Nullasalus writes here:
By the way – does anyone else notice that when it comes to evolution, disagreement is always translated as ‘You don’t understand evolution!’?
Larry Moran plays the card in the link I give. Everyone’s playing the card with Kaz. Dawkins and company played the card with EO Wilson. EO Wilson arguably played it right back. Jerry Fodor got the same treatment for writing What Darwin Got Wrong. Thomas Nagel got the same.
It’s as if disagreement is literally unthinkable. You’re either all on the same page or you just don’t get evolution fundamentally.
That seems about right based on my experience.
James Shapiro got the same from Jerry Coyne.
It’s a really odd theory when guys with a lifetime in molecular biology don’t get it whereas every internet troll does.
Jon Garvey @ 1
You just don’t understand evolution 8^>
[Couldn’t resist]
I think they are all right. Nobody understands evolution.
And don’t forget: nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution… even if nobody seems to understand it!
If by the general term ‘evolution’ I have to assume both micro and macro evo, then things get really very difficult for me to understand, regardless of how much I try it. The more I try to understand cell fate determination/migration mapping, epigenetic regulatory networks, signaling pathways, genotype to phenotype association, the whole nine yards and their cousins, the harder it is for me to understand the macro component of the evo stories, like the magic extrapolation of the Galapagos finches adaptation to the mysterious OOL problem.
I guess I must keep trying, right?
Well I don’t expect to understand it, having only spent one career in medicine – of which, as William implies, nothing made sense.
I avoid using the term “micro” and “macro” evolution because they live to weasle around those terms. The more precision the better. You want to make a Darwinist squirm? Damand they give you a detailed account of how RV+NS produced any cell type, tissue type, organ or body plan.
Of course, they can never do it. They have no idea. They just seem micro changes, scale the idea and think it’s a valid explanation. Engineers know better.
The explanatory gap for Blind Watchmaker evolution is bigger than the Grand Canyon. We know it. And they know we know it.
Funny, this is one of wd400’s favorite tactics as well, as witnessed just earlier today on another thread.
Of course, I also accuse others of not understanding evolution. Namely, those who accept it as a valid explanation for all of biology we see around us. They obviously don’t know what evolution can and can’t do — they just don’t understand it. 🙂
The best part is when evolutionists are shown to not understand what evolutionism entails. I have been accused of creating the strawman of blind watchmaker evolution- yup Richard Dawkins created a strawman. Jerry Coyne promotes a strawman too- at least that is what evos over on atbc want to believe.
It’s true, when IDists point out that evolutionism (ie darwinian and neo-darwinian evolution) posits blind and undirected processes (natural selection is blind and mindless with its random variation being undirected, ie happenstance), the evos over on atbc start twitching and claiming strawman- even after pages of references have been provided.
Amazingly pathetic.
And the Emperor still isn’t wearing anything at all!!
“The Emperor’s New Clothes” (Danish: Kejserens nye Klæder) is a short tale by Hans Christian Andersen about two weavers who promise an Emperor a new suit of clothes that is invisible to those unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. When the Emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, a child cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.....ew_Clothes
Music:
Michael W Smith – “You Won’t Let Go” – video
Lyric: “Not a shadow comes without the light making a way”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNZusL1OHG4
CentralScrutinizer @ 6
Random Variation + Natural Selection?
Got it. Won’t hold my breath while waiting for their valid answer.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Funny, this is one of wd400?s favorite tactics as well, as witnessed just earlier today on another thread.
I belive you are talking about the thread from which this post was plucked.
I’m curious though. What are we meant to do when we see critques of evolutionary biology that are not, in fact, related to evolutionary biology.
Junk DNA is the obvious example here – almost every word spend on that topic in these pages get’s the argument for junk DNA wrong. In fact, it reached a laugable extend in a recent thread when I had to explicitdly state the same point four times and people before anyone actually noticed what I was saying. Other prominant examples are “croc-o-duck” and reificaton of analogies from engineering/comp. sci. to biology. As I’ve said before, many internet-atheists defend the same cartoon versoins of evolution that IDers oppose. But if you want ID to be more that a shiboleth in USian culutre war then surely it should relate to evolutionary theory as it exists, not as is widely misunderstood?
wd400 claims the Emperor is wearing cloths!
“then surely it should relate to evolutionary theory as it exists,”
Evolution does not qualify as a valid scientific theory wd400, and is more properly classified as a pseudo-science since, number 1, it has no mathematical basis (In fact math constantly tells us Darwinism is false)
Active Information in Metabiology – Winston Ewert, William A. Dembski, Robert J. Marks II – 2013
Except page 9: Chaitin states [3], “For many years I have thought that it is a mathematical scandal that we do not have proof that Darwinian evolution works.” In fact, mathematics has consistently demonstrated that undirected Darwinian evolution does not work.
http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/.....O-C.2013.4
and number two it has no empirical support (in fact empirics also tells us that Darwinism is false)
“The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain – Michael Behe – December 2010
Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain.
http://behe.uncommondescent.co.....evolution/
Where’s the substantiating evidence for neo-Darwinism?
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q-PBeQELzT4pkgxB2ZOxGxwv6ynOixfzqzsFlCJ9jrw/edit
CS,
Damand they give you a detailed account of how RV+NS produced any cell type, tissue type, organ or body plan
I’m not sure exactly what you mean by a “deatailed account” – surely not a mutation by mutation account? If you want an in-depth look at what we know about the evolution of one system of cell-types and tissue, approached from a range of angles, there is this issue of Transactions of the Royal Society B. (http://rstb.royalsocietypublis...../2911.long).
I would also point out cancer is precisely the evolution of a different cell and tissue type, and is also the result of random variation and natural selection. With transmissable cancers these cells can even esapce and out live their host!
We would love to evolutionary theory but no one seems to be able find it. It’s as if it doesn’t exist. So we relate to what evolutionary biologists say. And they usually say contradictory things. So don’t blame us.
wd400, in regards to your ‘fanciful’ paper that you cited,,
“Recent findings shed light on the steps underlying the evolution of vertebrate photoreceptors and retina.”
,, wd400 Did you know that in the recent ‘Mother-Lode of Fossils’ from the Cambrian Explosion that they found retinas and corneas?
‘Mother Lode’ of Fossils Discovered in Canada – Feb. 11, 2014
Excerpt: Retinas, corneas, neural tissue, guts and even a possible heart and liver were found.
http://www.scientificamerican......in-canada/
Not good for your imaginary story telling wd400!
“Evolution is very possibly not, in actual fact, always gradual. But it must be gradual when it is being used to explain the coming into existence of complicated, apparently designed objects, like eyes. For if it is not gradual in these cases, it ceases to have any explanatory power at all. Without gradualness in these cases, we are back to miracle, which is simply a synonym for the total absence of explanation.”
Dawkins, R. (1995) River Out of Eden, Basic Books, New York, p. 83.
also of note:
“How came the Bodies of Animals to be contrived with so much Art…. Was the Eye contrived without skill in Opticks, and the Ear without Knowledge of Sounds?” –
Sir Isaac Newton
William Bialek: More Perfect Than We Imagined – March 23, 2013
Excerpt: photoreceptor cells that carpet the retinal tissue of the eye and respond to light, are not just good or great or phabulous at their job. They are not merely exceptionally impressive by the standards of biology, with whatever slop and wiggle room the animate category implies. Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period. Each one is designed to detect and respond to single photons of light — the smallest possible packages in which light comes wrapped.
http://darwins-god.blogspot.co.....an-we.html
Second the inverted retina, which evolutionists insist is “bad design”, is now found to be a ‘optimal design:
Retinal Glial Cells Enhance Human Vision Acuity A. M. Labin and E. N. Ribak
Physical Review Letters, 104, 158102 (April 2010)
Excerpt: The retina is revealed as an optimal structure designed for improving the sharpness of images.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20482021
Optimized hardware compression, The eyes have it. – February 2011
Excerpt: the human visual processing system is “the best compression algorithm around”.
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....s-have-it/
To actually simulate 10 milliseconds of the complete processing of even a single nerve cell from the retina would require the solution of about 500 simultaneous nonlinear differential equations 100 times and would take at least several minutes of processing time on a Cray supercomputer. Keeping in mind that there are 10 million or more such cells interacting with each other in complex ways, it would take a minimum of 100 years of Cray time to simulate what takes place in your eye many times every second.
wd400,
You used one of the most classic defenses to the problem of explaining step by step evolution, that exists in the evolutionists playbook. You simply quoted an article which claimed to explain the evolution of some body part, and felt this must serve the job. You clearly don’t understand the article, you don’t care if you understand the article, but you are satisfied that the title says something about explaining something. Here is a typical paragraph of the article you referenced:
“Recently, Arendt (2008) has extended these ideas into a model for the evolution of cell types, using the powerful information that can be obtained from ‘molecular fingerprinting’ of different cell classes, and he has set out several principles for the evolution of cell types. He provides evidence that early metazoans possessed few cell types, but that these cell types were typically multi-functional and expressed numerous genes, and that in the course of evolution, cells tended to diversify by segregation of function. Thus, two descendant (sister) cell types would tend to have the original functions of the parent cell type divided between them, in a complementary manner, so that they would each become more specialized; in addition, each might gain new functions. He further proposed that functionally divergent sister cell types might tend to migrate apart spatially, but that in doing so they would tend to retain contact with each, as exemplified by neural contacts between distant cells in the nervous system. ”
No step by step explanations, just an article about similarities in homologies in eye structures. I guess you use the typical evolutionist dodging technique that is so classical, because you just don’t understand evolution. Welcome to the club.
Phoodoo,
The paper I linked to is the introduction to a theme issue, consisting of 12 papers tacklking the evolution of vetebrate vision from different angles. If you read and absorbed the details of all 12 papers in the hour since I posted then you’ve done very well. If, instead, you’ve just scanned down the intro page hopig to see a step-by-step list of how veterebrate retinas evolved you will be dissapointed.
As I said, the linked issue gives you an idea of what we know about the evolution of the retina an associated cells and molecules. The quoted paragraph (which has nothing to do with ” homologies in eye structures” sp far as I can tell), describes one model by which complexity increases in evolutionary time called sub-functionlisation. Other articles deal with development and molecular evolution.Biology is complex, there probably are no simple step-by-step models to find. But the articles in that issue (and many hundreds more published in many other journals) show us how evolutionary approaches can help us understand that complexity.
That was the point in linking to it. Though I increasingly think there is no point inmy posting here.
Don’t forget James Tour – Organic Chemist, rated one of the Top 10 Chemists in the world, he “doesn’t understand evolution” either. Neither do any of his colleagues whom he testifies admit that the theory makes no sense to them either.
Don’t forget Didier Raoult – “the most productive and influential microbiologist in France, leading a team of 200 scientists and students at the University of Aix-Marseille…. Raoult last year published a popular science book that flat-out declares that Darwin’s theory of evolution is wrong. And he was temporarily banned from publishing in a dozen leading microbiology journals in 2006.”
http://www.sciencemag.org/cont.....33.summary
Who would love to see wd400 telling Raoult that he doesn’t understand evolution theory? That would be an interesting discussion.
It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that). ~ Richard Dawkins
When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff. ~ Cicero
Ive never seen this as a conviction, but rather a rhetorical strategy. Step One: Change the subject. Step Two: Make your opponent the topic
wd400,
Let me see if I can close the gap between where we are, and where you are. It seems clear that you are not quite aware of the qualitative difference between our critique of RMNS evolution, and what you are claiming is evidence in support of RMNS.
At its root, the difference is this:
1) UD critique: there is not only no experimental laboratory support for RM gradualism, what experimental laboratory evidence that there is (e.g. e. coli., fruit fly mutations) indicates experimentally that RM gradualism doesn’t work. In addition, the fossil record provides no empirical evidence for RM gradualism – it shows stasis and fully-formed “leaps” in form and function.
2) Evolutionist(wd400) defense: biologists have developed models and proposals based on molecular and morphological studies that provide a theoretical explanation of how existing life forms developed certain attributes via RM gradualism.
As support for my conclusion, Exhibit A: the link you provide above. In the paper you cite, we read the following (all emphasis mine):
And so on. To Phoodoo’s point, the word “Homologous” or “Homology” appears 17 times in this one paper. Quite simply, this paper could have been, and most likely was, written without a single laboratory experiment being performed. Like any paper you would be able to provide a citation for that supports RM gradualism, it provides models and proposals, but no physical reproduction or reproducible mechanism for RM gradualism.
At its core, our disagreement with you comes down to how we answer this question:
“Does providing a model, proposal, or theoretical reproduction of how RM gradualism could occur or might have occurred, serve as proof that RM gradualism is a valid theory?”
Your answer: yes, models = evidence.
Our answer: no, some level of physical or mathematical support is required.
It is not that we “don’t understand evolution” – it is that we disagree with the Grecian approach to science that says if I can come up with a reasonable, logical explanation, I don’t have to provide any experimental support.
wd400,
Probably unfair to call you out, but this thread just reminded me of your recent comment and your oft-used approach, which is why I mentioned it. Nick Matzke is at least as guilty, so I could have referred to him.
Much of the problem is that there is no coherent, unifying theory of evolution. Rather, there is a hodgepodge of various ideas that come under the heading of “evolution”, ranging from the obvious and the well-supported to the outrageous and the wildly-speculative.
When someone critiques one of the wild ideas — not based on stuff the critics made up, but based on statements or principles articulated by prominent evolutionists — then the critic is often accused of not understanding evolutionary theory.
It is true that there are some well-grounded principles that come under the heading of “evolution”. But those invariably relate to minor things that hardly anyone objects to anyway — peppered moths and finch beaks and antibiotic resistance.
Look, I understand the approach. If I were trying to stand up for evolution in light of criticism of some of the wilder claims I might be tempted to say to the critics: “You don’t understand evolution” — which really means, “You’re not critiquing the parts of evolutionary theory I believe in.”
Fair enough. But let’s be willing to acknowledge that in addition to the well-grounded aspects we might feel to support there is also a lot of stuff that comes under the heading of “evolution” that is not well supported, indeed that cannot be objectively described as anything other than incoherent or wild speculations.
wd400- Thank you for the link to that paper. I have read it all but it is getting late and I will definitely get back to it tomorrow.
I will say that so far it really puts into perspective what the blind watchmaker was up against.
drc466,
Indeed, my point exactly. The paper is nothing more than observing loads of similarities in structure of cells and photo-receptors, and using this as a basis for concluding how evolution must have worked. It is so far from approaching a step by step explanation for how evolution occurred, that it becomes a perfect deflection for wd400 to use. Because it is long, full of varying descriptions of biological features, and doesn’t have a specific point, wd400 can claim it means anything he says it does, without having to specifically say what.
“Until quite recently, it had generally been thought that the photoreceptor cells of most invertebrates (protostomes) were rhabdomeric, whereas the photoreceptor cells of vertebrates were ciliary (see Eakin 1965). However, over the last decade it has become clear that there are numerous examples where a given vertebrate or invertebrate species may contain both ciliary and rhabdomeric photoreceptors”
Perhaps this was the salinet point in the article wd400 wanted to highlight? We used to think that invertebrates had only one type of cell but now we know they possess two?
Who knows, because the title is his stronghold, so he needs no further evidence. “Quick, google a science article with the word evolution, that should throw them off my trail”!
The most telling line in the paper is this:
“It must be emphasized, though, that uncertainties abound, and that a good deal of speculation is involved”
Indeed, quite a good deal.
Great, so it was another literature bluff . . .
Another similarity to Matzke. He is the master of the literature bluff. 🙂
drc466 @ 20
Very perceptive – well put!
wd400:
Why not? But obviously, a specific detailed neo darwinian pathway to a functional new basic protein, where the NS steps are based on empirical evidence, would be appreciated. I find rather useless developing hypothetical fancy models for complex organs, when you cannot even explain a single protein.
Cancer is many things, but it is often the simple degradation of complex cell cycle control due to simple mutations which derange a complex functional system. Is that your model of neo darwinian evolution? OK, I will concede that to you: neo darwinian mechanisms can explain cancer. And simple antibiotic resistance scenarios. And the conservation of some diseases in particular conditions. It is called microevolution, and as you can see from your example itself, it is simply loss of functional information. In Behe’s words, “burning the bridges” (well, in the case of cancer, it is not even that).
Well, maybe we agree on something, after all.
Or, simply, you do not really understand evolution! 🙂
Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. As an engineer I want a gap free account. Can you provide one? No. Can you provide anything close to one. No. Can you whine because we demand a gap free account? Yes.
You guys are like someone who claims that “buildings make airplanes.” Parts and materials and people go into the building, and airplanes come out. Well excuse me if I want an account of exactly what’s going on inside the building.
You don’t even have to give us the actual account of how, say, a particular neuron came to exist. Just give us a gap free account of how it might have come to exist. That would be enough to proof your concept.
I encourage anyone interested in the subject to read that and see if my point stands.
Nicely supporting my assertion that the only type of “novel cell type” you can point to is a degenerated one:
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-490762
wd400: “I’m not sure exactly what you mean by a “detailed account” – surely not a mutation by mutation account?”
Well, that is what the theory claims happened in essence, right?
So if such an account is not forthcoming, then let’s all at least admit that we don’t have any idea whether such a thing could actually take place. And as a result, the theory may be completely off. That would be a start.
I don’t think anyone is demanding to see the actual account that occurred. Just a potential pathway. Even something that is reasonably detailed. Even something that is reasonably plausible.
Even something that passes the laugh test.
I don’t know what people hope to achieve by assuming bad faith and insults (all this ‘literature bluff’ and ‘stronghold is the title’ business). It makes it very hard to progress.
Very briefly, in reply to comments above. If you want simple then biology is probably not the science for you. At the level of a single protein we can investigate evolutionary history, reconstruct intermediates and see how different subsitions effect phenotype (one such exmaple http://www.plosbiology.org/art.....io.1001446). Sometimes, it’s even possible to link chemical informatio about proteins to life history traits in their owns, as in this paper: https://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6138/1234192.full
When you are talking about something about the evolution of a new organ or differntiated cell type the problem get’s much larger and much messier. EvoDevo (a field far removed form my own) can show us how shared gene-regulatory networkds give rise to different phenotypes, and we can eve reonstruct anecestral regulatory networks and investigate their biology in modern species http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/.....u042.short
I don’t link these articles because I think they provide the complete step-by-step case for how organs and cell-types evoloved. If that’s the evidence you need then you will always be dissapointed and, in fact, you set the bar so I doubt any data will ever change your mind. The point, I hope, is you read them you might find evolutionary biology is a profitable approach to understanding the biological world, that can generate and test hypotheses and that can take advantage of many sources of data. To dismiss is as ‘grecian science’, or demand a mutation-by-mutatoin story is just a bit silly.
Because it’s what you do. Whose fault is that?
And undemonstrated. Why not man up and just admin it’s a crappy theory that nobody would trust if their life actually depended on it.
Bingo. Now you’re starting to catch on.
The “bar” is merely an empirical demonstration that modern evolutionary synthesis describes processes that can account for all of biological life. So far, it has no even come within a dozen light years. So what are we to do, take it on blind faith?
The equations of gravity, Quantum Mechanics, aerodynamics, are superb. Given what we know about the origin of all the tissue type, cell type, organs and body plans, would you bet your life that the the modern evolutionary synthesis is an accurate model? I sure as hell wouldn’t.
wd400,
Simple isn’t the problem here. It’s ‘thorough’. And what’s being asked here seems to boil down specifically to ‘How can you demonstrate that the processes you are referring to are capable of producing these complicated organs and biological structures, etc?’ But that’s exactly what is missing.
Wonderful, you can make inferences about descent lineages. Great, you can examine current structures and get an idea of what can and can’t be substituted, what the functions are, whether you think there is a function, etc. Great and granted. But it doesn’t answer the question.
You know, this is the stock response of ID critics on this question. ‘Look, evolution is real complicated and contingent, it takes place over long periods of time. We don’t have demonstrations of what you’re asking for, and it’s unreasonable to expect that we’d have them.’ The problem is, you then go on to say – often leaving this part unstated – ‘But you should accept it as truth anyway.’
Which is bizarre. You’re arguing that a given claim for which it is practically impossible, by your measure, to demonstrate the truth of means that we should just accept it precisely BECAUSE you judge it as extremely difficult to demonstrate. Why is that the default? Why shouldn’t people remain agnostic? In the ID case, why not infer that it’s reasonable to believe that there was guidance – since we actually -can- demonstrate guidance in principle and in fact?
wd400:
“However, gene duplications repeatedly spawned daughter genes in which mutations optimized either isomaltase or maltase activity.” ?????
That would be an example of explanation of the appearance of a new protein domain/superfamily?
You really don’t know what you are talking about…
Based on Darwinian evolution, Dr. Susumu Ohno explained in his famous paper (which I’ve read many times, thank you) that the preponderance of non-coding DNA in the human genome was “junk” to be consistent with the expected evolutionary remains of “fossil” genes.
I’m not sure whether Dr. Ohno actually predicted these findings beforehand, but let’s not quibble. It was considered a triumph, a solid, long-standing hypothesis that was considered to provide evidence for Darwinian evolution. A smoking gun. Proof positive. Taught in school.
Except it turned out that this DNA wasn’t junk after all, falsifying Darwinian evolution. Thus, this quaint, 19th century theory is dead. Not “mostly dead” (as in The Princess Bride), but “dead” dead as in Monty Python’s Dead Parrot skit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218
Incidentally, the skit reminds me of a lot of what it’s like arguing with Darwinists.
-Q
That would be an example of explanation of the appearance of a new protein domain/superfamily?
No.
Querius,
Ohno wasn’t very Darwinian (like most Japanese population geneticists) and his argument for junk DNA is quite un-Darwinian. It’s not true to say ” it turned out that this DNA wasn’t junk after all”.
nullasalus,
It’s not for me or anyone else to tell you what to belive. My point is that reconstructed specific histories is hard for the reasons you describe, it’s still possible to learn generally about evolutionary forces and how they shape genomes, organisms and ecosystems.
wd400,
Sure. The problem is what we can learn, what we can observe and reasonably extrapolate, is altogether meager, and leaves untouched the questions we’re actually focusing on. Just because you can use evolutionary models to describe what happened to the cavefish doesn’t mean that you’ve therefore explained the origin of novelty.
The evolutionary forces we can actually observe and reasonably talk about and have knowledge of are great. They’re just not what animates much of anyone. It’s those undemonstrable, never-saw-it, never-will aspects of evolution which are of interest and discussion, and that turns into someone arguing that because we see loss of function observed in the laboratory this is somehow sufficient to extrapolate to a claim like ‘the circulatory system came about completely by these evolutionary processes that we don’t see doing terribly much other THAN losing function in one way or another.’
And as others have noted – they’re not even asking for reconstructed specific histories. Give one realistic pathway out of all the possibilities, in detail. But even THAT doesn’t get done. And we get back to ‘Well it’s too hard to do that’ -> ‘That’s why you should accept it anyway.’
wd400,
Ok, we can agree that its hard business, finding out the details of evolution. We can agree its messy, speculative, not likely to ever be fully explainable, or demonstrable or mathematically supported. We all know this (btw, I think one has to be somewhat impressed by the depth of smart people discussing this topic on this thread, yourself included, by many of the posters here as well).
But wd400, we also know that throughout the entire internet sphere, as well as in all popular science media, the mantra is “Darwinian evolution is as good as a proven theory. More evidenced than gravity. It’s beyond reproach. There is a complete scientific census.”
Now you know this is not true, we know this is not true. Its an idea for which evidencing it is messy, unattainable. Are you prepared to state right here, right now, that that mantra from the evolutionists is just propaganda nonsense, and be honest about that from now on? Wouldn’t that make for much better discussions in science, if everyone would be more honest about admitting this?
The evidence the science world does have relates to common ancestry or common design-this we agree. The evidence for how it happened, no that doesn’t exist. That requires speculation, or whoever can make the best story. We are all smart here, we all see this, and we just expect equal acknowledgment of this from both sides.
WD400 @34 announced
Both your characterization of Dr. Ohno and your racial stereotyping are utterly false! Anyone who reads Dr. Ohno’s paper would disagree with your baseless assertion.
But I’m not surprised. I guess it’s easier to throw Dr. Ohno under the bus than a 19th century dead parrot. Oops, I mean hypothesis.
Oh really? So you’re saying that the 97-98% of our genome comprising non-coding DNA is junk? Or just some of it?
Haven’t you read about the regulatory elements recently found in “junk” DNA? The elements that have to do with type 2 diabetes, cancer, embryonic development, and gene regulation?
Would you also throw these studies under the bus along with all the medical advances that could come from them just to try to convince us that this dead parrot is alive?
Apparently so, but it still won’t fly.
-Q
wd400:
So, my point remains valid:
“I find rather useless developing hypothetical fancy models for complex organs, when you cannot even explain a single protein.”
wd400:
If you want simple then biology is probably not the science for you.
My field, electrical engineering, is not at all simple, and it is vast, with many, many sub-fields of specialization. But it is simple in one regard: go down and buy a 50 inch flat screen and plug it in, the results speak for themselves. There is nothing in biology that employs RM/NS in macroevolutionary fashion in any practical application, that so speaks for the revered 19th century wealthy ideological atheist.
Here is simple for you: A mammal or some other animal needs scores of billions of cilia waving in concert to move out phlegm. Did some animal somewhere start out with one cilium for this? Many cilia for this? Somewhere in between? Did some random process get off its butt and decide “It’s time to hook up all these cilia” so that they can move in concert, all up and down the trachea? What if the animal say has 1/10 the number of cilia modern animals have, would the phlegm move out? How does each cilium generated by RMNS confer selective advantage by itself, multiplied 89 billion times and certainly causing an offspring to have the same additional cilium in the right place? I’m a simple man wanting a simple answer, but will take a complicated one.
Greetings.
Querius at 37.
Querius, and/or anyone, go to comment 40 to read wd400’s position on why (s)he says that. It was in reply to sixthbook’s question (comment 38), though SteRusJon had asked it earlier (comment 27). But before going there, I advise you to read his comments before that to prevent any possible misunderstanding.
Below is the link:
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....cientists/
wd400:
The question is which evolutionsry forces are blind watchmaker forces and which are intelligently designed. Or don’t you understand the debate?
Phoodoo,
I agree with much of what you say, and am always distressed to see evolutionary biology used as a shiboleth in someone’s culture war (which is how most internet athiests and creatinists see it). But I don’t think it’s true (at all) that we don’t know how evolution proceeds. We understand speciation, we understand selection and development and molecuar evolution. There are still questions (otherwise evolutionary biology would be finished!) of course, but to discard evolution biology as story telling or “grecian science” without empirical grounding is just wrong.
groovamos,
I don’t know what you engineering background has to do with biology, all I would say is that blindly taking engineering methaphors across to biology is usually a bad idea. For isntance, organisms aren’t built, they develop. I don’t know anything about the specific case of mammlllian tracheal cillia, but in general, a single change in a cis-reulatory element or the transcirption factor it cntrolls can be enough to allow a cell type to express a particular phenotype. Many cells have primrary cillia, epitheal cells simply have more. There’s no one “hooking them up” and no reason to start with one or two cells.
Querius,
I’ve wasted far too much time on this topic with you already. I’m happy that no fair-minded person could read my comment as “racial profiling”. All I would suggest is that find out what the term darwinism means, and recall that Ohno himself argued that some non-coding DNA was functional.
Joe,
Every time we go down this road you propose a version of ID that sounds completely unfalsafiable to me. You are welcome to hold that view, but I don’t think there is anything to be gained by our discussin it.
“. . . in fact, you set the bar so [high] . . .”
The bar has not been set high. No-one is asking for an account of how all of biology actually came about (even though that is what the theory loudly claims to be able to explain).
Most of us aren’t even asking for an account of how a complete organism came about.
Shoot, the bar has been set so low that most of us would be impressed if the theory could explain a single system, or a single organ, or a single protein complex. Most of us would be impressed if the theory could explain just a fraction of the functional, digitally-specified information that resides in cells. It can’t do any of this, and yet we’re told we must believe the theory anyway, even the grander claims.
The bar has been set so low as to be almost embarrassing. It is like being at a track meet and watching all the high jumpers repeatedly fail to clear the bar. The crowd shifts nervously in their seats and glances down uncomfortably at their feet as the meet officials — in a desperate attempt to get someone, anyone, to win the event — keep dropping the bar lower and lower.
Yet, the theory can’t seem able to clear the bar.
WD400:
I have searched pubMed for anyone speculating on how the tracheal cilia massively integrated system could possibly have come about by stepwise, non-correlated events. It’s not there, as is not likely the interest in showing off to the public the so-called most well established theory ever conceived working on this one. I think the reason is this: a kid can see easily how little structures can move wads up the pipe when they act in concert. A kid would also understand the mind-boggling impossibility of putting together a communication system interconnecting all these billions and billions of parts, strictly by accident with a search space easily 10^1000 trials. No need here to study the parts of flagella to get the point; the bulls___ detector could work in high fashion for a kid here. If I’m wrong about nobody working on/answering this one, I would like to know, seriously. I have posed this on other threads. And I will pose this one on UD until I get an answer, hoping I won’t seem like a broken record.
wd400 claims:
“but to discard evolution biology as story telling or “grecian science” without empirical grounding is just wrong.”
But wd400 you have no empirical nor mathematical warrant! That is the whole point. When asked for evidence you point to papers that are full of phrases such as ‘could have’, ‘highly speculative’, ‘may have’, with never a empirical demonstration that what you claim for the undirected processes of Darwinian evolution is remotely feasible in reality. You claim that other people just don’t understand evolution but the fact of the matter is that you do not understand science in the first place since you think unsubstantiated conjecture can take the place of empirical and mathematical warrant!
@wd400,
Evolution postulates that the History of Life is due to gradual evolution of form generating novel features and functions, which has been a result of strictly naturalistic random mutations and variations of genetic material.
This cannot be demonstrated in a laboratory.
This cannot be illustrated from fossils in the fossil record.
This cannot be proven false.
Proving me wrong should be a simple exercise. Simply point to a single experiment, performed over the last 150 years of evolutionary experimentation and investigation, that shows random unguided mutation resulting in a completely novel function (e.g. a rat growing wings, a fruit fly that can spin webs, e.coli. becoming not e.coli.).
Your response will no doubt take the form of “there isn’t enough time to perform such an experiment”, or “we don’t know the right conditions or causes of such mutations that would result in the generation of novel features”. And these are, as far as they go, possibly valid explanations.
However, the end result is the same – RM Gradualism cannot be demonstrated, experimented, or empirically illustrated in a lab or in the fossils.
In fact, every experiment attempted to provide evidence for it has instead shown that random mutations accumulate to destroy life, not provide new function.
Since you don’t like “grecian science”, perhaps a better way of putting it is Plato as opposed to Aristotle. Reason over empiricism.
If you don’t feel empirical evidence is required for us to accept Evolution, I would refer you to the pre-modern “sciences” of aether and spontaneous generation.
wd400 claimed
Disparaging the views of geneticists as you did simply because they are Japanese is racial stereotyping. You should be ashamed of yourself!
Look at your exact statement again:
Oh really? Are there other things that you would characterize about “most Japanese geneticists”?
Try running this by a “fair minded” university administrator or human resources specialist for their opinion and please let us know what they say.
I’m sure you won’t though.
You seem to be confused, both about profiling and what it means to disparage someone.
Why would you think describing someone as not very Darwinian was to disparage them? I think Ohno,Ohta Kimura and Nei are among the 20th century’s greatest population geneticists. The theory the heroes develop just isn’t very Darwinian.
If you haven’t worked out that I think ohno was right about junk DNA after last time we spoke about this topic I can’t see any point in carrying on.
wd400:
You must be thinking of blind watchamker evolution as I have exactly how to test and falsify ID.
Perhaps you should read “Not By Chance” by Dr Lee Spetner- just sayin’
wd400:
And what has population genetics done for us? Or do these guys rank up there with te greatest astrologers?
wd400 continues:
No, I’m not confused. Your comments are an example of racial stereotyping not profiling, which is a different matter entirely.
Because you were distancing yourself from Ohno’s work and what you apparently consider the views of most Japanese geneticists.
Well, that’s a start, although you’re still thinking of people in racial categories. An apology would be in order when you’re ready to provide one. You might also have a conversation with a “fair minded” administrator or human resources specialist about your racial comments.
Yes, I see. In other words, you’re preparing for a full retreat. 😉
In Dr. Ohno’s paper, which is available for review online, Dr. Ohno proposes that “junk” DNA records the remains of Darwinian evolution, and is the genetic equivalent of fossil remains. This is very Darwinian and has nothing to do with his being Japanese.
But Dr. Ohno wasn’t right, as is becoming apparent from recent studies involving non-coding DNA, and as most researchers in the field and other well-informed individuals now have recognized.
– Q