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Epigenetic Inheritance: Can Evolution Adapt?

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Given how routinely evolution fails to explain biology, it is remarkable that scientists still believe in the nineteenth century idea. One of the many problems areas is adaptation. Evolution holds that populations adapt to environmental pressures via the natural selection of blind variations. If more fur is needed, and some individuals accidentally are endowed with mutations that confer a thicker coat of fur, then those individuals will have greater survival and reproduction rates. The thicker fur mutation will then become common in the population.

This is the evolutionary notion of change. It is not what we find in biology. Under the hood, biology reveals far more complex and intelligent mechanisms for change, collectively referred to as epigenetic inheritance. You can read more about the challenge that this form of inheritance poses for evolution here. The take home message is that adaptation is routinely found to be not blind, but rather responsive to environmental pressures. The fur becomes thicker not by accident, but via cellular mechanisms responding to a need.

There is still much to learn about this phenomenal built-in adaptation capability, but it now is clear, and has been for many years, that epigenetic inheritance is a dramatic departure from evolutionary expectations. Indeed, this sort of adaptation is closer to the ideas of the long disgraced French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829). Lamarck’s idea was that offspring inherit traits or characteristics that were acquired by the parents. Although epigenetic inheritance is far more complex than anything Lamarck imagined, he was remarkably close to what is now being discovered. You can see a recent review of what has been learned here. Only a few years ago positive references to Lamarck drew heated response. Such ideas were not tolerated. Now his name appears regularly in the epigenetics literature.

This leaves evolutionists in an awkward position, to say the least.

Continue reading here.

Comments
ScottAndrews
So create the environment, stand back, and watch.
How long do you think it would take?
If you grow something new, I was dead wrong.
Science does not care about you as an invidividual. If you want you opinion to matter then it has to be you who proves other people wrong, not simply wait to be proved wrong. Armchair scientist much?
Until that time, you may choose to exercise faith that evidence will be found.
It seems to me that you are the one with faith. Evidence of what exactly?
That is not science.
You are 100% right there.
For me, and for nearly everyone where biology is not concerned, randomness does not organize and build things.
And yet today you probably heard some music where a component was randomised. Or played a computer game with a random procedural texture. Randomness is every all around us all the time.
We have no experience to suggest it ever has or will.
We have no experence of a "designer" designing life millions of years ago either yet that is the conclusion you've come to.
That’s why I’m not holding my breath.
I'm sure the world is waiting with baited breath for your next oration.Echidna.Levy
June 15, 2009
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#228 Why should RM+NS be taken seriously enough that anyone should bother to disprove it? Where did you get this idea that it is the default explanation until it is falsified? The last time I asked for positive evidence I got dog breeding and computer simulations. Uhm - that's a well established method for establishing any scientific hypothesis - make predictions based on the hypothesis and if they are false that's evidence against it, if they are true that's evidence for. It is not necessary that the hypothesis should be the default.Mark Frank
June 15, 2009
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Echidna.Levy
Then it’s just a matter of time. Great strides are made seemingly daily in this regard.
I hear the occasional report about replicating RNA with meticulous assistance. I don't think they're ever going to find anything, and to accept the premise without the evidence is loosely called "faith."
But please clarify. How does human beings creating artificial life have anything to do with the origin of life on planet Earth?
Supposedly if life originated once, why not twice? Perhaps the environment is wrong, existing life kills it off, or we're just not looking. So create the environment, stand back, and watch. If you grow something new, I was dead wrong. Until that time, you may choose to exercise faith that evidence will be found. That is not science. For me, and for nearly everyone where biology is not concerned, randomness does not organize and build things. We have no experience to suggest it ever has or will. That's why I'm not holding my breath.ScottAndrews
June 15, 2009
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StephenB (219), Now can you provide the answer to your own question at 170?Gaz
June 15, 2009
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Repeat it. (The origin, not the question.) The rest is talk. Get some iron and sulphur in lab and make some pets.
Then it's just a matter of time. Great strides are made seemingly daily in this regard. A signifiant step towards this was recently in the news, as I'm sure you are aware. But please clarify. How does human beings creating artificial life have anything to do with the origin of life on planet Earth? And a few comments up I asked
And your positive evidence is? I’m asking you for your positive evidence. What is it please?
Just wondering....Echidna.Levy
June 15, 2009
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Echidna.Levi
What would convince you that life had a naturalistic origin Scott?
Repeat it. (The origin, not the question.) The rest is talk. Get some iron and sulphur in lab and make some pets.ScottAndrews
June 15, 2009
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It’s an interesting story, nothing more.
Red Riding Hood is a story. You can't investivate it or attempt to determine if it's viable.
No one knows whether the environment he imagines existed,
Are you familiar with the theory then?
or whether the reactions he described are possible.
Reactions can be tested. A simple matter of chemistry no?
It’s a detailed guess, but a wild guess nonetheless.
Well, it's all a guess is it not? It just so happens that some guesses are more accurate then others and you can make predictions and see if they are true or not. What level of evidence would move it from "A guess" to "That's possible, even probable" or even "That's likely how it happened" for you Scott? What are you looking for here? What would convince you that life had a naturalistic origin Scott?Echidna.Levy
June 15, 2009
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Scott
Where did you get this idea that it is the default explanation until it is falsified?
Like it or lump it, that's the current situation. Don't forget that the default explanation for almost all of human history was that a deity of some kind did it. If it turns about again it'll be on the basis of evidence. But that's fine is it not? How else would you want it to be?
The last time I asked for positive evidence I got dog breeding and computer simulations.
And your positive evidence is? I'm asking you for your positive evidence. What is it please?Echidna.Levy
June 15, 2009
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Echidna.Levy:
For example, Wächtershäuser’s iron-sulfur world theory presents a a consistent system of working back from today’s biochemistry back to ancestral reactions that provide alternative pathways to the synthesis of organic building blocks from simple gaseous compounds.
It's an interesting story, nothing more. No one knows whether the environment he imagines existed, or whether the reactions he described are possible. It's a detailed guess, but a wild guess nonetheless.
Do you have a theory that goes into similar levels of detail?
I don't follow your reasoning - what good are levels of detail when we're making stuff up? I'd be far more impressed if someone said, "Some chemicals mixed together and formed life. We have no idea how it happened." But my detector goes off when someone describes five billion years ago like he has it under a microscope.ScottAndrews
June 15, 2009
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Mark Frank:
OK. Correlation between what two (or more)phenomena or things?
After all that, I was making an irrelevant side point. There's a correlation between information and probability. The odds of creating a word by chance are greater then creating a sentence by chance, which are greater than creating a book by chance. It wasn't very relevant to the discussion.ScottAndrews
June 15, 2009
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Mark Frank:
I have been over the claim that RM+NS cannot be tested many times elsewhere. Here are some ways it could be disproved totally:
Why should RM+NS be taken seriously enough that anyone should bother to disprove it? Where did you get this idea that it is the default explanation until it is falsified? The last time I asked for positive evidence I got dog breeding and computer simulations.ScottAndrews
June 15, 2009
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ScotAndrews
Abiogenesis is not testable. It’s a series of wild guesses.
While I agree it's not "testable", even if I'm not quite sure what you mean by that I'd take issue with "a series of wild guesses". For example, Wächtershäuser's iron-sulfur world theory presents a a consistent system of working back from today's biochemistry back to ancestral reactions that provide alternative pathways to the synthesis of organic building blocks from simple gaseous compounds. A "wild guess"? I think not. Do you have a theory that goes into similar levels of detail?Echidna.Levy
June 15, 2009
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#224 OK. Correlation between what two (or more)phenomena or things?Mark Frank
June 15, 2009
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#222 I am sorry - but your comment #188 to which you direct me is circular. It proposes that intelligent design is the cause of life but does not say what intelligent design is - so we are no further forward. What are you hypothesising is the cause of life? I have been over the claim that RM+NS cannot be tested many times elsewhere. Here are some ways it could be disproved totally: * The earth might turn out to be too young * Inheritance might turn out to be a blended mechanism not particulate * Evolution of species might turn not to be based on a hierarchy * RM+NS might fail to happen on at a micro level It can also be disproved as an explanation for specific developments and indeed the whole point of this thread is that it has turned out to be false in some specific instances (thanks Cornelius) SO let's put that one behind us. Now produce a similar list of outcomes incompatible with the ID hypothesis (when we get round to finding out what you mean by it).Mark Frank
June 15, 2009
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Mark Frank:
Correlation is a relationship between two variables. Which variables do you have in mind?
Occasionally I'm tempted get snippy and remind someone of what a word means. But I always check the dictionary first. That way I don't end up looking... you know. 1: the state or relation of being correlated ; specifically : a relation existing between phenomena or things or between mathematical or statistical variables which tend to vary, be associated, or occur together in a way not expected on the basis of chance alone But of course we know that there is no such thing as correlation. Anything can be expected on the basis of chance alone.ScottAndrews
June 15, 2009
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Khan:
how do can you say a hypothesis is testable when you can’t even measure something to test it with?
Measurements of CSI are useful, but I don't think they need to be precise. For example, if we know that no man has every jumped higher than eight feet, then we can justifiably rule out a scenario in which man jumps 100 to 300 feet high. (Even if we don't call it impossible, we'll accept any other plausible explanation, even if it's incomplete.) ID can't be directly tested against biology, because it's determination can't be verified independently. Abiogenesis is not testable. It's a series of wild guesses. RM+NS has been tested in the lab with bacteria, and has evolved them into nearly identical bacteria in more generations than supposedly turned rats into elephants. That advantage to ID is that it draws on accumulated knowledge, not guesses. Where the origin of a thing bearing CSI is known, that origin is always intelligent. Without solid, convincing evidence, why would we conclude any different when the origin is unknown.ScottAndrews
June 15, 2009
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For Mark Frank: a design hypothesis BTW there isn't any way to test RM+NS. THAT is the whole problem with the premise.Joseph
June 15, 2009
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#208 That’s not what makes them information - it’s a correlation. Correlation is a relationship between two variables. Which variables do you have in mind? Have you actually read and understood Dembksi's work? I am beginning to suspect not. He explicitly defines the information content of an outcome as -log base 2 of the probability of an outcome. Of course you may have your own definition of information - but that's the one that the ID leaders use. It is repeated time and time again in different papers. #209 Please be explicit about what the ID hypothesis is. I always thought it was the hypothesis that life was designed by a designer of unknown powers and motives. What data would be incompatible with that hypothesis? Any outcome can be designed if you place no limits on the designer. Your are confusing testing the hypothesis of RM+NS with testing the hypothesis of design.Mark Frank
June 15, 2009
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That should read, "that objective has been met."StephenB
June 15, 2009
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---khan: "I asked for a biological example in my original question bc that is what I am interested in. Given that detecting intelligence in biology is one of the fundamental goals of ID, it seems like you should be able to just give me an equation and a solved example with your eyes closed." My original objective was to show that another blogger misrepresented the ID paradigm. That objection has been met. You injected yourself into that discussion, which was being conducted in a general CSI context, and asked a question relative to the point being made. As I was in the process of answering that question with an example, you reframed the issue into another question about biology. I am not so easily distracted. Everything about my question @170 had a purpose, including the point of placing the setting in an unearthly place. If you are not willing to answer it, then so be it.StephenB
June 15, 2009
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Scott, The evos started calling me "cakeboy" (well Rich Hughes anyway) when I said that the minimum information in a cake is the information in the recipe.Joseph
June 15, 2009
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Khan:
how do can you say a hypothesis is testable when you can’t even measure something to test it with?
Information can be measured. IC can be measured. IC can be refuted as evidence for design by demonstrating thta nature, operating freely can account for it. The same for information.Joseph
June 15, 2009
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Joseph:
[cakeboy]True but the recipe would be the minimum amount of CSI in whatever you are baking. (Or not?)
[It's a pumpkin pie.] That sounds logical to me.ScottAndrews
June 15, 2009
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joking aside, how do can you say a hypothesis is testable when you can't even measure something to test it with? can you tell me how to do an ANOVA without any numbers? it would make research a lot easier..Khan
June 15, 2009
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David Kellogg- The testa is the protective outer layer/ covering of a seed. Therefor testabile is the bile secreted by the liver after eating too many seeds that have the testa still in place. Do I have to splain everything?Joseph
June 15, 2009
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David Kellog,
ScottAndrews and herb, you seem to be endorsing Joseph’s contention that the minimum CSI of an object = the information content of written instructions to produce that object. Is that correct? Is there a place in the ID literature where this idea of equating CSI with assembly instructions is expounded?
I was referring specifically to the number of steps involved in the assembly process, rather than a number derived from a set of instructions written in some language. I think the idea of looking at the information content of written instructions also makes sense, at least if you are interested in an upper bound for CSI. One set of instructions in English might translate to a shorter set (in letters) in another language, for example. Not sure about your ID literature question, though.herb
June 15, 2009
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testabile? Sounds like the symptom of a hormonal disease affecting the liver. "His system is producing too much testabile."David Kellogg
June 15, 2009
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ScottAndrews:
I can write down a recipe that would replicate the results without including all the information that went into the design.
[cakeboy]True but the recipe would be the minimum amount of CSI in whatever you are baking. (Or not?)Joseph
June 15, 2009
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Khan, There aren't any equations to calculate the effects of intelligence. That doesn't mean there aren't any equations.Joseph
June 15, 2009
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Khan, David, Alan, Mark: The design inference is based on observation and experience. Also it is testabile. What else do you want besides absolute proof?Joseph
June 15, 2009
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