Science news release admits evidence for speciation “implicit in Charles Darwin’s work” is scarce

Natural selection doesn't do anything, wd400. Don't blame me for that. Joe

wd400

Well, if you discredit much of modern biology (your presonal and idiosyncratic takes on natural selection, the tree of life, the fossil record…)

Please. Most of modern biology has precisely nothing to do with evolutionary theory about how this or that organism came about and doesn't owe anything to it. And I'm hardly the first one, including some staunch supporters of the broader evolutionary paradigm, to notice that the concept of natural selection doesn't teach us much, even in those cases in which it isn't functioning as a tautology. Slight variations happen. Sure. Organisms change into other organisms. Hmmm. What evidence? Well, those finch beaks, and those peppered moths, and those bacteria, and so on. Oh, you mean those minor variations that no-one questions anyway and that have never been shown to add up to anything other than that -- minor oscillations in populations around a norm? Yeah, that. Sorry, not too impressed. Even some of the classic cases, like the finch beaks, have been called in to question in recent years -- not whether there were minor oscillations in the population, but whether it makes sense to credit natural selection for what was observed. As for the fossil record, one hardly need look further than Gould and Eldridge. You know, that whole punctuated equilibrium thing; the one that Dawkins and the gradualists got all worked up about; the proposal that evolution often (perhaps usually) doesn't work by slow slight, successive changes. Yes, yes, I know; the broader evolutionary community has tried to circle the wagons and reconcile gradualism with punctuated equilibrium so as to not give fodder to the evil evolutionary opponents, but let's face it, there are some serious challenges to the whole slight, successive gradualism account Darwin proposed, not least of which is that it has never been observed doing anything of significance.

But you have to admit the Origin is foundational to the study of natural selection and the tree of life

What tree of life? You mean just the simple fact that Darwin proposed that there was such a thing? He certainly didn't get into any meaningful detail. And there isn't "a" tree. Different alleged trees exist, depending which aspect of biology we are looking at. Incongruencies are everywhere. The tree seems to exist primarily in the minds of evolutionary theorists. If all you mean by The Origin being "foundational" to the tree of life is that Darwin proposed the concept and it has been a subject of subsequent, dedicated research (that has been somewhat less confirming than hoped), then fine. I'm happy to acknowledge that he proposed there was a tree of life. ----- Look, I realize Darwin is venerated. Most people, even many evolutionary critics, tend to give him some deference. I just don't feel the reverence, so I'm more inclined to look at what he actually said and see if it is very helpful or relevant or meaningful. Again, he was a great rhetorician and did the best he could with the data that was available at the time. Darwin made some good observations and proposed some useful concepts that operate in a very limited capacity, which were then unfortunately wildly extrapolated to be the theory of everything. Eric Anderson

Logged Out - Scientists Can't Find Darwin's "Tree of Life" Anywhere in Nature by Casey Luskin - Winter 2013 Excerpt: the record shows that major groups of animals appeared abruptly, without direct evolutionary precursors. Because biogeography and fossils have failed to bolster common descent, many evolutionary scientists have turned to molecules—the nucleotide and amino acid sequences of genes and proteins—to establish a phylogenetic tree of life showing the evolutionary relationships between all living organisms.,,, Many papers have noted the prevalence of contradictory molecule-based phylogenetic trees. For instance: • A 1998 paper in Genome Research observed that "different proteins generate different phylogenetic tree[s]."6 • A 2009 paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution acknowledged that "evolutionary trees from different genes often have conflicting branching patterns."7 • A 2013 paper in Trends in Genetics reported that "the more we learn about genomes the less tree-like we find their evolutionary history to be."8 Perhaps the most candid discussion of the problem came in a 2009 review article in New Scientist titled "Why Darwin Was Wrong about the Tree of Life."9 The author quoted researcher Eric Bapteste explaining that "the holy grail was to build a tree of life," but "today that project lies in tatters, torn to pieces by an onslaught of negative evidence." According to the article, "many biologists now argue that the tree concept is obsolete and needs to be discarded.",,, Syvanen succinctly summarized the problem: "We've just annihilated the tree of life. It's not a tree any more, it's a different topology entirely. What would Darwin have made of that?" ,,, "battles between molecules and morphology are being fought across the entire tree of life," leaving readers with a stark assessment: "Evolutionary trees constructed by studying biological molecules often don't resemble those drawn up from morphology."10,,, http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo27/logged-out.php bornagain77

Darwin's Doubt (Part 9) by Paul Giem - video - The Post Darwinian World and Self Organization http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iREO1h4h-GU&index=10&list=PLHDSWJBW3DNUaMy2xdaup5ROw3u0_mK8t Chapter 15 and 16 of Darwin's Doubt in which (I believe) 6 alternative models to neo-Darwinism, that have been proposed by evolutionists to 'make up' for the inadequacy in neo-Darwinism, are discussed and the failings of each model is exposed. bornagain77

...I have spent a lot of time trying to identify what, if anything, is critical and relevant in this work that is proclaimed as a foundation of modern biology. Well, if you discredit much of modern biology (your presonal and idiosyncratic takes on natural selection, the tree of life, the fossil record...) then it's no surprise you want see much of worth in the Origin. But you have to admit the Origin is foundational to the study of natural selection and the tree of life, both of which play a large role in our understanding genes and genomes (and indeed are evidenced by those genetic sequences). As is said. Darwin was the first scientist to make a convincing argument that life evolved, and to provide a mechanism that capable fo epxlaining adaptation. That's not a trivial acheivement. wd400

Die, selfish gene, die - The selfish gene is one of the most successful science metaphors ever invented. Unfortunately, it’s wrong - Dec. 2013 Excerpt: But 15 years after Hamilton and Williams kited [introduced] this idea, it was embraced and polished into gleaming form by one of the best communicators science has ever produced: the biologist Richard Dawkins. In his magnificent book The Selfish Gene (1976), Dawkins gathered all the threads of the modern synthesis — Mendel, Fisher, Haldane, Wright, Watson, Crick, Hamilton, and Williams — into a single shimmering magic carpet (called the selfish gene). Unfortunately, say Wray, West-Eberhard and others, it’s wrong. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/darwinism/epigenetics-dawkins-selfish-gene-discredited-by-still-more-scientists-you-should-have-heard-of/ Modern Synthesis Of Neo-Darwinism Is False – Denis Nobel – video http://www.metacafe.com/w/10395212 ,, In the preceding video, Dr Nobel states that around 1900 there was the integration of Mendelian (discrete) inheritance with evolutionary theory, and about the same time Weismann established what was called the Weismann barrier, which is the idea that germ cells and their genetic materials are not in anyway influenced by the organism itself or by the environment. And then about 40 years later, circa 1940, a variety of people, Julian Huxley, R.A. Fisher, J.B.S. Haldane, and Sewell Wright, put things together to call it ‘The Modern Synthesis’. So what exactly is the ‘The Modern Synthesis’? It is sometimes called neo-Darwinism, and it was popularized in the book by Richard Dawkins, ‘The Selfish Gene’ in 1976. It’s main assumptions are, first of all, is that it is a gene centered view of natural selection. The process of evolution can therefore be characterized entirely by what is happening to the genome. It would be a process in which there would be accumulation of random mutations, followed by selection. (Now an important point to make here is that if that process is genuinely random, then there is nothing that physiology, or physiologists, can say about that process. That is a very important point.) The second aspect of neo-Darwinism was the impossibility of acquired characteristics (mis-called “Larmarckism”). And there is a very important distinction in Dawkins’ book ‘The Selfish Gene’ between the replicator, that is the genes, and the vehicle that carries the replicator, that is the organism or phenotype. And of course that idea was not only buttressed and supported by the Weissman barrier idea, but later on by the ‘Central Dogma’ of molecular biology. Then Dr. Nobel pauses to emphasize his point and states “All these rules have been broken!”. Professor Denis Noble is President of the International Union of Physiological Sciences. Physiology is rocking the foundations of evolutionary biology - Denis Noble - 17 MAY 2013 Excerpt: The ‘Modern Synthesis’ (Neo-Darwinism) is a mid-20th century gene-centric view of evolution, based on random mutations accumulating to produce gradual change through natural selection.,,, We now know that genetic change is far from random and often not gradual.,,, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/expphysiol.2012.071134/abstract Here is another 'serious scientist' who doesn't believe in neo-Darwinism: At the 10:30 minute mark of the following video, Dr. Trifonov states that the concept of the selfish gene 'inflicted an immense damage to biological sciences', for over 30 years: Second, third, fourth… genetic codes - One spectacular case of code crowding - Edward N. Trifonov - video https://vimeo.com/81930637 In the preceding video, Trifonov elucidates codes that are, simultaneously, in the same sequence, coding for DNA curvature, Chromatin Code, Amphipathic helices, and NF kappaB. In fact, at the 58:00 minute mark he states, "Reading only one message, one gets three more, practically GRATIS!". And please note that this was just an introductory lecture in which Trifinov just covered the very basics and left many of the other codes out of the lecture. Codes which code for completely different, yet still biologically important, functions. In fact, at the 7:55 mark of the video, there are 13 codes that are listed on a powerpoint, although the writing was too small for me to read. bornagain77

Incidentally, wd400, I am really not being childish. As one of the small percentage of people in the world (present company excluded, no doubt) who have actually waded through The Origin from cover to cover, I have spent a lot of time trying to identify what, if anything, is critical and relevant in this work that is proclaimed as a foundation of modern biology. The stuff about husbandry and artificial selection is interesting, but on its own doesn't demonstrate any fundamental change and is really just an analogy for what Darwin proposed might, perhaps, happen naturally. The part about the fossil record has, if anything, turned out to be even more problematic than when Darwin wrote it. The ideas about how variation arises (mostly absent in The Origin) were not fleshed out. No offense to Darwin -- everyone was working in the dark in the mid 1800's about the cause of variation. The entire concept of natural selection, when used as the "explanation" for this or that biological feature, typically upon closer inspection either a tautology, a labeling exercise, or a triviality. The "Struggle for Existence" chapter has turned out to be too heavily influenced by concepts that themselves are questionable, and in any case, again goes to the "survival" not the "arrival" of the fittest. The single illustration of the "tree" has turned out to exist only in the minds of theorists. The speculations in The Origin about how this or that organism could have come about are nothing more than just so stories. Much of what was written about embryology is just simply wrong. Again, we might forgive Darwin, due to the lack of knowledge at the time, but it is wrong nonetheless. Finally, the overall idea Darwin proposed, the grand concept of "slight-successive modifications" leading to everything around us remains that, just an idea, and one with plenty of competing evidence. ---- Again, I think Darwin was a skilled rhetorician. He was working with limited information at the time. He shared some interesting observations and does, in my estimation, make a good case against "special creation" of every species having been created just as it is today with no variation over time, what we might call "immutable special creation". To that extent The Origin is valuable. Perhaps I don't give enough credit to his challenge against immutable special creation, because I wasn't really hung up on that point anyway, and most evolutionary critics aren't either. But to the extent that someone holds an opinion of immutable special creation then, yes, I think Darwin makes a good argument against it and remains relevant. Eric Anderson

wd400, Sorry to not tow the line on Darwin's contributions.

He also established natural selection as an importent evolutoinary mechanism, proved the importance (and ubiquity) of variation in natual populations, presaged much of ecological thinking and foresaw many developments in the field he established.

Natural selection, despite the regular homage paid, is nothing but a rhetorical label, not a mechanism. Furthermore, Darwin thought miniscule, almost imperceptible changes in organisms could add up, over time, into everything (his near infinite "plasticity" of organisms). But that has never been shown; indeed, there is very good reason to doubt it. So, yes, I would put his thesis in the category of "non-trivial." But it is also in the category of "wrong." Sure, we can talk about finch beaks, and peppered moths, and bacterial resistance. And we can proclaim that these are great examples of natural selection in action. But when we step back and take a look at what such examples really show, they inevitably demonstrate that populations can undergo temporary oscillations without undergoing any real fundamental change. So, no, I don't feel any compunction to bow at the feet of natural selection, even in those rare cases in which it isn't a useless tautology. As to variation in natural populations, that was well known before Darwin. More importantly, noticing variations isn't the key claim. They key claim is that those variations, over time, add up to whole new species, genera, families -- to everything we see around us. He most certainly didn't prove that. Indeed, the whole purpose of Darwin's magnum opus -- to show the "origin" of species remained undemonstrated. As one writer quipped (paraphrasing), "Darwin's work addressed the survival of the fittest, but not the arrival of the fittest." The latter is what is the most interesting and non-trivial. I'm not sure what general reference you have to presaging "much of ecological thinking." If you are referring to the fact that modern biologists pay homage to Darwin (and, therefore by definition, follow much of his thinking), then the point is simply circular. I'd be interested to know of some key insight you think he made. ----- Look, Darwin was a skilled rhetorician. After I initially finished reading The Origin cover-to-cover my first impression was that it was the worst book I had ever read. Later I came to realize that was due to my expectations going in: Given how his theories had been heralded as a keystone of modern biology, a foundation of science, I wen in expecting he was actually going to provide some solid science and some key understandings and insights. My bad. I've since come to appreciate that The Origin was a long argument about various minor observations, coupled with what-if stories, and sprinkled with "God wouldn't have done it that way." Not what we might have been looking for as a scientific work, but an exceedingly effective rhetorical tool -- the power of which continues to this day among his ardent fans. Eric Anderson

and of course wd400 gets to define who a 'serious scientist' is so as to meet his own predetermined conclusion that no 'serious scientist' doubts Darwinism. The Altenberg 16: An Exposé of the Evolution Industry – book Excerpt: This book takes a look at the rivalry in science today surrounding attempts to discover the elusive process of evolution. In one camp are the faithful followers of the long-standing theory of natural selection promulgated by Charles Darwin more than 150 years ago. This “survival of the fittest” theory, according to author Suzan Mazur, is no longer the scientific cornerstone of biology and has been challenged for decades. In the other camp are those challengers who want to steer evolutionary science in a more honest, scientifically accurate direction. However, the Darwinian theory has become a political powerhouse brand that is hard to unseat because of the money and power associated with it. The Altenberg 16 is about a group of evolution scientists who met in 2008 in Austria to discuss and attempt to tell the truth about this “brand.”,,, http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Altenberg_16.html?id=wk2FfQQ_DmsC Evidence for Creation now banned from UK religious education classes - July 2012 Excerpt: Recently, evolutionist Suzan Mazur published a book entitled, The Altenberg 16: An Exposé of the Evolution Industry.,, The Altenberg 16 is a group of top university academics who met together at a symposium held at Altenberg in Austria in 2008. According to Mazur, these leading evolutionary scientists ‘recognize that the theory of evolution which most practicing biologists accept and which is taught in classrooms today, is inadequate in explaining our existence.’ Some of the delegates would clearly go further. According to molecular biologist, Professor Antonio Lima-de-Faria, not only is the Darwinian paradigm wrong, but it ‘actually hinders discovery of the mechanism of evolution.’ Professor Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini spoke for a number in stating simply that natural selection ‘is not the way new species and new classes and new phyla originated.’ Professor Jerry Fodor confessed, ‘I don’t think anybody knows how evolution works.’ If scientists can’t point to a natural process that can drive evolution, why should evolution (by force of law) be taught as science, (as a fact), in school classrooms? http://creation.com/creation-religious-education “In the last few years I have seen a saddening progression at several institutions. I have witnessed unfair treatment upon scientists that do not accept macroevolutionary arguments and for their having signed the above-referenced statement regarding the examination of Darwinism. (Dissent from Darwinism list)(I will comment no further regarding the specifics of the actions taken upon the skeptics; I love and honor my colleagues too much for that.) I never thought that science would have evolved like this. I deeply value the academy; teaching, professing and research in the university are my privileges and joys… ” Professor James M. Tour – one of the ten most cited chemists in the world https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/a-world-famous-chemist-tells-the-truth-theres-no-scientist-alive-today-who-understands-macroevolution/ Top Ten Most Cited Chemist in the World Knows That Evolution Doesn’t Work – James Tour, Phd. – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB7t2_Ph-ck bornagain77

EA, That must rank among the most rediculous statement uttered here. Darwin made the case that life evolved, something not serious scientist has doubted since his generation. That't "non-trivial" I think? He also established natural selection as an importent evolutoinary mechanism, proved the importance (and ubiquity) of variation in natual populations, presaged much of ecological thinking and foresaw many developments in the field he established. To pretend his contribution is trivial, even if you oppose evolutionary biology, is just childish. wd400

"Darwin got a lot right . . ." Here is a more accurate summary: Everything Darwin got right was trivial. Everything non-trivial he didn't get right. ----- I've often reflected on, and occasionally asked others to tell me, what key concepts from The Origin have turned out to be accurate? Eric Anderson

A smaller fish becoming a bigger fish (or vice versa) is simply reproduction of one kind. It's not becoming anything else, such as an amphibian. Evolutionary theory presumes that fish became amphibians, some amphibians became reptiles, from the reptiles came both mammals and birds, and eventually some mammals became men. Aside from the fact that the fossil record doesn't support such claims, you also have to consider the magnitude of the assumed transitional steps which would lead to speciation. Since the OP discusses fish, let's examine the gulf between fishes and amphibians. First, it was the backbone that distinguished the fish from the invertebrates. This backbone would have had to undergo major modifications for the fish to become amphibian, that is, a creature that could live both in the water and on land. A pelvis had to be added, but no fossil fish are known that show how the pelvis of amphibians developed. In some amphibians, such as frogs and toads, the entire backbone would have had to change beyond recognition. Also, skull bones are different. In addition, in the forming of amphibians, evolution requires fish fins to become jointed limbs with wrists and toes, accompanied by major alterations in muscles and nerves. Gills must change to lungs. In fish, blood is pumped by a two-chambered heart, but in amphibians by a three-chambered heart. The sense of hearing would have had to undergo a radical change. In general, fish receive sound through their bodies, but most toads and frogs have eardrums. Tongues would also have to change. No fish has an extendable tongue, but amphibians such as toads do. Amphibian eyes have the added ability to blink, since they have a membrane they pass over their eyeballs, keeping them clean. Strenuous efforts have been made to link the amphibians to some fish ancestor, but without success. The lungfish had been a favorite candidate, since, in addition to gills, it has a swim bladder, which can be used for breathing when it is temporarily out of the water. Says the book The Fishes: “It is tempting to think they might have some direct connection with the amphibians which led to the land-living vertebrates. But they do not; they are a separate group entirely.” [The Fishes, by F. D. Ommanney, 1964, p. 65.] David Attenborough disqualifies both the lungfish and the coelacanth “because the bones of their skulls are so different from those of the first fossil amphibians that the one cannot be derived from the other.” [Life on Earth, by David Attenborough, 1979, p. 137] Barb

Darwin got something right? OK there was that big moth but that had nothing to do with any mechanism. Natural selection has failed to be a designer mimic. So what were his achievements? Joe

"Darwin got a lot right" I guess that statement might be correct, if you discount the fact that both pillars of Darwinian thought, Random Mutation/Variation and Natural Selection are both wrong: For instance, although Darwinian evolution appeals to ‘random mutations/variations’ to DNA as the main creative source for all evolutionary novelty, there are now known to be extensive layers of error correction in the cell to protect against any “random changes” from happening to DNA in the first place: The Evolutionary Dynamics of Digital and Nucleotide Codes: A Mutation Protection Perspective – February 2011 Excerpt: “Unbounded random change of nucleotide codes through the accumulation of irreparable, advantageous, code-expanding, inheritable mutations at the level of individual nucleotides, as proposed by evolutionary theory, requires the mutation protection at the level of the individual nucleotides and at the higher levels of the code to be switched off or at least to dysfunction. Dysfunctioning mutation protection, however, is the origin of cancer and hereditary diseases, which reduce the capacity to live and to reproduce. Our mutation protection perspective of the evolutionary dynamics of digital and nucleotide codes thus reveals the presence of a paradox in evolutionary theory between the necessity and the disadvantage of dysfunctioning mutation protection. This mutation protection paradox, which is closely related with the paradox between evolvability and mutational robustness, needs further investigation.” http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2011/04/26/dna_repair_mechanisms_reveal_a_contradic Moreover when changes do happen to DNA they are now known to be ‘directed changes’ not ‘random changes’: How life changes itself: the Read-Write (RW) genome. – 2013 Excerpt: Research dating back to the 1930s has shown that genetic change is the result of cell-mediated processes, not simply accidents or damage to the DNA. This cell-active view of genome change applies to all scales of DNA sequence variation, from point mutations to large-scale genome rearrangements and whole genome duplications (WGDs). This conceptual change to active cell inscriptions controlling RW genome functions has profound implications for all areas of the life sciences. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23876611 Shapiro on Random Mutation: “What I ask others interested in evolution to give up is the notion of random accidental mutation.” per huffington post Having ‘cell-mediated processes’ direct changes to DNA is in direct contradiction to the ‘bottom up’ materialistic presupposition of 'randomness' which undergirds neo-Darwinian thought. Moreover, Natural Selection, that other great pillar upon which Darwinian evolution rests, has also been undermined as having the causal adequacy that neo-Darwinists attributed to it. Natural Selection is grossly inadequate to do the work required of it because of what is termed ‘the princess and the pea’ paradox. The devastating ‘princess and the pea’ paradox is clearly elucidated by Dr. John Sanford, at the 8:14 minute mark, of this following video,,, Genetic Entropy – Dr. John Sanford – Evolution vs. Reality – video http://vimeo.com/35088933 Dr. Sanford points out, in the preceding video, that Natural Selection acts at the coarse level of the entire organism (phenotype) and yet the vast majority of mutations have effects that are only ‘slightly detrimental’, and have no noticeable effect on phenotypes, and are thus far below the power of Natural Selection to remove from genomes before they spread throughout the population. Here are a few more notes on this insurmountable ‘princess and the pea’ problem for natural selection: Evolution Vs Genetic Entropy (Kimura’s Distribution)– Andy McIntosh – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4028086/ The GS Principle (The Genetic Selection Principle) – Abel – 2009 Excerpt: The GS Principle, sometimes called “The 2nd Law of Biology,” states that selection must occur at the molecular/genetic level, not just at the fittest phenotypic/organismic level, to produce and explain life.,,, Natural selection cannot operate at the genetic level. http://www.bioscience.org/2009/v14/af/3426/fulltext.htm Moreover, as if that were not devastating enough as to undermining any credibility Natural Selection might have had as to having the causal adequacy to explain the highly integrated levels of overlapping functional information found in organisms, dimensionally speaking, Natural Selection is now known to not even be on the right playing field in the first place: The predominance of quarter-power (4-D) scaling in biology Excerpt: Many fundamental characteristics of organisms scale with body size as power laws of the form: Y = Yo M^b, where Y is some characteristic such as metabolic rate, stride length or life span, Yo is a normalization constant, M is body mass and b is the allometric scaling exponent. A longstanding puzzle in biology is why the exponent b is usually some simple multiple of 1/4 (4-Dimensional scaling) rather than a multiple of 1/3, as would be expected from Euclidean (3-Dimensional) scaling. http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~drewa/pubs/savage_v_2004_f18_257.pdf “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.,,, The conclusion here is inescapable, that the driving force for these invariant scaling laws cannot have been natural selection.” Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, What Darwin Got Wrong (London: Profile Books, 2010), p. 78-79 i.e. Dimensionally speaking, Natural Selection is not even on the right playing field so as to do the work required of it. The reason why a ‘higher dimensional’ 4-Dimensional structure would be completely invisible to a 3-Dimensional process, such as Natural Selection, is best illustrated by ‘flatland’: Flatland – 3D to 4D shift – Carl Sagan – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnURElCzGc0 The reason why internal physiology and anatomy operate as if they were four-dimensional instead of three dimensional is because of exactly what Darwinian evolution has consistently failed to explain the origination of. i.e. functional information. ‘Higher dimensional’ information, which is bursting at the seams in life, simply cannot be reduced to any 3-dimensional energy-matter basis: John Lennox – Is There Evidence of Something Beyond Nature? (Semiotic Information) – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6rd4HEdffw “One of the things I do in my classes, to get this idea across to students, is I hold up two computer disks. One is loaded with software, and the other one is blank. And I ask them, ‘what is the difference in mass between these two computer disks, as a result of the difference in the information content that they posses’? And of course the answer is, ‘Zero! None! There is no difference as a result of the information. And that’s because information is a mass-less quantity. Now, if information is not a material entity, then how can any materialistic explanation account for its origin? How can any material cause explain it’s origin? And this is the real and fundamental problem that the presence of information in biology has posed. It creates a fundamental challenge to the materialistic, evolutionary scenarios because information is a different kind of entity that matter and energy cannot produce. In the nineteenth century we thought that there were two fundamental entities in science; matter, and energy. At the beginning of the twenty first century, we now recognize that there’s a third fundamental entity; and its ‘information’. It’s not reducible to matter. It’s not reducible to energy. But it’s still a very important thing that is real; we buy it, we sell it, we send it down wires. Now, what do we make of the fact, that information is present at the very root of all biological function? In biology, we have matter, we have energy, but we also have this third, very important entity; information. I think the biology of the information age, poses a fundamental challenge to any materialistic approach to the origin of life.” -Dr. Stephen C. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of science from Cambridge University for a dissertation on the history of origin-of-life biology and the methodology of the historical sciences. as well,, Darwin 'Wrong': Species Living Together Does Not Encourage Evolution - December 20, 2013 Excerpt: Charles Darwin's theory of evolution set out in the Origin of Species has been proven wrong by scientists studying ovenbirds. Researchers at Oxford University found that species living together do not evolve differently to avoid competing with one another for food and habitats – a theory put forward by Darwin 150 years ago. The ovenbird is one of the most diverse bird families in the world and researchers were looking to establish the processes causing them to evolve. Published in Nature, the research compared the beaks, legs and songs of 90% of ovenbird species. Findings showed that while the birds living together were consistently more different than those living apart, this was the result of age differences. Once the variation of age was accounted for, birds that live together were more similar than those living separately – directly contradicting Darwin's view. The species that lived together had beaks and legs no more different than those living apart,,, ,,,there is no shortage of evidence for competition driving divergent evolution in some very young lineages. But we found no evidence that this process explains differences across a much larger sample of species.,,, He said that the reasons why birds living together appear to evolve less are "difficult to explain",,, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/darwin-wrong-species-living-together-does-not-encourage-evolution-1429927 bornagain77

"Darwin got a lot right" I guess that statement might be correct, if you discount the fact that both pillars of Darwinian thought, Random Mutation/Variation and Natural Selection are both wrong: For instance, although Darwinian evolution appeals to ‘random mutations/variations’ to DNA as the main creative source for all evolutionary novelty, there are now known to be extensive layers of error correction in the cell to protect against any “random changes” from happening to DNA in the first place: The Evolutionary Dynamics of Digital and Nucleotide Codes: A Mutation Protection Perspective – February 2011 Excerpt: “Unbounded random change of nucleotide codes through the accumulation of irreparable, advantageous, code-expanding, inheritable mutations at the level of individual nucleotides, as proposed by evolutionary theory, requires the mutation protection at the level of the individual nucleotides and at the higher levels of the code to be switched off or at least to dysfunction. Dysfunctioning mutation protection, however, is the origin of cancer and hereditary diseases, which reduce the capacity to live and to reproduce. Our mutation protection perspective of the evolutionary dynamics of digital and nucleotide codes thus reveals the presence of a paradox in evolutionary theory between the necessity and the disadvantage of dysfunctioning mutation protection. This mutation protection paradox, which is closely related with the paradox between evolvability and mutational robustness, needs further investigation.” http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2011/04/26/dna_repair_mechanisms_reveal_a_contradic Moreover when changes do happen to DNA they are now known to be ‘directed changes’ not ‘random changes’: How life changes itself: the Read-Write (RW) genome. – 2013 Excerpt: Research dating back to the 1930s has shown that genetic change is the result of cell-mediated processes, not simply accidents or damage to the DNA. This cell-active view of genome change applies to all scales of DNA sequence variation, from point mutations to large-scale genome rearrangements and whole genome duplications (WGDs). This conceptual change to active cell inscriptions controlling RW genome functions has profound implications for all areas of the life sciences. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23876611 Shapiro on Random Mutation: “What I ask others interested in evolution to give up is the notion of random accidental mutation.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-a-shapiro/jerry-coyne-fails-to-unde_b_1411144.html Having ‘cell-mediated processes’ direct changes to DNA is in direct contradiction to the ‘bottom up’ materialistic presupposition of 'randomness' which undergirds neo-Darwinian thought. Moreover, Natural Selection, that other great pillar upon which Darwinian evolution rests, has also been undermined as having the causal adequacy that neo-Darwinists attributed to it. Natural Selection is grossly inadequate to do the work required of it because of what is termed ‘the princess and the pea’ paradox. The devastating ‘princess and the pea’ paradox is clearly elucidated by Dr. John Sanford, at the 8:14 minute mark, of this following video,,, Genetic Entropy – Dr. John Sanford – Evolution vs. Reality – video http://vimeo.com/35088933 Dr. Sanford points out, in the preceding video, that Natural Selection acts at the coarse level of the entire organism (phenotype) and yet the vast majority of mutations have effects that are only ‘slightly detrimental’, and have no noticeable effect on phenotypes, and are thus far below the power of Natural Selection to remove from genomes before they spread throughout the population. Here are a few more notes on this insurmountable ‘princess and the pea’ problem for natural selection: Evolution Vs Genetic Entropy (Kimura’s Distribution)– Andy McIntosh – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4028086/ The GS Principle (The Genetic Selection Principle) – Abel – 2009 Excerpt: The GS Principle, sometimes called “The 2nd Law of Biology,” states that selection must occur at the molecular/genetic level, not just at the fittest phenotypic/organismic level, to produce and explain life.,,, Natural selection cannot operate at the genetic level. http://www.bioscience.org/2009/v14/af/3426/fulltext.htm Moreover, as if that were not devastating enough as to undermining any credibility Natural Selection might have had as to having the causal adequacy to explain the highly integrated levels of overlapping functional information found in organisms, dimensionally speaking, Natural Selection is now known to not even be on the right playing field in the first place: The predominance of quarter-power (4-D) scaling in biology Excerpt: Many fundamental characteristics of organisms scale with body size as power laws of the form: Y = Yo M^b, where Y is some characteristic such as metabolic rate, stride length or life span, Yo is a normalization constant, M is body mass and b is the allometric scaling exponent. A longstanding puzzle in biology is why the exponent b is usually some simple multiple of 1/4 (4-Dimensional scaling) rather than a multiple of 1/3, as would be expected from Euclidean (3-Dimensional) scaling. http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~drewa/pubs/savage_v_2004_f18_257.pdf “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.,,, The conclusion here is inescapable, that the driving force for these invariant scaling laws cannot have been natural selection.” Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, What Darwin Got Wrong (London: Profile Books, 2010), p. 78-79 i.e. Dimensionally speaking, Natural Selection is not even on the right playing field so as to do the work required of it. The reason why a ‘higher dimensional’ 4-Dimensional structure would be completely invisible to a 3-Dimensional process, such as Natural Selection, is best illustrated by ‘flatland’: Flatland – 3D to 4D shift – Carl Sagan – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnURElCzGc0 The reason why internal physiology and anatomy operate as if they were four-dimensional instead of three dimensional is because of exactly what Darwinian evolution has consistently failed to explain the origination of. i.e. functional information. ‘Higher dimensional’ information, which is bursting at the seams in life, simply cannot be reduced to any 3-dimensional energy-matter basis: John Lennox – Is There Evidence of Something Beyond Nature? (Semiotic Information) – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6rd4HEdffw “One of the things I do in my classes, to get this idea across to students, is I hold up two computer disks. One is loaded with software, and the other one is blank. And I ask them, ‘what is the difference in mass between these two computer disks, as a result of the difference in the information content that they posses’? And of course the answer is, ‘Zero! None! There is no difference as a result of the information. And that’s because information is a mass-less quantity. Now, if information is not a material entity, then how can any materialistic explanation account for its origin? How can any material cause explain it’s origin? And this is the real and fundamental problem that the presence of information in biology has posed. It creates a fundamental challenge to the materialistic, evolutionary scenarios because information is a different kind of entity that matter and energy cannot produce. In the nineteenth century we thought that there were two fundamental entities in science; matter, and energy. At the beginning of the twenty first century, we now recognize that there’s a third fundamental entity; and its ‘information’. It’s not reducible to matter. It’s not reducible to energy. But it’s still a very important thing that is real; we buy it, we sell it, we send it down wires. Now, what do we make of the fact, that information is present at the very root of all biological function? In biology, we have matter, we have energy, but we also have this third, very important entity; information. I think the biology of the information age, poses a fundamental challenge to any materialistic approach to the origin of life.” -Dr. Stephen C. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of science from Cambridge University for a dissertation on the history of origin-of-life biology and the methodology of the historical sciences. as well,, Darwin 'Wrong': Species Living Together Does Not Encourage Evolution - December 20, 2013 Excerpt: Charles Darwin's theory of evolution set out in the Origin of Species has been proven wrong by scientists studying ovenbirds. Researchers at Oxford University found that species living together do not evolve differently to avoid competing with one another for food and habitats – a theory put forward by Darwin 150 years ago. The ovenbird is one of the most diverse bird families in the world and researchers were looking to establish the processes causing them to evolve. Published in Nature, the research compared the beaks, legs and songs of 90% of ovenbird species. Findings showed that while the birds living together were consistently more different than those living apart, this was the result of age differences. Once the variation of age was accounted for, birds that live together were more similar than those living separately – directly contradicting Darwin's view. The species that lived together had beaks and legs no more different than those living apart,,, ,,,there is no shortage of evidence for competition driving divergent evolution in some very young lineages. But we found no evidence that this process explains differences across a much larger sample of species.,,, He said that the reasons why birds living together appear to evolve less are "difficult to explain",,, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/darwin-wrong-species-living-together-does-not-encourage-evolution-1429927 bornagain77

What? I honestly don't know what you are going on about here. Darwin got a lot right, and is certainly the founder of modern evolutionary biology. But he also go things wrong (speciation, and his epigentic theory of inheritence). I don't see any problem in celebrating Darwins achievements. I do think it's pretty silly to claim evidence for anything other than Darwin's mid 19th century theory is a problem for evolutionary biology, or to call modern evolutionary biology Darrwinism. wd400

WD400 says at 1: "It states that Darwin’s model of speciation in the Origin, in 1859, isn’t the only way speciation can happen (and probably not the most common)." Right. Which is the reason there is not a Darwin Day but there IS an HGT day and an Epigenetics Day. And a Guided Evolution Day. News

as to horizontal gene transfer (HGT), HGT is certainly not the evidence that some Darwinists imagine it to be:

Proteins and Genes, Singletons and Species - Branko Kozuli? PhD. Biochemistry Excerpt: Horizontal gene transfer is common in prokaryotes but rare in eukaryotes [89-94], so HGT cannot account for (ORFan) singletons in eukaryotic genomes, including the human genome and the genomes of other mammals.,,, The trend towards higher numbers of (ORFan) singletons per genome seems to coincide with a higher proportion of the eukaryotic genomes sequenced. In other words, eukaryotes generally contain a larger number of singletons than eubacteria and archaea.,,, http://vixra.org/pdf/1105.0025v1.pdf

Moreover the Horizontal gene transfer among prokaryotes is accomplished via directed mechanisms (various molecular machines) and horizontal transfer is certainly not evidence of the 'random process' that some Darwinists have envisioned it to be, but is instead evidence of highly complex ‘social networks’. Indeed the ‘social networks’ of bacteria are found to be very sophisticated, surpassing man's efforts in terms of sophistication, and certainly defy any coherent explanation from the simplistic reductive (i.e. bottom up) materialistic narrative of neo-Darwinism:

Learning from Bacteria about Social Networks - video Description: Bacteria do not store genetically all the information required to respond efficiently to all possible environmental conditions. Instead, to solve new encountered problems (challenges) posed by the environment, they first assess the problem via collective sensing, then recall stored information of past experience and finally execute distributed information processing of the 109-12 bacteria in the colony,,, I will show illuminating movies of swarming intelligence of live bacteria in which they solve optimization problems for collective decision making that are beyond what we, human beings, can solve with our most powerful computers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJpi8SnFXHs

A graph featuring a breakdown of 'shared', dedicated, and ORFan genes, for bacteria sequenced thus far is illustrated in the following video and paper

Widespread ORFan Genes Challenge Common Descent – Paul Nelson – video with references http://www.vimeo.com/17135166 Estimating the size of the bacterial pan-genome - Pascal Lapierre and J. Peter Gogarten - 2008 Excerpt: We have found greater than 139 000 rare (ORFan) gene families scattered throughout the bacterial genomes included in this study. The finding that the fitted exponential function approaches a plateau indicates an open pan-genome (i.e. the bacterial protein universe is of infinite size); a finding supported through extrapolation using a Kezdy-Swinbourne plot (Figure S3). This does not exclude the possibility that, with many more sampled genomes, the number of novel genes per additional genome might ultimately decline; however, our analyses and those presented in Ref. [11] do not provide any indication for such a decline and confirm earlier observations that many new protein families with few members remain to be discovered. http://www.paulyu.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Estimating-the-size-of-the-bacterial-pan-genome.pdf

At the 12:40 minute mark of the following 'The Dictionary of Life' video, Dr. Nelson describes the breaking point for Darwinian scenarios from the ORFan genetic evidence:

The Dictionary of Life | Origins with Dr. Paul A. Nelson - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zJaetK9gvCo#t=760s

bornagain77

Here is a detailed refutation, by Casey Luskin, to TalkOrigins severely misleading site on the claimed evidence for observed macro-evolution (speciation); Specious Speciation: The Myth of Observed Large-Scale Evolutionary Change - Casey Luskin - January 2012 - article http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/01/talk_origins_sp055281.html Here is part 2 of a podcast exposing the Talk Origin's speciation FAQ as a 'literature bluff' Talk Origins Speciation FAQ, pt. 2: Lack of Evidence for Big Claims - Casey Luskin - podcast http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2012-02-15T14_09_41-08_00 Related notes: A Critique of Douglas Theobald’s – “29 Evidences for Macroevolution” by Ashby Camp http://www.trueorigin.org/theobald1b.asp Confusing Evidence for Common Ancestry with Evidence for Random Mutation and Natural Selection - Casey Luskin - September 29, 2011 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/09/confusing_evidence_for_common_051311.html But Isn't There a Consilience of Data That Corroborates Common Descent? - Casey Luskin December 2, 2010 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/12/but_isnt_there_lots_of_other_d041111.html As well, materialists never mention the fact that the variations found in nature (such as peppered moth color and finch beak size) which are often touted as solid proof of evolution are always found to be cyclical in nature. i.e. The variations are found to vary around a median position with never a continual deviation from the norm. This blatant distortion/omission of evidence led Phillip Johnson to comment in the Wall Street Journal: "When our leading scientists have to resort to the sort of distortion that would land a stock promoter in jail, you know they are in trouble." Phenotypic Plasticity - Lizard cecal valve (cyclical variation)- video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEtgOApmnTA Lizard Plasticity - March 2013 Excerpt: So in this study, plasticity experiments were conducted. When the lizards were taken off a plant diet and returned to their native insect diet, the cecal valves in their stomachs began to revert within weeks. As the authors conclude, this pointed heavily to plasticity as a cause. We can infer that the this gut morphology likewise arose in similar fashion when coming into contact with the plant diet. http://biota-curve.blogspot.com/2013/03/lizard-plasticity.html Creation/Evolution: Natural Limits to Biological Change 1/2 - Dr. Raymond G. Bohlin - video (starts at the 13:00 minute mark of video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk9wmQP7SdM bornagain77

Cichlid Fish - Evolution or Variation Within Kind? - Dr. Arthur Jones - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4036852 "For all the diversity of species, I found the cichlids to be an unmistakably natural group, a created kind. The more I worked with these fish the clearer my recognition of “cichlidness” became and the more distinct they seemed from all the “similar” fishes I studied. Conversations at conferences and literature searches confirmed that this was the common experience of experts in every area of systematic biology. Distinct kinds really are there and the experts know it to be so. – On a wider canvas, fossils provided no comfort to evolutionists. All fish, living and fossil, belong to distinct kinds; “links” are decidedly missing." Dr. Arthur Jones - did his Ph.D. thesis in biology on cichlids What is Speciation? (Cichlids) - July 2012 - podcast http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2012-07-16T00_41_12-07_00 These following studies and video, on Cichlid fishes, are evidence of the 'limited and rapid variation from a parent kind' predicted by the Genetic Entropy model: African cichlid fish: a model system in adaptive radiation research: "The African cichlid fish radiations are the most diverse extant animal radiations and provide a unique system to test predictions of speciation and adaptive radiation theory(of evolution).----(surprising implication of the study?)---- the propensity to radiate was significantly higher in lineages whose precursors emerged from more ancient adaptive radiations than in other lineages" http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=16846905 Multiple Genes Permit Closely Related Fish Species To Mix And Match Their Color Vision - Oct. 2005 Excerpt: In the new work, the researchers performed physiological and molecular genetic analyses of color vision in cichlid fish from Lake Malawi and demonstrated that differences in color vision between closely related species arise from individual species’ using different subsets of distinct visual pigments. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051011072648.htm podcast - On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin talks with geneticist Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig about his recent article on the evolution of dogs. Casey and Dr. Lönnig evaluate the claim that dogs somehow demonstrate macroevolution. http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2013-02-01T17_41_14-08_00 Part 2: Dog Breeds: Proof of Macroevolution? http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2013-02-04T16_57_07-08_00 Selection and Speciation: Why Darwinism Is False - Jonathan Wells: Excerpt: there are observed instances of secondary speciation — which is not what Darwinism needs — but no observed instances of primary speciation, not even in bacteria. British bacteriologist Alan H. Linton looked for confirmed reports of primary speciation and concluded in 2001: “None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another.” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/05/selection_and_speciation_why_d.html Scant search for the Maker Excerpt: But where is the experimental evidence? None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of 20 to 30 minutes, and populations achieved after 18 hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another, in spite of the fact that populations have been exposed to potent chemical and physical mutagens and that, uniquely, bacteria possess extrachromosomal, transmissible plasmids. Since there is no evidence for species changes between the simplest forms of unicellular life, it is not surprising that there is no evidence for evolution from prokaryotic to eukaryotic cells, let alone throughout the whole array of higher multicellular organisms. - Alan H. Linton - emeritus professor of bacteriology, University of Bristol. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=159282 bornagain77

Actually, "Science daily", doesn't say anything - since it's just a clearing house for university PR. The PR doesn't say evidence for Darwinian evoluton is rare. It states that Darwin's model of speciation in the Origin, in 1859, isn't the only way speciation can happen (and probably not the most common). It's almost as if calling 21st century evolutoinary biology "Darwinism" isn't a very good idea. wd400