Is There Even One Point Upon Which There is Universal Agreement?

SA @113 - fair enough. The point on common descent just needs a little more belabouring - evolutionists certain aren't saying anything so simplistic as that modern species have a series of ancestors which are the same species. I guess I laid myself open to that one, but equally, I think you probably knew exactly what I was driving at. There is no simple nomenclature dividing Universal Common Descent from the doctrine "I have a mum and a dad". If one could imagine tracing all modern lineages back in time, the following broad possibilities suggest themselves: 1) All lineages from an individual stop dead at an individual or pair very like themselves, with no prior ancestors. 2) Lineages converge up to a point at a particular taxonomic level of relatedness. This convergence point may or may not have ancestors, but we are interested in the point of convergence, since that is all we can locate with comparative genomics. 3) Lineages converge up to a point, then there is an intertwining of lines of descent on something other than single individuals - the Woesian (and IMO hopelessly vague) 'progenote' theory. No evolutionist proposes 1). Only Carl Woese proposes 3) - and even he would accept 2) up to (but not including) the taxonomic rank of Domain. Baraminologists accept 2 up to approximately the level of Family. Evolutionary theorists (as far as I can tell) all accept 2) up to the rank of Kingdom. Even with HGT. Hangonasec

Woese has no idea, so why ask him? Joe

Silver Asiatic: Giraffe’s give birth to giraffes, oak trees to oak trees … thus ancestry. Giraffes and oaks share a common eukaryote ancestor. Just ask Woese. Silver Asiatic: Junk DNA was a surprise, but then it morphed into a prediction which supported evolutionary theory, but that’s debatable also. Rather, the theory morphed (was modified in the light of new evidence). While some junk was always part of evolutionary theory, the amount of junk observed required a downward revision on the importance of selection to molecular evolution. Zachriel

Hangonasec Thanks for your detailed reply. We disagree on a number of points which are difficult to argue beyond what we've said so far. Yes, I believe there is a cover-up, or conspiracy if you will, to present evolution in the best possible terms in its public, popularized view and dismiss or ignore dissenting views. I think science journals are for the specialists, especially when they're pay-walled. Of course, we live in a free society (assuming that for you) so it's virtually impossible to 'cover-up' any kind of information. That said, I wouldn't call Carl Woese's views "well-known" within the general topic of 'evolution' as understood by the public and non-specialists. But that's difficult to prove either way. Regarding 'common descent' meaning 'all organisms have ancestors' - in contrast to the YEC view, I'm really not experienced enough with that form of creationism. In several years here on UD, for example, I've never met anyone who thought that organisms living today do not have some ancestry. Giraffe's give birth to giraffes, oak trees to oak trees ... thus ancestry. But in any case, it's a vague concept and I don't see agreement on it -- which is a big problem if it is a core idea of evolutionary theory, in my view. Yes, Junk DNA was a surprise, but then it morphed into a prediction which supported evolutionary theory, but that's debatable also. With all of this, I can't really go much further. I conceded that the OP could be answered in the positive, and Barry's rhetorical question was a thought-starter. Of course, there would have to be several areas of agreement among evolutionists, but the main point here (as I saw it) was the extent of the disagreement. Silver Asiatic

SA@107

Hangonasec: Textbooks are not really the place to extensively pursue disputes – although areas of uncertainty and future work are pointed to [...]. SA: I agree that uncertainty should be pointed out, but I don’t agree that evolutionary textbooks do that. Areas of disagreement are almost always ignored and the attitude of complete certainty is the general tone given.

I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. I have before me an evolutionary textbook running to 750 pages. I don’t know how many areas of disagreement I would have to pull out before I could get below your ‘almost always’ threshold, and then we would have to compare to a textbook on say physics or chemistry (which, I would submit, would also be expected to incline the material towards the more settled parts of the field).

Beyond that, I don’t think disagreements are minor. There are biologists who reject Darwinism entirely (Non-Darwinian evolution, Self-organizationalists) and there is dispute about basic concepts. (How important is selection?).

I referenced the latter. It is an argument about the distributions of s values in real populations, although people may not be aware that this is what they are arguing about. On the former, we’d have to be careful about regarding all biologists as experts on evolution. It is a specialism. More on that later.

Me: But the bones of theory are settled and undisputed by theorists, and that must constitute the bulk of educational materials in any field. SA: How would you describe the bones of the theory?

See my 83.

Me: Still; junk DNA for example is not a central tenet of evolutionary theory, SA: I think we’d have to define what the central tenets are, but I think Junk DNA is an important prediction of the theory.

Junk DNA is virtually absent from prokaryotes, exists at a minimal level in many eukaryotes, and was unsuspected until the latter part of the 20th Century. It isn’t a prediction of the theory per se, but a discovery - all this DNA with no apparent function, which surprised the hell out of many evolutionary biologists! Ohno proposed that it really doesn't have a function, based upon an evolutionary argument. This argument remains to be dealt with by any theory of function.

If it was ever shown that there is no Junk – that it all has a function, that should (but for other reasons wouldn’t) have a major impact on evolutionary theory.

A bit of a hypothetical, an argument on something that may never happen, but yes, if all junk has a function, the c-value paradox returns to the status of a paradox – the status it occupied prior to 1980. And Ohno was wrong - but why?

I already conceded that the idea: “everybody who agrees with my view on evolution is a true evolutionist” is perfectly valid. The answer to the OP is then, “Yes, we all agree 100%”. Because you could say that anyone who disagrees with your view, “doesn’t understand evolution” and therefore shouldn’t be counted.

One has to circumscribe the set somehow. Evolutionary theory is a specialism, and surprisingly involved. Anyone whose opinion is to be ‘counted’ should, I think, have a good grounding in it – all of it. The material in that 750-page textbook, for a start. That needs more than mere ‘biology’. Many biologists, even some pretty prominent ones, seem genuinely ignorant of evolutionary theory beyond a high-school level. It’s not quite the ‘no true Scotsman’ you seem to be implying.

Me: Common descent (not Universal) and a dominant role for descent with modification over vast leaps or individuals having no parent, are, however. SA: This has been argued elsewhere on UD but even the term “common descent” doesn’t have universal agreement. You describe it in a very trivial and vague way. “All organisms have ancestors”. That’s not saying much.

Try telling that to a YEC!

Let’s just start with the first one: - All of modern life shares common ancestry, HGT and orphan genes notwithstanding. “Carl Woese, one of the fathers of molecular phylogenetics, argues that the data support multiple, independent origins of organisms.” No, I don’t see agreement on the issue of common descent. As mentioned above, there’s not agreement on what the term means. The Darwinist Conspiracy has covered that up.

You’re not using the term ironically, then? You really think there’s a conspiracy, when the views of Woese are well known, published and cited?

The term “Universal Common Descent” was invented in order to mean what “Common Descent” actually meant at one time.

Darwin acknowledged either possibility: one form or a few. UCD is the better supported by the data IMO, but there are people who think it incorrect, as I have already acknowledged. Which is why I hedged: there is not universal agreement on universal common descent. But a phylogeneticist is hardly in the business of denying common descent. He is making a phylogenetic argument on why it is not universal. Hangonasec

SA @108 - this cover-up is so complete that the debate referenced was published in one of the most prominent scientific journals of the day! Fiendish. Hangonasec

vel "You ... challenge ... the concept that ..." As agreement on tenet. Silver Asiatic

SA: “Carl Woese, one of the fathers of molecular phylogenetics, argues that the data support multiple, independent origins of organisms.” "The universal ancestor is not a discrete entity. It is, rather, a diverse community of cells that survives and evolves as a biological unit. This communal ancestor has a physical history but not a genealogical one. Over time, this ancestor refined into a smaller number of increasingly complex cell types with the ancestors of the three primary groupings of organisms arising as a result." Cw "[P]robably all of the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form .… Carl Woese in “On the evolution of cells” "The three domains of life originated, somewhat independently, from the same pre-cellular pool which was undergoing massive lateral transfer of genetic information. You do not challenge common ancestry per se but rather the concept that there was a single common ancestor cell or organism that gave rise to the three cellular domains of life? " Woese affirmed this was his view velikovskys

Regarding the Darwinian conspiracy to cover-up disputes -- I was looking for something else and this came up ... one of many:

The number of biologists calling for change in how evolution is conceptualized is growing rapidly. Strong support comes from allied disciplines, particularly developmental biology, but also genomics, epigenetics, ecology and social science. We contend that evolutionary biology needs revision if it is to benefit fully from these other disciplines. The data supporting our position gets stronger every day. Yet the mere mention of the EES often evokes an emotional, even hostile, reaction among evolutionary biologists. Too often, vital discussions descend into acrimony, with accusations of muddle or misrepresentation. Perhaps haunted by the spectre of intelligent design, evolutionary biologists wish to show a united front to those hostile to science. Some might fear that they will receive less funding and recognition if outsiders -- such as physiologists or developmental biologists -- flood into their field. (Kevin Laland, Tobias Uller, Marc Feldman, Kim Sterelny, Gerd B. Müller, Armin Moczek, Eva Jablonka, and John Odling-Smee, "Does evolutionary theory need a rethink? Yes, urgently," Nature, Vol. 514:161-164 (October 9, 2014) (emphasis added).) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/10/nature_admits_s090321.html

Silver Asiatic

Hangonasec

SA @105 Textbooks are not really the place to extensively pursue disputes – although areas of uncertainty and future work are pointed to – after all, one is educating the next generation, and they need something to work on. A science without unknowns is a bit dull.

I agree that uncertainty should be pointed out, but I don't agree that evolutionary textbooks do that. Areas of disagreement are almost always ignored and the attitude of complete certainty is the general tone given. Beyond that, I don't think disagreements are minor. There are biologists who reject Darwinism entirely (Non-Darwinian evolution, Self-organizationalists) and there is dispute about basic concepts. (How important is selection?).

But the bones of theory are settled and undisputed by theorists, and that must constitute the bulk of educational materials in any field.

How would you describe the bones of the theory?

Contra the spirit of the rhetorical title, points of agreement are many and substantial.

Many, yes, as I agreed. Certainly, more than "even one" so the answer to the OP is yes. But substantial ... ? I think we have to start with the idea that "evolution" claims to be able to explain the development of (and every aspect of) every living organism in the entire history of the entire biosphere on earth. When we look for some substantial agreement on the basics of that theory, it has to be pretty significant, in my opinion. I just don't think it's there.

Still; junk DNA for example is not a central tenet of evolutionary theory,

I think we'd have to define what the central tenets are, but I think Junk DNA is an important prediction of the theory. If it was ever shown that there is no Junk - that it all has a function, that should (but for other reasons wouldn't) have a major impact on evolutionary theory.

nor are such matters as RNA World vs Proteins First, or the relative importance of different evolutionary rates (punctuated equilibrium/stasis) or, indeed, the distribution of s values (which is all the selection/drift dispute hinges upon).

I have to trust your judgement on this. I would think that those who favor drift as an explanation would consider the distribution of values a central aspect -- but the key point is, nobody owns the theory of evolution. There is no official spokesman (many, like Dawkins or Coyne think they are) authorized to speak on its behalf. Nobody has an official definition of it. Your opinion is as good as any. I already conceded that the idea: "everybody who agrees with my view on evolution is a true evolutionist" is perfectly valid. The answer to the OP is then, "Yes, we all agree 100%". Because you could say that anyone who disagrees with your view, "doesn't understand evolution" and therefore shouldn't be counted.

Common descent (not Universal) and a dominant role for descent with modification over vast leaps or individuals having no parent, are, however.

This has been argued elsewhere on UD but even the term "common descent" doesn't have universal agreement. You describe it in a very trivial and vague way. "All organisms have ancestors". That's not saying much.

You have the floor: what is the Great Darwinist Consipiracy suppressing that should be better known? This is not an invitation to a spamfest;

This task is more than I can handle - not because it's difficult, but because there is too much to choose from. I don't consider BA77's linked material to be spam and I think he could show dozens of references to scientific findings that directly conflict with what the Darwinist conspirators work to cover-up.

just brief headlines would do, along the lines of my 83. And is my 83 incorrect (apart from the error already pointed out and accepted)?

Let's just start with the first one:

- All of modern life shares common ancestry, HGT and orphan genes notwithstanding.

"Carl Woese, one of the fathers of molecular phylogenetics, argues that the data support multiple, independent origins of organisms." No, I don't see agreement on the issue of common descent. As mentioned above, there's not agreement on what the term means. The Darwinist Conspiracy has covered that up. The term "Universal Common Descent" was invented in order to mean what "Common Descent" actually meant at one time. Silver Asiatic

SA @105 Textbooks are not really the place to extensively pursue disputes - although areas of uncertainty and future work are pointed to - after all, one is educating the next generation, and they need something to work on. A science without unknowns is a bit dull. But the bones of theory are settled and undisputed by theorists, and that must constitute the bulk of educational materials in any field. Contra the spirit of the rhetorical title, points of agreement are many and substantial.

This OP is so generous to evolutionists … just show us where you agree. It’s a friendly offer. You could come up with hundreds of trivial, ambiguous points where evolutionsts agree (like ‘selection is important’).

I gave a non-exhaustive list in 83; these are hardly peripheral, trivial or ambiguous points, though they are somewhat general. Still; junk DNA for example is not a central tenet of evolutionary theory, nor are such matters as RNA World vs Proteins First, or the relative importance of different evolutionary rates (punctuated equilibrium/stasis) or, indeed, the distribution of s values (which is all the selection/drift dispute hinges upon). Common descent (not Universal) and a dominant role for descent with modification over vast leaps or individuals having no parent, are, however. You have the floor: what is the Great Darwinist Consipiracy suppressing that should be better known? This is not an invitation to a spamfest; just brief headlines would do, along the lines of my 83. And is my 83 incorrect (apart from the error already pointed out and accepted)? Hangonasec

Hangonasec @ 100 Darwinists are very defensive about their belief system. "There are no weaknesses in the theory of evolution." -- Former NCSE Director, Eugenie Scott to the Texas State Board of Education in January 2009 This OP is so generous to evolutionists ... just show us where you agree. It's a friendly offer. You could come up with hundreds of trivial, ambiguous points where evolutionsts agree (like 'selection is important'). I prefer this friendly approach - it's better for dialogue. However, a more critical approach which would probably end up with evolutionists flat-out lying about their views would ask if evolutionists agree on key points of the theory. So yes, in public media, in textbooks, in debate with IDers, there is an evolutionary party-line to uphold. But dig into the papers, look at what the 'outcasts' have to say, research the little in-house fights that pop up (and are quickly covered-up) and it's easy to see that there are disagreements but they're hidden from the general public. Or at least no disagreement allowed in textbooks, which apparently in other fields are the very places scientific disputes are conducted. Silver Asiatic

To get a bit philosophical with the OP's question, "Is There Even One Point Upon Which There is Universal Agreement?", this question is much tougher for atheists to give a coherent answer to within their materialistic/naturalistic worldview than they may realize at first:

"So you think of physics in search of a "Grand Unified Theory of Everything", Why should we even think there is such a thing? Why should we think there is some ultimate level of resolution? Right? It is part, it is a consequence of believing in some kind of design. Right? And there is some sense in which that however multifarious and diverse the phenomena of nature are, they are ultimately unified by the minimal set of laws and principles possible. In so far as science continues to operate with that assumption, there is a presupposition of design that is motivating the scientific process. Because it would be perfectly easy,, to stop the pursuit of science at much lower levels. You know understand a certain range of phenomena in a way that is appropriate to deal with that phenomena and just stop there and not go any deeper or any farther.",,, You see, there is a sense in which there is design at the ultimate level, the ultimate teleology you might say, which provides the ultimate closure,," In Cambridge, Professor Steve Fuller discusses intelligent design - video - quoted at 17:34 minute mark of the video https://uncommondescent.com/news/in-cambridge-professor-steve-fuller-discusses-why-the-hypothesis-of-intelligent-design-is-not-more-popular-among-scientists-and-others/ “Our monotheistic traditions reinforce the assumption that the universe is at root a unity, that is not governed by different legislation in different places.” John D. Barrow Stephen Hawking's "God-Haunted" Quest - December 24, 2014 Excerpt: Why in the world would a scientist blithely assume that there is or is even likely to be one unifying rational form to all things, unless he assumed that there is a singular, overarching intelligence that has placed it there? Why shouldn't the world be chaotic, utterly random, meaningless? Why should one presume that something as orderly and rational as an equation would describe the universe's structure? I would argue that the only finally reasonable ground for that assumption is the belief in an intelligent Creator, who has already thought into the world the very mathematics that the patient scientist discovers. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/stephen_hawking092351.html

Around the 13:20 minute mark of the following video Pastor Joe Boot comments on the self-defeating nature of the atheistic worldview in regards to a single overriding absolute truth:

Defending the Christian Faith – Pastor Joe Boot – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqE5_ZOAnKo "If you have no God, then you have no design plan for the universe. You have no preexisting structure to the universe.,, As the ancient Greeks held, like Democritus and others, the universe is flux. It's just matter in motion. Now on that basis all you are confronted with is innumerable brute facts that are unrelated pieces of data. They have no meaningful connection to each other because there is no overall structure. There's no design plan. It's like my kids do 'join the dots' puzzles. It's just dots, but when you join the dots there is a structure, and a picture emerges. Well, the atheists is without that (final picture). There is no preestablished pattern (to connect the facts given atheism)." Pastor Joe Boot

Verse

Colossians 1:16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.

of related note:

Point of View Livecast - April 7, 2015 - video interview Nancy Pearcey discusses her book, "Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism and Other God Substitutes," in which she explains how all worldviews that try to substitute God with something less than God (i.e. with an 'idol') all end up self imploding since they cannot account for what we intuitively know to be true. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRtbkN2tx4I

bornagain77

They all agree that evolution happened. However they do not know how or even if evolution can produce the diversity of life. Joe

Yes, there is one point on which they agree: There ain’t no God.

Except for those who do think there's a God, of course. Bob O'H

Yes, there is one point on which they agree: There ain't no God. EvilSnack

So, Darwinists apparently don't agree on anything. And it's a cult, with no disagreement allowed. Or at least no disagreement allowed in textbooks, which apparently in other fields are the very places scientific disputes are conducted. Hangonasec

... far from being irrelevant, it’s the “junk DNA” that is running the whole show:

So? That's exactly what we would expect if evolution is true. Hoyle was right all along. Mung

Mapou:

Are you denying this?

I haven't commented on it one way or another. I do assert that the UD narrative may be fairly characterized as, "Darwinism is rigidly enforced within the academy (you know, “profs” and all), as well as within the scientific community, with no tolerance for dissent." You apparently disagree (@68). And agree (@78). Reciprocating Bill

RC:

IOW, Darwinism is rigidly enforced within the academy (you know, “profs” and all), as well as within the scientific community, with no tolerance for dissent.

Are you denying this? If so, you are both a fascist and a liar. Show me the approved academic textbooks that dissent from Darwinism and materialism. You people are just a chicken shit cult that found a sleazy way to use our tax money to preach your religious dogmas to our children without our consent. But not for much longer. Your comeuppance is almost at the door. Wait for it. LOL Mapou

wd400, I thought of you when I read this article: New Book on "Junk DNA" Surveys the Functions of Non-Coding DNA - April 29, 2015 Excerpt: Carey,, goes on to explain how today we now believe that, far from being irrelevant, it's the "junk DNA" that is running the whole show: "The other shock from the sequencing of the human genome was the realisation that the extraordinary complexities of human anatomy, physiology, intelligence and behaviour cannot be explained by referring to the classical model of genes. In terms of numbers of genes that code for proteins, humans contain pretty much the same quantity (around 20,000) as simple microscopic worms. Even more remarkably, most of the genes in the worms have directly equivalent genes in humans. As researchers deepened their analyses of what differentiates humans from other organisms at the DNA level, it became apparent that genes could not provide the explanation. In fact, only one genetic factor generally scaled with complexity. The only genomic features that increased in number as animals became more complicated were the regions of junk DNA. The more sophisticated an organism, the higher the percentage of junk DNA it contains. Only now are scientists really exploring the controversial idea that junk DNA may hold the key to (increasing)complexity. (p. 4),,," She goes on to spend the bulk of the book reviewing the numerous discoveries of function for non-coding "junk" DNA. Just a few of those include: * Structural roles such as packaging chromosomes and preventing DNA "from unravelling and becoming damaged," acting as "anchor points when chromosomes are shared equally between different daughter cells and during cell division," and serving as "insulation regions, restricting gene expression to specific regions of chromosomes." * Regulating gene expression, as "Thousands and thousands of regions of junk DNA are suspected to regulate networks of gene expression." * Introns are extremely important: The bits of gobbledygook between the parts of a gene that code for amino acids were originally considered to be nothing but nonsense or rubbish. They were referred to as junk or garbage DNA, and pretty much dismissed as irrelevant. ... But we now know that they can have a very big impact. (pp. 17-18) * Preventing mutations by separating out gene-coding DNA. * Controlling telomere length that can serve as a "molecular clock" that helps control aging. * Forming the loci for centromeres. * Activating X chromosomes in females. * Producing long non-coding RNAs which regulate Hox genes or regulating brain development, or serving as attachment points for histone-modifying enzymes helping to turn genes on and off. * Serving as promoters or enhancers for genes, or imprinting control elements for "the expression of the protein-coding genes." * Producing RNA which acts "as a kind of scaffold, directing the activity of proteins to particular regions of the genome." * Producing RNAs which can fold into three-dimensional shapes and perform functions inside cells, much like enzymes, changing the shapes of other molecules, or helping to build ribosomes. As she notes: "We've actually known about these peculiar RNA molecules for decades, making it yet more surprising that we have maintained such a protein-centric vision of our genomic landscape." (p. 146) * Serving as tRNA genes which produce tRNA molecules. These genes can also serve as insulators or spacers to stop transcription from spreading from gene to gene. * Development of the fingers and face; changing eye, skin, and hair color; affecting obesity. * Gene splicing and generating spliceosomes. * Producing small RNAs which also affect gene expression. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/04/a_new_book_on_j095611.html bornagain77

I find it impossible to credit the claim that you have simply been trying to understand my posts in this thread. Have you read what you've written? wd400

Bob O'H @89 - you are quite correct. I confused fixation of a descendant of an ancestor sequence with fixation of that sequence unchanged. Well, that for starters! Hangonasec

wd400 I said: "The point of the OP is about disagreements within what is claimed to be evolutionary theory." You reply:

You have a serious reading comprehension problem. The OP asks what evolutionary biologists agree on.

It's very helpful to see this. You think BA makes no implication about disagreements within evolutionary biology. You think I have a serious reading comprehension problem and I'm 'derailing' the thread. The title of the OP is: "Is there even one tenet of modern evolutionary theory that is universally agreed upon by the proponents of modern evolutionary theory?" You don't perceive anything within the rhetorical tone of that question that speaks about disagreements among proponents of evolutionary theory? When BA says "even one tenet", that doesn't seem like an emphatic point? Ok, wow. Again, it helps to see this. I have to trust that you're being honest. I'll suggest to any OP authors that things need to be spelled out for you a lot more explicitly and maybe slowly. In any case, I can see why you think the response that "selection is important" (that's a tenet?) answers BA's challenge. I'm not trying to score points. I'm trying to understand your point of view and I'm commenting on what appears as a defensive and very unconvincing position. If you don't want to continue and you think I'm just wasting time, I understand and I'm sorry it seems that way. Silver Asiatic

Barry Arrington: Is There Even One Point Upon Which There is Universal Agreement? Unlike consensus, there will rarely, if ever, be universal agreement on anything. Scholars often stake out contrarian positions in an attempt to make a name or to push the conversation. Zachriel

Silver Asiatic @86 Exactly! ;-) Dionisio

The point of the OP is about disagreements within what is claimed to be evolutionary theory.

You have a serious reading comprehension problem. The OP asks what evolutionary biologists agree on. I listed some examples, explicitly saying the relative importance of selection in evolution is debated, even as the fact selection is important is agreed upon. When you challenged this with regard specific fringe evolutionary biologists I gave you direct quotes that proved you wrong. After all that you are still trying to derail the thread, and even resorting to petty point-scoring while avoiding the topic of the OP. So, why bother with you? wd400

Hangonasec @ 83 -

- Only frequency-dependent selection can oppose the progress of such an allele through to the fixation of one variant and elimination of the other. This is rare, so origin-fixation is the norm, long-term.

No. Mutation, migration, and heterozygote advantage can also act to oppose fixation. I'm sure epistasis can too. Bob O'H

BA77 @20 ‘Man, that thing is just a mess. It’s like looking into a room full of smoke.’ Nothing in the theory is precisely, clearly, carefully defined or delineated. It lacks all of the rigor one expects from mathematical physics, and mathematical physics lacks all the rigor one expects from mathematics. So we’re talking about a gradual descent down the level of intelligibility until we reach evolutionary biology.’ - Berlinski He's got a wicked tongue, that Berlinski, hasn't he ?! Axel

BA77 @20 ‘Man, that thing is just a mess. It’s like looking into a room full of smoke.’ Nothing in the theory is precisely, clearly, carefully defined or delineated. It lacks all of the rigor one expects from mathematical physics, and mathematical physics lacks all the rigor one expects from mathematics. So we’re talking about a gradual descent down the level of intelligibility until we reach evolutionary biology.’ - Berlinski He's got a wicked tongue, that Berlinski, hasn't he, BA?! Axel

Dionisio

FYI, in case you didn’t know this or forgot about it, most scientists are in total harmonious agreement on the major issues. Disagreement, if there’s any, might be in irrelevant minutiae.

Of course! If you disagree with more than just the minutiae then, obviously, you're not a real scientist. That's just how it works. :-) Silver Asiatic

Mapou: Fodor told the truth about natural selection and was attacked. Goodness! Is he okay? Zachriel

Silver Asiatic @ 80 & 81 FYI, in case you didn't know this or forgot about it, most scientists are in total harmonious agreement on the major issues. Disagreement, if there's any, might be in irrelevant minutiae. You may want to read this carefully: http://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com/ ;-) PS. Here's a serious scientist who works on the real stuff, hence apparently doesn't have much spare time left to squander on senseless OOL debates: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/mystery-at-the-heart-of-life/#comment-561160 Dionisio

I'm not aware of any disagreement among evolutionary biologists on the following: - All of modern life shares common ancestry, HGT and orphan genes notwithstanding. - The following mechanisms of genetic change cause change in lineages, with a bias against reversal: Mutation (point, indel, duplication and rearrangement) Gene Conversion Recombination (several mechanisms including HGT) - A parallel process of concentration/dilution of such variant alleles occurs (concentration of one is inevitably dilution of the other), by both sample error (drift) and systematic bias (selection). - Only frequency-dependent selection can oppose the progress of such an allele through to the fixation of one variant and elimination of the other. This is rare, so origin-fixation is the norm, long-term. - Iterated occurrences of such fixations inevitably change lineages. - Isolated gene pools diverge. - Species differences are fundamentally due to the tendency of this divergence to proceed beyond the point of interfertility (isolation through prezygotic and postzygotic mechanisms). - Higher taxa result from ongoing divergences of historic species. - Transition-transversion biases in substitution are due to a biochemical tendency increasing yields of one product over the other. - Codon position biases occur and are due to the relative effects of selection and drift on synonymous vs nonsynonymous sites. Hangonasec

We can see how dissent is tolerated within Darwinism right on this thread. I point to Stanley Salthe as an evolutionary biologist who doesn't think selection is important. wd400 replies:

Salthe signed the disco ‘tutes ‘dissent’ petition, so it’s pretty obvious he’s not a fan of modern evolution biology.

I gave wd400 that lame argument myself. "If you don't agree that selection is important, then you're not a proponent of modern evolutionary biology". So, by default, even if only a handful agreed, then there would still be 100% agreement. Nobody bothered to point out to wd400 that he doesn't get to define what "modern evolutionary biology" is. Self-organizationalists like Salthe, who take a radically different position are arguably even more 'modern' than Darwin's disciples from the 19th century. Then of course, all of the biologists who signed the Dissent Against Darwin list are excluded from 'evolutionary biology'. It might surprise wd400 but nobody owns the term 'evolution' and it's clear that it is virtually meaningless. Just about every creationist in the world is an 'evolutionist'. ID itself is a 'modern evolutionary theory' if you want to call it that. But the Darwinian enterprise doesn't allow for such things. Supposedly, they own biology and they own whatever 'evolutionary theory' is supposed to mean. The obvious dissent and enormous cracks in the facade are covered over by the lying pretense of "100% agreement". Even the dissenters are afraid to admit that they basically rejected Darwin. When pushed, even after claiming that Darwinism is dead (as Margulis did), they will assert the Darwinian party-line. That kind of duplicity is very easy to see - it's been around for decades. S.J. Gould did the same thing. He ridiculed Darwinism and then in the same breath insisted that he supported it fully.

http://www.arn.org/ftissues/ft9801/opinion/johnson.html The difficulty of saying whether Gould really is a Darwinist or not stems from his habit of combining radically anti-Darwinian statements with qualifications that preserve a line of retreat. When Gould loudly proclaimed "the return of the hopeful monster," for example, he seemed to be endorsing the geneticist Richard Goldschmidt’s view that large mutations create new kinds of organisms in single-generation jumps—a heresy which Darwinists consider to be only a little better than outright creationism. If you read the fine print carefully, however, you’ll find that Gould surrounded his claims with qualifications that allow him to insist that he is at least somewhere in the neighborhood of orthodoxy. Even when Gould bluntly announced that neo-Darwinism is "effectively dead," it turns out that he only meant . . . well, nobody seems to know what he meant, but certainly not that neo-Darwinism is effectively dead.

Silver Asiatic

wd400: Evolutionary biologists agree selection is an important {force|phenomenon|effect|pattern} in the evolution of populations and lineages. Mung: Well, which is it? Is natural selection the cause or the effect? Yet another area where the anti-ID crowd just can’t get their act together. One says it’s the cause. Another says it’s the effect. Yet a third claims it’s both the cause and the effect.

Excellent insight, Mung. I just noticed that. In the very attempt to supposedly explain more clearly what selection really is, wd400 says it's both a cause (force) and effect (pattern). Silver Asiatic

wd400 @ 57

If you can’t admit you were wrong that selection is agreed to be important that’s fine, but I’m not going to waste any more time of the derailment tactics.

The point of the OP is about disagreements within what is claimed to be evolutionary theory. You are very insistent that "selection is agreed to be important" -- to the point that you feel your position will be validated when I "admit that I'm wrong". But you really added nothing to the discussion. It's clear that there is widespread disagreement on the relative importance of selection. You avoided this entirely and put all your efforts into holding to the trivial point that everyone agrees selection is "important". Silver Asiatic

Map:

Biologists and others must all pay homage to the great gods of Darwinism and materialism. Otherwise, they won’t have much of a career within academia or as a researcher anywhere. All textbooks must show allegiance to the same gods.

IOW, Darwinism is rigidly enforced within the academy (you know, “profs” and all), as well as within the scientific community, with no tolerance for dissent. The UD narrative. Lip-sync courtesy of Mapou. Reciprocating Bill

By 'within Darwinism', I meant 'within academia'. Biologists and others must all pay homage to the great gods of Darwinism and materialism. Otherwise, they won't have much of a career within academia or as a researcher anywhere. All textbooks must show allegiance to the same gods. It's fascism of our enlightened "superiors" who use our money to tell us what to believe in. It will soon be time to bring down this band of cretins and usurpers. Mapou

Reciprocating Bill:

Mapou: There is no dissent within Darwinism against the stupid dogma that everything evolved all by itself. There may be squabbles concerning mechanisms but nobody is allowed to talk about design or creation.

Of course, anyone maintaining that view would not be “within Darwinism.” No, Nay! People in the rest of society can respectfully acknowledge alternative perspectives, and still hold the view. It is totally consistent to hold to a darwinist view and respectfully say that others find this view to have inadequacy. Within biological mainstream, however, design is a taboo. Some like "thethirdwayofevolution.org" plaster the taboo on their front page:

One way is Creationism that depends upon intervention by a divine Creator. That is clearly unscientific because it brings an arbitrary supernatural force into the evolution process.

Ie, creationism (small c) provides the best explanation of the data, but it is taboo, therefore it is wrong. bFast

RC @75, I answered your question. You were being disingenuous by suggesting that UD claims there are no disagreements (not dissent) within Darwinism. That's not it. UD's claim is that there is no dissent against Darwinism. Slight difference. But why do I even bother and who am I kidding? This crap is inconsequential. Mapou

Mapou:

There is no dissent within Darwinism against the stupid dogma that everything evolved all by itself. There may be squabbles concerning mechanisms but nobody is allowed to talk about design or creation.

Of course, anyone maintaining that view would not be "within Darwinism." It's a sharp observation, though. Similarly, it has always bothered me that there are no red things that are green. (I wonder: how do they enforce that so effectively?) But your answer doesn't go to my question. Are you saying that, “Darwinism is rigidly enforced within the academy, as well as within the scientific community, with no tolerance for dissent” is NOT a prominent theme in the UD narrative? Reciprocating Bill

There is absolutely one point on which there is universal agreement -- it is all the result of natural causes. bFast

RC:

So, “Darwinism is rigidly enforced within the academy, as well as within the scientific community, with no tolerance for dissent” is not a prominent theme in the UD narrative?

There is no dissent within Darwinism against the stupid dogma that everything evolved all by itself. There may be squabbles concerning mechanisms but nobody is allowed to talk about design or creation. That is forbidden. Since all Darwinists are a bunch of gutless wussies, they cannot rebel against their own stupidity even if they wanted to. LOL

(Gosh, I would have sworn that was UD.)

You're lying, obviously. Mapou

So, “Darwinism is rigidly enforced within the academy, as well as within the scientific community, with no tolerance for dissent” is not a prominent theme in the UD narrative?

How are you defining "dissent"? Fodor told the truth about natural selection and was attacked. Joe

Mapou:

The UD narrative is that the Darwinists have taken over education and will not allow competing hypotheses.

So, “Darwinism is rigidly enforced within the academy, as well as within the scientific community, with no tolerance for dissent” is not a prominent theme in the UD narrative? (Gosh, I would have sworn that was UD.) Reciprocating Bill

wd400:

Evolutionary biologists know precisely what is meant by selection (differential reproductive success, especially of heritable variations).

ok, so natural differential reproductive success. Cause or effect? Mung

Evolutionary biologists agree selection is an important {force|phenomenon|effect|pattern} in the evolution of populations and lineages.

Well, which is it? Is natural selection the cause or the effect? Yet another area where the anti-ID crowd just can't get their act together. One says it's the cause. Another says it's the effect. Yet a third claims it's both the cause and the effect. Mung

RC @67, stop being so blatantly disingenuous. UD frequently publishes disagreements amongst Darwinists. We love it. The UD narrative is that the Darwinists have taken over education and will not allow competing hypotheses. Specifically, one is not allowed to suggest that life was designed and that there is plenty of evidence for ID. IOW, it's good old totalitarianism hiding within a democratic society and in plain sight. But not for long. Mapou

I thought the UD narrative was that Darwinism is rigidly enforced within the academy (you know, “profs” and all), as well as within the scientific community, with no tolerance for dissent. Now a diversity of views on a variety of topics within evolutionary theory is a problem? Reciprocating Bill

Andre - we agree that the real living world is big and complicated, so simple theories are unlikely to explain everything. We'd all wish biology was simple, but alas it's not. Bob O'H

Silver Asiatic: Stanley Salthe, Lynn Margulis, Jerry Fodor, Stuart Kauffman and others disagree that selection is important. Fodor is not a biologist. Margulis is a self-described Darwinist. Kauffman recognizes natural selection as an important mechanism, but proposes that self-organization is also important. Zachriel

Amazing if it's drift it's Darwinian evolution. Selection is important but not really... Punk Eek is also Darwinism. What do you lot agree on? Everything is Darwinian evolution rightly or wrongly. Andre

Box @19 - Others have responded to point 1, but to the others

Bob: 2. Punk eek just means that the rate of accumulation sometimes changes drastically, so it’s still covered.

Punk eek says that differences among related lineages can accumulated over a few generations. That’s the opposite of what’s been said in 2, Bob.

No, it says that big differences can accumulate rapidly, but on a geologic time scale. It'll still be over many generations. What do you mean by "a few"?

Bob: 3. This can be formalised, and I think there’s a term in the Price equation that an include a Lamarckian component, so it doesn’t exclude it.

Or does it? See what I mean, by “vague” ?

Err, no. I checked, and I was right - the second term in the price equation (E(w_i \Delta z_i)) would be the effect of Lamarckian evolution: \Delta z_i is the Lamarckian inheritance (i.e. the change in phenotype over a full generation from parent to offspring).

Bob: 4. “Neutralists” acknowledge the importance of selection, and “selectionists” can hardly deny the existence of drift.

PZMeyers: This does not in any way imply that selection is unimportant, but only that most molecular differences will not be a product of adaptive, selective changes. That’s just about the opposite of what’s being said in 4,5,6,7 Bob.

Huh? It says the same as 5 and 7 (i.e. selection is important, or not unimportant), and says nothing about 4 or 6. And it aligns perfectly with what I wrote: both selection and drift are acknowledged as affecting evolution. Bob O'H

here are some more supplemental comments/quips as to neutral theory: Majestic Ascent: Berlinski on Darwin on Trial – David Berlinski – November 2011 Excerpt: The publication in 1983 of Motoo Kimura’s The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution consolidated ideas that Kimura had introduced in the late 1960s. On the molecular level, evolution is entirely stochastic, and if it proceeds at all, it proceeds by drift along a leaves-and-current model. Kimura’s theories left the emergence of complex biological structures an enigma, but they played an important role in the local economy of belief. They allowed biologists to affirm that they welcomed responsible criticism. “A critique of neo-Darwinism,” the Dutch biologist Gert Korthof boasted, “can be incorporated into neo-Darwinism if there is evidence and a good theory, which contributes to the progress of science.” By this standard, if the Archangel Gabriel were to accept personal responsibility for the Cambrian explosion, his views would be widely described as neo-Darwinian. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....53171.html Ann Gauger on genetic drift – August 2012 Excerpt: The idea that evolution is driven by drift has led to a way of retrospectively estimating past genetic lineages. Called coalescent theory, it is based on one very simple assumption — that the vast majority of mutations are neutral and have no effect on an organism’s survival. (For a review go here.) According to this theory, actual genetic history is presumed not to matter. Our genomes are full of randomly accumulating neutral changes. When generating a genealogy for those changes, their order of appearance doesn’t matter. Trees can be drawn and mutations assigned to them without regard to an evolutionary sequence of genotypes, since genotypes don’t matter. https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/ann-gauger-on-genetic-drift/ Here is a Completely Different Way of Doing Science – Cornelius Hunter PhD. – April 2012 Excerpt: But how then could evolution proceed if mutations were just neutral? The idea was that neutral mutations would accrue until finally an earthquake, comet, volcano or some such would cause a major environmental shift which suddenly could make use of all those neutral mutations. Suddenly, those old mutations went from goat-to-hero, providing just the designs that were needed to cope with the new environmental challenge. It was another example of the incredible serendipity that evolutionists call upon. Too good to be true? Not for evolutionists. The neutral theory became quite popular in the literature. The idea that mutations were not brimming with cool innovations but were mostly bad or at best neutral, for some, went from an anathema to orthodoxy. And the idea that those neutral mutations would later magically provide the needed innovations became another evolutionary just-so story, told with conviction as though it was a scientific finding. Another problem with the theory of neutral molecular evolution is that it made even more obvious the awkward question of where these genes came from in the first place. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/04/here-is-completely-different-way-of.html as to drift Thou Shalt Not Put Evolutionary Theory to a Test – Douglas Axe – July 18, 2012 Excerpt: “For example, McBride criticizes me for not mentioning genetic drift in my discussion of human origins, apparently without realizing that the result of Durrett and Schmidt rules drift out. Each and every specific genetic change needed to produce humans from apes would have to have conferred a significant selective advantage in order for humans to have appeared in the available time (i.e. the mutations cannot be ‘neutral’). Any aspect of the transition that requires two or more mutations to act in combination in order to increase fitness would take way too long (greater than 100 million years). My challenge to McBride, and everyone else who believes the evolutionary story of human origins, is not to provide the list of mutations that did the trick, but rather a list of mutations that can do it. Otherwise they’re in the position of insisting that something is a scientific fact without having the faintest idea how it even could be.” - Doug Axe PhD. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/thou_shalt_not062351.html Natural Selection Struggles to Fix Advantageous Traits in Populations – Casey Luskin – October 23, 2014 Excerpt: Michael Lynch, an evolutionary biologist at Indiana University,, writes that “random genetic drift can impose a strong barrier to the advancement of molecular refinements by adaptive processes.”2 He notes that the effect of drift is “encouraging the fixation of mildly deleterious mutations and discouraging the promotion of beneficial mutations.”3 Likewise, Eugene Koonin, a leading scientist at the National Institutes of Health, explains that genetic drift leads to “random fixation of neutral or even deleterious changes.”4 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/10/natural_selecti_3090571.html bornagain77

wd400’s understatement of the year:

“Selection can be important without applying to every variant in every genome (or, even to most of them).”

Yet, you claimed that virtually all of the supposed 15,000,000 mutations that hypothetically turned some ape-like creature into a human were 'neutrally' fixed in 6 million years because of this following fact,,,

More from Ann Gauger on why humans didn’t happen the way Darwin said – July 9, 2012 Excerpt: Each of these new features probably required multiple mutations. Getting a feature that requires six neutral mutations is the limit of what bacteria can produce. For primates (e.g., monkeys, apes and humans) the limit is much more severe. Because of much smaller effective population sizes (an estimated ten thousand for humans instead of a billion for bacteria) and longer generation times (fifteen to twenty years per generation for humans vs. a thousand generations per year for bacteria), it would take a very long time for even a single beneficial mutation to appear and become fixed in a human population. You don’t have to take my word for it. In 2007, Durrett and Schmidt estimated in the journal Genetics that for a single mutation to occur in a nucleotide-binding site and be fixed in a primate lineage would require a waiting time of six million years. The same authors later estimated it would take 216 million years for the binding site to acquire two mutations, if the first mutation was neutral in its effect. Facing Facts But six million years is the entire time allotted for the transition from our last common ancestor with chimps to us according to the standard evolutionary timescale. Two hundred and sixteen million years takes us back to the Triassic, when the very first mammals appeared. One or two mutations simply aren’t sufficient to produce the necessary changes— sixteen anatomical features—in the time available. At most, a new binding site might affect the regulation of one or two genes. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/more-from-ann-gauger-on-why-humans-didnt-happen-the-way-darwin-said/

So approx. 14,999,994 were fixed 'neutrally' without regard to selection? I would say that renders selection fairly unimportant in the scheme of things With the adoption of the ‘neutral theory’ of evolution by prominent Darwinists, and the casting under the bus of Natural Selection as a major player in evolution, William J Murray quips,,,

“One wonders what would have become of evolution had Darwin originally claimed that it was simply the accumulation of random, neutral variations that generated all of the deeply complex, organized, interdependent structures we find in biology? Would we even know his name today? What exactly is Darwin really famous for now? Advancing a really popular, disproven idea (of Natural Selection), along the lines of Luminiferous Aether? Without the erroneous but powerful meme of “survival of the fittest” to act as an opiate for the Victorian intelligentsia and as a rationale for 20th century fascism, how might history have proceeded under the influence of the less vitriolic maxim, “Survival of the Happenstance”?” - William J Murray https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/why-keith-blanchard-really-doesnt-understand-evolution/#comment-510124

of note: Your claim that most of the genome is junk is another prime example of atheistic dogma, instead of reason, driving science. The genome is fantastically complex. It is completely unhinged from reality for a person to insist, especially post ENCODE, that it is mostly junk:

Biological Information - Not Junk After All 11-29-2014 by Paul Giem - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO-7kVBA_JM In the book “Biological Information: New Perspectives” the chapter entitled “Not Junk After All: Non-Protein-Coding DNA Carries Extensive Biological Information” discusses the various functions of DNA and finds that non-functional DNA is a small minority. Podcast: Richard Sternberg PhD - ” On Human Origins: Is Our Genome Full of Junk DNA? part 1 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/11/on-human-origins-is-our-genome-full-of-junk-dna/ Podcast - Richard Sternberg PhD - On Human Origins: Is Our Genome Full of Junk DNA? Part 2 (Major Differences in higher level chromosome spatial organization) http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/11/on-human-origins-is-our-genome-full-of-junk-dna-pt-2/ Podcast: Richard Sternberg PhD - ” On Human Origins: Is Our Genome Full of Junk DNA? Part 3 http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2014-11-17T14_14_33-08_00 Podcast - Richard Sternberg PhD - On Human Origins: Is Our Genome Full of Junk DNA? Part 4 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/11/on-human-origins-is-our-genome-full-of-junk-dna-pt-4/ Podcast - Richard Sternberg PhD - On Human Origins: Is Our Genome Full of Junk DNA? Part 5 (emphasis on ENCODE and the loss of the term ‘gene’ as a accurate description in biology and how that loss undermines the modern synthesis of neo-Darwinism) http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/11/on-human-origins-is-our-genome-full-of-junk-dna-pt-5/ What Is The Genome? It's Certainly Not Junk! - Dr. Robert Carter - video - (Notes in video description) http://www.metacafe.com/w/8905583

bornagain77

I really don't think this is difficult to understand. One last attempt: Selection can be important without applying to every variant in every genome (or, even to most of them). In the quoted thread Andre said that wasn't enough time for selection to fix all the differences between human and chimp. By making the assumption of nuetrality I was able to show him that you didn't even need selection to get the job done, drift alone could. As it happens, this is also a pretty good "first approximation" assumption to make. Much of the genome is junk so variants there aren't subject to selection, even in the functional regions many genetic variants are interchangeable. That doesn't detract from the importance of selection on those variants that aren't. wd400

wd400, if selection is so important, then why did you yourself deny its importance in the supposed evolutionary origin of humans? The only assumption in that calculation is the one I stated — that new mutaitions are selectively neutral. Positive selection of the sort discussed in your links might make more mutations fix, but the neutral rate is equal to the per-individual mutation rate. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-we-share-99-of-our-dna-with-chimps-claim-rises-again/#comment-561093 bornagain77

Of related interest: Lakatos tipped toed around the fact that Darwinism has no demarcation criteria to separate it from pseudo-science,,,

A Philosophical Question...Does Evolution have a Hard Core ? Some Concluding Food for Thought In my research on the demarcation problem, I have noticed philosophers of science attempting to balance (usually unconsciously) a consistent demarcation criteria against the the disruptive effects that it’s application might have with regard to the academic status quo (and evolution in particular)… Few philosophers of science will even touch such matters, but (perhaps unintentionally) Imre Lakatos does offer us a peek at how one might go about balancing these schizophrenic demands (in Motterlini1999: 24) “Let us call the first school militant positivism; you will understand why later on. The problem of this school was to find certain demarcation criteria similar to those I have outlined, but these also had to satisfy certain boundary conditions, as a mathematician would say. I am referring to a definite set of people to which most scientists as well as Popper and Carnap would belong. These people think that there are goodies and baddies among scientific theories, and once you have defined a demarcation criterion. you should divide all your theories between the two groups. You would end up. for example, with a goodies list including Copernicus’s (Theory1), Galileo’s (T2), Kepler’s (T3), Newton’s (T4) … and Einstein’s (T5), along with (but this is just my supposition) Darwin’s (T6). Let me just anticipate that nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific, but this is exactly what we are looking for.” So basically, the demarcation problem is a fun game philosophers enjoy playing, but when they realize the implications regarding the theory of evolution, they quickly back off… http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/cosmos/philo/hardcore_pg.htm

Lakatos, although he tipped toed around the failure of Darwinism to have a rigid demarcation criteria, he was brave enough to state that a good scientific theory will make successful predictions in science and a bad theory will generate ‘epicycle theories’ to cover up embarrassing failed predictions:

Science and Pseudoscience (transcript) - “In degenerating programmes, however, theories are fabricated only in order to accommodate known facts” – Imre Lakatos (November 9, 1922 – February 2, 1974) a philosopher of mathematics and science, , quote as stated in 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture http://www2.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/about/lakatos/scienceandpseudosciencetranscript.aspx Here’s the audio: Science and Pseudoscience – Lakatos – audio lecture http://richmedia.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/2002_LakatosScienceAndPseudoscience128.mp3 In his 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture 1[12] he also claimed that “nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific”. Almost 20 years after Lakatos's 1973 challenge to the scientificity of Darwin, in her 1991 The Ant and the Peacock, LSE lecturer and ex-colleague of Lakatos, Helena Cronin, attempted to establish that Darwinian theory was empirically scientific in respect of at least being supported by evidence of likeness in the diversity of life forms in the world, explained by descent with modification. She wrote that “our usual idea of corroboration as requiring the successful prediction of novel facts...Darwinian theory was not strong on temporally novel predictions.” ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Lakatos#Darwin.27s_theory

Dr. Hunter comments here on the fact that Darwinism is a bad scientific theory that generates 'epicycle theories' to cover up embarrassing failed predictions:

"Being an evolutionist means there is no bad news. If new species appear abruptly in the fossil record, that just means evolution operates in spurts. If species then persist for eons with little modification, that just means evolution takes long breaks. If clever mechanisms are discovered in biology, that just means evolution is smarter than we imagined. If strikingly similar designs are found in distant species, that just means evolution repeats itself. If significant differences are found in allied species, that just means evolution sometimes introduces new designs rapidly. If no likely mechanism can be found for the large-scale change evolution requires, that just means evolution is mysterious. If adaptation responds to environmental signals, that just means evolution has more foresight than was thought. If major predictions of evolution are found to be false, that just means evolution is more complex than we thought." ~ Cornelius Hunter "When their expectations turn out to be false, evolutionists respond by adding more epicycles to their theory that the species arose spontaneously from chance events. But that doesn’t mean the science has confirmed evolution as Velasco suggests. True, evolutionists have remained steadfast in their certainty, but that says more about evolutionists than about the empirical science." ~ Cornelius Hunter Here’s That Algae Study That Decouples Phylogeny and Competition - June 17, 2014 Excerpt: "With each new absurdity another new complicated just-so story is woven into evolutionary theory. As Lakatos explained, some theories simply are not falsifiable. But as a result they sacrifice realism and parsimony." - Cornelius Hunter http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2014/06/heres-that-algae-study-that-decouples.html audio: Darwin's (Many Failed) Predictions: An Interview with Cornelius Hunter, Part I and II http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/06/darwins_failed_predictions_an021311.html http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/06/darwins_failed_predictions_an_1021321.html

bornagain77

Evolutionary biologists know precisely what is meant by selection (differential reproductive success, especially of heritable variations). If you can't admit you were wrong that selection is agreed to be important that's fine, but I'm not going to waste any more time of the derailment tactics. wd400

velikovskys at 41, Why can't we go into the lab and test the claims of Darwinism like we do all the other hard sciences? When asked what would falsify Darwinism J. B. S. Haldane did not refer to any laboratory test to perform, but instead stated that a 'rabbit fossil in pre-Cambrian rocks would do quite nicely'.

Five Questions Evolutionists Would Rather Dodge 5. Testability What evidence would convince you that evolution is false? If no such evidence exists, or indeed could exist, how can evolution be a testable scientific theory?,,, The evolutionist J. B. S. Haldane, when asked what would convince him that evolution was false, replied that finding a rabbit fossil in pre-Cambrian rocks would do quite nicely. Such a fossil would, by standard geological dating, be out of sequence by several hundreds of millions of years. Certainly such a finding, if rigorously confirmed, would overturn the current understanding of the history of life. But it would not overturn evolution. Haldane’s rabbit is easily enough explained as an evolutionary convergence, in which essentially the same structure or life form evolves twice. In place of a common underlying intelligent design, evolutionists invoke evolutionary convergence whenever confronted with similar biological structures that cannot reasonably be traced back to a common evolutionary ancestor. So long as some unknown or unexplored evolutionary pathway might have led to the formation of some biological structure or organism, evolutionists prefer it over alternative explanations such as intelligent design. And since the unknown and unexplored allow for an infinity of loopholes, the committed evolutionist regards Darwinian and other materialist explanations of life’s origin and subsequent development as always trumping alternative explanations, regardless of the evidence. - By William A. Dembski http://www.brianauten.com/Apologetics/Five_Questions_Ev.pdf

That was a very interesting 'non-laboratory' test of evolution for Haldane to propose to falsify Darwinism since Haldane had played a large part in working out the mathematical foundation of Darwinism:

J.B.S. Haldane worked out the mathematics of allele frequency change at a single gene locus under a broad range of conditions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_genetics#History

That should tell you something right there when one of the founding figures of population genetics does not even propose that his own mathematics can be tested against to see if Darwinism is true! In fact, when applied rigorously, the mathematics of population genetics falsifies Darwinism:

Evolution And Probabilities: A Response to Jason Rosenhouse - August 2011 Excerpt: The equations of population genetics predict that – assuming an effective population size of 100,000 individuals per generation, and a generation turnover time of 5 years – according to Richard Sternberg’s calculations and based on equations of population genetics applied in the Durrett and Schmidt paper, that one may reasonably expect two specific co-ordinated mutations to achieve fixation in the timeframe of around 43.3 million years. When one considers the magnitude of the engineering fete, such a scenario is found to be devoid of credibility. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/evolution-and-probabilities-a-response-to-jason-rosenhouse/

Even Richard Lewontin admits that, in regards to population genetics, 'there are really no measurements that match the quantities'

Lynn Margulis Criticizes Neo-Darwinism in Discover Magazine (Updated) - Casey Luskin April 12, 2011 Excerpt: Population geneticist Richard Lewontin gave a talk here at UMass Amherst about six years ago, and he mathemetized all of it--changes in the population, random mutation, sexual selection, cost and benefit. At the end of his talk he said, "You know, we've tried to test these ideas in the field and the lab, and there are really no measurements that match the quantities I've told you about." This just appalled me. So I said, "Richard Lewontin, you are a great lecturer to have the courage to say it's gotten you nowhere. But then why do you continue to do this work?" And he looked around and said, "It's the only thing I know how to do, and if I don't do it I won't get grant money." - Lynn Margulis - biologist http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/04/lynn_margulis_criticizes_neo-d045691.html

That's your preferred theory vel! A theory in which 'No measurements match the quantities'. I certainly would not be betting my soul on such a half baked theory as you seem determined to do with your eternal soul! Contrary to your claim, all solid scientific theories are falsifiable:

"In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality." Karl Popper - The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge (2014 edition), Routledge http://izquotes.com/quote/147518

And Intelligent Design, instead of hiding behind non-falsifiable pre-Cambrian rabbits as Darwinism does, invites rigid testing to try to falsify its claim that only intelligence can produce functional information:

The Law of Physicodynamic Incompleteness - David L. Abel Excerpt: "If decision-node programming selections are made randomly or by law rather than with purposeful intent, no non-trivial (sophisticated) function will spontaneously arise." If only one exception to this null hypothesis were published, the hypothesis would be falsified. Falsification would require an experiment devoid of behind-the-scenes steering. Any artificial selection hidden in the experimental design would disqualify the experimental falsification. After ten years of continual republication of the null hypothesis with appeals for falsification, no falsification has been provided. The time has come to extend this null hypothesis into a formal scientific prediction: "No non trivial algorithmic/computational utility will ever arise from chance and/or necessity alone." https://www.academia.edu/9957206/The_Law_of_Physicodynamic_Incompleteness_Scirus_Topic_Page_ It’s (Much) Easier to Falsify Intelligent Design than Darwinian Evolution – Michael Behe, PhD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T1v_VLueGk

bornagain77

“It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, wherever and whenever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life.” —On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 1859

"Rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good" ... "working ... at the improvement of each organic being". The first living cells and organic beings must have been very bad. And now after so much 'selecting' of the good after all this time, everything is so much better. Could anyone doubt how important natural selection is after reading that? :-) Silver Asiatic

wd400

Evolutionary biologists agree selection is an important {whatever - can't find an accurate term to explain it}

So it all works out great. Who expects evolutionists to be precise about what they're saying about their own theory? Silver Asiatic

wd400

When selection is spoken of as a force, it often seems that it is has a mind of its own; or as if it was nature personified. This most often occurs when biologists are waxing poetic about selection. This has no place in scientific discussions of evolution.

Of course. It's not a force. It's not accurate to call it a force. Calling it a force has no place in scientific discussions. But evolutionists call it a force, so that's ok. Talk Origins can say it's not a force, but also that we can call it a force since nobody expects them to be accurate. Silver Asiatic

Mung, Darwin thought that natural selection was the only mechanism capable of explaining life's diversity. It was more than important to him, it was vital/ essential to his idea. Without it he had nothing. And now we know that even with it there is nothing. ;) Joe

Mapou: Here’s a thought experiment. A tribe somewhere is decimated by a devastating drought and the ensuing famine. Only the fat ones survive. Now the tribe is full of obese people with high cholesterol, arteriosclerosis and heart disease. Is this what they call natural selection? Yes, you have a better chance to reproduce if you are alive than if you are dead. But the tribe of fat people may help the local tiger population thrive which will cause the adjoining tribe's population be selected for less fat slow people. velikovskys

You know other people can access google right, SA? If anyone would like to see why SA didn't link to his source:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html "Selection is not a force in the sense that gravity or the strong nuclear force is. However, for the sake of brevity, biologists sometimes refer to it that way".

Even if you took the quote-mined version of Chris Colby's opinions verbatim it wouldn't change the core fact. Evolutionary biologists agree selection is an important {force|phenomenon|effect|pattern} in the evolution of populations and lineages. Please stop wasting everyone's time. wd400

wd400

We agree selection is an important evolution force

Talk Origins: Common Misconceptions about Selection Selection is not a force...When selection is spoken of as a force, it often seems that it is has a mind of its own; or as if it was nature personified. This most often occurs when biologists are waxing poetic about selection. This has no place in scientific discussions of evolution. Silver Asiatic

Darwin thought selection was important, and that pretty much settles it for me.

"It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, wherever and whenever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life." —On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 1859

Sounds to me like evolution is a search and natural selection is the engine. Mung

Here's a thought experiment. A tribe somewhere is decimated by a devastating drought and the ensuing famine. Only the fat ones survive. Now the tribe is full of obese people with high cholesterol, arteriosclerosis and heart disease. Is this what they call natural selection? As Joe said, it looks more like the elimination of the healthy. Mapou

By wd400 referring to natural selection as "selection" he is doing a grave injustice as natural selection is really natural elimination. Selection allows you to drive changes whereas mere elimination does not. It just tells you what change(s) will not work at that time and place, meaning they very well may work at some other time and place. Whatever is good enough to survive does so. From "What Evolution Is" page 117:

What Darwin called natural selection is actually a process of elimination.

Page 118:

Do selection and elimination differ in their evolutionary consequences? This question never seems to have been raised in the evolutionary literature. A process of selection would have a concrete objective, the determination of the “best” or “fittest” phenotype. Only a relatively few individuals in a given generation would qualify and survive the selection procedure. That small sample would be only to be able to preserve only a small amount of the whole variance of the parent population. Such survival selection would be highly restrained.

By contrast, mere elimination of the less fit might permit the survival of a rather large number of individuals because they have no obvious deficiencies in fitness. Such a large sample would provide, for instance, the needed material for the exercise of sexual selection. This also explains why survival is so uneven from season to season. The percentage of the less fit would depend on the severity of each year’s environmental conditions.

It's funny watching evos continue to misunderstand the very idea they are supposed to be defending. Joe

There is significant disagreement about the importance of selection. You, however, claim that everyone agrees that natural selection is important Correct. Nothing in those statements is in conflict. Nothing in this thread is about "point scoring". Barry wanted to know what evolutionary biologists agree on, I mentioned some of them. That selection is an important evolutionary force is certainly one on them, even if there is considerable disagreement on how important it is. wd400

wd400 Look at the quotes I posted in 38 and those posted in 39 by BA77. There is significant disagreement about the importance of selection. You, however, claim that everyone agrees that natural selection is important. If that's what you have to resort to in order to try to score a point for evolution, that really says something. Silver Asiatic

Joe:

Natural selection is IMPOTENT, not important.

LOL. It's worse than that, Joe. NS is a BIG LIE. Nature neither needs it nor uses it because organisms are genetically programmed to adapt to environmental changes. I was going to say that NS is for the birds but then it occurred to me that birds, especially Galapagos finches, just poop on it. NS is just for brain-dead Darwinists. Which is fine by me. Mapou

Funny, it appears that even wd400 himself thinks selection is, for the most part, unimportant: when I pointed out that natural selection struggles to fix even a very few mutations in the time scale required for humans to have evolved from some ape-like creature,,, https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-we-share-99-of-our-dna-with-chimps-claim-rises-again/#comment-561090 wd400 stated in reply: The only assumption in that calculation is the one I stated — that new mutaitions are selectively neutral. Positive selection of the sort discussed in your links might make more mutations fix, but the neutral rate is equal to the per-individual mutation rate. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-we-share-99-of-our-dna-with-chimps-claim-rises-again/#comment-561093 To which I responded: neutral theory was not developed because of any empirical observation, but was developed because it was forced upon Darwinism by the mathematics. (i.e. neutral theory is actually the result of a theoretical failure of Darwinism!) Haldane’s Dilemma Excerpt: Haldane was the first to recognize there was a cost to selection which limited what it realistically could be expected to do. He did not fully realize that his thinking would create major problems for evolutionary theory. He calculated that in man it would take 6 million years to fix just 1,000 mutations (assuming 20 years per generation).,,, Man and chimp differ by at least 150 million nucleotides representing at least 40 million hypothetical mutations (Britten, 2002). So if man evolved from a chimp-like creature, then during that process there were at least 20 million mutations fixed within the human lineage (40 million divided by 2), yet natural selection could only have selected for 1,000 of those. All the rest would have had to been fixed by random drift – creating millions of nearly-neutral deleterious mutations. This would not just have made us inferior to our chimp-like ancestors – it surely would have killed us. Since Haldane’s dilemma there have been a number of efforts to sweep the problem under the rug, but the problem is still exactly the same. ReMine (1993, 2005) has extensively reviewed the problem, and has analyzed it using an entirely different mathematical formulation – but has obtained identical results. John Sanford PhD. – “Genetic Entropy and The Mystery of the Genome” – pg. 159-160 Walter ReMine on Haldane’s Dilemma – interview http://kgov.com/Walter-ReMine-on-Haldanes-Dilemma Kimura’s Quandary Excerpt: Kimura realized that Haldane was correct,,, He developed his neutral theory in response to this overwhelming evolutionary problem. Paradoxically, his theory led him to believe that most mutations are unselectable, and therefore,,, most ‘evolution’ must be independent of selection! Because he was totally committed to the primary axiom (neo-Darwinism), Kimura apparently never considered his cost arguments could most rationally be used to argue against the Axiom’s (neo-Darwinism’s) very validity. John Sanford PhD. – “Genetic Entropy and The Mystery of the Genome” – pg. 161 – 162 A graph featuring ‘Kimura’s Distribution’ being ‘properly used’ is shown in the following video: Evolution Vs Genetic Entropy – Andy McIntosh – video https://vimeo.com/91162565 In fact neutral theory is why, against the overwhelming evidence now found for widespread functionality in the genome (i.e. ENCODE etc.. etc..), most neo-Darwinists still insist, against that overwhelming empirical evidence for widespread functionality, that most of the genome must be junk: At the 2:45 minute mark of the following video, the mathematical roots of the junk DNA argument, that is still used by many Darwinists, can be traced through Haldane, Kimura, and Ohno’s work in the late 1950’s, 60’s through the early 70’s: What Is The Genome? It’s Not Junk! – Dr. Robert Carter – video – (Notes in video description) http://www.metacafe.com/w/8905583 Carter: Why Evolutionists Need Junk DNA – Robert W. Carter – 2009 Excerpt: Junk DNA is not just a label that was tacked on to some DNA that seemed to have no function, but it is something that is required by evolutionary theory. Mathematically, there is too much variation, too much DNA to mutate, and too few generations in which to get it all done. This was the essence of Haldane’s work. Without junk DNA, evolutionary theory cannot currently explain how everything works mathematically. Think about it; in the evolutionary model there have only been 3-6 million years since humans and chimps diverged. With average human generation times of 20-30 years, this gives them only 100,000 to 300,000 generations to fix the millions of mutations that separate humans and chimps. This includes at least 35 million single letter differences, over 90 million base pairs of non-shared DNA, nearly 700 extra genes in humans (about 6% not shared with chimpanzees), and tens of thousands of chromosomal rearrangements. Also, the chimp genome is about 13% larger than that of humans, but mostly due to the heterochromatin that caps the chromosome telomeres. All this has to happen in a very short amount of evolutionary time. They don’t have enough time, even after discounting the functionality of over 95% of the genome–but their position becomes grave if junk DNA turns out to be functional. Every new function found for junk DNA makes the evolutionists’ case that much more difficult. Robert W. Carter – biologist http://creation.com/junk-dna-slow-death Kimura (1968) developed the idea of “Neutral Evolution”. If “Haldane’s Dilemma” is correct, the majority of DNA must be non-functional. Here are more detailed refutations of ‘neutral theory’ Using Numerical Simulation to Better Understand Fixation Rates, and Establishment of a New Principle – “Haldane’s Ratchet” – Christopher L. Rupe and John C. Sanford – 2013 Excerpt: We then perform large-scale experiments to examine the feasibility of the ape-to-man scenario over a six million year period. We analyze neutral and beneficial fixations separately (realistic rates of deleterious mutations could not be studied in deep time due to extinction). Using realistic parameter settings we only observe a few hundred selection-induced beneficial fixations after 300,000 generations (6 million years). Even when using highly optimal parameter settings (i.e., favorable for fixation of beneficials), we only see a few thousand selection-induced fixations. This is significant because the ape-to-man scenario requires tens of millions of selective nucleotide substitutions in the human lineage. Our empirically-determined rates of beneficial fixation are in general agreement with the fixation rate estimates derived by Haldane and ReMine using their mathematical analyses. We have therefore independently demonstrated that the findings of Haldane and ReMine are for the most part correct, and that the fundamental evolutionary problem historically known as “Haldane’s Dilemma” is very real. Previous analyses have focused exclusively on beneficial mutations. When deleterious mutations were included in our simulations, using a realistic ratio of beneficial to deleterious mutation rate, deleterious fixations vastly outnumbered beneficial fixations. Because of this, the net effect of mutation fixation should clearly create a ratchet-type mechanism which should cause continuous loss of information and decline in the size of the functional genome. We name this phenomenon “Haldane’s Ratchet”. http://media.wix.com/ugd/a704d4_47bcf08eda0e4926a44a8ac9cbfa9c20.pdf Neo-Darwinism’s Catch-22: Before Evolving New Features, Organisms Would Be Swamped by Genetic Junk – Casey Luskin – April 10, 2015 Excerpt: A new peer-reviewed paper in the journal Complexity presents a computational model of evolution which shows that evolving new biological structures may be deterred by an unavoidable catch-22 problem.,,, This is a bit complex — let’s go over it again. Darwinian evolution either (1) produces nothing new, or (2) it’s destined to produce boatloads of deadly junk. In the case of (2), the reward for trying new things is high compared to the cost of building new structures. But in order for the ratio to be high enough for complexity to increase, the cost of building new things must be negligible. Novelties proliferate, but the fraction,, that’s vestigial grows, and the organism is eventually swamped and overwhelmed by harmful vestigial features. However, if you try to avoid the problem of (2) by making the reward-to-cost ratio lower, as in (1), then nothing new ever evolves. The authors think real biological organisms are closer to position (1). Indeed, study in the field of systems biology increasingly finds that biological systems contain very little junk.,,, per ENV bornagain77

BA: velikovskys, NO! The problem with Darwinian evolution being ‘a room full of smoke’ is because it is a pseudo-science instead of a proper science. Actually there is no rigid requirement that there must be a rigid mathematical basis to be science, the scientific method does not seem to require it, perhaps you can post the standard version of the scientific method and we can go thru it. In fact, instead of having a rigid, carefully defined, mathematical basis like other overarching theories of science have (a rigid mathematical basis that can potentially be falsified), Predictions can be falsified in many ways,math is just one way. The birth of a viable child with a genetic code based on non DNA would be falsllify the ToE as far as that child, whereas it would not be an issue for design detection. Of course, the thing about design is , given an unknown designer it is impossible falsify design the primary basis of Darwinian evolution is a (bad) theological basis: Good thing modern science has no need to use those lines of evidence velikovskys

On an importance scale of one-to-ten, low to high, selection could be rated a one and therefore “is important”, but also is “less important” than those rating it with a ten. Therefore, everybody agrees it is important!

Dumbest thing I've read today. If any of those folks though selection was not important they could have written "selection is not important". In fact, the two of them I could quickly google up made it clear they hold that selection is important. There is no shame in being wrong about something, but when you've been shown to be wrong you should at least admit it. wd400

Coyne Disses Shapiro, but Shapiro Inspires Koonin -- and Natural Selection Is the Main Issue Paul Nelson August 28, 2012 Excerpt: [Jim Shapiro's] contention that natural selection's importance for evolution has been hugely overstated represents a point of view that has a growing set of adherents. (A few months ago, I was amazed to hear it expressed, in the strongest terms, from another highly eminent microbiologist.) My impression is that evolutionary biology is increasingly separating into two camps, divided over just this question. On the one hand are the population geneticists and evolutionary biologists who continue to believe that selection has a "creative" and crucial role in evolution and, on the other, there is a growing body of scientists (largely those who have come into evolution from molecular biology, developmental biology or developmental genetics, and microbiology) who reject it. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/coyne_disses_sh063541.html Evidence for Creation now banned from UK religious education classes - July 2012 Excerpt: (In 2008) Professor Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini spoke for a number (of top university academics) in stating simply that natural selection ‘is not the way new species and new classes and new phyla originated.’ http://creation.com/creation-religious-education Post-Darwinist - Denyse O'Leary - Dec. 2010 Excerpt: They quote West et al. (1999), “Although living things occupy a three-dimensional space, their internal physiology and anatomy operate as if they were four-dimensional. Quarter-power scaling laws are perhaps as universal and as uniquely biological as the biochemical pathways of metabolism, the structure and function of the genetic code and the process of natural selection." They comment, "In the words of these authors, natural selection has exploited variations on this fractal theme to produce the incredible variety of biological form and function', but there were severe geometric and physical constraints on metabolic processes." "The conclusion here is inescapable, that the driving force for these invariant scaling laws cannot have been natural selection. It's inconceivable that so many different organisms, spanning different kingdoms and phyla, may have blindly 'tried' all sorts of power laws and that only those that have by chance 'discovered' the one-quarter power law reproduced and thrived." Quotations from Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, What Darwin Got Wrong (London: Profile Books, 2010), p. 78-79. https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/16037/ Natural Selection Is Empty - Michael Egnor - August 30, 2013 Excerpt: “What's essential about adaptationism, as viewed from this perspective, is precisely its claim that there is a level of evolutionary explanation. We think this claim is just plain wrong. We think that successful explanations of the fixation of phenotypic traits by ecological variables typically belong not to evolutionary theory but to natural history, and that there is just no end of the sorts of things about a natural history that can contribute to explaining the fixation of some or other feature of a creature's phenotype. Natural history isn't a theory of evolution; it's a bundle of evolutionary scenarios. That's why the explanations it offers are so often post hoc and unsystematic.” - Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini's - What Darwin Got Wrong - 2010 Natural selection is not a level of explanation. In F&P-P’s cogent phrase, natural selection is empty. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/08/natural_selecti_2075991.html "We'll argue presently that, quite aside from the problems it has accommodating the empirical findings, the theory of natural selection is internally flawed; it's not just that the data are equivocal, it's that there's a crack in the foundations." Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini - “What Darwin Got Wrong” Fitness: A Battle is Raging The rigor of this approach, however, is lessened because there is as yet no universally agreed upon measure of fitness; fitness is either defined metaphorically, or defined only relative to the particular model or system used. It is fair to say that due to this lack, there is still no real agreement on what exactly the process of natural selection is. This is clearly a problem. http://telicthoughts.com/fitness-a-battle-is-raging/#more-7550 Did Natural Selection Construct Metazoan Developmental Sequences? - Paul Nelson - July 2011 The necessary and sufficient conditions of the process of natural selection (Endler, Natural Selection in the Wild, 1986) are (1) variation, (2) selection or fitness differences, and (3) inheritance. These conditions impose evidential demands on any investigator who wishes to employ natural selection in evolutionary (i.e., historical) explanation. Data from model systems (e.g., C. elegans, Drosophila, and Danio), as well as theoretical analyses, raise challenges for the use of natural selection as the causal process responsible for the origin of developmental sequences. In particular, the conditions of (2) selection differences and (3) inheritance have not been adequately described in current theories of the evolution of the Metazoa. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/07/paul_nelson_jonathan_wells_tak048301.html "This is the issue I have with neo-Darwinists: They teach that what is generating novelty is the accumulation of random mutations in DNA, in a direction set by natural selection. If you want bigger eggs, you keep selecting the hens that are laying the biggest eggs, and you get bigger and bigger eggs. But you also get hens with defective feathers and wobbly legs. Natural selection eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn't create....[N]eo-Darwinists say that new species emerge when mutations occur and modify and organism. I was taught over and over again that the accumulation of random mutations led to evolutionary change-led to new species. I believed it until I looked for evidence." - Lynn Margulis Darwin’s Legacy - Donald R. Prothero - February 2012 Excerpt: In four of the biggest climatic-vegetational events of the last 50 million years, the mammals and birds show no noticeable change in response to changing climates. No matter how many presentations I give where I show these data, no one (including myself) has a good explanation yet for such widespread stasis despite the obvious selective pressures of changing climate. http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/12-02-15/#feature Austin Hughes: Most Evolutionary Literature Showing Positive Selection in the Genome is "Worthless" - Casey Luskin - 2012 Excerpt - When University of South Carolina evolutionary biologist Austin Hughes was asked about the problem with positive Darwinian selection, he says, "The problem is there really isn't all that much evidence that it actually happens to the extent to which it would be needed to explain all of the adaptive traits of organisms." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/01/austin_hughes_m055121.html Hundreds Of Natural-selection Studies Could Be Wrong, Study Demonstrates - Mar. 30, 2009 Excerpt: "Our finding means that hundreds of published studies on natural selection may have drawn incorrect conclusions,",,, "Nei said that many scientists who examine human evolution have used faulty statistical methods in their studies and, as a result, their conclusions could be wrong. For example, in one published study the scientists used a statistical method to demonstrate pervasive natural selection during human evolution. "This group documented adaptive evolution in many genes expressed in the brain, thyroid, and placenta, which are assumed to be important for human evolution.",,, "But if the statistical method that they used is not reliable, then their results also might not be reliable,",,, "we are saying that these statistical methods can lead scientists to make erroneous inferences," he said. (Hmm, 3 years later --- no honest corrections!) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090330200821.htm bornagain77

wd400

I’d bet even these opponents of modern evolutionary biology accept selection is important ... think selection is less important than do some evolutionary biologists

On an importance scale of one-to-ten, low to high, selection could be rated a one and therefore "is important", but also is "less important" than those rating it with a ten. Therefore, everybody agrees it is important! Quotes from Mazur's Altenberg 16: “Oh sure natural selection’s been demonstrated … the interesting point, however, is that it has rarely if ever been demonstrated to have anything to do with evolution in the sense of long-term changes in populations. … Summing up we can see that the import of the Darwinian theory of evolution is just unexplainable caprice from top to bottom. What evolves is just what happens to happen [ellipsis in original]” (Stanley Salthe, p. 21). “Darwinism and the neo-Darwinian synthesis, last dusted off 70 years ago, actually hinder discovery of the mechanism of evolution” (Antonio Lima-de-Faria, p. 83). “Do I think natural selection should be relegated to a less import role in the discussion of evolution? Yes I do” (Scott Gilbert, p. 221). “She [Lynn Margulis] sees natural selection as ‘neither the source of heritable novelty nor the entire evolutionary process’ and has pronounced neo-Darwinism ‘dead’, since there’s no adequate evidence in the literature that random mutations result in new species” (Mazur, p. 257). “At that meeting [Francisco] Ayala agreed with me when I stated that this doctrinaire neo-Darwinism is dead. He was a practitioner of neo-Darwinism but advances in molecular genetics, evolution, ecology, biochemistry, and other news had led him to agree that neo-Darwinism’s now dead” (Lynn Margulis, p. 278). Silver Asiatic

Joe @ 34. :D Mung

wd400: You do realize, don't you, that there is a significant gap in the logic of that statement? (Not that it doesn't make your point.) Mung

bornagain: I may have misinterpreted what Venter was saying, and what Dawkins was objecting to. Is it Venter's view that for each distinct code there was a separate origin of life? So that if we find, say, 23 different variations of genetic code today, then life on earth had to originate at least 23 times? How does Dawkins explain the difference in codes? Does he think there was only one origin of life, but that organisms altered the code they used after that origin? What does each man think about the origin of life? The last statement I heard from Dawkins on the subject was "Nobody knows" how life got started. Has Venter expressed an opinion? Timaeus

Natural selection is IMPOTENT, not important. Joe

Add Kauffman to the list... wd400

... didn't take long to google up a quote from Margulis (and Sagan):

We agree that very few potential offspring ever survive to reproduce and that populations do change through time, and that therefore natural selection is of critical importance to the evolutionary process.

They go on to describe why they find Darwinisn (scientific sense) unsatisfactory, but even these twosign on for #5 wd400

Salthe signed the disco 'tutes 'dissent' petition, so it's pretty obvious he's not a fan of modern evolution biology. Fodor is philosopher with very little knowledge of evolutionary biology, so it's quite possible he doesn't know selection is important. I don't know of specific statements from any of these people, I'd bet even these opponents of modern evolutionary biology accept selection is important, even if they think other forces are also important or think selection is less important than do some evolutionary biologists. wd400

wd400's #5 Stanley Salthe, Lynn Margulis, Jerry Fodor, Stuart Kauffman and others disagree that selection is important. But maybe they're not 'proponents of modern evolutionary theory'? That would be a clever way to answer the challenge. Only the scientists that agree with everything are true proponents. Those who disagree are not true proponents. Another answer: "There are several competing, but entirely correct evolutionary theories and all proponents of all of them agree 100%". Silver Asiatic

Box. The question was what do we agree on, it's hardly a dodge to say shared common descent goes back a very long way (even if the root of the tree of life is a tangle), or lineages have evolved apart from one another (even if the rate of change among lineages has varied). If you want to focus on controversys within evolutionary biology you can, but that doesn't change the points on which we agree. wd400

velikovskys, NO! The problem with Darwinian evolution being 'a room full of smoke' is because it is a pseudo-science instead of a proper science. In fact, instead of having a rigid, carefully defined, mathematical basis like other overarching theories of science have (a rigid mathematical basis that can potentially be falsified), the primary basis of Darwinian evolution is a (bad) theological basis:

“On the other hand, I disagree that Darwin’s theory is as `solid as any explanation in science.; Disagree? I regard the claim as preposterous. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to thirteen or so decimal places; so, too, general relativity. A leaf trembling in the wrong way would suffice to shatter either theory. What can Darwinian theory offer in comparison?” - Berlinski, D., “A Scientific Scandal?: David Berlinski & Critics,” Commentary, July 8, 2003 The primary reasons why Darwinism is a pseudo-science instead of a proper science are as such: 1. No Rigid Mathematical Basis (Demarcation/Falsification Criteria) 2. No Demonstrated Empirical Basis 3. Random Mutation and Natural Selection are both grossly inadequate as ‘creative engines’ 4. Information is not reducible to a material basis, (in fact, in quantum teleportation it is found that material ultimately reduces to a information basis) 5. Darwinism hinders scientific progress (i.e. falsely predicted Junk DNA, vestigial organs, etc..), https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oaPcK-KCppBztIJmXUBXTvZTZ5lHV4Qg_pnzmvVL2Qw/edit Charles Darwin, Theologian: Major New Article on Darwin's Use of Theology in the Origin of Species - May 2011 Excerpt: The Origin supplies abundant evidence of theology in action; as Dilley observes: I have argued that, in the first edition of the Origin, Darwin drew upon at least the following positiva theological claims in his case for descent with modification (and against special creation): 1. Human beings are not justified in believing that God creates in ways analogous to the intellectual powers of the human mind. 2. A God who is free to create as He wishes would create new biological limbs de novo rather than from a common pattern. 3. A respectable deity would create biological structures in accord with a human conception of the 'simplest mode' to accomplish the functions of these structures. 4. God would only create the minimum structure required for a given part's function. 5. God does not provide false empirical information about the origins of organisms. 6. God impressed the laws of nature on matter. 7. God directly created the first 'primordial' life. 8. God did not perform miracles within organic history subsequent to the creation of the first life. 9. A 'distant' God is not morally culpable for natural pain and suffering. 10. The God of special creation, who allegedly performed miracles in organic history, is not plausible given the presence of natural pain and suffering. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/05/charles_darwin_theologian_majo046391.html "Though denying that God had a direct hand in creating species, he (Darwin) did nonetheless indicate that God created the natural laws of the cosmos, including the laws of evolutionary development. He also interpolated a statement about a Creator breathing life into one or a few (primitive) organisms into the 1860 edition of Origin." http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2011/09/did_darwin_believe_in_god.html Charles Darwin's use of theology in the Origin of Species - STEPHEN DILLEY Abstract This essay examines Darwin's positiva (or positive) use of theology in the first edition of the Origin of Species in three steps. First, the essay analyses the Origin's theological language about God's accessibility, honesty, methods of creating, relationship to natural laws and lack of responsibility for natural suffering; the essay contends that Darwin utilized positiva theology in order to help justify (and inform) descent with modification and to attack special creation. Second, the essay offers critical analysis of this theology, drawing in part on Darwin's mature ruminations to suggest that, from an epistemic point of view, the Origin's positiva theology manifests several internal tensions. Finally, the essay reflects on the relative epistemic importance of positiva theology in the Origin's overall case for evolution. The essay concludes that this theology served as a handmaiden and accomplice to Darwin's science. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=376799F09F9D3CC8C2E7500BACBFC75F.journals?aid=8499239&fileId=S000708741100032X Methodological Naturalism: A Rule That No One Needs or Obeys - Paul Nelson - September 22, 2014 Excerpt: It is a little-remarked but nonetheless deeply significant irony that evolutionary biology is the most theologically entangled science going. Open a book like Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True (2009) or John Avise's Inside the Human Genome (2010), and the theology leaps off the page. A wise creator, say Coyne, Avise, and many other evolutionary biologists, would not have made this or that structure; therefore, the structure evolved by undirected processes. Coyne and Avise, like many other evolutionary theorists going back to Darwin himself, make numerous "God-wouldn't-have-done-it-that-way" arguments, thus predicating their arguments for the creative power of natural selection and random mutation on implicit theological assumptions about the character of God and what such an agent (if He existed) would or would not be likely to do.,,, ,,,with respect to one of the most famous texts in 20th-century biology, Theodosius Dobzhansky's essay "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" (1973). Although its title is widely cited as an aphorism, the text of Dobzhansky's essay is rarely read. It is, in fact, a theological treatise. As Dilley (2013, p. 774) observes: "Strikingly, all seven of Dobzhansky's arguments hinge upon claims about God's nature, actions, purposes, or duties. In fact, without God-talk, the geneticist's arguments for evolution are logically invalid. In short, theology is essential to Dobzhansky's arguments.",, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/methodological_1089971.html Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of theology? - Dilley S. - 2013 Abstract This essay analyzes Theodosius Dobzhansky's famous article, "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution," in which he presents some of his best arguments for evolution. I contend that all of Dobzhansky's arguments hinge upon sectarian claims about God's nature, actions, purposes, or duties. Moreover, Dobzhansky's theology manifests several tensions, both in the epistemic justification of his theological claims and in their collective coherence. I note that other prominent biologists--such as Mayr, Dawkins, Eldredge, Ayala, de Beer, Futuyma, and Gould--also use theology-laden arguments. I recommend increased analysis of the justification, complexity, and coherence of this theology. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23890740 "Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint, and Mr. Gish is but one of many to make it, the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today." Ruse, M., How evolution became a religion: creationists correct? Darwinians wrongly mix science with morality, politics, National Post, pp. B1, B3, B7 (May 13, 2000

bornagain77

box: so, you guys have reached agreement on that modern organisms have ancestors? Well, I must say that’s quite impressive. Yes, some hypotheses don't even agree on that. velikovskys

Box: so, you guys have reached agreement on that modern organisms have ancestors? Well, I must say that’s quite impressive. Barry Arrington: 1. Modern organisms descend from very ancient ones That says quite a lot more than that you are the child of your parents. Zachriel

BA: ‘Man, that thing is just a mess. It’s like looking into a room full of smoke.’ Nothing in the theory is precisely, clearly, carefully defined or delineated. " That is the problem when you attempt to answer the question how and when and what with more than with a single word if at all. velikovskys

velikovskys, Zachriel, so, you guys have reached agreement on that modern organisms have ancestors? Well, I must say that's quite impressive. Box

I have a question for non-ID proponents only

I'm going to pretend I didn't see that.

Is there even one tenet of modern evolutionary theory that is universally agreed upon by the proponents of modern evolutionary theory?

Yes. Evolution is fact, Fact, FACT! Mung

Box: So yes, by not saying if there was one or more universal common ancestor, the controversy is covered up. The common ancestor may have been a diverse population. It's been hypothesized that after a period of rampant horizontal exchange, several distinct lineages emerged. In any case, "Modern organisms descended from very ancient ones." Box: Punk eek says that differences among related lineages can accumulated over a few generations. Punctuated equilibrium typically takes thousands of years, which is very short in geological time. Zachriel

Box: So yes, by not saying if there was one or more universal common ancestor, the controversy is covered up. Wasn't the question what is there universal agreement on? . velikovskys

Bob O'H how come your, and wd400's, universally agreed upon parameters for Darwinian Theory remind me of Berlinski's following quip?

‘Before you can ask ‘Is Darwinian theory correct or not?’, You have to ask the preliminary question ‘Is it clear enough so that it could be correct?’. That’s a very different question. One of my prevailing doctrines about Darwinian theory is ‘Man, that thing is just a mess. It’s like looking into a room full of smoke.’ Nothing in the theory is precisely, clearly, carefully defined or delineated. It lacks all of the rigor one expects from mathematical physics, and mathematical physics lacks all the rigor one expects from mathematics. So we’re talking about a gradual descent down the level of intelligibility until we reach evolutionary biology.’ David Berlinski - EXPELLED - video (29:31 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=V5EPymcWp-g#t=1771 Dr. David Berlinski: - extended interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEDYr_fgcP8&index=2&list=PLF9DB30F6802BC5CE

bornagain77

Bob O'H,

Bob: 1. It doesn’t necessarily say that there was one universal common ancestor, so no.

So yes, by not saying if there was one or more universal common ancestor, the controversy is covered up.

Bob: 2. Punk eek just means that the rate of accumulation sometimes changes drastically, so it’s still covered.

Punk eek says that differences among related lineages can accumulated over a few generations. That's the opposite of what's been said in 2, Bob.

Bob: 3. This can be formalised, and I think there’s a term in the Price equation that an include a Lamarckian component, so it doesn’t exclude it.

Or does it? See what I mean, by "vague" ?

Bob: 4. “Neutralists” acknowledge the importance of selection, and “selectionists” can hardly deny the existence of drift.

PZMeyers: This does not in any way imply that selection is unimportant, but only that most molecular differences will not be a product of adaptive, selective changes.

That's just about the opposite of what's being said in 4,5,6,7 Bob. Box

Box @ 15 -

1. Modern organisms descend from very ancient ones,

Isn’t that just a cover-up of the controversy over universal common descent? (see posts #7 & #9)

It doesn't necessarily say that there was one universal common ancestor, so no.

2. The differences among related lineages have accumulated over many generations of change,

How about punk eek?

Punk eek just means that the rate of accumulation sometimes changes drastically, so it's still covered.

3. The basis of (some of) the differences among individuals is heritable,

Vague. What’s being said here? For instance, is this an endorsement of Lamarckism or not?

This can be formalised, and I think there's a term in the Price equation that an include a Lamarckian component, so it doesn't exclude it.

4. The relative success of those heritable traits is the basis of evolutionary change.

How about PZ Meyers and Neutral Theory? They won right? Also relevant to 5, 6 and 7.

wd400 sumamrised the current consensus:

“Neutralists” acknowledge the importance of selection, and “selectionists” can hardly deny the existence of drift.

They won because neutral ideas are used as one core component of evolutionary theory (as are selection, migration, mutation etc etc). Bob O'H

#12 link correction: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/mystery-at-the-heart-of-life/#comment-561599 Dionisio

Neil Rickert: Evolution is not a set of logic propositions. Rather, it is a guide to understanding biology.

So, you sit down and watch a nature documentary and you tell yourself "these are just happenstance bags of chemicals, evolved by adaptation to the chemicals around them". Afterwards you look in the mirror and repeat the sentence in singular mode. Box

1. Modern organisms descend from very ancient ones,

Isn’t that just a cover-up of the controversy over universal common descent? (see posts #7 & #9)

2. The differences among related lineages have accumulated over many generations of change,

How about punk eek?

3. The basis of (some of) the differences among individuals is heritable,

Vague. What’s being said here? For instance, is this an endorsement of Lamarckism or not?

4. The relative success of those heritable traits is the basis of evolutionary change.

How about PZ Meyers and Neutral Theory? They won right? Also relevant to 5, 6 and 7. Box

Neil Rickert:

Evolution is not a set of logic propositions. Rather, it is a guide to understanding biology.

And yet we don't even know what makes an organism what it is nor how many mutations it takes to evolve new body plans requiring new body parts. That means evolution hasn't helped us at all. Joe

There isn't sny modern evolutionary theory. There are even any testable hypotheses for unguided evolution, ie natural selection and drift. So all biologists can agree upon, scientifically speaking, is that genetic change happens. Some posters say that they agree upon universal common descent. Great, too bad that biologists don't even know what makes an organism what it is which makes that agreement moot. They cannot measure the premise of universal common descent. No one knows how many mutations it takes to go from fish to amphibian. No one knows what genes were involved nor do they know if such a transformation is possible. It is all unscientific speculation based on a world view. I know there aren't any biologists who could support the claim that humans and chimps shared a common ancestor. They wouldn't even know where to start. Joe

Do the 10 points listed in post #11 include the two "naming" issues referred by the following link? https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/how-would-you-answer-these-questions/#comment-561600 Dionisio

WD400 proposes the following 10 points on which there is universal agreement among proponents of modern evolutionary theory: 1. Modern organisms descend from very ancient ones, 2. The differences among related lineages have accumulated over many generations of change, 3. The basis of (some of) the differences among individuals is heritable, 4. The relative success of those heritable traits is the basis of evolutionary change. 5. Selection is an important evolution force, 6. Populations connected by gene flow evolve together absent very strong selection pull each population in different directions. 7. Selection is important (I am not sure how this is different from 5). 8. Drift exists. 9. Allopatric speciation is possible. 10. Most speciation processes fit somewhere between the extremes of sympatric speciation and allopatric speciation. Do all our anti-ID friends agree that all of these points are universally agreed upon? Barry Arrington

OK; universal common descent has been suggested as something about which there is universal agreement. As BA77 points out, that is not the case. Barry Arrington

of related interest to the Dawkins-Venter disagreement over universal common descent are these recent papers by Tomkins:

Information Processing Differences Between Archaea and Eukarya—Implications for Homologs and the Myth of Eukaryogenesis by Change Tan and Jeffrey P. Tomkins on March 18, 2015 Abstract In the grand schema of evolution, a mythical prokaryote to eukaryote cellular transition allegedly gave rise to the diversity of eukaryotic life (eukaryogenesis). One of the key problems with this idea is the fact that the prokaryotic world itself is divided into two apparent domains (bacteria and archaea) and eukarya share similarities to both domains of prokaryotes while also exhibiting many major innovative features found in neither. In this article, we briefly review the current landscape of the controversy and show how the key molecular features surrounding DNA replication, transcription, and translation are fundamentally distinct in eukarya despite superficial similarities to prokaryotes, particularly archaea. These selected discontinuous molecular chasms highlight the impossibility for eukarya having evolved from archaea. In a separate paper, we will address alleged similarities between eukarya and bacteria. https://answersingenesis.org/biology/microbiology/information-processing-differences-between-archaea-and-eukarya/ Information Processing Differences Between Bacteria and Eukarya—Implications for the Myth of Eukaryogenesis by Change Tan and Jeffrey P. Tomkins on March 25, 2015 Excerpt: In a previous report, we showed that a vast chasm exists between archaea and eukarya in regard to basic molecular machines involved in DNA replication, RNA transcription, and protein translation. The differences in information processing mechanisms and systems are even greater between bacteria and eukarya, which we elaborate upon in this report. Based on differences in lineage-specific essential gene sets and in the vital molecular machines between bacteria and eukarya, we continue to demonstrate that the same unbridgeable evolutionary chasms exist—further invalidating the myth of eukaryogenesis. https://answersingenesis.org/biology/microbiology/information-processing-differences-between-bacteria-and-eukarya/

bornagain77

Evolutionary biologists agree on a lot. That modern organisms descent from very ancient ones, the the differences among related lineages have accumulated over many generations of change, that the basis of (some of) the differences among individuals is heritable, that the relative success of those heritable traits are the basis of evolutionary change. We agree selection is an important evolution force, and that populations connected by gene flow evolve together absent very strong selection pull each population in different direcctions. I believe there exactly three people call themsevles evolutionary biologists and doubt that humans and chimps share a recent common ancestor. Even is areas of apparent-controversy, evolutionary biologists actually agree on a lot. "Neutralists" acknowledge the importance of selection, and "selectionists" can hardly deny the existence of drift. When someone argues the sympatric speciation is relatively common they don't deny allopatric speciation is possible or common (or indeed that most speciation processes fit somewhere between these extremes). wd400

Timaeus, I knew what Venter meant. I also know why Dawkins objected:

Venter vs. Dawkins on the Tree of Life - and Another Dawkins Whopper - March 2011 Excerpt:,,, But first, let's look at the reason Dawkins gives for why the code must be universal: "The reason is interesting. Any mutation in the genetic code itself (as opposed to mutations in the genes that it encodes) would have an instantly catastrophic effect, not just in one place but throughout the whole organism. If any word in the 64-word dictionary changed its meaning, so that it came to specify a different amino acid, just about every protein in the body would instantaneously change, probably in many places along its length. Unlike an ordinary mutation...this would spell disaster." (2009, p. 409-10) OK. Keep Dawkins' claim of universality in mind, along with his argument for why the code must be universal, and then go here (linked site listing 23 variants of the genetic code). Simple counting question: does "one or two" equal 23? That's the number of known variant genetic codes compiled by the National Center for Biotechnology Information. By any measure, Dawkins is off by an order of magnitude, times a factor of two. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/03/venter_vs_dawkins_on_the_tree_044681.html

Moreover, because of Shannon channel capacity the first DNA code of life on earth had to be at least as complex as the current 'optimal' DNA code found in life:

Shannon Information - Channel Capacity - Perry Marshall - video https://vimeo.com/106430965 “Because of Shannon channel capacity that previous (first) codon alphabet had to be at least as complex as the current 'optimal' codon alphabet (DNA code), otherwise transferring the information from the simpler alphabet into the current alphabet would have been mathematically impossible” Donald E. Johnson – Bioinformatics: The Information in Life

Of related note:

A glimpse into nature's looking glass -- to find the genetic code is reassigned: Stop codon varies widely - May 22, 2014 Excerpt: While a few examples of organisms deviating from this canonical code had been serendipitously discovered before, these were widely thought of as very rare evolutionary oddities, absent from most places on Earth and representing a tiny fraction of species. Now, this paradigm has been challenged by the discovery of large numbers of exceptions from the canonical genetic code,,, Approximately 99% of all microbial species on Earth fall in this category, defying culture in the laboratory but profoundly influencing the most significant environmental processes from plant growth and health, to the carbon and other nutrient cycles on land and sea, and even climate processes.,,, "We were surprised to find that an unprecedented number of bacteria in the wild possess these codon reassignments, from "stop" to amino-acid encoding "sense," up to 10 percent of the time in some environments," said Rubin. Another observation the researchers made was that beyond bacteria, these reassignments were also happening in phage, viruses that attack bacterial cells.,,, The punch line, Rubin said, is that the dogma is wrong. "Phage apparently don't really 'care' about the codon usage of the host. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140522141422.htm

bornagain77

Hi, bornagain. I think that Venter there was questioning *universal* common descent, not common descent itself. I don't think he doubts that all mammals sprang from a common ancestor, all birds from a common ancestor, all primates (including man) from a common ancestor, etc. I think he is perhaps bringing back the original idea of Charles Darwin, i.e., that there may well have been several "original forms" of life, and therefore several independent lines of evolution running in parallel with each other. At one time, evolutionary theorists believed that the origin of the first life was a very chancy thing, and that more than one origin of life on earth would be like the same man getting struck by lightning twice, so there was a tendency to believe that all life came from only a single first form; hence, universal common descent. If Venter now believes that there are multiple origins of life (perhaps dozens? hundreds?), what does that imply? That he thinks that life is fairly easily formed by accident? Or that some unknown designer or designers were very busy three billion or more years ago? Does the remark mean that Venter has come over to the doctrine of special creation? I don't think so, and yet I have the impression that Venter at that point was playing his cards close to the vest, negating something dear to the others at the table without indicating what positive doctrine should be put in its place. Timaeus

I agree with common descent, yet it is surely false because of horizontal gene transfer,,, HUH??? So you agree to disagree that it is false or disagree to agree that it is true? Of note to the 'explain away' mechanism of horizontal gene transfer that has become the latest fad for Darwinists: Here is a recent article by Tomkins which shows that the mechanism of Horizontal Gene Transfer does not even begin to explain away the non-Darwinian dissimilarity being found in genomes

Another Horizontal Gene Transfer Fairy Tale by Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D. - April 6, 2015 Excerpt: First, the researchers found unique genes in a variety of fruit flies, worms, primates, and humans that had no clear evolutionary ancestry. In other words, each of these genes is specific to a certain type of creature. Scientists have previously termed these "orphan genes"—a unique type of gene that provides a clear anti-evolutionary enigma I have discussed in previous reports.3,4 Some claim these novel orphan sequences evolved suddenly out of non-coding DNA while others, such as the authors of this new report, claim they were derived from HGT. The major problem with claiming that these alleged HGT genes are imported or "foreign" (i.e., transferred into the genome from some other creature), is that many of them encode important enzymatic proteins and are key parts of the interconnected gene networks and complex biochemical pathways that are essential to the very life of the organism. The researchers stated, "The majority of these genes are concerned with metabolism." Clearly, the genes are not foreign at all, but designed to function as key parts of essential biologically complex systems. Second, the approach to supposedly identifying many of the foreign genes in animals as microbial in origin was not even based on actual complete gene sequence, but depended upon isolated regions of similarity in the proteins they encode. In mammals, genes are quite complex, and on average only about 10% of the entire gene sequence actually codes for protein, the rest contains a large diversity of regulatory sequences that determine how the gene is to function and its various types of products. In contrast, microbial genes are typically much less complex and lack these intricate and intervening regulatory regions found in animal genes. If the researchers had actually compared the genomic DNA, very little similarity would have been discovered—in other words, they didn't do their homework correctly. In fact, they admitted their claim that the gene was foreign—or where it originated from—was purely hypothetical, when they stated that "absolute certainty in the assignment of most HGT is unachievable." Third, no mechanism of HGT for any of the hundreds of alleged "foreign genes" they found was either discovered or even suggested. This is due to the fact that the only cases where such gene transfer occurs in nature typically involves a clear host-parasite relationship. Not only that, but the cells of the germline (those that produce sperm and egg) must be specifically targeted or the introgressed genes (those that were incorporated from one species into the genome of another) will not be inherited. Unfortunately, evolutionary biologists constantly resort to fictional stories cloaked in technical terminology to escape the straightforward conclusion that the genomes of different creatures were purposefully crafted. Because of their unwavering commitment to evolution, all ideas about these cleverly designed and network-integrated gene sequences being engineered by a Creator are not considered—at least not openly. http://www.icr.org/article/another-horizontal-gene-transfer-fairy

bornagain77

Is there even one tenant of modern evolutionary theory that is universally agreed upon by the proponents of modern evolutionary theory?

How much rent are these tenants paying? Evolution is not a set of logic propositions. Rather, it is a guide to understanding biology. Seversky suggests "common descent." I agree with common descent, yet it is surely false because of horizontal gene transfer. So common descent is great as a guide, but we need not assume that it is literal truth. But that's the way with all science. Scientific laws are guides, not logic propositions. Neil Rickert

Dr. Craig Venter Denies Common Descent in front of Richard Dawkins! - video Quote: "I think the tree of life is an artifact of some early scientific studies that aren't really holding up.,, So there is not a tree of life. In fact from our deep sequencing of organisms in the ocean, out of, now we have about 60 million different unique gene sets, we found 12 that look like a very, very deep branching—perhaps fourth domain of life. " - Dr. Craig Venter, American Biologist involved in sequencing the human genome http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXrYhINutuI http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-common-code-surely-that-means-theyre.html bornagain77

I don't know about "tenant" but I'd say common descent is a pretty universally agreed tenet of evolutionary theory. Seversky

"Is there even one tenant of modern evolutionary theory..." Strange question, but none that I know of. .... .... I didn't even know "modern evolutionary theory" was a landlord. UDEditors: Whoops; OP fixed. REC