Natural selection v Intelligent design

[stevevw]

That isn't even what I'm talking about. I was talking about this, a point I've emphasised repeatedly:

OK I must have missed this. The snow flake does imply design. You think it just forms randomly and then we have some complex designs in nature floating around from no apparent reason. But snow flakes are the results of laws and processes that will determine their specific shapes and designs. These are to do with water molecules that can come in a multitude of designs.

Water molecules — made of one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms each — are ultimately responsible for the familiar six-sided shape we associate with snowflakes. “Atoms and molecules can hook up in different ways and, in the case of water, they like to hook up into a hexagonal lattice,” said Libbrecht, who studies the physics of crystal growth. “That underlying structure is how the crystal gets its sixfold symmetry.”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/the-science-of-snowflakes/
Then there are the fluctuations in temperatures as the flake falls to the ground that will add to their individual shapes. So it seems that snow flakes may end up proving design more than anything. Because the shapes are formed by complex particles in water molecules that work to pre set laws and physics. It maybe another strange complexity we are seeing like with quantum physics and how the minute particles can form crystal shapes that have great symmetry and geometry. We maybe just seeing another small part of life's complex design being crystallized before our eyes rather than some random pattern forming for no reason at all.

And this:

As i said I will get back to you on natural selection as its something Ive been meaning to look into as far as the claim that it is directed.

Anyone who reads the paper can clearly see that you are misrepresenting it.

Fair enough. But all I'm saying is that I wasn't using that paper to disprove evolution. I was disputing what they were saying about convergent evolution in claiming that it was verified when they admitted themselves that they were not sure. I was trying to show that because they were so shocked by how common convergent evolution was and how it even was the same at the genetic level was a sign that they weren't sure themselves. That their conclusion were not proven. IN the light of other evidence from things like HGT it makes more sense to say that there may be other mechanisms causing such great similarities in distantly related animals. I did offer support which you have ignored. So if anything I am willing to consider that it could be other things but you are not. So who is putting up the brick walls.

You cited the evidence! Loudmouth is right: there is no penetrating this level of denial.

What is the denial. OK show me testable evidence and not examples that some say are proof. But testable evidence that shows the pathways for the genes for each animals took that showed they took separate paths that happened to end up with the same genes and features because of natural selection. Its not that I am refusing to acknowledge the evidence . Its that the evidence hasn't been presented that directly proves convergent evolution. I am not saying it never happens because chance says that it can occasionally. I am saying that the amount of times it is coming up now is to much to not be a coincident. Or the result of something else like HGT or symbiosis. Or that the ability to get those particular genes was already there. But go ahead show me the evidence.

I'm not sure what you expect me to address. You often post things that you think support your argument, but they don't. This appears to be another instance of that.

Umm Ive posted tons of stuff you haven't addressed. Some of it many times. Just like the ones about two posts back on the implausibility of evolving random mutations into complex functions. And how random mutations cause a fitness loss and show the opposite of evolving better and fitter creatures. I must have posted those ones 10 times at least by now and you haven't responded with any evidence to dispute this. But somehow I think I know what your response will be.

 

[Foxhole87]

If you're willing to observe something abiding by simple laws of physics and chemistry and say it was designed, how can you figure out what is designed without having a basis of what design *looks like*?

 

[bhsmte]

If you're willing to observe something abiding by simple laws of physics and chemistry and say it was designed, how can you figure out what is designed without having a basis of what design *looks like*?

If Michael Behe is absent a scientific definition of ID, a reliable objective test to determine if ID is present and or a workable hypothesis, I am quite certain Steve lacks these same things.

 

[stevevw]

If you're willing to observe something abiding by simple laws of physics and chemistry and say it was designed, how can you figure out what is designed without having a basis of what design *looks like*?

I think you have to rely on some sort of criteria as to what is classed as designed. That would come from the experts who know how to measure these things. That is what I would use as my measuring stick and for supporting evidence. There are many papers out there that go into how the universe, our world and the worlds of genetics and quantum physics have elements of design in them. One the the fields that is being used more recently is engineering. This can have some good insights into how things work and what is classed as design.

But with design in nature I think there can be some things that appear designed and are not. Like some natural event such as erosion that carves out what may look like a design. On the other hand a meandering river may appear designed but it can also work to some laws and other conditions which cause it to make those S bends which appear like a winding snake through the land. So I guess its looking behind what we see and finding out whether there are other controlling factors such as laws and systems that cause things to do what they do.
The Coherence Of An Engineered World
http://www.witpress.com/elibrary/wit-transactions-on-ecology-and-the-environment/114/19279

 

[stevevw]

double post

 

[Foxhole87]

I think you have to rely on some sort of criteria as to what is classed as designed. That would come from the experts who know how to measure these things. That is what I would use as my measuring stick and for supporting evidence. There are many papers out there that go into how the universe, our world and the worlds of genetics and quantum physics have elements of design in them. One the the fields that is being used more recently is engineering. This can have some good insights into how things work and what is classed as design.

But with design in nature I think there can be some things that appear designed and are not. Like some natural event such as erosion that carves out what may look like a design. On the other hand a meandering river may appear designed but it can also work to some laws and other conditions which cause it to make those S bends which appear like a winding snake through the land. So I guess its looking behind what we see and finding out whether there are other controlling factors such as laws and systems that cause things to do what they do.
The Coherence Of An Engineered World
http://www.witpress.com/elibrary/wit-transactions-on-ecology-and-the-environment/114/19279

So, uh, the "I know it when I see it" approach?

And what criteria would that be?
What "experts" measure "design"?

Based on what you have presented as evidence, your use of "design" doesn't really play with what the credible sources are calling "design"; they clearly use "design" as "the outcome of a natural process", which is strictly contrary to anything you're suggesting.

Every single argument you made in favor of each snowflake being "designed" works for an eroded mountain or a meandering river. Or a beach full of craggy rocks, or literally every single thing and collection of things in the world.

I guess a question worth asking is "can you give me an example of something that exists and wasn't designed, and how do you know it wasn't designed"?

EDIT: And then follow up with "if you cannot, without something to compare a thing to, how can you determine something has design"?

 

[stevevw]

So, uh, the "I know it when I see it" approach?

And what criteria would that be?
What "experts" measure "design"?

Based on what you have presented as evidence, your use of "design" doesn't really play with what the credible sources are calling "design"; they clearly use "design" as "the outcome of a natural process", which is strictly contrary to anything you're suggesting.

Every single argument you made in favor of each snowflake being "designed" works for an eroded mountain or a meandering river. Or a beach full of craggy rocks, or literally every single thing and collection of things in the world.

I guess a question worth asking is "can you give me an example of something that exists and wasn't designed, and how do you know it wasn't designed"?

EDIT: And then follow up with "if you cannot, without something to compare a thing to, how can you determine something has design"?

I just posted a paper that went into how design is determined. I am not the expert you have to consult what the paper states. Or look up other evidence as to what is considered deign. I guess one of the criteria would be if it has a source that designed it. If you see some writing in the sand on a beach you know that someone wrote it. It is written in a language that means something. It has some intelligence behind it.

But stuff like a craggy rock isn't necessarily design. The rocks get eroded and worn away and crumble and leave jagged edges ect. A meandering river can appear designed but its not totally subject to random forces. There are some things that control it and force it to meander. So there is room for random events to work within controlling forces as well. So you would have to investigate and sort out what is random and what is having an influence on controlling things.

If you look at the entire world and universe I would say there are definitely laws and other things that control whats happening. But there are also random things that happen in between that. Gravity and other forces like dark energy control all the matter in the universe. But random events can also happen within that system such as meteorites flying out of control and smashing into planets.But surely you cant say that a snow flake has some controlling factors that make it what it is. Its not a totally random act of nature. So maybe the laws of physics and other laws in nature are the frame work and there is some room for randomness within that.

This paper goes into the differences between design and natural causes.
Self-organization vs. self-ordering events in life-origin models
Self-ordering phenomena should not be confused with self-organization. Self-ordering events occur spontaneously according to natural “law” propensities and are purely physicodynamic. Crystallization and the spontaneously forming dissipative structures of Prigogine are examples of self-ordering.
Hypercycles, genetic and evolutionary algorithms, neural nets, and cellular automata have not been shown to self-organize spontaneously into nontrivial functions. Organization typically contains large quantities of prescriptive information. Prescriptive information either instructs or directly produces nontrivial optimized algorithmic function at its destination. Care should be taken not to use the term “self-organization” erroneously to refer to low-informational, natural-process, self-ordering events, especially when discussing genetic information.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571064506000224

Here is an interesting creature that I look at and see design. Yet evolution will say it happened by random mutations working in succession to build it bit by bit. But I liken that to someone throwing some paint on a canvas bit by bit and making a picture of something that looks designed by someone intelligent. Or at least knew about how to paint and create something humans recognize.

But Macrocilix maia is a first. It’s the only mimic insect I know that paints an entire scene. It looks like a watercolor. Two red-eyed muscomorph flies feed from fresh bird droppings, complete with light glinting off their wings. I’ve never seen anything like it!
http://www.myrmecos.net/2011/08/30/a-mural-on-moth-wings/

So we are to believe that random mutations gradually painted this mural on a moths wings. It has two specific red-eyed muscomorph flies on the wings which are known to cause sickness to other creatures in nature. It has them feeding on bird droppings which is also a turn off for other creatures. All the colors and shapes are in the right places even with bits of white that is acting as light reflecting from the picture to give it a realness we would only see in good artist impressions.

So how can random mutations do this. Considering there are 100s if not 1000s of combinations of colors and shapes that could be mutated. Considering that a mutated blob or random mark would mean nothing to a predator and one moth taken would then render any mark a non benefit. It either had to create the entire picture in one go or not at all. This is a good example of design. If it looks like a picture similar to a water color that a human would paint who has the ability to design it then chances are thats what we are seeing.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Witpress has only published the paper. They themselves are not a religious journal but a science one. This is a good example about how far someone will go to try and discredit the source when they cant deal with the content. Rather than talk about the content you try to connect witpress with religion so that you can cast some assertions on them. But what I find unfair is the fact you try to go along these lines in the first place. It shows that you play the man or in this case the organization and not the game.

Well a lot of journals like the ones I have been posting such as ncbi.nhi.gov, Pub.org., Nature.com and witpress to name a few have been publishing peer reviewed work on ID in nature. Thats pretty mainstream and more and more indirect work is coming out as well to do with astrophysics, quantum physics, biology and genetics.

First, PubMed is not a journal. Second, you're vastly overstating the extent of published peer-reviewed work on ID outside specific creationist journals.

Because instead of having to explain how a relatively simple feature came about by random mutations which is hard enough to believe even for small simple functions. They have to add a stack of additional complexities and explain how this can happen as well. The more complexity the harder it is for random mutations to evolve. There are more random mutations needed. There are more chances of needing multi mutations to form complex parts. There are more pathways and systems to account for ect ect. Thats why evolution liked to say life was simple and that most of our DNA was junk.

You seem to be assuming that complex functions must emerge in a single step. You then note that this is unlikely to happen because it would require multiple mutations to occur simultaneously. But that's not how evolution works. It is not analogous to a tornado ravaging a junkyard and producing a fully operational 747.

Because its too hard to believe it could have happened any other way. If it looks like design and acts like design chances are its design.

The appearance of design can be misleading. By the way, this appears to be a fallacy of incredulity.

Talk about not listening and ignoring the evidence. So you dont think for example that the papers I posted showing how it is improbable that random mutations or multi mutations can evolve even simple functions is evidence at all. You havnt even addressed it let alone dismiss it.

I'm sorry to say steve, but your interpretation of the papers you cite is almost always consistently wrong. As I said to you before, I'm not going to examine every single link you post. Your job is easy: you post a link and claim that it supports what you are saying. We have to then go and read the full paper to see whether that is true or not. On almost every occasion that I have done this, it was revealed that your interpretation was in error. Rather than accept this, you just post more links, demanding that we read those as well. This quickly becomes tiresome. It is also a waste of time because you don't listen. You just move on and post more links. It seems that your strategy is to just bury us in information. It doesn't matter to you whether the information adequately supports what you are saying (it usually doesn't), so long as you can pretend that what you are saying is supported.

The boundaries that state mutations will incur a fitness cost and not a benefit. They actually do the opposite of evolution and decrease adaptations of fit animals. Even amoung so called beneficial mutations.

That doesn't really answer my question. You claimed that evolution makes "big changes" outside "those boundaries." What "boundaries" were you referring to?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

OK I must have missed this. The snow flake does imply design.

In what way?

You think it just forms randomly and then we have some complex designs in nature floating around from no apparent reason. But snow flakes are the results of laws and processes that will determine their specific shapes and designs. These are to do with water molecules that can come in a multitude of designs.

Exactly! They form naturally. That's the point! We don't need to invoke snow flake fairies. We can explain the natural processes that produce snow flakes.

Then there are the fluctuations in temperatures as the flake falls to the ground that will add to their individual shapes. So it seems that snow flakes may end up proving design more than anything.

Explain how. Where is the snow flake "designer"?

Because the shapes are formed by complex particles in water molecules that work to pre set laws and physics. It maybe another strange complexity we are seeing like with quantum physics and how the minute particles can form crystal shapes that have great symmetry and geometry. We maybe just seeing another small part of life's complex design being crystallized before our eyes rather than some random pattern forming for no reason at all.

I've addressed this point REPEATEDLY, yet you continue to present the same false dichotomy (design versus randomness) again and again.

As i said I will get back to you on natural selection as its something Ive been meaning to look into as far as the claim that it is directed.

You mean to say that you started a thread titled "Natural selection v Intelligent design," and yet only now, 49 pages in, it occurs to you that you should actually understand what natural selection involves?

Fair enough. But all I'm saying is that I wasn't using that paper to disprove evolution. I was disputing what they were saying about convergent evolution in claiming that it was verified when they admitted themselves that they were not sure.

You're misinterpreting the paper.

I was trying to show that because they were so shocked by how common convergent evolution was and how it even was the same at the genetic level was a sign that they weren't sure themselves.

I've already addressed this repeatedly, steve. They weren't surprised that it happened. They expected it to happen! They were surprised by the extent to which is does happen. Think of this way: imagine a group of medical researchers conduct a clinical trial in which they expect a new drug to offer greater therapeutic benefits than treatment-as-usual. The results support this hypothesis, but the researchers are also surprised by the extent of the treatment effect: the new drug is much better than treatment-as-usual, as indicated by a large effect size.

That their conclusion were not proven. IN the light of other evidence from things like HGT it makes more sense to say that there may be other mechanisms causing such great similarities in distantly related animals. I did offer support which you have ignored. So if anything I am willing to consider that it could be other things but you are not. So who is putting up the brick walls.

You are! Because I've already addressed all this on multiple occasions.

What is the denial. OK show me testable evidence and not examples that some say are proof. But testable evidence that shows the pathways for the genes for each animals took that showed they took separate paths that happened to end up with the same genes and features because of natural selection. Its not that I am refusing to acknowledge the evidence . Its that the evidence hasn't been presented that directly proves convergent evolution.

For goodness sake, the papers you cited provided evidence of convergent evolution. You cited the evidence! The denial we are talking about is your denial of the very evidence you posted.

Umm Ive posted tons of stuff you haven't addressed. Some of it many times.

I've already explained that I'm not going to address everything, especially given that, when I do, it is almost always the case that your interpretation of the stuff you post is wrong. At what point do I get to raise my hands in the air and say, "I don't think steve knows what he is talking about?"

 

[stevevw]

First, PubMed is not a journal. Second, you're vastly overstating the extent of published peer-reviewed work on ID outside specific creationist journals.

Thats because your restricting the subject of design down to religion. But when you factor in all the related areas of design such as engineering, Bio-engineering, construction, Biomimetics ect it begins to open up and has a great amount of data. There is a lot of research going into engineering in life studies at universities. It seems engineering is the new frontier for applying design in nature and learning about how to apply it to our lives.

You seem to be assuming that complex functions must emerge in a single step. You then note that this is unlikely to happen because it would require multiple mutations to occur simultaneously. But that's not how evolution it works. It is not analogous to a tornado ravaging a junkyard and producing a fully operational 747.

No thats not what I am saying and to use the tornado in the junk yard example is an old creationists things from way back. The papers I have linked talk about not having multi mutations to evolve a complete feature in one go. They are talking about the amount of time and mutations needed before there is any functional benefit and not have a cost on an animal. So the entire process may take some time to happen and certainly as much time as evolution may need. In fact their results say that it couldn't happen and if it did it would take more time than the earth has been in existence. Even just for two mutations to happen just for a simple process of preparing to take on a new function would take to long for what evolution claims.
Estimating the prevalence of protein sequences adopting functional enzyme folds.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15321723

The appearance of design can be misleading.

A bit like Dawkins statemnet that evolution has the appearance of design. How long can they get away with using that one. As things become even more complex and amazing it gets harder to justify.

By the way, this appears to be a fallacy of incredulity.

How is it a fallacy of incredulity. There are many peer reviewed papers on design in nature ranging from ID to engineering. It is based in science and there are tests and research done to support it.

I'm sorry to say Steve, but your interpretation of the papers you cite is almost always consistently wrong. As I said to you before, I'm not going to examine every single link you post. Your job is easy: you post a link and claim that it supports what you are saying. We have to then go and read the full paper to see whether that is true or not. On almost every occasion that I have done this, it was revealed that your interpretation was in error. Rather than accept this, you just post more links, demanding that we read those as well. This quickly becomes tiresome. It is also a waste of time because you don't listen. You just move on and post more links. It seems that your strategy is to just bury us in information. It doesn't matter to you whether the information adequately supports what you are saying (it usually doesn't), so long as you can pretend that what you are saying is supported.

OK then spell out to me how I misinterpreted the paper. If you make an accusation you need to back it up with some evidence.

That doesn't really answer my question. You claimed that evolution makes "big changes" outside "those boundaries." What "boundaries" were you referring to?

No I didn't claim that evolution makes big changes outside the boundaries of what it is capable of. I said evolution claims this but hast been able to verify it in tests. The big changes are exactly what the tests show above. That for evolution to evolve a new function that wasn't there in the first place. Micro evolution has limits such as changing hair color. The genetics for the hair are already there. The genetics to change the color are already there or the ingredients are already there. But to make something that is not there in the first place evolution cannot do this and that is the boundary it cannot cross.

Breeders have found this when mixing dogs to change their features. They can change their color and hair texture. They can change their size and head shape. But they still remain as dogs and have the dog type features. But they cannot make that dog something else like a cat. The more they move away from the natural wild type the more cost it has on the dog. Some breeds of dogs end up with all sorts of diseases from being mixed to far away from the natural state of what the genes for the dog were in the first place.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Thats because your restricting the subject of design down to religion. But when you factor in all the related areas of design such as engineering, Bio-engineering, construction, Biomimetics ect it begins to open up and has a great amount of data.

Of course you get more results when you search for "design" in engineering! That's because the "designers" in this situation are human beings.

No thats not what I am saying and to use the tornado in the junk yard example is an old creationists things from way back. The papers I have linked talk about not having multi mutations to evolve a complete feature in one go. They are talking about the amount of time and mutations needed before there is any functional benefit and not have a cost on an animal. So the entire process may take some time to happen and certainly as much time as evolution may need. In fact their results say that it couldn't happen and if it did it would take more time than the earth has been in existence. Even just for two mutations to happen just for a simple process of preparing to take on a new function would take to long for what evolution claims.

As I recall, this was already addressed earlier.

A bit like Dawkins statemnet that evolution has the appearance of design. How long can they get away with using that one. As things become even more complex and amazing it gets harder to justify. How is it a fallacy of incredulity. There are many peer reviewed papers on design in nature ranging from ID to engineering. It is based in science and there are tests and research done to support it.

No, it doesn't, because complexity isn't sufficient to conclude design.

OK then spell out to me how I misinterpreted the paper. If you make an accusation you need to back it up with some evidence.

As an example, you highlighted that this area was "largely unexplored," as noted by the authors'. Yeah, that's the point! That's the rationale for why they did the study! You also dismissed their findings as "statistical support." Yet it was this (strong) statistical support that you relied on when you made the point about predictability, thinking that it supports your argument (it doesn't). So apparently it was good enough then. It stopped being good enough when you realised that, once again, you had misinterpreted the paper.

No I didn't claim that evolution makes big changes outside the boundaries of what it is capable of. I said evolution claims this but hast been able to verify it in tests. The big changes are exactly what the tests show above. That for evolution to evolve a new function that wasn't there in the first place. Micro evolution has limits such as changing hair color. The genetics for the hair are already there. The genetics to change the color are already there or the ingredients are already there. But to make something that is not there in the first place evolution cannot do this and that is the boundary it cannot cross.

Once again, you keep saying that you understand evolution well enough, yet what you are saying here - "big changes" - suggests that you expect it to operate like the tornado in the junkyard. What sort of "big changes" are you expecting? What makes a change "big"? What "boundary" needs to be crossed? You are being awfully vague here.

Breeders have found this when mixing dogs to change their features. They can change their color and hair texture. They can change their size and head shape. But they still remain as dogs and have the dog type features.

Of course they do! What do you expect?! Once again, you keep claiming to understand evolution, but comments like this suggest otherwise.

 

[stevevw]

In what way?

It is not an example of design from a random naturalistic process. The design has reasons why it ends up looking like it does. Those reasons are based on laws and systems that control how things work such as in physics.

Exactly! They form naturally. That's the point! We don't need to invoke snow flake fairies. We can explain the natural processes that produce snow flakes.

No its not as simple as that. Then you are claiming that those laws are random naturalistic processes. If it is working to a pattern or system or law or code then what is the difference with how laws and codes work in design with what humans do. Thats the idea of the research into engineering and design in nature. The research is showing that what happens is beyond a naturalistic process. The way these laws and codes work are exactly the same as how we understand them and use them when designing things. Boy the lengths some go to rationalize something away like its not really there. Its almost denial or culpable ignorance.

Explain how. Where is the snow flake "designer"?

This is the big question and debate. AS you can see we are gradually working our way back. If the laws of physics and other codes and systems and patterns in life can control things and cause them to have design then who made the laws and codes ect. So it would be who is the snow flake designer but who designed the laws the snow flake works to. That is the big question. The snow flake is only the end result of the design and not from a random process. A naturalistic process has the opposite qualities such as chaos, disorganization, randomness. Even if it may produce some things that may look like design the causes are still random. There is no randomness about snow flakes.

I've addressed this point REPEATEDLY, yet you continue to present the same false dichotomy (design versus randomness) again and again.

To understand why we must first state a premise. Probability is not an absolute concept or measure. The probability of an event must always be contextualized. It must be related to the whole scenario, the boundary conditions, and — mainly — to some potential cause or generator of that kind of events. Example: suppose I ask “What is the probability of hitting the center of the target?”. Such question, as stated, is perfectly undefined. It says nothing about the context. The more important issue is: what or who is the potential hitter of the target? If the hitter is a person launching a stone 100 miles away the probability is 0. If it is a meteorite falling down the sky, the probability is infinitesimal. If it is me, by my self-constructed toy sling, the probability is near 0. If it is the olympic champion archer it is almost 1. If it is a carpenter nailing the center by a hammer it is exactly 1. To sum up, depending on the context and the events producer, the probability value spans the entire numeric range from 0 to 1.

That said, if we contextualize the snowflake objection and describe the scenario we see that, contrary to the objection, snowflakes are highly probable. In fact, first, in general when the weather conditions are apt, the natural laws produce snowflakes with probability near 1. Second, in particular, also if evolutionists would mean a specific pattern of snowflake, since their producer is able to generate billions of them in a second, it is likely that any particular pattern is generated. In both cases the core of the objection is rotten.

IDers always specify the scenarios and the potential producer of the events they examine and about which they want to infer design. Example, before the bacterial flagellum, they say that it is improbable that natural laws acting on sparse atoms could produce it. The scenario is well defined. Therefore the false analogy between snowflakes and flagella implicit in the objection doesn’t apply at all. The snowflakes generated by the physical laws are highly probable, while the flagella generated by random natural forces operating on dispersed atoms are highly improbable.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-snowflake-objection/

You mean to say that you started a thread titled "Natural selection v Intelligent design," and yet only now, 49 pages in, it occurs to you that you should actually understand what natural selection involves?

I understand what natural selection is and for you to say that I dont shows where your coming from as you know I have already explained to you what it means. I said I wanted to investigate some aspects of natural selection to do with its selective ability. How much selective ability it really have and what role it plays in the scheme of things. Remember we had that debate about natural selection even being a force or the main force in how creatures change as apposed to non selective and adaptive forces like HGT, endosymbiosis, symbiosis, epigenetics, genomics, developmental biology and other forces that can influence how living things change and develop.

You're misinterpreting the paper.

You keep saying that but how exactly.

I've already addressed this repeatedly, steve. They weren't surprised that it happened. They expected it to happen! They were surprised by the extent to which is does happen. Think of this way: imagine a group of medical researchers conduct a clinical trial in which they expect a new drug to offer greater therapeutic benefits than treatment-as-usual. The results support this hypothesis, but the researchers are also surprised by the extent of the treatment effect: the new drug is much better than treatment-as-usual, as indicated by a large effect size.

Under normal testing and research if they got a greater result than expected and were surprised they wouldn't just except that it was just from what they expected. They would also look into whether their were other factors that may have increased that greater result. They have admitted in the paper that they havnt even done the proper tests to verify that its convergent evolution in the first place. So how can you be so confident that they are right. It seems the only person who is believing without hesitation that the results are definitely right is you. You sure have a lot of faith in the those scientists.

You are! Because I've already addressed all this on multiple occasions.

Your address is that the evidence for convergent evolution according to the paper is that they cite examples of convergent evolution. That is not verifiable proof. That is say so. There is no direct testable proof at this stage. So you havnt addressed this. All you have done is agreed that citing examples of convergent evolution is enough to prove convergent evolution. I'm beginning to wonder who is listening now and looking at the facts. You either think that this is enough to tell me that you have dealt with it and I should accept this indirect evidence or you just dont want to deal with the truth.

For goodness sake, the papers you cited provided evidence of convergent evolution. You cited the evidence! The denial we are talking about is your denial of the very evidence you posted.

Yes they did cite evidence and you also reminded me of that. As you said they cited examples of convergent evolution. But examples dont prove it and thats my point. Saying thats its true and naming some examples doesn't make it true. I thought you understood how science works. Remember testable verifiable evidence. The paper states once again that underlying convergent traits are themselves convergent remains largely unexplored.

It would also help to know how selection influences changes in the types of amino acids within the proteins that the genes code for. “The real test,” agrees Parker, “is to go into the most convergent genes and start elucidating their functions directly.”
http://www.nature.com/news/convergent-evolution-seen-in-hundreds-of-genes-1.13679

I've already explained that I'm not going to address everything, especially given that, when I do, it is almost always the case that your interpretation of the stuff you post is wrong. At what point do I get to raise my hands in the air and say, "I don't steve knows what he is talking about?"

Talk about a cop out. I have posted single papers that you could have addressed. But it seems you whole intention is to make out I'm either stupid, dont know what I'm talking about, the sources are suspect or lack credibility, the experts lack credibility, the sources are connected with creationists. Anything but deal with the content of what I post. If you wish to ask for evidence then keep on saying your not going to look at it then why even ask for it in the first place. Your just playing games.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

It is not an example of design from a random naturalistic process. The design has reasons why it ends up looking like it does. Those reasons are based on laws and systems that control how things work such as in physics.

Exactly! It doesn't need a designer. It formed through natural processes.

No its not as simple as that. Then you are claiming that those laws are random naturalistic processes. If it is working to a pattern or system or law or code then what is the difference with how laws and codes work in design with what humans do. Thats the idea of the research into engineering and design in nature. The research is showing that what happens is beyond a naturalistic process. The way these laws and codes work are exactly the same as how we understand them and use them when designing things. Boy the lengths some go to rationalize something away like its not really there. Its almost denial or culpable ignorance.

Why are you defining natural processes as intrinsically random? I have addressed this point REPEATEDLY, and yet you continue to pretend that it is impossible for natural processes to be anything other than random.

This is the big question and debate. AS you can see we are gradually working our way back. If the laws of physics and other codes and systems and patterns in life can control things and cause them to have design then who made the laws and codes ect. So it would be who is the snow flake designer but who designed the laws the snow flake works to. That is the big question. The snow flake is only the end result of the design and not from a random process. A naturalistic process has the opposite qualities such as chaos, disorganization, randomness. Even if it may produce some things that may look like design the causes are still random. There is no randomness about snow flakes.

No, that's wrong. I already explained why this is wrong on multiple occasions. You don't listen, so why do I bother?

To understand why we must first state a premise. Probability is not an absolute concept or measure. The probability of an event must always be contextualized. It must be related to the whole scenario, the boundary conditions, and — mainly — to some potential cause or generator of that kind of events. Example: suppose I ask “What is the probability of hitting the center of the target?”. Such question, as stated, is perfectly undefined. It says nothing about the context. The more important issue is: what or who is the potential hitter of the target? If the hitter is a person launching a stone 100 miles away the probability is 0. If it is a meteorite falling down the sky, the probability is infinitesimal. If it is me, by my self-constructed toy sling, the probability is near 0. If it is the olympic champion archer it is almost 1. If it is a carpenter nailing the center by a hammer it is exactly 1. To sum up, depending on the context and the events producer, the probability value spans the entire numeric range from 0 to 1.

That said, if we contextualize the snowflake objection and describe the scenario we see that, contrary to the objection, snowflakes are highly probable. In fact, first, in general when the weather conditions are apt, the natural laws produce snowflakes with probability near 1. Second, in particular, also if evolutionists would mean a specific pattern of snowflake, since their producer is able to generate billions of them in a second, it is likely that any particular pattern is generated. In both cases the core of the objection is rotten.

IDers always specify the scenarios and the potential producer of the events they examine and about which they want to infer design. Example, before the bacterial flagellum, they say that it is improbable that natural laws acting on sparse atoms could produce it. The scenario is well defined. Therefore the false analogy between snowflakes and flagella implicit in the objection doesn’t apply at all. The snowflakes generated by the physical laws are highly probable, while the flagella generated by random natural forces operating on dispersed atoms are highly improbable.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-snowflake-objection/

The author of this piece exhibits the same misunderstanding as you.

I understand what natural selection is and for you to say that I dont shows where your coming from as you know I have already explained to you what it means.

And yet, at every turn, there are subtle (and not so subtle) signs that you don't understand. This post providing a good example of that.

Under normal testing and research if they got a greater result than expected and were surprised they wouldn't just except that it was just from what they expected. They would also look into whether their were other factors that may have increased that greater result. They have admitted in the paper that they havnt even done the proper tests to verify that its convergent evolution in the first place. So how can you be so confident that they are right. It seems the only person who is believing without hesitation that the results are definitely right is you. You sure have a lot of faith in the those scientists.

By contrast, I have no confidence in your ability to accurately interpret these findings. You have consistently misinterpreted the work you have cited.

Yes they did cite evidence and you also reminded me of that. As you said they cited examples of convergent evolution. But examples dont prove it and thats my point. Saying thats its true and naming some examples doesn't make it true. I thought you understood how science works. Remember testable verifiable evidence. The paper states once again that underlying convergent traits are themselves convergent remains largely unexplored.

You are misinterpreting, yet again. That was part of the rationale for doing the study. You want to pretend that it is something else, which is why you excised it from the context.

Talk about a cop out.

Answer this question for me: considering your tendency to misinterpret the work you are citing as support for your position, at what point do I get to say, "I don't think steve knows what he is talking about?" I think I have examined enough of what you have presented to conclude that you don't know what you are talking about.

 

[stevevw]

Of course you get more results when you search for "design" in engineering! That's because the "designers" in this situation are human beings.

What I am saying is that engineering is being used to investigate design in nature. So it is more common now for universities or journals to do research on either how nature has engineering qualities in it. Or how nature can improve engineering techniques. So though its not ID it is along similar lines because it involves finding similarities in nature and the engineered world.

As I recall, this was already addressed earlier.

So you ask a question and answer it with it has already been answered. This is crazy. It is just going around in circles. I cant remember you answering anything like this. Even if you did what is wrong with reminding me or pointing me to that answer. I may have missed. At least link me to it in case. This is so dismissive. Its almost avoidance. IN some ways its arrogant because even if you have answered it its like your saying I am only answering this once and that one time is correct so dont expect anymore debate on the topic because that one answer I gave is correct and is all that is needed. Theres no elaboration and thats all your going to get.

No, it doesn't, because complexity isn't sufficient to conclude design.

Id say it goes a fair way towards it though. Along with other supports such as the way in which the complexity is formed, what it is controlled by and if that has the hallmarks of design you can build a good case. But complexity would have to be a pretty big part of it as we recognize immediately the more complex the more it has design. Do you think complexity is part of design at all.

As an example, you highlighted that this area was "largely unexplored," as noted by the authors'. Yeah, that's the point! That's the rationale for why they did the study! You also dismissed their findings as "statistical support." Yet it was this (strong) statistical support that you relied on when you made the point about predictability, thinking that it supports your argument (it doesn't). So apparently it was good enough then. It stopped being good enough when you realized that, once again, you had misinterpreted the paper.

First off thank you for clarifying what you have meant by not understanding. This helps with communication and dispels any misunderstandings. But no it wasn't the only reason I used the paper. It was also to show the surprise and astonishment that they had with the results and that this was an unusual reaction. But the largely unexplored was a comment they made about it still not being explored properly. and therefore they are not sure. Thats why they emphasized the other evidence such as stats and examples. This is backed up by the other paper agreeing in saying that they dont know for sure until they map out the pathways genetically which is the only real way they can know for sure.

So the statistical evidence even if its strong (which could also be a case against them) and the examples evidence are not proof and are only superficial. Until they map the genes paths they dont know and thats the fact I was stating as well. beside the point is your claim that I didn't understand the paper is false. I understood it well. Don't you think I would realize that the paper supported convergent evolution. It stated that in black and white over and over again.

Once again, you keep saying that you understand evolution well enough, yet what you are saying here - "big changes" - suggests that you expect it to operate like the tornado in the junkyard. What sort of "big changes" are you expecting? What makes a change "big"? What "boundary" needs to be crossed? You are being awfully vague here.

I could say something like you do and believe me its tempting such as I have already explained this so go back and re read. But I am more willing to re explain things to ensure you understand. Ill ask you a question with my answer. Why do they call evolution sometimes macro evolution as opposed to micro evolution. That may help explain what I mean. I think you are being influence to much by the creation and evolution debate. It must be a big issue in the US. Because this referral all the time to tornado in junk yards and crocoducks ect is old school debate that doesn't happen anymore.

Most people understand evolution a lot more than this and things have progressed from that a long time ago. As you would have well seen I have gone into some aspects of evolution with mutations and I have even explained how evolution claims it is a gradual process. I have even explained this through the genetics with mutations. So I think I have more knowledge than you are claiming. To me it seems you put all anti evolutionists into the same old box of creationists.

Of course they do! What do you expect?! Once again, you keep claiming to understand evolution, but comments like this suggest otherwise.

No quite the opposite. I think you are having difficulties understanding or accepting things. I was using that example of the dogs to show that the further they move away from what the natural state of the dog was the more problems they have with fitness such as diseases. So if they are having a cost to fitness in just the minor changes within the dog species when they try to change it too much. Imagine the difficulties in trying to go beyond that further as evolution states to where the dog eventually becomes another type of animal that will start to look different to a dog. Isn't that how it works. A Dog like creature such as a Pakicetus

will gradually become like

Ambulocetus
which will gradually become like Kutchicetus

Ect ect. Until it becomes a whale. So if it is difficult for a dog type to venture to far from its natural wild state because it has a fitness cost how much more is it going to be for creatures to move beyond that even more to eventually move away from their natural state so much that they are morphing into something else. Mutations are mostly harmful and cannot create better , fitter and more complex creatures.

And might I just add what fun we've had debating this. It certainly adds some variety and spice to life. Now dont you think this is better than everyone agreeing.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

What I am saying is that engineering is being used to investigate design in nature. So it is more common now for universities or journals to do research on either how nature has engineering qualities in it. Or how nature can improve engineering techniques. So though its not ID it is along similar lines because it involves finding similarities in nature and the engineered world.

Which is not the same as claiming that natural things have been designed.

So you ask a question and answer it with it has already been answered. This is crazy. It is just going around in circles. I cant remember you answering anything like this. Even if you did what is wrong with reminding me or pointing me to that answer.

Why bother? You don't listen. When I link to something showing that I have already addressed it, you just carry on as usual.

I may have missed. At least link me to it in case. This is so dismissive. Its almost avoidance. IN some ways its arrogant because even if you have answered it its like your saying I am only answering this once and that one time is correct so dont expect anymore debate on the topic because that one answer I gave is correct and is all that is needed. Theres no elaboration and thats all your going to get.

You know what seems arrogant to me? That you expect people to treat your posts seriously, and yet when they do, you just don't listen. You pretend that they haven't already done so.

Id say it goes a fair way towards it though. Along with other supports such as the way in which the complexity is formed, what it is controlled by and if that has the hallmarks of design you can build a good case. But complexity would have to be a pretty big part of it as we recognize immediately the more complex the more it has design. Do you think complexity is part of design at all.

Natural processes are also capable of producing complex structures, so no.

No wasn't the only reason I used the paper. It was also to show the surprise and astonishment that they had with the results and that this was an unusual reaction.

Already addressed this:

I've already addressed this repeatedly, steve. They weren't surprised that it happened. They expected it to happen! They were surprised by the extent to which is does happen. Think of this way: imagine a group of medical researchers conduct a clinical trial in which they expect a new drug to offer greater therapeutic benefits than treatment-as-usual. The results support this hypothesis, but the researchers are also surprised by the extent of the treatment effect: the new drug is much better than treatment-as-usual, as indicated by a large effect size.

I could say something like you do and believe me its tempting such as I have already explained this so go back and re read. But I am more willing to re explain things to ensure you understand. Ill ask you a question with my answer. Why do they call evolution sometimes macro evolution as opposed to micro evolution.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evoscales_01

That may help explain what I mean. I think you are being influence to much by the creation and evolution debate. It must be a big issue in the US.

I'm not from the US.

Because this referral all the time to tornado in junk yards and crocoducks ect is old school debate that doesn't happen anymore.

You must be joking.

Most people understand evolution a lot more than this and things have progressed from that a long time ago. As you would have well seen I have gone into some aspects of evolution with mutations and I have even explained how evolution claims it is a gradual process. I have even explained this through the genetics with mutations. So I think I have more knowledge than you are claiming. To me it seems you put all anti evolutionists into the same old box of creationists.

You didn't answer my question.

No quite the opposite. I think you are having difficulties understanding or accepting things. I was using that example of the dogs to show that the further they move away from what the natural state of the dog was the more problems they have with fitness such as diseases. So if they are having a cost to fitness in just the minor changes within the dog species when they try to change it too much. Imagine the difficulties in trying to go beyond that further as evolution states to where the dog eventually becomes another type of animal that will start to look different to a dog. Isn't that how it works. A Dog like creature such as a Pakicetus

will gradually become like View attachment 162444
Ambulocetus
which will gradually become like Kutchicetus

Ect ect. Until it becomes a whale. So if it is difficult for a dog type to venture to far from its natural wild state because it has a fitness cost how much more is it going to be for creatures to move beyond that even more to eventually move away from their natural state so much that they are morphing into something else. Mutations are mostly harmful and cannot create better , fitter and more complex creatures.

Why are you arbitrarily selecting "dog" as the "natural state"? Why isn't "wolf" the "natural state"? Why isn't the last common ancestor of wolves and bears the "natural state"?

 

[pshun2404]

If you're willing to observe something abiding by simple laws of physics and chemistry and say it was designed, how can you figure out what is designed without having a basis of what design *looks like*?

If the information (the laws of physics and chemistry) precedes formation and functionality of the form (even non-creationist biologists refer to functional design only not suggesting intelligence) then information is the cause of the final outcome, and we know that information is neither matter or energy. Nothing would have formed exactly as it has without this pre-existing process guiding information already in place.

Information does not create itself. For it to do so it would have to already exist...so then all we can do is speculate on its source and no speculation is better than another, but this we know...information is NOT matter/energy in any physical sense (though some information generated from already extant forms and functions can legitimately be seen in this way)

Paul

 

[Foxhole87]

If the information (the laws of physics and chemistry) precedes formation and functionality of the form (even non-creationist biologists refer to functional design only not suggesting intelligence) then information is the cause of the final outcome, and we know that information is neither matter or energy. Nothing would have formed exactly as it has without this pre-existing process guiding information already in place.

Information does not create itself. For it to do so it would have to already exist...so then all we can do is speculate on its source and no speculation is better than another, but this we know...information is NOT matter/energy in any physical sense (though some information generated from already extant forms and functions can legitimately be seen in this way)

Paul

I don't think any physicist would agree with your misuse of "information".

 

[stevevw]

Which is not the same as claiming that natural things have been designed.

No but it certainly goes a long way to more or less saying it anyway. If they are using nature as a way to improve designs in engineering and they are using engineering techniques to understand nature its almost saying they are very much the same.Its funny how some can use the same language as design, use similar comparisons, even use the qualities of design in nature to make human designs better but then say its not really design.

Why bother? You don't listen. When I link to something showing that I have already addressed it, you just carry on as usual.

No I address that and challenge what you have said. If you interpret disagreement as ignoring then I cant help that.

You know what seems arrogant to me? That you expect people to treat your posts seriously, and yet when they do, you just don't listen. You pretend that they haven't already done so.

Umm I think your misinterpreting not listening as disagreeing. I hear everything you say and I understand everything you say. I just dont agree with it. I dont expect people to agree with what I post but I do expect them to explain their position if they do disagree.

Natural processes are also capable of producing complex structures, so no.

Such as.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evoscales_01

You asked me before about what are the big changes and what are the boundaries I was talking about. The link you posted talks exactly about these things here.

You said that I keep saying big changes and that I misunderstand evolution. It seems you are the one who is not understanding what evolution is claiming. Here in your own link it states that macro evolution represents big changes. Somethings as grand as the dinos is big in my books.
Evolution encompasses changes of vastly different scales — from something as insignificant as an increase in the frequency of the gene for dark wings in beetles from one generation to the next, to something as grand as the evolution and radiation of the dinosaur lineage. These two extremes represent classic examples of micro- and macroevolution.

Micro-evolution happens on a small scale (within a single population), while macroevolution happens on a scale that transcends the boundaries of a single species. [/quote] the evidence shows that changes that move to far away from the natural wild state of an animal and go beyond those boundaries it becomes less fit. It doesn't make animals fitter and better equipped for life. This is a fallacy that evolution has made and this is the boundary I am talking about. So evolution claims the same process as micro evolution can go beyond the boundaries it states that make macro evolution IE turn one type of animal into another.

Micro change existing genetics ie hair color, size and other things that it already has genetic info to change. Macro changes existing things like limbs into wings, gills into lungs and even makes brains, hearts, livers or limbs when there are none. This requires new genetic material and info it never had or cannot create.

Despite their differences, evolution at both of these levels relies on the same, established mechanisms of evolutionary change:

No it takes something that is true micro evolution which works with existing genetics and makes small changes that dont mess up an animal and give it more creative power than its able to have.

But even to contemplate such a capability happening the amount of beneficial mutations is astronomical for it to even happen. Considering that tests have shown that mutations are mostly harmful it would mean that creatures would become very sick and unfit before any possible beneficial change. In fact there is more likely a loss of genetic info than a gain. Test show to even gain two mutations to start the process of making a functional change would take more time than more creatures have existed. So its easy to make stories about evolution but when it comes to explain it with proof in its engine room it seizes up and doesn't work.

I'm not from the US.

Sorry I thought you were from US.

You must be joking.

It may in small circles but not in most main stream understandings of people who object to evolution. I think people understand things a lot better nowadays.

You didn't answer my question.

What question.

Why are you arbitrarily selecting "dog" as the "natural state"? Why isn't "wolf" the "natural state"? Why isn't the last common ancestor of wolves and bears the "natural state"?

Yes wolf then. Dog is just used more as the example of all the different breeds around. But yest wolf is the natural state. But there may be some varieties that are pretty close to the natural state as well that are more like modern dogs. Its the cross/mixed breeds that have been made to many times to bring out certain features that end up with the problems.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

No but it certainly goes a long way to more or less saying it anyway. If they are using nature as a way to improve designs in engineering and they are using engineering techniques to understand nature its almost saying they are very much the same.

Not at all.

No I address that and challenge what you have said. If you interpret disagreement as ignoring then I cant help that.

I interpret ignoring as ignoring. You whine about how people treat your posts dismissively. Yet when they do a detailed analysis showing that you are wrong, you just ignore it and ramble on.

Umm I think your misinterpreting not listening as disagreeing. I hear everything you say and I understand everything you say.

There is ample evidence to the contrary on this thread.

Such as.

Snowflakes. You really don't listen, do you?

You asked me before about what are the big changes and what are the boundaries I was talking about. The link you posted talks exactly about these things here.

You said that I keep saying big changes and that I misunderstand evolution. It seems you are the one who is not understanding what evolution is claiming. Here in your own link it states that macro evolution represents big changes. Somethings as grand as the dinos is big in my books.
Evolution encompasses changes of vastly different scales — from something as insignificant as an increase in the frequency of the gene for dark wings in beetles from one generation to the next, to something as grand as the evolution and radiation of the dinosaur lineage. These two extremes represent classic examples of micro- and macroevolution.

Micro-evolution happens on a small scale (within a single population), while macroevolution happens on a scale that transcends the boundaries of a single species.
the evidence shows that changes that move to far away from the natural wild state of an animal and go beyond those boundaries it becomes less fit.

How are YOU defining "boundaries"?

It doesn't make animals fitter and better equipped for life. This is a fallacy that evolution has made and this is the boundary I am talking about. So evolution claims the same process as micro evolution can go beyond the boundaries it states that make macro evolution IE turn one type of animal into another.

This paragraph makes no sense. What is a "type of animal"?

Micro change existing genetics ie hair color, size and other things that it already has genetic info to change. Macro changes existing things like limbs into wings, gills into lungs and even makes brains, hearts, livers or limbs when there are none. This requires new genetic material and info it never had or cannot create. No it takes something that is true micro evolution which works with existing genetics and makes small changes that dont mess up an animal and give it more creative power than its able to have.

You seem unable to comprehend that macroevolution is just the result of accumulated microevolution. It's evolution at a larger scale.

But even to contemplate such a capability happening the amount of beneficial mutations is astronomical for it to even happen. Considering that tests have shown that mutations are mostly harmful it would mean that creatures would become very sick and unfit before any possible beneficial change. In fact there is more likely a loss of genetic info than a gain. Test show to even gain two mutations to start the process of making a functional change would take more time than more creatures have existed.

Already addressed this. Go back, re-read.

It may in small circles but not in most main stream understandings of people who object to evolution. I think people understand things a lot better nowadays.

Given your posts, I think not.

What question.

What sort of "big changes" are you expecting? What makes a change "big"? What "boundary" needs to be crossed?

Yes wolf then. Dog is just used more as the example of all the different breeds around. But yest wolf is the natural state. But there may be some varieties that are pretty close to the natural state as well that are more like modern dogs. Its the cross/mixed breeds that have been made to many times to bring out certain features that end up with the problems.

Why "wolf"? Why not the last common ancestor between wolves and bears?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I was using that example of the dogs to show that the further they move away from what the natural state of the dog was the more problems they have with fitness such as diseases.

There is, and was, no unique 'natural state' of the dog. The domestic dog evolved from a branch of the megafaunal wolf, the common ancestor of modern dogs and wolves, at the end of the last ice-age. Populations of a species are continually changing as selections pressures weed out the less fit. The only changes that will propagate in a population are neutral or beneficial, so if mutations lead to less fit individuals, those changes will quickly be weeded out; only the fittest will survive.

At the end of the last ice-age, environmental conditions changed, and the megafauna began dying out en-masse; populations were changing as selection pressures favoured smaller, more gracile forms. Many species became extinct, but some populations survived, evolving into forms better adapted to the new conditions. Some megafaunal wolf populations evolved into the various species of wolves and dogs that have continued evolving into their present forms.

... if it is difficult for a dog type to venture to far from its natural wild state because it has a fitness cost how much more is it going to be for creatures to move beyond that even more to eventually move away from their natural state so much that they are morphing into something else. Mutations are mostly harmful and cannot create better , fitter and more complex creatures.

Mutations are mostly neutral. There are more harmful than beneficial mutations, but the harmful ones don't propagate; it's 'survival of the fittest', remember, and 'fittest' means best adapted. It isn't 'difficult' for a dog type to change (check out the huge variety of forms produced by selective breeding). There is no fitness cost evolving to a new niche - the fitness cost is in not evolving.