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Karsten Pultz: Why random processes cannot produce information: A new approach to the argument

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Our Danish friend, Karsten Pultz (left), author of Exit Evolution, tackles the big question;


This is the important question ID raises against the neo-Darwinian claim that life came about by random processes. Here I offer some thoughts about the connection between information in the form of digital codes and the products they code for. I thus hope to support the argument for ID and for what seems to me the inescapable fact of teleology in nature.

If a random number generator were set to produce eight digit numbers, and it coincidentally spat out 87958007, which happens to be my phone number, would it then have produced information? Or if a prebiotic soup randomly produced a functional protein, or a string of DNA that coded for a protein (ignoring the low probability of such occurrences), would the soup have produced information?

I would argue no.

The specific sequences that carry information, phone numbers, for example, can only be defined as information in relation to the whole system of which they are a part. There needs to be a translation system with defined rules that sorts out which sequences contains information and which do not.

To claim that information in DNA could arise by random chance is therefore nonsense. A functional sequence could not be regarded as information until we have a complete set of rules which defines that certain sequences are functional and all others are nonfunctional gobbledygook.

It is not reasonable to consider it likely that information can arise by chance without the translation that defines it as information?

A random process producing information is an oxymoron

No matter how many phone numbers that happen to be in service that a random number generator spits out, they wouldn’t be phone numbers because the generator has not chosen them from a defined set of rules. In the same way, proteins randomly produced in a prebiotic soup would not be proteins at all because they would not have been produced in relation to the translation system which defines them as proteins. Equally important, they would not have been produced in relation to the specific task they would serve in an organism.

Order Exit Evolution online. 198 kr.

Phone numbers are only phone numbers because we, the intelligent designers, have made the rules that decide what is required in order for a sequence of digits to function as an actual phone number.
Talking about information detached from the translation system which defines it as information doesn’t make sense.

We don’t get information without the act of choice, a feature that is related only to intelligent agency. A random process producing information is therefore an oxymoronic (or just moronic) concept. The translation system that defines what sequences are functional is obviously intelligently designed because it involves the conscious selection of parameters.

The information-product connection

Not only is the problem that there aren’t enough probabilistic resources to produce the DNA code by random processes but the DNA code would in fact not be information without the translation system. The code, together with the translation system, would still be worthless if it weren’t strictly tied to the last part of the overall system, namely the product, the organism.

In the end, it is the final product that defines that the information which forms the basis of the product can be considered information in the first place.

Code-translation-product

In a modern car factory we have the three part production system which consists of computer code, the machinery (robots) that translate the code into specific movements, and finally the end product, the car. It is obvious that the intelligent designers did not start with the two first items, the code and the translation. It was the final product which initially was in the mind of the intelligent designers. The code and the translation tools were developed in coordination to realize the idea of a car, the idea of which initially was in the mind of the intelligent designer.

Hence I will argue that information is only information if it is related to the end product. The idea (logos) comes first, then secondly the coding and the translation tools are put together simultaneously in order to realize the idea.

I think it is reasonable to argue that information is necessarily tied to a product, an idea (logos) or message, and that the product always is in the mind of the intelligent designer as the first thing. Information can therefore not be the product of a mindless process.

Human-engineered factory production is characterized by initially having a desired object in mind. After the inception of the idea, robots are built that can produce the object, and lastly the coding that is going to operate the machinery is done. The important thing here is that the idea of the end product comes first; the translation (the machinery) and the coding comes after inception of the idea.

A code—which is what we call information—is nothing in itself because it is slave to the idea. I would argue that the same counts for living things, that the DNA code was set up to realize and idea, an organism the intelligent designer already had in mind.

Identifying that something is wrong

It is the end product that defines whether a code sequence carries (“correct”) information or not. If cars leave the production line with only three wheels or with just one headlight, we become aware that something is wrong with the underlying information. So that is how we can evaluate if something can be regarded as information, simply by looking at the end product.

The materialist cannot escape the fact of teleology in nature, because even he or she will recognize illness and defect as something that is “wrong” with an organism, thereby acknowledging the overall idea and purpose of an organism.

When it comes to information the process always starts with an idea in a mind. The information that’s needed to realize the idea is defined by the idea, not the other way around. This makes it unlikely that information could arise by mindless natural processes, because we need a mind with an idea before we come to the part we call information.

Because human engineers, the only intelligent designers we are familiar with, operate in the described way, with the idea as the primary and the translation and coding as secondary, we have an empirical basis for arguing that life is the product of an idea in the mind of an intelligent designer.

The idea is primary

In human engineering you start with the end-product in mind, for instance a car. Then you set up the machinery that can produce the wanted item, and lastly you program the machinery. In written language you also start with the end-product, namely the message you want to convey, and then you do the “programming”, the sequencing of letters which follows the in advance chosen rules. It is not possible to look at information separated from the translation and the end product. The three parts, code-translation-product, are inherently connected, the idea, product or message in the mind of the intelligent designer being the first to arise.

So even if the chances of a protein arising in a prebiotic soup were not out of reach, it would still not be a protein because a protein is defined by its function in the end-product, the organism. A DNA sequence can only be defined as information if you already have the organism in view. Therefore it makes sense that in the beginning was the idea, the logos.

Conclusion

I think my argument shows that idealism is true and materialism is false, that random processes do not produce information, and that a mind with an idea is the primary means by which everything comes into existence. One can use it to argue for ID and for teleology in nature. I would also not hesitate to use it as argument in a theological debate.

See also: Karsten Pultz: The perils of talking about ID He wonders, should he give up?

Comments
'Exit Evolution'. Love the title! 'Exit Left Evolution', might have added an ironic hint of the vapid histrionics of its devotees, strutting and fretting their hour upon the stage. I hope one day the money-bags, the principals of the multinationals, who fund much of scientific research, are called to account for imposing a patently phony and exhaustively-discredited, 'Brave Old World' paradigm on modern science, holding it back, for goodness knows how long.Axel
January 23, 2020
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Martin_r Your name now contains a link to your blog. Well done! Thanks.jawa
January 7, 2020
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Martin_r
And, of course, 99% lay atheists have no idea about repeated evolution issues … and i can assure you, i have debated lots of them ..
I have done it also and found the same. They have no answer to the problem. They change the topic or just respond with silence. I think many have never even heard of it. When they discover the problem, they know it is absurd and absolutely incredible. But what can they say? Years ago when I first heard about convergent evolution I burst out laughing. They seriously expect people to believe that. And evolutionists do believe it, without daring to question. A 5 year old child can see how ridiculous that story is. In fact, a 5 year old could make up a more convincing one.Silver Asiatic
January 6, 2020
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Martin_r, I don't have any problem with your grammar. It seems fine to me. Do you recognize the language in this video? :) https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/why-do-we-keep-sending-music-to-extraterrestrials/#comment-690623 BTW, your name in your latest comment does not show any link yet. At least not for me. For example, Bornagain77 is associated with a link to his blog.jawa
January 6, 2020
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Jawa @44 it is Europe (i apologize for my English grammar, it is not my first language) Yes, i also like your suggestion - linking my nickname to my blog, it is done.martin_r
January 6, 2020
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BA77 @42: Excellent commentary in reply to PavelU's comment. I think your comment should be posted in the "fossils" thread too. Just a thought. Thanks.jawa
January 6, 2020
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Martin_r, Wow! That's an excellent work you've done. Definitely you should publish it, but in the meantime, you may want to associate your posting name Martin_r with the link to your interesting blog? Just a suggestion. Thanks. BTW, are you in Europe or across the big pond? Just curious. :)jawa
January 6, 2020
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Jawa@41 yes, i was collecting repeated-evolution-articles for many years... it is crazy what these guys (biologists) claim.... i really doubt that these people are mentally intact (and they calling us stupid ?) e.g. have a look at this, this guy even understands the issue: "Molecular phylogenetic evidence for the independent evolutionary origin of an arthropod compound eye" "These results illustrate exactly why arthropod compound eye evolution has remained controversial, because one of two seemingly very unlikely evolutionary histories must be true. Either compound eyes with detailed similarities evolved multiple times in different arthropod groups or compound eyes have been lost in a seemingly inordinate number of arthropod lineages http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/99/3/1426.full.pdf And, of course, 99% lay atheists have no idea about repeated evolution issues ... and i can assure you, i have debated lots of them .. in time, i will publish everything what i found, i am glad you like my comments...martin_r
January 6, 2020
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"A major problem for evolution is that the first mudskipper in the fossil record is morphologically a modern mudskipper. Long assumed to be a transitional animal between a swimming fish and a tetrapod (four footed) animal, a recent study by Kutschera and Elliott (2013, p. 1) concluded that, although some walking fishes such as mudskippers “shed light on the gradual evolutionary transition of ancient fishes to early tetrapods … they are not the ancestors of tetrapods, because extant organisms cannot be progenitors of other living beings.”
Mudskippers. The Strangest Creature ever to Defy Evolution December 14, 2016 Excerpt: No fossil evidence exists for their putative evolution from some pre-mudskipper organism. Scientists are not even able to satisfactorily classify modern mudskippers into a family, leaving their evolution to pure speculation. They were once included in the Oxudercinae subfamily, within the family Gobiidae (gobies), but recent molecular studies do not support this classification. Darwinists are now stymied about their phylogeny, and can only speculate concerning from what and how they could have evolved. A major problem for evolution is that the first mudskipper in the fossil record is morphologically a modern mudskipper. Long assumed to be a transitional animal between a swimming fish and a tetrapod (four footed) animal, a recent study by Kutschera and Elliott (2013, p. 1) concluded that, although some walking fishes such as mudskippers “shed light on the gradual evolutionary transition of ancient fishes to early tetrapods … they are not the ancestors of tetrapods, because extant organisms cannot be progenitors of other living beings.” As Polgar, et al. note, more study is required to detail the evolution of the mudskipper (2014, p. 179). Many experts have hypothesized that fish fins evolved into terrestrial limbs, a theory that also does not fit the facts (Clack, 2012, p. 136). For example, the earliest tetrapods were not pentadactyl (having five fingers and toes) as are modern tetrapods, and the fossil evidence does not support the fin to limb evolution (Clack, 2012, pp. 136-137). Summary In short, the mudskipper is not a fish that evolved legs or an amphibian that evolved to look like a fish, but a graceful well designed swimmer in water that gets along so well out of water that they spend most of their life on land and thrive in large areas of the world. We have no evidence of fish-fin to tetrapod limb evolution, and the mudskipper does not help to explain the major missing links that can bridge the two structures. Like the duck-billed platypus, the mudskipper contains a unique mosaic of features found on many different animals. And this situation is bad news for evolutionists. http://www.create.ab.ca/mudskippers-the-strangest-creature-ever-to-defy-evolution/
And to have the following finding, just makes the claim from Darwinists all the more comical
Repeated evolution: A fish living on land is NOT an extraordinary thing but a common phenomenon PUBLISHED 6TH JANUARY 2020 Fish have evolved the ability to live on land many times, challenging the perception that this extreme lifestyle shift was likely to have been a rare occurrence in ancient times. New research shows 33 different families of fish have at least one species that demonstrates some terrestrial activity and, in many cases, these behaviors are likely to have evolved independently in the different families. A fish out of water might seem an extraordinary thing, but in fact it is quite a common phenomenon,” says study first author and UNSW evolutionary ecologist Dr Terry Ord full article is here: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160622102129.htm https://stuffhappens.info/repeated-evolution-a-fish-out-of-water-is-not-an-extraordinary-thing-but-a-common-phenomenon/
Convergent evolution is simply a hard and devastating failure for Darwinists:
The Real Problem With Convergence - Cornelius Hunter - May 25, 2017 Excerpt: 21st century evolutionists are still befuddled by convergence, which is rampant in biology, and how it could occur. This certainly is a problem for the theory.,,, a fundamental evidence and prediction of evolution is falsified. The species do not fall into the expected evolutionary pattern. The failure of fundamental predictions — and this is a hard failure — is fatal for scientific theories. It leaves evolution not as a scientific theory but as an ad hoc exercise in storytelling. https://www.evolutionnews.org/2017/05/the-real-problem-with-convergence/ The “Shared Error” Argument - Cornelius Hunter - April 17, 2017 Excerpt: the evolutionist’s contention that common descent is needed to explain those shared mutations in different species contradicts the most basic biology. Simply put, similarities across species which cannot be explained by common descent, are rampant in biology. The olfactory system is no exception. Its several fundamental components, if evolution is true, must have evolved several times independently. The level of independent origin which evolutionists must admit to (variously referred to as convergent evolution, parallel evolution, recurrent evolution, cascades of convergence, and so forth depending on the pattern) is staggering and dwarfs the levels of similarities in the olfactory receptor genes. To cast those relatively few similarities as mandates for common descent, while ignoring the volumes of similarities that violate common descent constitutes the mother of all confirmation biases. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2017/04/new-book-olfactory-receptor-genes-prove.html Problem 7: Convergent Evolution Challenges Darwinism and Destroys the Logic Behind Common Ancestry - Casey Luskin February 9, 2015 Excerpt: Whenever evolutionary biologists are forced to appeal to convergent evolution, it reflects a breakdown in the main assumption, and an inability to fit the data to a treelike pattern. Examples of this abound in the literature,,,, Biochemist and Darwin-skeptic Fazale Rana reviewed the technical literature and documented over 100 reported cases of convergent genetic evolution.126 Each case shows an example where biological similarity -- even at the genetic level -- is not the result of inheritance from a common ancestor. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/02/problem_7_conve091161.html
bornagain77
January 6, 2020
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Martin_r: Thanks for the link to your new blog: http://www.stuffhappens.info Will look into it. I see you've done some interesting research. :) BTW, you may want to follow up at the "fossils" thread too.jawa
January 6, 2020
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JAWA @39 thanks. If you look for more miracles, go and visit my new blog on repeated (convergent) evolution: http://www.stuffhappens.infomartin_r
January 6, 2020
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Martin_r: You brought up excellent points. FYI- I copied your comment @36 to the "fossils" thread. Maybe your comment @38 would help in that other thread too? Thanks.jawa
January 6, 2020
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and PavelU ... if you like fish, also get this: "Air bladders or lungs in different groups of fishes evolved multiple times" (independently) Pavel, you don't have to be a genius to see, that all these features (lungs and air bladders) where designed, created, and not evolved (repeatedly) by some random mutations, unless you believe in miracles ... :))) full article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15547792 P.S. Pavel, did you know that the icon of evolution - the appendix, also evolved multiple times independently in various species ? Scientists say, that it happened at least 30 times independently (go and google it)martin_r
January 6, 2020
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Latemarch @35 & Martin_r @36, I like your pertinent comments on the issue PavelU brought up above. Thanks. It takes more than fin-to-leg transformation in order to survive on land. Shouldn't the breathing machinery be adjusted too? Note this reply to a similar post by PavelU in the "fossils" thread:
In the mid 2000s several fossils were discovered in northern Canada of a strange fish-like creature dubbed Tiktaalik. The fossils were dated to hundreds of millions of years ago, to a time when there were thought to be fish but no vertebrate land animals, or “tetrapods.” On close examination the fossils were seen to have structures — in particular, bones that resembled wrists — that were thought to make them good candidates for transitional forms between fish and tetrapods. For several years Tiktaalik was hailed as the missing link between fish and land vertebrates. But its moment of fame was cut short in early 2010 with the discovery of fossil footprints in Poland of true tetrapods which were at least ten million years older than Tiktaalik. At a stroke, the Canadian fossil could no longer be a transitional form, since it appeared later in the fossil record than its supposed descendants.
https://evolutionnews.org/2019/11/johnsons-darwin-on-trial-as-fresh-and-relevant-as-ever/
The claim in the PBS video (timecode 6:02-6:06) that ancestors of early tetrapods like Tiktaalik and Ichthyostega probably had a swim bladder is complete rubbish. But it gets worse. PBS makes up a completely idiotic scenario where the swim bladder allegedly became bigger in some lobe-finned fish, developed more blood vessels, and then in time transformed the air bladder from a hydrostatic organ into a respiratory organ. This was then split into a paired lung in bichirs and lungfish. Again, this whole scenario is complete nonsense. It is emphatically not proposed by any evolutionary biologist! Lungs simply could not have evolved from the swim bladder. Why? Because lungs predate the origin of the swim bladder, while the latter only appears as a parallel development in a subgroup of bony fish that has the lungs secondarily reduced. Alternatively the lungs and swim bladder might have both evolved from the primitive lungs of a common ancestor of lobe-finned and ray-finned fish (Tatsumi et al. 2016), which would be the exact reverse of the PBS fantasy scenario. So, could PBS be excused on the grounds that this is all brand-new research they simply did not yet know about? Not really. I learned all of the above at Tübingen University nearly 25 years ago. We were told even then by our fantastic teacher Dr. Gerhard Mickoleit about the “urban legend” that lungs evolved from the swim bladder. (See his book Phylogenetische Systematik der Wirbeltiere, 2004: pp. 82 and 88, Pfeil Verlag.) At their Patreon fundraising site, PBS Eons advertises itself as being “devoted to making sure our content is of the highest possible quality, and that takes a lot of time and resources.” From a self-proclaimed high-class educational program, such crude errors are intolerable.
https://evolutionnews.org/2019/08/pbs-eons-teaches-nonsense-about-evolution/ Here's the link to the other thread: https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/science-newss-top-fossils-in-2019-show-a-diminishing-darwin/#comment-690615jawa
January 6, 2020
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PavelU @22 to be honest, i don't know how fish-out-water-article is related to this debate, however, by now we all know that you are a very confused guy, and you have no idea what you are talking about. Anyway, Pavel, fish-out-of-water .... get this: "Fish have evolved the ability to live on land many times, challenging the perception that this extreme lifestyle shift was likely to have been a rare occurrence in ancient times, new UNSW Australia research shows." ""A fish out of water might seem an extraordinary thing, but in fact it is quite a common phenomenon," says study first author and UNSW evolutionary ecologist Dr Terry Ord. " HA-HA-HA ... fish-out-of-water is a common phenomenon ????? if this story is true, it sounds to me more like an intelligent design feature :))))) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160622102129.htmmartin_r
January 6, 2020
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Pav@22
Here’s a very recent paper that shows how fish evolved to crawling animals on land: https://phys.org/news/2019-12-fish-fins-evolved-transition.html https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/12/24/1915983117
And that's relevant to the OP just how? From Stephencmeyer.org
It’s called citation (or literature) bluffing, and the tactic goes something like this: First, make a controversial claim in favor of evolution. Then list a bunch of impressive-sounding technical papers that appear to support that claim. Do not quote from or describe the contents of the papers. That wouldn’t be a bluff, because it would require actually dealing with the evidence. Instead, just enumerate the references in laundry-list fashion, as if they all supported the point. Count on no one taking the time to dig up the obscure references and fact-check the claims. (Subscription-required journal access often makes it nearly impossible for readers to fact-check anyway.) Otherwise, readers would discover the papers are either irrelevant to the claim being made or contradict one another and don’t support a coherent argument. If the bluff works, those who place unjustified faith in the infallibility of the peer-review process will be impressed, gloating that the juggernaut of science has rolled over the skeptics. Meanwhile, the mass of people who aren’t familiar with the technical literature—or don’t have access to it—will be intimidated from further comment.
Latemarch
January 5, 2020
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Kf@32 said: Then, explain to me how a serious argument on well founded observations and analysis loses probative force due to who says it? This is where the intersectionality and Id politics and. Pc folks got their approach to who is permitted to say what.es58
January 5, 2020
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interesting discussionpw
January 5, 2020
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Sev, pray, tell me, who are experts on communication systems? Then, explain to me how a serious argument on well founded observations and analysis loses probative force due to who says it? In the OP, there is something highly significant: meaningfulness of a highly contingent result is tied to a system of symbols, often with linguistic character. In the case of music, there is a famous remark by a theologian (though it was likely to be a commonplace instructional example on the law of identity and close corollaries in the schools of 2,000 years ago):
1 Cor 14: 7 Yet even lifeless things, whether flute or harp, when producing a sound, if they do not produce distinct [musical] tones, how will anyone [listening] know what is piped or played? 8 And if the [war] bugle produces an indistinct sound, who will prepare himself for battle? 9 So it is with you, if you speak words [in an unknown tongue] that are not intelligible and clear, how will anyone understand what you are saying? You will be talking into the air [wasting your breath]! 10 There are, I suppose, a great many kinds of languages in the world [unknown to us], and none is lacking in meaning . . . [AMP, cf here on ]
A musical example, cited by a theologian. Does sneering at the man now undermine the merits of the point? Patently, not. And just so, when we see complex, coded, 4-state digital information in the heart of the living cell, functioning in literally vital processes such as protein synthesis, we are well within epistemic rights to infer to the only credible, empirically warranted source of complex, meaningful, functional, coded linguistic information, i.e. intelligently directed configuration. KFkairosfocus
January 5, 2020
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.
Of course. And lawyers, neurosurgeons, journalists, domestic appliance repairmen, engineers (lots of engineers).
Seversky, you can stand directly in front of famous predictions, experimental results, and well-recorded history -- all in unambiguous support of design in biology -- and you cannot even speak the words. You are left to nothing but your rhetoric, Sev, rhetoric over documented empirical evidence.Upright BiPed
January 5, 2020
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PavelU is a very confused guy... however, it is not his fault... biologists - natural science graduates - misinterpret everything ...what's worse, they making up stories, and calling it 'science'.... we see it all the time... i doubt that biologists will ever understand what they are looking at....martin_r
January 5, 2020
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Sev@28 and how are biologists - natural science graduates - qualified to talk about a good/ bad design ? Biologists -they never made anything...martin_r
January 5, 2020
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Pater Kimbridge @ 21
Karsten Pultz ? So creationists are now learning science from music composers? (facepalm)
Of course. And lawyers, neurosurgeons, journalists, domestic appliance repairmen, engineers (lots of engineers). Why not?Seversky
January 5, 2020
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Ed:
When PavelU provides references, it is a literature bluff.
Because the references never support his assertion. We always say why it's a literature bluff.
When BA77 provides a reference, it is supporting his assertions.
Because they do. And he makes the case as to why/ how they do. Ed George admits he cannot follow a discussion.ET
January 5, 2020
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Ed George, it is a literature bluff for the simple reason that it has no empirical evidence supporting its claims. As I outlined in post 20, it was a computer simulation that had no reference to the real world. Whereas my citations that refuted his claim did reference real world observations. For instance:
“There is always an observable consequence if a dGRN (developmental gene regulatory network) subcircuit is interrupted. Since these consequences are always catastrophically bad, flexibility is minimal, and since the subcircuits are all interconnected, the whole network partakes of the quality that there is only one way for things to work. And indeed the embryos of each species develop in only one way.” – Eric Davidson – developmental biologist
In other words, my refutation of his paper was not a literature bluff, as his paper was, since I referenced real world empirical evidence to refute his computer simulation.. Perhaps, (since you can not tell the difference between when you are being hoodwinked by evidence free Darwinian propaganda and what the empirical evidence itself is actually telling you), that goes a long way towards explaining why you are so gullible as to accept evidence free Darwinian propaganda in the first place? (Your inherent animosity towards God explaining why you would be prone to that gullibility towards Darwinism most likely also plays a major role as well)bornagain77
January 5, 2020
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LM
Don’t bother. It’s just another Pav citation bluff.
When PavelU provides references, it is a literature bluff. When BA77 provides a reference, it is supporting his assertions.Ed George
January 5, 2020
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Body plan evolution not as simple as once believed
The left side is a rendering of a Drosophila yakuba male fly while the right side is a Drosophila santomea male. Drosophila santomea has lost most of its body coloration during the .5 million years since the two species diverged, including bands of pigmentation that adorn each abdominal segment and the full pigmentation of posterior segments. Credit: Eden Wellesley McQueen
The role of Hox genes in changing the layout of different body parts during evolution has been challenged by a study led by researchers out of the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Biological Sciences.
Hox genes are vital to developing differences in repeated body parts such as vertebrae, limbs, or digits in most animal species, including human beings. Ever since their discovery, scientists have thought that modifications to Hox genes could be the primary way that the animal body plan has been altered during evolution.
The paper, "Changes throughout a genetic network masks the contribution of Hox gene evolution," discusses experiments that pinpoint evolutionary changes in a Hox gene, but found that several other genes had evolved alongside it to generate a difference in pigmentation along the fruit fly body plan. The paper was published in Current Biology June 27.
The experiment identified evolutionary modifications in Hox gene Abd-B that caused a drastic loss of expression on the body of the Dropsophila santomea (D. santomea) fruit fly. The same gene is necessary for the fruit fly's sister species, Dropsophila yakuba (D. yakuba,) to express body pigmentation, so changes to that gene were expected to cause a loss of pigmentation across the species.
However, when researchers restored the D yakuba Abd-b gene to D. santomea, it did not restore or increase the amount of pigmentation shown. Researchers said that outcome is the result of four other genes within the D. santomea pigmentation network, three of which evolved in ways that prevent it from responding to Hox gene Abd-B.
"Hox genes are clearly very important regulators of animal development, setting up animal body plans and showing signs of change in all sorts of creatures whose body plans differ. This work shows just how complex the process of evolving those differences can be. It takes all sorts of genes working together to generate these phenotypes," said Mark Rebeiz, an associate professor of evolutionary development who was a lead author on the paper.
  Notice that a whole complex choreography is needed just for minor changes. Same biological system, but with few differences. Perhaps comparable to the case of the different models (LE, XSE, XLE) of a given car (Toyota Rav4, Honda CR-V)? Not sure.  OLV
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Pater K:
So creationists are now learning science from music composers?
No, people are learning that your position is not science because it doesn't even meet the basic requirement of testability.ET
January 5, 2020
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Here's a very recent paper that shows how fish evolved to crawling animals on land: https://phys.org/news/2019-12-fish-fins-evolved-transition.html https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/12/24/1915983117PavelU
January 5, 2020
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Karsten Pultz ? So creationists are now learning science from music composers? (facepalm)Pater Kimbridge
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