Who Says Darwinists Don’t Make Predictions

_{Barry Arrington

October 27, 2007

Intelligent Design}

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. . . so long as the predicted event is safely 100,000 years in the future:

Human race will split into two different species

The human race will one day split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures, according to a top scientist. 100,000 years into the future, sexual selection could mean that two distinct breeds of human will have developed. The alarming prediction comes from evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry . . . Dr Curry’s theory may strike a chord with readers who have read H G Wells’ classic novel The Time Machine, in particular his descriptions of the Eloi and the Morlock races. In the 1895 book, the human race has evolved into two distinct species, the highly intelligent and wealthy Eloi and the frightening, animalistic Morlock who are destined to work underground to keep the Eloi happy

Now if only ID theorists would make a testable prediction; something like “over many thousands of generations natural selection will account for only extremely modest changes in the malaria parasite’s genes and will be unable to cause any increase in genetic information.” Oh wait a minute, that prediction was made and confirmed.

Comments

bornagain, I don't see how the second of thermodynamics can be applied here. It is very specific to energy systems and in order to use that concept in a different field I think it has to be shown how and why it should apply. Basically, Genetic Entropy is about information, while actual entropy is about the effect of heat on particles (very basically). To say that Genetic entropy is based on foundational principles because it co-opts a term from a completely unrelated branch of science is ridiculous. To me, this is no more than "Fashionable Nonsense" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashionable_Nonsense#The_Postmodernist_conception_of_science Dr. Alan Sokal so easily dismissed.leo_{October 28, 2007
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DaveScot said,
It’s not impossible for random mutation to generate complex specified information. Likewise it’s not impossible to shuffle a standard deck of 52 cards and have it come up perfectly ordered by suit and rank (that particular order of the deck is complex and specified). This is where statistics come into the picture. We can be almost certain that we will never observe that result from a random shuffle in a finite universe. An intelligent agent however can order a deck in that manner easily.
I understand your analogy, but don't see how a group of 52 unique, unchanging objects equates to what goes on in the genome. We can calculate the probability of any given order of a deck of cards precisely, but that's not possible with mutation and subsequent changes in the genome. Thus my question to BarryA still remains: if you identify CSI strictly by its complexity, how do you escape the tautology?Mickey Bitsko_{October 28, 2007
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DaveScot, Though malaria is caused by a eukaryote,, I've also noticed the surprising stability of simple life (bacteria) over long periods of time,,,yet this overall stability seems to be limited to the "simple" asexual life,, Remember higher "complex" life forms have a fairly constant unexplained extinction rate in the fossil record. Genetic Entropy would explain that very well! Is the fact that bacteria, or eukaryotes, are staying stable, over long periods of time, overturning the principle of Genetic Entropy? Of course not,,, The principle of Genetic Entropy still has overwhelmingly convincing validity since it is in fact based on foundational principles of science! Whereas, evolution is not based on any foundational principles of science! Genetic Entropy (GE) is able to be considered a foundational principle of science because it draws its inferences for biology directly from the marriage of a foundational principle of physics, the second law of thermodynamics (Entropy), with a foundational principle of information theory (conservation of information), Conservation of information states that it is impossible to create complex specified information (CSI) in the universe by totally natural means! (Werner Gitt, In the Beginning was Information, 2000)( William Dembski, Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology;1999). As a sidelight to the ancient DNA studies: The following is an interesting study of ancient DNA that caused quite a stir among evolutionists! (Vreeland, R.H., Rosenzweig, W.D., and Powers, D.W., 2000, Isolation of a 250-million-year-old halotolerant bacterium from a primary salt crystal: Nature http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1375505.stm Evolutionists are in disbelief about these results, and other results similar to these, since they challenge basic presumptions of theirs, but Vreeland is adamant that his results for similarity are indeed valid! As he stated in defense: "Strain 2-9-3 is not a contaminant. I estimate that its chances of being a contaminant are less than one in a million." Vreeland. This ancient DNA study is also interesting, http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/19/9/1637 in which they admit. "Almost without exception, bacteria isolated from ancient material have proven to closely resemble modern bacteria at both morphological and molecular levels." Their explanation for the similarity of ancient and modern bacteria turns out to be quite convoluted (I truly am impressed with their contortions to make it fit a evolutionary scenario) but I maintain that the evidence might be exactly what it is telling us it is....That is,,,THERE IS NO drastic change in DNA from ancient to modern bacteria! Does Dr. Sanford stretch the available evidence a bit to much to fit his preconceived bias? ,I certainly think he does,,,But that "stretching" does absolutely nothing to invalidate the principle of Genetic Entropy he relies on in the first place, since the principle of Genetic Entropy is drawn from first principles of science, not from his "impressive" evidence he cites.bornagain77_{October 28, 2007
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Dave, One of the admissions that great_ape made here when he used to comment was that the diversity in a genome was antithetical to neo Darwinism. By all accounts it should not exist. Neo Darwinism winnows out variance either through natural selection or genetic drift so all the alleles of dogs that create the variety we witness should not have existed or at least be very limited. There were millions of years that wolves or other canines had in the wild to eliminate most of this diversity. According to neo Darwinism diversity is eliminated over time even though this is what they need to drive differences in new species.jerry_{October 28, 2007
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This got me thinking about a book I’m reading. J.Sanford’s Genetic Entropy. It would seem that p.falciparum’s stability over billions of trillions of generations is direct refutation of Sanford’s genetic entropy hypothesis. Dave, I asked this question a couple of months back, and did not get any discussion about it. I think you are right on. There are two possibilities: 1. Sanford's idea is refuted 2. Sanford's idea is not refuted because it hasn't been long enough if #2 is correct, then Behe's ideas, while not refuted, are irrelevant because not enough time has passed for p.falciparum to have become extinct, and probably not enough time has occurred for macro evolution to work itself out.ajl_{October 28, 2007
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Dave,
This got me thinking about a book I’m reading. J.Sanford’s Genetic Entropy. It would seem that p.falciparum’s stability over billions of trillions of generations is direct refutation of Sanford’s genetic entropy hypothesis.
While not exactly p.falciparum, we did discuss a related topic recently: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/front-loading-passes-peer-review-in-cell-cycle/ Short version: High replicators avoid genetic entropy?Patrick_{October 27, 2007
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mickey, i think what he is saying is that information that is added but doesn't change anything can't be counted as CSI. i don't find that very controversial. you do see the difference between CSI and just simple information right?interested_{October 27, 2007
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Mickey Bitsko It's not impossible for random mutation to generate complex specified information. Likewise it's not impossible to shuffle a standard deck of 52 cards and have it come up perfectly ordered by suit and rank (that particular order of the deck is complex and specified). This is where statistics come into the picture. We can be almost certain that we will never observe that result from a random shuffle in a finite universe. An intelligent agent however can order a deck in that manner easily. This is where natural selection comes into play. It is supposed that random mutation filtered by natural selection makes complex specified outcomes not so improbable. In the real world however natural selection is overwhelmed by nearly neutral deleterious mutations. Beneficial random mutations are so rare and slightly deleterious (near neutral) mutations so frequent that natural selection can't single out the beneficial mutations. Random events unrelated to genomic fitness also serve to thwart natural selection's ability to select. Survival of the fittest would be more aptly called survival of the luckiest. The only thing natural selection is good at is culling the very deleterious mutations by killing the unfortunate mutant before it can reproduce. It is thus a conservative force which stabilizes a working genome but does little to nothing in the way of building novel complexity from random changes. I think what misleads so many into thinking that random mutation + natural selection can produce novel complexity is the variability displayed in complex genomes through recombination (sexual reproduction). Natural selection works well there but it isn't random mutation driving it. All the complexity is already there and recombination simply suppresses or expresses preexisting traits. The variability we see in dogs is a good example. There's a huge range in size and cosmetics but there are limits which cannot be exceeded. The limits are established by the genome. You can't breed dogs to the size of a mouse or elephant because the genome isn't designed to support it and neither random mutation + natural selection nor recombination is capable of going beyond those limits. Likewise you won't ever see a cold blooded dog, a dog with feathers or scales, or even retractible claws! Those options simply don't exist in the canine genome. It's easy to imagine there are no limits but that's never been demonstrated - it is only imagined - and it will never be anything but imagined if ID is true. Another thing that misleads is things breaking and in the act of breaking it appears like an improvement. Say the lock on your car door jams and you can't get into it. So you break the window and now you can drive it. That's a big improvement over a car that is useless because you're locked out of it but it's not as good as car with working locks and no broken windows. This is how resistance to antibiotics, insectides, and the like arises. We introduce something into the environment that jams a mechanism in the bug. Random mutation breaks something so the jam is ineffective. The modified bug survives and it looks like it improved but it's really not as fit as it was before. DaveScot_{October 27, 2007
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DaveScott says: "With regard to your comment about ID predicting genomic stability over many generations - I don’t agree. I don’t see anything about ID that predicts stability. What is your basis for that claim?" When we observe known designers we see that they often build in redundancy and error correction mechanisms in order to increase stability. We observe both redundancy and error correction in the genetic code, which results in stability over thousands of generations. I infer that an unknown designer built in the redundancy and error correction for the purpose of obtaining stability that is observed similar to the way known designers achieve the same result.BarryA_{October 27, 2007
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BarryA said,
Yes; consider scrabble letters. If you throw them in the air enough times it is likely that very simple letter combinations (”it” “at” “so” perhaps even “cat”). That information is specified (it has meaning), but it is not complex. But there is a virtual certainty that you will never get a sentence like this one. The information in the preceeding sentence was both spcified complex.
I'm still not quite getting it. You seem to be saying that if information is generated by random mutations it can't be CSI by definition. How is this not tautological?Mickey Bitsko_{October 27, 2007
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Having demonstrated an inability to discriminate between a true dicotomy and a false dichotomy, terminiki has been terminated.DaveScot_{October 27, 2007
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Barry With regard to your comment about ID predicting genomic stability over many generations - I don't agree. I don't see anything about ID that predicts stability. What is your basis for that claim? This got me thinking about a book I'm reading. J.Sanford's Genetic Entropy. It would seem that p.falciparum's stability over billions of trillions of generations is direct refutation of Sanford's genetic entropy hypothesis.DaveScot_{October 27, 2007
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terminiki You need to do a little more thinking. Here's what you need to think about. Something can be designed. Something can be not designed. Use the logic skills you think you have and present us with a third option. Failing that, you're out of here for belligerant stupidity. DaveScot_{October 27, 2007
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BarryA, You really need to do a little more reading in the field of logical fallacies. Just because you see only two possibilities does not necessarily mean there are in fact only two possibilities. especially in the case of the origin and history of organisms on this planet. Evolution could be wrong but that does not, in it self, mean that ID is true. Your argument is most definitely a fallacy of a false dichotomy.temminicki_{October 27, 2007
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Mickey writes: "Are you saying that there can be increases in information as a result of random mutations, just not Complex Specified information?" Yes; consider scrabble letters. If you throw them in the air enough times it is likely that very simple letter combinations ("it" "at" "so" perhaps even "cat"). That information is specified (it has meaning), but it is not complex. But there is a virtual certainty that you will never get a sentence like this one. The information in the preceeding sentence was both spcified complex.BarryA_{October 27, 2007
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MacT writes: "No. As a general matter, Darwinism and ID do not disagree on every single point of evidence, or interpretation." MacT, you miss my point. I never said ID and Darwinism disagree on every point. But if there are two and only two credible theories (I don't include panspermia among credible theories), it is practically a truism that to the extent one is disconfirmed the other is supported.BarryA_{October 27, 2007
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The splitting of the humans into two separate species by natural means implies no inner breeding amongst different social classes for a long time which would be necessary so that certain genetic differences could fix themselves. Certainly such a thing is possible but how long would this social isolation have to exist for two populations to drift apart genetically. Who knows where present trends will lead but I am not so sure this would happen with today knowledge. This type of thinking might have had some traction 40-50 years ago before the advent of birth control but birth control tends to be the wild card because it may affect less functional humans more than those who can and want to raise children. There is some evidence that dysfunctional people might have less children because they too like the good life and who needs kids today when it is unlikely you can take care of them. So I am not so sure what social scenario could lead to the isolation over thousands of years that would be necessary for one group to break off genetically from another. Many science fiction stories had worlds where the underclass essentially developed out of control and lived in ghettos of poverty stricken crime infested areas but birth control would be available to all of these potential worlds and there would be no compulsion to have children when they were not necessary. Of course all of this is trumped by genetic engineering of the genome and I just read a serious discussion of medical care that thought it likely that the first person to live 1000 years was probably alive now. If genetic engineering gets a hold I am afraid we will see several potential new species with consequence we cannot even dream of.jerry_{October 27, 2007
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I'm a little new to the nuts and bolts, as it were, of ID science, so forgive me if there's an obvious answer to this question. BarryA says,
...random mutations can result in a degradation of genetic information, but not an increase in genetic [complex specified] information.
This sounds like a tautology might be involved wrt "complex specified" information and the ability of random mutations. Are you saying that there can be increases in information as a result of random mutations, just not Complex Specified information?Mickey Bitsko_{October 27, 2007
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"Collin writes: “I mean, it [i.e., Behe’s work] is a great refutation of darwinism, but is it evidence for design?” Yes. First, as a general matter, Darwinism and ID are the only two games in town. Evidence disconfirming one necessarily supports the other." No. As a general matter, Darwinism and ID do not disagree on every single point of evidence, or interpretation. That would simply be silly. Science doesn't work that way; competing theories are not mirror images of each other. Logical absurdities do not lend credibility to the ID case. If we want ID to be regarded seriously, sweeping generalizations such as this must be avoided. We're smarter than that.MacT_{October 27, 2007
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Collin writes: "I mean, it [i.e., Behe’s work] is a great refutation of darwinism, but is it evidence for design?" Yes. First, as a general matter, Darwinism and ID are the only two games in town. Evidence disconfirming one necessarily supports the other. In this particular case, ID posits that intelligent agency is the only known source of increases in complex specified information. A corollary to that assertion is that unguided natural forces [chance and necessity filtered by NS] are not capable of causing increases in complex specified information. Behe's work is compelling evidence supporting this corollary. Another corollary to ID is that a particular organism's genetic code will be relatively stable over many generations. Behe's work confirms this prediction. Finally, a third corollary to ID is that random mutations can result in a degradation of genetic information, but not an increase in genetic [complex specified] information. Again, this prediction is confirmed.BarryA_{October 27, 2007
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In the 1895 book, the human race has evolved into two distinct species, the highly intelligent and wealthy Eloi and the frightening, animalistic Morlock who are destined to work underground to keep the Eloi happy
Niall Firth had better read The Time Machine again, The Eloi were rather pleasantly maintained sources of protein for the Morlocks, They may have been beautiful, but were perfectly useless otherwise. Just meat on the hoof (oops foot) out to pasture.D.A.Newton_{October 27, 2007
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Is the malaria parasite gene prediction an ID prediction, or merely an anti-darwin/natural selection prediction? I mean, it is a great refutation of darwinism, but is it evidence for design?Collin_{October 27, 2007
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