialist, should you be happy with this result or not?

    You could say “well I guess evolution is more powerful than we thought.” But at the same time you would know that this was not a demonstration of the feedback mechanism that is supposed to be the cornerstone of evolutionary theory. Certainly if it happened more than once you would realize that you were looking at a process where the creative part had essentially already been done – sort of like when the oak tree produces an acorn. This would be something to be explained and not something that would have explanatory power in itself.

    The analogy should hold unless there are many more generations involved than what I’m hearing about here.

  63. 63
    es58 says:

    Jvl wrote:To be clear: the idea is that moths whose colour is highly contrasting with the background are easy to spot by predators so that the ones who blend in better have a higher chance of survival and therefore produce more of the next generation. It’s a very simple concept but you seem to have completely missed it.

    Does that go for the cuddle fish and chameleon as well?

  64. 64
    JVL says:

    Es58: Does that go for the cuddle fish and chameleon as well?

    I don’t know as I couldn’t find the reference to those cases. But I would anticipate it’s something similar.

  65. 65
    martin_r says:

    Es58 @63

    Does that go for the cuddle fish and chameleon as well?

    or does that go for rabbit’s seasonal fur color change too ?
    or does that go for rapid adaptive color change in crustaceans. (e.g. crabs, shrimps etc)

    There is a 500-pages book on adaptive color change.

    Adaptive color change AKA camouflage is an ultimate proof of design/engineering. Not to mention, that to design such a adaptive color change feature is a very complex engineering problem, no wonder that military engineers struggle to replicate this feat.

    Darwinists have to have a very high level of faith to believe that an adaptive color change evolved repeatedly and independently in so many evolutionary unrelated species.

    But we here on UD already know, that Darwinists believe in miracles …

  66. 66
    martin_r says:

    JVL

    You’re missing my point: the allele frequency in the population changes based on which DNA configurations have some advantage OR, at least, aren’t fatal.

    I think that you don’t understand what I am saying (because of my bad English) or you don’t want to understand….

    Please confirm that I got the following right

    Darwinists claim, that mutations are random — can occur anytime, in various DNA locations, and it DOESN’T MATTER WHETHER THERE IS OR ISN’T LIGHT. And then, your natural selection allegedly kicks in, and allegedly selects those mutations that can help survive in no light conditions (in our model case).

    Is this how your theory works or not ?

    further:

    Why would it start on the surface where there is light?

    Why? Because random mutations can occur anytime, anywhere, that is why it is called random.
    Or do DNA copying errors only occur in caves where is no light ?
    JVL, seriously, you don’t seem to understand your own theory …

  67. 67
    Alan Fox says:

    Darwinists claim, that mutations are random — can occur anytime, in various DNA locations, and it DOESN’T MATTER WHETHER THERE IS OR ISN’T LIGHT. And then, your natural selection allegedly kicks in, and allegedly selects those mutations that can help survive in no light conditions (in our model case).

    Don’t overlook the soma/germ line distinction. Only heritable variation in the germ-line (strictly speaking, the phenotypic expression of the germ-line, an individual in a breeding population) is available for selection to act on.

    And selection works with rearrangements of existing variation that happen at meiosis, as well as on novel mutations.

  68. 68
    martin_r says:

    Alan Fox

    Don’t overlook the soma/germ line distinction. Only heritable variation in the germ-line (strictly speaking, the phenotypic expression of the germ-line, an individual in a breeding population) is available for selection to act on.

    And selection works with rearrangements of existing variation that happen at meiosis, as well as on novel mutations.

    it is always selection …. selection …. selection ….

    You people will never get it… YOU HAVE TO HAVE THOSE MUTATIONS FIRST … TO SELECT FROM …

    That is what I talked about …

    And, your theory claim, that those mutations can occur anytime … DOESN’T MATTER IF THERE IS LIGHT OR NO LIGHT CONDITION … because copying errors occur independently of light conditions … I hope we agree on that …

    So you have to explain (if you don’t agree with the design theory), why the blindness mutations always occur only in caves and never on surface.

    Do you get it Alan Fox ?

  69. 69
    martin_r says:

    Origenes @61

    Pre-programmed response to the environment. This has nothing to do with random mutations. Clearly.

    it has nothing to with random mutations, neither it has with natural selection — that was main point.
    Because these people, it is like “natural selection” all the time …

    Natural selection is a Darwinian conjecture — a misinterpretation of reality, and it is sad to see how many ID/creationists still accepting this misinterpretation of reality by using and accepting these Darwinian terms, despite it is clear that it has nothing to do with reality …

  70. 70
    Alan Fox says:

    So you have to explain (if you don’t agree with the design theory), why the blindness mutations always occur only in caves and never on surface.

    Seriously? Eyes are organs for detecting light. There is an energy cost in growing them and a survival benefit in having them which outstrips the cost where there is light. Where a population of organisms becomes isolated in an environmental niche without light, the growing of eyes becomes a cost without benefit.

    If individuals incur mutations that limit the growth of eyes in the lightless environment, that grants a marginal advantage in differential survival and reproduction. Such processes are widely observed in cave-dwelling fauna.

  71. 71
    Alan Fox says:

    Ah, I see I overlooked Martin-r’s error. Mutations happen everywhere. Mutations proliferate if the niche finds them beneficial. Mutations are eliminated if the niche finds them deleterious.

  72. 72
    JVL says:

    Martin_r:

    It is true that mutations are random (with respect to fitness) and can occur anytime. As Alan Fox pointed out, the ones that occur in germ-line cells get passed onto the offspring. Some of those mutations are very bad and the offspring does not survive. Some are neutral and have no observable effects. Some are beneficial in that they give the offspring some advantage over others without that mutation. BUT ‘advantage’ depends on the environment which ‘selects’ individuals who are better able to exploit the environmental niche they live in. So . . .

    Take some fish, put some of them in a lovely stream in a forest, put some in a lightless cave but make sure both populations have enough food. Leave them there for a long time, i.e. many generations. No guarantees (because mutations don’t happen on demand) but let’s suppose both populations have a mutation introduced through one individual in each population which degrades visual acuity. In the forest stream that fish would find it much harder to ‘compete’: find food and mates. The fish in the lightless cave would be just as able as its compatriots. The fish in the forest has less of a chance to procreate than the fish in the cave So the mutations which degrades vision has a much better chance of being passed on and ‘fixed’ in the cave population.

    That’s how things work without design. The environment helps determine which varieties are better able to pass on their genes. (There are other selection pressures along with genetic drift but I’m just focusing on the natural selection acting on random mutations part.)

    The mutations happen with and without light, on and below the surface. But the mutations which pass on an advantage are judged by the particular environmental niche they exist in.

    You are wrong to say that the blindness mutations only occur underground but it’s only underground that they have a better chance of being passed on and becoming common in the population.

    These concepts are really simple and easy to understand. And I KNOW they have been explained many, many, many, many times at Uncommon Descent.

    (PS – yes this is basically just a longer statement of what Alan Fox already said just above.)

  73. 73
    Alan Fox says:

    (PS – yes this is basically just a longer statement of what Alan Fox already said just above.)

    My wife says I’m hopeless at explaining things so it can’t do any harm. 😉

  74. 74
    TAMMIE LEE HAYNES says:

    Speaking of a Creationist home schooling mother of nine with a high school education, I enjoy seeing the well cosseted pompously credentialed ScD PhD BMOC and BGOC Scientists at NASA make fools of themselves.

    And fools is what they made of themselves with their defintion of life:.
    “Life is a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.”

    By NASA’s definition, I’m not alive.
    And neither are my kids or hubby. Or the dog. Or the tomato plants in our garden.
    Here’s why:
    1) Any living thing, when looked at as chemical system, is not self sustaining. The reason is the Law of Dissipation of Energy. (also called the 2nd law of thermodynamics) Living things need external sources of free energy, such as food and oxygen for animals, and sunlight and CO2 for plants..
    2) Darwinian Evolution is a distressed theory that struggles to explain how me my kids or our tomato plant got here. I mean, even among Evolutionary Naturalists, Lamarkian Evolution currnetly offers superior explanatory power and is ascendant while Darwinian Evolution declines.

    Can they really be ignorant of Physical Chemistry 101?
    And can they really not know the current status of their own Theory of Evolution?

    Your Tax dollars at work.
    At least if you beleive our NASA Scientist Public Servants who work from home are actually working from home.

  75. 75
    Sandy says:

    🙂 Unfortunatelly for darwinists ,information doesn’t appear by chance. All discussions about mutations are nonsensical because randomness doesnt create information and doesn’t improve the already existing information.

  76. 76
    relatd says:

    TLH at 74,

    Remember, anything but God. NASA keeps talking about life just appearing on other planets. So whenever they find water or some gas, it automatically indicates life. Until they actually find something alive out there, they have no evidence. I suspect they also think inorganic chemicals can become alive under the right – but unknown – circumstances.

  77. 77
    martin_r says:

    JVL, Alan Fox

    The mutations happen with and without light, on and below the surface. But the mutations which pass on an advantage are judged by the particular environmental niche they exist in.

    FINALLY YOU GOT IT. THAT’S A PROGRESS.

    Now back to the problem.

    The problem with cave fish and other blind cave species is, that THEY HAVEN’T LOST THEIR EYES because of DNA mutations. Also, they have lost color / pigmentation for the same reason — to save energy.

    In first case, eyes genes were silenced. In second case most probably happened the same (pigmentation genes have been silenced)

    And we are back to my main concern — how you Darwinists misinterpret the reality.

    THIS GENE SILENCING (via epigenetics) WILL HAPPEN ONLY IN CAVE, because there is no light. No light-condition will trigger gene silencing. ANYTIME. AS WE CAN SEE IT IN MANY CAVE SPECIES.

    Main point: This had nothing to do with Darwin, random mutations or Natural selection. That is why you people invented that term “Phenotypic plasticity”. It is a Darwinian trick how to not use the word Design. Darwinists have been misinterpreting reality for 150 years.

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/blind-cave-fish-may-trade-color-for-energy/

  78. 78
    Origenes says:

    Sandy @75

    Unfortunatelly for darwinists ,information doesn’t appear by chance. All discussions about mutations are nonsensical because randomness doesnt create information and doesn’t improve the already existing information.

    And the problem is enlarged by natural selection.
    In the unlikely scenario that random mutations do stumble upon a new solution, natural selection lies in wait to kill the miracle off.

    Wiki: More than 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, are estimated to have died out.

    Perhaps a more fitting name would be “natural elimination”, because all it does is kill off perfectly viable organisms on a whim. It is in the business of destroying information. So, the problem for random mutations to find functional information is made even more difficult by the destructive actions of natural selection.

  79. 79
    Alan Fox says:

    Perhaps a more fitting name would be “natural elimination”, because all it does is kill off perfectly viable organisms on a whim.

    Nope. An empty niche is a golden opportunity for a species that finds itself there. “Perfectly viable”? 🙂

  80. 80
    Alan Fox says:

    “Phenotypic plasticity”. It is a Darwinian trick how to not use the word Design.

    You are confusing the opportunity of existing variation within a population’s gene pool to exploit a niche change with new variation arising within an existing population that raises fitness in an existing niche.

  81. 81
    Alan Fox says:

    There’s a helpful Wikipedia article entitled Phenotypic Plasticity here.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenotypic_plasticity

  82. 82
    Alan Fox says:

    Here’s a paper on how phenotypic plasticity results in sex ratio changes in reptiles.
    https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2020.00035/full

  83. 83
    Origenes says:

    Alan Fox @79

    “Perfectly viable”?

    Capable of living. A coherent organism capable of homeostasis and other miracles.

    Ori: Perhaps a more fitting name would be “natural elimination”, because all it does is kill off perfectly viable organisms on a whim.

    AF: Nope. An empty niche is a golden opportunity for a species that finds itself there.

    Not if it kills you, which seems to be the rule:

    Wiki: More than 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, are estimated to have died out.

    Less than 1% of the viable species, that random mutations happen to stumble upon, escape destruction by natural elimination. Natural elimination is in the business of destroying biological information.
    So, the problem for random mutations to find functional information is made even more difficult by the destructive actions of natural elimination.

  84. 84
    bornagain77 says:

    Origenes, I hold that ‘natural elimination’ is a more fitting term than even ‘natural preservation’ is, which Charles Darwin himself conceded was a better tern than ‘natural selection’ is:

    “Talking of “Natural Selection”, if I had to commence de novo, I would have used “natural preservation”;”
    – Charles Darwin – 1860
    https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2931.xml

    Natural Selection: The Evolution of a Mirage
    Neil Thomas – March 7, 2023
    Excerpt: For Darwin the powers of natural selection transcended human intelligence to such a degree that he came exceedingly close to imputing to it the capacity for intelligent design. It was only belatedly that he succumbed to colleagues’ numerous objections, conceding in a letter to Charles Lyell,
    “Talking of “Natural Selection,” if I had to commence de novo, I would have used natural preservation.”14
    This was an emendation with enormous consequences. One can understand why Darwin was minded to hold out as long as possible and why he eventually capitulated only under protest. For the letter to Lyell involved a truly fatal concession which, had it been analyzed dispassionately at the time, could (and arguably should) have halted the onward march of Darwinism there and then in the Fall of 1860. As a host of recent studies make clear, the term to which Darwin eventually acquiesced, natural preservation, can by definition only be passive rather than actively productive in the formation of new body parts (let alone whole new species). The Darwinian theory of an advance from organic simplicity to complexity — from microbes to man — must inevitably fall after such a major semantic retreat.
    Wanted: A Theory of the Generative
    As Steve Laufmann and Howard Glicksman and others have recently pointed out, neo-Darwinism simply has no theory of the generative and therefore no innovative capacity: nothing in Darwin’s theory can account for nontrivial innovations15and Darwin’s rowing back on that point was fatal to any macromutational claims. As Professor Nick Lane has recently explained,
    “It is generally assumed that once simple life has emerged, it gradually evolves into more complex forms, given the right conditions. But that’s not what happens on Earth (…) If simple cells had evolved slowly into more complex ones over billions of years, all kinds of intermediate forms would have existed and some still should. But there are none (…) This means that there is no inevitable trajectory from simple to complex life. Never-ending natural selection, operating on infinite populations of bacteria over millions of years, may never give rise to complexity. Bacteria simply do not have the right architecture.”16
    So how did speciation occur then? Competent scientists are thrown back on the placeholder terms “fate” or “chance,” such being all too plainly a cover for complete ignorance.17 Fodor and Piatelli-Palmarini are more refreshingly candid:
    “So if Darwin got it wrong, what do you guys think is the mechanism of evolution?” Short answer: we don’t know what the mechanism of evolution is. Nor did Darwin and nor (as far as we can tell) does anybody else.18
    The bottom line today appears to be that
    “Speciation still remains one of the biggest mysteries in evolutionary biology and the unexamined view of natural selection leading to large-scale innovations is not true.”19
    https://evolutionnews.org/2023/03/natural-selection-the-evolution-of-a-mirage/

  85. 85
    Origenes says:

    Bornagain @84

    Wiki: More than 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, are estimated to have died out.

    Darwin wants his followers to focus on the less than 1% that natural elimination does not destroy, and calls that “natural selection” or “natural preservation.” This takes “looking at the positive side of things” to an absurd extreme.
    Honesty should have compelled Darwin to acknowledge that natural elimination only hampers evolution. Obviously, it does not help to eliminate more than 99% of the valuable biological information that random mutations manage to come up with. Especially if we consider the fact that for random mutations to find even one single new protein fold is close to a sheer impossibility.

  86. 86
    jerry says:

    new variation arising within an existing population that raises fitness in an existing niche.

    This will destroy the niche if the variation is significant.

    Otherwise, this means nothing new can happen unless the ecology is protected. This implies all variation must lead to trivial results. It’s what we see.

    Question: is the extinction numbers used based on any hard evidence. I read the Wikipedia article and it seemed to be mostly assertions.

  87. 87
    JVL says:

    Origenes: Less than 1% of the viable species, that random mutations happen to stumble upon, escape destruction by natural elimination.

    And your alternative hypothesis is that some designer chose to eliminate all those species. Because? Why were they created in the first place?

    Unguided evolution IS wasteful, no denying that. However, the notion that information is forever lost is fallacious. Remember that it appears that some traits have arisen independently at different times and places. That means that even if a trait or characteristic ‘died out’ in one region it could come back elsewhere.

  88. 88
    JVL says:

    Martin_r: THIS GENE SILENCING (via epigenetics) WILL HAPPEN ONLY IN CAVE, because there is no light. No light-condition will trigger gene silencing. ANYTIME. AS WE CAN SEE IT IN MANY CAVE SPECIES.

    Main point: This had nothing to do with Darwin, random mutations or Natural selection. That is why you people invented that term “Phenotypic plasticity”. It is a Darwinian trick how to not use the word Design. Darwinists have been misinterpreting reality for 150 years.

    So . . . you think epigenetics are part of design?

    (I’m not saying that only epigenetics leads to loss of sight in dark conditions; I’m just trying to figure out why epigenetics are not considered part of the unguided processes.)

  89. 89
    Origenes says:

    JVL @87

    Wiki: More than 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, are estimated to have died out.

    Ori: Less than 1% of the viable species, that random mutations happen to stumble upon, escape destruction by natural elimination.

    JVL: And your alternative hypothesis is that some designer chose to eliminate all those species.

    My alternative hypothesis is that “five billion species” is part of the Darwinian fantasy.

    JVL: Unguided evolution IS wasteful, no denying that.

    The whole concept is a non-starter: random mutations are stumbling through vast search spaces struggling to find even one single new protein fold, and next, to make matters even worse, natural elimination kills it off in most cases.

    JVL: However, the notion that information is forever lost is fallacious.

    Of course, it is not “fallacious.” In Darwinian fantasyland, natural elimination culled over 99% of all species, which must necessarily imply a huge loss of biological information.

  90. 90
    bornagain77 says:

    JVL: “Remember that it appears that some traits have arisen independently at different times and places. That means that even if a trait or characteristic ‘died out’ in one region it could come back elsewhere.”

    JVL, do you realize that the term ‘convergent evolution’, as it it is used by Darwinists, is actually an oxymoron that, in reality, means ‘a miracle must have happened over and over again’?

    Claims about convergent evolution are absurd _ Feb. 2017
    1. C4 photosynthesis. According to ‘science’ it has evolved 60 times independently. Scientists have not succeeded in building an autonomous photosynthesis system. But evolution has done this for 60 times! Seems to be easy!
    2. Eye 35 times. Think about the complex mechanism and signaling pathways that are connected with brain. And according to ‘science’ humans and squids evolved same eyes using same genes. What a coincidence!
    3. Giving birth, 150 times. Piece of cake for evolution. Very convincing.
    4. Carnivorous plants. Nitrogen-deficient plants have in at least 7 distinct times become carnivorous.
    5. Hearing. 30 times. Bats and dolphins separately evolved same sonar gene. What a surprise! (Do they really think that one gene is sufficient for developing a sonar ability?)
    6. Bioluminescence is quite a mystery for science. According to darwinists it has independently evolved even 27 times!
    7. Magnetite for orientation, magnetically charged particles of magnetite for directional sensing have been found in unrelated species of salmon, rainbow trout, some butterflies and birds.
    8. Electric organ in some fishes. 6 times. Independently from each other. Sure.
    9. Parthenogenesis. Some lizards, insects, fishes and rodents are able to reproduce asexually, without males.
    Etc.. etc.. etc..
    http://sciencerefutesevolution.....n-are.html

    The Real Problem With Convergence – Cornelius Hunter – May 25, 2017
    Excerpt: 21st century evolutionists are still befuddled by convergence, which is rampant in biology, and how it could occur. This certainly is a problem for the theory.,,,
    a fundamental evidence and prediction of evolution is falsified.
    The species do not fall into the expected evolutionary pattern.
    The failure of fundamental predictions — and this is a hard failure — is fatal for scientific theories. It leaves evolution not as a scientific theory but as an ad hoc exercise in storytelling.
    https://www.evolutionnews.org/2017/05/the-real-problem-with-convergence/

    Extinct Four-Eyed Monitor Lizard Busts Myth of a Congruent Nested Hierarchy – Günter Bechly – April 23, 2018
    Excerpt: One of the most essential doctrines of Darwinian evolution, apart from universal common descent with modification, is the notion that complex similarities indicate homology are ordered in a congruent nested pattern that facilitates the hierarchical classification of life. When this pattern is disrupted by incongruent evidence, such conflicting evidence is readily explained away as homoplasies with ad hoc explanations like underlying apomorphies (parallelisms), secondary reductions, evolutionary convergences, long branch attraction, and incomplete lineage sorting.
    When I studied in the 1980s at the University of Tübingen, where the founder of phylogenetic systematics, Professor Willi Hennig, was teaching a first generation of cladists, we still all thought that such homoplasies are the exceptions to the rule, usually restricted to simple or poorly known characters. Since then the situation has profoundly changed. Homoplasy is now recognized as a ubiquitous phenomenon (e.g., eyes evolved 45 times independently, and bioluminiscence 27 times; hundreds of more examples can be found at Cambridge University’s “Map of Life” website).
    https://evolutionnews.org/2018/04/extinct-four-eyed-monitor-lizard-busts-myth-of-a-congruent-nested-hierarchy/

    “The reason evolutionary biologists believe in “40 known independent eye evolutions” isn’t because they’ve reconstructed those evolutionary pathways, but because eyes don’t assume a treelike pattern on the famous Darwinian “tree of life.” Darwinists are accordingly forced, again and again, to invoke convergent “independent” evolution of eyes to explain why eyes are distributed in such a non-tree-like fashion.
    This is hardly evidence against ID. In fact the appearance of eyes within widely disparate groups speaks eloquently of common design. Eyes are a problem, all right — for Darwinism.”
    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....83441.html

    Tiny sea creatures upend notion of how animals’ nervous systems evolved – 13 December 2017
    Excerpt: “This puts a stake in the heart of the idea of an ancestor with a central nerve cord,” says Greg Wray, an evolutionary developmental biologist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. “That opens up a lot of questions we don’t have answers to — like, if central nerve cords evolved independently in different lineages, why do they have so many similarities?”
    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-08325-y

    Bernard d’Abrera on Butterfly Mimicry and the Faith of the Evolutionist – October 5, 2011
    Excerpt:  renowned butterfly scholar and photographer Bernard d’Abrera considers the mystery of mimicry.,,,
    For it to happen in a single species once through chance, is mathematically highly improbable. But when it occurs so often, in so many species, and we are expected to apply mathematical probability yet again, then either mathematics is a useless tool, or we are being criminally blind.,,,
    Evolutionism (with its two eldest daughters, phylogenetics and cladistics) is the only systematic synthesis in the history of the universe that proposes an Effect without a Final Cause. It is a great fraud, and cannot be taken seriously because it outrageously attempts to defend the philosophically indefensible.
    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....51571.html

  91. 91
    relatd says:

    Ba77,

    Evolution promoters have only two options:

    1) Out of chaos, order.
    2) Out of order, order.

    For some reason, they keep picking number 1.

  92. 92
    JVL says:

    Origenes: My alternative hypothesis is that “five billion species” is part of the Darwinian fantasy.

    So . . . there haven’t been that many?

    The whole concept is a non-starter: random mutations are stumbling through vast search spaces struggling to find even one single new protein fold

    Ah, no, that’s not correct. Take a viable life form. It’s going to create offspring that are not identical to the parent. There will be some variations. Some of the variations die off quickly, some don’t. The ones that survive and make more variations pass on (some of) their genomes to their offspring. There is no ‘stumbling through vast search spaces’. They’re just small steps pushing outward from a starting point.

    In Darwinian fantasyland, natural elimination culled over 99% of all species, which must necessarily imply a huge loss of biological information.

    “Information” can be recreated. AND, your alternative is that some designer killed off all the extinct species for some reason. Unless you are denying all those extinct species existed. You do believe in dinosaurs and trilobites and so forth don’t you?

  93. 93
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77: do you realize that the term ‘convergent evolution’, as it it is used by Darwinists, is actually an oxymoron that, in reality, means ‘a miracle must have happened over and over again’?

    No, that’s not what it means. It means that life has created the same phenotypic variation multiple times in multiple places. YOU think that those incidents are miracles done by some undetected designer for some undefined reason.

    By the way, posting links to unguided evolution denying website and people is not being ‘scientific’; it’s just showing your confirmation bias. IF you want to consider ALL the data, as a good scientists would, you would link to all the thousands of articles elucidating examples of convergent evolution as well.

  94. 94
    relatd says:

    JVL at 92,

    Evolution has no goals and no brain. Or you can accept the fantasy Richard Dawkins has regarding “climbing Mount Improbable.” Information can be recreated? How? They wrote it down somewhere?

    You don’t believe in a Designer, do you? Resorting to something you don’t believe in doesn’t solve any problems. Do you accept that dinosaurs were killed off by some large object that only selected them and left every other creature alive?

  95. 95
    bornagain77 says:

    JVL: “Information” can be recreated.”

    Since unguided material processes have never demonstrated the capacity to create immaterial information in the first place, then claiming unguided material processes ‘recreated’ immaterial information that was lost is only to exponentially exasperate what has yet to be explained via unguided material processes.

    And JVL, you have the gall to claim others are being unscientific? 🙂 LOL

    Tell you what JVL, before you call others unscientific, show yourself to be ‘scientific, falsify ID, and collect yourself a cool 10 million dollars in the process.

    Artificial Intelligence + Origin of Life Prize, $10 Million USD
    Where did life and the genetic code come from? Can the answer build superior AI? The #1 mystery in science now has a $10 million prize.
    ,,, Where did the information come from? An answer will trigger a quantum leap in Artificial Intelligence. This may be as big as the transistor or the discovery of DNA itself. A new $10 million prize seeks a definitive answer.,,,
    Excerpt: What You Must Do to Win The Prize
    You must arrange for a digital communication system to emerge or self-evolve without “cheating.” The diagram below describes the system. Without explicitly designing the system, your experiment must generate an encoder that sends digital code to a decoder. Your system needs to transmit at least five bits of information. (In other words it has to be able to represent 32 states. The genetic code supports 64.)
    You have to be able to draw an encoding and decoding table and determine whether or not the data has been transmitted successfully.
    So, for example, an RNA based origin of life experiment will be considered successful if it contains an encoder, message and decoder as described above. To our knowledge, this has never been done.
    https://www.herox.com/evolution2.0

  96. 96
    JVL says:

    Relatd: Information can be recreated? How? They wrote it down somewhere?

    If a combination of random variation and cumulative selection invented wings once it can do it again.

    Resorting to something you don’t believe in doesn’t solve any problems.

    Which is why I didn’t do that.

    Do you accept that dinosaurs were killed off by some large object that only selected them and left every other creature alive?

    No, the asteroid that helped kill off the dinosaurs got rid of a lot of other species as well.

    Your view of what unguided evolutionary theory actually says is naive and very mistaken.

  97. 97
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77: Since unguided material processes have never demonstrated the capacity to create immaterial information in the first place, then claiming unguided material processes ‘recreated’ immaterial information that was lost is only to exponentially exasperate what has yet to be explained via unguided material processes.

    I think it has been demonstrated that unguided, natural processes in combination with cumulative selection CAN do what is claimed they can do.

    you have the gall to claim others are being unscientific?

    You certainly seem to be very selective in what you consider to be true, remembering that you, yourself, don’t have the academic background to even understand some of the basic mathematics involved. Taking things on faith is not being scientific.

    falsify ID

    I think that’s already been accomplished.

  98. 98
    Alan Fox says:

    This will destroy the niche if the variation is significant.

    That’s backwards. Too rapid a change in the niche a population of organisms will result in extinction. But saltation (hopeful monsters) can’t and doesn’t happen because a sudden large change in an individual in a population obviates the new genotype spreading via sexual reproduction.

    Otherwise, this means nothing new can happen unless the ecology is protected. This implies all variation must lead to trivial results. It’s what we see.

    You are overlooking cumulative change over time.

  99. 99
    bornagain77 says:

    “If a combination of random variation and cumulative selection invented wings once it can do it again.”

    It can’t do it once, so it can’t do it again.

    FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds – Feathers – video
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2yeNoDCcBg

    FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds – Flight muscles – video
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFdvkopOmw0

    FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds – Skeletal system – video
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11fZS_B6UW4

    FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds – Starling murmurations – video
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GR9zFgOzyw

    FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds – Embryonic Development – video
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ah-gT0hTto

    Bird Evolution vs. The Actual Evidence – video (11:42 minute mark)
    https://youtu.be/OZhtj06kmXY?t=704

    Fossil Discontinuities: Refutation of Darwinism & Confirmation of Intelligent Design – Gunter Bechly – (Radiation of Modern Birds – 25:00 minute mark) – video
    https://youtu.be/M7w5QGqcnNs?t=1501

    Verse:

    Genesis 1:20
    And God said,,, “and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens

  100. 100
    Origenes says:

    JVL @96

    If a combination of random variation and cumulative selection invented wings once it can do it again.

    Assuming such can happen, the credit goes entirely to random variation. “Cumulative selection” did not help, instead, it did not obstruct. If wings come into existence due to evolution, then it means that natural elimination left the process “untouched.” It means that this time, it didn’t do what it usually does, namely, obstruct the process by eliminating one of the species of the chain leading up to the wing.

  101. 101
    relatd says:

    JVL at 96,

    “… selection invented wings once it can do it again.”

    Invented? You mean created, don’t you? Unguided Evolution has no creative/invention ability. You are only resorting to the God substitute idea.

  102. 102
    Alan Fox says:

    Less than 1% of the viable species, that random mutations happen to stumble upon, escape destruction by natural elimination.

    Yes, I’ve seen the “99% of all species that ever lived are extinct” claim made from time to time. I wonder what evidence the claim is made on. Another claim is that the vast majority of species leave no fossil evidence. Time for some googling.

  103. 103
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77: It can’t do it once, so it can’t do it again.

    Stomping your feet and pouting and saying: look how complicated this stuff is isn’t being scientific either. Just because you don’t understand how it all works doesn’t make it a miracle.

    Did you ever consider that you, yourself, started out as a single fertilised cell? As your cells divided and multiplied they differentiated into different kinds of tissues and organs. And some of that growth pattern continued after you were born. You went from a cell to an adult human being in a few years. Do you think that ‘miracle’ was guided or tweaked all along the way? When your lungs first appeared was that another miracle or just an unguided natural process responding to its environment? Was your body told by some designer: looks like it’s time to make lungs now. Hey, we need some eyes here, better get to that. What happens with people who are born crippled or deformed? Is that an example of the natural process going wonky or some designer taking a coffee break at the wrong time?

    You think??? And, other than your fevered imagination, where might that evidence actually be?

    You should read Neil Shubin’s recent book: Some Assembly Required. He explains how just controlling when certain genes are ‘turned on or off’ can make different phenotypes.

  104. 104
    bornagain77 says:

    JVL: “I think it has been demonstrated that unguided, natural processes in combination with cumulative selection CAN do what is claimed they can do.”

    You think??? And, other than your fevered imagination, where might that evidence actually be?

    “Enzyme Families — Shared Evolutionary History or Shared Design?” – Ann Gauger – December 4, 2014
    Excerpt: If enzymes can’t be recruited to genuinely new functions by unguided means, no matter how similar they are, the evolutionary story is false.,,,
    Taken together, since we found no enzyme that was within one mutation of cooption, the total number of mutations needed is at least four: one for duplication, one for over-production, and two or more single base changes. The waiting time required to achieve four mutations is 10^15 years. That’s longer than the age of the universe. The real waiting time is likely to be much greater, since the two most likely candidate enzymes failed to be coopted by double mutations.
    We have now addressed two objections raised by our critics: that we didn’t test the right mutation(s), and that we didn’t use the right starting point. We tested all possible single base changes in nine different enzymes, Those nine enzymes are the most structurally similar of BioF’s entire family We also tested 70 percent of double mutations in the two closest enzymes of those nine.
    Finally, some have said we should have used the ancestral enzyme as our starting point, because they believe modern enzymes are somehow different from ancient ones. Why do they think that? It’s because modern enzymes can’t be coopted to anything except trivial changes in function. In other words, they don’t evolve!
    That is precisely the point we are making.
    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....91701.html

    Right of Reply: Our Response to Jerry Coyne – September 29, 2019
    by Günter Bechly, Brian Miller and David Berlinski
    Excerpt: David Gelernter observed that amino acid sequences that correspond to functional proteins are remarkably rare among the “space” of all possible combinations of amino acid sequences of a given length. Protein scientists call this set of all possible amino acid sequences or combinations “amino acid sequence space” or “combinatorial sequence space.” Gelernter made reference to this concept in his review of Meyer and Berlinski’s books. He also referenced the careful experimental work by Douglas Axe who used a technique known as site-directed mutagenesis to assess the rarity of protein folds in sequence space while he was working at Cambridge University from 1990-2003. Axe showed that the ratio of sequences in sequence space that will produce protein folds to sequences that won’t is prohibitively and vanishingly small. Indeed, in an authoritative paper published in the Journal of Molecular Biology Axe estimated that ratio at 1 in 10^74. From that information about the rarity of protein folds in sequence space, Gelernter—like Axe, Meyer and Berlinski—has drawn the rational conclusion: finding a novel protein fold by a random search is implausible in the extreme.
    Not so, Coyne argued. Proteins do not evolve from random sequences. They evolve by means of gene duplication. By starting from an established protein structure, protein evolution had a head start.
    This is not an irrational position, but it is anachronistic.
    Indeed, Harvard mathematical biologist Martin Nowak has shown that random searches in sequence space that start from known functional sequences are no more likely to enter regions in sequence space with new protein folds than searches that start from random sequences. The reason for this is clear: random searches are overwhelmingly more likely to go off into a non-folding, non-functional abyss than they are to find a novel protein fold. Why? Because such novel folds are so extraordinarily rare in sequence space. Moreover, as Meyer explained in Darwin’s Doubt, as mutations accumulate in functional sequences, they will inevitably destroy function long before they stumble across a new protein fold. Again, this follows from the extreme rarity (as well as the isolation) of protein folds in sequence space.
    Recent work by Weizmann Institute protein scientist Dan Tawfik has reinforced this conclusion. Tawfik’s work shows that as mutations to functional protein sequences accumulate, the folds of those proteins become progressively more thermodynamically and structurally unstable. Typically, 15 or fewer mutations will completely destroy the stability of known protein folds of average size. Yet, generating (or finding) a new protein fold requires far more amino acid sequence changes than that. Finally, calculations based on Tawfik’s work confirm and extend the applicability of Axe’s original measure of the rarity of protein folds. These calculations confirm that the measure of rarity that Axe determined for the protein he studied is actually representative of the rarity for large classes of other globular proteins. Not surprisingly, Dan Tawfik has described the origination of a truly novel protein or fold as “something like close to a miracle.” Tawfik is on Coyne’s side: He is mainstream.
    https://quillette.com/2019/09/29/right-of-reply-our-response-to-jerry-coyne/

    Dan S. Tawfik Group – The New View of Proteins – Tyler Hampton – 2016
    Excerpt: Tawfik soberly recognizes the problem. The appearance of early protein families, he has remarked, is “something like close to a miracle.”45,,,
    To the extent that Tawfik’s selection experiments were successful, it is because mutations were localized and contextualized. Mutation had a key but confined role. If evolution proceeded, the prevailing architecture of the active sites and protein shapes nonetheless remains intact. Changes were not to central structures, but to peripheral loops. A great deal of flexibility was discovered. Still, it is hard to see how any of this could build proteins—that is, in the sense of building their fundamental shapes, or scaffolds; and build proteins in terms of explaining the key catalytic strategies of each active site. Even in the impressive demonstration of a transition through nine orders of magnitude, in which a full exchange of a promiscuous activity for the primary activity was seen, the overall geometry of the protein was unchanged, and, although substrates had changed, the fundamental active site strategy stayed the same. ,,,
    “Modern neo-Darwinism and neutral evolutionary treatments,” remark Leonard Bogarad and Michael Deem, “fail to explain satisfactorily the generation of the diversity of life found on our planet.” It is not that they did not evolve, they say, but that “… most theoretical treatments of evolution consider only the limited point-mutation events that form the basis of these theories.” Their sober conclusion is that “point mutation alone is incapable of evolving systems with substantially new protein folds.”60,,,
    “In fact, to our knowledge,” Tawfik and Tóth-Petróczy write, “no macromutations … that gave birth to novel proteins have yet been identified.”69
    http://inference-review.com/ar.....f-proteins

  105. 105
    Alan Fox says:

    So, the problem for random mutations to find functional information is made even more difficult by the destructive actions of natural elimination.

    Not at all. Mutations and other sorts of variation that enter the gene pool are random. The selection process weeds out phenotypes carrying less successful (in that niche) genotypes, clearing the field for the fitter (suited to that niche) members of the gene pool to proliferate.

  106. 106
    Sandy says:

    🙂 Who can list for me those 5 billion species that were extinct?

    99% extinct?
    Only 250.000 are in the fossil record and 90% are still living today . Fossil record is complete so logical deduction is that all animals are created and do not “evolve” in the darwinian sense . No darwinist saw an animal evolving into another animal ,he/she just believes that happened. It’s impressive that a person can believe such nonsense but that doesn’t make it true.

    This 99% extinct species is “a deduction” based on the darwinian fable and billions of years.

  107. 107
    bornagain77 says:

    JVL, you do realize that Embryonic development was excluded from the modern synthesis as ‘irrelevant’ do you not?

    On the problem of biological form – Marta Linde-Medina (2020)
    Excerpt: Embryonic development, which inspired the first theories of biological form, was eventually excluded from the conceptual framework of the Modern Synthesis, (neo-Darwinism) as irrelevant.,,,
    At present, the problem of biological form remains unsolved.
    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12064-020-00317-3

    In other words JVL, you, as a Darwinist, have no clue how embryological development came about!

    The Diverse Early Embryonic Development of Vertebrates and Implications Regarding Their Ancestry
    David W. Swift – July 21, 2022
    Excerpt: It is well known that the embryonic development of vertebrates from different classes (e.g., fish, reptiles, mammals) pass through a “phylotypic stage” when they look similar, and this apparent homology is widely seen as evidence of their common ancestry. However, despite their morphological similarities, and contrary to evolutionary expectations, the phylotypic stages of different vertebrate classes arise in radically diverse ways. This diversity clearly counters the superficial appearance of homology of the phylotypic stage, and the plain inference is that vertebrates have not evolved from a common vertebrate ancestor. The diversity extends through all stages of early development—including cleavage and formation of the blastula, gastrulation, neurulation, and formation of the gut and extraembryonic membranes. This paper focuses on gastrulation, during which the germ layers originate and the vertebrate body-plan begins to form.,,,
    https://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2022.1/pdf

    “The earliest events leading from the first division of the egg cell to the blastula stage in amphibians, reptiles and mammals are illustrated in figure 5.4. Even to the untrained zoologist it is obvious that neither the blastula itself, nor the sequence of events that lead to its formation, is identical in any of the vertebrate classes shown. The differences become even more striking in the next major phase of embryo formation – gastrulation. This involves a complex sequence of cell movements whereby the cells of the blastula rearrange themselves, eventually resulting in the transformation of the blastula into the intricate folded form of the early embryo, or gastrula, which consists of three basic germ cell layers: the ectoderm, which gives rise to the skin and the nervous system; the mesoderm, which gives rise to muscle and skeletal tissues; and the endoderm, which gives rise to the lining of the alimentary tract as well as to the liver and pancreas.,,, In some ways the egg cell, blastula, and gastrula stages in the different vertebrate classes are so dissimilar that, where it not for the close resemblance in the basic body plan of all adult vertebrates, it seems unlikely that they would have been classed as belonging to the same phylum. There is no question that, because of the great dissimilarity of the early stages of embryogenesis in the different vertebrate classes, organs and structures considered homologous in adult vertebrates cannot be traced back to homologous cells or regions in the earliest stages of embryogenesis. In other words, homologous structures are arrived at by different routes.”
    Michael Denton – Evolution: A Theory in Crisis – pg 145-146

    Of further note:

    “It’s a Mystery, It’s Magic, It’s Divinity” – Casey Luskin – March 22, 2012
    Excerpt: “The magic of the mechanisms inside each genetic structure saying exactly where that nerve cell should go, the complexity of these, the mathematical models on how these things are indeed done, are beyond human comprehension. Even though I am a mathematician, I look at this with the marvel of how do these instruction sets not make these mistakes as they build what is us. It’s a mystery, it’s magic, it’s divinity.”
    – Alexander Tsiaras
    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....57741.html

    “The mere fact that a firefly comes from a single cell that then develops into a firefly puts it in a completely different league [from an iPhone]. That doesn’t happen with smartphones. Factories make smartphones. Fireflies come from fireflies and come from an initial fertilized cell. It’s absolutely mind-boggling. We have no idea how a single cell produces an adult. These things are marvelous.”
    – Doug Axe – Doug Axe – The Problem with Theistic Evolution – video – mark
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkAxRY41ndU

    Verse:

    Psalm 139:13-14
    For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
    I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.

  108. 108
    jerry says:

    The selection process weeds out phenotypes carrying less successful (in that niche) genotypes, clearing the field for the fitter (suited to that niche) members of the gene pool to proliferate.

    This will lead to the destruction of the niche as the fitter destroy the others

    This then leads to destruction of the fitter itself as the niche/new ecology will be destroyed due to the new species actually being fitter. So whatever change there is, it must be small. The greater the change in fitness, the faster will the new species eliminate itself.

    There is no time for other species to adapt because it takes too long. So even if new variation did lead to advances in fitness (no evidence of this happening) the process has to be trivial and never lead anywhere significant.

    Aside: The term fitness is a nebulous term and can mean anything. But whatever it is, it has to be trivial. Significant changes as seen in the fossil record would definitely eliminate the ecologies unless somehow controlled. That’s the logic.

    There are three proposed methods for life advancement.

    Darwinian processes which are extremely slow and never actually observed except for basic genetics

    Punctuated equilibrium which happens more sudden as new proteins develop silently somewhere in the genome but leads to larger changes. This eliminate the new species even quicker

    Then ther is emergence

  109. 109
    Alan Fox says:

    This will lead to the destruction of the niche as the fitter destroy the others

    Do you know what a niche is in biology, Jerry? Though at least five major mass extinctions have occurred in Earth’s history.

    This leads to destruction of the fitter itself as the niche will be destroyed due to the new species actually being fitter. It prevents any significant change in fitness. The greater the change in fitness, the faster will the new species eliminate itself.

    Can’t make any sense of this. Would you mind rephrasing or clarifying.

    There is no time for other species to adapt because it takes too long.

    Well, following the last major mass extinction event, the dinosaurs (those that survived the initial catastrophy) were unable to adapt to the subsequent loss of food source due to the ash clouds preventing plant growth and they starved. Small nocturnal mammals were presented with a mountain of carrion and the opportunity to fill the vast niches made empty by the bolide.

  110. 110
    Alan Fox says:

    The term fitness is a nebulous term and can mean anything.

    The concept is quite simple, once you understand fitness is relative and applied to the immediate niche environment within which the breeding population of organisms is located.

    The golden mole is supremely adapted to the Namib desert and the great white shark is supremely adapted to ocean life. Neither species would survive swapping their habitat for the other.

  111. 111
    JVL says:

    Origenes: Assuming such can happen, the credit goes entirely to random variation. “Cumulative selection” did not help, instead, it did not obstruct. If wings come into existence due to evolution, then it means that natural elimination left the process “untouched.”

    Unguided evolution is (partly) the combination of inheritable variation AND cumulative selection. You’d get nothing without the combination. Variation alone doesn’t cut it; cumulative selection without variation doesn’t cut it either. These concepts are actually very simple and, considering how long you’ve been commenting here, the apparent fact that you still don’t understand them is astonishing.

  112. 112
    Origenes says:

    Alan Fox @105

    The fact that the niche is restrictive, that it kills off perfectly viable organisms that happen to be less suited or not suited, is exactly the problem for evolution. It does not help to find biological information, instead, it makes it much harder.
    Darwin’s assumption has always been that organisms are easy to make. The role of natural selection was to cull the abundance of organisms that random variations come up with. To bring some order in what is “so easy” to find.
    Now that we are beginning to understand how difficult making organisms is, and how huge the search space for biological information actually is, it becomes clear that natural selection only obstructs the search.

  113. 113
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77: And, other than your fevered imagination, where might that evidence actually be?

    There are literally hundreds of thousands (if not more) research papers that have been published over the last century which provide evidence. Not every one has the time or ability to absorb all that but fortunately there are lots and lots of books written for non-specialised readers which explain the data. I found Neil Shubin’s recent book Some Assembly Required extremely informative and up-to-date. You should read it.

    you do realize that Embryonic development was excluded from the modern synthesis as ‘irrelevant’ do you not?

    It was just a comparison; an example of something very complicated coming from something much simpler WITHOUT any designer intervention.

  114. 114
    jerry says:

    Can’t make any sense of this

    This just shows you have no idea what you are talking about.

    I described the niche process you constantly repeat and you do not understand it. Then you provide something that has no relation to biological change as an example.

    Thank you for validating my logic.

    Aside: i described the natural selection process a couple of weeks ago and you said you didn’t understand it. Maybe you should read some more.

    Aside2: a niche is not a mass extinction. A mass extinction may lead to several new niches. So you have it backwards. The creation of a niche could be an extremely small event.

  115. 115
    JVL says:

    Sandy: Fossil record is complete

    Are you saying that NO species existed in the past except what is represented in the fossil record? If yes then what justification do you have for thinking so?

  116. 116
    Querius says:

    Alan Fox @109,

    Though at least five major mass extinctions have occurred in Earth’s history.

    Yes, indeed. There was the evidence of the global flood (like the one on Mars) mentioned in the Bible and hundreds of derivative legends across the earth that was followed by the ice age, which was driven by the climate changes from the warmer oceans, and the evidence of the mega volcanoes that also reduced the solar radiation available on earth.

    Small nocturnal mammals were presented with a mountain of carrion and the opportunity to fill the vast niches made empty by the bolide.

    While most small nocturnal mammals are vegetarian, you’re right that they were present with the dinosaurs.

    -Q

  117. 117
    JVL says:

    Origenes: The fact that the niche is restrictive, that it kills off perfectly viable organisms that happen to be less suited or not suited

    And those that are better ‘suited’ are rewarded.

    Darwin’s assumption has always been that organisms are easy to make.

    There are easy to make when you start with one that already exists.

    Now that we are beginning to understand how difficult making organisms is, and how huge the search space for biological information actually is, it becomes clear that natural selection only obstructs the search.

    There is no ‘search’. Each organism produces offspring which are not identical to their parents. There’s variations.

    ‘Search’ implies a goal or target. IF you think humans are designed by God then, of course, you think there is/was a target. But that’s NOT what unguided evolutionary theory says. Again, your misunderstanding of the basics is pretty astonishing.

    By the way: I can’t help but notice that you have not said how many species you think have ever existed on the planet. What is your count? Do you agree with Sandy who thinks the fossil record is ‘complete’?

  118. 118
    Alan Fox says:

    This just shows you have no idea what you are talking about.

    My heritage is British. I’m brought up to be polite. Let me be blunt. It is you who who have no idea how biological evolution works. It is your comments that make no sense.

  119. 119
    Origenes says:

    JVL @117

    Ori: Darwin’s assumption has always been that organisms are easy to make.

    JVL: There are easy to make when you start with one that already exists.

    Wow! Well, I agree with you that you have to say this in order to defend natural elimination. So, starting with a bacterium, you claim that it easy to make e.g. a bat….
    Only when organisms are easy to make, it can be argued that there is a positive role for natural selection.

    JVL: … how many species you think have ever existed on the planet. What is your count?

    I would estimate that thousands have gone extinct.

    JVL: Do you agree with Sandy who thinks the fossil record is ‘complete’?

    Yes.

  120. 120
    Alan Fox says:

    Thank you for validating my logic.

    Thank Dunning and Kruger.

    Aside: i described the natural selection process a couple of weeks ago and you said you didn’t understand it. Maybe you should read some more.

    Oh dear. I should have been clearer in saying I didn’t understand your comment, which made no sense.

    Aside2: a niche is not a mass extinction.

    Good grief. How you get there from what I wrote is a mystery. Of course a niche is not an extinction. An extinction event empties a niche or niches.

    A mass extinction may lead to several new niches.

    That was my point when talking of the end if the Cretaceous.

    So you have it backwards. The creation of a niche could be an extremely small event.

    The niche of the population of E. coli living in your gut is small.

  121. 121
    Alan Fox says:

    Jerry posted:

    This then leads to destruction of the fitter itself as the niche/new ecology will be destroyed due to the new species actually being fitter. So whatever change there is, it must be small. The greater the change in fitness, the faster will the new species eliminate itself.

    There is no time for other species to adapt because it takes too long. So even if new variation did lead to advances in fitness (no evidence of this happening) the process has to be trivial and never lead anywhere significant.

    Just to be clear, what Jerry has written, that I quote in this comment is complete balderdash, utter rubbish, strawman nonsense.

  122. 122
    Sandy says:

    JVL
    Are you saying that NO species existed in the past except what is represented in the fossil record? If yes then what justification do you have for thinking so?

    Let’s see : you believe that chemicals randomnly created life , you believe that some animals become diferent type of animals, you believe that existed some species that nobody saw…and you think that you are the reasonable one. 🙂

  123. 123
    asauber says:

    JVL thinks that if you just imagine that you waited long enough sometime in the distant past, his/her pet absurd speculations are science.

    Andrew

  124. 124
    JVL says:

    Sandy:

    Let’s focus on you answering the questions I asked: Are you saying that NO species existed in the past except what is represented in the fossil record? If yes then what justification do you have for thinking so?

  125. 125
    JVL says:

    Asauber: thinks that if you just imagine that you waited long enough sometime in the distant past, his/her pet absurd speculations are science.

    Aside from that being insulting it’s clearly NOT what I think nor what unguided evolutionary theory says. I find it hard to believe that you have actually understood the basics arguments involved.

    If you’re not going to even try and engage in the actual arguments why should I bother responding to you?

  126. 126
    bornagain77 says:

    JVL at 113, FYI, bluff and bluster is NOT evidence!

    “The response I have received from repeating Behe’s claim about the evolutionary literature, which simply brings out the point being made implicitly by many others, such as Chris Dutton and so on, is that I obviously have not read the right books. There are, I am sure, evolutionists who have described how the transitions in question could have occurred.” And he continues, “When I ask in which books I can find these discussions, however, I either get no answer or else some titles that, upon examination, do not, in fact, contain the promised accounts. That such accounts exist seems to be something that is widely known, but I have yet to encounter anyone who knows where they exist.”
    – David Ray Griffin – retired professor of philosophy of religion and theology?

    “The argument that random variation and Darwinian gradualism may not be adequate to explain complex biological systems is hardly new […} in fact, there are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations. It is remarkable that Darwinism is accepted as a satisfactory explanation for such a vast subject — evolution — with so little rigorous examination of how well its basic theses works in illuminating specific instances of biological adaptation or diversity.”
    – Prof. James Shapiro – “In the Details…What?” National Review, 19 September 1996, pp. 64.

    “,,,we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.’
    – Franklin M. Harold,* 2001. The way of the cell: molecules, organisms and the order of life, Oxford University Press, New York, p. 205.
    – Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry, Colorado State University, USA

  127. 127
    asauber says:

    “If you’re not going to even try and engage in the actual arguments why should I bother responding to you?”

    JVL,

    It’s entirely up to you whether or not you want to respond to me. You do, however, appeal to the wondrous mists of a long and far away past to prop up your viewpoint, so you’re not the only one who gets insulted during our exchanges.

    Andrew

  128. 128
    asauber says:

    JVL,

    To make it simple, JVL, the EVIDENCE of design is all around us, right here, right now, for you to observe.

    Andrew

  129. 129
    relatd says:

    Andrew,

    No, no. The words JVL writes are random. Somehow, through unknown means, they self-assemble into a precise order that anyone can read. The same with living things. So remember: out of disorder, order.

    🙂 🙂

  130. 130
    Sandy says:

    JVL
    Let’s focus on you answering the questions I asked: Are you saying that NO species existed in the past except what is represented in the fossil record? If yes then what justification do you have for thinking so?

    Yes there are no species other than fossil record or living one. If you think there were other species that were extinct [a belief based on a theory based on beliefs of Darwin] the burden is on you to prove that . 😉

  131. 131
    jerry says:

    Just to be clear, what Jerry has written, that I quote in this comment is complete balderdash, utter rubbish, strawman nonsense.

    is this projection?

    Everything I said is logical and based on evidence.

    Let me be blunt. It is you who who have no idea how biological evolution works. It is your comments that make no sense.

    I suggest that you explain how biological evolution works.

    You will be the first one ever to do so. No links or references for this because we are just dealing with how.

    This would then require several examples that are well documented. You can use links for this.

    By the way why don’t you define words like “niche” and “fitter” as part of this. Both are rather nebulous words. Anything could be a niche and fitter could mean lots of things.

  132. 132
    JVL says:

    Origenes: Well, I agree with you that you have to say this in order to defend natural elimination. So, starting with a bacterium, you claim that it easy to make e.g. a bat….

    Not easy, it takes many, many, many, many, many generations. AND you don’t know ahead of time what you’re going to get.

    If you think the fossil record is complete . . . can you:

    Find the stuff that any given species ate? They had to eat some other species after all.

    Find the stuff the survivors of the asteroid impact ate?

    Also: how many species do you think there have been then?

  133. 133
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77: bluff and bluster is NOT evidence!

    I agree. But when we ask you to scientifically justify your stance you frequently site YouTube videos or articles (not research papers) from anti-evolutionary sites or blogs.

    I can point to hundreds, thousands of research papers. I can point to many, many textbooks and other books explaining and clarifying the evidence in favour of unguided evolution.

    How many ID textbooks are there? How many ID journals are there? How many peer-reviewed ID research papers are there?

    You’ve got a lot of catching up to do. And since you, yourself, can’t do that catching up . . . who can? Who is doing that work? Where is the research? Where are the papers?

  134. 134
    JVL says:

    Asauber:

    You have clear history of NOT answering queries that have been put to your regarding your stance. You strategically avoid dealing with issues. It seems to me that when you haven’t got a good response you fall back on insult and bluff.

    To make it simple, JVL, the EVIDENCE of design is all around us, right here, right now, for you to observe.

    Where are the peer-reviewed papers? Where are the academic journals? Where are the textbooks? Where is the ongoing research?

    Please don’t resort to the frequently used conspiracy theory response. The churches in America had a lot more money than the research institutes; it would be a simple thing to find the cash to set up a lab or a journal in support of ID. But, it doesn’t happen. Why is that?

  135. 135
    JVL says:

    Relatd: The words JVL writes are random. Somehow, through unknown means, they self-assemble into a precise order that anyone can read. The same with living things. So remember: out of disorder, order.

    As usual, when you run out of arguments you resort to insults and showing off your misunderstanding of what unguided evolution actually says.

  136. 136
    JVL says:

    Sandy: If you think there were other species that were extinct [a belief based on a theory based on beliefs of Darwin] the burden is on you to prove that .

    If you actually cared about that you would have spent a lot of time reading the research arguing for such things. But you didn’t. And you won’t. Why is that?

    Is ignoring decades of research being scientific? Is asking for everything to be presented to you on a plate being sincere? Have you, yourself, got no responsibility to attempt to understand the work that has already been done?

    Are you happy just listening to those whose opinion you already agree with and ignoring the thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of published works that disagree with you?

    Are you being scientific? Are you looking at all the data and research? Or are you picking and choosing depending on your bias?

  137. 137
    bornagain77 says:

    Origenes: “starting with a bacterium, you claim that it easy to make e.g. a bat….”

    JVL: “Not easy, it takes many, many, many, many, many generations. AND you don’t know ahead of time what you’re going to get.”

    Yeah we do know what we are going to get, we are going to get more bacteria. And the burden is on you to “scientifically’ prove that is not the case, not just blow hot air and claim otherwise as you are currently doing.

    “We go from single cell protozoa. Which would be ameoba and things like that. Then you get into some that are a little bit bigger, still single cell, and then you get aggregates, they’re still individual cells that aggregate together. They don’t seem to have much in the way of cooperation,,, but when you really talk about a functioning organism, that has more than just one type of cell, you are talking about a sponge and you can have hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of cells. So we don’t really have organisms that function with say two different types of cells, but there is only five total. We don’t have anything like that.”
    – Dr. Raymond G. Bohlin – quote taken from 31:00 minute mark of this following video
    Natural Limits to Biological Change 2/2 – video
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo3OKSGeFRQ

    Natural Selection: The Evolution of a Mirage – Neil Thomas – March 7, 2023
    Excerpt: As Professor Nick Lane has recently explained,
    “It is generally assumed that once simple life has emerged, it gradually evolves into more complex forms, given the right conditions. But that’s not what happens on Earth (…) If simple cells had evolved slowly into more complex ones over billions of years, all kinds of intermediate forms would have existed and some still should. But there are none (…) This means that there is no inevitable trajectory from simple to complex life. Never-ending natural selection, operating on infinite populations of bacteria over millions of years, may never give rise to complexity. Bacteria simply do not have the right architecture.”16
    https://evolutionnews.org/2023/03/natural-selection-the-evolution-of-a-mirage/
    16. Nick Lane, “Lucky to Be There,” in Michael Brooks, ed., Chance: The Science and Secrets of Luck, Randomness and Probability (London: Profile/New Scientist, 2015), pp. 22-33, citations pp. 28, 32.

    “But where is the experimental evidence? None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of 20 to 30 minutes, and populations achieved after 18 hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another, in spite of the fact that populations have been exposed to potent chemical and physical mutagens and that, uniquely, bacteria possess extrachromosomal, transmissible plasmids. Since there is no evidence for species changes between the simplest forms of unicellular life, it is not surprising that there is no evidence for evolution from prokaryotic to eukaryotic cells, let alone throughout the whole array of higher multicellular organisms.
    – Alan H. Linton – Scant search for the Maker – 2001 –
    Emeritus professor of bacteriology, University of Bristol.

    Rapid Evolution of Citrate Utilization by Escherichia coli by Direct Selection Requires citT and dctA. – Minnich – Feb. 2016
    The isolation of aerobic citrate-utilizing Escherichia coli (Cit(+)) in long-term evolution experiments (LTEE) has been termed a rare, innovative, presumptive speciation event. We hypothesized that direct selection would rapidly yield the same class of E. coli Cit(+) mutants and follow the same genetic trajectory: potentiation, actualization, and refinement. This hypothesis was tested,,,
    Potentiation/actualization mutations occurred within as few as 12 generations, and refinement mutations occurred within 100 generations.,,,
    E. coli cannot use citrate aerobically. Long-term evolution experiments (LTEE) performed by Blount et al. (Z. D. Blount, J. E. Barrick, C. J. Davidson, and R. E. Lenski, Nature 489:513-518, 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature11514 ) found a single aerobic, citrate-utilizing E. coli strain after 33,000 generations (15 years). This was interpreted as a speciation event. Here we show why it probably was not a speciation event. Using similar media, 46 independent citrate-utilizing mutants were isolated in as few as 12 to 100 generations. Genomic DNA sequencing revealed an amplification of the citT and dctA loci and DNA rearrangements to capture a promoter to express CitT, aerobically. These are members of the same class of mutations identified by the LTEE. We conclude that the rarity of the LTEE mutant was an artifact of the experimental conditions and not a unique evolutionary event. No new genetic information (novel gene function) evolved.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26833416

    “The immediate, most important implication is that complexes with more than two different binding sites-ones that require three or more proteins-are beyond the edge of evolution, past what is biologically reasonable to expect Darwinian evolution to have accomplished in all of life in all of the billion-year history of the world. The reasoning is straightforward. The odds of getting two independent things right are the multiple of the odds of getting each right by itself. So, other things being equal, the likelihood of developing two binding sites in a protein complex would be the square of the probability for getting one: a double CCC (chloroquine complexity cluster), 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40. There have likely been fewer than 10^40 cells in the world in the last 4 billion years, so the odds are against a single event of this variety in the history of life. It is biologically unreasonable.”
    – Michael Behe – The Edge of Evolution – page 146

    The Paradox of the “Ancient” (250 Million Year Old) Bacterium Which Contains “Modern” Protein-Coding Genes: Heather Maughan*, C. William Birky Jr., Wayne L. Nicholson, William D. Rosenzweig§ and Russell H. Vreeland ; – 2002
    “Almost without exception, bacteria isolated from ancient material have proven to closely resemble modern bacteria at both morphological and molecular levels.”
    http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/...../19/9/1637

    Static evolution: is pond scum the same now as billions of years ago?
    Excerpt: But what intrigues (paleo-biologist) J. William Schopf most is lack of change. Schopf was struck 30 years ago by the apparent similarities between some 1-billion-year-old fossils of blue-green bacteria and their modern microbial counterparts. “They surprisingly looked exactly like modern species,” Schopf recalls. Now, after comparing data from throughout the world, Schopf and others have concluded that modern pond scum differs little from the ancient blue-greens. “This similarity in morphology is widespread among fossils of [varying] times,” says Schopf. As evidence, he cites the 3,000 such fossils found;
    https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Static+evolution%3A+is+pond+scum+the+same+now+as+billions+of+years+ago%3F-a014909330

    AMBER: THE LOOKING GLASS INTO THE PAST:
    Excerpt: These (fossilized bacteria) cells are actually very similar to present day cyanobacteria. This is not only true for an isolated case but many living genera of cyanobacteria can be linked to fossil cyanobacteria. The detail noted in the fossils of this group gives indication of extreme conservation of morphology, more extreme than in other organisms.
    http://bcb705.blogspot.com/200.....st_23.html

    Scientists find signs of life in Australia dating back 3.48 billion years – Thu November 14, 2013
    Excerpt: “We conclude that the MISS in the Dresser Formation record a complex microbial ecosystem, hitherto unknown, and represent one of the most ancient signs of life on Earth.”… “this MISS displays the same associations that are known from modern as well as fossil” finds. The MISS also shows microbes that act like “modern cyanobacteria,”
    – per cnn

    Geobiologist Noffke Reports Signs of Life that Are 3.48 Billion Years Old – 11/11/13
    Excerpt: the mats woven of tiny microbes we see today covering tidal flats were also present as life was beginning on Earth. The mats, which are colonies of cyanobacteria, can cause unusual textures and formations in the sand beneath them. Noffke has identified 17 main groups of such textures caused by present-day microbial mats, and has found corresponding structures in geological formations dating back through the ages.
    http://www.odu.edu/about/odu-p...../topstory1

  138. 138
    JVL says:

    Jerry: is this projection?

    No, Jerry, it’s not. Alan Fox is responding based on known and accepted and widely held views and results. You sound like you’re just making up stuff that you think sound reasonable but isn’t actually supported.

    Everything I said is logical and based on evidence.

    Sadly, that is not the case.

    I suggest that you explain how biological evolution works.

    Since you’ve been commenting here for a long time you have heard that explanation over and over and over and over and over again. If you still don’t ‘get it’ then why should we bother to repeat it again?

    You will be the first one ever to do so. No links or references for this because we are just dealing with how.

    It’s really simple. And clear. Maybe you just don’t get it?

    By the way why don’t you define words like “niche” and “fitter” as part of this.

    Because those are well understood in the biological sciences. Which you should know IF you had actually spent time reading the supporting papers and publications and books. It’s not hard to find such things. Have you even tried?

    Are you a fool or a knave Jerry? You say you’re really intelligent (a maths genius) but you seem incapable of understanding some basic biological reasoning which has been made for a century and a half. I’m not saying agree with it but just to understand the argument. Not that you’re alone on this site: many, many people can’t seem to actually address the real points.

  139. 139
    jerry says:

    A – a niche, whatever that is.

    B – a collection of entities that compose niche A. These could be life forms sometimes thousands, various substrates such as minerals and other compounds, various environmental entities such as climate and geochemical formations. Maybe other variables.

    B is stable though the alleles of the life forms in A vary somewhat over time. Some of the resources, minerals composition change or get converted to other compounds over time but not dramatically. The climate changes somewhat back and forth but remains essentially the same. This is normal for most of out planet.

    Now B changes dramatically. Maybe a new life form enters A. Or the climate changes or a compound becomes scarce or a new compound becomes more abundant. There will be two outcomes, one possibility is a new equilibrium. The end point will be a new distribution of the percentage of everything, alleles, mineral etc.. This end point will be called the natural selection of each entity since each survived the change.

    We call B an ecology and over time it changes.

    We tend to use natural selection to refer to just one species but in fact thousands of species’ allele distributions could change. It could even refer to resource changes due to the new range of stability of all the entities. I could even imagine environmental changes happening due to the distribution changes. For example, there was a story of river changes due to new wildlife patterns caused by the introduction of a new species.

    So natural selection is just what happens, the gene/allele distribution for each species, the chemical compounds distribution and the geographical environment.

    Or the change in one species, say X1, could eliminate one of the others variables, say Y1, because X1 is too successful due to a change. And this variable, Y1, which is eliminated is necessary for X1 to exist. Thus X1 then becomes eliminated because it is too successful. So both X1 is eliminated as well as Y1.

    So which is more likely, X1 to get fitter and fitter and developing new characteristics and leaving more and more offspring without any problem finding enough Y1 or equivalent things to Y1 in the ecology.

    Or eventually X1 will run out of Y1 or equivalents and become extinct.

    This natural process is happening to every X and Y in the ecology. How is there a possibility for any entity to develop, superior characteristics through change and not become extinct?

    That is the question I am posing. Maybe the wording could be better.

    I have read dozens of books by those who espouse natural Evolution and nowhere in these books is the answer to the question I am posing.

    Nor has anyone on this site done so and we have had evolutionary biologists here in the past.

  140. 140
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77: Yeah we do know what we are going to get, we are going to get more bacteria. And the burden is on you to “scientifically’ prove that is not the case, not just blow hot air and claim otherwise as you are currently doing.

    Once again you have shown your inability to reason scientifically.

    Nothing in science is ‘proven’. You’ve been told this over and over and over again but you just can’t get that through your head.

    And, as most of the planet knows, the case for unguided evolution has been made over and over and over and over again in paper after paper, journal after journal, book after book. Why don’t you actually try and address the actual claims being made instead of saying the case hasn’t even been argued?

    AND then we get your usual Gish-gallop of links to things, some are YouTube videos, some are to articles not research papers, some are to evolution-denying websites. AND some are misinterpretations of actual work that has been done because you (or someone else) has fixated on a word or phrase which you think ‘disproves’ unguided evolution. But, again, you haven’t got the academic background to evaluate the work you cite. You don’t actually understand the research or its implications. You’ve made that clear over and over and over again over years and years and years.

    IF you really cared about ID as a valid scientific field of endeavour then why aren’t you arguing for there to be a research institute, a journal, some paid researchers working on ID. Don’t tell me there isn’t any money, the church has a lot more money than academia. There’s plenty of money. Why aren’t you pushing for some of it to be spent on ID research?

  141. 141
    JVL says:

    Jerry: That is the question I am posing.

    And you haven’t bothered to read up on the many, many, many publications and books and research which discuss such things?

    Really?

    For someone who portrays themself as being very smart you don’t seem to get a lot of things.

    Maybe you should do some homework and then ask some questions.

    to become superior

    Superior by what definition?

    You clearly haven’t bothered to do any work whatsoever to learn what is already known in the field.

    You want me or Alan Fox to summarise books and books of information and mathematical models because you can’t be bothered to go find out yourself?

    Do some work. Do some reading. Spend some time actually trying to find out.

  142. 142
    bornagain77 says:

    So JVL, instead of presenting any scientific evidence to counter the scientific evidence that I presented to you, you want to lecture me on being scientific? JVL, I have news for you, you wouldn’t know real science if it bit you on the rear end! Unbridled Hubris, thy name is JVL.

    Top Ten Questions and Objections to ‘Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics’ – Robert J. Marks II – June 12, 2017
    Excerpt: “There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. Examples include electromagnetics, Newtonian mechanics, geophysics, relativity, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, optics, and many areas in biology. Those hoping to establish Darwinian evolution as a hard science with a model have either failed or inadvertently cheated. These models contain guidance mechanisms to land the airplane squarely on the target runway despite stochastic wind gusts. Not only can the guiding assistance be specifically identified in each proposed evolution model, its contribution to the success can be measured, in bits, as active information.,,,”,,, “there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,”
    https://evolutionnews.org/2017/06/top-ten-questions-and-objections-to-introduction-to-evolutionary-informatics/
    Robert Jackson Marks II is an American electrical engineer. His contributions include the Zhao-Atlas-Marks (ZAM) time-frequency distribution in the field of signal processing,[1] the Cheung–Marks theorem[2] in Shannon sampling theory and the Papoulis-Marks-Cheung (PMC) approach in multidimensional sampling.[3] He was instrumental in the defining of the field of computational intelligence and co-edited the first book using computational intelligence in the title.[4][5]
    – per wikipedia

  143. 143
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77: instead of presenting any scientific evidence to counter the scientific evidence that I presented to you, you want to lecture me on being scientific?

    The evidence for unguided evolution is present in hundreds if not thousands of books, thousands if not hundreds of thousands of research papers and journals articles. If you want to find it you can. You can pretend that nothing exists if it’s not dolled out here to you personally (and, to be fair, a lot of that has been done) but that doesn’t mean it’s not out there.

    JVL, I have news for you, you wouldn’t know real science if it bit you on the rear end!

    Really? Based on what? What academic or publication criteria are you using? What experimental experience are you drawing upon? How many papers have your authored or published?

    Shall we test your mathematical ability? Shall we see if you understand even a basic probability argument? Surely someone who ‘knows science’ would be able to answer some simple probability questions . . .

    Try this: if you flip a fair coin and toss a fair 6-sided die what is the probability you’ll end up with a head AND a prime number? Likewise, what is the probability you’ll end up with a head OR a prime number? And then: what is the probability you’ll end up with a prime number given a head?

    Take your time. Five minutes should be enough.

  144. 144
    Origenes says:

    ~ Question about Natural Elimination ~

    Suppose a start with species A in niche 1. Next, a miracle happens: after a few rounds of successful random mutations, we have species A, B, C, and D in niche 1.
    *Enter natural elimination*: a struggle for life ensues and only species C survives and fills niche 1.
    IOW “natural selection” favors species C and the others go extinct.

    Now here is my question to Darwinians:
    How does the elimination of species A, B, and D assist evolution in finding biological information?

  145. 145
    relatd says:

    JVL at 143,

    Ba77 has done a fine job of refuting unguided evolution. Seeing you deny it so many times confirms what I believe to be the primary use of unguided evolution today: to promote atheism. To promote a world that was not designed but which stumbled into something called human beings. All those books, all those journals which you say support unguided evolution are part of the reaction against a society that has long recognized God, not unguided evolution, as the Creator. The sheer amount of “upending” and “unexpected” and “earlier than thought” indicates a lack of correct thinking. Guesswork about what it all means. That’s not science, as Ba77 has pointed out on numerous occasions.

    In conclusion, what unguided evolution amounts to is a worldview promoted by those who want God out of the picture. Out of their lives and out of society in general.

  146. 146
    jerry says:

    I have been going back on comments from 15-18 years ago to look at what was said.

    Recently I found one referring to someone named Elliot Sober who is a philosopher of science. So I decided to look him up in UD and Evolutionary News. Here is one quote about him by Casey Luskin

    Evolution fails to explain how even a single gene could evolve, let alone the entire olfactory system. In fact the presence of supposedly useless structures, such as pseudogenes, is hardly a plus for evolution. As Elliott Sober has pointed out, there is nothing about this story that provides a positivistic argument for evolution.

    The argument, with all its strength, hinges entirely on the refutation of the alternative. This is a proof by the process of elimination. Hence it becomes utterly crucial that the alternatives be carefully and exhaustively considered. In particular, all possible alternatives must be known, understood, evaluated, and disproved

    By the way Sober tries to disprove ID by appealing to the necessity of disproving the alternatives. It gets facial when the universe is considered.

    Sober wrote a short book in 2017 trying to disprove ID.

  147. 147
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77: Ba77 has done a fine job of refuting unguided evolution.

    Other opinions are available.

    Seeing you deny it so many times confirms what I believe to be the primary use of unguided evolution today: to promote atheism.

    Amazing logic!

    All those books, all those journals which you say support unguided evolution are part of the reaction against a society that has long recognized God, not unguided evolution, as the Creator.

    I guess that means you didn’t understand the scientific arguments either.

    The sheer amount of “upending” and “unexpected” and “earlier than thought” indicates a lack of correct thinking.

    I guess you don’t think views and opinions should be updated when new evidence or data is found.

    Guesswork about what it all means. That’s not science, as Ba77 has pointed out on numerous occasions.

    What it all means? Really? Knowing that the Earth revolves around the Sun . . . what does that mean? Knowing that objects on Earth accelerate towards the centre of the Earth at (about) 9.8m/sec^2 . . . what does that mean? What’s wrong with knowing the truth?

    In conclusion, what unguided evolution amounts to is a worldview promoted by those who want God out of the picture. Out of their lives and out of society in general.

    So, you’re going to continue to deny scientific ‘truth’ because you think it’s atheistic? Wow. Might I suggest that there is a possibility that you don’t really understand God or the actual message? I mean, if theism isn’t tied to what is true then what’s the point?

    If you have to deny reality in order to believe in God then . . .

    When Bornagain77 can answer my very basic probability questions I’ll talk to him again. Can you answer them?

  148. 148
    bornagain77 says:

    JVL continues his bluffing and blustering. The evidence he needs to prove his case is sorely missing from his posts, and there is a good reason for that. He never cites any actual scientific evidence because he has none. PERIOD! There is ZERO real-time scientific evidence that Darwinian processes can create JUST one molecular machine. For instance, the bacterial flagellum, an ID icon, remains unrefuted

    Calling Nick Matzke’s literature bluff on molecular machines – DonaldM UD blogger – April 2013
    Excerpt: So now, 10 years later in 2006 Matzke and Pallen come along with this review article. The interesting thing about this article is that, despite all the hand waving claims about all these dozens if not hundreds of peer reviewed research studies showing how evolution built a flagellum, Matzke and Pallen didn’t have a single such reference in their bibliography. Nor did they reference any such study in the article. Rather, the article went into great lengths to explain how a researcher might go about conducting a study to show how evolution could have produced the system. Well, if all those articles and studies were already there, why not just point them all out? In shorty, the entire article was a tacit admission that Behe had been right all along.
    Fast forward to now and Andre’s question directed to Matzke. We’re now some 17 years after Behe’s book came out where he made that famous claim. And, no surprise, there still is not a single peer reviewed research study that provides the Darwinian explanation for a bacterial flagellum (or any of the other irreducibly complex biological systems Behe mentioned in the book). We’re almost 7 years after the Matzke & Pallen article. So where are all these research studies? There’s been ample time for someone to do something in this regard.
    Matzke will not answer the question because there is no answer he can give…no peer reviewed research study he can reference, other than the usual literature bluffing he’s done in the past.
    http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-453291

    Matzke Is Back On The Flagellum Horse – November 11, 2019
    Excerpt: I won’t go into a lengthy discussion of this latest article. Suffice it to say that in the 13 years since the ’06 review article, apparently there still are no peer reviewed research studies that provide the Darwinian model of how a bacterial flagellum came to be. There’s really nothing to review in this article because there just isn’t anything new here. Its more a bunch of assertions without evidence.
    ,,, The real take away here, of course, is that 23 years after Behe’s book was published, it is still the case that there simply are no peer reviewed research studies that provide an evolutionary model to explain the origin of the bacterial flagellum. If there was, then all Matke et.al. would have to do is reference all those studies. Yet that remains the one thing missing in all of the articles and comments.
    https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/matzke-is-back-on-the-flagellum-horse/

    JVL never cites any evidence and he just keeps bluffing and blustering, and keeps claiming that there are “hundreds if not thousands of books, thousands if not hundreds of thousands of research papers and journals articles. If you want to find it you can.”

    Yet none of those hundreds and thousands of papers provide any real-time evidence for Darwinian processes creating even a single molecular machine. It is all ‘narrative gloss’ and ‘just-so story telling’.

    As the late Philip Skell observed, evolution functions more as a ‘narrative gloss’ in peer-reviewed literature rather than as a fruitful heuristic.

    “A.S. Wilkins, editor of the journal BioEssays, wrote in 2000 “Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one.”
    I would tend to agree. Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming’s discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin’s theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No.
    I also examined the outstanding biodiscoveries of the past century: the discovery of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions; improvements in food production and sanitation; the development of new surgeries; and others. I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin’s theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss.
    In the peer-reviewed literature, the word “evolution” often occurs as a sort of coda to academic papers in experimental biology. Is the term integral or superfluous to the substance of these papers? To find out, I substituted for “evolution” some other word “Buddhism,” “Aztec cosmology,” or even “creationism.” I found that the substitution never touched the paper’s core. This did not surprise me. From my conversations with leading researchers it had became clear that modern experimental biology gains its strength from the availability of new instruments and methodologies, not from an immersion in historical biology.,,,
    Darwinian evolution – whatever its other virtues – does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology.”
    Philip S. Skell – (the late) Emeritus Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. – Why Do We Invoke Darwin? – 2005?

    In fact, as the late Dr. Skell alluded to, you can readily jettison the ‘narrative gloss’ of evolutionary language from peer-reviewed papers and not negatively effect the actual science of the papers:

    No Harm, No Foul — What If Darwinism Were Excised from Biology? – December 4, 2019
    If Darwinism is as essential to biology as Richard Dawkins or Jerry Coyne argues, then removing evolutionary words and concepts, (“Darwin-ectomy”), should make research incomprehensible. If, on the other hand, Darwinism is more of a “narrative gloss” applied to the conclusions after the scientific work is done, as the late Philip Skell observed, then biology would survive the operation just fine. It might even be healthier, slimmed down after disposing of unnecessary philosophical baggage.,,,
    So, here are three papers in America’s premier science journal that appear at first glance to need Darwinism, use Darwinism, support Darwinism, and thereby impart useful scientific knowledge. After subjecting them to Darwin-ectomies, though, the science not only survived, but proved healthier and more useful.
    https://evolutionnews.org/2019/12/no-harm-no-foul-what-if-darwinism-were-excised-from-biology/

    Whereas, on the other hand, teleological language cannot be sacrificed from research papers without negatively effecting the research of the papers.

    J.B.S. Haldane himself admitted as much, “Teleology is like a mistress to the biologist; he dare not be seen with her in public but cannot live without her.”

    “Teleology is like a mistress to the biologist; he dare not be seen with her in public but cannot live without her.”
    J. B. S. Haldane

    In the following article, Stephen Talbott challenges Darwinists to, “pose a single topic for biological research, doing so in language that avoids all implication of agency, cognition, and purposiveness(i.e. teleology)”

    The ‘Mental Cell’: Let’s Loosen Up Biological Thinking! – Stephen L. Talbott – September 9, 2014
    Excerpt: Many biologists are content to dismiss the problem with hand-waving: “When we wield the language of agency, we are speaking metaphorically, and we could just as well, if less conveniently, abandon the metaphors”.
    Yet no scientist or philosopher has shown how this shift of language could be effected. And the fact of the matter is just obvious: the biologist who is not investigating how the organism achieves something in a well-directed way is not yet doing biology, as opposed to physics or chemistry. Is this in turn just hand-waving? Let the reader inclined to think so take up a challenge: pose a single topic for biological research, doing so in language that avoids all implication of agency, cognition, and purposiveness 1.
    One reason this cannot be done is clear enough: molecular biology — the discipline that was finally going to reduce life unreservedly to mindless mechanism — is now posing its own severe challenges. In this era of Big Data, the message from every side concerns previously unimagined complexity, incessant cross-talk and intertwining pathways, wildly unexpected genomic performances, dynamic conformational changes involving proteins and their cooperative or antagonistic binding partners, pervasive multifunctionality, intricately directed behavior somehow arising from the interaction of countless players in interpenetrating networks, and opposite effects by the same molecules in slightly different contexts. The picture at the molecular level begins to look as lively and organic — and thoughtful — as life itself.
    http://natureinstitute.org/txt.....ell_23.htm

    Denis Noble also notes that “it is virtually impossible to speak of living beings for any length of time without using teleological and normative language”.

    “the most striking thing about living things, in comparison with non-living systems, is their teleological organization—meaning the way in which all of the local physical and chemical interactions cohere in such a way as to maintain the overall system in existence.
    Moreover, it is virtually impossible to speak of living beings for any length of time without using teleological and normative language—words like “goal,” “purpose,” “meaning,” “correct/incorrect,” “success/failure,” etc.”
    – Denis Noble – Emeritus Professor of Cardiovascular Physiology in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy, and Genetics of the Medical Sciences Division of the University of Oxford.
    http://www.thebestschools.org/.....interview/

    This working biologist agrees with Talbott and Noble’s assessment and states, “in our work, we biologists use words that imply intentionality, functionality, strategy, and design in biology–we simply cannot avoid them.”

    Life, Purpose, Mind: Where the Machine Metaphor Fails – Ann Gauger – June 2011
    Excerpt: I’m a working biologist, on bacterial regulation (transcription and translation and protein stability) through signalling molecules, ,,, I can confirm the following points as realities: we lack adequate conceptual categories for what we are seeing in the biological world; with many additional genomes sequenced annually, we have much more data than we know what to do with (and making sense of it has become the current challenge); cells are staggeringly chock full of sophisticated technologies, which are exquisitely integrated; life is not dominated by a single technology, but rather a composite of many; and yet life is more than the sum of its parts; in our work, we biologists use words that imply intentionality, functionality, strategy, and design in biology–we simply cannot avoid them.
    Furthermore, I suggest that to maintain that all of biology is solely a product of selection and genetic decay and time requires a metaphysical conviction that isn’t troubled by the evidence. Alternatively, it could be the view of someone who is unfamiliar with the evidence, for one reason or another. But for those who will consider the evidence that is so obvious throughout biology, I suggest it’s high time we moved on. – Matthew
    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....nt-8858161

    And as the following 2020 article pointed out, “teleological concepts cannot be abstracted away from biological explanations without loss of meaning and explanatory power, life is inherently teleological.”

    Metaphor and Meaning in the Teleological Language of Biology Annie L. Crawford – August 2020
    Abstract:
    Excerpt: However, most discussions regarding the legitimacy of teleological language in biology fail to consider the nature of language itself. Since conceptual language is intrinsically metaphorical, teleological language can be dismissed as decorative if and only if it can be replaced with alternative metaphors without loss of essential meaning. I conclude that, since teleological concepts cannot be abstracted away from biological explanations without loss of meaning and explanatory power, life is inherently teleological.
    https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/biologists-cant-stop-using-purpose-driven-language-because-life-really-is-designed/

    In short, teleological, i.e. designed based, language is found to be absolutely essential for doing biological research, whereas ‘evolutionary language’ is found to be a superficial ‘narrative gloss’ that can be readily stripped away from the research papers without negatively effecting the actual science in the papers.

    In summary, the very words that Darwinists themselves are forced to use when they are describing their biological research falsifies Darwinian evolution.

    Matthew 12:37
    for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

  149. 149
    bornagain77 says:

    Supplementtal notes:

    Darwinian ‘science’ in a nutshell:
    Jonathan Wells on pop science boilerplate – April 20, 2015
    Excerpt: Based on my reading of thousands of Peer-Reviewed Articles in the professional literature, I’ve distilled (the) template for writing scientific articles that deal with evolution:
    1. (Presuppose that) Darwinian evolution is a fact.
    2. We used [technique(s)] to study [feature(s)] in [name of species], and we unexpectedly found [results inconsistent with Darwinian evolution].
    3. We propose [clever speculations], which might explain why the results appear to conflict with evolutionary theory.
    4. We conclude that Darwinian evolution is a fact.
    http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ilerplate/

    “In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, and physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all.”
    – Marc Kirschner, founding chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, Boston Globe, Oct. 23, 2005

    “While the great majority of biologists would probably agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky’s dictum that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”, most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas. Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superflous one.”
    – Adam S. Wilkins, editor of the journal BioEssays, Introduction to “Evolutionary Processes” – (2000).

    “Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved. It might be thought, therefore, that evolutionary arguments would play a large part in guiding biological research, but this is far from the case.”
    – Francis Crick – What Mad Pursuit (1988)

    Evolution With and Without Multiple Simultaneous Changes
    William A. Dembski – June 29, 2022
    Excerpt: Granted, (James) Shapiro is not a fan of intelligent design. But in personal conversation I’ve found him more anti-Darwinian, if that were possible, than my intelligent design colleagues.
    Specifically, I (William Dembski) remarked to him that I thought the Darwinian mechanism offered at least some useful insights. (James) Shapiro responded by saying that Darwin’s effect on biology was wholly negative.
    https://evolutionnews.org/2022/06/evolution-with-and-without-multiple-simultaneous-changes/

    Evolutionary Theorist Concedes: Evolution “Largely Avoids” Biggest Questions of Biological Origins. –
    August 28, 2017
    Excerpt: Now the Royal Society’s journal Interface Focus offers a special issue collecting articles based on talks from the conference.,,,
    ,,, Here are some other gems from the paper (emphasis added throughout):
    “A rising number of publications argue for a major revision or even a replacement of the standard theory of evolution [2–14], indicating that this cannot be dismissed as a minority view but rather is a widespread feeling among scientists and philosophers alike.”
    That could have appeared in a work from an intelligent design proponent. But wait, it gets even better:
    “Indeed, a growing number of challenges to the classical model of evolution have emerged over the past few years, such as from evolutionary developmental biology [16], epigenetics [17], physiology [18], genomics [19], ecology [20], plasticity research [21], population genetics [22], regulatory evolution [23], network approaches [14], novelty research [24], behavioural biology [12], microbiology [7] and systems biology [25], further supported by arguments from the cultural [26] and social sciences [27], as well as by philosophical treatments [28–31]. None of these contentions are unscientific, all rest firmly on evolutionary principles and all are backed by substantial empirical evidence.”
    “Challenges to the classical model” are “widespread” and “none…are unscientific.” Wow — file that one away for future reference.
    More:
    “Sometimes these challenges are met with dogmatic hostility, decrying any criticism of the traditional theoretical edifice as fatuous [32], but more often the defenders of the traditional conception argue that ‘all is well’ with current evolutionary theory, which they see as having ‘co-evolved’ together with the methodological and empirical advances that already receive their due in current evolutionary biology [33]. But the repeatedly emphasized fact that innovative evolutionary mechanisms have been mentioned in certain earlier or more recent writings does not mean that the formal structure of evolutionary theory has been adjusted to them.”
    Orthodox Darwinists of the “All Is Well” school meet challenges with “dogmatic hostility”? Yep. We were aware.
    Here he obliterates the notion, a truly fatuous extrapolation, that microevolutionary changes can explain macroevolutionary trends:
    https://evolutionnews.org/2017/08/evolutionary-theorist-concedes-evolution-largely-avoids-biggest-questions-of-biological-origins/

    Darrel Falk Downplays the Ramifications of the 2016 Royal Society Meeting
    Brian Miller – June 2, 2021
    I also attended the conference, but I interpreted the content of the presentations within the broader scope of the history I just described. Within that context, the implications of what was said, and what was not said, reveal a much different story.
    The True Story
    Natural selection is the only mechanism that even in principle could mimic the activity of an intelligent agent in creating anything of at least modest complexity and ingenuity. This conclusion is highlighted by the fact that speakers at the conference showcased every conceivable alternative mechanism that could potentially help fill the explanatory deficits of the SEM. But not one shred of evidence was presented that any of the extensions could perform any feat beyond such trivial tasks as increasing a plant’s height, changing the number of digits in an animal’s limb, or performing other slight modifications to preexisting traits.
    The current state of evolution can be compared to the crisis astronomy would face if physicists discovered that gravity stopped operating beyond 10,000 miles past a celestial body. The loss of the only feasible mechanism that could explain the motion of planets, stars, and galaxies would result in absolute pandemonium and despair.
    Most materialist biologists will not so easily come to terms with their true predicament since evolution operates not only as a scientific theory but as a sacrosanct creation narrative for secular society. Nevertheless, with natural selection off the table as a designer substitute, the only sensible interpretation that remains for the overwhelming evidence of design in biological systems is that life is the product of an actual designer (here, here).
    https://evolutionnews.org/2021/06/darrel-falk-downplays-the-ramifications-of-the-royal-society-meeting/

  150. 150
    JVL says:

    Origenes: How does the elimination of species A, B, and D assist evolution in finding biological information?

    Once again, you clearly, after years and years and years of having things explained to you, still don’t understand what unguided evolutionary theory is saying. Amazing. I mean, that takes real effort. You’d have to work at that.

    How do I know you still don’t get it? You said:

    Next, a miracle happens

    I rest my case.

  151. 151
    JVL says:

    Jerry: It gets facial when the universe is considered.

    I’m not sure this is the forum for discussing facials.

  152. 152
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77:

    Can you answer my very basic probability questions? Yes or no?

    The evidence he needs to prove his case is sorely missing from his posts, and there is a good reason for that. He never cites any actual scientific evidence because he has none. PERIOD!

    Despite decades and decades of scientific research: papers, articles, books, research etc to the contrary. Even when some of that work has been spoon-fed to Bornagain77 he has denied it. That is the sign of a denier. It’s not about the evidence; it’s about coming to a particular conclusion.

    Let’s see if he can answer my extremely basic probability questions.

  153. 153
    bornagain77 says:

    JVL can you ever present any actual scientific evidence for Darwinian evolution creating even a single molecular machine? Yes or no. Or all we ever going to get from you is bluffing and blustering with a good amount of chest thumping thrown in? 🙂

    Despite your exalted opinion of yourself, you are shallow and pathetic!

  154. 154
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77:

    I guess you can’t answer my extremely basic probability questions. You haven’t even tried. What that tells me is that you can’t grasp many of the probabilistic arguments made in many of the papers you cite. That means you can’t evaluate whether they make sense or not. That means you are accepting or denying the arguments based on their conclusion and how closely it matches with your pre-held beliefs.

    If you can’t actually understand arguments you put forward as being definitive what are you? A noisy gong? A clanging cymbal?

    You have seen the evidence and arguments and logic for unguided evolutionary theory. It has been presented to you over and over and over and over again. Yet you say you haven’t seen it. You are a knave or a fool. Which is it?

    But, let’s start with those probability questions I asked. Questions which are freshman level. Can you answer them: yes or no? At least answer that question.

    Despite your exalted opinion of yourself, you are shallow and pathetic!

    Can you answer my basic probability questions: yes or no?

  155. 155
    Origenes says:

    A noisy gong? A clanging cymbal?

    Projection, thy name is JVL.

  156. 156
    JVL says:

    Origenes: Projection, thy name is JVL.

    Can you answer my basic probability questions? Or are you just another poser? Someone who thinks they know science but, actually, hasn’t got the ability to figure out what is correct and what isn’t?

  157. 157
    bornagain77 says:

    JVL bluffs and blusters again and is STILL sorely lacking on any real time empirical evidence for Darwinian processes creating even a single molecular machine. It should be easy for him, He keeps referencing hundreds and thousands of papers that prove Darwinian evolution can create molecular machines. Where are they?

    “We are told dogmatically that Evolution is an established fact; but we are never told who has established it, and by what means. We are told, often enough, that the doctrine is founded upon evidence, and that indeed this evidence ‘is henceforward above all verification, as well as being immune from any subsequent contradiction by experience;’ but we are left entirely in the dark on the crucial question wherein, precisely, this evidence consists.”
    – Smith, Wolfgang (1988)
    Teilhardism and the New Religion: A Thorough Analysis of The Teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
    Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books & Publishers Inc., p.2

    “Evolution by natural selection, for instance, which Charles Darwin originally conceived as a great theory, has lately come to function more as an antitheory, called upon to cover up embarrassing experimental shortcomings and legitimize findings that are at best questionable and at worst not even wrong. Your protein defies the laws of mass action? Evolution did it! Your complicated mess of chemical reactions turns into a chicken? Evolution! The human brain works on logical principles no computer can emulate? Evolution is the cause!”
    – Robert B. Laughlin, A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down (New York: Basic Books, 2005), 168-69) – 1998 Nobel Prize in physics

    JVL, instead of presenting any real-time evidence that Darwinian processes can create even a single molecular machine, disingenuously tries to change the subject and wants me to answer “basic probability questions”.

    Yet, that JVL would try to change the subject from real-time empirical evidence to questions about mathematical probability is an ironic and self-defeating thing for JVL to try to do. (as disingenuous as it was for him to try to change the subject)

    As Wolfgang Pauli noted, “(Darwinists) Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’”

    Pauli’s ideas on mind and matter in the context of contemporary science – Harald Atmanspacher
    Excerpt: “In discussions with biologists I met large difficulties when they apply the concept of ‘natural selection’ in a rather wide field, without being able to estimate the probability of the occurrence in a empirically given time of just those events, which have been important for the biological evolution. Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’”
    Wolfgang Pauli (pp. 27-28)
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233554311_Pauli%27s_Ideas_on_Mind_and_Matter_in_the_Context_of_Contemporary_Science

    Moreover, besides Darwinists using “the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle’” mathematics itself is profoundly immaterial in its foundational essence and cannot possibly be reduced to the reductive materialistic framework of Darwinian evolution.

    Naturalism and Self-Refutation – Michael Egnor – January 31, 2018
    Excerpt: Mathematics is certainly something we do. Is mathematics “included in the space-time continuum [with] basic elements … described by physics”?,,, What is the physics behind the Pythagorean theorem? After all, no actual triangle is perfect, and thus no actual triangle in nature has sides such that the Pythagorean theorem holds. There is no real triangle in which the sum of the squares of the sides exactly equals the square of the hypotenuse. That holds true for all of geometry. Geometry is about concepts, not about anything in the natural world or about anything that can be described by physics. What is the “physics” of the fact that the area of a circle is pi multiplied by the square of the radius? And of course what is natural and physical about imaginary numbers, infinite series, irrational numbers, and the mathematics of more than three spatial dimensions? Mathematics is entirely about concepts, which have no precise instantiation in nature,,,
    Furthermore, the very framework of Clark’s argument — logic — is neither material nor natural. Logic, after all, doesn’t exist “in the space-time continuum” and isn’t described by physics. What is the location of modus ponens? How much does Gödel’s incompleteness theorem weigh? What is the physics of non-contradiction? How many millimeters long is Clark’s argument for naturalism? Ironically the very logic that Clark employs to argue for naturalism is outside of any naturalistic frame.
    The strength of Clark’s defense of naturalism is that it is an attempt to present naturalism’s tenets clearly and logically. That is its weakness as well, because it exposes naturalism to scrutiny, and naturalism cannot withstand even minimal scrutiny. Even to define naturalism is to refute it.
    https://evolutionnews.org/2018/01/naturalism-and-self-refutation/

    In fact, Alfred Russel Wallace himself, co-discover of natural selection, held that our ability to do mathematics was proof, in and of itself, for the existence of the human soul. Specifically he stated, “Mathematics is alone sufficient to prove in man the possession of a faculty unexistent in other creatures. Then you have music and the artistic faculty. No, the soul was a separate creation.”

    “Nothing in evolution can account for the soul of man. The difference between man and the other animals is unbridgeable. Mathematics is alone sufficient to prove in man the possession of a faculty unexistent in other creatures. Then you have music and the artistic faculty. No, the soul was a separate creation.”
    Alfred Russel Wallace – 1910
    https://evolutionnews.org/2010/08/alfred_russel_wallace_co-disco/

    So thus, JVL may disingenuously try to change the subject from empirical evidence and appeal to questions about mathematical probability, but the fact of the matter is mathematical probability, and even the existence of immaterial mathematics in and of itself, is certainly no friend to his Darwinian materialism.

    “There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical. A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly,,”
    Sedgwick to Darwin
    https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2548.xml

    Mark 8:37
    Is anything worth more than your soul?

  158. 158
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77: Yet, that JVL would try to change the subject from real-time empirical evidence to questions about mathematical probability is an ironic and self-defeating thing for JVL to try to do.

    There’s a clear point I’m making: if you cannot show basic competence in probability then it’s clear you cannot possibly evaluate probabilistic arguments as correct or not. If you cannot accurately evaluate probabilistic arguments then many of the arguments you link to are actually beyond your ability to evaluate. Which means you are taking them on faith. Which means you are not making a scientific argument; you are making a faith argument.

    I don’t have a problem with a faith-based argument, as long as it’s acknowledged as such. As long as it’s honest and clear.

    Moreover, besides Darwinists using “the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle’” mathematics itself is profoundly immaterial in its foundational essence and can not possibly be reduced to the reductive materialistic framework of Darwinian evolution.

    Thanks for making it even clearer: you cannot do basic mathematics. You haven’t even got the sheer basic honest to admit you can’t answer my questions. Who covers up their failings? Who tries to sidestep things they profess to know about but actually haven’t got a clue? Who does something like that? An honest and sincere person? Someone who is humble and penitent? Or is that the sign of someone who is desperately trying to avoid admitting they haven’t got a clue?

    Can you answer my very basic probability questions? Yes or no? Please don’t bother with another copy-and-paste diatribe full of excerpts which attempt to deflect attention away from my questions. Just answer them. If you can. For once try and be honest.

    Clearly you agree with me that not knowing the answers to my basic probability queries casts aspersions on you interpretation of any and all probabilistic arguments or you wouldn’t be desperately trying to sideline the conversation. But that doesn’t explain why you are choosing not to be honest and straightforward. What does denying the truth get you? Who is going to give you a pat on the back for avoiding being honest? What reward are you hoping for that says: well done, you lied by omission? Is that the kind of example you want to be known for? Really?

    So, again, can you answer my basic probability questions, yes or no?

    In fact, Alfred Russel Wallace himself, co-discover of natural selection, held that our ability to do mathematics was proof, in and of itself, for the existence of the human soul.

    But you don’t have the ability to do mathematics do you? Does that mean you haven’t got a soul?

  159. 159
    bornagain77 says:

    So JVL desperately tries once again to deflect from his sheer lack of real time empirical evidence and wants me to chase his tail around on basic probability questions.

    To paraphrase JVL, “Can you present any real time evidence for Darwinian processes creating a single molecular machine? Yes or no? Please don’t bother with another diatribe on basic mathematical probability, full of ad hominems, which attempt to deflect attention away from my questions about real-time empirical evidence. Just present the real time evidence. If you can. For once try and be honest.”

    “A noisy gong, A clanging cymbal, thy name is JVL.”

    1 Thessalonians 5:21
    but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.

  160. 160
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77:

    Can you answer my elementary probability questions or not? Yes or no?

    (Clearly the answer is no, you cannot answer them but I am trying to give you the chance to be honest and sincere. So far, you have chosen to be deceptive and insincere. I don’t know what that means in your theology but I can’t imagine it is good.)

  161. 161
    bornagain77 says:

    JVL, Can you present any real-time evidence for Darwinian processes creating a single molecular machine or not? Yes or no?

    (Clearly the answer is no, you cannot present any real-time evidence but I am trying to give you the chance to be honest and sincere. So far, you have chosen to be deceptive and insincere. I don’t know what that means for your personal integrity but I can’t imagine it is good.)

  162. 162
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77: Can you present any real-time evidence or not? Yes or no?

    It has been presented to you over and over and over again. Additionally you can find it for yourself; you don’t even have to spend any money to find it. But every time it has been presented to you you deny it. Every single time.

    So, again, can you answer my simple, basic, elementary probability questions? Yes or no?

  163. 163
    bornagain77 says:

    JVL, you keep claiming that you got real time empirical evidence for Darwinian processes creating molecular machines. Where is it? For crying out loud, you say you got hundreds and thousands of studies proving that Darwinian processes can create molecule machines. Where are they? Nobody, save for die-hard Darwinists, seems to know where these hundreds and thousands of studies actually are.

    “… another common misuse of evolutionary ideas: namely, the idea that some trait must have evolved merely because we can imagine a scenario under which possession of that trait would have been advantageous to fitness… Such forays into evolutionary explanation amount ultimately to storytelling… it is not enough to construct a story about how the trait might have evolved in response to a given selection pressure; rather, one must provide some sort of evidence that it really did so evolve. This is a very tall order.…”
    — Austin L. Hughes, The Folly of Scientism – The New Atlantis, Fall 2012

    “We are told dogmatically that Evolution is an established fact; but we are never told who has established it, and by what means. We are told, often enough, that the doctrine is founded upon evidence, and that indeed this evidence ‘is henceforward above all verification, as well as being immune from any subsequent contradiction by experience;’ but we are left entirely in the dark on the crucial question wherein, precisely, this evidence consists.”
    – Smith, Wolfgang (1988)
    Teilhardism and the New Religion: A Thorough Analysis of The Teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
    Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books & Publishers Inc., p.2

    “Grand Darwinian claims (for Darwinian processes creating molecular machines) rest on undisciplined imagination”
    – Dr. Michael Behe – 29:24 mark of following video
    Evidence of Design from Biology. A Presentation by Dr. Michael Behe at the University of Toronto
    https://youtu.be/s6XAXjiyRfM?t=1759

  164. 164
    Alan Fox says:

    I suggest that you explain how biological evolution works.

    OK, though it has been done before, many times. Where do you think I found out about the process?

    You will be the first one ever to do so. No links or references for this because we are just dealing with how.

    People have been

    This would then require several examples that are well documented. You can use links for this.

    By the way why don’t you define words like “niche” and “fitter” as part of this. Both are rather nebulous words. Anything could be a niche and fitter could mean lots of things.

  165. 165
    Alan Fox says:

    I suggest that you explain how biological evolution works.

    OK. I’ll have a go. I’ll write something but post it elsewhere so I retain a record. I don’t have 100% confidence in this site. Of course, I can post a copy as a comment here.

    You will be the first one ever to do so.

    Charles Darwin wasn’t the first to suspect common descent.

    No links or references for this because we are just dealing with how.

    This would then require several examples that are well documented. You can use links for this.

    By the way why don’t you define words like “niche” and “fitter” as part of this. Both are rather nebulous words. Anything could be a niche and fitter could mean lots of things.

    Challenge accepted.

    Why don’t you have a go at an explanation of “Intelligent Design” as it pertains to what we observe of life on this planet? Are you up for that?

    I’ll need a little time as real life commitments have precedence.

  166. 166
    bornagain77 says:

    BA77: “So AF holds that the ‘niche”, not AF himself, is responsible for the information that he himself is writing in his posts?”

    Alan Fox: “Yes, sort of, though I don’t know,,,,”
    https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-evolution-news-for-darwinism-pregnancy-is-the-mother-of-all-chicken-and-egg-problems/#comment-771084

    Game over.

    (1) rationality implies a thinker in control of thoughts.
    (2) under materialism a thinker is an effect caused by processes in the brain (determinism).
    (3) in order for materialism to ground rationality a thinker (an effect) must control processes in the brain (a cause). (1)&(2)
    (4) no effect can control its cause.
    Therefore materialism cannot ground rationality.
    per Box UD

  167. 167
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77: Darwinian processes creating molecular machines

    Please be more specific: what particular transition are you too lazy to attempt to look up yourself that you like to know about? Go on, pick a particular step.

    (Not forgetting that you still haven’t even admitted you can’t do the basic probability questions I put to you. What kind of person thinks that ignoring their own ignorance is a virtue?)

  168. 168
    bornagain77 says:

    JVL, out of supposedly hundreds and thousands of studies demonstrating the real-time origin of molecular machines, still provides no real time evidence for Darwinian processes creating a single molecular machine.

    I guess JVL’s real-time empirical evidence must have be locked away in Capone’s vault. 🙂

    On this day 36 years ago: Al Capone’s vault is blasted open, nothing of interest is found – April 2022
    https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/on-this-day-36-years-ago-al-capones-vault-is-blasted-open-nothing-of-interest-is-found/

  169. 169
    bornagain77 says:

    Probability is no friend of Darwinian evolution.

    First off, Darwinists never had, and still have no, mathematical basis for their theory

    Oxford University Seeks Mathemagician — May 5th, 2011 by Douglas Axe
    Excerpt: “(The study of Mathematics) was repugnant to me,”,,
    – Charles Darwin, 1876,,,
    ,, In the Oxford job description [1], under the heading Extracts from the grant application to the St John’s Research Centre, subheading Objectives:
    “1. To construct a mathematical framework, with appropriate theorems, to represent fully the core argument in Darwin’s Origin of Species, namely that the purely mechanical processes of inheritance and reproduction can give rise through natural selection to the appearance of design.”
    Under the same heading, subheading Summary:
    “Grand theories in physics are usually expressed in mathematics. Newton’s mechanics and Einstein’s theory of special relativity are essentially equations. Words are needed only to interpret the terms. Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection has obstinately remained in words since 1859.” …
    https://www.biologicinstitute.org/post/19310975799/oxford-university-seeks-mathemagician

    Top Ten Questions and Objections to ‘Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics’ – Robert J. Marks II – June 12, 2017
    Excerpt: “There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. Examples include electromagnetics, Newtonian mechanics, geophysics, relativity, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, optics, and many areas in biology. Those hoping to establish Darwinian evolution as a hard science with a model have either failed or inadvertently cheated. These models contain guidance mechanisms to land the airplane squarely on the target runway despite stochastic wind gusts. Not only can the guiding assistance be specifically identified in each proposed evolution model, its contribution to the success can be measured, in bits, as active information.,,,”,,, “there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,”
    https://evolutionnews.org/2017/06/top-ten-questions-and-objections-to-introduction-to-evolutionary-informatics/
    Robert Jackson Marks II is an American electrical engineer. His contributions include the Zhao-Atlas-Marks (ZAM) time-frequency distribution in the field of signal processing,[1] the Cheung–Marks theorem[2] in Shannon sampling theory and the Papoulis-Marks-Cheung (PMC) approach in multidimensional sampling.[3] He was instrumental in the defining of the field of computational intelligence and co-edited the first book using computational intelligence in the title.[4][5]
    – per wikipedia

    Geneticist Corrects Fisher’s Theorem, but the Correction Turns Natural Selection Upside Down – December 22, 2017 | David F. Coppedge
    A new paper corrects errors in Fisher’s Theorem, a mathematical “proof” of Darwinism. Rather than supporting evolution, the corrected theorem inverts it.
    Excerpt: The authors of the new paper realized that one of Fisher’s pivotal assumptions was clearly false, and in fact was falsified many decades ago. In his informal corollary, Fisher essentially assumed that new mutations arose with a nearly normal distribution – with an equal proportion of good and bad mutations (so mutations would have a net fitness effect of zero). We now know that the vast majority of mutations in the functional genome are harmful, and that beneficial mutations are vanishingly rare. The simple fact that Fisher’s premise was wrong, falsifies Fisher’s corollary. Without Fisher’s corollary – Fisher’s Theorem proves only that selection improves a population’s fitness until selection exhausts the initial genetic variation, at which point selective progress ceases. Apart from his corollary, Fisher’s Theorem only shows that within an initial population with variant genetic alleles, there is limited selective progress followed by terminal stasis.,,,
    The authors observe that the more realistic the parameters, the more likely fitness decline becomes.
    https://crev.info/2017/12/geneticist-corrects-fishers-theorem/

    “It is our contention that if ‘random’ is given a serious and crucial interpretation from a probabilistic point of view, the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws—physical, physico-chemical, and biological.”
    – Murray Eden, – MIT – “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory,” Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, editors Paul S. Moorhead and Martin M. Kaplan, June 1967, p. 109.?

    As referenced previously, Wolfgang Pauli himself noted that “(Darwinists) Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’”

    Pauli’s ideas on mind and matter in the context of contemporary science – Harald Atmanspacher
    Excerpt: “In discussions with biologists I met large difficulties when they apply the concept of ‘natural selection’ in a rather wide field, without being able to estimate the probability of the occurrence in a empirically given time of just those events, which have been important for the biological evolution. Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’”
    Wolfgang Pauli (pp. 27-28)
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233554311_Pauli%27s_Ideas_on_Mind_and_Matter_in_the_Context_of_Contemporary_Science

    That Darwinists don’t use realistic ‘estimations of a mathematically defined probability’ is made evident by the fact that Darwinists ignore, and/or rationalize away, any and all real world probability estimates that go against their theory.

    An Open Letter to Kenneth Miller and PZ Myers – Michael Behe July 21, 2014
    Dear Professors Miller and Myers,
    Talk is cheap. Let’s see your numbers.
    In your recent post on and earlier reviews of my book The Edge of Evolution you toss out a lot of words, but no calculations. You downplay FRS Nicholas White’s straightforward estimate that — considering the number of cells per malaria patient (a trillion), times the number of ill people over the years (billions), divided by the number of independent events (fewer than ten) — the development of chloroquine-resistance in malaria is an event of probability about 1 in 10^20 malaria-cell replications. Okay, if you don’t like that, what’s your estimate? Let’s see your numbers.,,,
    ,,, If you folks think that direct, parsimonious, rather obvious route to 1 in 10^20 isn’t reasonable, go ahead, calculate a different one, then tell us how much it matters, quantitatively. Posit whatever favorable or neutral mutations you want. Just make sure they’re consistent with the evidence in the literature (especially the rarity of resistance, the total number of cells available, and the demonstration by Summers et al. that a minimum of two specific mutations in PfCRT is needed for chloroquine transport). Tell us about the effects of other genes, or population structures, if you think they matter much, or let us know if you disagree for some reason with a reported literature result.
    Or, Ken, tell us how that ARMD phenotype you like to mention affects the math. Just make sure it all works out to around 1 in 10^20, or let us know why not.
    Everyone is looking forward to seeing your calculations. Please keep the rhetoric to a minimum.
    With all best wishes (especially to Professor Myers for a speedy recovery),
    Mike Behe
    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....88041.html
    February 2022 – All the responses from Dr. Behe to his critics defending the 1 in 10^20 finding
    https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/asked-at-evolution-news-how-much-can-evolution-really-accomplish/#comment-748038

    Right of Reply: Our Response to Jerry Coyne – September 29, 2019
    by Günter Bechly, Brian Miller and David Berlinski
    Excerpt: David Gelernter observed that amino acid sequences that correspond to functional proteins are remarkably rare among the “space” of all possible combinations of amino acid sequences of a given length. Protein scientists call this set of all possible amino acid sequences or combinations “amino acid sequence space” or “combinatorial sequence space.” Gelernter made reference to this concept in his review of Meyer and Berlinski’s books. He also referenced the careful experimental work by Douglas Axe who used a technique known as site-directed mutagenesis to assess the rarity of protein folds in sequence space while he was working at Cambridge University from 1990-2003. Axe showed that the ratio of sequences in sequence space that will produce protein folds to sequences that won’t is prohibitively and vanishingly small. Indeed, in an authoritative paper published in the Journal of Molecular Biology Axe estimated that ratio at 1 in 10^74. From that information about the rarity of protein folds in sequence space, Gelernter—like Axe, Meyer and Berlinski—has drawn the rational conclusion: finding a novel protein fold by a random search is implausible in the extreme.
    Not so, Coyne argued. Proteins do not evolve from random sequences. They evolve by means of gene duplication. By starting from an established protein structure, protein evolution had a head start.
    This is not an irrational position, but it is anachronistic.
    Indeed, Harvard mathematical biologist Martin Nowak has shown that random searches in sequence space that start from known functional sequences are no more likely to enter regions in sequence space with new protein folds than searches that start from random sequences. The reason for this is clear: random searches are overwhelmingly more likely to go off into a non-folding, non-functional abyss than they are to find a novel protein fold. Why? Because such novel folds are so extraordinarily rare in sequence space. Moreover, as Meyer explained in Darwin’s Doubt, as mutations accumulate in functional sequences, they will inevitably destroy function long before they stumble across a new protein fold. Again, this follows from the extreme rarity (as well as the isolation) of protein folds in sequence space.
    Recent work by Weizmann Institute protein scientist Dan Tawfik has reinforced this conclusion. Tawfik’s work shows that as mutations to functional protein sequences accumulate, the folds of those proteins become progressively more thermodynamically and structurally unstable. Typically, 15 or fewer mutations will completely destroy the stability of known protein folds of average size. Yet, generating (or finding) a new protein fold requires far more amino acid sequence changes than that. Finally, calculations based on Tawfik’s work confirm and extend the applicability of Axe’s original measure of the rarity of protein folds. These calculations confirm that the measure of rarity that Axe determined for the protein he studied is actually representative of the rarity for large classes of other globular proteins. Not surprisingly, Dan Tawfik has described the origination of a truly novel protein or fold as “something like close to a miracle.” Tawfik is on Coyne’s side: He is mainstream.
    https://quillette.com/2019/09/29/right-of-reply-our-response-to-jerry-coyne/

    “In light of Doug Axe’s number, and other similar results,, (1 in 10^77), it is overwhelmingly more likely than not that the mutation, random selection, mechanism will fail to produce even one gene or protein given the whole multi-billion year history of life on earth. There is not enough opportunities in the whole history of life on earth to search but a tiny fraction of the space of 10^77 possible combinations that correspond to every functional combination. Why? Well just one little number will help you put this in perspective. There have been only 10^40 organisms living in the entire history of life on earth. So if every organism, when it replicated, produced a new sequence of DNA to search that (1 in 10^77) space of possibilities, you would have only searched 10^40th of them. 10^40 over 10^77 is 1 in 10^37. Which is 10 trillion, trillion, trillion. In other words, If every organism in the history of life would have been searching for one those (functional) gene sequences we need, you would have searched 1 in 10 trillion, trillion, trillionth of the haystack. Which makes it overwhelmingly more likely than not that the (Darwinian) mechanism will fail. And if it is overwhelmingly more likely than not that the (Darwinian) mechanism will fail should we believe that is the way that life arose?”
    – Stephen Meyer – 46:19 minute mark – Darwin’s Doubt – video
    https://youtu.be/Vg8bqXGrRa0?t=2778

  170. 170
    bornagain77 says:

    Realistic probability estimates for the primordial earth generating a single functional protein, and for the origin of life itself, are even more prohibitive for Darwinists,

    Origin: Probability of a Single Protein Forming by Chance
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1_KEVaCyaA
    Mathematical Basis for Probability Calculations Used in (the film) Origin
    Excerpt: Putting the probabilities together means adding the exponents. The probability of getting a properly folded chain of one-handed amino acids, joined by peptide bonds, is one chance in 10^74+45+45, or one in 10^164 (Meyer, p. 212). This means that, on average, you would need to construct 10^164 chains of amino acids 150 units long to expect to find one that is useful.
    http://www.originthefilm.com/mathematics.php

    Signature in the Cell by Stephen Meyer – Book Review – Ken Peterson
    Excerpt: If we assume some minimally complex cell requires 250 different proteins then the probability of this arrangement happening purely by chance is one in 10 to the 164th multiplied by itself 250 times or one in 10 to the 41,000th power.
    https://spectrummagazine.org/article/book-reviews/2009/10/06/signature-cell

    In fact, I hold that Stephen Meyer’s one in 10 to the 41,000th power estimate for the origin of a simple cell, as prohibitive as that is for Darwinists, is still far too generous to Darwinists.

    Professor Harold Morowitz shows the Origin of Life ‘problem’ escalates dramatically when working from a thermodynamic perspective:

    “The probability for the chance of formation of the smallest, simplest form of living organism known is 1 in 10^340,000,000. This number is 10 to the 340 millionth power! The size of this figure is truly staggering since there is only supposed to be approximately 10^80 (10 to the 80th power) electrons in the whole universe!”
    – Professor Harold Morowitz, Energy Flow In Biology pg. 99, Biophysicist of George Mason University
    http://books.google.com/books?.....38;f=false

    Did Life Start By Chance?
    Excerpt: Molecular biophysicist, Harold Morowitz (Yale University), calculated the odds of life beginning under natural conditions (spontaneous generation). He calculated, if one were to take the simplest living cell and break every chemical bond within it, the odds that the cell would reassemble under ideal natural conditions (the best possible chemical environment) would be one chance in 10^100,000,000,000. You will have probably have trouble imagining a number so large, so Hugh Ross provides us with the following example. If all the matter in the Universe was converted into building blocks of life, and if assembly of these building blocks were attempted once a microsecond for the entire age of the universe. Then instead of the odds being 1 in 10^100,000,000,000, they would be 1 in 10^99,999,999,916.
    http://members.tripod.com/~Black_J/chance.html
    Of note: Harold Joseph Morowitz (Yale) was an American biophysicist who studied the application of thermodynamics to living systems. Author of numerous books and articles, his work includes technical monographs as well as essays. The origin of life was his primary research interest for more than fifty years.

    Also of interest is the information content that is found to be in a ‘simple’ cell when working from the thermodynamic perspective:

    Biophysics – Information theory. Relation between information and entropy: – Setlow-Pollard, Ed. Addison Wesley
    Excerpt: Linschitz gave the figure 9.3 x 10^12 cal/deg or 9.3 x 10^12 x 4.2 joules/deg for the entropy of a bacterial cell. Using the relation H = S/(k In 2), we find that the information content is 4 x 10^12 bits. Morowitz’ deduction from the work of Bayne-Jones and Rhees gives the lower value of 5.6 x 10^11 bits, which is still in the neighborhood of 10^12 bits. Thus two quite different approaches give rather concordant figures.
    https://docs.google.com/document/d/18hO1bteXTPOqQtd2H12PI5wFFoTjwg8uBAU5N0nEQIE/edit

    ,,, Which is the equivalent of about 100 million pages of Encyclopedia Britannica. ‘In comparison,,, the largest libraries in the world,, have about 10 million volumes or 10^12 bits.”

    “a one-celled bacterium, e. coli, is estimated to contain the equivalent of 100 million pages of Encyclopedia Britannica. Expressed in information in science jargon, this would be the same as 10^12 bits of information. In comparison, the total writings from classical Greek Civilization is only 10^9 bits, and the largest libraries in the world – The British Museum, Oxford Bodleian Library, New York Public Library, Harvard Widenier Library, and the Moscow Lenin Library – have about 10 million volumes or 10^12 bits.”
    – R. C. Wysong – The Creation-evolution Controversy

    ‘The information content of a simple cell has been estimated as around 10^12 bits, comparable to about a hundred million pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica.”
    – Carl Sagan, “Life” in Encyclopedia Britannica: Macropaedia (1974 ed.), pp. 893-894

    Darwinists try to claim that this tremendous thermodynamic hurdle presents no problem to their theory since the earth is a ‘open system’. Yet, as Brian Miller pointed out, regardless of the fact that the earth is an open system, “No system without assistance ever moves both toward lower entropy and higher energy which is required for the formation of a cell.”

    “‘Professor Dave’ argues that the origin of life does not face thermodynamic hurdles. He states that natural systems often spontaneously increase in order, such as water freezing or soap molecules forming micelles (e.g., spheres or bilayers), He is making the very common mistake that he fails to recognize that the formation of the cell represents both a dramatic decrease in entropy and an equally dramatic increase in energy. In contrast, water freezing represents both a decrease in entropy but also a decrease in energy.
    More specifically, the process of freezing releases heat that increases the entropy of the surrounding environment by an amount greater than the entropy decrease of the water molecule forming the rigid structure.
    Likewise, soap molecules coalescing into micelles represents a net increase of entropy since the surrounding water molecules significantly increase in their number of degrees of freedom.
    No system without assistance ever moves both toward lower entropy and higher energy which is required for the formation of a cell.”
    – Brian Miller, Ph. D. – MIT
    – Episode 0/13: Reasons // A Course on Abiogenesis by Dr. James Tour
    https://youtu.be/71dqAFUb-v0?t=1434

    In short, it is only by intelligence imparting immaterial information into a system that it is thermodynamically possible to move a system towards life.

  171. 171
    bornagain77 says:

    As the following 2010 experimental realization of Maxwell’s demon thought experiment demonstrated, it is knowledge of a particle’s location and/or position that converts information into energy.

    Maxwell’s demon demonstration turns information into energy – November 2010
    Excerpt: Scientists in Japan are the first to have succeeded in converting information into free energy in an experiment that verifies the “Maxwell demon” thought experiment devised in 1867.,,, In Maxwell’s thought experiment the demon creates a temperature difference simply from information about the gas molecule temperatures and without transferring any energy directly to them.,,, Until now, demonstrating the conversion of information to energy has been elusive, but University of Tokyo physicist Masaki Sano and colleagues have succeeded in demonstrating it in a nano-scale experiment. In a paper published in Nature Physics they describe how they coaxed a Brownian particle to travel upwards on a “spiral-staircase-like” potential energy created by an electric field solely on the basis of information on its location. As the particle traveled up the staircase it gained energy from moving to an area of higher potential, and the team was able to measure precisely how much energy had been converted from information.
    http://www.physorg.com/news/20.....nergy.html

    And as the following 2010 article stated about the preceding experiment, “This is a beautiful experimental demonstration that information has a thermodynamic content,”

    Demonic device converts information to energy – 2010
    Excerpt: “This is a beautiful experimental demonstration that information has a thermodynamic content,” says Christopher Jarzynski, a statistical chemist at the University of Maryland in College Park. In 1997, Jarzynski formulated an equation to define the amount of energy that could theoretically be converted from a unit of information2; the work by Sano and his team has now confirmed this equation. “This tells us something new about how the laws of thermodynamics work on the microscopic scale,” says Jarzynski.
    http://www.scientificamerican......rts-inform

    In short, it is immaterial information that is imparted by an Intelligence into a system that allows a system to be in a state that is far from thermodynamic equilibrium, i.e. that allows life to be in a state of “lower entropy and higher energy” at the same time.

    As Andy McIntosh, professor of thermodynamics and combustion theory at the University of Leeds, stated, “Information has its definition outside the matter and energy on which it sits, and furthermore constrains it (the polymers of life) to operate in a highly non-equilibrium thermodynamic environment. This proposal resolves the thermodynamic issues and invokes the correct paradigm for understanding the vital area of thermodynamic/organisational interactions,”

    Information and Thermodynamics in Living Systems – Andy C. McIntosh – 2013
    Excerpt: ,,, information is in fact non-material and that the coded information systems (such as, but not restricted to the coding of DNA in all living systems) is not defined at all by the biochemistry or physics of the molecules used to store the data. Rather than matter and energy defining the information sitting on the polymers of life, this approach posits that the reverse is in fact the case. Information has its definition outside the matter and energy on which it sits, and furthermore constrains it to operate in a highly non-equilibrium thermodynamic environment. This proposal resolves the thermodynamic issues and invokes the correct paradigm for understanding the vital area of thermodynamic/organisational interactions, which despite the efforts from alternative paradigms has not given a satisfactory explanation of the way information in systems operates.,,,
    http://www.worldscientific.com.....08728_0008
    Andrew McIntosh (also known as Andy McIntosh) is professor of thermodynamics and combustion theory at the University of Leeds.

    Moreover, classical sequential information, (such as is encoded on DNA), is shown to be a subset of quantum, (i.e. positional), information by the following method.

    In the following 2011 paper, “researchers ,,, show that when the bits (in a computer) to be deleted are quantum-mechanically entangled with the state of an observer, then the observer could even withdraw heat from the system while deleting the bits. Entanglement links the observer’s state to that of the computer in such a way that they know more about the memory than is possible in classical physics.,,, In measuring entropy, one should bear in mind that (in quantum information theory) an object does not have a certain amount of entropy per se, instead an object’s entropy is always dependent on the observer.”

    Quantum knowledge cools computers: New understanding of entropy – June 1, 2011
    Excerpt: Recent research by a team of physicists,,, describe,,, how the deletion of data, under certain conditions, can create a cooling effect instead of generating heat. The cooling effect appears when the strange quantum phenomenon of entanglement is invoked.,,,
    The new study revisits Landauer’s principle for cases when the values of the bits to be deleted may be known. When the memory content is known, it should be possible to delete the bits in such a manner that it is theoretically possible to re-create them. It has previously been shown that such reversible deletion would generate no heat. In the new paper, the researchers go a step further. They show that when the bits to be deleted are quantum-mechanically entangled with the state of an observer, then the observer could even withdraw heat from the system while deleting the bits. Entanglement links the observer’s state to that of the computer in such a way that they know more about the memory than is possible in classical physics.,,,
    In measuring entropy, one should bear in mind that an object does not have a certain amount of entropy per se, instead an object’s entropy is always dependent on the observer. Applied to the example of deleting data, this means that if two individuals delete data in a memory and one has more knowledge of this data, she perceives the memory to have lower entropy and can then delete the memory using less energy.,,,
    No heat, even a cooling effect;
    In the case of perfect classical knowledge of a computer memory (zero entropy), deletion of the data requires in theory no energy at all. The researchers prove that “more than complete knowledge” from quantum entanglement with the memory (negative entropy) leads to deletion of the data being accompanied by removal of heat from the computer and its release as usable energy. This is the physical meaning of negative entropy.
    Renner emphasizes, however, “This doesn’t mean that we can develop a perpetual motion machine.” The data can only be deleted once, so there is no possibility to continue to generate energy. The process also destroys the entanglement, and it would take an input of energy to reset the system to its starting state. The equations are consistent with what’s known as the second law of thermodynamics: the idea that the entropy of the universe can never decrease. Vedral says “We’re working on the edge of the second law. If you go any further, you will break it.”
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.....134300.htm

    As well, and as the following 2017 article states: James Clerk Maxwell (said), “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.”,,,
    quantum information theory,,, describes the spread of information through quantum systems.,,,
    Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,

    The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution – May 2017
    Excerpt: the 19th-century physicist James Clerk Maxwell put it, “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.”
    In recent years, a revolutionary understanding of thermodynamics has emerged that explains this subjectivity using quantum information theory — “a toddler among physical theories,” as del Rio and co-authors put it, that describes the spread of information through quantum systems. Just as thermodynamics initially grew out of trying to improve steam engines, today’s thermodynamicists are mulling over the workings of quantum machines. Shrinking technology — a single-ion engine and three-atom fridge were both experimentally realized for the first time within the past year — is forcing them to extend thermodynamics to the quantum realm, where notions like temperature and work lose their usual meanings, and the classical laws don’t necessarily apply.
    They’ve found new, quantum versions of the laws that scale up to the originals. Rewriting the theory from the bottom up has led experts to recast its basic concepts in terms of its subjective nature, and to unravel the deep and often surprising relationship between energy and information — the abstract 1s and 0s by which physical states are distinguished and knowledge is measured.,,,
    Renato Renner, a professor at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, described this as a radical shift in perspective. Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,
    https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-thermodynamics-revolution/

    These experiments go to the heart of the Darwinism vs. Intelligent Design debate and completely blow the reductive materialistic presuppositions of Darwinists, (presuppositions about immaterial information being merely ’emergent’ from some material basis), out of the water.

    In other words, directly contrary to Darwinian presuppositions, immaterial information, particularly ‘positional quantum information’, is now experimentally shown to be its own distinct physical entity that is a product of an ‘observer who describes the system’. And although it can interact with matter and energy, (interact in a ‘top-down’ manner with matter and energy; see George Ellis ‘Recognizing Top Down Causation’), it is still shown to be its own independent entity that is separate from matter and energy and, moreover, this immaterial information has a quote unquote ‘thermodynamic content’ that can be physically measured.

    In short, Intelligent Design, and a direct inference to an ‘outside Intelligence’ that is necessary to explain why life is so far out of thermodynamic equilibrium, has, for all intents and purposes, achieved experimental confirmation via these recent experimental realizations of the Maxwell demon thought experiment.

    i.e. Where did the massive amount of 10^12 bits come from that are necessary to explain the Origin of Life? From the very best our science can tell us, an outside intelligence necessarily imparted that massive amount of information, i.e. 10^12 bits, into a system in order to ‘thermodynamically’ explain the Origin of Life. Naturalistic explanations, as far as thermodynamics itself is concerned, simply are a non-starter as to ever providing an adequate explanation for the Origin of Life.

    John 1:1-4
    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

    Romans 8:20-21
    Creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice—it was the choice of the one who subjected it—but in the hope that the creation itself will be set free from slavery to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of God’s children.

  172. 172
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77: out of supposedly hundreds and thousands of studies demonstrating the real-time origin of molecular machines, still provides no real time evidence for Darwinian processes creating a single molecular machine.

    Oh, so your asking for evidence is just you being disingenuous since you’ve already made up your mind and are, therefore, closed to any new data or research. I get it now.

    But we can keep seeing if you will have the guts to admit you can’t do my basic probability exercises.

    Probability is no friend of Darwinian evolution.

    How would you know? You can’t even do basic, simple problems. Clearly you’re just accepting what other people say without the ability to critically consider their arguments.

    That Darwinists don’t use realistic ‘estimations of a mathematically defined probability’ is made evident by the fact that Darwinists ignore, and/or rationalize away, any and all all real world probability estimates that go against their theory.

    Again, you, yourself are in no position to judge such things. You just follow around others and blindly accept what they tell you. Very scientific.

    Realistic probability estimates for the primordial earth generating a single functional protein, and for the origin of life itself, are even more prohibitive for Darwinists,

    Again, who are you to judge based on your lack of knowledge and ability?

    In fact, I hold that Stephen Meyer’s one in 10 to the 41,000th power estimate for the origin of a simple cell, as prohibitive as that is for Darwinists, to be far too generous.

    Uh huh. Even I can see the complete mathematical stupidity of the argument you posted just before this comment.

    I tell you what: you tell me whether or not you can do the simple probability problems I posed then we can talk some more.

  173. 173
    bornagain77 says:

    I guess JVL real time evidence for Darwinian processes creating molecular machines, i.e. hundreds and thousands of papers, has gone the way of the Loch Ness monster. i.e. Although there are allegedly hundreds and thousands of sightings of this supposed real-time evidence, apparently this real-time evidence simply doesn’t exist in the real world but only exists in the imagination of Darwinists.

  174. 174
    kairosfocus says:

    JVL, 156:

    Can you answer my basic probability questions? Or are you just another poser? Someone who thinks they know science but, actually, hasn’t got the ability to figure out what is correct and what isn’t?

    Strawman alert.

    After over a decade, surely you know that the pivotal question in regards to functionally specific complex organisation and/or associated information is blind needle in haystack search challenge posed by the available search resources relative to the configuration space. For the sol system, 500 bits is a good threshold, given 3.27*10^150 possibilities from 000 . . . 0 to 111 . . . 1 vs say 10^57 atoms, 10^17 s and a rate of plausible chemical level action of 10^13/s. This rounds down to negligible search, settled before one enters debates over probability calculations. For the observed cosmos — the only actually observed cosmos, go to 10^80 atoms and a threshold of 1,000 bits, i.e. 1.07*10^301 configurations.

    We know on trillions of observations, that the only observed source for such FSCO/I is intelligently directed configuration. Your objections are cases in point. Yes, FSCO/I is readily observable and is seen to come from intelligent design in every observed case. Precisely what the search challenge points to.

    Of course, one may invite that physics and chemistry is heavily biased towards life so we have a loaded search. In that case, all that would be displaced, would be the stage at which design was inserted, cosmological fine tuning. However, this is a hypothetical: no one has observed that physics and chemistry — though they enable such — have cell based aqueous medium, terrestrial planet life written into them.

    So, trying to debate details of probability calculation is besides the main point. Especially, if that is going to be used to pretend that search challenge is not a pivotal issue.

    Not that such errors of reasoning have given pause to too many objectors to the design inference.

    KF

  175. 175
    bornagain77 says:

    JVL, disingenuously keeps trying to change the subject from his lack of real-time empirical evidence for Darwinian processes creating a single molecular machine to my proficiency in math. And although I referenced several people with proficiency in probability calculations, (and can reference several more), JVL keeps saying that I am personally in no position to judge whether their probability calculations accurately. (which begs the question, if I can’t judge basic probability accurately, then why should I trust JVLs understanding of probability over their understanding?)

    Anyways I disagree with JVL. I hold that I, and all other humans, do have a good instinctual, even God given, grasp on the basics of probability. For instance, from my interactions with JVL thus far, I can accurately surmise that the probability of JVL ever being honest and admitting that he has no real-time evidence for Darwinian processes creating molecular machines is virtually nil. 🙂

  176. 176
    kairosfocus says:

    JVL, kindly explain to us why you seem to infer that something fairly close to Bernoulli- Laplace indifference as a baseline across configs is not a useful first approximation for much of probability work? Indeed, my observation of expert elicitation [used here for volcano estimation . . . we are playing a grand, multi turn game with nature here], is based on modifying Bernoulli and in effect using Bayesian reasoning on conditionals. Starting with a darwin warm pond or the like, tell us why standard thermodynamic approaches are problematic, given that opening up a system adds energy to distribute thus multiplies states, i.e. typically increases entropy. It is coupled, directed, controlled energy inputs to guided work that constructs specific, highly contingent structures such as text strings, fishing reels and proteins. Now, explain to us that inviting the heavy front loading of physics and chem towards origin of cells, is not a strong design argument. And more. KF

    PS try https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/probability-interpret/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_indifference Notice, once we have good reason, we can shift weights across the span of possibilities, but that simply shows where we started from.

  177. 177
    Origenes says:

    JVL @150

    Ori: How does the elimination of species A, B, and D assist evolution in finding biological information?

    JVL: Once again, you clearly, after years and years and years of having things explained to you, still don’t understand what unguided evolutionary theory is saying. Amazing. I mean, that takes real effort.

    From the website of Berkeley:

    Darwin’s grand idea of evolution by natural selection is relatively simple but often misunderstood. To see how it works, imagine a population of beetles:

    Two large green beetles and one brown beetle.There is variation in traits.
    For example, some beetles are green and some are brown.
    A bird sitting on a tree branch eats one of two green beetles that were sitting on the tree’s bark. Four brown beetles blend into the brown bark of the tree.There is differential reproduction.
    Since the environment can’t support unlimited population growth, not all individuals get to reproduce to their full potential. In this example, green beetles tend to get eaten by birds and survive to reproduce less often than brown beetles do.
    Family tree of brown beetles, showing two parents and four offspring.There is heredity.
    The surviving beetles (more of which are brown) have offspring of the same color because this trait has a genetic basis.
    A population of 10 brown beetles.End result:The more advantageous trait, brown coloration, which allows the beetle to have more offspring, becomes more common in the population. If this process continues, eventually, all individuals in the population will be brown. If you have variation, differential reproduction, and heredity, you will have evolution by natural selection as an outcome. It is as simple as that.

    “Simple” indeed, but it does not answer my specific question, so here it is again:
    How does the elimination of variety (in this example green beetles) assist evolution in finding biological information?
    In my understanding, elimination obviously does not help, instead “natural selection” hampers evolution to find biological information. Natural selection is in the business of destroying biological information.

  178. 178
    Sandy says:

    Kairosfocus
    Of course, one may invite that physics and chemistry is heavily biased towards life

    🙂 The bias towards life of physics and chemistry is an undeniable fact . Nobody can deny that . They are the bricks of life but bricks themselves can’t build a room (as Alan Fox thinks)they need informational input delivered into a close and restrictive environment (room ,cell , body ) with functional instructions to adapt to a (limited)number of environmental good conditions or stressors.

  179. 179
    Ford Prefect says:

    Kairosfocus@174 and 176, I cringe every time I hear an IDist try to use probability or terms like “search”. It just demonstrates their complete ignorance of probability and how evolution work. Evolution has no goal or end in sight. As such, probability in the way it is used by IDists is erroneous.

    For example. The probability that you exist is 1. And the probability that your parents would have kids would also be fairly high. But from the starting point of a few generations ago, what is the probability that “you” would exist? It is very close to zero. There are over 70 trillion different human genome possibilities. But given that our phenotype is affected by more than the genome, the probability of you existing through natural processes is far less that one in 70 trillion. Using ID logic, the most likely explanation is that you, as an individual, were specifically designed.

  180. 180
    Ford Prefect says:

    Kairosfocus writes:

    We know on trillions of observations, that the only observed source for such FSCO/I is intelligently directed configuration

    Another misuse of probability. But, if you want to misuse probability, I am willing to play that game. There are trillions of examples of FSCO/I arising without intelligent intervention. Ponder that the next time the antibiotic you are prescribed does not irradicate your infection.

  181. 181
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77: I guess JVL real time evidence for Darwinian processes creating molecular machines, i.e. hundreds and thousands of papers, has gone the way of the Loch Ness monster.

    I asked you to specify, narrow down your query to a smaller stage or step. Instead of doing that you indicated that you’ve already made up your mind and would not consider anything presented to you. So, why should I bother?

    disingenuously keeps trying to change the subject from his lack of real-time empirical evidence for Darwinian processes creating a single molecular machine to my proficiency in math.

    Ha ha ha ha ha!! I did ask you my question first as is blatantly obvious. It’s you who is trying to deflect attention, not me.

    And although I referenced several people with proficiency in probability calculations, (and can reference several more), JVL keeps saying that I am personally in no position to judge whether their probability calculations accurately. (which begs the question, if I can’t judge basic probability accurately, then why should I trust JVLs understanding of probability over their understanding?)

    You don’t have to trust me but clearly, without the ability to judge, you have decided to trust some others. And why would that be? How can you pick who to trust if you don’t understand the math?

    I hold that I, and all other humans, do have a good instinctual, even God given, grasp on the basics of probability

    You have yet to exhibit such.

    For instance, from my interactions with JVL thus far, I can accurately surmise that the probability of JVL ever being honest and admitting that he has no real-time evidence for Darwinian processes creating molecular machines is virtually nil.

    I will ask you AGAIN: please narrow down your query to some part or step and we’ll see what I can find since you can’t be bothered to look since you’ve already made up your mind.

    AND you still haven’t admitted you can’t solve my elementary probability questions. Ones that are at a high school level.

  182. 182
    JVL says:

    Kairosfocus: After over a decade, surely you know that the pivotal question in regards to functionally specific complex organisation and/or associated information is blind needle in haystack search challenge posed by the available search resources relative to the configuration space.

    Please, you know I have heard you say that over and over and over and over and over again. That’s not what I was talking about with Bornagain77 was it?

    So, trying to debate details of probability calculation is besides the main point.

    If someone who present probability arguments cannot actually demonstrate that they actually understand the mathematics involved then they clearly are just blindly accepting what someone else says. So, if I criticise the argument, point out where mathematical mistakes were made, I will be dismissed NOT because I made a bad argument but because the person I am presenting my argument to doesn’t grasp the necessary concepts. So, it’s perfectly reasonable to see if my debating opposite will even understand my point before I bother going into it.

    kindly explain to us why you seem to infer that something fairly close to Bernoulli- Laplace indifference as a baseline across configs is not a useful first approximation for much of probability work?

    Please be more specific and state when I did that and how my reasoning was incorrect IN THIS THREAD.

  183. 183
    JVL says:

    Origenes: How does the elimination of variety (in this example green beetles) assist evolution in finding biological information?

    It’s a ridiculous question. Biological ‘success’ is not measured in bits of information. That is not the commodity at play. You ask it because you have the wrong base approach to the whole topic.

    Also, you seem to think that ‘information’ once ‘destroyed’ can never be recreated. It’s a ludicrous assertion! AND, as I’ve already noted, the fact that after years and years and years you still have trouble grasping the real concepts is just astonishing.

  184. 184
    Seversky says:

    I entirely agree with FP @ 179 and would also add that this concern with the creation or destruction of genetic information appears to be at odds with the conservation law of information proposed by William Dembski which implies that information can be neither created or destroyed.

  185. 185
    jerry says:

    As such, probability in the way it is used by IDists is erroneous.

    This is nonsense.

    The theory of Evolution does not say there is a specific goal but does say the stumbling through the combinations of possible combinations has led to the immense functional complexity we see. It is functional complexity that is subject of the probability argument. There isn’t enough time to find these functional complexities given the processes proposed.

    So probability is absolutely a naturalized Evolution killer and appropriately used.

    Ponder that the next time the antibiotic you are prescribed does not eradicate your infection

    Haven’t a clue why this was brought up. This is just basic genetics and ID recognizes genetics as definitely happening.

  186. 186
    Origenes says:

    JVL @

    Ori: How does the elimination of variety (in this example green beetles) assist evolution in finding biological information?

    JVL: It’s a ridiculous question.

    Perhaps, but I ask you to answer the question regardless of its quality.

  187. 187
    relatd says:

    Seversky at 184,

    You have now entered the Useless Comment Zone. Information can be created. It does come from a person, a Creator. But it cannot be destroyed.

  188. 188
    bornagain77 says:

    JVL STILL has yet to list ANY real-time empirical evidence for any molecular machine being created by Darwinian processes. What is the problem? He claims to have hundreds and/or thousands of papers that he can pick and choose from in order to prove that Darwinian processes can create molecular machines. Where are they? He claims he wants me to specify exactly what I want? I want real-time empirical evidence of Darwinian processes creating ANY molecular machine!

    The fact is that JVL is flat out lying about having ANY real-time evidence for Darwinian processes creating even one molecular machine, (much less hundreds and/or thousands of papers demonstrating as such). and JVL simply refuses to honestly admit it. And he has been flat out lying about having any evidence ever since post 137 when I called his bluff on having any real-time evidence for bacteria producing anything other than more bacteria.

    JVL wants to claim that I don’t have the capacity to understand the sheer mathematical impossibility of Darwinian evolution since I am not as proficient in mathematical probability as he supposedly is.

    I have a question for JVL. Since JVL fancies himself to be so much more gifted at accurately surmising the impossibility/possibility of Darwinian evolution than Kairosfocus, Winston Ewert, William Dembski, Robert Marks, Murray Eden, Harold Horowitz, Wolfgang Paul, etc.. etc.., are, exactly where is his peer-reviewed work proving Darwinian evolution to be a mathematically feasible theory? After all, he has been fairly boastful as to his mastery of the subject. And at post 169 I did indeed list an Oxford job description where they were looking for someone, anyone, to straighten out the mathematical mess that lies at the foundation of Darwinian theory. So it is not as if there is not a big mathematical need for someone, anyone, of JVL’s supposed mathematical caliber to step forward and rescue Darwinists from all these nagging mathematical doubts about its feasibility that keep cropping up.

    But anyways, JVL is only human, and I guess he is just too busy, so I guess JVL will just have to settle for trying to straighten out little ole me on mathematical probability first.

    So JVL, in order to please you, and not offend your mathematical sensibilities any more, should I now send all my references on probability through you first before I post them?

    How about this following one? Is this one OK with you if I post it? or does it also fail to meet with your ‘probabilistic’ approval? 🙂

    in the following 2015 paper entitled, “Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules” it was found that “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” and the researchers further commented that “finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,,

    Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules – Mar. 6, 2015
    Excerpt: “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” they say.
    That’s a discovery that is as important as it is unexpected. “These findings suggest an entirely new and universal mechanism of conductance in biology very different from the one used in electrical circuits.”
    The permutations of possible energy levels of biomolecules is huge so the possibility of finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,,
    “what exactly is the advantage that criticality confers?”
    https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/the-origin-of-life-and-the-hidden-role-of-quantum-criticality-ca4707924552

    To drive this point home, this follow up 2018 article stated that “There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,,”

    Quantum Critical Proteins – Stuart Lindsay – Professor of Physics and Chemistry at Arizona State University – 2018
    Excerpt: The difficulty with this proposal lies in its improbability. Only an infinitesimal density of random states exists near the critical point.,,
    Gábor Vattay et al. recently examined a number of proteins and conducting and insulating polymers.14 The distribution for the insulators and conductors were as expected, but the functional proteins all fell on the quantum-critical distribution. Such a result cannot be a consequence of chance.,,,
    WHAT OF quantum criticality? Vattay et al. carried out electronic structure calculations for the very large protein used in our work. They found that the distribution of energy-level spacings fell on exactly the quantum-critical distribution, implying that this protein is also quantum critical. There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,,
    http://inference-review.com/ar.....l-proteins
    Gábor Vattay et al., “Quantum Criticality at the Origin of Life,” Journal of Physics: Conference Series 626 (2015);
    Gábor Vattay, Stuart Kauffman, and Samuli Niiranen, “Quantum Biology on the Edge of Quantum Chaos,” PLOS One 9, no. 3 (2014)

    Hopefully you can see JVL where someone who does not have your mathematical acumen, such as myself, could be led astray by “finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,, and “There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,,”.

    So JVL, perhaps after you straighten me, and everybody else here on UD, out on mathematical probability, you might find a little time to straighten those guys out on the mathematical probability of quantum critical proteins? Or is that beyond your job description of being a Darwinian troll?

  189. 189
    JVL says:

    Origenes: Perhaps, but I ask you to answer the question regardless of its quality.

    Evolution doesn’t search for information. That’s not the goal. So, asking how this or that helps it find information is non-sensical.

    You seem to think that, say, the ‘information’ in the human DNA had to exist before humans so that evolution could ‘find’ it. That just doesn’t make sense. That implies a target or a goal which is not the case.

  190. 190
    Origenes says:

    Ford Prefect

    I cringe every time I hear an IDist try to use probability or terms like “search”.

    There is no need for you to do so. Darwinians claim that unguided evolution is up to the job of producing the biological information we encounter in life. This claim can only be checked if evolution is modeled as a search for biological information.

  191. 191
    Origenes says:

    JVL

    Ori: How does the elimination of variety (in this example green beetles) assist evolution in finding biological information?

    JVL: Evolution doesn’t search for information. That’s not the goal.

    That is good to know. Now, please, answer the question, so we can all be clear about the fact that natural selection hampers evolution in the context of finding biological information.

  192. 192
    relatd says:

    Ba77,

    It should be obvious to anyone that the problem is not just JVL. The scientific community is thoroughly infected with the idea that unguided accidents led to the things they look at under microscopes and in fossils. The idea that what they see was engineered to be the way it is is clouded by this “narrative gloss” which amounts to a filter and camouflage. It amounts to a little voice that says: “No, this was not designed. This living thing came about through unguided processes. And woe unto anyone who even thinks otherwise.” And the evidence for that is people losing their positions and coming under fire for thinking exactly that.

  193. 193
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77: JVL STILL has yet to list ANY real-time empirical evidence for any molecular machine being created by Darwinian processes.

    I will ask you FOR THE THIRD TIME: narrow down your question to a particular step or transition in whatever . . . progression you think there is no evidence of it having come around by natural processes.

    I want real-time empirical evidence of Darwinian processes creating ANY molecular machine!

    Pick one then.

    JVL wants to claim that I don’t have the capacity to understand the sheer mathematical impossibility of Darwinian evolution since I am not as proficient in mathematical probability as he supposedly is.

    I don’t think you understand the probabilistic arguments made. Whether or not the arguments are sensible is a different topic. First let’s see if you can grasp the math. Can you answer the extremely basic probability questions I asked, yes or no?

    exactly where is his peer-reviewed work proving Darwinian evolution to be a mathematical feasible theory?

    Others have done work along those lines when it’s necessary.

    And at post 169 I did indeed listed an Oxford job description where they were looking for someone, anyone, to straighten out the mathematical mess that lies at the foundation of Darwinian theory.

    Let’s be clear: you linked to an article by The Biologic Institute which posted excerpts from an Oxford job listing retrieved in 2011. That listing no longer exists so it’s impossible to even verify it existed or to put the excerpts in context. I can’t see it being that serious of a request since it’s clear that unguided evolutionary theory comprises a conglomeration of many processes and influences. I can’t imagine anyone thinking there would be a single, unifying theory thus my skepticism.

    in the following 2015 paper entitled, “Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules”

    Amusingly enough, if you click on that link (which is to an article and NOT the actual research paper) and scroll down you will find an article entitled: A Mathematical Proof That The Universe Could Have Formed Spontaneously From Nothing. Lovely.

    Here’s the actual abstract from Quantum Criticality at the Origin of Life:

    Why life persists at the edge of chaos is a question at the very heart of evolution. Here we show that molecules taking part in biochemical processes from small molecules to proteins are critical quantum mechanically. Electronic Hamiltonians of biomolecules are tuned exactly to the critical point of the metal-insulator transition separating the Anderson localized insulator phase from the conducting disordered metal phase. Using tools from Random Matrix Theory we confirm that the energy level statistics of these biomolecules show the universal transitional distribution of the metal-insulator critical point and the wave functions are multifractals in accordance with the theory of Anderson transitions. The findings point to the existence of a universal mechanism of charge transport in living matter. The revealed bio-conductor material is neither a metal nor an insulator but a new quantum critical material which can exist only in highly evolved systems and has unique material properties.

    Gosh, that doesn’t sound quite so amazing as you seem to indicate. Do you know what electronic Hamiltonians are? Do you know about Random Matrix Theory? Multifractals? Anderson transitions? Does any of that make sense to you? Assuming you haven’t got a clue what any of that means what makes you think you can then say it’s evidence for design?

    Hopefully you can see JVL where someone who does not have your mathematical acumen, such as myself, could be led astray by “finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,, and “There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,,”.

    Sure, it’s curious and interesting and hard to understand which is why people are doing research on the issue. (Again, you’re quoting from a blog post not the actual paper in question.) But they’re NOT throwing up their hands and deciding it all must be designed however. You choose to be ‘led astray’. For some reason.

    So JVL, perhaps after you straighten me, and everybody else here on UD, out on mathematical probability, you might find a little time to straighten those guys out on the mathematical probability of quantum critical proteins? Or is that beyond your job description of being a Darwinian troll?

    First you have to say whether or not you can even grasp the extremely easy problems I already gave you. Can you?

  194. 194
    JVL says:

    Origenes: That is good to know. Now, please, answer the question, so we can all be clear about the fact that natural selection hampers evolution in the context of finding biological information.

    Too funny. You’ve already decided on your conclusion.

    Unguided evolution has no problems at all finding new phenotypes to better exploit environmental niches. Evolution is the combination (partly) of inheritable variation and cumulative natural selection. To say that natural selection hampers a process it is itself a required part of is nonsensical. Unguided evolution wouldn’t happen at all without natural selection!

    Here’s a question for you: what life form that could have been wildly successful are you thinking natural selection eliminated from consideration? You think it happened, give me an example.

  195. 195
    JVL says:

    Relatd: he scientific community is thoroughly infected with the idea that unguided accidents

    No, inheritable variation and cumulative selection which is NOT random or accidental.

    How many years have you been told that over and over and over again but you still intentionally (I guess) misrepresent the actual theory?

    And the evidence for that is people losing their positions and coming under fire for thinking exactly that.

    How many people actually lost their jobs? Go on. A thousand? A hundred? Ten? Less?

  196. 196
    Origenes says:

    JVL @

    To say that natural selection hampers a process it is itself a required part of is nonsensical. Unguided evolution wouldn’t happen at all without natural selection!

    If viable (capable of living) organisms are not eliminated — if there would be no natural selection — why exactly would unguided evolution not happen?

  197. 197
    bornagain77 says:

    JVL, take your pick,

    Molecular Machines (links on site)
    What are Molecular Machines?
    Selected List of Molecular Machines
    I. Molecular Machines that Scientists Have Argued Show Irreducible Complexity
    1. Bacterial Flagellum
    2. Eukaryotic Cilium
    3. Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases (aaRS)
    4. Blood clotting cascade
    5. Ribosome
    6. Antibodies and the Adaptive Immune System
    II. Additional Molecular Machines
    7. Spliceosome
    8. F0F1 ATP Synthase
    9. Bacteriorhdopsin
    10. Myosin
    11. Kinesin Motor
    12. Tim/Tom Systems
    13. Calcium Pump
    14. Cytochrome C Oxidase
    15. Proteosome
    16. Cohesin
    17. Condensin
    18. ClpX
    19. Immunological Synapse
    20. Glideosome
    21. Kex2
    22. Hsp70
    23. Hsp60
    24. Protein Kinase C
    25. SecYEG PreProtein Translocation Channel
    26. Hemoglobin
    27. T4 DNA Packaging Motor
    28. Smc5/Smc6
    29. Cytplasmic Dynein
    30. Mitotic Spindle Machine
    31. DNA Polymerase
    32. RNA Polymerase
    33. Kinetochore
    34. MRX Complex
    35. Apoptosome / Caspase
    36. Type III Secretory System
    37. Type II Secretion Apparatus
    38. Helicase/Topoisomerase Machine
    39. RNA degradasome
    40. Photosynthetic system
    References Cited
    Contributors
    https://evolutionnews.org/i/molecular-machines/

    Remember JVL, real-time empirical evidence of a molecular machine being created in a lab, not the usual Darwinian ‘just so stories’ as to how molecular machines might have come about in the remote past.

    JVL, unsurprisingly, hand waves off quantum critical proteins as if their extreme rarity is no big problem for Darwinian theory. Typical trollish behavior. A bunch of hand-waving, chest puffing, and flat out lying to cover his sheer lack of any real-time empirical evidence.. Nothing new.

    JVL is a pathetic and shallow Darwinian troll.

  198. 198
    relatd says:

    JVL at 195,

    Quit squirming around. So, you are saying human beings and apes did not have a common ancestor? Yes or no.

    As far as people losing their jobs, are you in charge of the acceptable losses? Are you the one who gets to say: “Oh, 10 or a hundred, that’s nothing.”?

  199. 199
    JVL says:

    Origenes: If viable (capable of living) organisms are not eliminated — if there would be no natural selection — why exactly would unguided evolution not happen?

    Unguided evolution is (partly) a combination of inheritable variation and cumulative natural selection. Natural selection includes embryos that die in the womb, ‘children’ that die young because they have a congenital problem. If unviable variations are not eliminated and passed on their genetics the population would be a huge mess of strong and weak variations all of which would be interbreeding. You’d never get a sufficient number of ‘strong’ variations to skew the entire population in a direction.

    Evolution means change in allele frequency, without selection you’d get no measurable (i.e. average) change in allele frequency.

    (Yes, I know there are also other kinds of selection and there is also genetic drift but, by most measures, natural selection seems to have much more effect.)

  200. 200
    bornagain77 says:

    Natural selection is shown to be grossly inadequate as the supposed ‘designer substitute’:

    The waiting time problem in a model hominin population – 2015 Sep 17
    John Sanford, Wesley Brewer, Franzine Smith, and John Baumgardner
    Excerpt: The program Mendel’s Accountant realistically simulates the mutation/selection process,,,
    Given optimal settings, what is the longest nucleotide string that can arise within a reasonable waiting time within a hominin population of 10,000? Arguably, the waiting time for the fixation of a “string-of-one” is by itself problematic (Table 2). Waiting a minimum of 1.5 million years (realistically, much longer), for a single point mutation is not timely adaptation in the face of any type of pressing evolutionary challenge. This is especially problematic when we consider that it is estimated that it only took six million years for the chimp and human genomes to diverge by over 5 % [1]. This represents at least 75 million nucleotide changes in the human lineage, many of which must encode new information.
    While fixing one point mutation is problematic, our simulations show that the fixation of two co-dependent mutations is extremely problematic – requiring at least 84 million years (Table 2). This is ten-fold longer than the estimated time required for ape-to-man evolution. In this light, we suggest that a string of two specific mutations is a reasonable upper limit, in terms of the longest string length that is likely to evolve within a hominin population (at least in a way that is either timely or meaningful). Certainly the creation and fixation of a string of three (requiring at least 380 million years) would be extremely untimely (and trivial in effect), in terms of the evolution of modern man.
    It is widely thought that a larger population size can eliminate the waiting time problem. If that were true, then the waiting time problem would only be meaningful within small populations. While our simulations show that larger populations do help reduce waiting time, we see that the benefit of larger population size produces rapidly diminishing returns (Table 4 and Fig. 4). When we increase the hominin population from 10,000 to 1 million (our current upper limit for these types of experiments), the waiting time for creating a string of five is only reduced from two billion to 482 million years.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm.....MC4573302/

    Why All Critiques of the Waiting Time Problem Fail – Günter Bechly – September 30, 2022,
    https://evolutionnews.org/2022/09/fossil-friday-walking-whales-and-why-all-critiques-of-the-waiting-time-problem-fail/

    Of related note:

    Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection Has Left a Legacy of Confusion over Biological Adaptation
    Brian Miller – September 20, 2021
    Excerpt: Evolutionary biologist Robert Reid stated:
    “Indeed the language of neo-Darwinism is so careless that the words ‘divine plan’ can be substituted for ‘selection pressure’ in any popular work in the biological literature without the slightest disruption in the logical flow of argument.”
    Robert Reid, Biological Emergences: Evolution by Natural Experiment, PP. 37-38 (2009)
    To fully comprehend the critique, one simply needs to imagine attempting to craft an evolutionary barometer that measures the selection pressure driving one organism to transform into something different (e.g., fish into an amphibian). The fact that no such instrument could be constructed highlights the fictitious nature of such mystical forces.
    https://evolutionnews.org/2021/09/darwins-theory-of-natural-selection-has-left-a-legacy-of-confusion-over-biological-adaptation/

    Evolutionary Fitness Is Not Measurable – November 20, 2021
    The central concept of natural selection cannot be measured. This means it has no scientific value.
    Excerpt:,, to measure something, it needs units. How is fitness to be measured? What are the units? Physicists have degrees Kelvin, ergs and Joules of energy and Faradays of electricity, but do 100 Spencers on a Haeckl-o-meter equal 10 Darwins of fitness?
    ,,, The term “fitness” becomes nebulous when you try to pin it down. Five evolutionists attempted to nail this jello to the wall, and wrote up their results in a preprint on bioRxiv by Alif et al. that asked, “What is the best fitness measure in wild populations?” (One might wonder why this question is being asked 162 years after Darwin presented his theory to the world.)
    ,,, The authors admit that their results do not necessarily apply to all living things. (they state),
    “A universal definition of fitness in mathematical terms that applies to all population structures and dynamics is however not agreed on.”
    Remember that this statement comes over 162 years after evolutionists began talking about fitness. If you cannot define something, how can you measure it? And if you can’t measure it, is it really scientific?,,,
    https://crev.info/2021/11/evolutionary-fitness-is-not-measurable/

  201. 201
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77: take your pick,

    A lot of those are NOT molecular machines but here’s a bit on the origin of haemoglobin:

    Scientists agree that the event that separated myoglobin from hemoglobin occurred after lampreys diverged from jawed vertebrates. This separation of myoglobin and hemoglobin allowed for the different functions of the two molecules to arise and develop: myoglobin has more to do with oxygen storage while hemoglobin is tasked with oxygen transport. The ?- and ?-like globin genes encode the individual subunits of the protein. The predecessors of these genes arose through another duplication event also after the gnathosome common ancestor derived from jawless fish, approximately 450–500 million years ago. Ancestral reconstruction studies suggest that the preduplication ancestor of the ? and ? genes was a dimer made up of identical globin subunits, which then evolved to assemble into a tetrameric architecture after the duplication. The development of ? and ? genes created the potential for hemoglobin to be composed of multiple distinct subunits, a physical composition central to hemoglobin’s ability to transport oxygen. Having multiple subunits contributes to hemoglobin’s ability to bind oxygen cooperatively as well as be regulated allosterically. Subsequently, the ? gene also underwent a duplication event to form the HBA1 and HBA2 genes. These further duplications and divergences have created a diverse range of ?- and ?-like globin genes that are regulated so that certain forms occur at different stages of development.

    And, in case you want to categorise the above as another ‘just so story’ you would first have to consider all the research articles which verify or justify all the individual steps involved to check and see the lab work done to establish that step. Of course you’re not going to actually take the time to look at the research behind the history so I’m wondering what exactly you would consider as evidence of unguided processes having developed haemoglobin? You’re never, ever going to get a single lab-based experiment which can recreate millions of years of evolution. If you think that you should be able to get that then what you are really talking about is one of your miracles.

    Remember JVL, real-time empirical evidence of a molecular machine being created in a lab, not the usual Darwinian ‘just so stories’ as to how molecular machines might have come about in the remote past.

    This is the usual trope: if you can’t show a process that took millions of years happening in a few years then you’re wrong. What you can get is the individual steps being shown to happen but that would mean you’d have to first go and look at all the research behind the big picture. Which is why I asked you to narrow down your request. But you couldn’t handle that.

    JVL, unsurprisingly, hand waves off quantum critical proteins as if their extreme rarity is no big problem for Darwinian theory. Typical trollish behavior. A bunch of hand-waving, chest puffing, and flat out lying to cover his sheer lack of any real-time empirical evidence.. Nothing new.

    I just note that none of the researchers involved suggested that their results brought unguided evolution into question. And I did note that it was a question that should be and is being looked at.

    Made any progress with those very simple probability questions I asked you? I could explain the technique for solving them to a 10-year old. (I know that because I have done so.)

  202. 202
    JVL says:

    Relatd: Quit squirming around. So, you are saying human beings and apes did not have a common ancestor? Yes or no.

    Human beings and the other great apes definitely had a common ancestor.

    As far as people losing their jobs, are you in charge of the acceptable losses? Are you the one who gets to say: “Oh, 10 or a hundred, that’s nothing.”?

    How many people actually lost their jobs because they publicly stated a belief in intelligent design? If it was only one or two then it’s not as much a problem as it would be if it were a thousand. Last time someone gave me a list I admit there was one case which sounded pretty s***ty to me, that is it sounded like someone was really being discriminated against explicitly because of their support for ID. But, to be fair, a lot of the other famous cases aren’t because (like Dr Behe, who never lost his tenure by the way) the person in question publicly supported ID, it’s because the person in question did something else which made their position less solid. That is when they lost their job at all.

  203. 203
    kairosfocus says:

    FP, you have invited cognitive dissonance, confession by projection analysis, and not to your advantage. Meanwhile, blind needle in haystack search is a readily understood though perhaps imperfect metaphor. Blind, here of course echoes one certain Clinton Richard Dawkins in the title of one of his popularising books: The Blind Watchmaker, a history you should have been aware of, even as it would be quite helpful if one and all were to ponder Paley’s ch 2 on the self replicating, time keeping watch, yes almost 50 years before Darwin wrote and just shy of 150 before von Neumann’s kinematic self replicator with its coded tape. Where, no one suggested by using such terms, that the evolutionary materialist concept of origin of life was purpose-driven, just the opposite, you are tilting at a strawman. The point is, in a darwin pond or the like, only blind physics and chemistry would be at work, through statistical thermodynamics constrained interactions. Such physical factors are consistent with the molecular nanotech of cell based life, as they are with advanced computers and a world of technology, but the FSCO/I in such is — just on blind search challenge — maximally implausible as the result of a blind process. KF

  204. 204
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77:

    One of the links in your last copy-and-paste diatribe linked to a website called Creation Evolution headlines. That’s what you consider to be a scientific reference? Really?

    Then there are the usual links to The Discovery Institute’s blog. Hardly an accepted, objective source.

    Now, the other link is to a paper that I would accept as being roughly in support of your stance on design. If you just stick to things like that people will take you more seriously. That one IS problematic from my point of view. Find more things like that.

    (I’m going to try and find the time to peruse that paper a bit more to make sure I understand it better. )

    I will also note that the paper I’m taking seriously (The waiting time problem in a model hominin population: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4573302/) includes the following statement at the end:

    To the extent that waiting time is a serious problem for classic neo-Darwinian theory, it is only reasonable that we begin to examine alternative models [39, 40] regarding how biological information arises.

    Reference 40 is to Marks II RJ, Behe MJ, Dembski WA, Gordon BL, Sanford JC, editors. Biological Information – New Perspectives. London: World Scientific; 2013. p. 1–563.

    So, yes, I will take this work seriously as being (at least on the face of it) in support of ID. Again, that’s the kind of thing you should be bringing forward.

  205. 205
    kairosfocus says:

    Sandy, yes, we already have serious fine tuning issues to get to a cosmos merely compatible with cell based life. The onward invitation that physics and chemistry acting in a darwin pond or the like, are even more biased towards spontaneous origin of cell based life, if it were demonstrated — and such simply is nowhere near likely! — would be a strong sign indeed that somebody monkeyed with physics and chemistry, echoing Sir Fred Hoyle. KF

  206. 206
    Origenes says:

    JVL @

    Unguided evolution is (partly) a combination of inheritable variation and cumulative natural selection.

    And we are discussing specifically the input of natural selection a.k.a. “natural elimination.”

    Natural selection includes embryos that die in the womb, ‘children’ that die young because they have a congenital problem.

    This a common mistake, actually, this is not part of natural selection’s job description. “Death” takes care of organisms that are not viable. Note that the Berkeley example (#177) does not mention beetles with congenital conditions.

    Evolution means change in allele frequency, without selection you’d get no measurable (i.e. average) change in allele frequency.

    If so, why exactly would that be a problem for evolution?

  207. 207
    kairosfocus says:

    FP, you seem unaware of the empirical foundations of science. When we have trillions of observations of a phenomenon and a consistent cause, that is a strong sign indeed. How many observations of FSCO/I arising by blind chance and/or blind mechanical necessity? Precisely, nil. Another clue. Then, as we observe the need for multiple, well matched parts, properly oriented, arranged and coupled to achieve configuration based function, that invites configuration space analysis, basically a cut down phase space. When complexity goes beyond 500 – 1,000 bits, the number of configs the atoms of the sol system or the cosmos could go through in 10^17 s, becomes a negligible fraction of the abstract space of possibilities. As a concrete comparison try a first example from L K Nash or Mandl in introducing statistical mechanics: 500 – 1,000 coins or paramagnetic domains, where we see readily 3.27*10^150 possibilities for the 500 case, where that includes every possible 500 bit string. So, every possible description is captured by the space. But, chance, random based processes or blind mechanical mechanisms or a blend of the two are maximally implausible to express FSCO/I, as the relative statistical weight of gibberish is utterly overwhelming. Not that such is likely to give you pause. Though, it should. KF

  208. 208
    kairosfocus says:

    PS, Walker and Davies:

    In physics, particularly in statistical mechanics, we base many of our calculations on the assumption of metric transitivity, which asserts that a system’s trajectory will eventually [–> given “enough time and search resources”] explore the entirety of its state space – thus everything that is phys-ically possible will eventually happen. It should then be trivially true that one could choose an arbitrary “final state” (e.g., a living organism) and “explain” it by evolving the system backwards in time choosing an appropriate state at some ’start’ time t_0 (fine-tuning the initial state). In the case of a chaotic system the initial state must be specified to arbitrarily high precision. But this account amounts to no more than saying that the world is as it is because it was as it was, and our current narrative therefore scarcely constitutes an explanation in the true scientific sense.

    We are left in a bit of a conundrum with respect to the problem of specifying the initial conditions necessary to explain our world. A key point is that if we require specialness in our initial state (such that we observe the current state of the world and not any other state) metric transitivity cannot hold true, as it blurs any dependency on initial conditions – that is, it makes little sense for us to single out any particular state as special by calling it the ’initial’ state. If we instead relax the assumption of metric transitivity (which seems more realistic for many real world physical systems – including life), then our phase space will consist of isolated pocket regions and it is not necessarily possible to get to any other physically possible state (see e.g. Fig. 1 for a cellular automata example).

    [–> or, there may not be “enough” time and/or resources for the relevant exploration, i.e. we see the 500 – 1,000 bit complexity threshold at work vs 10^57 – 10^80 atoms with fast rxn rates at about 10^-13 to 10^-15 s leading to inability to explore more than a vanishingly small fraction on the gamut of Sol system or observed cosmos . . . the only actually, credibly observed cosmos]

    Thus the initial state must be tuned to be in the region of phase space in which we find ourselves [–> notice, fine tuning], and there are regions of the configuration space our physical universe would be excluded from accessing, even if those states may be equally consistent and permissible under the microscopic laws of physics (starting from a different initial state). Thus according to the standard picture, we require special initial conditions to explain the complexity of the world, but also have a sense that we should not be on a particularly special trajectory to get here (or anywhere else) as it would be a sign of fine–tuning of the initial conditions. [ –> notice, the “loading”] Stated most simply, a potential problem with the way we currently formulate physics is that you can’t necessarily get everywhere from anywhere (see Walker [31] for discussion). [“The “Hard Problem” of Life,” June 23, 2016, a discussion by Sara Imari Walker and Paul C.W. Davies at Arxiv.]

    more on the anthropic principle from Lewis and Barnes https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/hitchhikers-guide-authors-puddle-argument-against-fine-tuning-and-a-response/#comment-729507

  209. 209
    kairosfocus says:

    JVL, do you realise how callous and vindictive your dismissiveness to people who have indeed suffered academic persecution is? And, blame the victim games will not make it any better. I suggest, you would be well advised to rethink. KF

  210. 210
    JVL says:

    Origenes: And we are discussing the input of “natural selection”, that, in my view, should be named “natural elimination.”

    What you call it doesn’t change what it does.

    A common mistake, it is not part of natural selection’s job description.

    Yes, it is part of natural selection.

    Note that the Berkeley example does not mention beetles with congenital conditions.

    Gosh, they left that out. It’s still part of natural selection: the favouring of more viable variation.

    If so, why exactly would that be a problem?

    Sigh. I thought you understood all this. You say you understand it. I guess you don’t.

    If there is no selection then the allele frequency stays the same. It’s not a ‘problem’, it just means you’re not getting to significant shifts in phenotypes.

  211. 211
    JVL says:

    Kairosfocus: JVL, do you realise how callous and vindictive your dismissiveness to people who have indeed suffered academic persecution is?

    How many? Like I said I saw one particular case I thought was pretty awful. But some have been self-inflicted.

    And, let’s remember: Dr Behe has never had any major academic problems being a highly visible ID supporter. He hasn’t lost his tenure, he hasn’t faced any academic fallout.

  212. 212
    bornagain77 says:

    Me: “Remember JVL, real-time empirical evidence of a molecular machine being created in a lab, not the usual Darwinian ‘just so stories’ as to how molecular machines might have come about in the remote past.”

    JVL immediately links to an article telling a just-so story from “approximately 450–500 million years ago.”

    Pathetic.

    Why should I, or anyone else, take anything you have to say seriously? You have proven yourself to be untrustworthy, and deceitful, time and time again,

  213. 213
    JVL says:

    Bornagain77: JVL immediately links to an article telling a just-so story from “approximately 450–500 million years ago.”

    As I said: you’ll have to look at the individual bits of research to see how each stage was verified in the lab. You won’t do that because you’re lazy.

    Also, you seem to have missed or chosen to ignore, the fact that I upheld one of the bits of research you linked to as being significant and supportive of ID. So, thanks for that.

    Seriously, I’m not sure why I bother. I guess you’re just a jerk.

  214. 214
    bornagain77 says:

    Seeing as I have completely lost trust in anything you have to say, I really could care less which articles, or YouTube videos, you approve or disapprove that I link to.

    JVL: “I guess you’re just a jerk.”

    Pot calling kettle black?

    I have a few choice words for you myself by decency restrains me to just calling you what you actually are. i.e. A pathetic and shallow Darwinian troll.

  215. 215
    kairosfocus says:

    JVL, I do not need to repeat myself, especially in an era of the politically correct mob and censorship as growing, dangerous trends. Enough has long since been documented that the invitation to blaming the victim and shaming those who express concern becomes part of the problem. Actually, this is but one slice of a much wider and highly dangerous phenomenon in our time; the unravelling of the party line view on CV19 and how those who dissented were treated is an obvious comparison. KF

  216. 216
    bornagain77 says:

    As to probability calculations and Darwinian evolution, here is an interesting article from ENV that just came out today,

    Peer-Reviewed Paper: “Neo-Darwinism Must Mutate to Survive”
    Casey Luskin – March 15, 2023
    Excerpt: A peer-reviewed paper published towards the end of last year in the Elsevier journal Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology has a provocative title: “Neo-Darwinism Must Mutate to Survive.” The paper’s abstract opens with points that few would dispute:
    “Darwinian evolution is a nineteenth century descriptive concept that itself has evolved. Selection by survival of the fittest was a captivating idea. Microevolution was biologically and empirically verified by discovery of mutations.”
    However, there then comes a major “but”:
    “There has been limited progress to the modern synthesis. The central focus of this perspective is to provide evidence to document that selection based on survival of the fittest is insufficient for other than microevolution.”
    And according to authors Olen R. Brown and David A. Hullender, just what is the basis for saying this? It’s calculations showing that the likelihood of microevolutionary processes adding up to macroevolutionary changes is highly improbable:
    “Realistic probability calculations based on probabilities associated with microevolution are presented. However, macroevolution (required for all speciation events and the complexifications appearing in the Cambrian explosion) are shown to be probabilistically highly implausible (on the order of 10-50) when based on selection by survival of the fittest. We conclude that macroevolution via survival of the fittest is not salvageable by arguments for random genetic drift and other proposed mechanisms.”
    They go on to state, “We are critical, as previously explained, of the position that macroevolution is sufficiently explained by the processes useful for microevolution — in particular that mutations and survival of the fittest are adequate to the task,” and argue that “Microevolution does not explain speciation — only smaller changes.”,,,
    They then perform a probability calculation which shows that the likelihood of producing a necessary pathway would require such multi-step processes leading to probabilities below the plausibility bound they had previously set.
    Origin of the Krebs Cycle
    They use a case study of the origin of the Krebs cycle — a metabolic pathway involving 12 enzymes that is necessary for life. They believe that this is a useful test for evolution. They assume that the genome is “ripe” to produce each enzyme where a minimal number of mutations is needed for a gene to suddenly become functional. They therefore choose an incredibly generous value of 0.00001 as the probability that a given enzyme can be created by a single mutation.
    They calculate the likelihood of producing all 12 enzymes needed to produce a selectable function as 10-51. They note this is below 10-50, a probability that was called “negligible” by Émile Borel, the French mathematician, who stated “this process of evolution involves certain properties of living matter that prevent us from asserting that the process was accomplished in accordance with the laws of chance.”
    They also reject co-option and exaptation as possible explanations for the origin of the Krebs cycle:
    “The idea that the complete, functioning Krebs cycle arose by purloining each intermediate step from other uses (Meléndez-Hevia, 1996) lacks empirical support. The discoveries that genes can be switched on and off, that codes read forward and backward, gene duplication, and the homeobox, are helpful but inadequate to save evolutionary theory without modification.”
    In the end, producing a complex feature like the Krebs cycle is just too improbable because “Selection based on survival of the fittest, for anything beyond single mutational changes in a genome, is insufficient scientifically and biologically.” They conclude, “there is something besides mutations and survival of the fittest needed to explain evolution.”
    https://evolutionnews.org/2023/03/peer-reviewed-paper-neo-darwinism-must-mutate-to-survive/

  217. 217
    bornagain77 says:

    Casey Luskin follows up on his article from yesterday,

    Peer-Reviewed Paper Cites Stephen Meyer to Critique Darwinian Evolution
    Casey Luskin – March 16, 2023
    Excerpt: Others Calling for New Models
    The paper further notes that many sources are calling for new models of evolution, as it quotes Corning (2020) stating that there is no valid replacement paradigm for the Modern Synthesis:
    “Many theorists in recent years have been calling for evolutionary biology to move beyond the Modern Synthesis — the paradigm that has long provided the theoretical backbone for the discipline. Terms like ‘postmodern synthesis’, ‘integrative synthesis’, and ‘extended evolutionary synthesis’ have been invoked by various critics in connection with the many recent developments that pose deep challenges — even contradictions — to the traditional model and underscore the need for an update, or makeover. However, none of these critics, to this author’s knowledge, has to date offered an explicit alternative that could provide a unifying theoretical paradigm for our vastly increased knowledge about living systems and the history of life on earth.”
    Similarly they quote Noble (2021):
    “The illusions of the modern synthesis … something has gone deeply wrong in biology … [there is] the difficulty of trying to ‘break out of its attractive simplicity’ as it is still routinely taught in schools and universities … This is a serious and unnecessary situation that urgently needs rectifying … We have reached a critical turning point in evolutionary biology.”
    https://evolutionnews.org/2023/03/peer-reviewed-paper-cites-stephen-meyer-to-critique-darwinian-evolution/

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