First paragraph of Lenski paper contains an error
| June 25, 2008 | Posted by Dave S. under Intelligent Design |
I started reading Lenski’s full paper myself to see what raw data was provided and I got no farther than the first paragraph beyond the abstract when I encountered a bias error that a chance worshipper would never notice. My emphasis:
At its core, evolution involves a profound tension between
random and deterministic processes. Natural selection
works systematically to adapt populations to their prevailing
environments. However, selection requires heritable variation
generated by random mutation, and even beneficial mutations
may be lost by random drift. Moreover, random and deterministic
processes become intertwined over time such that future
alternatives may be contingent on the prior history of an evolving
population.
The bold portion is patently wrong. Selection operates on any heritable variation whether random or not. That the authors would use the language they did (random variation) and the peer reviewers didn’t notice it is testimony to the chance worshipper bias that pervades evolution
research.
I would refer Lenski et al to a Scripps Institute experiment with E. coli that Bill Dembski blogged here on Uncommon Descent over 3 years ago:
To Stop Evolution: New Way Of Fighting Antibiotic Resistance Demonstrated By Scripps Scientists
The Scripps researchers, in a nutshell, discovered that E. coli, when stressed (such as running out of food as in Lenski’s experiment or in the presence of antibiotics in the Scripps experiment) selectively increases the mutation rate on certain genes. Thus the mutations in this case are not random but rather directed at a certain area in an attempt to solve a certain problem. Lenski should have have been aware of this but even if he weren’t he should have known just by definition alone selection can operate on any heritable change no matter how the change happened.
Chance worshipping causes science to have blind spots like this. Perhaps if they’d read the book:
Science’s Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism
written by my friend Cornelius G. Hunter they wouldn’t make these kinds of simple, obvious mistakes. But NOOOOOOO… Hunter and Dembski are both knuckle-dragging ID creationists so what would they know about any of this?
I believe the peanut gallery, in their latest fashion in phraseology, would summarize this as:
Lenski FAIL.
But they won’t because they’re living in denial of their own failings.
62 Responses to First paragraph of Lenski paper contains an error
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jerry
Actually E.coli does already have the capability for citrate transport – citrate permease. Its expression is repressed in the presence of oxygen for some reason in the wild. Lenski’s strain expresses it in the presence of oxygen. His is not the first strain known to do this. His is the first one to be closely observed changing from repression to expresson. There was likely no real “evolution” but rather just run-of-the-mill gene induction which is a rather common occurence. It’s really kind of mind boggling that anyone would think to make a big deal out of it. It’s sort of like making a big deal out of turning on the air conditioner in a car and thinking that this was somehow was a fundamental change in the automobile’s construction. If there was a “potentiating mutation” this is also analogous to the car where you first have to turn on the air conditioner then adjust the thermostat lower. If you don’t first turn on the air conditioner then lowering the thermostat does nothing.
You are correct that no genetic mutations need take place for selection to operate. Gene induction through methylization is heritable but does not involve changing any DNA bases. And of course recombination in sexual reproduction can cause all sorts of preexisting traits to be repressed or expressed. It used to be thought that the gene was everything and modifications in their amino acid sequence was the major source of descent with modification. Now its not changes in the gene that is the major driver but rather changes in when and how much of the particular protein or enzyme product is produced.
Horizontal gene transfer creates nothing new, it just shuffles preexisting things from one organism to another like sexual recombination without the sex.
Lets talk about common ancestry here people, shall we?
I think (and it goes well with the article posted by Bill on apes with rights) that materialistic Darwinian evolution is really just a way of finding the LOWEST common denominator amongst living (or all) things. You can think that people and apes are in the same class of mammals all you want. That’s your right, but I have news for you; all things are in the same class- its called “matter.” In other words human beings are NOT apes just like apes are not fish but if you want to group everything by it’s interconnected significance via evolutionary linage then all things are in the same class. In fact apes to me are closer to insects than they are to people because the dominion that human beings have over apes in the animal kingdom. You see, genes and lineages in the GRAND scheme are beside the point- and btw every one knows this, all you have to do is go to a zoo and see what a mere 2% difference can get you. That is why DE is less about lineages and more about “ purposelessness and chance.” You cannot practically compare a person to an ape- the differences are obvious to a one year old, but if you can bring their independent significance closer together by lowering the value of the PROCESS and mechanisms by which they both arise- and then throw in their obvious interconnectedness and play it off as the clincher, you have a much better shot at holding life’s apparent design down and in a much darker light.
Yes, indeed, all things and events truly can (as far as empirical science is concerned) be looked as existing in a world ruled by so called “chance” — as is done in the philosophical mode of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics. However, “chance” is merely a way of “using data to predict and build ratios.” Chance cannot purchase itself nor can it explain symmetry and laws and constants. In fact of what chance there is, it alone can be looked at as a form of a constant itself. For example say you were talking about mutations and you wanted to see if they were totally “chance based”- it wouldn’t take long to see that “necessity” is required as well in order for chance to give us ANYTHING! We need all kinds of physical stipulations in order for life forms and or “anything” to exist. First of all matter is necessary, then you need light, and matter “in all of its forms” and “the right ratios” before life can have a chance to exist. Where all of this geometry and algebra comes from no one knows. This is essentially what the “privileged planet” is all about. Chance alone cannot purchase itself, nor can it explain necessity. I should also add that chance and necessity as viewed by many including Mike Behe and Bill are not event enough by them selves. That is event omitting the mathematical design of the world in conjunction with “unpredictable” events, there still may not even be enough to support a design ess universe.
The interconnectedness of all things, assuming some chain of common ancestry is correct, is merely one “small” and tiny little stipulation that pales in the face of the complexity and specified design of the final product. Interconnectedness is not a powerful value- think about any object such as a penny. A penny is not very interesting and it wasn’t when it was merely some “unrefined” copper either. “It is not the lowest common denominator that is significant about life and life forms it is the glory and complexity of the final product.” This part of the story is the part that is not being told in modern evolutionary theory.
All the laws in the universe, all of the molecular machines, genetic patters and efficient systems are not the result of “interconnectedness” and or “common denominators” they are the apex of what the grand design schemata has to offer.
So all of this stuff about how apes are only 5 or 2% different than human beings is greatly beside the point. If i was to randomly remove 2% of you genetic code or alter it you might not even be able to survive much less fire rockets at the moon. It is the product that design encompass, while DE is too busy trapped inside a steel cage of denial…
at the amusement of all those sociopathic people running the political zoo.