Why is it that every time genetic "information" is brought up to argue in favor of design...

[Speedwell]

I did not smear any excerpt Darwin's newest bulldog...in fact I honored McClintock and Shapiro for questioning the status quo..and it had nothing to do with "ID theorists" which I know they reject, it had to do with information in the DNA...discoveries that are contrary to the "hypothesis" that claims the DNA sequences (not even denying the Sequence Hypothesis) accumulated via random mutation over eons of time. There are many other factors involved and some of these instructions and sequences are the result of informational input from other motivational factors IN the cell and FROM the environment (epigenetic influences for example) which possibly effect the DNA sequences and how and why some express and others do not.

Exactly--and that is the "status quo" with the ToE at this time. It's a lively field and no doubt will have more surprises for us in the future. But there is no groundswell within evolutionary biology for a rejection of naturalistic evolution. There is only healthy debate about the nature of the evolutionary mechanism.

I asked and you gave us the "thought to be" and I am merely pointing out that does not equal IS...as far as information science is concerned random mutations are real but IMO in no wise produce greater and greater purposeful complexities that could cause lower order beings to become higher order beings.

"Purposeful complexities?" That's a good one.

 

[pshun2404]

Exactly--and that is the "status quo" with the ToE at this time. It's a lively field and no doubt will have more surprises for us in the future. But there is no groundswell within evolutionary biology for a rejection of naturalistic evolution. There is only healthy debate about the nature of the evolutionary mechanism.

"Purposeful complexities?" That's a good one.

Indeed! It is an excellent one...and a correct one. All you will physically become, all your organs, all your systems, and how they will all interact to become and be YOU, are all predetermined in your genetic makeup from day one...all come out of the encoded instructions of your DNA (purposeful complexities).

 

[Speedwell]

Indeed! It is an excellent one...and a correct one. All you will physically become, all your organs, all your systems, and how they will all interact to become and be YOU, are all predetermined in your genetic makeup from day one...all come out of the encoded instructions of your DNA (purposeful complexities).

What is the difference between a purposeful complexity and a non purposeful one?

 

[pshun2404]

What is the difference between a purposeful complexity and a non purposeful one?

In this sense of the term, a non-purposeful one has no eventual goal. It will produce random variations over and over (for example humans would have 1,000s of different kinds of organs where lungs should be and many would have none here but something other, and so one). In the case I referred to, this does not happen but rather 99.9% have lungs exactly where they are supposed to be and these function exactly as the program intended, etc., which clearly demonstrates "purpose"...(a human being, specific organs, in specific places in relation one to another, specific systems, purposed to interact in specific ways, and so on...). This sort of purposeful complexity does what was intended (even if by intention one means an encoded plan, even if that plan or goal is encoded biochemically).

The information to produce the highly complex organism is extant before all the features and factors of that organism manifest. We know its there, and we know (to some extent) how it does what it is meant to do, but why it is there and where it originally comes from is a matter of interpretation based on one's paradigm.

 

[Speedwell]

In this sense of the term, a non-purposeful one has no eventual goal. It will produce random variations over and over (for example humans would have 1,000s of different kinds of organs where lungs should be and many would have none here but something other, and so one). In the case I referred to, this does not happen but rather 99.9% have lungs exactly where they are supposed to be and these function exactly as the program intended, etc., which clearly demonstrates "purpose"...(a human being, specific organs, in specific places in relation one to another, specific systems, purposed to interact in specific ways, and so on...). This sort of purposeful complexity does what was intended (even if by intention one means an encoded plan, even if that plan or goal is encoded biochemically).

The information to produce the highly complex organism is extant before all the features and factors of that organism manifest. We know its there, and we know (to some extent) how it does what it is meant to do, but why it is there and where it originally comes from is a matter of interpretation based on one's paradigm.

So you are conflating "purpose" and "function." That is a well-worn path which unfortunately leads nowhere.

 

[PsychoSarah]

In this sense of the term, a non-purposeful one has no eventual goal. It will produce random variations over and over (for example humans would have 1,000s of different kinds of organs where lungs should be and many would have none here but something other, and so one).

-_- not really, seeing ass all non-viable variations would fail to be passed on to the next generation. Evolution via random mutation never implies that evolutionary pathways themselves are random; for example, say there are two different colors of moths. One color blends in with tree bark, and the other completely contrasts to the color of tree bark. Obviously, the moths which stand out would be eaten more frequently by predators, and thus the end result of a larger portion of moths being the color that blends in would not be random. What colors the moths could be were the result of random mutation, sure, but which one better persisted depended upon what trait aided in survival more.

Additionally, you underestimate the amount of genetic mutation necessary to replace an entire organ system so quickly that you find variable organ systems within the same species. In fact, evolutionarily speaking, this exact scenario should NEVER happen.

In the case I referred to, this does not happen but rather 99.9% have lungs exactly where they are supposed to be and these function exactly as the program intended, etc., which clearly demonstrates "purpose"...(a human being, specific organs, in specific places in relation one to another, specific systems, purposed to interact in specific ways, and so on...).

-_- you are ignoring variability in lung size, position of brachioloes within the lungs, and lung efficiency. Human organs are variable to an extent. Heck, when it comes to muscles, plenty of people have extras while others are missing ones and go about their lives as normal. Also, what about structures that we benefit from, yet can live fine without, like the spleen? It is entirely possible that other organ structures also originated in that way; as structures the organisms did not need, but benefited from having, and over time as their other organ structures co-evolved with the new one, this eventually lead to said organ being a necessity for them to live.

This sort of purposeful complexity does what was intended (even if by intention one means an encoded plan, even if that plan or goal is encoded biochemically).

-_- you made a poor choice of choosing the lungs for saying that. Our lungs, by the nature of their physiology, can NEVER work at their full potential. I am referring to the fact that we cannot completely exhale all the air in our lungs. If we did, they'd collapse. Plus, our appendix doesn't perform "as intended"; it's more of a liability than beneficial. Our muscles are capable of contracting so strongly that they rip the tendons that connect them to bones and become severely damaged. This is especially bad for anyone that has epilepsy, when their own brain doesn't quite do its job right and the sufferers tense up. And what of our eyes? More than half the human population has vision problems requiring corrective lenses to fix. Is that "purposeful" too?

The information to produce the highly complex organism is extant before all the features and factors of that organism manifest.

-_- duh, since sex cells have DNA in them. It would actually shoot evolution in the foot if cells differentiated before having DNA inside them. However, not every gene that could influence our bodies is activated. There are literally genes in our DNA which exist only to keep other genes from ever being used. What designer would be that wasteful?

We know its there, and we know (to some extent) how it does what it is meant to do, but why it is there and where it originally comes from is a matter of interpretation based on one's paradigm.

-_- not really. Either there is a reasonable amount of evidence for at least one proposed explanation, or people have to admit ignorance on the matter. Since there is no strong evidence that deities exist, such beings are not considered a valid explanation for anything.

If evidence for deities ever came about, such beings would be incorporated into the theories around whatever natural processes they influence.

 

[pshun2404]

So you are conflating "purpose" and "function." That is a well-worn path which unfortunately leads nowhere.

I am conflating nothing...good try though! Prearrangement to produce a specific function (the same in all like creatures) also indicates purpose in the plan before the actual function ever comes to be in the individual. It is pre-encoded that all humans will have lungs, an organ that is determined to drive the exchange of oxygen in respiration to enrich the blood. The plan is predetermined in the coding at conception. So no! No conflating of terms here, just your refusal to admit this obvious biological fact.

 

[Speedwell]

I am conflating nothing...good try though! Prearrangement to produce a specific function (the same in all like creatures) also indicates purpose in the plan before the actual function ever comes to be in the individual. It is pre-encoded that all humans will have lungs, an organ that is determined to drive the exchange of oxygen in respiration to enrich the blood. The plan is predetermined in the coding at conception. So no! No conflating of terms here, just your refusal to admit this obvious biological fact.

A biological fact which is, as has already been pointed out to you, exactly what the theory of evolution would lead us to expect.

 

[pshun2404]

A biological fact which is, as has already been pointed out to you, exactly what the theory of evolution would lead us to expect.

That has nothing to with the premise we were discussing but okay! So the theory of evolution would expect that very specific information (not randomicity) which is precoded in the DNA will produce the same highly complex organs and functions in like organisms. Good then we agree on that.

Now the second issue was, can this happen over time by the accumulation of multiple random mutations is some earlier less complex code?

 

[Speedwell]

That has nothing to with the premise we were discussing but okay! So the theory of evolution would expect that very specific information (not randomicity) which is precoded in the DNA will produce the same highly complex organs and functions in like organisms. Good then we agree on that.

With the caveat that some of the morphological traits of the species will exhibit reproductive variations, randomly distributed (think: bell curve) through the population.

Now the second issue was, can this happen over time by the accumulation of multiple random mutations is some earlier less complex code?

Yes. I won't speak to the biochemistry as others here know better about it than I, but mathematically it's rock solid.

 

[pshun2404]

With the caveat that some of the morphological traits of the species will exhibit reproductive variations, randomly distributed (think: bell curve) through the population.

Yes. I won't speak to the biochemistry as others here know better about it than I, but mathematically it's rock solid.

Dude! I did not say random mutation does not occur in the DNA...of course it does. There is just no evidence that DNA formed via this process and mounting evidence that it may not have. And math? Evolutionists repeatedly reject mathematical arguments that question some premises why accept only the convenient or those that support (not that I am sure which you were referring to)? Sound like what Ken Hamites do! Pick and choose what can interpreted to support, and ignore, re-interpret, or reject all that questions.

Perhaps that is not you so maybe you can enlighten me as to your "math" evidence for...(as I have much against but would love to look at it and take into account). The question was "can this happen over time by the accumulation of multiple random mutations in some earlier less complex code?"

 

[pshun2404]

To repeat consider these thoughts

"The information for organic evolution has somehow been predetermined in the evolving genome in a way comparable to the way in which the necessary information to produce a complete organism is contained within a single cell, the fertilized egg." Davison, John A., developmental biologist, Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis, 2005

"From an information perspective, the genetic system is a pre-existent operating system of unknown origin that supports the storage and execution of a wide variety of specific genetic programs (the genome application), each being stored in the DNA." Johnson, Donald E., chemist and computer scientist, Programming of Life, 2007, p.48

 

[Speedwell]

Dude! I did not say random mutation does not occur in the DNA...of course it does. There is just no evidence that DNA formed via this process and mounting evidence that it may not have.

Nonsense. It has been known for a long time that random variation and natural selection is not the sole process at work, that there are other, related processes at work as well. For example, it has been observed that in times of rapid environmental change the standard deviation of the random distribution of variation will increase while in stable environments it gradually decreases again. This makes considerable sense from the evolutionary standpoint. Maintaining a wide range of variants of marginally survivability is expensive to the species and unnecessary in a stable environment. On the other hand, those marginal variants may well be the key to species survival in times of rapidly changing selection criteria. There are other subroutines at work as well. We don't talk about them much here, because random variation and selection is still the basic process which does most of the heavy lifting, and creationists still appear not to understand even that.

And math? Evolutionists repeatedly reject mathematical arguments that question some premises why accept only the convenient or those that support (not that I am sure which you were referring to)? Sound like what Ken Hamites do! Pick and choose what can interpreted to support, and ignore, re-interpret, or reject all that questions.

I have not heard of an "evolutionist" rejecting a cogent mathematical argument, but on the other hand, I have never seen a creationist produce one.

Perhaps that is not you so maybe you can enlighten me as to your "math" evidence for...(as I have much against but would love to look at it and take into account). The question was "can this happen over time by the accumulation of multiple random mutations in some earlier less complex code?"

What do you know about stochastic processes?

 

[Mediaeval]

That's a very big 'if' when we have so much empirical evidence that cognition is flawed and unreliable.

If you're interested in the evidence for this, and would like examples you can try for yourself, I strongly recommend "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman.

I don’t know how it would measure on a scale of “ifs,” but it seems there is no other alternative available. We cannot justify our knowledge on an atheistic basis, so we are led to justify it on a theistic basis, if we care to justify it at all. Either non-intelligence produced our intelligence, or another intelligence produced our intelligence. There is already a certain incongruity between cause and effect in the first hypothesis, and a certain congruity in the second hypothesis, so which hypothesis entails a bigger “if” seems clear. Perhaps another alternative would be simply to accept what we think we know as possible illusion and be universally skeptical, but our practical behavior, in spite of our theory, would tell on us.

Thanks for the book recommendation. Based on the author’s conclusions, what do you see as the implications for knowledge? How does he account for the problem of error? And is there any irony in the author’s using his own “flawed and unreliable” cognition to try to persuade us that our cognition is also flawed and unreliable? Sorry if this misrepresents the author’s view somehow. Just hazarding a guess based on your brief description.

 

[pshun2404]

Nonsense. It has been known for a long time that random variation and natural selection is not the sole process at work, that there are other, related processes at work as well. For example, it has been observed that in times of rapid environmental change the standard deviation of the random distribution of variation will increase while in stable environments it gradually decreases again. This makes considerable sense from the evolutionary standpoint. Maintaining a wide range of variants of marginally survivability is expensive to the species and unnecessary in a stable environment. On the other hand, those marginal variants may well be the key to species survival in times of rapidly changing selection criteria. There are other subroutines at work as well. We don't talk about them much here, because random variation and selection is still the basic process which does most of the heavy lifting, and creationists still appear not to understand even that.

I have not heard of an "evolutionist" rejecting a cogent mathematical argument, but on the other hand, I have never seen a creationist produce one.

What do you know about stochastic processes?

So are you saying that functional DNA did in fact form via random mutations and natural selection? What evidence can you provide that shows it formed in this way? Perhaps you can start from randomly assembled amino acids or RNA and work onwards from there?

Though no expertise with Stochastic Process as an area of study, I do know that it is a computer-simulation process that accounts for random variables. It is alleged to be reliable as a technique, but in application, all computer programs are designed for an intended or suspected purpose, and thus tends to seek to find the answers sought. I mean look at how they take apart and reconstruct to distort base pair sequences creating spaces that actually do not exist and then call these insertions and/or deletions (where in reality most are just DIFFERENCES in the normal genomes of the two respective creatures).

So what are you trying to say regarding this intelligently designed program (Stochastic Process) in relation to providing reliable evidence that DNA is formed via random mutation and natural selection? IMO to show this is how it forms packed with its precoded information, then it would have to start before it is functional DNA and then become functional DNA via these processes.

So show me how you were applying this to demonstrate it as evidence in a causative role via random mutations.

 

[sfs]

To repeat consider these thoughts

"The information for organic evolution has somehow been predetermined in the evolving genome in a way comparable to the way in which the necessary information to produce a complete organism is contained within a single cell, the fertilized egg." Davison, John A., developmental biologist, Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis, 2005

Okay, I'll consider it. "A Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis" was published in Rivista d Biologia. That's not a good sign, since that journal is noted for publishing a wide range of crackpots. Davison's paper was published 12 years ago, and in that time it's been cited once, by Davison in another of his papers. In fact, that's what all of Davison's papers from at least 2000 on look like -- cited by no one, or by Davison himself. It's true that one was cited by someone else, in another Rivista paper, titled "Photons and evolution: Quantum mechanical processes modulate sexual differentiation", which is a completely nutso piece of numerology. (Take a look at it here.)

So it's clear that Davison is not exactly an influential scientist, and there's a good chance he's a crackpot (or was -- I believe he's dead now).

Skimming the paper, I find it to be vague and pretty much devoid of evidence supporting its conclusion. It also ignores almost everything that's been learned about genetics in the last hundred years. I see no reason to take this seriously as a source of information on evolution.

Where do you find these guys?

 

[Speedwell]

So are you saying that functional DNA did in fact form via random mutations and natural selection? What evidence can you provide that shows it formed in this way? Perhaps you can start from randomly assembled amino acids or RNA and work onwards from there?

Though no expertise with Stochastic Process as an area of study...

Evidently. Stochastic processes have been studies as a branch of mathematics since well before the computer age. The reason I brought up the math is that as such processes as a class show the ability to create "novelty" or "complexity" or whatever you're calling it, you would have to show why one process in particular cannot. No, it's not "evidence" it's a mathematical model. But if the model adequately replicates the behavior of the phenomenon, and the model works but you claim the actual phenomenon doesn't, can't, you've got some 'splainen to do.

But you're partly right. Stochastic processes are used with computers; for instance, so-called "genetic algorithms" are used in Computer Aided Design to design computer circuits and other engineering components.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... We cannot justify our knowledge on an atheistic basis...

The evolutionary model does that very well, and explains the distribution in levels of intelligence (creative problem solving) across the various species we observe it in.

... we are led to justify it on a theistic basis...

So if you feel you can't currently account for it, you simply define it into existence a-priori? Sounds like 'God of the gaps'...

Either non-intelligence produced our intelligence, or another intelligence produced our intelligence. There is already a certain incongruity between cause and effect in the first hypothesis

This sounds like an argument from intuition, similar to claiming that order can't come from disorder. It may be the assumption that intelligence and non-intelligence are semantic 'opposites' and therefore one can't arise from the other, or perhaps a ontological error in assuming that intelligence is a clearly bounded category; but that isn't the case - intelligence is a description we give to behaviours of a certain level of complexity, and its boundaries are ill-defined.

Based on the author’s conclusions, what do you see as the implications for knowledge?

To me it says that we can have a greater degree of confidence in our assumptions of knowledge and make better judgements if we have a better awareness and understanding of the processes underlying our reasoning and their characteristic flaws and biases.

How does he account for the problem of error?

What do you mean by 'the problem of error' ?

And is there any irony in the author’s using his own “flawed and unreliable” cognition to try to persuade us that our cognition is also flawed and unreliable?

Not really, no. I think that's a crude simplification. Just because a system has identifiable flaws doesn't mean it can't function effectively and/or compensate for those flaws to some extent.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Though no expertise with Stochastic Process as an area of study, I do know that it is a computer-simulation process that accounts for random variables.

No, it's not that. stochastic processes can be simulated on a computer, but that's not what they are. A stochastic process is the probabilistic counterpart to a deterministic process, a collection of variables with some random component, usually considered in a time-ordered sequence.

 

[pshun2404]

Evidently. Stochastic processes have been studies as a branch of mathematics since well before the computer age. The reason I brought up the math is that as such processes as a class show the ability to create "novelty" or "complexity" or whatever you're calling it, you would have to show why one process in particular cannot. No, it's not "evidence" it's a mathematical model. But if the model adequately replicates the behavior of the phenomenon, and the model works but you claim the actual phenomenon doesn't, can't, you've got some 'splainen to do.

But you're partly right. Stochastic processes are used with computers; for instance, so-called "genetic algorithms" are used in Computer Aided Design to design computer circuits and other engineering components.

And the programs (with a goal in mind which precludes some element of expectancy bias)