What is "design" and how to detect it

[Loudmouth]

If I'm understand you correctly, Christian theistic evolutionists believe it does. Christian beliefs aren't monolithic in this area.

At least they are consistent with the creation itself.

I'm content to treat the text rather literally. If I'm wrong I don't think God will be upset with me about it.

What about the creation itself? Do you take that literally?

 

[Loudmouth]

For the rest of us, no.

Most assuredly, yes.

"Through extensive validation, we identified 49 and 35 germline de novo mutations (DNMs) in two trio offspring, as well as 1,586 non-germline DNMs arising either somatically or in the cell lines from which the DNA was derived."
http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v43/n7/full/ng.862.html

Everyone is born with a genome that has never existed before. If that isn't new information, then evolution doesn't have to produce information as you describe it in order to produce the biodiversity we see today.

 

[Black Dog]

Synthetic people in Blade Runner, perhaps.

For the rest of us, no.

DNA is passed on from parent to child
A child inherits half their DNA from each parent, while each parent passes half their DNA to each child. This is achieved through sexual fertilization, requiring the meeting of the sperm with the egg, and the combining of the DNA from both (since the sperm and egg contain only half the genetic information in the parent). This ensures that families maintain some genetic identity, but also that a child must be genetically different from either parent, or from any of their four grandparents. They will also be genetically different from their brothers and sisters unless they have an identical twin.

The exact halving of the DNA in a parent to produce sperm or egg is possible due to its packaging in each cell as the 23 pairs of chromosomes, such that the sperm or egg has only one copy of a chromosome from each pair. This is achieved through the cell division process of meiosis (see the next page) which occurs only in the germline cells in the testis or ovary.

EDIT: Never mind, Loudmouth in post #202 did a great job of explaining how you have misunderstood the science.

 

[SkyWriting]

Most assuredly, yes.

"Through extensive validation, we identified 49 and 35 germline de novo mutations (DNMs) in two trio offspring, as well as 1,586 non-germline DNMs arising either somatically or in the cell lines from which the DNA was derived."
http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v43/n7/full/ng.862.html

Everyone is born with a genome that has never existed before. If that isn't new information, then evolution doesn't have to produce information as you describe it in order to produce the biodiversity we see today.

We are not really supporting the idea of disease and decay and mistakes as new information are we?
You're (both) just stringing unrelated ideas together.

A new mutation occurring in a somatic cell can result in cancer.

 

[SkyWriting]

EDIT: Never mind, Loudmouth in post #202 did a great job of explaining how you have misunderstood the science.

What he said was not connected to information theory.

 

[Loudmouth]

What he said was not connected to information theory.

What ID/creationists say about information has no connection to biology. They claim specified complexity exists, yet they can't measure it in any genome or protein. They can't even say what units it is measured in.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

We are not really supporting the idea of disease and decay and mistakes as new information are we?

Seriously? New information has to be beneficial?

Does this mean the damaging Thalassemia or Sickle-cell trait mutations are not new information unless you catch malaria, where they are beneficial, and so become new information after all?

 

[Loudmouth]

We are not really supporting the idea of disease and decay and mistakes as new information are we?
You're (both) just stringing unrelated ideas together.

A new mutation occurring in a somatic cell can result in cancer.

Do all of the differences between the human and chimp genomes cause disease and decay?

 

[ChetSinger]

At least they are consistent with the creation itself.

What about the creation itself? Do you take that literally?

Since you ask, I've found myself intrigued by the cosmologies of Drs. John Hartnett and Russell Humphreys. You'd probably consider them literalists. Each has investigated ways, using GR, to marry an old universe with a young earth.

I'd say I'm pretty much a literalist, but there's a lot of room within literalism for differences of opinion.

 

[Vaccine]

I was just pointing out that you were quotemining and dishonestly misrepresenting the views of the writers.

I doubt you even read the article to find the views of the writers. Can you elaborate how that was quote mining and dishonest?

 

[crjmurray]

I doubt you even read the article to find the views of the writers. Can you elaborate how that was quote mining and dishonest?

Yes, you quoted one sentence that made it seem like the writers held a certain view that they do not hold. That is what a quotemine is.

The following sentence shows they do not hold the view you attributed to them. That's the dishonest part. Leaving out information that clarifies certain statements. I will give you the benefit of the doubt though and assume you either a) didn't read the whole article or b) you found that quotemine from a creationist website and just copypastaed it.

 

[Vaccine]

It's in your sig. Just pointing out the error. ID copied from Paley, but failed to see that Paley expected nature to follow God's thoughts, including all natural processes.

It occurs to me that when you say a watch is a man-made object it gets a pass whereas when people say life was designed evidence is demanded. Where's your evidence the object Paley got out of the ground was a man-made object?

Failing to show that geneticists saw non-coding DNA as being functionless, you repeated your assertion. When will we see your supporting data?

It was here:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/300/5623/1246.short

But here's some more:
Predictions of non-functionality of “junk DNA” were made by Susumu Ohno (1972), Richard Dawkins (1976), Crick and Orgel (1980, Pagel and Johnstone (1992), and Ken Miller (1994), based on evolutionary presuppositions.

By contrast, predictions of functionality of “junk DNA” were made based on teleological bases by Michael Denton (1986, 1998), Michael Behe (1996), John West (1998), William Dembski (1998), Richard Hirsch (2000), and Jonathan Wells (2004).
http://www.uncommondescent.com/comment-policy/put-a-sock-in-it/

Barbarian explaining why transitional forms to the "gear" exist:
The basic idea is repetitive "teeth" in which two parts of the exoskeleton interdigitate and move against each other. So, this is a pretty good example of exaption, a feature evolved for one purpose, that's recruited for another.

There's simpler examples of this for locomotion as well; the furca of springtails has teeth that interdigitate and then release to allow jumping. So the argument boils down to "I just don't think it could evolve, even though there are simpler examples."

Those aren't transitional forms of functional gears, they aren't even simpler examples of functional gears. It's teeth + a lot of imagination.

It's called "mutation and natural selection."

Which they discovered is limited to micro-evolution. "Waiting for Two Mutations: With Applications to Regulatory Sequence Evolution and the limits of Darwinian evolution"
http://www.genetics.org/content/180/3/1501.full

Developmental gene regulatory network architecture across 500 million years of echinoderm evolution
Evolutionary change in morphological features must depend on architectural reorganization of developmental gene regulatory networks (GRNs), just as true conservation of morphological features must imply retention of ancestral developmental GRN features. Key elements of the provisional GRN for embryonic endomesoderm development in the sea urchin are here compared with those operating in embryos of a distantly related echinoderm, a starfish. These animals diverged from their common ancestor 520-480 million years ago. Their endomesodermal fate maps are similar, except that sea urchins generate a skeletogenic cell lineage that produces a prominent skeleton lacking entirely in starfish larvae. A relevant set of regulatory genes was isolated from the starfish Asterina miniata, their expression patterns determined, and effects on the other genes of perturbing the expression of each were demonstrated. A three-gene feedback loop that is a fundamental feature of the sea urchin GRN for endoderm specification is found in almost identical form in the starfish: a detailed element of GRN architecture has been retained since the Cambrian Period in both echinoderm lineages. The significance of this retention is highlighted by the observation of numerous specific differences in the GRN connections as well. A regulatory gene used to drive skeletogenesis in the sea urchin is used entirely differently in the starfish, where it responds to endomesodermal inputs that do not affect it in the sea urchin embryo. Evolutionary changes in the GRNs since divergence are limited sharply to certain cis-regulatory elements, whereas others have persisted unaltered.

Surprise.

How does this advance your case exactly?
From that paper: "The importance of this architectural feature evidently cannot be overstated, in that it has been conserved in two independently evolving lineages for a half a billion years. Its preservation points to the essential role of the gatae gene in both organisms." That it hasn't changed in half a billion years supports what they say that these networks don't tolerate change.

 

[Vaccine]

Yes, you quoted one sentence that made it seem like the writers held a certain view that they do not hold. That is what a quotemine is.

The following sentence shows they do not hold the view you attributed to them. That's the dishonest part. Leaving out information that clarifies certain statements. I will give you the benefit of the doubt though and assume you either a) didn't read the whole article or b) you found that quotemine from a creationist website and just copypastaed it.

Amazing. It's an open access paper from biology direct. If you read the article you'd know it was a rebuttal to a letter Theobald wrote to Nature. Theobald's claim similar sequences equate to a formal demonstration of common ancestry. Koonin showed "alignments of statistically similar but phylogenetically unrelated sequences successfully mimic the purported effect of common origin". In other words, the writers do indeed have the view I attributed to them.

 

[Vaccine]

Yes, I'm unfazed. What do you suppose a formal demonstration the universal common ancestry hypothesis would consist of?

Since it is "unlikely feasible in principle" I wouldn't venture a guess.

 

[Vaccine]

What evidence did ID proponents use to predict the functionality? How could their claim have been falsified at the time of the claim? Or was it just a guess?

And what rabbit hole? You mean the one that scientists used, the one that led to a more complete understanding of DNA?

They based it on specified complexity. William Dembski, for intelligent design theory, said this in 1998: "On an evolutionary view we expect a lot of useless DNA. If, on the other hand, organisms are designed, we expect DNA, as much as possible, to exhibit function."

These were the predictions of evolutionists:
Predictions of non-functionality of “junk DNA” were made by Susumu Ohno (1972), Richard Dawkins (1976), Crick and Orgel (1980, Pagel and Johnstone (1992), and Ken Miller (1994), based on evolutionary presuppositions.

By contrast, predictions of functionality of “junk DNA” were made based on teleological bases by Michael Denton (1986, 1998), Michael Behe (1996), John West (1998), William Dembski (1998), Richard Hirsch (2000), and Jonathan Wells (2004).
http://www.uncommondescent.com/comment-policy/put-a-sock-in-it/

This is the rabbit hole I referred to:
"Although catchy, the term 'junk DNA' for many years repelled mainstream researchers from studying noncoding DNA. ."
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/300/5623/1246.short

 

[crjmurray]

Amazing. It's an open access paper from biology direct. If you read the article you'd know it was a rebuttal to a letter Theobald wrote to Nature. Theobald's claim similar sequences equate to a formal demonstration of common ancestry. Koonin showed "alignments of statistically similar but phylogenetically unrelated sequences successfully mimic the purported effect of common origin". In other words, the writers do indeed have the view I attributed to them.

Do you honestly think the views of the authors are accurately represented by using your quote without the sentence that follows it?

 

[Vaccine]

How is that different than any other molecule?

Because it's coded digital information. They recognized the difference over 50 years ago.

Same semantics and syntactic information as found here:

2H2 + O2 -----> 2H2O

Nice try, but 2H2 + O2 ----> 2H2O is using the semantic and syntatic information of the English language. Whereas the semantic and syntatic information is a property of the genetic code itself. It has it's own coding and translation machinery within a cell, we only translate it to English to study it.

I keep hearing these terms thrown around, but I have yet to see specified complexity ever measured for anything in biology.

It was a big deal in 2012 when they published this:
These analyses portray a complex landscape of long-range gene–element connectivity across ranges of hundreds of kilobases to several megabases, including interactions among unrelated genes (Supplementary Fig. 1, section Y). Furthermore, in the 5C results, 50–60% of long-range interactions occurred in only one of the four cell lines, indicative of a high degree of tissue specificity for gene–element connectivity49.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7414/full/nature11247.html

As it turns out, evolution increases information as defined by Shannon.

Nucleic Acids Res. 2000 Jul 15; 28(14): 2794–2799.

Evolution of biological information


Thomas D. Schneider:

Abstract

How do genetic systems gain information by evolutionary processes? Answering this question precisely requires a robust, quantitative measure of information. Fortunately, 50 years ago Claude Shannon defined information as a decrease in the uncertainty of a receiver. For molecular systems, uncertainty is closely related to entropy and hence has clear connections to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. These aspects of information theory have allowed the development of a straightforward and practical method of measuring information in genetic control systems. Here this method is used to observe information gain in the binding sites for an artificial ‘protein’ in a computer simulation of evolution. The simulation begins with zero information and, as in naturally occurring genetic systems, the information measured in the fully evolved binding sites is close to that needed to locate the sites in the genome. The transition is rapid, demonstrating that information gain can occur by punctuated equilibrium.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC102656/
​

"evolution increases information defined y Shannon" So what? Do you understand adding information and adding functional information are two different things?
Also, "ev" is a computer simulation. It was designed to search a space for a target and finds said target. It's not a true blind or unguided search.

Just as it should take 150 million Powerball lottery drawings to get just one winner since the odds of winning are 1 in 150 million.

Behe is drawing the bulls eye around the bullet hole. He ignores the trillions of dual functional mutations that didn't fix. He is trying to calculate the odds of something happening after it already happened, which is nonsense.

That was a study of population genetics by Cornell university, not Behe. Not surprisingly they didn't agree with Behe's calculations and methods. So they repeated Behe's calculations using evolutionist methods. Their calculations showed it would take 162 million years for two coordinated mutations to occur and fix within humans. Which flies in the face of Darwinian evolution producing macro-evolutionary changes, thus the clue in the title "..and the limits to Darwinian evolution". It's a post-Darwin world.

I do. Why don't you? Why do you ignore all of the scientists that state quite clearly that life evolved?

You said "It would be nice if you used real scientific sources instead of creationist sites devoted to propaganda." Why is why I asked if you thought "Science" was a real scientific source. The source I cited was "Science".

I've never denied life evolved. I accept the theory of evolution as true. It's the theory of common descent I doubt since common design fits that pattern better.

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

A basic switch in assumptions can make a huge difference in making sense of the universe. You base you're beliefs about the world on the assumption that evolution is true, even though recent evidence suggests evolution is not true. .

No, there is no recent evidence suggesting evolution is not true.

 

[Vaccine]

Do you honestly think the views of the authors are accurately represented by using your quote without the sentence that follows it?

Of course I do. You can't possibly think they are "in favor" of a formal demonstration of the common ancestry of life?
I didn't represent them as creationists if that's what your getting at, as far as I know Koonin is an atheist judging by his book about probabilities and the multiverse. It's a post-Darwin world (and yes, those words appear in that article), they've moved past trying to shoehorn a formal demonstration of the common ancestry of life.

 

[crjmurray]

Of course I do. You can't possible think they are "in favor" of a formal demonstration of the common ancestry of life?
I didn't represent them as creationists if that's what your getting at, as far as I know Koonin is an atheist judging by his book about probabilities and the multiverse. It's a post-Darwin world (and yes, those words appear in that article), they've moved past trying to shoehorn a formal demonstration of the common ancestry of life.

No I don't think you're making Koonin out to be a creationist. I think you're misrepresenting what a scientist is saying to discredit science. And I don't care what his beliefs are.