You want to see a few more of my travel pictures, don’t you? Yesterday, we got on the Seven Oaks line leaving Victoria Station, and ended up at Bromley South, where we were met by our faithful native guide, Robin Levett. He drove us through narrow, winding country roads to the tiny town of Downe. Downe is very picturesque and old country English, but we left it (after refreshing ourselves at the pub, which seems to be a mandatory tradition here, and after meeting Louis, another gentleman who joined us on our journey) to walk a mile or so down another narrow, tree- and hedge-lined road to end up at a certain country squire’s fine old home.
Here, Larry Moran and I stopped at the entrance, to pose with a picture of the prior owner.
The house is large and well-maintained, and something about the atmosphere encourages lively discussions about evolutionary biology.
When tired of arguing, the house has a little path set off a ways behind the fields, where one can walk and think. It’s a marvelous idea. If I had a 15 acre farm, I’d set aside a piece of it for a sandwalk, too, I think.
We did spend a few hours at the house, but I’ll spare you the endless details. The important thing is that we strolled back to town and yes, we did stop at the pub. Again.
It’s a lovely old pub, and once upon a time, Darwin drank down a pint here. Now so have Larry, Louis, Robin, and PZ.
A bit off-topic, have you gotten into a fight with Dawkins about the Darwin Wars?
*sighs*
*checks piggy bank to see if there’s enough in there for ticket to UK*
*sighs again*
S Drwn ws jst “cntry sqr” h?
H ws n ndpndntly wlthy vctrn ltsts wh lt hs ds cm t n hs “scnc” bks lk th Dscnt f Mn….., “svg” rcs wld b lmntd, wmn wr ntllctlly nfrr, nd tht vccntn WKNS TH RC.
Th wrld wld hv bn bttr ff f h hd sht p bt lt f hs “scnc”.
So, who’s the Leicester Tigers supporter in the middle of rural Kent?
Coincidentally, London blogger Diamond Geezer has just featured this fantastic Darwin mural in Chislehurst, southeast London: http://www.thebattens.me.uk/market3.jpg
I’ve seen that sign before.. now where was it?
Even had to use the same native bearer, eh? No imagination.
Loved the pub, didn’t you?
Oh my gosh! That MUST be the Cosmic Spear of Divine Justice piercing the group in that last pic. It COULDN’T be a camera artifact…
Damn, PZ comes to my home town and I’m stuck at university halfway up the country!
btw Joe, that mural is actually in Bromley, a short walk up the hill from Bromley South station. It was previously a huge mural to HG Wells (another local) and he’s still hanging on as a strange little painting on the left hand side of the tree.
I’ve been working in Bromley for years now, and to my shame I’ve managed to miss both the Darwin connection AND PZ’s trip. Still, I’m sure both parties will get by just fine without my mouth-breathing fanboydom.
I can’t really describe the mental disconnect between PZ (scion of science and regular Sage of t’IntarWebs) and Bromley, er, Athens of Kent and my place of toil. Without any disrespect to Rob’s home town, it can be reasonably alleged that had Bromley been more interesting, Punk may never have happened: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4422743,00.html
Jury’s still way, WAY out on whether that’s a bad thing. Anyhow, glad the weather has been unseasonably good for PZ’s trip.
Graham,
I (Louis) am the Tigers supporter in rural Kent. Several reasons for this: 1) I used to live in Leicester (many moons ago) and Nottingham (until very recently, in fact STILL trying to sell my house there), 2) I’ve supported the Tigers for about 14 years since a guy knew as an undergrad went to play for them, 3) I have always liked their rugby especially during the Wig Garforth Cockers era of the ABC engine room.
Mind you, their performance this season has been very lacklustre. But you stick with your team through the good and bad in my book. Things will coem good again I hope.
Louis
This is from the secret hidden chapter that you can only read while the book is closed, right?
Blair wrote:
“So Darwin was just a “country squire” eh? He was an independently wealthy victorian elitists who let his ideas come out in his “science” books like the Descent of Man…i.e., “savage” races would be eliminated, women were intellectually inferior, and that vaccination WEAKENS THE RACE. The world would have been better off if he had shut up about a lot of his “science”.”
BULLSHIT!!! Creationists stop throwing shit at Darwin!!! One of the greatest scientists ever!
PZ,
Dude, did you just bring one change of clothes?
Hi Louis – thanks for the reply. My interest was two-fold, really – 1) I’m a Sale supporter and I wanted an excuse to say “45-20” :-) (and, yes, I know what happened first game this season :-( ), 2) I’m actually a Man of Kent myself, although exiled some 30 years ago to Manchester (and, no, I wouldn’t go back). I would have loved the chance to meet up with PZ – I’ve been reading this blog avidly for about 18 months, although I don’t comment much. It would have been fun, I think, to converse with someone who shares many of my views and interests (biology, but not necessarily with the emphasis on squishy things with lots of arms). Unfortunately, even on such a small island as this, planning a trip from Manchester to London on short notice presents many difficulties.
yeah, and how come you neber smile in these pics? Lighten up dude…some of us are stuck here grading exams.
Blair wrote: ‘The world would have been better off if he had shut up about a lot of his “science” ‘.
The Blair (anti-science) Bitch Project.
Sorry. Couldn’t resist.
Blair: you seem ignorant of the fact that everyone who lived during Darwin’s time believed those things. HG Wells shared more or less the same beliefs as Hitler when it came to races, Lincoln insisted that blacks were inferior to whites even as he freed them from slavery, etc. I would be willing to say that at least 95% the Victorian population was racist and sexist by today’s standards. We consider Ben Franklin ahead of his time because he was willing to accept just two races (whites and Native Americans) as roughly equal. Also, Darwin did not say that “savage races” were inferior. He stated that any savage behavior was mainly a result of a harsh enviroment.
Blair’s comments are kind of pointless when made in front of a bunch of people who have actually read “The Descent of Man.”
Hey, Blair, the text of the book is on line. You can read it and you should. You don’t want to accidentally sound like a moron. That’s something you should always do on purpose.
As an unashamed car geek, I must know: What is the vehicle barely glimpsed in the first photo? It seems vaguely VW-ish, but I really can’t tell.
“I want to walk where Darwin walked” I said, justifying to my friend a very expensive trip to the Galapagos.
She replied,” It would be a whole lot cheaper to go to Down House.”
I went to the Galapagos anyway.
Hank Fox wrote: “The Blair (anti-science) Bitch Project.”
Priceless, Hank!!! Thanks for my laugh of the day.
OK, PZ, I knew you were mad at me for hiking to the Burgess Shale without you, but Dawkins, Lalla and Down House in one trip is rubbing it in a bit, don’t you think?
[Darwin was] one of the greatest scientists ever!
Preach it, bro. Think about all that we owe to Darwin, and realize that his memory, which should be celebrated throughout the world, is more persecuted and trashed than Jesus supposedly was. It’s interesting when you think of how the “crucifixion” story is just an allegorical tale about how the mob turns against its best and brightest. Has there been any scientist more unjustly reviled than Charles Darwin?
but Dawkins, Lalla and Down House in one trip is rubbing it in a bit, don’t you think?
Down, tiger. How would you have felt if PZ hadn’t done all of them on this trip? (Or had and didn’t blog about it?)
Regarding Blair’s vomitous –
A measure of Darwin’s influence and the greatness of his science is that evolutionary biology has provided us with reasons to reject racist superstition.
Wow! Just wow! I verdigris with envy.
Hmmm. But, the Burgess Shale is at least within striking distance… Thanks for the consolation, Doc Bill!
Steviepinhead, sadly, the Burgess Shales are off limits to tourists, as the Canadian government doesn’t want people poaching the Cambrian beasties dwelling within.
I used to live near Downe back when it was still owned by the Royal College of Surgeons, it was dreary and somewhat uninspiring. Last year I went back and lo! it had been aquired and was now run by English Heritage, and it was fantastic. I was there late in the afternoon one Friday and had the place to myself. I spent nearly 30 minutes in Darwin’s study just soaking up the atmosphere. I had one of these audio tour guide thingies and who did the commentry? Sir David Attenborough – who else?
BTW, the Queen’s Head is a better pub in the village.
Let me second Rockingham. Twenty years ago, in the bad old days when the Royal College of Surgeons ran Down House with benign neglect, I tried to get there only to (a) get lost on the way, and (b) find on finally arriving that the bloody place was closed! But since English Heritage has taken over it’s been transformed. Now if only they could pull off the same inspirational trick for Stonehenge!
Did you see the barnacles?
fusilier, who’d be reading that book, right now, except it’s under a stack of lab exams
James 2:24
John Wilkins says,
Robin (the native bearer) was kind enough to get us into Darwin’s laboratory behind the greenhouse. We know you didn’t get in there because he told us.
The laboratory has a bee hive and worm pots and lots of exciting stuff that Robin reserved especially for me and PZ.
Eat your heart out. :-)
I guess I knew at some level of my pinheaded consciousness there were restrictions on access to the Burgess Shales. I remember chatting with a fellow climber-hiker type who had been there, but he’s also a museum employee. I may have to finagle something. Or just hike as close as possible and look from afar.
Or, better yet, locate an appropriately-named pub in a nearby community: “Burgess Ales,” “Wonderful Dive,” or something along those lines…
Stevie, you could get your friend to get pictures of some of the museum’s specimens, and then you could blow up those pictures to make a Burgess Shales-themed amusement park.
Or gallery of some sort.
Actually, the Burke Museum here in Seattle was fortunate enough to host a travelling exhibit of Burgess Shale fossils from the Smithsonian (IIRC) about a year ago.
Splendid, splendid, splendid! Such evocative names–hallucegenia, marella, wiwaxia! And as pretty in person, though mostly very, very small, and difficult to distinguish against their dark settings. Amazing that the sharp eyes of the paleontologists first spotted them at all, a hundred years back. Sad that some would squeeze their own eyes shut, even now.
All this is a bit adrift from our start at Down House. But the Crea-IDiots have their sites of false worship and we have ours, where vistas into beckoning realities first were glimpsed.
Lectric Lady wrote:
“I want to walk where Darwin walked” I said, justifying to my friend a very expensive trip to the Galapagos.
hmmmm WWDD?
Easy…Galapagos.
**eg**
I’d skip the whole “getting infested with trypanosomes along the way” part, though.
“Larry Moran and I stopped at the entrance, to pose with a picture of the prior owner”
“…stop throwing shit at Darwin!!! One of the greatest scientists ever!”
” “I want to walk where Darwin walked” I said, justifying to my friend a very expensive trip to the Galapagos.”
“Think about all that we owe to Darwin…”
“I spent nearly 30 minutes in Darwin’s study just soaking up the atmosphere.”
You have to love the devotion and commitment that accompanies profound faith.
.
Just face facts. Religious faith simply isn’t equivalent to science in any sense.
Wh clmd thy wr y dmb crckr?
The Burke’s Burgess exhibit was fantastic. If you ever have a chance to see these fossils, by all means do so.
Sadly, I suspect that if that Darwin mural was here in America, it would likely be vandalized.
Larry, how could you? You promised me you’d say that you had to tie me up and whip me before I revealed the secret…
Larry, how could you? You promised me you’d say that you had to tie me up and whip me before I revealed the secret…
Two points…
“Just a country squire…
Well Darwins’fasmily was well-off, and his wife was a Wedgewood, BUT think about the co-author of evolution – Alfred Russel Wallace – who had to work his way up.
The IDEA is the important thing here ……
Both Darwin and Wallace went on to do lots more useful work.
Wallaces’ “The Malay Archipelego” is a good read, as is “Earthworms” – I’ve got Victorian copies of both …..
The car looks like the front end of a small Renault (14?)
Envy thy name is Wilkins!
PZ and Larry had TWO native bearers (of which I was one) and as you should know both Robin and I work for a company of bearers “Expendable Natives Corporation”, our motto is “We feed ourselves to the fauna before you”. Luckily in rural Kent the most fearsome fauna extends only to a mildly irritated weasel, so we were safe.
We also encountered Darwinalia of a profound nature which, whilst I shall not bother to mention the pathetic detail, was obviously better than YOUR Darwinalia.
Louis
P.S. To the chump posting as Phil Corn: passion about, and admiration for science, scientists and nature in general does not constitute religion. Science is not about a dispassionate series of equations read out in a dull monotone. There is passion, love and all wonderful human experience to be had in the sciences. Just because some people get an emotional (and, yes, irrational) thrill from walking along Darwin’s sandwalk does not equate this in any way to a faith. Muppet.
Hey Phil, if you don’t feel any reverence when contemplating the contributions of great thinkers and great artists, I feel sorry for you.
“The worship of God is. Honouring his gifts in other men each according to his genius. and loving the greatest men best, those who envy or calumniate great men hate God, for there is no other God.”
-Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“admiration for science, scientists and nature in general does not constitute religion. Science is not about a dispassionate series of equations read out in a dull monotone”
But you are talking about science as opposed to Darwinism.
The parallels between the veneration of things Darwin, and Catholicism for example, are actually hard to miss. Adoration of the saints, sacred texts, pilgrimages and hallowed sites, cathedrals, relics and icons, heresy and even inquisitions. It’s all there except maybe hymns.
.
I venerate, for example, Dante and Bach every bit as much as I do Darwin and Einstein. Am I a devotee of multiple “religions” according to your peculiar definition?
The parallels between the veneration of things Darwin, and Catholicism for example, are actually hard to miss. Adoration of the saints, sacred texts, pilgrimages and hallowed sites, cathedrals, relics and icons, heresy and even inquisitions.
So if you like people, places, art and books you’re automatically religious?
They’re not hymms. It’s called filking.
Anton Mates said:
So if you like people, places, art and books you’re automatically religious?
Only if you take Picasso’s portrait of himself and fashion it into an icon that you enshrine with pearls, gold, gemstones, as well as burn incense of frankinscense and myrrh whenever you watch The Colbert Report.
“You have to love the devotion and commitment that accompanies profound faith.”
Yes, evolution is a faith! Just like gravitation, the roundness of the earth, that the earth revolves around the sun, that 1 + 1 = 2…
It’s all faith. Or… isn’t it?
DUUUUUUUUHHHH!!!
Some time ago, I posted a link to Carl Sagan’s Cosmos Series, but it was only the first episode. Here is a link to the entire series.
http://www.cosmos.4×2.net/
It is well worth watching. What is amazing is how little it has aged. As to evolution, the political battle has gotten even worse since 1980.
Well, I’m not sure any of this “Darwinism” (?) = Religion stuff was aimed my way, but my above sentence lost a key phrase between neurons and keyboard:
I didn’t mean to suggest that we admirers of evo-bio have our own “sites of false worship,” or even “true” “worship,” but certainly there are sites well worth remarking, where scientists–and through them all of humanity–were fortunate enough to obtain one of those further glimpses into reality’s depths.
“I venerate, for example, Dante and Bach every bit as much as I do Darwin and Einstein. Am I a devotee of multiple “religions” according to your peculiar definition?”
No, appreciating talent and ideas is not being religious. But if you filed suits wanting federal courts to rule exclusively in favor of Dante’s writings, Bach’s music or Einstein’s theories, I think you would qualify as a zealot, perhaps even a cultist.
—
“So if you like people, places, art and books you’re automatically religious?”
It depends on the level of devotion, don’t you think?
—
“They’re not hymms. It’s called filking. Ken Cope”
Thanks for enriching my vocabulary Ken. That’s a good word and I enjoyed reading the poem. It wouldn’t really substitute for a hymn, but if the first two lines of each verse were read by an official, and an audience chimed in for the next two, it would make a fine liturgy.
—
“Yes, evolution is a faith! Just like gravitation, the roundness of the earth, that the earth revolves around the sun, that 1 + 1 = 2… It’s all faith. Or… isn’t it?”
Johan, surely you can discern the differences between things that can be observed, measured, demonstrated or duplicated in experiments, and the TOE. You know, the empirical evidence deal.
—
“certainly there are sites well worth remarking, where scientists–and through them all of humanity–were fortunate enough to obtain one of those further glimpses into reality’s depths”
Of course there are.
.
Oooh, a Burgess Shale themed amusement park would be wonderful! Build the Ediacara water slide right next door though. ;^)
Has anyone been to the Mendel exhibit at the Field Museum yet? How is it? The connection to this thread is that I thought that Mendel’s monastery was going through some sort of renovation to make it into a tourist attraction but haven’t heard much about the progress, if any.
We don’t pray to Darwin, Newton, or Einstein, asking for intercession.
We have none. Some works are considered to have an important historical significance, but they’re not actually used for teaching, and very few people have ever read them.
Um, not really.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
At most, people who appreciate science have a mild concern with celebrity. People who appreciate history manifest the same sort of behaviors – and it’s not at all similar to people who adhere to religions.
No, appreciating talent and ideas is not being religious. But if you filed suits wanting federal courts to rule exclusively in favor of Dante’s writings, Bach’s music or Einstein’s theories, I think you would qualify as a zealot, perhaps even a cultist.
Hm. I guess it’s a good thing pro-science-education folks only want to push modern evolutionary theory, which relies pretty much not at all on Darwin’s original writings, and has modified or outright rejected many of his theories while adding ideas he could never have anticipated.
Federal courts so far seem to agree, funnily enough.
“So if you like people, places, art and books you’re automatically religious?”
It depends on the level of devotion, don’t you think?
No, I don’t. I’m extremely devoted to my wife, but I don’t consider her a literal goddess, just a metaphorical one.
“Sacred Sites” …
Hmmm …..
How about: R.B.G. Kew?
A greater “temple” to science and imagination than any cathedral, and still working.
AND: – was this your first time in the UK, PZ, or have you been here before?
“Johan, surely you can discern the differences between things that can be observed, measured, demonstrated or duplicated in experiments, and the TOE. You know, the empirical evidence deal.”
BS! There are a massive amount of empirical evidence for evolution. Evolution is a FACT or, even better, it’s a scientific THEORY!!!!
F—–A—–C—–T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
T—-H—-E—-O—–R—-Y!!!!!!!!!!
Read this…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_evolution
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
…and grow up!
Johan,
I’ve read all the arguments from many sources, but thanks for the links anyway. Advocate articles and sites like these tend to gloss over the problems and hang on for dear life to things that seem to be supportive, like the supposed evo of the horse in the Wikipedia article.
By the way, I’m fully grown, but I understand your attitude. Inquiry and curiosity about the TOE and baseline problems with it are often received as blasphemy.
“By the way, I’m fully grown (…)”
I doubt it!
“Inquiry and curiosity about the TOE and baseline problems with it are often received as blasphemy.”
Yes! You are correct! Those fat biologist don’t argue about anything…ANYTHING…at all in evolutionary theory. Oh no! They just sit on their big fat asses, drinking coffe all day long.
“(…) supposed evo of the horse in the Wikipedia article.”
Thats 100 % creationist bullshit. When T. H. Huxley saw the “the Marsh collection” he said…””[these specimens] demonstrated the evolution of the horse beyond question, and for the first time indicated the direct line of descent of an existing animal.”
But then, shit and lies, is all the creationists got.
By the way…
Inquiry and curiosity about the roundness of the earth are often received as blasphemy.
Inquiry and curiosity about the heliocentric theory are often received as blasphemy
Inquiry and curiosity about “if 1+1=2” are often received as blasphemy.
…
“When T. H. Huxley saw the “the Marsh collection” he said…””[these specimens] demonstrated the evolution of the horse beyond question, and for the first time indicated the direct line of descent of an existing animal.” “
But Johan, Huxley was already a convert. He was just looking for substantiation for his belief, and Marsh had put together an exhibit that provided that.
That was a long time ago. Frankly, I’m surprised that you would go back to the late 1800’s for a supporting quote. Even Eldredge has noted that the horse tree is not convincing. Drawing conclusions based on morphology in fossils involves huge assumptions.
Phil, descent with modification is beyond-conclusively demonstrated by an Everest of molecular evidence, without even needing to talk about fossils. But feel free to keep talking out your ass if it makes you feel clever.
JOhan wrote:
“There are a massive amount of empirical evidence for evolution. Evolution is a FACT or, even better, it’s a scientific THEORY!!!!”
It’s not a scientific theory.
I believe it qualifies as a Law of Nature, alongside the Law of Gravity and the Laws of Motion. After all, natural Laws are mere descriptions of how things behave. If you drop a mass in a gravitational field, it will fall towards the center of gravity. This has been demonstrated by a huge body of observational and experimental data.
A theory is an explanation or a proposed mechanism for some observed aspect of the world. Theories DO NOT become laws because in many cases the law preceeds the theory.
The Law of Gravity is a perfect example. There are proposed “theories” of gravity, but none are satisfying. On the other hand, until objects defy the law of gravity, it’s position as a law of nature is unchallenged.
So, the Law of Evolution stands firm: Living organisms change over time and the extant organisms are different from the extinct ones. However, there is no credible Theory of Evolution. While we know that evolution has occurred, we haven’t the large body of observational or experimental evidence needed to support any specific mechanism.
It is clear then that my position on this matter is perfectly logical and defensible: I accept evolution as a fact and I invoke intelligent design as the mechanism.
To ask the question “do you believe in evolution or intelligent design is like asking do you believe in gravity or do you believe in Brans-Dicke theory. (or General relativity or Rosen bi-metric theory or Process Physics). It’s an absurd question.
Nuts of a feather flock together, I see. Don’t you have anything better to do with your life, Charlie, than make this constantly reiterated pathtetic display of your ignorance and insanity?
“descent with modification is beyond-conclusively demonstrated by an Everest of molecular evidence”
Steve, descent with modification is one thing. Dogs shows are evidence of this.
But the notion that tens of millions of species were produced, with mutation being the mechanism that makes this happen is not plausible in my view. If you are convinced that it is, then you are easily convinced, but there are serious issues with this idea.
Well, Phil, can you present a better theory? I mean, you must have one! Yes! Everybody, listen up! Phil has falsified the theory of evolution! He will get the Nobel Price (I’m a f*cking Swede so I can fix that!!!) Phils theory for the diversity of life, it’s a new f*cking paradigm in evolutionary theory. YEEEES!!!!!!
“Drawing conclusions based on morphology in fossils involves huge assumptions.”
Well, thank f*cking God for molecular biology. We don’t need those f*cking fossils. I say; Smash those f*cking transitional fossils!!!
“I accept evolution as a fact and I invoke intelligent design as the mechanism.”
Judge Jones! He f*cking rules: “we conclude that the religious nature of ID [intelligent design] would be readily apparent to an objective observer, adult or child”. Well, thats clearly not a scientific theory! You can’t falsify it, you can make any predictions, there are no empirical evidence that supports it.
One more time (sloooowly)
S—C—-I—E—-N—T—-I—-F—-I—-C
T——-H——E—–O—–R——Y
Steve LaBonne, thanks for adding some common sense into this discussion!
And if you had any knowledge and understanding on which to base this opinion (as do the thousands of trained biologists, myself among them, who will tell you you’re full of it), that opinion might conceivably be of interest to someone besides yourself. Opinions, as you know, are similar in ubiquity to a certain anatomical feature.
But as I say, carry on if it amuses you. It might amuse me if I weren’t jaded from seeing so many similar trolls over the years.
Steve LaBonne wrote:
“Nuts of a feather flock together, I see. Don’t you have anything better to do with your life, Charlie, than make this constantly reiterated pathtetic display of your ignorance and insanity?”
Steve, I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think of me so long as you vote for Sherrod Brown in November.
Johan,
“Phil has falsified the theory of evolution! He will get the Nobel Price (I’m a f*cking Swede so I can fix that!!!)”
I’m just sick to hear that. I had called my Mom and told her I thought I had an NP in the bag.
“I say; Smash those f*cking transitional fossils!!! “
If you bid on doing the work, better go lump sum. Definitely not a time and materials situation.
“Steve LaBonne, thanks for adding some common sense into this discussion! “
I agree.
———
Steve,
“And if you had any knowledge and understanding on which to base this opinion (as do the thousands of trained biologists, myself among them, who will tell you you’re full of it), that opinion might conceivably be of interest to someone besides yourself. “
I’m glad you have credentials. I’m just a mechanical designer. So any questions I might ask would be coming from a practical or applied point of view. There is not a lot of room for guesswork in my profession.
Some of the questions I have about the role of mutations have to do with what goes on during DNA replication. If polymerase is there specifically to check and repair errors during that process, doesn’t that pit that enzyme against the mechanism that is supposed to provide alterations that evolution needs in order to work? Would you consider polymerase “smart”? It’s hard to look at replication as just a chemical reaction when information that defines the organism is involved, don’t you think?
Johan, please feel free to comment.
.
Well, yes, but so what?
You appear to be assuming that because there are two conflicting natural processes (error-checking vs. mutation), that the error-checking must always win out. Obviously, it doesn’t.
It should be apparant that in nature, there are sometimes processes that oppose each other in effect, but sometimes one process will be overwhelmed by the other. Erosion vs. deposition and/or vulcanism comes to mind, as but one example.
Owlmirror,
“Well, yes, but so what?
You appear to be assuming that because there are two conflicting natural processes (error-checking vs. mutation), that the error-checking must always win out. Obviously, it doesn’t.
It should be apparant that in nature, there are sometimes processes that oppose each other in effect, but sometimes one process will be overwhelmed by the other. Erosion vs. deposition and/or vulcanism comes to mind, as but one example.”
The so what of this is that evolution is dependant on mutations, yet you have an enzyme which specifically serves to prohibit them. It is not hard to find estimates that suppose that polymerase reduces errors down to the tune of one per billion. That’s pretty close to “error-checking must always win out” if you ask me. If “one process will be overwhelmed by the other”, it is going to be mutations, though I would not consider them a process.
But the issue is not really about conflicting processes. It is about whether or not mutation is a plausible driver mechanism for variation. I don’t think it is at all.
Geological processes is not a good comparison. Mutations are random errors but the function of polymerase is nothing short of deliberate.
What is your answer to “Would you consider polymerase “smart”?”
Filking comes from science fiction/fantasy enthusiasts, who overlap quite a bit with the community of people who don’t reject science. Hymms come from a community of people who frequently reject science, and are thus enthusiasts for a very slim subgenre of fiction/fantasy, which they treat as historical documents.
I’m just a mechanical designer.
[cough] Salem hypothesis.
“Johan, please feel free to comment.”
Damn! Owlmirror beat me to it! F*CK!
Charlie, I’ll have to hold my nose to vote for Brown after he voted for the Boy Emperor’s Torture Legalization Act in the House, but vote for him I will, along with the rest of a straight Democratic ticket. In the words of Democratic bumper sticker I saw recently, enough is enough.
Phil, I simply don’t believe you’ve actually read the things you claim to have read, because you’d have found your rather elementary confusions addressed in them.
Try actually reading this: http://bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca/Evolution_by_Accident/Evolution_by_Accident.html
Additional comment on polymerase error rates: I see essentially two evolutionary pathways that could explain the current rates. One (which I tend to favor) is that selection at the individual level- which would favor faithful transmission of genes- has in fact driven these rates about as low as the chemistry will allow, and the continued occurrence of mutations in, and thus the evolvability, of lineages in which this minimum has been reached is essentially a byproduct of that brute chemical reality. The other is that there is effective group selection for evolvability of lineages such that the error rate, while physically capable of being driven lower, hasn’t been because lineages that have accomplished this haven’t survived because of their genetic inflexibility. I imagine that this question could be addressed in part by chemical studies on the detailed mechanisms of the enzymes in question, including maybe some site-directed mutagensis to see if DNA replication can be engineered to have an even lower rate. Perhaps such studies have even been done for all I know; I don’t pretend to be up on the literature.
Hm. “one per billion.” One per billion what, exactly?
The most basic and fundamental error is the assumption that “nearly zero” means absolutely zero, at all times and in all cases. Given that mutation exists — indeed, we are all mutants — this assumption fails in the face of reality.
I suspect that the real problem is the assumption that polymerase operates on all types of DNA replication.
Have you read up on meosis?
Why not? Mutation is a variation.
Huge assumption of a fact not in evidence.
The question is sufficiently ambiguous that I am not sure how to respond. What exactly do you mean by “smart-inside-scare-quotes”?
That should be meiosis, of course.
Wikipedia corrected my spelling, and I didn’t notice. Oh, well.
Ken,
“Hymms come from a community of people who frequently reject science, and are thus enthusiasts for a very slim subgenre of fiction/fantasy, which they treat as historical documents.”
I don’t think “reject science” is a fair characterization. Just about all the fathers of the modern sciences were “religious”. Their beliefs are excused as being quaint now, while materialism is considered enlightnenment, whether it is realistic or not.
” Salem hypothesis.”
There is a reason for the discord between the hard sciences and those currently prefixed as evolutionary-. Biologists are not bound by the constraints of actual possiblity, at least when it comes to some of the irregular ideas in evolutionary theory. Their discipline would be much improved if it required study of statistics and probabilities.
—–
Steve,
“Try actually reading this:”
I read the piece you linked to. I’m not sure of what point you thought it would make. The writer, as far as I could tell, was just looking for a comfort zone between the evolutionists who emphasize mutations and the ones who highlight selection. I think it is splitting hairs over two weak performers.
There were a couple of quotes that I enjoyed, like this one:
“There are many random events that took place in the past and these had a profound influence on the outcome of evolution. One of the easiest to understand is mass extinction”
Moran then backed up his statement with this gem from someone else’s book:
“mass extinctions are an important force in explaining the diversification of life through time. It is doubtful whether many of the major changes observed over the past 250 million years would have taken place had mass extinctions not occurred..”
I’m always amazed at the conclusions that these guys can come to. How is starting from scratch a shortcut?
In your second post:
“Additional comment on polymerase error rates: I see essentially two evolutionary pathways that could explain the current rates. One…is that selection at the individual level…..The other is that there is effective group selection…”
Two pathways, both of them involving selection. You have to have a mutation before there is anything to select. I think you guys have morphed selection into some kind of process out of need. The word gets used in evo articles as if it were a fairy that can make wishes come true. If you think about it, selection is just a population of some sort reacting to the environment. It can’t be anything but a result. There is nothing dynamic about it.
—-
Owlmirror,
Hm. “one per billion.” One per billion what, exactly?”
Base pairings.
“The most basic and fundamental error is the assumption that “nearly zero” means absolutely zero, at all times and in all cases.
I think the error is not being in touch with what is realistic and what is not. In order for evolution to have produced millions of plant and animal species, astronomical numbers of beneficial mutations had to occur. It would have taken at least millions, probably billions of these to get from a single-celled organism to just one higher order mammal, with enzymes fighting the process every step of the way. Would you hazard any sort of guess about how many DNA copy errors would be involved in producing a giraffe?
“I suspect that the real problem is the assumption that polymerase operates on all types of DNA replication.
Have you read up on meosis?”
The suspicion on polymerase being involved in meiosis is old news now I think.
“Mutation is a variation”
Yes, but one witn number problems as far as evolution goes. The most likely result of a mutation is no impact at all or bad news.
“Huge assumption [“the function of polymerase is nothing short of deliberate”] of a fact not in evidence.”
You are talking about an enzyme that is there to support a perfect replication so that informational quality is maintained. Would you call this as just a chemical reaction?
“What exactly do you mean by “smart-inside-scare-quotes”?”
I thought you panned the question so I copied and pasted it again.
—-
This is a cumbersome format to debate in. If you guys haunt any particular forums, post the link.
Um. What an astonishing statement. Statistics is practically the foundation of modern biology – and statistics repeatedly confirms evolution.
I presume you have not heard of bioinformatics.
You seem to have misunderstood what you read. Evolution doesn’t “start from scratch” after an extinction. It’s just that the extinction event frees up resources, and those organisms that did not go extinct are able to use the freed-up resources. Over time and after many generations, those organisms that specialize in different resources – different ecological niches – evolve into new species.
Quite right. That’s why I pointed out that the mutation rate is the realistic measure. Speculation and guessing about how many or few mutations will occur isn’t very useful when it’s now possible to sequence the genes of multiple generations of organisms, and find out exactly what that number is.
And according to recent work, in humans, it’s 1 in 100 million per nucleotide per generation, give or take, so there’s about 300 mutations between every generation of humans. (It’s a lot higher in other organisms.) That’s what I meant by “we’re all mutants”.
It doesn’t matter how much the enzymes are fighting the process if they just lose often enough. Comparing genetic sequences between generations shows that they do.
So? You’re forgetting the “selection” part: those mutations that are beneficial to the organism are passed on the to the organisms’s decendants.
As I’ve shown above, “perfect replication” cannot be a correct description. I’ll grant you near-perfect, but really, if it were in fact perfect, the only organisms that would exist would all be clones of each other. Since this is obviously not the case, I suggest you re-think how you want to phrase that.
Of course. What else is it supposed to be? The workings of a matter replicator out of Star Trek?
I don’t think “reject science” is a fair characterization. Just about all the fathers of the modern sciences were “religious”. Their beliefs are excused as being quaint now, while materialism is considered enlightnenment, whether it is realistic or not.
People sing hymms to suppress the part of the brain that that can appreciate filking. That hymm singing part? It wants nothing to do with science, as it may harsh the buzz.
There is a reason for the discord between the hard sciences and those currently prefixed as evolutionary-. Biologists are not bound
Biology is proposed to be outside the set of the hard sciences only by demented fuckwits. Do the rest of us a favor and eschew modern medicine immediately.
I agree that you have this problem, Phil. It would be greatly alleviated if you would ever get around to actually learning something about biology. Your comments are highly typical of what we see coming from engineering types who lack any biological knowledge or understanding. (Just in case you thuoght you were special, or something.)
Owlmirror,
“You seem to have misunderstood what you read. Evolution doesn’t “start from scratch” after an extinction. It’s just that the extinction event frees up resources, and those organisms that did not go extinct are able to use the freed-up resources. Over time and after many generations, those organisms that specialize in different resources – different ecological niches – evolve into new species.”
I understand the theoretical premise very well. I just don’t think it happens.
“That’s why I pointed out that the mutation rate is the realistic measure.”
Sorry, but the “realistic” part is where I see things getting pinched. Mutations are rare as a starting point and it only gets worse from there. They have to be beneficial which is extremely unlikely. And they have to occur in cells that will be used in reproduction which means they might be one out of millions. If they win this lottery, the resulting organism has to be fortunate enough to survive to pass the benefit on, as do the progeny. It is asking quite a lot of accidental, random DNA copy errors to produce tens of millions of vialbe, hyper-complex species. And documenting a supposition like this is all the more difficult when the glaring, observable rule, is stasis.
“Speculation and guessing about how many or few mutations will occur isn’t very useful when it’s now possible to sequence the genes of multiple generations of organisms, and find out exactly what that number is.”
Sequencing genes leaves out the time component. It also does not account for just how the variation and expansion of any particular sequence occurs. These have to fall back to mutation. Can you point to several, or even any, examples of new genetic information being generated from DNA replication errors? Surely you recognise that there have to have been countless millions of these productions if evolution is a reality.
“It doesn’t matter how much the enzymes are fighting the process if they just lose often enough. Comparing genetic sequences between generations shows that they do.”
No, it does not conclusively show that. It is, as you note, only comparing.
“So? You’re forgetting the “selection” part: those mutations that are beneficial to the organism are passed on the to the organisms’s decendants.
Enter the selection fairy. Selection is like a postal system with no mail to deliver if there aren’t mutations. But since you brought it up, there are genes are involved in cell death. Why would you suppose they were selected?
“As I’ve shown above, “perfect replication” cannot be a correct description. I’ll grant you near-perfect, but really, if it were in fact perfect, the only organisms that would exist would all be clones of each other. Since this is obviously not the case, I suggest you re-think how you want to phrase that.”
Okay, near-perfect it is. So it’s only near-perfect versus rare, accidental, random, meaningless replication mistakes.
“Of course. What else is it supposed to be [besides a chemical reaction]? The workings of a matter replicator out of Star Trek?”
It is hard for me to conceive of the function of polymerase as just chemistry. It has a purpose. It detects, checks and repairs with intent. But whatever it does, it creates a paradox. If enzymes originated by natural processes, that is, if they evolved, they did so to perform a function that deliberately inhibits evolution by way of mutation. I see that as an internal conflict with the theory.
——
Ken,
“Do the rest of us a favor and eschew modern medicine immediately.”
I’ve had this happen with muslims when I asked why their prophet didn’t have any prophecies. Blasphemy.
—–
Steve,
“Phil. It would be greatly alleviated if you would ever get around to actually learning something about biology. Your comments are highly typical of what we see coming from engineering types who lack any biological knowledge or understanding.”
Well, I’m really trying to understand some things about biology. But if you don’t ask questions about theories, especially highly speculative ones, you can wind up just inheriting someone else’s fantasies. When it comes to the efficacy of mutations to accomplish what they are credited with, I always think about ants. Ants build mounds, but if someone supposes that this means they built mountain ranges, I’ll probably be asking annoying questions.
Phil Corn:
Because you’ve done so much research into extinction events and speciation that you can prove it conclusively?
This turns out not to be the case. The glaring, observable rule is change — usually very slow, but sometimes faster.
If the sequencing is between known generations, then the average generation length can be used to estimate the amount of time.
Well, of course. Variation and expansion are caused by mutations.
I could do some research, but I’m not sure it would be useful in convincing you, since you seem to have rather idiosyncratic definitions of core biological concepts.
By one defintion, even the random changes that you so decry are “new genetic information”, so I’d like to understand better what exactly you mean by that phrase.
Right, and in “only” comparing, differences are found. Those differences are mutations. Mutations are where the error-checking enzymes have “lost”. See? Simple logic.
Better than the design fairy. Selection is observable from natural causes in the real world. No other alternatives have been demonstrated.
True, which is why it is so effective at delivering the mail, or rather, the species, since there are indeed mutations.
I’m not an expert, and I reserve the right to be wrong on this. Speculating based on various stuff that I’ve read suggests that the most reasonable explanation is genetic altruism: some cells are sacrificed so that the whole group of cells in the organism may live.
Do you know of a better explanation for cell death?
Yup. You’re slowly getting it, just like evolution tends to be a slow process in most multicellular organisms.
I’m really struggling to understand the confusion of concepts that you’re expressing here.
Um. You seem to be suggesting that evolution is a force that demands change, like a small child with attention-deficit disorder, and that therefore anything that inhibits or restricts change is anti-evolutionary, and therefore could not have evolved. That’s just weird, and also wrong. Evolution isn’t a force. Even evolutionary biologists wouldn’t say that change is more important than everything.
The first concept that you need to take into consideration is not evolution, but rather, self-replication. Now, if something is self-replicating, then if it has no error checking, then its ability to replicate is lessened — flaws in the replication process would lead to copies that are so imperfect that they cannot replicate. So it actually makes sense, from an evolutionary perspective, if one of those wild replicators evolves the enzyme to error-check itself: It will actually replicate better, and out-compete the wild-type replicators that lack error-checking. In other words, natural selection itself will favor polymerase.
But of course, even that error-checking is not perfect. Mutations do still crop up, albeit at a much-lessened rate. Those mutations that are so bad that the organism can’t reproduce will still be selected against. Those mutations that are neutral or favorable will be replicated, and error-checked, along with everything else.
Owlmirror,
“Because you’ve done so much research into extinction events and speciation that you can prove it conclusively?
No, I just don’t think the premise is plausible. I don’t think species form by way of mutations just because there are resources available. That would be Lamarckism on a grand scale.
“The glaring, observable rule is change — usually very slow, but sometimes faster.”
Change in the way of adaptation I am altogether good with, perhaps more so than the average evolutionist. But stasis is an anomaly for evolution. The species that have remained unchanged for supposed tens or hundreds of millions of years are routinely explained away as having reached some kind of near perfect form. Blue-green algae is believed to be virtually the same now as it was 2.5 or so billion years ago.
When you say “sometimes faster”, I suspect that you might be referencing punk-eek. I have a basic scientific problem with this idea as well. Gould and Eldredge basically formulated this idea, not in response to evidence, but as a way to deal with the fact that there isn’t any. That, in my mind, is just bad science happening because of a gross over-commitment to evolution.
“I could do some research [new genetic information being generated from DNA replication errors], but I’m not sure it would be useful in convincing you, since you seem to have rather idiosyncratic definitions of core biological concepts.
By one defintion, even the random changes that you so decry are “new genetic information”, so I’d like to understand better what exactly you mean by that phrase.”
Well, random changes are of no value unless they are information bearing. There are small organisms (though it is still hard to call them simple, and there are extremely complex forms with incredibly sophisticated systems. They are both defined by their DNA and information coded into that molecule. What are the known mechanisms or events that increase, organize and assemble copy errors into information bearing components?
For evolution to have happened there must have been trillions of organized alterations. How did these occur? For instance, if an organism gains a functioning liver, this has to happen as a sequence of mutational errors that define both the organ and the function of the organ. I think this is fabulously impossible, but if evolutionists are sure it happened, they should be able to document such changes.
“I’m not an expert, and I reserve the right to be wrong on this. Speculating based on various stuff that I’ve read suggests that the most reasonable explanation is genetic altruism: some cells are sacrificed so that the whole group of cells in the organism may live.
Do you know of a better explanation for cell death?”
It’s not just cell death. It is death of the organism. If your question is asking me to think inside the limits of naturalism, no, I don’t have a good idea for why death would be deliberately conserved.
“I’m really struggling to understand the confusion of concepts that you’re expressing here.”
I don’t think it is a particularly sophisticated concept. If polymerase evolved to prevent replication errors, then it evolved to prohibit the very thing that provides the changes for evolution. That is a giant conflict.
“You seem to be suggesting that evolution is a force that demands change…..The first concept that you need to take into consideration is not evolution, but rather, self-replication…. In other words, natural selection itself will favor polymerase.
But of course, even that error-checking is not perfect. Mutations do still crop up….”
But we are bickering about copy errors that are supposedly responsible for every level of sophistication in every living organism that ever lived, from grass to T-rex. From E-coli to blue whales. From roses to chickens. We are getting to just why people will never be able to believe that evolution is a reality. It is simply not believable.
Owlmirror, we may disagree, but I appreciate your courtesy and willingness to listen and exchange thoughts.
Yet you don’t have any evidence or logic against it — just your own sense of incredulity.
Sigh. You continue to mis-state concepts.
You know, I keep wanting to ask: what have you actually read and studied in biology? What have you read about evolution? What books, what web pages?
I am very puzzled as to how you could have come away from a reasonable explanation of evolution with all of these strange and twisted ideas as to what evolution is all about.
And adaptation is simply a result of mutation and selection, so why do you have a problem with those concepts?
Absolute stasis, yes. That would be indeed be odd. However, as I have pointed out multiple times, there is no stasis. Change exists, whether fast or slow.
I’d like to see a citation for that. Although I note that “virtually” the same does not mean “exactly” the same.
Actually, I was referring to the different mutation rates as being at higher rates for different organisms, which was from the reference I used. Although it works for puctuated equilibrium as well.
That’s another obviously confused statement. How is the fossil record not evidence?
But what does “information bearing” mean?
If “information bearing” is just a synonym for “enhances survivability”, then that’s partially correct. There are also neutral mutations which can eventually allow beneficial mutations to occur. I’m thinking specifically of gene duplication, here — the duplicated function may then change to something useful instead of remaining as a redundancy.
Selection. Those errors that enhance survivability or are neutral are passed on. Those errors that reduce or negate survivability or replication are not.
It’s hardly “fabulously impossible”, since it happened. As for “document such changes”, well, I might do the research for papers out there, but there’s that whole problem with you accepting them. Really, if someone published scientific papers on genetic evidence for mutations that lead to the development of the liver, would you even bother to read them? Or would you reject them outright since you “think” that it’s fabulously impossible?
I note that those who reject evolution have absolutely zero documentation or confirmitory data regarding such low-level details. Thus, I think the simplest and most parsimonious theory that has explanitory power is the best one to hold with — even if no studies have been done about the evolution of the liver, it is certainly the case that such a study could be performed based on genetic evidence of different species.
Hm. There are several different types of cell death. Not all of them do lead to the death of the organism. One type occurs during embryonic development, for example.
No, it’s not. Not at all.
I already explained this, but I’ll try again using different words; perhaps reducing things to even simpler ideas might help with this conceptual block you have.
Evolution is not prescriptive. There is nothing that says “all organisms must change all the time” or “organisms are striving to reach some goal by changing”. Evolution is descriptive theory: Change obviously happens and has happened in the past. It’s observable at the gross external level, and at all other levels as well: cellular function, and genetic sequences. These are all obviously similar yet different between organisms of the same immediate family, more different between non-immediate members of the same species, and still more different between two members of different species, and so on, up to genera, phyla and kingdoms. Yet the similarities are also still there.
DNA polymerase performs error-checking during DNA replication. This is true, this is observable. Therefore, its function is either neutral or benficial for the organism which produces it (and I would go with “beneficial”, even though I haven’t studied it in depth). And it therefore must be the case that polymerase evolved at some point.
It does not matter that DNA polymerase reduces the amount of genetic change. No organism “wants” to evolve; evolution does not “want” to occur. It’s just that the existence of DNA polymerase is nevertheless consistent with the observation of evolution because polymerase error-checking is not absolutely perfect — mutations occur, in very small numbers, despite the fact that it exists. And evolution continues because a small number of these very small number of mutations will be beneficial, and will be passed on to the next generation. It can take many generations for the process to yield visible species, but there’s been a lot of time for those generations to occur.
Sigh. That’s the best that I can do, at this point, without going into a lot more effort and detail. And if I did, would there be any point if you don’t concede the basic ideas?
What do you mean by “people”? Those on this blog, and most other people actuated educated in science, do accept evolution. Certainly the vast majority of actual biologists do.
Sigh. Evolution might be difficult for some to understand, but it is the best theory that exists for the way life works. Certainly no other theory exists that is internally consistent, and consistent with observed reality.
Nothing makes sense in biology except in light of evolution.
Owlmirror,
I was going to respond line by line but decided to home in on just one important issue.
“… if someone published scientific papers on genetic evidence for mutations that lead to the development of the liver, would you even bother to read them? Or would you reject them outright since you “think” that it’s fabulously impossible?”
I’m quite sure that someone has. The problem is not the lack of published material, but the intent of the author. If it is, as you note, to find “genetic evidence for mutations that lead to the development of the liver”, then the purpose is about validation of evolutionary theory, not liver research.
A serious accounting for the origins and development of an organ as complex as the liver would have to take into account a lot of complex factors. But to narrow that down, how would you describe the series of mutations that produced a functioning liver? Did one organism that needed liver function have a lucky copy error that produced one or two cells that would have the basis for some particular process? How many copy errors in a row, in successive generations, would you think it took to produce a functioning organ capable of doing what the liver does? Were the mutations necessary to integrate it with the vascular system coincidental or did they happen prior to or after the formation of the liver?
What I want to understand, just generally, is how organisms which need the function of a liver got along without one while copy errors were generating one? And what useful purpose the pre-liver would serve that would cause it to be selected?
These are reasonable questions to ask if mutations are supposed to have altered DNA to define any of a myriad of systems and components. I’ll even spot you the advantage and assume that every possible advantageous DNA change gets selected and that no unfortunate mutations happen which might reverse the progression.
Corn:
And if the author-scientist’s “intent” were to figure out why certain people are born with or tend to develop problems of one kind or another with their livers, and in the course of that research, the scientist-researcher discovered that certain liver problems are due to variations in genes, imperfect gene duplication, the switching on or off of a signalling gene, or the redirection of its signal to some other product or process in the developmental “cascade”–whatever–that led to anomalies in the formation and functioning of the liver, THEN you would probably be telling us that this is yet more “proof” that scientists can do worthwhile medical research without “believing” in evolution at all…!
That we still have blue-green algae (that there is still a living to be made from floating in the water and photosynthesizing) is due in large part to the fact that–3.5 billion years after some organisms first evolved into this basic productive lifestyle–we still happen to have a sun and water… Have you never heard the expression, DWARFS + PYGMIES? Do you realize what a rock-bottom basic error your algae question contains? Y’know, uh, “If we’re descended from “monkeys,” then, uh, how come there’s still MONKEYS!?!”
Like the patient and respectful Owlmirror, I wonder–though with a good deal less patience and respect–how much basic biology knowledge you can claim to have when you persist in mangling such simple concepts into such unrecognizably twisted claims.
Steviepinhead,
“if the author-scientist’s “intent” were to figure out why certain people are born with or tend to develop problems of one kind or another with their livers, and”
This would be commendable work, regardless of the beliefs of the researcher.
“in the course of that research, the scientist-researcher discovered that certain liver problems are due to variations in genes, imperfect gene duplication, the switching on or off of a signalling gene, or the redirection of its signal to some other product or process in the developmental “cascade”–whatever–that led to anomalies in the formation and functioning of the liver, THEN you would probably be telling us that this is yet more “proof” that scientists can do worthwhile medical research without “believing” in evolution at all…!”
I would’t have to since you saw it coming. That was a fine logical progression in thought on your part. But none of the things you noted have anything to do with evolution, in particular the part of the theory that says that DNA replication errors produced an ultra-complex organ like the liver. Would you care to apply your analytical skills to the sequence of mutations that would be involved in that process?
“3.5 billion years after some organisms first evolved into this basic productive lifestyle–we still happen to have a sun and water”
But that misses the point of mutations, which don’t seem to be deterred by a sun and water. The theory maintains that whales did a lot of mutating in the sun and in the water from mammal forms that “returned to the sea”, back to their primordial roots. If you factor in the increased time from infancy to maturity, long gestation periods and single off-spring being the rule, you need one heck of a lot of serious mutations to get from the first mammals to a blue whale in just 125 million years, expecially considering how fickle mutations can be.
Because meanwhile, organisms like cyanobacteria have supposedly reproduced every few minutes for billions of years, to the tune of over 15,000 generations every year. But there they are in the pre-cam, indistinguishable from the ones living right now. Do you grasp the problem here Steve? Where was the “selection pressure”?
“Do you realize what a rock-bottom basic error your algae question contains? Y’know, uh, “If we’re descended from “monkeys,” then, uh, how come there’s still MONKEYS!?!” “
Are you trying to nail me on the common ancestor deal? I’m good on getting that part, but what gets me is the odd things that happened after the divergence. One really weird one is about hair and humans. There must have been a series of replication errors that caused scalp (and facial hair on the boys) to not stop growing. Why do you suppose something like this would be selected? It seems like it would be a problem until the intelligence mutations came through so that someone could invent a flint razor or something else to barber with. Don’t you think that is odd? After the stop mechanism was lost (or gained?), did they just have to put up with it till a bright young hominid had a breakthrough on the trimming tool?
“how much basic biology knowledge you can claim to have when you persist in mangling such simple concepts into such unrecognizably twisted claims.”
Well I guess I’m wondering how much education in biology you have to have before you stop asking reasonable basic questions.
These concepts are not simple and I haven’t really submitted much in the way of claims. If the theory is really iron-clad, it should stand up to scrutiny coming from all directions. To be honest, it seems like the thrill of really puzzling inquiries got lost with some of you folks. You mighr have heard the lament from Einstein:
“It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education”
.
Back to the books for you, Phil.
Long hair? Try long tail-feathers and sexual selection.
Replication errors generate the variation. Variation in and of itself doesn’t furnish a “selection pressure.” Some cell-utility genes are shared in common among all life–they are so vital that they have been maintained by selective pressure in near-identical form over billions of years. At last count, there were some 500-plus genes like this.
Selection can drive divergence or maintain identity, depending on benefit/detriment. This is really not a hard concept to grasp. Autos today come with lots of new gizmos–GPS, computer chips, CD players, air bags. They still run on tires. It’s harder to get rounder than round.
Mammals returning to the sea would’ve had a long hard road to photosynthesize, seeing’s how the little photosynthesizing bacteria aren’t part of the metazoan tool kit. But lungs, limbs, layers of fat, etc. are. Whales-to-be only had to move them around, change their proportions.
Nobody’s arguing that any crittur developed livers in a few simple steps. They are still imperfect, or I could drink more without doing them damage, which would come in handy tonight after trying to decipher more of your thinking…
But you’ve set yourself a good research project: superimpose livers, and whatever you can find out about liver precursors, onto a good phylogenetic chart. Also, see what you can find about genes that trigger liver positioning, liver development, and the “fate” of cells destined to be activated in livers.
Think about what livers do–essentially filters, albeit quite complex ones at this point in certain animal lineages. Individual cells–free living bacteria–are also adept filters. Letting the right substances into the cell and either segregating or exporting harmful substances, maintaining the right concentrations of substances across the cellular membrane, those are age-old bacterial tricks of the trade. That some subset of cells in early animals eventually specialized in certain kinds of filtering is, to my mind, a fairly predictable development.
That the evolution of livers boggles your imagination fails to surprise me, but reality seems not to be constrained by your imagination. Go figure!
Then head into the reality shop for an imagination tune-up.
“Whales-to-be only had to move them around, change their proportions.”
There it is.
Just a few thousand major system modifications and specialized structural rearrangements, all integrated and coordinated, and occurring simultaneously.
And all this happens courtesy of extremely rare, random, addidental replication errors which somehow escaped the scrutiny of the enzymes and happened to have occurred in one of the two gametes which were involved in reproduction.
Not a problem. Very simple. How could it not happen?
You’re right. I don’t have an imagination or the kind of faith that will accomodate stuff like this.
.
Phil Corn:
I am curious as to how it is that that line was the one that you find the most important. I thought I was covering the important basics of evolutionary concepts. Do you actually disagree? Can you articulate why?
I also want to reiterate the request that you at least sketch out where you picked up your ideas about biology. There are certainly books and websites that I’ve found to be useful, but I’m not sure there’s much point in recommending them if you’ve read them already and failed to understand them.
Um. Again, as Stevie also noted, this is an odd and confused way of putting things. A scientist who was investigating the evolution of the liver would of course also have to be familiar with the liver itself; indeed, since it would involve comparisons of the development of the liver in many different organisms, he would have to do a lot more research into liver function than a human liver specialist.
Why would the scientist’s intent matter, as long as he was honest and rigorous in his research, documenting his materials, methods, and results?
I did search Pubmed for “liver evolution” (and from there, I realized that the more technical terms are things like “hepatic organogenesis”), and found some quite interesting papers. So certainly, the research is being done.
Your demand for the exact mutational sequence that lead to the development of the liver is going to take a while before it’s complete, though. Tissue development and differentiation is indeed complex.
I think I can address this without going into too much detail. You may not have noticed this, but not all organisms have livers. As far as I can tell from my adimittedly sketchy research, the liver appears to be an organ that only develops in vertebrates.
So it certainly seems reasonable to conclude that the early organisms of the (pre-)vertebrate lineage did not require a liver, but when the earliest precursor of the liver appeared — yes, via mutations — that early organism found it to be useful in some way. Once the liver was being passed on from generation to generation, further mutations could occur which added more functionality to it.
An interesting question, and one to which I don’t have an definitive answer at this time.
Speculating from its current functions, one might note that many of the functions of the liver in a primitive form could be helpful, but not absolutely necessary to survival. For example, the liver breaks down toxins. That could aid survival in a more toxic environment, or allow for coping with other organisms that had evolved poisons. The liver also aids in metabolism, which again might boost survivability and reproduction while not being strictly necessary at first.
As I said, speculation. I haven’t read anything that actually compares liver function in various classes and orders, at this point in time. One of the papers out there might do so, but I didn’t read through all of them.
Phil Corn:
Hmpf.
“Faith”, in science, is simply the assumption that the universe follows observable rules, and that these rules can be deduced from observations and experiments, and used to make predictions (that is, that the rules apply consistently in other observed circumstances, and will still work consistently in the future).
If you really don’t have that sort of “faith”, then I’m not sure there’s much point in continuing this discussion.
I am not sure what it is you think happens instead; you’ve never articulated it rigorously. Does it involve magical spontaneous transformations? Angels and demons? Morphogenetic fields? Some all-pervasive life-force, that surrounds us and penetrates us and binds the galaxy together?
“I am curious as to how it is that that line was the one that you find the most important. I thought I was covering the important basics of evolutionary concepts. Do you actually disagree? Can you articulate why?”
Yes, I disagree with the most basic concepts. In the first place, they are not discoveries in the classic sense. They are only speculation. More sophisticated genetic information being added to a genome by way of mutations cannot be observed or even documented. (Dawkins was caught with his trousers down on this very issue.) If this really happens, it has happened exponential numbers of times. The evidence for it should not be elusive, it should be abundant and profound. (So should fossil sequences).
“I also want to reiterate the request that you at least sketch out where you picked up your ideas about biology.”
The mutation problem occurred to me while I was reading in the MIT biology website. http://web.mit.edu/esgbio/www/7001main.html I read all kinds of stuff, to include analyses of the tech journals by people who are not enthusiastic about Darwinism.
I’ve also spent many hours in the Talk Origins site. It was the writers there who unintentionally alerted me to watch for the giant leaps like the one I responded to that Stevie posted. You see these on tv shows all the time.
Some time back I saw Bob Bakker standing with a (I think it was a raptor) claw beside a tree saying that once the reptiles learned to climb that flight was pretty much a foregone conclusion [paraphrased]. This is total nonsense. According to the theory, the only way to gain any kind of complexity is by way of mutations. I believe that a fair and objective analysis of this lonely mechanism reveals that the odds are stacked exponentially against it. It would be difficult enough to “accident” one modest organism into existence. That tens of millions of them were produced this way is, in my opinion, worse than preposterous. Add to this the immutable fact that such a process cannot be exhibited or demonstrated. It can only be imagined. This is very bad science.
“There are certainly books and websites that I’ve found to be useful, but I’m not sure there’s much point in recommending them if you’ve read them already and failed to understand them.”
Please feel free to post the websites. I enjoy comparing the presentations.
“A scientist who was investigating the evolution of the liver would of course also have to be familiar with the liver itself”
Yes, but he would not need to know the first thing about evolution in order to do excellent research. Real discovery is always about finding out either what is there and how it works, or what can be done.
“Why would the scientist’s intent matter, as long as he was honest and rigorous in his research, documenting his materials, methods, and results?”
I agree. His beliefs about origins should not matter either.
“Your demand for the exact mutational sequence that lead to the development of the liver is going to take a while before it’s complete, though. Tissue development and differentiation is indeed complex.”
It is the idea of that complexity originating from accidents that I see as a problem. It is hard to credit randomness with producing complexity and precision. Selection is usually invoked as the answer, but the odds are still a statistical nightmare for the idea of producing something beneficial to select. Like I have mentioned several times, the primary mechanism for change is extremely rare to begin with and just gets worse. Impossibility compounded I think.
“So it certainly seems reasonable to conclude that the early organisms of the (pre-)vertebrate lineage did not require a liver, but when the earliest precursor of the liver appeared — yes, via mutations — that early organism found it to be useful in some way.”
“useful in some way” is a big problem. I don’t think it is good science to leave that idea in the wake without accounting for what “some way” was, and the sequence of useful functions that it served on the way to being a functioning liver for an organism that needed one. This is another of the giant leaps that gets routinely panned as a detail. It is not a detail. If intermediate usefulness is a valid idea, it should be easy to apply it to every single biological component. Eyes, ears, olfactory, digestive, all of them. Critters in unlit environments lose sight over time. Atrophy is the rule for unused components, not improvement.
“Once the liver was being passed on from generation to generation, further mutations could occur which added more functionality to it.”
This is a huge leap as well. “could occur” is quite distant from the necessary sequence of events. “added more functionality” is also a can of worms. The liver manufactures, regulates, synthesizes, stores, secretes, transforms and breaks down a huge variety of substances. To design a machine to do any one of these things would require such things as lab analyses, process, electrical and mechanical engineering, intellect being the most important contribution. I do not think that it is any kind of reasonable to think that something as complex as the liver could acquire the array of capabilities that it has on the basis of rare failures in the DNA replication process.
“An interesting question, and one to which I don’t have an definitive answer at this time.”
I appreciate your candor.
“”Faith”, in science, is simply the assumption that the universe follows observable rules, and that these rules can be deduced from observations and experiments, and used to make predictions (that is, that the rules apply consistently in other observed circumstances, and will still work consistently in the future).”
I agree completely. But the rules include theoretical laws of probability, which is why I make such a big deal about mutations.
“I am not sure what it is you think happens instead; you’ve never articulated it rigorously.”
No, I don’t suppose I have. From your list, I would have to go with origin based on the “all-pervasive life-force, that surrounds us and penetrates us and binds the galaxy together” option, pretty much in accordance with the views of folks like Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, Newton, Linnaeus, Herschel, Morse, Joule, Faraday, Kelvin and Maxwell.
Phil Corn:
All science starts as speculation, and in this case, the “speculation” is supported by ever-increasing amounts of evidence.
What do you think “more sophisticated genetic information” means?
The genetic differences between two organisms of the same species can be compared and documented, as can the genetic differences between organisms of different species. If those sequences are largely similar, but can be shown to include important differences that in turn account for important differences in the development of the organisms, then it follows that those differences are “more sophisticated genetic information, and hence, a documentable observation.
Of course, and indeed, so it is. That’s why genetics supports evolution.
Interesting. I’ll have to explore that a bit deeper.
Are these online? If so, could you link to them?
And could you explain how their lack of enthusiasm translates into theoretical expertise?
Indeed, it’s a huge site. Have you read the 29+ evidences for macroevolution yet?
If that were true, then the rigourous statistical and probabilistic analysis you think can be made is something that can be and should be written up and published, and should be supported by mathematical peers.
Does such a thing exist? Do you know who has the mathematical and genetics knowledge to write it up, and has done so, and that there is no refutation to this analysis?
Actually, he would have to take evolution into account. Evolution is very firmly a part of all modern biological theory.
That is actually not the case.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB940.html
No. A rare change that provides benefit will be passed on to successive generations.
Yup. All of them are useful in partial form.
And this demonstrates yet another confusion. Partially useful organs are, by the very definition, not unused.
Is “probability” really the only source of of your objections? If you there was a scientific paper demonstrating that evolution was consistent with probability theory, would all of your objections be answered?
Hm. Vitalism. Is there anything out there – anything at all – that demonstrates evidence for vitalism? Scientists have examined organisms from bacteria to blue whales, and no evidence of vitalistic forces have been noted. This should be particularly notable in bacteria, since the single cells are examined so closely. Instead, the only evidence that has been demonstrated in bacteria populations is evolution.
And is it your idea that this life force is responsible for all of the genetic changes that are observable? How would you distinguish changes made by this life force from genuinely random mutations, which do in fact occur?
Just out of curiosity, why would you suggest as experts a list of scientists who, for the most part, were not in any way biologists, and who lived before the modern age of biology? Why would you consider them to be more credible than the vast majority of modern biologists working today? Do you think that their admittedly good work in their respective fields in their respective eras in any way made them experts on modern genetics and probability?
By the way, I am not sure if you noticed, so I’ll point out that the phrasing I chose for the vitalistic paradigm was taken from the words of Obi-wan Kenobi in Star Wars. I just thought that was an amusing side-note.
I wrote:
That should read: “If there was a scientific paper demonstrating that evolution was consistent with probability theory, would all of your objections be answered?”
Oh, since the topic of blind cave fish was alluded to, I did think that this was a fascinating article:
http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2005/02/16/eyes_part_two_fleas_fish_and_t.php
Owlmirror,
“All science starts as speculation”
I would think it begins with observation and curiosity.
“More sophisticated genetic information being added to a genome by way of mutations cannot be observed or even documented.
What do you think “more sophisticated genetic information” means?”
In a word, specialization.
“The genetic differences between two organisms of the same species can be compared and documented, as can the genetic differences between organisms of different species. If those sequences are largely similar, but can be shown to include important differences that in turn account for important differences in the development of the organisms, then it follows that those differences are “more sophisticated genetic information, and hence, a documentable observation.”
Of course it is. But this does not address the “being added to the genome by way of mutations” point of my statement.
“If this really happens, it has happened exponential numbers of times. The evidence for it should not be elusive, it should be abundant and profound.
Of course, and indeed, so it is. That’s why genetics supports evolution.”
No, genetics only observes essentially incomprehensible complexity in living organisms and seeks to understand it. The complexity itself is antagonistic to evolutionary theory which supposes that very intricate and complicated things are generated by random, unguided processes.
“I read all kinds of stuff, to include analyses of the tech journals by people who are not enthusiastic about Darwinism.
Are these online? If so, could you link to them?”
I think this one does a good job of pointing out suppositions and unwarranted assumptions. http://crev.info
“I’ve also spent many hours in the Talk Origins site.
Indeed, it’s a huge site. Have you read the 29+ evidences for macroevolution yet?”
Honestly, I have started to read that at least twice and have never made it past the first few points because I think the premise is wrong. I’ll try to spend some time with it this weekend. I have seen rebuttal links and haven’t read them either.
“I believe that a fair and objective analysis of this lonely mechanism reveals that the odds are stacked exponentially against it.
If that were true, then the rigourous statistical and probabilistic analysis you think can be made is something that can be and should be written up and published, and should be supported by mathematical peers.”
I agree, but I doubt it would be well received.
“Does such [an analysis] exist? Do you know who has the mathematical and genetics knowledge to write it up, and has done so, and that there is no refutation to this analysis?”
I don’t know if this has been done, though it should have been by now. I don’t see it as a task that requires incredible credentials.
“Actually, he would have to take evolution into account. Evolution is very firmly a part of all modern biological theory.”
I agree that it is, and I think this is unfortunate. Evolutionary theory, not always, but too often, comes with a lot of baggage. I’m sure you are familiar with the Lewontin quote which defines how he thinks science should proceed. I agree with ethical limits, but I think what he describes is more like a Berlin wall.
“It is the idea of that complexity originating from accidents that I see as a problem. It is hard to credit randomness with producing complexity and precision. Selection is usually invoked as the answer, but the odds are still a statistical nightmare for the idea of producing something beneficial to select.
That is actually not the case.
â http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB940.html”
“Selection is the very opposite of chance”
This is a proclamation, not a fact. Evolutionary theorists have, out of necessity, morphed selection into a personality. If you learn to watch for them, discussions of selection seldom occur without anthropopathisms being invoked or inferred. What they have done with selection is simply substitute the word for designer. Selection is nothing but organisms or populations of organisms reacting to the environment. It is not a dynamic, organizing process.
“Selection of randomly introduced variation is known to be able to produce complex formations, including functional circuits (Davidson 1997; Thompson 1996) and robots (Lipson and Pollack 2000). Creationists have never proposed a reason to explain why the same processes would not produce the same results in nature.”
This is nonsense and a gross violation of 2LD. “randomly introduced variation” isn’t going to produce anything organized. The writer would like to leave the impression that someone left raw materials in a lab one night and came in the next morning to find functional circuits or robots. This is laughable at best and dishonest at worst. The least bit of coercion, manipulation or preparation violates the whole idea of what evolutionary theory is about, all accidents and nothing but accidents. Creationists don’t have to produce reasons why “the same processes would not produce” anything because no random process was ever mentioned much less demonstrated.
“A rare change that provides benefit will be passed on to successive generations.”
I think they are too rare for this to be a realistic method of producing millions of species.
“If intermediate usefulness is a valid idea, it should be easy to apply it to every single biological component. Eyes, ears, olfactory, digestive, all of them.
Yup. All of them are useful in partial form.”
I’m sorry, but you can’t just step over the problem involved here with a declaration. There are easily dozens of bio-systems that are so specialized that their failure results in death of the organism. Useful alternate functions for every involved component to perforn for millions of years until they were integrated is not a plausible scenario.
Consider just hearing. What roles did the anvil, stirrup and hammer serve while they were waiting for the exquisitely fortunate series of mutations to happen that would produce the eardrum? Or the cochlea? Or the nerves to carry the signals to the brain? Or the translation mechanism in the brain itself which is where the hearing actually occurs?
“And this demonstrates yet another confusion. Partially useful organs are, by the very definition, not unused.”
Then can you describe the role that corneas served in while the ten layers of the retina were produced by random DNA copy errors over millions of years?
“Is “probability” really the only source of of your objections?”
Of course not, but I see this one as a deal breaker in and of itself.
“If you there was a scientific paper demonstrating that evolution was consistent with probability theory, would all of your objections be answered?”
Of course not. Would yours? This is not a problem that requires all kinds of convolutions to identify and it isn’t one that one paper or computer model is going to dispose of. Once more, here is the sequence:
-Mutations are very rare. The MIT site I furnished above states that after the enzymes have checked and repaired the replication, the error rate is somewhere between one per million and one per billion. These errors are the basis for the “ascent” and speciation in evolution theory. But,
-they cannot be neutral which most mutations are. This means that the error has to be in the coding regions of the molecule.
-they cannot be destructive, which is what most mutations that have any effect are.
-the mutation has to be involved in gametes to be passed on.
-the mutant gametes have to be one of only two involved in reproduction, out of millions of candidates which probably don’t have the nutation
-the progeny also have to survive and reproduce
It starts implausibly and gets more so.
“Hm. Vitalism. Is there anything out there – anything at all – that demonstrates evidence for vitalism?”
Sure. The discriminating function of polymerase. This is not just a chemical reaction. It is a complex protein identifying mistakes and removing or repairing them to insure the correct duplication of a unique molecule. Do you truly not see a quality in this that is beyond ordinary physical or chemical reactions?
“Instead, the only evidence that has been demonstrated in bacteria populations is evolution.
Well, first of all, evolution is not evidence. But I would say that bacteria populations demonstrate stability.
“And is it your idea that this life force is responsible for all of the genetic changes that are observable?”
No, I believe that genetic variation occurs primarily as a result of the loss of genetic information in the DNA molecule.
“Just out of curiosity, why would you suggest as experts a list of scientists who, for the most part, were not in any way biologists, and who lived before the modern age of biology?”
I left out Pasteur who could be the originator of modern age biology.
“Why would you consider them to be more credible than the vast majority of modern biologists working today? Do you think that their admittedly good work in their respective fields in their respective eras in any way made them experts on modern genetics and probability?”
Genetics no, probability yes.
“By the way, I am not sure if you noticed, so I’ll point out that the phrasing I chose for the vitalistic paradigm was taken from the words of Obi-wan Kenobi in Star Wars. I just thought that was an amusing side-note.”
That’s funny. I thought it rang a bell but I couldn’t recall where I”d heard it. It is still a somewhat close description.
Phil Corn:
Incorrect. Since selection is indeed a guiding process, it is not the case that the complexity of life is in any way antagonistic to evolution.
Guh. Well, they certainly seem to have the same misunderstandings about evolution that you’ve been stating.
Yet I don’t see a specific set of statements, like your argument from polymerase. In fact, I searched for “polymerase” on the entire site, and found no hits.
So what? It’s your contention that “a fair and objective analysis reveals that the odds are stacked exponentially against [evolution]”. What does it matter how it would be “received”, as long as it’s done?
Where are the anti-evolution mathematicians and geneticists who can perform such a fair and objective analysis? Why haven’t they stepped forward, in the past 150 years, to show how the math and the genetics as currently understood are in direct contradiction to the theory of evolution?
Especially now, in the days of the internet. Even if no scientific journal would touch it, why aren’t all of the creationist websites pointing excitedly at such a thing?
Of course, even if it existed would not mean that it is valid. There are mathematicians who think they can square the circle, after all; the mathematics and genetics would have to be validated by other mathematicians and geneticists.
In fact, I seem to recall seeing some unfair and biased mathematical arguments made, which had their unfairness and bias pointed out.
Is it not more likely that evolution is in fact the best, and most probable, explanation for the complexity of life? And that it is your own misunderstanding of the evolutionary process, and the probabilities involved, that is wrong?
It’s a proclamation of a fact.
Nonsense. Selection has no personality; selection is an observation of how some variations meet certain criteria, and some do not.
Sure it is. Because “environment” is not any sort of static concept; environments are dynamic, changing and shading and gradiating into each other. This allows for variations to be selected that are better suited to different environments.
I don’t know what “2LD” means. Google suggests that it’s a program for genetics; I’m not sure how that supports your statement.
It will if you combine it with selection.
No. Evolution is not all about accidents. Evolution is about accidents and selection.
This brings us back to the request for a proof. It’s not enough that you “think” changes that provide benefit are “too rare”. Can it be proven that they are too rare?
Why not? It’s been your rhetorical tactic as well, after all. We’re obviously still debating the essence of the basic concepts here.
And yet almost all of those biosystems have multiple levels of redundancies built in, so that partial failure is not fatal. Some of the lobes of the lungs can be destroyed, yet oxygen can be pulled in by the other lobes. The liver, to use your example, only has one type of cell; and if parts of it are destroyed, the rest still functions. And so on.
That’s why I am so confident in my statement: Eyes that can at least detect light, dark, and motion are better than no eyes at all. Ears that can at least make out very loud vibrations are better than no ears at all. A nose that can at least detect certain smells (such as, say, the smell of a forest fire) is better than no nose at all. And so on.
The utility of partial functionality is pretty much the rule, not the exception.
Turn the questions around. Why should the various parts of the ears and the brain evolve independently? Why should the retina evolve independently of the cornea? When we’re considering the immense number of generations that can occur in millions of years, all components are subjected to variation. Those variations that lead to a more useful arrangement of the components will allow the organism to survive better than others of its species that lack that arrangement.
Why not? The cornerstone of your argument has been that all of the complexity of life is just too improbable. If it’s demonstrable that that complexity is not too improbable, what else do you have to argue against evolution?
Everything we can test about polymerase shows that it is just a chemical. And as I argued earlier, its “discriminating function” is perfectly compatible with evolution. It isn’t necessary to invoke vitalism to explain it.
Surely you’ve heard about bacteria that have evolved resistance to antibiotics?
Pasteur wasn’t a geneticist either, and his opinion on matters that he could not have any knowledge of is therefore moot.
It’s ironic that you bring up Pasteur, because one of the recognized drivers of evolution is not just the external environment, but also various diseases caused by viruses, bacteria, and other parasites. Thus his germ theory of disease actually supports evolution — regardless of whatever his personal opinion of the matter may have been.
Addenda to my previous post, after thinking about things some more:
Let’s compare evolution with vitalism.
Evolution, as a descriptive theory, can be summed up as follows (since I am not an expert, I might have left something out):
As I hope you can see (even if you disagree on the grounds of “probability” and such), the explanation requires no supernatural forces to work, relying instead on observed variation and similarities in nature. The process itself is the mechanism by which complexity and specialization can accumulate over time.
OK. How does vitalism work? Why is it necessary? How can its effects be detected? What is its mechanism?
It looks like you’re trying to suggest that the life-force is what actually does what the infrequent positive mutations do in the theory of evolution. Would you consider that description to be correct?
Owlmirror,
“Since selection is indeed a guiding process, it is not the case that the complexity of life is in any way antagonistic to evolution.”
Selection is just coping or not coping with the environment. “guiding process” insinuates deliberateness with regard to direction. This is what I mean by this concept having been anthropomorphed into something that it is not. It barely qualifies as a process. It is a classic tautology. Mutant offspring usually can’t cope and die. But they are not “rejected” as if a decision was being made. They just die.
“they certainly seem to have the same misunderstandings about evolution that you’ve been stating.”
“You just don’t understand how evolution works” is a very common accusation.
“Yet I don’t see a specific set of statements, like your argument from polymerase. In fact, I searched for “polymerase” on the entire site, and found no hits.”
Well, like I said earlier, that problem occurred to me while reading about mutations on the MIT biology site, though I cannot imagine that I’m the only one who ever thought about it.
“I agree, but I doubt it would be well received.
So what? It’s your contention that “a fair and objective analysis reveals that the odds are stacked exponentially against [evolution]”. What does it matter how it would be “received”, as long as it’s done?”
I think it is possible that anyone who points out soft spots in the TOE is generally going to be ignored at best or met with hostility at worst, regardless of credentials.
“Where are the anti-evolution mathematicians and geneticists who can perform such a fair and objective analysis?”
Oh, they are out there, but the advocate periodicals are not inclined to publish them. There is a lot of excellent science published, but I think Lewontin’s a priori bias is firmly established.
“Why haven’t they stepped forward, in the past 150 years, to show how the math and the genetics as currently understood are in direct contradiction to the theory of evolution?”
Because some things that are too contradictory are brushed aside, usually with some measure of contempt. Having discussed evolution with lots of people, I’ve noticed that this is a pretty consistent and predictable response.
“Especially now, in the days of the internet. Even if no scientific journal would touch it, why aren’t all of the creationist websites pointing excitedly at such a thing?”
That I don’t know.
“Is it not more likely that evolution is in fact the best, and most probable, explanation for the complexity of life?”
As I’ve noted, I don’t consider it a good explanation at all. I think it is simply the only thing available inside the box of materialist presupposition.
“And that it is your own misunderstanding of the evolutionary process, and the probabilities involved, that is wrong?”
Actually, I think I have a good grasp of how evolution is supposed to work. I just don’t think that it does.
“Selection is nothing but organisms or populations of organisms reacting to the environment. It is not a dynamic, organizing process.
Sure it is. Because “environment” is not any sort of static concept; environments are dynamic, changing and shading and gradiating into each other. This allows for variations to be selected that are better suited to different environments.”
I understand what you are saying as this is standard jargon about selection. I still don’t buy it.
” “randomly introduced variation” isn’t going to produce anything organized.
It will if you combine it with selection.”
I’m sorry, but I don’t see mutation and selection as species-producing titans. Nor do I think either of them or both of them together were ever capable of producing things like proteins or a DNA molecule.
“This brings us back to the request for a proof. It’s not enough that you “think” changes that provide benefit are “too rare”. Can it be proven that they are too rare?”
I think so. But this is not placing the burden of proof where it belongs. I would say that it’s not enough to say that evolution occurs by way of mutations. The theory must be demonstrably proven.
“Why not? It’s been your rhetorical tactic as well, after all. We’re obviously still debating the essence of the basic concepts here.”
I don’t consider the argument rhetorical. Polymerase has a known function which is measurable. A lot is known about mutations as well, but the data about them does not support the idea of the positive alteration of any particular genome.
On the other hand, evolutionary scenarios couple mutations and natural selection together to account for the formation on astronomical numbers of plant and animal species. The evidence for this is all theoretical and speculative, actually imaginary.
“And yet almost all of those biosystems have multiple levels of redundancies built in, so that partial failure is not fatal. Some of the lobes of the lungs can be destroyed, yet oxygen can be pulled in by the other lobes. The liver, to use your example, only has one type of cell; and if parts of it are destroyed, the rest still functions. And so on.”
None of this addresses the point. There had to be a time when the liver was not functionally useful. What did it do until it was?
“That’s why I am so confident in my statement: Eyes that can at least detect light, dark, and motion are better than no eyes at all. Ears that can at least make out very loud vibrations are better than no ears at all. A nose that can at least detect certain smells (such as, say, the smell of a forest fire) is better than no nose at all.”
Again, there had to be a time when stand-alone components, each assembled by way of accidental copy errors over long periods of time, did no more seeing, hearing or smelling than toenails. What purpose could any of them serve until the system was functional? This is not an unreasonable question. Pick any single part and describe what value it would have that would cause it to be selected. How about the optic nerve? If it is not there, the most magnificent eye that random copy errors could produce in spite of polymerase, is 100% worthless.
“The utility of partial functionality is pretty much the rule, not the exception.”
Then the utility of the anvil, stirrup and hammer should be easy to describe.
“Why should the various parts of the ears and the brain evolve independently? Why should the retina evolve independently of the cornea?”
Perhaps it didn’t. Perhaps an extremely long, sequential series of coincidental mutations occurred and produced the iris, the lens, the optic muscles, the eyelids and the three independent tear production glands. And perhaps the skull was catching lucky mutations which were selected to accommodate the whole system, and times two so that vision would be stereoscopic.
But I don’t really think so.
“When we’re considering the immense number of generations that can occur in millions of years, all components are subjected to variation.”
This would mean that there were also millions of other accidental copy errors that occurred coincidentally and sequentially to produce hundreds of other extremely specialized bio-systems along with the eyes.
“The cornerstone of your argument has been that all of the complexity of life is just too improbable. If it’s demonstrable that that complexity is not too improbable, what else do you have to argue against evolution?”
That is a very big if.
“Everything we can test about polymerase shows that it is just a chemical.”
I don’t think this is an accurate characterization.
“And as I argued earlier, its “discriminating function” is perfectly compatible with evolution.”
Well, I guess I’m looking at it from a different perspective. If you were trying to verify evolutionary theory in a lab, and you wanted lots of mutations to occur in hopes of observing a beneficial one, and polymerase kept ruining the experiments by correcting the copy errors, I bet you would see that enzyme as an adversary to evolution.
“Surely you’ve heard about bacteria that have evolved resistance to antibiotics?”
Well of course I’ve heard about it. But what is happening there is that some of the bacteria are already resistant and are the only ones to survive. (This, by the way, is bona fide natural selection.) There aren’t mutations taking place to provide the resistance. This is microevolution. It does not produce a different kind of bacteria.
“Pasteur wasn’t a geneticist either”
Okay then, let’s try Gregor Mendel.
“and his opinion on matters that he could not have any knowledge of is therefore moot.”
Does that apply to Darwin as well?
Owlmirror,
I’ll respond to your addendum post. I owe you at least a brief commentary on Prof. Myers piece on fish eyes.
I also intended to post a couple of links:
http://www.math.utep.edu/Faculty/sewell/articles/article.html
This one is interesting as well. There is a bias in the academic culture:
“Henry F. Schaefer, director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry at the University of Georgia, has written or co-authored 1,082 scientific papers and is one of the world’s most widely cited chemists by other researchers….. the school of science at Duquesne University…abruptly canceled its sponsorship of a lecture by Mr. Schaefer in its distinguished scientist series….The invitation was withdrawn after several biology professors complained that Mr. Schaefer planned to speak in favor of intelligent design….”
http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/teen/teencenter/05nov_intelligentdesign.htm
Owlmirror,
“-Organisms reproduce”
This is not a good starting point. Reproduction is a fantastically complex thing.
I’m finding that mycoplasma genitalium is the simplest (has the smallest genome) organism known that can reproduce itself unaided. However, simplest does not mean simple, at all. This bacteria has 486 proteins. E-coli has about 10 times that. More complex organisms can have 1000 times as many.
You said above, in your post dated Oct.22, that:
“…it therefore must be the case that polymerase evolved at some point.”
If you are correct about this enzyme accidentally forming, then all proteins must have evolved as well. You know how proteins work. If the amino acid sequence is not correct, they don’t work.
The complexity that evolutionary theory takes for granted, cannot be realistically attributed to accidents and coincidence. This is simply not a reasonable, rational accounting. It is not believable.
.
Phil Corn:
The insinuation is unintended. You appear to be inferring that “guide” always requires “deliberateness”, yet it does not, as a little thought should show.
You’re hardly one to be making claims for logical weakness; your entire argument has been along the lines of “I think it’s too improbable to happen, therefore it is too improbable to happen, therefore it is impossible for it to have happened, therefore it didn’t happen, therefore something else happened instead”.
All science is necessarily materialistic.
Pretending for the sake of argument that some sort of life-force exists, such a thing would necessarily interact with the material world, and be detectable from that interaction.
False. Genetics does support evolution. Do you really think the entire body of scientists studying genetics could possibly have failed to notice your claimed lack of support?
A very confused question. What does that even mean?
The first ancient predecessor organism with a primitive liver obviously found that primitive liver to be “functionally useful”.
Meaning what? If you think the characterization is inaccurate, what would be more accurate?
In the absense of anything showing that polymerase is anything other than just a chemical, it is only reasonable and accurate to state that ploymerase is just a chemical.
Not at all. As noted, polymerase has a calculable failure rate; all that’s necessary is to integrate that failure rate into the experiment.
You really are utterly confused. The bacteria that are “already resistant” are indeed resistant as a result of mutations that took place. The genetic codes of the nonresistant and resistant bacteria can be compared, and the exact differences, the exact regions that grant resistance, can be seen.
Microevolution is indeed evolution. Repeated often enough, and over sufficient generations, it can indeed produce different kinds of bacteria.
Correct. Thus: they fail to live and/or produce progeny. That’s selection.
And selection. “accidents and coincidence”, and selection.
Evolution is the only reasonable and rational accounting. All other explanations are unreasonable and irrational.
Those who study the data supporting evolution and understand it, accept evolution as a fact.
I was very tired last night; it’s been a very busy few days this past week. Rewriting that sentence a bit to depict what I am trying to say:
Correct. Thus, those organisms which produce fatally flawed proteins fail to live and/or produce progeny. That’s selection.
Owlmirror,
“The insinuation [guiding process insinuates deliberateness] is unintended. You appear to be inferring that “guide” always requires “deliberateness”, yet it does not, as a little thought should show.”
But a little thought would also recognise that there is then no good explanation for any increase in complexity. Unguided means randomness and drifting, not ascension and organization. The most observable and pronounced “guides” in nature are decay and disorganization.
“You’re hardly one to be making claims for logical weakness; your entire argument has been along the lines of “I think it’s too improbable to happen, therefore it is too improbable to happen, therefore it is impossible for it to have happened, therefore it didn’t happen, therefore something else happened instead”.”
The evolutionary argument is much weaker. “I can imagine it happening, therefore it had to happen, billions of times, in millions of different directions, with no coercion, and against all probability”.
“All science is necessarily materialistic.”
No, this is just a declaration that eliminates philosophically undesirable possibilities. Science at its best is in hot pursuit of the truth, whether that truth is strictly materialistic or not. There are things that are very real that science has no way to quantify.
The obvious extension of raw materialism, is that some things, ethics and morality for instance, are actually meaningless. They are just emotional constructs formed by either group consensus or individual preferences, but with no scientific validity. Logically, feeling indignant about a theory is irrational since there are ultimately no eternal consequences for accepting or denying it.
“Pretending for the sake of argument that some sort of life-force exists, such a thing would necessarily interact with the material world, and be detectable from that interaction.”
I agree.
“Do you really think the entire body of scientists studying genetics could possibly have failed to notice your claimed lack of support?”
Your question presupposes that all scientists have drawn a common conclusion, which they have not. But even evolutionists often reach a point where they feel compelled to draw a line between origins and evolution. I think this is a cop-out but I can understand why it happens.
I assume you are familiar with Crick and Watson. Francis Crick concluded that the earth must have been “seeded” by someone or something else and that evolution proceeded from that starting point. This is not exactly materialist thinking in my view. But he recognized that there is such a thing as impossiblity, and that the self-formation of the basic but super-complex things of biological life, fall into that category.
“There had to be a time when the liver was not functionally useful. What did it do until it was?
A very confused question. What does that even mean?…..The first ancient predecessor organism with a primitive liver obviously found that primitive liver to be “functionally useful”.”
I don’t think the question is that confused, but I will rephrase it. At some point in time, some organism had to have a mutation in its DNA which would begin the long process of defining the specialty cells that make up the liver. Perhaps there were only one or two of these cells, or maybe millions. Do you know how many? But there was yet no coordination between these and the organism which retained the mutation. My question was what purpose it was selected for in the interim? I would also be curious about how the interface between the blood vessels and the liver happened. Do you suppose there was a separate series of accidental DNA copy errors which did the plumbing?
You ducked on similar questions about ear and eye components. I can’t say I blame you, but you should make a note of that for yourself. I believe soft spots in a rationale, or a person’s worldview, can be a catalyst for thinking uncommon or even original thoughts.
“In the absense of anything showing that polymerase is anything other than just a chemical, it is only reasonable and accurate to state that ploymerase is just a chemical.”
I think sulfur or potassium chloride are just chemicals, but enzymes involved in DNA replication aren’t in the same category. Polymerase identifies an assembly error, removes it and repairs it. “just a chemical” does not react to error, reverse course, remove and replace, and then proceed.
“Not at all. As noted, polymerase has a calculable failure rate; all that’s necessary is to integrate that failure rate into the experiment.”
The failure rate is so extraordinarily low that relying on it to allow the production of tens of millions of species is, as I have noted, unrealistic. Plus, “experiment” is not a valuable concept when it comes to evolution. Biological experiments are about what is there, or perhaps why it is there, not how it got there.
“You really are utterly confused. The bacteria that are “already resistant” are indeed resistant as a result of mutations that took place. The genetic codes of the nonresistant and resistant bacteria can be compared, and the exact differences, the exact regions that grant resistance, can be seen.”
I beg to completely differ and I will use the well-worn example of sickle cell anemic resistance to malaria to illustrate.
This happens when people have one flawed copy of the hemoglobin gene and one correct copy, which results in relatively mild anemia. Their faulty red blood cells apparently do not provide good host conditions for the malaria parasite. In areas where malaria is common, the population will include more people who pass on this mutation. This again, is bona fide natural selection. But even though there is a benefit to the mutation, it is still not beneficial. Anemia is not an improvement. The mutation did not produce resistance by way of additional, more sophisticated genetic material.
At the bacteria level, the mutants are being weeded out for having lost resistance, not because they gained it through accidental copy errors.
“Microevolution is indeed evolution. Repeated often enough, and over sufficient generations, it can indeed produce different kinds of bacteria.”
If this were true, it could be easily illustrated with lab evidence. This is just evolutionary jargon.
“Correct. Thus, those organisms which produce fatally flawed proteins fail to live and/or produce progeny. That’s selection.”
Without a doubt, but it misses the point. You said that polymerase evolved. I am contending that the odds are astronomically against thousands specialized proteins being formed randomly. The amino acid sequence has to be correct. The chance assembly of just one would be like winning a huge lottery. If this is a mischaracterization, then cite the lab evidence which shows the un-coerced, accidental formation of one functioning protein.
Also, selection can’t displace this problem because there are no replication errors to select.
“Evolution is the only reasonable and rational accounting. All other explanations are unreasonable and irrational…… Those who study the data supporting evolution and understand it, accept evolution as a fact.”
Nah, it is just the only thing available in the box. Unrealistic things should not be accepted by default. There are several theories concerning the origins of the moon. They range from the absurd to the pathetic. Which one of these do you accept as a fact?
By the way, I thought the following quote which (coincidentally enough) came up as the “Random Quote” in the sidebar when I happened to check this page just now was quite appropriate, given the whole “argument from probability” issue:
“A tendency to drastically underestimate the frequency of coincidence is a prime characteristic of innumerates….”
I would like to see Paulos try to trade commodities. The futures markets are a great place to test your grasp of reality. There is no mercy for idiots on the trading floors.
Phil Corn:
Actually, the most observable and pronounced “guides” in nature… are in fact the scientific laws that govern nature. The incredibly weak electrical forces among molecules in a solution guides the molecules themselves into crystalline forms; the natural effects of gravity, evaporation, rainfall, and the varying local geology guides the slowly changing course of a river. Disorganization and organization are obviously both natural conditions, and one can feed the growth of the other, as minerals carried from various locations into a cave can form stalactites and stalagmites and other rock formations.
And so too can the selection effect of naturally varying environmental conditions guide evolution.
Actually, imagination is all that creationists have, which is why it is exactly why it is so weak.
Evolution has actual data, in the fossil sequence, and in biochemistry and genetics.
No, it’s simply definitional. By your own acknowledgment, “[If a] life-force exists, such a thing would necessarily interact with the material world, and be detectable from that interaction.” Therefore, it, too, would be part of the material world.
Immaterialism is simply meaningless. There is no scientifically testable truth outside of the material world.
And now you’re contradicting yourself. If science has no way to quantify these “real” things, then there is no way to test their truth.
Wrong. Ethics and morality are the result of decisions made by material beings that have obvious consequences in the material world. As mental concepts, they arise in the brain, which is also a material thing.
The effects of consequences can be studied as game theory and the computational analysis of populations. Mental concepts can be studied as psychology and neuroscience. I am confident that it is possible to combine all of these into a scientific, and materialistic, study of ethics and morality.
So? Emotional constructs, group consensus, and individual preference all arise from the material world, and can therefore all be studied.
There’s no “rational” reason for any human behavior. However, it is indeed logical to note that emotions exist, and that emotions provide direction and motivation for all human behavior, including survival, reproduction, communication, art, social interactions, and ethics. Science is driven by the desire to understand the material world. The desire itself might not be a “logical” motivation, in and of itself, but the desire does result in logical analysis, where potential emotional bias is minimized by seeking the simplest natural explanation for various observations.
Francis Crick “concluded” no such thing. He suggested panspermia as a notion, and was quite aware that there was no evidence for it He never proposed it as a necessary concept, just as something that might be worth consideration, at a time when biochemistry and organic chemistry was less well understood.
Absolutely false from beginning to end. After more research had been done into organic chemistry, Crick was quite certain that iteratively complex organic chemistry was the precursor of life.
What does that mean, “no coordination”? It looks like you’re trying to suggest that the cells would develop but not do anything, which makes no sense.
I “ducked” because first of all, I’m not an expert, and second of all, it would be useless to go through all of the research, and post it here, just so that you can say “I don’t buy it”, or “I just don’t think the premise is plausible”. Basics first, details later.
Besides:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB302.html
And speaking of ducking, I notice that you’ve been doing some ducking yourself. I see no answers to all of the questions about this “life-force” that you brought up, and what else you would bring forth as arguments if it were proven that evolution was in fact within the bounds of probability, and so on. Perhaps you have some “soft spots” in your own rationale?
Sure it does. The proof is in the observation.
Nonsense. If it were unrealistic, it should be provably unrealistic, not on the say-so of a layman, but by someone who has actually studied the matter, and made the proof in incontrovertible terms.
You’re the one who brought it up.
“How it got there” is inevitably part of “what is there”. You can no more separate evolution from biology than you can separate sedimentary deposition, weathering, plate tectonics, and radioactivity from geology.
Nature is dynamic; understanding the dynamic is part of understanding nature.
You’re contradicting yourself. Again. “But even though there is a benefit to the mutation, it is still not beneficial”. Good grief, can you not even try to maintain logical coherence?
Really, it should be completely obvious that benefit is relative. In the case of the sickle-cell mutation, the incidence of the mutation cannot be considered separately from the environment in which it occurs. In this case, obviously, in an environment where malaria is prevalent, anemia is indeed an improvement if it reduces the deadly effects of malaria.
Did you not say that “more sophisticated” meant “specialization”? It obviously follows that the sickle-cell mutation is a specialization to the condition of endemic malaria parasites.
What’s the “life-force” explanation for the sickle-cell mutation, anyway?
My, but you’re twisting things around. The “mutants” lost resistance. I see. So it’s your thesis that what Dr. Fleming discovered was that “mutant” bacteria which just “happened” to be the most prevalent strain around was being killed by his mold culture, and the “non-mutant” strain, which for some strange reason is only found in more recent times after the use of penicillin became widespread, and was originally a tiny minority among the “mutant” strain, is able to survive because it didn’t “lose” resistance.
What motivation can you possibly have to make statements which are so obviously false? Are you so completely incapable of understanding the basics of evolution, even the microevolution that you say is real? Or do you just hate truths which you deem to be in opposition to some psychological structure that you’ve invested in, and so willingly make false statements in opposition to them?
Besides:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB110.html
Don’t contend. Prove. Make the effort, study up in biochemistry, and astonish the world. Or not, as the case may be.
Besides:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB010.html
My, what a very Darwinian assertion. All this time you were making noises like a creationist, and you were just fooling around, you naughty Darwinist you.
Owlmirror,
“Actually, the most observable and pronounced “guides” in nature… are in fact the scientific laws that govern nature.”
Like entropy for instance.
“Disorganization and organization are obviously both natural conditions, and one can feed the growth of the other, as minerals carried from various locations into a cave can form stalactites and stalagmites and other rock formations.”
So in your mind, an accumulation of minerals is on the same level as a protein with perhaps hundreds of perfectly sequenced amino acids which perform a specific, intricate bio-function?
“Actually, imagination is all that creationists have, which is why it is exactly why it is so weak.
Evolution has actual data, in the fossil sequence, and in biochemistry and genetics.”
Everyone is working with the same data (at least on an in-the-box basis). It is the interpretation that is important.
There are hundreds of billions of fossils, but as Gould observed, what they record is stability. The fossil record has never been a help for evolution. What it records is a limited number of types. We are assured by evo-theorists that 99.9% of all species that have ever been are extinct. If that is really the case, this means that there have been billions of them, and this means that the rocks should be rank with transitional forms. It is simply not. The fossil record just tells about another magnificent TOE math problem, among other things. I have some very basic questions for you if you want to talk fossils.
Biochemistry and genetic research only show complexity that can’t be duplicated. Researchers can control temperature, pressure, electricity, light, the purity of chemicals and anything else necessary to illustrate that evolution actually happens. But not one single thing has been produced in a laboratory that shows that. The legendary pre-biotic soup is as elusive as ever.
“No, it’s simply definitional. By your own acknowledgment, “[If a] life-force exists, such a thing would necessarily interact with the material world, and be detectable from that interaction.” Therefore, it, too, would be part of the material world.”
Again, I agree. But if you don’t perceive design then you aren’t likely to detect a designer.
“Immaterialism is simply meaningless. There is no scientifically testable truth outside of the material world.”
At one time, radio waves fell into this category. They existed, they just were not testable due to the limitations of science.
“Emotional constructs, group consensus, and individual preference all arise from the material world, and can therefore all be studied.”
And how would science quantify these things? Homicide statistics can be studied but not scientifically evaluated. There is no scientific basis for declaring any particular behavior as “wrong”. Ethical considerations are unnatural from an evolutionary perspective where “…nature, red in tooth and claw”, survival of the fittest and selfish genes are what supposedly got us here.
“Francis Crick “concluded” no such thing. He suggested panspermia as a notion…”
Crick (and Orgel) wrote about this directed panspermia in a paper in 1973 and expanded on it in a book in 1981, so this was more that a passing “notion”. I’m quite sure he felt the sting of the Darwinist establishment for proposing such a possibility.
“He never proposed it as a necessary concept, just as something that might be worth consideration, at a time when biochemistry and organic chemistry was less well understood.”
So they have the answers now?
“{At some point in time, some organism had to have a mutation in its DNA which would begin the long process of defining the specialty cells that make up the liver. […] But there was yet no coordination between these and the organism which retained the mutation.]”
What does that mean, “no coordination”?”
The liver has to have vascular connections to function and to be sustained. So there had to have been mutations which defined those connections. In other words, there had to be random accidental copy errors to form the liver, and there had to be associated mutations which extended the blood vessels to and from the liver. That hookup is not automatic. It had to be defined in the DNA, and had to be formed by accidental replication errors. So, were the mutations that formed the liver and rearranged the plumbing for it coincidental? Don’t you ever wonder about stuff like this?
“It looks like you’re trying to suggest that the cells would develop but not do anything, which makes no sense.”
I agree that this makes no sense, but this is in fact, your suggestion. I don’t think it is possible that liver or any other specialty cells develop by way of mutations and serve some purpose that the selection fairy will approve of until they have a final utility.
“[about ear and eye components]
I “ducked” because first of all, I’m not an expert”
There are no experts who can explain the detailed usefulness of partially evolved organs. If there were, you would know about them.
“… it would be useless to go through all of the research, and post it here, just so that you can say “I don’t buy it”, or “I just don’t think the premise is plausible”. “
There is nothing for you to post.
“Basics first, details later.”
This translates into “imagination first and never revisit the details”. Real science should be “basic details first”. I am only posing relatively simple questions here. You are convincing me that the establishment evolutionary community has never even considered things like this.
‘Besides: “Not much complexity is needed for a functional ear. All that is necessary is a nerve connected to something that can vibrate.”
The person who wrote this does not comprehend the mechanical complexity of hearing and does not understand evolutionary theory. All of the components have to be formed by a long series of accidental DNA copy errors and serve in some useful capacity so that they are repeatedly selected until the entire system is finally integrated. You would think that someone writing bullet items in defense of evolution would have a basic grasp of how it is supposed to work.
“And speaking of ducking, I notice that you’ve been doing some ducking yourself. I see no answers to all of the questions about this “life-force” that you brought up”
Actually, you brought that up.
“I am not sure what it is you think happens instead; you’ve never articulated it rigorously. Does it involve magical spontaneous transformations? Angels and demons? Morphogenetic fields? Some all-pervasive life-force, that surrounds us and penetrates us and binds the galaxy together?”
To partially answer your questions, I think that incomprehensible intellect is obviously involved in the design of living organisms. I do not accept unreasonable ideas about coincidence. If I were in a desert and found 27 stone cubes arranged to form a larger cube, I would not assume that this was a natural formation. I would be looking for who had cut and arranged the stones. I see absolutely no reason whatever to not apply this same analysis to hyper-complex molecular level structures.
From there, identifying the owner of that superior intellect is, in my mind, relatively easy.
“and what else you would bring forth as arguments if it were proven that evolution was in fact within the bounds of probability, and so on.”
If it were proven, I would not argue with it.
“Polymerase identifies an assembly error, removes it and repairs it. “just a chemical” does not react to error, reverse course, remove and replace, and then proceed.
Sure it does. The proof is in the observation.”
You need to think about this.
“[The failure rate is so extraordinarily low that relying on it to allow the production of tens of millions of species is, as I have noted, unrealistic.]
Nonsense. If it were unrealistic, it should be provably unrealistic, not on the say-so of a layman, but by someone who has actually studied the matter, and made the proof in incontrovertible terms.”
The say-so belongs to evolutionists. They are saying it happened with nothing in the way of demonstration that it could or did. The billions of extinct species exist only in the paragraphs and imaginations of evolutionists. They are not in evidence.
“…anemia is indeed an improvement if it reduces the deadly effects of malaria.”
Bear in mind here that sickle cell anemia is touted is a top-flight example of a beneficial mutation. This is not the kind of thing that is going to turn fish to amphibs to reptiles to birds and mammals.
“The “mutants” lost resistance.”
I think this is the most reasonable conclusion. To assume otherwise is to ignore the fundamental rarity of mutations and the likely destructive results when they do happen. But there is another possibility.
The evolutionary assumption is that survivors just happen to catch a lucky mutation which produces resistance. I think that continued research will show that the non-coding DNA regions are responsible for adaptations which are not currently understood and attributed to mutations. Misguided evolutionary thought produced the concept of “junk DNA” and the unfortunate result was many years of inadequate research. There is a lot of interesting reading on the web about this.
If you recall the notation in Myers’ piece about fish eyes, they transplanted the lens of a seeing eye into an blind one. This initiated a regenerative response which had nothing to do with mutations. Point 2 of your talkorigins link, “Mutation is the only natural process that adds variation to populations…” is wrong.
“[You said that polymerase evolved. I am contending that the odds are astronomically against thousands specialized proteins being formed randomly.]
Don’t contend. Prove. Make the effort, study up in biochemistry, and astonish the world. Or not, as the case may be.”
I believe the burden of proof is in your court since you made the announcement that polymerase must have evolved. Don’t announce, make one. If they formed accidentally, deliberately assembling one should be a piece of cake.
Your last T.O. link was a gem.
“For example, complex organic molecules are observed to form in the conditions that exist in space, and it is possible that they played a role in the formation of the first life (Spotts 2001).”
This of course completely ignores two little details. One is the complexity level of these organic molecules relative to that of proteins. But the more important point is that proteins do something. They are about transcribed information, not just random formation.
“The first life would have been very much simpler.”
There’s that inevitable “would have been”. I wish I had a dollar for every time “would have” and “could have” have been typed into speculative evolutionary literature. But aside from that, just how much simpler is this guy talking about? Was it simple enough that they can make it happen in a lab?
“The calculation of odds ignores the fact that innumerable trials would have been occurring simultaneously.”
And this of course begs the question, what made these innumerable trials stop?
“[The futures markets are a great place to test your grasp of reality. There is no mercy for idiots on the trading floors.]
My, what a very Darwinian assertion. All this time you were making noises like a creationist, and you were just fooling around, you naughty Darwinist you.”
Nah, I was just one of the idiots, more than once. I got into trades where I ignored that facts and went with my theory. My opinion was more important than the obvious indicators. Learning to be realistic can be a very painful experience.
Owlmirror,
As an addtional response the the link you posted from TalkOrigins about hearing, the following quotea and linka might add some perspective as to why I don’t accept the idea of mutations being able to produce what they are credited with.
“The cochlea only sends raw data — complex patterns of electrical impulses. The brain is like a central computer, taking this input and making some sense of it all. This is an extraordinarily complex operation, and scientists are still a long way from understanding everything about it.”
“In fact, hearing in general is still very mysterious to us. The basic concepts at work in human and animal ears are fairly simple, but the specific structures are extremely complex. Scientists are making rapid advancements, however, and they discover new hearing elements every year. It’s astonishing how much is involved in the hearing process, and it’s even more amazing that all these processes take place in such a small area of the body.”
http://www.stuffo.com/hearing.htm
“Auditory function is a very difficult subject to comprehend due primarily to the diversity of cells and type of tissues that takes place in the processing of a signals reaching the ear. Such a diversity of cells and tissues is necessary in order to localize, distinguish, and process sounds from different sources and different frequencies (i.e. the sound of a violin and a bass). The auditory system is able to distinguish efficiently sound as low as 20 cycles/sec. (hertz = Hz), and 20,000 Hz. Physically, processing such a wide range of frequencies constitutes a truly miraculous perfection of engineering. For example, even today with the most sophisticated development of computers and electronic digital equipment it would be impossible to duplicate the function of the inner ear in a machine as large as a refrigerator. However, the inner ear is capable of doing all of this and is only the size of a pea.”
http://www1.omi.tulane.edu/departments/pathology/fermin/Hearing.html
If you read the articles, bear in mind that the theory you are defending states that every component and every function came about by random, accidental DNA copy errors.
.
Phil Corn:
Of course, but also like evolution. Both evolution and entropy are scientific laws based on the observation of nature.
It’s a good basic analogy. Both geology and biology are processes that result from the interaction of many low-level chemical and physical laws over hundreds of millions of years that can lead to complexity and organization (in the case of geology, an enormous variety of landscapes, as well as the enormous number of geological formations and mineral formations) that a naive mind might think required intelligent intervention.
You really have to read more science than just creationist quote mines. Here’s Gould on fossils:
Stephen Jay Gould:
Phil Corn:
The pre-biotic soup was shown to be possible 50 years ago; weren’t you paying attention in science class?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller-Urey
I grant that the abiogenesis question itself is still under research, but the fact that it is being researched also means that it isn’t “as elusive as ever” — experimentation means that non-working chemical systems can be eliminated.
If the problem is cracked — if an experiment is designed that goes from a sealed system of basic chemicals and solar or geothermal or electrical energy to at least replicating RNA, will you acknowledge that evolution is the only necessary explanation for the rise of life on Earth?
By the way, this isn’t abiogenesis, but it’s an interesting and complex self-sustaining chemical system:
http://www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=938
It depends on how you define “design”, though. In the sense of having complexity and purpose, then life does have a design. It’s just that the process by which that complexity came into existence was evolution; the purpose that the complexity serves is the organisms’ species’ own purposes (although co-evolution is a process that can give rise to purposes that can aid another species, which indirectly serves the first species itself). The purpose reduces down to “survive and propagate”. The evolutionary process was and is the “designer”.
Yet radio waves are still material phenomena, in that they arise from the material world and interact with the material world. They are testable.
Not having the equipment to detect something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, but it does mean that whoever has the idea that that something exists has to come up with the experiment to demonstrate its existence.
On the other hand, even before Hertz showed that radio waves actually exist, Maxwell had at least laid the theoretical groundwork for their existence, with the equations based on phenomena already known to exist (electricity and magentism).
Where’s the theoretical groundwork for intelligent design?
[Note: I’m breaking this response up into several blocks. To be continued…]
This is another interesting piece of recent work that has a potential bearing on the abiogenesis problem:
http://cires.colorado.edu/news/press/2006/06-11-06.html
Phil Corn:
Science can observe successful and unsuccessful strategies, and rank them accordingly. Strategies are carried out by both individuals and populations, and the strategy that leads to the greatest success for the greatest number of individuals and populations can be shown accordingly.
It is of course individual preference that might lead to following or not following the best-ranked strategy, but if someone has a preference that is obviously in opposition to a large population or portion thereof (for example, someone who hates humanity so much that he wants to kill as many members of it as possible), it should be at least theoretically possible to analyze his brain and mind to discover why he feels that way, and perhaps stop him from feeling that way.
Ethics is hardly unnatural, since sympathy and empathy are obviously beneficial for large and slowly-reproducing social animals, and to an extent, even for animals that are largely solitary.
Even for the reddest in tooth and claw, the “fittest” can only survive by life-strategies that do not involve destroying mates, or children, or the current and future food supply, or other necessary resources. So emotions that promote behaviors counter to that sort of species-suicide — such as pair-bonding with mates, and instinctive affection for the young — will be selected for. Obviously, not all animals have these emotions to the same degree, yet note that humans, in which these emotions are probably strongest, are obviously very successful compared to all other animals of our size range and reproductive style.
Practically speaking, ethics is the attempt to codify strategies for sub-populations with differing levels of power to co-exist. Probably the best way to boil all of ethics down is, “If you were in the position of the one that you can perform some action upon, would you want that action to be performed?” Or of course more simply: “How would you like it?”.
While the above suggestions do all require imagination and empathy and caring about consequences, they’re still based on things that are observed and observable in the real world, and upon traits which evolved naturally.
[Again: To be continued…]
Phil Corn:
Have you read the paper? It’s online, and it’s only 6 pages.
http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/SC/B/C/C/P/_/scbccp.pdf
Francis Crick and Leo Orgel:
(emphasis by bolding added by myself)
You’re the one who said: “But he recognized that there is such a thing as impossiblity, and that the self-formation of the basic but super-complex things of biological life, fall into that category”, up there, in your post from November 3rd. As you can read for yourself, he never said any such thing, at all, ever. And if you read the entire paper, you’ll see that what that it postulates is that “the self-formation of the basic but super-complex things of biological life” had indeed happened billions of years ago on another planet, to the point where the beings on that planet were able to create the technology to send living organisms elsewhere.
That was in 1973, as you noted, but they really were just tossing this out as a notion to be considered and explored, as I hope you can see from the careful qualifications. And yes, Crick did write a book about it in 1981, but what did he think about it afterwards? Did his ideas about the origin of life change after that? Well, how about what he and Orgel wrote in 1993?
http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/reprint/7/1/238.pdf
Francis Crick and Leo Orgel:
You’ll note that they seem to have abandoned the Directed Panspermia idea entirely at this point.
Really, you have to read the actual science, not the creationist quote-mining, and -mangling, thereof.
Phil Corn:
“They”, meaning “organic chemists, biochemists, and evolutionary biologists”, have a better understanding now than they did then.
[Still continuing…]
Phil Corn:
Of course. That’s the whole point. An organ would not evolve in isolation; the organism would derive partial benefit from partial vascularization, and much greater benefit from the organ if there were greater vascularization.
The organ and all associated systems — including blood vessel formation, of course — evolve together.
Eh, it’s easier than you’re making it out to be. Have you read anything about angiogenesis? It’s just about chemical signals, during development, and can even occur after development. Doctors can use the signals to create new coronary heart arteries for patients with heart disease.
Granted, angiogenesis also occurs in cancerous tumors, but that’s evolution as well.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061117114616.htm
“The mutations that formed the liver and rearranged the plumbing for it” were selected for.
Nope. It’s your misunderstanding of evolution, and your misstating of the ideas and mechanisms. It’s entirely nonsensical.
Snort.
The experts aren’t spending their time trying to convince one lone creationist that he’s failing to understand the basic biology; they’re out there actively doing the experimentation and analysis, and publishing their findings in scientific journals.
Here’s some more links on the usefulness of partially evolved organs — from scientific journals:
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0611/feature4/
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/313/5795/1914
You’re a fine one to talk; you’ve got nothing but your own misunderstandings and confusion.
And I’m trying to give relatively simple answers, with the basic details. It’s not my fault that even the simplest of answers eludes you.
Snort, again. The “establishment evolutionary community” has been trying to respond to creationist confusion since Darwin’s time. It’s not the fault of the idea that you constantly fail to understand.
No. Once again, you failed to understand a simple response: The functional ear being referred to is the simplest possible ear; the most ancient and primitive kind. The “mechanical complexity of hearing” comes after the simplest ear evolves; as over many, many generations, the organisms that have simple ears are selected for more complex ears because better hearing allows them to to be more aware of their environment, and thus survive longer and reproduce more.
It’s not the result of one big block of mutations, but lots and lots of little mutations over those many generations, which are selected for because they promote survival. And it’s not “until the entire system is finally integrated” but rather, that the integrated system evolves.
[To be continued…]
I’m going to skip a part and get back to it later
Phil Corn:
One way of addressing that is to point out that life is indeed here and that it has evolved, so the probability of life evolving is in fact 1, which is to say, certainty.
Heh.
However, more seriously, the resources I’ve looked at so far point out the immense difficulty of calculating the probability of any specific evolutionary path. There are so many different possible environmental conditions and possibilities and combinations that the set of potential outcomes is currently unknown.
The fact that mutants and other variation exist, and can be verified in repeated genetic comparisons, is the demonstration that polymerase fails to produce exact copies.
Genetic comparisons show that the genetic differences between individuals, species, genera and phyla is consistent with this failure rate. That’s the demonstration.
Creationists are the ones making the claim that all of the science of genetics is somehow incorrect. They have to provide the specific scientific proof that it is.
An example, sure. It’s hardly the only example, and as I keep repeating, it’s only beneficial in the context of the environment that it occurs in.
And its benefit is the only reasonable explanation for its continued existence. There certainly isn’t any life-force based explanation that is consistent with its existence.
That’s an absolutely unreasonable conclusion. The scientific proof is that clones of a base population of non-resistant bacteria will, rarely, produce a mutant that is resistant to antibiotics. It’s also been proven that said base population will produce mutants that are resistant to anti-bacterial viruses — and these are different mutations, with different probabilities of occurrence.
And clone populations of bacteria descended from these (originally) rare mutants will retain that mutation and become the dominant population in those environments where the respective antibacterials are found.
The “fundamental rarity” is irrelevant, given that it does happen, and so too is the “likely destructive results” irrelevant, since those will be selected out.
You really don’t know much about genetics, do you? Non-coding DNA is already being scrutinized. One of the ways that mutation rates can be calculated is specifically by examining the mutations that occur in non-coding DNA. Those are the source of many of the neutral mutations that are shown to occur. And in addition, one way that a mutation can occur is that non-coding DNA is accidentally copied into a coding region of DNA. But regardless of what the change is, and what its effect is (negative, neutral or positive), it’s still a mutation.
You’ve repeatedly claimed that evolution can “only be imagined” to work, but when an obvious example of evolution is demonstrated, all you can come up with in response is something out of your own imagination, with no basis whatsoever in reality.
You really do have problems with reading comprehension.
First of all, please give proper attribution: that wasn’t Myers’ posting. The scienceblogs.com site hosts many different scientists and science writers; that particular one was by Carl Zimmer.
Secondly, the cave fish are obviously mutants; they’re variants of the fish that can see which are found outside of the cave. It’s just that blindness is consistent with being a neutral side effect of a positive mutation in a completely lightless environment.
The lens transplantation was simply to show that the developmental pathways still existed in the cave fish, and were brought out of dormancy by the new lens with its already existing chemical signals.
The original article is available for free online, although I don’t know if you’ll understand much from it.
http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/96/3/185
[More continuation…]
Phil Corn:
Already been asked, and answered:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB020.html
Well, all I can say is, given your past experience, you just might want to be very, very sure as to what the facts are, and what is just your opinion and ignoring of the facts…
Evolution has been part of biology for the past 150 years, and has been proven repeatedly by various biological discoveries, which have in turn been the basis for further biological research, and for real-world medical discoveries of things that directly benefit humans (or directly harm humans, in the case of things like antibiotic-resistant microbes). I think it’s pretty clear that the facts are rather conclusively on the side of evolution.
[To be continued…]
Rearranging some of the lines a bit, here:
Phil Corn:
We have experience of things specifically designed by humans, and I think the only metric we have at this point in time by which to distinguish human-design is by comparing whatever it is with things that exist in nature and formed by natural processes.
In your example above, the way that you distinguish this stone formation from all possible natural stone formations is from your geological and mineralogical experience. Mineral formations do not usually have exact repeated regularity; even otherwise regular crystals have variation in size, one from another. Geological formations usually show signs of gradation from one area to another; your example is described as being separate from any similar type of stone.
Finally, another way to distinguish natural from man-made objects is by the tool-marks on human-made objects, distinct from marks made by known natural causes.
Speaking of natural mineral formations, have you heard of this one?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant%27s_Causeway
The problem is that with living things, and the molecules within them that they produce and use, are the only natural examples of themselves. We have very little else to compare them to – except, perhaps, domesticated animals (derived from non-domesticated ones) and genetically engineered organisms (also derived from non-domesticated ones).
Yet domesticated and engineered organisms, like other things that humans create from natural resources, usually have characteristics that are obviously meant to suit human needs and desires.
What about all of the natural organisms that have characteristics that only suit their own species and individuals thereof?
Whose need or desire does it suit that so many parasites and diseases are so well “designed” to elude the human immune system?
[Continued on next rock…]
Phil Corn:
And so we come to the conceptual core of all of your arguments.
The problem that intelligent design advocates have never ever addressed is that this core of the argument has a deep and fundamental self-contradiction. You say you don’t accept “coincidence”, despite the fact that you don’t have any way of reasonably formulating why variation and selection are “unreasonable”, and yet in its place, you substitute something not only for which there is no evidence, but something which by your own assumptions is utterly impossible.
You have repeatedly insisted that for the complexity of life to develop from the chemical elements and the interaction of basic physical laws cannot have happened. It’s been the theme that you have been constantly reiterating, no matter how many counterarguments and explanations have been given to show that the real problem is with your own misunderstanding.
And yet you blithely invoke an “incomprehensible intellect” without taking into consideration that such an “intellect” — that by your own insistence is capable of designing complexity and being therefore necessarily more complex than that which it designs — cannot have come into existence. It cannot have appeared, because by your argument, complexity does not simply appear. It cannot have evolved from something simpler, because by your argument, simplicity cannot ever give rise to any complexity.
Therefore, by your own argument, this “incomprehensible intellect” cannot exist.
Owlmirror,
Thanks for the responses. I’ll get back when time permits. Very bad timing for a fair response in the next few days.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Phil
Owlmirror,
“Both evolution and entropy are scientific laws based on the observation of nature.”
I think elevating evolution to law status might be just a little over-enthusiastic.
“Both geology and biology are processes that result from the interaction of many low-level chemical and physical laws over hundreds of millions of years that can lead to complexity and organization”
If the bio-processes involved are really simple and “low-level”, why can’t they be induced? Can you cite any examples of a coding gene being fabricated from scatch?
“You really have to read more science than just creationist quote mines. Here’s Gould on fossils:”
This is the same Gould who described how reptile jaw bones morphed into the anvil, hammer and stirrup in the middle ear, but momentarily forgot that such a transformation would require countless mutations. The quote you mined was an attempt to cover up a candid admission he had made which proved to be very embarrassing. I’m good with using quotes by the way.
“The pre-biotic soup was shown to be possible 50 years ago; weren’t you paying attention in science class?”
None of the extremely controlled conditions of the Miller-Urey experiment are found in nature. Only 13 amino acids were produced, and these only served to highlight the chirality problem which is still a gross enigma for evolutionary theory. Plus, amino acids are only the building blocks of proteins which are twice removed from DNA.
“If the problem is cracked — if an experiment is designed that goes from a sealed system of basic chemicals and solar or geothermal or electrical energy to at least replicating RNA, will you acknowledge that evolution is the only necessary explanation for the rise of life on Earth?”
Of course not, for two reasons. First, the results of such an experiment would only be a mimic. But more importantly, such a production would involve intellect which violates the materialist premise that such things were produced without that. Note your use of the word “designed”.
“It depends on how you define “design”, though. In the sense of having complexity and purpose, then life does have a design. It’s just that the process by which that complexity came into existence was evolution”
Purpose is about intent and deliberation. Evolution has no purpose.
“Not having the equipment to detect something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist”
I could not have expressed it better.
“but it does mean that whoever has the idea that that something exists has to come up with the experiment to demonstrate its existence.”
I agree. The idea that random copy errors have produced DNA molecules that define more complex organisms should not be accepted without direct evidence. Not what could have, might have, must have or is thought to have happened. And not comparative studies which seem to suggest or infer.
“Where’s the theoretical groundwork for intelligent design?”
ID simply proposes that extraordinary complexity is evidence in and of itself.
“if someone has a preference that is obviously in opposition to a large population or portion thereof (for example, someone who hates humanity so much that he wants to kill as many members of it as possible), it should be at least theoretically possible to analyze his brain and mind to discover why he feels that way, and perhaps stop him from feeling that way”
Materialsm cannot call that person’s behavior wrong.
“Ethics is hardly unnatural, since sympathy and empathy are obviously beneficial for large and slowly-reproducing social animals……emotions that promote behaviors counter to that sort of species-suicide — such as pair-bonding with mates, and instinctive affection for the young — will be selected for. “
You are really enriching the selection concept here.
“If you were in the position of the one that you can perform some action upon, would you want that action to be performed?” Or of course more simply: “How would you like it?”.”
You are trying to account for the reasoning behind the golden rule with accidental, random DNA replication errors. This is an abrupt departure from the selfish gene concept.
“While the above suggestions do all require imagination and empathy and caring about consequences,…”
Evolution has no ethical interests or regard for consequences.
“….they’re still based on things that are observed and observable in the real world, and upon traits which evolved naturally.”
They are observable. That such things occur as the result of mutations does require, as you noted, a phenomenal imagination.
“You’ll note that they seem to have abandoned the Directed Panspermia idea entirely at this point.”
Crick and Orgel’s enlightenment was only trading panspermia for the RNA world idea, which was, and is, just a more contemporary fantasy.
“Really, you have to read the actual science”
There is no actual science to do with either one of these notions for origins. Nothing has been published about either one that does not involve standard evolutionary conjecture.
“An organ would not evolve in isolation; the organism would derive partial benefit from partial vascularization, and much greater benefit from the organ if there were greater vascularization.
The organ and all associated systems — including blood vessel formation, of course — evolve together.”
This only compounds the mutations problem as it demands that unrelated beneficial replication errors have coincidentally. One more time:
Mutations are rare. When they do occur, they are almost always destructive if they have any consequence at all. And they have to wind up in gametes to be passed on.
“That hookup is not automatic.
Eh, it’s easier than you’re making it out to be.”
No, it is not.
“Have you read anything about angiogenesis? It’s just about chemical signals, during development, and can even occur after development. Doctors can use the signals to create new coronary heart arteries for patients with heart disease.”
Well first, doctors don’t create anything. All they are doing is throwing genetic switches, on a very limited basis, that are already there which evolution says were formed by random mutations. They are doing this with intent and purpose. My question for you would be what natural process was involved in initiating the blood vessel growth when the liver needed it? All accidents all the time is the rule.
” “The mutations that formed the liver and rearranged the plumbing for it” were selected for.”
Morphing the concept again. No mutations means nothing to select. You can’t lose sight of how difficult it is for evolutionists to present examples of beneficial mutations.
“Nope. It’s your misunderstanding of evolution, and your misstating of the ideas and mechanisms. It’s entirely nonsensical.”
I don’t think I misunderstand it at all. I’m just able to keep the mutations in mind when the fantasies are being described. Evolution is a very elastic theory. Even losing trillions of really lucky beneficial mutations and 70% of existing species to an extinction event can be considered a stimulus in evolutionary faith.
“The experts aren’t spending their time trying to convince one lone creationist that he’s failing to understand the basic biology; they’re out there actively doing the experimentation and analysis, and publishing their findings in scientific journals.”
So what were their determinations? What purpose for instance, did the cochlea serve in the interim before the rest of the hearing components were gradually formed by way of accidental DNA replication errors? I understand that the theory proposes that it had one. I just want to know what it was.
“Here’s some more links on the usefulness of partially evolved organs — from scientific journals:
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0611/feature4/“
I didn’t see any specific description regarding that usefulness. Did you? But I did enjoy this:
“Sean Carroll, a biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, likens the body-building genes to construction workers. “If you walked past a construction site at 6 p.m. every day, you’d say, Wow, it’s a miracle–the building is building itself. But if you sat there all day and saw the workers and the tools, you’d understand how it was put together. We can now see the workers and the machinery. And the same machinery and workers can build any structure.””
Oops. Poor Sean has lost sight of the theory. There are no architects, engineers, crane operators, iron workers, plumbers or electricians all making thousands of decisions involving in the building. No cranes. No glass or concrete plants. No steel or pipe mills. No manufacturers at all. Only accidental self-assembly. His analogy does not accommodate evolutionary reality. If evolution really works, the building would happen as a result of natural processes and have nothing to do with thinking, reacting, reasoning, deliberating, communicating entities.
“Scientists have discovered enough of these echoes to envision how E. coli’s flagellum could have evolved.”
The ID arguments have focused a lot of attention on that device. Mutations designing compound rotary elements does require a wonderful imagination. Evolutionary scientists seem to be gifted in a very special way when it comes to envisioning things. Have you ever read the step-by-step envisioning of the evolution of the bombardier beetle on the TalkOrigins site? It really is interesting.
“Once again, you failed to understand a simple response: The functional ear being referred to is the simplest possible ear; the most ancient and primitive kind.”
Even the most “primitive” ear has to have the same basic components and none of them are simple. (Just the transducer section that converts air to fluid impedance is a marvel.) What I want to understand though, is that interim function that you say they served so they would continue to be selected. The whole idea confuses me because so many critical mechanical parts are involved without even considering the brain. Even the tiniest details have to be accounted for with mutations. Like the libricant that baths the hammer and anvil joint automatically. Are you really maintaining that every detail was somehow useful till the whole assembly was functioning so the organism could hear better “and thus survive longer and reproduce more”? Including the holes in the skull? Did these all mutate simultaneously?
‘life is indeed here and that it has evolved, so the probability of life evolving is in fact 1, which is to say, certainty.”
This is like saying that since there are gold coins, alchemy must have worked at some point.
“However, more seriously, the resources I’ve looked at so far point out the immense difficulty of calculating the probability of any specific evolutionary path. There are so many different possible environmental conditions and possibilities and combinations that the set of potential outcomes is currently unknown.”
It isn’t the path possibilities that need examination. It is the mechanism of production. Millions of species, each with thousands of hyper-sophisticated subsytems, all generated by exquisitively rare, accidental DNA replication mistakes. The equation is so lopsided coming out of the chute that I doubt an evolutionist would undertake it. If someone inside the box were to do so, and the analysis was accurate, the results would only be ridiculed if they were even published.
“The fact that mutants and other variation exist, and can be verified in repeated genetic comparisons, is the demonstration that polymerase fails to produce exact copies.”
The “other variation” is produced as a consequence of another super-complex phenomena that is impossible to explain in terms of primitive accidental copy errors, namely the unique nature of gametes which combine to form a new DNA configuration. Fortunately, mutants are still rare.
“Creationists are the ones making the claim that all of the science of genetics is somehow incorrect.”
Creationists only disagree with the constant efforts of evolutionists to twist the data into agreeing with their prior philosophical commitments.
“[sickle cell anemia is] hardly the only example, and as I keep repeating, it’s only beneficial in the context of the environment that it occurs in.”
If evolution were true, examples as tepid as sickle cell would never be used as an argument. It is just the best thing available. Archaeopterix, peppered moths, embryonic gill slits, Miller-Urey, Marsh’s horses. A small parade with unimpressive floats. Great advertising though.
“Non-coding DNA is already being scrutinized.”
This scrutiny was retarded for a considerable time due to an evolutionary mentality that regarded non-coding regions as junk. The delay was due to misguided notions about millions of years worth of assumed mutations.
“One of the ways that mutation rates can be calculated is specifically by examining the mutations that occur in non-coding DNA. Those are the source of many of the neutral mutations that are shown to occur. And in addition, one way that a mutation can occur is that non-coding DNA is accidentally copied into a coding region of DNA. But regardless of what the change is, and what its effect is (negative, neutral or positive), it’s still a mutation.”
I don’t buy this idea. Evolution has a vested (actually desperate) interest in empowering mutations. I think that it will be demonstrated that a lot of what is in the non-coding regions is built-in adaptation mechanisms. If 97% of the molecule is non-functioning, that does not speak well of the efficiency of selection.
“You’ve repeatedly claimed that evolution can “only be imagined” to work, but when an obvious example of evolution is demonstrated”
Obvious examples? What I perceive is obvious and severe problems. I am not impressed with bullet items, glossovers and dances around the fire. Look back on the links you posted as treatments of partially evolved organs and list the known, documented interim functions that they provided. These are just devotees waltzing with the theory. They are not science.
“all you can come up with in response is something out of your own imagination, with no basis whatsoever in reality.”
I ask questions and analyze responses. You may be satisfied by someone at T.O telling you that everything is very simple. I am not.
“First of all, please give proper attribution: that wasn’t Myers’ posting. The scienceblogs.com site hosts many different scientists and science writers; that particular one was by Carl Zimmer.”
I noticed that.
“Secondly, the cave fish are obviously mutants; they’re variants of the fish that can see which are found outside of the cave. It’s just that blindness is consistent with being a neutral side effect of a positive mutation in a completely lightless environment.”
I disagree with this conclusion. I think fish (and other animals) are not mutating. I believe that what happens with losses of pigment and sight are adaptive reactions, not mutations. Mutations are accidental errors. You have been taught to think in terms of mutations because of a general comtempt for anything Lamarckian that exists in the establishment community.
I should point out here that evolutionists and creationists are working from opposite directions.
Evolution thinks that random errors are responsible for organization into increased complexity and sophistication.
The C position thinks that DNA, which does mutate, is on a downward, disorganizing path. We think that at one time, the information was complete and correct. In other words, there is a general disintegration happening.
Ascent vs. declension. One of these two views is more congruent with real evidence than is the other.
“The lens transplantation was simply to show that the developmental pathways still existed in the cave fish, and were brought out of dormancy by the new lens with its already existing chemical signals.”
I agree, and like I said, it has nothing to do with replication errors or “relaxed selection pressure”. It is just a species responding to circumstances, and much faster than mutation theory can reasonably account for.
“The original article is available for free online, although I don’t know if you’ll understand much from it.
http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/96/3/185
If I can find the time, I would like to post a brief analysis of this article serarately.
“such an “intellect” — that by your own insistence is capable of designing complexity and being therefore necessarily more complex than that which it designs — cannot have come into existence. It cannot have appeared, because by your argument, complexity does not simply appear. It cannot have evolved from something simpler, because by your argument, simplicity cannot ever give rise to any complexity.”
This is a variation of the “If there is a God, who made Him?” argument. It assumes two things.
One is that there is no ultimate. We are aware of the concept of infinity, but we do not grasp it, in any direction. It is out of reach of our mathematical comprehension.
The other is that a Creator must be limited to parameters like space and time. Contemporary history illustates that this limitation is easily breached.
This week, in the continuing evolution of creationism:
Philip Corn:
Shrug. It follows from the observations and from reason.
Now that I’ve read more of your responses, I find it kind of ironic that you appear to insist on rejecting evolution, when you in fact accept it implicitly in Lamarckism. You do know that he too was proposing a theory of evolution, which involved simple animals becoming more and more complex?
Of course biochemistry is low-level. How do you think biology works? It’s “induced” with every experiment and operation in biotechnology and genetic engineering.
You mean like what is done with PCR?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction
What are you talking about? Of course the transformation “would require countless mutations”. He would not have forgotten it.
Yes, you’re very good at mining and twisting quotes. I notice you’ve carefully elided your earlier twisting of Crick’s ideas.
They’re not found on Earth now. They’re consistent with the conditions on Earth billions of years ago, as determined by geology and astronomy. And they’re found “in nature” elsewhere.
And, by the way, those experiments demonstrated that the creationist concept of how entropy works is false. Simple chemicals were put into the flask, energy was delivered to the chemical mixture, and more complex chemicals — organic chemicals that are part of the proteins necessary for life as we know it — were produced as a result. QED.
Hardly a “gross” enigma. Chirality is consistent with common descent from the earliest conceivable life-forms, and is therefore quite consistent with evolution.
Granted. I never claimed that the problem was solved, just that it was closer to being solved. You claimed that science was no closer to a “pre-biotic soup”. The amino acids produced by Miller-Urey (and similar experiments) are indeed a necessary ingredient of a pre-biotic soup. Therefore, you were wrong.
Of course it would be a mimic. That’s what all experiments are. But the mimicry demonstrates the inevitable law. Just as Newton’s apples and Galileo’s pendulums were a “mimicry” of all general gravitational laws, so too would an abiogenesis demonstration be a “mimicry” of general chemical, biochemical, and evolutionary law.
You are, once again, confused. All that “designed” means here is that the chemical mix would be chosen to duplicate (or “mimic”, if you prefer) conditions of the pre-biotic chemical mix on Earth, given energy inputs consistent with what would have been occurring on Earth, and isolated from the current environment. The whole point is that the chemicals put into the isolated container would be simple ones, and the end result would be self-replicating molecules. From lifelessness, the true precursors of life, and from there, perhaps it may also be possible to show the abiotic generation of life itself.
I’d believe you if there were any consistency in your arguments. Further on you say you “think” that there are some magical “built-in adaptation mechanisms” in the genome. Fine. You came up with the idea; you demonstrate the existence of such mechanisms.
Yup. The evidence for mutation and selection is in the different genomes themselves. There you go.
The “random copy errors” are observable, in the mutation rate, and in the genome analysis, and even at the gross level of physical differences between individuals, species, and so on up to phyla and kingdoms.
And yet further down, with typical creationist hypocrisy, you babble on about Lamarckism and fairy-tale adaptive mechanisms in non-coding DNA. Not direct evidence, but about what you “think” happened, about what you “believe” happens. No evidence, no experiments, no facts, just your glorified opinion. Stuff and nonsense and moonshine pulled from out of your… imagination, all of it.
And ID has no explanation of what “extraordinary complexity” means, or how it can be distinguished from ordinary complexity, or why it cannot arise from natural evolutionary processes. ID also reduces to self-contradiction, as I already pointed out. It’s utterly vacuous, and meaningless.
And all of the examples of “extraordinary complexity” offered by ID so far are perfectly plausible as arising from ordinary genetic mutations and evolutionary processes.
Really, it’s shamefully hypocritical for you to rag on evolution for not having “enough” evidence, when ID has nothing.
You’re confused, once again. It isn’t “materialism” per se that is doing so. It is humans using ethical reasoning..
Not at all. Genes do not exist in isolation, but in populations. If some behavior allows the population to continue to survive and reproduce, then it can be selected for. If survival of the the population is impossible if some single instances of the genome grabs all that can be gotten, then some mechanism that prevents such specific selfishness must be selected for.
Even single-celled organisms have individuals who perform sacrifices so that the group can continue to survive and reproduce.
Given all of that, it seems reasonable to infer that basic ethics can be derived from basic population biology. More complex ethics arises because humans are more complex entities.
Utterly confused, irrelevant and beside the point. Evolution is just a biological process. Humans, as evolved organisms, do have ethical interests and regard for consequences. At some point, caring about consequences, and caring itself, has resulted from evolution.
I do believe you’ve confused something I’ve said with your own confused ideas. My assertion is that ethics (and for that matter, imagination itself, which more advanced ethical reasoning requires) results from evolution, by basic logic.
The RNA-world is a reasoned hypothesis based on biochemical observations and evidence, which is why it is attractive to biochemists like Crick and Orgel.
Hm. I just looked up Orgel:
Orgel’s Second Rule:
Heh.
Don’t go taking that metaphor literally, now. Evolution is still a process, not an intelligence.
Have you finally abandoned your assertion that Crick thought that abiogenesis was “impossible”?
Oh, and are you now asserting that panspermia is “fantasy”? Make up your mind which fringe theory you think supports your delusions, will you? When you thought Crick was somehow on the side of creationism, you were more than happy to claim that he supported you; when I pointed out that you were wrong about what Crick said and meant, you dropped him like a hot potato.
“Standard evolutionary conjecture” on origins is indeed science. It may be somewhat speculative, but it’s speculation based on solid existing biochemical evidence. And you have to read it if you’re going to criticize it.
More to the point, further investigation into the problem may yet yield the biochemical laws that allow for abiogenesis itself.
One more time: They are rare, but at a fairly constant rate in each generation.
One more time: Mutations are almost always neutral.
One more time: So what happens if they are destructive? Badly destructive mutations are selected out. They aren’t reproduced.
One more time: If they’re only mildly negative, they might get passed on. The evaluation of whether a mutation is genuinely negative or positive can depend on the environment.
One more time: What do you know about mutations anyway? You don’t read any of the published works in the science of genetics, since you think it’s all “conjecture”. So anything you say about mutations comes not from reality, but from your own imagination. What you “think” happens. What you “believe” happens. Your fantasies which have no basis in fact.
It’s the other way around. Mutations have to start in the gametes in the first place, which is how they are initiated to be passed on.
Although I shouldn’t be surprised that you don’t understand anything about basic biology.
Sure it is. You’ve never read anything about it; how would you know?
Fine, if you want to be pedantic. Doctors induce new coronary heart arteries to grow because they’ve figured out the biochemical signals.
Since blood vessel formation and organ formation take place at approximately the same time during embryonic development, a newly specialized and variant group of cells forming a primitive liver would be awash in the chemical signals that induce the formation of blood vessels.
No it’s not. Look: beneficial mutations. Of course, as with all mutations, benefit can depend on environment.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mutations.html
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoHumBenMutations.html
It doesn’t matter what you think you understand. You keep saying incorrect things about how evolution works, such as leaving out selection and yammering on about randomness alone. Therefore, it obviously follows that you misunderstand evolution.
You may be astonished to hear this, but there is no suggestion in evolutionary theory that any mutation can affect an organism’s ability to survive an asteroid impact or other sudden event that kills off everything for thousands of miles around. Really.
It’s just that once the sudden event is over, the organisms that survived by pure luck can multiply, diversify, and evolve.
Once again, it’s obvious that you continue to misunderstand.
Perhaps you missed all of the references to simple organisms with organs that are vastly simplified versions of what more complex organisms have? The ones with simple light sensors, simple brains, simple limbs, basic bodies? The point is that those simple organisms survive with those “partial” organs. Hence, partially evolved organs provide benefit. QED
Shrug. It’s an analogy of gradual development. I think my analogy of the slow development of geological systems is more appropriate, but the point is that slow changes over lots of time can result in complex structures.
The most “primitive” ear is simply something that responds to vibration. As long as there’s that, there will be some ability to respond to sounds.
Speaking of primitive ears, here’s a paper on fish ears. Are you interested in the subject enough to read it, even if it is full of evolution?
http://tinyurl.com/yjqc68
Not simultaneously, but together over time, over many generations.
Are you actually interested in reading more about research into ears, or are you just using the complexity of the ear as your latest blunt instrument with which to bludgeon evolution?
If you actually want to find out, there’s plenty of research being done. You might start with this.
http://amazon.com/o/ASIN/0387210938
There’s a whole institute dedicated just to ear research.
http://www.ccebh.umd.edu/comparativehearing.asp
A false analogy. Medieval alchemy was like creationism — it was thought to work by magical processes. Once the magical thinking was tossed out and scientific rigour was introduced, alchemy became chemistry. Once the magical thinking of creationism was tossed out, all that is left is the rigorous science of evolutionary biology.
Although, thinking about it, modern science does say that “alchemy” must have worked at some point. It’s just that “at some point” was the fury of a supernova billions of years ago that fused together lighter elements into heavier ones, including gold.
Heh, again.
Snort. Creationists ridicule evolution even without ever reading the research and science, so yes, I’m certain that ignorant fools would ridicule a scholarly work on evolution and biostatistics without reading it, and certainly without understanding it.
Here, why don’t you get started?
http://www.math.cornell.edu/~durrett/Gbook/Gbook.html
Meanwhile, the scientific world welcomes all advancement in evolutionary understanding.
In other words, mutations. You complain about the mechanism, but the essence of the concept is exactly identical to mutations.
What are you talking about? We are all mutants.
Since creationists aren’t the ones doing the science, their disagreements are irrelevant, and furthermore, they’re obviously the ones twisting the data into agreeing with their prior philosophical commitments.
Sure it would. Sickle cell anemia isn’t “tepid”! Malaria still kills millions every single year; those unfortunates who receive the double-dose of the sickle-cell trait die young and painfully as well, but at a lower rate than the malaria deaths. Sickle cell anemia is a vivid and horrific example of evolution in action.
That’s correct. That’s what all of science is: The best explanation available, given the evidence.
You perceive a “small parade” and “unimpressive floats” because you don’t read any further, and you don’t understand what you do read. The fault is with you, not with evolutionary theory.
And really, that’s better than what can be said about creationism: Nothing there but advertising. The ultimate in vapor and vanity…
Actually, it’s because genetics is an incredibly young science, and there’s a lot of work to be done. The focus is obviously going to be on the parts of the genes that are obviously active.
The only ones investigating genetics, in case you hadn’t noticed, are evolutionary biologists. No creationists are doing any research into genetics, or anything else involved with advanced biology.
The delay was and is due to not yet having the tools, equipment, and time with which to perform the necessary work. Heck, the human genome was only sequenced a few years ago, and there’s lots and lots more work to be done before the actual working, coding parts of DNA are fully understood.
What you don’t buy doesn’t matter in the slightest. You don’t do science, you don’t read science. Since you’re completely ignorant of genetics, your opinion on how it works or not is utterly immaterial.
Once again: The non-coding parts of DNA accumulate lots and lots of mutations.
It’s the other way around. Creationists have a vested and desperate interest in disempowering mutations.
There’s that “I think” again. Why should anyone care what you think? You don’t do science; you don’t read science. You have no idea about anything at all in genetics.
And neither does any other creationist.
No-one has ever claimed that selection is efficient. It is simply what works best in a given environment.
In fact, the inefficiency of the known genomes is an excellent argument against anything like design. Genomes are indeed inefficient. It’s just that they work for what they need to do because anything that doesn’t actually work doesn’t survive or doesn’t reproduce.
Obvious and severe problems with your own understanding, certainly.
You repeat common creationist errors in understanding, suggest that an evolutionary theory that was thought up and discarded two centuries ago is somehow correct, and you dream up magical adaptation mechanisms.
No-one at talkorigins has ever claimed that “everything” is very simple.
But I note that you seem to be perfectly satisfied with simple creationist arguments, though.
Your disagreement is irrelevant. You’re not doing any science, nor can you argue from scientific knowledge.
The adaptation is the result of a genetic mutation. The “reaction” is the result of selection. The species adapts. What you “think” happens is irrelevant.
Mutations are any change at all in a genome from one generation to the next.
I have been taught to think in terms of mutations because that’s what the evidence of genetics shows.
And the general contempt for Lamarckian ideas exists because there was no evidence that those ideas are correct, and they were superseded by modern evolutionary theory, for which there is evidence, everywhere.
There are some interesting new developments in recent years as the result of epigenetics, which is to say, changes in development that are the result of factors external to the genome. However, I’m afraid you would find no support for creationist delusion there; it’s all very materialist, and based upon biochemical evidence.
Frankly, I’m vaguely surprised at this sudden support for Lamarck, of all people. Besides the fact that he was definitely an evolutionist, as I mentioned above, I note that his ideas became associated with the less savory aspects of recent modern history – Lamarckian ideas were incorporated into Social Darwinism, and of course, they were also championed by Trofim Lysenko, the protégé of the second biggest mass murderer of modern times, Joe Stalin. None of which have anything to do with the truth or falsity of the ideas, but one of the common arguments that creationists have with Darwinian evolution is the stigma of who they think used Darwinian evolution as a prescriptive idea.
And selection, which you keep forgetting.
Except that before, you were arguing that there were no mutations; that there was stasis instead. You can’t even keep your own arguments straight.
And if the information was “complete and correct”, why would there be any need for non-coding parts? Why would magical “adaptation mechanisms” be needed?
Since creationists don’t study the real evidence, evolution is obviously the correct explanation.
You really did not understand anything. The part that you quote and your response have nothing to do with each other.
Not quite. You’re the one who is now saying “God”. Before, you were saying things like “incomprehensible intellect”, and before that, you agreed with the phrase “life-force” without clarifying any further.
Some theists and deists appear to suggest that since the evolution of the universe occurred, then it is possible that God, too, may have evolved, by the same laws that make the rest of evolution possible. I have no opinion on that, but at least it’s a more internally consistent idea.
Actually, the assumptions are that the “laws” that you cite as being the reasons that evolution is impossible are part of the universal and consistent laws of reality.
So what? Infinity, and ultimates or the lack thereof, do not argue for the existence of God. I’m not sure if they argue for anything. Really, it’s a completely vacuous argument; you’ll have to do better than that.
Remember what you said about agreeing with “whoever has the idea that that something exists has to come up with the experiment to demonstrate its existence”?
You have to come up with the demonstration that there’s something outside of space and time, and that something can exist there, and the the Creator does exist there.
What the heck are you talking about? Contemporary history illustrates nothing of the sort.
Speaking of infinity, Owlmirror has infinitely more patience with this repetitive sludge than I would.
And manages, even, to turn some of the sludge into sparkling teaching points. Corn may kid himself that he is constructing an appealing argument, but any halfway-objective lurker, regardless of predisposition, will recognize the manifold inconsistencies, unevidenced assertions, and fanciful flailings.
Thanks, O mighty Owlmirror!
Stop, stop. You’ll make my head swell.
Actually, I think of it as a running experiment: Is it possible to convince a persistent creationist that his arguments are all flawed?
As with all experiments dealing with human psychology, the experiment may fail because of human perversity. But since I’ve been thinking a lot about such epistemic questions anyway, I may as well continue the experiment for now, until one of us becomes so bored or fed up as to quit.