The Edge of Evolution [Archive]

dmz

06-17-2007, 10:58 AM

Let's face it, this thread was going to happen sooner or later.

Mike Behe's new book The Edge of Evolution is out, and he basically has two points.

1. In the case of malaria, with generation sizes in the trillion trillions, all evolution has done is basically make advantageous changes that are destructive to DNA. Basically making a house safer by breaking the doorlocks.

2. Proteins, in order to bind need multiple bonding sites, and when considering tests done with antibodies, it takes, again, astronomical numbers to randomly produce these sites in matching pairs.

Both of these things he says, prove that evolution is, outside of the sorts of changes that malaria has made, not possible.

To hear the other side of the story, I went over to P.Z. Meyers' website. Very quickly PZ, Stephen Wells, and other very bright people steered my to what I think is the root of the argument. As best as I can tell, it amounts to saying 'it's not impossible' and 'look at the fossil record.'

Meyers suggested this article by Steve Carroll to counter Behe's claim:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/316/5830/1427

... his two objections are:

Behe states correctly that in most species two adaptive mutations occurring instantaneously at two specific sites in one gene are very unlikely and that functional changes in proteins often involve two or more sites. But it is a non sequitur to leap to the conclusion, as Behe does, that such multiple-amino acid replacements therefore can't happen. Multiple replacements can accumulate when each single amino acid replacement affects performance, however slightly, because selection can act on each replacement individually and the changes can be made sequentially.

Behe begrudgingly allows that only "rarely, several mutations can sequentially add to each other to improve an organism's chances of survival." Rarely? This, of course, is the everyday stuff of evolution. Examples of cumulative selection changing multiple sites in evolving proteins include tetrodotoxin resistance in snakes (3), the tuning of color vision in animals (4), cefotaxime antibiotic resistance in bacteria (5), and pyrimethamine resistance in malarial parasites (6)--a notable omission given Behe's extensive discussion of malarial drugresistance.

and...

This lack of quantitative thinking underlies a second, fatal blunder resulting from the mistaken assumptions Behe makes about protein interactions. The author has long been concerned about protein complexes and how they could or, rather, could not evolve. He argues that the generation of a single new protein-protein binding site is extremely improbable and that complexes of just three different proteins "are beyond the edge of evolution." But Behe bases his arguments on unfounded requirements for protein interactions. He insists, based on consideration of just one type of protein structure (the combining sites of antibodies), that five or six positions must change at once in order to make a good fit between proteins--and, therefore, good fits are impossible to evolve. An immense body of experimental data directly refutes this claim. There are dozens of well-studied families of cellular proteins (kinases, phosphatases, proteases, adaptor proteins, sumoylation enzymes, etc.) that recognize short linear peptide motifs in which only two or three amino acid residues are critical for functional activity [reviewed in (7-9)]. Thousands of such reversible interactions establish the protein networks that govern cellular physiology.

Very simple calculations indicate how easily such motifs evolve at random. If one assumes an average length of 400 amino acids for proteins and equal abundance of all amino acids, any given two-amino acid motif is likely to occur at random in every protein in a cell. (There are 399 dipeptide motifs in a 400-amino acid protein and 20 20 = 400 possible dipeptide motifs.) Any specific three-amino acid motif will occur once at random in every 20 proteins and any four-amino acid motif will occur once in every 400 proteins. That means that, without any new mutations or natural selection, many sequences that are identical or close matches to many interaction motifs already exist. New motifs can arise readily at random, and any weak interaction can easily evolve, via random mutation and natural selection, to become a strong interaction (9). Furthermore, any pair of interacting proteins can readily recruit a third protein, and so forth, to form larger complexes. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that new protein interactions (10) and protein networks (11) can evolve fairly rapidly and are thus well within the limits of evolution.

I think Carroll is dodging Behe's point. First, he ducks the Behe's probabilities in the first quote, and Behe's observation that all we see in nature are the destructive, avantageous changes. Second, he dodges the point that while there are proteins out there that need only a couple binding sites, in reality there are many proteins that do need the 6 or so sites, and can't 'wait around' to build themselves one-by-one. And if you are evolving from a chimp,or higher organism, we are past evolving in the context of only those simple proteins.

So, where's the beef?

segovius

06-17-2007, 11:24 AM

<Vic Reeves>

You wouldddddddnnnnn'tttttt let it lie.............

You could have let it lie but you didn't let it lie.....

</Vic Reeves>

hardeeharhar

06-17-2007, 12:16 PM

I think Carroll is dodging Behe's point. First, he ducks the Behe's probabilities in the first quote, and Behe's observation that all we see in nature are the destructive, avantageous changes. Second, he dodges the point that while there are proteins out there that need only a couple binding sites, in reality there are many proteins that do need the 6 or so sites, and can't 'wait around' to build themselves one-by-one. And if you are evolving from a chimp,or higher organism, we are past evolving in the context of only those simple proteins.

So, where's the beef?

Probabilities? Do you know anything about how antibodies are evolved in vivo? If it takes astronomical numbers of b-cells and it occurs, then by god, then there must be astronomical numbers of b-cells produced because it happens. Or is Behe actually arguing that a deity sits around and whenever someone gets an infection makes a whole bunch of b-cells that are really crappy and some that are ok?

What protein needs 6 binding sites?

There are proteins that have multiple binding sites, certainly. But what organism NEEDS that protein to have all six?

Basically, the problem with Behe's argument (and something you have never quite gotten) is that he is too too focused on the individual interactions of the smallest components when what evolves is the entire organism (or group of individuals). There is redundancy that is the playground of evolution, without it, evolution cannot have occurred. Lack of current redundancy, however, is only an indication that it was lost at some point in the past. It is fundamentally impossible then to argue Behe's point in diploid organisms; since every organism more complex than yeast can only function with its genome duplicated (in other words, there is built in redundancy). Oops. I guess it isn't so easy to see the forest through the limited force fit myopic vision Behe and colleagues apply... Ultimately, dmz, you also haven't understood that the proteins in our genome aren't any more complex (in a real sense) than those of e. coli, there are functional equivalents at almost all levels. Again, and I have said this before, what makes humans different than chimpanzees are a few critical mutations that enormously change the REGULATION of genes. The phenotypic effect of a single mutations can be profound.

------------------------------------End of thread---------------------------------

dmz

06-17-2007, 01:09 PM

...
Basically, the problem with Behe's argument (and something you have never quite gotten) is that he is too too focused on the individual interactions of the smallest components when what evolves is the entire organism (or group of individuals). ../

But how could you evolve the entire system if those small parts don't get on board?

In the case of HIV and malaria and E. Coli -- from ten trillion in E. Coli experiments to the 10^20 organisms in both HIV and malaria -- not a single cellular protein-protein binding site has been created. Only one in humans with sickle -- and again, it's damage.

What PZ and the others are pointing to is strictly in the realm of untested theory. But when the chips are down, when we actually can observe evolution in process, with the numbers to make it relevant, there is nothing -- broken doorlocks, that sort of thing.

Edit: I made it sound like the 'binding sites' were 6 per single protein, rather than per the chain, that's a screwup on my part.

hardeeharhar

06-17-2007, 02:26 PM

But how could you evolve the entire system if those small parts don't get on board?

In the case of HIV and malaria and E. Coli -- from ten trillion in E. Coli experiments to the 10^20 organisms in both HIV and malaria -- not a single cellular protein-protein binding site has been created. Only one in humans with sickle -- and again, it's damage.

What PZ and the others are pointing to is strictly in the realm of untested theory. But when the chips are down, when we actually can observe evolution in process, with the numbers to make it relevant, there is nothing -- broken doorlocks, that sort of thing.

Edit: I made it sound like the 'binding sites' were 6 per single protein, rather than per the chain, that's a screwup on my part.
What are you talking about?

You don't actually understand the scientific jargon you are using...

I really want to understand you confusion, and teach you something... What do you mean by binding site? What do you mean by none has been created? What do you mean by numbers and how exactly do you think these numbers are being calculated?

No protein binding sites have been created? What does that mean? Other than being obviously false (since things aren't created, at least outside of the laboratory they aren't -- my lab has 'created' protein binding sites, so what?: i am aware of several other labs that have used all natural techniques to evolve protein binding sites -- they confered the selective pressure themselves)...

In respect to parts needed before the whole... If you don't need the parts for the whole to function, then the parts can be independently evolved. That is what happens. A little evolution of there, a little evolution over here, sometimes (rarely) something great happens confering a selective advantage, most of the time nothing happens, and sometimes something bad happens (the individual, not the species, fails to propogate)...

Cellular operations are not the work of a Clockwork god, they have problems (cytokine storms for instance), they vary (superhued women and color blind men); and instead of God's creation being a beautiful set of flawless gems, nature is an ugly pile of amorphous graphite, which we think is special because if it's special then we're special...

dmz

06-17-2007, 03:12 PM

What are you talking about?

Here, straight from the guy: on the difficutly of creating these chains at random: (p 131)

A huge hurdle confronting Darwinian evolution is the following: Most proteins in the cell operate as specific complexes of a half dozen or more chains.7 Hemoglobin comprises a complex of two kinds of amino acid chains (alpha and beta) stuck together, but hemoglobin is relatively simple. Most cellular proteins have six or more kinds of amino acid chains. So, unless those complexes were all together from the start, then at some time in the past separate cellular proteins had to develop the ability to bind to each other. But that would be a very tricky business indeed. On the one hand if, like the octopus objects above, a protein developed a surface that stuck indiscriminately to a lot of other proteins, it would gum up the workings of the cell. It would have to be eliminated. On the other hand, most protein pairs wouldn't bind to each other at all, or bind very weakly, because their surfaces don't match closely enough. Only when a Goldilocks match randomly developed between their multidimensional surfaces would two proteins bind to each other tightly and specifically enough to make an effective pair. So we can ask, how difficult would it be for two proteins that initially did not bind to each other to develop a strong, specific interaction by random mutation and natural selection?

... he then goes on to cite a Greg Winter, who studied this probability -- finding the odds for a 'modest strength' binding you have to ''wade through ten to hundred million binding sites.'

The endnote for that:

10. Other proteins besides antibodies have been used to demonstrate the same point. For example, rather than antibodies, a protein called knottin was used by Winter to generate a shape-space library. About five hundred million binding sites had to be screened to find one that stuck to a test protein with modest affinity (Smith, G. R, Patel, S. U., Windass, J. D., ThorntonJ. M., Winter, G., and Griffiths, A. D. 1998. Small binding proteins selected from a combinatorial repertoire of knottins displayed on phage. J. Mol. Biol. 277:317-32).
A roughly similar result was seen when part of the sequence of a small bacterial protein was randomized to generate a library containing about forty million members, and when a library of fifty million artificial "minibodies" was probed for binding to a protein called interleukin (Nord, K., Gunneriusson, E., Uhlen, M., and Nygren, R A. 2000. Ligands selected from combinatorial libraries of protein A for use in affinity capture of apolipoprotein A-1M and taq DNA polymerase. J. Biotechnol. 80:45-54; Martin, E, Toniatti, C, Salvati, A. L, Venturini, S., Ciliberto, G., Cortese, R., and Sollazzo, M. 1994. The affinity-selection of a minibody polypeptide inhibitor of human interleukin-6. EMBO] 13:5303-9).

Also, so far, no one, even on PZ's site wants anything to do with Behe's numbers on E. Coli, HIV, and Malaria -- their lack of evolutionary progress. Is this because you feel that Malaria, etc., is not representative?

hardeeharhar

06-17-2007, 03:29 PM

Here, straight from the guy: on the difficutly of creating these chains at random: (p 131)

... he then goes on to cite a Greg Winter, who studied this probability -- finding the odds for a 'modest strength' binding you have to ''wade through ten to hundred million binding sites.'

The endnote for that:

Also, so far, no one, even on PZ's site wants anything to do with Behe's numbers on E. Coli, HIV, and Malaria -- their lack of evolutionary progress. Is this because you feel that Malaria, etc., is not representative?
1) His suggestion that 'most cellular proteins have six or more kinds of amino acid chains' isn't actually true. Most do not. Some do. But that is besides the point. The question one should be asking always is 'is there a way for the cell to survive in the absense of a functioning x'? If yes considerations on the need for all of the chains to come together at the same time is irrelevent since it can be safely evolved without interference of the ability of the organism to reproduce. Ah, but he attempts to place the gottcha in there about gunking up the cellular works with non-specific binders. This does happen (think Alzheimer's plaques) but their are mechanisms that abrogate the effects -- both protinaceous (peptidases and chaperons) and non-protineaceous (inclusion body formation). Luckily for us, like dissolves like better than like dissolves dislike, in other words, bad peptides that bind non-specifically will tend to bind non-specifically to themselves more tightly than to other peptides. This has to do with repeating structural units and the energetic benefits of forming a pseudo-crystaline lattice.

Other than the first one, one could envision that all molecular complexes don't need to be generated from scratch -- once you have the scaffold for one, you have in principle the scaffold for all...

2) What numbers are you refering to? Probabilities that haven't actually been calculated? or what?

groverat

06-17-2007, 03:34 PM

Behe writes books for people who don't know a damned thing about science but want to fight them thar godless evilutionists.

Also, so far, no one, even on PZ's site

Oh wow, no one on PZ's site has addressed that one issue as far as you know?

EVEN ON PZ's SITE!?

dmz

06-17-2007, 03:38 PM

1) His suggestion that 'most cellular proteins have six or more kinds of amino acid chains' isn't actually true. Most do not. Some do. But that is besides the point. The question one should be asking always is 'is there a way for the cell to survive in the absense of a functioning x'? If yes considerations on the need for all of the chains to come together at the same time is irrelevent since it can be safely evolved without interference of the ability of the organism to reproduce. Ah, but he attempts to place the gottcha in there about gunking up the cellular works with non-specific binders. This does happen (think Alzheimer's plaques) but their are mechanisms that abrogate the effects -- both protinaceous (peptidases and chaperons) and non-protineaceous (inclusion body formation). Luckily for us, like dissolves like better than like dissolves dislike, in other words, bad peptides that bind non-specifically will tend to bind non-specifically to themselves more tightly than to other peptides. This has to do with repeating structural units and the energetic benefits of forming a pseudo-crystaline lattice.

Other than the first one, one could envision that all molecular complexes don't need to be generated from scratch -- once you have the scaffold for one, you have in principle the scaffold for all...

2) What numbers are you referring to? Probabilities that haven't actually been calculated? or what?
On the first point, that sort of 'construction' is still on paper, yes? -and that the probability of getting the moderate bond is still up in the range he is quoting?

On the second, we've have had 10^20 organisms of both HIV, and Malaria, (and 10^13 of E. Coli) but only a few (destructive) advantageous changes. Is that something that is irrelevant when we look at evolution broadly?

groverat

06-17-2007, 03:39 PM

dmz:

On the second, we've have had 10^24 organisms of both HIV, and Malaria, but only a few (destructive) advantageous changes. Is that something that is irrelevant when we look at evolution broadly?

No, it is entirely relevant.

The question is, what significance are you assigning to that big number? What is it about that big number that you think is important?

addabox

06-17-2007, 03:41 PM

Behe writes books for people who don't know a damned thing about science but want to fight them thar godless evilutionists.

Oh wow, no one on PZ's site has addressed that one issue as far as you know?

EVEN ON PZ's SITE!?

It's because they know the emperor has no new binding sites and they're terrified of this new, penetrating analysis.

Don't you know, Groverat? There's all this evidence that flatly contradicts evolution, so the faithful have to pretend like it doesn't exist and assiduously ignore it even when thrust beneath their noses.

franksargent

06-17-2007, 03:59 PM

On the first point, that sort of 'construction' is still on paper, yes? -and that the probability of getting the moderate bond is still up in the range he is quoting?

On the second, we've have had 10^20 organisms of both HIV, and Malaria, (and 10^13 of E. Coli) but only a few (destructive) advantageous changes. Is that something that is irrelevant when we look at evolution broadly?

Define "large" quantitatively?

So Behe dusts off the Irreducible Complexity argument, again!

What's new under the sun?

Let's see how ID works, shall we?

So you can't answer all my questions (and infinite permutations thereof) wrt your "theory of evolution" (nee science) therefore doG (nee shit) happens! :lol:

http://www.stampandshout.org/_gfx/_bst/_ex/we-have-fossils.gif

dmz

06-17-2007, 04:16 PM

Define "large" quantitatively?

So Behe dusts off the Irreducible Complexity argument, again!

What's new under the sun?

Let's see how ID works, shall we?

So you can't answer all my questions (and infinite permutations thereof) wrt your "theory of evolution" (nee science) therefore doG MUST exist! :lol:

http://www.stampandshout.org/_gfx/_bst/_ex/we-have-fossils.gif
Behe cites that the number of living organisms, ever, is ~10^40. When you look at HIV viruses, and Malaria organisms, both in the 10^20 range, I think if darwinist predictions were going to come true, that you would be seeing that already. But we don't -- what evolution is showing in those two cases is that it can do very little.

I just read an article on the explosion of RNA research in this week's The Economist -- crazy stuff. There are some rumblings on dual-coding DNA, and junk DNA, too. The levels of complexity, and the associated probabilities, are never going to be better than right now, it's only going to get worse for darwinists.

Eventually ID will save darwinists from themselves, it will be the only thing that keeps the theory alive. The numbers will crush it on it's own.

As far as running for the 'safety' of the fossil record, knock yourself out. The problem with the fossil record, statistically speaking, is that over the course of history, the 'working' creatures are a tiny fraction compared to the 'missing links.' If you look at the numbers, all that you should be seeing in the fossil record are missing links. But you don't, you find nearly none, and even those are subject to what is a missing link/what is simply an extinct species.

groverat

06-17-2007, 04:24 PM

addabox:

Even at PZ's site!
If the answer to every little question, no matter how irrational or poorly-founded, isnot there, where could it be!?!?

dmz:

Behe cites that the number of living organisms, ever, is ~10^40. When you look at HIV viruses, and Malaria organisms, both in the 10^20 range, I think if darwinist predictions were going to come true, that you would be seeing that already. But we don't -- what evolution is showing in those two cases is that it can do very little.

Who made these "darwinist predictions" we are busy criticizing, pray tell?
(What you mean to say is, "See me build a straw man. See me set a straw man on fire!")

Well, if god was real then he'd give me $20 billion but since I don't have $20 billion there is no god, hurrrr!

I read an article on the explosion of RNA research in The Economist -- and there is some rumblings on dual-coding DNA, and junk DNA. The levels of complexity, and the associated probabilities, are never going to be better than right now, it's only going to get worse for darwinists.

Why would great complexity and "junk" DNA be bad for "darwinists"?

As far as running for the 'safety' of the fossil record, knock yourself out. The problem with the fossil record, statistically speaking, is that over the course of history, the 'working' creatures are a tiny fraction compared to the 'missing links.' If you look at the numbers, all that you should be seeing in the fossil record are missing links. But you don't, you find nearly none, and even those are subject to what is a missing link/what is simply an extinct species.

Do you know how fossils form? Do you understand the delicacy and tenuousness of the process?

Should we expect to see fossils of all transitional forms? Should we expect to see fossils of any transitional forms?

Also... "nearly" none? Are you saying that we have found transitional forms?

addabox

06-17-2007, 04:38 PM

I wonder why finer grained insights into the mechanisms of cellular biology would be a "problem" for "Darwinists"?

After all, we also have accrued, over time, a great deal more "complexity" in our understanding of the nature of matter and energy and the structures of the universe.

Would you argue that the elaborate interaction of forces that account for the large scale structures we see across galaxies makes a case for intelligent design?

Or, more properly, does the fact that we now have a far more detailed awareness of the processes driving those structures than when the universe was more of a black box, as far as we knew, make a better case for intelligent design?

Does the evolution of our model of the atom, from tidy miniature solar system to seething probabilistic force field, also make an ever better case for God's hand? After all, the sub-atomic world as we currently view it is nothing if not complicated, certainly far more complicated than we imagined a century ago.

Ironically, of course, back then it was simplicity and orderliness that were taken for the evidence of God the watchmaker, properly assembling the parts with grace and economy. The complexity that is now brandished as evidence of higher intelligence was then regarded as simply lack of understanding, the assumption being that nature was, above all, simple, if only we had the wit to see.

dmz

06-17-2007, 04:47 PM

addabox

06-17-2007, 05:02 PM

If RNA proves to be as big as some say, it will mean more excruciating complexity to explain away. The same if Junk DNA becomes something other than 'junk'.

Also, let's not forget sin and the curse when we look at torn up/damaged systems. Don't get me wrong, none of this proves ID right, or that God exists. What I think will happen is the numbers will eventually get so sour that darwinists will have to step back and admit they believe what they believe for dogmatic reasons. (Which would be fine with me.)

Again, why would more complexity be "excruciating", and why would it have to be "explained away"?

And, again, how is any of this different from the gradually unfolding story of science, in general?

For instance, I've yet to hear a creationist, upon learning of the latest theories on dark matter, exclaim, "See how complicated our model of the universe is getting? Pretty soon those astrophysicists are just going to have to throw in the towel and admit that God made it, to his own fiendishly complicated specs."

franksargent

06-17-2007, 05:04 PM

Behe cites that the number of living organisms, ever, is ~10^40. When you look at HIV viruses, and Malaria organisms, both in the 10^20 range, I think if darwinist predictions were going to come true, that you would be seeing that already. But we don't -- what evolution is showing in those two cases is that it can do very little.

I just read an article on the explosion of RNA research in this week's The Economist -- crazy stuff. There are some rumblings on dual-coding DNA, and junk DNA, too. The levels of complexity, and the associated probabilities, are never going to be better than right now, it's only going to get worse for darwinists.

Eventually ID will save darwinists from themselves, it will be the only thing that keeps the theory alive. The numbers will crush it on it's own.

As far as running for the 'safety' of the fossil record, knock yourself out. The problem with the fossil record, statistically speaking, is that over the course of history, the 'working' creatures are a tiny fraction compared to the 'missing links.' If you look at the numbers, all that you should be seeing in the fossil record are missing links. But you don't, you find nearly none, and even those are subject to what is a missing link/what is simply an extinct species.

You would have to provide a link to these estimates. 10^20/10^40 appears to be a small number (to me), but if HIV/Malaria add up to 10^20 for just those two, I can't even begin to imagine what the total would be for all organic life. BTW, I really don't know what you are implying in your first paragraph.

As to the fossil record, given the 10^40 number of total historical living organisms, how many of these have we dug up in total (and yes, most of them would, by their very nature, be very small (mass versus number PDF/CDF)) so far? And why must what we have dug up so far be predominately "missing links?" I'd expect the "missing links" to be the exception (e. g. very hard to find since we don't know where to look a priori) rather than the rule.

When you look at the geologic record, and note the inherent lack of temporal/spatial granularity, it becomes apparent, that we may forever be missing some very big pieces from the evolutionary puzzle that forms the geologic record.

For instance what happens when Earth is bombarded with cosmic rays (as our solar system passes through the arms of our galaxy)? What happens when the magnetic polarity changes? Solar flares? Catastrophic events? Tectonic activity? Climate change? Naturally occurring invasive species?

franksargent

06-17-2007, 05:24 PM

tonton

06-18-2007, 08:43 AM

Flounder

06-18-2007, 08:48 AM

I would just like to note that vast, vast majority of people I know have no problem reconciling evolution and god. The two are simply not mutually exclusive.

dmz

06-18-2007, 09:04 AM

Again, why would more complexity be "excruciating", and why would it have to be "explained away"?

And, again, how is any of this different from the gradually unfolding story of science, in general?

For instance, I've yet to hear a creationist, upon learning of the latest theories on dark matter, exclaim, "See how complicated our model of the universe is getting? Pretty soon those astrophysicists are just going to have to throw in the towel and admit that God made it, to his own fiendishly complicated specs."
Science is science -- it is what it is. You look, you study, it's its own thing. A theory on how what we see has come together is what's at issue.

If darwinists begin to make enough predictions that prove false -- vestigial organs [as useless] come to mind -- if Junk DNA turns out to be not junk, for instance, then darwinism will prove to be a handicap when approaching science. It will also make the timetables of evolution more dense, remember it's only 100,000-200,000 generations from us to chimps.

On the Pharyngula forums, the mantra was: it's not impossible to do all these things because it's not that complicated. The only differences between chimps and humans is a question of degrees. Sure, there's 60 million differences in the genome, but we can cut that in half since we know chimps have evolved since then, and then reduce that more since a lot of those differences are in Junk DNA, so when you really look at it, it only takes a couple hundred changes per generation to bridge the difference.

That assumes it can be done, and lets' be honest the "proving" is held together exclusively by the fossil record.

But lets' grant that it's biologically feasible under current assumptions, what if RNA is a big as some say it will be? And when the next discovery happens? At the moment, the last thing the darwinist zeitgeist probably wants, is to find complexity on a order of magnitude higher than what we know now.

Edit: and it's Sean Carroll, not Steve. The [my] mind is the first thing to go.

@_@ Artman

06-18-2007, 09:07 AM

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g255/artman46/you_now_leaving_kansas.jpg

dmz

06-18-2007, 09:17 AM

You would have to provide a link to these estimates. 10^20/10^40 appears to be a small number (to me), but if HIV/Malaria add up to 10^20 for just those two, I can't even begin to imagine what the total would be for all organic life. BTW, I really don't know what you are implying in your first paragraph.
The 10^40 was organisms, which wouldn't include viruses like HIV. (And don't forget these are 'squared' functions, 10^20 obviously isn't half of 10^40, etc.)

dmz

06-18-2007, 09:22 AM

...[the] vast, vast majority of people I know have no problem reconciling evolution and god.
Ha -- as far as his fellow scientists are concerned, isn't that Behe's sin?

Flounder

06-18-2007, 09:23 AM

if Junk DNA turns out to be not junk, for instance, then darwinism will prove to be a handicap when approaching science.

Ummm, junk DNA doesn't, in particular, have a whole lot to do with 'darwinism' (i'm not even sure what you regard that term to mean though). It's molecular biology. Although I can see how you could be confused. Evolution is the core theme that units all of biology. Virtually every aspect of biology relies on it to one extent or another.

hardeeharhar

06-18-2007, 09:24 AM

On the first point, that sort of 'construction' is still on paper, yes? -and that the probability of getting the moderate bond is still up in the range he is quoting?

What construction? No. It happens -- and tight binding between proteins is EASY, cyt c is a promiscuous binder to negatively charged patches on its binding partners. Specific binding is a challenge. But you don't need specific binding to get things rolling -- cyt c is perhaps the most important electron transfer protein in biology and all it uses is a patch of positively charged residues on its surface. The most important protein uses the simplest system. We are finding more and more that proteins will non-specifically associate more often than not...

On the second, we've have had 10^20 organisms of both HIV, and Malaria, (and 10^13 of E. Coli) but only a few (destructive) advantageous changes. Is that something that is irrelevant when we look at evolution broadly?

No. HIV has had as many advantageous changes as we would be right to ask of it -- resistance to every new type of drug we throw at it without a real change in its function -- this non-sentient organism is out smarting us big brained intelligent designers (fancy that). E. coli mutates at a much much lower level, and yet still we have observed spontaneous changes that are selectively advantageous. And as we all know malaria still gets the job done (most common infection other than certain viruses) even though it has had to change to avoid drug treatments.

I think your point is that these changes appear destructive. But what does that mean? Is that actually even a real measure outside of human conception? If the organism survives and continues to do what it does, is it right to call any change destructive?

Flounder

06-18-2007, 09:26 AM

Ha -- as far as his fellow scientists are concerned, isn't that Behe's sin?

The vast majority of scientists I know have no problem with it either. The false dichotomy of that choice really bothers me. They're separate topics, to me.

dmz

06-18-2007, 09:28 AM

Ummm, junk DNA doesn't, in particular, have a whole lot to do with 'darwinism' (i'm not even sure what you regard that term to mean though). It's molecular biology. Although I can see how you could be confused. Evolution is the core theme that units all of biology. Virtually every aspect of biology relies on it to one extent or another.

I would have to say that is false, as Dick Dawkins points out, we are dealing with the appearance of exquisite design. So when you go poking around you have to act in terms of predictability, and 'lucid' functionality.

Junk DNA would only be a failed prediction -- it falls that way -- based on darwinist dogma. The actually process of discovery is a separate thing.

franksargent

06-18-2007, 09:29 AM

The 10^40 was organisms, which wouldn't include viruses like HIV. (And don't forget these are 'squared' functions, 10^20 obviously isn't half of 10^40, etc.)

10^-20 = 10^20/10^40, and it's exponential (to an exponent).

franksargent

06-18-2007, 09:34 AM

Science is science -- it is what it is. You look, you study, it's its own thing. A theory on how what we see has come together is what's at issue.

If darwinists begin to make enough predictions that prove false -- vestigial organs [as useless] come to mind -- if Junk DNA turns out to be not junk, for instance, then darwinism will prove to be a handicap when approaching science. It will also make the timetables of evolution more dense, remember it's only 100,000-200,000 generations from us to chimps.

On the Pharyngula forums, the mantra was: it's not impossible to do all these things because it's not that complicated. The only differences between chimps and humans is a question of degrees. Sure, there's 60 million differences in the genome, but we can cut that in half since we know chimps have evolved since then, and then reduce that more since a lot of those differences are in Junk DNA, so when you really look at it, it only takes a couple hundred changes per generation to bridge the difference.

That assumes it can be done, and lets' be honest the "proving" is held together exclusively by the fossil record.

But lets' grant that it's biologically feasible under current assumptions, what if RNA is a big as some say it will be? And when the next discovery happens? At the moment, the last thing the darwinist zeitgeist probably wants, is to find complexity on a order of magnitude higher than what we know now.

Edit: and it's Sean Carroll, not Steve. The [my] mind is the first thing to go.

I'm all for discovery, wherever it leads us.

We don't know exactly if it's 100,000 or 1,000,000 generations, we are currently making inferences based on the fossil record. We could make linear assumptions, or they could be highly nonlinear, based on highly constricted (e. g. small seed populations), which skews the genetic pool greatly, competition for resources, etceteras.

dmz

06-18-2007, 09:36 AM

What construction? No. It happens -- and tight binding between proteins is EASY, cyt c is a promiscuous binder to negatively charged patches on its binding partners. Specific binding is a challenge. But you don't need specific binding to get things rolling -- cyt c is perhaps the most important electron transfer protein in biology and all it uses is a patch of positively charged residues on its surface. The most important protein uses the simplest system. We are finding more and more that proteins will non-specifically associate more often than not...

No. HIV has had as many advantageous changes as we would be right to ask of it -- resistance to every new type of drug we throw at it without a real change in its function -- this non-sentient organism is out smarting us big brained intelligent designers (fancy that). E. coli mutates at a much much lower level, and yet still we have observed spontaneous changes that are selectively advantageous. And as we all know malaria still gets the job done (most common infection other than certain viruses) even though it has had to change to avoid drug treatments.

I think your point is that these changes appear destructive. But what does that mean? Is that actually even a real measure outside of human conception? If the organism survives and continues to do what it does, is it right to call any change destructive?
I understand that, in terms of darwinist perspective, that we would not know if we were actually seeing something forming, because it happens very slowly. But in both HIV and malaria, we have advantagous changes that are only turning off things, literally breaking things, etc., nothing new has ever been generated. That's my point.

On the protein binding, what I meant is that the actual building of these chains remains on paper, not something where you can set up real-world or even favorable conditions and see them form. Or that they would form, but at the incidence Behe suggests. But in any case, we haven't seen this happen in HIV, E. Coli, or malaria, either.

dmz

06-18-2007, 09:44 AM

10^-20 = 10^20/10^40, and it's exponential (to an exponent).
yes, that's what the little ' thingies are for around 'squared' -- you ninny! :p

dmz

06-18-2007, 09:45 AM

I'm all for discovery, wherever it leads us.

We don't know exactly if it's 100,000 or 1,000,000 generations...

But we do. Those are commonly held numbers, some go as high as 300,000 but that's about it.

hardeeharhar

06-18-2007, 09:48 AM

I just read an article on the explosion of RNA research in this week's The Economist -- crazy stuff. There are some rumblings on dual-coding DNA, and junk DNA, too. The levels of complexity, and the associated probabilities, are never going to be better than right now, it's only going to get worse for darwinists.

Actually, you don't know the probabilities. I personally know a researcher who has figured out that the dual coding DNA is simplified by the codon use of nature. What this means is that the complexity you are seeing now was the simplest thing to do when the life ball got rolling -- having pieces of dna that code for two proteins in two different directions or offset gives a selective advantage to early life. And yet a billion years later, some creationist thinks that this change in understanding of how OUR dna works means that there is something wrong with evolution because it didn't predict (from what? who knows) that these things would exist. The point being... they are probably some of the oldest aspects of life due to their apparent pervasiveness. in other words, just because we recently discovered these aspects of dna, doesn't mean they just evolved.

But you don't, you find nearly none, and even those are subject to what is a missing link/what is simply an extinct species.

1) Missing links, so to speak, will not be radically different than the two links around them or even the progenitor species or terminal.

2) Fossils are HARD to make; certain conditions much be matched. This means that our fossil record for deserts or high plains or etc will NEVER be complete.

3) Without genetic work the fossils of two different currently extant birds might suggest that they are the same species, when in point of fact they aren't. It comes down to the definition of species, really. In ideal conditions a human and a chimpanzee might be able to mate to form a viable offspring -- but no one now would claim that they are the same species, perhaps we should. Species currently has a functional definition involving proximity, likelihoods etc, which is simply something we CANNOT use to look at the fossil record. We need a better definition -- which will undoubtedly lead to creationists claiming that the field post is being moved...

4) Aren't all missing links extinct species?

dmz

06-18-2007, 09:53 AM

2) Fossils are HARD to make; certain conditions much be matched. This means that our fossil record for deserts or high plains or etc will NEVER be complete.

Ken Hamm, is that you?

Just kidding, I get your point.

franksargent

06-18-2007, 09:55 AM

yes, that's what the little ' thingies are for around 'squared' -- you ninny! :p

X^2 is "squared" not trying to nitpick, no biggie, I know what you meant.

hardeeharhar

06-18-2007, 10:08 AM

I understand that, in terms of darwinist perspective, that we would not know if we were actually seeing something forming, because it happens very slowly. But in both HIV and malaria, we have advantagous changes that are only turning off things, literally breaking things, etc., nothing new has ever been generated. That's my point.
No. HIV cannot spare to turn off things -- every mutation HIV conferring resistance to a drug has been on an actively used protein (and it doesn't matter that these organisms are turning off things anyway -- that means the things that aren't being used can be further modified, evolved to match some new needed function). Scientists are realizing this and trying to out design HIV's built in evolutionary device buy forcing new drugs to look as much like natural substrates as possible so that it would be all but impossible for HIV to mutate a resistance. But you know what, it might work a little better, but I suspect it will fail just the same. HIV is SOOOO smart.

On the protein binding, what I meant is that the actual building of these chains remains on paper, not something where you can set up real-world or even favorable conditions and see them form. Or that they would form, but at the incidence Behe suggests. But in any case, we haven't seen this happen in HIV, E. Coli, or malaria, either.

Yes... you can and people have. Using a leaky polymerase people have done amazing things in the modification of protein function (there are other methods, of course, but the polymerase reactions are the most natural off them) selected, but not designed. In order to see anything on a laboratory time scale you have to increase the rate of mutation 10^6 to 10^9 times. This barely gets you over the preservation of function tendencies nature has evolved.

Why Behe thinks that e. coli or malaria is evolving any faster than than it has in the past, I will never know....

I also have to point out that MOST scientists aren't looking for spontaneous gain of function when they work with any of these organisms... I don't know of a single one looking at evolution at the scale of bacteria in any event...

Evolution is used as a theory to explain observed results... And like the young universal gravitation it has its yips that proclaim that it must be false because the moon hasn't crashed into the earth, and when the scientists respond that actually the moon is moving away from earth due to tidal effects, they proclaim that the end is nigh for gravitation...

franksargent

06-18-2007, 10:20 AM

dmz

06-18-2007, 10:24 AM

No. HIV cannot spare to turn off things -- every mutation HIV conferring resistance to a drug has been on an actively used protein (and it doesn't matter that these organisms are turning off things anyway -- that means the things that aren't being used can be further modified, evolved to match some new needed function). Scientists are realizing this and trying to out design HIV's built in evolutionary device buy forcing new drugs to look as much like natural substrates as possible so that it would be all but impossible for HIV to mutate a resistance. But you know what, it might work a little better, but I suspect it will fail just the same. HIV is SOOOO smart.

Yes... you can and people have. Using a leaky polymerase people have done amazing things in the modification of protein function (there are other methods, of course, but the polymerase reactions are the most natural off them) selected, but not designed. In order to see anything on a laboratory time scale you have to increase the rate of mutation 10^6 to 10^9 times. This barely gets you over the preservation of function tendencies nature has evolved.

Why Behe thinks that e. coli or malaria is evolving any faster than than it has in the past, I will never know....

I also have to point out that MOST scientists aren't looking for spontaneous gain of function when they work with any of these organisms... I don't know of a single one looking at evolution at the scale of bacteria in any event...

Evolution is used as a theory to explain observed results... And like the young universal gravitation it has its yips that proclaim that it must be false because the moon hasn't crashed into the earth, and when the scientists respond that actually the moon is moving away from earth due to tidal effects, they proclaim that the end is nigh for gravitation...
Alright, that seems fair enough -- as long as Behe isn't pulling statistics out of thin air on the protein thing.

We are probably at a point of interpretation over whether we should be seeing bacteria, and viruses, things like malaria evolving new features. I'd imagine that's where the punditry will center.

dmz

06-18-2007, 10:38 AM

...our species being the last from that branch.
I think you meant to type bush. ;)

franksargent

06-18-2007, 11:05 AM

I think you meant to type bush. ;)

I guess so.

I think of it as a rather confusing "bush" with individual branches rejoining at various points in time (from isolated populations that are still able to interbreed).

That certain traits like "beauty" (e. g. less hairy), "rank" (e. g. alphas), and "intelligence" (e. g. tool use, capability to use natural resources), were three (of perhaps many) traits that we humans consciously selected.

But now, I'm going out on a limb! :D

jamac

06-18-2007, 11:16 AM

dmz

06-18-2007, 11:40 AM

Why would an intelligent being design life as we experience it when, it must be so "evolved" that any kind of physical intereaction with "it's" environment or reality would be something like a hobby or simple entertainment at best. A being this advanced, above all physical laws, above any temporal constraints had to come to be somehow. Was it itself intelligently designed?

Why has it stopped designing us?

Maybe it has abandoned us as a bad idea? or it simply got bored, eternal life is afterall eternally boring.

I can't go there, jamac, that's just too much projection. If you start (and mind you don't have to start there) with an infinite being, whom we derive our existence from, at some point you have to let the metaphysics go. All we end up doing is creating mythologies to basically give God a pass on His 'behavior.' It's contradictory.

I guess you can put God on the witness stand, but at some point in that process he stops being 'God.'

(but this is not really the point of wondering whether malaria should be evolving new features.)

groverat

06-18-2007, 12:14 PM

hardeeharhar:

Your posts have been very informative as far as the science of this issue is concerned. Thank you very much.

southside grabowski

06-18-2007, 12:19 PM

Wow. This thread amazes me. Science education an America is in worse shape than I thought. I won't even enter the fray.

Do beware the RNA agenda crowd. They are very unstable folks.

jamac

06-18-2007, 01:04 PM

I can't go there, jamac, that's just too much projection. If you start (and mind you don't have to start there) with an infinite being, whom we derive our existence from, at some point you have to let the metaphysics go. All we end up doing is creating mythologies to basically give God a pass on His 'behavior.' It's contradictory.

I guess you can put God on the witness stand, but at some point in that process he stops being 'God.'

(but this is not really the point of wondering whether malaria should be evolving new features.)

Finally you have become an atheist, welcome to the "smart" side!

One more question, why "His". Are you applying gender to the "Intelligent Designer" or is "His" and evolutionary term?

dmz

06-18-2007, 01:13 PM

Finally you have become an atheist, welcome to the "smart" side!

One more question, why "His". Are you applying gender to the "Intelligent Designer" or is "His" and evolutionary term?

Self-identification thing? :p

dmz

06-18-2007, 10:16 PM

Why Behe thinks that e. coli or malaria is evolving any faster than than it has in the past, I will never know....
Looking at that again -- just to clarify: with 10^20 each of HIV viruseseses and malaria organisms coming and going without any new features, you're basically saying that it's not a sign of darwinism running out of gas, or failing for some odd reason, but simply a lack of time? Or something else?

franksargent

06-19-2007, 12:09 AM

Looking at that again -- just to clarify: with 10^20 each of HIV viruseseses and malaria organisms coming and going without any new features, you're basically saying that it's not a sign of darwinism running out of gas, or failing for some odd reason, but simply a lack of time? Or something else?

First off, I don't have a clue.

Who defines "new" features?

E. coli (bacteria), HIV (virus), and Malaria (parasite) all need a host to reproduce, do they not? They are not able to reproduce independent of the host, so that it would seen that their evolutionary pathways are severely constricted.

How do we know that new adaptations haven't occurred, I seem to remember reading that HIV has "evolved' (e. g. micro-evolution (?)).

Has any serious sequencing been undertaken to establish variation within each of these? And if so over what time scale?

And how exactly would these variations be introduced "into the wild" as it were, given their host nature, and to me anyway, very constricted pathways available to these types of organisms?

And what pressures/externalizies are necessary to cause significant adaptations anyway, among any species. I think extinction rates, and other environmental/ecosystem externalizes play a much larger role in evolutionary rates than what appear in "stable" populations.

I guess I need to head over to The Panda's Thumb (http://www.pandasthumb.org/) to read up on the counter arguments to Behe assertions.

EDIT - And what's the big deal with 10^20, it "looks" like a large number but what's the context, for example if there have been 10^8 humans (100,000,000) infected with HIV that means each have 10^12 HIV viruses. For E. coli (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli) yearly humanity excretes 10^12 * 6.6 * 10^9 * 365 = 2.4 * 10^23

E. coli are abundant: the number of individual E. coli bacteria in the feces that a human defecates in one day averages between 100 billion (10^11) and 10 trillion (10^13).

groverat

06-19-2007, 12:45 AM

I bought a copy of the book this morning and I am about 80 pages into it.

Wow... this is garbage. But I'm going to finish it!

He states things very very very authoritatively and offers very little (mostly nothing) to back the ideas up. He is not a great thinker or writer. It is painful work, but it must be done.

icfireball

06-19-2007, 12:50 AM

@_@ Artman

06-19-2007, 08:11 AM

http://www.boingboing.net/200706181605.jpg

dmz

06-19-2007, 08:30 AM

E. coli (bacteria), HIV (virus), and Malaria (parasite) all need a host to reproduce, do they not? They are not able to reproduce independent of the host, so that it would seen that their evolutionary pathways are severely constricted.

How do we know that new adaptations haven't occurred, I seem to remember reading that HIV has "evolved' (e. g. micro-evolution (?)).

Has any serious sequencing been undertaken to establish variation within each of these? And if so over what time scale?
A-ha -- Panda's Thumb -- another place keep an eye on. I noticed "UD people" kept coming up on PZ's site -- It has dawned on me that that is William Dembski's site Uncommon Descent -- there's a bit of repartee between the two. They're basically the alter ego of each other -- both fairly technical in nature. UD has been critical of a few more than a few points of Sean Carroll's review (the one I quote at the beginning of the thread.)

Apparently the quote:
...and pyrimethamine resistance in malarial parasites (6)--a notable omission given Behe's extensive discussion of malarial drugresistance.

...is a stinker, Behe does specifically mentions it in his book. There are a couple of other criticisms over his evidence on protein binding sites, and more over his citation of what is basically just [destructive] advantageous changes.

However, one person did bring up the 'how much do we know/how recently have we looked at the genomes to make sure that this is not happening.' That might be interesting. Although, if something new cropped up in malaria, it seems like we'd know it the hard way.

It will be interesting to see how Behe responds. The beauty of the blogoshpere is that no one will be getting away with a snow job. If the research is out there, between PZ's site and UD, and others, it should be easy enough to spot.

My guess is that, like T-Rex marrow, there will be an "unknown process" introduced to keep things as they are.

dmz

06-19-2007, 08:39 AM

http://www.boingboing.net/200706181605.jpg
Oh, thank you soooo much for the imagery, you jerk! I immediately thought of transforming the old sunday school song into 'Jesus loves the little raptors...'

...I am so going to hell now.

hardeeharhar

06-19-2007, 10:00 AM

E. coli (bacteria), HIV (virus), and Malaria (parasite) all need a host to reproduce, do they not? They are not able to reproduce independent of the host, so that it would seen that their evolutionary pathways are severely constricted.

No. Viruses yes. Bacteria and parasites no. bacteria and parasites can survive without a host, though in some cases their survival is benefited by interactions with a host, it is not a strict requirement.

hardeeharhar

06-19-2007, 10:05 AM

dmz

06-19-2007, 10:17 AM

Do they need new features? What selective advantage has been given for new features?

(other than drug resistance, which is a new feature -- which I think patently proves the point).

You or I can arbitrarily decide what a new feature is. I can claim for instance that a protein gaining the ability to function in the presence of an inhibitor that at one point prevented it from functioning is a new feature. It is classical micro-evolution. It has been observed.

This push back against microevolution is particularly funny since it is a fact and has been observed countless many times.
Right, but that's Behe's whole point: that this is the very sort of thing that happens literally all the time, but as we observe it, its overall effects are destructive of the genome. That, in all observed cases, in order to survive, we see organisms and viruseseses basically burning bridges instead of building new ones.

hardeeharhar

06-19-2007, 10:43 AM

Right, but that's Behe's whole point: that this is the very sort of thing that happens literally all the time, but as we observe it, its overall effects are destructive of the genome. That, in all observed cases, in order to survive, we see organisms and viruseseses basically burning bridges instead of building new ones.

No. He is wrong. Evolution isn't about how an organism survives, it is only that it does survive. Secondly, in no way has HIV, E. coli, or malaria burned bridges as Behe says. HIV for instance has lost NO functionality in developing resistance to drugs, nor for that matter has E. coli, that much I can say for sure. And malaria is still infecting people at prodigious rates, so what possible bridges could it have burned? Behe is assigning an arbitrary value to the proteins that get turned on or off -- resistances in E. coli often are the result of turning ON certain types of transporters.

He and you are looking at this the wrong way: Before mutation: organism is dead, after mutation: organism is alive even if a bit sick. Sick > dead. Sick can be repaired. Dead can't. That is the worst case scenario for an evolutionary process, choosing between sick and dead. But it gives the organisms an out, a way to become healthy again (which has a lower selective advantage than not being dead, obviously, and should take more time). But not all mutations cause the organism to be sick. The common mutation conferring antimicrobial resistance to Cipro has absolutely NO ill effects on the bugs that have it. None. None at all. It is neutral, or rather Alive and healthy >> dead. So there you go.

dmz

06-19-2007, 11:11 AM

No. He is wrong. Evolution isn't about how an organism survives, it is only that it does survive. Secondly, in no way has HIV, E. coli, or malaria burned bridges as Behe says.
But they do, if Behe's telling the truth.
...In the case of pyrimethamine..., the drug interferes with an enzyme abbreviated DHFR. However, when a mutation appears in the enzyme and changes amino acid at position number 108 from serine to asparagine, the drug loses its effectiveness...

There is 'switching off' going on, but the out-and-out damage to the genome is significant.

One other thing, there seems to be a problem fixing this sort of damage in the population. Apparently once those treatments stop, this damage is self-defeating and the organisms have to compete on a level playing field with organisms without this damage. They end up losing out, and the whole process can repeat.

This would seem to make the problem even worse for darwinists.

hardeeharhar

06-19-2007, 11:24 AM

(Behe isn't telling the truth, BTW -- the quote in your post doesn't indicate that the enzyme is being turned off at all, changed, yes, but turned off, no)

No it doesn't. That is exactly what you would expect to happen DMZ...

Selective advantage in some conditions could lead to disadvantage in others particularly if it is a point source of selection. It happens in the lab, it is actually predicted to happen by evolutionary theory. The idea is that evolution will occur more rapidly if the selection pressure is constant. If it is itinerant, then it will take a long time for some organism to arise that can play well in all conditions. But it will happen.

dmz

06-19-2007, 11:27 AM

Interesting point -- I'll be watching the blogs for the fireworks.

MarcUK

06-19-2007, 12:34 PM

Im sooo tempted not to make any comment, but I just have too.

There you go folks - the existance of God depends upon whether the stuff in your shit can have its features turned off.

If any of you athiests want to experience God, I'm quite happy to send you a ....

Sounds perfectly fitting and reasonable to me!

southside grabowski

06-19-2007, 01:42 PM

Sorry to be arrogant, but I am convinced that it takes years of study to really appreciate the beauty of evolution and natural selection. Learning a few science buzz words doesn't get it done. Genomes are continuously experimenting with new variations. Some make it;most do not. And it isn't always random. This is fascinating stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_mutation

dmz

06-19-2007, 01:55 PM

Both of you guys -- Behe has raised a very specific question, in that we have huge numbers of things like HIV or malaria, but no new features.

This is a specific question, with only a few answers. Either it's happening and we're not "seeing" it, or it's not happening at all. or not at the moment [the development of new features, protien bonds, etc.]

If it is not happening, that will need an explanation.

Now, the whys and hows might be very technical, but the question of whether new features are being created, is not.

Check the various blogs guys, bounce around, PZ and Dembskis, etc. -- this one is going to be fun.

Shutting up.

southside grabowski

06-19-2007, 02:16 PM

Fellowship

06-19-2007, 02:46 PM

Just because you can't fathom something to be possible doesn't make it impossible. It just means that your capacity for understanding random probability is poor. Or you're in denial of the obvious. Either way, you're dumb.

You really should not talk about Darwinists like this.... Surly they deserve more credit than your harsh words seem to suggest.

and to quote: "Either way, you're dumb"

Wow what a powerful argument / judgement.

:rolleyes:

Fellows

@_@ Artman

06-19-2007, 03:28 PM

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/db/2006/db060702.gif

franksargent

06-19-2007, 03:55 PM

No. Viruses yes. Bacteria and parasites no. bacteria and parasites can survive without a host, though in some cases their survival is benefited by interactions with a host, it is not a strict requirement.

Thanks for the help, I'm trying not to be too much of a n00b, but on this one, I'm a n00b!

But I'm still wondering where this 10^40 number (and the 10^20 number) comes from and what does it mean?

Is this some sort of estimate for current Biology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology), or the cumulative total going back some ~4 billion years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_life)?

There are typically 40 million bacterial cells in a gram of soil and a million bacterial cells in a millilitre of fresh water; in all, there are approximately five nonillion (5×10^30) bacteria in the world.

Bacteria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria)

And of what importance is "playing with the numbers" or "cooking the books" anyway (e. g. Behe's seemingly arbitrary statistical assumptions)?

The most common estimates suggest that we have studied only about 1% of all of the microbes in any given environment.

Microbiology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbiology)

hardeeharhar

06-19-2007, 04:37 PM

This "new feature" term is not clear to me. There are always new features developing at the molecular level. These features are not observed en masse unless they are selected for or otherwise give an advantage.
Bingo...

Wait? Has southside taken a liking to science?

*shudders*

(kidding, at some level, not kidding at another)

groverat

06-19-2007, 04:56 PM

dmz:

Right, but that's Behe's whole point: that this is the very sort of thing that happens literally all the time, but as we observe it, its overall effects are destructive of the genome. That, in all observed cases, in order to survive, we see organisms and viruseseses basically burning bridges instead of building new ones.

What would it look like if an organism were to be caught "building new ones".

Reading through the book, it is just another case of Behe making no real arguments, just mischaracterizing issues and then dismissing it all authoritatively without any real reason to do so.

For instance, take dmz's "no new features" assertion... what would a "new feature" look like, what would it be?
More importantly to the question, what "new features" would evolutionary theory predict? (Remember, the point is the discredit evolutionary theory.)

dmz (and Behe) take it for granted that evolutionary theory simply must make certain predictions, yet neither actually show that any such prediction has ever been made by evolutionary theory. It is the world's largest straw man.

groverat

06-19-2007, 08:31 PM

Just finished this piece of shit.

I was not expecting anything, and nothing is what I got. I enjoyed Darwin's Black Box far more than this, because DBB, for all its intellectual dishonesty, was not deliberately obscurantist. The Edge of Evolution, however, is the very picture of obscurantist nonsense.

One would think that the intervening time between DBB and TEoE and his humilation in the Kitzmiller case would have lessened his enthusiasm for irreducible complexity, but I daresay he is even more childlike in this book than the previous.

I really have nothing more to add that the many available blastings do not already cover (and far better than I could), other than to say that I am glad to have read it, even though it is a large chunk of waste.

There really is room in science for a rational skeptic (I hope that all scientists are skeptics) to point out the many flaws and holes in evolutionary theory (they are there), but where Behe goes off the reservation is to state, out of thin air, that a divine causation must necessarily exist.

"These numbers are big and prove that evolution can't happen."
- "But we live in a big universe whose condition is entirely composed of big numbers."
"BIG GIANT NUMBERS! RAAAAWR!"

As I have said previously, the book is one massive obscurantist straw man attack. Behe outlines a series of definitions of what evolutionary theory is (and predictions that evolutionary theory makes) that are completely disconnected from what evolutionary theory actually is and what evolutionary theory actually predicts.

After constructing this false idol, he proceeds to tear it down. Predictably, he is baffled why everyone cannot see how his tearing down the false idol is not the same as tearing down the real thing.

The golden calf may have been ground to dust and swallowed by those who were, in turn, slaughtered by the priests, but god still sits on Sinai, wondering just what the hell Behe was down there doing playing with his Legos, stacking them up, and then knocking them over, screaming triumphantly.

groverat

06-19-2007, 11:51 PM

I was talking about this book with a friend of mine (genetic biology post-grad at Rice U) and I realized that Behe has really evolved since Darwin's Black Box. In his initial ID enthusiasm, he made actual claims and statements that could be evaluated. He singled out specific problems with evolutionary theory and then outlined clearly what those problems where. What I enjoyed about DBB is that it actually said something. Well, it turns out that something it said was a load of crap, and since the release of the book, scientists have made a complete mockery of the book.

The new book, however, is sufficiently dodgy, non-specific, and vague so as to not set itself up for scrutiny the way DBB did. That is not to say that there is not a lot in there to affirmatively dismiss (or confirm), but it is a very different animal than DBB, and it reveals a Behe that is very different from what he used to be. His writing style hasn't really changed, and his tone is just as irritatingly confident, but the substance went from assured correctness to snarky bitterness.

His stressed allegiance with evolution on so many issues, though, is very interesting. I do wonder if the good doctor is not as confident in his creationist leanings as he purports himself to be. In being so wishy-washy, he falls into the trap of not having any kind of intellectual home. This is not necessarily bad, but it is certainly bad if one does not have firm ground to stand on between the two big chunks of land. His arguments rather remind me of Newton's idea that god had to come in and mess with things every once-in-a-while to keep them from collapsing, and also bring to mind the necessary question, "Well, why couldn't god have gotten it right in the first place?"

Behe may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and admit he's full of crap and that evolution via natural selection is the only rational explanation currently available, but something is swirling around in his mind that he cannot quite get hold of.

meelash

06-22-2007, 12:06 AM

Of course evolution exists.

That for which is better suited to it's enviornment has a higher likelyhood to survive and reproduce, passing on it's characterstics in it's offspring. This is not debatable whatsoever.

An prime example of evolution:

Before the Industrial Revolution, a certain white moth was much more prevalant than it's black counterpart because it was more easily suited for camoflage with it's enviornment, thus less likely to be eated, and thus more likely to reporduce. After the Industrial Revolution however, with a lot of soot on trees darkening the bark color, the black moth was better suited to the enviorment and their numbers in proportion to the white moths increased tremendously.

Think about how technology evolves.
Arrrrr!!!!

This argument that gets repeated over and over (especially in school textbooks) really pisses me off, because it is extremely bogus. In order to prove that dark-color moths evolved due to the Industrial Revolution, you must first prove that there were NO dark-colored moths or the genetic material associated with that trait prior to the new conditions. In other words, you must prove first that a mutation occurred and secondly that natural selection caused that mutation to dominate. In fact this is simply not the case.

If the population of moths before the Industrial Revolution was examined you would find both dark and light moths in existence. The proportion of dark to light was very low, but there were dark moths. In the same way, in the post pollution period you cannot claim that there are NO light colored moths or the associated genes within the population. So this example does not prove evolution, it proves natural selection within a species, something so logical that no one denies it.

The same holds for the Doonesbury cartoon. Can anyone claim that pre-antibiotics, when TB was being treated with streptomycin, that there was a 100% cure rate? The fact is that there were resistant strains in existence then. With the use of streptomycin, the percentage of those strains in the entire population would naturally increase and, given favorable conditions and contagiousness, even increase in absolute numbers until it became necessary to find another drug to treat "the disease" (in quotes because the disease really consists of many different similar strains).

Stop with the smokescreen "real-life examples" and stick with the issues! In most cases "simple" examples to "prove" this extremely complicated question are just a means of tricking simple people into one's point of view. Same is probably true for TEoE, although not having read it, I can't say for sure.

southside grabowski

06-22-2007, 10:19 AM

[QUOTE=meelash;1100556]Arrrrr!!!!

This argument that gets repeated over and over (especially in school textbooks) really pisses me off, because it is extremely bogus. In order to prove that dark-color moths evolved due to the Industrial Revolution, you must first prove that there were NO dark-colored moths or the genetic material associated with that trait prior to the new conditions. In other words, you must prove first that a mutation occurred and secondly that natural selection caused that mutation to dominate. In fact this is simply not the case.

If the population of moths before the Industrial Revolution was examined you would find both dark and light moths in existence. The proportion of dark to light was very low, but there were dark moths. In the same way, in the post pollution period you cannot claim that there are NO light colored moths or the associated genes within the population. So this example does not prove evolution, it proves natural selection within a species, something so logical that no one denies it.

QUOTE]

Natural selection does not necessarily create new genetic variants. There is a ton of genetic variation out there. Under natural selection (or artificial selection), low frequency events become visible and dominate the population. There is a lot of room for variation in color. It is often modulated by several genes (don't know the genetics of color in moths).

hardeeharhar

06-22-2007, 10:53 AM

meelash

06-22-2007, 02:33 PM

Natural selection does not necessarily create new genetic variants. There is a ton of genetic variation out there. Under natural selection (or artificial selection), low frequency events become visible and dominate the population. There is a lot of room for variation in color. It is often modulated by several genes (don't know the genetics of color in moths).

Exactly, selective pressure changes the genetic variance of a species. This is adaptation -- if there were no preexisting resistant individuals the species would likely die out before a random mutation happened to create a novel resistance. Evolution has never made a claim of intentionality in the mutations -- the creationists have but that is a smoke screen.

Agreed and agreed! It really bugs me when people, usually laymen, use that elementary school "example" of evolution to attempt to prove something which it does not prove. Sorry for the slight tangent.

mania

06-23-2007, 11:03 PM

so I was just at this party and out of the blue this guy says he is taking his fam to kentucy to see the creationist museum and man I bit my tongue for awhile but finally I am like, "so whats that all about". he goes on to spout the ID BS and how he knows a Physicist who supports the 6000 year old earth.

Wow one physicist thats great. Sure Behe is one of a few dozen 'experts' who can come up with some fud but evolutionists have tens of thousands of really smart supporters. There is no controversy (except among the unlearned).

Fellowship

06-25-2007, 12:22 PM

Exactly, selective pressure changes the genetic variance of a species. This is adaptation -- if there were no preexisting resistant individuals the species would likely die out before a random mutation happened to create a novel resistance. Evolution has never made a claim of intentionality in the mutations -- the creationists have but that is a smoke screen.

Above you say and I quote: "if there were no preexisting resistant individuals the species would likely die out before a random mutation happened to create a novel resistance."

Ok so my question is what is the accounting or basis for the origins of these "preexisting resistant individuals" as you call them? In other words what accounts for their origins? You seem to be suggesting that they exist and if not for them adaptation could not happen. I ask then what about the origins of them? How do you account for their origins?

Fellowship

Fellowship

06-25-2007, 12:26 PM

There is no controversy (except among the unlearned).

This statement of yours is incorrect. There are many educated people who do not buy into the assumptions of the theory of evolution. I suppose that all you have to share is how you prefer to belittle others with a different view.

Shame on you. You should be able to do better than that.

Fellows

groverat

06-25-2007, 12:49 PM

Fellowship:

What "assumptions of the theory of evolution" do these educated people not "buy into"?

How do you account for their origins?

First let me say that I think it shows the amazing power of Darwin's theory of evolution via natural selection that so many believers now do not even argue against the evolution of life via natural selection or against the idea of common descent.

So now we are at a point where science is challenged to show where life came from, but that has already been done for decades. The exact way life came into existence on our planet is unknown, but firm theories exist and many experiments have been done (and will be done) showing the "creation" of organic molecules from inorganic molecules using simple electricity or other sources of energy that were available an on the ancient earth.

So we have two options to choose:
1) Religious ideas of origins, which answer no questions at all.
2) Naturalistic ideas of origins, which have answered an astonishing number of questions in a (relatively) very short amount of time (~160 years since The Origin of Species was published, and religion has existed since recorded time).

Fellowship

06-25-2007, 12:50 PM

Quote:
"Those who promote evolutionism (the irrational belief in biogenesis by evolution as fact)(also known as evolutionists) try to confuse natural selection with evolution, saying that natural selection is the engine of change which gave rise to species. This is demonstrably false.

You perhaps remember the example of the peppered moths in England during the early part of the industrial revolution. When the soot from the mills turned the trees black, the peppered moths, normally white, were now visible to birds and were eaten. A variant of the peppered moths, with dark coloration, blended in and was left to grow. So, most moths were now the dark variety. When the air was cleaned, and the soot was washed away by rain, the dark moths showed up and were eaten, allowing the species to revert to the white variant. This is often given as an example of evolution, and it IS an excellent example of natural selection. If evolution is only natural selection, then the common conception of evolutionary biogenesis is mistaken, and scientists should be doing their best to clear it up.

However, they continue to meddle in religion and philosophy where they have no business.

The moths changed only in response to a temporary change in the environment, and only changed because the variants, already existing, were released from selection pressure. When the environment changed back, the original moth population reestablished itself with the variants in the minority. There was no permanent change, and the change was within the constraints imposed by the environment.

To return to probability--

One can design any experiment to fail. I can see how probability would make no sense if each occurrence had infinite possibilites, but we can constrain the experiment so there are very limited possibilities. Looking at Virginia Whitetail deer for a moment, a generation is about three years. These deer have made no noticeable change since they were first described in the 1700's. So we might conclude that a significant change occurs in evolving species only once in about 100 generations or more. Of course, some species are known to remain the same for much longer--sharks and cockroaches, for example. Virginia whitetails are subject to tremendous selection pressure from predators and hunting, and yet they remain the same.

So each major event of evolution, which results in a major adaptation of the creature, is subject to the pressure of natural selection (before man was on the scene, anyway, as they believe.) Predators cull the weak and sick and poorly adapted. Poorly adapted predators cannot find prey. Any change in a creature that did not convey a benefit would result in its selection by nature, and its genes would not be passed on.

But we are ignoring that immense difficulty with evolutionary change for the moment, and are simply looking at the possibility that 1000 major changes could happen.

If evolution, in its infinite variety of choices, brings a new creature to birth, it is subjected to the pressure of natural selection. Any creature that does not fit the current environment is ruthlessly exterminated. THIS is what allows the process to be tested by probability. In order to survive, the creature must either stay the same (the usual strategy) or change within the extremely narrow constraints placed on it by natural selection in the current environment.

We can design a simple experiment to determine the probability of 1000 major changes (FAR too few for evolution to have happened) occurring in the lifetime of the universe, assuming that these changes happen once in each 100 generations (FAR more often than warranted by the evidence). This will follow the line of a single organism evolving into a higher organism requiring 1000 changes. Only the direct descendants of that original organism which are directly in the line to the higher organism are considered to have evolved for this experiment. A basic textbook will show that the answer is (1/100)to the power of 1000. This number is unimaginably small.[(1/2)to the power of 1000 is 1/(10 to the power of 300). This number is far smaller.]

So--in order to have a 1-1 chance of one creature having been formed by a line of evolution, it would require (100 to the power of 1000) generations, or 10 followed by 1001 zeroes.

Now we are only considering those creatures in the direct line of this evolution, to a specific descendant. Assume again that each creature in this line reproduced after living for one second. There would only be 157,680,000,000,000,000 (1.6x10^17) reproductions in five billion years. Roughly 10^983(1 followed by 983 zeros) times that many reproductions would be needed for our hypothetical one original organism to have an even chance of evolving into anything requiring 1000 changes--not even considering the problem of how it got here in the first place. Five hundred thousand billion years is not enough time for life to have evolved.

Even more problems for evolution: There are many more changes than 1000 needed for pre-cellular life to become human,changes happen less often than once in a hundred generations, and if anything at all has a generation only one second long it is difficult to imagine."

http://www.rae.org/eddiejoe.html

hardeeharhar

06-25-2007, 12:58 PM

Pure comedy gold.

hardeeharhar

06-25-2007, 12:59 PM

duplicate post.

Fellowship

06-25-2007, 01:00 PM

First let me say that I think it shows the amazing power of Darwin's theory of evolution via natural selection that so many believers now do not even argue against the evolution of life via natural selection or against the idea of common descent.

So now we are at a point where science is challenged to show where life came from, but that has already been done for decades. The exact way life came into existence on our planet is unknown, but firm theories exist and many experiments have been done (and will be done) showing the "creation" of organic molecules from inorganic molecules using simple electricity or other sources of energy that were available an on the ancient earth.

Quote
"Evolutionism tells more about the person who holds to it than about the world we live in. Fortunately, there are few dedicated believers, and few of the general public have an unqualified acceptance of it. Here we have the peculiar phenomenon of a large number of usually highly intelligent people, most of whom know that evolution cannot possibly account for the origin of life, continually attempting by whatever means possible to convince the general public that it is a proven scientific fact. Limited success would be expected in such an openly dishonest endeavor, and it is shown by the fact that 70% of the general public believes that creationism should be taught in the public schools.

There was an entire country, the former Soviet Union, which took evolutionism as the official philosophy of the nation, but fortunately has now largely abandoned it as the irrational tree bore its increasingly bitter fruit.

Evolutionism is the manifestation of a psychopathology, a need to believe, in certain people who are irrationally dedicated to it. Those who are dedicated to materialism have little else that they can believe. A healthy skepticism has no place in those pathologically dedicated to the philosophy, and this pathology is further demonstrated by unmitigated attempts to spread this gospel of irrationalism to the unconverted, regardless of its known defects.

One would think that religious people would not have a need for evolutionism, but this is demonstrably not the case. It often coexists in the minds of many with some form of Christianity, and fulfills some need to displace and explain away uncomfortable implications of their faith. These displacements, however, are more perceived than real. The problems remain and are simply ignored rather than being confronted and dealt with on a realistic basis. This is a futher manifestation of the pathology of evolutionism.

Often the excuse is given for promoting evolution, that it would require redoing biology, geology, and various other sciences if evolutionism was discarded. This is somewhat true. However, there would be less impact than one would think at first. The evolutionary relationships between species have to be constantly revised as new interpretations come to light, and give no real information about relations between species, as the links are based on only speculated kinship without real evidence. This sort of assumption of speculative evolutionary kinship is more of a hindrance to understanding than a help."

http://www.rae.org/eddiejoe.html

hardeeharhar

06-25-2007, 01:02 PM

Above you say and I quote: "if there were no preexisting resistant individuals the species would likely die out before a random mutation happened to create a novel resistance."

Ok so my question is what is the accounting or basis for the origins of these "preexisting resistant individuals" as you call them? In other words what accounts for their origins? You seem to be suggesting that they exist and if not for them adaptation could not happen. I ask then what about the origins of them? How do you account for their origins?

Fellowship
Their origin?

Random mutations that occur entirely naturally all of the time.

This also answers your unfounded numbers game.

hardeeharhar

06-25-2007, 01:07 PM

Evolutionism tells more about the person who holds to it than about the world we live in. Fortunately, there are few dedicated believers, and few of the general public have an unqualified acceptance of it. Here we have the peculiar phenomenon of a large number of usually highly intelligent people, most of whom know that evolution cannot possibly account for the origin of life, continually attempting by whatever means possible to convince the general public that it is a proven scientific fact. Limited success would be expected in such an openly dishonest endeavor, and it is shown by the fact that 70% of the general public believes that creationism should be taught in the public schools.

There was an entire country, the former Soviet Union, which took evolutionism as the official philosophy of the nation, but fortunately has now largely abandoned it as the irrational tree bore its increasingly bitter fruit.

Evolutionism is the manifestation of a psychopathology, a need to believe, in certain people who are irrationally dedicated to it. Those who are dedicated to materialism have little else that they can believe. A healthy skepticism has no place in those pathologically dedicated to the philosophy, and this pathology is further demonstrated by unmitigated attempts to spread this gospel of irrationalism to the unconverted, regardless of its known defects.

One would think that religious people would not have a need for evolutionism, but this is demonstrably not the case. It often coexists in the minds of many with some form of Christianity, and fulfills some need to displace and explain away uncomfortable implications of their faith. These displacements, however, are more perceived than real. The problems remain and are simply ignored rather than being confronted and dealt with on a realistic basis. This is a futher manifestation of the pathology of evolutionism.

Often the excuse is given for promoting evolution, that it would require redoing biology, geology, and various other sciences if evolutionism was discarded. This is somewhat true. However, there would be less impact than one would think at first. The evolutionary relationships between species have to be constantly revised as new interpretations come to light, and give no real information about relations between species, as the links are based on only speculated kinship without real evidence. This sort of assumption of speculative evolutionary kinship is more of a hindrance to understanding than a help.
Fellows?

Do you have any thoughts of your own? Or do you just like copying and pasting from random Creationist websites du jour?

Fellowship

06-25-2007, 01:16 PM

Their origin?

Random mutations that occur entirely naturally all of the time.

This also answers your unfounded numbers game.

If you could give me an approx. number of generations it took to get from blue-green algae to a giraffe.

Also could you explain to me how many generations it took to go from caterpillar to butterfly ;)

I mean afterall these things do not happen over night do they.

Fellows

Fellowship

06-25-2007, 01:20 PM

Fellows?

Do you have any thoughts of your own? Or do you just like copying and pasting from random Creationist websites du jour?

Any brain in that pointy head of yours?

I completely agree with the content of my posts.

If I did not I would note it. As for reading materials we all have material we agree with or disagree with. I believe it was groverat who called one book here "bullshit" or something like that and you know that is entirely ok with me as I am not one who cares to limit the thinking and or opinions of others.

I just wish some would not be so quick to try to brand others "unlearned" or such who have a differing opinion regarding the origins of life forms.

Fellows

hardeeharhar

06-25-2007, 01:54 PM

I completely agree with the content of my posts.

If I did not I would note it. As for reading materials we all have material we agree with or disagree with. I believe it was groverat who called one book here "bullshit" or something like that and you know that is entirely ok with me as I am not one who cares to limit the thinking and or opinions of others.

I just wish some would not be so quick to try to brand others "unlearned" or such who have a differing opinion regarding the origins of life forms.

Fellows
Well...

Two things:

It is disingenous and indeed plagerism when you cut and paste direct text regardless of whether you agree with it or not. At the very least for your readers, you should have put the text in quotes and attributed it to the appropriate source. Agreeing with the text and directly copying as your own ideas are two far far different things.

You are unlearned, you ascribe to a prehistoric account of the origins of life when that account is not only unprovable, it is wrong by all observations. (Let alone it being only one of the plethera of stories early man came up with).

With respect to the number of generations -- it is an impossible question to answer since rates of mutation vary (they are temporal rather than generational), the length of generations vary etc. I will tell you this -- blue green algae as currently existant is as evolved as a giraffe. Caterpillar/Butterfly? They are different stages of life of the same organism -- they evolved concurrently -- there are examples of caterpillar species that are unable to become butterflies due to mutations in later developmental stages...

groverat

06-25-2007, 02:56 PM

Fellowship:

If you're going to be copying and pasting from other websites, at least provide the link (http://www.rae.org/eddiejoe.html).

I completely agree with the content of my posts.

Be that as it may, when you just swipe large tracts of texts from others you are adding nothing at all to the discussion.

Since you are, apparently, unable to articulate these things yourself we cannot engage with you in a discussion. You merely present it as if it were holy text, to either be accepted in whole or rejected in whole. This is not discussion, this is parroting.

I called Behe's book "bullshit" (and more!), but I both read and understood it, and this is a subject I know about. I dismissed it with my own thoughts and provided those thoughts, which were my own, for discussion.

But let me give you the benefit of the doubt and let me engage some of the arguments you have plagiarized in the hope that you can participate in a discussion about the ideas.

The moths changed only in response to a temporary change in the environment, and only changed because the variants, already existing, were released from selection pressure. When the environment changed back, the original moth population reestablished itself with the variants in the minority. There was no permanent change, and the change was within the constraints imposed by the environment.

What is most interesting about this is that it takes, as an example, an instance of temporary adaptation and then complains that it is temporary. It is akin to me asking out a black woman and then screaming angrily that I do not date black women when she shows up to dinner.

First, what is a "permanent" change on the scale of evolution? All things are subject to adaptation and every form of life is technically "temporary" since we know of nothing organic that has remain completely unchanged since its origin.

In that particular story we merely have the advantage of a relatively quick shift in environmental factors that allowed us to observe natural selection in action on a complex organism.

Looking at Virginia Whitetail deer for a moment, a generation is about three years. These deer have made no noticeable change since they were first described in the 1700's. So we might conclude that a significant change occurs in evolving species only once in about 100 generations or more. Of course, some species are known to remain the same for much longer--sharks and cockroaches, for example. Virginia whitetails are subject to tremendous selection pressure from predators and hunting, and yet they remain the same.

Why should they change dramatically? If they survive then what they do works fine and there is no impetus to radically alter anything about their physiology or environment. Evolutionary theory does not predict that organisms will change wildly without tremendous outside pressure, or even that they will change with outside pressure.

The author is creating a ridiculous straw man argument.

I especially like the extended personal attack you copy/paste in response to my reference to experiments that have created organic material from inorganic material. How on earth do you have the nerve to lecture others about tact when you refer to this thinking as "psychopathy"?

franksargent

06-25-2007, 02:59 PM

If you could give me an approx. number of generations it took to get from blue-green algae to a giraffe.

Also could you explain to me how many generations it took to go from caterpillar to butterfly ;)

I mean afterall these things do not happen over night do they.

Fellows

What's with the impossible improbabilities? Perhaps trying to prove what DID HAPPEN didn't! :err:

Climate change, p = 1, plate tectonics, p = 1, fossil record, p = 1, population bottlenecks, p = 1, population extinctions, p = 1, natural variations, p = 1, selective pressures, p =1, mutations, p = 1, resource competition/availability, p = 1, catastrophic events, p = 1. invasive species (humans being the best current example), p = 1, yadda, p = 1, yadda, p = 1, yadda, p = 1, ...

It's when you make absurd assumptions, based on indeterminate improbabilities (O(1), O(10), O(100), O(1000), ... , O(10^100), ... , O(10^1000)) that you get into all kinds of trouble.

Because they have no basis in FACTS, either empirical or observational!

Multiplying a continuous series of small numbers (0 < n(i), i = 1, 2, ... < 1), leads to an even smaller number, doh, by your argument life shouldn't even exist, BUT IT DOES!

I did not post this reply, it didn't happen, you are not reading this, it is an impossible improbability!

Shuffle a deck of 52 cards, deal them out one at a time, record the sequence, the probability that that sequence was actually dealt, p = 1! The probability that it would be repeated (on average over many, Many, MANY deals) is 1/52! (factorial), so what. Each time the cards are dealt, a random sequence happens, p = 1.

DOH!

southside grabowski

06-25-2007, 04:35 PM

Pure comedy gold.

Well yeah.

groverat

06-25-2007, 05:49 PM

Anyone else read this or is this yet another thread where I am the only participant to have read the book being discussed?

screener

06-25-2007, 07:54 PM

Anyone else read this or is this yet another thread where I am the only participant to have read the book being discussed?

The only fiction I reads is Stephen King, Dean Koontz and some mysteries if the premise sounds promising.

Oh, Nora Roberts writing as J.D. Robb, the detecttive Dallas series.
What can I say.

franksargent

06-25-2007, 08:27 PM

Anyone else read this or is this yet another thread where I am the only participant to have read the book being discussed?

Don't know how to read. :rolleyes: And if I did, it wouldn't be works of Fantasy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy).

I here the DI has the largest collection of Fantasy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy) in the world though! :D

I also understand works of ID are filed in the Dewey Decimal Classification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Decimal_Classification) system under either 666 or 999 (aka garbage can sections). :wow:

hardeeharhar

06-25-2007, 09:07 PM

Link (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/science/26devo.html?pagewanted=1) to a NYTimes article that treats a rather interesting side story in modern evolutionary science.

southside grabowski

06-26-2007, 09:26 AM

Anyone else read this or is this yet another thread where I am the only participant to have read the book being discussed?

I have been around the subject far too long to read that book Groverat. I read several hours each day. When I have time to read something that is not work related, I prefer Steinbeck.

meelash

06-26-2007, 09:51 AM

Well...

Two things:

It is disingenous and indeed plagerism when you cut and paste direct text regardless of whether you agree with it or not. At the very least for your readers, you should have put the text in quotes and attributed it to the appropriate source. Agreeing with the text and directly copying as your own ideas are two far far different things.

You are unlearned, you ascribe to a prehistoric account of the origins of life when that account is not only unprovable, it is wrong by all observations. (Let alone it being only one of the plethera of stories early man came up with).

With respect to the number of generations -- it is an impossible question to answer since rates of mutation vary (they are temporal rather than generational), the length of generations vary etc. I will tell you this -- blue green algae as currently existant is as evolved as a giraffe. Caterpillar/Butterfly? They are different stages of life of the same organism -- they evolved concurrently -- there are examples of caterpillar species that are unable to become butterflies due to mutations in later developmental stages...
:D :D lol I was really impressed at how articulate those posts by Fellows were.... Guess I should have google a few sentences first... :lol: Caughtcha, buddy! :p

With regard to the rates of mutation, etc., as a layman, this has always seemed to me a pretty big stumbling block for the theory of evolution. Ignoring the bit about green-algae and giraffes (you know what he means, anyway ;)), it should be possible to determine some kind of average time or number of generations for certain evolutionary stages to be reached. For example, determine the rough number of transitional forms that had to be traversed to get from some ancestral species to a later species and divide by the time (or # of generations, as appropriate) that it was supposed to have taken. What would the result be, approximately?

It certainly seems, given the advanced forms of life in existence, that there would not be enough time in the known life of the world to account for the number of random mutation/natural selection cycles that would be necessary. Perhaps it is necessary to assume that life was evolving extremely fast in the early periods? Thoughts?

jamac

06-26-2007, 10:12 AM

Perhaps it is necessary to assume that life was evolving extremely fast in the early periods? Thoughts?

Things can go very fast when you get sun burned and your skin cells decide to become cancer. A little bit of UV and in just a few month you will have completely genetically altered cells growing on your body which replicate by using your own truncated DNA . Now imagine what this can do to bacteria.

Now let's look at early life:
Science is now thinking away from the "RNA first" idea and looking at simpler molecules. The early earth had loads of energy sources as well as constant inflow of matter from the accretion disk. The atmosphere had not yet developed (early life created our NO2 atmosphere) so there was a lot more radiation of all kind. This radiation supplied energy and altered chemical processes a in wildly random fashion. Indeed it would be logical that a myriad of pre life biochemistry had "evolved" before the programmed replication happened when one of these chance molecules developed so many open charges that it attracted the nearby molecule with similar reactivity to form the first replication by program which later became what we now call RNA.

BTW In cosmological time 100 billion years is hardly a heart beat.

meelash

06-26-2007, 10:16 AM

BTW In cosmological time 100 billion years is hardly a heart beat.

What is 100 billion years? The estimated age of the earth is 4.5 billion years. Are you saying that life began evolving pre-Earth, and then immigrated?

JupiterOne

06-26-2007, 10:16 AM

BTW In cosmological time 100 billion years is hardly a heart beat.

Isn't that greater than estimated age of the universe? Like by many times over? :???:

jamac

06-26-2007, 10:19 AM

100 Billion years?

Um... The universe is currently aged at ~15 Billion...

Yes indeed this one is still young. The one before retired at 4 trillion years.

hardeeharhar

06-26-2007, 10:19 AM

100 Billion years?

Um... The universe is currently aged at ~15 Billion...

franksargent

06-26-2007, 10:34 AM

jamac

06-26-2007, 10:37 AM

.....

hardeeharhar

06-26-2007, 10:40 AM

:D :D lol I was really impressed at how articulate those posts by Fellows were.... Guess I should have google a few sentences first... :lol: Caughtcha, buddy! :p

With regard to the rates of mutation, etc., as a layman, this has always seemed to me a pretty big stumbling block for the theory of evolution. Ignoring the bit about green-algae and giraffes (you know what he means, anyway ;)), it should be possible to determine some kind of average time or number of generations for certain evolutionary stages to be reached. For example, determine the rough number of transitional forms that had to be traversed to get from some ancestral species to a later species and divide by the time (or # of generations, as appropriate) that it was supposed to have taken. What would the result be, approximately?

It certainly seems, given the advanced forms of life in existence, that there would not be enough time in the known life of the world to account for the number of random mutation/natural selection cycles that would be necessary. Perhaps it is necessary to assume that life was evolving extremely fast in the early periods? Thoughts?
Read the NYTimes article.

Basically as I said earlier in this thread -- you don't need to build up completely new genetic cascade to turn a short neck into a long neck -- you can simply modify a few of the genes that regulate the formation of a short neck. The genes even blue green algae have are highly adaptable. Not much has changed since cyanobacteria first appeared -- especially not since the first yeast started budding. Humans are simply differently developed yeast (in a sense).

Mutational rate probably did go faster for the first fraction of a time simply based upon low fidelity copying mechanisms. However, it isn't the mutational rate you are interested in ultimately -- it is the extremity of the selection pressure. Rapidly changed and consistent selective pressure will result in fast transitions.

Think about it this way -- humans come in many forms, internally they have even more differences, but let's base this upon the way we look outside, and I am going to ask you to remember that sickle cell trait is a resistance mechanism to malaria common basically only in black populations.

Two scenarios:

The intensity of the sun suddenly increases and remains high for two hundred years. Cancer rates in lighter skin humans, especially young children increase rapidly lowering the fecundity of paler skinned children. The entire population becomes more resistant to malaria due to the relatively increased fecundity of the black populations who are sickle cell trait over populations of people who are not.

The intensity of the sun suddenly decreases and remains low for two hundred years. Vitamin D production in darker skinned individuals falls off -- their fecundity rates fall dramatically due to general poor health (and indeed cancer). The entire world population becomes more sensitive to malaria due to this change in human population dynamics.

The ability of the populations in these two scenarios to survive a mutant and highly fatal malaria strain is completely dependent upon whether the sun turns up or down.

It doesn't take any more variance to 'evolve' than already clearly exists out there. Creationists think that once a species is defined it starts fresh -- all individuals are alike. And this view point is simply wrong. The variances that came to exist in the previous rounds of selection generally remain around and give a greater distribution of responses to selective pressure than would have originally existed.

franksargent

06-26-2007, 11:01 AM

Yes indeed this one is still young. The one before retired at 4 trillion years.

That's an extrapolation of 2.92 * 10^2 over the current age estimate of 13.7 BYA from Earth's (or the current human cosmologist's) POV.

Ultimate fate of the universe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe)

jamac

06-26-2007, 11:52 AM

franksargent

06-26-2007, 07:58 PM

This link is also very informative:
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/age.html

Extrapolation is the most important weapon against creationism.
If we try and extrapolate the energy consumption of a being capable to influence matter on a grand scale as in forming our universe, a couple cans of red bull are not going to do it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for science, understanding, and knowledge.

But untestable theories lead to faith, to belief.

We appear to be at the center of the observable universe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe) as are all other objects wrt their observable universe.

The link I provided earlier in this thread suggests, that there is much more to the universe than we are currently able to quantify or theorize with a high degree of confidence.

We've only been at this thing called science for a very short time, by any metric. Every time we improve our methods (theories, experiments, and observations) we see things that we were unable to see before.

Signed,
Buzz Lightyear

meelash

06-26-2007, 09:09 PM

franksargent

06-26-2007, 09:31 PM

Not that this is particularly relevant to the discussion, but:

Your statement here is not very meaningful, since believers in a deity will consider that being to be super-physical, i.e. not composed of matter and energy, but beyond the realm of our physical universe.

So doG is "super-physical" but isn't temporal, isn't spatial, isn't matter, isn't energy? Perhaps you meant to say superficial.

I think you just PROVED that doG doesn't exist!

Please explain EXACTLY how Divine Providence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Providence) works in OUR physically real universe?

meelash

06-27-2007, 09:19 AM

So doG is "super-physical" but isn't temporal, isn't spatial, isn't matter, isn't energy? Perhaps you meant to say superficial.

I think you just PROVED that doG doesn't exist!

Please explain EXACTLY how Divine Providence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Providence) works in OUR physically real universe?
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. God is not matter and energy, he is the creator of matter. He would obviously not be an ordinary part of our universe, subject to "energy consumption" limitations and so on, if he were the creator of that universe.

As for being temporal, time is relative right? So being outside the realm of the physical laws of this Universe and the properties of matter and energy kind of precludes being "temporal" in any ordinary sense of the word.

Spatial?-- hmmm.. I don't know. Is space also relative? If that were true, then what is a vacuum? What is Space? Bigger questions then I have an answer for.

meelash

06-27-2007, 09:44 AM

Read the NYTimes article.

Basically as I said earlier in this thread -- you don't need to build up completely new genetic cascade to turn a short neck into a long neck -- you can simply modify a few of the genes that regulate the formation of a short neck. The genes even blue green algae have are highly adaptable. Not much has changed since cyanobacteria first appeared -- especially not since the first yeast started budding. Humans are simply differently developed yeast (in a sense).

Mutational rate probably did go faster for the first fraction of a time simply based upon low fidelity copying mechanisms. However, it isn't the mutational rate you are interested in ultimately -- it is the extremity of the selection pressure. Rapidly changed and consistent selective pressure will result in fast transitions.

Think about it this way -- humans come in many forms, internally they have even more differences, but let's base this upon the way we look outside, and I am going to ask you to remember that sickle cell trait is a resistance mechanism to malaria common basically only in black populations.

Two scenarios:

The intensity of the sun suddenly increases and remains high for two hundred years. Cancer rates in lighter skin humans, especially young children increase rapidly lowering the fecundity of paler skinned children. The entire population becomes more resistant to malaria due to the relatively increased fecundity of the black populations who are sickle cell trait over populations of people who are not.

The intensity of the sun suddenly decreases and remains low for two hundred years. Vitamin D production in darker skinned individuals falls off -- their fecundity rates fall dramatically due to general poor health (and indeed cancer). The entire world population becomes more sensitive to malaria due to this change in human population dynamics.

The ability of the populations in these two scenarios to survive a mutant and highly fatal malaria strain is completely dependent upon whether the sun turns up or down.

It doesn't take any more variance to 'evolve' than already clearly exists out there. Creationists think that once a species is defined it starts fresh -- all individuals are alike. And this view point is simply wrong. The variances that came to exist in the previous rounds of selection generally remain around and give a greater distribution of responses to selective pressure than would have originally existed.
Okay, so a basic premise of your explanation and this example is that a large diversity is already existent in the population. This is obviously very relevant today, with 7 billion humans spread out all over the world, with all kinds of inter-racial connections and so on, but in early periods of evolutionary history, wouldn't this have been much more limited? A small population in the thousands or tens of thousands, living in the same geographical area would not have that much genetic variation to draw on in the case of an extreme selective pressure being applied. As you go back further in time, the population and variation decreases, thus increasing an unreasonable dependence on fortuitous mutations and/or long periods of very favorable environmental conditions.

I guess what is hard for me to believe is that the earliest cell/organism populations, when subjected to the kind of selective pressures necessary to create such extreme diversity in such a (relatively) short period of time, would not have just all died.

Take the first cell, for example, that was capable of reproducing on its own. How many copies could it have made in peace before some environmental change came along that would wipe out the whole population except for those that had undergone a particular type of mutation? A million? A billion? Even more? And you would have to have at least one (theoretically, but accounting for chance accidents and such, probably a significant number) of the cell population having mutated in that time, to, by chance, match whatever environmental change came along. And this process had to happen again and again for thousands of years, with a series of selective environmental changes that have enough pressure to wipe out the old and bring in the new, but not "by mistake" wipe out the whole population, leaving the whole thing to start from the beginning again (which might not be possible because those organisms would have been changing the environment from what it originally was, in the meantime--CO2 production, etc.)

It's very hard for me to wrap my head around that kind of a scenario. Of course, the argument, "Well, it happened didn't it? There's no other way to explain it!" is a valid one and actually quite common in all fields of science. But it's not convincing from a philosophical standpoint, and I don't think it qualifies as "proof" in the logical/mathematical sense. The theory of evolution should thus be taken as other scientific theories are: a useful model for predicting the behavior of the world around us, and not fodder for a religious/philosophical existence of God debate.

franksargent

06-27-2007, 10:16 AM

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. God is not matter and energy, he is the creator of matter. He would obviously not be an ordinary part of our universe, subject to "energy consumption" limitations and so on, if he were the creator of that universe.

He? :err:

Does doG have a mind?

Is doG everywhere and nowhere and somewhere? What is existence wrt doG?

What/where/how is heaven, limbo, and hell?

Please define timeless eternity?

Is doG allowed to go to limbo or hell? If not, why not?

Specifically, how does doG interact with our physically real universe? And by what means does doG achieve said interactions?

doG circa 2,500 BC;

http://www.logoi.com/pastimages/img/pharaoh_3.jpg

doG circa 33 AD (because we humans need to put a face to such an abstract concept as doG because it makes doG real (e. g. pharaohs));

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~hick0088/images/blog/buddy-jesus.jpg

doG circa 2,000 AD (because doG can appear to us humans in any form, after all doG is doG);

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/46/God_%28South_Park%29.gif

Hassan i Sabbah

06-27-2007, 11:52 AM

Take the first cell, for example, that was capable of reproducing on its own. How many copies could it have made in peace before some environmental change came along that would wipe out the whole population except for those that had undergone a particular type of mutation? A million? A billion? Even more? And you would have to have at least one (theoretically, but accounting for chance accidents and such, probably a significant number) of the cell population having mutated in that time, to, by chance, match whatever environmental change came along. And this process had to happen again and again for thousands of years, with a series of selective environmental changes that have enough pressure to wipe out the old and bring in the new, but not "by mistake" wipe out the whole population, leaving the whole thing to start from the beginning again (which might not be possible because those organisms would have been changing the environment from what it originally was, in the meantime--CO2 production, etc.).

While I don't want to get into this debate for the millionth time—because I know there's no evidence that will be strong enough to convince you, since your problem with evolutionary theory isn't about empirical fact but your faith—you haven't quite understood the mechanism operating here.

An environmental event only has to happen once. The pressures of selection after this environmental event will continue to operate on the survivors. Mutations don't 'match' an event, they allow an organism to survive it or benefit from the 'unbalanced' new ecological landscape that arises after it.

Also, the only people making evolutionary theory 'fodder' for a debate about the existence of the Christian God are Christians. There are plenty of people who don't have any problem believing both that Jesus was the son of God and that the existence of evolution is about as difficult to deny as, say, the nose on your face.

southside grabowski

06-27-2007, 03:07 PM

hardeeharhar

06-27-2007, 03:15 PM

Mutations aren't often that lethal, but this fact is just nit picking.

meelash

06-27-2007, 10:59 PM

He? :err:

Just a figure of speech.

Does doG have a mind?

Define mind. If you mean a "soul," whatever that means, the sense of self, thought, consciousness, then, yes. If you mean a physical brain with gray matter, nerves, neurons, and electrons connecting it all, obviously no, given what I stated before.

Is doG everywhere and nowhere and somewhere? What is existence wrt doG?

Yes. :p

What/where/how is heaven, limbo, and hell?

Who knows. Heaven contains such delights that no eye has ever seen, no ear has ever heard of, no human mind has ever fathomed. Again, these are in existence outside of this physical universe.

Please define timeless eternity?

Not sure what you're getting at?

Is doG allowed to go to limbo or hell? If not, why not?

What do you mean by "go?" Get this Judeo-Christian tradition of God as a big, old guy out of your head so we can have a meaningful conversation. Heaven and hell are creations just like this universe. God is not like unto his creation or bound by its laws and properties.

Specifically, how does doG interact with our physically real universe? And by what means does doG achieve said interactions?

What is the source of the properties and laws by which our universe operates? Gravity, strong forces, weak forces, inertia, energy, what causes the physical behavior to be what it is? (Vibrating super-strings? In that case, what causes them to vibrate?)

doG circa 33 AD (because we humans need to put a face to such an abstract concept as doG because it makes doG real (e. g. pharaohs));

Not all of us. Thankfully, I am of a religion that purposely takes very concrete steps to control this human propensity to associate God's qualities with those of his creation. It does earn us a lot of flak from other belief systems, though.

doG circa 2,000 AD (because doG can appear to us humans in any form, after all doG is doG);

It is not consistent with the majesty of God to appear as one of his creations. God does not "carnate".

meelash

06-27-2007, 11:25 PM

While I don't want to get into this debate for the millionth time—because I know there's no evidence that will be strong enough to convince you, since your problem with evolutionary theory isn't about empirical fact but your faith—you haven't quite understood the mechanism operating here.

I resent your unfounded assertion in the first two-thirds of this sentence; I am, however, willing to overlook this injustice for the sake of gleaning some of your wisdom on the subject. I am, as you have correctly pointed out, woefully ignorant of the field. :lol::devil:

An environmental event only has to happen once. The pressures of selection after this environmental event will continue to operate on the survivors. Mutations don't 'match' an event, they allow an organism to survive it or benefit from the 'unbalanced' new ecological landscape that arises after it.

I don't think you know what "match" means? If a certain mutation results in a trait that allows an organism to survive or benefit from the new ecological landscape, I would call that a match. As opposed to other random mutations which might not make any difference or be detrimental. Given a bunch of random mutations, only some of them will be in the former case. These would be referred to as "matching" the particular environmental event.

And surely you're not claiming that all the biological diversity around us has resulted from only one environmental event (although it certainly seems that is what you're claiming)? Obviously, in order for the original organism to advance and adapt and diversify, there have to be multiple pressures, one after the other, along with continual increase in population and "spread" so that not all elements of the population are affected by the same selection pressures.

Also, the only people making evolutionary theory 'fodder' for a debate about the existence of the Christian God are Christians. There are plenty of people who don't have any problem believing both that Jesus was the son of God and that the existence of evolution is about as difficult to deny as, say, the nose on your face.

I think the Christians were pretty badly battered the first time they went head to head with the evolutionist, resulting in the reluctance of most mainstream groups to try it again. I see the current furor as more a result of backlash to the adoption by atheists of the theory of evolution in its current state as a dogmatic ideology, to support their anti-religious views. If someone's personal beliefs are interfering with the scientific conclusions and observations he is making, it is obviously not healthy for good scientific endeavor. This is as true for atheists as it is for any other religion.

And I, for the record, have a problem believing that Jesus is the son of God; I also deny that evolution is as provable as the nose on my face (maybe not that on your face, I don't know 8-)) Again, I say that it may be a good model for predicting the behavior of the world around us or for use in classification. But it doesn't qualify as a philosophical argument.

meelash

06-27-2007, 11:34 PM

A single mutation in a regulatory gene can have major effects. A single mutation may result in dozens or even hundreds of other genes being expressed more or less than "normal", expressed during the wrong time during development or expressed in the wrong cells. Mutations in regulatory genes can bring big change fast.

Many here don’t seem to appreciate that mutation happen all of the time. Mutations are often lethal and not passed on. Sometimes they are neutral and remain at very low frequencies in the population. Sometimes they give an advantage under specific conditions and increase in frequency as a result of selection. The shorter the generation time of the organism, the faster the process. The frequency of a selected- for gene can easily go from less than 1% to 99% overnight in a culture of bacteria put under the appropriate selection.

Fair enough. This definitely decreases the odds against those first living cells significantly. Without some means of quantifying the time involved, the size of the population, the extent of variation created by mutation, and the extent and frequency of environmental changes driving the selection, it is very difficult for me to come to a rational determination on the likelihood one way or another. I think, the less quantifiable facts exist, the more likely it is that conclusions will be drawn simply on personal bias, rather than on the real likelihood of the situation involved. Of course, in this respect, experienced researchers do have an advantage over laymen because observation of similar circumstances can lead to a good intuition for what is or is not likely.

I guess these are questions scientists are working on right now, though, so hopefully things become clearer as research progresses and a clearer idea develops of the earliest history of the earth.

meelash

06-27-2007, 11:43 PM

Sometimes they give an advantage under specific conditions and increase in frequency as a result of selection. The shorter the generation time of the organism, the faster the process. The frequency of a selected- for gene can easily go from less than 1% to 99% overnight in a culture of bacteria put under the appropriate selection.

This brings up another question I've had kicking around my mind:

Is there any example where this has actually happened, either in the wild or in a lab, where it can be proven to be advantageous mutation taking place?

Proof, I think, means two things:

1) The mutated organism must be better adapted to the conditions driving the selection than the original and be able to reproduce more organisms with this same favorable, mutated, trait.

2) The new trait must be verifiably new. That is, it is not simply a rare recessive trait, or some other scenario, in which the trait is already existent within the original population, it is just extremely rare, until the selective pressures cause that trait to become more dominant.

Sources?

franksargent

06-28-2007, 12:36 AM

Just a figure of speech.

As in, it who is it is?

Define mind. If you mean a "soul," whatever that means, the sense of self, thought, consciousness, then, yes. If you mean a physical brain with gray matter, nerves, neurons, and electrons connecting it all, obviously no, given what I stated before.

doG has a soul, given to doG by doG? So doG made doG? I thought only humans had souls, heaven, limbo, and hell sound like pretty boring things, no space, no time, no matter, no energy, no pets, no entertainment, can't see, can't hear, can't taste, can't feel, can't smell, Those in heaven (limbo, hell, et. al) are just twiddling there souls for all of eternity.

You'd think that those who have heard doG here on Earth, would have got around to asking such obvious questions. Eternal happiness you say, wow doG must have some major drugs to keep them all happy for all of eternity. dog is an eternal drug lord! :err:

Does doG ever do any soul searching within itself? Perhaps goG is already in hell, considering the things he has purportedly done.

Yes. :p

All three together, wow. Now where did goG run off to, probably searching for its soul? What is existence wrt doG?

Who knows. Heaven contains such delights that no eye has ever seen, no ear has ever heard of, no human mind has ever fathomed. Again, these are in existence outside of this physical universe.

But the universe has no outside.

Not sure what you're getting at?

That was an oxymoron to be sure. Just a bunch of souls, doing whatever souls do, in timeless (and spaceless and massless and energyless) eternity.

What do you mean by "go?" Get this Judeo-Christian tradition of God as a big, old guy out of your head so we can have a meaningful conversation. Heaven and hell are creations just like this universe. God is not like unto his creation or bound by its laws and properties.

Obviously doG can be anywhere doG wants if doG so chooses, after all it is doG we are talking about isn't it?

What is the source of the properties and laws by which our universe operates? Gravity, strong forces, weak forces, inertia, energy, what causes the physical behavior to be what it is? (Vibrating super-strings? In that case, what causes them to vibrate?)

Well basically, if doG does interact with us it's through our physical universe, otherwise doG could not interact with our physical universe (e. g. Jesus).

Not all of us.

Actually for the vast majority of followers, a physical interpretation is necessary to solidify their beliefs.

It is not consistent with the majesty of God to appear as one of his creations. God does not "carnate".

Jesus?

groverat

06-28-2007, 01:08 AM

Who are you?

:err:

It's bizarre, isn't it?

hardeeharhar

06-28-2007, 01:26 AM

College is doing that boy good, ya hear?

hardeeharhar

06-28-2007, 01:32 AM

This brings up another question I've had kicking around my mind:

Is there any example where this has actually happened, either in the wild or in a lab, where it can be proven to be advantageous mutation taking place?

Proof, I think, means two things:

1) The mutated organism must be better adapted to the conditions driving the selection than the original and be able to reproduce more organisms with this same favorable, mutated, trait.

2) The new trait must be verifiably new. That is, it is not simply a rare recessive trait, or some other scenario, in which the trait is already existent within the original population, it is just extremely rare, until the selective pressures cause that trait to become more dominant.

Sources?

By excluding (2), you are ignoring the fact that this is how evolution occurs most (all?) of the time and are instead demanding that evolution take on some sort of intentionality. Spontaneous mutations occur all of the time. You select from that pool of mutations, generally. The fact they are pre-existing to the selection pressure means nothing; do you really expect them to come about after you have already killed off the entire lot of individuals?

jamac

06-28-2007, 10:08 AM

We appear to be at the center of the observable universe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe) as are all other objects wrt their observable universe.

Of course we are at the center of OUR observation, how can we not be????

For the folks 3000 Lightyears away they are also at the center of their observation.

What was your mother smoking during pregnancy?
Now here is another little discovery: Smoking during pregnancy causes mental defects in children. This is prove that chemicals greatly influence development or does doG alter the genes of smoking mothers as punishment, oh wait the children didn't really do anything, oh wait I am getting confused, oh it's pre emptive punishment, oh no that's wrong too, it's punishment of the unborn to make the mother feel bad when it's obvious that she doesn't give a shit, oh no wait the designer decided to introduce nicotine addiction into the mother so she can have genetically alter children who can withstand massive amount of cigarettes in order create more health care costs, oh no that doesn't make any sense either, it must be that the intelligent designer forgot to take his meds and couldn't get a stiffy, oh no that seems not plausible, ...

Anyhow, I am related to the first cell to ever live on this planet and I am very happy about that and extremely proud of it. If you were intelligently designed I can only feel very sorry for you. I can still evolve and my children can be brighter than me, adapt to new challenges and discover more about evolution because there is so much more to discover, yours are always going to be dimwitted retards who are being told stories about a gargantuan Joe from nowhere who simply snaps his fingers and then there was light. That does not take a lot of brains, just like living in paradise.

meelash

06-28-2007, 10:09 AM

You are an idiot.

Thank you. :mad: Nice to know that you are capable of such civil discourse. Why are you so defensive? I'm asking genuine questions, attempting to get a better understanding of a subject I know little about. Come down off your high-horse.

By excluding (2), you are ignoring the fact that this is how evolution occurs most (all?) of the time and are instead demanding that evolution take on some sort of intentionality. Spontaneous mutations occur all of the time. You select from that pool of mutations, generally. The fact they are pre-existing to the selection pressure means nothing; do you really expect them to come about after you have already killed off the entire lot of individuals?

I understand this. However, a "creationist," for example, could argue that all the variation that exists in a population and is used by natural selection, has always existed. In fact what I am asking in the second point, is for proof that spontaneous mutations are, in fact, occurring all the time and the variation that exists has not always existed. How do you know that mutation is occurring all the time? Because variation exists? But maybe that variation has always existed? In order to prove that something is changing you have to show that the variation was not there before, and now it is. Understand?

Can this be shown?

meelash

06-28-2007, 10:28 AM

Of course we are at the center of OUR observation, how can we not be????

For the folks 3000 Lightyears away they are also at the center of their observation.

What was your mother smoking during pregnancy?
Now here is another little discovery: Smoking during pregnancy causes mental defects in children. This is prove that chemicals greatly influence development or does doG alter the genes of smoking mothers as punishment, oh wait the children didn't really do anything, oh wait I am getting confused, oh it's pre emptive punishment, oh no that's wrong too, it's punishment of the unborn to make the mother feel bad when it's obvious that she doesn't give a shit, oh no wait the designer decided to introduce nicotine addiction into the mother so she can have genetically alter children who can withstand massive amount of cigarettes in order create more health care costs, oh no that doesn't make any sense either, it must be that the intelligent designer forgot to take his meds and couldn't get a stiffy, oh no that seems not plausible, ...

Anyhow, I am related to the first cell to ever live on this planet and I am very happy about that and extremely proud of it. If you were intelligently designed I can only feel very sorry for you. I can still evolve and my children can be brighter than me, adapt to new challenges and discover more about evolution because there is so much more to discover, yours are always going to be dimwitted retards who are being told stories about a gargantuan Joe from nowhere who simply snaps his fingers and then there was light. That does not take a lot of brains, just like living in paradise.
You are making less and less sense every time you post something. Smoking during pregnancy causes mental defects in the child because it is poisoning the fetus and depriving it of oxygen. It has nothing whatsoever to do with altering genes, mutation, evolution or any of the topics being discussed here. Such children, provided they are not rendered sterile by said poisoning, can have perfectly normal children of their own.

I can't believe you just used this example to try to establish mutations due to chemical influence. It is beyond ludicrous. It's as if I stabbed a fetus in the eye with a knife and claimed that physical factors can alter genetic development since the child was born with only one working eye. Please try and think about what you are posting before blurting out these inane rants. It would really add to the level of discussion here. thanks.

hardeeharhar

06-28-2007, 10:32 AM

Yes. It can be shown. It has been shown. See the ames mutagenesis test used to determine if compounds are mutagenenic and HIV as classic examples. See any number of teratogens (ones that actually do affect the genetics of the offspring or the ability of the offspring to reproduce classically (dna segregation and all that)); see Hunington's disease. But if you actually read anything about this subject you would understand this -- polymerases, those not so little proteins responsible for copying DNA aren't perfect and this has been KNOWN for DECADES.

Regardless, a creationist can set the goal post wherever he wants, he is looking to fit the data to his theory, as such any such goal post setting is a task in non-scientific banter. A true distraction from that fact that creationism is an empty explanation.

I still think you are a disingenous idiot.

jamac

06-28-2007, 11:00 AM

You are making less and less sense every time you post something. Smoking during pregnancy causes mental defects in the child because it is poisoning the fetus and depriving it of oxygen. It has nothing whatsoever to do with altering genes, mutation, evolution or any of the topics being discussed here. Such children, provided they are not rendered sterile by said poisoning, can have perfectly normal children of their own.

I can't believe you just used this example to try to establish mutations due to chemical influence. It is beyond ludicrous. It's as if I stabbed a fetus in the eye with a knife and claimed that physical factors can alter genetic development since the child was born with only one working eye. Please try and think about what you are posting before blurting out these inane rants. It would really add to the level of discussion here. thanks.

Thank you for making my point.

Environmental influences do greatly influence development of living organisms. Your comparison with eye stabbing is not valid. (BTW corneas can be fixed) .

Let' s see: A fetus is gestated in 0 gravity. It's body will dissolve it's bones because bones can only develop when gravity pulls on the body. The fetus will have no need for a scull or bones in it's extremeties. Mutation caused by environmental influence that is pretty much immediate and permanent. This also happens to the body of astronauts who need to undergo exercises to prevent massive irreversible bone loss in space.
Children of individuals without bones will most likely have no bones. After just a few generations their DNA will change to no longer even include information about bones.
Just like creationists children will soon be born without brains.

meelash

06-28-2007, 11:22 AM

Children of individuals without bones will most likely have no bones. After just a few generations their DNA will change to no longer even include information about bones.

Lamarck anyone? Lamarckian evolution was discredited a long time ago. Has it made a comeback while I wasn't paying attention?

jamac

06-28-2007, 11:51 AM

..... while I wasn't paying attention?

At least we now know what your trouble is. You can send your check to me for your psychiatric evaluation or pay via paypal, what do you prefer?

hardeeharhar

06-28-2007, 11:54 AM

jamac, you really aren't helping your cause.

while meelash is clearly playing games here -- he has doggedly pursued you because your arguments are the weakest -- you should stop providing him fodder for continued harassment.

Lamarck anyone? Lamarckian evolution was discredited a long time ago. Has it made a comeback while I wasn't paying attention?

and meelash, anyone who knows the term Lamarck is lying when they say they don't know anything about evolution. so just stop.

jamac

06-28-2007, 12:06 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCVzz96zKA0

Flounder

06-28-2007, 12:33 PM

You are making less and less sense every time you post something. Smoking during pregnancy causes mental defects in the child because it is poisoning the fetus and depriving it of oxygen. It has nothing whatsoever to do with altering genes, mutation, evolution or any of the topics being discussed here. Such children, provided they are not rendered sterile by said poisoning, can have perfectly normal children of their own.

Wow, that is so wrong I don't even know where to begin. You're treating genes and environment like they got in trouble in class so the teacher makes them sit 4 rows apart.

Genes and environmental factors (such as tobacco smoke) interact in a incredibly complex tapestry. Smoking during pregnancy will have differing effects upon a child depending upon the child's genotype, the mother's genotype, and a whole host of other gene-environment / gene-gene interactions.

For instance, smoking during pregnancy by the mother is a risk factor for asthma. That risk can be ameliorated or exacerbated depending upon the genotype of the child.

Smoking during pregnancy is also a risk factor for orofacial clefts. This risk has been shown in studies to be modified by detoxification gene variants in the child as well as in the mother.

Those are just off the top of my head.........

southside grabowski

06-28-2007, 05:03 PM

Who are you?

:err:

The Common Man

thuh Freak

06-28-2007, 11:10 PM

Must be one of them born agains or something...

meelash

07-01-2007, 07:38 AM

As in, it who is it is?

Hopefully, you intended for this "sentence" to be unintelligible.

doG has a soul, given to doG by doG? So doG made doG? I thought only humans had souls, heaven, limbo, and hell sound like pretty boring things, no space, no time, no matter, no energy, no pets, no entertainment, can't see, can't hear, can't taste, can't feel, can't smell, Those in heaven (limbo, hell, et. al) are just twiddling there souls for all of eternity.

You'd think that those who have heard doG here on Earth, would have got around to asking such obvious questions. Eternal happiness you say, wow doG must have some major drugs to keep them all happy for all of eternity. dog is an eternal drug lord! :err:

Does doG ever do any soul searching within itself? Perhaps goG is already in hell, considering the things he has purportedly done.

hmmm...:???::???::???: h'Okaaay.....

All three together, wow. Now where did goG run off to, probably searching for its soul? What is existence wrt doG?

But the universe has no outside.

How would you know that the universe hasn't an outside? The universe as we know it, is a collection of matter (and/or energy) that obeys certain physical laws, relating to mass, forces, etc. Anything in existence which does not obey those physical laws would be completely undetectable by the physical human body which is itself composed of matter and thus bound by those same physical constraints.

That was an oxymoron to be sure. Just a bunch of souls, doing whatever souls do, in timeless (and spaceless and massless and energyless) eternity.

Just because there is not mass and space and energy in the terms that we are familiar with, does not mean that there is nothing. There may be other constructs of existence more suited for manipulation by souls. After all, a soul would probably be pretty useless at manipulating physical objects in this universe.

Obviously doG can be anywhere doG wants if doG so chooses, after all it is doG we are talking about isn't it?

Not true. God does whatever he wants, but he only does God-ly things which behoove his being.

Well basically, if doG does interact with us it's through our physical universe, otherwise doG could not interact with our physical universe (e. g. Jesus).

Okay. (RE: Jesus, see below.)

Actually for the vast majority of followers, a physical interpretation is necessary to solidify their beliefs.

Not true. The religion with the most followers in the world forbids any physical interpretation of God.

Jesus?

Just a man. A special man (a Man among men, so to speak), but just a man. He says so himself.

meelash

07-01-2007, 08:09 AM

jamac, you really aren't helping your cause.

Seriously. People like you are hurting the case of "evolutionists" everywhere. You clearly don't even have an elementary understanding of modern evolutionary theory and yet you insist on attacking "disbelievers" with your "logic." Why? Have you got some belief system that depends on evolution as its basis?

while meelash is clearly playing games here -- he has doggedly pursued you because your arguments are the weakest -- you should stop providing him fodder for continued harassment.

Actually, I think you can see that I've done my best to answer everyone who's made a comment with regard to one of my posts, even franksargent whose posts, as you can see, are fairly irrelevant and often insulting. I have begun considering just ignoring the blind followers like Jamac and Flounder who clearly know even less than I about evolution, but I was worried they might think that they've "stumped" me or something. I will admit that his arguments were the easiest to shoot down.:smokey::smokey:

and meelash, anyone who knows the term Lamarck is lying when they say they don't know anything about evolution. so just stop.

:rolleyes: Would you relax?

I don't think I've stated explicitly that I know nothing about evolution and I certainly didn't intend to imply that. Instead, in response to assertions by several early on (I don't remember if you were one of them?) that people who don't agree with evolution are just unlearned and haven't really understood it, or studied biology, etc., I intended to point out that I am indeed, guilty as charged, a layman with little to no formal education in the field. I was hoping to be able to ask critical questions, without being attacked by the evolution-istas as I've seen happen many times before for questioning the great wisdom of thousands of scientists. Unfortunately, it didn't work well, as you decided that I was trying to bait you into a trap or something. On the other hand, I feel we did get somewhere, and I did learn something from your last post, so, if you're willing I'd like to continue the discussion? :D I just feel it's much more productive for everyone, if it doesn't become a mud-slinging debate as it was earlier in the thread; in fact, your last post, which I looked up, forced me to reconsider the veracity of some of my reading on the subject, which is a very good thing IMO.

Just for your peace of mind:

DISCLAIMER

My parents are both biologists (my dad's a PhD). Obviously, it didn't wear off on me, as I'm a mechanical engineer, although they did pass on a love of the natural world, and natural curiosity about these matters. I haven't taken a biology course since honors biology in High School, which was a total joke. I think we learned to use a microscope and built models of DNA or something. I took a Chemistry w/ application to Biosystems course in undergrad but it was more a chemistry course than anything else. As such, most of my knowledge about the issues involved in this debate comes from outside reading ( I will admit, at great risk of scorn, to having read a book on evolution by a creationist) and casual (well, sometimes they get a little heated) conversations with my dad. To the best of my knowledge, that is the extent of my education on the subject.

meelash

07-01-2007, 08:11 AM

Must be one of them born agains or something...
Talkin' about me? How insulting!

(not that born agains are not good people, they're usually very sincere and genuinely nice, but the premises of their beliefs seem to me to be frankly, quite ridiculous. No offense intended)

franksargent

07-01-2007, 08:54 AM

Hopefully, you intended for this "sentence" to be unintelligible.

hmmm...:???::???::???: h'Okaaay.....

How would you know that the universe hasn't an outside? The universe as we know it, is a collection of matter (and/or energy) that obeys certain physical laws, relating to mass, forces, etc. Anything in existence which does not obey those physical laws would be completely undetectable by the physical human body which is itself composed of matter and thus bound by those same physical constraints.

Just because there is not mass and space and energy in the terms that we are familiar with, does not mean that there is nothing. There may be other constructs of existence more suited for manipulation by souls. After all, a soul would probably be pretty useless at manipulating physical objects in this universe.

Not true. God does whatever he wants, but he only does God-ly things which behoove his being.

Okay. (RE: Jesus, see below.)

Not true. The religion with the most followers in the world forbids any physical interpretation of God.

Just a man. A special man (a Man among men, so to speak), but just a man. He says so himself.

It just is. It is? Yes! :\.

franksargent

07-01-2007, 09:12 AM

Seriously. People like you are hurting the case of "evolutionists" everywhere. You clearly don't even have an elementary understanding of modern evolutionary theory and yet you insist on attacking "disbelievers" with your "logic." Why? Have you got some belief system that depends on evolution as its basis?

Actually, I think you can see that I've done my best to answer everyone who's made a comment with regard to one of my posts, even franksargent whose posts, as you can see, are fairly irreverent and often sardonic. I have begun considering just ignoring the blind followers like Jamac and Flounder who clearly know even less than I about evolution, but I was worried they might think that they've "stumped" me or something. I will admit that his arguments were the easiest to shoot down.:smokey::smokey:

:rolleyes: Would you relax?

I don't think I've stated explicitly that I know nothing about evolution and I certainly didn't intend to imply that. Instead, in response to assertions by several early on (I don't remember if you were one of them?) that people who don't agree with evolution are just unlearned and haven't really understood it, or studied biology, etc., I intended to point out that I am indeed, guilty as charged, a layman with little to no formal education in the field. I was hoping to be able to ask critical questions, without being attacked by the evolution-istas as I've seen happen many times before for questioning the great wisdom of thousands of scientists. Unfortunately, it didn't work well, as you decided that I was trying to bait you into a trap or something. On the other hand, I feel we did get somewhere, and I did learn something from your last post, so, if you're willing I'd like to continue the discussion? :D I just feel it's much more productive for everyone, if it doesn't become a mud-slinging debate as it was earlier in the thread; in fact, your last post, which I looked up, forced me to reconsider the veracity of some of my reading on the subject, which is a very good thing IMO.

Just for your peace of mind:

DISCLAIMER

My parents are both biologists (my dad's a PhD). Obviously, it didn't wear off on me, as I'm a mechanical engineer, although they did pass on a love of the natural world, and natural curiosity about these matters. I haven't taken a biology course since honors biology in High School, which was a total joke. I think we learned to use a microscope and built models of DNA or something. I took a Chemistry w/ application to Biosystems course in undergrad but it was more a chemistry course than anything else. As such, most of my knowledge about the issues involved in this debate comes from outside reading ( I will admit, at great risk of scorn, to having read a book on evolution by a creationist) and casual (well, sometimes they get a little heated) conversations with my dad. To the best of my knowledge, that is the extent of my education on the subject.

Are we all talking here about the real or the imaginary?

I'd prefer to keep it real, what is versus whatever.

PS - It is good that you found your way! :)