Increased Oxygen = Increased Biological Information, Which Explains the Cambrian Explosion

_{Gil Dodgen

February 27, 2009

Intelligent Design}

Share: Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; Flipboard; Print; Email

This is the kind of reasoning we can expect from “scientists” like Hillis, in an attempt to explain away the Cambrian explosion.

For more, go here.

Is there no shame left among Darwinists who propose such absurd ideas, or do they actually believe such transparent fantasies?

Comments

Hi JT, good enough. I was just worried that lurkers might get the wrong idea about ID. No disrespect or bad feelings were intended.Platonist_{March 2, 2009
March
03
Mar
2
02
2009
10:24 AM
10
10
24
AM
PDT}

Platonist the moderation rules have changed and Prof MacNeil is providing valuable insight into how evo-theorists are actually thinking these days. And if you consider him the enemy, remember the ancient proverb, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer". (No offense, Prof.)JT_{March 2, 2009
March
03
Mar
2
02
2009
10:18 AM
10
10
18
AM
PDT}

Professor MacNeill, Do you just come to this website to dissuade students from looking further into ID? That is the impression I'm getting. I apologize if I seem rude, I am notoriously abrasive at times, but I mean this is an ID website.Platonist_{March 2, 2009
March
03
Mar
2
02
2009
09:58 AM
9
09
58
AM
PDT}

There is an excellent review article on the subject of the Cambrian "explosion" and its relationship with the topics discussed in this thread in: Vrba, E. & Eldredge, N. (2005) Macroevolution: Diversity, Disparity, Contingency; Essays in Honor of Stephen Jay Gould, published by The Paleontological Society (ISBN 1891276492). The article is: "Tempo and mode of early animal evolution: inferences from rocks, Hox, and molecular clocks", by Peterson, K., McPeek, M., and Evans, D. pages 36 to 55.Allen_MacNeill_{March 2, 2009
March
03
Mar
2
02
2009
09:51 AM
9
09
51
AM
PDT}

Jerry, Ok, thanks. I'll follow your link.Bruce David_{March 2, 2009
March
03
Mar
2
02
2009
12:13 AM
12
12
13
AM
PDT}

I just re-read something I wrote a year ago and it rang a bell. A lot of the fossils in the Cambrian were soft body fossils. So I am not sure that the calcium carbonate wold explain this.jerry_{March 1, 2009
March
03
Mar
1
01
2009
07:24 PM
7
07
24
PM
PDT}

Bruce David or any else interested, If you are interested in learning the truth about what happened with Galileo, then go to the following thread over a year ago: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/epistemology-its-what-you-know/ Search for the term Galileo and follow the thread to the end. You will get a good feel for what happened. If you want to understand more about it go to your local library system and see if they can get the following Teaching company courses: Science and Religion which has two 30 minute lectures on this topic http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/CourseDescLong2.aspx?cid=4691 and Science Wars: What Scientists Know and How They Know It which has a thirty minute lecture on the topic http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?pc=Professor&cid=1235 How the average person acquired their erroneous perceptions of Galileo and the Church is an interesting phenomenon in itself.jerry_{March 1, 2009
March
03
Mar
1
01
2009
05:25 PM
5
05
25
PM
PDT}

That is can we take some number of soft-bodied organisms, put them in a solution with increased calcium carbonate, and see if they “evolve” shells, bones and teeth?–
Maybe if you wait a few million years.
Thank you for admitting the premise is not objectively testable. That is all I wanted to know- that the position is nothing but throwing time at every issue. The way natural selection and father time are worshipped the theory of evolution is a religion.Joseph_{March 1, 2009
March
03
Mar
1
01
2009
05:15 AM
5
05
15
AM
PDT}

Well, whatever the truth about the actual historical event (and I accept that it was more complex than is commonly believed), the version the Darwinists like to present is the one in which Galileo, the great scientist, was suppressed by the church because his ideas conflicted with Christian doctrine. They then portray "Creationism/ID" as religion attacking science (Darwinism), thus identifying ID with the medieval church. The irony is that in this controversy, it is the Darwinists themselves who have taken on the role of suppressing a new scientific idea precisely because it conflicts with their faith (atheism, in most cases, or at least the faith that the natural world can be fully explained by natural causes).Bruce David_{February 28, 2009
February
02
Feb
28
28
2009
08:37 PM
8
08
37
PM
PDT}

Atheists like to cite the Galileo matter as an example of how Christianity is somehow opposed to science. The truth, however, is that it is the atheists who have the record of murdering the great scientists tribune7_{February 28, 2009
February
02
Feb
28
28
2009
08:33 PM
8
08
33
PM
PDT}

Paul, My guess is that you do not understand the Galileo affair. You probably have heard the conventional wisdom about it and it is extremely wrong. The Church did little to be ashamed of and was actually very supportive of Galileo's science. It was Galileo who is mainly to blame for the problems he created and they were all political and had nothing to do with either science or religion. There had been some petty religious squabbles years before but they had nothing to do with what happened. It had to do with war between Catholics and Protestants (30 Years War) and the fight between the two major Catholic powers in Europe at the time, France and the Hapsburgs. And Galileo with his arrogance stuck his nose into it and his thesis was a way of doing it. A thesis by the way suggested by the pope who he then betrayed. After Galileo betrayed the pope, the pope struck Galileo down and the Inquisition under the directive of the cardinals sentenced him to house arrest. In England he would have certainly have lost his head in days for what he did. In Florence he got the comfy chair.jerry_{February 28, 2009
February
02
Feb
28
28
2009
07:57 PM
7
07
57
PM
PDT}

jerry (#39), I have concerns about writing off the Galileo affair that easily. I suspect that the Church, and Christianity in general, needed to learn some lessons as well as Galileo. However, I agree that the affair has been overblown and that certainly the lesson that should have been learned was not that mechanistic evolution should not be challenged. I do agree with Bruce David (#38) on this one. I am fascinated by the claim that increased oxygen leads to increased calcium carbonate which leads to teeth and shells. My experimentalist's mind immediately asks the question, are there any large-scale deposits of limestone in the Precambrian? If not, it would seem to support the theory. If so, it would seem to falsify it. I ask as one who does not know. Update: I googled "Precambrian limestone" and got this: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Precambrian+limestone&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq= There does seem to be quite a bit of it. Where does that leave the theory?Paul Giem_{February 28, 2009
February
02
Feb
28
28
2009
07:07 PM
7
07
07
PM
PDT}

Bruce David, We had a long discussion on Galileo here almost a year ago and came to the conclusion that Galileo was the bad guy in the Galileo affair and not the Church. It had nothing to do with science or religion or the oppression of ideas but politics and Galileo betrayed his long time friend and mentor and got squelched as a result of his betrayal. So if Darwinists use the example of Galileo to attack religion they are using an argument from their ignorance.jerry_{February 28, 2009
February
02
Feb
28
28
2009
12:47 PM
12
12
47
PM
PDT}

GilDogden: Here is another great irony: Darwinists are fond of invoking the suppression of Galileo's ideas as an example of Religion being anit-science when they are in exactly the same position as the medieval church--vigorously (and often ruthlessly) attempting to suppress a new scientific idea on theological grounds (although in this case what they are defending is atheism and they disguise their defense as science).Bruce David_{February 28, 2009
February
02
Feb
28
28
2009
12:08 PM
12
12
08
PM
PDT}

--That is can we take some number of soft-bodied organisms, put them in a solution with increased calcium carbonate, and see if they “evolve” shells, bones and teeth?-- Maybe if you wait a few million years.critter_{February 28, 2009
February
02
Feb
28
28
2009
08:49 AM
8
08
49
AM
PDT}

Bruce David:
I have carefully read Denton, Behe, Meyers, Dembski, Wells, and other Darwin critics. I have also read several criticisms of their work by Darwinians such as Coyne, Miller, and Dawkins. The comparison is absolutely striking precisely because the former read like science–carefully thought out arguments that consider the data, anticipate objections and answer them, and in general reason carefully and soberly, while on the other hand, their critics never address the actual arguments that are made (except in straw man form), but instead rely entirely on rhetoric, principally in the form of ad hominem attacks, appeals to authority (”all genuine scientists” or some such), and, as mentioned, straw man arguments. In fact, it is this difference, which is virtually universal, that convinces me that Darwinism is finished.
The phenomenon you mention is ubiquitous and should be obvious to any unbiased observer. (It was obvious to me, even as a thoroughly biased and indoctrinated Darwinist.) And here is the great irony: Darwinists, while claiming scientific rigor, resort to storytelling and the tactics you mention, while ID proponents simply make an inference to the best explanation based on logic, data, and demonstrated causal capabilities of known phenomena. It is Darwinism that should be classified as pseudoscience, not ID.GilDodgen_{February 28, 2009
February
02
Feb
28
28
2009
07:38 AM
7
07
38
AM
PDT}

Not only did the increase in calcium carbonate in seawater allow for the production of teeth, bones, exoskeletons, etc. (a process that would be impossible without the oxygen to combine with the calcium and the carbon to form calcium carbonate), the production of fossilizable “hard parts” explains the apparent “suddenness” of the Cambrian explosion.
Can we test this? That is can we take some number of soft-bodied organisms, put them in a solution with increased calcium carbonate, and see if they "evolve" shells, bones and teeth? I ask because without that all that one has is narrative gloss without any scientific support.Joseph_{February 28, 2009
February
02
Feb
28
28
2009
05:26 AM
5
05
26
AM
PDT}

Re. Allen_MacNeill @ #19

“Just to emphasise again: It is illogical to say that a new selection pressure (i.e. more O2) = new information. It just doesn’t follow.”
And, of course, no evolutionary biologist is making such an assertion. Rather, the mechanisms by which new phenotypic variation is generated operate all the time (you can read about them here: http://evolutionlist.blogspot......awman.html). What a change in selection pressure does is to preserve a different subset of this new information.
Firstly, if Hillis did argue that more O2 explains the Cambrian explosion, then yes he did make this assertion. Secondly, please can you link to some specific information on your blog, or write out the mechanisms here. I don't have time to search through topic after topic. And finally, I still don't see that you've provided an explanation. You said:
What a change in selection pressure does is to preserve a different subset of this new information.
But the whole point is, where did this new information come from in the first place???? If all O2 does is provide a selection pressure to preserve a different subset of information, then it remains that O2 is causally irrelevant to the origin of biologically information. Hence Meyers point in the podcast.Green_{February 28, 2009
February
02
Feb
28
28
2009
02:16 AM
2
02
16
AM
PDT}

When one reads Darwinist defense of the theory or attacks on ID, whether from scientists like Coyne and Miller or people posting comments, one gets the overwhelming impression that this is a group of people who desperately WANT the theory to be true, and at least some of them will use any means up to and including outright lies and the destruction of peoples' careers to forward that cause. It's interesting to speculate why there is such a need for this theory to be true. In some cases, I am quite certain it is because Darwinism is THE scientific pillar supporting atheism, and the removal of that pillar would have unthinkable consequences for the viability of atheism. In other cases, perhaps it is a strongly held commitment to the proposition that the natural world must be explainable by entirely natural causes. I suspect that for some, it is simply an unwillingness to confront the possibility of being wrong.Bruce David_{February 27, 2009
February
02
Feb
27
27
2009
11:58 PM
11
11
58
PM
PDT}

Mr. MacNeill: "Precisely; rhetoric, and not logic or scientific argumentation. It’s all about rhetoric (and therefore politics), isn’t it? And not about things that can be empirically verified or falsified. Clearly, ID isn’t about science, it’s about rhetoric." I have carefully read Denton, Behe, Meyers, Demski, Wells, and other Darwin critics. I have also read several criticisms of their work by Darwinians such as Coyne, Miller, and Dawkins. The comparison is absolutely striking precisely because the former read like science--carefully thought out arguments that consider the data, anticipate objections and answer them, and in general reason carefully and soberly, while on the other hand, their critics never address the actual arguments that are made (except in straw man form), but instead rely entirely on rhetoric, principally in the form of ad hominem attacks, appeals to authority ("all genuine scientists" or some such), and, as mentioned, straw man arguments. In fact, it is this difference, which is virtually universal, that convinces me that Darwinism is finished. The opposition seems to be unable to answer the actual arguments presented by the critics. It's just a matter of time.Bruce David_{February 27, 2009
February
02
Feb
27
27
2009
11:29 PM
11
11
29
PM
PDT}

Allen_MacNeill:
And so exactly how would one determine if a particular phenotypic character qualified as “foresighted” before that character becomes adapted to it’s “intended” purpose?
This is an interesting challenge. As I am sure you are well aware, one of the theories within the ID meta-theory has been dubbed front-loading. (I wish that I had read "The Design Matrix" as this is the hypotheis of the infamous Mike Gene.) If front-loading is valid, then we should realistically see that organisms on the left branch of the phylogenic tree have DNA which is both preserved and useless to the organism. (This would be consistent with some of the conserved gene knock-out experiments that have been heavily discussed here.) If one were to find that these same sequences are integral parts of purposful structures in organisms which first appear on the right-hand branch of the tree, then I think we would have made a strong case that the DNA which is preserved but useless in the left-hand branch is in fact DNA which was foresighted to produce the structure that showed on the right. I know that this is speculative. We do have, however, discoveries of DNA which appears to be both preserved and useless. Merely the confirmation that there is DNA which is both preserved and useless should, in itself topple neo-Darwinism, as far as I am conserned. If I were a scientist with a budget, I would be very interested in testing the long-term, competitive varacity of mice with the relevant highly conserved DNA knocked out. Lets suggest another speculation. (I have a few facts, but not enough to know whether these questions have already been asked and answered.) I understand that recently an island was seeded with a population of lizzards. These lizzard's progeny were examined some time later, and it was discovered that they had a fundimentally altered digestive tract. (I think that's correct, and wish I had tighter information.) Now, It would be highly doubtful that the lizzard evolved a significant supply of new information in just a few generations. Therefore, the ability to produce the altered digestive tract must have been a latent ability in the lizzard's genes. Ie, the altered digestive tract was purely the product of adjusting gene frequency. However, I find it intriguing that an animal would have such a latent talent floating around. It would appear to me easier to interpret this as the lizzard having DNA because its designer foresees the day when the lizzard may need a modified digestive tract. If this is so, then one should be able to trace the DNA involved in the modification, and see if all of it offers benefit to the phenotype of the non-modified lizzard. If, however, we find that the DNA is preserved (beyond background preservation), but does not offer advantage to the non-modified lizzard, and if we can demonstrate that the lizzard has an extended lineage of non-modified digestion, I think this would be very strong support for DNA which is “foresighted” before that character becomes adapted to it’s “intended” purpose." Again, if I were a research scientist with a budget, I would love to explore this lizzard further. So, what have we got here: 1 - We have two separate examples where there is data which is unexpected in the neo-Darwinian model, and which point to possible strong support for ID. 2 - We have a call for real scientific research that is the natural outcome of the ID hypothesis. 3 - I think that this is a strong counter to your statement in #22:
Clearly, ID isn’t about science, it’s about rhetoric.
bFast_{February 27, 2009
February
02
Feb
27
27
2009
11:21 PM
11
11
21
PM
PDT}

Upright BiPed, Maybe Allen will respond. He is being very chatty tonight.jerry_{February 27, 2009
February
02
Feb
27
27
2009
07:50 PM
7
07
50
PM
PDT}

Well, I think that is a shame. The converastion with Timaeus had the potential to actually be meaningful and Mr MacNeill had an excellent opportunity. One that I doubt comes up very often in his classes. I used the word shame for an appropriate reason.Upright BiPed_{February 27, 2009
February
02
Feb
27
27
2009
07:44 PM
7
07
44
PM
PDT}

Upright BiPed, You are witnessing the MacNeill gallop as he rushes in and splays the environment with a ray of rhetoric and then rides off. I think Allen comes here mainly as entertainment as he tries to vex as many as possible. Don't expect the answers to any difficult questions or a dialogue. You and Timaeus may want to go to his site where you cannot be ignored. He is a great source of information but do not expect him to help us in anyway.jerry_{February 27, 2009
February
02
Feb
27
27
2009
07:21 PM
7
07
21
PM
PDT}

Mr MacNeill, This will be th fourth time I've posted this request to you on threads that you are involved in. If there is no response this time, I will assume that you do not intend on responding and draw whatever conclusions are appropriate. I am requesting that you please return to the conversation you were having with Timaeus, prior to your untimely flu outbreak. He has alreasdy indicated he is prepared to continue. ...the conversation is hereUpright BiPed_{February 27, 2009
February
02
Feb
27
27
2009
06:13 PM
6
06
13
PM
PDT}

GilDodgen [25]: I would say that all of human history was designed. (as a determinist). But even so, studying history is still edifying. We can think about various events in history as having been caused or precipitated by events that preceded them. There would presumably also have to be an historical narrative as to how organisms emerged.JT_{February 27, 2009
February
02
Feb
27
27
2009
06:12 PM
6
06
12
PM
PDT}

The forest is not being seen for the trees in this discussion. The problem is the origin of biological information, and complex, functionally integrated, information-processing machinery of stupendous sophistication, that not only stores, retrieves, and processes that information, but error-checks, corrects the errors, and replicates the base-four digital code with astounding fidelity. The Darwinian mechanism is utterly and hopelessly impotent as an explanation of these phenomena. Attempts to defend this hypothetical mechanism always end up in chasing down rabbit trails that have nothing to do with the underlying problem, and making up fantastic stories about how things might have been, even though the stories assault basic logic and reason, not to mention trivial mathematical analysis.GilDodgen_{February 27, 2009
February
02
Feb
27
27
2009
05:54 PM
5
05
54
PM
PDT}

22 Allan Macneil - For clarification I mean the venue of that hearing on textbooks, not UD necessarily.JT_{February 27, 2009
February
02
Feb
27
27
2009
05:54 PM
5
05
54
PM
PDT}

bFast: The argument for foresight is one intuitively easy to understand. Thinking about Chess, you can’t have a winning strategy thinking only one move ahead. OTOH, cooption is something easy for me to accept, in a programming context, taking some complex piece of code and slightly modifying it and plugging it in somewhere else is really common. And the more code accumulates there's a synergy there, where you hardly ever have to create anything completely from scratch. Of course none of this proves anything. But reflecting on that book, (I"m reading in chaper 4, BTW, "Fuse to the Cambrian Explosion") its is quite a detailed narrative, even if completely speculative. I mean if an overzealous policeman comes up with a ridiculously detailed whodunit theory and no one else has anything at all I guess his becomes the working theory by default.) I mean even if Meyer or whomever wants to make the Canbrian half a million years, they better come up with a causal explanation as to how it all happened in that length of time (other than just intelligence or magic). (Thanks to Allen_MacNeill for the info as well.)JT_{February 27, 2009
February
02
Feb
27
27
2009
05:52 PM
5
05
52
PM
PDT}

In #10, JT wrote:
"Rhetoric has a huge impact in a venue like this."
Precisely; rhetoric, and not logic or scientific argumentation. It's all about rhetoric (and therefore politics), isn't it? And not about things that can be empirically verified or falsified. Clearly, ID isn't about science, it's about rhetoric. Or, as it's now more commonly known, advertising.Allen_MacNeill_{February 27, 2009
February
02
Feb
27
27
2009
05:39 PM
5
05
39
PM
PDT}

1 2 Next

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Leave a Reply