Evolutionist: “Evolutionary Processes Not Fully Understood”

At last scientists have discovered the mammal that gave rise to every other that has ever existed. Meet the one that we owe so much gratitude to folks: http://www.newser.com/story/162477/meet-the-66m-year-old-ancestor-of-all-mammals.html Now, how many benificial mutations must have been required in that scenario? ;o) PeterJ

"Not fully understood" ?? Or rather they can't fake it. Evolution has never been proven in a single case. Its just presumed lines of reasoning. Robert Byers

Mung, I think his argument is yes, that deleterious mutations accumulate over time, but the point is that they are only slightly deleterious - too slight for natural selection to catch. In fact, I think the idea of a neutral mutation is basically myth. It may be neutral in the fact that there are no noticeable effects from it, but it is not an improvement to the system. It is a mistake that doesn't get deleted and eventually combined with other such mutations it will cause a problem. I really think this is a powerful argument against the ability of natural selection powered evolution. How can natural selection get rid of mutations that are neutral or mutations that do not have enough negative effect for natural selection to catch? Is there an answer for this? tjguy

correction, Sorry I only found Dr. Behe's two books referenced in the video, and did not find Dr. Behe's paper referenced. bornagain77

"I’d find more comfort in your belief if you could establish that Behe agrees with Sanford’s arguments and conclusions." Is there any evidence whatsoever that Entropic considerations do not hold for molecular biology?? Please site the exact evidence of Darwinian processes generating ANY functional information over and above Dr. Dembski's UPB limit.,,, Dr. Behe, while strongly disagreeing with shoehorning the evidence to fit a YEC model, as Dr. Sanford tries to do, none-the-less agrees with the overall implications of genetic entropy in his paper that I referenced earlier, a paper which Dr. Sewell referenced in this following video: And Dr. Sewell also references both Dr. Behe's books, Darwin's Black Box and Edge Of Evolution, in this following video, to support his 'common sense' contention that entropic considerations hold for Darwinian processes,, Here is the portion referencing 'The Edge': Are You Looking for the Simplest and Clearest Argument for Intelligent Design? - Granville Sewell - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=259r-iDckjQ#t=668s Notes: “Gain in entropy always means loss of information, and nothing more.” Gilbert Newton Lewis – preeminent Chemist of the first half of last century Physicist Rob Sheldon offers some thoughts on Sal Cordova vs. Granville Sewell on 2nd Law Thermo - July 2012 Excerpt: The Equivalence: Boltzmann’s famous equation (and engraved on his tombstone) S = k ln W, merely is an exchange rate conversion. If W is lira, and S is dollars, then k ln() is the conversion of the one to the other, which is empirically determined. Boltzmann’s constant “k” is a semi-empirical conversion number that made Gibbs “stat mech” definition work with the earlier “thermo” definition of Lord Kelvin and co. Despite this being something as simple as a conversion factor, you must realize how important it was to connect these two. When Einstein connected mass to energy with E = (c2) m, we can now talk about mass-energy conservation, atom bombs and baby universes, whereas before Einstein they were totally different quantities. Likewise, by connecting the two things, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, then the hard rules derived from thermo can now be applied to statistics of counting permutations. This is where Granville derives the potency of his argument, since a living organism certainly shows unusual permutations of the atoms, and thus has stat mech entropy that via Boltzmann, must obey the 2nd law. If life violates this, then it must not be lawfully possible for evolution to happen (without an input of work or information.) The one remaining problem, is how to calculate it precisely (how to calculate the entropy precisely). note: (And because it is extremely difficult to calculate entropy precisely for living cells, this is exactly where Darwinists try to claim evolution does not violate the second law. Yet regardless of the games Darwinists play because of this lack of mathematical precision, for all intents and purposes as far as we can ascertain, for evolution to occur would indeed violate the 'iron clad' second law of thermodynamics!) https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/physicist-rob-sheldon-offers-some-thoughts-on-sal-cordova-vs-granville-sewell-on-2nd-law-thermo/ bornagain77

BA77, I'd find more comfort in your belief if you could establish that Behe agrees with Sanford's arguments and conclusions. I just hold Genetic Entropy to be true. I doubt you can even define "Genetic Entropy." Sanford appears to be attempting to piggyback on the second law of thermodynamics. Can we conclude from the 2nd law that the universe is only 6k years old? Why not? Mung

Mung, nothing of the sort, I just hold Genetic Entropy to be true.,,, bornagain77

and,,, A. L. Hughes's New Non-Darwinian Mechanism of Adaption Was Discovered and Published in Detail by an ID Geneticist 25 Years Ago - Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig - December 2011 Excerpt: The original species had a greater genetic potential to adapt to all possible environments. In the course of time this broad capacity for adaptation has been steadily reduced in the respective habitats by the accumulation of slightly deleterious alleles (as well as total losses of genetic functions redundant for a habitat), with the exception, of course, of that part which was necessary for coping with a species' particular environment....By mutative reduction of the genetic potential, modifications became "heritable". -- As strange as it may at first sound, however, this has nothing to do with the inheritance of acquired characteristics. For the characteristics were not acquired evolutionarily, but existed from the very beginning due to the greater adaptability. In many species only the genetic functions necessary for coping with the corresponding environment have been preserved from this adaptability potential. The "remainder" has been lost by mutations (accumulation of slightly disadvantageous alleles) -- in the formation of secondary species. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/12/a_l_hughess_new053881.html Evolutionists Are Losing Ground Badly: Both Pattern and Process Contradict the Aging Theory – Cornelius Hunter - July 2012 Excerpt: Contradictory patterns in biology include the abrupt appearance of so many forms and the diversity explosions followed by a winnowing of diversity in the fossil record. It looks more like the inverse of an evolutionary tree with bursts of new species which then die off over time. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/07/evolutionists-are-losing-ground-badly.html Dollo's law and the death and resurrection of genes: Excerpt: "As the history of animal life was traced in the fossil record during the 19th century, it was observed that once an anatomical feature was lost in the course of evolution it never staged a return. This observation became canonized as Dollo's law, after its propounder, and is taken as a general statement that evolution is irreversible." http://www.pnas.org/content/91/25/12283.full.pdf+html Dollo's Law was further verified to the molecular level here: Dollo’s law, the symmetry of time, and the edge of evolution - Michael Behe Excerpt: We predict that future investigations, like ours, will support a molecular version of Dollo's law:,,, Dr. Behe comments on the finding of the study, "The old, organismal, time-asymmetric Dollo’s law supposedly blocked off just the past to Darwinian processes, for arbitrary reasons. A Dollo’s law in the molecular sense of Bridgham et al (2009), however, is time-symmetric. A time-symmetric law will substantially block both the past and the future. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/10/dollos_law_the_symmetry_of_tim.html Some Further Research On Dollo's Law - Wolf-Ekkehard Lonnig - November 2010 http://www.globalsciencebooks.info/JournalsSup/images/Sample/FOB_4(SI1)1-21o.pdf Further facts that conform to the principle of genetic entropy: "According to a ‘law’ formulated by E. D. Cope in 1871, the body size of organisms in a peculiar evolutionary lineage tends to increase. But Cope’s rule has failed the most comprehensive test applied to it yet."(body sizes tend to get smaller rather than larger) Stephen Gould, Harvard, Nature, V.385, 1/16/97 "Also that mammalian life was richer in kinds, of larger sizes, and had a more abundant expression in the Pliocene than in later times." Von Engeln & Caster Geology, p.19 "Alexander Kaiser, Ph.D., of Midwestern University’s Department of Physiology,,, was the lead author in a recent study to help determine why insects, once dramatically larger than they are today, have seen such a remarkable reduction in size over the course of history." Science Daily, 8/8/07 Giants among us: Paper explores evolution of the world’s largest mammals Excerpt: The researchers found that the pattern (larger to smaller) was indeed consistent, not only globally but across time and across trophic groups and lineages—that is, animals with differing diets and descended from different ancestors—as well. http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-giants-paper-explores-evolution-world.html The following article is important in that it shows the principle of Genetic Entropy being obeyed in the fossil record by Trilobites, over the 270 million year history of their life on earth (Note: Trilobites are one of the most prolific 'kinds' found in the fossil record with an extensive worldwide distribution. They appeared abruptly at the base of the Cambrian explosion with no evidence of transmutation from the 'simple' creatures that preceded them, nor is there any evidence they ever produced anything else besides other trilobites during the entire time (270 my) they are found in the fossil record). The Cambrian's Many Forms Excerpt: "It appears that organisms displayed “rampant” within-species variation “in the ‘warm afterglow’ of the Cambrian explosion,” Hughes said, but not later. “No one has shown this convincingly before, and that’s why this is so important.""From an evolutionary perspective, the more variable a species is, the more raw material natural selection has to operate on,"....(Yet Surprisingly)...."There's hardly any variation in the post-Cambrian," he said. "Even the presence or absence or the kind of ornamentation on the head shield varies within these Cambrian trilobites and doesn't vary in the post-Cambrian trilobites." University of Chicago paleontologist Mark Webster; article on the "surprising and unexplained" loss of variation and diversity for trilobites over the 270 million year time span that trilobites were found in the fossil record, prior to their total extinction from the fossil record about 250 million years ago. http://www.terradaily.com/reports/The_Cambrian_Many_Forms_999.html bornagain77

BA77, surely you know that Behe is not a young earth creationist and that he accepts common descent. It follows that you are either misinterpreting his argument or deliberately misrepresenting it. Or are you asserting that Behe's results have led him to abandon his earlier views and embrace a recent origin of life on earth? Mung

tjguy, There are a number of different ways to look at Sanford's argument, there are probably issues with each of them. His argument, as I understand it, is not that neutral mutations accumulate over time, but that deleterious mutations accumulate over time. First argument: Deleterious mutations accumulate over time. There is no mechanism to prevent the accumulations of deleterious mutations. The accumulation of deleterious mutations inevitably leads to extinction. Therefore all species, including humans, given enough time, will go extinct due to the accumulation of deleterious mutations. Second argument: Every species accumulates deleterious mutations at some specific rate. After any species accumulates a specific number of deleterious mutations the species will go extinct. Any species which has not yet become extinct must have originated less than 6000 years ago. And so forth. Mung

"Remains to be fully understood." That's the understatement of the century! Nice to see a little bit of honesty though. Normally we're told evolution is established fact. tjguy

Well,,, “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain - Michael Behe - December 2010 Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain. http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/ Michael Behe talks about the preceding paper on this podcast: Michael Behe: Challenging Darwin, One Peer-Reviewed Paper at a Time - December 2010 http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/player/web/2010-12-23T11_53_46-08_00 bornagain77

Sanford's argument that neutral mutations build up under the radar of natural selection makes a lot of sense. I don't know how natural selection could get rid of them. And once they have established themselves in the population, it seems too late. Can you explain how genetic entropy cannot happen? I recognize his ideas are not generally accepted by scientists, but I think there is a natural bias against them because of the implication is his idea. If true it pretty much puts a nail into the coffin of common descent I would think. So, since we already know evolution is fact, obviously Sanford has to be mixed up somewhere. Evolution is change over time. We all agree with that. The question is in which direction the change takes place. Sanford's ideas need to be reckoned with. tjguy

BA77, surely you know by now what I think of "Genetic Entropy," lol. Funny, I just had the book in hand a couple hours ago, typing up the ToC. I didn't even file it under Intelligent Design, I filed it under Creationism. =P Mung

By Golly Mung, I think KN is catching the drift of Genetic Entropy finally. :) OT: Mount Bromo HD Timelapse - video - (Be still and know,,,Psalm 46:10) https://vimeo.com/44543156 bornagain77

Depends on what one means by "needs," right? If a population of organisms doesn't produce enough viable offspring, then that species will become tend towards extinction. That's clear enough. Kantian Naturalist

Organisms that don’t leave (enough) offspring tend to become extinct in rather short order.

You're not saying that an organism needs to leave offspring else it will become extinct, are you? And surely you're not saying an organism leaves offspring for the sake of it's own kind. ;) Mung

I cannot speak for Darwin himself, but Ernst Mayr puts the point rather nicely this way: species are real, but they are not essences, kinds, or universals. Instead, species are particulars, because (i) a species is a population of organisms, and (ii) a population is a particular (rather than a universal) in just the same way that a sports-team is a particular. Now, I don't know if this is a widely-accepted view in philosophy of biology (I really should ask!), but it seems to me that, on this view, taxa above the species-level (genera, family, order, etc.) are merely assessment of the similarities and differences between species, rather than designating entities. So, as I see it, the Darwinian revolution in biology entails that: (1) species are real particulars, not universals; (2) higher taxa are not real at all. In other words, the metaphysics of biology requires only concrete particulars. Note: this does not mean either that we don't need real universals at all -- it means only that we don't need real universals for biological explanations. Furthermore, this does not mean that we can or should dispense with talking about universals in our semantics or our epistemology about biological explanations. At most it means that the relationship between metaphysics and semantics is going to be a lot more complicated. Organisms that don't leave (enough) offspring tend to become extinct in rather short order. Kantian Naturalist

Darwin seemed to reject that species are real while maintaining the reality of universals. How is that possible? Mung

Biology’s incredible structures arose to fill a need. That certainly sounds better than explaining that a whole bunch of random mutations just happened find an astronomically unlikely design for no reason.

Of course. It took "modern science" to convince educated people that "it just happened, that's all" is a better explanation. Is there some reason why an organism needs to leave offspring? Mung