lpetrich

Wounded King:
Presumably Charles you are familiar with the concept of heterochrony, this explains a number of examples of homologous structures with different developmental pathways.

That's different timing of development, like:

Or for an even more extreme example there is the direct developing frog species Eleutherodactylus coqui which lacks the free swimming larval stage of related frogs but of which the adult stages are morphologically and genetically highly similar. ...

Does that frog's embryos have some tadpolelike features? It's hard for me to find anything on that, but it seems to me that this species does tadpole-to-adult while still in the egg. And this and other direct-developing frogs are often considered possible sources of clues as to how amniotes emerged from early amphibians.

Charles Darwin

We're not talking about losing development stages, but different kinds of stages, or different genes. Here's why this is important. Homology is cited as a key evidence for evolution. Yet, we are to believe that evolution, while preserving the end product, went through all kinds of genetic and developmental changes. You see, the evidence is not so simple and straightforward, and not so unequivocally behind evolution. You claim evolution is a fact, and you cite homologies as an important reason. But this evidence raises a raft of questions, for many reasons; this question of development being just one of the reasons.

lpetrich

I notice that CD has not presented even a shred of evidence for that viewpoint. Does he deserve to be taken seriously if he fails to deliver on such a fundamental level?

Jack the Bodiless

Charles:
The fallacy of your probability argument should have been obvious simply from considering how living organisms are coping now.

Is is your position that, because there are "so many things that can go wrong", modern organisms do not successfully reproduce? All species are wiped out by lethal mutations in one generation?

Most of the mutations which actually occur are not harmful: they are neutral. There are biochemical constraints on the types of mutation that are likely to occur.

As I have already pointed out, harmful mutations are irrelevant unless they are so numerous that they swamp the organism's reproductive rate. Given that this is observably not happening, the accumulation of beneficial mutations (and hence evolution) is inevitable.

And you also seem to have an ongoing hangup with evolution being a "fact". The PROCESS of evolution IS a fact. COMMON DESCENT is also so well-supported that it is considered "fact" by paleontologists and biologists. The THEORY is that evolution is solely responsible for common descent.

Why are you still trying to pretend that you don't understand this? I'm curious. Do you think that making yourself look stupid is a worthwhile debating tactic? If so, then why?
Um, yes, it is the case that a truly overwhelming body of evidence exists today for common descent (which is what you usually mean when you say "evolution", though sometimes you use the word to imply "metaphysical naturalism" instead: I suspect this obfuscation is deliberate). The fossil record alone is sufficient: millions of fossils miraculously shuffled into the right order.
Is this an about-turn?

Earlier, you were quite insistent that all the evidence for common descent could be explained by "I choose to believe that God made everything so that it would look that way". All attempts to make you acknowledge the futility of that position were met with variations of "you are making a religious statement, who are you to decide what God should do?".

...But now creationism can be falsified?

How, pray tell?
Um, no, it's YOU who isn't reading the thread. It was explained many pages ago how an HERV can become lost, leaving an apparently pristine pre-insertion site.
...Where?

This certainly isn't true of the radiation of the mammals after the demise of the dinosaurs. There was rapid radiation from a handful of somewhat rodentlike critters, but the fossil record shows this. All of them were initially small, and big birds were the top carnivores on land for a while.

You have repeatedly tried to make a case for the fossil record "contradicting" common descent. But where's the beef?

Albion

How does it explain why evolution fares poorly? To what extent are creationism and evolution related such that the existence of one can explain a problem with the other? Surely problems with theories are the outcome of disagreements with data, rather than being anything to do with other theories.

As far as the source of consciousness is concerned, creationism is the notion that a deity is responsible for everything. As long as consciousness is part of everything, it follows that creationism would include it. But how is saying "Goddidit" any sort of explanation? It's a theological statement, and once you've said it, are you really any clearer about consciousness from the scientific viewpoint?

How can creationism be falsified?

monkenstick

Some instances of homoplasy are better explained by convergent mutation - the number is quite small compared to the 900 odd nucleotides that make up the exons of the gene

Thats obvious, of course if the nonsense mutations that are ubiquitous in each monopyletic family are different between the families, then the most parsimonious explanation is that its transcription was likely already compromised.

please look up CpG hotspots, and consider that a negative selection on a gene most likely favoured methylation of its coding sequence

No, it isn't. You obviously need a course in cladistics - each monophyletic family all have exactly the same stop codon, and the phylogeny (the most likely tree considering all 900 odd positions, and not just the examples of convergence the authors highlighted) coincidently also supports the monophyly of both groups

You would have to show that convergent mutations occured at enough positions in the sequence to bias the phylogeny to putting all members of hominidae in one monophyletic group, and all members of hylobatidae in another monophyletic group.

Yes convergent mutations happen - but they don't happen at the level you require to claim that the errors in the urate oxidase gene are the result of convergent mutations in all members of hominidae

pangloss

This is an awfully naive take on what 'similarities' are and how they are analyzed.

Charles Darwin

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Charles Darwin
You can get convergent phylogenies on man-made categories of objects too (already discussed in this thread).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In support of this, awhile back you wrote:

There are two points two understand. First, evolution does not predict the species to form a nested hierarchy, as discussed a few posts back: Anomalies and difficulties are routinely explained by evolutionists using such devices as extraordinarily and temporarily high rates of mutation. Such events would erase the hierarchical pattern. And if you are willing to swallow the origin of life once, why not twice? And thrice? Who knows, life may have been popping up like corn. With life originating so often, you could get many species, but no hierarchy.

Second, a nested hierarchy makes perfect sense for man-made objects. Look at your engine type list above. The V-12 trait, for example, contains only sports cars and trucks. Likewise, the lawnmowers appear only in the 2-cylinder trait category. You do not have uniform representation across the board. Now imagine we had similar lists for a number of other traits, such as tire material and tread design; transmission type and gearing ratios; horsepower to vehicle weight ratio; coolant system; steering system; seat design; and so forth. There would be some overlaps just as there are in your engine list, but there would be a general agreement. If I gave you the all the trait data for a truck without telling you the vehicle type, you would have no difficulty inferring it was for a truck. Of course, there would be some features that appear independently in different groups, but the species have these same sorts of convergences. And there would be some traits that all the vehicle types share (eg, internal combustion engine) and many others that are shared only by subgroups.

No, they agree with man-made objects. Furthermore, there are massive convergences required under evolution. Evolution predicts similarities to be inherited. What we find are a great many similarities that could not have been via inheritance. Do you believe that a little rodent speciated, created marsupials and placentals, and then each lineage independently created all kinds of replicates? Did the flying squirrel, just to name one example of a great many, arise twice on different continents and over millions of years? Essentially the same design; one marsupial and one placental?

monkenstick

phenotype isn't inherited charley, genotype is

Charles Darwin

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CD said:
Do you really believe there is no such thing as you; that you is really just a very complicated and immense set of neurons in action? Something that just arose all by itself? And now you are deceived into thinking that there really is a you, when in fact there is no such thing as you.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No, I do not find materialism diminishing. I find it unlikely. Is there any evidence that materialism is not sufficient? Well I would start with evolution. What we know of the natural world does not suggest that the most complex things arose by themselves. Given how unlikely the theory is; that is pretty good evidence against materialism. You see, what I'm pointing out is how poorly materialism accords with our experience and knowledge. Our sense of good and evil; consciousness; our sense of free will; and so forth. Materialism is left with, as with evolution, the explanation that these non material things just arose by themselves. Somehow our brains have contrived these things, but they are actually nothing more than illusions. There is no good or evil, just our opinions. There is no consciousness, just matter and energy in our heads. There is no free will, just neurons in action. I'm not going to try to talk you out of evolution or materialism, but I hope you are not under the impression that they have all the answers and people who doubt them must have ulterior motives.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CD said:
No explanatory value for creationism? Well it explains why evolution fares so poorly; and it explains the source of consciousness. Furthermore, as with scientific theories creationism cannot be proved true, but it can be falsified.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well please let me know when you discover origin stories that can be verified.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CD said:
So for you, the only origin theories worth considering are those which explain how it happened, even if God did it. Your god is a machine. You have defined creationism out of the picture.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Earlier you wrote:

And,

You are not merely asking to know how God did it; you are demanding to know how God did it. If I am unable to provide an explanation to you, that you can comprehend and that you find acceptable, then you declare creationism out of bounds � a useless position. You see, inherent in your thinking is the premise that God, if creationism is true, must create in a way that I can understand and will find acceptable. I may as well try to explain to you how God created matter, or how He created gravity. Do you see the absurdity of your question? Who am I to explain how God acts? Yet you require this before you will accept creationism. Hence, what you are really doing is rejecting creationism a priori. And you must opt for the absurdity of evolution because, after all, it provides a mechanistic explanation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CD said:
By this logic we should be neutral about geocentrism. The problem is not a lack of understanding of evolution. We have plenty of evidence in hand; the theory fails.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh, OK, I see what you are saying. The reason I opt for creationism is because the scientific evidence points that way. Is it a naturalistic explanation? No. Do you require all explanations to be naturalistic? Apparently so. Again, you seem to be rejecting creationism a priori, regardless of the science.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CD said:
The *evolution* position, as hard as it is to swallow, is that the species "just arose."This means that the species arose via the play of natural forces (ie, spontaneously). It doesn't matter what process you want to contrive for it; it doesn't matter what time period you want to make up. But isn't it interesting how evolutionists react when their theory is described as it really is.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Actually, I'm not using rhetorical techniques. Spontaneous change, as I'm sure you know, is the scientific term for the changes that a system undergoes without outside interference. All by itself, to a lower free energy level. If you were to read evolutionists you'd see a tendency to pour a greater creative power into evolution than the theory actually gives to it. We start talking about evolution 'creating' by this or that means. And oh how they protest when the reality of their theory is laid out before them. Go take a look at a good biology book, and then ask yourself if you believe those things spontaneously (over as many eons as you like) arose? And it is not as though evolutionists have some explanation to show how our intuition is so fallible. When asked, they protest that you are being too picky; pointing out the tiniest of gaps in their theory. What a laugh.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CD said:
That adaptation does not seem to be unbounded.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm simply pointing out that years of mutation experiments, as well as the centuries of breeding experience accrued indicate species are not like a piece of putty in one's hands. The evidence that we do have indicates that change is not unbounded. Hence, evolutionists have to resort to stories such as neutral mutations accumulating over long periods and then being exploited in a short time when abrupt environmental changes occur to make them suddently advantageous (rather than neutral). How convenient. All kinds of neutral mutations, which later would be critical in speciating and introducing dramatic changes, just happened to silently occur for eons and become fixed. Nature sure is smart.