caravelair

thanks for posting that! quite interesting!

God Fearing Atheist

This sort of thing would also be useful for compairing molecular and morphologic phylogenies to an explictly known and carefully documented true phylogeny.

It would show just how off-base Charles' objections to phylogenic convergence are.

-GFA

EDIT: spelling

Charles Darwin

I thank you for the exchange. Obviously we're going to have to agree to disagree. The topic of human chromosome 2 has been fascinating. Your claims are fascinating because it reveals a side of the evolutionist's thinking I did not expect. Frankly, we agree on the evidence and how to understand it, at a fundamental level. But regarding it serving as an evidence for evolution (over and above the usual homology argument), I think you are mistaken. I thought that when I reminded you that there is a perfectly good natural causes explanation, then you'd agree that this isn't evidence for evolution. Your continued insistence is fascinating. You on the one hand say: "Chromosomal fusion WITHOUT descent with modification involves postulating a supernatural Creator to have made chimps and humans separately in the first place. It also involves a Creator that makes them so it seems to be closely related by common descent." While I disagree with your conclusion about common descent, I understand your perspective. However, your reasoning has nothing to do with chromosomal fusion. You could say the human's big toe is evidence for evolution. And when questioned why, you'd say the same thing: "WITHOUT descent with modification involves postulating a supernatural Creator to have made chimps and humans separately in the first place." Then you strawman my position: "Oh really?? Evolution most certainly DOES make those predictions and if Human genomes looked nothing like Chimp genomes that looked nothing like Gorilla genomes and on down the line. Then you would have something that looked like Special Creation and evolution WOULD be falsified." Of course, I never said "nothing like ..". What you are really claiming that the chimp and human must have the same diploid number under evolution, else it is false. You will have a hard time backing that up.

I thought the rest of your post was strongest here:

The recurrent laryngeal nerve argument suffers quite a bit. First, there is the fact that it is by no means a stretch, given our incomplete knowledge, that there may actually be a reason for the routing of the nerve (will you reject evolution if a reason is found? Of course not). Second, has anyone ever really thought about what they are claiming here. Evolution has the power to create a giraffe from a fish, adding all that must be added, producing a huge amount of change, and yet it is powerless to fix up this nerve routing. But wait, what do we mean powerless? In fact, evolution would have had to CREATE that extra nerve routing. It did not merely leave something alone because it worked sufficiently well. It diddled with it tremendously. What evolutionists must say is that there was something in the development pattern, or regulatory genes, or something that coded for that routing. And those routing instructions must be homologous between fish and giraffe (evolution did not change it.) To my knowledge, evolutionists have never produced evidence for this.

Next, you write: "We are talking about non-functional parts of the genome that are shared between related species just like they would have been had they been derived by common descent." But again, and we see this over and over, you selectively use the science to support your position. In fact, we have found non-functional parts of the genome that are shared between related species just like they would NOT have been had they been derived by common descent (eg., identical mouse � human segments talked about earlier).

This problem comes up again and again. I feel like I'm trying to plug a leaky dike. There are all kinds of problems with evolution. But no sooner has it been discussed that we return to the broken record of "all this data fits evolution so well, that if creationism is true then God must have wanted things to appear as though they evolved."

Life doesn't appear that it evolved. If God wanted things to look that way, He wouldn't have put an homologous ERV in ape and chimp, but not human. Of course, you may say that your god wouldn't do it this way. And evolutionists do make liberal use of this reasoning. So their appeals to the scientific data as being the reason for their position is dubious. It is so difficult to tease these two apart. When the topic is on the scientific evidence, no sooner do they hit a snag that they switch to the "creationism if false" argument. And when they return to science it is back to "everything is rosy and perfect" view.

I don't know what you mean that distorters and transposons only make sense in light of evolution. Why is that? I mean, I understood the bit about the wasps. But what's so bad about distorters and transposons?

As for the appendix, yes, that was one of those "vestigial" organs (Wiedershiem I believe claimed it to be functionless) which, as it turns out, is part of the immune system. As for the chimp-human fossil record, you must know that you are giving an over simplification for something that is not nearly so clear.

Then you end with the parasitic wasp: "We are also talking about life cycles of certain organisms that if they were created on purpose strongly suggests the creator is a psychopath .." I am not going to try to rationalize parasites or other unseemly sides of nature to you. Sorry, I do not have a "testable" model for God for you. But evolutionists are strongly moved by these evidences and arguments.

No, the species don't "look" like they evolved. Not to me anyway. There is nothing about protein synthesis, echolocation, giraffes, and yes, parasitic wasps, that appears to be the product of evolution. Such a notion is, frankly, a real stretch. I'll let you have the last word on the exchange.

Dr Rick

It's a ridiculous stretch.

Our knowledge about the nerve is complete enough to know that there is no functional reason it must loop around the vascular arch. The nerve is transposed cephalad during vascular surgical procedures with no effect upon its function. When it has to be ligated or excised as in certain cancer surgeries, we know exactly what effects such surgery or injury will have, and again, it makes no difference whether or not the nerve is left to loop around the arch.

Let's see if the poster will reject creationism now that he knows that there is no reason for the placement of the laryngeal nerve.

The poster is treating evolution as if it is a sentient entity, which it is not. His argument is backwards; here's how it really should go:

Has any creationist ever really thought about what they are claiming here. God has the power to create a man from dirt, adding all that must be added, producing a huge amount of change, and yet He is powerless to fix up this nerve routing. But wait, what do we mean powerless? In fact, God would have had to CREATE that extra nerve routing. He did not merely leave something alone because it worked sufficiently well. He diddled with it tremendously. What creationists must say is that there was something God didn't know, or didn't care about, or something that he was powerless to impact that routing. And those deficencies must be excused and explained (God did not change it.) To my knowledge, creationists have never produced evidence for this

He got it all wrong here, too; but it's my pleasure to help him:

Living organisms appear to have evolved. If a God had not wanted things to look that way, He wouldn't have put homologies in animals and humans, He wouldn't have placed those homologies progressively to demonstrate descent through modification; He wouldn't have made a recurrent laryngeal nerve, He wouldn't allow speciation to be observed, He wouldn't have planted a fossil record, He wouldn't have made vestigal organs; heck, He just wouldn't have made things the way that He did. If a God had not wanted living organisms to evolve, He would have made them so that they didn't. Of course, you may say that your god wouldn't do it this way, but creationsists don't use this reasoning. So their appeals to the scientific data as being the reason for their position is dubious. It is so difficult to tease these two apart. When the topic is on the scientific evidence, no sooner do they hit a snag that they switch to the "evolution is false" argument. And when they return to religion it is back to "everything is rosy and perfect" view

lpetrich

Charles Darwin:
(a lot of stuff I couldn't quite follow)
What you are really claiming that the chimp and human must have the same diploid number under evolution, else it is false. You will have a hard time backing that up.

That's bull excrement. Chromosome rearrangements are changes in the packaging of the genes. If you are traveling and you decided to put your stuff in two smaller suitcases instead of one big suitcase, does that mean some fundamental change in your stuff?

The recurrent laryngeal nerve argument suffers quite a bit. First, there is the fact that it is by no means a stretch, given our incomplete knowledge, that there may actually be a reason for the routing of the nerve.

That's wishful thinking.

Second, has anyone ever really thought about what they are claiming here. Evolution has the power to create a giraffe from a fish, adding all that must be added, producing a huge amount of change, and yet it is powerless to fix up this nerve routing. But wait, what do we mean powerless? In fact, evolution would have had to CREATE that extra nerve routing. ...

As a side effect of other changes. Evolution has produce lots of such flubs and blunders. The wrong-way innervation of the vertebrate retina and the resulting blind spot, for example. Especially when squid have their retinas wired in the "right" direction. Also, flightless birds' wings are almost useless for grasping, something which would be a very useful ability for them.

In fact, we have found non-functional parts of the genome that are shared between related species just like they would NOT have been had they been derived by common descent (eg., identical mouse � human segments talked about earlier).

Noncoding != Nonfunctional. Such parts of the genome are likely involved in gene regulation.

This problem comes up again and again. I feel like I'm trying to plug a leaky dike. There are all kinds of problems with evolution. ...

While the poof-poof-poof-poof-poof theory of origins is totally free of problems, right? Even the fact that there is no well-documented example of a new species being poofed into existence is not a problem, right?

And why don't you study the professional literature on evolution before coming up with such sweeping conclusions? Much of it is available online, simply check PubMed.

Life doesn't appear that it evolved. If God wanted things to look that way, He wouldn't have put an homologous ERV in ape and chimp, but not human.

There are several such ERV's -- one missing is not a great disaster.

As for the appendix, yes, that was one of those "vestigial" organs (Wiedershiem I believe claimed it to be functionless) which, as it turns out, is part of the immune system.

However, we can nevertheless do without our appendixes. Ask Jenna Bush and numerous other appendectomy patients.

As for the chimp-human fossil record, you must know that you are giving an over simplification for something that is not nearly so clear.

Then what do you think is the real story?

RufusAtticus

Charles Darwin,

We still note that you still haven't provided any scientific references for your accusations. We can only assume that you are a false witness until you do.

Muad'Dib

Hello Charles,

Forgive me for interrupting a discussion with others, but I am wondering what the real issue is here.

I infer from this that you think common descent, specifically, is an unreasonable extrapolation of things that we can't directly observe; and my question to this, which is both non-rhetorical and non-dismissive, is: so what? More properly: so....what?

Having studied physics, you know that science is not about whether a model, standing in a vacuum, is credible in itself; it is about whether a model explains data and makes predictions better than competing models. Even history works this way: Raymond Brown has said that textual criticism (and I argue that this applies just as well to history in general) is about selecting the explanation that has the fewest number of absolutely fatal flaws. Every theory has unanswered questions, some more than others, and as you've stated, such problems are not sufficient grounds to abandon a theory. If there is to be a change of mind, what's needed is a better theory.

I personally am unwilling to go to my colleagues in biomathematics and accuse each and every one of them of academic dishonesty without being able to give them some kind of idea of the studies they should be pursuing.

What should biologists be doing? How should they be conducting their studies? What alternate models should they consider? If biologists are misrepresenting or misunderstanding a theory of special creation, shouldn't someone step up to offer not only corrections but a description of what the proper theory of special creation is? "Be open to new and different and alternate theories" is well and good as a general principle, but until a candidate theory steps up to the plate and is tested and comes out ahead, there's not likely to be any change in what's considered or taught.

Is the medieval theory of humors crackpot? Yes, and modern physiology provides a better explanation of sickness and physical health. Is Aristotle's idea that fire rises because it's attracted to the sky erroneous? Yes, and modern chemistry provides a better explanation of the reactions involved. Is the idea that demons cause illness hopelessly flawed? Maybe or maybe not, but the germ theory of disease explains it equally well and has a vastly superior ability to treat it.

Is common descent a crackpot idea? You say yes and the biologists say no, but the real test is whether or not there's a model better than common descent that explains the data just as well or better, and makes better predictions of what we'll find when we gather more data.

Will we ever find such a model? I don't know, and as a mathematician I have no particular emotional investment in whether we will or not.* But until we do, I doubt that the idea of common descent is going to go away.

* (My emotion in this post comes from the fact that unless I've misunderstood, you seem to be indirectly accusing some of my colleagues of fraud or dishonesty; my apologies if I've misunderstood, and in any case I'll try not to be distracted by it. Unless I'm mistaken, biologists frequently and explicitly accuse your colleagues of fraud and dishonesty, so that there is some symmetry in our being offended.)

What do you think, Charles? Is this close to your understanding of science, or no? Or is this not the real issue? I'm still trying to sort that out. Is the real problem not science so much as the general public's shallow understanding of epistemology?

Regards,
Muad'Dib

DMB

I haven't noticed any comment from CD on ring species, which seem to me to provide evidence for at least one process of speciation by evolution.

Charles Darwin

Good points. You raise some interesting questions. But first about the fraud. Science, as with most human activities is a complicated process. I'd like not to leave the impression that I'm accusing your friends and colleagues, nor anyone here on this thread for that matter, of dishonesty or fraud. I'd prefer not to peer into people's personal motives. My point is that evolution is not a good scientific theory, and certainly not a scientific fact.

Some of the discussions in this thread have relied on religious premises and reasonings. Or should I say, these discussions have taken a broader look at things, combining the science with religious considerations to arrive at the conclusion that evolution is a good theory and a fact. I would also disagree with these conclusions, but this discussion becomes far more complex as metaphysics is now freely used whereever one chooses.

I fully understand someone such as Beagle disagreeing with me and concluding that evolution is a good theory and a fact, due to these metaphysical considerations. As I see it, because metaphysics is involved, it is more of a "your opinion vs my opinion" situation. There is no fraud or dishonesty here.

But since a scientific theory (and fact) is something that is far more constrained, in my view, I do not believe there is this sort of free play. There are specific evidences, and a specific, common, understanding of natural laws, forces, etc. We ought to be able to have a fairly objective discussion of how the evidence stacks up, and whether evolution is a fact or not. There is no question that in this more limited paradigm (ie, just science), evolution absolutely fails to qualify as a compelling scientific theory, much less a fact. What happened in this thread is evolutionists routinely took the discussion out of the scientific realm and into metaphysics.

The rationale was solid: we'll use scientific evidence to disprove the alternative. But this does not make for a scientific argument. There inevitably will be religious assumptions. Fraud? Dishonest? No, not at all. But I would argue there is potential for confusion about the role metaphysics is playing. When I say we need to be "more honest," that's a colluquial way of saying, let's think harder about our logic clearly state our premises, not, let's stop lying.

Now you bring up this question: isn't evolution the best if there is no better alternative? You say: "but the real test is whether or not there's a model better than common descent that explains the data just as well or better, and makes better predictions of what we'll find when we gather more data."

Well there's a lot to say here. I don't see anything particularly wrong with this pragmatic approach to science. Scientists use flat-earth, etc. models all the time successfully. And the earth-centered system makes all kinds of correct prediction on future events. But we have to be clear that this is our approach. If this is the path we're on, then we don't say our current theory is a fact. Do you see the difference. You can't say it is a fact, and then support this by pointing to confirmed predictions, or to pragmatic arguments about it being the best explanation.

Second, it is one thing to compare competing explanations that all are in accord with known science. Evolution is not in this category. It calls for natural forces to perform incredible feats. And there are all kind of anomalies to the evidence. Why in the world would you think it is the best explanation? You could say:

1) Well your only alternative is creationism which is not testable and therefore not science.
2) Well your only alternative is creationism which is plainly been refuted by the evidence.

Both these responses, in their respective ways, ential religious premises which I cannot argue with. If you believe that (1) only testable things are true, or (2) God wills and wishes to maximize the earthly happiness of His creatures, then you have a religious position that makes evolution a fact. That is a personal belief that is not open to scientific debate.

I don't think evolution is the best explanation. If you say evolution is a fact because it is the best explanation, then I would say that not only does that not follow, but it is begging the question.

caravelair

what do you think the best explanation is?