Stupid Christian Article on Evolution

[randman]

Evolution has always had the power to change the course of creationism and ID proponents. But, ID has never discovered anything that would change the course of evolutionists.

That's just not true. You just haven't read ID papers. Much of current trends in biology have all been predicted by ID theorists. Due less numbers, they have less work but since evos are also doing research IDers wanted to establish their theory, though evos doing them for other reasons, the basic findings in support of an ID paradigm are being accomplished slowly.

Keep in mind even when an IDer writes a paper, it often is just targeting the narrow field, though there are papers mentioning ID explicitly and experiments and so forth.

On the other hand, to my knowledge, I know of no peer-reviewed papers that have been done with the intent of establishing whether the basic evolutionary paradigm is true. They all assume it and then have another purpose of the paper. Of course, evos insist it's all consistent with evo paradigms and others point out the findings are not and are predicted by other theories.

 

[randman]

Here's a peer-reviewed ID paper on the topic from a different angle.

Darwinian evolution is, at its heart, a search algorithm that uses a trial and error process of random mutation and unguided natural selection to find genotypes (i.e. DNA sequences) that lead to phenotypes (i.e. biomolecules and body plans) that have high fitness (i.e. foster survival and reproduction). This peer-reviewed scientific article in the journal IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics A, Systems & Humans by William Dembski and Robert Marks explains that unless a search starts off with some information about where peaks in a fitness landscape may lie, any search -- including Darwinian search algorithms-- are on average no better than a random search. After assessing various examples of evolutionary searches, Dembski and Marks show that attempts to model Darwinian evolution via computer simulations, such Richard Dawkins famous "METHINKSITISLIKEAWEASEL" example, start off with, as Dembski and Marks put it, "problem-specific information about the search target or the search-space structure." According to the paper, such simulations only reach their evolutionary targets because there is pre-specified "accurate information to guide them," or what they call "active information." The implication, of course, is that some intelligent programmer is required to front-load a search with active information if the search is to successfully find rare functional genetic sequences. They conclude that "Active information is clearly required in even modestly sized searches."

http://www.discovery.org/a/2640

http://marksmannet.com/RobertMarks/REPRINTS/2009_ConservationOfInformationInSearch.pdf

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I prefer to look at the data and talk about what it does and does not say.

Okay. So talk about how the data says that Intelligent Design is a good hypothesis. Show what empirical data supports it. Show what data enables it to make predictions, and knowledge which can be applied in other fields of science.

Double dog dare you, no returnies.

 

[randman]

Here's another that also proposes lines of research.

Biology exhibits numerous invariants -- aspects of the biological world that do not change over time. These include basic genetic processes that have persisted unchanged for more than three-and-a-half billion years and molecular mechanisms of animal ontogenesis that have been constant for more than one billion years. Such invariants, however, are difficult to square with dynamic genomes in light of conventional evolutionary theory. Indeed, Ernst Mayr regarded this as one of the great unsolved problems of biology. In this paper Dr.Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, Senior Scientist in the Department of Molecular Plant Genetics at the Max-Planck-Institute for Plant Breeding Research, employs the design-theoretic concepts of irreducible complexity (as developed by Michael Behe) and specified complexity (as developed by William Dembski) to elucidate these invariants, accounting for them in terms of an intelligent design (ID) hypothesis. Lönnig also describes a series of scientific questions that the theory of intelligent design could help elucidate, thus showing the fruitfulness of intelligent design as a guide to further scientific research.

http://www.discovery.org/a/2640

On the strictly scientific level the combination of stasis and ID does not mean the end of inquiry (as is sometimes objected), but the very beginning of entirely new research programmes. For several questions have to be thoroughly investigated before valid scientific inferences can be suggested. To name but a few:

http://www.weloennig.de/DynamicGenomes.pdf

 

[randman]

Okay. So talk about how the data says that Intelligent Design is a good hypothesis. Show what empirical data supports it. Show what data enables it to make predictions, and knowledge which can be applied in other fields of science.

Double dog dare you, no returnies.

Read the 2 papers in my prior to posts above for starters.

Here's another peer-reviewed paper.

Most animal cells contain a pair of centrioles, tiny turbine-like organelles oriented at right angles to each other that replicate at every cell division. Yet the function and behavior of centrioles remain mysterious. Since all centrioles appear to be equally complex, there are no plausible evolutionary intermediates with which to construct phylogenies; and since centrioles contain no DNA, they have attracted relatively little attention from neo Darwinian biologists who think that DNA is the secret of life. From an intelligent design (ID) perspective, centrioles may have no evolutionary intermediates because they are irreducibly complex. And they may need no DNA because they carry another form of biological information that is independent of the genetic mutations relied upon by neo-Darwinists. In this paper, Wells assumes that centrioles are designed to function as the tiny turbines they appear to be, rather than being accidental by-products of Darwinian evolution. He then formulates a testable hypothesis about centriole function and behavior that, if corroborated by experiment, could have important implications for our understanding of cell division and cancer. Wells thus makes a case for ID by showing its strong heuristic value in biology. That is, he uses the theory of intelligent design to make new discoveries in biology.

http://www.discovery.org/a/2640

link to paper

 

[randman]

This article, co-authored by a theoretical biologist and an environmental biologist, explicitly challenges the ability of Darwinian mechanisms or self-organizational models to account for the origin of the language-based chemical code underlying life.

"David L. Abel & Jack T. Trevors, “Self-organization vs. self-ordering events in life-origin models," Physics of Life Reviews, Vol. 3:211–228 (2006)."

http://www.discovery.org/a/2640

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Here's a peer-reviewed ID paper on the topic from a different angle.

This, again, is a criticism of the Theory Of Evolution, not something presenting a testable hypothesis of its own. Can you point to any evidence that actively supports Intelligent Design or which presents an empirically testable hypothesis, or is it really all just trying to poke holes in evolution?

 

[randman]

But, there is a way to resolve it! There is a way by which we can tell which idea is more likely on the right track than its competing idea: We can test ideas.

The ideas behind Evolution are very testable.

Ok, show me the peer-reviewed papers that tested Darwinism?

Don't have any? Just papers that already assume it.

Ok, I'll go out on a limb. Heard someone else say this but don't know if it can be shown in any degree or not.

Show me some examples in living biota (let's narrow it down to sexually reproducing species) of one living species where another has evolved and produced a new genus.

Should be a few hundred or so at least. Now, let's compare their genetic complexity to see what happened when this occurred so we can really assess if Darwinian mechanisms can produce the higher taxa.

I'll be waiting.

 

[randman]

This, again, is a criticism of the Theory Of Evolution, not something presenting a testable hypothesis of its own. Can you point to any evidence that actively supports Intelligent Design or which presents an empirically testable hypothesis, or is it really all just trying to poke holes in evolution?

I can't tell which paper you are referring to. Will you please cite it and repeat the link if provided so we can see if what you say is true. I think you are wrong in your assertions and if I knew what paper you referred to, might be inclined to show you.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Read the 2 papers in my prior to posts above for starters.

Here's another peer-reviewed paper.



http://www.discovery.org/a/2640

link to paper

Another challenge to evolutionary theory, rather than a positive hypothesis of its own. And http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2835302/

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I can't tell which paper you are referring to.

The one you linked to in the post I was quoting. Follow the quote back.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

"David L. Abel & Jack T. Trevors, “Self-organization vs. self-ordering events in life-origin models," Physics of Life Reviews, Vol. 3:211–228 (2006)."

http://www.discovery.org/a/2640

And another challenge to evolutionary theory, rather than a testable hypothesis of its own. Come on, where's the actual ID science?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Ok, show me the peer-reviewed papers that tested Darwinism?

Show us the peer-reviewed papers that test ID.

Don't have any? Just papers that already assume it.

Show me some examples in living biota (let's narrow it down to sexually reproducing species) of one living species where another has evolved and produced a new genus.

I like the way you narrow this down to both living biota and genus, presumably because you know that there are many examples of speciation directly observed in living biota. This is, of course, why you exclude speciation from your definition of "macroevolution", despite everybody else, from scientists to creationists, using speciation as the cut off point for macroevolution.

I honestly believe that if someone were to demonstrate what you've asked people to demonstrate, you'd simply change your definition of macroevolution to mean production of a new family. Then order. Then class. Then phylum. And so on, down and down and down until you've got nowhere left to retreat to.

 

[randman]

And another challenge to evolutionary theory, rather than a testable hypothesis of its own. Come on, where's the actual ID science?

So you ignored the papers that detailed experiments and further research, and yet also blast a paper explicitly testing an ID hypothesis as not doing that.

What would do you live in?

 

[devnull]

And another challenge to evolutionary theory, rather than a testable hypothesis of its own. Come on, where's the actual ID science?

Oh cmon, that's not fair. You already know the answer to that one

 

[randman]

Show us the peer-reviewed papers that test ID.

Don't have any? Just papers that already assume it.



I like the way you narrow this down to both living biota and genus, presumably because you know that there are many examples of speciation directly observed in living biota. This is, of course, why you exclude speciation from your definition of "macroevolution", despite everybody else, from scientists to creationists, using speciation as the cut off point for macroevolution.

I honestly believe that if someone were to demonstrate what you've asked people to demonstrate, you'd simply change your definition of macroevolution to mean production of a new family. Then order. Then class. Then phylum. And so on, down and down and down until you've got nowhere left to retreat to.

The papers cited generally explicitly test ID as either an expressed primary purpose or secondary one. No evo papers do that.

presumably because you know that there are many examples of speciation directly observed in living biota.

Ok, name them. Among sexually reproducing organisms, show the living species and the species following it, and keep in mind we're looking for real speciation, not just evos classifying something like wolves and dogs as different species though they can interbreed, and then we can discuss whether it's macroevolution or not. Speciation is not macroevolution per se but it should be an interesting exercise.

Can you come up with any?

 

[devnull]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species

 

[randman]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species

the best you have is something blurring the lines of species?

Name one sexually producing species that is a direct ancestor to the next.

I mean come on. I am going out on a limb and giving you guys a chance, and yes already familiar with ring "species".

from your link btw....(I could come up with better examples).

However, a recent genetic study entitled The herring gull complex is not a ring species has shown that this example is far more complicated than presented here (Liebers et al., 2004)[3

The Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Herring Gulls are sufficiently different that they do not normally hybridize; thus the group of gulls forms a continuum except where the two lineages meet in Europe.

So they don't normally mate but could.

Not an example then.

 

[Avicenna]

That's because if a species splits off from the main phylogenetic branch the descendents of the origin are still around.

For instance Prezwalski's horse is a type of protohorse similar to a variety of early horses while still having various features of both donkeys and tame horses since horses were domesticated in central asia.

Ring species are a mechanism of how speciation occurs.

Now you failed to answer. What proof do you have of a god let alone the christian one who made the universe as it is and controls every single molecule's activity.

Oh and ID peer reviewed papers have no basis because the initial premise calls for existence of magic without proof and accepts this as a fact despite there being no evidence of it at all. Not to mention if any religion's magic is real then god would automatically be a complete villain since he is the cause for nearly all human suffering by his action or indeed inaction. If you can save a life and chose not to then you are complicit in it's death.

(Not to mention raises the very important question of where the creator came from and are there any others like it. Is it intelligent? Where is it? What is it doing now? Why is it doing that and umpteen other questions. ID is not an answer to a scientist, merely a line of thought that raises questions based on the assumption that magic exists)

 

[randman]

Now you failed to answer. What proof do you have of a god let alone the christian one who made the universe as it is and controls every single molecule's activity

Lot of bs there. Never said God controls at least in the way you are thinking every single molecule's activity.

Proof?

Science does not deal in proof but in probabilities. Learn that and we can talk.