Tiktaalik- why it is a failed prediction

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Tiktaalik is still being used as a successful prediction of something. I know it was supposed to be a successful prediction of universal common descent because it is A) Allegedly a transitional form between fish and tetrapods and B) It was found in the "correct" strata because allegedly no evidence of tetrapods before 385 million yeqars ago- plenty of fish though and plenty of evidence for tetrapods around 365 million years ago- Tiktaalik was allegedly found in strata about 375 million years old- Shubin said that is the strata he looked in because of the 365-385 range already bracketed by existing data.

The thinking was tetrapods existed 365 mya and fish existed 385 mya, so the transition happened sometime in that 20 million years.

Sounds very reasonable. And when they looked they found Tiktaalik and all was good.

Then along comes another find that put the earliest tetrapods back to over 390 million years ago.

Now had this find preceded Tiktaalik then Shubin et al. would not have been looking for the transitional after the transition had occurred- that doesn't make any sense. And that is why it is a failed prediction- the transition occurred some 25 million years before, Shubin et al., were looking in the wrong strata.

That said Tiktaalik is still an interesting find, something tha no on else had ever found and it adds to our knowledge base of organisms that once existed. But that is all it does.

Gary S. Hurd, Liar or Ignorant?

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Gary S. Hurd (Dr GH) has taken Philip Skell to task for his statements about the unimportance of Darwinism.

Philip Skell is talking about the premise that all living organisms owe their collective common ancestry to some unknown populations of prokaryotic-like organisms via accumulations of genetic accidents. The context is very important and Gary Hurd seems to be ignorant of that context. Either that or he is a liar- you decide.

First Gary sez that abiogenesis and the theory of evolution are independent. Well Gary that is bullshit. Ya see moron if living organisms did not arise from non-living matter via blind, undirected chemical processes then there would be no reason to infer the subsequent diversity arose solely via blind, undirected chemical processes. It is really very simple.

Next Gary brings up speciation. Again speciation isn't being debated (even YECs accept speciation) and no one knows if speciation occurs via accumulating genetic accidents. And the current theory of evolution posits that all genetic changes are errors/ mistakes/ accidents and these accumulate in a variety of ways.

Then Gary brings up whale evolution- again Gary there isn't any evidence for it occuring, never mind occuring via an accumulation of genetic accidents. IOW no one knows if the transformation from land mammal to fully aquatic cetacean is even possible- no way to test it without first assuming it.

And finally Gary chokes on antibiotic resistance. Ya see Gary bacterial resistance has nothing to do with the theory of evolution's grand claims and fits in perfectly with the Creationists' variation within a Kind.

So what we have is Gary S. Hurd equivocating like the little evotard he is.

Is Gary S. Hurd ignorant or a liar? Perhaps he is an ignorant liar.

It appears the theory of evolution is devoid of content = empty. The evidence for that is found in the following avoided questions:

1- How can we test the premise that the bacterial flagellum evolved in a population that never had one via an accumulation of genetic accidents?

2- How can we test the premise that fish evolved into land animals via an accumulation of genetic accidents?

3- How can we test the premise that reptiles evolved into mammals via an accumulation of genetic accidents?

Those are a few of the thousands questions evos need a testable hypothesis for.

So why are evos so afraid of those questions? I say it is because by attempting to answer them they will expose their position as the bullshit it is.

Darwin, Too Wrong to be Important

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Over on Uncommon Descent Nullasalus has an entry titled Darwin Too Important To Be Wrong. In that blog entry Nullasulas points out that evolutionitwits have a fit every time someone points out that Darwin was wrong about something.

But given that Darwin didn't know squat compared to what we now know it is a given he made mistakes along the way, ie he was going to be wrong on some things.

However it also could be that Darwin wasn't even wrong or even too wrong to be important:

The Scientist, Aug. 29, 2005

Why do we invoke Darwin?
Evolutionary theory contributes little to experimental biology

By Philip S. Skell

Darwin’s theory of evolution offers a sweeping explanation of the history of life, from the earliest microscopic organisms billions of years ago to all the plants and animals around us today. Much of the evidence that might have established the theory on an unshakable empirical foundation, however, remains lost in the distant past. For instance, Darwin hoped we would discover transitional precursors to the animal forms that appear abruptly in the Cambrian strata. Since then we have found many ancient fossils¬ – even exquisitely preserved soft-bodied creatures – but none are credible ancestors to the Cambrian animals.

Despite this and other difficulties, the modern form of Darwin’s theory has been raised to its present high status because it’s said to be the cornerstone of modern experimental biology. But is that correct? “While the great majority of biologists would probably agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky’s dictum that ‘nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution,’ most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas,” A. S. Wilkins, editor of the journal BioEssays, wrote in 2000.1 “Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one.”

I would tend to agree. Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming’s discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin’s theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No.

I also examined the outstanding biodiscoveries of the past century: the discovery of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions; improvements in food production and sanitation; the development of new surgeries; and others. I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin’s theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss.

In the peer-reviewed literature, the word “evolution” often occurs as a sort of coda to academic papers in experimental biology. Is the term integral or superfluous to the substance of these papers? To find out, I substituted for “evolution” some other word – “Buddhism,” “Aztec cosmology,” or even “creationism.” I found that the substitution never touched the paper’s core. This did not surprise me. From my conversations with leading researchers it had became clear that modern experimental biology gains its strength from the availability of new instruments and methodologies, not from an immersion in historical biology.

When I recently suggested this disconnect publicly, I was vigorously challenged. One person recalled my use of Wilkins and charged me with quote mining. The proof, supposedly, was in Wilkins’s subsequent paragraph:

"Yet, the marginality of evolutionary biology may be changing. More and more issues in biology, from diverse questions about human nature to the vulnerability of ecosystems, are increasingly seen as reflecting evolutionary events. A spate of popular books on evolution testifies to the development. If we are to fully understand these matters, however, we need to understand the processes of evolution that, ultimately, underlie them."

In reality, however, this passage illustrates my point. The efforts mentioned there are not experimental biology; they are attempts to explain already authenticated phenomena in Darwinian terms, things like human nature. Further, Darwinian explanations for such things are often too supple: Natural selection makes humans self-centered and aggressive – except when it makes them altruistic and peaceable. Or natural selection produces virile men who eagerly spread their seed¬ – except when it prefers men who are faithful protectors and providers. When an explanation is so supple that it can explain any behavior, it is difficult to test it experimentally, much less use it as a catalyst for scientific discovery.

Darwinian evolution¬ – whatever its other virtues – does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology. This becomes especially clear when we compare it with a heuristic framework such as the atomic model, which opens up structural chemistry and leads to advances in the synthesis of a multitude of new molecules of practical benefit.

None of this demonstrates that Darwinism is false. It does, however, mean that the claim that it is the cornerstone of modern experimental biology will be met with quiet skepticism from a growing number of scientists in fields where theories actually do serve as cornerstones for tangible breakthroughs.

Philip Skell (tvk@psu.edu) is Emeritus Evan Pugh Professor, The Pennsylvania State University, member, National Academy of Sciences, research contributions to Reactive Intermediates in Chemistry: Triplet/Singlet Carbenes, Free-Atom Reactions, Bridged and Optically Active Free Radicals, Reactions of Free Carbonium Ions, etc.

1. A.S. Wilkins, BioEssays 22, 1051(2000).

From The Scientist, Sept. 26, 2005

Philip Skell responds: My essay about Darwinism and modern experimental biology has stirred up a lively discussion, but the responses still provide no evidence that evolutionary theory is the cornerstone of experimental biology. Comparative physiology and comparative genomics have certainly been fruitful, but comparative biology originated before Darwin and owes nothing to his theory. Before the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859, comparative biology focused mainly on morphology, because physiology and biochemistry were in their infancy and genomics lay in the future; but the extension of a comparative approach to these sub-disciplines depended on the development of new methodologies and instruments, not on evolutionary theory and immersion in historical biology.

One letter mentions directed molecular evolution as a technique to discover antibodies, enzymes and drugs. Like comparative biology, this has certainly been fruitful, but it is not an application of Darwinian evolution — it is the modern molecular equivalent of classical breeding. Long before Darwin, breeders used artificial selection to develop improved strains of crops and livestock. Darwin extrapolated this in an attempt to explain the origin of new species, but he did not invent the process of artificial selection itself.

It is noteworthy that not one of these critics has detailed an example where Darwin’s Grand Paradigm Theory guided researchers to their goals. In fact, most innovations are not guided by grand paradigms, but by far more modest, testable hypotheses. Recognizing this, neither medical schools nor pharmaceutical firms maintain divisions of evolutionary science. The fabulous advances in experimental biology over the past century have had a core dependence on the development of new methodologies and instruments, not by intensive immersion in historical biology and Darwin’s theory, which attempted to historicize the meager documentation.

Evolution is not an observable characteristic of living organisms. What modern experimental biologists study are the mechanisms by which living organisms maintain their stability, without evolving. Organisms oscillate about a median state; and if they deviate significantly from that state, they die. It has been research on these mechanisms of stability, not research guided by Darwin’s theory, which has produced the major fruits of modern biology and medicine. And so I ask again: Why do we invoke Darwin?

See also Does Nothing In Biology Make Sense Except in the Light of Evolution?



Let the flailing begin...

No Need to Teach Intelligent Design

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That's right, I said there is no need to teach intelligent design. All that needs to happen is to stop telling students that our existence is an accident, ie living organisms spontaneously arose from non-living matter, and stop telling them that all genetic changes are errors/ mistakes/ accidents. IOW stop the lying bullshit.

Tell them the truth- tell them we don't know.

When pressed provide valid options and tell them that one of the basic questions science asks is "how did it come to be this way?"

Then you have a discussion using the evidence and data to try to determine which option is the best fit for that. Then you devise ways to test your inference.

You can even discuss what options are valid and why they are valid. Even discuss why some alleged options are not valid, ie not an option.

Get down to cause and effect relationships- (get down on it- get down on it)- given this effect can you determine the cause.

Tell them why not every death is considered a homicide nor every rock considered an artifact.

IOW stop with the indoctrination and teach science, not materialism.

"There's Plenty of Time for Evolution"?

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PNAS has an article titled There’s plenty of time for evolution, however until someone knows if the transformations required are even possible the authors and anyone who believes their pap are full of shit.

For example Andrea Bottaro said the following over at the panda’s thumb:

Eyes are formed via long and complex developmental genetic networks/cascades, which we are only beginning to understand, and of which Pax6/eyeless (the gene in question, in mammals and Drosophila, respectively) merely constitutes one of the initial elements.

IOW the only evidence for the evolution of the vision system is that we have observed varying degrees of complexity in living organisms, from simple light sensitive spots on unicellular organisms to the vision system of more complex metazoans, and we “know” that the first population(s) of living organisms didn’t have either. Therefore the vision system “evolved”.

Isn’t evolutionary “science” great!

I say the above because if Dr Bottaro is correct then we really have no idea whether or not the vision system could have evolved from a population or populations that did not have one.

Any issues just throw Father Time at it...

"Genome Data Proves False the Theory of Evolution"...

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Hey, hey, hey- a little pre-biotic soup can go a long way:

Genome Data Proves False the Theory of Evolution, New Theory Shows Complex Animals and Plants Originated from Prebiotic Chemistry

All 3 papers can be downloaded...