Richard Lenski’s experiment is in the news again:
The LTEE required 33,000 generations and many years for the bacteria to acquire the supposedly new trait. In the video Lenski says that one of his labâs researchers wanted to explore âwhy did it take so long to evolve this and why has only one population evolved that ability?â The implication is that this is a complex trait that required many slow mutations to arise. Lenski says it was a âdifficultâ trait to evolve because it required both a ârare mutationâ and also a âseries of eventsâ where multiple mutations were needed before any advantage was conferred. Van Hofwegen realized there was something fishy about these claims. As he explained to IDTF:
âThe only difference is that in the conditions of the [LTEE] experiment, they didnât have a transporter. They [E. coli bacteria] didnât have the ability to bring that citrate outside of their cells into the cells and actually use it for energy. And so when I looked at that experiment as a microbiologist I thought, all they have to do is turn that thing on. Thatâs really easy for bacteria to do. Why did it take them 33,000 generations to do that?â
Van Hofwegen draws a comparison to a light switch. Normal E. coli have the metabolic pathways to live off citrate, and they have the ability to transport it into their cells. But under the conditions of the experiment that âlight switchâ was turned off. The bacteria didnât need to evolve a new metabolic pathway or a new transport feature to eat citrate. All they needed to do was turn on their transporter under the oxic conditions of the LTEE experiment. The organisms used the âlight switchâ to express their citrate transporter. So how did they do it?
A 2016 peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Bacteriology, âRapid Evolution of Citrate Utilization by Escherichia coli by Direct Selection Requires citT and dctA,â co-authored by Van Hofwegen and biologists Scott Minnich and Carolyn Hovde, has the answer. In their research they witnessed the same trait, the ability to use this âlemony dessert,â arise in under 100 generations and 14 days. This result was repeatable 46 times. They found that the trait is not very genetically complicated â again, akin to flipping a switch â and that there is more to the story than is being been told. Indeed, their paper shows that no new genetic information arose during the evolution of this trait.
Casey Luskin, “Viral Video Overstates the Evidence About Bacterial Evolution” at Evolution News and Science Today
Hey. The Darwinians are marketing magic and it is really difficult to refute magic.
Hereâs the vid making the claim:
The experiment demonstrates the severe limits of evolutionary processes.
In Lenski’s experiment citrate metabolism was only weakly selected for. Van Hofwegen et al modified the experiment so the trait was strongly selected; and so it appeared more rapidly.
Yikes!
Dr. Lenski sure had me fooled. Congratulations . . . I guess.
-Q
lenski’s experiment is not an evolution but an adaptation. The bacteria (the same species as before) just ADAPTED to digest citrate. That is it. After 33,000 generation, it is still the same E.coli bacteria.
again, this is an A D A P T A T I O N …. why do Darwinists call it an EVOLUTION ???? Can somebody explain to me? Seversky? JVL ? Anybody ?
PS: i looked at wikipedia, actually, “The populations reached 73,500 generations in early 2020”
So, let me repeat, after 73,500 generations, IT IS STILL THE SAME E.COLI BACTERIA…. SO WHERE IS THE EVOLUTION ???? 73,500 generations!!!! WHERE IS THE EVOLUTION ???? WHY IS THIS E-WORD EVEN USED ???? Perhaps one day i will be able to digest petrol… did i evolved into some other species???? I just adapted to eat something else than i used to…
Nope, you don’t understand evolution . If you jump 2m today you will be able to jump to the Moon …one day. :)))
Sandy …right…. my bad….
Hmmm,
And that, (being intellectually dishonest towards the evidence), is exactly how Darwinists always fool the general public into believing they have any scientific evidence whatsoever for Darwinian evolution.
I thought that Minnich’s work might have slowed Lenski down in his over the top claims for having experimental proof for Darwinian evolution.
Apparently I was mistaken in my belief that Lenski would be intellectually honest towards the empirical evidence that was presented by Minnich and company.
As the work by Minnich and company demonstrated, not only is the citrate adaptation not evidence for Darwinian evolution, (since the mutations are obviously not random as Lenski had presupposed), the citrate adaptation is actually evidence AGAINST Darwinian evolution since some unknown epigenetic mechanism is directing the mutations in a non-random, repeatable, fashion.
Moreover, not only was Lenskiâs Citrate adaptation never proof for ‘speciation’, (as Lenski has tentatively tried to claim), but, as Dr Behe points out in the following article, the Citrate adaptation turns out to be proof that evolutionary processes, in the long run, actually send species on a âdeath spiralâ, i.e. into âspectacular devolution.â
Which is exactly the opposite kind of real-time empirical evidence that Darwinists need in order to, (finally), empirically substantiate their theory as to being somewhat feasible.
Besides Lenski constantly overstating what is actually happening in his LTEE, just so as to provide fraudulent evidence for Darwinian evolution, one of Lenski’s students has also pulled this ‘intellectually dishonest’ stunt:
Because of such intellectually dishonest antics by Lenski and, at least, one of his students, I would have a very hard time talking face to face with Lenski without getting very angry with him for being so intellectually dishonest towards the general public with what the evidence actually say.
Lenski’s current fraudulent video now has, as of this writing, over 3,100,000 views. That is a lot of misinformation to the general public that Lenski is responsible for!
Again, I would have a very hard time talking face to face with Lenski without getting very angry with him for being so intellectually dishonest towards the general public.
Verse:
Martin_r,
E coli already had the ability to digest citrate. In the presence of oxygen the gene that codes for the citrate transport protein is not expressed. In an anaerobic environment E coli digests citrate just fine. without that protein citrate cannot get through the membrane.
What happened was that gene was duplicated. The duplicate was put under the control of a binding site that was active in the presence of oxygen. This allows for the protein to be made in the presence of oxygen.
It involved a change in allele frequency over time and descent with modification. And that means it is a case of evolution..
ET@8
Yes, it was a simple case of evolution, but no new complicated mechanism was created. Very little new information. So Darwinists have absolutely no basis in touting this as proof that Darwinist RM + NS can create complex new structures (like the vertebrate body plans originating in an eyeblink of evolution time at the Cambrian Explosion).
Doubter, see the first comment.
Martin_r @ 4 –
Err, because it is? Evolution isn’t just speciation.
Yep evolution isn’t just speciation is also the biggest hoax of 20th century. :)))
Martin_r/4
I know this is probably difficult for an engineer to grasp but, as Bob O’H pointed out, adaptation is one of the processes of evolution, the way organisms change over time. It’s not just about speciation.
According to other sources . . .
E. coli already have the ability to transport and metabolize citrate where there is no oxygen, but a replication occurred in the DNA so it could now be expressed (or restored?) in the presence of oxygen.
So nothing here remotely close to the hyped up and deceptive claims that E. coli “evolved” a new ability to metabolize citrate, much less evolve into a kangaroo.
And Darwinian evolution does indeed require speciation unless you want to go back to “punctuated equilibrium.” Adaptation is all about epigenetics such as was observed in the beaks of a single generation of Darwin’s finches.
-Q
Bornagain77/7
I think I would also have a hard time keeping my temper if I were to discuss such an outrageously defamatory claim with you face-to-face.
You accuse Lenski of dishonesty based on creationist Scott Minnich’s paper when your own reporting of the science in various fields is dishonest in that it amounts to a collection of cherry-picked quotes culled from the literature because they support your own religious presuppositions rather than any honest attempt to represent fairly other perspectives or interpretations.
Specifically, in this case, you make no mention of the response written by Lenski and his student Zachary Blount so let me help you by quoting from Larry Moran’s coverage of their response:
Seversky states,
It is only defamatory because it is true.
Moran, (and you) think that passage is a refutation of Minnich’s work?
For crying out loud,. Lenski had dishonestly suggested that it was a ‘unique’ speciation event. Minnich showed the adaptation was a repeatable, i.e. non-random, adaptation that was as easy as falling off a log to achieve.
Moreover, as Behe showed, the adaptation came at a cost in overall molecular functionality.
Thus, I stand by every word I wrote about Lenski’s dishonest antics in claiming that the adaptation supports the grandiose claims of Darwinists.
Can you point to where he said it was a speciation event?
@Bob O’H
“Rapid Evolution of Citrate Utilization by Escherichia coli by Direct Selection Requires citT and dctA”
https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/JB.00831-15
If you look at citation 13 you’ll see that the article was written by Lenski: “Lenski RE. 2011. Evolution in action: a 50,000-generation salute to Charles Darwin. Microbe 6:30â33.”
Now let’s have a look at that article:
“Can you point to where he said it was a speciation event?”
And per Minnich
Any system that add information REQUIRE much more initial informaton. Problem of information is insurmontable for atheists. Cannot be resolved by materialism.
AndyClue – ah, thank you. (although the “unique” is clearly wrong – they replicated it!)
Since Seversky appealed to Moran, (of all people), to defend Lenski, It is also worth pointing out that Moran, 8 years past the ENCODE results which found widespread functionality across the entire genome., is still trying to claim, (in the face of constant empirical evidence to the contrary that supports ENCODE and contradicts Moran), that the vast majority of the genome is non-functional junk (in fact, Moran unbelievably claims that upwards to 90% of the genome must be junk). I believe Moran is presently even writing a book on the subject.
Seversky accused me of being blinded by my own religious bias. Yet I am not the one holding onto to my position in the face of constant empirical evidence that contradicts my position. Moran and Seversky are the ones doing that.
Might it be too obvious to point out that since Moran, (and apparently Seversky), are the ones who are ignoring the constant onslaught of empirical evidence that contradicts their position, that they are, in fact, the ones who are blinded by their own own religious commitment to atheism?
Since Bob O’H implies that he has some knowledge as to what would it take to clearly define when a new species has appeared via Darwinian processes, perhaps Bob can disentangle the entire ‘species problem’ mess for us?
i.e. Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, canât even define what a species truly is.
As the headline of the following article stated, âWhat is a species? The most important concept in all of biology is a complete mysteryâ
In fact, Charles Darwin himself admitted that he did not have a rigid definition for what the term âspeciesâ actually meant when he stated that, âI look at the term species as one arbitrarily given, for the sake of convenience.,,,â
As should be needless to say, the inability of a supposedly scientific theory, a supposedly scientific theory that seeks to explain the âOrigin of Speciesâ, to clearly define what a species actually is is a clear indication that that supposedly scientific theory cannot possibly be the proper âscientificâ explanation for the âOrigin of Speciesâ!
As the old joke goes, “you can’t get there from here.”
The reason that Darwinists can never give a proper âscientificâ definition for what a species actually is because the concept of species turns out to be an abstract, i.e. immaterial, conceptualization of the immaterial mind.
As the following article states, âa crucial feature of human reason is its ability to abstract the universal nature from our sense experience of particular organisms.â,,, â this denial (of true species) is a grave error, because the essence of the individual (the species in the Aristotelian sense) is the true object of our knowledge.â
Within their reductive materialistic framework, Darwinists simply have no foundation on which they can ground the abstract, i.e. immaterial, concept of âspeciesâ.
In the Darwinists materialistic worldview, if something is not composed of particles it simply does not exist and is considered an illusion. It is âabstractâ. Thus, since species is clearly a abstract conceptualization of the immaterial mind, a conceptualization that cannot possibly be reduced to any possible grouping of material particles that Darwinists may wish to invoke, then it should not be surprising to find Darwinists denying the existence of species, i.e. denying the âtrue object of our knowledgeâ, altogether.
There simply is no physical measurement that Darwinists can perform and say, âand this is exactly what we mean when we say the term âspeciesââ. The concept of species does not weigh anything, nor does it have a speed, nor does the concept of species have any particular width or height that we can measure. Again, the entire concept of species is abstract and immaterial.
And to repeat, the (sheer) inability for a supposedly scientific theory, (a supposedly scientific theory that seeks to explain the âOrigin of Speciesâ), to clearly define what a species actually is is a crystal clear indication that that supposedly scientific theory cannot possibly be the proper âscientificâ explanation for the âOrigin of Speciesâ!
ba77 – if I gave that impression, them my apologies for not writing clearly enough to imply that I wasn’t aware that the species problem is always going to be messy, because of the nature of the subject.
Bornagain77/22
If you read Sandwalk you will find an extensive discussion concerning the so-called “‘function’ wars” which broke out after ENCODE and were fought over the way the researchers played fast and loose with the meaning of the word.
What onslaught did you have in mind, other than your dumps of cherry-picked quotes?
Bornagain77/23
If you’re actually interested in the complexities of the species concept then you should look to someone like Australian philosopher of science John S Wilkins who has written textbooks on the subject and knows way more about it than either of us. Here is a sample from his blog Evolving Thoughts
Now explain how Lenski was being dishonest in his claim that he could be observing the emergence of a new species in his experiment.
The only gene that could help transport citrate through the cell membrane was duplicated and put under the control of a binding site that was “on” in the presence of oxygen. This is evidence for a built-in response to an environmental cue, as Dr. Spetner wrote about in 1997.
Dismissing someone’s scientific work merely by labeling them as a “creationist,” or dismissing illustrative quotes in support of a position merely by labeling them as “cherry picking quotes” is completely disingenuous.
Darwinism is as dead as the “Norwegian blue” parrot in Monty Python’s dead parrot skit. It’s a fundamentally racist vestige of the days of wooden ships and European colonialism as Darwin himself demonstrated in his infamous book, The Descent of Man.
Now that I’ve dug into some of the scientific back-pedaling in response to Lenski’s grossly inflated claims (thanks to some links provided here as well as others), I find myself really resenting being mislead.
Naturally, Darwin fundamentalists will hold onto their unscientific beliefs and ideological prejudices much like flat earthers and anti-vaxxers, who ignore or rationalize falsifying evidence that turns up with boring regularity, but instead cling to Haeckel’s embryos, fraudulent fossils, and so-called missing links long after they’re exposed.
The fact remains that E.coli already can metabolize citrate in an anaerobic environment and was able to restore it in aerobic conditions–this is not some novel feature that was grossly inflated to supposedly demonstrate evolution. E.Coli is still E.coli and has not evolved into a chimpanzee any more than someone who is lactose intolerant is a new hominid species.
-Q
In post 23 I pointed out that the reason that the ‘species problem’ persists as a ‘problem’ for Darwinian materialists in the first place is because the entire “concept of species turns out to be an abstract, i.e. immaterial, conceptualization of the immaterial mind”, that cannot be reduced to rigid materialistic definition.
As I further pointed out in post 23, “There simply is no physical measurement that Darwinists can perform and say, âand this is exactly what we mean when we say the term âspeciesââ. The concept of species does not weigh anything, nor does it have a speed, nor does the concept of species have any particular width or height that we can measure. Again, the entire concept of species is abstract and immaterial.”
In post 26 Seversky objected to my fairly straightforward observation of the primary problem confronting Darwinian materialists is the fact that the entire concept of species is abstract and immaterial in its foundational essence.
Yet the very authority, i.e. John S Wilkins, that Seversky himself quotes from, to supposedly refute my fairly straightforward observation, (far from refuting my observation), agrees with my basic point that the abstract and immaterial concept of species is irreducible to any rigid physical/materialistic measurements, such as weight, speed, length and height.
In the passage that Seversky himself cited, Wilkins himself honestly admits that, while physics has ‘base units’, (evolutionary) biology does not have ‘base units’ in which to rigidly delimit species into specific categories.
Specifically Wilkins stated,
As an aside, and as to Wilkins trying to claim that “all the other special sciences’ have no base units, (whatever Wilkins meant by ‘special sciences’), the fact of the matter is that all the other ‘hard sciences’ are rigidly defined in a clear enough manner so that that they can be realistically modeled. Only Darwinian evolution, out of all the ‘hard sciences’, lacks a clearly defined foundation that can be realistically modeled.
To continue on with my critique of Seversky’s citation,,,
Moreover, as if the irreducibility of the abstract, i.e. immaterial, concept of species to physical measurements was not problematic enough, (for those who toe the reductive materialistic party line of Darwinian evolution), the very examples that Wilkins himself cites for delimiting species into specific groups turn out to falsify Darwinian claims.
Specifically, Wilkins stated that,,,
Yet all the examples that Wilkins himself cited, (i.e. genomic clustering algorithms; mitochondrial or other organelle DNA sequences at a particular locus (âBarcodingâ), and the traditional methods of eyeballing or analysing anatomy), for delimiting species into specific groups falsify Darwin’s claim that all species should be related via “numerous, successive, slight modifications”.
Specifically, Darwin himself held that evolution proceeds via “numerous, successive, slight modifications”, and even held that if this were shown to not be the case, then “my theory would absolutely break down.â
Yet, all three of Wilkins’ methods for delimiting species into specific groups falsify Darwin’s claim.
As to genomic clustering algorithms that Wilkins mentioned,,, although problems with the hypothetical genetic ‘tree of life’ were known about before,,,
,,, although problems with the hypothetical genetic ‘tree of life’ were known about before, in a (massive) study of genomic data from 2018, Winston Ewert completely blew the hypothesis of a genetic ‘tree of life’, that conformed to the Darwinian expectations, (i.e. of numerous, successive, slight modifications,), completely out of the water.
As the following article stated about Dr. Ewert’s study, “We are not talking about a few decimal points difference. For one of the data sets (HomoloGene), the dependency graph, (i.e. the Intelligent Design), model was superior to common descent by a factor of 10,064. The comparison of the two models yielded a preference for the dependency graph model of greater than ten thousand.
Ten thousand is a big number. But it gets worse, much worse.”,,,
In Seversky’s citation, Wilkins also mentioned using mitochondrial DNA, and other organelle DNA, in order to delimit species into specific groups.
Yet, when trying to define species via mitochondrial DNA (barcoding), the mitochondrial data also falsifies Darwinian expectations.
The following study found, when comparing the mitochondrial DNA of different species, that “”If individuals are stars, then species are galaxies,” said Thaler. “They are compact clusters in the vastness of empty sequence space.”
Moreover, this “intermediates are not found” in mitochondrial DNA sequences has been known about for at least 35 years.
Specifically, the preceding study, in over the top fashion, confirms exactly what Michael Denton had found 35 years ago in his book âEvolution: A Theory in Crisisâ (1986).
Specifically Michael Denton found that, âHowever, the most striking feature of the matrix is that every identifiable subclass is isolated and distinct. Every sequence can be unambiguously assigned to a particular subclass. No sequence or group of sequences can be designated as intermediate with respect to other groups. All the sequences of each subclass are equally isolated from the members of another group. Transitional or intermediate classes are completely absent from the matrix. 4â
So basically, Darwinists have been ignoring, and/or denying, this falsifying empirical evidence against their theory for 35 years.
As to the third ‘usual’ method that Wilkins mentioned for delimiting species into specific groups, i.e. the “traditional methods of eyeballing or analysing anatomy”, well that ‘traditional method’ also, unsurprisingly, falsifies Darwinian claims.
Specifically, when new body plans appear in the fossil record, they appear suddenly and are not led up to by ‘numerous, successive, slight modifications.,,,” as Darwin himself had envisioned in the only (very crude) illustration that he drew in his book “Origin of Species”.
That ‘branching pattern’ is simply not what is seen in the fossil record. The ‘lack of transitions’ is particularly acute for the Cambrian explosion.
As Stephen Meyer noted in his book “Darwinâs Doubt”, “the differences in form between any member of one phylum and any member of another phylum are vast, and paleontologists have utterly failed to find forms that would fill these yawning chasms in what biotechnologists call âmorphological space.”
Moreover, this is not just a problem for Darwinists in the Cambrian explosion, but the ‘problem’ of body plans appearing suddenly in the fossil record is found throughout the fossil record as well, subsequent to the Cambrian explosion.
Thus the three ‘lead-off’ criteria that Wilkins himself listed for delimiting species into specific groups all end up falsifying Darwinian claims for ‘numerous, successive, slight modifications.,,,”
None of this falsifying evidence against Darwinian evolution should be that surprising.
The ‘problem’ of delimiting species in a rigidly defined manner is very much a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ proposition for Darwinists.
On the one hand, Darwinists hold, because of their materialistic presuppositions, that a dog is not really ever, strictly speaking, a specific species named dog per se, but instead, “If we take the Darwinian view,,, there is no species âdogâ but only a collection of individuals, connected in a long chain of changing shapes, which happen to resemble each other today but will not tomorrow.”
But on the other hand, when Darwinists try to delimit species into specific groups, and honestly admit what everybody knows to be true, (i.e. a dog really is a dog that is distinct from all other species), well then that attempt at delimiting species into specific groups ends up falsifying their claim that all species are related via ‘numerous, successive, slight modifications.,,,”
Again, it is very much a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ proposition for Darwinists.
So in conclusion, Seversky’s own citation from Wilkins, which he himself provided in order to supposedly refute me, if fact supports my position and refutes his position.
I would thank Seversky for providing the citation, but I don’t think he would appreciate my gratitude. đ
In short, the ‘usual’ methods that Wilkins himself listed for delimiting species into specific groups, (i.e. genomic clustering algorithms; mitochondrial or other organelle DNA sequences at a particular locus (âBarcodingâ), and the traditional methods of eyeballing or analysing anatomy), those very methods themselves of delimiting species actually falsify Darwinian claims that species are related via ‘numerous, successive, slight modifications.,,,”
Of supplemental note, since Darwinists presuppose that the ‘transmutation of species’ is the defining feature of the history of all life on earth, it should not be surprising to learn that it was not a Darwinian atheist who first developed the basic classification system for life that we have, but instead it was a devout Christian, Carl Linnaeus, who first developed our basic classification system for life.
Carl Linnaeus, a devout Christian who is is considered the âFather of Taxonomyâ, and in developing his classification system for life, was motivated to develop his classification system for life so that it would “reveal the Divine Order of Godâs creation”.
Also of supplemental note:
While I vehemently disagree with Louis Agassizâs scientific racism, I, never-the-less, whole-heartedly agree with Agassizâs assessment that genera and species must have been ideas in the mind of God prior to their physical creation
As I have pointed out in this thread, there simply is no physical, and/or material, basis that Darwinian materialists can appeal to in order to rigidly ground the ‘abstract’ and immaterial concept of species, which is the âtrue object of our knowledgeâ.
Yet, since species clearly and distinctly exist as the âtrue object of out knowledgeâ, (i.e. a dog really is a dog and is not on its way to becoming a cat, or becoming anything other than a dog), then it necessarily follows that distinct classifications of species must have been ideas in the mind of God prior to their physical creation.
Also see the argument from truth
So, let’s “follow the science” regarding the evolutionary tracks left in actual DNA to see what we can learn about The Tree of Life! Ready?
So, here’s how the Darwinists here handle this scientific information:
Drumroll . . .
(crickets)
-Q
Bornagain77/16
No, it is defamatory if it is untrue. There is no defamation of it is true.
I say your claims of dishonest and even fraudulent behavior by Lenski are defamatory because they are untrue.
It is a refutation of the claim that their work somehow undermines Lenski’s work.
Where did Lenski claim that it was a “unique speciation event”? As far as I can tell he’s been suggesting it might qualify as a speciation event. And that might be the case. There’s no dishonesty and certainly no fraud in that.
All Minnich showed was that it was an adaptation that could happen more frequently if you set up a more favorable environment. Big deal. The point is that the capacity to adapt to aerobic metabolism of citrates is there, regardless of how frequently it can occur. That means that there is at least the possibility of the formation of a new species, depending on how you define “species” for E Coli.
So what? If the cost of evolving a new function which enables you to survive better is the loss of an old function which is no longer necessary then that’s a good deal. That’s what evolution is about, survival. How is that not new information? I could say that all the words I just used were taken from a Richard Dawkins book or the Bible. The same could be true of what you wrote. Does this mean it’s not new information?
All your hand-waving in post 32 aside, I think I’ll let my response stand as stated Seversky.
Bornagain77/29
The problem of defining species is what Wilkins is writing about. It is a well-known issue. The whole point of the post I quoted was to question whether there is – or should be – a one-size-fits-all concept of species. This is from a man who has written books about the subject so I think he has a better understanding of the problems than either of us.
This is just silly and irrelevant. No one has suggested that the concept of species has physical dimensions or properties any more than anyone has suggested that the numeral 2 has weight or width or height.
Again, not a problem.
Complete strawman. Yet again, no one has suggested that the species concept is a physical entity.
Yet the concepts of ‘meter’ or ‘kilogram’ are immaterial abstractions without weight or width or any other physical properties. How is that not a problem for physics?
Regardless, further down you raise the issue of using mitochondrial DNA as a means of defining species
What is interesting about the second paper you cite is that it includes the following passage
In other words, far from supporting your position, the authors take much the same view as Wilkins, that there are many differing species concepts in biology. They even refer to an “empirically-determined evolutionary law” which you have previously denied exists. Whether you agree with their views or not a fair and honest reporting of them would require you to at least quote them, so the fact you didn’t means you were either careless or dishonest.
Now this may have been just a one-off but I would certainly recommend that any readers check out the whole of the papers or articles cited to see if the views of the authors are being accurately and fairly reported.
Wow. OK, we privileged white people can produce vitamin D, better than the darker skin humans, just by getting a sun tan. We must be a different species. đ
And if the species concept isn’t a physical entity, then it is completely useless in a physical science such as biology.
Perhaps Seversky should take his own advice and read my entire posts instead of just parts of it?
I granted that the mitochondrial sequences clearly differentiated species, yet I also pointed out that “The âproblemâ of delimiting species in a rigidly defined manner is very much a âdamned if you do, damned if you donâtâ proposition for Darwinists.”
On the one hand, Darwinists hold that all species are related via ‘numerous, slight, successive’ modifications, yet Mitochondrial sequences show that no âintermediates are not foundâ. and also, In their words, âIf individuals are stars, then species are galaxies,â âThey are compact clusters in the vastness of empty sequence space.â
That is NOT what Darwinism predicts!
In other words, to delimit a species in a rigid manner is to falsify the entire notion of gradualistic Darwinian evolution.
Bornagain77 @36,
Haha! Their predictions never work out. Reminds me of . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIBdVkJ9L-k
-Q
In 34, Seversky said a few other, self-defeating, things that are interesting to look at.
He stated,
Well, duh, it is not a problem for physics, but it is a huge problem for reductive materialists, (i.e. Darwinists), who insist that everything must be reducible to matter and energy.
Here is a straight up contradiction in Seversky’s reductive materialistic, i.e. Darwinian, worldview. Seversky, via his Darwinian worldview, holds that everything, (the universe, life, all our thoughts about the universe, etc..) must be reducible to materialistic explanations, yet mathematics is profoundly immaterial in its foundational essence and refuses to be reduced to any possible materialistic explanations.
Furthermore, Seversky needs this profoundly immaterial world of mathematics in order for his Darwinian worldview to ever be considered ‘scientific’.
The predicament that Darwinists find themselves in in regards to denying the reality of this immaterial world of mathematics, and yet needing validation from this immaterial world of mathematics in order for their reductive materialistic theory to even be considered scientific in the first place, should be the very definition of a scientifically self-refuting worldview.
Moreover, the fact that man himself can think about this transcendent, (i.e. beyond space and time), immaterial world of mathematics, offers compelling evidence that man cannot possibly be a purely material being, as Darwinists hold, but that man, instead, must possess a transcendent, beyond space and time, immaterial mind and/or soul.
As Charles Darwinâs contemporary, Alfred Russel Wallace, (co-discoverer of Natural Selection), himself stated, âNothing 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.â
I have a question for you Seversky
To continue on, with the fact that Darwinian materialism is incompatible with the existence of mathematics now on the table, it should not be surprising to learn, (as was previously mentioned in this thread), that Darwinian evolution has no foundation in mathematics that can be realistically simulated.
And indeed, mathematics has not been kind to Darwinian claims in the least,
Needless to say, having mathematics falsify your mechanism of natural selection is not a good place for Darwinists to be scientifically speaking.
Further down Seversky claimed that
And here is the claim:
Funny kind of ‘law’ you have there Seversky. The supposed ‘law’ apparently predicts, directly contrary to what Charles Darwin himself predicted, that âintermediates are not foundâ. and also, In their words, âIf individuals are stars, then species are galaxies,â âThey are compact clusters in the vastness of empty sequence space.â
So Darwinism can apparently predict the existence of intermediates, and the non-existence of intermediates, with equal ease. Others not so enamored with the belief that all life is the result of a nearly endless series of unintended accidents might find the fact that a Theory can predict completely opposite predictions with equal ease to be a sure sign that we are not dealing with a real scientific theory in any meaningful sense of the term ‘scientific theory’;
Moreover, the supposed ‘law’ that Seversky is appealling to try to refute my claim that evolution is not based on any known physical law, is certainly not a universal, physical, law of nature.
His supposed ‘evolutionary law’ is certainly not on the list of known universal laws.
Contrary to what Seversky tried to claim, there simply is no known law of evolution within the physical universe.
As Ernst Mayr himself conceded, âIn biology, as several other people have shown, and I totally agree with them, there are no natural laws in biology corresponding to the natural laws of the physical sciences.â
In the following article, Roger Highfield makes much the same observation as Ernst Mayr and states, ,,, Whatever the case, those universal truthsââlawsââthat physicists and chemists all rely upon appear relatively absent from biology.
Professor Murray Eden of MIT, in a paper entitled âInadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theoryâ stated that âthe randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural lawsâphysical, physico-chemical, and biological.â
In fact, not only is there no ‘law of evolution’ within the known physical universe for Darwinists to build a realistic mathematical model upon, the second law of thermodynamics, entropy, a law with great mathematical explanatory power in science, almost directly, if not directly, contradicts the primary Darwinian claim that greater and greater levels of functional complexity can easily be had and/or ‘naturally selected’ for over long periods of time. Indeed, entropy’s main claim is that, over long periods of time, everything in the universe will decay into simpler and simpler states until what is termed thermodynamic equilibrium is finally reached.
Besides having no universal physical law to build a realistic mathematical model upon, another reason Darwinists will never be able to build a realistic mathematical model for their theory is that Biological form is not even reducible to mutations in DNA in the first place as is presupposed in Darwinian thought.
Or to put the insurmountable ‘problem of biological form’ in strict mathematical terms, âeven a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,,â and âthe insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”,
As should be needless to say, if your supposedly ‘scientific’ theory cannot even explain ”biological form” in the first place, then any claim that you may make as to having a scientific theory that can explain the transmutation of biological forms into other biological forms is a ‘Alice in Wonderland’ pipe dream that has no basis in scientific reality.