I don’t know why everyone thinks it is unimaginabe data integrity. Checksums can be generated with any desired reliability. Error correction could be as easy as destroying the bad copy. That’s not precisely correction but it works. -ds

Reductive evolution is loss of function.

I do know that some mis-classificaiton of “transitionals” were later realized to be reductions of a known species! Mike Gene had some examples on his website.

This may seem horribly mean-spirited, I would seriously guess the marsupial mole which is completely blind parallels the placental mole which is mostly blind.

We could probably do some reductive evolution on the placental and see make it like it’s marsupial counterpart. Completely blind, but make it blind in the same manner (not just by poking it’s eyes out!).

However, if we identify how the marsupial counter part became blind, we might be able to…..you guessed it…reverse the phylogeny and even recapitulate it in the lab.

Salvador

This of course would raise the question, how did the pre-existing design come about?

This is the key and the stumbling block for evolutionary developmental biology. What good is a set of homeobox genes without the genes that it is trying to regulate? IOW, homeobox genes are obsolete if the genes to forming the eyes and nervous systems do not exist, vise versa, if the genes for eye development existed prior to homeobox genes, how did the homeobox genes came about? And how do you get the convergences of these homeobox genes across almost all organisms?

The same concept is applied to the parallel evolution of marsupial and placental mammals: similar environments and subsistence patterns place similar selective constraints on marsupial and placental mammals in different locations, resulting in strikingly similar anatomical and physiological adaptations, despite relatively non-homologous ancestry.

Unfortunately there is absolutely not a single shred of empirical evidence to support this story. (sound familiar?) What evidence do you have that the environments were similar at the time that these putative mutations were taking place? The comparison is sometimes made between the savannas of Australia to the Great Plains of North America, where the Thylacine and Gray Wolf are found. However, this is only after the fact of convergence, it tells us nothing about the environment under the putative selective constraints that directed the morphological similarities.

Another fact the Darwinists overlooked with this superficial and similar-environment story is that convergence also occurs in different environments. (more here http://www.teleological.org/Co.....lution.htm) Convergent features common to the sandlance and chameleon. http://tinyurl.com/fovf4
• Camouflage: cryptic eye and body coloration.
• Rapid, accurate strikes at small, mobile prey.
• Specialised feeding apparatus.
• Independent switching pattern of eye movements.
• Extreme ocular mobility.
• Lens with reduced power.*
• Cornea with increased power.*
• Corneal accommodation.*
• Monocular range-finding (accommodative cues shown in the chameleon, inferred in the sandlance).
• Deep convexiclivate fovea in the retina.
• Nodal point and axis of rotation of eye well-separated.*
• Large image magnification.
• Monocular movement parallax possible without eye translation.*
*Features not known in other fish or lizards.

The entire Darwinian convergent evolution story just doesn’t have any scientific merit at all.

Deja vu! -ds

The same concept is applied to the parallel evolution of marsupial and placental mammals: similar environments and subsistence patterns place similar selective constraints on marsupial and placental mammals in different locations, resulting in strikingly similar anatomical and physiological adaptations, despite relatively non-homologous ancestry.

Unfortunately there is absolutely not a single shred of empirical evidence to support this story. (sound familiar?) What evidence do you have that the environments were similar at the time that these putative mutations were taking place? The comparison is sometimes made between the savannas of Australia to the Great Plains of North America, where the Thylacine and Gray Wolf are found. However, this is only after the fact of convergence, it tells us nothing about the environment under the putative selective constraints that directed the morphological similarities.

Another fact the Darwinists overlooked with this superficial and similar-environment story is that convergence also occurs in different environments. Convergent features common to the sandlance and chameleon.
• Camouflage: cryptic eye and body coloration.
• Rapid, accurate strikes at small, mobile prey.
• Specialised feeding apparatus.
• Independent switching pattern of eye movements.
• Extreme ocular mobility.
• Lens with reduced power.*
• Cornea with increased power.*
• Corneal accommodation.*
• Monocular range-finding (accommodative cues shown in the chameleon, inferred in the sandlance).
• Deep convexiclivate fovea in the retina.
• Nodal point and axis of rotation of eye well-separated.*
• Large image magnification.
• Monocular movement parallax possible without eye translation.*
*Features not known in other fish or lizards.

The entire Darwinian convergent evolution story just don’t have any scientific merit at all.

The selective constraints “should have” been the same. “Should have” is ironclad, incontestable, settled science in evolutionary biology! -ds

Your other points are very much worth addressing and I’m glad you brought them up. It highlights how both sides are talking past each other in these discussions.

To help illustrate how we are talking past each other, I think it’s helpful to walk through an illustration of how one might explain a designed artifact like a printed piece of paper.

One might ask, “how did the paper get the printing that is on it?”.

There are several valid answers, neither is wrong, and neither is untrue empirically speaking. I’ll offer 2:

1. Intelligent designers (like engineers) created computers and printers which printed the paper

2. A print cartridge under the automated control puts ink in precise patterns on the paper…the automated process works by ……as inputs from the computer channel…..

#1 and #2 are modes of explanation. Mode #2 suits evolutionary biologists quite well, and it is what they consider empirical explanations. Nothing is inherently wrong with a mode #2 explanation, unless of course, the mechanical explanation of printer operation is completely erroneous (i.e. it’s powered by a perpetual motion machine, etc.).

In contrast, IDers invoke mode #1 AND #2 explanations.

But how can one justify mode #1 explanations empirically. If one can reach mode #2 explanations only by assuming mode #1 as a hypothesis, then mode #1 explanations begin to have more empirical believability. At least that’s how I see it. And that is how I tried to frame the exploration for IDers….

The concept of pre-programmed information to effect evolution comes right out of a major ID hypothesis, namely the conservation of information. Mode #1 think is confirmed by the discovery of informational artifacts which made evolution happen. If IDers succeed in explaing Marsupial Placental evolution, it will show natural selection was not the major proximal mechanism to drive evolution, but a pre-existing design.

This of course would raise the question, how did the pre-existing design come about?

Salvador