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But didn’t everyone know this about dogs?

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From Evolution News & Views:

Excerpt: In his latest book, geneticist Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig of the Max Planck Institutes in Germany takes on the widespread view that dog breeds prove macroevolution. … He shows in great detail that the incredible variety of dog breeds, going back in origin several thousand years ago but especially to the last few centuries, represents no increase in information but rather a decrease or loss of function on the genetic and anatomical levels.

But of course this would be true because we breed dogs for functions that come at the expense of other ones. Functions that help us more than the dog—except insofar as we look after him. But that isn’t natural selection.

Michael Behe writes:

“Dr. Lönnig shows forcefully that one of the chief examples Darwinists rely on to convince the public of macroevolution — the enormous variation in dogs — actually shows the opposite. Extremes in size and anatomy come at the cost of broken genes and poor health. Even several gene duplications were found to interfere strongly with normal growth and development as is also often the case in humans. So where is the evidence for Darwinian evolution now?
The science here is indeed solid. Intriguingly, Lönnig’s prediction from 2013 on starch digestion in wolves has already been confirmed in a study published this year. … ”

Solid science actually won’t make much difference compared to the Darwinian narrative. For that, see Why the narrative trumps facts. Narrative decides which facts are allowed to matter. Facts about dog breeds are not important when citing them as an example with lots of great photo ops helps market Darwinism to the public.

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Comments
Could somebody point me towards the full text (if at all available) or reviews of:
J. R. Koza "Artificial life: Spontaneous emergence of self-replicating and evolutionary self-improving computer programs"
Also, are there any reviews on it or similar models from the point of view of ID or from the standpoint of practicality? Thanks in advance!EugeneS
November 24, 2014
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Ahh, that's the problem- there isn't a ToE. But yes the saying is that populations evolve but NS and fitness still pertain to individuals.Joe
November 24, 2014
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Joe, Fair enough. I am not a biologist. But as far as I know, it is the current understanding within the ToE.EugeneS
November 24, 2014
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EugeneS- Ernst Mayr made it clear in "What Evolution Is", that natural selection and fitness pertain to individuals. Darwin also made that clear in "On the Origin of Species...".Joe
November 24, 2014
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IMHO, the difference between artificial and natural selection is whether it is active or passive. Active control makes all the difference. Active control assumes the ability to measure the output of the controlled system and apply changes to the input signal to get the desired/planned change in the output. All control does is map the current state to the set of desired or target states. Natural selection is a passive and coarse filter with no signal measurement capability beyond a binary yes/no. True, natural selection does take place and information can be generated by a random process. The question is though, how fast in practice is mathematically 'fast'? A second question, what are the assumptions under the contemporary spontaneous life emergence and self-improvement models and whether they are warranted. BTW, an object of evolution, according to contemporary ToE, is a population of individuals sharing a genetic pool, not an individual. So natural selection and fitness refer to a population.EugeneS
November 24, 2014
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Tamara, I have corrected you ad nauseum. And I use "scrutinize" in the standard and accepted way. Obviously you have issues. And it speaks volumes that you have to lie and misrepresent what I post. Not only that you have been totally unable to support your loser diatribe. But anyway Tamara has been totally unable to refute anything I have said and she has been totally unable to support anything that she has said. It has become obvious that she is clueless when it comes to both natural selection and biological fitness. You are pathetic, Tamara.Joe
November 24, 2014
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YOU rudely spew errors and misconceptions
Which you seem incapable of correcting for me
My ideas can handle scrutiny. You just don’t know how to scrutinize.
So now we can add "scrutinize" to this list of standard definitions you use to mean something non standard. To "scrutinize" is to hear and unquestioningly accept the Gospel according to Joe?
How does that reflect poorly on me?
That you need to ask that question speaks volumes.Tamara Knight
November 20, 2014
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centrestream is just upset because its socks- Acartia_Bogart and william spearshake- keep getting booted for insipidity. My bet is more of its socks have also been booted for the same reason.Joe
November 19, 2014
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centrestream has serious issues. Someone lied about me- blatant lies- and all I did was call that person on her lies. How does that reflect poorly on me?Joe
November 19, 2014
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Tamara Knight:
Yet Joe, you once again rudely ignore an opportunity to correct my errors and misconceptions.
LoL! YOU rudely spew errors and misconceptions as if it means something.
If you are so frightened of exposing your ideas to close scrutiny, why do you so persistently shout them from the rooftops in the first place?
LoL! My ideas can handle scrutiny. You just don't know how to scrutinize.Joe
November 19, 2014
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centrestream, I note that Joe is doing his best in trying to be civil towards Darwinists and that you continue to try to provoke Joe towards hostility instead of trying to cultivate civility in return. Why is this? If you were genuinely honest in your search for truth should you not seek reconciliation instead of retribution? As kf would say, 'please try to do better'.bornagain77
November 19, 2014
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If that is your attempt at a genuine assessment then you are more disturbed than I could imagine. The part you quoted does not support your assessment.
Yet Joe, you once again rudely ignore an opportunity to correct my errors and misconceptions. If you are so frightened of exposing your ideas to close scrutiny, why do you so persistently shout them from the rooftops in the first place?Tamara Knight
November 19, 2014
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Joe #353: "I never made that claim. Obviously you are just a liar who got caught being ignorant about fitness and natural selection so you have to lie about your opponent." The jury is now in. Barry is found guilty of lying when he said that Joe had had is last warning. Oh, wait. Barry you sly devil. You get to remain honest by never warning Joe again. To quote the UD moderator, Barry, you are "a pathetic snivelling coward".centrestream
November 19, 2014
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Tamara Knight:
They were not lies Joe, they were my genuine assessment of the meaning of your previous replies to my posts aimed at clarifying your position.
If that is your attempt at a genuine assessment then you are more disturbed than I could imagine. The part you quoted does not support your assessment. Seeing that you have no intention of supporting anything you have claimed with respect to natural selection and fitness, we are obviously done here. And I am sure you will remain willfully ignorant of both terms.Joe
November 19, 2014
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But alas Tamara, empirical evidence has the last word in science. I don't care for what you imagine may be possible, nor for un-cited papers you say may exist to contest the 4 decades of laboratory work that Behe examined.bornagain77
November 18, 2014
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I never made that claim. I never made that claim. Obviously you are just a liar who got caught being ignorant about fitness and natural selection so you have to lie about your opponent.
They were not lies Joe, they were my genuine assessment of the meaning of your previous replies to my posts aimed at clarifying your position Look at post 338 Joe
Me:
So for the record, do you accept that there are beneficial mutations resulting from nothing but copying errors, that can result in what you would call an increase in “specificity”, but what an evolutionary biologist would call increased fitness?
You:
No idea. Do you have any evidence for such a thing? I have never seen any.
Please, add some extra words to correct anything I'm misinterpreting about your position.Tamara Knight
November 18, 2014
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Tamara Knight:
Joe of course gets around this problem by a blanket claim that such beneficial mutations can only ever result from the designers front loading.
I never made that claim.
Joe chooses to avoid such a debate by proclaiming that random beneficial mutations simply do not exist.
I never made that claim. Obviously you are just a liar who got caught being ignorant about fitness and natural selection so you have to lie about your opponent.Joe
November 18, 2014
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Adapa, If you ever demonstrated any knowledge at all, I would be surprised.Joe
November 18, 2014
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@bornagain77 You seem to be backing off now, but it is not a question of degree. It is either "some" or "none", as only one such mutation demonstrates it is possible. I've not read the paper you cited, but it cannot be quite as you claimed. All Behe (or anyone else) can claim is that he is UNAWARE of a case where a bebefical mutation does not occur at the expense of breaking something in the cell, but I'm also sure there must be many papers contesting this. I'm not an expert, but as I understand it, there are many benefical mutations where there is only a detrimental effect on the cells of a homozygous carrier (e.g. Sickle cell). And I see no reason why over time, further mutations cannot reduce the impact of the the gene on a homozygous carrier living in an environment where not having even a single copy of the gene is as risky as having two copies. Joe of course gets around this problem by a blanket claim that such beneficial mutations can only ever result from the designers front loading.Tamara Knight
November 18, 2014
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Actually Tamara Knight, if you are a defending a Darwinian point of you, I am far closer to Joe's position of there being no 'truly' beneficial mutations than I am to yours that there are 'some' beneficial random mutations.,,, When one examines the so called beneficial 'random' mutations in detail, one finds no evidence of truly beneficial, information building, 'random' mutations. But, as Behe has shown in the paper I have referenced, the 'random' mutations always occur at the expense of breaking something in the cell. Moreover, the evidence of 'directed' mutations, (J. Shapiro (mutations which are properly considered non-Darwinian mutations)) adding information, such as in, compensatory mutations or in the immune system, are extremely limited, even designed, in their scope.bornagain77
November 18, 2014
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Joe All you and your ilk ever do is bait and provoke. And that is because you have nothing else Only if you define "bait and provoke" as "provide scientific evidence that refutes Joe's ignorance based claims". Joe can't handle being shown wrong all the time so he responds with the cursing and insults. It's the only defense he knows.Adapa
November 18, 2014
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bornagain77 ...it might interest you to know that the rate of beneficial mutation to deleterious mutation is not nearly enough for Darwinism to be considered plausible:
Welll that's a surprise!. Having skimmed over a few of your previous posts, I would have thought you would have been one of the last people to post in my defence. As you have probably noticed, I've been trying over many posts to tease out Joe's position, which I suspected to be much as he finally couldn't avoid stating (well almost stating) at post 338. As you correctly observe, assessing the ratio of beneficial to deleterious mutations is central to any debate about the plausibility of the mechanism. Joe chooses to avoid such a debate by proclaiming that random beneficial mutations simply do not exist. With you on my side who knows, he might shift his position.Tamara Knight
November 18, 2014
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Tamara Knight as to you fallacious belief in beneficial mutations, it might interest you to know that the rate of beneficial mutation to deleterious mutation is not nearly enough for Darwinism to be considered plausible: “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain - Michael Behe - December 2010 Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain. http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/ Multiple Overlapping Genetic Codes Profoundly Reduce the Probability of Beneficial Mutation George Montañez 1, Robert J. Marks II 2, Jorge Fernandez 3 and John C. Sanford 4 - May 2013 Excerpt: It is almost universally acknowledged that beneficial mutations are rare compared to deleterious mutations [1–10].,, It appears that beneficial mutations may be too rare to actually allow the accurate measurement of how rare they are [11]. 1. Kibota T, Lynch M (1996) Estimate of the genomic mutation rate deleterious to overall fitness in E. coli . Nature 381:694–696. 2. Charlesworth B, Charlesworth D (1998) Some evolutionary consequences of deleterious mutations. Genetica 103: 3–19. 3. Elena S, et al (1998) Distribution of fitness effects caused by random insertion mutations in Escherichia coli. Genetica 102/103: 349–358. 4. Gerrish P, Lenski R N (1998) The fate of competing beneficial mutations in an asexual population. Genetica 102/103:127–144. 5. Crow J (2000) The origins, patterns, and implications of human spontaneous mutation. Nature Reviews 1:40–47. 6. Bataillon T (2000) Estimation of spontaneous genome-wide mutation rate parameters: whither beneficial mutations? Heredity 84:497–501. 7. Imhof M, Schlotterer C (2001) Fitness effects of advantageous mutations in evolving Escherichia coli populations. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 98:1113–1117. 8. Orr H (2003) The distribution of fitness effects among beneficial mutations. Genetics 163: 1519–1526. 9. Keightley P, Lynch M (2003) Toward a realistic model of mutations affecting fitness. Evolution 57:683–685. 10. Barrett R, et al (2006) The distribution of beneficial mutation effects under strong selection. Genetics 174:2071–2079. 11. Bataillon T (2000) Estimation of spontaneous genome-wide mutation rate parameters: whither beneficial mutations? Heredity 84:497–501. http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789814508728_0006 Multiple Overlapping Genetic Codes Profoundly Reduce the Probability of Beneficial Mutation George Montañez 1, Robert J. Marks II 2, Jorge Fernandez 3 and John C. Sanford 4 - May 2013 Conclusions: Our analysis confirms mathematically what would seem intuitively obvious - multiple overlapping codes within the genome must radically change our expectations regarding the rate of beneficial mutations. As the number of overlapping codes increases, the rate of potential beneficial mutation decreases exponentially, quickly approaching zero. Therefore the new evidence for ubiquitous overlapping codes in higher genomes strongly indicates that beneficial mutations should be extremely rare. This evidence combined with increasing evidence that biological systems are highly optimized, and evidence that only relatively high-impact beneficial mutations can be effectively amplified by natural selection, lead us to conclude that mutations which are both selectable and unambiguously beneficial must be vanishingly rare. This conclusion raises serious questions. How might such vanishingly rare beneficial mutations ever be sufficient for genome building? How might genetic degeneration ever be averted, given the continuous accumulation of low impact deleterious mutations? http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789814508728_0006 Biological Information - Overlapping Codes 10-25-2014 by Paul Giem - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OytcYD5791k&index=4&list=PLHDSWJBW3DNUUhiC9VwPnhl-ymuObyTWJ Dr. John Sanford Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome 1/2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ-4umGkgos Dr. John Sanford "Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome" 2/2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8KbM-xkfVk of supplemental note: The Evolutionary Dynamics of Digital and Nucleotide Codes: A Mutation Protection Perspective - February 2011 Excerpt: "Unbounded random change of nucleotide codes through the accumulation of irreparable, advantageous, code-expanding, inheritable mutations at the level of individual nucleotides, as proposed by evolutionary theory, requires the mutation protection at the level of the individual nucleotides and at the higher levels of the code to be switched off or at least to dysfunction. Dysfunctioning mutation protection, however, is the origin of cancer and hereditary diseases, which reduce the capacity to live and to reproduce. Our mutation protection perspective of the evolutionary dynamics of digital and nucleotide codes thus reveals the presence of a paradox in evolutionary theory between the necessity and the disadvantage of dysfunctioning mutation protection. This mutation protection paradox, which is closely related with the paradox between evolvability and mutational robustness, needs further investigation." http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2011/04/26/dna_repair_mechanisms_reveal_a_contradic "The likelihood of developing two binding sites in a protein complex would be the square of the probability of developing one: a double CCC (chloroquine complexity cluster), 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40. There have likely been fewer than 10^40 cells in the entire world in the past 4 billion years, so the odds are against a single event of this variety (just 2 binding sites being generated by accident) in the history of life. It is biologically unreasonable." Michael J. Behe PhD. (from page 146 of his book "Edge of Evolution")bornagain77
November 18, 2014
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All you and your ilk ever do is bait and provoke. And that is because you have nothing else.Joe
November 18, 2014
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Ba77: "Just keep your cool Joe and you will be alright" Nobody is baiting and provoking Joe. My one sided discussion is with Barry.centrestream
November 18, 2014
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centrestream stomping madly:
Mommy, mommy, mean Joe keeps exposing us and I want it to stop! wah, wah, wah
LoL!Joe
November 18, 2014
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Joe: "Wow, what a cry-baby you are. Why is it that you are such a little baby, centrestream? Our opponents lie, misrepresent and obfuscate. That is all they can do as they don’t know anything else. Don’t blame me for calling them on their dishonesty." So Barry, are you an honest man or a liar? Your actions will be very telling.centrestream
November 18, 2014
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Thank you- that is why I took a long break yesterday- that and I had to re-build an acoustic guitar for my daughter's music project- I messed up our first attempt over the weekend. Thanks againJoe
November 18, 2014
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Just keep your cool Joe and you will be alright. It is clear that atheists want you banned from UD first and foremost since you consistently expose their arguments as fraudulent.,,, No need to fall for their trying to bait you and get angry at them. (i.e. no need to act as the majority of dogmatic atheists do on other places on the internet)bornagain77
November 18, 2014
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Wow, what a cry-baby you are. Why is it that you are such a little baby, centrestream? Our opponents lie, misrepresent and obfuscate. That is all they can do as they don't know anything else. Don't blame me for calling them on their dishonesty.Joe
November 18, 2014
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