A software engineer on convergent evolution

_{News
September 7, 2013

Convergent evolution

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Convergent evolution}

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Further to “Convergent evolution seen in 100s of genes,”

I’m a software engineer, and we re-use components all the time for different programs that have no “common ancestor”. E.g. – I can develop my String function library and use it in my web application and my Eclipse IDE plug-in, and those two Java programs have nothing in common. So you find the same bits in two different programs because I am the developer of both programs. But the two programs don’t extend from a common program that was used for some other purpose – they have no “common ancestor” program.

Now with that in mind, take a look at this recent article from Science Daily, which Mysterious Micah sent me. …

“We had expected to find identical changes in maybe a dozen or so genes but to see nearly 200 is incredible,” explains Dr Joe Parker, from Queen Mary’s School of Biological and Chemical Sciences and first author on the paper.

High rates of convergent evolution are only “incredible” if we simply assume as an article of faith that there is no design, and that therefore there is nothing to research. It shall remain then, forever, incredible. No matter why the design exists.

A price paid, shall we say, for dogmatism killing curiosity.

Comments

We’re simply asking you to face the facts Jerad, the facts that you’ve already admitted. My post @70 doesn’t even mention ID. Why is it that when you are asked to face the facts, the only alternative you can come up with is intelligent design? How does that change the facts?
You act like evolutionary theory not being able to answer some questions is its death knell. And if I admitted that it can't then why are you going on about it? I don't think evolutionary theory is in any trouble. I think it's gaining strength year by year. I do not think that ID is anywhere close to being a viable alternative.Jerad_{September 8, 2013
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Let me be clear. I did not mean to say that all of your criticisms of ID are off-base. You touch on some of the challenges that ID needs to grapple with. But I do not believe that ID needs to identify the designer or his laboratory or methods. The theory is that “design” is a feature that can be detected independent of knowledge of the method of creating the artifact. Maybe the theory is wrong, but I think that it is an interesting and provocative idea that deserves to be explored. Especially given the weakness of the alternative theory.
How about "when was design implemented" at least then? Do you think that's a fair question?Jerad_{September 8, 2013
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Jerad @72:
So, if evolutionary theory can’t answer certain questions then it’s rubbish and should be replaced with ID?
Absolutely. Certain observed phenomena, such as genetic convergence and orphan genes, cannot be the result of natural (i.e., non-intelligent) processes. There is only one alternative: intelligent design.Mapou_{September 8, 2013
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Jerad:
So, if evolutionary theory can’t answer certain questions then it’s rubbish and should be replaced with ID?
We're simply asking you to face the facts Jerad, the facts that you've already admitted. My post @70 doesn't even mention ID. Why is it that when you are asked to face the facts, the only alternative you can come up with is intelligent design? How does that change the facts?Mung_{September 8, 2013
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Jerad, Let me be clear. I did not mean to say that all of your criticisms of ID are off-base. You touch on some of the challenges that ID needs to grapple with. But I do not believe that ID needs to identify the designer or his laboratory or methods. The theory is that "design" is a feature that can be detected independent of knowledge of the method of creating the artifact. Maybe the theory is wrong, but I think that it is an interesting and provocative idea that deserves to be explored. Especially given the weakness of the alternative theory.Collin_{September 8, 2013
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Perhaps because we want you to really understand that you cannot possibly answer the questions. If you cannot possibly answer, it follows that no one else can possibly answer it. It follows that evolutionary “explanations” are not in fact explanations at all. So please stop pretending that they are.
So, if evolutionary theory can't answer certain questions then it's rubbish and should be replaced with ID? And ID doesn't even have to attempt to answer much of anything does it? When was design implemented? Only once or many times? Should we start there? The design inference was the default assumption for tens of thousands of years and yet there is not consensus about what was designed and when. Evolutionary theory has been developed for a bit over 150 years and yet it's failed? Really?Jerad_{September 8, 2013
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Wow. ID does not say anything about a designer or even many designers other than the observation that an intelligent agency is needed in order to explain the existence of life on earth. Why should ID say anything about the designers?
Can't have design without a designer. What did you say was designed by the way? And when?
I don’t see you getting all bent out of shape over those super silly OOL theories being bandied shamelessly about by evolutionists. Life springing out of dirt all by itself is as absurd as it gets. The word superstition does not do it justice.
What specifically do find silly? Which hypothesis do you think is unfounded? Don't just wave it all away because you can't understand how any of it could work. Which specific speculations do you think are wrong and why?
But that is not my argument at all. Do you love wrestling with your self-generated strawmen much? It is obvious to all except the willingly blind that the convergence of complex identical genetic code segments for echolocation in disparate species could not have happened by natural means. The only alternative explanation calls for an intelligent agency. Common sense 101. The only ignorance I see is blowing in from your side of the fence.
Right, so your common sense says it couldn't happen so it must be designed. But you've neglected to be specific: what exactly was designed and when? Was every single minor change in body form planned and implemented? Was there some grand, developmental plan that the unproven designer was following? What does your common sense tell you about that?
You are just urinating against the wind, amigo. The case for design is proven a thousand times over. Just because you are too grey-matter challenged or too much of a poltron to see it does not mean it’s not true.
Uh huh. Design has been proved but you can't tell me any specifics? Can you tell me how designs were implemented? Can you tell me when designs were implemented? "Oh, that's not something ID addresses." It doesn't explain much does it? What is ID really saying? What was designed? Let's just start with that: at what stage in the development of life on earth was design used? At the origin of life? Only there? What was the initial life form like? How complex was it? What did it eat? How did it reproduce? Was there only one or two initial life forms or a group? How many? If design was imposed more that just at the origin of life then when?Jerad_{September 8, 2013
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Jerad:
why am I continually asked for data about the evolutionary process that I can not possible answer?
Perhaps because we want you to really understand that you cannot possibly answer the questions. If you cannot possibly answer, it follows that no one else can possibly answer it. It follows that evolutionary "explanations" are not in fact explanations at all. So please stop pretending that they are.Mung_{September 8, 2013
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Here is a “rabbit” in the “Cambrian”. http://living-fossils.com/3_1.php
Hardly.
I think that it is unfair to require ID to have all of the answers. ID is actually a very humble theory when compared to both creationism and evolutionism. It keeps its hypothesis narrow, to wit: certain features of the world exhibit signs of design. That’s it! It is not a creation story or even a world-view. Evolution and creationism are worldviews with their own all-encompassing creation story. That is why people who have their belief challenged (either in evolution or creationism) get so upset. It strikes at their entire worldview.
Well, people on this forum expect me to answer how many mutations did such-and-such transition take. Do you think that is fair? Evolutionary theory is expected to spell out how life began. Aside from the fact that evolutionary theory is not concerned with the origin of life do you think that's fair? ID proponents say evolutionary theory is on its knees, is ideologically driven and cannot explain everything. Therefore it must go. To be replaced with . . . design. And yet ID cannot answer or address any of the questions they ask and expect evolutionary theory to answer and address. Do you think that's a fair request?Jerad_{September 8, 2013
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To in effect demand direct evidence of a designer apart from signs of handiwork of same in a context where we were not in a position to actually observe the relevant actual past is selectively hyperskeptical by way of strawman.
Well, why am I continually asked for data about the evolutionary process that I can not possible answer? Why am I asked 'how many mutations does it take to . . . ' accomplish some particular goal? All the time. And yet you never call your side on that. Why is that?
On the science of origins, one thing we simply do not have access to is direct observations of the past.
And yet you keep saying I have to address that because it's pivotal.
Next to that, the pivotal issue is the origin of FSCO/I.
That's your issue. Not one that evolutionary theory worries about. It's a castle you're defending that no one is attacking.
We do have billions of observed cases of origin of functionally specific complex organisation and associated/implied information. In every one of these, the observed cause is design
Human design. You have observed examples of human design. What makes you think you can extrapolate beyond that?
— as comments in this thread illustrate for coded strings. This is backed up by the challenge of searching astronomically large configuration spaces for components, with the unexpectedly sharp constraint of available resources on a solar system or observed cosmos basis. Thus once we see 500 – 1,000 bits of FSCO/I we are well beyond a scope where blind chance and/or mechanical necessity by whatever mechanisms, is remotely plausible.
NO ONE in biology is saying that there has to be an exhaustive search through a vast configuration space. You've created that non-existent issue. It's your strawman.
Here, too, we are addressing a remote past of origins we cannot observe directly. So, per Newton’s rules of scientific reasoning, we can only examine and compare traces from that past with circumstances in the present that show us factors capable of giving rise to the like. That means, BTW, that the all too common ideological (and historically/logically unwarranted) move of trying to redefine science on materialistic philosophy to exclude unwelcome possibilities such as design is a case of ideological distortion.
Whatever. You have no evidence that there was an intelligent agent around at the time. A non-existent intelligence is not capable of anything. You are trying to 'magic' a designer into existence.
Including, origin of codes, algorithms, execution machines, a von Neumann kinematic self replicator manifesting more of these, implemented using C-chemistry molecular nanotech, in aqueous medium and manifesting metabolic and self replicating processes, etc. All, in a cosmos fine tuned in ways that make such life possible, from the basic physics of the cosmos on up.
An argument from ignorance: we don't know how natural processes could have done it therefore design.
From the root of the tree of life, design sits at the table as of right on its merits. Save, where nasty power games artificially exclude it.
Design needs a designer. Where is your designer? When is your designer? How did they implement the design you claim to detect?
The usual critics of design theory no longer seem willing to even try to provide a serious case on OOL in such a fine tuned cosmos. Sir Fred’s super-intellect monkeying with the very physics of the cosmos has won the day. Sometimes, the dog that refuses to bark speaks loudly indeed.
Uh huh, you've been keeping up with OoL research then?
And, when we move up to origin of body plans and key features, including our own with linguistic, cognitive and moral capacities, we see even higher FSCO/I thresholds, with no serious non-question begging evolutionary materialist explanation.
So you say. There are other opinions.
The assumed default that unobserved capabilities of chance/non foresighted variation leading to differential reproductive success, thence incremental descent with unlimited variation — for all its institutional and ideological dominance in an age of lingering scientism — lacks empirical foundations.
And your argument from ignorance coupled with trying to prove a negative (natural processes aren't up to the job) IS based on empirical foundations? Along with your pseudo-mathematical information hand waving?
The situation where the pro-darwinism essay challenge issued to you Jerad and opened to all comers since Sep 23 2012 stands without serious and comprehensive summary answer a full year later less a fortnight or so, speaks volumes. (Remember, a successful essay would have been a knockout punch for UD.)
Hey, if you haven't found 150 years of research and many, many popular books convincing then why would I bother? I've got nothing to say that hasn't already been said many times by others better informed than me. Go read them. And perhaps you should work on an explanation of what ID theory is.
Every tub must stand on its own bottom.>>
And what is ID's bottom? What is your concise, explanatory theory of ID? You claim there are islands of function in a great configuration space and yet you cannot delineate them. Where exactly are the limits? At the genus level? The family level? If your configuration space is so vast then how did the designer search it? With it's vast intelligence? How many floating point operations per second can it manage? How much energy does that take?Jerad_{September 8, 2013
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Me:
The fact is that design is not just the better explanation here but the only explanation. Modern evolutionary theory just bit the dust, hard. Genetic convergence just killed it.
Jerad:
Again, YOU can’t understand how natural processes can account for life as we know it, therefore, design. Design is NOT the better explanation because it hypothesises an unknown and undefined designer whose abilities and timeframe have not been specified. That’s not an explanation at all! That’s just wishful thinking.
Wow. ID does not say anything about a designer or even many designers other than the observation that an intelligent agency is needed in order to explain the existence of life on earth. Why should ID say anything about the designers? I don't see you getting all bent out of shape over those super silly OOL theories being bandied shamelessly about by evolutionists. Life springing out of dirt all by itself is as absurd as it gets. The word superstition does not do it justice.
After 150 years of research evolution is the default explanation. We’ve found no hard evidence that disproves it. If you think you’ve got a ‘better’ explanation then you have to do more than just try and point out the gaps in evolutionary theory. You have to do more than just say: look there, you don’t know how this or that happened therefore design.
But that is not my argument at all. Do you love wrestling with your self-generated strawmen much? It is obvious to all except the willingly blind that the convergence of complex identical genetic code segments for echolocation in disparate species could not have happened by natural means. The only alternative explanation calls for an intelligent agency. Common sense 101. The only ignorance I see is blowing in from your side of the fence.
You have to, at the very least, start being specific about what ID is saying. And if you need to do more research to be able to be more specific then do the research. Do some work. Prove your case. Find the evidence. Stop using arguments of ignorance to try and prove a negative and then jump to an assumption.
You are just urinating against the wind, amigo. The case for design is proven a thousand times over. Just because you are too grey-matter challenged or too much of a poltron to see it does not mean it's not true.Mapou_{September 8, 2013
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BW, The human-chimp speciation time is calculated from molecular sequence data, so you calculations are obviously wrong. For neutral mutations, which are the vast majority, the substitution rate (i.e. the rate at which mutations fix) is equal to the mutations rate per individual, which makes the maths very straight forward...wd400_{September 8, 2013
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Jerad, Here is a "rabbit" in the "Cambrian". http://living-fossils.com/3_1.php I think that it is unfair to require ID to have all of the answers. ID is actually a very humble theory when compared to both creationism and evolutionism. It keeps its hypothesis narrow, to wit: certain features of the world exhibit signs of design. That's it! It is not a creation story or even a world-view. Evolution and creationism are worldviews with their own all-encompassing creation story. That is why people who have their belief challenged (either in evolution or creationism) get so upset. It strikes at their entire worldview.Collin_{September 8, 2013
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Jerad, It is a little saddening that after a very busy day of exchanges in this thread, the fundamental issues you need to face remain as they were at 25 above (and pretty much as in the challenge of Sep 23 last year that you chose to pass on). Ishould also note a substitution and subject-switcheroo you are making. The issue is empirical evidence that per testing reliably points to design as causal process. To in effect demand direct evidence of a designer apart from signs of handiwork of same in a context where we were not in a position to actually observe the relevant actual past is selectively hyperskeptical by way of strawman. On the science of origins, one thing we simply do not have access to is direct observations of the past. Next to that, the pivotal issue is the origin of FSCO/I. So, I clip: KF, 25: >>In science, every tub must stand on its own observationally grounded bottom. We do have billions of observed cases of origin of functionally specific complex organisation and associated/implied information. In every one of these, the observed cause is design — as comments in this thread illustrate for coded strings. This is backed up by the challenge of searching astronomically large configuration spaces for components, with the unexpectedly sharp constraint of available resources on a solar system or observed cosmos basis. Thus once we see 500 – 1,000 bits of FSCO/I we are well beyond a scope where blind chance and/or mechanical necessity by whatever mechanisms, is remotely plausible. Here, too, we are addressing a remote past of origins we cannot observe directly. So, per Newton’s rules of scientific reasoning, we can only examine and compare traces from that past with circumstances in the present that show us factors capable of giving rise to the like. That means, BTW, that the all too common ideological (and historically/logically unwarranted) move of trying to redefine science on materialistic philosophy to exclude unwelcome possibilities such as design is a case of ideological distortion. All this brings us to the root of the tree of life, OOL. Including, origin of codes, algorithms, execution machines, a von Neumann kinematic self replicator manifesting more of these, implemented using C-chemistry molecular nanotech, in aqueous medium and manifesting metabolic and self replicating processes, etc. All, in a cosmos fine tuned in ways that make such life possible, from the basic physics of the cosmos on up. From the root of the tree of life, design sits at the table as of right on its merits. Save, where nasty power games artificially exclude it. The usual critics of design theory no longer seem willing to even try to provide a serious case on OOL in such a fine tuned cosmos. Sir Fred’s super-intellect monkeying with the very physics of the cosmos has won the day. Sometimes, the dog that refuses to bark speaks loudly indeed. And, when we move up to origin of body plans and key features, including our own with linguistic, cognitive and moral capacities, we see even higher FSCO/I thresholds, with no serious non-question begging evolutionary materialist explanation. The assumed default that unobserved capabilities of chance/non foresighted variation leading to differential reproductive success, thence incremental descent with unlimited variation — for all its institutional and ideological dominance in an age of lingering scientism — lacks empirical foundations. The situation where the pro-darwinism essay challenge issued to you Jerad and opened to all comers since Sep 23 2012 stands without serious and comprehensive summary answer a full year later less a fortnight or so, speaks volumes. (Remember, a successful essay would have been a knockout punch for UD.) Every tub must stand on its own bottom.>> KFkairosfocus_{September 8, 2013
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The age of chimpanzee fathers ranged from 9.3 to 50.4 y, whereas age of mothers ranged from 11.7 to 45.4 y (Fig. S1). Thus, the potential reproductive span of males (41.1 y) is some 7 y, or 22%, longer than that of females (33.7 y). Nonetheless, because more than half (56.2%) of the offspring are produced by fathers between the ages of 15 and 25, whereas most offspring (77%) have mothers between the ages of 15 and 34, the average generation time for males and females is essentially the same (24.1 and 25.2 y, respectively). So my 20 was conservative according to the facts.
Okay, so how many individuals would you estimate to be born each generation? As a function of the adult population? I'm trying to make the point that there is no fixed 'generation'. There's a rolling population with a certain birth and death rate. So, the number of mutations per 'generation' would depend on how many individuals were born in that generation. Let's say a mother gave birth three times in one 20-year period. And let's say each baby had a different father. How much variation could there be between the offspring of those three children? It seems to me that at any one time, in a fairly large (say 30 - 50 individuals) there could be quite a lot of new genetic variation. More than just 100 points of variance.Jerad_{September 8, 2013
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Severe overestimation? Research from a 2012 paper on evolution shows otherwise my friend: The age of chimpanzee fathers ranged from 9.3 to 50.4 y, whereas age of mothers ranged from 11.7 to 45.4 y (Fig. S1). Thus, the potential reproductive span of males (41.1 y) is some 7 y, or 22%, longer than that of females (33.7 y). Nonetheless, because more than half (56.2%) of the offspring are produced by fathers between the ages of 15 and 25, whereas most offspring (77%) have mothers between the ages of 15 and 34, the average generation time for males and females is essentially the same (24.1 and 25.2 y, respectively). So my 20 was conservative according to the facts.bw_{September 8, 2013
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Now the numbers are rough but illustrate the problem quite clearly. Studies show that humans can have 100 mutations per generation (I have seen 300 reported as a hight), although more recent tests have shown 30-50 to be more accurate as more care was taken during the process (something like 22 times they scanned the entire 3 billion+ base pairs to ensure their findings were good and no read errors were made).
Not all of the 3 billion base pairs are coding. And the number of base pairs probably changed. Certainly chimps and humans have different numbers of chromosomes. Also, is that 100 mutations per generation per individual? You'd have to account for how many individuals there were. And 20 years is a severe overestimate of the gap between generations for those creatures. Even humans can start reproducing much younger than 20. Also it's more like 6 million years. Most mothers would give birth over two or three 'generations'. I think the math is more complicated than you've represented.
When we see animals that can be found both in the fossil record and alive now how different do we suppose their genomes are. Sharks, turtles, bats, coelacanths, crocodiles, amami-rabbits (yes a 40 million year old rabbit), elephants, hippos, beavers etc… I would bet good money that if we could compare their current dna to that of their many million year old ancestor’s they would be incredibly similar – which would fly in the face of what should be happening.
We'll never know. But we will get better and better at comparing morphology to genomes. I'm not trying to gloss over the issue but I think it's more complicated than your analysis shows and so there's more issues to resolve. There's a lot we still don't know.
With regards to the idea of intelligent design, I am not a big fan or advocate. I don’t think it is something that should be proved or taught or anything like that. ID should have nothing what so ever to do with one’s understanding of evolution theory. You do not need anything else in place before you are allowed to question it.
Questioning is on thing. Trying to tear down is something else. If you're really interested then get a university level books on human genetics.Jerad_{September 8, 2013
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Hi Jered, thanks for the response. Interesting that you don't find observable nature more puzzling, I think there is a fair deal of things that at mere surface level should raise some questions, or eyebrows at least. On the numbers front, here is an interesting thing to think about. I like it because it surrounds the issue of the similarity between chimp and human dna - something that has been a source of much ado on the whole evolution/id/creation/? scene. It has been reported that the two were 98+% similar, then 95%, then 90%. The fact is they are close, very close. While it might end up being less than 90% at some point in the future (I have seen research suggesting it is more like 70%) but it is neither here nor there for this problem. Lets suppose they were right with a 95% similarity between the genome. @ 3,000,000 base pairs in the human genome a difference of 5% is 150,000,000 base pairs that have changed since they split from a common ancestor. (I am rounding the numbers down to simplify) Divide that number in half again attributing 50% of the changes equally across chimps and humans. That leaves you with 75,000,000 (75 million base pairs to evolve to account for the 5% difference mentioned above). The latest common ancestors of humans and chimps between is though to have lived about 5,000,000 (5 million) years ago. With an assumed generation time of 20 years based on the chimps rather than humans (26 years) this allows for 250,000 generations. If we then were to assume that it would take 10 generations for said mutation to spread and fix into a small population then we end up with the following: 250,000 / 10 = 25,000 key transitional species. 75,000,000 / 25,000 = 3,000 mutations per contributing generation to account for the change. Now the numbers are rough but illustrate the problem quite clearly. Studies show that humans can have 100 mutations per generation (I have seen 300 reported as a hight), although more recent tests have shown 30-50 to be more accurate as more care was taken during the process (something like 22 times they scanned the entire 3 billion+ base pairs to ensure their findings were good and no read errors were made). There is simply nowhere near enough time to account for the differences, that even despite the fact we on the surface (95% or whatever the number) appear so similar. We can look at mutations happening now and see what they do, mostly deleterious and mostly non-beneficial. So we have to believe that in the past nature just worked differently I suppose. Instead of mutations causing anything from no change to disease and death, it created new proteins and changed designs for new and improved ones. :( Got to make you think. When we see animals that can be found both in the fossil record and alive now how different do we suppose their genomes are. Sharks, turtles, bats, coelacanths, crocodiles, amami-rabbits (yes a 40 million year old rabbit), elephants, hippos, beavers etc... I would bet good money that if we could compare their current dna to that of their many million year old ancestor's they would be incredibly similar - which would fly in the face of what should be happening. Anyway it is just something to consider, and only one example of many many problems with the idea of evolution as the sole answer to what we see today. With regards to the idea of intelligent design, I am not a big fan or advocate. I don't think it is something that should be proved or taught or anything like that. ID should have nothing what so ever to do with one's understanding of evolution theory. You do not need anything else in place before you are allowed to question it. bbw_{September 8, 2013
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So, a fish doesn’t have evidence that it lives in water! I couldn’t improve on that as a fifth-columnist seeking to discredit you.
Who ever questioned fish living in water anyway? Why would you even ask such a thing? Whereas it's NOT obvious that some things are designed. And no matter how much you bluster and insult it doesn't make the design of DNA obvious or true.
And I expect people thought I was exaggerating when I opined that you are brain-dead. Pardon me if I cease thse exchanges, herewith. I don’t wish to mock the afflicted. At least Alan Fox and Gregory have enough nous simply to remain silent when ‘found out’ in spades. Although Alan grizzled incoherently for a while about Jesus drawing a line in the sand.
Whatever. Your insults weren't that funny or original anyway. Nor were you able to: a) provide a clear and cogent theory of ID which explains all of the data without just saying: I haven't been shown every single step it took to get from A to B therefore design. b) show any solid and independent evidence for a designer. c) give an argument against evolutionary theory that (in your case) didn't boil down to: if you think (insert example here) wasn't designed then you are brain dead. Anyway, have a nice Sunday.Jerad_{September 8, 2013
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'Oh right. I get it now. I’m an idiot because I prefer empirical evidence. Nice to see this level of debate here.' So, a fish doesn't have evidence that it lives in water! I couldn't improve on that as a fifth-columnist seeking to discredit you. QED And I expect people thought I was exaggerating when I opined that you are brain-dead. Pardon me if I cease thse exchanges, herewith. I don't wish to mock the afflicted. At least Alan Fox and Gregory have enough nous simply to remain silent when 'found out' in spades. Although Alan grizzled incoherently for a while about Jesus drawing a line in the sand.Axel_{September 8, 2013
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My! My! Even employing a stooge, now, Jerad. It reminds me of homosexuals finding their truculence not that effective on Christian forums, posting in sweet, measured, hesitant tones, disingenuously claiming to be sincere seekers of the truth, but unable to hide their anti-Christian bigotry, in the way they proceed to frame their questions – which they clearly think are killers!
What? A stooge? I don't know who you are referring to but I hope he's suitably insulted that you think he's a stooge. You should be more careful about which potential allies you disregard.
If you think such complex machinery could have arisen from random chance, Jerad, you must be brain dead.
(Shrugs) I just don't see the evidence for a designer nor do I find the need to hypothesise one.Jerad_{September 8, 2013
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My! My! Even employing a stooge, now, Jerad. It reminds me of homosexuals finding their truculence not that effective on Christian forums, posting in sweet, measured, hesitant tones, disingenuously claiming to be sincere seekers of the truth, but unable to hide their anti-Christian bigotry, in the way they proceed to frame their questions - which they clearly think are killers! 'He and Darwin both realised that the discovery of an irreducibly complex life form or part would absolutely damage evolutionary theory. But such a thing has not been found . . . yet. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/03/michael_behe_hasnt_been_refute044801.html If you think such complex machinery could have arisen from random chance, Jerad, you must be brain dead.Axel_{September 8, 2013
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jerad, should I come back later when you actually have a coherent argument, or are you forever going to blow hot air with no empirical substance?,, For instance perhaps you can list a molecular machine arrived at by purely Darwinian processes so as to falsify ID?
Well, I'd say every mechanical machine. How about you? Can you a) present a coherent and specific theory of ID? b) provide clear and independent evidence of a designer who did something somtime . . . no one is really sure. c) come up with an argument against evolutionary theory that is substantially more than: you guys can't spell out every single step so it must be designed? Especially since you refuse to even attempt to provide an answer yourselves? d) do better than to just post link after link after link pointing to non-academic videos and blogs?
maybe I should come back in fifty years?
Whenever you wish. But I would like to know . . . Why do you think it's fair to reject evolutionary theory when it can't provide a precise molecular path from one stage to a another when NO ONE in the ID community will even speculate on WHEN and HOW design was implemented? This is just one of the reasons people don't take ID seriously: no substance. And an obvious double standard. You can only stand on the sidelines and bitch and moan so long. Someday you have to put on your helmet and play the game. Or not. It's your call.Jerad_{September 8, 2013
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Do you really believe that the atheist-scientist myrmidons who pass for scientists these days, are more intellectually gifted than Einstein, Planck, Godel, Bohr, Pauli – all the greats of the modern scientific age. That is a religious belief: secular fundamentalism at its most risible.
I don't think I even implied I think that way.
Argument from authority? You bet it is. Never mind what Plato, Aristotle or Diogenes opined. Indeed, I think it far more sensible not to look at the matter through the wrong end of a municipal drain-pipe, but with eyes wide open, viz. that yours are arguments not from authority, but from a vacuous mutual admiration society. Einstein and Pauli, to name but two, hardly hid their contempt for the consensus of their day – and guess what.. it’s still the same one.
Are you going to ask me a question or make a point other than insulting what you assume are my motivations?
A 200 year-old consensus.. roughly contemporaneous with the industrial revolution. Well, who’d a thunk? The age of classical physics had run its course, absorbed by technology, by the time the real scientists of the mid 20th century put their minds to the theoretical physics you hapless mutts make your living from.
I don't know what to say. Mostly because I don't know what you're trying to say.
But you don’t want to know, do you – that hateful quantum- mechanics mystagogy! And all the questioning it gives rise to…
What?
‘AND you still haven’t proposed any hard, independent evidence for the presence of a designer who . . . did what exactly? And when?’ That’s like asking a fish to prove it lives in water. His interrogator needs to prove that he is not entirely brain-dead. Wake up to yourself man! None of you bozos have ever even begun to prove that everything with an APPEARANCE.. (that nasty empiricism rearing its ugly head again) of design, around us was not, either designed and made by man, or by an omniscient and omnipotent Creator.
Oh right. I get it now. I'm an idiot because I prefer empirical evidence. Nice to see this level of debate here.
You are the best possible lobbyists for the notion that we’re essentially meat-heads, and the mind came as an after-thought. Correction: after-series of random coinkidinkies. That anyone, on the basis of no more than whimsy, could be so perverse as to believe that mere matter could create mind beggars belief!
So, you are making an argument from incredulity?Jerad_{September 8, 2013
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jerad, should I come back later when you actually have a coherent argument, or are you forever going to blow hot air with no empirical substance?,, For instance perhaps you can list a molecular machine arrived at by purely Darwinian processes so as to falsify ID? maybe I should come back in fifty years?bornagain77_{September 8, 2013
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Regardless of the masses, I wonder do you personally ever doubt your position from time to time?
Yes I do. Especially since I started visiting this blog.
I am asking this because I have definitely had doubts myself and am happy to admit it, but I have never had discussions with someone firmly on the darwinian camp who will admit to ever doubting themselves. So I am trying to work out if there are any aspects of the world view held by believers (understanders) of evolution, that you guys are not that sure about.
If you read the letters section of an evolutionary journal or attend a conference you will find many topics that biologists are trying to hammer out a consensus. Dr Lynn Margolis' ideas are a famous historical example of someone having to fight tooth and nail to get their ideas accepted by the field.
Do you ever see a mimic moth or a squid with a lure or a documentary on the eyes of a kingfisher or the genius in the cell or…. any number of millions of things that I would think could cause a naturalist to question if evolution is the correct and complete explanation.
Those are not my particular areas of doubt.
Doesn’t have to be observational either, could be a simple math problem that could trigger some doubt.
I'd say some of the things that have given me pause have been that kind of issue. I think that any one who is honest admits that all scientific ideas and theories are provisional. There's always the possibility that some new evidence or insight will force a paradigm shift. During the last couple of hundred years the shifts have been more refinement than overthrow however. The theory of relativity and quantum mechanics didn't exactly invalidate Newton's laws of motion but they added layers of refinement and specification. Newton's laws still work perfectly well in many situations and so it's just a matter of knowing when and when not to use them. IF the ID community can find hard and independent evidence of the presence of a designer AND hypothesise what s/he/it did and when (at least) then I think it will get some legs. But I'm not sure that was the motivation behind the promulgation of ID. I think Dr Behe is a serious and conscientious supporter and I've got lots of time for him. He and Darwin both realised that the discovery of an irreducibly complex life form or part would absolutely damage evolutionary theory. But such a thing has not been found . . . yet. The ID community needs to do a lot of work. So far all they've got is some vague ideas which don't really add up to much. Get some evidence, get specific, do some work. To overcome 150 of accumulated evidence will be extremely difficult but it COULD happen. Claiming a designer is an extraordinary claim and so will require extraordinary evidence. I don't mean to put ID and alien visitation at the same level of seriousness (because they're not) but I would say the same to people who claim we are being visited by aliens. You're going to have to do a lot better than some dodgy photos and sincere people who may be suffering from sleep paralysis.Jerad_{September 8, 2013
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'Maybe you should look at the countries those ‘foreign’ scientists came from and see whether ID is considered to be a viable alternative to evolutionary theory in those places. Have you done so? Do you know that your merchant of doubt stance is considered to be laughable and weird over most of Europe?' You're a character, Jerad, and no one can deny that. Do you really believe that the atheist-scientist myrmidons who pass for scientists these days, are more intellectually gifted than Einstein, Planck, Godel, Bohr, Pauli - all the greats of the modern scientific age. That is a religious belief: secular fundamentalism at its most risible. Argument from authority? You bet it is. Never mind what Plato, Aristotle or Diogenes opined. Indeed, I think it far more sensible not to look at the matter through the wrong end of a municipal drain-pipe, but with eyes wide open, viz. that yours are arguments not from authority, but from a vacuous mutual admiration society. Einstein and Pauli, to name but two, hardly hid their contempt for the consensus of their day - and guess what.. it's still the same one. A 200 year-old consensus.. roughly contemporaneous with the industrial revolution. Well, who'd a thunk? The age of classical physics had run its course, absorbed by technology, by the time the real scientists of the mid 20th century put their minds to the theoretical physics you hapless mutts make your living from. But you don't want to know, do you - that hateful quantum- mechanics mystagogy! And all the questioning it gives rise to... 'AND you still haven’t proposed any hard, independent evidence for the presence of a designer who . . . did what exactly? And when?' That's like asking a fish to prove it lives in water. His interrogator needs to prove that he is not entirely brain-dead. Wake up to yourself man! None of you bozos have ever even begun to prove that everything with an APPEARANCE.. (that nasty empiricism rearing its ugly head again) of design, around us was not, either designed and made by man, or by an omniscient and omnipotent Creator. You are the best possible lobbyists for the notion that we're essentially meat-heads, and the mind came as an after-thought. Correction: after-series of random coinkidinkies. That anyone, on the basis of no more than whimsy, could be so perverse as to believe that mere matter could create mind beggars belief!Axel_{September 8, 2013
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Jerad, Please link to this alleged evolutionary “theory”- or just admit that it doesn’t exist.
Read The Greatest Show On Earth. Or Why Evolution is True. Or Only a Theory. Or any university level evolutionary textbook.
a) provide clear and independent evidence of natural selection actually doing something
See above answer.
b) present a clear and coherent of evolutionary theory that has explanatory power and is specific about what was evolved, how, and when?
See above answer.
c) Tell us how many mutations it takes to get a chordate from a population of non-chordates
No one will ever know how many mutations actually occurred. Besides, if one day you walk to the local shop and you take 4,385 steps does that means you took 4,385 steps last week or last month?
Ya see Jerad, if you had something, anything at all, then ID would be a non-starter.
Uh huh. Joe is right and thousands and thousands of working biologists are wrong. Have you got an alternative that a) explains all the genetic, morphological, bio-geographic diversity and morphological data? b) is coherent, specific and explanatory? c) is not just a negative argument against evolutionary theory? d) have you found evidence for extra coding in the cell that you choose to believe in without any indication of where it is or what structure carries it? e) try not to fall back on your canards: you've got no evidence, ID is not antithetical to common descent, etc. Your arguments are empty without details and you've been remarkably sparse with details.
OK so the evidence says that convergent evolution can explain similarities down to the genetic level. That means common descent is not the only explanation for those similarities.
If you have an idea then present it. Make sure it's specific and founded on evidence.
jerad, since you are not really listening to anything anyone has to say, I figure I might as well go ahead and reflect on a few thoughts I’ve had this morning. jerad exactly how is absolute truth grounded within the randomness/chaos of your atheistic naturalism?
As usual, if I disagree with you you think I'm not listening. And then you go off on another one of your Gish-gallops of links. I don't know what the presence (or not) of absolute truth has to do with evolutionary theory. Or atheism. Or even the topic of this thread. Sorry, but I think you're heading way off topic. But I doubt you'll be called on that 'cause you seem to have carte blanche here.Jerad_{September 8, 2013
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Hi Jered, just a quick thanks for the questions/responses in here, it's nice to read back-and-forth on the topic without the usual hostilities that ensue. :) commendable Regardless of the masses, I wonder do you personally ever doubt your position from time to time? For instance have you ever though..."hmm that seems odd or unexpected" when you read a new science paper that contains information that doesn't quite fall in line with your current understanding. I am asking this because I have definitely had doubts myself and am happy to admit it, but I have never had discussions with someone firmly on the darwinian camp who will admit to ever doubting themselves. So I am trying to work out if there are any aspects of the world view held by believers (understanders) of evolution, that you guys are not that sure about. Do you ever see a mimic moth or a squid with a lure or a documentary on the eyes of a kingfisher or the genius in the cell or.... any number of millions of things that I would think could cause a naturalist to question if evolution is the correct and complete explanation. Doesn't have to be observational either, could be a simple math problem that could trigger some doubt. Ever found that to be the case? If so what was it and did you get over it somehow? Am am asking you because you seem like nice chap who might provide some honesty :) and I am genuinely curious. bbw_{September 8, 2013
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An interesting sidelight to the incompleteness theorem and God having to ‘breathe fire into the equations’, it is interesting to note that our two best mathematical descriptions of reality require higher dimensional mathematics. Thus strongly suggesting that whatever is ‘breathing fire into the equations’ resides in a higher dimension:
The Mathematics Of Higher Dimensionality – Gauss and Riemann – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/6199520/ The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences – Eugene Wigner – 1960 Excerpt: We now have, in physics, two theories of great power and interest: the theory of quantum phenomena and the theory of relativity.,,, The two theories operate with different mathematical concepts: the four dimensional Riemann space and the infinite dimensional Hilbert space, http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html
Moreover, if we allow that God ‘can play the role of a person’ as even Godel himself allowed,,,
The God of the Mathematicians – Goldman Excerpt: As Gödel told Hao Wang, “Einstein’s religion [was] more abstract, like Spinoza and Indian philosophy. Spinoza’s god is less than a person; mine is more than a person; because God can play the role of a person.” – Kurt Gödel – (Gödel is considered one of the greatest logicians who ever existed) http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/07/the-god-of-the-mathematicians
,,then we find a very credible reconciliation between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics into a ‘theory of everything’, i.e. into an 'absolute truth',,
General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Entropy, and The Shroud Of Turin – updated video http://vimeo.com/34084462 Scientists say Turin Shroud is supernatural – December 2011 Excerpt: After years of work trying to replicate the colouring on the shroud, a similar image has been created by the scientists. However, they only managed the effect by scorching equivalent linen material with high-intensity ultra violet lasers, undermining the arguments of other research, they say, which claims the Turin Shroud is a medieval hoax. Such technology, say researchers from the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (Enea), was far beyond the capability of medieval forgers, whom most experts have credited with making the famous relic. “The results show that a short and intense burst of UV directional radiation can colour a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin,” they said. And in case there was any doubt about the preternatural degree of energy needed to make such distinct marks, the Enea report spells it out: “This degree of power cannot be reproduced by any normal UV source built to date.” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-say-turin-shroud-is-supernatural-6279512.html The absorbed energy in the Shroud body image formation appears as contributed by discrete values – Giovanni Fazio, Giuseppe Mandaglio – 2008 Excerpt: This result means that the optical density distribution,, can not be attributed at the absorbed energy described in the framework of the classical physics model. It is, in fact, necessary to hypothesize a absorption by discrete values of the energy where the ‘quantum’ is equal to the one necessary to yellow one fibril. http://cab.unime.it/journals/index.php/AAPP/article/view/C1A0802004/271
Verses and music:
Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Natalie Grant - Alive (Resurrection music video) lyric: "Death has lost and Love has won!" http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=KPYWPGNX
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