David Berlinski cites mathematical biologist Motoo Kimura in “The Devil’s Delusion” (2008) who advanced what Berlinski called “a powerful argument against Darwin’s theory of natural selection” by showing “that the great majority of evolutionary changes at the molecular level, as revealed by comparative studies of protein and DNA sequences, are caused not by Darwinian selection but by random drift of selectively neutral or nearly neutral mutations.” If so, the great changes necessary in the two rapid advances under discussion could not have occured by Darwinian mechanisms.

Kimura is exactly the type of reference I was looking for. Unfortunately, your final sentence doesn’t follow from Kimura’s work. While Darwin didn’t know about genetics, so genetic drift couldn’t be part of his original theory, genetics was brought in as part of the modern synthesis (which isn’t quite so modern now). From an ID perspective, that means that Kimura’s work supports the idea that the mechanisms of modern evolutionary theory, which are a superset of those proposed by Darwin, are sufficient (or at least not clearly insufficient) to account for the observed changes in the observed periods of time.

Perhaps we could suggest that someone with mathematical skills attached to the Discovery Institute spend a little time doing some calculations on this specific question. But I suspect their results would be criticized. In fact I’m sure of it. That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be valid.

That would, of course, be ideal. Obviously all scientific ideas get criticized. The problem I repeatedly encounter is that ID proponents have to be more careful than most not to overstate the case. That’s why I’ve been harping on your statement that there is not enough time for the observed changes to take place. If we can’t back up statements like that, rigorously, we’re immediately branded as religious nuts who don’t understand science.

Some detailed research from the DI would be very helpful.

JJ

I believe the mathematician’s positions from the Wistar Institute in 1967 are still valid, as are Hoyle’s and Spetner’s critiques.

What is “cutting edge”?
David Berlinski cites a 1989 text, “Mathematical Evolutionary Theory” as being “current” (page 300 of Uncommon Dissent); While I am no mathematician, I believe that Dr. Spetner, a physics PhD from MIT, is well aware of and applies the same mathematical principles as are in that text. The references in his book, published in 1997 (well after the “current” text), are plentiful and run the range from older to recent. I do not think he has been invalidated.

Dr. Dembski cites several fairly recent articles in his “Applying the Math to Biology” appendix in “Intelligent Design” but I do not have the articles so can’t comment further on what they may say.

David Berlinski cites mathematical biologist Motoo Kimura in “The Devil’s Delusion” (2008) who advanced what Berlinski called “a powerful argument against Darwin’s theory of natural selection” by showing “that the great majority of evolutionary changes at the molecular level, as revealed by comparative studies of protein and DNA sequences, are caused not by Darwinian selection but by random drift of selectively neutral or nearly neutral mutations.” If so, the great changes necessary in the two rapid advances under discussion could not have occured by Darwinian mechanisms.
Berlinski obviously feels that these results of Kimura Sensei’s are still valid, even though Kimura published before either Hoyle or Spetner. I daresay David Berlinski is a better mathematician than anyone either of us is likely to encounter in an online debate. I accept his endorsement.

A specific paper addressing your specific question may not exist. The paper documenting the two size increases was only published last month. And as Michael Behe notes in “Darwin’s Black Box (pg. 177): “…no studies asking detailed questions of molecular evolution are to be found.” His review of all papers published by the Journal of Molecular Evolution turned up exactly 0 studies on any proposed model of any complex biochemical system.

I recall several years ago seeing an analysis of horse evolution and the minimum number of steps and how long it would take but I can’t recall who or where or find it now and I’ve spent all the time I care to looking.

Perhaps your time in the debates could be more profitably spent establishing the validity of what we already have. Berlinski and others seem to thing it’s adequate for the purpose. And anything new will immediately join the category of “tarnished by attacks”.
Perhaps we could suggest that someone with mathematical skills attached to the Discovery Institute spend a little time doing some calculations on this specific question. But I suspect their results would be criticized. In fact I’m sure of it. That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be valid.

It’s almost always the Biologists who don’t understand Math, not the Mathematicians who don’t understand Biology that’s the problem. Biologists are notoriously poor mathematicians.

That may be true as a generalization, but mathematical biology is a growing, active discipline. There are many people trained in both biology and mathematics and peer reviewed journals dedicated to it. Do you have any references from those researchers that would support that claim that 680 million years and 540 million years are insufficient for the observed changes?

No doubt you are familiar with Haldane’s Dilemma as a major problem for human evolution. The same principle can be applied to the Darwinian evolution of other organisms.

Haldane’s Dilemma was posed over 40 years ago and has since been, if not refuted, at least made very questionable by the identification of invalid simplifying assumptions. I was hoping to find more recent, and more rigorous, results.

I debate this issue in other fora and come to Uncommon Descent to find ammunition in those battles. Ideally, I’d like new, cutting edge results that haven’t been tarnished by years of attacks, however undeserved, by ID opponents.

JJ

See Dembski, “Intelligent Design” A.7 “Applying the Math to Biology” pages 268-271 for an excellent précis of why these Biologist’s objections are not valid.

No doubt you are familiar with Haldane’s Dilemma as a major problem for human evolution. The same principle can be applied to the Darwinian evolution of other organisms.

Mathematicians have calculated the insufficiency of neo-Darwinian mechanisms to explain complex biologic developments in the time available at least since the 1960s. See Johnson’s “Darwin on Trial” pg38, interestingly, for an account of Ernst Mayr in 1967 responding almost exactly as you predict, in the face of the evidence. But in 40+ years of “research further”, they have not overcome the difficulties.
You are correct that Darwinists continue to maintain faith that sometime in the future their beliefs will be validated. Quite touching, really.

There are chapters in many books documenting the mathematical impossibility of DNA mutation as an explanation for observed biologic innovation, and whole books even. Two on my shelf are:
Mathematics of Evolution by Fred Hoyle

Also “Not By Chance” by Dr. Lee Spetner (for some reason the site won’t let me make a second link but you can find it on Amazon for $11.96)

Thanks for the references. I’ll check out the books the next time I’m in the library, but the reviews I’ve read on the web, both pro and con, don’t seem to suggest that either Spetner or Hoyle provided the level of proof necessary to support the claim that the time taken by the evolutionary events mentioned in the original article is “far too short” for evolutionary mechanisms. The most frequent issue I saw raised (other than the usual religion bashing) was that neither man had a particularly deep background in biology, so their calculations were based on insufficient understanding of biological mechanisms.

Mathematical biology appears to be an active field. Can you reference any published papers or books by current practitioners that suggest that the 680 million years and 540 million years that we’re discussing are insufficient to achieve the observed changes?

JJ

Well, something had to change.

Yes, but at what level and to what physiological and anatomical extent?

Dr Spetner briefly discusses this at the end of his book- that is the number of original organisms and their types.

That said I do agree that the only way universal common descent could occur is if it were designed to.

I would say we don’t know that because A) we don’t know what caused the changes

True. But we can be pretty sure it wasn’t random DNA mutation. See above.

and B) we don’t even know if the changs postulated are achievable via genetic or epigenetic changes.

Well, something had to change. But it wasn’t by neo-Darwinian mechanisms.
I’m personally partial to an explanation involving the importation of new programs, or even organisms. But I’m not going to insist on it to the exclusion of all other possibilities. I do maintain that neo-Darwinian random mutation is extremely unlikely as an explanation.

How do we know that “it’s way too short”? Playing devil’s advocate, I presume that evolutionary biologists would say “It happened, so there must be a natural explanation.” and then research further. Are there any published explanations that demonstrate that the time is too short?

Mathematicians have calculated the insufficiency of neo-Darwinian mechanisms to explain complex biologic developments in the time available at least since the 1960s. See Johnson’s “Darwin on Trial” pg38, interestingly, for an account of Ernst Mayr in 1967 responding almost exactly as you predict, in the face of the evidence. But in 40+ years of “research further”, they have not overcome the difficulties.
You are correct that Darwinists continue to maintain faith that sometime in the future their beliefs will be validated. Quite touching, really.

There are chapters in many books documenting the mathematical impossibility of DNA mutation as an explanation for observed biologic innovation, and whole books even. Two on my shelf are:
Mathematics of Evolution by Fred Hoyle

Also “Not By Chance” by Dr. Lee Spetner (for some reason the site won’t let me make a second link but you can find it on Amazon for $11.96)

Even if the major changes did take place somewhere out of sight, as Gould postulated, there still wasn’t enough time for them to occur by random undirected mutation and selection.

I would say we don’t know that because A) we don’t know what caused the changes and B) we don’t even know if the changes postulated are achievable via genetic or epigenetic changes.

If I were a Darwinist I would promote the badda-bing, badda boom mechanism:

“Ya knows we have deese procarrots. Then badda-bing, badda-boom yous now got deese ucarrots. And then badda-bing, badda-boom, yous got deese tings in multi cells.”

NEVER underestimate the power of “badda-bing, badda-boom”…

Even if the major changes did take place somewhere out of sight, as Gould postulated, there still wasn’t enough time for them to occur by random undirected mutation and selection.

the first covers around 680 million years and the second around 540 million years. That’s a lot of time.

It’s also relative time, in which what, exactly happened? It’s way too short for a Darwinian-style trial and error evolution from prokaryote to eukaryotes, or to multicellularity.

How do we know that “it’s way too short”? Playing devil’s advocate, I presume that evolutionary biologists would say “It happened, so there must be a natural explanation.” and then research further. Are there any published explanations that demonstrate that the time is too short?

…my understanding is that “latent evolutionary potential” refers to the potential latent in the processes described by modern evolutionary theory…

Since the authors did not define their terms, we don’t know what their understanding is.
But Dawkins has made very clear that Dariwnian evolution is not supposed to have anything latent, pre-existing, purposeful, or expectational about it. The authors terms “latent” and “preexisting” strongly imply that there was something preexistent in the life before the oxygen increases.

That’s exactly why I propose the reading of their words I do. Lest we be accused of quote mining, I’m inclined to give the authors of the paper the most generous benefit of the doubt possible, namely that “latent evolutionary potential” was an almost throwaway line referring to the ability of random mutation and natural selection to generate complexity.

Whether or not it is sufficient in this case is a question for ID researchers.

JJ