Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Why Similarities Do Not Prove the Absence of Design

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The following is section 2.3 of my new book  Christianity for Doubters. As the title indicates, much of this book is explicitly theological, but the first two chapters are about intelligent design. In the preface, I wrote “Of course, you do not have to believe anything in chapters 3-6 of this book or anything in the Bible to believe in intelligent design…. In fact, some intelligent design advocates are uncomfortable with a book that combines chapters on intelligent design with explicitly Christian chapters, because it might encourage those who claim that ID proponents do not understand the difference between science and religion. Most of us do understand the difference, we are just interested in both. And so are ID critics.” By the way, chapter 6 in the new book is almost the same as the essay “Is God Really Good?” posted here May 21, 2015.

Used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers.

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The idea that the “survival of the fittest” could produce all the magnificent species on Earth, and human brains and human consciousness, is so unreasonable—how did such an idea ever become so widely-accepted in the scientific world? There are two reasons.

First, science has been so successful explaining other phenomena in Nature that—understandably—today’s scientist has come to expect that nothing can escape the explanatory power of his science. And Darwinism, as far-fetched as it is, is the best “scientific” theory he can come up with for evolution. As microbiologist Rene Dubos puts it in The Torch of Life “[Darwinism’s] real strength is that however implausible it may appear to its opponents, they do not have a more plausible one to offer in its place.” But we have already seen in section 2.1 why evolution is a very different and much more difficult problem than others solved by science, and why it requires a very different type of explanation.

Second, for most modern minds, the similarities between species not only prove common descent, they prove that evolution was the result of entirely natural causes, even in the absence of any evidence that natural selection can explain the major steps of evolution. The argument is basically, “this doesn’t look like the way God would have created things,” an argument used frequently by Darwin in Origin of Species. But if the history of life does not give the appearance of creation by magic wand, it does look very much like the way we humans create things, through testing and improvements.

In fact, the fossil record does not even support the idea that new organs and new systems of organs arose gradually: new orders, classes and phyla consistently appear suddenly. For example, Harvard paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson writes:

It is a feature of the known fossil record that most taxa appear abruptly. They are not, as a rule, led up to by a sequence of almost imperceptibly changing forerunners such as Darwin believed should be usual in evolution…. This phenomenon becomes more universal and more intense as the hierarchy of categories is ascended. Gaps among known species are sporadic and often small. Gaps among known orders, classes and phyla are systematic and almost always large. These peculiarities of the record pose one of the most important theoretical problems in the whole history of life: Is the sudden appearance of higher categories a phenomenon of evolution or of the record only, due to sampling bias and other inadequacies?

Actually, if we did see the gradual development of new orders, classes and phyla, that would be as difficult to explain using natural selection as their sudden appearance. How could natural selection guide the development of the new organs and entire new systems of interdependent organs which gave rise to new orders, classes and phyla, through their initial useless stages, during which they provide no selective advantage? French biologist Jean Rostand, in A Biologist’s View, wrote:

It does not seem strictly impossible that mutations should have introduced into the animal kingdom the differences which exist between one species and the next… hence it is very tempting to lay also at their door the differences between classes, families and orders, and, in short, the whole of evolution. But it is obvious that such an extrapolation involves the gratuitous attribution to the mutations of the past of a magnitude and power of innovation much greater than is shown by those of today.

Rostand says, nevertheless, “However obscure the causes of evolution appear to me to be, I do not doubt for a moment that they are entirely natural.”

We see this same pattern, of large gaps where major new features appear, in the history of human technology. (And in software development, as discussed in my Mathematical Intelligencer article “A Mathematician’s View of Evolution.”) For example, if some future paleontologist were to unearth two species of Volkswagens, he might find it plausible that one evolved gradually from the other. He might find the lack of gradual transitions between automobile families more problematic, for example, in the transition from mechanical to hydraulic brake systems, or from manual to automatic transmissions, or from steam engines to internal combustion engines. But if he thought about what gradual transitions would look like, he would understand why they didn’t exist: there is no way to transition gradually from a steam engine to an internal combustion engine, for example, without the development of new, but not yet useful, features. He would be even more puzzled by the huge differences between the bicycle and motor vehicle phyla, or between the boat and airplane phyla. But heaven help us when he uncovers motorcycles and hovercraft, the discovery of these “missing links” would be hailed in all our newspapers as final proof that all forms of transportation arose gradually from a common ancestor, without design.

fig27c

The similarities between the history of life and the history of technology go even deeper. Although the similarities between species in the same branch of the evolutionary “tree” may suggest common descent, similarities (even genetic similarities) also frequently arise independently in distant branches, where they cannot be explained by common descent. For example, in their Nature Encyclopedia of Life Sciences article on carnivorous plants, Wolf-Ekkehard Loennig and Heinz-Albert Becker note that

…carnivory in plants must have arisen several times independently of each other… the pitchers might have arisen seven times separately, adhesive traps at least four times, snap traps two times and suction traps possibly also two times…. The independent origin of complex synorganized structures, which are often anatomically and physiologically very similar to each other, appears to be intrinsically unlikely to many authors so that they have tried to avoid the hypothesis of convergence as far as possible.

“Convergence” suggests common design rather than common descent: the probability of similar designs arising independently through random processes is very small, but a designer could, of course, take a good design and apply it several times in different places, to unrelated species. Convergence is a phenomenon often seen in the development of human technology, for example, Ford automobiles and Boeing jets may simultaneously evolve similar new GPS systems.

So if the history of life looks like the way humans, the only other known intelligent beings in the universe, design things—through careful planning, testing and improvements—why is that an argument against design? Somehow we got the idea that God doesn’t need to get involved in the details, so He should be able to create anything from scratch, using a magic wand. But no matter how intelligent a designer is, he still has to get involved in the details, that’s what design is!

Comments
Scientific Inaccuracies, False Accusations: Concluding My Response to Joseph Felsenstein - Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig - July 26, 2016 Excerpt: "It is clear that population genetics models rely on assumptions known to be false, and are subject to the realism / tractability trade-off. The simplest population-genetic models assume random mating, non-overlapping generations, infinite population size, perfect Mendelian segregation, frequency-independent genotype fitnesses, and the absence of stochastic effects; it is very unlikely (and in the case of the infinite population assumption, impossible) that any of these assumptions hold true of any actual biological population." Samir Okasha http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/07/scientific_inac103022.html
bornagain77
July 26, 2016
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Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig has an excellent article up on ENV: He shows that Natural Selection, according to population genetics itself and according to the real world, is far more random and impotent than is popularly believed.
In Terror of Chipmunks: A Response to Joseph Felsenstein - Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig - July 25, 2016 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/07/in_terror_of_ch103021.html
bornagain77
July 25, 2016
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I find the title of this post puzzling. Does anyone claim that the absence of design can be proved? I would think that's impossible.daveS
July 25, 2016
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bornagain77 Being a YEC is not typical for those very interested in origin subjects. Typical or not its irrelevant to accuracy or merit of the contention. In discussions like this referencing is a waste of time say in special important cases. We are all beyond entry level data. it doesn't persuade people. At least you only USUALLY ignore my posts. there is some hope. i read yours if they are not choked by wordy references. I'm a born again Christian and respect all who try and pass a threshold of ability. Usually on these blogs thats everyone who is regular.Robert Byers
July 24, 2016
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"Why Similarities Do Not Prove the Absence of Design I guess this supposed to mean that similarities prove evolution... How about the total lack of similarities (lets call them the total lack of evidence for obvious reasons) or a chasm in evolution where similiariies should be there but they are definitely not there? What could the Darwinian police do? Attack instead of providing evidence?J-Mac
July 24, 2016
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Granville Sewell @ 16
Some people have criticized this section of the book by saying that of course cars cannot evolve like animals, because they cannot reproduce, so there are no “variations” for natural selection to work with. But my main point in this section has nothing to do with natural selection, it is only that similarities between “species” (of cars or animals) do not prove absence of design.
No, and neither do they prove its presence. But if the observed "similarities" can be accounted for by a theory of common descent, such that they become evidence for it, then, if you wish to show that intelligent design is a better explanation, you must find other evidence and arguments to support that claim. An argument using the analogy of the evolution of car designs is not sufficient.
However, even though it is irrelevant to my point here, let’s look at the argument that evolution is easier to explain if there is reproduction. Really? If cars were able to reproduce themselves almost perfectly, with slight errors or occasionally slight improvements, would that make the evolution of cars easier to explain without design, than if individual cars underwent slight changes or improvements directly, though rust or crashes or other natural causes? We are just so used to seeing animals make nearly perfect copies of themselves that we all consider that a “natural” process; but if we saw cars giving birth to cars, maybe we would realize that this would actually make automobile evolution even more amazing and more difficult to explain without design.
You seem to be missing the point. The argument is not that evolution is easier to explain if there is reproduction, it is that evolution depends on imperfect reproduction. If a self reproducing organism made perfect copies of itself, it would never evolve. It would never change, which is what perfection means in part. An important point arising out of this in respect to intelligent design is that, if we take human design as a model, then what we observe in the natural world is unlikely to have been designed. For example, when aeronautical engineers design an aircraft like a Boeing 747 they strive for a solution that is the lightest, strongest, most efficient and, above all, most reliable that can be achieved. The very last thing they want is for it to be vulnerable to unpredictable changes in structure or function that could result in it falling out of the sky. Yet this is what we see in the natural world, continual little changes some of which apparently have no effect, others which can have catastrophic effects on the organism. What kind of design is it where the processes employed involve random changes over time that render any outcomes unpredictable and, consequently, any purpose in the mind of the designer academic?Seversky
July 24, 2016
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More like ‘Obscurement’. The Obscurement. I like it.Mung
July 24, 2016
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As to:
If cars were able to reproduce themselves almost perfectly, with slight errors or occasionally slight improvements, would that make the evolution of cars easier to explain without design, than if individual cars underwent slight changes or improvements directly, though rust or crashes or other natural causes? No, that would actually make the whole process even more amazing and difficult to explain without design,
Indeed as more difficult as it would be making improvements to a car while it is running down the highway as compared to making improvements when it is in the garage. Multiple coordinated 'beneficial' changes have to be made at the same time in order to implement an improvement on a car rather than rendering the car completely non-functional:
K´necting The Dots: Modeling Functional Integration In Biological Systems - June 11, 2010 Excerpt: “If an engineer modifies the length of the piston rods in an internal combustion engine, but does not modify the crankshaft accordingly, the engine won’t start. Similarly, processes of development are so tightly integrated temporally and spatially that one change early in development will require a host of other coordinated changes in separate but functionally interrelated developmental processes downstream” (1) https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/k%C2%B4necting-the-dots-modeling-functional-integration-in-biological-systems/
Yet multiple coordinated beneficial changes are shown to be, by the mathematics of population genetics, astronomically unlikely to occur: Here is an excerpt from the 'Living Waters' video that gets this point across very well:
Whale Evolution vs. Population Genetics - Richard Sternberg and Paul Nelson - (excerpt from Living Waters video) https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/vb.100000088262100/1161131450566453/?type=2&theater
Here is a peer-reviewed paper that makes the same overall point:
The waiting time problem in a model hominin population - 2015 Sep 17 John Sanford, Wesley Brewer, Franzine Smith, and John Baumgardner Excerpt: The program Mendel’s Accountant realistically simulates the mutation/selection process,,, Given optimal settings, what is the longest nucleotide string that can arise within a reasonable waiting time within a hominin population of 10,000? Arguably, the waiting time for the fixation of a “string-of-one” is by itself problematic (Table 2). Waiting a minimum of 1.5 million years (realistically, much longer), for a single point mutation is not timely adaptation in the face of any type of pressing evolutionary challenge. This is especially problematic when we consider that it is estimated that it only took six million years for the chimp and human genomes to diverge by over 5 % [1]. This represents at least 75 million nucleotide changes in the human lineage, many of which must encode new information. While fixing one point mutation is problematic, our simulations show that the fixation of two co-dependent mutations is extremely problematic – requiring at least 84 million years (Table 2). This is ten-fold longer than the estimated time required for ape-to-man evolution. In this light, we suggest that a string of two specific mutations is a reasonable upper limit, in terms of the longest string length that is likely to evolve within a hominin population (at least in a way that is either timely or meaningful). Certainly the creation and fixation of a string of three (requiring at least 380 million years) would be extremely untimely (and trivial in effect), in terms of the evolution of modern man. It is widely thought that a larger population size can eliminate the waiting time problem. If that were true, then the waiting time problem would only be meaningful within small populations. While our simulations show that larger populations do help reduce waiting time, we see that the benefit of larger population size produces rapidly diminishing returns (Table 4 and Fig. 4). When we increase the hominin population from 10,000 to 1 million (our current upper limit for these types of experiments), the waiting time for creating a string of five is only reduced from two billion to 482 million years. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4573302/ Genetic Entropy – references to several peer reviewed numerical simulations analyzing and falsifying all flavors of Darwinian evolution (neutral theory included),, (via John Sanford and company) http://www.geneticentropy.org/#!properties/ctzx
Of related note
Can new genes arise from junk DNA? - August 2015 Excerpt: Researchers are beginning to understand that de novo genes seem to make up a significant part of the genome, yet scientists have little idea of how many there are or what they do. What’s more, mutations in these genes can trigger catastrophic failures. “It seems like these novel genes are often the most important ones,” said Erich Bornberg-Bauer, a bioinformatician at the University of Münster in Germany.,,, Scientists also want to understand how de novo genes get incorporated into the complex network of reactions that drive the cell, a particularly puzzling problem. It’s as if a bicycle spontaneously grew a new part and rapidly incorporated it into its machinery, even though the bike was working fine without it. “The question is fascinating but completely unknown,” Begun said. A human-specific gene called ESRG illustrates this mystery particularly well. Some of the sequence is found in monkeys and other primates. But it is only active in humans, where it is essential for maintaining the earliest embryonic stem cells. And yet monkeys and chimps are perfectly good at making embryonic stem cells without it. “It’s a human-specific gene performing a function that must predate the gene, because other organisms have these stem cells as well,” McLysaght said. “How does novel gene become functional? How does it get incorporated into actual cellular processes?” McLysaght said. “To me, that’s the most important question at the moment.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150818-a-surprise-source-of-lifes-code/ Insight into cells could lead to new approach to medicines Excerpt: Scientists expected to find simple links between individual proteins but were surprised to find that proteins were inter-connected in a complex web. Dr Victor Neduva, of the University of Edinburgh, who took part in the study, said: "Our studies have revealed an intricate network of proteins within cells that is much more complex than we previously thought. http://www.physorg.com/news196402353.html New Research on Epistatic Interactions Shows "Overwhelmingly Negative" Fitness Costs and Limits to Evolution - Casey Luskin - June 2011 Excerpt: If this kind of evidence doesn't run counter to claims that neo-Darwinian evolution can evolve fundamentally new types of organisms and produce the astonishing diversity we observe in life, what does? http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/new_research_on_epistatic_inte047151.html
bornagain77
July 24, 2016
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Some people have criticized this section of the book by saying that of course cars cannot evolve like animals, because they cannot reproduce, so there are no "variations" for natural selection to work with. But my main point in this section has nothing to do with natural selection, it is only that similarities between "species" (of cars or animals) do not prove absence of design. However, even though it is irrelevant to my point here, let's look at the argument that evolution is easier to explain if there is reproduction. Really? If cars were able to reproduce themselves almost perfectly, with slight errors or occasionally slight improvements, would that make the evolution of cars easier to explain without design, than if individual cars underwent slight changes or improvements directly, though rust or crashes or other natural causes? We are just so used to seeing animals make nearly perfect copies of themselves that we all consider that a "natural" process; but if we saw cars giving birth to cars, maybe we would realize that this would actually make automobile evolution even more amazing and more difficult to explain without design.Granville Sewell
July 23, 2016
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Dr Sewell asks:
The idea that the “survival of the fittest” could produce all the magnificent species on Earth, and human brains and human consciousness, is so unreasonable—how did such an idea ever become so widely-accepted in the scientific world?
The Sev replies
Perhaps it was precisely because it offered a rational explanation of how all the magnificent species on Earth – including human beings – could have been produced by natural processes, that there was no need to resort to some creation ex nihilo belief.
Darwinian evolution certainly did not, and certainly still does not, offer a 'rational' explanation as to how all biological life and our consciousness came about. In fact, the leading scientists of Darwin's day rejected his theory precisely because it was irrational and was not based on sound science, whilst the liberal clergy of Darwin's day accepted his book precisely because it was based on bad theology.
“Religious views were mixed, with the Church of England scientific establishment reacting against the book, while liberal Anglicans strongly supported Darwin’s natural selection as an instrument of God’s design.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_On_the_Origin_of_Species
A few notes
Was Darwin a Scholar or a Pitchman? - Michael Flannery - October 20, 2015 Excerpt: By and large, the scientists of his day were not much impressed with Darwin's theory. John Herschel called natural selection "the law of higgledy-piggledy," and William Whewell thought the theory consisted of "speculations" that were "quite unproved by facts," so much so that he refused to put the book on the shelves of the Trinity College Library. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/10/was_darwin_a_sc100191.html Someone tries telling the truth: Darwin wasn’t that great but he met an elite need - July 29, 2014 Excerpt: , he (Charles Darwin) devoted almost every bit of his magnum opus (Origin Of Species) to tedious examples of artificial selection in domestic animals. He brushed away the glaring advantage of artificial over natural selection with rhetoric along the lines of “I see no reason why” natural selection might not have fashioned the eye or any other organ or living thing. For such schoolboy ineptitude he was roundly criticized by his contemporaries, all of whom are now consigned to history’s dustbin, regardless of their skills and biological competency. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/someone-tries-telling-the-truth-darwin-wasnt-that-great-but-he-met-an-elite-need/ Charles Darwin's use of theology in the Origin of Species - STEPHEN DILLEY Abstract This essay examines Darwin's positiva (or positive) use of theology in the first edition of the Origin of Species in three steps. First, the essay analyses the Origin's theological language about God's accessibility, honesty, methods of creating, relationship to natural laws and lack of responsibility for natural suffering; the essay contends that Darwin utilized positiva theology in order to help justify (and inform) descent with modification and to attack special creation. Second, the essay offers critical analysis of this theology, drawing in part on Darwin's mature ruminations to suggest that, from an epistemic point of view, the Origin's positiva theology manifests several internal tensions. Finally, the essay reflects on the relative epistemic importance of positiva theology in the Origin's overall case for evolution. The essay concludes that this theology served as a handmaiden and accomplice to Darwin's science. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=376799F09F9D3CC8C2E7500BACBFC75F.journals?aid=8499239&fileId=S000708741100032X SKEPTICS OF DARWINIAN THEORY Sedgwick to Darwin "...I have read your book with more pain than pleasure. Parts of it I admired greatly, parts I laughed at till my sides were almost sore; other parts I read with absolute sorrow, because I think them utterly false and grievously mischievous." Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873) - one of the founders of modern geology. - The Spectator, 1860 http://veritas-ucsb.org/library/origins/quotes/critics.html An Early Critique of Darwin Warned of a Lower Grade of Degradation - Cornelius Hunter - Dec. 22, 2012 Excerpt: "Many of your wide conclusions are based upon assumptions which can neither be proved nor disproved. Why then express them in the language & arrangements of philosophical induction?" (Sedgwick to Darwin - 1859),,, And anticipating the fixity-of-species strawman, Sedgwick explained to the Sage of Kent (Darwin) that he had conflated the observable fact of change of time (development) with the explanation of how it came about. Everyone agreed on development, but the key question of its causes and mechanisms remained. Darwin had used the former as a sort of proof of a particular explanation for the latter. “We all admit development as a fact of history;” explained Sedgwick, “but how came it about?”,,, For Darwin, warned Sedgwick, had made claims well beyond the limits of science. Darwin issued truths that were not likely ever to be found anywhere “but in the fertile womb of man’s imagination.” The fertile womb of man’s imagination. What a cogent summary of evolutionary theory. Sedgwick made more correct predictions in his short letter than all the volumes of evolutionary literature to come. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/12/an-early-critique-of-darwin-warned-of.html Moreover, ALL of science, especially including Darwinian evolution itself, is dependent on basic Theistic presuppositions about the rational intelligibility of the universe and our ability to comprehend that rational intelligibility. ,,, Where Darwinian evolution goes off the rails, theologically speaking, as far as science itself is concerned, is that it uses bad liberal theology to try to establish the legitimacy of its atheistic claims, all the while forgetting that it itself is dependent on basic Theistic presuppositions about the rational intelligibility of the universe and of our mind to comprehend it. (July 2016) https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/americans-support-dissent-re-evolution/#comment-612345
Moreover, the assumption of Naturalism in science leads to epistemological failure.
Atheistic Materialism - Where All of Reality Becomes an Illusion - video https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/1213432255336372/ Darwinian evolution, and atheism/naturalism in general, are built entirely upon a framework of illusions and fantasy https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q94y-QgZZGF0Q7HdcE-qdFcVGErhWxsVKP7GOmpKD6o/edit
bornagain77
July 23, 2016
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'First, science has been so successful explaining other phenomena in Nature that—understandably—today’s scientist has come to expect that nothing can escape the explanatory power of his science.' There's nothing understandable about it. It's childishly presumptuous. 'Science has indeed been very successful at explaining phenomena in Nature using naturalistic assumptions and methodology. So much so that it is only reasonable to continue with that approach to see how far it can take us.' A grotesque parody of the truth. How you atheists have been permitted to get away with that tosh for so long is more mysterious than evolution, the risible abiogenetic conjecture, unicorns, pink pixies, etc. Enlightenment ? More like 'Obscurement'. They were not 'naturalistic assumptions', at all. It was simply that at the mechanistic level, Christian metaphysics, any metaphysics was irrelevant. One of the keys to the success of science was precisely its treatment as a very limited Lego/Meccano-like, intellectual discipline, a kind of a pedantic backwater - something that even dunces could get a handle on. Everything not strictly involved was left out of consideration leaving, almost literally, Just the 'nuts and bolts'. It was all made possible, of course, by Christian metaphysics, built, as it is on the rational foundation and construction of creation by a rational Creator. Quantum mechanics changed all that 'in spades'. You atheists, Seversky, are hangers-on, parasites, because you people could never have even conjectured QM in even the broadest outline, because it's too mysteriously anti-scientismical... like.. .. like unicorns 'n' stuff...; even admitting ubiquitous non locality !!!! reverse time-travel. A lot of weird stuff. We had to wait until the discovery by deist and witheringly anti-atheist, Max Planck, to discover quantum physics.Axel
July 23, 2016
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News @ 6
How come all keyboards on the planet are best operated by an entity with ten digits?
Because, as we well know, they were designed by an entity with ten fingers for that purpose?Seversky
July 23, 2016
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The idea that the “survival of the fittest” could produce all the magnificent species on Earth, and human brains and human consciousness, is so unreasonable—how did such an idea ever become so widely-accepted in the scientific world?
Perhaps it was precisely because it offered a rational explanation of how all the magnificent species on Earth - including human beings - could have been produced by natural processes, that there was no need to resort to some creation ex nihilo belief.
First, science has been so successful explaining other phenomena in Nature that—understandably—today’s scientist has come to expect that nothing can escape the explanatory power of his science.
Science has indeed been very successful at explaining phenomena in Nature using naturalistic assumptions and methodology. So much so that it is only reasonable to continue with that approach to see how far it can take us.
As microbiologist Rene Dubos puts it in The Torch of Life “[Darwinism’s] real strength is that however implausible it may appear to its opponents, they do not have a more plausible one to offer in its place.”
That is true of all theories in science, not just evolution.
Second, for most modern minds, the similarities between species not only prove common descent, they prove that evolution was the result of entirely natural causes, even in the absence of any evidence that natural selection can explain the major steps of evolution.
The similarities are evidence for common descent and there is a lot more to the current theory of evolution than natural selection.
The argument is basically, “this doesn’t look like the way God would have created things,” an argument used frequently by Darwin in Origin of Species.
This is a strawman. The theory of evolution in no way depends on claims about how the Christian God might have designed living things. Darwin's allusions to God were made primarily to forestall the criticisms of his theory that he anticipated would come from the Christian creationists of his day. You could strip out all those references and his theory would still stand.
But if the history of life does not give the appearance of creation by magic wand, it does look very much like the way we humans create things, through testing and improvements.
And this is an obvious flaw in ID thinking. If life on Earth was designed it was not by contemporary human beings. At the very least, it must have been by some extraterrestrial intelligence considerably more advanced than we are in terms of science and technology. What reasons do you have for thinking that their designs must look like human designs of the twentieth or twenty-first centuries? There is an assumption underlying design speculations that there must be common properties of all designed objects, regardless of the source, by which they can be reliably identified. That may be true but with out any alien artefacts to test that assumption against it remains speculative.
We see this same pattern, of large gaps where major new features appear, in the history of human technology. (And in software development, as discussed in my Mathematical Intelligencer article “A Mathematician’s View of Evolution.”) For example, if some future paleontologist were to unearth two species of Volkswagens, he might find it plausible that one evolved gradually from the other. He might find the lack of gradual transitions between automobile families more problematic, for example, in the transition from mechanical to hydraulic brake systems, or from manual to automatic transmissions, or from steam engines to internal combustion engines.
Why is design thinking so prone to argument by weak analogy? The strength of an argument by analogy depends on the degree of similarity between the two cases under consideration. This particular one collapses immediately if you assume that future paleontologists are smart enough to distinguish artefacts like Volkswagens from living organisms.Seversky
July 23, 2016
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Mr Byers, I do not consider your opinion(s) to be typical or of any value since you never reference the literature. Have not for years. I usually ignore your posts. I suggest you do the same with mine.bornagain77
July 23, 2016
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bornagain77 Your wrong that the man/chimp likeness is the source for similarity concepts. Nothing to do with it. Its based on comparing all of biology .its simply seeing the truth of likeness in all of biology and then the hunch its from a common descent origin. It rejects, not a option, common design. its been a flawed concept . However design to them would be a unnatural intrusion into scientific investigation. Yet too bad and anyways any rejection of other options is a intrusion into credibility of scientific investigation. Creationism needs mechanisms also but this working upon a foundation of creation and creation week.Robert Byers
July 22, 2016
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Absolutely nothing observed in the natural world contradicts design. There is 1 exception to it: people who don't want the natural world to be designed, people who generally hate the idea of a designer and people who don't want to be accountable to anyone because they enjoy the behavior that's questionable to their designer.J-Mac
July 22, 2016
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I work in software development. Sometimes we cut and paste code. Sometimes we rewrite code so that it does the same thing, only better. Sometimes we write completely new code for novel functionality. Sometimes we slightly modify some code, enabling it to do something totally different. We see the same pattern in the living world. Absolutely nothing observed in the natural world contradicts design.EvilSnack
July 22, 2016
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as to:
How come all keyboards on the planet are best operated by an entity with ten digits?
And where exactly is the typist for all these keyboards to be found?
Epigenetics and the "Piano" Metaphor - January 2012 Excerpt: And this is only the construction of proteins we're talking about. It leaves out of the picture entirely the higher-level components -- tissues, organs, the whole body plan that draws all the lower-level stuff together into a coherent, functioning form. What we should really be talking about is not a lone piano but a vast orchestra under the directing guidance of an unknown conductor fulfilling an artistic vision, organizing and transcending the music of the assembly of individual players. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/01/epigenetics_and054731.html Genes and Organisms: Improvising the Dance of Life - Stephen L. Talbott - Nov. 10, 2015 Excerpt: The performances of countless cells in your body are redirected and coordinated as part of a global narrative for which no localized controller exists. This redirection and coordination includes a unique choreography of gene expression in each individual cell. Hundreds or thousands of DNA sequences move (or are moved) within vast numbers of cell nuclei, and are subjected to extraordinarily nuanced, locally modulated chemical activity so as to contribute appropriately to bodily requirements that are nowhere codified — least of all in those DNA sequences.,,, http://www.natureinstitute.org/txt/st/org/comm/ar/2015/genes_29.htm The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings - Stephen L. Talbott - 2010 Excerpt: Virtually the same collection of molecules exists in the canine cells during the moments immediately before and after death. But after the fateful transition no one will any longer think of genes as being regulated, nor will anyone refer to normal or proper chromosome functioning. No molecules will be said to guide other molecules to specific targets, and no molecules will be carrying signals, which is just as well because there will be no structures recognizing signals. Code, information, and communication, in their biological sense, will have disappeared from the scientist’s vocabulary. ,,, the question, rather, is why things don’t fall completely apart — as they do, in fact, at the moment of death. What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer? Despite the countless processes going on in the cell, and despite the fact that each process might be expected to “go its own way” according to the myriad factors impinging on it from all directions, the actual result is quite different. Rather than becoming progressively disordered in their mutual relations (as indeed happens after death, when the whole dissolves into separate fragments), the processes hold together in a larger unity. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-unbearable-wholeness-of-beings picture - What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer? http://f.tqn.com/y/angels/1/S/L/8/-/-/sleeping-dreaming-man-spirit-leaving-body.jpg
bornagain77
July 22, 2016
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How come all keyboards on the planet are best operated by an entity with ten digits?News
July 22, 2016
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I've always found it interesting that common descent is out to show that similarities are because of descent from a common ancestor. And yet, convergence suggests common descent isn't needed at all to explain similarities.TSErik
July 22, 2016
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Quote of note:
"If the overall biology of the animals tells you that they are very different, and the genetics tells you that they are nearly identical, it follows that the genetic comparison is telling you something relatively trivial about the overall biology." Jonathan Marks - evolutionary biologist/anthropologist at the University of North Carolina - 1993
Even King and Wilson, in the original paper that started the whole 99% similarity myth off, admitted that genetic similarity tells us next to nothing about how it is remotely possible to change one creature into another creature:
In “Science,” 1975, M-C King and A.C. Wilson were the first to publish a paper estimating the degree of similarity between the human and the chimpanzee genome. This documented the degree of genetic similarity between the two (approx. 99% amino acid similarity) ! The study, using a limited data set, found that we were far more similar than was thought possible at the time. Hence, we must be one with apes mustn't we? But…in the second section of their paper King and Wilson honestly describe the deficiencies of such reasoning: “The molecular similarity between chimpanzees and humans is extraordinary because they differ far more than sibling species in anatomy and way of life. Although humans and chimpanzees are rather similar in the structure of the thorax and arms, they differ substantially not only in brain size but also in the anatomy of the pelvis, foot, and jaws, as well as in relative lengths of limbs and digits (38). Humans and chimpanzees also differ significantly in many other anatomical respects, to the extent that nearly every bone in the body of a chimpanzee is readily distinguishable in shape or size from its human counterpart (38). Associated with these anatomical differences there are, of course, major differences in posture (see cover picture), mode of locomotion, methods of procuring food, and means of communication. Because of these major differences in anatomy and way of life, biologists place the two species not just in separate genera but in separate families (39). So it appears that molecular and organismal methods of evaluating the chimpanzee human difference yield quite different conclusions (40).” King and Wilson went on to suggest that the morphological and behavioral differences between humans and apes,, must be due to variations in their genomic regulatory systems. David Berlinski - The Devil's Delusion - Page 162&163 Evolution at Two Levels in Humans and Chimpanzees Mary-Claire King; A. C. Wilson - 1975 A Closer Look At Human/Chimp Similarities and Differences – video https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/vb.100000088262100/1134643976548534/?type=2&theater
And indeed when researchers looked at the genetic regulatory systems, particularly the alternative splicing patterns, that is where they found wide differences between species.
Evolution by Splicing – Comparing gene transcripts from different species reveals surprising splicing diversity. – Ruth Williams – December 20, 2012 Excerpt: A major question in vertebrate evolutionary biology is “how do physical and behavioral differences arise if we have a very similar set of genes to that of the mouse, chicken, or frog?”,,, A commonly discussed mechanism was variable levels of gene expression, but both Blencowe and Chris Burge,,, found that gene expression is relatively conserved among species. On the other hand, the papers show that most alternative splicing events differ widely between even closely related species. “The alternative splicing patterns are very different even between humans and chimpanzees,” said Blencowe.,,, http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view%2FarticleNo%2F33782%2Ftitle%2FEvolution-by-Splicing%2F The Evolutionary Landscape of Alternative Splicing in Vertebrate Species - 2012 Excerpt: How species with similar repertoires of protein-coding genes differ so markedly at the phenotypic level is poorly understood. By comparing organ transcriptomes from vertebrate species spanning ~350 million years of evolution, we observed significant differences in alternative splicing complexity between vertebrate lineages, with the highest complexity in primates. Within 6 million years, the splicing profiles of physiologically equivalent organs diverged such that they are more strongly related to the identity of a species than they are to organ type.,,, http://science.sciencemag.org/content/338/6114/1587 Gene Regulation Differences Between Humans, Chimpanzees Very Complex – Oct. 17, 2013 Excerpt: Although humans and chimpanzees share,, similar genomes, previous studies have shown that the species evolved major differences in mRNA (messenger RNA) expression levels.,,, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131017144632.htm
Moreover, in the following excellent study, it was found that alternative splicing can produce up to a million distinct polypeptides that display strikingly different interaction profiles and also that the proteins appear to behave as if encoded by distinct genes rather than as minor variants of each other
Widespread Expansion of Protein Interaction Capabilities by Alternative Splicing - 2016 In Brief Alternatively spliced isoforms of proteins exhibit strikingly different interaction profiles and thus, in the context of global interactome networks, appear to behave as if encoded by distinct genes rather than as minor variants of each other.,,, Page 806 excerpt: As many as 100,000 distinct isoform transcripts could be produced from the 20,000 human protein-coding genes (Pan et al., 2008), collectively leading to perhaps over a million distinct polypeptides obtained by post-translational modification of products of all possible transcript isoforms (Smith and Kelleher, 2013). http://iakouchevalab.ucsd.edu/publications/Yang_Cell_OMIM_2016.pdf
Of related interest is this earlier study from 2008:
Comparative kinomics of human and chimpanzee reveal unique kinship and functional diversity generated by new domain combinations - 2008 Excerpt: Analysis of kinomes of several organisms performed in our group and in other groups [3,6,7,15-21] revealed that kinase complement represents 2–3% of the proteome.,,, The objective of this study is to identify, classify and annotate the protein kinases in chimpanzee genome and to compare this preliminary kinome set with human which is the closest relative of chimp. ,,, We have identified 587 kinases from chimp genome using various sophisticated sequence analysis and classification procedures,,, For 117 chimpanzee kinases we did not detect human orthologues based on the criteria we have used. Many of these kinases have substantially different lengths and are characterized by differences in domain tethering preferences discussed above.,, However some of the chimpanzee kinases are radically different from the nearest human kinases (Table 2).,,, However, substantial number of chimpanzee kinases deviates markedly in terms of the domain combination/architecture resulting in unique varieties of functional domain combinations.,,, http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/9/625
As well, in this earlier study there was found to be a 'rather low' conservation of Domain-Domain Interactions occurring in Protein-Protein interaction networks between species:
A Top-Down Approach to Infer and Compare Domain-Domain Interactions across Eight Model Organisms Excerpt: Knowledge of specific domain-domain interactions (DDIs) is essential to understand the functional significance of protein interaction networks. Despite the availability of an enormous amount of data on protein-protein interactions (PPIs), very little is known about specific DDIs occurring in them.,,, Our results show that only 23% of these DDIs are conserved in at least two species and only 3.8% in at least 4 species, indicating a rather low conservation across species.,,, http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0005096
This 'low conservation' for DDIs and PPIs between chimps and humans is very interesting from the Intelligent Design perspective since Michael Behe has shown it to be extremely difficult to generate novel protein-protein binding sites.
"The likelihood of developing two binding sites in a protein complex would be the square of the probability of developing one: a double CCC (chloroquine complexity cluster), 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40. There have likely been fewer than 10^40 cells in the entire world in the past 4 billion years, so the odds are against a single event of this variety (just 2 protein-protein binding sites being generated by accident) in the history of life. It is biologically unreasonable." Michael J. Behe PhD. (from page 146 of his book "Edge of Evolution")
Thus, when all the genetic evidence is taken into consideration, (instead of just looking at the 'prefiltered' genetic evidence that Darwinists think fits their narrative), humans and chimps are found to be as distinct from each other as would be expected if they were indeed created uniquely by God. Verse:
Genesis 1:25-26 God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
bornagain77
July 22, 2016
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Yet, although the 99% percentage is almost certainly overblown due to the evolutionary bias in the way the sequences were, and are, aligned, i.e. 'prefiltered', by Darwinists, even if the 99% figure were true it would tell us next to nothing as to how it could be remotely possible to change a chimp into a human. First, in echoing Dr. Sewell's observations of unexpected convergence, genetic similarity is also found in widely divergent species:
Kangaroo genes close to humans Excerpt: Australia's kangaroos are genetically similar to humans,,, "There are a few differences, we have a few more of this, a few less of that, but they are the same genes and a lot of them are in the same order," ,,,"We thought they'd be completely scrambled, but they're not. There is great chunks of the human genome which is sitting right there in the kangaroo genome," http://www.reuters.com/article/science%20News/idUSTRE4AH1P020081118 First Decoded Marsupial Genome Reveals "Junk DNA" Surprise - 2007 Excerpt: In particular, the study highlights the genetic differences between marsupials such as opossums and kangaroos and placental mammals like humans, mice, and dogs. ,,, The researchers were surprised to find that placental and marsupial mammals have largely the same set of genes for making proteins. Instead, much of the difference lies in the controls that turn genes on and off. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/070510-opossum-dna.html On Human Origins: Is Our Genome Full of Junk DNA? Pt 2. – Richard Sternberg PhD. Evolutionary Biology - podcast Excerpt: “Here’s the interesting thing, when you look at the protein coding sequences that you have in your cell what you find is that they are nearly identical to the protein coding sequences of a dog, of a carp, of a fruit fly, of a nematode. They are virtually the same and they are interchangeable. You can knock out a gene that encodes a protein for an inner ear bone in say a mouse. This has been done. And then you can take a protein that is similar to it but from a fruit fly. And fruit flies aren’t vertebrates and they certainly are not mammals., so they don’t have inner ear bones. And you can plug that gene in and guess what happens? The offspring of the mouse will have a perfectly normal inner ear bone. So you can swap out all these files. I mentioning this to you because when you hear about we are 99% similar (to chimps) it is almost all referring to those protein coding regions. When you start looking, and you start comparing different mammals. Dolphins, aardvarks, elephants, manatees, humans, chimpanzees,, it doesn’t really matter. What you find is that the protein coding sequences are very well conserved, and there is also a lot of the DNA that is not protein coding that is also highly conserved. But when you look at the chromosomes and those banding patterns, those bar codes, (mentioned at the beginning of the talk), its akin to going into the grocery store. You see a bunch of black and white lines right? You’ve seen one bar code you’ve seen them all. But those bar codes are not the same.,, Here’s an example, aardvark and human chromosomes. They look very similar at the DNA level when you take small snippets of them. (Yet) When you look at how they are arranged in a linear pattern along the chromosome they turn out to be very distinct (from one another). So when you get to the folder and the super-folder and the higher order level, that’s when you find these striking differences. And here is another example. They are now sequencing the nuclear DNA of the Atlantic bottle-nose dolphin. And when they started initially sequencing the DNA, the first thing they realized is that basically the Dolphin genome is almost wholly identical to the human genome. That is, there are a few chromosome rearrangements here and there, you line the sequences up and they fit very well. Yet no one would argue, based on a statement like that, that bottle-nose dolphins are closely related to us. Our sister species if you will. No one would presume to do that. So you would have to layer in some other presumption. But here is the point. You will see these statements throughout the literature of how common things are.,,, (Parts lists are very similar, but how the parts are used is where you will find tremendous differences) http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/11/on-human-origins-is-our-genome-full-of-junk-dna-pt-2/ The octopus genome and the evolution of cephalopod neural and morphological novelties – August 13, 2015 Excerpt: the independent expansions and nervous system enrichment of protocadherins in coleoid cephalopods and vertebrates offers a striking example of convergent evolution between these clades at the molecular level. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v524/n7564/full/nature14668.html Darwinism Versus the Octopus: An Evolutionary Dilemma - Eric Metaxas - September 08, 2015 Excerpt: What’s the difference between evolutionary theory and an octopus? Well, one is a slippery, color-changing escape artist that can get out of any tough situation and the other is an aquatic invertebrate.,,, The key to this uncanny intelligence is the octopus’ so-called “alien” nervous system, brain, and eyes. But these features are not alien to the animal kingdom at all. In fact, they’re quite common in higher vertebrates. The octopus genome shares key similarities with ours, including the development of high-powered brains and “camera eyes” with a cornea, lens, and retina. Now here’s the problem for evolution: according to Neo-Darwinists, we’re not related to octopi—at least not within the last several hundred million years. That means all of these genes, complex structures, and incredible capabilities came about twice. The researchers who sequenced the octopus genome call this “a striking example of convergent evolution,” or the supposed tendency of unrelated creatures to develop the same traits in response to environmental pressures. Isn’t that just a fancy way of saying a miracle happened twice? But the octopus isn’t the only such miracle. “Convergent evolution” is all over nature, from powered flight evolving three times to each continent having its own version of the anteater. Think about that. As one delightfully un-self-conscious “Science Today” cover put it, convergent evolution is “nature discover[ing] the same design over and over.” Well, good for nature! But as Luskin argues, there’s a better explanation for a tentacled mollusk having a mammal’s brain and human eyes. And that explanation is common design by an intelligent Engineer. And like all good engineers, this this one reused some of His best designs. Now that explanation isn’t going to satisfy Darwinian naturalists. And they’ll probably keep on invoking “convergent evolution” when faced with impossible coincidences in nature. But hopefully knowing a more straightforward explanation leaves you forearmed—or should I said “eight-armed”? http://www.christianheadlines.com/columnists/breakpoint/darwinism-versus-the-octopus-an-evolutionary-dilemma.html Newly Discovered Convergent Genetic Evolution Between Bird and Human Vocalization Poses a Severe Challenge to Common Ancestry - Casey Luskin - December 15, 2014 Excerpt: "We've known for many years that the singing behavior of birds is similar to speech in humans -- not identical, but similar -,,, "But we didn't know whether or not those features were the same because the genes were also the same." "Now scientists do know, and the answer is yes -- birds and humans use essentially the same genes to speak.",,, "there is a consistent set of just over 50 genes,,," "These changes were not found in the brains of birds that do not have vocal learning and of non-human primates that do not speak," So certain birds and humans use the same genes for vocalization -- but those genetic abilities are absent in non-human primates and birds without vocal learning? If not derived from a common ancestor, as they clearly were not, how did the genes get there? This kind of extreme convergent genetic evolution points strongly to intelligent design. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/newly_discovere092041.html Research shows that corals share many of the genes in the human genome - June 1, 2016 Excerpt: UH M?noa scientists,,, have published new research showing that corals share many of the genes humans possess, especially those that can sense temperature and acidity, both of which are important to keeping both coral and humans healthy.,, "it was surprising to find that corals share many of the genes we possess," said Dr. Stokes. http://phys.org/news/2016-06-corals-genes-human-genome.html Shark and human proteins “stunningly similar”; shark closer to human than to zebrafish – December 9, 2013 Excerpt: “We were very surprised to find, that for many categories of proteins, sharks share more similarities with humans than zebrafish,” Stanhope said. “Although sharks and bony fishes are not closely related, they are nonetheless both fish … while mammals have very different anatomies and physiologies. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/shark-and-human-proteins-stunningly-similar-shark-closer-to-human-than-to-zebrafish/ Where could we have learned but from Phys.org - Sept. 28, 2014 Excerpt: “We have basically the same 20,000 protein-coding genes as a frog, yet our genome is much more complicated, with more layers of gene regulation." https://uncommondescent.com/human-evolution/where-could-we-have-learned-but-from-phys-org/
bornagain77
July 22, 2016
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The main argument for 'similarity proves evolution' comes from the supposed 99% genetically similarity claim between chimps and humans. Yet, although the 99% percentage is almost certainly overblown due to the evolutionary bias in the way the sequences were, and are, aligned,,,,
Guy Walks Into a Bar and Thinks He's a Chimpanzee: The Unbearable Lightness of Chimp-Human Genome Similarity - Sternberg - 2009 Excerpt: One can seriously call into question the statement that human and chimp genomes are 99% identical. For one thing, it has been noted in the literature that the exact degree of identity between the two genomes is as yet unknown (Cohen, J., 2007. Relative differences: The myth of 1% Science 316: 1836.). ,,, In short, the figure of identity that one wants to use is dependent on various methodological factors. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/05/guy_walks_into_a_bar_and_think.html Richard Dawkins: How Could Anyone “Possibly Doubt the Fact of Evolution” - Cornelius Hunter -  February 27, 2014 Excerpt: Not surprisingly evolutionists carefully prefilter their data. As one paper explained, “data are routinely filtered in order to satisfy stringent criteria so as to eliminate the possibility of incongruence.” http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2014/02/richard-dawkins-how-could-anyone.html Darwin’s Tree of Life is a Tangled Bramble Bush - May 15, 2013     Excerpt: ,,, One whole subsection in the paper is titled, “All gene trees differ from species phylogeny.” Another is titled, “Standard practices do not reduce incongruence.” A third, “Standard practices can mislead.” One of their major findings was “extensive conflict in certain internodes.” The authors not only advised throwing out some standard practices of tree-building, but (amazingly) proposed evolutionists throw out the “uninformative” conflicting data and only use data that seems to support the Darwinian tree: “the subset of genes with strong phylogenetic signal is more informative than the full set of genes, suggesting that phylogenomic analyses using conditional combination approaches, rather than approaches based on total evidence, may be more powerful.”,,, ,,,tossing out “uninformative” data sets and only using data that appear to support their foreordained conclusion. Were you told this in biology class? Did your textbook mention this? http://crev.info/2013/05/darwins-tree-of-life-is-a-tangled-bramble-bush/   That Yeast Study is a Good Example of How Evolutionary Theory Works - Cornelius Hunter - June 2013 Excerpt:,,, The evolutionists tried to fix the problem with all kinds of strategies. They removed parts of genes from the analysis, they removed a few genes that might have been outliers, they removed a few of the yeast species, they restricted the analysis to certain genes that agreed on parts of the evolutionary tree, they restricted the analysis to only those genes thought to be slowly evolving, and they tried restricting the gene comparisons to only certain parts of the gene. These various strategies each have their own rationale. That rationale may be dubious, but at least there is some underlying reasoning. Yet none of these strategies worked. In fact they sometimes exacerbated the incongruence problem. What the evolutionists finally had to do, simply put, was to select the subset of the genes or of the problem that gave the right evolutionary answer. They described those genes as having “strong phylogenetic signal.” And how do we know that these genes have strong phylogenetic signal. Because they give the right (preferred) answer. This is an example of a classic tendency in science known as confirmation bias.,,, http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2013/06/that-yeast-study-is-good-example-of-how.html   Genome-Wide DNA Alignment Similarity (Identity) for 40,000 Chimpanzee DNA Sequences Queried against the Human Genome is 86–89% - Jeffrey P. Tomkins - December 28, 2011 Excerpt: A common claim that is propagated through obfuscated research publications and popular evolutionary science authors is that the DNA of chimpanzees or chimps (Pan troglodytes) and humans (Homo sapiens) is about 98–99% similar. A major problem with nearly all past human-chimp comparative DNA studies is that data often goes through several levels of pre-screening, filtering and selection before being aligned, summarized, and discussed. Non-alignable regions are typically omitted and gaps in alignments are often discarded or obfuscated. In an upcoming paper, Tomkins and Bergman (2012) discuss most of the key human-chimp DNA similarity research papers on a case-by-case basis and show that the inclusion of discarded data (when provided) actually suggests a DNA similarity for humans and chimps not greater than 80–87% and quite possibly even less. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/arj/v4/n1/blastin Complete Reanalysis of Chimpanzee and Human Genome-Wide DNA Similarity Using Nucmer and LASTZ by Jeffrey P. Tomkins on October 7, 2015 Excerpt: In summary, it can be fairly well stated that the chimpanzee genome is not 98 to 99% similar to human, but at most no more than about 88% similar overall. However, there are several caveats that must be considered. First, the chimpanzee genomic sequence used in this study was assembled onto the human genome as a framework and thus does not stand on its own merits (Tomkins 2011b). And second, the majority of flow cytometry studies of chimpanzee nuclei along with the cytogenetic analysis of chromosomes indicate a genome size difference of about 8%, with the chimpanzee genome having a significantly larger amount of heterochromatic DNA compared to human (Formenti et al. 1983; Pellicciari et al. 1982, 1988, 1990a, 1990b; Seuanez et al. 1977). Thus, the actual genome similarity with human, even using the high end estimate of 88% for just the alignable regions, is realistically only about 80% or less when the cytogenetic data is taken into account. https://answersingenesis.org/genetics/dna-similarities/blastn-algorithm-anomaly/
Even Darwinists have admitted that the 99% figure is misleading:
The Chimp-Human 1% Difference: A Useful Lie - 06/29/2007 Excerpt: “For many, many years, the 1% difference served us well because it was underappreciated how similar we were,” says Pascal Gagneux, a zoologist at UC San Diego. “Now it’s totally clear that it’s more a hindrance for understanding than a help.”,,, This is a very disturbing article. We have basically caught the Darwinists in a bald lie that has hoodwinked the world for over 30 years. Gagneux says, “For many, many years, the 1% difference served us well” – stop right there! Who is “us”? Was it the millions of school children and laymen who were lied to? Was it the majority of people who believe God created mankind, suffering under an onslaught of lies told in the name of science? No! “Us” refers to the members of the Darwin Party,,, http://creationsafaris.com/crev200706.htm#20070629a
Frankly, until I encountered the pseudo-science of Darwinian evolution, I've never even heard of such a thing being allowed in science as 'prefiltering' the data to accord with desired conclusions. If such 'prefiltering' of data to fit a desired conclusion happened in physics, or chemistry, the researchers would be severely questioned and their results would certainly not ever be considered trustworthy.bornagain77
July 22, 2016
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Amen. Convergence does suggest design more then descent or chance. A common blueprint being invoked for needs so creatures can survive and breed. conbvergent claims are wild enough but coming to like conclusions from undirected biology is more wild and impossible. Its asking the impossible. Its rejecting Dollo's law.Robert Byers
July 21, 2016
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