Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Darwinism predicts “X.” Oh, you tell me the opposite of “X” happened? Well Darwinism predicted that too.

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Marx (Karl, not Groucho) predicted that under capitalism workers were bound to become more and more dissatisfied and therefore a workers’ revolution was inevitable.  When workers’ conditions actually improved under capitalism, Lenin modified the theory — of course the workers’ lot is improving; the capitalists are bribing them to keep them pacified, just what the theory predicted would happen.

In Edge, Behe talks about Ernst Mayr’s 1960’s prediction that on Darwinian grounds the search for homologous genes would be quite futile.  Now Darwinists use homologous genes as evidence for the theory; after all the existence of such genes was predicted by the theory (after the fact).

What can you say about a theory that can just as easily predict “X” and the opposite of “X”?

I commend to our readers sections 19 and 20 of Popper’s Logic of Scientific Discovery, in which he discusses “conventionalist stratagems” to rescue a theory from falsification.  Popper writes, “Whenever the ‘classical’ system of the day is threatened by the results of new experiments which might be interpreted as falsifications . . . the system will appear unshaken to the conventionalist.”  Popper goes on to explain the stratagems the conventionalist will use to deal with the inconsistencies that have arisen between the predictions of the theory and the results of experiments:

1.  Blame our inadequate mastery of the system.

2.  Suggest the ad hoc adoption of auxiliary hypotheses.

3.  Suggest corrections to measuring instruments.

4.  Modify definitions used in the theory.

5.  Adopt a skeptical attitude of the observer whose observations threaten the system by excluding his observations from science because (a) they are insufficiently supported; (b) they are unscientific; (c) they are not objective.

6.  Call the experimenter a liar.

Today’s class assignment:  How many of Popper’s “conventionalist stratagems” have been used against Behe’s Edge.  Extra credit for concrete examples.

Comments
Bornagain77 Sorry to have injected a separate dog example (Labradors versus wolves) into another thread, without citing all the references you provide here. Nice work.Anton
December 2, 2007
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Digdug, Here is a Paper that has confirmation of dogs and gray wolves staying within principle of Genetic Entropy. http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/90/1/71.pdf of special note: Some sequences found in dogs were identical to those in wolves… The sequence divergence within dogs was surprisingly large: the mean sequence divergence in dogs 2.06 + or - 0.07% was almost identical to the 2.10 + or - 0.04% (sequence divergence) found within wolves. (notice that sequence divergence is slightly smaller for the population of dogs than for the population of wolves) Coupled with the diverse morphology of domesticated dogs and known hazards of dog breeding, this evidence strongly indicates “front loaded adaptations” at a loss of information from parent species. Thus, this is genetic confirmation of the principle of Genetic Entropy for dogs from wolves! Of special note for the Mexican hairless dog (chihuahas); many founder halotypes were likely lost because of "genetic drift" The gene that determines hairlessness is nt but lethal when homozygous. Thus clearly the "mutation" that causes hairlessness is not a gain in information. This following paper is more recent and more concrete in establishing the principle of Genetic Entropy for dogs/wolves: Origin of dogs traced http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2498669.stm of special note: Their findings, reported in the journal Science, point to the existence of probably three founding females - the so-called "Eves" of the dog world. They conclude that intensive breeding by humans over the last 500 years - not different genetic origins - is responsible for the dramatic differences in appearance among modern dogs. and the paper itself: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/298/5598/1610?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=%28Peter+AND+Savolainen+AND+science+AND+old+AND+world+AND+dogs%29&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT Genetic Evidence for an East Asian Origin of Domestic Dogs Peter Savolainen,1* Ya-ping Zhang,2 Jing Luo,2dagger Joakim Lundeberg,1 Thomas Leitner3 The origin of the domestic dog from wolves has been established, but the number of founding events, as well as where and when these occurred, is not known. To address these questions, we examined the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence variation among 654 domestic dogs representing all major dog populations worldwide. Although our data indicate several maternal origins from wolf, >95% of all sequences belonged to three phylogenetic groups universally represented at similar frequencies, suggesting a common origin from a single gene pool for all dog populations. A larger genetic variation in East Asia than in other regions and the pattern of phylogeographic variation suggest an East Asian origin for the domestic dog, ~15,000 years ago. Digdug, How did they trace the lineages? They traced it by the loss of genetic variation (the loss of "front loaded" information. Digdug, Is that enough hard proof for you buddy? It definitely questions evolution for me because there is no new novel information that I can see, only a culling of preexisting information. And in case of the Mexican Hairless, the proof of a % " mutation that turns out to be somewhat beneficial for the hot climate its in. These studies or all fine and well with the ID/Genetic Entropy mo^del and do not help establish the case for evolution at all. And to think Dawkin's used dog breeding as "proof" of evolution. If Dawkin's has to resort to this "dog breeding" evidence for scientific proof of evolution he is clearly deluding himself for the molecular studies point to Genetic Entropy.bornagain77
December 2, 2007
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Born^Again I never claimed that chihuahas were 'proof' of evolution. I did claim that they make hash out of this gen^etic entropy nonsense which does not stand up to first principle logical inspection either. Now, with regards to this evidence, do you have some citations? Particularly I am interested in what genetic 'information' was originally present in the wolf and how the heck anyone knows that. Or are they looking at wolves alive today? Do you believe that all members of a species have the same traits? If not what sense does it make to talk about the genetic 'information' that was originally present in 'the wolf'? Which wolf? surely you mean an individual wolf? sounds like it. have you attempted to mate a chihuaha with a fox or a wolf? sounds like you need some experiments to test your ideas before you assert them. I'm interested and perhaps you are 100% cor^rect but in order to convince the scientific com^munity you will need to get past wikipedia handwaving and idle speculation.digdug24
December 2, 2007
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digdug, You really have no clue how hopeless the evolutionary position is do you? You say the Chihuahua is "proof" of evolution. Well we disagree, so we go get the genetic evidence that is now available. What does the evidence say? It say the Chihuahua, as well as all other sub-species of wolves have a narrow subset of the information that was originally present in the wolf. This is just what the Genetic Entropy mo^del predicts. Much like a sculptor removing the parts of marble that are not parts of what he finally wants to sculpt, so is the parent species genome compared to the sub-species, and since mutational studies overwhelming confirm no new information/marble is being created, this analogy is very fitting to what is happening in the genome upon sub-speciation events. It is the "culling" of information in the genome of the wolf to the Chihuahua that crushing to evolutionary thought, for evolution must prove the origination of information/marble in the first place, whereas Genetic Entropy, which traces its assertions to foundational principles of science, expects this culling to occur 100% of the time. Truly, digdug this is a simple mod^el (the front loaded ID/Genetic Entropy mo^del). The mo^del is extremely robust to all lines of evidence coming in, whereas your evolution mo^del is "surprised" over and over again by the evidence. Where is your skepticism of evolution itself? Or do you unfairly hold ID accountable to high levels of skepticism while never questioning the claims of evolution? As far as true science is concerned both theories are suspect until a high level of proof is met, Yet you treat evolution as if it has already randomly transmutated a bacteria into a different type of bacteria, when it has done no such thing. Shoot digdug, it is commonly known that all mutations to bacteria are harmful in some way. The so called super-germs in hospitals are really super-wimpy germs, and are quickly out-competed in the real world by the "parent" bacteria when they are forced to compete with the "parent" bacteria.bornagain77
December 2, 2007
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jerry, Wikipedia is a good source for say details of Futurama episodes but i wouldn't base my research programme on it. I am highly skeptical that anyone has TRIED to mate a chihuaha and a wolf, so this sounds like a promising line of ID research. But what you are saying implies that chihuahas are a subset of wolves. where are the wolves that look like chihuahas? if what you say is true regarding 'information being in there somewhere and intelligence pulls it out' then according to mendelian principles there should be occasional chihuahas born to wolves. i have never heard of this, but i will see of wikipedia has anything to say about it. B^A, you have a prediction for your adaptation = loss of genetic 'information'. You should see if you can test it! I imagine that there are probably lots of ID labs that would love to have a new student. This is exactly the sort of thing that can get ID on the map. I suppose you will have to learn some molecular techniques, but someone else may have already done all the work. I think you may have to come up with a good working definition of 'information' as it pertains to this problem, and i don't think anyone has done that either so that would be a great first stroke. On the other hand, it should be easy enough to avoid that issue by ignoring it. I am not sure what is the best route, are you? This is exciting. Where do you think you might go to test this idea? Is Behe taking new students?digdug24
December 2, 2007
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digdug, Can you read? The reference comes from Wikipedia. Go there and nit pick and tell them where they are wrong. Apparently a Chihuahua and a wolf can breed and if you want to call it a hybrid, go ahead. One of the definitions of a species is the ability to breed. So according to this definition the wolf and Chihuahua are kissing cousins. Roof, roof! This discussion is going no where. You are not trying to understand anything. Adios.jerry
December 1, 2007
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DigDug you stated recombination is another way to derive new characters and function. See the introgression of European genotypes into N American genotypes of the reed Phragmites, followed by adaptive radiation into new habitats. this can’t be a function of ‘already existing genetic material’ because we are talking about distinct lineages coming back into contact, not a single population. If two separate lineages of the same parent species, have not been reproductively isolated and are still able to reproduce, the information that was lost in partial sub-speciation is gained in the offspring, yet still does not add up to more information than the original information content of the parent species, Thus genetic entropy is violated how by this example? Shoot, digdug this is common practice in domestic animal breeding programs to prevent problems with inbreeding. Yet your problem with evolution still remains for you must demonstrate how "new" "meaningful" information is generated in the first place. You are just playing games with the evidence. Dr. Behe has clearly pointed out,in Edge of Evolution", this has not been accomplished by a long shot.bornagain77
December 1, 2007
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getawitness: I thought we weren't going to debate about information any more, since you gave me such a hard time and don't believe that quantum non-locality clearly proves 'pure" information's transcendence of mass and energy. Oh well, though I should know better than to get into this with you: getawitness you stated: the total amount of Shannon information in the genome can increase naturally: To which I note many commenter's have derided Shannon's definition of Information: Karl Steinbeck, a German information scientist: "The classical theory of information (Shannon Information) can be compared to the statement that one kilogram of gold has the same value as one kilogram of sand". Warren Weaver, an American information scientist: "Two messages, one of which is heavily loaded with meaning and the other which is pure nonsense, can be exactly equivalent ... as regards (Shannon) information." Ernst von Weizacker "The reason for the 'uselessness' of Shannon's theory in the different sciences is frankly that no science can limit itself to its syntactic level." Jean Cocteau: "The greatest literary work of art is basically nothing but a scrambled alphabet (according to Shannon's Theory)." Now as for specific formula for CSI I cannot do that right now, (I believe Dr. Dembski covers the boundaries of for CS! in his book "No Free Lunch" (NFL): http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_nfl_intro.htm of special note from NFL: Chapter 5: The Emergence of Irreducibly Complex Systems. One of the objections against intelligent design becoming a viable scientific research program is that one cannot calculate the probabilities needed to confirm specified complexity for actual systems in nature. This chapter shows that even though precise calculations may not always be possible, setting bounds for the relevant probabilities is possible, and that this is adequate for establishing specified complexity in practice. Though I don't have a copy of the book, I can give you the (very) rough way I would figure out if a Irreducibly Complex (IC) system was exhibiting a tangible amount of CSI in biology. 1. I would find total number of different proteins in a IC system. 2. I would find the probability for each specific protein occurring by pure chance in the universe. (I would adjust for the fact that other proteins of different sequences may perform same function (note:this specific step is what gives the definition of CSI its specificity to actual information content ) 3. I would add each probability up for each protein in the IC system. If the probability for all proteins in the IC system exceeded the probabilistic resources of the universe (10^150), then in my rough measure I would declare the system does indeed contain complex specified information. Since this ignores the related but required information in the many other systems that interelate with the IC system it is clearly incomplete in its definition and far short of the true CSI present. As for overcoming this, CSI hurdle, for already existent proteins generating further CSI, that is somewhat what Dr. Behe addressed in his book "Edge of Evolution", on the empirical level, when he went down to the protein level of micro-organisms and searched for IC being generated in the micro-organisms. And what did He find? For malaria,,NOTHING! for HIV,,, very little! Despite tremendous mutational firepower HIV demonstrated a trivial complexity being generated, for what Dr. Behe termed a simple "passive leaky pore or weak channel" ring structure. http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/A3DGRQ0IO7KYQ2 " although there apparently are five or so copies of Vpu in the viroporin complex, that does not mean that five binding sites developed. Only one new binding site need develop for one area of a protein which binds to a different area of the same protein, to form a homogeneous complex with, say, C5 symmetry. That is all that is required for a circularly symmetric structure to form. Second, the viroporin is not some new molecular machine. There is no evidence that it exerts its effect in, say, an ATP- or energy-dependent manner. Rather, similar to other viroporins, the protein simply forms a passive leaky pore or weak channel. (4,5) This situation is probably best viewed as a foreign protein degrading the integrity of a membrane, rather than performing some positive function." Dr.Behe I haven't even really tried to figure the math behind the "existent" protein that accomplished the "passive leaky pore" ring structure in HIV but my guess is that it will fall well within the expected probability for the resources and time at its disposal in this universe. But this is all kind of Non sequitur for Darwinism anyway, since common sense would dictate we should be seeing a whole lot more than a "passive leaky pore" being generated with something experiencing far more mutational events than have happened since for all life since reptiles and mammals have been presumed to split. But if you really want to figure a hard number for CSI of a IC system (I think the whole cell will be found to be IC by the way), it shouldn't be that hard to figure out using a refinement of the method I described above. note to Digdug: So one ciclid has a mouth on the right side and one on the left, but both are more closely related to the "parent" stock than to each other. And this disproves genetic entropy how? I set DNA sequence diversity is less for the left and right mouth chiclids than it is for the "parent stock too" In fact the more specialized a cichlid becomes, the less the sequence divergence will be for the cichlid species, as well the greater will be the problems for inbreeding. Again how does this disprove Genetic Entropy?bornagain77
December 1, 2007
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Jerry, so you are picking argument by assertion I see. "Descends from" does not mean "is a subset of". Are you arguing that the aboriginal wolf population contained some chihuahas? it seems that your gen^etic entropy mo^del has some ontological issues with the reality of hybrids. have you ever considered this?digdug24
December 1, 2007
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digdug, From wikipedia dog "Molecular systematics indicate that the domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) descends from one or more populations of wild wolves (Canis lupus). As reflected in the nomenclature, dogs are descended from the wolf and are able to interbreed with wolves." Let's mate the Chihuahua and a wolf and see what we get. Maybe best in show? So it is possible that all the cichlids were descended from an original cichlid population and what we are seeing is the variation in the original population pool playing itself out over time. I am sure there are some mutation events that have added something but cichlids are still cichlids. Again the definitive analysis is in the future when mapping genomes gets cheap and quick and comparison of different varieties are easily done.jerry
December 1, 2007
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jerry, re #99 your evidence for this? or just speculation? re 98 The right and left mouthed cichlids are different species. They are more closely related to other species (that do not have the weird mouth adaptation) than they are to each other. What is a 'normal' cichlid? I don't think that is a very useful heuristic for describing living things. They vary, and it matters, sometimes. Now, the other part of your post is indeed interesting (the biogeography). Why do some lineages tend to speciate more than others? This is the core of the work of Stephen Jay Gould and others. How does "Gen^etic Entr^opy" account for this? Deny the reality of speciation? I am not familiar with this stuff since it has never made it into the scientific peer-reviewed literature so perhaps there is a webpage? Linky?digdug24
December 1, 2007
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digdug, you said "Not just an ‘allele’, and according to what you propose the primal population must have had every single sort of variation extant. Needless to say this is inconsistent with the fossil records (if it was, the fossil record would not have distinctly diagnosable taxa, but would be a mishmash of characters)." Not so. All the forms of current dog breeds were present in the wolf. You would never have guessed that a Chihuahua and Great Dane are variants of wolves.jerry
December 1, 2007
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digdug, I mentioned regulatory parts of the genome and used alleles as a short hand to cover possible sources of variation. Has there been published research on how the right and left sided mouth are caused? Can they interbreed with normal cichlids? Are they the result of one or two differences between normal cichlids or are they the result of much more extensive changes? Now, I said I know very little about cichlids and have just read a little more and it seems confusing. There are thousands of species of cichlids all around the world and one article called them the fastest evolving species in the world. How did these species get all around the world? How are there numerous species of cichlids in Africa and South America which separated 200 million years ago. Now these are fresh water fish but maybe they were salt water at one time and became freshwater after they invaded each continent. One site had a fanciful site of the ice age lowering the ocean levels and this let cichlids island hop across the Atlantic. All in all the cichlids are still cichlids and while they have lots of color, shapes, eating habits, breeding habits they are all still cichlids. My guess is that all the explanation for the vast number of species will have to wait till we see how varied are the genomes of all these species in terms of alleles and regulatory areas and how much within variation there exists in each population. This will probably take considerably time.jerry
December 1, 2007
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BA77, I asked this in the "from the files" thread, but I'll ask it here too: how can we estimate the amount of CSI? If CSI cannot be "added" to a system via natural laws, there must be some way of calculating the amount of CSI in a system. As I pointed out in that other thread, the total amount of Shannon information in the genome can increase naturally. But Shannon infomration can be calculated and compared. Can you give me a formula for getting to a quantitative measure of CSI? My earlier comment was here: https://uncommondescent.com/the-design-of-life/from-the-files-why-intelligent-design-is-going-to-win-revisited/#comment-152648getawitness
December 1, 2007
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Digdug, here is one of Dr. Dembski's papers on CSI http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_idtheory.htm of special note: Intelligent Design as a Theory of Information Information can be specified. Information can be complex. Information can be both complex and specified. Information that is both complex and specified I call "complex specified information," or CSI for short. CSI is what all the fuss over information has been about in recent years, not just in biology, but in science generally. It is CSI that for Manfred Eigen constitutes the great mystery of biology, and one he hopes eventually to unravel in terms of algorithms and natural laws. It is CSI that for cosmologists underlies the fine-tuning of the universe, and which the various anthropic principles attempt to understand (cf. Barrow and Tipler, 1986). It is CSI that David Bohm's quantum potentials are extracting when they scour the microworld for what Bohm calls "active information" (cf. Bohm, 1993, pp. 35-38). It is CSI that enables Maxwell's demon to outsmart a thermodynamic system tending towards thermal equilibrium (cf. Landauer, 1991, p. 26). It is CSI on which David Chalmers hopes to base a comprehensive theory of human consciousness (cf. Chalmers, 1996, ch. 8). It is CSI that within the Kolmogorov-Chaitin theory of algorithmic information takes the form of highly compressible, non-random strings of digits (cf. Kolmogorov, 1965; Chaitin, 1966). William A. Dembski Law of conservation of information "This strong proscriptive claim, that natural causes can only transmit CSI but never originate it, I call the Law of Conservation of Information. Immediate corollaries of the proposed law are the following: 1. The specified complexity in a closed system of natural causes remains constant or decreases. 2. The specified complexity cannot be generated spontaneously, originate endogenously or organize itself (as these terms are used in origins-of-life research). 3. The specified complexity in a closed system of natural causes either has been in the system eternally or was at some point added exogenously (implying that the system, though now closed, was not always closed). 4. In particular any closed system of natural causes that is also of finite duration received whatever specified complexity it contains before it became a closed system." Universal probability bound (for information generation by natural means) Dembski's original value for the universal probability bound is 1 in 10^150, derived as the inverse of the product of the following approximate quantities:[14] * 10^80, the number of elementary particles in the observable universe. * 10^45, the maximum rate per second at which transitions in physical states can occur (i.e., the inverse of the Planck time). * 10^25, a billion times longer than the typical estimated age of the universe in seconds. Thus, 10^150 = 10^80 × 10^45 × 10^25. Hence, this value corresponds to an upper limit on the number of physical events that could possibly have occurred since the big bang. Dembski has recently (as of 2005) refined his definition to be the inverse of the product of two different quantities:[15] * An upper bound on the computational resources of the universe in its entire history. This is estimated by Seth Lloyd as 10^120 elementary logic operations on a register of 10^90 bits[16][17] * The (variable) rank complexity of the event under consideration.[18] If the latter quantity equals 10^150, then the overall universal probability bound corresponds to the original value. Digdug, To further clarify what you need to do, to prove evolution true scientifically, You need to produce evidence that a biological molecular Irreducibly Complex (IC) system, which exhibits CSI (over 10^150) being generated naturally. There are 1000's of such IC systems in each cell. The only "novel' complexity to be demonstrated scientifically, fell far short of this limit (it was the generation of a simple ring structure for HIV, a virus that isn't even alive) The malaria parasite (which is alive and within the law of conservation of information for a closed system) generated zero complex information (zero protein/protein binding sites) though having 10^20 replication/mutation events! (far more replication/mutation events than since the mammals split from reptiles) Digdug, Where is the evidence for evolution?bornagain77
December 1, 2007
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Born^Again, I have never seen a coherent definition of CSI. Please elaborate. Jerry, right and left sided mouths are not just 'alleles' but entire mechanical adaptations. The entire jaw morphology is changed. This includes skeleto-muscular systems. These fishes prey on the scales of other fishes, the position of the mouth is an adaptation to this mode of feeding. Not just an 'allele', and according to what you propose the primal population must have had every single sort of variation extant. Needless to say this is inconsistent with the fossil records (if it was, the fossil record would not have distinctly diagnosable taxa, but would be a mishmash of characters). recombination is another way to derive new characters and function. See the introgression of European genotypes into N American genotypes of the reed Phragmites, followed by adaptive radiation into new habitats. this can't be a function of 'already existing genetic material' because we are talking about distinct lineages coming back into contact, not a single population. B^A not an argument from authority, just an observation that your predictions of imminent demise are over^stated.digdug24
December 1, 2007
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Your objection is a argument from authority and carries no merit as far as true science is concerned, you must produce evidence,,I showed you the anomalies in the cichlid's studies and you ignored that. What do you think? You think this is not a consistent finding I am telling you about? The tentative mo^del I outlined is robust and falsifiable by the evidence. Your mo^del is a sad joke that explains nothing since it seems to explain anything! So what if all those scientists agree! I will stay true to science and follow the evidence., Alchemy had many "experts" deceived for many years, Even Newton believed in the lie! Thus experts are fallible. That is why evidence has priority. you stated: That is a rather large gap to fill. What do you propose? How about the truth filling in the gap, digdug? How about the truth? Denying the truth is not in our best interest scientifically speaking. Who knows what breakthroughs await once the proper refined mo^del is developed for the nature of "information" in its interactions with energy and mass. "Information is inevitably physical," Dr. Rolf W. Landauer (1927-1999) digdug, please produce evidence of CSI (Complex Specified Information) being generated or else admit your theory has no foundation.bornagain77
December 1, 2007
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digdug, I think you have it backwards. The half of neo Darwinism that does the selection and includes genetics does not produce any new variation at all. It only selects from what is available and can not produce anything new. This does not mean that a population will not change becasue genetic principles cause populations to change all the time. The best definition of evolution is the neo Darwinism definition of evolution which is a change in the allele frequency in a population from one generation to another. This presupposes the alleles are already there and over time the frequency of many alleles will change for whatever reasons and thus evolution will occur. Genetic drift tends to fix certain alleles and thus eliminates others from the gene pool. Over vast amounts of time the number of alleles that are eliminated grows and gene pool gets narrower and narrower unless some variation is introduced. Variation is introduced into a population by some form of event, one of which is mutations. However, there is no evidence that mutations or any other natural events have been able to produce the variation seen in a population or has led to novel functions in a genome. So the question is how did this variation arise in the first place since it seems to go against the natural processes that tend to eliminate variation from a gene pool. I know nothing about cichlids but suppose the alleles or regulatory structure to produce right and left sided mouths were already part of the population genomes but recessive and fairly rare then occasionally you would get one or the other. If a situation arose where this was an advantage then the frequency of this allele would increase. This is basic genetics. Suppose at one time thise allele or regulatory structure did not exist and a mutation occurred that caused this defect. It would be a rare occurrence but suppose the timing was just right for this organism to survive then the new allele would be introduced into the population. This is what supposedly explains the origin of variation but when biologist look at the supposedly new variation most of the time they find degeneration of a genome and not construction of new capabilities. As I said for the cichlids, this will require research as to just what produced the changes.jerry
December 1, 2007
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Born^Again I am sure that the news of the demise of population genetics will sure shake up the scientific establishment. I just searched the web of science for articles about population genetics published in 2007 alone: 1391 articles. There will be lots of folks upset to hear this!!! That is a rather large gap to fill. What do you propose?digdug24
December 1, 2007
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digdug, Sorry digdug, I think all that population genetics stuff is on its way out. The human genome, according to Bill Gates the founder of Microsoft, far, far surpasses in complexity any computer program ever written by man. The data compression (multiple meanings) of some stretches of human DNA is estimated to be up to 12 codes thick (Trifonov, 1989)! No line of computer code ever written by man approaches that level of data compression (poly-functional complexity). Further evidence for the inherent complexity of the DNA is found in a another study. In June 2007, a international team of scientists, named ENCODE, published a study that indicates the genome contains very little unused sequences and, in fact, is a complex, interwoven network. This “complex interwoven network” throughout the entire DNA code makes the human genome severely poly-constrained to random mutations (Sanford; Genetic Entropy, 2005; page 141). This means the DNA code is now much more severely limited in its chance of ever having a hypothetical beneficial mutation since almost the entire DNA code is now proven to be intimately connected to many other parts of the DNA code. Thus even though a random mutation to DNA may be able to change one part of an organism for the better, it is now proven much more likely to harm many other parts of the organism that depend on that one particular part being as it originally was. Since evolution was forced, by the established proof of Mendelian genetics, to no longer view the whole organism as to what natural selection works upon, but to view the whole organism as a multiple independent collection of genes that can be selected or discarded as natural selection sees fit, this “complex interwoven network” finding is extremely bad news, if not absolutely crushing, for the population genetics scenario of evolution developed by Haldane, Fisher and Wright (page 52 and 53: Genetic Entropy: Sanford 2005)! http://www.genome.gov/25521554 New Findings Challenge Established Views on Human Genome BETHESDA, Md., Wed., June 13, 2007 - An international research consortium today published a set of papers that promise to reshape our understanding of how the human genome functions. The findings challenge the traditional view of our genetic blueprint as a tidy collection of independent genes, pointing instead to a complex network in which genes, along with regulatory elements and other types of DNA sequences that do not code for proteins, interact in overlapping ways not yet fully understood. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2007/09/24/dna_unraveled/?page=1 DNA unraveled: A 'scientific revolution' is taking place The science of life is undergoing changes so jolting that even its top researchers are feeling something akin to shell-shock. Just four years after scientists finished mapping the human genome - the full sequence of 3 billion DNA "letters" folded within every cell - they find themselves confronted by a biological jungle deeper, denser, and more difficult to penetrate than anyone imagined. "Science is just starting to probe the wilderness between genes," said John M. Greally, molecular biologist at New York's Albert Einstein School of Medicine. "Already we're surprised and confounded by a lot of what we're seeing." A slew of recent but unrelated studies of everything from human disease to the workings of yeast suggest that mysterious swaths of molecules - long dismissed as "junk DNA" - may be more important to health and evolution than genes themselves. So digdug, I don't think your archaic views of population genetics are revelent to the whole issue anymore. But hey, If you want to insist that the genome is a tidy pool of genes that can be selected or discarded as NS sees fit go ahead and believe it, Just don't clam that it has in basis in the scientific method, because science says the genome is NOT a tidy pool of genes that can be selected or discarded as evolution sees fit. Science says in fact the opposite, The genome is a complex interwoven network with complexity stacked on top of complexity stacked on top of complexity. As stated before this makes the Genome poly-functional and therefore poly-constrained to any "independent" genes being inserted or deleted. Future work by ENCODE that established virtual 100% poly-functionality of the Genome should be the de^ath blow for Darwinism. But then again from the available evidence I've seen Darwinism should of di^ed long ago.bornagain77
December 1, 2007
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Jerry as far as I can tell the question of where does variation in a population come from is satisfactorily answered by population genetics. I think the problem you are referring to is instead unraveling genetic variation as it pertains to phenotypes. Cichlids with right and left sided mouths are much more closely related to other cichlids than they are to each other. This is very curious. I don't see how genetic drift will lead to loss of function if there is selection at work. Of course function as here defined is sufficiently vague enough to mean anything.digdug24
December 1, 2007
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digdug, I like laymen's terms so I will try to use a lay language as much as possible to explain what I think is happening. The concept of information is from what I understand one used in many different ways. I am certainly not an expert in information theory but everyone uses the term. I have seen it used in lots of different connotations. When you go outside next, look for a rock outcropping. This is certainly the result of natural forces playing out over the millennia. If you wanted to completely describe the rock outcropping it would take an incredibly amount of information to specify every molecule precisely. Now no one would want to do this but the outcropping is a complex object that requires a large amount of information for complete specification. None of the information in the outcropping serves any purpose except possibly for some geologist trying to understand rock composition and formation. Now take a genome of an organism and this too contains a large amount of information and is complex. Now until recently some thought that most of the information was useless and it was referred to as junk DNA. Whether it is junk or not it still contains the same amount of information. However, most of the information in this entity describes functions outside of itself, unlike the outcropping. Over time the genome can increase/decrease/remain the same in terms of information and more than likely the complexity will be fairly similar. Now each organism within a population of a species such as cichlids is slightly different so that one could possibly describe the total potential functions of the population that could arise by breeding individual offspring. Some of these potential functions may not be apparent within the current population because they are latent or recessive. Now it is possible through some sort of mutation that there will be changes in the total number of functions and when the population is exposed to a different environment some of these functions will emerge. These changes in information can cause the functions that are specified by the genome to change. Some of these changes can actually help the organism to adapt to a new situation. All this is basic genetics. But are these mutations additions or subtractions. From what I understand most of these adaptations are due to loss of function in the genome which actually makes the genome more adaptive for a particular situation and not from the addition of a new function to the population of the organisms. Behe describes this phenomena as the burning of bridges phenomena in a war which allows one side to fight the war in such a way as to increase its likelihood of survival by destroying function. As opposed to the arms race which is the building of new weapons/functions that allows one side to fight the war better because it can now become more versatile in what it can do. It would be interesting to examine the genomes of the cichlids to see what is happening. At some time in the future some group might do this but examining a genome of one cichlid is expensive let alone several members of a species to see the range of possible functions or comparing individual species variations would be even more time consuming and expensive. Until then we will have to speculate that the change of functions were either within the original population or represent either loss or gains of functions. Behe's reviews and research indicate that there is little gain in function over time. That is what the debate is all about. Basic genetics says there will be loss of function within a population over time by genetic drift and over deep time there will be convergence on a fixed genome which will lead to extinction. So the basic question of evolution is where does the variety in a population come from? All of this is puzzling which is what makes the debate interesting but it leads to much of the fight taking place on ideological grounds as opposed to science and logic.jerry
December 1, 2007
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Digdug you stated: but the molecular data I have seen are fairly solid that the Victorian cichlids are a recent radiation. But the study i cited states: "The available data suggest that the propensity to undergo adaptive radiation in lakes evolved sequentially along one branch in the phylogenetic tree" Thus my parent species radiation mo^del is vindicated in what I consider a very comprehensive study of cichlid radiations.bornagain77
November 30, 2007
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Digdug, The evidence for cichlids fits the Theistic mod^el for ID. A parent species is "designed" with all information "front-loaded" for all sub-speciation to occur (radiate) from it. Although somewhat crude, a rough measure for loss of information can be traced to loss of genetic diversity in a sub-species when compared to its parent species genetic diversity, provided advanced mutational load has not skewed the genetic diversity readings (I don't know how much of a factor negative mutational load is yet). Thus the closer a sub-species is to the original parent species that it radiated from the greater will be the sub-species ability to radiate. Whereas the further away a sub-species is away from its parent species the less ability it will have to radiate more sub-species from itself, and as a sidelight the more problems the sub-species will have with inbreeding (such as cheetahs). The I just explained is specifically what we find in this cichlid study: Specifically: "the propensity to radiate was significantly higher in lineages whose precursors emerged from more ancient adaptive radiations (closer to parent species) than in other lineages (more recent sub-species). This is exactly what the Theistic ID/Genetic Entropy mo^del predicts for all life on earth and this prediction is supported through and through with every line of evidence, i.e. the mo^del is extremely robust Digdug!bornagain77
November 30, 2007
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B^A what you are referring to is called by evolutionists 'species selection'. In other words lineages have differential rates of speciation. I'm not familiar with the genetic entropy model that you speak of but the molecular data I have seen are fairly solid that the Victorian cichlids are a recent radiation. I fully agree with Jerry that the causes of such radiation are worthy of investigation. i don't know how anyone could argue that these are 'losses of information', especially given the ecological niche differentiation seen in African cichlids (some species have mouths on the left side, some on the right side, feeding on fish scales!) I am confused with the use of the term 'information' with respect to these phenomena. How do you measure information?digdug24
November 30, 2007
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digdug, I'm not quite sure, but I found this study: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1635482 Which looks very promising. Apparently cichlids have been studied somewhat extensively, so maybe I can find some Genetic Evidence to work with. But from this study the scientists are kind of befuddled at anomalies: It is humorous to me...Digdug see if you can spot where it fits the ID/Genetic entropy and fails evolutionary theory: Interestingly, ecological opportunity (the availability of an unoccupied adaptive zone), though explaining rates of diversification in radiating lineages, is alone not sufficient to predict whether a radiation occurs. The available data suggest that the propensity to undergo adaptive radiation in lakes evolved sequentially along one branch in the phylogenetic tree of African cichlids, but is completely absent in other lineages. Instead of attributing the propensity for intralacustrine speciation to morphological or behavioural innovations, it is tempting to speculate that the propensity is explained by genomic properties that reflect a history of repeated episodes of lacustrine radiation: the propensity to radiate was significantly higher in lineages whose precursors emerged from more ancient adaptive radiations than in other lineages. Kind of funny isn't it. It fits perfectly into our mo^delbornagain77
November 30, 2007
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BA what is 'rapid species turnover' WRT to the cichlids in Lake Malawi?digdug24
November 30, 2007
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congregate, There are two halves to neo Darwinism. One half is not controversial and the other is. Believe it or not the half that is not controversial is the half which leads to changes in the species. This is natural selection and some other factors such as genetic drift which changes the allele frequency in a population. The simple example is the polar bear that bornagain77 mentioned which has white fur and not brown fur such as a typical grizzly bear. If the bear did not have an allele for white fur in some member of the population the polar bear might not have ever turned white over time. Of course the other half of the neo Darwinism theory theoretically would have eventually provided the white fur. Some mutation would have happened to one of the offspring and it would have been white and its offspring would have a mixture of white and brown and eventually the white allele would prevail in the population through natural selection and we would get white polar bears. None of this is controversial and basic genetics. Now look at dogs and humans and you can see that there is quite a lot of variation amongst the population of each. Most of the dog variation was artificially selected for by breeders but the original variation was somewhere in the dog population or wolf population. Based on environmental factors the offspring of humans living to procreate will vary and certain traits will become more prominent in certain areas. Darwin observed this with birds, iguanas, tortoises and other animals in the Galapagos. He thought it was a big deal and hence the origin of his book. However, all he witnessed was basic micro evolution and really not very controversial. But he assumed this process could account for great changes over time. But he was only looking at half of the process. The animals he observed originally had enough variation within them so that when they found themselves in these new environments some of the alleles became more prevalent while others either became recessive or disappeared. Again basic genetics and not controversial. But it does not explain why the alleles were there in the beginning. If a population did not have the variation to begin with most of the adaptation would not have ever taken place. But remember we are basically talking about minor traits such as color, size or some other minor characteristics. The half of neo Darwinism that is controversial is the origin of variation. Or where did the white fur come from. Now white fur is really trivial so its origin is not an issue. But other variation is not trivial. If a new species is to really morph into something novel and different then the variations must show up in some of the offspring of the population or else they can never be part of the selection process. This is what the debate is all about. How do new alleles that are really novel show up in the offspring of a population? Now lets get to the quote you had from Dembski that confused you. "Design theory places no limits on the amount of evolutionary change that organisms might have experienced in the course of natural history." ID argues that the variation in the offspring necessary to explain all the changes in life forms over time could not have arisen by natural means. But it did arise so how did it arise. The only logical answer is trough some intelligent input. A gradualistic input fails on so many levels that it isn't a serious contender. You may disagree but there is absolutely no evidence it happened this way but it did happen so one of the ways it could have happened is through an intelligent input creating the variation within a population. This does not mean all variation arose this way but ID believes that some of it had to. So it is possible to have massive change in the course of life on earth but the variation that fueled this change had some part that came from an intelligent input. One of the theories that some ID people adhere to is that the potential variation was inputed up front at the beginning or front loaded. All the changes witnessed in the fossil record are just changed triggered by environmental factors to the genome which already contained the necessary information for all the life forms that have existed. Now I do not adhere to this personally but many here do and like any other theory is one to be supported or falsified. One final comment. One has to have read a fair amount to understand all the details of this. So it is possible that you may not understand most of the issues at first. It is not easy to write in a comment all that is necessary to explain each issue so short hand comments get posted. That is why I think it would be useful for someone to post a ID 101 on the side that each person should read before they challenge others here. But no such article exists and most would not read it anyway.jerry
November 30, 2007
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Congregate, To properly ascertain whether "novel evolution" has occurred it is necessary to know what species was the "parent species" of the sub-species and to do genetic analysis of each. I can't find the specific genetic studies for finches, maybe someone can help us out with that, but comparing this example to other sub-speciation events let's see what we find. The ID/Genetic Entropy holds that a parent species will be "front-loaded" with information for sub-speciation events to favorable climates, but the sub-speciation event will always occur at a cost of information from the parent species when the sub-species becomes reproductively isolated. We see this principle obeyed in the speciation events of polar bears from grizzly bears in which though the polar bear is more suited for the arctic than the grizzly bear, the polar bear has visibly lost information for hair color. Now looking at the pictures of finches here: http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/finch.jpg I'm not that impressed, as I see more variation, and evolutionists argue novelty, in dogs. Yet dogs strictly obey the law of conservation of information in the genetic analysis done on them and grey wolves. Thus the supposed novelty of dogs is no such thing but is indeed a culling of specific information of the original information that is found in the grey wolves. Here is the Paper that has confirmation of dogs and grey wolves staying within principle of Genetic Entropy. http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/90/1/71.pdf of special note: Some sequences found in dogs were identical to those in wolves… The sequence divergence within (breeds of) dogs was surprisingly large: the mean sequence divergence in dogs 2.06 + or - 0.07% was almost identical to the 2.10 + or - 0.04% (sequence divergence) found within wolves. (notice that sequence divergence is slightly smaller for dogs than for wolves) Coupled with the diverse morphology of domesticated dogs and known hazards of dog breeding, this evidence strongly indicates “front loaded adaptations” at a loss of information from parent species. Thus, this is genetic confirmation of the principle of Genetic Entropy for dogs from wolves! You may say that this is "artificial selection" and does not count. To which I refer to this: i.e.;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. “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.” You may say that this test is skewed because we don't have ancient DNA for humans, to which I refer: In this study for ancient Austrailian DNA we have clear evidence of Genetic Entropy being obeyed!: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=33358 Of special note: Adcock et al. (7) clearly demonstrate the actual extinction of an ancient mtDNA lineage belonging to an anatomically modern human, because this lineage is not found in living Australians. Although the fossil evidence provides evidence of the continuity of modern humans over the past 60,000 years, the ancient mtDNA clearly does not, providing an excellent example of why the history of any particular locus or DNA sequence does not necessarily represent the history of a population. Adcock et al.’s (7 Thus, though the fossil record is continuous, they deny that the genome is "losing" information because it does not match their evolutionary "prediction" for gaining information yet fits perfectly with the ID/Genetic Entropy mo^del for loss of information In my opinion the best example for the ID/Genetic Entropy mo^del is in Webster's study of trilobites over the 270 million year span they were on the earth following their abrupt appearance in the Cambrian explosion: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/The_Cambrian_Many_Forms_999.html Here is a quote from Webster: “That led me into thinking there’s something weird about these very primitive Cambrian trilobites that you don’t see in other (more recent) ones,” he said. The only way to verify his hunch was to conduct an analysis that combined the data compiled in previously published reports. “It’s too much for one person to look at a thousand trilobite species,” Webster said. So for his Science study, Webster combed through 68 previously published studies of trilobites, searching for descriptions of evolving characteristics that could be incorporated into his analysis. After eliminating studies that were inappropriate for inclusion, 49 still remained. He focused on actively evolving characteristics. The trilobite head alone, for example, displays many such characteristics. These include differences in ornamentation, number and placement of spines, and the shape of head segments. His findings: Overall, approximately 35 percent of the 982 trilobite species exhibited some variation in some aspect of their appearance that was evolving. But more than 70 percent of early and middle Cambrian species exhibited variation, while only 13 percent of later trilobite species did so. “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.” Thus congregate, upon detailed analysis we have a strict adherence to the ID/Genetic Entropy mo^del. This is a robust mo^del which can be falsified by showing an increase of within species variation after it is established genetic entropy is in full swing. Whereas it is impossible to falsify evolution for it seemingly can explain any evidence in the fossil record. A little more background on the fossil record from Allan Macneill: "As Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould pointed out almost three decades ago, the general pattern for the evolution of diversity (as shown by the fossil record) follows precisely this pattern: a burst of rapid diversity following a major ecological change, and then a gradual decline in diversity over relatively long periods of time. This is clearly the case among east African cichlid fish, such as those in Lake Malawi and Lake Victoria. As numerous studies have pointed out, Lake Victoria is only a little over 12,000 years old, while Lake Malawi is approximately 1.5 million years old. Lake Victoria has (or had, until the introduction of the Nile perch) over 600 species of cichlids, while Lake Malawi has many, many fewer (the exact numbers are not known, due to rapid species turnover and the difficulty of sampling fish species in these lakes). In other words, the older the lake, the lower the species diversity. This general pattern is also observable among the arthropod phyla in the “Cambrian explosion”, the vertebrate tetrapod taxa following the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, and the mammalian phyla following the Cretaceous-Teritary mass extinction." So there you have it Congregate a consistent pattern in the fossil record that is an egnigma to the evolutionary theory of "gradual" change postulated by Darwin, Yet the fits perfectly with the ID/Genetic Entropy mo^del which also agrees with the law of conservation of information and the second law of thermodynamics. Two laws that evolutionists have to severely pollute the simplicity and beauty of to have their theory even considered valid in the first place. I don't know about you congregate but I think I will follow the evidence.bornagain77
November 30, 2007
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BarryA 79- I just don't see how it would be possible to witness "the origin of a new species through the joint action of reproductive isolation and mechanisms of genetic change," even if it could happen. How would the witness be able to distinguish natural mechanisms of genetic change from intelligent ones? Also, please check out the first few paragraphs of my comment 63 for some other questions I'd be interested in your input on, BarryA. Thanks.congregate
November 30, 2007
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