An updated giraffe genome, published March 17, 2021 in Science Advances, reveals new insights into how the species accommodates a “blatantly strange body architecture.”
Author, Amanda Heidt writes…
With their long necks, giraffes are a poster child for evolutionary oddities, but scientists know very little about the genetic underpinnings of such an extreme adaptation. An updated giraffe genome, published March 17 in Science Advances, reveals new insights into how the species accommodates what Rasmus Heller, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Copenhagen and an author on the new study, calls a “blatantly strange body architecture.” Giraffe’s bones grow faster than any other animal, for instance, and the blood pressure required to pump blood up its six-foot neck would be fatal to humans.
Unlocking giraffeness
When the team probed the genome further, they identified almost 500 genes that are either unique to giraffes or contain variants found only in giraffes.
A functional analysis of these genes showed that they are most often associated with growth and development, nervous and visual systems, circadian rhythms, and blood pressure regulation, all areas in which the giraffe differs from other ruminants. As a consequence of their tall stature, for example, giraffes must maintain a blood pressure that is roughly 2.5 times higher than that of humans in order to pump blood up to their brain. In addition, giraffes have sharp eyesight for scanning the horizon, and because their strange bodies make it difficult for them to stand quickly, they sleep lightly, often standing up and for only minutes at a time, likely a result of changes during evolution to genes that regulate circadian rhythms.
Within those hundreds of genes, FGFRL1 stood out. In addition to being the giraffe’s most divergent gene from other ruminants’, its seven amino acid substitutions are unique to giraffes. In humans, this gene appears to be involved in cardiovascular development and bone growth, leading the researchers to hypothesize that it might also play a role in the giraffe’s unique adaptations to a highly vertical life.
The Scientist
Note that seven amino acid substitutions needed to form a unique, functional gene is highly unlikely to occur naturally. Consider the following quote from Michael Behe:
Any particular adaptive biochemical feature requiring the same mutational complexity as that needed for chloroquine resistance in malaria is forbiddingly unlikely to have arisen by Darwinian processes and fixed in the population of any class of large animals (such as, say, mammals), because of the much lower population sizes and longer generation times compared to that of malaria…. (By “the same mutational complexity” I mean requiring 2-3 point mutations [amino acid substitutions]…)
Evolution News–Behe
Repeatedly, further research in a given field tends to reveal greater evidence for intelligent design, not less.
Given that, plus the paper “Waiting for TWO Mutations”, evolution by means of blind and mindless processes is for deluded people who can deny reality.
500 unique genes ?
Darwinian scientists believe in miracles.
from a mainstream paper (NewScientists) 2010 article:
So now Darwinists claim, that Giraffe’s long neck is because of sexual selection. Allegedly, females prefer males with longer neck. Allegedly. Because some biologist says so. And, recently, another article came with an idea of thermoregulation. This theory is a mess.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19135-zoologger-how-did-the-giraffe-get-its-long-neck/#:~:text=Because%20a%20giraffe's%20brain%20is,keep%20giraffes'%20necks%20so%20long.
PS: from an engineering point of view it is clear, that giraffe was designed the way it looks. The whole body has to be in balance. That includes a proper length of legs as well. All four legs. You can’t have short legs with such a long neck. Otherwise giraffes could not move let alone run. Would flip over and then die = NO EVOLUTION. NO GIRAFFES.
Seversky and Co. may argue, that long legs evolved first and then the long neck. Yes, but you have to support such a claim with evidence. E.g. fossil record. Ahh, i know, you can’t, because fossils are rare. Eventually, you can claim, that long legs and long neck ‘co-evolved’, at the same moment, by random mutations. Step by step: a bit longer neck, and at the same moment a bit longer front legs and then a bit longer hind legs and so on… like in a fairy tale. When you are a Darwinist, you can believe anything …
500 unique genes that should not be unique with common ancestry. Science continues to prove design.
Nit-pick : science doesn’t prove or disprove anything, that’s math. Science is an endeavor using observation, experiment, hypothesis testing to build models and develop explanations for aspects of reality.
So you have common descent with modification due to variation and selection with the result that different species possess different genomes.
Now I understand that ID proponents claim evolutionary processes are impossible or limited. Therefore they must think something else is the explanation. What is that?
FH, you are correct that deductive proof is not in the gift of empirical science, though its stock in trade is warrant by inference to best current explanation, a type of modern sense inductive reasoning. The observed presence of 500 genes “that are either unique to giraffes or contain variants found only in giraffes” constitutes a case of a deeply isolated island of function. This warrants a design inference. KF
PS, In deductive reasoning the truth status of premises is often a matter of observation or induction. Even in Math, we have Godel incompleteness. Of course some things are self evident on pain of patent absurdity on attempted denial, but they are never enough to be comprehensive.
Where are the fossils that show a gradual lengthening of neck?
Eaten by those lions with long neck. We don’t find those lions with long neck in the fossil record because the Tyrannosaurs preffered to eat only that kind of long neck lions so they were extinct exactly before the flood that would form fossil strata . :)))
As to:
On top of the mathematical impossibility of Darwinian processes to ever be able to explain the origin of “almost 500 genes that are either unique to giraffes or contain variants found only in giraffes”,,,
,,, On top of that mathematical impossibility for Darwinian processes, the “Blatantly Strange” Body Shape of the giraffe, and/or any other creature, is also forever beyond the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution.
Specifically, when Darwinists first formulated the modern synthesis, they excluded ‘biological form’ from the conceptual framework of the Modern Synthesis as being quote-unquote ‘irrelevant’
Needless to say, excluding ‘biological form’ from the conceptual framework of the Modern Synthesis is NOT a minor omission on their part.
Yet, in spite of the fact that Darwinists themselves excluded biological form from the conceptual framework of the Modern Synthesis as being quote-unquote ‘irrelevant’, Darwinists still assume, (apparently without any justification whatsoever), that changes to DNA have the potential to eventually change the basic biological form and/or body plan of any given species into a brand new body plan of a brand new species.
Yet, (directly contrary to what Darwinists have assumed without any warrant), biological form is found to be irreducible to mutations to DNA, nor is biological form reducible to any other material particulars, (i.e. proteins, carbohydrates, etc..), in biology that Darwinists may wish to invoke.
As Dr. Jonathan Wells explained, “Studies using saturation mutagenesis in the embryos of fruit flies, roundworms, zebrafish and mice also provide evidence against the idea that DNA specifies the basic form of an organism. Biologists can mutate (and indeed have mutated) a fruit fly embryo in every possible way, and they have invariably observed only three possible outcomes: a normal fruit fly, a defective fruit fly, or a dead fruit fly.”
And as Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig points out, “even after inducing literally billions of induced mutations and (further) chromosome rearrangements”,,, “the law of recurrent variation is endlessly corroborated”…
The ‘blueprint’ for the biological form of any given species simply does not reside in DNA as Darwinists had falsely presupposed it to within population genetics..
As Michael Denton remarks in the following article,’”to date the form of no individual cell has been shown to be specified in detail in a genomic blueprint.”
And as Paul Davies stated, “DNA is not a blueprint for an organism,,,, Rather, DNA is a (mostly) passive repository for transcription of stored data into RNA,”
And as Antony Jose stated, “DNA cannot be seen as the ‘blueprint’ for life,”,,, “It is at best an overlapping and potentially scrambled list of ingredients that is used differently by different cells at different times.”,,,
And indeed, the entire concept of ‘biological form’, and/or a genetic blueprint, is simply antithetical to the reductive materialistic framework of Darwinian evolution.
As the following article points out, the reductive materialism of Darwinism actually “abolishes forms and all that goes with them, including that deepest kind of ontological form which is the immortal human soul.”,,,, and for Darwinists there is “no immaterial, immutable (human) form”, “only a collection of individuals, connected in a long chain of changing shapes, which happen to resemble each other today but will not tomorrow.”
Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, simply have no answer for the following question,,, ” the question, rather, is why things don’t fall completely apart — as they do, in fact, at the moment of death. What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer?”
Yet ID proponents can readily answer that question. Specifically, ID proponents hold that it is immaterial information that explains “why things don’t fall completely apart — as they do, in fact, at the moment of death.”
In the following paper, Dr Andy C. McIntosh, who is professor of thermodynamics and combustion theory at the University of Leeds, holds that it is non-material information that is constraining the cell to be so far out of thermodynamic equilibrium. As well, Dr. McIntosh holds that regarding information as independent of energy and matter ‘resolves the thermodynamic issues and invokes the correct paradigm for understanding the vital area of thermodynamic/organisational interactions’.
And it is fairly easy to (further) empirically demonstrate that biological form cannot be reduced to DNA, (nor can it be reduced to any other material particulars in biology that Darwinists may try to invoke).
In the following, fairly astonishing, experiment, a bacterium, ‘after shattering of its 3.2 Mb genome into 20–30 kb pieces,,, miraculously reassembles its genome such that only 3 hr later fully reconstituted nonrearranged chromosomes are present, and the cells carry on, alive as normal.,,,’
And this seemingly ‘miraculous’ ability of D. radiodurans to reassemble its shattered genome is not just some freak of nature, but this ‘miraculous’ ability is now shown to be an inherent, and common, feature of e-coli in general.
As well, in the following study, “researchers implanted human embryonic neuronal cells into a mouse embryo”.,,, Yet, “the human neurons, despite having human DNA, had a mouse morphology”. If DNA really ruled morphology, (as Darwinists have presupposed), we would have expected a human morphology.
Along that same line is this tidbit from a UD blogger
Moreover, the following article notes that “it is hard not to be impressed how a repeatable form reliably emerges despite considerable variation in both genes and environment.’
To further drive the point home that the basic form of any particular organism is not reducible to any material particulars of an organism, in the following article it is noted that, Richard Lewontin once described how you can excise the developing limb bud from an amphibian embryo, shake the cells loose from each other, allow them to reaggregate into a random lump, and then replace the lump in the embryo. A normal leg develops. Somehow the form of the limb as a whole is the ruling factor, redefining the parts according to the larger pattern.
As the preceding experiments, and many more experiments like these, have made clear, ‘biological form’ simply cannot be reduced to mutations to DNA, nor can it be reduced to any other material particulars, (i..e. proteins, carbohydrates, etc.. etc..), that Darwinists may try to invoke.
And this failure of the reductive materialistic framework of Darwinists to explain biological form, (and the failure of reductive materialists to explain any other type of ‘form’ in the universe for that matter), occurs at a much lower level than DNA itself.
Specifically, in the following article entitled ‘Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics’, which studied the derivation of macroscopic properties from a complete microscopic description, the researchers remark that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, The researchers further commented that their findings challenge the reductionists’ point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”
Moreover Jonathan Wells, in the following video, after demonstrating that the Central Dogma of molecular biology, (which states (in effect) that DNA, makes RNA, makes protein, makes us), is incorrect at every step,
,,, after demonstrating that the Central Dogma of molecular biology is incorrect at every step, Dr. Wells, (who specializes in embryology by the way), then, using a branch of mathematics called category theory, demonstrates that, during embryological development, and as cells ‘transdifferentiate’, information must somehow be added to the developing embryo, ‘from the outside’, by some ‘non-material’ method.
And just how much information is coming into a developing embryo ‘from the outside’, by some ‘non-material’ method?
Well, when working from a thermodynamic perspective, it is found that the ‘positional information’ that is inherent in a ‘simple’ bacterium is on the order of 10^12 bits,
,,, Which is the equivalent of about 100 million pages of Encyclopedia Britannica. ‘In comparison,,, the largest libraries in the world,, have about 10 million volumes or 10^12 bits.”
Thus since bacterial cells are about 10 times smaller than most plant and animal cells.
And since there are conservatively estimated to be around 30 trillion cells within the average human body,
Then that gives us a rough ballpark estimate of around 300 trillion times 100 million pages of Encyclopedia Britannica. Or about 300 trillion times the information content contained within the books of all the largest libraries in the world.
Needless to say, that is a massive amount of ‘positional’ information that is somehow coming into the developing embryo of a single human body, “from the outside by some ‘non-material’ method’.
As the following video states that “There are 10^28 atoms in the human body.,, The amount of data contained in the whole human,, is 3.02 x 10^32 gigabytes of information. Using a high bandwidth transfer, that data would take about 4.5 x 10^18 years to teleport 1 time. That is 350,000 times the age of the universe.”
Verse:
Moreover, we don’t have to rely solely on our mathematics to tell us that a massive amount of immaterial information must somehow be coming into a developing human embryo, (‘from the outside by some ‘non-material’ method’), during embryological development. Advances in quantum biology have now proven, contrary to what was thought to be possible just a few short years ago, that quantum entanglement and/or quantum information, is ubiquitous within molecular biology.
As Dr Rieper remarks in the following video, ‘practically the whole DNA molecule can be viewed as quantum information with classical information embedded within it’
And as the following article states, “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” and “the possibility of finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,,
And as this follow up article stated, “There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,,”
The absolutely devastating thing for Darwinian materialists in finding quantum information to be ubiquitous with biological life is that it takes a ‘non-local’, i.e. beyond space and time, cause in order to explain quantum correlations in the first place,.
As the following paper entitled “Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory” stated, “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,”
Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, and especially with the falsification of ‘hidden variables’, simply have no beyond space and time cause that they can appeal so as to be able to explain the ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, quantum coherence, quantum information, and/or entanglement that is now found to be ubiquitous within biology.
Christians, on the other hand, readily do have a beyond space and time cause that they can appeal to so as to explain ‘non-local’ quantum entanglement.
Moreover, it is also important to realize that quantum information is conserved. As the following article states, In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed.
The implication of finding ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, and ‘conserved’, cannot be created nor destroyed, quantum information in molecular biology on such a massive scale, in every important biomolecule in our bodies, is fairly, and pleasantly, obvious.
That pleasant implication, of course, being the fact that we now have very strong empirical evidence suggesting that we do indeed have an eternal soul that is capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies. As Stuart Hameroff states in the following article, “the quantum information,,, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed.,,, it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.”
Personally, I consider these recent findings from quantum biology to rival all other scientific discoveries over the past century. Surpassing even the discovery of a beginning of the universe, via Big Bang cosmology, in terms of theological, even personal, significance.
As Jesus once asked his disciples along with a crowd of followers, “Is anything worth more than your soul?”
Of supplemental note, long before the ubiquitous, and immaterial, quantum and classical information within biology was even known about, Christians were steadfastly claiming that life has a ‘beyond space and time’ author,
DNA is just a box full with many DVD-RW. Whoever reads ,indexes,edits and manages those DVD-RW has much more complexity than DNA itself.
The giraffe is often used as the poster child of genetic evolution and as such the average person nods. The neck gets a little bit longer each millennium as it seeks higher food sources.
But it is just the opposite. As some implied where are the other species with long necks? Why just one species?
It is actually a disproof of natural Evolution even without the gene problem.
Fred Hickson:
Wrong again. ID proponents claim that evolution by means of blind and mindless processes are limited. And science demonstrates that they are. The peer-reviewed paper “Waiting for TWO Mutations” says the evolution of the giraffe via blind and mindless processes is impossible. But you are proud to equivocate and obfuscate.
LCD @13
I, as an engineer, i agree with that. There has to be something more that manages all the processes inside the cell. In any case, when you consider, that these things have been running for millions of years without any outside intervention, fully automated … The cell is an engineering marvel, something beyond our comprehension… and i really doubt, that humans will ever understand what is going on …
Earth to JHolo- How was that paper debunked? It was openly touted when evos thought it was evidence against Dr Behe’s claims. So, clearly you have dishonesty issues or you are just ignorant. Either way you are a loser.
Martin_r @17,
Great point!
Arthur C. Clarke’s Three Laws state
Considering Clarke’s third law along with your observation as an engineer, I’d add the following:
4. Any process ascribed to nearly infinite random interactions and probabilities over a nearly infinite amount of time as filtered by a randomly generated environment on the presumption that entropy is conserved somewhere else is also indistinguishable from magic.
Quite obviously to an engineer or architect, random interactions over infinite amounts of time cannot result in something that might be considered sufficiently advanced alien technology.
It also occurs to me that only an infinite universe can accommodate a large enough “entropy sink” to offset a decrease in entropy sufficient to create the information and complexity of a cell.
Some years ago, I suggested that finding three lone rocks randomly stacked in a desert (i.e. singly, not in a pile of rocks) is of sufficient complexity that even given 4.5 billion years of earthquakes, it’s an extremely unlikely find. Someone with direct experience in that environment said that he’d never seen even two single rocks stacked this way.
-Q
ET @ 18,
Let me suggest not to feed the trollbots.
Notice that the “[The debunked]” was inserted with ZERO supporting evidence and ZERO new information except for negation. The formats of trollbots can take many forms. For example:
1. That study was debunked years ago.
2. The author of the study is a quack.
3. This flawed study has been touted many times by people like you.
4. The study is completely irrelevant to the point.
5. The study is considered by authoritative sources to be fringe.
6. Of course, you’d bring up that tired old study. Everyone knows that you can’t find any others.
7. Only a total ignoramus would try to use that study.
8. I bet you can’t even find five studies that came to the same conclusion.
etc. etc. etc.
Trollbots can cycle endlessly through these pseudo-responses and more like them. No synapses were fired in their posting. It’s all automatic in some cases or cut and paste from a kit in other cases.
Naturally, we’ll get a cut-and-paste response challenging what I wrote, so let me just say, “If it quacks like a duck . . .”
-Q
Yes, but Q, the paper was authored by evolutionists trying to refute Dr. Behe.
ET, really!?
So, in addition to my not having read the paper, trollbots automatically pretend to be familiar with the contents and author(s) of any papers used against them. Very disingenuous and further reason not to feed them!
Thanks!
-Q
FH/5
It will be the proverbial cold day in hell before you get an answer to your question on this blog. However, I will promise you that you will get endless hours of amusement (or frustration)trying to glean an answer to your question off the blog.
Let me give you just one quick example from this very comment chain:
“Designed” is as close as you will get here. Who, when, how or why that design came to be is outside the scope of ID. One should add that the giraffe’s legs also must be just long enough to reach the ground, no more, no less. And that applies to all four legs…..
Chuck- That “something else” has been explained- TELIC PROCESSES.
Yes, they are. But ID does NOT prevent anyone from trying to answer those questions. It’s just that those answers are NOT required to determine (intelligent) design exists and then study it.
That said, the authors of “the Privileged Planet” says the why was a universe designed for scientific discovery. And Lee Spetner posited a mechanism of “built-in responses to environmental cues”, as a mechanism for adaptations.
Yours is the mechanistic scenario, ever since Darwin who claimed to have a MECHANISM capable of producing the appearance of design without the need of an intelligent designer. Yet you and yours don’t have any idea as to the how. You spew random mutations, natural selection, drift, blah, blah, blah, but no specifics. It’s all done via promissory notes.
ET/24
Answer me this question: is the end point for your “telic processes” man as he exists today?
chuckdarwin/ 25
No.
The fact that every generation, human beings continue to learn more about the world and themselves, and acquire new skills and produce new things – the majority of which has nothing to do with survival and fitness – is a strong argument against mindless evolution.
Other organisms don’t do that. Squirrels, sparrows, trout, rattlesnakes – as a whole, don’t develop themselves. What they need to survive and reproduce has remained the same, generation after generation.
Silver Asiatic @27,
It’s been noted that the humans have no obvious ecological function. Our “superpowers” include physical endurance, hand dexterity, and problem solving (including tool making and the resulting adaptability).
Outside of these superpowers, humans do most everything, but very poorly compared to the specialization found in animals.
To the OP, it seems that many genes of the giraffe’s superpowers are unique–as are humans with respect to our superpowers compared to other primates.
The ecosystems of the world also seem to be balanced in a way that doesn’t allow any single set of superpowers to dominate. I’ve learned that biologists who try to simulate ecosystems in software commonly find that their virtual ecosystems quickly get out of balance and collapse, destroying the carrying capacity of their ecosystem in the process.
One might think that evolution would produce many types of animals that can fly, swim, run, and dig, and defend themselves with monster teeth, claws, tough skin, venom, and noxious spray. The African honey badger (Mellivora capensis) is the only animal that even comes close as far as I know.
-Q
@ Chuckdarwin,
I’m an incurable optimist. Maybe this will be the day when ID proponents tell us something beyond “evolution sucks”.
ET could be setting the ball rolling with “TELIC PROCESSES”.
So ID proponents, tell me about TELIC PROCESSES. How do they work?
Does it? I just looked through the paper and I can find no reference to Giraffes or “blind and mindless processes”. Admittedly it is a bit math-heavy and population genetics is not my field so I could have missed something. ET? Anyone?
FH states, “I can find no reference to Giraffes”
And he is right. In their paper Durrett and Schmidt ‘mathematically’, (not empirically), estimated the ‘waiting time’ problem for Drosophila and humans,,,
And although the ‘waiting time problem’ for humans has been mathematically modeled, to my knowledge no one, (neither Darwinists nor ID proponents), has ever mathematically modeled the ‘waiting time problem’ as applied to Giraffes. (although Richard Sternberg has modeled the problem for whales),
,,, Thus, since no one has specifically modeled Giraffes per se, I invite FH to do so so as to finally provide some type of mathematical proof that Darwinian evolution is remotely feasible. Because, as things stand right now, “there exists no (mathematical) model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,”
Of supplemental note,
The fact that mathematics, (which provides the backbone for all of science), is profoundly immaterial in its foundational essence is completely antithetical to the entire reductive materialistic framework that undergirds Darwinian theory, (which holds that everything is reducible to materialistic explanations),,
Fred Hickson:
‘Stop quote-mining and you would have read about it. “built-in responses to environmental cues”, Spetner 1997.
Genetic algorithms exemplify evolution by means of telic processes. We see what they can do.
But how does natural selection work? It is nothing but contingent serendipity. There isn’t any evidence for Dawkins’ “cumulative natural selection”. There isn’t any evidence that the environment designs (maybe that is why only 1 or 2 people claim such a thing).
If you people don’t like ID, you have all of the power to refute it. And we are powerless to stop you. All you have to do, for example, is demonstrate that nature can produce coded information processing systems. Synthetic biologist and member of the NAS, George Church, is one of the judges in the challenge to do so.
Fred Hickson:
No doubt. The entire paper pertained to evolution by means of blind and mindless processes. And it dealt with the waiting time for TWO specific mutations. Obviously 500 new genes would require more than TWO specific mutations.
So, clearly you are clueless and desperate.
BA/31
The Bermuda Triangle is a perfect triangle…..
The Bermuda triangle is manmade.
Giraffes are diploid and reproduce sexually. You realise that mutations do not have to occur in series in a single individual. You know what happens at meiosis?
Bornagain77 @31,
Thanks for the link to the paper. Isn’t this an example of Haldane’s dilemma? A reduced “waiting time” would destabilize an organism’s genome. And then there’s a minimum number of the same mutation in a population to achieve fixation.
Also, didn’t Michael Behe correctly predict the amount of time needed for the malaria pathogens to mutate around a human defensive mutation? His back-of-the-envelope calculation was around 30 years IIRC.
-Q
I occasionally look in at Peaceful Science, a site set up by Joshua Swamidass. There have been several threads rather critical of Michael Behe’s claims on chloroquine resistance that suggest “correctly” may not be the correct word.
The piece suggests that the giraffe’s long neck and high blood pressure needed to get blood up to the head are unique. Yet surely some dinosaurs had longer necks and could raise their heads higher than a giraffe? This suggests the design problems were solved over 100 million years ago!
as to: “suggest “correctly” may not be the correct word.”
Yet the 10^20 number is a empirically derived fact, not a calculation based on a ‘mathematical guess’
Moreover, as hard as it is for Darwinian processes to account for chloroquine resistance in the malaria parasite ( 1 in 10^20), the adaptation came at a loss of fitness for the parasite, not a gain.
So, to quote Behe, “Talk is cheap. Let’s see your numbers.,,, the development of chloroquine-resistance in malaria is an event of probability about 1 in 10^20 malaria-cell replications. Okay, if you don’t like that, what’s your estimate? Let’s see your numbers.,,, ,,, If you folks think that direct, parsimonious, rather obvious route to 1 in 10^20 isn’t reasonable, go ahead, calculate a different one, then tell us how much it matters, quantitatively. Posit whatever favorable or neutral mutations you want. Just make sure they’re consistent with the evidence in the literature (especially the rarity of resistance, the total number of cells available, and the demonstration by Summers et al. that a minimum of two specific mutations in PfCRT is needed for chloroquine transport). Tell us about the effects of other genes, or population structures, if you think they matter much, or let us know if you disagree for some reason with a reported literature result.
Or, Ken, tell us how that ARMD phenotype you like to mention affects the math. Just make sure it all works out to around 1 in 10^20, or let us know why not.”
Fred Hickson:
Fred, meiosis is a process that evolution by means of blind and mindless processes cannot account for. But that is moot as the paper deals with fruit flies and humans. They are also diploid and reproduce sexually. The paper also takes into account everything you said.
The paper “Waiting for TWO Mutations” says there isn’t enough time in the universe for blind and mindless processes to produce 500 genes in a diploid, sexually reproducing population. Do the math.
Fred Hickson:
Behe made Swamidass look like a fool. And Behe’s numbers on chloroquine resistance comes from a peer-reviewed paper. So Peaceful Science just proves how clueless they are.
A dose of reality from geneticist Giuseppe Sermonti:
and
With sexual reproduction even the most beneficial mutation has a better chance of being lost than it does of becoming fixed. Meiosis and all…
There’s a good argument by Feser that uses this and goes beyond it:
1. All physical things are particular. (There is this triangle, this circle – things individual and particularized by space and dimension and physical measures.)
2. But some things are universal. (The concept of “triangle” – not a specific triangle. That’s the triangle of geometry where dimensions are exactly what the math describes.)
3. Therefore, there are some things that are not physical.
He is not as well known as he should be (even among IDists) – I appreciate the quoted passages and definitely want to read his book.
The Discovery Institute published his book “Why is a Fly Not a Horse?”.
And they never gave him different numbers. He called their bluff and they backed away in silence. That was 2014 – the challenge remains open.
I’ve asked evolutionists for this several times, none have ever given a “corrected” number.
They want everyone to believe “there is no edge to evolution” – any number of mutations can and supposedly have happened. There’s no negative probability that is too difficult to overcome.
I’m trying to find a non-Amazon purchase – for some reason the DI doesn’t give a purchase link.
https://www.discovery.org/b/why-is-a-fly-not-a-horse/
Here ya go: why is a fly not a horse
Silver Asiatic @47,
That’s just pathetic.
They ignore Haldane then, just to reinforce their orthodoxy. Science has thus has been reduced to vocabulary, multiple-choice questions, and a priesthood. Ugh.
-Q
ET – thank you
Querius
True. It’s a priesthood of magic and miracles. They’ll just make assertions that go against even their own papers (as Waiting for Two Mutations was a paper by evolutionists which undercut their own claims).
Behe is ignored by the mainstream basically because his arguments about an edge to evolution etc do not prevent a bumblebee from flying. The scientific mainstream flows on. I’m sorry that this is bad news to ID enthusiasts here.
Biologists are competitive individuals, not a cabal. The paper presents a mathematical model. All models are wrong but some are useful, someone said. Models are always simpler than reality.
ET @43
Exactly….It is obvious, that the main reason why there is a sexual reproduction is to prevent/minimize any mutations, thank to DNA recombination… Of course, there might be some other reasons, e.g. to create some variety … e.g. humans… there are 6 billions of people and no one looks the same, of course, this is not a coincidence… this was intentional … by design….
FH: “Behe is ignored by the mainstream basically because his arguments about an edge to evolution etc do not prevent a bumblebee from flying.”
And a ‘flying’ bumblebee is suppose to be comforting to Darwinists how exactly?
Against arguments of this calibre, I’m lost for words. 😉
FH: “The (two mutations) paper presents a mathematical model. All models are wrong but some are useful, someone said. Models are always simpler than reality.”
HUH? What in the world are you going on about? Behe chastised Durrett and Schmidt precisely because they favored their mathematical model over what the empirical evidence itself was actually saying, i.e. “The difficulty with (mathematical) models such as Durrett and Schmidt’s is that their biological relevance is often uncertain, and unknown factors that are quite important to cellular evolution may be unintentionally left out of the model. That is why experimental or observational data on the evolution of microbes such as P. falciparum are invaluable,,,”
Also of note, despite being contradicted by empirical evidence at every turn, FH, like other dogmatic Darwinists, apparently still believes Darwinian evolution to be ‘true’ no matter what the empirical evidence says to the contrary.
Yet the reductive materialistic foundation of Darwinian evolution itself is what prevents Darwinian evolution from actually ever being ‘true’.
Simply put, ‘truth’, like mathematics and logic, (see bottom of post 31), is also immaterial in its foundational essence,
The entire concept of Truth is an abstract property and/or definition of the immaterial mind that cannot possibly be reduced to any possible materialistic explanations. i.e. How much does the concept of Truth weigh? Does the concept of Truth weigh more in English or in Chinese? How long is the concept of Truth in millimeters? How fast does the concept of Truth go? Is the concept of Truth faster or slower than the speed of light? Is the concept of Truth positively or negatively charged? Or etc.. etc.. ?..
As John_a_designer explains, “Obviously, these questions are absurd because propositions, (truth claims), are not physical. But if the physical or material is all that exists as the materialist claims, which is by the way a propositional truth claim, how can such a proposition be true? How can something that doesn’t really exist, as the materialist claims, be true? Obviously that is self-refuting.”
And since Truth is obviously immaterial in its foundational essence then, as John_a_designer pointed out, it necessarily follows that Darwinian materialism can never possibly be true., (And this falsification of Darwinian evolution as being true comes way before we even start evaluating the myriad of falsifications of Darwin’s theory from empirical science).
Moreover, since ‘immaterial’ truth can only be appreciated by the immaterial mind, and since the human mind is obviously not eternal, then immaterial “Truth” can only ever be properly grounded within the Mind of God, i.e. within Theism:
You don’t have to take my, (or John_a_designer’s), word for the fact that Darwinian evolution undercuts itself with its implicit denial of the existence of ‘truth’. Postmodern pragmatists themselves, via their Darwinian presuppositions, have been claiming that objective truth does not actually exist for over a century now, ever since Darwin’s theory first made it to the shores of America.
As Professor Nancy Pearcey explains in this following excellent article, (an article which traced the progression from Darwinism to postmodern pragmatism), “If all ideas are products of evolution, and thus not really true but only useful for survival, then evolution itself is not true either,,,, In short, naturalistic evolution is self-refuting.”
The denial of the existence of objective truth, as is implicit in the atheistic materialism of Darwinian evolution, (besides undercutting any claim that Darwinian evolution itself can possibly be true), also undercuts rationality altogether. As John C Wright succinctly explained, “A statement that there is no truth, if true, is false. We know this truth is basic because without it, no question can be answered, not even the question of whether or not truth is true.”
Of course, despite whatever self-refuting absurdities Darwinists are forced to believe because of their dogmatic atheism, (i.e. for instance, the denial of the existence of ‘truth’ itself),, ‘the truth’ really does exist. And ‘the truth’ turns out to be far more wondrous and amazing than Darwinists have ever dared imagine in their nihilistic worldview.
Verse:
Testing
Fred Hickson:
LoL! Mainstream doesn’t have any idea how bumblebees came to be. They don’t even know what determines biological form. They cannot explain how meiosis arose via blind and mindless processes. It looks like mainstream ignores the mandates of science which state the concepts must not only be testable but tested and confirmed. Mainstream doesn’t have that.
Fred Hickson:
Evos loved the paper when they thought it refuted one of Behe’s claims. But now that they see it also kicks their asinine claims to the gutter it’s only a model. Yet models are used because evolution by means of blind and mindless processes is total untestable nonsense unless you are discussing genetic diseases and deformities.
ET @60
Mainstream has no idea how anything that flies evolved… insects, dinos, birds, mammals.
Hickson is trying to ridicule me (@ 57) These Darwinian clowns have no clue why there is sexual reproduction at all (they call it a mystery), they have 20 hypothesis as to why there is sex. reproduction. TWENTY HYPOTHESIS :))))))) And this clown is trying to ridicule ME ??????
https://theconversation.com/why-did-sex-evolve-researchers-edge-closer-to-solving-longstanding-mystery-55407
PS: ET, i have to say, i admire you that you even reply to Hickson. This clown is much worse than Seversky.
I’m sorry I upset you, Martin_r. I do wonder though what it is that upsets you so. Would you feel more comfortable pretending that there isn’t a mainstream of science flowing blithely on which is utterly unconcerned and uninterested in the pronouncements of Michael Behe? To gain their attention, ID proponents have to do more than claim evolution is a bad model for biological reality. They need to propose better models.
PS: there are many means how a cell is preventing mutations … from DNA proofreading and repair to DNA recombination during sexual reproduction. Yet, Darwinists BELIEVE, that mutations created millions of species on this planet … this theory can’t be more absurd … Darwisnists completely deny reality … Darwinists living in some fantasy world …
Regarding bumblebees, that was a metaphor I thought people might already be familiar with. The story is that aeronautical engineers did the math and bumblebees hovering was impossible according to their model. Now I’ve seen bumblebees hover. So I think that the aeronautical engineer’s model is inaccurate rather than me hallucinating. So the advice is if a model analysis says something is impossible yet we see it happen, we should suspect our model first, rather than reality.
Goodness me, Martin_r, no matter how many times I repeat it, this doesn’t seem to sink in:
Mutations are random but selection is non-random. The niche environment is the designing element in evolution.
:))) Yep North pole designs polar bears .If you want to become polar bear just go to North Pole because niche environment will redesign your DNA and cell codes . Not DNA and cell codes make you human but environment says Fred Hickson.
This idea should become a meme.
PS: It’s like saying that the ambient temperature in your room literally designs the air conditioner just because air conditioner reacts by changing its own “states” to an ambient temperature value and having “the goal” to maintain a constant temperature in the room.
FH
That’s a common argument. “Bees fly, therefore evolution did it and evolutionary theory is proven correct by that fact.”.
But Behe was merely showing that getting two mutations was an improbable event. His critics came up with a “refutation” which was eventually overturned.
So, yes – Michael Behe is ignored, and yes evolutionists simply assert that for any biological organism “since it exists, then it evolved that way”. But that’s not a good reason to ignore Behe’s argument – and moreso, he offered an open challenge that if they don’t like his calculations, they can provide better ones.
FH
The “Two mutations” paper was an attempt by mainstream science to refute Michael Behe. But that attempt failed and therefore the next part of the strategy was to simply ignore him.
But the truth will win out, whether it is popular with mainstream science or not.
FH
Our best math and technological expertise couldn’t even explain what they were observing. But we’re supposed to believe that we have an explanation for the origin of bumblebees? The fact that you see this amazing thing happen and yet at the same time, assert that it came about by a blind mechanism (and niches are as blind as mutations) might lend you to think that yes, maybe that you could think you are hallucinating.
Again, just because something exists does not mean that is proof the evolution caused it.
BA77’s references to studies on bumblebees in #56 are remarkable enough and those do not touch on just the simple facts around the organization of bee colonies with division of labor and efficiencies – as well as their beautiful products of honey and wax, all produced and kept safe in sealed hexagonal containers with anti-bacterial protection from propolis.
LCD: “If you want to become polar bear just go to North Pole,,, This idea should become a meme.”
Or, if you are a bear and want to become a whale, just start swimming.
Gullible is too mild a word for such thinking.
Fred Hickson:
What? Intelligent Design is not anti-evolution. Why do you continue to equivocate?
There aren’t any models for evolution by means of blind and mindless processes. Natural selection is both blind and mindless. It does not have any purpose. No goals.
Genetic algorithms exemplify evolution by means of telic processes. ID’s evolutionary concepts are very useful.
Natural selection is non-random ONLY in that not all variants have the same probability of being eliminated. It is nothing more than contingent serendipity. There isn’t any evidence that the niche environment does any designing. Only Alan Fox pushes such drivel. It isn’t in evolutionary textbooks. Maybe, someday, Alan will produce a model. Doubtful.
Martin_r- Hickson the clown is Alan Fox the clown.
On bees
The whole class is fascinating, showing many variations between solitariness and eusociality.
On whales
Molecular phylogenetics indicates that the closest living relatives to cetaceans are hippopotamuses. Kind of obvious with hindsight.
On whales- There aren’t any naturalistic mechanisms capable of producing whales from terrestrial mammals. So, that would be a huge problem especially for a mechanistic position.
Bumblebees:
In a back-and-forth on an ID video on whale evolution (which was strong enough to get a lot of responses from the evolution community), Darwinists claimed that there were errors in the dating of the fossils in the ID presentation.
Here’s the response:
Whale Evolution: A Further Rebuttal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCM1MjEFvqE
I don’t think we’ll hear another response from the Darwinian critics.
(141 comments on YouTube and I didn’t see one evolutionist counterpoint.)
The problem is we don’t even know what determined a whale would develop. The issue of what determines biological form remains. It can’t be the genome (DNA). True, DNA is an information carrier. It’s just doesn’t carry any blueprint for biological form.
Hickson
i am so tired of people like you … HOW MANY TIMES SHOULD I REPEAT IT, because it does not seem to sink in …
FIRST YOU HAVE TO HAVE MUTATIONS and then something can be selected …
THEREFORE, ACCORDING TO YOUR CRAZY ABSURD THEORY, RANDOM MUTATIONS CREATE SPECIES …. NATURAL SELECTION ONLY DECIDES WHICH DESIGN/SPECIES (CREATED BY THOSE RANDOM MUTATIONS) IS THE FITTEST ONE to select it …
OR DID I GET SOMETHING WRONG ????
and, let me repeat what i wrote above, YOU PEOPLE BELIEVE, that mutations ‘overlooked’ by all those checkpoints, proofreadings, repairs, genetic recombination etc, those ones created millions of species :))))))))) how perverted one has to be to believe such absurd things ?
PS: in regards to Behe, he is a nice guy, i like to listen to his lectures, however, there are things i don’t agree with Behe. After all, he is a biologist, i am an engineer.
Why not? That’s the first time I’ve seen that video. Who is it intended for? If its purpose is to demonstrate a difficulty regarding what the fossil evidence and molecular phylogeny show?
*Googles*
Ah, all becomes clear.
https://biologos.org/articles/defending-the-tale-of-the-whale
Michael Behe is a biochemist though he hasn’t published a scientific paper in the last decade.
Engineers are fine people.
A biologist, a biochemist or a Fred Hickson … does not matter
All of you guys don’t understand what are you talking about (when talking about design)
A biologist, a biochemist or a Fred Hickson … does not matter
All of you guys don’t understand what are you talking about (when talking about design)…
By the way, how did you Hickson like my blog?
No one at Biologos has any idea how terrestrial mammals evolved into whales.
Talking about whales …
I never understood biologists, why should something voluntarily dive into a depth of extreme pressure which destroys everything (unless it was designed to withstand such a pressure)…
Hickson, and exactly what does the science of biochemistry have to do with the just-so story-telling of Darwinian evolution?
Martin and ET,
You’ll get no shortage of mighta/coulda/musta responses on how whales musta kept diving deeper for food or mighta been trying to get rid of parasites or coulda been engaged in dominance displays at extreme depths.
-Q
Q,
silly me … everybody knows, the deeper you dive the more females will like you …
So how does the ID movement address the morphology and distribution of current species of whales and the fossil evidence found so far?
Does it explain it?
Or is it just “evolution sucks” and let’s beat up those straw men”?
Who’s Alan Fox, btw? Google is no help.
Martin_r @90,
Exactly. It doesn’t matter how silly the speculation is–after all, it’s just a speculation on something that’s “not yet completely understood”–there’s never any admission of ignorance.
Researchers once found (no, I don’t have the reference) that the frank admission of scientific ignorance to students created more interest in science disciplines. It presented a mystery that needed solving rather than revealing a weakness that might cause students to lose “faith” in science.
Here’s an example.
When I was in high school, I thought hydra were cool. They were like some kind of mini-monsters. As a project, I tried to raise them according to the instructions–in a small covered Petrie dish with distilled water and a few drops of some chemical to discourage algae, I think.
I introduced some daphnia for their food as the instructions indicated, and I waited for the carnage to begin. I was in high school, remember.
But the hydra seemed to be afraid of them, withdrawing their tentacles when they came into contact. The hydra started getting smaller every day. The instructions said that hydra will sometimes go into “depression” for reasons not yet completed understood, but to try doing some things I don’t remember. But they kept getting smaller, like little blobs and then disappeared.
I was determined, so I made some hypotheses:
– Hydra don’t normally eat daphnia.
– The hydra weren’t “depressed” but rather they simply starved.
– Distilled water isn’t natural.
– The Petrie dishes were too small.
So . . . I cut the top off a large glass jug, filled it with pond water, added elodea along with daphnia and checked them every day.
The results were astonishing!
The hydra absolutely thrived! They reproduced mainly asexually by budding and their lengths, body and tentacles together, reached 20-25 cm, crisscrossing each other across the circular tank. Their tentacles were extremely thin and sparkly. They rarely withdrew their tentacles except when some wild daphnia crashed into them. I never saw any daphnia being ensnared, though I suppose it could be made to happen for biology text photos. I kept records of their increase in population stopping at 100 because it became too tedious.
My conclusion was that the hydra were most likely feeding on protozoans. I learned a lot about observation, making hypotheses (although I changed several variables, not just one), and not just accepting what the instructions and a biology book claimed.
My biology teacher also loved my experiment because it enabled him to trade a virtually endless supply of hydra all over the district for other lab stuff he needed. Of course, he never shared my secret.
To this day, I still think hydra are cool and I still challenge baloney science.
-Q
Querius
I’m impressed. Both at your experimental skills at eleven and at your flexibility. “If it ain’t working, try somethin’ else”. But the “science is baloney” seems a bit of a non sequitur. Your description is of an excellent bit of science.
PS @ Querius
Is 25cm a typo? Did you mean 25mm?
Hydra are indeed cool!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(genus)
Re Alan Fox
Site Search (site:uncommondescent.com Alan Fox) got me this as first item:
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/giving-alan-fox-a-chance-to-set-the-record-straight/
Querius, you commented in that thread.
Alan Fox is one of two or three people who promote the “niche environment is the designer” trope. He, like you, has only repeated the claim and never supported it. He, like you, equates evolution with evolution by means of blind and mindless processes. He, like you, refuses to understand that Intelligent Design is NOT anti-evolution. Meaning he, like you, is willfully ignorant of Intelligent Design and what evolutionists say.
We are still waiting on how evolution by means of blind and mindless processes did it. But you, being an equivocator, just refuses to understand what is being debated.
ID explains it as living organisms were intelligently designed with the information and ability to adapt and evolve.
FH
Because their attempt to refute that was completely taken apart and that’s a signal for them to not reply any further.
martin_r
Yes, exactly. Overlooked, blocked and if missed, the “creative work” they did is repaired and not allowed to do their magic. So why do the checkpoints, proofreading and repair mechanisms exist in the first place? Because the creative genius of mutations is so destructive that the organism cannot survive without them.
Oh yes – and mutations are what built the proofreading and repair mechanisms to protect the organism against mutations.
This is all supposed to make sense and be perfectly obvious to everyone.
The most significant work that ID has done has been to show that whale morphology shows evidence of intelligent design and that blind, material, unintelligent natural causes could not be the explanation of the origin of whales.
Fred – why don’t you just tell us who you were previously? It was clear that you were a former commenter here from your first postings.
Fred Hickson @94,
No, they were 20-25 cm (~8-10 inches) in total length, mostly the length of their tentacles. It would be interesting to see what their maximum lengths might have reached if not limited by the diameter of the tank.
If you want to repeat my experiment, keep the tank in a shady spot. Black paper behind it makes it easier to count them and see the lengths of their tentacles.
-Q
Fred Hickson @96,
It brings up the interesting questions of consciousness and apparent free will. Many years ago, the General Electric Corporate Research & Development worked on artificial synapses and now, there’s a software approach:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn4nRCC9TwQ
The programming in this case isn’t hard-wired walking, but in the artificial learning. Same thing with Alpha-Zero that’s clearly plays the best chess on the planet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g9SlVdv1PY
Note that intelligent minds programmed Alpha Zero to “evolve” its chess game by trial, error, and learning. This is similar to the role of epigenetics in organisms. Alpha Zero didn’t program itself, and I would contend that neither did DNA or epigenetics.
-Q
Fred
This may explain why there’s miscommunication at times. Here I’m just pointing to text – not the science. Just an exercise in reading for what was intended and what was there.
First, Querius never said “science is baloney”. Of course, we can paraphrase and summarize – that’s fine. But what he actually said was “the baloney science” as was presented in his school textbook. It was just one, doctrinaire ‘recipe’ given for producing the hydras. The fact that the hydras starved to death using that method provide that particular science was baloney, and his own ingenuity, using some good science, helped the hydra to thrive. The textbooks will continue to give the less-effective method until someone corrects it.
So this is just to point out … maybe due to haste or misunderstanding ID motives or some other reason – but you completely misread what he said there.
You did the same with me in your comment “God doesn’t need puny ID”.
No, there wasn’t a question mark on that – it was an assertion as if fact.
So, sometimes I don’t know what you’re saying.
SA,
This was beautiful …
And we creationists/ID folks are the stupid ones, right ?
Martin – yes, want to make it seem that way. The first trick is to say that anyone who doubts the theory obviously doesn’t understand it. The first principle of evolutionary theory is “you must believe it is true”. After that, everything works out very well for them.
Silver Asiatic @ 107,
Yes. And if you can swallow a self-organization ratchet through random occurrences filtered through environmental and reproductive advantages, you can pretty much choke down everything else with liberal use of the coulda, mighta, and musta rationalizations.
-Q
If that is clear there should be no need. The norm here is pseudonymity and I’m happy to go along with the norm.
I’m struggling to process this information, Querius, mainly due to the cube/square law. There’s quite a bit in the literature about variation in polyp size and growth and the factors that affect it. 30 mm seems about as big as they get according to any source I’ve looked at. Increasing that from 1″ to 10″ is a thousand-fold increase in mass. This would be fascinating news to biologists.
Yes, it could be that Fred is not Alan Fox. But the evidence says that Fred is Alan Fox. So, if Fred isn’t Alan, then Fred is doing a great impersonation of Alan
Wow. Q was discussing hydras and
FredAlan is discussing polyps. Does anyone else see the disconnect?I already replied to that when you first asked.
Fred is referring to the cnidarian species Hydra vulgaris, commonly known as freshwater polyps.
OK, now I see my disconnect. mm / cm
Excellent, Querius. You at least mention the non-random element in evolution. You don’t have to swallow it, but you are now able to criticize it more intelligently.
Of course, the big next step is to be the first to propose a better mechanism for what we observe.
SA/101 states:
Whales are apparently now part of the conversation, and the quoted statement is indicative of extravagant claims for ID that when scrutinized, show that there is “no there there.”
Given that whales are one of the best documented and understood examples of vertebrate evolution, statements like “ID…..shows that blind, material, unintelligent natural causes could not be the explanation of the origin of whales,” say absolutely nothing about natural selection. Worse, it is misleading insofar as natural selection is not a “blind, material, unintelligent natural cause.” The phrase is a potpourri of redundancy, apparently for rhetorical effect. As the term suggests, natural selection is highly selective and biased towards organisms that demonstrate superior fitness vis a vis their ecological niche. We can directly trace whale evolution from its divergence from a common ancestor with hippos ~56 mya. (See e.g., https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-did-whales-evolve-73276956/)
Where is this “most significant work” ID has done re whale morphology, peer reviewed or otherwise? Where is this great body of ID work on whales? Likewise, where is all the disproof of natural selection as the mechanism of whale evolution?
Umm, chuck- there isn’t any naturalistic mechanism capable of producing whales from populations of terrestrial mammals.
Again, the non-random element of natural selection nis just that not all variants have the same chance of being eliminated. That Fred ignores that fact shows that he cannot discuss this intelligently.
Better than what? You can’t propose a testable mechanism capable of producing the transformations required.
CD
You could be right that natural selection is not a cause of anything. That’s a philosophical distinction. But evolution is blind, unguided and unintelligent. That’s not controversial.
There is no selector in natural selection – so it’s not highly selective. “Fitness for their niche” is incoherent given that organisms themselves create the niche. It’s like saying they have “fitness for survival”.
An interesting area for research is “maladaption” (as below “prevalent in evolution”) – which contradicts the idea that selection is biased towards fitness and just proves to me that much of the evolution-industry is a scam at worst and a joke at best.
chuck:
And yet that is how evolutionary biologists describe it.
These are popular-level videos from the DI and failed attempts to refute them.
Whale Evolution: Good Evidence for Darwin?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq_oYftA2ow
Whale Evolution: A Rebuttal (PZ Myers and others responded to the first one)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ErLGxrSdw0
Whale Evolution: A Further Rebuttal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCM1MjEFvqE
The bottom line is similar to Behe’s analysis and the ID work done in several areas – there’s not enough time for the mutations required.
Querius
That’s right. Random mutations supposedly have to become fixed in niches which are also changing due to random effects. Every new feature creates random changes in food-supply, competition, conditions for offspring to survive, temperature, humidity, geographic spaces – as well as disease and disasters.
Genes to proteins via transcription and translation. Error detection and correction throughout the process. But that is moot as most nucleotide changes do not have any effect on the protein. Proteins can usually handle amino acid changes. When the substitution does alter the protein, it results in a loss of function. Caveat- opsin genes are miraculously tunable to react to different wavelengths of light.
So, realizing this, evolutionists have switched to the “same genes used differently” approach. Meaning it is all about how, when and where those genes are expressed, that produced the bulk of the diversity of life, ie those “endless forms most beautiful”. Except that has completely fallen on its face, too.
Now they just wash, rinse and repeat.
Hickson,
do you recall, how i asked you, what makes Darwinists so trustworthy ?
(You replied with something about loaded question … And no, i don’t beat my wife … it is somewhat disturbing that ‘beating a wife’ was the first thing you thought of )
I put this question, because i think it is a very relevant question …
Because Darwinists seem to be always wrong … you know:
“…current concepts are reviewed…”
“…uprooting current thinking….”
“…latest findings contradict the current dogma….”
“… it challenges a long-held theory…”
“… it upends a common view…”
“… in contrast to the decades-long dogma …”
“… it needs a rethink … ”
“… the findings are surprising and unexpected …. ”
“… it shakes up the dogma … ”
“… earlier than thought…”
“… younger than thought….”
“… smarter than thought ….”
“… more complex than thought ….”
Today, another one was published, and sounds pretty serious:
Most of our evolutionary trees could be wrong ?????
So Hickson, seriously, what makes Darwinists so trustworthy ?
Fred Hickson,
Yep, and that’s about the size of a Petrie dish as observed by researchers lacking any initiative or curiosity, and mindlessly copied by textbook authors solely motivated by money.
But it’s not news! It’s a forgotten observation apparently recorded in a venerable biology reference book. Otherwise, I would have published my observations as a high school sophomore despite a disinterested biology teacher.
This has already been done. They are
• Transposition
• Horizontal gene transfer
• Epigenetics
• Symbiogenesis
• Genome duplication
Any one of these are orders of magnitude more effective and speedier than incremental random mutation and filtering.
-Q
Querius, I’m still struggling to process the idea that Hydra vulgaris polyps grew a thousand times larger in your care than elsewhere ever. They’re a well-studied organism with some fascinating features. But you, uniquely, achieving this result?
An odd list. Transposition is a synonym for HGT, so that’s a duplication. The only controversial item is epigenetics, as epigenetic heritability does not last over more than a few generations. Selection acts on all products of change.
Natural selection doesn’t act at all. Evos don’t even understand the concepts they try to defend.
And according “Waiting for TWO Mutations”, gene duplication is not a blind watchmaker mechanism. The duplicated gene needs a new binding site. And then it takes specific mutations to get a functional change to the protein.
Fred Hickson @127,
1. First of all, you might want to check your math. 30 mm is 3 cm. 20 – 25 cm is only a factor of seven or eight in length. I’d imagine their mass remained about the same because their tentacles became extremely thin, almost like glistening spider silk when illuminated with a flashlight against the black paper behind the tank.
2. Hydra have been obviously poorly documented due to sloppy science books written by careless authors.
3. No, I did NOT write that I uniquely achieved this result. I wrote that this information was noted in a venerable biology reference book, but apparently forgotten. Otherwise, as a high school sophomore, I would have attempted to have my results published with photographic evidence.
Your skepticism is typical of the orthodoxy that crushes all curiosity and the spirit of scientific inquiry among students. The rotting carcass of biology is a giant Latin vocabulary test entombed in multiple choice tests without the delights of natural history or direct observation.
If you had any interest in hydra, you’d be making your own tank as I described and trying it for yourself. But you didn’t even consider this. Ask yourself why.
-Q
Fred Hickson @128,
No, it isn’t. Genome duplication is not a general description, but specifically means to massively increase the size of the genome. Look up Susumu Ohno’s 2R hypothesis. It’s also known as Genome Multiplication or Whole Genome Duplication.
-Q
If I didn’t have any interest I wouldn’t have bothered asking for clarification. As a kid, prolly 9 or 10, I recall looking at pondlife, and once coming across a hydra polyp attached to a plant stem. Prior to that moment I had no idea such things existed. I was content to just watch it for a while then go home and tell my parents about it They weren’t much interested.
Anyway, you seem to be telling me your super-hydra became only ten times more massive by elongating without thickening. The mystery deepens. Perhaps you discovered a strain of mutants. I’m sorry my curiosity has made you uncomfortable. Happy to drop it if you prefer.
Re genome duplication, you’re talking about polyploidy, Querius.
Fred Hickson @132, 133,
No, the hydra, were originally purchased through a biology supply used by the school district.
And no, at the time I thought their tentacles were much thinner when elongated, which I described as similar to spider silk. As I said, this is all described in a venerable biology reference. If you want to duplicate my experiment, just follow my description.
Since you don’t do your own homework, it took me only a couple of minutes to find this website:
However, the hydra I worked with weren’t green (i.e. symbiotic with algae).
Isn’t it odd that hydra should be called “polyps” since that’s simply their form as found in other organisms exhibiting alternation of generations? After all, we don’t normally call sea jellies “medusa.”
I guess you didn’t run across Dr. Ohno’s book, Evolution by Gene Duplication, right?
-Q
I see Ohno’s book is 120$.
On endosymbiosis of Chlorella spcs. in H. viridis, here’s some amazing work being done, extracting the algae, getting to grow independently and sequencing genomes to establish that endosymbiosis has arisen multiple times in green hydra.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328970700_Endosymbiotic_green_algae_in_European_Hydra_strains_show_quantitative_difference_on_morphological_and_isoenzyme_level
Querius @ 131 –
I think you’ve got your lines crossed. I think Fred meant that Transposition & HGT are the same thing, so writing “Transposition” is a duplication of the HGT concept.
FWIW, most of the processes in the list (from post 126) are ways that variation can be generated, so they form the variation that selection can start to act on. But one way that gene duplication speeds up adaptation is by providing copies, so mutation in one copy won’t affect the function of the other copy.
Abiogenesis is the magical word . Duplication, HGT etc. have different meaning in the case of materialistic abiogenesis and totally different meaning in the case of intelligently designed life.
Code in cell points out to ID abiogenesis hypothesis so all the darwinist struggle with duplications, HGT, mutation, selection is USELESS .
That’s correct, Bob. Exactly what I meant.
Transposition and HGT are not the same thing. Transposition is within the same organism and HGT is between two different organisms.
Lieutenant Commander Data @138,
The abiogenesis problem is exactly why Darwinists have to separate origin of life considerations from evolution. There are those who are trying to extend evolution to all processes in the universe, even using the term, “evolution” for star formation, etc. as if there were some sort of natural selection involved.
ET @140,
Exactly right!
Fred Hickson,
Have you punted on 20 cm hydra, Susumu Ohno’s Evolution by Gene Duplication, and your skepticism on my experimental results?
Since you claim you still enjoy hydra, why not try my experiment for yourself? I also recommend getting a binocular dissection (aka inspection) microscope. Mine is an amazingly sweet B&L 10.5-45X ZOOM with circular-lighted stage. They’re not cheap, but it all depends on one’s priorities.
-Q
New fossils found add to complexity in the evolution of the giraffe
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01565-7
Querius
What is in Ohno’s book that can’t be found in his published papers?
Re hydra, I live in a very dry region. There is no potential hydra habitat near me, so raw material is unavailable even if I saw a point in trying to reproduce your result. I’m not convinced that you achieved anything other than a favorable niche environment that allowed your hydra to flourish (not that wasn’t an impressive thing for an eleven year old) so I shan’t be reinventing your wheel.
Thanks for info on the microscope. Unfortunately, I have complete loss of vision in one eye so it would be wasted on me.
Re Evolution by Gene Duplication, never mind. I’m having a look via Google books.
Fred Hickson,
You’re also ignoring the reference I gave you indicating that 20 cm long hydra have been observed. So, your hyperskepticism bites the dust. I think you owe me an “apparently you’re right after all” acknowledgment.
-Q
Apparently, I would be ill-advised to hold my breath for an apology from Fred Hickson after demonstrating that he was wrong about 20 cm hydra.
-Q