Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

“Evolutionary Prediction” Is An Oxymoron

Gil Dodgen
April 27, 2006
Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design
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In a previous post one commenter exclaimed: “…it is perfectly reasonable to say that, since no evolutionary prediction has ever been contradicted by data, that it reasonably won’t be any time soon.”

Darwinian theory predicts everything, but only after the fact. It predicts that people will be selfish, and that they will be selfless. Predictions must precede what they predict. Predictions that predict everything predict nothing.

This is yet another example of after-the-fact, just-so storytelling, in the grand tradition of Darwinian logic and reasoning.

Comments
Re: 24: Read it. Must have missed it. Please clarify why you think it's there.jaredl
May 5, 2006
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Mark@Post27.: I did not say that "predictions" and "requirements" are mutually exclusive. What I said was that some of the "predictions" fit more confortably into the "requirement" zone than in the former one. Accurrate predictions are the hallmark of a good theory. Bad predictions are the hallmark of a bad theory. If a theory poses "requirements" as "predictions", adding to the fact that it has a long record of failed predictions, what are we to think about such a theory? How many failed predictions must a theory have in order to be found false?Mats
April 29, 2006
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Concerning my comment about computer science spelling the death of RM+NS evolutionary theory, DaveScot makes a great point in comment #28.
Here are some further comments from Stephen Meyer from his first debate with Peter Ward on the Dori Monson KIRO radio program:

We would say that the presence of information in the cell is best explained by intelligence... DNA is chock-full of digital code. It’s a 4-character digital code; many software engineers have said that it functions exactly like software. What we know from experience is that information, whether in the form of a digital code in a program always arises from intelligence. Programs require programmers...

I talk to biotech people and software engineers, and one of them came up to me last week and said... "What do these Darwinists think, that the code just wrote itself? As a software engineer, I don’t find that plausible."

We think the most natural way to look at the cell is as an engineered system. Some of the software people I’ve been talking to here are amazed at the design strategies that are involved in the processing of information inside the cell. They say the strategies mirror but exceed our own, and give them the sense that somebody has figured this out before us. We think that the most productive way, scientifically, to look at life is as a designed system.

Computers and software are now so ubiquitous that almost everyone is familiar with them, and people are coming to understand the correlation between this technology and the biotechnology found in living things. Darwinists may have been successful in the past at pulling the wool over people's eyes with fanciful stories about light-sensitive spots turning into eyes through random anatomical changes, but now that people are coming to understand that these anatomical changes must be engineered with complex software and sophisticated information-processing systems, they won't be so easily fooled.

GilDodgen
April 29, 2006
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Re #27. Dave - you are getting into some quite detailed stuff here and I am not an evolutionary biologist. I will do my best. Let's hope you publish it :-)

By the way - what happened to my post last night where I responded to your #16 above (and recognised I was wrong to use the appendix as an example)? I don't remember anything insulting or irrelevant in it. It is hard to conduct a discussion when only some of your responses actually get through.

First let's be clear. Kelvin calculated the age of the earth at 20 million years. Darwinism requires hundred of millions of years to account for the whole fossil record. It does not make a specific prediction as to when multicellular phyla should first evolve. However, it would certainly be surprising if all phyla evolved in a period of 10 MY. However, what we actually know is that the oldest fossils we have found of all (most?) phyla appeared in a period of about 40 million years (570 MYA to 530 MYA) see http://cambrian-explosion.area51.ipupdater.com . This does not mean that all these phyla first evolved at that time.

The first cell may have been remarkable but again Darwinism makes no predictions as to how long that took to happen. Nevertheless it appears the oldest fossils discovered to date are about 3.5 billion years old (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/305816.stm). Clearly we don't know how long life was around before then but that leaves up to a billion years to evolve the first cell (assuming it evolved on earth - Darwinism is quite compatible with simple life arriving on a meteorite for example).

One of your comments was deleted because it contained mistatements of fact that had been previously corrected and you ignored the correction. I will correct mistatements once and if you ignore the correction I will delete the response - I cannot and will not argue with someone in denial of the facts. This comment is no exception as you persist in misrepresenting the facts surrounding the history of age of earth estimates. Unless you start providing links to support your claims of fact you're about finished with this thread if not with this blog. Here's the history of age-of-earth estimates. I told you it was widely held prior to Huxley that the earth had been around forever. From Wiki:
Very few of their colleagues paid them much mind. Many left the question of the age of the Earth to creation mythologies, or simply assumed that the Earth always had been, always would be.
You denied or ignored that correction in your response.
In 1862, the physicist William Thomson of Glasgow published calculations that fixed the age of the Earth at between 20 million and 400 million years.
Again you either mistake or worse, purposely misrepresent, the fact and in this response quote only the lower bound of 20 million years while Thomson's (aka Lord Kelvin) upper bound was 400 million years. I'll correct you the first time. When you persist with mistatements of fact I will delete your comment and probably most or all of your future comments. I can spoonfeed this stuff to you but if you keep making faces and spitting it out I'll tire and simply dismiss you as a lost cause. -ds Mark Frank
April 29, 2006
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Human chromosome 2 and two ape chromosomes are "similar", but not "identical". Chromosome 2 in H. sapiens is long and submetacentric, but is "comparable" with two acrocentric chromosomes in P. troglodytes. When these two chromosomes of P. troglodytes are fused together near the centromere on the short arm of one chromosome and near the telomere of the short arm of the other, a chromosome "similar" to H. sapiens chromosome 2 is produced (the fused chromosome is longer than the human chromosome). In contrast, many chromosomes of the two species each differ by a pericentric inversion. So let's just assume this fusion event did occur...what does evolutionary theory say about what caused other 8 chromosomes to invert and translocate? Meyers and Miller have only shown evidence of similarities which I don't find surprising. It's the interpretations of this evidence that differ. They can interpret that to mean what they want it to mean all they want but I'd like to see a detailed description of this event (and I don't mean a glossy high-level verbal story like I've read so far).

You ask about computer science. When there is a shared codebase--or even just a standard language--you expect to find similarities in the code for separate objects that share the same or similar functionality. At the same time we've learned about the limitations of trial and error methods and what not to expect.

Also:

Patrick, I’m not sure what you’re trying to get at by citing the chimp/human genome comparisons. Could you elaborate?

You've got to be kidding me, right? We're talking about predictions...what does evolutionary theory predict about those differences? I thought I made that clear earlier.

Speaking of computers. I was a computer hardware/software design engineer for decades and I've seen tens of thousands of different design mistakes and manufacturing defects on printed circuit boards and I've never, ever seen or heard of a mistake that caused an improvement. I've seen many mistakes and defects that went unnoticed. In software unnoticed mistakes are even more prevalent as test procedures seldom exercise all code paths with all possible start states. Again, I've never seen an improvement from a mistake. Biological systems are also based on complex codes interacting with physical hardware subject to defects in manufacturing and we observe exactly the same behavior in regard to manufacturing defects - at worst they cause catastrophic failure of the entire system and at best they go unnoticed. As one might expect given the heritability of unnoticed defects in biological systems it eventually leads to catastrophic failure which we call extinction. These are the facts surrounding random mutation & natural selection and the facts do not fit the theory that these mutations accumulate to produce improved fit to function cell types, tissue types, organs, or body plans. The mechanism behind the so-called origin of species is simply not known at this point in time and it's long past time we abandoned the grossly failed mechanism of random mutations filtered by natural selection. -ds Patrick
April 29, 2006
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Mats - something can be a requirement of a theory and a prediction. They are not mutually exclusive. It is a requirement for a working internal combustion engine that it have a source of fuel. I can therefore predict for any working internal combustion engine that there is a source of fuel.

If Huxley's prediction that the earth must be much older than 400 million years due to time required for Darwinian evolution isn't it then a failed prediction of the theory that almost all modern phyla appeared in the fossil record over the course of 10 million or so years in the so-called "Cambrian explosion" with no predecessors? And isn't it true that when theories fail in their predictions they are abandoned rather than be patched up with ad hoc explanations for the failed predictions? And since the most remarkable evolution of all is the emergence of the first cell, and this occured very early in the earth's history without sufficient time for Huxley's many hundreds of millions of years scenario isn't that then also a failed prediction? As well, the history of life in general is a story of sudden emergence of fully differentiated species followed by long periods of stasis, then capped by extinction. Is this not also a failed prediction from the very same premises that led Huxley to predict an older earth? -ds Mark Frank
April 29, 2006
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I think that many of the things that Darwinists proclam as "predictions" are more like "requirements". Saying that the world is "millions of years old" is not a prediction but a requirement for the theory to be true.

"Stephen W. Hawking, one of the most famous figures among modern physicians, does not hesitate to confess the real intention of evolutionist thought. Hawking replies the question of "why did Big Bang occur nearly ten billion years ago", with such an answer: "Nearly that much time is necessary for the evolution of intelligent creatures ." http://www.physics.metu.edu.tr/~fizikt/html/hawking/g.html

Actually, as near as we can tell, the universe is 14 byo, and conditions became ripe for life in our galaxy about 8 billion years ago (google "galactic habitable zone" for research into where & when conditions became ripe). Life first appeared as far was know about 4 bya. That leaves a period of 4 billion years prior to life on earth when it could have evolved elsewhere in our galaxy. So Dawkins answer is quite flawed in regard to saying that's how long is required. That's how long it *took* not how long it *required*. As far as we know the required time is about 6 billion years from the big bang (time for nth generation stars to form in stable galactic suburbs with sufficient heavy elements) and the time life is first observed is close to 10 billion years after the big bang. Given the evident difficulty of getting from a chemical soup to the first living cell, and given the relatively short time from the earth's beginning to the appearance of a living cell on it, it appears reasonable to hypothesize that the first cell evolved somewhere else during that 4 billion year habitable period before the earth was formed and then arrived on a young earth with the hardest part of evolution already done. The problem with this for chance worshipping Darwinists is that it's a virtual impossibility that life could have been accidently transported to this planet from a different solar system due to the immensity of space and the relatively tiny size of the earth (the probability of chance transport is also addressed in GHZ research mentioned above) which still leaves us with a reasonable need for some kind of intelligent agency. -ds Mats
April 29, 2006
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Re: comment #6 Charles Darwin's Scientific Theory of Football History If there are teams that play football, and If teams tend to learn from mistakes, and If some teams play better than others, and If not all teams can win, and If those teams that play worse lose (and thus don't do well financially) Then those teams that play better will thrive The result is the history of football. In other words, the winning teams are the teams that win. Now I understand. (Don't look now, but this works with the world of finance, too.)j
April 29, 2006
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Patrick wrote: "Had already read pharyngula’s response but didn’t think it worth posting. Thanks for trying." Not worth posting? I thought he did a pretty thorough job of dismantling Luskin's critique. Perhaps you could explain specifically why you think he is mistaken. GilDodgen wrote: "One prediction [of ID] is that what has been thought of as “junk” DNA for the last quarter of a century (based on Darwinian assumptions and reasoning) will turn out to have function." Why couldn't a designer place nonfunctional DNA in an organism if he wished to? I thought ID was supposed to be agnostic regarding the designer's intentions. The same is true of russ's example of the sudden appearance of complexity in the fossil record, as Mark Frank points out. A designer could presumably build up complexity gradually, if he chose, or suddenly, if that was his preference. More from russ: "a) We will find organisms that are so complex that they could not have been produced by gradual, step-by-step, functional changes. b) Bacterial flagellum." Neither a) nor b) follows from the existence of a designer. The designer could choose to design only organisms that could also have been produced by step-by-step functional changes. Likewise the designer is not obligated to produce the bacterial flagellum. You may believe that the flagellum implies a designer, but that is very different from saying that the existence of a designer implies the flagellum. Gildodgen wrote: "Computer science is spelling the death of RM+NS Darwinian theory." I'm not aware of any such developments in computer science. Perhaps you could do a post on the topic. Patrick, I'm not sure what you're trying to get at by citing the chimp/human genome comparisons. Could you elaborate? Patrick wrote: "All Darwinists: Try reading the last couple chapters of Darwin’s Black Box. Based upon your posts you’ve never done so…and it’s only $10 on Amazon." I've read Darwin's Black Box, but I fail to see how it invalidates any of my comments in this thread. Could you be more specific? Finally, regarding jaredl's request for the logic behind the chromosomal fusion prediction, see the response to Luskin's critique on Pharygnula. It includes a very nice explanation not only of how evolutionary theory predicted the chromosomal fusion event, but also of how fused chromosomes can become established in a population.hypermoderate
April 29, 2006
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we can evaluate by seeing if everything in life has a function. Guess what the answer is? Appendix?
That bit of dogma does really need to die...now. http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=000CAE56-7201-1C71-9EB7809EC588F2D7&catID=3
For years, the appendix was credited with very little physiological function. We now know, however, that the appendix serves an important role in the fetus and in young adults. Endocrine cells appear in the appendix of the human fetus at around the 11th week of development. These endocrine cells of the fetal appendix have been shown to produce various biogenic amines and peptide hormones, compounds that assist with various biological control (homeostatic) mechanisms. There had been little prior evidence of this or any other role of the appendix in animal research, because the appendix does not exist in domestic mammals. Among adult humans, the appendix is now thought to be involved primarily in immune functions. Lymphoid tissue begins to accumulate in the appendix shortly after birth and reaches a peak between the second and third decades of life, decreasing rapidly thereafter and practically disappearing after the age of 60. During the early years of development, however, the appendix has been shown to function as a lymphoid organ, assisting with the maturation of B lymphocytes (one variety of white blood cell) and in the production of the class of antibodies known as immunoglobulin A (IgA) antibodies. Researchers have also shown that the appendix is involved in the production of molecules that help to direct the movement of lymphocytes to various other locations in the body. In this context, the function of the appendix appears to be to expose white blood cells to the wide variety of antigens, or foreign substances, present in the gastrointestinal tract. Thus, the appendix probably helps to suppress potentially destructive humoral (blood- and lymph-borne) antibody responses while promoting local immunity. The appendix--like the tiny structures called Peyer's patches in other areas of the gastrointestinal tract--takes up antigens from the contents of the intestines and reacts to these contents. This local immune system plays a vital role in the physiological immune response and in the control of food, drug, microbial or viral antigens. The connection between these local immune reactions and inflammatory bowel diseases, as well as autoimmune reactions in which the individual's own tissues are attacked by the immune system, is currently under investigation. In the past, the appendix was often routinely removed and discarded during other abdominal surgeries to prevent any possibility of a later attack of appendicitis; the appendix is now spared in case it is needed later for reconstructive surgery if the urinary bladder is removed. In such surgery, a section of the intestine is formed into a replacement bladder, and the appendix is used to re-create a 'sphincter muscle' so that the patient remains continent (able to retain urine). In addition, the appendix has been successfully fashioned into a makeshift replacement for a diseased ureter, allowing urine to flow from the kidneys to the bladder. As a result, the appendix, once regarded as a nonfunctional tissue, is now regarded as an important 'back-up' that can be used in a variety of reconstructive surgical techniques. It is no longer routinely removed and discarded if it is healthy.
Patrick
April 28, 2006
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hypermoderate: Had already read pharyngula's response but didn't think it worth posting. Thanks for trying. But back to more important things...what did evolutionary theory predict about the evidence I cited? All Darwinists: Try reading the last couple chapters of Darwin's Black Box. Based upon your posts you've never done so...and it's only $10 on Amazon.Patrick
April 28, 2006
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Mark Frank: "Re #15, Does ID say *everything* in life is designed?" Of course not. This is a silly idea. "I thought it only said somethings (sic) are designed?" Correct. "If it is the latter then it does not follow from ID that junk DNA will have a function." Correct. But it implies that we should look for function, not write function off as an impossibility because of a prior philosophical commitment. "If it is the former than (sic) at last we have some small bit of information about the intentions of the designer which we can evaluate by seeing if everything in life has a function." It is not the former, as mentioned. The intentions of the designer are irrelevant when it comes to design detection. Computer science is spelling the death of RM+NS Darwinian theory. The elucidation of DNA as an information storage system, and discoveries about the mechanism of the cell's information-processing system, make 19th-century speculation about the nature of living systems totally obsolete and irrelevant. Unfortunately, this hopelessly out-of-date speculation is being taught as fact.GilDodgen
April 28, 2006
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It's fairly easy to predict that (some) junk DNA will turn out to have a function. After all, it couldn't possibly have less function than no function, so any change in the status quo of scientific evidence regarding junk DNA will automatically be in favor of that prediction, regardless of the details of the theory that predicts such a change. Therefore I agree that some (but not all) DNA that is currently regarded as "junk" will turn out to have a function after all. What I am curious about, GilDodgen, is what darwininian assumptions and reasoning lead to the conclusion that junk DNA is just that. Don't you think it's plausible that some "junk DNA" is the remnant of disfunctional transposable elements and retroviruses, which have no current function? How would an ID perspective have been helpful in this regard?Raevmo
April 28, 2006
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Re #15, Does ID say *everything* in life is designed? I didn't think so. I thought it only said somethings are designed? If it is the latter then it does not follow from ID that junk DNA will have a function. If it is the former than at last we have some small bit of information about the intentions of the designer which we can evaluate by seeing if everything in life has a function. Guess what the answer is? Appendix? Pubic hair? Toenails? Re #16. Does ID say anything about the speed with which design is implemented into life? I thought it only said that design was implemented and refused to specify how? Re #17. This isn't a prediction of ID. This is just a restatement of ID.Mark Frank
April 28, 2006
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“What are the predictions made by intelligent design theory, and what is the evidence to support them?” a) We will find organisms that are so complex that they could not have been produced by gradual, step-by-step, functional changes. b) Bacterial flagellum.russ
April 28, 2006
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“What are the predictions made by intelligent design theory, and what is the evidence to support them?” Rapid appearance of complexity in the fossil record.russ
April 28, 2006
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Re #12. Dave you are confusing what a person predicts and the predictions that follow from a theory. Newton made all sorts of rubbish predictions about astrology and alchemy. No doubt he also made many other more trival wrong predictions about the weather and the cost of living. None of this weakens his theories of the gravity or light and the very impressive predictions he could make from them.

Whatever else Huxley may have said, what matters is what could be predicted on the basis of Darwinism.

The account in Genesis of course suffers from many, many consequences that turn out not to be the case.

Exactly. And much can be predicted from Genesis' account of the big bang. Predicting that the earth is older than 400 million years is nothing when many, especially in science, held that it and the universe had existed forever. Now predicting that the universe sprang into existence from nothing in a burst of light, that's SO not intuitive and the prediction was made not hundreds but thousands of years ago. It took science thousands of years to find that the bible's description of the big bang was accurate. And it doesn't stop there. It also says God then separated the light from the dark which is exactly what happened as the universe expanded and the energy which was everywhere cooled down and coalesced into white hot matter separated by darkness. The predictions in Genesis beat Huxley by a country mile when you think about it. -ds Mark Frank
April 28, 2006
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“What are the predictions made by intelligent design theory, and what is the evidence to support them?” One prediction is that what has been thought of as “junk” DNA for the last quarter of a century (based on Darwinian assumptions and reasoning) will turn out to have function. This prediction is being verified. Had an ID perspective been at work, we’d be 25 years further along in learning about non-coding DNA.GilDodgen
April 28, 2006
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GilDodgen said: "The point is that Darwinian theory comes along after discoveries have been made and provides what Stephen Meyer refers to as a “rhetorical gloss” that adds nothing of substance. It is then claimed that evolutionary predictions have been fulfilled." We (the evolutionists) have given several examples of predictions made on the basis of evolutionary theory. Let's turn the tables now and ask the opposite question. What are the predictions made by intelligent design theory, and what is the evidence to support them?hypermoderate
April 28, 2006
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"Hmmm…wasn’t the existence and location of that Tiktaalik predicted before they found it? " This prediction was based on common descent. Fullfilled CD predictions are so numerous, that it's regarded as fact. I do have a tough time thinking of predictions that N.S. makes. It's pretty easy on the small scale in terms of predicting in what environments certain traits will thrive. But then again, I don't think anyone doubts NS evolution on the small scale. Maybe the problem comes when you try to make predictions about NS on how it applies to something like the TikTak fishy thingy. Maybe I'm not imaginitive enough, but I can't think of a way. Here's my opinion on all of this. We have common descent. It's there and can't really be argued. SO this leaves the question: what drives the change? In our small little slice of existence, we can witness change caused by natural selection, genetic drift, artificial selection, etc. So some people feel the changes from long also could have been caused by the same mechanisms we see today.Fross
April 28, 2006
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Re #10. It is irrelevant what other predictions Huxley made. It is a logical consequence of NS+RM that the earth has to be a lot more than 20m years old. So it is a rather radical (at the time) prediction that turned to be true.

Another logical consequence of Darwinism (although I am not sure anyone made the prediction) is that the mechanism of inheritance would turn out to be particulate rather than just a blending of ancestors' charactertistics. This of course had already been discovered but was not known to Darwin.

But I am sure all this is well known to you guys ...

Okay Mark, then by your logic the account of creation in Genesis needs to be considered a good scientific theory based on its accurate prediction that in the beginning the firmament was void and without form and God said let there be light and there was light. This is a real good description of the Big Bang - something from nothing where a void was instantly filled with energy. Nevermind anything else in Genesis that might be wrong. It described the Big Bang accurately thousands of years before scientists became widely convinced it happened that way. Getting one thing right is all that counts in your world, evidently. Feel free to start backpeddling right about now. -ds Mark Frank
April 28, 2006
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ajl: I like it -- predictions as “back-filled” answers. This is a perfect term for what I’m trying to describe.

The point is that Darwinian theory comes along after discoveries have been made and provides what Stephen Meyer refers to as a “rhetorical gloss” that adds nothing of substance. It is then claimed that evolutionary predictions have been fulfilled. The theory is so plastic that it can be morphed to accommodate any discovery after the fact. This is why Darwinian theory has provided essentially nothing of value in making new discoveries of any practical or tangible significance.

GilDodgen
April 28, 2006
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Huxley predicted on the basis of Darwinism that the earth would prove to be many hundreds of millions of years old and not 20 million as Kelvin had calculated.

Huxley also predicted that carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen combine to form water, carbonic acid, and nitrogen compounds which then, under certain conditions, further combine to form living "protoplasm" which is the basic stuff of life. Oops. Can't win 'em all. If one makes enough guesses some of them are bound to come true. After all, even a blind squirrel finds an occasional acorn. -ds Mark Frank
April 28, 2006
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Re: comment 4: Please demonstrate, through formal logic, how that "prediction" is based upon the assumption of Darwinian evolutionary mechanisms.jaredl
April 28, 2006
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Regarding Casey Luskin's "refutation" of Ken Miller's chromosomal fusion testimony: http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/luskins_ludicrous_genetics/hypermoderate
April 28, 2006
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Also: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/100/13/7708
Sequence analysis confirms the existence of a high degree of sequence similarity between the two species. However, and importantly, this 98.6% sequence identity drops to only 86.7% taking into account the multiple insertions/deletions (indels) dispersed throughout the region.
To continue, Chimpanzees have ~23 kilobases repeating DNA sequences (telomeres). Humans' telomeres are only ~10 kilobases long. While 18 pairs of chromosomes are fairly identical, chromosomes 4, 9 and 12 give contrary evidence because the genes and markers on these chromosomes are not in the same order; especially the Y chromosome which is larger. The chimp genome is also 10% larger. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/295/5552/131 They found that two clusters on human chromosome 21 that suggest large, nonrandom regions of difference between the two genomes. So, what does evolutionary theory predict about these findings?Patrick
April 28, 2006
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I see alot of predictions as "back-filled" answers. Sort of like the football commentator saying: "we all knew the Seahawks would eventually make the Super Bowl, I mean, consider what Mike Holmgren (the coach) did in Green Bay" now, if the Seahawks had crashed and burned this year (like in previous years), and Holmgren was fired, these same analysts would have said: "we all knew the Seahawks wouldn't make the Super Bowl, I mean, it was always obvious that the reason for the Packer's success was Reggie White and Brett Favre, Holmgren had nothing to do with it" I think an honest (and bold) prediction of Neo-Darwinism should be that that the current understanding of the Cambrian Explosion is flat out wrong. Now, if in 5 or 10 years we find that the Cambrian Explosion wasn't an explosion and we discover that all these novel body types that appeared "geologically overnight" in the CE actually formed gradually over a billion years, then you have a blockbuster prediction. But, to look at a current situation, and then describe a narrative to fit it from the past isn't really a prediction but rather a "spin".ajl
April 28, 2006
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http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1392Patrick
April 28, 2006
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What about the prediction that one of the human chromosome pairs should show evidence of having been produced by a fusion event, given that humans have only 46 chromosomes while our primate near-relatives have 48? This was mentioned by Ken Miller in his testimony at Dover.hypermoderate
April 28, 2006
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I have yet to see a prediction of evolutionary biology which can be shown to follow from the assumption of Darwinian evolution. For example, I fail to see how Tiktaalik or anything like it follows from the hypothesis of RM/NS - it appears to be a non sequitur.jaredl
April 28, 2006
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