Evidence for macro-evolution

Guy Threepwood said:

Me neither.

Likewise there is no objective measurement to determine whether a person is bald or not.
It's simply a semantic argument that runs 'if I refuse to accept your definition of something, it doesn't exist'

Yet we all know what a bald man is, and we all know that genetic information specifies biological function.
As we all know that degrading digital information makes it less specific, and losing hair makes you more bald! not the opposite.

Similarly; how do we objectively quantify the specificity of information in a page from War & Peace?
We can argue that all day, but no measurement will change the fact, that randomly corrupting the information is infinitely more likely to degrade the specificity than enhance it.

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Except measuring baldness is trivial... you could either measure as a percentage of coverage, total hairs or a total variation since the process began.

Genetic specificity however appears to be entirely about feelings, despite there being alternative and objective measures of information content.

Guy Threepwood said:

Exactly, degeneration of genes through random corruption would never evolve a flatworm into a human, the opposite phenomenon is required. Hence the Royal Society's member's recent characterization of Darwinism, that it still lacks a theory of the generative.

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Nonsense.

We just saw several examples of "degeneration" of features that led to new and improved features in lines of descent.

Shemjaza said:

Except measuring baldness is trivial... you could either measure as a percentage of coverage, total hairs or a total variation since the process began.

Genetic specificity however appears to be entirely about feelings, despite there being alternative and objective measures of information content.

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Its been known since Watson and Crick that the DNA molecule quite literally specifies biological form, it's hardly a controversial observation these days. It wasn't a 'feeling' on their part, it's been established beyond reasonable doubt.

Shemjaza said:

We just saw several examples of "degeneration" of features that led to new and improved features in lines of descent.

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Yes, and I provided some of them.

e.g. Genetic degeneration can cause a bear to lose the ability to produce pigment in it's fur, this white fur is an advantage in the arctic, and you could describe it as a new improved feature and a perfect example of micro adaptation, which only needs extrapolated over time to produce macroevolution- as the argument goes.

The problem is that when geneticists delve into the mechanics of an 'adaptation' like this, they find that the change was produced by a LOSS of genetic function, in this case that which produced pigment.

And that's fine, but you cannot extrapolate this into a macro-evolutionary mechanism,
You cannot evolve a microbe into a human being, by merely destroying genetic functions in the bacteria- you need the exact opposite phenomenon to occur.

Guy Threepwood said:

The problem is that when geneticists delve into the mechanics of an 'adaptation' like this, they find that the change was produced by a LOSS of genetic function, in this case that which produced pigment.

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Um, I just told you that this claim is wrong -- adaptation is very often caused by a gain of genetic function. And guess what? I'm one of the geneticists you're talking about. Please stop repeating falsehoods.

Guy Threepwood said:

Its been known since Watson and Crick that the DNA molecule quite literally specifies biological form, it's hardly a controversial observation these days. It wasn't a 'feeling' on their part, it's been established beyond reasonable doubt.

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This is flat wrong. Watson and Crick determined the physical structure of DNA (the double helix). They did no decode the DNA to protein translation mechanism where this information is "specified".

sfs said:

Um, I just told you that this claim is wrong -- adaptation is very often caused by a gain of genetic function. And guess what? I'm one of the geneticists you're talking about. Please stop repeating falsehoods.

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Just as a general comment, you are asking a bit much.

IF so much as one fact on planet earth backed
creationist claims, it would not have been a creationist
who uncovered it.
We would all know abiut it. It could very potentially
be the greatest single discovery of all time.

So what is left for a creationist to say?

There's the cutsie " killer question" like
" howcome theres still monkeys".

Theres "man says. GOD says"

Etc and blah...

And there's misrepresentatuin, distottion, denial,
and there's just making things up.

If you deny a creationist all of those base and
ignoble tricks, what is left for them to say?

sfs said:

Um, I just told you that this claim is wrong -- adaptation is very often caused by a gain of genetic function. And guess what? I'm one of the geneticists you're talking about. Please stop repeating falsehoods.

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Then you are aware that these adaptations come from breaking an original function- even if it is a regulatory one,

If a bear loses the ability to produce pigment in it's fur, sure, you can semantically call its improved camouflage in an arctic environment a 'gain of genetic function' But the problem remains, you cannot macro evolve a bacteria into a bear by simply breaking existing functions- you need the exact opposite phenomena to occur.

Hans Blaster said:

This is flat wrong. Watson and Crick determined the physical structure of DNA (the double helix). They did no decode the DNA to protein translation mechanism where this information is "specified".

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Agreed, they determined the physical structure where DNA information is contained, and that this structure represented specific sequences relating to biological form.

Of course they didn't discover all the mechanisms involved in translation/duplication etc- that came later and there are still mechanisms that are not fully understood.

You don't need to understand computer code, to understand that it represents information which specifies the function of a program..

Guy Threepwood said:

Agreed, they determined the physical structure where DNA information is contained, and that this structure represented specific sequences relating to biological form.

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At the level of structure it looks the same no matter what information is located within.

Guy Threepwood said:

Of course they didn't discover all the mechanisms involved in translation/duplication etc- that came later and there are still mechanisms that are not fully understood.

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The discovered NONE of the transcription or duplication mechanisms.

Guy Threepwood said:

You don't need to understand computer code, to understand that it represents information which specifies the function of a program..

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It's not a "program".

Hans Blaster said:

At the level of structure it looks the same no matter what information is located within.

The discovered NONE of the transcription or duplication mechanisms.

It's not a "program".

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After the discovery of the double helix model of DNA, Crick's interests quickly turned to the biological implications of the structure. In 1953,
Watson and Crick published another article in Nature which stated: "it therefore seems likely that the precise sequence of the bases is the code that carries the genetical information".[58]

As I said, Its been known since Watson and Crick that the DNA molecule quite literally specifies biological form.

There are some grey areas in this subject, but this ain't one of them!

Estrid said:

If you deny a creationist all of those base and ignoble tricks, what is left for them to say?

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Give me liberty, or give me death.

Guy Threepwood said:

Its been known since Watson and Crick that the DNA molecule quite literally specifies biological form, it's hardly a controversial observation these days. It wasn't a 'feeling' on their part, it's been established beyond reasonable doubt.

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Don't claim Watson and Crick's work to support your ideas.

I stated that there are objective methods of measuring information, but the ID version does not.

Your claim that the specified information can only be decreased by mutation,,, but don't have a method or metric, so it's not an objective decrease it's just an idea and a feeling.

Guy Threepwood said:

Yes, and I provided some of them.

e.g. Genetic degeneration can cause a bear to lose the ability to produce pigment in it's fur, this white fur is an advantage in the arctic, and you could describe it as a new improved feature and a perfect example of micro adaptation, which only needs extrapolated over time to produce macroevolution- as the argument goes.

The problem is that when geneticists delve into the mechanics of an 'adaptation' like this, they find that the change was produced by a LOSS of genetic function, in this case that which produced pigment.

And that's fine, but you cannot extrapolate this into a macro-evolutionary mechanism,
You cannot evolve a microbe into a human being, by merely destroying genetic functions in the bacteria- you need the exact opposite phenomenon to occur.

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You are repeating yourself and still unjustified.

You've accepted that duplications exist and don't have any justification for why changes can't build to new structures.

The example I gave was that the flipper is clearly a total failure as it's original purpose as a hand or foot, but an excellent addition to the aquatic creature.

AV1611VET said:

Give me liberty, or give me death.

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Long live freedom.

Shemjaza said:

Don't claim Watson and Crick's work to support your ideas.

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If I were to retreat to a Victorian age understanding of the natural world, I'd agree Darwinism looks a lot more plausible, so does phlebotomy, phrenology and steady state. But the problems for each theory grew after their conception.

Shemjaza said:

I stated that there are objective methods of measuring information, but the ID version does not.

Your claim that the specified information can only be decreased by mutation,,, but don't have a method or metric, so it's not an objective decrease it's just an idea and a feeling.

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Which has more specified information in it's DNA; a human being or a bacteria? Take a guess- what did you base that guess on? ideas and feelings? Or some understanding of an objectively quantifiable difference?

Shemjaza said:

You are repeating yourself and still unjustified.

You've accepted that duplications exist and don't have any justification for why changes can't build to new structures.

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Sure, duplications of the same information, followed by mutations of that copy. Neither provides an explanation for the volumes of novel specified information required for macro-evolution.

Semantically yes, if you train a chimp to push the big green button on a Xerox- copying a page from War and Peace, did he create new specified information?

Yes and no,

arguably 'yes' in a broad technical sense,

Obviously 'no' in any practical meaningful sense.

The practical upshot being; copying and/or randomly corrupting a page of a book, in no way provides an explanation for how the book was or could have been written.

Shemjaza said:

The example I gave was that the flipper is clearly a total failure as it's original purpose as a hand or foot, but an excellent addition to the aquatic creature.

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Absolutely, again we have to make the distinction between gain/loss of specified information and the benefit/drawback of that. Two different things.

My catalytic converter rusting and falling off my 70's car, was clearly a total failure as it's original purpose.
But an excellent improvement in exhaust flow and efficiency of the engine.

Same problem once again, this loss of purpose through corruption of original design may well be a benefit- in the niche environment of the state I live in which has no emissions testing!, but in no way suggests that the original design could arise by the same process! it's literally the exact opposite process.

Guy Threepwood said:

If I were to retreat to a Victorian age understanding of the natural world, I'd agree Darwinism looks a lot more plausible, so does phlebotomy, phrenology and steady state. But the problems for each theory grew after their conception.

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Pretending that all of genetics discovered doesn't support evolution doesn't work.

Guy Threepwood said:

Which has more specified information in it's DNA; a human being or a bacteria? Take a guess- what did you base that guess on? ideas and feelings? Or some understanding of an objectively quantifiable difference?

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I don't know, because as far as I can see it doesn't exist.

Why don't you tell me the method and the metric and method you used to get an answer?

How do you know which one has more specified information? Please be specific.

Guy Threepwood said:

Sure, duplications of the same information, followed by mutations of that copy. Neither provides an explanation for the volumes of novel specified information required for macro-evolution.

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Sure they do. That's all you need to change and add to a genome.

Guy Threepwood said:

Semantically yes, if you train a chimp to push the big green button on a Xerox- copying a page from War and Peace, did he create new specified information?

Yes and no,

arguably 'yes' in a broad technical sense,

Obviously 'no' in any practical meaningful sense.

The practical upshot being; copying and/or randomly corrupting a page of a book, in no way provides an explanation for how the book was or could have been written.

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The proposed model can clearly modify a book into anything on a long enough time scale... your analogy is lacking an equivalent method of selection to pair down the variations.

Guy Threepwood said:

Absolutely, again we have to make the distinction between gain/loss of specified information and the benefit/drawback of that. Two different things.

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Again, how do you measure them?

Guy Threepwood said:

My catalytic converter rusting and falling off my 70's car, was clearly a total failure as it's original purpose.
But an excellent improvement in exhaust flow and efficiency of the engine.

Same problem once again, this loss of purpose through corruption of original design may well be a benefit- in the niche environment of the state I live in which has no emissions testing!, but in no way suggests that the original design could arise by the same process! it's literally the exact opposite process.

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And if genetics in a population only had the precision of rust in a macro car part then evolution would be impossible, but that isn't true.

We have an explanation in evolution and we also have evidence that it happened in the fossil and genetic records.

Guy Threepwood said:

Then you are aware that these adaptations come from breaking an original function- even if it is a regulatory one,

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No, I'm not aware of that at all. Sometimes a change maintains the original function and adds one, or increases how much the original function is carried out. Sometimes a gene is duplicated and the new copy acquires a new function while the old copy keeps performing the same function.

Why do you keep repeating the same line even after I gave you examples of actual mutations to actual genes that show that it's wrong?

Guy Threepwood said:

Sure, duplications of the same information, followed by mutations of that copy. Neither provides an explanation for the volumes of novel specified information required for macro-evolution.

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Yeah, they really do.

It's very hard to have a discussion with you since neither your beliefs nor your statements about the subject are based on evidence of any kind. Someone told you some talking points about evolution, you believed them, and you repeat the talking points. The fact that actual genetics completely refutes those talking points is of no interest to you.

Guy Threepwood said:

If I were to retreat to a Victorian age understanding of the natural world, I'd agree Darwinism looks a lot more plausible, so does phlebotomy, phrenology and steady state. But the problems for each theory grew after their conception.

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And what is your point exactly? That the ToE is false because some pseudoscience and wrong theories were formulated during that period? By that reasoning, shall we discard the existence of atoms, genetics and thermodynamics too?
And does that give you the possibility to substitute anything in the place - by default?
What exactly is your point?

Guy Threepwood said:

Then you are aware that these adaptations come from breaking an original function- even if it is a regulatory one,

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This statement is counterfactual.
A very cool experiment, performed by Yuuki Hayashi et al. that I will indicate as "The Rugged Landscape Experiment" shows this.
It has been mentioned earlier in this thread that there is a genetic "switch" in the DNA before the DNA part that codes for a protein. This switch can be activated by the a hormone, a the metabolic starting material or any other signal molecule. Yuuki Hayashi et al. performed a cool experiment: they stripped the coding part of the DNA of a virus that codes for the protein that grants access to a E. coli batcteria and replaced it with a random stretch of DNA. After 20 generations the virus had increased its infectivity by 1.7*10^7 compared with the starting generation.
This shows that gain of function does NOT develop by loss of funtion - all function was already lost - but indeed by increasing fitness of the coded protein.
source to the original papers:

Guy Threepwood said:

In a sense it's not complicated. DNA represents digital information which requires precise sequences to describe biological form and function.

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This is factually incorrect. As @sfs already argues in post n° 128, DNA can have quite some variation and still produce functional proteins - how else would paternity tests work?
To give one example, there are approximately 700 variations of hemoglobin in humans recorded (as for 1996). All functional and viablle.
source: Introduction to the Syllabus

sfs said:

Yeah, they really do.

It's very hard to have a discussion with you since neither your beliefs nor your statements about the subject are based on evidence of any kind. Someone told you some talking points about evolution, you believed them, and you repeat the talking points. The fact that actual genetics completely refutes those talking points is of no interest to you.

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It's more from my own experience of how digital information works.

You can create copies of it, and you can introduce random errors in those copies. But neither of these mechanisms are adequate to explain the origin of the information that is merely being copied and corrupted.