Philosophy Discussion Forums

Alun-I suggest you look up Susumu Ohno, who coined the term to describe psuedogenes, thought, by him, not to transcribe for proteins. As I stated the term was co-opted by Darwinist to put forth the idea of genes that were no longer used due to improvements by other genes, hence your confusion. No one is saying that you speculate only that the scientist who protect and earn a living from Darwinism speculate.

Yes I am disputing the historical claim, please point out the source of that particular bit of known conclusive history which would substantiate that the flagella is the result of evolution in an ocean. Please substantiate that the "first" organisms were anaerobic or aerobic. I brought it up since most anaerobic organisms are destroyed when coming in contact with air, and is also another reason why the Miller experiments fail since oxygen destroys the molecules he created. Since oxygen is found in every rock in the geologic strata then those molecules which Darwinist insist must have formed to produce material life are a miracle in or out of the water. Almost everything supposed by Darwinist to produce life also destroys life at its earliest generation. Which means that if life started in an environment void of oxygen then they must have had the means by which to protect themselves in an oxygen rich environment.

Without a realistic origin of life theory from natural random chemical spontaneity conducive to life origination from a material concept then Darwinism fails. Simply saying that this is how it "MUST HAVE BEEN" without incontrovertible science is faith. Just because we are able to understand the physics and chemistry of certain things does not mean that all thing MUST fall into that category.

The speculation occurs when science begins to "conjure" science when there is no substantiating observations like multiple universes, and string theory, and meme theory, and parallel universes, and abiogenesis, and global warming or evolution, speciation, from a common ancestor. When all the evidence goes against such fantasizing and scientist fail to conclude the obvious then they speculate and since they are scientist they give their own speculations peer reviewed merit.

The vertebrae eye has long been considered a conundrum for the Darwinist even to the point that Darwinist insist that the retina is backwards, an attempt to show the ineptness of a designer (God). This idea is even taught in schools. Yet for about fifteen years now it has been known that the retina is not backwards, but is constructed in this manner to protect photoreceptors and the complexity involved with sight makes its evolution by random chance variations a bet only a sightless person at a beauty contest would take. With the eye we are left once again with a chicken and egg scenario. So many changes to not only physiology but thinking must be simultaneously adjusted for the whole eye to work. Once one takes a look at the molecular complexity of the eye then one is confronted with what came first and what good does that single organ do if sight is not the goal. Darwinist are able to fool people with eye evolution since the eye is so complex only an expert can offer resistance to any Darwinian claims. Only directed evolution if anything can account for the eye.

The question of the thread is, "What is Darwinism", and to answer that question one not only needs to look at the historical nature of Darwinism but also the philosophical.

What questions has Darwinism actually answered? Do we know how we got here, why we are here, what is our purpose? Can Darwinism answer these questions, and if it does what does it say about humanity? Some may want to paint a rosy picture of some sort of eventual Utopian Utilitarianism of big brained humanity who understands the totality of universal understanding but then what? Darwinism fails in the face of reality. The theory has done nothing more but stop humanity from moving forward since why shouldn't I just wait for either eventual extinction or big brained know it "allness". Either way Darwinism is apathy in desperate need of constant resuscitation by injections of faith. At least with intelligent design the materialist can move past a personal God to arguing for one that is best forgotten.

Alun wrote: Doesn't matter. The point is that ID discards any attempt at explanation, since, like God, the intelligence that is being proposed cannot be understood; its mechanism is by definition unknown.

Where do ID advocates say that they discard all attempts at further explanation? Why can't the intelligence in any particular case be understood? What definition would that be that says the mechanism is "by definition" unknown?

More straw man and red herring.

... What do you think we've been talking about?

I don't really know what you're talking about; it seems to be some bizarre version of ID you've cobbled together for easy dismissal. As far as Darwinism, you're just asserting over and over like a broken record that it has been demonstrated and observed without providing anything other than observation; the capacity of RM and NS to produce anything cannot be observed; chance is not an observable phenomena. The capacity of NS to "select" is not an observable phenomena. It can only be demonstrated via statistical analysis of observed phenomena. Let me try to give you an example:

If I watch a roulette wheel I can observe the ball falling into the number seventeen 100 times in a row; I can claim that the mechanical structure, physics and chance involved must be sufficient to explain it because I didn't see anything else going on, and that as far as we know no intelligence is involved.

Bzzzzt! Not good enough. You have to show that RM & NS & GD are sufficient to get the results, you don't just get to assert it as the de facto explanation for what you observe occurring.

Some process that as far as we do understand involves no intelligence did it.

How did you arrive at that understanding?

Wait, now you're denying microevolution by natural selection too?

I haven't denied anything; I said that observing evolution occur is not the same as demonsrating RM & NS sufficient to account for what you observe. That evolution occurs is not being challenged; that RM & NS & GD is sufficient to explain it is. I have yet to see any model or analysis that shows it to be sufficient.

If you have such a statistical analysis that demonstrates RM & NS & GD capable of producing what Darwinists claim, present it, link to it. Otherwise, you're just mistaking your premise for your conclusion.

I don't know what the argument of ID is doing in this thread, but since it is and just for fun, I will argue we are the result of aliens. Von Daniken collected and documented evidence from around the world that the bulk of human achievement across the millennia can be attributed to the influence of alien civilizations, merely passing through.

Donovon, holds that what is happening today is the result of an awakening spiritual consciousness and uses Yogi teachers to make this argument. This is linked to a visit by aliens.

Jose Arguelles makes a similar argument in his book "The Mayan Factor".

Okay, so we can argue we didn't just naturally evolve but our specialness is the result of the aliens visit to earth.

Juice wrote:I suggest you look up Susumu Ohno, who coined the term to describe psuedogenes, thought, by him, not to transcribe for proteins.

The point I am making is that there are three sorts of DNA sequences:
1) DNA we know is transcribed
2) DNA we know is not transcribed, but has other uses, e.g. in regulation
3) DNA we have reason to believe is neither transcribed nor used as in (2)

"Junk DNA," even by that definition, applies to both 2 and 3.

Juice wrote:Yes I am disputing the historical claim [that early bacteria lived in oceans, not on land], please point out the source of that particular bit of known conclusive history which would substantiate that the flagella is the result of evolution in an ocean.

Juice wrote:Please substantiate that the "first" organisms were anaerobic or aerobic.

Here's two in one for you: Banded iron (oxide) layers in primordial sedimentary rock indicate a gradual oxygenation of the early oceans by early autotrophic prokaryotes. (At a time when we know there was no oxygen in the air.) Further, the oldest fossils in the world are of cyanobacteria (algae). These fossils are 3.5 billions years old--and the banded iron layers were formed during the dexygenated atmospheric period, 3.85-2.45 billion years ago. (More on this)

Juice wrote:I brought it up since most anaerobic organisms are destroyed when coming in contact with air, and is also another reason why the Miller experiments fail since oxygen destroys the molecules he created.

What do yeast, muscle, and most lifeforms on the planet have in common? They can live without oxygen. That's how we usually make alcoholic drinks you know (close yeast up in some grape juice, forcing it to break down the sugar without the aid of oxygen, producing ethanol as waste rather than CO2).

What may be confusing you here is archaebacteria, which are the most distinct organisms from us alive today. Many are "extremophiles," specializing in what would for us be high temperature or high toxicity environments.

Juice wrote:Since oxygen is found in every rock in the geologic strata then those molecules which Darwinist insist must have formed to produce material life are a miracle in or out of the water.

Sorry, what are you claiming here? That there is geological evidence of oxygen in the atmosphere through all of Earth's history? If so, this is incorrect. Here's a brief history of Earth: 4.6 billion years ago, the Earth was essentially the center of a large disks of gases and asteroids, gradually and violently condensing into a bigger rock. Around 3.8 billion years ago, the Earth started cooling enough that rocks, and eventually tectonic plates, formed. This is the Archean Eon, and the phase of interest. The rocks from this time period would not have the chemical composition they do in an oxygen rich atmosphere (source).

If you're claiming something else, then can you specify what you mean?

Juice wrote:With the eye we are left once again with a chicken and egg scenario. So many changes to not only physiology but thinking must be simultaneously adjusted for the whole eye to work. Once one takes a look at the molecular complexity of the eye then one is confronted with what came first and what good does that single organ do if sight is not the goal.

Erm. The evolution of sight began with photosensitive proteins in bacteria--our "rods" resemble bacterial rhodopsin. In fact this is exactly what Darwin himself hypothesized when he first outlined his theory: (source)

Talk Origins wrote: * photosensitive cell
* aggregates of pigment cells without a nerve
* an optic nerve surrounded by pigment cells and covered by translucent skin
* pigment cells forming a small depression
* pigment cells forming a deeper depression
* the skin over the depression taking a lens shape
* muscles allowing the lens to adjust


All of these steps are known to be viable because all exist in animals living today.

And I'm not going to respond to your generalizations and vague accusations.

Meleagar wrote:Where do ID advocates say that they discard all attempts at further explanation? Why can't the intelligence in any particular case be understood? What definition would that be that says the mechanism is "by definition" unknown?

When your entire 'theory' is defined as being "not natural and not random," you don't have any explanations to offer. All ID has ever done is try to argue that evolution by natural selection is incorrect--not a single experimental study has ever been done under the name of ID, because ID has never generated a serious (falsifiable, meaningful) scientific hypothesis. Juice has gotten me to read some of the books by these people; I'm not just pulling this out of the air.

Meleagar wrote: As far as Darwinism, you're just asserting over and over like a broken record that it has been demonstrated and observed without providing anything other than observation; the capacity of RM and NS to produce anything cannot be observed; chance is not an observable phenomena.

What does chance have to do with anything if it cannot be observed? The only 'chance' I'm interested in is the chance of a mutation, which can be observed, no matter what you claim about the roulette wheel. Statistics is an approximation of reality when we don't understand everything behind that reality. It is not really random when we toss a coin either--it's a function of precisely how much force is used to flip it (and perhaps small factors of air resistance). That doesn't mean that our observation of the 50/50 chance isn't good enough.

Meleagar wrote:How did you arrive at that understanding?

I've repeatedly listed evidence for you; perhaps if you move the scroll bar up, you might find it.

Meleagar wrote:demonsrating RM & NS sufficient to account for what you observe

Those are the only factors observed to be involved when evolution is observed. Once again, I've got this in a fairly organized format here.

Once again, alun:

Nobody has observed chance and natural selection. What they have done is make observations and then have characterized what they saw as random mutation and natural selection acting on a population. Darwin characterized the evolutionary process as an unguided one (largely on theological grounds and by comparison to what could be accomplished through intelligently selected breeding).

Chance and natural selection are theoretical characterizations of evolutionary processes; you can't actually observe them, although you can observe the actual changes in the organism. You continue to mistake your premise for your conclusion.

The only way to verify that RM & NS as a characterization of what is being observed is valid is to generate a statistical model (as in the roulette wheel example) of what RM & NS can probablistically produce in a given time frame, working on the materials they operate on. IOW, we will have a prediction of the spread of the roulette wheel results to show that the game is not rigged.

Darwinists have not ever (to my knowlege) produced any such analysis that supports that random mutation and natural (unintelligent) selection are appropriate characterizations of what is observed to occur in the evolutionary process.

You can observe something to be reproductive selection when a particular force, e.g., kills some corn plants, but not others, depending on how they respond to their environment. You can observe the chance of mutations by watching a single bacteria divide for a time, and seeing how much of its DNA has changed--or by watching a human mitochondrial organelle divide for a time, and seeing how much of its DNA has changed. I am curious as to what you think the words "natural selection" and "chance of mutation" mean if you do not think they refer to observed events.

This is my explanation as to why on a intellectual level, I have to dismiss Darwinism as credible science. Although I have come to the realization that materialists and theists will never be able to understand the others' point of view, I am hoping the materialists on this site can at least recognize that all theists do not necessary just dismiss science, logic and reasoning. We have science, logic and reasoning on our side.

It really takes a lot of faith to think the following occured due to evolution without ID or God.


You possess 3,000,000,000,000 (three trillion) nerve cells all coordinated by the brain.
You have 30,000,000,000 (thirty billion) working sections in your brain.
You have 131,000,000 photoreceptors in your eyes.
You have 24,000 hair-like cells in your inner ear which react to sound and convert it to nerve impulses.
Your small intestine has a surface area of 970,000 square feet.
Your heart beats 100,000 times and pumps 2,000 gallons of blood every day.
Your liver manufactures more than 1,000 different enzymes, each controlling a different chemical reaction.
You have 60,000 miles of blood vessels in your body.
You breathe 438 cubic feet of air each day.
There are 35,000,000 gland cells in your stomach to allow it to break down food without digesting itself.
Your kidneys have 40 miles of tubing and clean 500 gallons of your blood every day.
Every cell has 1,000,000,000,000 (one million million) bits of data in it. (That is as much information as 10,000 encyclopedia-sized books.)
Your body has 639 muscles that must work together.
Our joints must move 25,000,000 times in our lifetime without wearing out.
There are 30,000,000,000,000 (thirty million million) cells in our body with 10,000 functions.

Senses
Sight
Sight or vision is the ability of the brain and eye to detect electromagnetic waves within the visible range (light) which is why people see interpreting the image as "sight." There is disagreement as to whether this constitutes one, two or three senses. Neuroanatomists generally regard it as two senses, given that different receptors are responsible for the perception of colour (the frequency of photons of light) and brightness (amplitude/intensity - number of photons of light). Some argue[citation needed] that stereopsis, the perception of depth, also constitutes a sense, but it is generally regarded as a cognitive (that is, post-sensory) function of brain to interpret sensory input and to derive new information. The inability to see is called blindness.

Hearing
Hearing or audition is the sense of sound perception. Since sound is vibrations propagating through a medium such as air, the detection of these vibrations, that is the sense of the hearing, is a mechanical sense akin to a sense of touch, albeit a very specialized one. In humans, this perception is executed by tiny hair fibres in the inner ear which detect the motion of a membrane which vibrates in response to changes in the pressure exerted by atmospheric particles within a range of 20 to 22000 Hertz[citation needed], with substantial variation between individuals. Sound can also be detected as vibrations conducted through the body by tactition. Lower and higher frequencies than that can be heard are detected this way only. The inability to hear is called deafness.
Taste
Taste or gustation is one of the two main "chemical" senses. There are at least four types of tastes[4] that "buds" (receptors) on the tongue detect, and hence there are anatomists who argue[citation needed] that these constitute five or more different senses, given that each receptor conveys information to a slightly different region of the brain[citation needed]. The inability to taste is called ageusia.
The four well-known receptors detect sweet, salt, sour, and bitter, although the receptors for sweet and bitter have not been conclusively identified. A fifth receptor, for a sensation called umami, was first theorised in 1908 and its existence confirmed in 2000[5]. The umami receptor detects the amino acid glutamate, a flavour commonly found in meat and in artificial flavourings such as monosodium glutamate.
Note: that taste is not the same as flavour; flavour includes the smell of a food as well as its taste.
Smell
Smell or olfaction is the other "chemical" sense. Unlike taste, there are hundreds of olfactory receptors, each binding to a particular molecular feature. Odor molecules possess a variety of features and thus excite specific receptors more or less strongly. This combination of excitatory signals from different receptors makes up what we perceive as the molecule's smell. In the brain, olfaction is processed by the olfactory system. Olfactory receptor neurons in the nose differ from most other neurons in that they die and regenerate on a regular basis. The inability to smell is called anosmia. Some neurons in the nose are specialized to detect pheromones.
Touch
Touch, also called tactition or mechanoreception, is a perception resulting from activation of neural receptors, generally in the skin including hair follicles, but also in the tongue, throat, and mucosa. A variety of pressure receptors respond to variations in pressure (firm, brushing, sustained, etc). The touch sense of itching caused by insect bites or allergies involves special itch-specific neurons in the skin and spinal cord.[6] The loss or impairment of the ability to feel anything touched is called tactile anesthesia. Paresthesia is a sensation of tingling, pricking, or numbness of the skin that may result from nerve damage and may be permanent or temporary.
Balance and acceleration
Balance, equilibrioception, or vestibular sense is the sense which allows an organism to sense body movement, direction, and acceleration, and to attain and maintain postural equilibrium and balance. The organ of equilibrioception is the vestibular labyrinthine system found in both of the inner ears. Technically this organ is responsible for two senses of angular momentum and linear acceleration (which also senses gravity), but they are known together as equilibrioception.
The vestibular nerve conducts information from the three semicircular canals corresponding to the three spatial planes, the utricle, and the saccule. The ampulla, or base, portion of the three semicircular canals each contain a structure called a crista. These bend in response to angular momentum or spinning. The saccule and utricle, also called the "otolith organs", sense linear acceleration and thus gravity. Otoliths are small crystals of calcium carbonate that provide the inertia needed to detect changes in acceleration or gravity.
Temperature
Thermoception is the sense of heat and the absence of heat (cold) by the skin and including internal skin passages, or rather, the heat flux (the rate of heat flow) in these areas. There are specialized receptors for cold (declining temperature) and to heat. The cold receptors play an important part in the dogs sense of smell, telling wind direction, the heat receptors are sensitive to infrared radiation and can occur in specialized organs for instance in pit vipers. The thermoceptors in the skin are quite different from the homeostatic thermoceptors in the brain (hypothalamus) which provide feedback on internal body temperature.
Kinesthetic sense
Proprioception, the kinesthetic sense, provides the parietal cortex of the brain with information on the relative positions of the parts of the body. Neurologists test this sense by telling patients to close their eyes and touch the tip of a finger to their nose. Assuming proper proprioceptive function, at no time will the person lose awareness of where the hand actually is, even though it is not being detected by any of the other senses. Proprioception and touch are related in subtle ways, and their impairment results in surprising and deep deficits in perception and action.
Pain
Nociception (physiological pain) signals near-damage or damage to tissue. The three types of pain receptors are cutaneous (skin), somatic (joints and bones) and visceral (body organs). It was previously believed that pain was simply the overloading of pressure receptors, but research in the first half of the 20th century indicated that pain is a distinct phenomenon that intertwines with all of the other senses, including touch. Pain was once considered an entirely subjective experience, but recent studies show that pain is registered in the anterior cingulate gyrus of the brain.

DNA
DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA).
The information in DNA is stored as a code made up of four chemical bases: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T). Human DNA consists of about 3 billion bases, and more than 99 percent of those bases are the same in all people. The order, or sequence, of these bases determines the information available for building and maintaining an organism, similar to the way in which letters of the alphabet appear in a certain order to form words and sentences.
DNA bases pair up with each other, A with T and C with G, to form units called base pairs. Each base is also attached to a sugar molecule and a phosphate molecule. Together, a base, sugar, and phosphate are called a nucleotide. Nucleotides are arranged in two long strands that form a spiral called a double helix. The structure of the double helix is somewhat like a ladder, with the base pairs forming the ladder’s rungs and the sugar and phosphate molecules forming the vertical sidepieces of the ladder.
An important property of DNA is that it can replicate, or make copies of itself. Each strand of DNA in the double helix can serve as a pattern for duplicating the sequence of bases. This is critical when cells divide because each new cell needs to have an exact copy of the DNA present in the old cell.
If the chromosomes in one of your cells were uncoiled and placed end to end, the DNA would be about 6 feet long. If all the DNA in your body were connected in this way, it would stretch approximately 67 billion miles! That's nearly 150,000 round trips to the Moon.
Mitochondrial DNA
Although most DNA is packaged in chromosomes within the nucleus, mitochondria also have a small amount of their own DNA. This genetic material is known as mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA.
Mitochondria (illustration) are structures within cells that convert the energy from food into a form that cells can use. Each cell contains hundreds to thousands of mitochondria, which are located in the fluid that surrounds the nucleus (the cytoplasm).
Mitochondria produce energy through a process called oxidative phosphorylation. This process uses oxygen and simple sugars to create adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the cell’s main energy source. A set of enzyme complexes, designated as complexes I-V, carry out oxidative phosphorylation within mitochondria.
In addition to energy production, mitochondria play a role in several other cellular activities. For example, mitochondria help regulate the self-destruction of cells (apoptosis). They are also necessary for the production of substances such as cholesterol and heme (a component of hemoglobin, the molecule that carries oxygen in the blood).
Mitochondrial DNA contains 37 genes, all of which are essential for normal mitochondrial function. Thirteen of these genes provide instructions for making enzymes involved in oxidative phosphorylation. The remaining genes provide instructions for making molecules called transfer RNAs (tRNAs) and ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs), which are chemical cousins of DNA. These types of RNA help assemble protein building blocks (amino acids) into functioning proteins.
Major organ systems
Circulatory system: pumping and channeling blood to and from the body and lungs with heart, blood, and blood vessels.
Digestive System: digestion and processing food with salivary glands, esophagus, stomach, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, intestines, rectum, and anus.
Endocrine system: communication within the body using hormones made by endocrine glands such as the hypothalamus, pituitary or pituitary gland, pineal body or pineal gland, thyroid, parathyroids, and adrenals or adrenal glands
Integumentary system: skin, hair and nails
Immune system: the system that fights off disease; composed of leukocytes, tonsils, adenoids, thymus, and spleen.
Lymphatic system: structures involved in the transfer of lymph between tissues and the blood stream, the lymph and the nodes and vessels that transport it.
Musculoskeletal system: movement with muscles and human skeleton (structural support and protection with bones, cartilage, ligaments, and tendons).
Muscular system: the system that moves the body with muscles, ligaments, and tendons.
Nervous system: collecting, transferring and processing information with brain, spinal cord, peripheral nerves, and nerves
Reproductive system: the sex organs; in the female; ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina, mammary glands, and in the male; testes, vas deferens, seminal vesicles, prostate, and penis.
Respiratory system: the organs used for breathing, the pharynx, larynx, trachea, bronchi, lungs, and diaphragm.
Skeletal system:the system that holds the body together and gives it shape; composed of bones, cartilage, and tendons.
Urinary system: kidneys, ureters, bladder and urethra involved in fluid balance, electrolyte balance and excretion of urine.
Vestibular system : contributes to our balance and our sense of spatial orientation.

Intelligent design can’t be dismissed from a scientific perspective
December 14, 2005 by david-berlinski
Filed under Science
Leave a Comment
The defense of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution has now fallen into the hands of biologists who believe in suppressing criticism when possible and ignoring it when not.
It is not a strategy calculated to induce confidence in the scientific method.
A paper published recently in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington concluded that the events taking place during the Cambrian era could best be understood in terms of an intelligent design - hardly a position unknown in the history of Western science. The paper was, of course, peer-reviewed by three prominent evolutionary biologists.
Wise men attend to the publication of every one of the society’s papers, but in this case, the editors were given to understand that they had done a bad thing. Their indecent capitulation followed at once. Publication of the paper, they confessed, was a mistake. And peer review? The heck with it.
“If scientists do not oppose anti-evolutionism,” remarked Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Council for Science Education, “it will reach more people with the mistaken idea that evolution is scientifically weak.”
Scott’s understanding of “opposition” had nothing to do with reasoned discussion. It had nothing to do with reason at all. Discussing the issue was out of the question.
Her advice to her colleagues was considerably more to the point: “Avoid debates.” Everyone had better shut up. But in this country, at least, no one is ever going to shut up, the more so since the case against Darwin’s theory retains an almost lunatic vitality.
Look: The suggestion that Darwin’s theory of evolution is like theories in the serious sciences - for example, quantum electrodynamics - is grotesque. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to 13 unyielding decimal places. Darwin’s theory makes no tight quantitative predictions all.

Look: Field studies attempting to measure natural selection inevitably report weak to non-existent selection effects.
Look: Darwin’s theory is open at one end since there is no plausible account for the origins of life.
Look: The astonishing and irreducible complexity of various cellular structures has not yet successfully been described, let alone explained.
Look: A great many species enter the fossil record trailing no obvious ancestors and depart for Valhalla leaving no obvious descendents.
Look: Where attempts to replicate Darwinian evolution on the computer have been successful, they have not used classical Darwinian principles. Where they have used such principles, they have not been successful.
Look: Tens of thousands of fruit flies have come and gone in laboratory experiments, and every last one of them has remained a fruit fly to the end, all efforts to see the miracle of speciation unavailing.
Look: The remarkable similarity in the genome of a great many organisms suggests that there is, at bottom, only one living system. But how then to account for the astonishing differences between human beings and their near relatives, differences that remain obvious to anyone who has visited a zoo?
But look again: If the differences between organisms are scientifically more interesting than their genomic similarities, of what use is Darwin’s theory since its otherwise mysterious operations take place by genetic variations?
These are hardly trivial questions. Each suggests a dozen others. These are hardly circumstances that do much to support the view that there are “no valid criticisms of Darwin’s theory,” as so many recent editorials have suggested.
Serious biologists quite understand all this. They rather regard Darwin’s theory as an elderly uncle invited to a family dinner. The old boy has no hair, he has no teeth, he is hard of hearing and he often drools. Addressing even senior members at table as “sonny,” he is inordinately eager to tell the same story over and over again. But he’s family. What can you do?

Alun wrote:You can observe something to be reproductive selection when a particular force, e.g., kills some corn plants, but not others, depending on how they respond to their environment.

Yes, it is selection; how do you know it is unintelligent selection?

You can observe the chance of mutations by watching a single bacteria divide for a time, and seeing how much of its DNA has changed--or by watching a human mitochondrial organelle divide for a time, and seeing how much of its DNA has changed.

No one is arguing that one cannot observe the change in DNA; once again, the problem isn't that selection and mutation occurs, but rather that it can be appropriately characterized as unintelligent and/or random. You're not observing "random mutation"; you're observing mutation and characterizing it as random. You're not observing "natural selection"; you're observing selection and characterizing it as "natural" (or unintelligent, non-telelogical).

You have no evidence to support your characterizations that I'm aware of. Nobody is arguing against the observed facts; what is being argued is whether or not the characterizations have been scientifically/mathematically vetted as appropriate.

I am curious as to what you think the words "natural selection" and "chance of mutation" mean if you do not think they refer to observed events.

I've been quite clear. Mutation and selection refer to observed events; calling one "random" and the other "natural" (unintelligent, non-teleological) are characterizations of those observations that have not, to my knowledge, been appropriately vetted; they are assumed out of nothing other than materialist ideology.

If you cannot demonstrate they are random mutations, and if you cannot demonstrate that the selection is unintelligent & non-teleological, then there is no reason to call what occurs "random mutation" and "natural selection".

Meleagar wrote:Yes, it is selection; how do you know it is unintelligent selection?

Again, because we can apply selection as an arbitrary experimental condition. It is environmental; in an environment where apes that frequently do hand-stands reproduce more successfully, you will get apes that frequently do hand-stands. Are you trying to argue that an intelligence "designed" us by influencing the environmental conditions which selected our gene development?

Meleagar wrote:No one is arguing that one cannot observe the change in DNA; once again, the problem isn't that selection and mutation occurs, but rather that it can be appropriately characterized as unintelligent and/or random.

"Random" is a word we use to say, "hard as hell to figure out." There are factors that correlate to mutations--radiation, poisons, protein configurations, etc. We just don't know all of them and we don't know enough about how each of them works in every organism.

Meleagar wrote:You're not observing "random mutation"; you're observing mutation and characterizing it as random. You're not observing "natural selection"; you're observing selection and characterizing it as "natural" (or unintelligent, non-telelogical).

What purpose do you think all mutations pursue? Which purpose is pursued by the mutation that causes sickle-celled anemia? If you aren't saying that all mutations are purposeful, then how many mutations are purposeful?

Meleagar wrote:You have no evidence to support your characterizations that I'm aware of.

"Characterization" is still observable. I characterize the sky as blue; to test my theory I look out the window. The best characterization is the characterization that best explains the evidence; we don't need an external intelligence to explain the evidence. In fact, there seem to be far too many detrimental and useless mutations for mutation to be purposeful. There seem to be far too many 'short-term' selective forces for that to be purposeful--unless the enormous complexities of the dinosaurs were planned to be tossed out.

(Also, "natural" is usually intended to mean, "not caused by humans," so it isn't a particularly strong characterization by itself.)

Alun,

It's not my responsibility to put forth a counter-claim; it is the responsibility of those that advocate Darwinism, and RM & NS & GD specifically, as "sufficient" to show the appropriate evidence that supports this claim.

If you cannot, then the characterizations "random" and "natural" (as opposed to teleological or intelligent) are nothing more than ideological characterizations that have no place in in evolutionary theory.

Note how your entire rebuttal is about "purpose", which serves only to compare your characterization against what you imagine would be the purpose of some designing agent, or how you think such an agent would or could achieve the observable results.

IOW, you have no positive evidence that selection is unintelligent or non-telelogical other than that it doesn't seem to you to fit in with any design goal or purpose you can imagine, which is an argument from ignorance. Whether or not you can imagine the purpose or application limitations or design of any supposed intelligent designer is irrelevant; what is relevant is that Darwinists provide an analysis that shows that what is claimed to be achieved via random and non-teleological processes can in fact be achieved by them. Otherwise, all we have here is bald ideological characterizations.

You also have no positive evidence that mutations are random; you just argue that you can't imagine that an intelligence would conduct its business in the manner that your observations indicate. Until you provide a valid statistical model that demonstrates that the "random" characterization is valid, it's just an ideological assertion, nothing more.

The amusing thing here is that Darwin and his contemporaries, as well as modern Darwinists like Dawkins, often make theological arguments against ID that are much like your arguments above; they can't imagine an intelligent designer that would design the things they see on purpose, so they conclude that there must not be any design involved, even though they haven't even tried to prove that RM & NS & GD are up to the tasks assigned to them.

Bad design is not evidence of no design; design failures or flaws are not evidence of no design any more than multiple errors in a program code is evidence that the code sprang into existence by random and unintelligent factors.

Until you provide an analysis of the creative, probabilistic capacity and sorting powers of RM & NS & GD, then all you are doing - once again - is mistaking your premise for your conclusion and making bald, unsupported ideological characterizations.

Please provide such an analysis if you can.

Meleagar wrote:It's not my responsibility to put forth a counter-claim; it is the responsibility of those that advocate Darwinism, and RM & NS & GD specifically, as "sufficient" to show the appropriate evidence that supports this claim.

Ok, I'll save those questions for you in the ID thread.

Meleagar wrote:If you cannot, then the characterizations "random" and "natural" (as opposed to teleological or intelligent) are nothing more than ideological characterizations that have no place in in evolutionary theory.

Once again, I only mean random in the sense of "caused by numerous factors that are difficult to rigorously calculate and measure, but whose overall result has no relation to particular outcome and which can be statistically formulated without loss of information." Are you disputing that this characterization applies to mutations?

By "natural selection," I mean only reproductive selection that is not the result of human activities. I'm fairly certain you don't disagree with this, so what is your problem with the term?

Meleagar wrote:you have no positive evidence that selection is unintelligent or non-telelogical

We have measured that selection is only dependent upon reproductive success. How is this not positive evidence?

Meleagar wrote:what is relevant is that Darwinists provide an analysis that shows that what is claimed to be achieved via random and non-teleological processes can in fact be achieved by them. Otherwise, all we have here is bald ideological assertion.

So you're just going to totally ignore the fact that we've watched it happen?

Meleagar wrote:Until you provide a valid statistcal model that demonstrates that the "random" characterization is valid, it's just an ideological assertion, nothing more.

You're not using the word random the way I'm using it. Mutation rates are variable (source) and regulated, especially in larger organisms like humans. A human cell can fix some mutations (e.g. since DNA is stored in double-strands, if one base-pair is missing, there is one across from it that will only bind the correct lost pair). Besides that, we know certain things, like poison, radiation, and copying errors (which are the result of disfavored chemical reactions--physical probability) lead to mutations. Are you disputing any of these facts? Or are you saying that poison, radiation, and copying errors have not been shown to be "random"?

Meleagar wrote:Until you provide an analysis of the creative, probabilistic capacity and sorting powers of RM & NS & GD, then all you are doing - once again - is mistaking your premise for your conclusion and making bald, unsupported ideological assertions.

Look here at #5 and #10 in the first segment.

Molecular methods are used widely to measure genetic diversity within populations and determine relationships among species. However, it is difficult to observe genomic evolution in action because these dynamics are too slow in most organisms. To overcome this limitation, we sampled genomes from populations of Escherichia coli evolving in the laboratory for 10,000 generations. We analyzed the genomes for restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP) using seven insertion sequences (IS) as probes; most polymorphisms detected by this approach reflect rearrangements (including transpositions) rather than point mutations. The evolving genomes became increasingly different from their ancestor over time. Moreover, tremendous diversity accumulated within each population, such that almost every individual had a different genetic fingerprint after 10,000 generations. As has been often suggested, but not previously shown by experiment, the rates of phenotypic and genomic change were discordant, both across replicate populations and over time within a population. Certain pivotal mutations were shared by all descendants in a population, and these are candidates for beneficial mutations, which are rare and difficult to find. More generally, these data show that the genome is highly dynamic even over a time scale that is, from an evolutionary perspective, very brief.

Numerous studies have shown genotype-by-environment (G×E) interactions for traits related to organismal fitness. However, the genetic architecture of the interaction is usually unknown because these studies used genotypes that differ from one another by many unknown mutations. These mutations were also present as standing variation in populations and hence had been subject to prior selection. Based on such studies, it is therefore impossible to say what fraction of new, random mutations contributes to G×E interactions. In this study, we measured the fitness in four environments of 26 genotypes of Escherichia coli, each containing a single random insertion mutation. Fitness was measured relative to their common progenitor, which had evolved on glucose at 37°C for the preceding 10,000 generations. The four assay environments differed in limiting resource and temperature (glucose, 28°C; maltose, 28°C; glucose, 37°C; and maltose, 37°C). A highly significant interaction between mutation and resource was found. In contrast, there was no interaction involving temperature. The resource interaction reflected much higher among mutation variation for fitness in maltose than in glucose. At least 11 mutations (42%) contributed to this G×E interaction through their differential fitness effects across resources. Beneficial mutations are generally thought to be rare but, surprisingly, at least three mutations (12%) significantly improved fitness in maltose, a resource novel to the progenitor. More generally, our findings demonstrate that G×E interactions can be quite common, even for genotypes that differ by only one mutation and in environments differing by only a single factor.

Meleagar wrote:Bad design is not evidence of no design; design failures or flaws are not evidence of no design any more than multiple errors in a program code is evidence that the code sprang into existence by random and unintelligent factors.

Sure it is; one of the ways you'd falsify evolution by natural selection is to find mistakes that a natural selection system would've made, but that are not made in the real world. This test fails, so the theory is corroborated.

JPhillips, I didn't see your post earlier, but making lists doesn't show much of anything. Every rock has millions of atoms in it, that doesn't mean we cannot explain a rock as a simple addition of atoms. You are arguing from incredulity, not from evidence.

Alun wrote: Once again, I only mean random in the sense of "caused by numerous factors that are difficult to rigorously calculate and measure, but whose overall result has no relation to particular outcome and which can be statistically formulated without loss of information."
Are you disputing that this characterization applies to mutations?

I'm disputing that this characterization has been in any way scientifically or mathematically supported.

By "natural selection," I mean only reproductive selection that is not the result of human activities. I'm fairly certain you don't disagree with this, so what is your problem with the term?

So, if the selection process was gamed by aliens, it would still be considered "natural selection"? IOW, if aliens came here and deliberately bred species or genetically modified bacteria DNA in order to deliberately achieve anthropods, it would still be "natural selection" because humans were not involved?

We have measured that selection is only dependent upon reproductive success. How is this not positive evidence?

It's positive evidence that selection occurs, not the the selection process is unintelligent. Try and understand that selection can be intelligent or unintelligent; that selection occurs doesn't by itself indicate that the process is either; the only thing that can determine if the process is intelligently organized or not is a statistical analysis.

So you're just going to totally ignore the fact that we've watched it happen?

You've seen selection or mutation occur; you assume it is unintelligent and/or random. You're conflating your characterization of an event with the event itself.

Are you disputing any of these facts? Or are you saying that poison, radiation, and copying errors have not been shown to be "random"?

I'm not saying random mutations don't occur; I'm waiting for you to show that collections of sequences of random mutation can account for what you claim they can account for. So far, you have failed to do so. The question isn't if random mutations occur; the question is if random mutations can be shown to be capable of producing the information required to achieve what it is claimed to achieve.

I can show that random collections and formations of rock occurs; however, if I'm going to claim that random formations of rock obeying natural laws of gravity and erosion can generate the Parthenon, it's going to take more than just an assertion that characterizes the Parthenon as the result of random distributions of rocks and natural forces acting on them.

Look here at #5 and #10 in the first segment.

Apparently you are immune to understanding the nature of the challenge I have posed. You keep entirely failing to address the actual issue. Your source makes observations of mutations then characterizes those observations as "random" variations without any warrant that they are in fact random.

Where in your link do they show the math where they determine that the mutations are in fact random?

Let me try again: I can spin the roulette wheel and you can observe the entire act; how do you determine if the ball is landing in an actual random manner? How do you determine if the game is rigged or not? That's the question being asked.

I keep asking you to present evidence that the roulette game is not rigged, and you keep insisting that you've observed the spinning of the wheel and the landing of the ball. That you have observed the spinning of the wheel and the landing of the ball 10,000 times is 100% irrelevant to the question at hand; where is the analysis of the results of the spinning of the wheel, along with the structural examination of the wheel, the ball, the initial conditions, etc., that demonstrate, not simply claim, that the game is truly producing random results - i.e., that the mutations that occur (and are responsible for the generation of novel, functioning biological forms) are truly random?

Please stop making the argument that you've observed mutations and selection occur; nobody is arguing that they do not occur; the argument is about how such things are characterized, and where the mathematical justification is for those characterizations.

Note how you have said:

"Random" is a word we use to say, "hard as hell to figure out." There are factors that correlate to mutations--radiation, poisons, protein configurations, etc. We just don't know all of them and we don't know enough about how each of them works in every organism.

IOW, you admit that you don't even know how to correlate and categorize or figure out all of the mutations and how they stack up and sequentialize, but you insist that you know that the mutations that are responsible for the generation of novel, functioning biological forms are not intelligently designed, and so you feel comfortable calling the process "random".

Your own words clearly demonstrate that you don't know enough about mutations to make a scientific determination that the process is random; you clearly only insist it is random because of ideology.

JPhillips wrote:I am been trying to get a handle on how man evolved from a cell to a creature with complex organs that are interdependent on each other. Can someone help me? First there was an atom that turned into a single cell amoeba. After this what are all the life forms that existed up to man. In other words, don’t start with the monkey. Get me to the monkey from the single cell. Name all the life forms between the amoeba and man. Then maybe this whole thing will make more sense to me. Otherwise, if there is no evidence of these life forms then there is no evidence for evolution. You can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. To think otherwise is to believe in silly fairy tales.

First: don't ask the religious about biology, trying reading the origin of species. Find below list of creationist claims-----all unfounded. Because you presently do not understand does not mean a magic man did it!

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

Alun

No,I was just pointing out how unlikely it is for the human body to be so complex without ID or God. I was pointing out the unlikelyhood of evolution occuring through random mutation one cell at a time leading up to complex organs, a nervous system, immune system, a conscious brain with a sense of awareness, sensory perceptions, and emotions, all bodily systems working together in sinc, etc. I really cannot explain why I find it unbelievable better than the scientists and experts who have already made these arguments for me. To me, it all comes down to review of the evidence from both sides and a determination that one side has made a stronger argument than the other. In this case I have to side with the non-believers of Darwinism.

But fractals are even more complex.
If God made fractals and God made humans too, who made God? It's only reasonable that whatever agent made fractals and humans not to mention snowflakes has to be more complex than the things the agent made.Then who made who made God ?