From The Scientist: Genome Reveals Clues to Giraffes’ “Blatantly Strange” Body Shape

_{Caspian
May 27, 2022

Intelligent Design

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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.

giraffe, genetics & genomics, CRISPR, gene editing, genome, physiology, hypertension, bone growth, techniques, mouse model

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.

Comments

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?
Stingless Bee Of Dinosaur Age Lies in Amber By John Noble Wilford - Dec. 8, 1987 Excerpt: The recent finding doubles the previously known age of bees. More surprising to scientists is that the ancient bee is so similar to some modern ones.,,, ,,, bees have probably changed very little in the last 80 million years.,,, https://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/08/science/stingless-bee-of-dinosaur-age-lies-in-amber.html A scientist has found a 100 million-year-old bee trapped in amber, making it possibly the oldest bee ever found. - 2006 Excerpt: "I knew right away what it was, because I had seen bees in younger amber before," said George Poinar, a zoology professor at Oregon State University. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/15482996/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/scientist-finds-million-year-old-bee/#.XjcmHt-YWis Can It Bee? Excerpt: Bees have airspeed gauges; gyroscopes; a ‘compass’ that detects the polarization of sunlight; UV sensors to track the horizon to measure tilt; and two compound eyes, each with 7,000 hexagonal (six-sided) facets. https://creation.com/can-it-bee SECRETS OF BEES? Excerpt: .,,, Freight planes carry a payload of about 25 percent of their weight. A bee can carry almost 100 per cent. http://beehive.org.nz/stories/bee-secrets Complex mathematical problem solved by bees - OCTOBER 25, 2010 Excerpt: Professor Lars Chittka from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences said: "In nature, bees have to link hundreds of flowers in a way that minimises travel distance, and then reliably find their way home - not a trivial feat if you have a brain the size of a pinhead! Indeed such travelling salesmen problems keep supercomputers busy for days. Studying how bee brains solve such challenging tasks might allow us to identify the minimal neural circuitry required for complex problem solving." https://phys.org/news/2010-10-complex-mathematical-problem-bees.html Finding: Bees Solve The Traveling Salesman Problem - October 2010 Excerpt: It is a classic problem in the field of computer science: In what order should a salesman visit his prospects? The traveling salesman problem may appear simple but it has engaged some of the greatest mathematical minds and today engages some of the fastest computers. This makes (these) new findings, that bees routinely solve the problem before pollinating flowers, all the more remarkable. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/finding-bees-solve-the-traveling-salesman-problem/ Bumblebees Find and Distinguish Electric Signals from Flowers - Feb. 21, 2013 Excerpt: The research shows for the first time that pollinators such as bumblebees are able to find and distinguish electric signals given out by flowers. Flowers often produce bright colours, patterns and enticing fragrances to attract their pollinators.,,, flowers also have their equivalent of a neon sign -- patterns of electrical signals that can communicate information to the insect pollinator. These electrical signals can work in concert with the flower's other attractive signals and enhance floral advertising power. Plants are usually charged negatively and emit weak electric fields. On their side, bees acquire a positive charge as they fly through the air. No spark is produced as a charged bee approaches a charged flower, but a small electric force builds up that can potentially convey information. By placing electrodes in the stems of petunias, the researchers showed that when a bee lands, the flower's potential changes and remains so for several minutes. Could this be a way by which flowers tell bees another bee has recently been visiting? To their surprise, the researchers discovered that bumblebees can detect and distinguish between different floral electric fields. Also, the researchers found that when bees were given a learning test, they were faster at learning the difference between two colours when electric signals were also available. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130221143900.htm
bornagain77_{May 30, 2022
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ET @43
With sexual reproduction even the most beneficial mutation has a better chance of being lost than it does of becoming fixed. Meiosis and all…
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.... martin_r_{May 30, 2022
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Waiting for Two Mutations was a paper by evolutionists which undercut their own claims.
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.Fred Hickson_{May 29, 2022
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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.Fred Hickson_{May 29, 2022
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Querius
Science has thus has been reduced to vocabulary, multiple-choice questions, and a priesthood.
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).Silver Asiatic_{May 29, 2022
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ET - thank youSilver Asiatic_{May 29, 2022
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Silver Asiatic @47,
And they never gave him different numbers. He called their bluff and they backed away in silence. That was 2014 – the challenge remains open.
That's just pathetic.
They want everyone to believe “there is no edge to evolution” – any number of mutations can and supposedly have happened.
They ignore Haldane then, just to reinforce their orthodoxy. Science has thus has been reduced to vocabulary, multiple-choice questions, and a priesthood. Ugh. -QQuerius_{May 29, 2022
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Here ya go: why is a fly not a horseET_{May 29, 2022
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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/Silver Asiatic_{May 29, 2022
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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
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.Silver Asiatic_{May 29, 2022
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The Discovery Institute published his book "Why is a Fly Not a Horse?".ET_{May 29, 2022
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geneticist Giuseppe Sermonti
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.Silver Asiatic_{May 29, 2022
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There is no real triangle in which the sum of the squares of the sides exactly equals the square of the hypotenuse. That holds true for all of geometry. Geometry is about concepts, not about anything in the natural world or about anything that can be described by physics.
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.Silver Asiatic_{May 29, 2022
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A dose of reality from geneticist Giuseppe Sermonti:
Sexuality has brought joy to the world, to the world of the wild beasts, and to the world of flowers, but it has brought an end to evolution. In the lineages of living beings, whenever absent-minded Venus has taken the upper hand, forms have forgotten to make progress. It is only the husbandman that has improved strains, and he has done so by bullying, enslaving, and segregating. All these methods, of course, have made for sad, alienated animals, but they have not resulted in new species. Left to themselves, domesticated breeds would either die out or revert to the wild state—scarcely a commendable model for nature’s progress.
and
Natural Selection, which indeed occurs in nature (as Bishop Wilberforce, too, was perfectly aware), mainly has the effect of maintaining equilibrium and stability. It eliminates all those that dare depart from the type—the eccentrics and the adventurers and the marginal sort. It is ever adjusting populations, but it does so in each case by bringing them back to the norm. We read in the textbooks that, when environmental conditions change, the selection process may produce a shift in a population’s mean values, by a process known as adaptation. If the climate turns very cold, the cold-adapted beings are favored relative to others.; if it becomes windy, the wind blows away those that are most exposed; if an illness breaks out, those in questionable health will be lost. But all these artful guiles serve their purpose only until the clouds blow away. The species, in fact, is an organic entity, a typical form, which may deviate only to return to the furrow of its destiny; it may wander from the band only to find its proper place by returning to the gang. Everything that disassembles, upsets proportions or becomes distorted in any way is sooner or later brought back to the type. There has been a tendency to confuse fleeting adjustments with grand destinies, minor shrewdness with signs of the times. It is true that species may lose something on the way—the mole its eyes, say, and the succulent plant its leaves, never to recover them again. But here we are dealing with unhappy, mutilated species, at the margins of their area of distribution—the extreme and the specialized. These are species with no future; they are not pioneers, but prisoners in nature’s penitentiary.
With sexual reproduction even the most beneficial mutation has a better chance of being lost than it does of becoming fixed. Meiosis and all...ET_{May 29, 2022
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Fred Hickson:
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.
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.ET_{May 29, 2022
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Fred Hickson:
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?
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.ET_{May 29, 2022
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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'
Michael Behe - Empirically observed (1 in 10^20) Edge of Evolution - video - Lecture delivered in April 2015 at Colorado School of Mines 25:56 minute quote - "This is not an argument anymore that Darwinism cannot make complex functional systems; it is an observation that it does not." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9svV8wNUqvA Real-World Data and the Lesson of Chloroquine Resistance Eric H. Anderson – February 28, 2022 Excerpt: “Behe’s argument was simply to observe, on the basis of White’s public health data, that chloroquine resistance arises in 1 in 10^20 cells. That’s a data point. He then asked a hypothetical question: If one CCC requires 10^20 replications, what would happen if there were a trait that was as complex as a “double-CCC”? Such a trait, Behe argued, would require 10^40 cells to arise, which is more cells than have lived over the course of the history of the Earth. This, he concluded, would pose a problem for Darwinism…” (C. Luskin) We can argue about whether “effective” chloroquine resistance should be defined as requiring exactly four mutations. We can quibble about whether the mutations are beneficial or neutral. We can debate the math and even be off by an order of magnitude or more. Yet none of this alleviates the significant challenge the real-world data poses to the evolutionary story.,,, https://evolutionnews.org/2022/02/real-world-data-and-the-lesson-of-chloroquine-resistance/
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.
Metabolic QTL Analysis Links Chloroquine Resistance in Plasmodium falciparum to Impaired Hemoglobin Catabolism - January, 2014 Summary: Chloroquine was formerly a front line drug in the treatment of malaria. However, drug resistant strains of the malaria parasite have made this drug ineffective in many malaria endemic regions. Surprisingly, the discontinuation of chloroquine therapy has led to the reappearance of drug-sensitive parasites. In this study, we use metabolite quantitative trait locus analysis, parasite genetics, and peptidomics to demonstrate that chloroquine resistance is inherently linked to a defect in the parasite's ability to digest hemoglobin, which is an essential metabolic activity for malaria parasites. This metabolic impairment makes it harder for the drug-resistant parasites to reproduce than genetically-equivalent drug-sensitive parasites, and thus favors selection for drug-sensitive lines when parasites are in direct competition. Given these results, we attribute the re-emergence of chloroquine sensitive parasites in the wild to more efficient hemoglobin digestion. http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1004085
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."
An Open Letter to Kenneth Miller and PZ Myers - Michael Behe July 21, 2014 Dear Professors Miller and Myers, Talk is cheap. Let's see your numbers. In your recent post on and earlier reviews of my book The Edge of Evolution you toss out a lot of words, but no calculations. You downplay FRS Nicholas White's straightforward estimate that -- considering the number of cells per malaria patient (a trillion), times the number of ill people over the years (billions), divided by the number of independent events (fewer than ten) -- the development of chloroquine-resistance in malaria is an event of probability about 1 in 10^20 malaria-cell replications. Okay, if you don't like that, what's your estimate? Let's see your numbers.,,, ,,, If you folks think that direct, parsimonious, rather obvious route to 1 in 10^20 isn't reasonable, go ahead, calculate a different one, then tell us how much it matters, quantitatively. Posit whatever favorable or neutral mutations you want. Just make sure they're consistent with the evidence in the literature (especially the rarity of resistance, the total number of cells available, and the demonstration by Summers et al. that a minimum of two specific mutations in PfCRT is needed for chloroquine transport). Tell us about the effects of other genes, or population structures, if you think they matter much, or let us know if you disagree for some reason with a reported literature result. Or, Ken, tell us how that ARMD phenotype you like to mention affects the math. Just make sure it all works out to around 1 in 10^20, or let us know why not. Everyone is looking forward to seeing your calculations. Please keep the rhetoric to a minimum. With all best wishes (especially to Professor Myers for a speedy recovery), Mike Behe http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/07/show_me_the_num088041.html February 2022 - All the responses from Dr. Behe to his critics defending the 1 in 10^20 finding https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/asked-at-evolution-news-how-much-can-evolution-really-accomplish/#comment-748038 February 2022- Several other lines of empirical, and mathematical, evidence are in general agreement with Dr. Behe's 1 in 10^20 findings https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/asked-at-evolution-news-how-much-can-evolution-really-accomplish/#comment-748040 February 2022 - Recently a Darwinist claimed that Dr. Behe was not using probability properly in his calculations. But then, after thinking about it for a while, I realized that Darwinists are the ones who are flagrantly misusing probability. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/asked-at-evolution-news-how-much-can-evolution-really-accomplish/#comment-748070
bornagain77_{May 29, 2022
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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!Fasteddious_{May 29, 2022
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Also, didn’t Michael Behe correctly predict the amount of time needed for the malaria pathogens to mutate around a human defensive mutation?
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.Fred Hickson_{May 29, 2022
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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. -QQuerius_{May 29, 2022
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And it dealt with the waiting time for TWO specific mutations. Obviously 500 new genes would require more than TWO specific mutations.
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?Fred Hickson_{May 29, 2022
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The Bermuda triangle is manmade.ET_{May 29, 2022
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BA/31
After all, no actual triangle is perfect, and thus no actual triangle in nature has sides such that the Pythagorean theorem holds. There is no real triangle in which the sum of the squares of the sides exactly equals the square of the hypotenuse.
The Bermuda Triangle is a perfect triangle.....chuckdarwin_{May 29, 2022
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Fred Hickson:
Does it? I just looked through the paper and I can find no reference to Giraffes or “blind and mindless processes”
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.ET_{May 29, 2022
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Fred Hickson:
So ID proponents, tell me about TELIC PROCESSES. How do they work?
'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.ET_{May 29, 2022
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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,,,
Waiting for two mutations: with applications to regulatory sequence evolution and the limits of Darwinian evolution - 2007 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18791261/ Waiting Longer for Two Mutations - Michael J. Behe Excerpt: Citing malaria literature sources (White 2004) I had noted that the de novo appearance of chloroquine resistance in Plasmodium falciparum was an event of probability of 1 in 10^20. I then wrote that 'for humans to achieve a mutation like this by chance, we would have to wait 100 million times 10 million years' (1 quadrillion years)(Behe 2007) (because that is the extrapolated time that it would take to produce 10^20 humans). Durrett and Schmidt (2008, p. 1507) retort that my number ‘is 5 million times larger than the calculation we have just given’ using their model (which nonetheless "using their model" gives a prohibitively long waiting time of 216 million years). Their criticism compares apples to oranges. My figure of 10^20 is an empirical statistic from the literature; it is not, as their calculation is, a theoretical estimate from a population genetics model. Generally, when the results of a simple model disagree with observational data, it is an indication that the model is inadequate.,,, The difficulty with 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,,, ?http://www.discovery.org/a/9461 More from Ann Gauger on why humans didn’t happen the way Darwin said - July 2012 Excerpt: Each of these new features probably required multiple mutations. Getting a feature that requires six neutral mutations is the limit of what bacteria can produce. For primates (e.g., monkeys, apes and humans) the limit is much more severe. Because of much smaller effective population sizes (an estimated ten thousand for humans instead of a billion for bacteria) and longer generation times (fifteen to twenty years per generation for humans vs. a thousand generations per year for bacteria), it would take a very long time for even a single beneficial mutation to appear and become fixed in a human population. You don’t have to take my word for it. In 2007, Durrett and Schmidt estimated in the journal Genetics that for a single mutation to occur in a nucleotide-binding site and be fixed in a primate lineage would require a waiting time of six million years. The same authors later estimated it would take 216 million years for the binding site to acquire two mutations, if the first mutation was neutral in its effect. Facing Facts But six million years is the entire time allotted for the transition from our last common ancestor with chimps to us according to the standard evolutionary timescale. Two hundred and sixteen million years takes us back to the Triassic, when the very first mammals appeared. One or two mutations simply aren’t sufficient to produce the necessary changes,, in the time available. At most, a new binding site might affect the regulation of one or two genes. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/more-from-ann-gauger-on-why-humans-didnt-happen-the-way-darwin-said/ The Origin of Man and the “Waiting Time” Problem - John Sanford - August 10, 2016 Excerpt: Historically, Darwin-defenders have argued that time is on their side. They have claimed that given enough time, any evolutionary scenario is feasible. They have consistently argued that given millions of years, very large amounts of new biologically meaningful information can arise by the Darwinian process of mutation/selection. However, careful analysis of what is required to establish even a single genetic “word” (a short functional string of genetic letters) within a hominin genome shows just the opposite. Even given tens of millions of years, there is not enough time to generate the genetic equivalent of the simplest “word” (two or more nucleotides). Even in a hundred billion years, much longer than the age of the universe, there is not enough time to establish the genetic equivalent of a very simple “sentence” (ten or more nucleotides). This problem is so fundamental that it justifies a complete re-assessment of the basic Darwinian mechanism. In my book Genetic Entropy, I have previously outlined the waiting time problem (for example, see the 2014 edition, Chapter 9, pp. 133-136). My calculations there, and calculations published by others (Behe, Snoke, Axe, Gauger et al.), all demonstrate the same basic problem. (For a complete literature review, see the link to our new paper given above.) What this new paper provides is an independent validation, by a totally different method, of the previous works done by Behe, others, and myself. https://evolutionnews.org/2016/08/the_origin_of_m/
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),
Whale Evolution vs. Population Genetics - Richard Sternberg and Paul Nelson - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0csd3M4bc0Q Evolution And Probabilities: A Response to Jason Rosenhouse - August 2011 Excerpt: The equations of population genetics predict that – assuming an effective population size of 100,000 individuals per generation, and a generation turnover time of 5 years – according to Richard Sternberg’s calculations and based on equations of population genetics applied in the Durrett and Schmidt paper, that one may reasonably expect two specific co-ordinated mutations to achieve fixation in the timeframe of around 43.3 million years. When one considers the magnitude of the engineering fete, such a scenario is found to be devoid of credibility. - per uncommon descent
,,, 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.,,,”
Top Ten Questions and Objections to ‘Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics’ – Robert J. Marks II – June 12, 2017 Excerpt: “There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. Examples include electromagnetics, Newtonian mechanics, geophysics, relativity, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, optics, and many areas in biology. Those hoping to establish Darwinian evolution as a hard science with a model have either failed or inadvertently cheated. These models contain guidance mechanisms to land the airplane squarely on the target runway despite stochastic wind gusts. Not only can the guiding assistance be specifically identified in each proposed evolution model, its contribution to the success can be measured, in bits, as active information.,,,”,,, “there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,” https://evolutionnews.org/2017/06/top-ten-questions-and-objections-to-introduction-to-evolutionary-informatics/ Robert Jackson Marks II is an American electrical engineer. His contributions include the Zhao-Atlas-Marks (ZAM) time-frequency distribution in the field of signal processing,[1] the Cheung–Marks theorem[2] in Shannon sampling theory and the Papoulis-Marks-Cheung (PMC) approach in multidimensional sampling.[3] He was instrumental in the defining of the field of computational intelligence and co-edited the first book using computational intelligence in the title.[4][5] – per wikipedia
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),,
What Does It Mean to Say That Science & Religion Conflict? - M. Anthony Mills - April 16, 2018 Excerpt: In fact, more problematic for the materialist than the non-existence of persons is the existence of mathematics. Why? Although a committed materialist might be perfectly willing to accept that you do not really exist (as a person), he will have a harder time accepting that numbers do not exist. The trouble is that numbers — along with other mathematical entities such as classes, sets, and functions — are indispensable for modern science. And yet — here’s the rub — these “abstract objects” are not material. Thus, one cannot take science as the only sure guide to reality and at the same time discount disbelief in all immaterial realities.,,, https://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2018/04/16/what_does_it_mean_to_say_that_science_and_religion_conflict.html Naturalism and Self-Refutation - Michael Egnor - January 31, 2018 Excerpt: Mathematics is certainly something we do. Is mathematics “included in the space-time continuum [with] basic elements … described by physics”? It seems a stretch. What is the physics behind the Pythagorean theorem? After all, no actual triangle is perfect, and thus no actual triangle in nature has sides such that the Pythagorean theorem holds. There is no real triangle in which the sum of the squares of the sides exactly equals the square of the hypotenuse. That holds true for all of geometry. Geometry is about concepts, not about anything in the natural world or about anything that can be described by physics. What is the “physics” of the fact that the area of a circle is pi multiplied by the square of the radius? And of course what is natural and physical about imaginary numbers, infinite series, irrational numbers, and the mathematics of more than three spatial dimensions? Mathematics is entirely about concepts, which have no precise instantiation in nature as described by physics.,,, Furthermore, the very framework of Clark’s argument — logic — is neither material nor natural. Logic, after all, doesn’t exist “in the space-time continuum” and isn’t described by physics. What is the location of modus ponens? How much does Gödel’s incompleteness theorem weigh? What is the physics of non-contradiction? How many millimeters long is Clark’s argument for naturalism? Ironically the very logic that Clark employs to argue for naturalism is outside of any naturalistic frame. The strength of Clark’s defense of naturalism is that it is an attempt to present naturalism’s tenets clearly and logically. That is its weakness as well, because it exposes naturalism to scrutiny, and naturalism cannot withstand even minimal scrutiny. Even to define naturalism is to refute it. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/01/naturalism-and-self-refutation/
bornagain77_{May 29, 2022
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The peer-reviewed paper “Waiting for TWO Mutations” says the evolution of the giraffe via blind and mindless processes is impossible.
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?Fred Hickson_{May 29, 2022
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@ 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?Fred Hickson_{May 28, 2022
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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. -QQuerius_{May 28, 2022
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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_{May 28, 2022
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Unlocking giraffeness

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