Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Bait And Switch (Intuition, Part Deux)

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Once upon a time people thought that the sun revolved around the earth because this was intuitive. They were wrong. Once upon a time people thought that the moon revolved around the earth because it was intuitive. They were right. Therefore, intuition can’t be trusted.

Good enough. Evidence eventually confirmed the truth in both cases.

Then along came neo-Darwinism in the 20th century. Intuition and the simple mathematics of combinatorics suggest that random errors and throwing out stuff that doesn’t work can’t account for highly complex information-processing machinery and the information it processes in biological systems. There is no evidence, hard science, or mathematical analysis that can give any credibility to the proposed power of the Darwinian mechanism in this regard.

Intuition suggests that step-by-tiny-step Darwinian gradualism could not have happened, because the intermediates would not be viable. A lizard with proto-feathers on its forelimbs would be a lousy aviator and an equally incompetent runner. We find no such creatures in the fossil record, for obvious reasons. We find long periods of stasis, and the emergence of fully developed creatures with entirely new and innovative capabilities.

So, the Darwinian argument essentially goes as follows: Because human intuition is sometimes wrong, we can ignore intuition, basic reasoning, historical evidence, and the lack of empirical evidence — but only in the case of the claims of the creative power of the Darwinian mechanism.

This is classic bait-and-switch con-artistry: Intuition can be wrong, therefore evidence, the lack thereof, and logic can be ignored or assumed to be wrong as well.

Comments
Diffaxial, The only prediction ID cannot make is what any designer will design next. I believe that is what Jerry was referring to. However ID does make predictions- IC and CSI are two such predictions. IOW ID predicts that some things will not be reducible to matter, energy, chance and necessity. And IC and CSI are two such things. But anyway:
The conclusion that something was designed can be made quite independently of knowledge of the designer. As a matter of procedure, the design must first be apprehended before there can be any further question about the designer. The inference to design can be held with all firmness that is possible in this world, without knowing anything about the designer.—Dr Behe
As a scientific research program, intelligent design investigates the effects of intelligence and not intelligence as such.- Wm. Dembski page 33 of The Design Revolution
Observation: The Universe Question Is the universe the result of intentional design? Prediction: 1) If the universe was the product of a common design then I would expect it to be governed by one (common) set of parameters. 2) If the universe were designed for scientific discovery then I would expect a strong correlation between habitability and measurability. 3) Also if the universe was designed for scientific discovery I would expect it to be comprehensible. Test: 1) Try to determine if the same laws that apply every place on Earth also apply throughout the universe. 2) Try to determine the correlation between habitability and measurability. 3) Try to determine if the universe is comprehensible. Potential falsification: 1) Observe that the universe is chaotic. 2) A- Find a place that is not habitable but offers at least as good of a platform to make scientific discoveries as Earth or B- Find a place that is inhabited but offers a poor platform from which to make scientific discoveries. 3) Observe that we cannot comprehend the universe, meaning A) what applies locally does not apply throughout or B) what applies in one scenario, even locally, cannot be used/ applied in any similar scenario, even locally. Confirmation: 1) Tests conducted all over the globe, on the Moon and in space confirm that the same laws that apply here also apply throughout the universe. 2) All scientific data gathered to date confirm that habitability correlates with measurability. 3) “The most incomprehensible thing about our universe is that it is comprehensible.” Albert Einstein Observation: Living organisms Question Are living organisms the result of intentional design? Prediction: If living organisms were the result of intentional design then I would expect to see that living organisms are (and contain subsystems that are) irreducibly complex and/ or contain complex specified information. IOW I would expect to see an intricacy that is more than just a sum of chemical reactions (endothermic or exothermic). Further I would expect to see command & control- a hierarchy of command & control would be a possibility. Test: Try to deduce the minimal functionality that a living organism. Try to determine if that minimal functionality is irreducibly complex and/or contains complex specified information. Also check to see if any subsystems are irreducibly complex and/ or contain complex specified information. Potential falsification: Observe that living organisms arise from non-living matter via a mixture of commonly-found-in-nature chemicals. Observe that while some systems “appear” to be irreducibly complex it can be demonstrated that they can indeed arise via purely stochastic processes such as culled genetic accidents. Also demonstrate that the apparent command & control can also be explained by endothermic and/or exothermic reactions. Confirmation: Living organisms are irreducibly complex and contain irreducibly complex subsystems. The information required to build and maintain a single-celled organism is both complex and specified. Command & control is observed in single-celled organisms- the bacterial flagellum not only has to be configured correctly, indicating command & control over the assembly process, but it also has to function, indicating command & control over functionality. Conclusion (scientific inference) Both the universe and living organisms are the result of intention design. Any future research can either confirm or refute this premise, which, for the biological side, was summed up in Darwinism, Design and Public Education page 92: 1. High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design. 2. Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity. 3. Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity. 4. Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems.Joseph
August 3, 2009
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Diffaxial, ID is based on observation and experience. ID can be objectively tested. Also evolution is NOT being debated. What I am saying is that you cannot, and have not, provided a testable hypothesis pertaining to non-telic processes. And BTW how do you know what experiments IDists have and have not conducted? I take it that it bothers you that your post that attempted to refute me did no such thing. If you want to refute me then try posting something that is being debated. For example if eyes/ vision systems were the result of non-telic processes what would one expect to see?Joseph
August 3, 2009
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Upright @ 199:
Please consider reading a book or two on how historical sciences actually work.
More rapid transport of goal posts hither and thither. To previous irrelevant objections (is microevolution, no bearing on OOL, no lab) we now add "not in the mold of an historical science" as hinted by Biped. None of which have bearing on the fact that the study I cite specifies a model that gives rise to predictions (one of any number I can cite) and describes the empirical test of that model. Something ID cannot do and does not do, owing to the limitations Jerry aptly described.Diffaxial
August 3, 2009
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Khan (way back at 175)
in the harris paper they have provided molecular mechanisms for shaping of down feathers and shown that these same mechanisms can shape flight feathers through the addition of a 2nd inhibitor and a gradient.
All physical characteristics in all living things are shaped by something. Identifying parts of those processes is not the same as understanding their causes. Why were there down feathers and a mechanism for shaping them? Do a second inhibitor and gradient also add the barbules and hooklets? It seems very optimistic to hope that these supposed tiny incremental changes would eventually add up to functional flying wings. It also seems very optimistic to hope that changes would confer any meaningful selective advantage. The first specimen that evolves the beginning of a feather, or any of the successive steps - is it really that much less likely to get picked off by a predator, or that much more likely to find a mate? These scenarios all seem to optimistically imagine a perfect scenario in which everything happens just as it must to produce a nonetheless unintended result.ScottAndrews
August 3, 2009
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Diff, And before you head off to the library, please attend to the previous post directed to you:
1) Life began in a distant past. 2) Science has foundationally concluded that Life began by chance. - – - – - – - - Please answer: What empirical lab results has science used confirm that Life began by chance? What are the predictions of those lab results?
Upright BiPed
August 3, 2009
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Diffaxial, Please consider reading a book or two on how historical sciences actually work. Give it a shot.Upright BiPed
August 3, 2009
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I pointed to Jerry's description of ID, which includes the assertion that ID has no model, that design events may be one-off events (hence not amenable to regularity or prediction), and that nothing is known about the designer. These limitations obviously render ID incapable of making empirical predictions. Hence it lies outside the domain of science. Joe asserted that evolutionary biology is also not a science, offers no testable hypotheses, and gives rise to no empirical research. (Even were this the case, it would have no bearing upon whether ID is a science. Hence the objection is irrelevant to the scientific status of ID.) I provided one recent example (one of thousands) of a report of an evolutionary scientist operating from a model (something ID lacks) that makes specific empirical predictions (in the manner ID is incapable of generating), and his test of those predictions (tests of a kind ID researchers never conduct). Hence Joe's statement is false, having been directly contradicted by reality. The specific biological phenomenon modeled and empirically investigated has no bearing on the fact that an empirical investigation operating out of a theoretical model was conducted. Nor does ID's willingness to acknowledge those findings (because they are "microevolutionary".) Nor does it matter a whit whether this particular study has bearing on the OOL or other ultimate questions (obviously not the object of this particular investigator's work), or whether or not the empirical investigation was conducted in a laboratory or in the field. The fact remains that this study exemplifies the empirical test of a theoretical model within evolutionary biology, something that Joe claims doesn't occur. The sort of study that is impossible within the framework of ID, due to the limitations Jerry has correctly identified.Diffaxial
August 3, 2009
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BA^77 thanks for the quotation from 2000
and must I point out you are basing all of this on historical science!
yes, evolution is a historical science.
Thus for you to avoid hypocrisy in what you stated, and refute the sampling of mutational studies I provided (yet blatantly ignore) you must prove functional information can be generated in the laboratory
how about functional proteins from random sequence libraries? http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6829/full/410715a0.html http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1074552105003741Khan
August 3, 2009
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Diffaxial, If that, your response in comment 164, is the best you have then you don't have anything. Ya see what you posted in no way challenges ID and it doesn't even challenge YEC. IOW thank you for proving my point.Joseph
August 3, 2009
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Not good enough for! “Fundamentalist fervor,” “vitriolic name-calling,” and “paleontological passion” pervade the debate, states the magazine Science News. One evolutionary biologist, who organized a symposium on feather evolution, confessed: “I never dreamed that any scientific matter could possibly generate such bad personal behavior and such bitterness.” Thus your position is far from resolved though you claim otherwise,,,and must I point out you are basing all of this on historical science! you stated: "unless they or you can provide an empirical basis for those opinions" Thus for you to avoid hypocrisy in what you stated, and refute the sampling of mutational studies I provided (yet blatantly ignore) you must prove functional information can be generated in the laboratory….Why should you not have to meet this minimum requirement for scientific integrity? Why must your highly biased take on the fossil record be given precedence over laboratory work? As they say in football: Put up or shut up!bornagain77
August 3, 2009
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BA^77 disagreeing is one thing (everyone's entitled to their opinion), but unless they or you can provide an empirical basis for those opinions, that's all they are. saying feathers in one specimen are collagen doesn't do it when there are many further examples, like this one from earlier this year: http://www.pnas.org/content/106/3/832.fullKhan
August 3, 2009
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Khan,,, I disagree with you interpretation of the fossil record as do many reputable "fringe" scientists,,,thus the burden is on you to support the grand claims of Darwinism by conclusively proving functional information can be generated in the laboratory....Why should you not have to meet this minimum requirement for scientific integrity? Your methodology is a joke!!!bornagain77
August 3, 2009
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Is Antibiotic Resistance evidence for evolution? - "Fitness Test" - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BwWpRSYgOE Some bacterium spores, in salt crystals, dating back as far as 250 million years have been revived, had their DNA sequenced, and compared to their offspring of today (Vreeland RH, 2000 Nature). To the disbelieving shock of many scientists, both ancient and modern bacteria were found to have the almost same exact DNA sequence. The Paradox of the "Ancient" Bacterium Which Contains "Modern" Protein-Coding Genes: “Almost without exception, bacteria isolated from ancient material have proven to closely resemble modern bacteria at both morphological and molecular levels.” Heather Maughan*, C. William Birky Jr., Wayne L. Nicholson, William D. Rosenzweig§ and Russell H. Vreeland ; http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/19/9/1637 and this: Revival and identification of bacterial spores in 25- to 40-million-year-old Dominican amber Dr. Cano and his former graduate student Dr. Monica K. Borucki said that they had found slight but significant differences between the DNA of the ancient, 25-40 million year old amber-sealed Bacillus sphaericus and that of its modern counterpart, (thus ruling out that it is a modern contaminant, yet at the same time confounding materialists, since the change is not nearly as great as evolution's "genetic drift" theory requires.) http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/268/5213/1060 30-Million-Year Sleep: Germ Is Declared Alive http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEFD61439F93AA25756C0A963958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2 In reply to a personal e-mail from myself, Dr. Cano commented on the "Fitness Test" I had asked him about: Dr. Cano stated: "We performed such a test, a long time ago, using a panel of substrates (the old gram positive biolog panel) on B. sphaericus. From the results we surmised that the putative "ancient" B. sphaericus isolate was capable of utilizing a broader scope of substrates. Additionally, we looked at the fatty acid profile and here, again, the profiles were similar but more diverse in the amber isolate.": Fitness test which compared the 30 million year old ancient bacteria to its modern day descendants, RJ Cano and MK Borucki Thus, the most solid evidence available for the most ancient DNA scientists are able to find does not support evolution happening on the molecular level of bacteria. In fact, according to the fitness test of Dr. Cano, the change witnessed in bacteria conforms to the exact opposite, Genetic Entropy; a loss of functional information/complexity, since fewer substrates and fatty acids are utilized by the modern strains. Considering the intricate level of protein machinery it takes to utilize individual molecules within a substrate, we are talking an impressive loss of protein complexity, and thus loss of functional information, from the ancient amber sealed bacteria. ETC...ETC...ETC.... The point being is that you will not offer any solid empiricsbornagain77
August 3, 2009
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BA^77 i didn't see feathers mentioned once in there. if you think feathers "devolved" could you explain why down feathers appear before flight feathers in the fossil record?Khan
August 3, 2009
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Darwinism’s Last Stand? - Jonathan Wells Excerpt: Despite the hype from Darwin’s followers, the evidence for his theory is underwhelming, at best. Natural selection—like artificial selection—can produce minor changes within existing species. But in the 150 years since the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, no one has ever observed the origin of a new species by natural selection—much less the origin of new organs and body plans. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/06/junk_dna_darwinisms_last_stand.html#more EXPELLED - Natural Selection And Genetic Mutations - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOWfmuJ-MdYbornagain77
August 3, 2009
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"...but Natural Selection reduces genetic information and we know this from all the Genetic Population studies that we have..." Maciej Marian Giertych - Population Geneticist - member of the European Parliament - EXPELLEDbornagain77
August 3, 2009
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Walter L. Bradley, Information, Entropy, and the Origin of Life: Excerpt: He clarifies the distinction between configurational and thermal entropy, and shows why materialistic theories of chemical evolution have not explained the configurational entropy present in living systems, a feature of living systems that Bradley takes to be strong evidence of intelligent design. http://www.discovery.org/a/2640 Evolution's Thermodynamic Failure By Granville Sewell (Professor of Mathematics Texas University - El Paso) http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=9128 Mathematical refutation of the open system entropy argument used by evolutionists - by Kairosfocus http://www.angelfire.com/pro/kairosfocus/resources/Info_design_and_science.htm#thermod Law of Conservation of Information - William Dembski and Robert Marks http://www.evoinfo.org/Publications/Life.htmlbornagain77
August 3, 2009
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Hopeful monsters,' transposons, and the Metazoan radiation: Excerpt: Viable mutations with major morphological or physiological effects are exceedingly rare and usually infertile; the chance of two identical rare mutant individuals arising in sufficient propinquity to produce offspring seems too small to consider as a significant evolutionary event. These problems of viable "hopeful monsters" render these explanations untenable. Paleobiologists Douglas Erwin and James Valentinebornagain77
August 3, 2009
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“Mutations are rare phenomena, and a simultaneous change of even two amino acid residues in one protein is totally unlikely. One could think, for instance, that by constantly changing amino acids one by one, it will eventually be possible to change the entire sequence substantially… These minor changes, however, are bound to eventually result in a situation in which the enzyme has ceased to perform its previous function but has not yet begun its ‘new duties’. It is at this point it will be destroyed - along with the organism carrying it.” Maxim D. Frank-Kamenetski, Unraveling DNA, 1997, p. 72. (Professor at Brown U. Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Biomedical Engineering)bornagain77
August 3, 2009
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Proteins with cruise control provide new perspective: "A mathematical analysis of the experiments showed that the proteins themselves acted to correct any imbalance imposed on them through artificial mutations and restored the chain to working order." http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S22/60/95O56/bornagain77
August 3, 2009
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“There is no known law of nature, no known process and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter" Dr. Werner Gitt, former director and Professor of Information Systems at the prestigious German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology This following article refutes Lenski's supposed evolution of the citrate ability for E-Coli: Multiple Mutations Needed for E. Coli - Michael Behe http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3U696N278Z93O In fact, trying to narrow down an actual hard number for the "truly" beneficial mutation rate is what Dr. Behe did in this following book: "The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism" http://www.amazon.com/Edge-Evolution-Search-Limits-Darwinism/dp/0743296206bornagain77
August 3, 2009
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"I have seen estimates of the incidence of the ratio of deleterious-to-beneficial mutations which range from one in one thousand up to one in one million. The best estimates seem to be one in one million (Gerrish and Lenski, 1998). The actual rate of beneficial mutations is so extremely low as to thwart any actual measurement (Bataillon, 2000, Elena et al, 1998). Therefore, I cannot ...accurately represent how rare such beneficial mutations really are." (J.C. Sanford; Genetic Entropy page 24) - 2005 Estimation of spontaneous genome-wide mutation rate parameters: whither beneficial mutations? (Thomas Bataillon) Abstract......It is argued that, although most if not all mutations detected in mutation accumulation experiments are deleterious, the question of the rate of favourable mutations (and their effects) is still a matter for debate. http://www.nature.com/hdy/journal/v84/n5/full/6887270a.html Distribution of fitness effects caused by random insertion mutations in Escherichia coli Excerpt: At least 80% of the mutations had a significant negative effect on fitness, whereas none of the mutations had a significant positive effect. http://www.springerlink.com/content/r37w1hrq5l0q3832/ High Frequency of Cryptic Deleterious Mutations in Caenorhabditis elegans ( Esther K. Davies, Andrew D. Peters, Peter D. Keightley) "In fitness assays, only about 4 percent of the deleterious mutations fixed in each line were detectable. The remaining 96 percent, though cryptic, are significant for mutation load...the presence of a large class of mildly deleterious mutations can never be ruled out. " http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/285/5434/1748 “But in all the reading I’ve done in the life-sciences literature, I’ve never found a mutation that added information… All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not increase it.” Lee Spetner - Ph.D. Physics - MIT - (Not By Chance: Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution) "Bergman (2004) has studied the topic of beneficial mutations. Among other things, he did a simple literature search via Biological Abstracts and Medline. He found 453,732 “mutation” hits, but among these only 186 mentioned the word “beneficial” (about 4 in 10,000). When those 186 references were reviewed, almost all the presumed “beneficial mutations” were only beneficial in a very narrow sense- but each mutation consistently involved loss of function changes-hence loss of information.” Sanford: Genetic Entropy “Mutations, in summary, tend to induce sickness, death, or deficiencies. No evidence in the vast literature of heredity change shows unambiguous evidence that random mutation itself, even with geographical isolation of populations leads to speciation.” Lynn Margulis - Acquiring Genomes [2003], p. 29. “But there is no evidence that DNA mutations can provide the sorts of variation needed for evolution… There is no evidence for beneficial mutations at the level of macroevolution, but there is also no evidence at the level of what is commonly regarded as microevolution.” Jonathan Wells (PhD. - Molecular Biology) "Of carefully studied mutations, most have been found to be harmful to organisms, and most of the remainder seem to have neither positive nor negative effect. Mutations that are actually beneficial are extraordinarily rare and involve insignificant changes. Mutations seem to be much more degenerative than constructive…" Kurt Wise, paleontologist (2002, p.163) "The neo-Darwinians would like us to believe that large evolutionary changes can result from a series of small events if there are enough of them. But if these events all lose information they can’t be the steps in the kind of evolution the neo-Darwin theory is supposed to explain, no matter how many mutations there are. Whoever thinks macroevolution can be made by mutations that lose information is like the merchant who lost a little money on every sale but thought he could make it up on volume." Lee Spetner (Ph.D. Physics - MIT - Not By Chance) “It is entirely in line with the accidental nature of naturally occurring mutations that extensive tests have agreed in showing the vast majority of them to be detrimental to the organisms in its job of surviving and reproducing, just as changes accidentally introduced into any artificial mechanism are predominantly harmful to its useful operation” H.J. Muller (Received a Nobel Prize for his work on mutations to DNA) "The opportune appearance of mutations permitting animals and plants to meet their needs seems hard to believe. Yet the Darwinian theory is even more demanding: a single plant, a single animal would require thousands and thousands of lucky, appropriate events. Thus, miracles would become the rule: events with an infinitesimal probability could not fail to occur .... There is no law against day dreaming, but science must not indulge in it." Pierre P. Grasse - past President of the French Academie des Sciencesbornagain77
August 3, 2009
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The malaria parasite, due to its comparatively enormous population size, has in 1 year more mutation/duplication/selection events than all mammal lineages have had in the entire +100 million years they have been in the fossil record. Moreover, since single cell organisms and viruses replicate, and mutate/duplicate, far more quickly than multi-cellular life-forms can, scientists can do experiments on single celled organisms and viruses to see what we can actually expect to happen over millions of years for mammals with far smaller population sizes. Malaria and AIDS are among the largest real world tests that can be performed to see if evolutionary presumptions are true. "Indeed, the work on malaria and AIDS demonstrates that after all possible unintelligent processes in the cell--both ones we've discovered so far and ones we haven't--at best extremely limited benefit, since no such process was able to do much of anything. It's critical to notice that no artificial limitations were placed on the kinds of mutations or processes the microorganisms could undergo in nature. Nothing--neither point mutation, deletion, insertion, gene duplication, transposition, genome duplication, self-organization nor any other process yet undiscovered--was of much use." Michael Behe, The Edge of Evolution, pg. 162 Swine Flu, Viruses, and the Edge of Evolution http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/05/swine_flu_viruses_and_the_edge.html A review of The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism by Michael J. Behe The numbers of Plasmodium and HIV in the last 50 years greatly exceeds the total number of mammals since their supposed evolutionary origin (several hundred million years ago), yet little has been achieved by evolution. This suggests that mammals could have "invented" little in their time frame. Behe: ‘Our experience with HIV gives good reason to think that Darwinism doesn’t do much—even with billions of years and all the cells in that world at its disposal’ (p. 155). http://creation.com/review-michael-behe-edge-of-evolutionbornagain77
August 3, 2009
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"There is abundant evidence that most DNA sequences are poly-functional, and therefore are poly-constrained. This fact has been extensively demonstrated by Trifonov (1989). For example, most human coding sequences encode for two different RNAs, read in opposite directions i.e. Both DNA strands are transcribed ( Yelin et al., 2003). Some sequences encode for different proteins depending on where translation is initiated and where the reading frame begins (i.e. read-through proteins). Some sequences encode for different proteins based upon alternate mRNA splicing. Some sequences serve simultaneously for protein-encoding and also serve as internal transcriptional promoters. Some sequences encode for both a protein coding, and a protein-binding region. Alu elements and origins-of-replication can be found within functional promoters and within exons. Basically all DNA sequences are constrained by isochore requirements (regional GC content), “word” content (species-specific profiles of di-, tri-, and tetra-nucleotide frequencies), and nucleosome binding sites (i.e. All DNA must condense). Selective condensation is clearly implicated in gene regulation, and selective nucleosome binding is controlled by specific DNA sequence patterns - which must permeate the entire genome. Lastly, probably all sequences do what they do, even as they also affect general spacing and DNA-folding/architecture - which is clearly sequence dependent. To explain the incredible amount of information which must somehow be packed into the genome (given that extreme complexity of life), we really have to assume that there are even higher levels of organization and information encrypted within the genome. For example, there is another whole level of organization at the epigenetic level (Gibbs 2003). There also appears to be extensive sequence dependent three-dimensional organization within chromosomes and the whole nucleus (Manuelides, 1990; Gardiner, 1995; Flam, 1994). Trifonov (1989), has shown that probably all DNA sequences in the genome encrypt multiple “codes” (up to 12 codes). (Dr. John Sanford; Genetic Entropy 2005)bornagain77
August 3, 2009
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The Capabilities of Chaos and Complexity: David L. Abel - Null Hypothesis For Information Generation - 2009 To focus the scientific community’s attention on its own tendencies toward overzealous metaphysical imagination bordering on “wish-fulfillment,” we propose the following readily falsifiable null hypothesis, and invite rigorous experimental attempts to falsify it: “Physicodynamics cannot spontaneously traverse The Cybernetic Cut: physicodynamics alone cannot organize itself into formally functional systems requiring algorithmic optimization, computational halting, and circuit integration.” http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2662469bornagain77
August 3, 2009
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BA^77
whereas I could very well argue, with tons more empirics, that the process was actually a reverse of what was postulated, through the process of genetic entropy,
please do so.Khan
August 3, 2009
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Three subsets of sequence complexity and their relevance to biopolymeric information - David L Abel and Jack T Trevors: Excerpt: Genetic algorithms instruct sophisticated biological organization. Three qualitative kinds of sequence complexity exist: random (RSC), ordered (OSC), and functional (FSC). FSC alone provides algorithmic instruction...No empirical evidence exists of either RSC of OSC ever having produced a single instance of sophisticated biological organization...It is only in researching the pre-RNA world that the problem of single-stranded metabolically functional sequencing of ribonucleotides (or their analogs) becomes acute. And of course highly-ordered templated sequencing of RNA strands on natural surfaces such as clay offers no explanation for biofunctional sequencing. The question is never answered, "From what source did the template derive its functional information?" In fact, no empirical evidence has been presented of a naturally occurring inorganic template that contains anything more than combinatorial uncertainty. No bridge has been established between combinatorial uncertainty and utility of any kind. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1208958bornagain77
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Khan (con), The only one it is compelling to is the one who is philosophically committed to it being so,,,The paper goes no where near demonstrating how the information arose spontaneously, it only speculates that this is the way it did happen, whereas I could very well argue, with tons more empirics, that the process was actually a reverse of what was postulated, through the process of genetic entropy,,,which brings us back to you having to demonstrate the origination of functional information in the laboratory!bornagain77
August 3, 2009
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ps the Chuong paper then explicitly shows how the gradient hypothesized by Harris is generated.Khan
August 3, 2009
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Scott, what are you talking about? in the harris paper they have provided molecular mechanisms for shaping of down feathers and shown that these same mechanisms can shape flight feathers through the addition of a 2nd inhibitor and a gradient. then they show that this is congruent with fossil evidence of feather evolution (down before flight). of course it's not complete but it is very compelling and consistent.Khan
August 3, 2009
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