How Darwinian Logic Works

_{Gil Dodgen

October 12, 2011

Intelligent Design}

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In this post we discover: According to Darwinian theory, new species emerge when mutations produce individuals who can outperform the stock they came from…

This statement, and so many like them, reveal how Darwinian “logic” is based primarily upon hyper-imaginative speculation, and not anything that could be described as science. Here’s how Darwinian logic works:

Given #1: A certain feature of a living system exists. (Let’s try a trivial example, like Mozart’s ability to write symphonies.)
Given #2: Since this feature exists, it must have a survival advantage.
Given #3: Since it is known (scientifically) that Darwinian mechanisms can explain everything about the history of life, there must have been a gradual pathway such that random mutations and natural selection could turn a microbe into Mozart. How could this not be obvious?

The ID proponent challenges the Darwinist with some obvious questions:

Which random mutations would be required to turn a microbe into Mozart? How long would this take? What is the probability that these beneficial mutations could take place, and what is the probability that they could be fixed in the population with the available reproductive and probabilistic resources? What about the fact that the simplest living cell is the most sophisticated and functionally-integrated information-processing system ever discovered?

The universal and entirely predictable Darwinist response to such challenges:

Are you a religious fanatic who wants to destroy science?

Comments

Using the numbers supplied by gpuccio, there's a sudden appearance of a new protein domain, on average, every 12 million years. Mostly in pre-eukaryotic microbes.Petrushka_{October 16, 2011
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gpuccio, How do you know that the design process was intense? Where the designers short on ingredients? No clean glassware> Instruments on the fritz? What exactly led you to the conclusion that the design process was intense versus say trivial or perhaps even serendipitous from another of the designer(s) research projects? That's quite a claim you make and we are all assuming that you can support itAcipenser_{October 16, 2011
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Gpuccio,
it is the product of a very intense design process
And you know this how, exactly?
Evidence: There is no evidence or convincing model of any precursor for LUCA.
And therefore design? Hardly.
There is no explanation for the almost sudden formation of most of basci protein information.
And by "sudden" you mean what? What is "almost sudden"? We both know you are still talking about millions of years. Hardly sudden. Or even "almost sudden".
But try to think yourself to the transition to eularyotes and the Ediacara and Cambrian explosion, and to the successive appearance of each new basci domain, including the most recent, as obvious examples of design events to be investigated.
And yet when I ask Kariosfocus about how these things can be investigated he get's all huffy and tells me to stop looking to the past, design in the past has been confirmed (but he can't tell me anything about it). So, why don't you and KF get together and work out your differences with regard to what can and cannot be investigated and then perhaps then investigate what remains? Perhaps you could even publish a paper between you, if the Darwinist police are busy with OWS...
d) How could the higly syncrhonized information necessary for transcription and translation happen?
Well, even I know the answer to that one! "It was designed!" It seems to me that every question ever asked here is answered with "it was designed" with no actual detail following.kellyhomes_{October 16, 2011
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Mark: Sometimes darwinists really can't see the obvious. Some possible answers (just the most important): 1) OOL. Design scenario: In a relatively short span of time, at most a few million years adtre the planet becomes physically apt for life, LUCA appears on earth. It is probably a wholly functional prokaryote, with more than half the basic protein information necessary for life as it has always been observed. It is the product of a very intense design process, that allows the biggest leap in natural history, that from inanimate matter to life. Evidence: There is no evidence or convincing model of any precursor for LUCA. There is no example of life simpler than prokaryotes. There is no explanation for the almost sudden formation of most of basci protein information. Research must address the following issues: a) How old is really LUCA on earth. b) How unlikely is the origin of basic protein domains c) Can life exist in simpler, or completely different, forms? d) How could the higly syncrhonized information necessary for transcription and translation happen? e) What are the functional requirements for minimal life, and why? f) What were the immediate necessities solved by the initial design, and are they still valid now for all living beings? Well, I have no more time now. But try to think yourself to the transition to eularyotes and the Ediacara and Cambrian explosion, and to the successive appearance of each new basci domain, including the most recent, as obvious examples of design events to be investigated.gpuccio_{October 16, 2011
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I just looked over the comments above - especially those from Gpuccio (whom I still respect immensely). It is really striking how this conversation and indeed almost every conversation on ID turns to the perceived failures of "Darwinism" to explain certain evolutionary events. There is nothing about the failure of design to explain certain evolutionary events because there are no such explanations. Despite several challenges to describe a design hypothesis about how a particular thing evolved there is no attempt to do so (see below for a list of challenges). The closest anyone can come is one of the following: * Describe even more vividly why they don’t think conventional random mutation could have achieved a particular evolutionary development. * Wax lyrical about how the resulting development was cleverly engineered * Describe the resulting development in detail (but make no attempt to show how that development was implemented by the designer) This isn’t surprising because it isn’t possible to describe a design event, or the evidence for it, without saying something about who/how/why. While ID refuses to rise to this challenge it is condemned to assessing the implausibility of other people’s hypotheses rather than making its own. List of challenges above (in reverse order): 15.1.1.1 Petrushka
I would concede your generosity if you could supply even one specific design event in detail, along with your evidence
14.1.1.1 markf
Meanwhile can you point to a single ID paper that gives any account of the development of any aspect of any protein?
13.2.2 Pretrushka
Could you list the details of a few design events, in specific detail, and your evidence that they were design events?
11 Timbo
I would love to see ID offer an explanation for how this (microbe to Mozart) happened.
10.1.1 wd400
Can you show me where creationists predicted reproductive isolation, and explain to me what they means for that matter
(Note Joseph’s response was: “It in the Bible”) 3.1.1.1.2 markf
You are one of the few IDists that has openly discussed possible mechanisms but these are only a few informal conjectures at very high level. I don’t think you mention any specific transition – not even at the phylum level (most IDists would refuse to go even that far).
markf_{October 16, 2011
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I think there is a real confusion here, between the concepts of adaptation and speciation. I think it's really important to distinguish between lateral change (two sub-populations diverging) and longitudinal change (adaptation of a single lineage over time). Of course both can occur without any new proteins, as you point out.Elizabeth Liddle_{October 16, 2011
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Well, if you used a hill-climbing algorithm, Gil, no wonder you had to fall back on Intelligent Design! Try an evolutionary algorithm next time ;)Elizabeth Liddle_{October 16, 2011
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Maybe we cannot give the exact day, but there are maps of natural history, and tentative time frames for the appearance of new species. Do you deny that?
What exactly do you mean by new species? Varieties shade into each other, and we see many instances where populations the to not interbreed are biologically capable of interbreeding. So I ask again: Without having the molecular history, how do you know anything bout the exact origin of protein domains?Petrushka_{October 16, 2011
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gp, I just state the obvious, occasionally with tongue in cheek, or even justifiable sarcasm. Darwinists have a seemingly unlimited capacity for not recognizing the obvious.GilDodgen_{October 15, 2011
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Chris - there is more to this request than meets the eye. 1) The only way we know if a hypothesis is true is if the evidence is strong enough. So I guess you are asking for a Darwinian hypothesis for which there is very strong evidence. But of course much of the dispute between us is over what counts as good evidence. 2) What counts as a Darwinian hypothesis? Would "an example of a mutation that caused a significant change in phenotype that gave it a fitness advantage that lead to that mutation becoming fixed" be sufficient?markf_{October 15, 2011
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Petrushka: Maybe we cannot give the exact day, but there are maps of natural history, and tentative time frames for the appearance of new species. Do you deny that? If a new species is the first to exhibit a nea protein domain in its proteome, according to what we observe today, that is according to present knowledge the first appearance of that domain in natural history. It is obvious that our un derstanding and level of definition of natural history are constantly growing. Both the existing proteome and the fossil record are still there to explore. Further information will certainly come from molecular data in ancient DNA (like the mammouths quoted by Mark elsewhere). And from who knows what other sources. Our data are growing. Our theories have to grow too.gpuccio_{October 15, 2011
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Thak you, Gil! :) Another precious cintribution from you to this blog.gpuccio_{October 15, 2011
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Just for a change, I'd be interested in hearing an atheistic evolutionist here detail an example of a Darwinian hypothesis that is actually true! That would settle the debate once and for all so why are they holding back the big guns?Chris Doyle_{October 15, 2011
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The appearance of a new domain is a well identifiable point.
Actually, no. No more so than the appearance of a new species is an identifiable point. Perhaps you could contradict this by pointing to a specific point in the history of life, before and after the first appearance of a new domain. That would liven up the debate.Petrushka_{October 15, 2011
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Basic research is one thing. It is not driven by darwinian theory. It is driven by the necessity to find facts.
All scientific research is driven by theory. The idea that "basic science" involves simply "find[ing] facts" is false. Scientific methodology consists of devising theories that might account for the existing data, then deriving testable hypotheses that make predictions about new data (which can in fact include data we already have, if they are not the data that generated the hypothesis).
Ecolutionary biologists find good facts and they iterpret them in the light of a wrong theory, often forcin facts into unscientific conclusions. That’s very bad methodology.
It's appalling methodology, and it is not what evolutionary biologists do. Or rather, I would like you to present an example of such a methodology used by an evolutionary biologist. Science consists of fitting models to data, not in fitting data to models. The whole edifice of scientific methodology, including null-hypothesis testing and other statistical techniques is designed to ensure that it is the model, not the data, that is adjusted to maximise fit.
ID is a new paradigm, and it is trying to contrast a dogmatic scientistic religion which was never seen in scientific thought beofre neo darwinism and strong AI were declared revealed truth.
I'd like to see actual evidence to support this assertion. I know it is a rhetorical claim, but even rhetorical claims need to be based in reality to be persuasive. Neither "strong AI" nor "neo Darwinism" are regarded as "revealed truth" by any scientist that I am aware of. The "Darwinian paradigm" has not "failed" in any sense that I can see, although our models of evolution are now more detailed than anything Darwin could have dreamed of. Can you give me an example of a Darwinian hypothesis that has been falsified? (I can, actually, but I'm interested to know what you might have in mind).Elizabeth Liddle_{October 15, 2011
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I would concede your generosity if you could supply even one specific design event in detail, along with your evidence. All I'm asking for is the time, place, the details of the event.Petrushka_{October 15, 2011
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It is the best tool to trace important design events,
Could yo list the details of a few design events, in specific detail, and your evidence that they were design events?Petrushka_{October 15, 2011
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Gpuccio Do you admit that the paper I showed you gives a detailed non-design account of a small aspect of the evolution of a protein? Clearly you are looking for something more fundamental. Before I research papers on this I want to know I am not wasting my time. What would count as a “Darwinian” explanation? Does it have to give an exact series of mutations and their fitness advantages that happened billions of years ago? How far back does it have to go? I can see me wasting an awful lot of time digging up papers only to have them dismissed as insufficiently detailed or insufficiently fundamental. Meanwhile can you point to a single ID paper that gives any account of the development of any aspect of any protein? I also struggle to see how you can disagree that IDists dwell on the difficulties that evolutionary biologists have in explaining some parts of evolution. Just look at the most recent posts on this forum. For example, A Whale of a Problem for Evolution: Ancient Whale Jawbone Found in Antartica Darwinists censor writer re: Fish that jump onto land unaided complicate the water-to-land transition story New paper sets out the precise “Swiss clock” mechanism of embryo development Now find a recent post with a design hypothesis for how something evolved.markf_{October 14, 2011
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gp, "Evolution" fixed it! I used a genetic random mutation and natural selection search algorithm that hill-climbed and homed in on the goal of finding the offensive HTML tag. NOT! It was intelligent design.GilDodgen_{October 14, 2011
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I've appreciated all the comments so far. For the sake of argument I'll grant the Darwinist his unassailable belief in spontaneous generation (although I thought this notion was disqualified by Pasteur in the 19th century). There has been no forthcoming evidence that such a process has taken place, or could have taken place, even given the most optimistic assumptions. Given the assumption that a self-replicating primordial cell actually did spontaneously generate from inanimate matter through chance and necessity, one must logically ask how the proposed Darwinian mechanism could create the incredible results that are attributed to it. The reason I used the microbe-to-Mozart example was not just for purposes of alliteration; it was to plant seeds of doubt (an apparently hopelessly futile endeavor) in the Darwinist mind, which is still frozen in the 19th century. In my opinion, microbe-to-Mozart materialistic philosophy requires a helluva lot of blind faith. I mention Mozart because human life is obviously so much more than just survival and passing on one's selfish genes. It's about purpose, meaning, ethics, values, art, music, mathematics, creativity of all sorts, and yes, science, which should be about pursuing the evidence wherever it leads. There is an obviously huge discontinuity between humans and all other life forms, which Darwinists seem to have a pathological obsession denying. Why is this?GilDodgen_{October 14, 2011
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Acipenser: As you/we learn more of the history of a protein domain your calculations get pushed back into smaller increments until at some point you lose your UPB level of dFCSI. Then what? I am still waiting for the first push back :) Your approach/belief is that there were no precursors to any protein domain and that these domains were created ex nihilo. No. My belief is that they were intelligently designed. Please read my posts before saying incorrect things about my beliefs. That is the Divine foot stuck in the door I never discuss religious arguments here. I stay completely empirical. I have been doing that for years. At most, I can sometimes discuss some issues of natural philosophy, but that happens rarely. My discussions here are almnost exclusively about the scientific approach to biological information and to the problem of conmsciousness. Nothing of what I say implies a religious approach. you wish to stop the investigation at that point is because it supports your worldview You must ne kidding! I don't want to stop any investigation, at any point. Let's remind what has happened here. You stated: It is a calculation based on ignorance of the history of the protein beyond some arbitrary point. I commented: "And the point is not arbitrary at all. We know more or less when new domains arose in natural history (see the paper many times linked). That is the point you have to explain, and it is not arbitrary at all. It is the point when the thing to be explained first appears." What has that to do with "stopping the investigation"? Why can't you undersatnd simple english? I am just making the point that darwinian theory has no explanation for the "natural history" of any basci protein domain "beyond the point of its first known appearance in natural history". And that is not an arbitrary point. The appearance of a new domain is a well identifiable point. Those who believe that such a point was reached by gradual, naturally selectable steps, starting form a different protein domain that already existed before, have the duty to provide a model of that. I will not believe such a bizarre and unsupported view out of faith in the reductionist dogma. My point was only that the emergence of a new domain is not an arbitrary point. It is exactly the point we should look at carefully, and gather data about, ehatever our scientific theory. It is as important for ID as it should be for neodarwinist theory. Why would anyone need to demonstrate this possibility for ‘many proteins’ when one is sufficient to demonstrate feasability? Is that a means of hedging your bet? No. I am not betting. It's a problem of scientific methodology. One thing is to show the feasability of a scientific theory (something that darwinism has never done for itself, and never will do). Another thing is to show credibly that the "feasable" theory can well explain all that we observe. Any theory about the origin of biological information must be able in principle to explain all the biological information we observe. Let's say we have 4000 indepenmdent protein domains. Let's say that, after decades of trying, darwinist succeed in showing a barely acceptable model of transition from one of them to another one, based on their theory (it will not happen, but let's just pretend). Is that enough? No, it isn't enough. You still have to show that your "feasable" model for one case is really a ggod model for the rest. That's why I said: "many proteins". I am reasonable. I am not asking that you give a feasable model for all 4000 known domains. Let's say that, after you can show that your (non existing) hypothetical model can work in about 1000 cases, I will take it into serious consideration. Can you see how generous I am with my adversaries?gpuccio_{October 14, 2011
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Then one part of teh population could possibly outprerform the others. That will lead to one 'population' supplanting the other, not speciation. Sympatric speciation, which is a very controversial idea among evolutionary biologists, happens when phenotypic extremes can out-compete intermediates, which is quite different. Even then, adaptation bu itself can't make species because recombination scrambles the adaptive alleles in each generation if there isn't some sort of reproductive isolatoin (assortative mating) going on. I don't understand what you mean when you say the bible predicted reproductive isolation, but I'd sure like to hear. And reproductive isolation evolves in lots of ways. Glaciation certainly did drive isolation, it doesn't matter how fast it happens: if you started off with a continuous population then half of it was covered in a couple of kilometres of ice you'll end up with a sub-divided population! Likewise, on geological timescales rivers often change direction or flow into different catchments (google "river capture") which isolate inhabitants from different drainages. In times of high sea-level oceanic islands can be partially inundated, and form small archipelagos. Then there is climate driven habitat changes, chance settlement of islands, mountain building, hell continental drift made species (which have since become families or orders)... And it doesn't have to be isolation in space, flowering time in plants can be controlled by soil type which would isolate plants living on different soil.wd400_{October 14, 2011
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gpuccio, As you/we learn more of the history of a protein domain your calculations get pushed back into smaller increments until at some point you lose your UPB level of dFCSI. Then what? Your approach/belief is that there were no precursors to any protein domain and that these domains were created ex nihilo. That is the Divine foot stuck in the door and the only reason, IMO, you wish to stop the investigation at that point is because it supports your worldview. It certainly isn't the science since that would dictate looking for what came before those protein domains that led to their formation before you declare you've reached the end of the research line. Lewontin was correct. Why would anyone need to demonstrate this possibility for 'many proteins' when one is sufficient to demonstrate feasability? Is that a means of hedging your bet?Acipenser_{October 14, 2011
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The offending tag looks like this: "<b />" and is located in comment 14.2; the comment id is 403415.material.infantacy_{October 14, 2011
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Can someone get rid of the unwanted "bold"?gpuccio_{October 14, 2011
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Acipenser: The only think that would make the entire dFSCI calculation collapse would be a detailed deconstruction of the transition from a protein domain to a completely different one by simple naturally selectable steps. That will never come, because it is impossible to do that. Your "ignorance of the history of the protein beyond some arbitrary point" is only an excuse for not having to give scientific support to your dogmatic convicitons. Science does not work that way. And the point is not arbitrary at all. We know more or less when new domains arose in natural history (see the paper many times linked). That is the point you have to explain, and it is not arbitrary at all. It is the point when the thing to be explained first appears. Finally, "If new information is found pushing back the protein history by one step", as you say, the calculation of dFSCI does not collapse at all. It can easily be adjusted by calculating two separate values of functional information. For instance, let's say we calculate the dFSCI implied by a transition from A to B. Then you show some possible intermediate state, near to B, let's call it -B, which is naturally selectable. Well, we can then calculate the dFSCI from A to -B, and ignore the functional information from -B to B, if it is small enough to be in the range of the random system we are considering. Easy, isn't it? So, all you have to do is to show, in nature or in the lab, all the intermediaries, -B, --B, ... ++A, +A, each of them explicitly shown to be naturally selectable, that trace the "evolutionary path" from A to B. Good luck. Until you (or anybody else) succeeds in that, possibly for many proteins, I will continue to be certain that the neodarwinist model is an intellectual fraud.gpuccio_{October 14, 2011
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Mark: Basic research is one thing. It is not driven by darwinian theory. It is driven by the necessity to find facts. Ecolutionary biologists find good facts and they iterpret them in the light of a wrong theory, often forcin facts into unscientific conclusions. That's very bad methodology. ID is a new paradigm, and it is trying to contrast a dogmatic scientistic religion which was never seen in scientific thought beofre neo darwinism and strong AI were declared revealed truth. We don't "dwell on the difficulties that evolutionary biologists have in explaining some parts of evolution." We dwell on the total failure of a paradigm. And we certainly don't deny the good facts discovered by biologists, whatever their ideology. They are the main contributors to the falsification of darwinism.gpuccio_{October 14, 2011
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But the original “evolution” of each new protein, that is the right scenario. Any calculations made on the 'new' protein are dependent on knowing the history of that protein. If new information is found pushing back the protein history by one step the entire dFCSI calculation collapses. It is a calculation based on ignorance of the history of the protein beyond some arbitrary point. New information does not increase the precision of the calculation it totally eliminates the product of the calculation. There is no other metric in science where this happens outside of the alleged calculation of dFCSI.Acipenser_{October 14, 2011
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Gpuccio My point is one about methodology not about what particular problems have been solved or not. The fact remains that evolutionary biologists regularly make detailed hypotheses about various expects of evolution which can (and sometimes are) falsified by the evidence. IDists do not attempt any thing close to this. All they do is dwell on the difficulties that evolutionary biologists have in explaining some parts of evolution.markf_{October 14, 2011
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Mark: The "evolution of hemoglobin" is first of all the initial emergence of hemoglobin from something else. Or are you suggesting that all proteins appear from nothing, and that evolutionary theory is only about their successive small tweakings? You example is an example of what? Most research about protein structure is obviously done by those who have the resources. But basci research is neither darwinist nor ID. It is the interpretation of data that differs, not the data. So, mammuth hemoglobin differs at 3 AA sites, and that is probably a functional difference. That is an example, like many others, of those "tweakings" that, being in principle in the range of RV, could be explained by a darwinian mechanism, although that can still be discussed. Axe, in one of his recent papers, discussed exactly that. But the "successive evolution" in already existing protein families in certainly not the best field to discriminate between ID and darwinism, because the informational content here is usually borderline, and the causal reasoning is less clear cut. But the original "evolution" of each new protein, that is the right scenario. So, if you think that darwinists have "detailed papers" about the "original" evolution of hemoglobin, other than the bad fairy tales already shown here, please let us know.gpuccio_{October 14, 2011
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