Hybridization as a Challenge to Common Descent?

_{September 30, 2011

Intelligent Design}

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Here’s an article from New Scientist that will be open for the next seven days to registered viewers. It’s about the “metamorphosis” of species from larval to adult stages, and brings in the views of Donald Williamson.

Here’s a link to his 2006 paper, and the entire abstract (it’s worth it!):

Examples of animal development that pose problems for Darwinian evolution by ‘descent with modification’ but are consistent with ‘larval transfer’ are discussed. Larval transfer claims that genes that prescribe larval forms originated in adults in other taxa, and have been transferred by hybridization. I now suggest that not only larvae but also components of animals have been transferred by hybridization. The ontogeny of some Cambrian metazoans without true larvae is discussed. The probable sequence of acquisition of larvae by hemichordates and echinoderms is presented. I contend (1) that there were no true larvae until after the establishment of classes in the respective phyla, (2) that early animals hybridized to produce chimeras of parts of dissimilar species, (3) that the Cambrian explosion resulted from many such hybridizations, and (4) that modern animal phyla and classes were produced by such early hybridizations, rather than by the gradual accumulation of specific differences.

Another day; another bad day for Darwinism!

Comments

Newton wasn’t corrected. Just extended to cases not available to Newton.
Never tangle with a Newtonist. They are so defensive.Daniel King_{October 3, 2011
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Newton wasn't corrected. Just extended to cases not available to Newton. There are degrees of being wrong. It's about successive approximations. Newton still works perfectly for the range of velocities studied by Newton. Darwin's formulation is still a good working approximation, but we now have a lot more detail. What's amazing about Darwin is how many unsolved problems he recognized and wrote about. I see them continually brought up as if biologists had never considered them. The Cambrian, for example.Petrushka_{October 3, 2011
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Random in biology means "not planned/ just happened for no purpose"Joseph_{October 3, 2011
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Yep, so it turns out that Lamarckism is the new Darwinism... wait a minute, wasn't Darwin a Lamarckist?Chris Doyle_{October 3, 2011
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Did you see gpuccio's entry at 10: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/hybridization-as-a-challenge-to-common-descent/comment-page-1/#comment-401444 I think he provides a very good summary of the 'random' part of "random mutations". I find all this equivocation over neo-darwinism rather puzzling. It is apparently so true and easy to understand that we should be teaching it to primary school kids! I tell you, show me 100 evolutionists and I'll show you 100 different set of ideas about what evolution really means.Chris Doyle_{October 3, 2011
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Elizabeth, "Evolution of evolvability. It’s not a refutation, but an addition." Oh, boy! Poor Darwin. I mean poor chap. He couldn't have guessed that his ideas would be taken to such an absurdity. This is getting really crazy, don't you think? "Random" does not mean "random"? That is bizarre. I mean it really is. I think I am now positively losing the ability to parse it.Eugene S_{October 3, 2011
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All these claims of "strawman" yet not one offers up anything to support the claim. Typical of evolutionists...Joseph_{October 3, 2011
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Wow, really? Why do you suppose a neo-darwinist would feel the need to create a straw man of neo-darwinism? It just doesn't make sense. Unless of course, Shapiro is no longer a neo-darwinist. That fact alone is very significant don't you think? Given his belief in evolution (and, presumably methodological naturalism) why would he turn from the sacred doctrine? Perhaps it's because the evidence against neo-darwinism is so overwhelming... just like ID proponents have been saying from the beginning!Chris Doyle_{October 3, 2011
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Do you think Shapiro has created a straw man of neo-darwinism too?
To some extent I think he has. He is not really arguing against current mainstream biology. he is arguing against trying to stuff what biologists know into a 1940 paradigm that was focused on point mutations. Both Shapiro and Koonin seem to be saying there are much more powerful kinds of changes in genomes than base pair mutations. It's not that genomic mutations are unknown or under-studied, but that they have not been properly incorporated into a definition of evolution.Petrushka_{October 3, 2011
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Yes, I do, Chris, to some extent. I think he's cariacaturing a position that nobody holds, just as Gould did. But what he is introducing, as I said, is interesting, which is the "evolution of evolvability". It's not a refutation, but an addition. Or it's only a "refutation" of a straw man understanding of the word "random".Elizabeth Liddle_{October 3, 2011
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So, you're saying Shapiro is wrong to describe "the shift in biology from a mechanistic to informatics view of living organisms", Petrushka? Do you deny that such a shift has occurred?Chris Doyle_{October 3, 2011
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Information processing is mechanistic, unless you are proposing that computers ore cells are non-material.Petrushka_{October 3, 2011
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Greetings Lizzie, Your quarrel is with James Shapiro and co (as well as me!) I refer you to an online article from the FT press which contains a good excerpt from Shapiro's "Evolution: A View From The 21st Century". http://www.ftpress.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1720625 Do you think Shapiro has created a straw man of neo-darwinism too?Chris Doyle_{October 3, 2011
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Well Elizabeth, perhaps YOU can post what biologists mean when they say the mutations are random.
I was taught over and over again that the accumulation of random mutations led to evolutionary change — led to new species.-Dr Lynn Margulis
I say they use the word to mean "entirely by chance; just happened for no purpose" IOW they use it just as dictionies define it.Joseph_{October 3, 2011
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The heck with hybridization, sexual reproduction poses a problem for universal common descent. Ya see, with sexual reproduction, any one parent's contribution to the gene pool can be eliminated in two generations! That is because only 1/2 of a parent's genome is passed down (at a time). And that also means that even the most beneficial mutation can be lost in just one generation. Then there is sexual selection which also helps keep the norm. But anyway universal common descent is severly challenged for the simple reason that it cannot be objectively/ scientifically tested.Joseph_{October 3, 2011
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OK, if by “random” you mean “without method or conscious decision” then I’d like to know what you mean by “method” because all mutations have a cause and many are produced by well-understood mechanisms (methods?), e.g. duplication, deletion, and recombination.
Except they are not well understood as no one knows why these mutations occur.
Mutations occur by means of stochastic processes,
That's the claim yet there isn't any evidence to support it. Ya see ID says that mutations occur by means of internal programming.Joseph_{October 3, 2011
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Before you get all excited about the replacement theories offered by the likes of Shapiro and Williamson, you would do well to digest the fact that more and more neo-darwinists are coming out and admitting that natural selection acting upon random mutations is a hopelessly inadequate mechanism to account for life. Do not underestimate the significance of that admission.
But they aren't, Chris! You've created a straw man and called it "neo-Darwinism". I think the problem is with the word "random". It does not mean what you think it means :)Elizabeth Liddle_{October 3, 2011
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From they days of Plato in The Laws, Bk X, it has been immemorial, that we can analyse causal factors and processes in terms of chance and/or necessity and/or ART or design.
And it is precisely that categorical division that is now at issue.Elizabeth Liddle_{October 3, 2011
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F/N: He of course is not a chemical foundation for life, it is a nuclear physics foundation for life.kairosfocus_{October 3, 2011
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P: Are you serious? From they days of Plato in The Laws, Bk X, it has been immemorial, that we can analyse causal factors and processes in terms of chance and/or necessity and/or ART or design. That tweredun inferred on reliable empirical signs, is plainly distinct from Whodunit. Design as process evident from empirically reliable signs, is not to be confused with designers who are for good reason habitually associated with designs. We may reliably know the one without having good reason to infer to a particular agent as designer, as those who conclude murder or arson by persons unknown will tell you. But of course, all of this is in a rhetorical context. So, let me put the matter plainly: from the very first ID technical work, TMLO by Thaxton et al in 1984, it was explicitly understood and stated that while there is good reason to at least consider and even infer to design as cause from signs in life forms, this alone does not then immediately warrant a direct conclusion to the specific identity or ontological nature of the designer of the sort of cell based life we observe here on earth, whether within or beyond the cosmos. As I have frequently said here at UD, a molecular nanotech lab some generations beyond Venter et al -- who have provided undeniable proof of concept -- could do it. So, the likes of Barbara Forrest et al are indulging in willful, agenda- serving and insistent- in- the- teeth- of- repeated- correction misrepresentation of design theory. LYING, in one word. Lying that has done harm, and for which one day such will have to give a very serious accounting. Now, there is, of course, another level of design theory that DOES raise some very interesting issues that point to a designer beyond our cosmos, cosmological design. For just one instance, lifelong agnostic astrophysicist and Nobel Equivalent prize holder, the late Sir Fred Hoyle, is on record:
From 1953 onward, Willy Fowler and I have always been intrigued by the remarkable relation of the 7.65 MeV energy level in the nucleus of 12 C to the 7.12 MeV level in 16 O. If you wanted to produce carbon and oxygen in roughly equal quantities by stellar nucleosynthesis, these are the two levels you would have to fix, and your fixing would have to be just where these levels are actually found to be. Another put-up job? . . . I am inclined to think so. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has "monkeyed" with the physics as well as the chemistry and biology, and there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. [F. Hoyle, Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 20 (1982): 16.] I do not believe that any physicist who examined the evidence could fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce within stars. [["The Universe: Past and Present Reflections." Engineering and Science, November, 1981. pp. 8–12]
H, He, C, O and N are the five most abundant elements in the observed cosmos, are key building-block elements of life, and their abundance is locked into the physics of the cosmos. The above and many other considerations lead many cosmologists to conclude that our observed cosmos sits at a very fine tuned operating point that facilitates the existence of C-chemistry aqueous medium cell based life. That strongly points to design of the observed cosmos -- even through multiverse speculations [read the just linked] -- and design targetted on life like we experience and observe. An extra-cosmic architect and builder of our cosmos, with knowledge, skill and awesome power, having intent to create life, is a very plausible and even compelling candidate for best explanation. And that has long been the case; Plato in fact makes just such a cosmological inference to best explanation in the Laws Bk X, and Newton follows suit. Such an architect and builder of our world, is then a very plausible candidate to be designer of our world of life. And in that context -- pace the fulminations of Sagan, Lewontin, Coyne and co -- ethical theism is as valid a framework for doing serious science as any other. But, you will look long and hard before you will find the likes of Forrest addressing that with any seriousness or fair-mindedness. Sorry, the plain evidence is that science in our day is being held hostage to ideological, a priori, intellectually bankrupt and morally bankrupt a priori evolutionary materialism imposed by a new magisterium dressed in the holy lab coat. It is time for the bankrupt reigning orthodoxy to be exposed.kairosfocus_{October 3, 2011
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OK, if by "random" you mean "without method or conscious decision" then I'd like to know what you mean by "method" because all mutations have a cause and many are produced by well-understood mechanisms (methods?), e.g. duplication, deletion, and recombination. Moreover it is not a definition that any mathematician would recognise! Mutations occur by means of stochastic processes, in other words, they are only statistically predictable, and are drawn from a probability distribution. But that probability distribution need not be flat, and, indeed, most naturally occurring probability distributions are far from flat. Shapiro's point is the the probability distribution itself is shaped by evolutionary processes. I'd also add that conscious decisions are also probabilistic! You can consciously decide not to decide - or to "toss a coin". There is some evidence that we may actually do this internally, on occasions, as a defense strategy, to avoid being "second guessed" by an enemy.Elizabeth Liddle_{October 3, 2011
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Chris, I have to say that I do NOT know "what is meant" by “neo-darwinistic mechanism of natural selection acting upon random mutation”. Specifically, I do not know what you mean by this phrase. If we are to communicate clearly across what is quite a wide gulf, it is important to be very specific, I think. And the word "random" is used in a great many senses, and what the phrase means depends crucially on what the writer intends to denote by the word "random".Elizabeth Liddle_{October 3, 2011
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Chris, and this is not a loaded question: can you tell me what you understand by the phrase "selection-biased random walk through the limitless space of possible DNA configurations"? The reason being that mutations are only "random" in the sense that they are only predictable in a probabilistic sense. They are not random in the sense of "equiprobable" because all mutations have actual causes, and the sum of those causes does not produce a flat probability distribution of changes. For example SNPs (single nucleotide substitutions) are only one kind of mutation - Copy Number Variants (CNVs) are also extremely common, and important, and this means that sequences that already exist, and code for either a protein or some regulatory function are much more likely to reappear than a sequence de novo. So it's important to understand what "random walk" really is. A "random walk" is different from a "random draw". The analogy is usually that of a drunkard who starts at a certain lamp post, and takes a step either up or down the street with equal probability. But that means that any new step will not land him with equal probability anywhere in the street. Every new step will land him with certainty very close to where he already is, the only uncertainty being whether it will be slightly further north or slightly further south. If we have a whole gang of drunks staggering up and down the street, and then blow a gentle breeze in one direction, so that the drunks who are facing the breeze at any given time are slightly refreshed and those who aren't, slightly more likely to collapse into a stupor, then that would be analogous to natural selection - you will end up with more drunks at the end of the street from which the breeze is blowing than at the other end. What Shapiro is saying, as I understand him, is that there is more to it than this - that the actually probability of stepping up or down is itself constrained, that the net bias does not merely result from natural selection, but from a bias that affects the drunk's probability of stepping north versus south. That mutations that have a chance of selective success have rather higher probability of occurring than you'd expect if the mutation process itself had not been subject to some kind of selection process. Which of course is perfectly consistent with Darwin's theory, but very interesting - it simply adds a higher order - that evolvability itself evolves. Which you can demonstrate fairly readily in computer simulations, if you allow heritable variance in the probability not only with which offspring will survive, but in the probability with they will resemble their parents.Elizabeth Liddle_{October 3, 2011
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SteveO It apparently has not occurred to these folks to do the sort of calculation that, say, Abel did, on the Planck Time Quantum State [PTQS] resources of our solar system [or our Planet for that matter or even the observable cosmos]. Somewhere in a decent course on computer science, you will learn that trial and error is not good enough as a search, beyond a very limited context. As, you run out of adequate resources real fast. Here is my summary "needle in a haystack" explanation -- in response to the usual strawmannish rhetoric out there in the Darwinista fever swamps [they have totally lost any sense of proportion or decency] -- of why FSCI beyond 500 - 1,000 bits just simply is not a reasonable result of blind chance and mechanical necessity. Solar system level: Chi_500 = I*S - 500, bits beyond the solar system threshold If this metric goes positive and you are operating on the solar system scale, as macroevo would -- OOL would be on the cosmological scale [go up to 1,000 bits!] -- you are entitled to infer design as best causal explanation. The solar system PTQS resources would go through about 10^102 states in 10^17 s [~ solar system lifespan to date on the conventional timeline]. That is 1 in 10^48 of the set of possibilities for 500 bits. Or, roughly a single straw-sized sample from a cubical haystack, a light month across. Basic sampling theory tells us that overwhelmingly, such a sample will pick up what is typical, not what is utterly atypical, and that would obtain even if a whole solar system were lurking in the bale. No need for specific probability models and the usual side-tracking debates on such. The answer is blatantly obvious; save to those ideologically indoctrinated in a priori materialism (often disguised by question-beggingly redefining science materialistically), committed and polarised to the point of closed mindedness. That is why I no longer think the issue is whether we can SHOW the reasonableness of inferring design by mere cogency of argument, to the satisfaction of those we are dealing with. Cogent evidence that is compelling has long been on the table, but it is not being accepted because it cuts across a priori commitments. Stronger medicine is needed: the mind-bending games being played by the materialist ideologues in lab coats have to be exposed, until they have been broken to finally feel ashamed to make their claims in public. When that finally happens, then maybe the case can be heard on the merits. We need to present the case, indeed, but right now the issue is that the mind-bending games must be exposed. Not to mention, the bully-boy Saul Alinsky thuggish tactics. (And, when you guys decided to try to hold my family hostage, you crossed a nuclear threshold. I can have no respect for those who behave like that, and no decent person should have any respect for such. Senseless, ruthless, heartless, shameless, utterly depraved; even, reprobate. BYDAND!) So, we should not be surprised to see some to the trade rags of the evo mat magisterium and their popularisers sticking to the patently absurd and pretending or even imagining that the obviously absurd makes good sense: 2 + 2 = 5, or the like. Nihilists like that will only stop when they can no longer get away with what they are doing. That is in effect what Plato implied in his expose of evo mat, in The Laws BK X 360 BC, 2350 years ago. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{October 3, 2011
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It is frankly irrelevant to my argument to consider the completely different alternative evolutionary mechanisms that Williamson and Shapiro propose. The only thing that matters is neo-darwinism and its doctrine about the creative power of natural selection acting upon random mutations. And the fact that Williamson and Shapiro have rejected neo-darwinism.
Chris, you and Williamson and Shapiro are entitled to your opinions. Whether it will make any difference to science only time will tell.
Look at the bold parts in the quote provided in the OP. Look at my two Shapiro quotes. They all converge on the same very important truth: neo-darwinism is wrong. Can you not appreciate the enormity of that admission?
The bolded hypotheses expressed by Williams will have to be tested. Time will tell.
I can just see Richard Dawkins in a press conference now: “Sorry folks, every word I’ve ever written was complete and utter nonsense!”
Can you see Isaac Newton, having been corrected by Einstein, saying the same? Science is a process, not a destination.Daniel King_{October 3, 2011
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Hi wd400, It's funny that Williamson has come up in discussion here because he cropped up in another discussion I was having elsewhere a couple of weeks ago. Only this time, it was an evolutionist proposing that "Darwin's Dilemma" has been solved by Williamson! Do you have any links or sources that support your claim that "Williamson is crazy, there is no reason for a 'Darwinist' or anyone else to take him seriously"? Not because I disagree with you (though I think you're treatment of Williamson is harsh, after all, he is just being honest and saying neo-darwinism cannot explain the Cambrian explosion) but because I'd like to see for myself what others in the scientific community have been saying about him.Chris Doyle_{October 3, 2011
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Morning Daniel, I don't think you do "take my point" otherwise you wouldn't think I was quoting out of context. You seem to think the context is evolution in general or even methodological naturalism. It is neither. The specific context is the central neo-darwinistic mechanism of natural selection acting upon random mutations. It is frankly irrelevant to my argument to consider the completely different alternative evolutionary mechanisms that Williamson and Shapiro propose. The only thing that matters is neo-darwinism and its doctrine about the creative power of natural selection acting upon random mutations. And the fact that Williamson and Shapiro have rejected neo-darwinism. Look at the bold parts in the quote provided in the OP. Look at my two Shapiro quotes. They all converge on the same very important truth: neo-darwinism is wrong. Can you not appreciate the enormity of that admission? You say "Shapiro's theory...may represent...a complete replacement of neo-darwinism" then follow that up with "And scientists will be grateful." Ha! I'm sure plenty of scientists will be queuing up to admit that they wasted their entire careers trying to find evidence for neo-darwinism. I can just see Richard Dawkins in a press conference now: "Sorry folks, every word I've ever written was complete and utter nonsense!" ID proponents have been criticising neo-darwinism for a long time now and many have suffered professionally as a result of it. Most are ridiculed by their evolutionist colleagues. And yet, if neo-darwinism turns out to be false (as Shapiro and Williamson seem to believe) then that is revolutionary stuff, don't you agree? Before you get all excited about the replacement theories offered by the likes of Shapiro and Williamson, you would do well to digest the fact that more and more neo-darwinists are coming out and admitting that natural selection acting upon random mutations is a hopelessly inadequate mechanism to account for life. Do not underestimate the significance of that admission.Chris Doyle_{October 3, 2011
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PaV et al. This whole discussion is bizarre. (1) Williamson is crazy, there is no reason for a 'Darwinist' or anyone else to take him seriously. (2) You doing very strange things to Shaprio's quoute. Seems to me, that he is trying to say that modern evoluoinary biology is a very narrow sort of darwinian theory (much more narrow, than, for instance, Darwin's) that equates genotype with destiny and thinks, for instance, there are no constraints of mutation. Of course, Shapiro is erecting a strawman there. No one in their right minds thinks there are no constraints of mutations - tranistion bias being the obvious example. So evolutionary biologists know those things exist, they just aren't sold they they add up to much. But what no one has been able to say is why their presence of a particular constraint on mutation would make a blind bit of difference for the plausibility evolutionary biology?wd400_{October 2, 2011
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It really is very simple, Mark. Crossing a pig with a pigeon is not a neo-darwinistic mechanism. You are trying to blur a very clear distinction (between hybridisation and copying errors) for the sole reason that you cannot or will not face up to the fact that the likes of Williamson and Shapiro are abandoning neo-darwinism. Thanks to your atheist convictions, you prefer spin to truth. Sometimes I find it hard to resist giving as good as I get. What I've been getting from you today has been very disappointing, especially considering your age and qualifications. Your behaviour certainly undermines all of the claims that you made on your blog many months ago. Maybe you just had a bad day (hard as that is to believe in this lovely weather we've been having!) I hope the next time we cross paths you'll produce the reasonable opposition I've come to expect from you. Until then, all the best.Chris Doyle_{October 2, 2011
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KF, from your post:
Functionally specific, complex information and associated information [FSCO/I] — especially, digitally coded FSCI [dFSCI] — are seen as two of the strongest signs of design as cause.
You signify design as "cause". I thought an intelligent/intentional agent was a "cause", not design. Design is interpreted as a signifier for a particular type of cause, isnt it?paragwinn_{October 2, 2011
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