This from ScienceAlert:
Earlier this year, researchers discovered what they described as a previously unknown law of nature: a growth pattern which describes how pointed shapes form again and again in nature – from shark teeth and spider fangs to bird beaks and dinosaur horns.
“The diversity of animals, and even plants, that follow this rule is staggering,” evolutionary biologist Alistair Evans from Monash University in Australia said at the time they discovered the mathematical formula, dubbed the ‘power cascade’.
“We found it almost everywhere we looked across the kingdoms of life – in living animals, and those extinct for millions of years.”
Back in 2015, scientists were also delighted to find a classic formula for Pi – the ever-constant ratio between a circle’s circumference and its diameter – lurking in hydrogen atoms.
In a roundabout way, that discovery leads us back to the idea that mathematics provides a structural framework for the physical world. It’s an interesting idea to entertain – so long as your head doesn’t explode.
Claire Watson, “What if Math Is a Fundamental Part of Nature, Not Something Humans Came Up With?” at ScienceAlert (January 2, 2022)
No head explode. We live in a designed universe. Math proves it.
Hat tip: Philip Cunningham
This is the first I’ve heard of a new law being discovered. It is an exciting time.
Life isn’t using math, life is using intention and desire. The growth is aiming for a particular goal, with a sequence of steps needed to get there. You can call it an algorithm (a while loop), but it’s not an equation or formula.
Sadly the power cascade law is not elucidated in this article BUT some classic mathematics in nature examples are discussed including fractals, primes and Fibonacci numbers (which I find the most incredible).
BobRyan – it’s a law in the sense of a generalisation. I think using “law” in this context is rather silly.
Polistra – in this context, the “law” is, quite literally, a formula.
Apparently this was initially reported back in March:
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-discover-unknown-law-of-nature-that-shapes-all-the-pointy-things-in-life
Here’s the original research paper:
https://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12915-021-00990-w
So, they did some kick-ass modelling! Excellent!
Bob O’H: in this context, the “law” is, quite literally, a formula.
Yup but so is the Law of Gravity or Newton’s laws of motion or the laws of thermodynamics. It is the word used for mathematical formulas that model real-world events well.
Finding a ‘new universal model based on a power law between the radius of the structure and its length, which generates a shape called a ‘power cone’,,, a ‘power law’ that describes a diversity of pointy structures in widely varying organisms, (i.e. teeth, and “the growth of claws, horns, antlers and beaks of vertebrates, as well as the fangs and shells of invertebrates, and thorns and prickles of plants)”, is far more devastating to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian atheists than they are aware, or that they are ever willing to honestly admit.
Darwinists simply have no clue how any particular organisms achieves its basic ‘biological form’.
In fact, when Darwinists first formulated the modern synthesis, they excluded biological form from the conceptual framework of the Modern Synthesis as being quote-unquote ‘irrelevant’, and thus, “At present, the problem of biological form remains unsolved” for Darwinists.
That biological form is forever beyond the scope of the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian atheists is made evident from both DNA and Proteins.
With DNA, specifically with mutations to DNA, we find that,
“Studies using saturation mutagenesis in the embryos of fruit flies, roundworms, zebrafish and mice also provide evidence against the idea that DNA specifies the basic form of an organism. Biologists can mutate (and indeed have mutated) a fruit fly embryo in every possible way, and they have invariably observed only three possible outcomes: a normal fruit fly, a defective fruit fly, or a dead fruit fly”, and, “None of the evidence from these and numerous other studies of developmental mutations supports the neo-Darwinian dogma that DNA mutations can lead to new organs or body plans–,,,”
And as Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig points out, “even after inducing literally billions of induced mutations and (further) chromosome rearrangements”,,, “the law of recurrent variation is endlessly corroborated”…
And with Proteins we find “Levinthal’s paradox”. Specifically, “a relatively small protein of only 100 amino acids can take some 10^100 different configurations. If it (randomly) tried these shapes at the rate of 100 billion a second, it would take longer than the age of the universe to find the correct one. Just how these molecules do the job in nanoseconds, nobody knows.,,,”
Moreover, this failure of the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian atheists to be able to explain the basic biological form of organisms, (or to be able to explain any subset of form found within biological organisms, i.e. the ‘power law’), occurs at a very low level, much lower than DNA and Proteins themselves.
Specifically, Godel’s incompleteness theorem has now been extended into physics and it is now shown that, “even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour”,,, The researchers further commented that their findings “challenge the reductionists’ point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”
Thus it is now mathematically proven that it is impossible for Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, to ever give a coherent account of how any organism achieves its basic biological form, (much less to give a coherent account for how any ‘mathematical subset’, (i.e. the ‘power law’), occurred within biological forms.
If Darwinian evolution were a ‘normal’ science instead of being, basically, a unfalsifiable religion for atheists, this should count as yet another devastating falsification of Darwin’s theory that puts it squarely in the trash heap of other failed scientific theories throughout the scientific era, (of which there are very many failed scientific theories throughout the scientific era that did not make the cut).
Verse:
Of related note to the ‘power law’, there is also another mathematical principle found in life. i.e. a mysterious ‘higher dimensional’ (4-Dimensional) component to life:
The more we learn about the universe and how it works, the more faith it takes to remain/become an atheist.
Lord Kelvin said it best when towards the end of his life he said this: “If you study science deep enough and long enough, it will force you to believe in God.”
Little did he know how right he was!
Actually, this may simply be a case of Darwinian evolution in action. The optimum shape for a tooth or claw is a trade-off between longer (for more ferocious bite/scratch) and sturdier (for sufficient strength/robustness). The chemistry of teeth and claw materials, coupled with the physics of biting and scratching, along with statistics of likely biting/scratching events in the life of the animal (range and number of events) will constrain the optimization of length: width. Random variation and natural selection would then settle on an optimum. Too many long teeth and they break off, reducing ability to hunt and kill prey. Claws too short and they are not sufficiently offensive or defensive. Once animals have teeth and claws, evolution would act to optimize the ratio for the best statistical performance over the life of the species in its population. This new “law” merely describes the result of the optimization; it is not a basis for determining what it should be.
Of course, lest I am misunderstood, the evolutionary optimization only tweaks or adjusts; it does not account for the original existence of teeth and claws.
Fasteddious: Actually, this may simply be a case of Darwinian evolution in action. The optimum shape for a tooth or claw is a trade-off between longer (for more ferocious bite/scratch) and sturdier (for sufficient strength/robustness). The chemistry of teeth and claw materials, coupled with the physics of biting and scratching, along with statistics of likely biting/scratching events in the life of the animal (range and number of events) will constrain the optimization of length: width. Random variation and natural selection would then settle on an optimum. Too many long teeth and they break off, reducing ability to hunt and kill prey. Claws too short and they are not sufficiently offensive or defensive. Once animals have teeth and claws, evolution would act to optimize the ratio for the best statistical performance over the life of the species in its population. This new “law” merely describes the result of the optimization; it is not a basis for determining what it should be.
Evolution explains having similar solutions to similar problems. What has happened here is that some clever biologists have figured out what basic function along with parameters, coefficients and transformations model that which can be observed.
Well done! A classic case of observation, data collection and mathematical modelling.
Imagining that Darwinian evolution can explain some given ‘repeated’ shape, observed across a wide variety of organisms, is a far cry from empirically demonstrating that Darwinian evolution can account for that given shape.
Without any empirical evidence to back you up, you might as well wave a magic wand every time you claim that Darwinian evolution explains a given shape.
Reminds me of the many instances where Darwinists have invoked the magic words ‘convergent evolution’ to try to ‘explain away’ a repeated feature in life.
Yet ‘convergent evolution’ actually falsifies Darwinian claims rather than confirming them.
As Casey Luskin observed, “the main assumption underlying all phylogenetic trees is that biological similarity is the result of inheritance from a common ancestor.”,,, “Whenever evolutionary biologists are forced to appeal to convergent evolution, it reflects a breakdown in the main assumption, and an inability to fit the data to a treelike pattern. Examples of this abound in the literature,,,,”
And as Günter Bechly, a paleontologist, noted, “One of the most essential doctrines of Darwinian evolution, apart from universal common descent with modification, is the notion that complex similarities indicate homology and are ordered in a congruent nested pattern that facilitates the hierarchical classification of life.”,,, “,,,We can safely conclude: it is an epic myth, willingly perpetuated by evolutionary biologists, that the similarities between organisms mostly fall in a hierarchic pattern of nested groups and thus suggest common ancestry and indicate phylogenetic relationship. In reality this claim is contradicted by a flood of incongruences and reticulate patterns that shed doubt on fundamental paradigms of evolutionary biology like the notions of homology and common descent.”
And as Bernard d’Abrera bluntly put the situation for Darwinists, “For it to happen in a single species once through chance, is mathematically highly improbable. But when it occurs so often, in so many species, and we are expected to apply mathematical probability yet again, then either mathematics is a useless tool, or we are being criminally blind.,,,”
As both Casey Luskin and Gunter Bechly pointed out, ‘convergent evolution’, far from being a (very) rare occurrence, (as would be expected under Darwinian presuppositions), is now found to be a widespread, even a common, occurrence. Here are a few examples of just how widespread this unexpected ‘convergent evolution’ problem is for Darwinists.
As Gunter Bechly stated, convergent evolution directly challenges the ‘hierarchical classification of life” which is the main, core, assumption that lies behind the Darwinian belief of universal common descent.
And Winston Ewert’ used the breakdown in “the hierarchical classification of life” at the genetic level to provide a (very) powerful falsification of Darwin’s theory.
In the following article, Cornelius Hunter explains, for the lay audience, just how devastating Winston Ewert’s falsification of Darwin’s theory actually is,
Thus in conclusion, finding repeated patterns and/or shapes in life, i.e. ‘convergent evolution, actually falsifies core Darwinian presuppositions rather than confirming them.
I think atheism will still be around long after we are all gone and I don’t see how this research makes the Christian God any more likely.
Having similar structures and shapes to teeth and claws is hardly a case of “convergent evolution”. Rather it is simply the best approach to using the available materials for the intended purposes. While the original teeth and claws may have been designed as such, and may indeed have had the optimum shapes, variations would have caused adjustments and a spread of ratios throughout the population. Natural selection would then provide a slight pressure to weed out the extremes as “less fit” and thereby maintain the optimum as the statistical mean for the population. If the original designs had been different from the optimum shapes, then random variation and natural selection would have shifted the average toward the optimum. Various species using the same materials for the same purposes would have developed the same general solutions and then optimized them.
All ID people are surely aware that the Darwinian process can do certain simple things to keep a population as fit as possible based on their original design.
Fasteddious: Having similar structures and shapes to teeth and claws is hardly a case of “convergent evolution”. Rather it is simply the best approach to using the available materials for the intended purposes.
And what you go on to elucidate is a pretty good description of how evolutionary processes work. And you’ve explained why convergent evolution makes sense. Well done!!
Seversky: I think atheism will still be around long after we are all gone and I don’t see how this research makes the Christian God any more likely.
This research has nothing to do with any gods or any theology.
Fasteddious, again, without any empirical evidence to back up your claim, you might as well wave a magic wand.
Sure Darwinian evolution can ‘weed out’, but Darwinian evolution is far more constrained in its ability to ‘optimize’ than you are presupposing.
As the following article noted, “The mainstream of mathematical population geneticists since about 1964 has emphatically rejected the claim that fitness is maximised.” and also “mathematical population geneticists mainly deny that natural selection leads to optimization of any useful kind.”
Of related note: Darwinists are simply stymied in their ability to explain the vast majority of phenotypic traits.
BA77 @ 17: There is no need to pick a fight when none is offered.
As for “evidence”, we are all aware of microevolutionary effects, which ID usually accepts: things like Darwin’s finch beaks adjusting and then readjusting, and peppered moth colour changes (whether true or otherwise), Cichlid fish colour differentiations, and then of course, the polar bear. I do not claim these represent new genetic information, nor that they are all fully optimized. I am not an evolutionary biologist, but I am flexible enough to recognize Darwinism when it seems clearly feasible. Of course no one can “prove” that Darwinism optimized tooth and claw designs, but some “just so stories” are surely more feasible than others? And to deny even the possibility of minimal Darwinian benefits seems irrational. Even Michael Behe recognizes that Darwinian evolution (AKA devolution) works for the benefit of various species.
Having said all that, I am NOT claiming that the Darwinian mechanism explains all “convergent evolution” – far from it. Instead I am saying that Darwinism does a fair job of explaining some minor aspects of “evolution”; i.e. various cases of microevolution.
Fasteddious, you mentioned Darwin’s Finch beaks, peppered moths, Cichlid fish, and Polar bears, as evidence for Darwinian evolution.
Yet even those popular textbook examples do not supply empirical evidence for Darwinian evolution.
So again, without any empirical evidence to back up your claim, you might as well wave a magic wand.
JVL, I thought of you when I read this, “Cassell,, says that more progress would be possible if not for the fact that so many scientists are infected with what he terms teleophobia — an unwillingness to recognize evidence of teleology and purpose in biology.”
https://evolutionnews.org/2022/01/teleophobia-cassell-on-the-unreasonable-fear-of-intelligent-design/
Bornagain77:
If you can present a clear and solid teleology hypothesis that can be tested with an unambiguous failure criteria let’s hear it. And that can’t be: prove something could have done it. You have to say what it is you think is teleological, you have to have an ability to test it on its own terms (in case there are other explanations that aren’t obvious), and you have to accept a fail if that’s what happens.
I’m interested so what have you got?
Please don’t muck about with a lot of copy-and-paste quotes and references; just tell us what your testable hypothesis is and how you propose to test it.
@JVL:
:))) The evidence is hidden in plain sight:
I must recognize that is a genial dissimulation. It’s a kind of hypsnosis.
Survivability is a goal/purpose/target that is assigned by a Designer.
Do not exist survivability without “a plan” to be run in case of emergency.
“If you can present a clear and solid teleology hypothesis that can be tested with an unambiguous failure criteria let’s hear it.”
Bornagain77:
Well, apparently you cannot come up with a clear and unambiguous testable teleological hypothesis.
The design hypothesis:
1) High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design.
2) Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity.
3) Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity.
4) Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems.
Now compare that to the nothingness of materialism and evolution by means of blind and mindless processes.
Here’s another hypothesis:
1. The genetic code involves a coded information processing system.
2. There isn’t any evidence that nature can produce coded information processing systems
3. There isn’t even a way to test the claim that nature can
4. Christopher Hitchens says we can dismiss such claims.
5. There is ONE and ONLY one known cause for producing coded information processing systems and that is via intelligent agency volition.
6. Therefore using our KNOWLEDGE of cause-and-effect relationships, in accordance with Newton’s 4 rules of scientific reasoning, we infer the genetic code was intelligently designed.
Now JVL may not like either of my examples, but it is a given that he can’t produce anything as good for evolution by means of blind and mindless processes.
BA77 @ 19: I have no significant fight with you but you seem to be worked up about what I wrote. In less than half an hour you pasted together some excerpts that you believe refute what I suggested, seeming not to have understood all that I wrote. A few observations on your notes @19:
– I myself doubted the pepper moth story (“whether true or otherwise”), based on past readings.
– I myself pointed to Behe’s “devolution” thesis which you refer to.
– your entries of “may also play” and “may explain how” read rather like the Darwinists’ just so stories, although theirs are in the past subjunctive (could have, might have, etc.)
– Darwin did not posit any molecular or genetic details to his “mechanism” since he didn’t know about any of that, so whether the change is programmed in, a large insertion, or epigenetic in nature does not refute a Darwinian mechanism of “change plus selection”.
– I make no reference to any “magic wand” mechanism. Rather I pointed to a simple, high-level mechanism that has been shown to change species in observable ways. To split hairs and call none of then “Darwinian” seems obsessive. Beware of arguing “magic wand” as any atheist could use the same insult against ID – and I’m sure some have done so.
Are you claiming that mutation-plus-natural-selection has zero explanatory power anywhere?
“Well, apparently you cannot come up with a clear and unambiguous testable teleological hypothesis.”
Apparently words mean nothing to JVL since the challenge/criteria is for Darwinists to “pose a single topic for biological research, doing so in language that avoids all implication of agency, cognition, and purposiveness (i.e. teleology)”
That the words that biologist themselves are forced to use when they are doing their research, apparently, mean nothing to JVL is not really all that surprising since, as atheist professor Alex Rosenberg of Duke university himself explained, if atheistic naturalism were actually true then “no sentence has any meaning.”
To say that the implications of Atheistic Naturalism ‘border on the insane’ is no understatement.
Fasteddious, I am not ‘fighting’ you. You are imagining things in that regards. I am simply pointing out that you have no empirical evidence for the fairly broad claims that you have made for Darwinian evolution. Call it ‘obsessive’, call it whatever you like, but be that as it may, you still have presented no empirical evidence whatsoever that Darwinian processes are capable of what you are claiming for them.
Shoot, even Lenski’s much ballyhooed citrate adaptation was shown to be a repeatable, environmentally induced, adaptation by Scott Minnich and company
The only explanation is that JVL knows the process but just doesn’t want to tell us or have a superstitious belief that one day … 🙂
BA77: Perhaps I am mistaken, but I thought the Lenski’s citrate change was caused by the breaking or shut down of a gene that normally turned off the citrate metabolic path, thereby allowing it to work in that lab environment. That seems like a good example of Darwinism in action: a random change (it took how many thousand generations?) makes one e-coli more “fit” (reproduce faster) in that environment, so over time the change spreads through (natural selection) the population. Just because the change is reproducible in repeated experiments doesn’t mean it is non-Darwinian.
Other examples include malaria vs. sickle-cell anaemia and malarial resistance to anti-malaria drugs. Those too are repeatable, but the mutations involved are known and how they get fixed in the population genetics are also well understood (Behe did a lot of work in that area). Even some of the polar bear genetic changes are attributed to random hits (breaking genes) that apparently benefited brown bears living in cold conditions. Those are presumably not reversible. There must be numerous other cases – perhaps our pro-Darwin friends here could provide a few? They may mostly be cases of devolution, but that does not make them non-Darwinian. Blind cave fish is one obvious example. presumably that is not a pre-programmed adaptation, and presumably it is not reversible either? Does an isolated population of blind fish regain its sight when moved out of the cave but remaining isolated?
Perhaps you merely consider the minor Darwinian processes I point to as “adaptations” just because different populations can produce the same result? If so, then we maybe just have slightly different understandings of those words? A mere semantic difference?
Question: is there some way on UD to see what (if any) responses there are to a previous comment short of going back to the OP and scrolling down? I don’t see anything like that in the “edit profile” area.
I don’t understand the problem:
State a clear and testable hypothesis.
State how you’re going to test that hypothesis.
ET‘s arguments are not testing his design hypothesis, i.e. he has to suggest a test/experiment whose outcome will be in favour or not of his hypothesis. Whatever his hypothesis actually is.
Bornagain77 seems to think he can just attack ‘materialism’ and ‘Darwinism’ over and over and over again without actually making some attempt to show that the design hypothesis gives predictable outcomes. And he actually hasn’t given anything like a design hypothesis.
Lt Com Data . . . I have no idea.
🙂 Let’s test how a genetic code appear from natural processes. You test it then come to tell us the result.
Fastedious, first to Lenski’s results,
Saying that the adaptation was “an artifact of the experimental conditions and not a unique evolutionary event” is, for all intents and purposes, the same as saying it was an environmentally induced adaptation not a Darwinian adaptation.
After Lenski’s e-coli, you listed several instances of devolution. But again, your claim was not that Darwinian mechanisms were breaking things, but your claim was that “random variation and natural selection would have shifted the average toward the optimum.” It is this whole idea of Darwinian mechanisms driving things towards ‘optimization’ that I find to be in conflict with the evidence. To repeat, “The mainstream of mathematical population geneticists since about 1964 has emphatically rejected the claim that fitness is maximised.” and also “mathematical population geneticists mainly deny that natural selection leads to optimization of any useful kind.”
You finished your post by saying that “we maybe just have slightly different understandings of those words? A mere semantic difference?”, and I would tend to agree with that. But please note how JVL. in post 15. jumped all over what you wrote to claim that “what you go on to elucidate is a pretty good description of how evolutionary processes work. And you’ve explained why convergent evolution makes sense. Well done!!”
So Fastedious, here you sit at post 35 still disagreeing with me over what is most likely trivial misunderstandings, and yet you still have done nothing to correct JVL for his over the top distortion of what you actually meant and his claim that you were, basically, endorsing all of the claims for Darwinian evolution in your comment.
JVL, first let me note the blatant hypocrisy in you, a Darwinist, demanding a testable hypothesis.
As Karl Popper himself noted, “Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory but a metaphysical research programme.”
And as Imre Lakatos himself noted,
And as Stanford Professor Paul Ehrlich noted, “Our theory of evolution has become, as Popper described, one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it. It is thus “outside empirical science”
Darwinian evolution simply has no rigid demarcation criteria that can be tested against.
And as Denis Noble, President of International Union of Physiological Sciences, stated in 2015, “it is then incumbent on modern neo-Darwinists to specify what would now falsify the theory. If nothing can do this then it is not a scientific theory.”
Moreover, even though Darwinists have not, and will not, specify exactly what experimental test could potentially falsify their theory, experimental science itself could care less and has falsified core Darwinian presuppositions, time and time again, in spite of the unwillingness of Darwinists to ever accept experimental falsifications of their theory.
Dr. Hunter has compiled a list of some of the major false predictions generated by evolutionary theory. False predictions that are fundamental to evolutionary theory, i.e. go to the ‘core’ of the theory, and falsify it from the inside out as it were.
Lokewise, over the years of debating Darwinists, I myself have compiled my own list of falsifications of Darwin’ theory that Darwinists simply refuse to ever accept as falsifications of their theory,
Moreover, unlike Darwin’s theory for which there is no discernible demarcation criteria that Darwinists will ever accept as to ‘potentially’ falsify their theory, Intelligent Design does not suffer from such an embarrassing disconnect with empirical science and/or falsification
Specifically, since Intelligent Design is mathematically based on the ‘law of conservation of information’, (Dembski, Marks, Ewert, etc..), that makes Intelligent Design very much testable and potentially falsifiable, and thus makes Intelligent Design, unlike Darwinism, a rigorous science instead of, basically, a unfalsifiable pseudoscience.
In fact there is currently 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.”
So there you go JVL, there is your testable hypothesis for ‘teleology’, “Show an example of Information that doesn’t come from a mind. All you need is one.”
Or as LCD put it, “Let’s test how a genetic code appear from natural processes. You test it then come to tell us the result.”
Verse:
Of supplemental note. Dr. Michael Egnor has an excellent article explaining the relationship between teleology and the immaterial mind.
JVL:
Which of the following is “eight”: VIII, 8, ocho, huit, 16/2?
Now our minds tell us that all of these are equivalent to one another; yet, “materially” they are not the same—the coding is different, the pixelation is different, their symbols are different. However, we know these to be interchangeable. This has just been demonstrated to be impossible “materially,” ergo, it is only possible in an “immaterial” sense. If so, then our universe is suffused in an “immaterial” substance: intelligence. Since the “immaterial” cannot, by definition, arise from the “material,” there then must be some cause, or source, of this “immaterial” reality suffusing our universe.
The “place-holder” of this “interchangeability” is our human intelligence, which, of necessity, must be “immaterial.” The source of this “immaterial intelligence,” we call God.
QED 🙂
JVL:
Why do you continue to think that your ignorance is an argument?
Obviously, any experiment which demonstrated blind and mindless processes could produce a coded information processing systems would falsify my claims. To falsify means to show to be false. My claims include the premise that blind and mindless processes are not up to the task.
And AGAIN, JVL has failed to present a hypothesis for blind and mindless processes. That way we can compare to see if he is the hypocrite I know him to be.
In archaeology they ask, “does X show signs of work?” Work is a sign of intelligent agency volition.
ID asks a similar question: “does X show signs of telic activity?”. Telic activity is a sign of agency volition.
But JVL doesn’t comprehend hypotheses.
When Einstein proposed a new law to supersede Newton’s law of gravity he didn’t say: I’m right unless you can show some other law works. Newton himself did not reason that way either.
ID is not ‘right’ unless some other paradigm is shown to work; there could be other explanations other than ID and the current evolutionary view.
Since no of you seem to want to even try I’ll propose some possible testable hypotheses. These are just some possibilities, if your version of ID is different they you can come up with others.
The null hypothesis: mutations are random with respect to fitness (that being the currently accepted situation).
The alternate hypothesis: mutations are guided.
Now, how would you test that? I’ll make a few suggestions but that doesn’t mean you won’t have others, maybe better.
Put genetically identical life forms (clones) through the exact same environmental situations and see if they experience the same mutations.
Or
Take two separate but very similar lines of descendants and see if they both gain or lose the same kinds of functions over time.
Or
Check to see if there are predictable, repeatable situations where more beneficial mutations occur than deleterious ones.
Or
Some other testable criterium.
The basic idea has to be that ID has predictive power, it will tell you ahead of time what you’ll get. I know you’re going to attack unguided evolutionary theory and say it doesn’t have that kind of predictive power but, again, that doesn’t make ID correct. If you think ID has predictive power then demonstrate it. Set up some tests to show it.
PaV: Now our minds tell us that all of these are equivalent to one another; yet, “materially” they are not the same—the coding is different, the pixelation is different, their symbols are different. However, we know these to be interchangeable.
They represent the same numerical value but they are NOT equivalent to each other in any other way. So, whether or not they are interchangeable depends on the context.
Our mental processes are suffused with immaterial concepts some of which we have learned to agree upon. Some cultures have not agreed on the same concepts. For example: some cultures did not have a representation for the numerical value of eight. For those cultures those various symbolic representations of eight would in no way be interchangeable.
I don’t think your theological argument works.
JVL at 40: “When Einstein proposed a new law to supersede Newton’s law of gravity he didn’t say: I’m right unless you can show some other law works. Newton himself did not reason that way either.”
JVL, you speak of evolution as if evolution is a bonafide scientific theory, like Newton’s theory, that has, supposedly, been established by experimental evidence.
To be clear, Darwinian evolution is not now, nor has it ever been, established as a bonafide scientific theory by experimental evidence, (and is therefore, supposedly, on par with Newton’s theory).
In fact, as Nobel laureate Robert B. Laughlin pointed out, “Evolution by natural selection,,, has lately come to function more as an antitheory,” rather than as a true scientific theory.
To repeat, “Evolution by natural selection,,, has lately come to function more as an antitheory,”
Let that sink in JVL.
JVL, In your statement equating Evolution to Newton’s theory you also spoke of laws,,, i.e. “I’m right unless you can show some other law works.,,,”
Well JVL, it might interest you to know that one of the primary reasons that Darwinian Evolution fails to qualify as a bonafide scientific theory like, say, Newton’s theory, and one of the primary reasons that Darwinian evolution will NEVER qualify as a scientific theory, is because there simply are no known laws in the known physical universe for Darwinists to ever build a realistic scientific theory on.
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.
And as Professor 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.”
There simply are no known physical laws within the known physical universe for Darwinists to ever build a realistic scientific theory on.
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.
This is not a minor problem for Darwinists. As Eddington himself explained, ” if your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it to collapse in deepest humiliation.”
And whereas Darwinian evolution has no known physical law of nature to appeal to so as to establish itself as a proper, 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, Ewert, etc..) in order to establish itself as a proper, testable, and rigorous science.
For instance, and as was pointed out in post 36, there is even a 10 million dollar prize being offered for the first person who can “Show an example of Information that doesn’t come from a mind. All you need is one.” (Perry Marshall; Origin of Life prize).
Supplemental note:
Verse:
JVL:
Nope. Designed or not clears the field, duh.
Again, your ignorance is not an argument. Clearly you don’t know what a hypothesis entails.
That is wrong! You have been told that is wrong and yet you still persist like an infant. The current thinking has mutations being random, period. The part “with respect to fitness” is total nonsense.
Dr. Spetner wrote 2 books about how to tell if mutations are directed. TWO BOOKS. And unguided is not the default. There still needs to be evidence for it and a way to test it. Fortunately, “Waiting for TWO Mutations” did that. And the paper all but proves it is impossible for blind and mindless processes to produce the diversity of life.
Yup, and IC, CSI and coded information processing systems fit those predictions. On the other hand all your position predicts are genetic diseases and deformities.
All this is moot as JVL is nothing but an ignorant troll. And obviously proud of it. Two ID hypotheses have been provided. JVL’s denial just proves he is a waste of skin and bandwidth
ET: Nope. Designed or not clears the field, duh.
Maybe so.
That is wrong! You have been told that is wrong and yet you still persist like an infant. The current thinking has mutations being random, period. The part “with respect to fitness” is total nonsense.
Translation: you don’t understand what ‘with respect to fitness’ means.
Dr. Spetner wrote 2 books about how to tell if mutations are directed. TWO BOOKS. And unguided is not the default. There still needs to be evidence for it and a way to test it. Fortunately, “Waiting for TWO Mutations” did that. And the paper all but proves it is impossible for blind and mindless processes to produce the diversity of life.
Unguided is the default assumption at this point. YOU don’t think it’s true but that doesn’t mean it’s not what a vast, vast majority of biologists think. Default doesn’t mean true, it means where you start the investigation. There’s no point having an alternative hypothesis if you think the null hypothesis is not falsifiable. You think the unguided hypothesis is incorrect but you have yet to show that the guided hypothesis is correct by showing that it’s possible to predict what kind of mutations arise and under what conditions.
Yup, and IC, CSI and coded information processing systems fit those predictions. On the other hand all your position predicts are genetic diseases and deformities.
Show that your hypothesis that mutations are guided has predictive power, i.e. predict something and then show it will come about, not just once but whenever the conditions are right.
All this is moot as JVL is nothing but an ignorant troll. And obviously proud of it. Two ID hypotheses have been provided. JVL’s denial just proves he is a waste of skin and bandwidth
If you want to just sit on your backside and declare victory without doing any actual work that’s your prerogative. But you’re not going to change any minds or move ID along until you can show its predictive power.
For example: IF mutations are guided then what percentage of the human genome will be shown to have specific functions? What about other genomes? Or even: what percentage of mutations are beneficial, neutral and deleterious?
You gotta do some work.
JVL:
Translation: JVL doesn’t understand what evolutionary biologists say.
Look, the saying is that mutations are random, as in accidents, errors and mistakes. All chance occurrences. This has been explained to you and you are too stupid to understand it. Not my fault.
Wrong! We don’t know is the default. There needs to be evidence and a means to test it. Your ignorance is not an argument.
You are a cowardly hypocrite. YOU show that your hypothesis that mutations are unguided has predictive power. No one has to date. You would be the first.
Nice projection. You don’t even know what a hypothesis entails!
blockquote>But you’re not going to change any minds or move ID along until you can show its predictive power.
So you are proud to be a hypocrite. I told you what ID predicts. What no one has seen is what evolution by means of blind and mindless processes predicts.
Look, JVL, you don’t understand science. You definitely cannot present any evidence that any bacterial flagellum evolved via unguided evolutionary processes. All you can do is deny and flail like an infant.
How is that working for you?
IC, CSI and coded information processing systems are all predictions of Intelligent Design. JVL’s denial and whining just prove he is proud to be an ignorant troll.
ET: Translation: JVL doesn’t understand what evolutionary biologists say.
It’s pretty simple: mutations are random with respect to fitness means they don’t predictably increase fitness. Which also covers the cases where certain loci seem to be more likely to foster mutations. But whether or not those mutations are good or bad for fitness is impossible to predict.
If you think mutations are guided then you should be able to predict when beneficial mutations happen.
Look, the saying is that mutations are random, as in accidents, errors and mistakes. All chance occurrences. This has been explained to you and you are too stupid to understand it. Not my fault.
I do understand but it is true that some regions are more likely to experience mutations AND periods of extreme stress may raise the mutation rate. So, mutations may not be completely random overall BUT whether or not they are beneficial for fitness is random.
Wrong! We don’t know is the default. There needs to be evidence and a means to test it. Your ignorance is not an argument.
It’s the default assumption. When drug companies test new medications their null hypothesis is: this new stuff will be just as effective as the old stuff. Then they run some tests and see if they get results that are statistically significant. If the results are statistically significant then they may adopt the alternative hypothesis: this new drug is more (sometimes less) effective than the old stuff. The default assumption (the null hypothesis) may be wrong but it has to be shown to be wrong. That’s how statistical reasoning works.
Mutations are unguided is the default assumption. IF they are not unguided you should be able to find a statistically significant results that shows that to be the case.
You are a cowardly hypocrite. YOU show that your hypothesis that mutations are unguided has predictive power. No one has to date. You would be the first.
It explains why somewhere between a quarter and a third of all human conceptions are spontaneously/naturally aborted. It explains a lot of genetic and genetic linked diseases. Because they are random with respect to fitness you cannot predict exactly what you’ll get but you know a lot of them will be bad. Which is true. And, in fact, we know what mutations cause some conditions, like Down’s syndrome. IF someone suffers that particular mutation we can say with certainty that they will suffer from Down’s syndrome. So, yeah, it’s being done.
However, if you think mutations are guided then you should see a different balance of good, bad and neutral mutations. Is that the case?
Nice projection. You don’t even know what a hypothesis entails!
A hypothesis is an informed or sensible guess about some phenomenon or outcome most likely based on observation of past events or situations.
So you are proud to be a hypocrite. I told you what ID predicts. What no one has seen is what evolution by means of blind and mindless processes predicts.
But can you predict things that haven’t happened yet or haven’t been discovered? IF mutations are guided then you should be able to project into the future and predict some things that are to come. Can you do that? You should be able to show that most of any genome has clear, unambiguous function. Can you do that?
Look, JVL, you don’t understand science. You definitely cannot present any evidence that any bacterial flagellum evolved via unguided evolutionary processes. All you can do is deny and flail like an infant.
As you well know some researchers have proposed that the bacterial flagellum evolved from a secretion system . . .I think. It’s not something I think about every day. The point is that no one is just throwing their hands up in the air and giving up. They are attempting to find a plausible, step-by-step process that brought the bacterial flagellum about.
What I don’t see ID proponents doing is something similar. Or any research at all really. Why isn’t anyone in the ID community looking at the ratio of good, bad and neutral mutation rates to see if there is an appearance of being guided? Why isn’t anyone in the ID community looking at the human genome (or any genome) to see how much of the genome has identifiable functions? Why isn’t anyone in the ID community looking for the undiscovered programming you always insist must be in the cell somewhere? Lots of questions. Mainstream biologists ARE looking at a lot of those issues but the ID community . . . not so much if at all.
How is that working for you?
Again, if you and your cohorts want to pontificate without doing any actual work it’s fine with me. If you don’t want to try and convince your detractors that your view is superior by showing its predictive power it’s fine with me. If you guys don’t actually want to see if you can find your ‘extra programming’ it’s no skin off my nose. But if you want people to take you seriously maybe you should do some work.
IC, CSI and coded information processing systems are all predictions of Intelligent Design. JVL’s denial and whining just prove he is proud to be an ignorant troll.
Can you predict something that hasn’t happened yet or been discovered or observed?
JVL:
Shut up. Evolutionary biologists say that mutations are random, as in accidents, errors and mistakes.
Nice strawman.
Nonsense. Science requires claims be testable and have evidentiary support.
And that is about it! Strange that you cannot see how that refutes your entire worldview.
And I provided that. TWICE. And you choked on them.
What a dolt! So one IC system can explain another? There isn’t any evidence that the TTSS evolved via unguided evolutionary processes. There isn’t any evidence that blind and mindless processes can produce a bacterial flagellum starting with a TTSS. Total failure.
You are ignorant of biology. You are ignorant of science. And you lie.
As you said, unguided evolution only predicts damage. And that is what we have been saying for decades. Nice own goal.
No one on this planet is researching blind and mindless processes ability to produce a bacterial flagellum. No one on this planet uses blind watchmaker evolution for anything. It is useless. Worse than useless. No one is doing any research into the efficacy of unguided evolution! They can’t even formulate a scientific theory of evolution!
@JVL why you never touch the genetic code emergence problem ? Obviously you believe an unscientific hypothesis that information can appear by chance when never was proven such a thing.
🙂 Your “hopes” are in vain.
True!
Not true.
It’s being done in genetics.
But you’re right. It has nothing to do with Evolution.
Especially since the genetic code has nothing to do with Evolution.
ET: Shut up. Evolutionary biologists say that mutations are random, as in accidents, errors and mistakes.
Yes, mutations are mostly random but, as noted by James Shapiro, some domains experience higher levels of mutations AND it may be that environmental stresses can increase mutations rates. So, in evolutionary terms, the concept is qualified: mutations are random with respect to fitness. Simple.
Nonsense. Science requires claims be testable and have evidentiary support.
You clearly do not understand statistical reasoning.
And that is about it! Strange that you cannot see how that refutes your entire worldview.
Those were just some examples. It doesn’t refute the view that mutations are random with respect to fitness; we’d expect a lot of mutations to lead to negative outcomes, which they do.
And I provided that. TWICE. And you choked on them.
I’m asking you to go further and predict something that hasn’t happened or been observed or discovered. Can you do that from the basis of mutations being guided? Yes or no?
What a dolt! So one IC system can explain another? There isn’t any evidence that the TTSS evolved via unguided evolutionary processes. There isn’t any evidence that blind and mindless processes can produce a bacterial flagellum starting with a TTSS. Total failure.
You are ignorant of biology. You are ignorant of science. And you lie.
Uh huh. Take any comprehensive evolutionary textbook and show where I have lied.
As you said, unguided evolution only predicts damage. And that is what we have been saying for decades. Nice own goal.
No, it doesn’t only predict damage. I just said that mutations being random with respect to fitness is consistent with a lot of still births and genetic diseases and such. Clearly the whole idea of evolutionary theory is that some mutations convey benefit and increase fitness. So, in fact, it predicts the development of new life forms that are ‘fitter’ than their predecessors.
No one on this planet is researching blind and mindless processes ability to produce a bacterial flagellum.
All the research in that area is based on the process being unguided.
No one on this planet uses blind watchmaker evolution for anything.
The development of new vaccines assumes there will be unguided mutations.
No one is doing any research into the efficacy of unguided evolution!
It’s an unguided process. The notion of efficacy is more an ID topic. Why aren’t you guys researching that?
They can’t even formulate a scientific theory of evolution!
They have but you just deny, deny, deny. Even Dr Behe admits there is a theory of evolution. Even Dr Dembski admits there is a theory of evolution. And Dr Johnson admitted that ID didn’t not have a unifying theory. Go figure eh?
JVL:
What is wrong with you? Why are you such a quote-mining loser? Mutations are said be random in that they are accidents, errors and mistakes. “random with respect to fitness” is nonsense and refuted by Shapiro. His natural engineering goes against your premise. You lose.
You clearly don’t understand science.
WRONG! You clearly didn’t understand the paper.
Right. It also predicts stasis. It definitely didn’t predict the bacterial flagellum
Umm, natural selection is the survival of the fit enough. And fitness is contingent.
Fitter can be anything along a continuum. Even loss of function is beneficial.
That is your uneducated opinion, anyway. And it is meaningless.
Nope. Just mutations.
Wrong again! It is up to you and yours to support your claims! And you can’t! The efficacy of evolution by means of intelligent design are seen in genetic algorithms.
They can’t even formulate a scientific theory of evolution!
LIAR! It is very telling that no one can link to this alleged scientific theory of evolution! It’s as if it doesn’t exist! So, stop being such a pathological liar. You have a sickness that needs tending to.
When a clown knows that is a clown? :))))
JVL:
Let’s say I ask you, what represents eight? And, you answer: 8, or VIII, or 16/2. Are these correct answers? Of course. Our minds “see” these as equivalent answers–we’re agreed to this; but, physically, “materially,” they are ‘not’ equivalent. Which leads to the next point:
Is the mind “immaterial,” then? If so, from whence did it arise?
Are cultures “material,” or “immaterial”? Why don’t we, the English-speaking in the West, agree that “w” represents ‘eight’? Has ‘eight’ changed, or have we simply, as a “mind-based” culture, simply changed the symbol we use? The ‘symbol’ is “material,” whereas the concept is “immaterial.” Hence, that some cultures don’t have a ‘symbol’ for ‘eight,’ or that they use different ‘symbols,’ matters not.
This is 8 in ASCII printable characters: 56
The realm of “immaterial concepts” is the mind, which is not reducible to the brain, as the concept ‘eight’ is not reducible to 8. Language exists because “minds” agree to the assignment we make of “ideas” (immaterial) to sounds and symbols.
Again, whence comes the “immaterial” mind?
There is no mathematics without the ‘mind.’ If, then, mathematics is ‘discovered’ within the “material” order, then from whence did it arise? Can the “material” give rise to the “immaterial”?
Good question, eh? 🙂
@JVL *Criterion, not criterium. 🙂 Still, I applaud your attempt at the correct placement of the singular, when the rest of the world uses criteria for both singular and plural.