Common descent- explain the DIFFERENCES

Nested hierarchies are alleged evidence for common descent. However one would also expect nested hierarchies in a common design scenario. Common being the operative word. Army ranks form a nested hierarchy without any requirement of troop relationship.

So in order for common descent to separate itself from common design it needs to explain the differences. It pretends to do so with the "decent with modification" motif, but that only explains minor variations of an already existing body plan. And from observations we know that those variations oscillate- the beak of the finch is a prime example.

Yet all we know about organisms and their body plans is summed up nicely:

What makes a fly a fly? In his book (English title) “Why is a Fly not a Horse?”, the prominent Italian geneticist Giuseppe Sermonti, tells us the following:

Chapter VI “Why is a Fly not a horse?” (same as the book’s title)

”The scientist enjoys a privilege denied the theologian. To any question, even one central to his theories, he may reply “I’m sorry but I do not know.” This is the only honest answer to the question posed by the title of this chapter. We are fully aware of what makes a flower red rather than white, what it is that prevents a dwarf from growing taller, or what goes wrong in a paraplegic or a thalassemic. But the mystery of species eludes us, and we have made no progress beyond what we already have long known, namely, that a kitty is born because its mother was a she-cat that mated with a tom, and that a fly emerges as a fly larva from a fly egg.”

I would even say that common descent, as in all of life's diversity owing its collective common ancestry to some unknown population(s) of single-celled organisms, cannot be tested. To date the only "tests" we have assume coomon descent and then show what is thought to be confirming evidence. What is needed is to test that assumption. But in light of what Dr Sermonti tells us there isn't any objective way to do that.

For example the only reason we "know" that mutations can allow for upright, bipedal walking is because humans have that ability and other primates do not. And we "know" we evolved from some non-human primate. However that is about the most stupid way to present a case. But I digress.

So here is the chance for Zachriel or any other evo to ante up. The following site demonstrates the differences between humans & chimps. Take one and explain the mutations which allowed/ afforded the differences and you may be on to something scientific:

Chimps become Human?

"Non-random survival"?

In a couple threads Thought Provoker provided the following quote from Richard Dawkins:

"Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators."

What is "non-random survival"? Even Charles Darwin understood the "importance" chance plays in survival. Accidents happen. Random events occur in nature. So what is Dawkins talking about?

The Strength of Natural Selection in the Wild:

Natural selection disappears as a biological force and reappears as a statistical artifact. The change is not trivial. It is one thing to say that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution; it is quite another thing to say that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of various regression correlations between quantitative characteristics. It hardly appears obvious that if natural selection is simply a matter of correlations established between quantitative traits, that Darwin’s theory has any content beyond the phenomenological, and in the most obvious sense, is no theory at all.
Be that as it may, the real burden of Kingsolver’s study lies in the quantitative conclusions it reaches. Two correlations are at issue. The first is linear, and corresponds to what in population genetics is called directional selection; and the second quadratic, and corresponds either to stabilizing or disruptive selection. These are the cornerstones of the modern hill and valley model of much of mathematical population genetics. Kingsolver reported a median absolute value of 0.16 for linear selection, and a median absolute value of 0.10 for quadratic selection. Thus an increase of one standard deviation in, say, beak finch length, could be expected to change fitness by only 16 percent in the case of linear selection, and 10 percent in the case of quadratic selection. These figures are commonly understood to represent a very weak correlation. Thus if a change in the length of a beak’s finch by one standard deviation explains 16 percent of the change in the population’s fitness, 84 percent of the change is not explained by selection at all.

(bold added)


"Replicators"- Living organisms require much more than replication, which is an issue unto itself. To replicate a strand of DNA (or RNA) one requires nucleotides, which do not occur outside of living organisms. Many nucleotides are required and in four flavors. But not only is replication required but the same strand that replicates also needs to provide functioning proteins and enzymes.

"A Briefer History of Time"

I have stated many times in this blog and several others that "supernatural" is irrelevant because every scenario "turtles down" to something outside/ beyond nature, ie the universe. That is because natural processes only exist in nature and therefore cannot account for it.

Zachriel has challenged that intelligent reasoning ;) by invoking Stephen Hawking. Knowing somthing of Dr. Hawking I responded by stating that his theory is also metaphysical in nature. However I based that on "A Brief History of Time" and many years had passed since I read it. Now Stephen, together with Leonard Mlodinow, has a (relatively) new book out titled "A Briefer History of Time".

So thinking that Zachriel may know something that I do not, I read the book. What does Dr. Hawking have to say?:

If there is no boundary to space-time, there is no need to specify the behavior at the boundary- no need to know the initial state of the universe. There is no edge of space-time at which we would have to appeal to God or some new law to set the boundary conditions for space-time. We could say: “The boundary condition for the universe is that it has no boundary.” The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside of itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE. As long as we believed the universe had a beginning, the role of the creator seemed clear. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, having neither beginning nor end, then the answer is not so obvious: what is the role of a creator?
-page 103, last paragraph of chapter 9 Quantum Gravity

(bold added)

"It would just BE." (caps in the original) That is what he said. However it IS expanding. Or should that read "It BE expanding"? 2 plus 2 BE 4.

The point BEing that if it is expanding it had a starting point.

As for any "role" of a "creator" he answers that- the four forces- gravity (the weakest); electromagnetic; weak nuclear; and strong nuclear. Then there is information and life to round out the group. But that is beside the point.

So is it just me or does even the "It would just BE" scenario have METAPHYSICAL stamped on it?

The Blind Watchmaker thesis

"The Blind Watchmaker thesis"- evolution #6-

The meanings of evolution, from "Darwinism, Design and Public Education":

1. Change over time; history of nature; any sequence of events in nature
2. Changes in the frequencies of alleles in the gene pool of a population
3. Limited common descent: the idea that particular groups of organisms have descended from a common ancestor.
4. The mechanisms responsible for the change required to produce limited descent with modification, chiefly natural selection acting on random variations or mutations.
5. Universal common descent: the idea that all organisms have descended from a single common ancestor.
6. “Blind watchmaker” thesis: the idea that all organisms have descended from common ancestors solely through an unguided, unintelligent, purposeless, material processes such as natural selection acting on random variations or mutations; that the mechanisms of natural selection, random variation and mutation, and perhaps other similarly naturalistic mechanisms, are completely sufficient to account for the appearance of design in living organisms.

-was put forth by Richard Dawkins, a noted evolutionist. His thesis was/ is supported by many scientists, including many evolutionary biologists, for example Crick. In the book "Darwinism, Design and Public Education", Massimo Pigliucci and William Provine, both evolutionists and both biologists, have chapters that agree with it. Ernst Mayr, in "What Evolution Is", makes it clear that teleology is NOT allowed. PZ Meyers, evolutionist and biologist, is in agreement with the blind watchmaker thesis. Then there are the 38 Nobel laureates...

"Logically derived from confirmable evidence, evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection."

... who although they didn't win their respective Nobel in biology, to even suggest they don't understand the subject defies reasoning, especially in the absence of an explanation- other than "they aren't evolutionary biologists" (neither was Darwin).

It is obvious that the blind watchmaker thesis is NOT an opponents construct. That the Thought Provoker has said this on a few occasions makes me wonder what he is trying to provoke. Oh well.

Also if one disagrees with evolution #6, what exactly, is your position/ how does it contrast with ID?

Especially seeing that there are only 3 options to our existence:

1) Unintelligent, blind/ undirecetd (non-goal oriented) processes
2) Intelligent, directed (goal oriented) process
3) A combination of 1 & 2

Biological evolution- what is being debated revisited

Bringing this up top for Thought Provoker:

Evolution has several meanings. The meanings of evolution, from Darwinism, Design and Public Education:

1. Change over time; history of nature; any sequence of events in nature
2. Changes in the frequencies of alleles in the gene pool of a population
3. Limited common descent: the idea that particular groups of organisms have descended from a common ancestor.
4. The mechanisms responsible for the change required to produce limited descent with modification, chiefly natural selection acting on random variations or mutations.
5. Universal common descent: the idea that all organisms have descended from a single common ancestor.
6. “Blind watchmaker” thesis: the idea that all organisms have descended from common ancestors solely through an unguided, unintelligent, purposeless, material processes such as natural selection acting on random variations or mutations; that the mechanisms of natural selection, random variation and mutation, and perhaps other similarly naturalistic mechanisms, are completely sufficient to account for the appearance of design in living organisms.


The debate isn't as black & white as saying it is evo #6 against IDists, Creationists and theistic evolutionists. However it is obvious that evo #6 is what is being debated.

(Theistic evolutionists are a different breed. They don't seem to acknowledge that evo #6 is what is being taught in our public school system. And therefore don't appear to understand the issue. The TE's I have debated with tell me that humans were an intended outcome of the evolutionary process, which is OK for evo #5 but defies evo #6. IOW TE's are closet IDists.)

Creationists go with 1-4 (above), with the change in 4 being built-in responses to environmental cues or organism direction as the primary mechanism, for allele frequency change, culled by various selection processes (as well as random effects/ events/ choice of not to mate/ unable to find a mate). The secondary mechanism would be random variations or mutations culled by similar processes. IOW life’s diversity evolved from the originally Created Kind, humans included. Science should therefore be the tool/ process with which we determine what those kinds were.

With Creation vs. "Evolution #6" the 4 main debating points are clear:

1) The starting point of the evolutionary process. (What was (were) the founding population(s)?)
2) The phenotypic & morphological plasticity allowed/ extent the evolutionary process can take a population (do limits exist?).
3) The apparent direction the evolutionary process took to form the history of life. (ie from "simpler" bacteria-like organisms to complex metazoans)
4) The mechanism for the evolutionary process.

With ID vs. Evo #6 it is mainly about the mechanism- IDists go with evolution 1-5, with the Creation change to 4 plus the following caveat in 5: Life’s diversity was brought about via the intent of a design. The initial conditions, parameters, resources and goal was pre-programmed as part of an evolutionary algorithm designed to bring forth complex metazoans, as well as leave behind the more “simple” viruses, prokaryotes and single-celled eukaryotes.

IDists understand that if life didn't arise from non-living matter via some blind watchmaker-type process, there is no reason to infer its subsequent diversity arose soley due to those type of processes (point 1 up top).

What does the data say? Well there isn't any data that demonstrates bacteria can "evolve" into anything but bacteria. Therefore anyone who accepts evolution 5 or 6 has some splaining to do. Preferably splainations with scientific merit.

Throwing time at an issue does not splain anything:

Extrapolating from small change

If one desires to extrapolate small changes into large changes by simply adding time, one requires independent evidence to justify this move. The problem is that we really don't know how evolution occurs. And when talking about the evolution of the mammalian middle ear bones, we should not forget that we are still basically in the dark in trying to explain how both a mammalian and reptilian zygote actually develops the middle ear and jaw bones, respectively. Without this knowledge, attempts to explain such a transition as a function of a series of small, incremental changes stretched across time are rooted in ignorance. That is, we don't truly understand neither the process of development nor the process of evolution and without such knowledge, there is no reason to think we are on safe ground when employing (1).

Attempts to justify this move by appealing to the use of (1) in astronomy and geology fail because biotic complexity differs in both structure and formation.

One may assume (1) to explain evolutionary change as a working hypothesis, but we should keep in mind that large changes in evolution are basically a "black box" and a series of small incremental changes may play only a trivial, fine-tuning role in any transition (there is no evidence to think otherwise). What's more, bacteria, as the predominant life forms on this planet, which have experience the most evolution of all life forms, tell us clearly that (1) need not apply to biological evolution.

In the end, appeals to small change + deep time are embraced merely as a matter of convenience, as it happens to be the primary way we can think about evolution at a time when we are just starting to come to grips with it. As we begin to better understand the process of evolution, I predict (1) will one day be viewed as a quaint understanding that served mostly to highlight just how much we didn't understand evolution.

However Father Time, Mother Nature and some still unknown natural process does make for an interesting trinity...

What is science?

What is science?

The 2004 Encyclopedia Britannica says science is “any system of knowledge that is concerned with the physical world and its phenomena and that entails unbiased observations and systematic experimentation. In general, a science involves a pursuit of knowledge covering general truths or the operations of fundamental laws.”

“A healthy science is a science that seeks the truth.” Paul Nelson, Ph. D., philosophy of biology.

Linus Pauling, winner of 2 Nobel prizes wrote, “Science is the search for the truth.”

“But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding.” Albert Einstein

The truth need not be an absolute truth. Truth in the sense that Drs. Pauling, Einstein & Nelson are speaking is the reality in which we find ourselves. We exist. Science is to help us understand that existence and how it came to be.

As I like to say- science is our search for the truth, i.e. the reality, to our existence via our never-ending quest for knowledge.

So how do we do that? We use our senses. We make observations. We try to figure things out, i.e. we try to understand what we observe and/ or sense. This “thing” we are trying to understand could be an object, event, structure or phenomena. (I used to think that we were the only animals on this planet that did so, i.e. tried to understand the things around us, but with first-hand observations of what indigenous wild-life do preceding an impending natural disaster common to that area, it appears that some other animals have already come to an understanding. But anyway…)

We formulate an idea as to how it works and we devise a way to test that idea. If successful we have others check our work. If they like it, it gets published. However not getting published is not a falsification or refutation of the idea or the data.

How do we test an idea? We break it down into something that is measure-able. In industry this is done via DMAIC- Define (the customer’s requirements), (Figure out how to) Measure (them); Analyze (the requirements and measuring systems); Improve (the process to reach the goal); Control (the process).

In science we define what it is we are observing. Rocks, life, populations or individual organisms, planets, stars, motion, falling, abruptly stopping, etc.
Can this observation be measured? If not how can we qualify our inference or conclusion? (This is where we figure out a way to test our inference.)
Analyze all work to date for errors and/ or improvements.
Initiate or improve a process to reach the desired goal. In science the desired goal would be to understand what it is we are observing, i.e. what we had previously defined.
Then you control that process. Documentation at each step is key throughout the process and will facilitate the controlling of said process.

Once you have completed the above and feel you have an understanding, you have others who are qualified check your work. That is why documentation is key.


From the NCSE linked to U Berkley website on Evolution:

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/nature/index.shtml

“Science is a particular way of understanding the natural world. It extends the intrinsic curiosity with which we are born. It allows us to connect the past with the present,… (references a picture)”

It continues:

“Science is based on the premise that our senses, and extensions of those senses through the use of instruments, can give us accurate information about the Universe. Science follows very specific "rules" and its results are always subject to testing and, if necessary, revision. Even with such constraints science does not exclude, and often benefits from, creativity and imagination (with a good bit of logic thrown in).”

What anti-IDists try to do is to either re-define science to only include “natural” processes, as if intelligent causes are non-natural, or try to tie ID to the supernatural. They think that if ID is tied to the supernatural then it has violated some arbitrary rule of science. Either that or they try to hold ID to some other arbitrary rules of science, never thinking that the reigning paradigm has no chance of meeting those same standards.

The origin of nature could not have occured via natural processes as natural processes only exist in nature.

However even though misguided that tactic is of no relevance:

In any case, as Thomas Kuhn pointed out, debate about methodological rules of science often forms part of the practice of science, especially during times
when established paradigms are being challenged. Those who reject the "teach the controversy" model on the grounds that ID violates the current rules of scientific practice only beg the question. The present regime of methodological rules cannot prevent the controversy for the simple reason that those rules may themselves be one of the subjects of scientific controversy.-- page xxv of Darwinism, Design and Public Education

It should also be noted that just because something is conceivable, that does not also make it possible. IOW just because the “collision theory” is the best conceivable naturalistic explanation for the formation of the Earth-Moon system, does not mean that such a scenario is even possible.

More on the rules of science:

In 1981 there was a Court case (McLean v. Arkansas) involving Creation. In it Michael Ruse testified for a theory to be scientific it must be:
guided by natural law
explanatory by natural law
testable against the empirical world
tentative in its conclusions
falsifiable

The contradictions are numerous:
Is the origin of life explained by natural law? No. Is all of life’s diversity owing its collective common ancestry to some unknown population of single-celled organisms via common descent/ descent with modification explained by natural law? No. Is the origin of nature explained by natural law? No. The origin of nature, by definition, could not have been guided by natural law. And yes, what about the origins of those natural laws?
How do we falsify the notion that the evolution of cetaceans from land animals proceeded via natural selection acting on random variations caused by random genetic mutations?

”As a result of such contradictions *, most contemporary philosophers of science have come to regard the question “What distinguishes science from nonscience?” as both intractable and uninteresting. Instead, philosophers of science have increasingly realized that the real issue is not whether a theory is “scientific” according to some abstract definition but whether a theory is true- that is, based on evidence. As Laudan explains, “If we would stand up and be counted on the side of reason, we ought to drop terms like ‘pseudo-science’…they…do only emotive work for us.” As Martin Eger summarized,”[d]emarcation arguments have collapsed. Philosophers of science don’t hold them anymore. They may still enjoy acceptance in the popular world, but that is a different world." “-- Ibid pg. 77 *discussing the contradictions in Ruse’s 1981 falsifiability criteria.

The bottom line is the evidence from which IDists infer ID exists in the physical world and is observable. IOW it is the same DNA, life, Earth, solar system, etc., that all scientists and non-scientists observe, research or hear about. I will discuss the evidence below.

On science & the supernatural:

”It is often said that science must avoid any conclusions which smack of the supernatural. But this seems to me to be both bad logic and bad science. Science is not a game in which arbitrary rules are used to decide what explanations are to be permitted. Rather, it is an effort to make true statements about physical reality. It was only about sixty years ago that the expansion of the universe was first observed. This fact immediately suggested a singular event-that at some time in the distant past the universe began expanding from an extremely small size.

To many people this inference was loaded with overtones of a supernatural event-the creation, the beginning of the universe. The prominent physicist A.S. Eddington probably spoke for many physicists in voicing his disgust with such a notion:

“Philosophically, the notion of an abrupt beginning to the present order of Nature is repugnant to me, as I think it must be to most; and even those who would welcome a proof of the intervention of a Creator will probably consider that a single winding-up at some remote epoch is not really the kind of relation between God and his world that brings satisfaction to the mind”.” (Dr. Behe)

Even though what Dr. Behe is saying makes it obvious that a priori exclusion is not the scientific way, it hides the fact that all “first-cause” scenarios require something non or super natural. If it is true that everything which has a beginning requires a cause, then seeing science has told us the universe, i.e. nature, had a beginning, it also had a cause. Nature by definition could not have originated via natural processes because natural processes exist only in nature.

It also shows that there is still more work to be done even once an initial cause/state has been determined.

The point being, of course, is that it all “turtles-down” to something beyond nature/ beyond the universe. Even positing multi-verses does not get around the origins issues. And just as Ockham’s Razor would favor one designed universe over a universe constructed from unintelligent, blind/ undirected processes, Ockham’s Razor would favor one designed universe over a multi-verse, and also metaphysical, explanation.

What the above demonstrates is that one cannot define ID out of science without doing the same to any anti-ID position.

Yet we exist. The verse we live in exists and since it is the only observable verse we have labeled it the universe. If the multi-verse hypothesis is held to the same standards as ID it has to be able to tell us, at a minimum, how many verses there are, where those verses exist and what number we live in. But anyway, we exist. What are the options to our existence?

1) Unintelligent, blind/ undirected (non-goal oriented) processes
2) Intelligent, directed (goal oriented) processes
3) A combination of 1 & 2

(If other options exist I would love to hear about them so they too can be discussed.)

Only option 1 excludes the design inference.

The motives of IDists are clear- we want to know the truth, i.e. the reality, behind our existence. If that reality, i.e. the evidence, leads us to the metaphysical then so be it. We explain the evidence and we don’t have to explain the metaphysical to do so.

The great scientist Max Planck said the following during his Nobel Prize acceptance speech:

"All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this minute solar system of the atom together . . . . We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind."

Years of scientific research were the root cause of that statement.

What is evolution?

"Evolution" has several meanings:

The meanings of evolution, from "Darwinism, Design and Public Education"-

1. Change over time; history of nature; any sequence of events in nature
2. Changes in the frequencies of alleles in the gene pool of a population
3. Limited common descent: the idea that particular groups of organisms have descended from a common ancestor.
4. The mechanisms responsible for the change required to produce limited descent with modification, chiefly natural selection acting on random variations or mutations.
5. Universal common descent: the idea that all organisms have descended from a single common ancestor.
6. “Blind watchmaker” thesis: the idea that all organisms have descended from common ancestors solely through an unguided, unintelligent, purposeless, material processes such as natural selection acting on random variations or mutations; that the mechanisms of natural selection, random variation and mutation, and perhaps other similarly naturalistic mechanisms, are completely sufficient to account for the appearance of design in living organisms.

"Darwinism, Design and Public Education" is not just a pro-ID book. It contains several essays from pro-IDists and several from ID critics and anti-IDists. They also reviewed the pro-ID essays before the book was published. Richard Dawkins gave us "the blind watchmaker thesis" which is supported by at least 38 Nobel laureates:

"Logically derived from confirmable evidence, evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection."

ID is NOT anti-evolution, ID only argues against evolution #6.

A deal for Zachriel (or any anti-IDist)

Seeing that want an IDist to tell you about the designer and the process(es) used I will make a deal with you.


When you tell us what mutations were responsible for differences we see between chimps and humans I will tell you everything that I have found out about the designer and the process(es). But until you do I suggest you hold off on continuing your the double-standards.

To refuse this deal will be to expose your intellectual cowardice. You will not be able to post to any other thread until you accept this deal- unless you refuse this deal by admitting your request is illogical and unreasonable.

This is NOT an unusual request. Evolutionitwits have had many decades to figure out what mutations caused what changes. And yet today after all those years of alleged scientific investigation they cannot even tell us whether or not mutations can allow for the changes required if all of life's diversity owed its collective common ancestry to some unknown population(s) of single-celled organisms (that just happened to have the ability to asexually reproduce).

Yet they expect IDists to have all the answers before ID will be accepted. Even answers to questions that are irrelevant to ID.

Just what can one say about the Wright brothers just by studying the airplanes & jets of today? Just what can one determine about the process the Wright brothers used just by studying the airplanes & jets of today?

How Archaeologists detect design (for Steve V)

Artifact

However Steve may have an issue with the word used- work. Work in this sense is the same as counterflow.

The materialistic alternative to Intelligent Design?

The materialistic alternative to ID is no more than "sheer-dumb-luck" through-n-through. One of the best examples of this is none other than our Earth/ Moon system.

The way the anti-ID scenario has that forming is by a collision of two planetary bodies- the proto-Earth and a "Mars-sized" body not yet locked into a nice orbit (as the planets in our solar system are now). IOW this is "sheer-dumb-luck" at its finest.

And even starting out- the laws that govern nature AND the constants they contain had to have formed/ arisen via "sheer-dumb-luck".

Now the honest thing to do is present this fact to the students. I personally would love to see their faces after they are told that and then informed of the following:

“There is a final, even more bizarre twist. Because of Moon-induced tides, the Moon is gradually receding from Earth at 3.82 centimeters per year. In ten million years will seem noticeably smaller. At the same time, the Sun’s apparent girth has been swelling by six centimeters per year for ages, as is normal in stellar evolution. These two processes, working together, should end total solar eclipses in about 250 million years, a mere 5 percent of the age of the Earth. This relatively small window of opportunity also happens to coincide with the existence of intelligent life. Put another way, the most habitable place in the Solar System yields the best view of solar eclipses just when observers can best appreciate them.”

However students will never learn this because of the dishonest deceptive tactics used by anti-IDists...