Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Hereandnow]

He and I wrote: Here I agree with Cronos998's post. "Design" is a human projection upon nature. I see no evidence for any inherent design in nature because a design implies a designer which lies outside of science's purview to recognize. The best practice of scientific epistemology has yielded a theory that (1) is highly functional at describing a process consistent with our experience of evolutionary change and (2) has remained viable with newer knowledge about evolutionary mechanisms. And it does it without any designer. You said yourself that ToE per se is a scientific theory, not a philosophical one, so let's evaluate it as such.

You know, aside from all of the science discussed here, I am certainly not willing to concede to any theory of evolution that fails to pay any attention to value. The moment when a complex molecular system said, so to speak, 'ouch' and 'ahh' was a critical point. Value was introduced to the world. Of course, the selfish gene cares nothing for value; rather, value is an incidental part of the host, useful, since it worked in favor of the organism's survival and reproductive abilities. But consider: First, value has evolved and is the most important asset an evolving organism can have; important, that is, for for what Teihard De Chardin would call complexification. Not much in the way of value going on in a spider's world, I wouldn't think; certainly not in a paramecium's. You may not buy De Chardin's teleological evolution, but he accounts for the rise of value in the world and he does not set evolution's beginnings at organic matter. Second, it is not reasonable to hold a material reductionist account of value, which is presupposed by the standard model of no nonsense evolution. Now, this needs some nuanced work on my part to convince you. After all, I am not preaching to the choir here. I am aware that current science has little patience for anything that cannot be observed objectively, and, as Wittgestein pointed out, value cannot be observed. Since I suspect there is a prima facie reluctance to take this seriously, I refer you to wittgenstein''s Lecture on Ethics. I put forth the idea that pain and pleasure (suffering and joy, etc.) are first, matters that cannot be dismissed as subordinate to the evolvement of an organsim, and science is wrong to do so; and further, because they cannot be observed, do not fit at all into the ruling paradigms (or,subparadigms, I suppose)of evolutionary theory-- the randomness of genetic mutations adn the accidental features that arise and prove useful or not to survival and reproduction--they are transcendent. ' More intuitively, one simply has to see that beautiful things like falling in love and music and joy, like you see in the faces of Maxfield Parrish paintings; you know, Ecstacy? and terrible suffering, of course--these evolved and to say, well, that just the way it goes, is, well, just plain fatuous. Flat out absurd. And the only real prof there is for this is the intrinsic logic of value itself. Can't be shown. I think Teihard De Chardin was right, and it is all because of the existence of value and it concurrent evolution with physicality and cognition. Even this latter pales to value in the "achievements" of this universe. For what is cognition without value? As Hume put it, if reason alone were to decide the matter, it would just as soon scratch the human race from existence. Yes, I know. Not very nuanced. What can I say, it is a tough sell.

[Skakos]

(Nested quote removed.)

Here I agree with Cronos998's post. "Design" is a human projection upon nature. I see no evidence for any inherent design in nature because a design implies a designer which lies outside of science's purview to recognize. The best practice of scientific epistemology has yielded a theory that (1) is highly functional at describing a process consistent with our experience of evolutionary change and (2) has remained viable with newer knowledge about evolutionary mechanisms. And it does it without any designer. You said yourself that ToE per se is a scientific theory, not a philosophical one, so let's evaluate it as such.

Next, I want to point out that humans have been manipulating evolution since prehistoric times, first unconsciously (we elimated various species such as mastodons with our migratory hunting) then later by conscious design (agriculture, hybridization of plants, domestication and breeding of animals). Judging whether our creation of a teacup-poodle -- from something that looked like a wolf 12,000 years ago -- represents "something useful" is again a matter of an interpretative schema. I'm sure a teacup-poodle is very useful to its owner who values fussing over its particular needs. But from a perspective of surviving a night in an owl-infested winter forest away from its ancestral pack, our efforts at "design" have created a being whose survival chances are very low.

But the systems of the various organisms are very complex to be easily explained via random mutations. Would you accept such an explanation for, let's say, the creation of the stars? Or for the creation of a laundry machine? I know this is a classical counter-argument, but I have not seen any serious counter-counter-argument if you ask me. We spend years and years of analysis to understand for example how DNA works. And we have not managed to fully understand it yet. Do you really expect someone to believe that thousands of scientists are searching so much to understand how something "random" came to be?

[A Poster He or I]

To Hereandnow,

I'm afraid I can only make sense of your argument if I assume you are implying INHERENT value, something I don't believe in. To me value results from evaluation against an implicit standard of value, another human projection. (I read Teilhard de Chardin's The Future of Man decades ago but if he discussed value there as you do, I don't remember it).

Skakos said,

But the systems of the various organisms are very complex to be easily explained via random mutations. Would you accept such an explanation for, let's say, the creation of the stars?

Perhaps I've been inadvertently misrepresenting myself in this discussion so far. My focus has been to maintain why ToE is a viable theory in and of itself, continuing (so far) to remain consistent with our experience of evolution, so continuing to serve as a good model for scientific research and interpretation, even as our knowledge about evolution has exceeded the parameters of the theory.

However, I do NOT believe that ToE is a COMPLETE description of evolution. I am a holist who believes in what complexity theory suggests about so-called "downward causation" as well as non-linear dynamics' capacity to supercharge emergence of so-called epiphenomena not explicable by reductionist analysis of component parts (ToE being just such a reductionist theory). None of this is germane to a strict consideration of ToE but it is very relevant for answering your latest question.

Personally, I think the latest discoveries of molecular biology fully support my own suspicion that genetics cannot be fully approached simply via reductionistic analysis. For example, recent findings about "junk" DNA suggest how genetics is more like a multidimensional matrix displaying non-linear relations, rather than any kind of "template" for specific traits. As such, any hope that gene therapy or gene surgery will be commonplace in the next decade (except perhaps for single-gene traits) is sheer hubris. Understanding evolution in terms of genetics has a LONG way to go.

Nevertheless, given how complexity seems to operate with an evident holistic component, I see nothing to contradict the idea that an apparently random dynamic can lead to self-regulating order which in turn affects the basic dynamic in ways that cannot be understood at the level of the dynamic components. This is the whole gist of complexity theory in general.

Or for the creation of a laundry machine?

A laundry machine is certainly a product of design. A discussion of how random mutation can lead to a being capable of design is, in my opinion, a discussion about the ontology of consciousness which goes well beyond a thread about ToE.

I know this is a classical counter-argument, but I have not seen any serious counter-counter-argument if you ask me. We spend years and years of analysis to understand for example how DNA works. And we have not managed to fully understand it yet. Do you really expect someone to believe that thousands of scientists are searching so much to understand how something "random" came to be?

I think that anybody who believes that such a search PER SE is what drives thousands of scientists to do research, is mistaken. Yes, there are SOME scientists who think in such terms. But most would NOT claim they can make such a discovery. Most scientists research to see what they CAN contribute to the sum of growing knowledge.

[Hereandnow]

Well Poster he and I, I knew it would not go over well. But justthis: If you're going to talk about evolution, your intention is to explain what there is. Interesting how a fairly new field, evolutionary psychology, is doing interesting foundational work. Robert wright,eg. Anyway, for me, and I do want to universalize my maxim, the single most extraordinary feature of our existence is value: Why are we born to suffer and die, and live a dn love and enjoy pizza? Why, as Heidegger put it, do we care? Caring is the principle feature of being human. It takes some thinking of a different sort to see this. There is a general tendency to see value as a thing among things; science tends to subsume everything under its rubrics. But value is unseen,but "real". I could make more of a case. I mention it just to plant a seed of meaingful discontent in the acres of scientific discussion here. Apologies.

[A Poster He or I]

No apology needed...I just wish I had a better idea of what you're talking about.

[Marina000]

To my mind, your OP paints a puritanical picture of ToE, as though Origin of Species is sacrosanct and cannot condone the integration of subsequent research with it. I'm sure you accept that molecular biology is consistent with ToE, even though Darwin knew nothing of the specifics of genetics. So why stop there? (Nested quote removed.)

I once attented a lecture by the late science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, where he called himself a "Neo-Lamarckian" for his belief in human's ability to shape their own evolution. To me, the idea that this is against ToE is invalid. If humans are an expression of nature, then what is "unnatural" about human participation in directing evolution? Alpha-male lions kill the cubs of their newly-conquered pride, eliminating traits of weaker males from the pride's next generation. Natural selection, right? So when the efforts of applied science eliminated the smallpox virus, how was that not "survival of the fittest?" Aren't both the alpha lion and the World Health Organization field worker directing the evolution of their respective species?


(Nested quote removed.)

Thanks to modern science, insulin and kidney dialysis allow Type 1 diabetics to survive, allowing diabetes to flourish in the gene pool where once upon a time, early death reduced their contribution. I've read that by 2050, a quarter of the U.S. population could carry the allele for diabetes. Hardly survival of the fittest, eh?


(Nested quote removed.)

So species is a dynamic phenomenon. Maybe that frustrates taxonomists and the Intelligent Design crowd, but what actual impact does it have on the ToE in practical terms?


(Nested quote removed.)

The day that scientific theory does not lend itself to philosophical interpretation will be a day to mourn. Sure there is always oportunism that caters to ignorance and dogmatic agenda. But science can also serve the evolution of philosophy. I once read a reinterpretation of Darwinian Evolution as the principle long-term mechanism of an emergent self-sustaining biosphere. That reinterpretation still influences my thought to this day.

For me the inability to define 'species' has implications around what it is that one is really seeing in lab experiments.

If creationists and evolutionists both agree that an organism has an ability to adapt. For me what has not been demonstrated is that this ability to adapt is limitless. There has been much research that suggests adaptation is limited in the deteriorating genome and the overwhelmingly negative effects of epistasis. It is much more difficult to demonstrate that an organism has a limitless ability to adapt by using genomic research. That is currently one of the limits of TOE.

[Cronos988]

Regarding the whole "design vs. randomness" argument, I think there is a significant flaw in saying that "design" is more efficient than "randomess".

See the mistake the argument makes is that it assumes evolution has (or had) a goal, and then wonder how randomness could be the best way to reach that goal. After all, if I want a work of Shakespeare, pressing random keys on a Keyboard is extremely inefficient. So when people see a work of shakespeare (which, in my example, could represent Homo Sapiens Sapiens), they conclude that it cannot have come about by randomness.

However, if we suppose that there is no a priori goal to evolution, then randomness suddenly becomes the most effective mechanism. Without a goal, any "design" of any sort is terribly inefficient. If you write a work of Shakespeare but the current situation requires instructions to bake bread, you will starve. If you don't know what result you will need, randomness is your best bet.

Consequently, random evolution makes perfect sense. Arguing that evolution is not random is arguing that there is an a priori goal of existence, which is a nonsense argument since it is unknowable.

[Marina000]

Regarding the whole "design vs. randomness" argument, I think there is a significant flaw in saying that "design" is more efficient than "randomess".

See the mistake the argument makes is that it assumes evolution has (or had) a goal, and then wonder how randomness could be the best way to reach that goal. After all, if I want a work of Shakespeare, pressing random keys on a Keyboard is extremely inefficient. So when people see a work of shakespeare (which, in my example, could represent Homo Sapiens Sapiens), they conclude that it cannot have come about by randomness.

However, if we suppose that there is no a priori goal to evolution, then randomness suddenly becomes the most effective mechanism. Without a goal, any "design" of any sort is terribly inefficient. If you write a work of Shakespeare but the current situation requires instructions to bake bread, you will starve. If you don't know what result you will need, randomness is your best bet.

Consequently, random evolution makes perfect sense. Arguing that evolution is not random is arguing that there is an a priori goal of existence, which is a nonsense argument since it is unknowable.

If TOE had merit it appears that there is no goal to TOE other than survival which is not even always of the fittest, it is often about the luckiest. One can argue just about for anyway one wants to look at it. Chaos is what has been found according to this article.

http://www.newscientist.com/data/images ... 821001.jpg http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... ution.html

Evolution by natural selection is a two-step process, and only the first step is random: mutations are chance events, but their survival is often anything but.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... andom.html

So these articles above shows the random or not eggs lay in many baskets of choice.

Then of course we have to see what these supposed billions of years of mutations are really doing to the genome...

Negative Epistasis Between Beneficial Mutations in an Evolving Bacterial Population http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6034/1193.short

Evidence for Widespread Degradation of Gene Control Regions in Hominid Genomes http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info ... io.0030042

Diminishing Returns Epistasis Among Beneficial Mutations Decelerates Adaptation http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6034/1190

So it seems that the 'beneficial' mutations that fixed in the population may not be as beneficial as previously thought. Have they degraded from a 'better' genome or have the genome alway been sad and just got worse. It appears to me that the first opton is the most plausible. (That's if one assumes the process of genome degradation and effects of negative epistasis wouldn't cause the entire process to have resulted in extinction or come to a halt long ago.)

Predictive ablity and ability to falsify are important to the scientific method as well. This is another limit to TOE.

If the genome were designed there would be no need to create non functional dna.Creationists always predicted from this philosophical base that there was no 'junk' dna in the genome. This prediction came prior to 2000 and remained stable on the back of over a decade of evolutionists suggesting junk dna (non coding dna) was a functionless remnant of the evolutionary process and was empirical and undeniable evidence for TOE.

Recently 80% of the genome has been found to be functional and a researcher has suggested it is very likely that 100% of the genome will be found to have some function.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 11247.html

A fully functional genome appears to give weight to design. What part of the genome appears to be random or chance in a fully functional genome? This leaves evolutionists to now come up with how dead remnants came to provide multiple functions as part of systems, and sometimes very vital functions, and why any partially formed system would be selected for at all.

[Cronos988]

Regarding the negative effects of Epistasis, I have looked over the synopsis of the articles you referenced but could find no information on how exactly this has negative effects on the individual. All that it seems to imply is that the rate of beneficial mutations decelerates. I am not sure why you would say that the genome has "degraded" or that it was previously "better" (for what?).

It seems you are claiming that the ToE has no predictive ability and cannot be falsified. I cannot follow. Evolution could be easily falsified, e.g. by evidence that species never change. It also has predictive ability, given an environment one can predict how a new species introduced to this environment will react. This prediction will also give opportunities to falsify the theory.

Regarding the observation that all gene is "functional" I first need some more information on what "functional" actually means. A random mutation can very well be functional in the sense that it "does something". It is just a question on how the mutation and the genome work. Randomly rearranging information might lead to an unreadable "junk" DNA, but it is just as possible that any arrangement of the genome is "readable". The features expressed by that genome may not be beneficial, but it is entirely possible that any possible arrangement of DNA is "functional" as in "readable".

Of course, it may very well be that our idea of evolution is completely wrong. But in order to claim that, you'd have to come up with an alternate scientific theory that can explain the origin of species at least as well. Saying "everything was specifically designed to be the way it is" serves as an ample description but does not provide any explanation and consequently has neither the ability to predict nor to be falsified.

[Marina000]

Regarding the negative effects of Epistasis, I have looked over the synopsis of the articles you referenced but could find no information on how exactly this has negative effects on the individual. All that it seems to imply is that the rate of beneficial mutations decelerates. I am not sure why you would say that the genome has "degraded" or that it was previously "better" (for what?).

One does not need to get lost in interpretations. The term "negative effects" as opposed to the 'positive effects' that evolutionists were expecting to find kinda simply says it all.

I say the genome has degraded because I presented published reseach that speaks to one aspect of it. I have heaps. They all refer to the degrading genome. Are you suggesting the article Names and abstracts these evolutionary researchers presented are purposefully misleading and totally in opposition to what the research is identifying?

Genomic degradation of a young Y chromosome in Drosophila miranda http://genomebiology.com/2008/9/2/R30

Genetic code of human race is deteriorating due to environmental factors http://www.naturalnews.com/021220_genet ... n_DNA.html

Insights into the evolutionary process of genome degradation http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 7X99000246

Below a creationist take......

http://www.trueorigin.org/mutations01.asp

I use the term degraded as used by your own researchers. Perhaps they made it up just to confuse everyone. After all these researchers are the ones that have little idea past what they can genomically test today to suggest what the genome has deteriorated from. If you ask the researchers they will say they had an algorithmic guess.

Does TOE have a different meaning for the term 'degradation', that we all don't know about?

It seems you are claiming that the ToE has no predictive ability and cannot be falsified. I cannot follow. Evolution could be easily falsified, e.g. by evidence that species never change. It also has predictive ability, given an environment one can predict how a new species introduced to this environment will react. This prediction will also give opportunities to falsify the theory.

No, I was claiming in so far as non coding dna is concerned, evolutionists either made no prediction as creationists were able to or if evos did then their prediction was falsified. Whatever! ..and I am right!

Regarding the observation that all gene is "functional" I first need some more information on what "functional" actually means. A random mutation can very well be functional in the sense that it "does something". It is just a question on how the mutation and the genome work. Randomly rearranging information might lead to an unreadable "junk" DNA, but it is just as possible that any arrangement of the genome is "readable". The features expressed by that genome may not be beneficial, but it is entirely possible that any possible arrangement of DNA is "functional" as in "readable".

No, you do not have to confuse the obvious and wonder what functional mens or what even 'readable' means. I know TOE inculcated its followers to confuse everything but this is very simple. You do not actually need to define function at all. It is already defined. Function is related to 'doing something' as opposed to having no function at all ie having some purpose. It does not have to be vital. Simple! That is how these very well credentialled researchers from ENCODE got the 80%. Do you understand that? Do you think these well credentialled evolutionists made it up just to confuse evolutionists?

Of course, it may very well be that our idea of evolution is completely wrong. But in order to claim that, you'd have to come up with an alternate scientific theory that can explain the origin of species at least as well. Saying "everything was specifically designed to be the way it is" serves as an ample description but does not provide any explanation and consequently has neither the ability to predict nor to be falsified.

Actually I do not have to do anything other than support my own view, which believe me when I tell you I can, that I mean, I can. That is not the purpose of this thread however. Evolutionists have a philosophy that is no more robust than a theist philosophy. They have 150 years of instability and change. eg Human evolution is not much older than 10 years when we went from knucklewalking ancestry to bipeds, supported by much the same set of fossils for over 150 years, and then falsified on the back of one single fossil in Ardi. Well done, I say! At least I have one story in Genesis to support or falsify and cannot make it up as I go along like evolutionists can and do.

For all we know the fossil evidence we both seek may be long gone and not fossilized.

What makes you think that I should need an explanation to make a claim? When has inability to explain ever stopped evolutionists claims? eg No fossil evidence at all for chimpanzee or gorilla ancestors meaning on entire half of the fossil evidence for the human/chimp split is missing.

Perhaps you were unaware of this....

A Functional Pseudogene?: An Open Letter to Nature - 2003 If at least some pseudogenes have unsuspected functions, however, might not other biological features that strike us as odd also have functions we have not yet discovered? http://www.arn.org/docs2/news/behepseudogene052003.htm

Of course Behe was thought of as an ignorant dreamer with a wish list. Miller beleived he had the empirical evidence to ridicule Behe. Unfortunately for evolutionists Behe is getting his wish list handed to him on a silver platter by evolutionists themselves. Creationists have made these claims as far back as 1998.

Hence, regardless of how evolutionists like to confuse themselves what a prediction may or may not look like the simple fact is, in laymans terms, Creationists were right, and evolutionists were wrong.

The philosophically based claim that a God would not need to create non functional dna as the reason why it is functional is better than evos suggesting non coding dna was functionless junk as the reason and as evidence for TOE, only to be proven wrong.

TOE may have some predictability but so has a crystal ball with hit and miss.

As far as being unfalsifiable is concerned, a precambrian rabbit was the best that Dawkins cold come up with. Just because the size of a beak on a bird can change harldy demonstrates how a tetrapod evolved into a whale, and neither does a codated bunch of fossils or dna that contradicts morphology.

So given it is all challengeable and based on what I call algorithmic magic I'd say a fully functional genome is excellent evidence for a designed genome and is as robust a claim as any evolutionist can make around it.

[A Poster He or I]

Marina000 says,

For me what has not been demonstrated is that this ability to adapt is limitless. There has been much research that suggests adaptation is limited in the deteriorating genome and the overwhelmingly negative effects of epistasis. It is much more difficult to demonstrate that an organism has a limitless ability to adapt by using genomic research. That is currently one of the limits of TOE.

But ToE does not indicate, express or try to uphold any such belief in limitless adaptation. Darwin was fully aware that species go extinct, which in ToE is caused by a failure to adapt. That Darwin knew nothing of the mechanisms of genetics doesn't undermine the utility of adaptation as a model. Epistasis in itself can be looked at as mutation (though not of a single gene; more of an interactive effect among genes). And in that case, deterioration of a genome is precisely a failure to adapt if it leaves the organism vulnerable to negative environmental effects--even those within its own body.

For example, the first link you provided describes epistasis in mutant e. coli bacteria, suggesting degradation of adaptibility while ignoring the obvious fact that the parent organism of these mutants thrives happily inside the intestines of every mammal on the planet! So the article's conclusion ends up only reinforcing that most mutations are lethal, something we already know.

Fifty million years ago, a small mammal called a "miacis" went extinct, unable to adapt any further, maybe due to epistasis for all we know. But by then its genetics had already been propagated to its descendents, and lives on today in every canine, feline and rodent species across the planet. I simply do not see the viability of the epistasis argument against ToE.

A fully functional genome appears to give weight to design.

Not necessarily. It just implies that geneticists were wrong in assigning the label "junk." The newly discovered role of junk DNA suggests that the DNA "switchboard" for controlling genetic expression is vastly more complex than ever before considered and may display the same sort of holistic epiphenomenal behavior found in many highly-complex systems. No designer needed.

What part of the genome appears to be random or chance in a fully functional genome?

This almost sounds as if you think ToE supporters expect to find genetic markers for "randomness" and "chance" encoded on the genome! Consider instead that randomness is an assessment made about mechanics when the assessor is not in a position to see the whole system and how the whole affects the parts. I have little doubt myself that reductionism will eventually prove inadequate for a full understanding of genetics. But a holistic model of evolution is years away and introducing a "designer" in the interim will merely impede understanding rather than benefit it. Until then, reductionism can continue to lead the way for empirical research, even if there are diminishing returns on interpretation of data. And ToE is the responsible way for science to do that until a better model is tested.

This leaves evolutionists to now come up with how dead remnants came to provide multiple functions as part of systems, and sometimes very vital functions, and why any partially formed system would be selected for at all.

Apparently they weren't dead after all, something scientists are quite able to acknowledge and move on from, giving their research new impetus and new vistas!

[Marina000]

Marina000 says, (Nested quote removed.)

But ToE does not indicate, express or try to uphold any such belief in limitless adaptation. Darwin was fully aware that species go extinct, which in ToE is caused by a failure to adapt. That Darwin knew nothing of the mechanisms of genetics doesn't undermine the utility of adaptation as a model. Epistasis in itself can be looked at as mutation (though not of a single gene; more of an interactive effect among genes). And in that case, deterioration of a genome is precisely a failure to adapt if it leaves the organism vulnerable to negative environmental effects--even those within its own body.

For example, the first link you provided describes epistasis in mutant e. coli bacteria, suggesting degradation of adaptibility while ignoring the obvious fact that the parent organism of these mutants thrives happily inside the intestines of every mammal on the planet! So the article's conclusion ends up only reinforcing that most mutations are lethal, something we already know.

Fifty million years ago, a small mammal called a "miacis" went extinct, unable to adapt any further, maybe due to epistasis for all we know. But by then its genetics had already been propagated to its descendents, and lives on today in every canine, feline and rodent species across the planet. I simply do not see the viability of the epistasis argument against ToE.


(Nested quote removed.)

Not necessarily. It just implies that geneticists were wrong in assigning the label "junk." The newly discovered role of junk DNA suggests that the DNA "switchboard" for controlling genetic expression is vastly more complex than ever before considered and may display the same sort of holistic epiphenomenal behavior found in many highly-complex systems. No designer needed.


(Nested quote removed.)

This almost sounds as if you think ToE supporters expect to find genetic markers for "randomness" and "chance" encoded on the genome! Consider instead that randomness is an assessment made about mechanics when the assessor is not in a position to see the whole system and how the whole affects the parts. I have little doubt myself that reductionism will eventually prove inadequate for a full understanding of genetics. But a holistic model of evolution is years away and introducing a "designer" in the interim will merely impede understanding rather than benefit it. Until then, reductionism can continue to lead the way for empirical research, even if there are diminishing returns on interpretation of data. And ToE is the responsible way for science to do that until a better model is tested. (Nested quote removed.)

Apparently they weren't dead after all, something scientists are quite able to acknowledge and move on from, giving their research new impetus and new vistas!

Oh these researchers have not claimed ervs are alive, I don't think. They are now dead remnants that by some magical means can still be part of systems that researchers do not understand. Evolutionary science is wonderfull.

Adaptation/microevolution is all you see in any of your experiments. Evolutionists go around in circles around micro/macroevolution so much that I have stopped using the terms. Adaptation is what evolutionist see in labs and they suggest that is 'evolution' in motion. In fact if I took it up now I'd guarantee pages of evos saying the process one sees in the lab is 'evolution'. If you are saying what is seen is not an example of the process of evolution then please make that clear because I will agree with you.

Evolutionary biologists have long sought to understand the relationship between microevolution (adaptation), which can be observed both in nature and in the laboratory, and macroevolution (speciation and the origin of the divisions of the taxonomic hierarchy above the species level, and the development of complex organs), which cannot be witnessed because it occurs over intervals that far exceed the human lifespan. The connection between these processes is also a major source of conflict between science and religious belief. Biologists often forget that Charles Darwin offered a way of resolving this issue, and his proposal is ripe for re-evaluation in the light of recent research.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 07894.html

Hence the term "unlimited ability to adapt" is apt. It is a phrase that refers to the process you call change and evolution. There is no evidence for it. All the evidence is against it.

Actually I suggest Genesis does provide a theoretical model and many creos have work. Creos, especially not IDers, do not have to come up with libraries of outdated work because they are not linking all life to bacteria. Evos have done most of the work for us and arranged taxonomy in the kinds of families, basically. They have confirmed the Genesis assertions of the universe having a beginning, life beginning with plants, then the creatures of the sea, then lastly mankind. Evolutionists were no the first to think of this line up. Evos aren't doing too badly at all really. They are just interpreting a few things incorrectly.

Evocation of a deity to explain the creation still sounds more plausible than the atheist assertion that non living elements could organize themselves into complex factories of reproduction all by themsleves with a shake of luck that has never been demonstated, let alone repeated. Both paradigms appear to be a matter of faith at present.

[Cronos988]

One does not need to get lost in interpretations. The term "negative effects" as opposed to the 'positive effects' that evolutionists were expecting to find kinda simply says it all.

I say the genome has degraded because I presented published reseach that speaks to one aspect of it. I have heaps. They all refer to the degrading genome. Are you suggesting the article Names and abstracts these evolutionary researchers presented are purposefully misleading and totally in opposition to what the research is identifying?

Genomic degradation of a young Y chromosome in Drosophila miranda http://genomebiology.com/2008/9/2/R30

Genetic code of human race is deteriorating due to environmental factors http://www.naturalnews.com/021220_genet ... n_DNA.html

Insights into the evolutionary process of genome degradation http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 7X99000246

Below a creationist take......

http://www.trueorigin.org/mutations01.asp

I use the term degraded as used by your own researchers. Perhaps they made it up just to confuse everyone. After all these researchers are the ones that have little idea past what they can genomically test today to suggest what the genome has deteriorated from. If you ask the researchers they will say they had an algorithmic guess.

Does TOE have a different meaning for the term 'degradation', that we all don't know about?

MY researchers? That is a really interesting way of phrasing it. Apparently you view this as some kind of turf war between atheists and theists. It is not. Science is about explaining the world the best way possible. It is not supposed to give you absolute truths of any kind.

Anyways, you are simply evading my questions. You simply dig up some articles with some words you like and throw them up here with zero understanding as to what the terms actually mean or what their significance is form a philosophical standpoint. "Degradation" is a relative term, and if you cannot point out what it is relative to, you are not saying anything.

No, I was claiming in so far as non coding dna is concerned, evolutionists either made no prediction as creationists were able to or if evos did then their prediction was falsified. Whatever! ..and I am right!

The Prediction was wrong. Does that falsify the theory? Is "junk DNA" critical to the basic framework? I doubt it since the framework was set up before DNA was even known. But you are free to make that claim that it does, if you can.

No, you do not have to confuse the obvious and wonder what functional mens or what even 'readable' means. I know TOE inculcated its followers to confuse everything but this is very simple. You do not actually need to define function at all. It is already defined. Function is related to 'doing something' as opposed to having no function at all ie having some purpose. It does not have to be vital. Simple! That is how these very well credentialled researchers from ENCODE got the 80%. Do you understand that? Do you think these well credentialled evolutionists made it up just to confuse evolutionists?

And I have based my above argument on that exact definition of function and given arguments of why it does not, as you apparently claim, falsify an evolutionary theory. Arguments that have yet to be adressed.

Actually I do not have to do anything other than support my own view, which believe me when I tell you I can, that I mean, I can. That is not the purpose of this thread however.

So what you are saying is you do not care about what I or others think, all you want to do is preach your position with zero interest in actually discussing it.

If that is so, I believe there is no point in continuing this argument.

Evolutionists have a philosophy that is no more robust than a theist philosophy.

Evolution is no philosophy.

They have 150 years of instability and change. eg Human evolution is not much older than 10 years when we went from knucklewalking ancestry to bipeds, supported by much the same set of fossils for over 150 years, and then falsified on the back of one single fossil in Ardi. Well done, I say! At least I have one story in Genesis to support or falsify and cannot make it up as I go along like evolutionists can and do.

Yes, and the spherical model of the earth overturned thousands of years of evidence. Science changes all the time, it adapts to continuously supply the best explanation.

You are contradicting yourself if you, one the one hand, say that scientific theories are blind to new evidence and one the other critisize scientific theories for changing in light of new evidence.

What makes you think that I should need an explanation to make a claim? When has inability to explain ever stopped evolutionists claims? eg No fossil evidence at all for chimpanzee or gorilla ancestors meaning on entire half of the fossil evidence for the human/chimp split is missing.

But you are not making a claim. You are trying to refute and existing claim without supplying any of your own.

Hence, regardless of how evolutionists like to confuse themselves what a prediction may or may not look like the simple fact is, in laymans terms, Creationists were right, and evolutionists were wrong.

The philosophically based claim that a God would not need to create non functional dna as the reason why it is functional is better than evos suggesting non coding dna was functionless junk as the reason and as evidence for TOE, only to be proven wrong.

TOE may have some predictability but so has a crystal ball with hit and miss.

Oh, so when a creationist prediction turns out true, it is clear evidence, but when an evolutionist prediction turns out true, it is just random chance

Care to elaborate why the "junk DNA" prediction has significance and, e.g. various hominid fossils (the "missing links" evolutionists had predicted) do not?

As far as being unfalsifiable is concerned, a precambrian rabbit was the best that Dawkins cold come up with. Just because the size of a beak on a bird can change harldy demonstrates how a tetrapod evolved into a whale, and neither does a codated bunch of fossils or dna that contradicts morphology.

One example is enough to demonstrate theoretical falsifiability, a precambrian rabbit is more than creationism could ever advance in terms of being a scientific theory.

It does not demonstrate it, but it does explain it, with much better accuracy than "poof, all the creatures were magically created".

So given it is all challengeable and based on what I call algorithmic magic I'd say a fully functional genome is excellent evidence for a designed genome and is as robust a claim as any evolutionist can make around it.

Since we are on a philosophical forum, I think I can ask you as to how this design came to be? Who is the designer, and what was the purpose life was designed for?

[Gulnara]

(Nested quote removed.)

There are two types of being fit. One is when, say, whatever at the time is considered defect or difference in human condition is actually beneficial in some unexpected ways and lets people survive and procreate. This one does not require treatment expenses. Another way is to make resources available for the treatment of undesirable defects of health, thus allowing potential evolutionary discards to remain among survivors.This one requires extra expenses. Will second way be a winner in a long run, as number of people in need of treatment keeps increasing? What if medical resources dwindle? Then evolution will even out the field once again, removing weakest links. So, more expensive way of survival holds great risk of becoming unsustainable someday. someone here insisted that mutation means bad. Not always. Mutation can be positive, like larger brain, more pretty features, greta voice, etc. To the Universe none of the mutations is evaluated, it just is, happens, but from people's point of view whatever trait the offspring holds is evaluated. When offspring is more successful, it is because , oftentimes, of positive mutations, and if it is not successful, it is, oftentimes due to negative mutations.

[Marina000]

(Nested quote removed.)


There are two types of being fit. One is when, say, whatever at the time is considered defect or difference in human condition is actually beneficial in some unexpected ways and lets people survive and procreate. This one does not require treatment expenses. Another way is to make resources available for the treatment of undesirable defects of health, thus allowing potential evolutionary discards to remain among survivors.This one requires extra expenses. Will second way be a winner in a long run, as number of people in need of treatment keeps increasing? What if medical resources dwindle? Then evolution will even out the field once again, removing weakest links. So, more expensive way of survival holds great risk of becoming unsustainable someday. someone here insisted that mutation means bad. Not always. Mutation can be positive, like larger brain, more pretty features, greta voice, etc. To the Universe none of the mutations is evaluated, it just is, happens, but from people's point of view whatever trait the offspring holds is evaluated. When offspring is more successful, it is because , oftentimes, of positive mutations, and if it is not successful, it is, oftentimes due to negative mutations.

Immunity may be a benefit that comes without cost or so I thought.

The price of immunity:

http://www.nature.com/ni/journal/v13/n1 ... .2422.html

During KT bigger brains and and fitness did not have alot to do with survival. It was more about being lucky enough to be a burrower if one was a mammal. Sure evolutionists speak to non beneficial mutations not surviving etc. But what does the observed evidence actually tell us?

Thus, mammals tend to meet the energy costs of evolutionary changes in brain size by some combination of increased energy intake or reduced allocation to other functions such as growth, reproduction, digestion or locomotion; but, could the positive relationship found between brain mass residuals and BMR residuals be an artefact due to the confounding effects of variables that are correlated with BMR, such as home range size (Haskell et al. 2002; White & Seymour 2003)? It is possible, but unlikely.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... 002/#bib29

A 35-year experiment by evolutionists shows how things really work. Instead of waiting for natural selection, researchers forced selection on hundreds of generations of fruit flies. They used variation to breed fruit flies that develop from egg to adult 20% faster than normal. But, as usual when breeding plants and animals, there was a down side. In this case the fruit flies weighed less, lived shorter lives, and were less resistant to starvation. There were many mutations, but none caught on, and the experiment ran into the limits of variation. They wrote that "forward experimental evolution can often be completely reversed with these populations". "Despite decades of sustained selection in relatively small, sexually reproducing laboratory populations, selection did not lead to the fixation of newly arising unconditionally advantageous alleles." "The probability of fixation in wild populations should be even lower than its likelihood in these experiments."

Burke, Molly K., Joseph P. Dunham, Parvin Shahrestani, Kevin R. Thornton, Michael R. Rose, Anthony D. Long. 30 September 2010. Genome-wide analysis of a long-term evolution experiment with Drosophila. Nature, Vol. 467, pp. 587-590.

So on top of a deterorating genome, negative effects from epistatic interactions of beneficial mutations and restrictions in adaptive possibilities, we have a long term study that failed to fix a beneficial allele in a population that also provides direct evidence of the huge cost paid by those organisms carrying the 'beneficial' allele.

I am not sure whom you are refering to that suggested mutations are 'bad'. However, the data I have provided speaks to cost, cost, cost. A cost that apparently was continually paid for billions of years as this 'evolution' occured, and resulted in only one species being here to talk about it all. Lucky weren't we!

The limit to evolution is that evolution/adaptation is limited.

-- Updated December 28th, 2012, 8:10 pm to add the following --

(Nested quote removed.)


MY researchers? That is a really interesting way of phrasing it. Apparently you view this as some kind of turf war between atheists and theists. It is not. Science is about explaining the world the best way possible. It is not supposed to give you absolute truths of any kind.

Anyways, you are simply evading my questions. You simply dig up some articles with some words you like and throw them up here with zero understanding as to what the terms actually mean or what their significance is form a philosophical standpoint. "Degradation" is a relative term, and if you cannot point out what it is relative to, you are not saying anything.

I'd say I have backed by view. Unless you have a different definition of degradation and DEGENERATION then I guess you are the one that is finding it dificult to accept the finding of your own evolutionary researchers. What do you suppose multiple articles that speak to degeneration are talking about?

An evolutionary ploy is to lock horns over vague and meaningless nonsense they have to offer so they can argue about it over the numerous publications that disagree with each other.... "I publish, therefore I exist", which is the background noise of theoretical science.

The Prediction was wrong. Does that falsify the theory? Is "junk DNA" critical to the basic framework? I doubt it since the framework was set up before DNA was even known. But you are free to make that claim that it does, if you can.

Well in real science Yes a theory based on prediction that did not eventuate should falsify the theory. However, evolutionists have hand waving to use as sticky tape. For example junk dna proves evolution and no junk dna still proves evolution. That is how one can tell TOE is not a science. TOE is a philosophy trying to turn itself into a science and failing miserably.

And I have based my above argument on that exact definition of function and given arguments of why it does not, as you apparently claim, falsify an evolutionary theory. Arguments that have yet to be adressed.


So what you are saying is you do not care about what I or others think, all you want to do is preach your position with zero interest in actually discussing it.

If that is so, I believe there is no point in continuing this argument.

I have not mentioned any preaching. Oh come on now, even a precambrian rabbit would not really falsify evolution, Yiu guys would work around it I am sure. I did not say I have falsified evolution. I did say that all the information challenges the concept of evolution by suggesting cost outweighs any benefit. My interpretation of that information is that evolution is unlikely to have continued for billions of years.

Evolution is no philosophy.

I publish, therefore I exist. Yes TOE is a philosophy and over 150 years of instability and change, resulting in evos being more confused than ever proves it. eg junk dna, the death of single celled LUCA, the falsification of human knuckle walking ancestry, brain size tied to bibedalism, bipedalism being soley a human trait etc etc etc.

Yes, and the spherical model of the earth overturned thousands of years of evidence. Science changes all the time, it adapts to continuously supply the best explanation.

Hence evolutionists make it up as they go along. Right? That appears to be exactly what you are saying. If a prediction fails, don't worry; I publish, therefore I exist; Therefore any flavour of the month is irrefuteable evidence until it is falsified in favour of another irrefuteable flavour of the month. I get it!!!!

You are contradicting yourself if you, one the one hand, say that scientific theories are blind to new evidence and one the other critisize scientific theories for changing in light of new evidence.

Then let me resolve the discrepency. IT IS ALL ALGORITHMIC RUBBISH. I can produce research from Sanford but I prefer to use your own muddle against you and to support my own view. That's much more fun.

But you are not making a claim. You are trying to refute and existing claim without supplying any of your own.

I have. You just refuse to realize that one story in Genesis, is better than making it up as it goes along like evos do.

I have made a claim. God created by using the coalescence. Now you can demonstrate how dead elements poofed themseves into a complex factory of reproduction and how you know what chimp and human ancestry looks like with one entire half of the record missing on the back ancestral genomics evos have no clue about. Go!

when a creationist prediction turns out true, it is clear evidence, but when an evolutionist prediction turns out true, it is just random chance

You may like to speak to these predictions that creationists got wrong. I can and have spoken to some claims and predictions evolutionists got wrong.

Care to elaborate why the "junk DNA" prediction has significance and, e.g. various hominid fossils (the "missing links" evolutionists had predicted) do not?

Yeah sure! You do not have any missing links. You have 2 or 3 fossils that are relatively complete earlier than erectus and the rest are a mess that don't demonstrate anything. Bipedalism isn't even solely a human trait anymore of one can believe any of it. Ardi has ape feet, Lucy was found with no feet and I can even present research that suggest the Laetolli footprints do not belong to Lucy now but some other unknown species of the time. Or would you like to talk about the mess the Leakeys made of Rudolfensis that had to suffer a reconstruction because they got it wrong. Or would you liek totalk about Turkana Boy the stapping athlete that has shrunk and likely requires a pelvic reconstruction.

What missing links are you talking about? There certainly are absolutely none for chimp, you know the other side of it all!!

One example is enough to demonstrate theoretical falsifiability, a precambrian rabbit is more than creationism could ever advance in terms of being a scientific theory.

Are you unable to retain information for more than an hour. Creationism would have been falsified if you lot had of actually manitained your intial predictions around junk dna and vestigial organs. That was another fiasco, with evos again speaking to left over functionless organs only to find them to be functional and having to toddle off and reinvent the meaning of vestigial to be defined as 'different' function, instead of 'no' function. eg appendix. Does any of that ring a bell at all?

It does not demonstrate it, but it does explain it, with much better accuracy than "poof, all the creatures were magically created".

So the magic of dead elements poofing themsleves into complex factories of reproduction that you cannot explain nor demonstrate is better than suggesting that perhaps a non organic life form can perhaps do this. I see!. The thing is with you miracle workers is that the difference of what I am alledging and what you are alledging is only a matter of a difference of scale. You say non-life can poof into a complex cell, I say God can poof on a larger scale. A 'primitive cell' has never been observed and is an oxymoron statement. I still say my scenario sounds the more plausible even with the evocation of a God.

So given it is all challengeable and based on what I call algorithmic magic I'd say a fully functional genome is excellent evidence for a designed genome and is as robust a claim as any evolutionist can make around it.

Since we are on a philosophical forum, I think I can ask you as to how this design came to be? Who is the designer, and what was the purpose life was designed for?

If only you could answer your own evolutionary questions as well as I am sure you will demand from a creo. It looks fairly desperate to suggest a creationist should have to present more clarity and substantiation that an evolutionists has ever been able to supply about anything.eg abiogenesis

This design came to be by one of these aliens you evos reckon are everywhere in the universe but this one is not of organic form. God is a non organic life form not of this earth that appears to be no more mysterious than dark matter. That life form is refered to as God.

God created by the process of coalescence whereby he took the elements of the earth, coalesced them into the correct configuration with informational engrams then gave the breath of life as an electrical charge. The purpose of life is at Gods pleasure, much the same as anyones creation. The promise of an afterlife is to give a pat on the back for those that have faith because that is what God felt like doing, and to give to atheists exactly what they hope for as well, which is likely nothing.

Now you tell us all about abiogenesis. OR, how evos cop out whenever abiogenesis is mentioned... Oh the start of it all has nothing to do with evolution but a creo must explain their version of 'genesis' because evolutionists publish and therefore must exist somewhere in the background noise of confusion.