Berkeley’s “Understanding Evolution” Website Explains Natural Selection

_{Cornelius Hunter

July 13, 2015

Intelligent Design}

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With a small army of evolutionists working on it, and several National Science Foundation grants funding it, the University of California at Berkeley’s “Understanding Evolution” website has a surprising number of errors. One of the more egregious ones is on a page that is intended to clarify the concept of natural selection. It is entitled “Misconceptions about natural selection,” but it begins with what is perhaps the worst of all: “natural selection can produce amazing adaptations.” Read more

Comments

Winston Ewert discusses the problem in: Digital Irreducible Complexity: A Survey of Irreducible Complexity in Computer Simulations, see page 7Virgil Cain_{July 19, 2015
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Just when you thought it couldn't get any more embarrassing for our opponents Elizabeth Liddle posts that AVIDA is an "instantiation" of natural selection producing complex structures and IC. Lizzie on AVIDA: Too bad that claim has already been refuted in peer-review: The effects of low-impact mutations in digital organisms Chase W. Nelson and John C. Sanford, Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling, 2011, 8:9 | doi:10.1186/1742-4682-8-9
Abstract: Background: Avida is a computer program that performs evolution experiments with digital organisms. Previous work has used the program to study the evolutionary origin of complex features, namely logic operations, but has consistently used extremely large mutational fitness effects. The present study uses Avida to better understand the role of low-impact mutations in evolution. ========= Results: When mutational fitness effects were approximately 0.075 or less, no new logic operations evolved, and those that had previously evolved were lost. When fitness effects were approximately 0.2, only half of the operations evolved, reflecting a threshold for selection breakdown. In contrast, when Avida's default fitness effects were used, all operations routinely evolved to high frequencies and fitness increased by an average of 20 million in only 10,000 generations. ------- Conclusions: Avidian organisms evolve new logic operations only when mutations producing them are assigned high-impact fitness effects. Furthermore, purifying selection cannot protect operations with low-impact benefits from mutational deterioration. These results suggest that selection breaks down for low-impact mutations below a certain fitness effect, the selection threshold. Experiments using biologically relevant parameter settings show the tendency for increasing genetic load to lead to loss of biological functionality. An understanding of such genetic deterioration is relevant to human disease, and may be applicable to the control of pathogens by use of lethal mutagenesis.
Also Lizzie doesn't even grasp that reproduction is the very thing that requires an explanation. She even misrepresents Dr Behe:
Behe’s claim was that Irreducibly Complex systems couldn’t evolve.
Not quite as Behe's claim pertains to natural selection, drift and other naturalistic processes. Behe is OK with IC evolving by intelligent design.Virgil Cain_{July 19, 2015
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Hi I'm Chris Mannering...major wastrel and fail. NOt particulary interested in Intellgent Design, but desperately in need of reasaonable criticism of evolution. Because you don't get a lot of it in evolution these days. There's a sense of things being in decay,ChrisM_{July 17, 2015
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Well this is certainly embarrassing, for years and years I have heard that the id folks do not understand the fundamentals of evolutionary theory. This clearly demonstrates that is it the other way round. On one of the more simple aspects to the theory no less too. It is eye opening to see the different responses to something that is so very simple to grasp.bw_{July 17, 2015
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Given that the Berkley site explains the evolution of the eye, I offer up this contrary analysis at: http://ayearningforpublius.wordpress.com/2015/07/14/the-eye-a-biological-miracle-but-of-what-sort/ayearningforpublius_{July 16, 2015
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This is just a test post. My posts don't seem to make it past the "enter the text above" gate when submitted. If this makes it through I would appreciate some help in resolving g my problem ... and you can delete this comment. Thanksayearningforpublius_{July 16, 2015
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Zachriel:
While Darwin wasn’t an ornithologist, and deferred to experts in the field, the finches he collected varied so much that only close examination revealed their affinity.
Science is about close examination.Virgil Cain_{July 15, 2015
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Virgil Cain: Darwin didn’t know jack about finches. While Darwin wasn't an ornithologist, and deferred to experts in the field, the finches he collected varied so much that only close examination revealed their affinity.Zachriel_{July 15, 2015
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Actually, the birds Darwin collected in the Galápagos had evolved so much that he didn’t recognize many of them as finches.
Darwin didn't know jack about finches.Virgil Cain_{July 15, 2015
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Lizzie makes another evidence-free statement:
What it does produce are adaptations, where adaptations are defined as feature of a population, e.g. big ears, trunks, spines, flippers, drip-tips, tendrils, thumbs, that help its members thrive in their environment.
Please produce a model that shows natural selection can produce those or admit that you just made it up.Virgil Cain_{July 15, 2015
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lifepsy: He inferred that finches descended from finches. Actually, the birds Darwin collected in the Galápagos had evolved so much that he didn't recognize many of them as finches. That discovery was made, based on Darwin's specimens, by the ornithologist, John Gould.Zachriel_{July 15, 2015
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Zachriel: Actually, microevolution was a prediction by Darwin. He couldn’t directly observe evolution by natural selection, but inferred it from the evidence for common descent. He inferred that finches descended from finches. Another amazing prediction fulfilled. 150 years later and you still have nothing more than vague metaphysical assumptions to support your evolutionary creation mythology. The day Evolution becomes culturally and philosophically un-fashionable, your common ancestry creation story will go up in a puff of smoke. It has never been grounded in actual scientific evidence.lifepsy_{July 15, 2015
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Zachriel:
A model was provided.
Add models to the long list of things Zachriel is ignorant of.Virgil Cain_{July 15, 2015
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Virgil Cain: you did not support your claim as without that model A model was provided.Zachriel_{July 15, 2015
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Alan Fox chimes in with this bit of stupidity:
There can be no selection without variation to select and there can be no change in allele frequency in a population without a process of selection.
Umm genetic drift allows for a change in allele frequency absent selection, Alan. They- TSZ- are still bashing Dr Hunter all the while not even grasping what he posted.Virgil Cain_{July 15, 2015
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Zachriel:
We did support our claim.
No, you did not support your claim as without that model you don't have any support.Virgil Cain_{July 15, 2015
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Virgil Cain: {snip} Either you can support {snip} We did support our claim. The question concerned how "a bellows lung can turn into a flow through lung one little beneficial step at a time". We provided a schematic diagram to show how it can happen.Zachriel_{July 15, 2015
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Zachriel:
That wasn’t the question raised.
It is the question now that you ran your mouth. Either you can support what comes out of your mouth or you should just keep it to yourself.Virgil Cain_{July 15, 2015
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Virgil Cain: model unguided evolution producing a lung That wasn't the question raised.Zachriel_{July 15, 2015
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Zachriel, Until someone can model unguided evolution producing a lung it ain't science.Virgil Cain_{July 15, 2015
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tjguy: The whole make up of a dinosaur lung is different from a bird lung. Not necessarily. See O’Connor & Claessens, Basic avian pulmonary design and flow-through ventilation in non-avian theropod dinosaurs, Nature 2005. As for evolving from a bellows lungs to a flow-through lung, that just requires a valve. http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/554images/Bird_resp_system2.jpgZachriel_{July 15, 2015
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es58 @ 8 Claim:
"first it selected something that gave it an advantage, then another, then another, and, pretty soon, you got where you are now; I think that’s how it supposedly goes; it’s too long ago to figure out what the exact sequence was, but, it just kept going til it got where it is now;...'
OK, great! That's the claim. That's how it is "supposed to work". That's the hypothesis. Now, what experimental evidence / hard evidence do we have that this is actually what happened? Do you have any evidence that such a genetic pathway from point a to point b actually exists? - a pathway whereby mutations can create small incremental changes beneficial enough to be selected for. Then you have others who want to throw in horizontal gene transfer, genetic drift, etc. into the mess as added possibilities for a change mechanism. Nice idea, but how do we test it? The Junk DNA thing was a nice idea and was widely supported for many years. But that nice idea is now plainly wrong. How do we know? We now have hard evidence to show that. Nice ideas/just so stories/expertly crafted evolutionary explanations are not necessarily true! But I digress. Back to the topic. Seriously, how do we know that such a pathway even exists? The key is that each succeeding change needs to be a step forward, a beneficial change large enough that it helps the organism better survive. For example, let's take the idea of a dinosaur lung turning into a bird lung. The lung is a critical organ for survival. The whole make up of a dinosaur lung is different from a bird lung. A dinosaur has a bellows lung while a bird has a flow through lung. Now, how can a bellows lung turn into a flow through lung one little beneficial step at a time while keeping the organism alive? If there is no answer for this, then the obvious question arises: "How then do we know that this actually could happen and did happen?" If evolutionists could provide some concrete evidence that stuff like this is actually possible, they would face a lot less skepticism. As long as they rely on their position as scientists to get people to believe their evidence-less claims, there will be questions.tjguy_{July 15, 2015
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Cro Magnon skull shows that our brains have shrunk - Mar 15, 2010 by Lisa Zyga Excerpt: Using new technology, researchers have produced a replica of the 28,000-year-old brain and found that it is about 15-20% larger than our brains. http://phys.org/news187877156.html Human face has shrunk over the past 10,000 years - November 2005 Excerpt: Human faces are shrinking by 1%-2% every 1,000 years. What’s more, we are growing less teeth. Ten thousand years ago everyone grew wisdom teeth but now only half of us get them, and other teeth like the lateral incisors have become much smaller. This is evolution in action." http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/001604.html
of related note:
“Neanderthals are known for their large cranial capacity, which at 1600cc is larger on average than modern humans.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#Anatomy
Of supplemental note to natural selection: If evolution by natural selection were actually the truth about how all life came to be on Earth then the only ‘life’ that would be around would be extremely small organisms with the highest replication rate, and with the most mutational firepower, since only they would be fittest to survive in the dog eat dog world where blind pitiless evolution rules and only the fittest are allowed to survive. The logic of this is nicely summed up here:
Richard Dawkins interview with a ‘Darwinian’ physician goes off track – video Excerpt: “I am amazed, Richard, that what we call metazoans, multi-celled organisms, have actually been able to evolve, and the reason [for amazement] is that bacteria and viruses replicate so quickly — a few hours sometimes, they can reproduce themselves — that they can evolve very, very quickly. And we’re stuck with twenty years at least between generations. How is it that we resist infection when they can evolve so quickly to find ways around our defenses?” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/video_to_dawkin062031.html
i.e. Since successful reproduction is all that really matters on a neo-Darwinian view of things, how can anything but successful reproduction be realistically ‘selected’ for? Any other function besides reproduction, such as sight, hearing, thinking, etc.., would be highly superfluous to the primary criteria of successfully reproducing, and should, on a Darwinian view, be discarded as so much excess baggage since it would, sooner or later, slow down successful reproduction. But that is not what we find. Indeed, instead of eating us, time after time these different types of microbial life are found to be 'symbiotically' helping us, both biologically and environmentally, in essential ways that have nothing to do with their individual ability to successfully reproduce.bornagain77_{July 14, 2015
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The Cambrian Explosion - Stephen Meyer and Marcus Ross - video Various phylum are discussed in the first part of the video (Top down, disparity preceding diversity, pattern discussed at 33:00 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLpSb-iDNyw “Darwin had a lot of trouble with the fossil record because if you look at the record of phyla in the rocks as fossils why when they first appear we already see them all. The phyla are fully formed. It’s as if the phyla were created first and they were modified into classes and we see that the number of classes peak later than the number of phyla and the number of orders peak later than that. So it’s kind of a top down succession, you start with this basic body plans, the phyla, and you diversify them into classes, the major sub-divisions of the phyla, and these into orders and so on. So the fossil record is kind of backwards from what you would expect from in that sense from what you would expect from Darwin’s ideas." James W. Valentine - as quoted from "On the Origin of Phyla: Interviews with James W. Valentine" - (as stated at 1:16:36 mark of video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtdFJXfvlm8&feature=player_detailpage#t=4595 Erwin and Valentine's The Cambrian Explosion Affirms Major Points in Darwin's Doubt: The Cambrian Enigma Is "Unresolved" - June 26, 2013 Excerpt: "In other words, the morphological distances -- gaps -- between body plans of crown phyla were present when body fossils first appeared during the explosion and have been with us ever since. The morphological disparity is so great between most phyla that the homologous reference points or landmarks required for quantitative studies of morphology are absent." Erwin and Valentine (p. 340) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/06/erwin_valentine_cambrian_explosion073671.html
Moreover, there are 'yawning chasms' in the 'morphological space' between the phyla which suddenly appeared in the Cambrian Explosion,,,
"Over the past 150 years or so, paleontologists have found many representatives of the phyla that were well-known in Darwin’s time (by analogy, the equivalent of the three primary colors) and a few completely new forms altogether (by analogy, some other distinct colors such as green and orange, perhaps). And, of course, within these phyla, there is a great deal of variety. Nevertheless, the analogy holds at least insofar as the differences in form between any member of one phylum and any member of another phylum are vast, and paleontologists have utterly failed to find forms that would fill these yawning chasms in what biotechnologists call “morphological space.” In other words, they have failed to find the paleolontogical equivalent of the numerous finely graded intermediate colors (Oedleton blue, dusty rose, gun barrel gray, magenta, etc.) that interior designers covet. Instead, extensive sampling of the fossil record has confirmed a strikingly discontinuous pattern in which representatives of the major phyla stand in stark isolation from members of other phyla, without intermediate forms filling the intervening morphological space." Stephen Meyer - Darwin’s Doubt (p. 70)
Moreover, this top down pattern in the fossil record, which is the complete opposite pattern as Darwin predicted for the fossil record, is not only found in the Cambrian Explosion, but this 'top down', disparity preceding diversity, pattern is found in the fossil record subsequent to the Cambrian explosion as well.
Scientific study turns understanding about evolution on its head – July 30, 2013 Excerpt: evolutionary biologists,,, looked at nearly one hundred fossil groups to test the notion that it takes groups of animals many millions of years to reach their maximum diversity of form. Contrary to popular belief, not all animal groups continued to evolve fundamentally new morphologies through time. The majority actually achieved their greatest diversity of form (disparity) relatively early in their histories. ,,,Dr Matthew Wills said: “This pattern, known as ‘early high disparity’, turns the traditional V-shaped cone model of evolution on its head. What is equally surprising in our findings is that groups of animals are likely to show early-high disparity regardless of when they originated over the last half a billion years. This isn’t a phenomenon particularly associated with the first radiation of animals (in the Cambrian Explosion), or periods in the immediate wake of mass extinctions.”,,, Author Martin Hughes, continued: “Our work implies that there must be constraints on the range of forms within animal groups, and that these limits are often hit relatively early on. Co-author Dr Sylvain Gerber, added: “A key question now is what prevents groups from generating fundamentally new forms later on in their evolution.,,, http://phys.org/news/2013-07-scientific-evolution.html “In virtually all cases a new taxon appears for the first time in the fossil record with most definitive features already present, and practically no known stem-group forms.” TS Kemp - Fossils and Evolution,– Curator of Zoological Collections, Oxford University, Oxford Uni Press, p246, 1999 “What is missing are the many intermediate forms hypothesized by Darwin, and the continual divergence of major lineages into the morphospace between distinct adaptive types.” Robert L Carroll (born 1938) – vertebrate paleontologist who specialises in Paleozoic and Mesozoic amphibians
The following article is important in that it shows the principle of Genetic Entropy being obeyed in the fossil record by Trilobites, over the 270 million year history of their life on earth:
The Cambrian's Many Forms Excerpt: "It appears that organisms displayed “rampant” within-species variation “in the ‘warm afterglow’ of the Cambrian explosion,” Hughes said, but not later. “No one has shown this convincingly before, and that’s why this is so important.""From an evolutionary perspective, the more variable a species is, the more raw material natural selection has to operate on,"....(Yet Surprisingly)...."There's hardly any variation in the post-Cambrian," he said. "Even the presence or absence or the kind of ornamentation on the head shield varies within these Cambrian trilobites and doesn't vary in the post-Cambrian trilobites." - University of Chicago paleontologist Mark Webster; on the "surprising" loss of variation and diversity for trilobites over the 270 million year time span that trilobites were found in the fossil record, prior to their total extinction from the fossil record about 250 million years ago. http://www.terradaily.com/reports/The_Cambrian_Many_Forms_999.html
(Of note: Trilobites appeared abruptly at the base of the Cambrian explosion with no evidence of transmutation from the 'simple' creatures that preceded them, nor is there any evidence they ever produced anything else besides other trilobites during the entire time they are found in the fossil record). The human genetic evidence and fossil record also follows this same 'top down' pattern as is witnessed in the rest of the fossil record:
"We found an enormous amount of diversity within and between the African populations, and we found much less diversity in non-African populations," Tishkoff told attendees today (Jan. 22) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Anaheim. "Only a small subset of the diversity in Africa is found in Europe and the Middle East, and an even narrower set is found in American Indians." Tishkoff; Andrew Clark, Penn State; Kenneth Kidd, Yale University; Giovanni Destro-Bisol, University "La Sapienza," Rome, and Himla Soodyall and Trefor Jenkins, WITS University, South Africa, looked at three locations on DNA samples from 13 to 18 populations in Africa and 30 to 45 populations in the remainder of the world.- Human Genetic Variation Recent, Varies Among Populations - (Nov. 28, 2012) Excerpt: Nearly three-quarters of mutations in genes that code for proteins -- the workhorses of the cell -- occurred within the past 5,000 to 10,000 years,,, "One of the most interesting points is that Europeans have more new deleterious (potentially disease-causing) mutations than Africans,",,, "Having so many of these new variants can be partially explained by the population explosion in the European population. However, variation that occur in genes that are involved in Mendelian traits and in those that affect genes essential to the proper functioning of the cell tend to be much older." (A Mendelian trait is controlled by a single gene. Mutations in that gene can have devastating effects.) The amount variation or mutation identified in protein-coding genes (the exome) in this study is very different from what would have been seen 5,000 years ago,,, The report shows that "recent" events have a potent effect on the human genome. Eighty-six percent of the genetic variation or mutations that are expected to be harmful arose in European-Americans in the last five thousand years, said the researchers. The researchers used established bioinformatics techniques to calculate the age of more than a million changes in single base pairs (the A-T, C-G of the genetic code) that are part of the exome or protein-coding portion of the genomes (human genetic blueprint) of 6,515 people of both European-American and African-American decent.,,, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121128132259.htm Are brains shrinking to make us smarter? - February 2011 Excerpt: Human brains have shrunk over the past 30,000 years, http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-brains-smarter.html If Modern Humans Are So Smart, Why Are Our Brains Shrinking? - January 20, 2011 Excerpt: John Hawks is in the middle of explaining his research on human evolution when he drops a bombshell. Running down a list of changes that have occurred in our skeleton and skull since the Stone Age, the University of Wisconsin anthropologist nonchalantly adds, “And it’s also clear the brain has been shrinking.” “Shrinking?” I ask. “I thought it was getting larger.” The whole ascent-of-man thing.,,, He rattles off some dismaying numbers: Over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cc, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball. The female brain has shrunk by about the same proportion. “I’d call that major downsizing in an evolutionary eyeblink,” he says. “This happened in China, Europe, Africa—everywhere we look.” http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-why-brain-shrinking Scientists Discover Proof That Humanity Is Getting Dumber, Smaller And Weaker By Michael Snyder, on April 29th, 2014 Excerpt: An earlier study by Cambridge University found that mankind is shrinking in size significantly. Experts say humans are past their peak and that modern-day people are 10 percent smaller and shorter than their hunter-gatherer ancestors. And if that’s not depressing enough, our brains are also smaller. The findings reverse perceived wisdom that humans have grown taller and larger, a belief which has grown from data on more recent physical development. The decline, said scientists, has happened over the past 10,000 years. http://thetruthwins.com/archives/scientists-discover-proof-that-humanity-is-getting-dumber-smaller-and-weaker
bornagain77_{July 14, 2015
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As was mentioned previously, natural selection is found to be a elimitative force that either reduces, or at best maintains, genetic information, not a generativive force that produces new genetic information, and/or ‘amazing adaptations’, as Darwinists imagine. The following article argues for a reduction of genetic information due to specific adaptations:
No Positive Selection, No Darwin: A New Non-Darwinian Mechanism for the Origin of Adaptive Phenotypes - November 2011 Excerpt: Hughes now proposes a model he refers to as the plasticity-relaxation-mutation (PRM) model. PRM suggests that adaptive phenotypes arise as follows: (1) there exists a phenotypically plastic trait (i.e., one that changes with the environment, such as sweating in the summer heat); (2) the environment becomes constant, such that the trait assumes only one of its states for a lengthened period of time; and (3) during that time, deleterious mutations accumulate in the unused state of the trait, such that its genetic basis is subsequently lost. ,,, But if most adaptations result from the loss of genetic specifications, how did the traits initially arise? One letter (Chevin & Beckerman 2011) of response to Hughes noted that the PRM "does not explain why the ancestral state should be phenotypically plastic, or why this plasticity should be adaptive in the first place." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/11/no_positive_selection_no_darwi052941.html
Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, Senior Scientist (Biology), Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Emeritus, puts the situation like this:
A. L. Hughes's New Non-Darwinian Mechanism of Adaption Was Discovered and Published in Detail by an ID Geneticist 25 Years Ago - Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig - December 2011 Excerpt: The original species had a greater genetic potential to adapt to all possible environments. In the course of time this broad capacity for adaptation has been steadily reduced in the respective habitats by the accumulation of slightly deleterious alleles (as well as total losses of genetic functions redundant for a habitat), with the exception, of course, of that part which was necessary for coping with a species' particular environment....By mutative reduction of the genetic potential, modifications became "heritable". -- As strange as it may at first sound, however, this has nothing to do with the inheritance of acquired characteristics. For the characteristics were not acquired evolutionarily, but existed from the very beginning due to the greater adaptability. In many species only the genetic functions necessary for coping with the corresponding environment have been preserved from this adaptability potential. The "remainder" has been lost by mutations (accumulation of slightly disadvantageous alleles) -- in the formation of secondary species. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/12/a_l_hughess_new053881.html
But does the fossil record back up Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig's claim? Yes it does! The fossil record, contrary to popular belief, reveals a 'top down' pattern of disparity preceding diversity, rather than the 'bottom up' pattern of diversity preceding disparity as is imagined by Darwinists:
Cambrian Explosion Ruins Darwin's Tree of Life (2 minutes in 24 hour day) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQKxkUb_AAg
, as Dr. Wells points out in the preceding video, Darwin predicted that minor differences (diversity) between species would gradually appear first and then the differences would grow larger (disparity) between species as time went on. i.e. universal common descent as depicted in Darwin's tree of life. What Darwin predicted should be familiar to everyone and is easily represented in the following graph.,,,
The Theory - Diversity precedes Disparity - graph http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/JOURNEY/IMAGES/F.gif
But that 'tree pattern' that Darwin predicted is not what is found in the fossil record. The fossil record reveals that disparity (the greatest differences) precedes diversity (the smaller differences), which is the exact opposite pattern for what Darwin's theory predicted.
The Actual Fossil Evidence- Disparity precedes Diversity - graph http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/JOURNEY/IMAGES/G.gif Investigating Evolution: The Cambrian Explosion Part 1 – (4:45 minute mark - upside-down fossil record) video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DkbmuRhXRY Part 2 – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZFM48XIXnk Challenging Fossil of a Little Fish Excerpt: "In Chen’s view, his evidence supports a history of life that runs opposite to the standard evolutionary tree diagrams, a progression he calls top-down evolution." Jun-Yuan Chen is professor at the Nanjing Institute of Paleontology and Geology http://www.fredheeren.com/boston.htm Timeline graphic on Cambrian Explosion - 'Darwin's Doubt' (Disparity preceding Diversity) - infographic http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/07/its_darwins_dou074341.html
bornagain77_{July 14, 2015
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es58 @ 8, Your entire post was about the past. What role does natural selection play in that mechanism in the present? “It is a fantastic mechanism and, needless to say, natural selection plays no role in it.” Plays no role. Not "played no role in it's origin." Dr. Hunter deals with that question elsewhere in his article. In fact, that's the very next line in his OP: What about the origin of this mechanism? Does the paper “show that” this incredible active color control mechanism evolved? The paper describes the mechanism. In it's description of the mechanism, what role does the paper say natural selection plays in the mechanism? None? What role does the paper say natural selection played in the origin of the mechanism? Notice the difference? Dr. Hunter clearly treated the two separately.Mung_{July 14, 2015
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Zachriel:
He couldn’t directly observe evolution by natural selection, but inferred it from the evidence for common descent.
A family tree is an example of common descent. There isn't any evidence for any other type of common descent.Virgil Cain_{July 14, 2015
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As to this blatantly false claim:
“natural selection can produce amazing adaptations.”
Even William Provine himself, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University, admits that Natural Selection is not a ‘cause’ that produces anything,,
"Natural selection does not act on anything, nor does it select (for or against), force, maximize, create, modify, shape, operate, drive, favor, maintain, push, or adjust. Natural selection does nothing…. Having natural selection select is nifty because it excuses the necessity of talking about the actual causation of natural selection. Such talk was excusable for Charles Darwin, but inexcusable for evolutionists now. Creationists have discovered our empty “natural selection” language, and the “actions” of natural selection make huge, vulnerable targets." The Origin of Theoretical Population Genetics, 2001 (pp. 199-200) William Provine - Professor of Evolutionary Biology - Cornell University
In other words, to postulate natural selection as the creative force for an after the fact observation of an effect is to illegitimately switch the whole cause and effect relationship in science. Natural Selection, as it is used by Darwinists, gives the illusion that nature is actively selecting 'for' something. Moreover, natural selection, as Prof. Provine pointed out, tells us next to nothing as to the actual cause for how the change in a populations actually occurred. The late Philip S. Skell, former emeritus Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University, states that natural selection, as it is used in Darwinian story telling, does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology.
Why Do We Invoke Darwin? – Evolutionary theory contributes little to experimental biology – Philip S. Skell -The Scientist – August 29, 2005 Excerpt: I found that Darwin’s theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss.,,, Darwinian explanations for such things are often too supple: Natural selection makes humans self-centered and aggressive – except when it makes them altruistic and peaceable. Or natural selection produces virile men who eagerly spread their seed – except when it prefers men who are faithful protectors and providers. When an explanation is so supple that it can explain any behavior, it is difficult to test it experimentally, much less use it as a catalyst for scientific discovery. Darwinian evolution – whatever its other virtues – does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology. per Discovery
To the extent Natural Selection can be said to 'do' anything, as has been mentioned previously in this thread, natural selection is found to be a elimitative force that either reduces, or at best maintains, genetic information, not a generativive force that produces new genetic information, and/or 'amazing adaptations', as Darwinists imagine:
"...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 - EXPELLED - Natural Selection And Genetic Mutations - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z5-15wk1Zk From a Frog to a Prince - video (17:00 minute mark Natural Selection Reduces Genetic Information) - No Beneficial Mutations - Gitt - Spetner - Denton - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClleN8ysimg&feature=player_detailpage#t=1031 "A Dutch zoologist, J.J. Duyvene de Wit, clearly demonstrated that the process of speciation (such as the appearance of many varieties of dogs and cats) is inevitably bound up with genetic depletion as a result of natural selection. When this scientifically established fact is applied to the question of whether man could have evolved from ape-like animals,'.. the transformist concept of progressive evolution is pierced in its very vitals.' The reason for this, J.J. Duyvene de Wit went on to explain, is that the whole process of evolution from animal to man " ' . . would have to run against the gradient of genetic depletion. That is to say, . . man )should possess] a smaller gene-potential than his animal ancestors! [I] Here, the impressive absurdity becomes clear in which the transformist doctrine [the theory of evolution] entangles itself when, in flat contradiction to the factual scientific evidence, it dogmatically asserts that man has evolved from the animal kingdom!" —Op. cit., pp. 129-130. [Italics his; quotations from *J.J. Duyvene de Wit, A New Critique of the Transformist Principle in Evolutionary Biology (1965), p. 56,57.] http://www.godrules.net/evolutioncruncher/2evlch15.htm video - Dr. Paul Giem - In the book "Biological Information: New Perspectives" the chapter entitled "Computational Evolution Experiments Reveal a Net Loss of Genetic Information Despite Selection" looks at two computer programs (Mendel's Accountant and Avida) and notes that with similar input they give similar output and they require "un-biological" settings in order for evolution to work. Biological Information - Mendel's Accountant and Avida 1-31-2015 by Paul Giem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGd0pznOh0A&list=PLHDSWJBW3DNUUhiC9VwPnhl-ymuObyTWJ&index=14
As well, Natural Selection is grossly inadequate to do the work required of it because of what is termed ‘the princess and the pea’ paradox. The devastating ‘princess and the pea’ paradox is clearly elucidated by Dr. John Sanford, at the 8:14 minute mark, of this following video,,,
Genetic Entropy – Dr. John Sanford – Evolution vs. Reality – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY98io7JH-c
Dr. Sanford points out, in the preceding video, that Natural Selection acts at the coarse level of the entire organism (phenotype) and yet the vast majority of mutations have effects that are only ‘slightly detrimental’, and have no noticeable effect on phenotypes, and are thus far below the power of Natural Selection to remove from genomes before they spread throughout the population. Here is a peer-reviewed paper by Dr. Sanford on the subject:
“Selection Threshold Severely Constrains Capture of Beneficial Mutations” - John Sanford - September 6, 2013 Excerpt of concluding comments: Our findings raise a very interesting theoretical problem — in a large genome, how do the millions of low-impact (yet functional) nucleotides arise? It is universally agreed that selection works very well for high-impact mutations. However, unless some new and as yet undiscovered process is operating in nature, there should be selection breakdown for the great majority of mutations that have small impact on fitness.,,, We show that selection breakdown is not just a simple function of population size, but is seriously impacted by other factors, especially selection interference. We are convinced that our formulation and methodology (i.e., genetic accounting) provide the most biologically-realistic analysis of selection breakdown to date. http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789814508728_0011
Moreover, as if the princess and the pea paradox were not devastating enough as to undermining any credibility Natural Selection might have had as to having the causal adequacy to explain the highly integrated levels of overlapping functional information found in life, dimensionally speaking, Natural Selection is now known to not even be on the right playing field in the first place:
Post-Darwinist - Denyse O'Leary - Dec. 2010 Excerpt: They quote West et al. (1999), “Although living things occupy a three-dimensional space, their internal physiology and anatomy operate as if they were four-dimensional. Quarter-power scaling laws are perhaps as universal and as uniquely biological as the biochemical pathways of metabolism, the structure and function of the genetic code and the process of natural selection." They comment, "In the words of these authors, natural selection has exploited variations on this fractal theme to produce the incredible variety of biological form and function', but there were severe geometric and physical constraints on metabolic processes." "The conclusion here is inescapable, that the driving force for these invariant scaling laws cannot have been natural selection. It's inconceivable that so many different organisms, spanning different kingdoms and phyla, may have blindly 'tried' all sorts of power laws and that only those that have by chance 'discovered' the one-quarter power law reproduced and thrived." Quotations from Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, What Darwin Got Wrong (London: Profile Books, 2010), p. 78-79. The predominance of quarter-power (4-D) scaling in biology Excerpt: Many fundamental characteristics of organisms scale with body size as power laws of the form: Y = Yo M^b, where Y is some characteristic such as metabolic rate, stride length or life span, Yo is a normalization constant, M is body mass and b is the allometric scaling exponent. A longstanding puzzle in biology is why the exponent b is usually some simple multiple of 1/4 (4-Dimensional scaling) rather than a multiple of 1/3, as would be expected from Euclidean (3-Dimensional) scaling. http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~drewa/pubs/savage_v_2004_f18_257.pdf
Here is, what a Darwinist termed, a ‘horrendously complex’ metabolic pathway (which operates as if it were ’4-Dimensional):
ExPASy - Biochemical Pathways - interactive schematic http://biochemical-pathways.com/#/map/1
The reason why a ‘higher dimensional’ 4-Dimensional structure, such as a ‘horrendously complex’ metabolic pathway, would be, for all intents and purposes, completely invisible to any 3-Dimensional process, such as Natural Selection hypothetically is, is best illustrated by ‘flatland’:
Flatland – 3D to 4D shift – Dr. Quantum – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWyTxCsIXE4
bornagain77_{July 14, 2015
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lifepsy: Of course that must mean that fish turned into people via the same processes. Actually, microevolution was a prediction by Darwin. He couldn't directly observe evolution by natural selection, but inferred it from the evidence for common descent.Zachriel_{July 14, 2015
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Not surprisingly, the only example that Berkeley can offer of the powers of "natural selection" are cyclical variation of pigmentation. Of course that must mean that fish turned into people via the same processes.lifepsy_{July 14, 2015
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