Trust our stalwart physics color commentator Rob Sheldon to draw the logical conclusion about horizontal gene transfer between plants and insects: If plants and insects can exchange genes (and who knows what else can?), what are we to make of dogmatic claims about universal common descent? He writes,
If I said, the “Universal Law of Gravity” states that all matter attracts other matter through the Newton’s inverse square law, then if I found an exception, the entire law is broken. You couldn’t even say, “most of the time it works barring a few exceptions.” The Universality of the law is the problem. We would have to figure out why the exceptions were exceptional, and until we knew why, all we could say is that there is no Universal law to discuss–it has become a Special Law of Gravity.
![The Long Ascent: Genesis 1–11 in Science & Myth, Volume 1 by [Robert Sheldon, David Mackie]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51G-veeEcdL.jpg)
For Universal Common Descent, we can say that all life, everywhere on the planet Earth MUST have come from some common ancestor, because it is a Universal law. We don’t have data on those ancient ancestors, but we can rely on the Universality to derive their previous existence. Once there is an exception, once there is a critter that did NOT have a common ancestor, then it is no longer a Universal law, and we can no longer rely on its Universality in our logic syllogisms. Even worse, we know that waiting for a random event to turn lizards into chickens is going to be a loooong wait, whereas transporting the chicken or stealing the chicken genes can be done in a very brief moment. In the statistical sense, the pathway of random mutating evolution is a set of measure zero when contrasted with all the other available pathways of making a chicken. In Mike Behe’s example, if there are a billion ways to break a gene, and only one way to improve it, which event will occur first and with what probability? So losing the Universality of common descent isn’t a slight inconvenience, it is universally deadly to the theory.
Which is why those that need the theory for other philosophical reasons, won’t give it up without a fight.
Note: Rob Sheldon is the author of Genesis: The Long Ascent and The Long Ascent, Volume II.
See also: Horizontal gene transfer between plants and insects acknowledged. So what becomes of all the Darwinian casuistry around “fitness” and “costly fitness” if things can happen so simply as this? The article emphasizes the benefits of studying “evolution.” Indeed, but that can’t mean fronting Darwinism 101 any more.
This raises a speculative question. We’ve seen specific neural mechanisms (in nematodes, anyway) that process the needed change in epigenes, and transfer the change to the epigenes of the offspring.
Is HGT a form of communication, like smell and vision and sound? A complex transfer doesn’t just happen. Are there specific senders and receivers for transferred genes?
Have we been in Horizontal transfer with plants and animals? KF
Of related note to common descent being falsified, in his paper, “The Dependency Graph of Life”,
, In his paper, Dr. Winston Ewert “specifically chose Metazoan species because “horizontal gene transfer is held to be rare amongst this clade.””
And in his paper, where he took into account HGT, and did his best to eliminate any potential ‘noise’ that could arise from HGT, Dr. Ewert falsified common descent in a rather dramatic fashion.
The following article by Dr. Cornelius Hunter is very good for explaining just how badly common descent has now been falsified by Dr. Winston Ewert
As to Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT) in particular, and as I noted in the other thread this morning, Darwinian Evolution never predicted, nor expected, Horizontal Gene Transfer.
In fact, Denis Noble used Horizontal gene transfer (HGT), (also known as lateral gene transfer), as one of the evidences that has now falsified the modern synthesis of Neo-Darwinism
As Dr. Noble further explains in the following article, it is held within the modern synthesis of Neo-Darwinism that, “the inheritance of acquired characteristics is impossible”
Thus Darwinian evolution is falsified coming and going. i.e. If HGT is rare, (as it is held to be in the metazoan clade), then common descent is falsified, via Dr. Winston Ewert’s ‘dependency graph’, in over the top fashion by the sequence data itself.
On the other hand, if HGT is a mechanism of inheritance, then HGT falsifies a central assumption behind the modern synthesis of Darwinian evolution. A central assumption that assumed “the inheritance of acquired characteristics is impossible.”
One final note as to Dr. Sheldon’s observation that Darwinian evolution lacks a ‘universal law’,
Other people have also noted that Darwinian evolution lacks a universal law and that lack of a universal law is what, specifically, prevents Darwinian evolution from ever being classified as a real, and testable, science,
For instance, Murray Eden of MIT, in a paper entitled “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory” stated that “the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws—physical, physico-chemical, and biological.”
BA77:
That paper by Ewert is a goldmine. Finding what Doolittle said in 2009 about HGT referenced the failed Tree of Life hypothesis.
When I read Origin of Species the first time, I threw the book down on the table at which I sat. What was I reading at the time that made me do such a thing–the first time in my life that I had ever done this? I was reading what Darwin said about the progression of divergence. He said something along these lines: “I can see species becoming genera, genera becoming families and families becoming orders . . . even perhaps up to classes.”
I threw down the book because I saw this coming and said to myself: “Darwin will surely not say something so illogical.”
Why was this progression of Darwin so illogical?
Because there is NO logical reason to STOP the ‘progression.’ On what basis is this movement ‘down’ the classification system supposed to stop? He gave none. He simply stopped.
But, let’s continue the progression–since there is no ‘logical’ reason to halt this advance (really, a retreat). Then we have: classes give rise to phyla and phyla give rise to kingdoms. This was in DIRECT conflict with the fossil record and Darwin, of course, knew this perfectly well, so he didn’t dare continue the backward progression he had started. But, having arrived at the ‘end’ of this ‘logical’ progression (actually, regression), what do we see?
We see the Tree of Life completely UPSIDE DOWN!!!! His Tree starts with “subspecies”/”species” and ends with “kingdoms,” when the actual classification system starts with “kingdoms” and ends with “subspecies/species.”
Yes, all Darwin did was stand the Tree of Life on its head. So, why should I have gone on reading? Thus, the book thrown down on the table.
When will this ‘backward’ thinking end?
there are like hundred thousands if not millions serious blows to common descent claims:
V I R U S E S
from Virology.ws (Darwinists):
“Viruses cannot be included in the tree of life because they do not share characteristics with cells, and no single gene is shared by all viruses or viral lineages. While cellular life has a single, common origin, viruses are polyphyletic – they have many evolutionary origins.”
let me repeat this part:
“viruses are polyphyletic – they have many evolutionary origins.”
PaV, of somewhat related interest to your “Darwin turned the tree of life ‘upside down’ observation, it is also interesting to note that Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, have also completely lost the ability to delineate what a species even is in the first place.
As the headline of the following article stated, “What is a species? The most important concept in all of biology is a complete mystery”
In fact, Charles Darwin himself admitted that he did not have a rigid definition for what the term ‘species’ actually meant when he stated that, “I look at the term species as one arbitrarily given, for the sake of convenience.,,,”
As should be needless to say, the inability of a supposedly scientific theory, a supposedly scientific theory that seeks to explain the “Origin of Species” in the first place, to clearly define what a species actually is is a clear indication that that supposedly scientific theory cannot possibly be the proper ‘scientific’ explanation for the “Origin of Species” in the first place!
The reason that Darwinists can never give a proper ‘scientific’ definition for what a species actually is because the concept of species turns out to be an abstract, i.e. immaterial, conceptualization of the immaterial mind.
As the following article states, ”a crucial feature of human reason is its ability to abstract the universal nature from our sense experience of particular organisms.”,,, ” this denial (of true species) is a grave error, because the essence of the individual (the species in the Aristotelian sense) is the true object of our knowledge.”
Within their reductive materialistic framework, Darwinists simply have no foundation for grounding the abstract, i.e. immaterial, concept of ‘species’.
In the Darwinists materialistic worldview, if something is not composed of particles it simply does not exist and is considered an illusion. It is ‘abstract’. Thus, since species is clearly a abstract conceptualization of the immaterial mind, a conceptualization that cannot possibly be reduced to any possible grouping of material particles that Darwinists may wish to invoke, then it should not be surprising to find Darwinists denying the existence of species, i.e. denying the ‘true object of our knowledge’, altogether.
There simply is no physical measurement that Darwinists can perform and say, ‘and this is exactly what we mean when we say the term ‘species”’. The concept of species does not weigh anything, nor does it have a speed, nor does the concept of species have any particular width or height that we can measure. Again, the entire concept of species is abstract and immaterial.
And to repeat, the (sheer) inability for a supposedly scientific theory, (a supposedly scientific theory that seeks to explain the “Origin of Species” in the first place), to clearly define what a species actually is in the first place is a clear indication that that supposedly scientific theory cannot possibly be the proper ‘scientific’ explanation for the “Origin of Species”!
Kairosfocus@2
“Have we been in Horizontal transfer with plants and animals? KF”
It might explain the proliferation of soyboys
Or hasbeans.
To be a really solid theory, universal common descent should be like a theory in physics, like Newton’s Laws of Motion, which allow no exceptions that would not be classified as miracles.
Now, if life forms as disparate as insects and plants can swap genes, a problem arises: How do we know that HGT isn’t the true origin of a given change? We may be able to rule HGT out. But we must now always start with it as a possibility.
We might have expected this, no?, given the universality of the genetic code… But we didn’t so… where are we now?
Who’s going to write the ID-honest book about this? – d.
PS: I did not say ID-friendly because I will settle for ID-honest. No more boilerplate about how to rescue Darwinism or some other religion. I want to know how one makes (or can’t make) UCD a fundamental tenet of biology in the wake of HGT?
Message to timeservers in biology: If we can’t defend it as a fundamental tenet, we had better stop persecuting people who don’t believe in UCD – for whatever reason they don’t believe in it. People might not believe in it for the “wrong” reasons in our view. But if it’s not a proposition we can defend anyway, we can’t justify involvement in persecution of non-believers!
News
The further you get from pure physics, the more complicated things are. To expect that biological theories would be as predictable as physics is an unreasonable expectation.
I think you will find that they fear any science that is perceived to pose a threat to their religious beliefs. They welcomed the Big Bang theory as they saw it as scientific confirmation of the creation story of Genesis. They reject “Darwinism” because it removes the need for a Creator to account for life on Earth..
You will also not be surprised to learn that this is not the first time Intelligent Design Creationists have seized on HGT as a means of undermining evolution before
Severski, Intelligent design creationists is a false accusation, as by now you know. Creationism and the design inference simply operate on differing principles. The correction to such a slander tactic has been in the UD Weak Argument Correctives for about a decade now. KF
Of note:
Count Of Crisco states,
Well, is it at least reasonable enough to expect that the biological sciences should be related to Darwin’s theory in some real and meaningful way, instead of Darwin’s theory just being, basically, a superfluous narrative gloss that is brought in after the fact?
Of related interest, removing the ‘narrative gloss’ of Darwinian language from research papers makes the papers “healthier and more useful’
While the superfluous nature of Darwinian language is certainly bad enough for Darwinists, what is completely devastating for Darwin’s theory is what type of language, i.e. teleological language, that CANNOT possibly be removed from these research papers without severely compromising the integrity of the papers,,
As J. B. S. Haldane noted, “Teleology is like a mistress to the biologist; he dare not be seen with her in public but cannot live without her.”
Teleological, (i.e. purpose, goal directed), explanations of any sort are simply self defeating to any Darwinian explanation that seeks to explain biological life as being the result of completely blind and purposeless processes (as, ironically, Darwinists are ‘purposely intent’ on proving 🙂 ). Yet teleological language is rampant within Darwinian explanations.
In the following article, Stephen Talbott points out that it is impossible to describe the complexities of biological life without illegitimately using language that avoids all implication of agency, cognition, and purposiveness (i.e. teleology). He even challenges readers to “take up a challenge: pose a single topic for biological research, doing so in language that avoids all implication of agency, cognition, and purposiveness.”
Denis Noble also notes that “it is virtually impossible to speak of living beings for any length of time without using teleological and normative language”.
This working biologist agrees with Talbott and Noble’s assessment and states, “in our work, we biologists use words that imply intentionality, functionality, strategy, and design in biology–we simply cannot avoid them.”
In short, we can apparently remove all the words from research papers that make reference to Darwinian evolution, (i.e. remove the ‘narrative gloss’ of Darwinian language), and have the research papers turn out ‘healthier and more useful’, but we cannot remove the Teleological, (i.e. purpose, goal directed), language from research papers. To repeat what Professor Nobel stated, “it is virtually impossible to speak of living beings for any length of time without using teleological and normative language,,,”
Bottom line, the very words that Biologists themselves are forced to use, i.e. teleological language, (purpose and goal directed language), when they are doing their biological research and writing their papers, directly falsifies Darwinian evolution as to being essential to biology and validates Intelligent Design as to being integral to biology:
Verse:
Of supplemental note: Michael Egnor has a very insightful article explaining exactly why Darwinists are so “purposely intent” on trying to deny teleology in the first place, “It is purpose that must be denied in order to deny design in nature. So the mind, as well as teleology, must be denied. Eliminative materialism is just Darwinian metaphysics carried to its logical end and applied to man. If there is no teleology, there is no intentionality, and there is no purpose in nature nor in man’s thoughts.”
Of further note to Count Of Crisco’s claim
First off, it is not only that Darwin’s theory is not “as predictable as physics”, although that is certainly true. Darwin’s theory is certainly NOT ‘as predictable as physics’.
,,, it is not only that Darwin’s theory is not “as predictable as physics”, although that is certainly true. It is that Darwin’s theory has been grossly wrong in its predictions.
Dr. Cornelius Hunter has compiled a list of 22 of the major false predictions generated by evolutionary theory. False predictions that are fundamental to evolutionary theory. i.e. Predictions that arise from the ‘core’ of the theory,,,
And here is my own personal list of core ‘predictions’ of Darwin’s Theory being directly contradicted by the scientific evidence.
Thus it is not only that Darwin’s theory is not “as predictable as physics”, although that is certainly true. It is simply that Darwin’s theory has been grossly wrong in its predictions.
As Dr. Hunter goes on to note, as far as Darwin’s theory being contradicted time and time again by the scientific evidence itself, their simply is no bad news for evolutionists,
The primary reason why Darwin’s theory will never be “as predictable as physics”, (or as predictable as any other theory in science), is simply because Darwin’s theory is based on a randomness postulate, (and is not based on a law of nature as all other theories of science are based). And it is that randomness postulate, in and of itself, that prevents Darwin’s theory from ever having any real predictive power.
As Wolfgang Pauli noted, “In discussions with biologists I met large difficulties when they apply the concept of ‘natural selection’ in a rather wide field, without being able to estimate the probability of the occurrence in a empirically given time of just those events, which have been important for the biological evolution. Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’”
And to repeat what Murray Eden of MIT stated in a paper entitled “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory, ”“It is our contention that if ‘random’ is given a serious and crucial interpretation from a probabilistic point of view, the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws—physical, physico-chemical, and biological.”
Others have also noted that Darwin’s theory is not based on any known law of nature, (as all other theories of science are based on known laws of nature).
As Ernst Mayr himself conceded, “In biology, as several other people have shown, and I totally agree with them, there are no natural laws in biology corresponding to the natural laws of the physical sciences.”
In the following article, Roger Highfield makes much the same observation as Ernst Mayr and states, ,,, Whatever the case, those universal truths—’laws’—that physicists and chemists all rely upon appear relatively absent from biology.
There simply is no known ‘law of evolution’ in the universe for Darwinists to ever build a realistic scientific theory upon.
Moreover, the second law of thermodynamics, entropy, a law with great mathematical explanatory power in science directly, or almost directly, contradicts the primary Darwinian claim that greater and greater levels of functional complexity can easily be had and/or ‘naturally selected’ for over long periods of time. Indeed, entropy’s main claim is that, over long periods of time, everything in the universe will eventually decay into simpler and simpler states until what is termed thermodynamic equilibrium is finally reached.
And indeed, as elucidated by Dr. John Sanford in his book ‘Genetic Entropy’, and by Dr. Michael Behe in his book ‘Darwin Devolves’, any adaptations that an organism may make to a new environment are, for the vast majority of times, found to be accomplished via a loss of information, not by the gain of new information, as is erroneously held in Darwin’s theory.
That is to say that biological adaptations are, (as to be expected if biological adaptations are to be related to physics in any meaningful way), ultimately subjected to principles of entropy, just as everything else in the physical universe is ultimately subjected to entropy.
As Eddington himself stated, “But if your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it (but) to collapse in deepest humiliation.”
And it is also important to note that Intelligent Design does not contradict entropy, as Darwin’s theory does. In fact, it is now shown Intelligent Design is very much in accord with the latest advancements in Quantum Information theory where it is now found that “entropy is always dependent on the observer.”
Specifically, as the following article stated, “when the bits to be deleted are quantum-mechanically entangled with the state of an observer, then the observer could even withdraw heat from the system while deleting the bits. Entanglement links the observer’s state to that of the computer in such a way that they know more about the memory than is possible in classical physics.,,,
In measuring entropy, one should bear in mind that an object does not have a certain amount of entropy per se, instead an object’s entropy is always dependent on the observer. ”
And as the following article states, “James Clerk Maxwell (said), “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.”,,,
quantum information theory,,, describes the spread of information through quantum systems.,,,
Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,
To repeat that last statement, “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,
That statement is simply fascinating, and for anybody involved in the Darwinism vs. Intelligent Design debate, that statement should send chills down their scientific spine.
As well, it is also important to note that, (unlike Darwin’s theory which has no known law of nature to appeal to so as to delineate itself as a proper and testable science), Intelligent Design does not suffer from such an embarrassing disconnect from physical reality. In other words, Intelligent Design can appeal directly to ‘the laws of conservation of information’ (Dembski, Marks, etc..) in order to establish itself as a proper, testable, and rigorous science.
And since Intelligent Design is mathematically based on the ‘law of conservation of information’, that makes Intelligent Design, unlike Darwin’s theory, very much testable and potentially falsifiable science.
In fact there is currently up to a 10 million dollar prize being offered for the first person that can “Show an example of Information that doesn’t come from a mind. All you need is one.”
In regards to the fact that information is always shown to be the product of a mind, it is also interesting to note that, “Creating new axioms and free will are shown to be different aspects of the same phenomena: the creation of new information.”
The interesting thing about the creation of new information and free will being shown to intimately connected, is that it is now shown that, “In the instrumentalist approach (in quantum mechanics) humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level,,, In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure,,, Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,,”
In fact Weinberg, an atheist, rejected the instrumentalist approach precisely because “humans, (via their free will), are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level” and because it, therefore, undermined the Darwinian worldview from within. Yet, regardless of how he and other atheists may prefer the world to behave, quantum mechanics itself could care less how atheists prefer the world to behave.
Although there have been several major loopholes in quantum mechanics over the past several decades that atheists have tried to appeal to in order to try to avoid the ‘spooky’ Theistic implications of quantum mechanics, over the past several years each of those major loopholes have each been closed one by one. The last major loophole that was left to be closed was the “setting independence” and/or the ‘free-will’ loophole:
And now Anton Zeilinger and company, in 2018, pushed the ‘free will loophole’ back to 7.8 billion years ago, thereby firmly establishing the ‘common sense’ fact that the free will choices of the experimenter in the quantum experiments are truly free and are not determined by any possible causal influences from the past for at least the last 7.8 billion years, and that the experimenters themselves are therefore shown to be truly free to choose whatever measurement settings in the experiments that he or she may so desire to choose so as to ‘logically’ probe whatever aspect of reality that he or she may be interested in probing.
Thus in conclusion, whilst Darwin’s theory has no known law of nature that it can appeal to, (so as to delineate itself as a proper and testable science that is able to make accurate predictions), Intelligent Design does suffer such an embarrassing disconnect from physical reality, but is shown to be based upon the law of conservation of informations where it is held that it is impossible for physical processes the ever create information.
Moreover, whereas Darwin’s theory is directly, or almost directly, contradicted by the second law of thermodynamics, i.e. Entropy, Intelligent Design, on the other hand, finds fairly amazing, and surprising, concordance with Entropy in that it is now shown, (via advances in quantum information theory), that, “in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”
And finally, in regards to the fact that free will is shown to be integral to the creation of new information, (i.e. “Creating new axioms and free will are shown to be different aspects of the same phenomena: the creation of new information”), this presents no problem whatsoever for Intelligent Design advocates in regards to violating the law of conservation of information, or in regards to violating some other law of nature, since it is now empirically demonstrated that, to quote Weinberg, “humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level,”
In other words, the ability of an intelligent Designer to create information in this universe is now shown to be, scientifically speaking, on the same level as a law of nature is. And thus, that makes Intelligent Design just as scientifically valid as any other scientific theory is that is based solely on a law of nature.
Of supplemental note: Allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics, as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned,,,, (Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Max Planck, to name a few of the Christian founders),,, and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands (with the closing of the free will loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company), rightly allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead provides an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between quantum mechanics and general relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”.
Verse:
Claims of universal common descent are lacking a mechanism capable of the feat. DNA just codes for RNAs. DNA doesn’t determine biological form. All it can determine is if the organism will develop properly of not. DNA doesn’t even control mRNA processing nor protein assembly into complex, functioning structures. That means changes to DNA cannot produce the transformations required for universal common descent.