Creationists: Explain your understanding of microevolution and macroevolution

[Guy Threepwood]

In the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial the Irreducible Complexity argument was thrashed. By a mousetrap. This crap was tried, this exact picture. They wailed, "How can something evolve if it has no purpose?"

One of the evolutionary scientists wore a mousetrap without the trigger as a tieclip. It is perfectly functional. Just not as a mousetrap. But it holds his tie in place just fine. Minus one of its parts. He sat there wearing it all day long. The flagella that they had been wailing and gnashing their teeth about seems to have started life not as a flagella at all. But rather as a venom injector.

As someone around here is fond of saying... case closed.

if you are referring to the type III secretion system- that was predated by the flagellum-

So that would be a like presenting a penguin as an evolutionary step towards flight.

 

[Phred]

if you are referring to the type III secretion system- that was predated by the flagellum-

So that would be a like presenting a penguin as an evolutionary step towards flight.

I'm not presenting anything. Go read the transcript of the trial. Stop pretending you're some kind of anti-evolutionary biologist. Oh look, Guy is so well-read and so knowledgeable he knows better than the actual evolutionary biologists. I guess I should just believe him.

Tell me, how many papers have you published on the subject?

 

[Subduction Zone]

The point was they they did find limits- they didn't need a billion years to find them, push natural variation beyond it's normal range and you create a dysfunctional animal. This concurs with what we see in the fossil record, sudden appearances followed by long periods of stasis or extinction, very little evidence of any incremental changes spanning significant morphological change.

Really? Then why can't any creationists link these supposed limits that make evolution impossible?

And you are simply wrong about what is seen in the fossil record.

 

[Subduction Zone]

if you are referring to the type III secretion system- that was predated by the flagellum-

So that would be a like presenting a penguin as an evolutionary step towards flight.

And you have evidence of that?

How are you going to find evidence for that claim? Valid sources only please. No lying sources allowed.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

I'm not presenting anything. Go read the transcript of the trial. Stop pretending you're some kind of anti-evolutionary biologist. Oh look, Guy is so well-read and so knowledgeable he knows better than the actual evolutionary biologists. I guess I should just believe him.

Tell me, how many papers have you published on the subject?

100% of astrologers believe in astrology, and they should know- they're the experts, right?

I don't think we should simply 'believe' anyone, especially based on academic authority- I do like to listen to their arguments and judge for myself.

re. the type III secretion- here's wiki's take (not known as skeptics of Darwinism)

• Evolution. As mentioned, the T3SS is closely related to the bacterial flagellum.[21] There are three competing hypotheses:[22] first, that the flagellum evolved first and the T3SS is derived from that structure, second, that the T3SS evolved first and the flagellum is derived from it, and third, that the two structures are derived from a common ancestor. There was some controversy about the different scenarios,[2][22] since they all explain protein homology between the two structures, as well as their functional diversity.[23] Yet, recent phylogenomic evidence favours the hypothesis that the T3SS derived from the flagellum

^ so we can't know for sure, but it only stands to reason when you think about it- the whole point of picking the flagellum was that it is not a newcomer, it is found at the very base of life- in bacteria and the simplest predecessors of eyes which got this conversation started- it is the go-to form of microbiological locomotion for all kinds of uses.. whereas bacteria able to interact specifically with entirely different species- would logically be something that came along later

And this is not an isolated case but a pattern I see emerging - lots of examples of higher functionality being broken through random mutation- birds losing flight, fish losing sight etc- and I do not contest the process by which random action causes random destruction. How it creates specific new functional nanomachines like the flagellum is a little more tricky to explain.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

And you have evidence of that?

How are you going to find evidence for that claim? Valid sources only please. No lying sources allowed.

see above post

 

[pitabread]

But you cannot select anything into existence- only what is already available.

Sure. And we know how variations in populations also arise.

Again, not a mystery.

And random corruption of genetic information is not a preserver of genetic information.

There is some sneaky language going on here.

The phrase "random corruption of genetic information" is deliberately loaded and not a proper characterization of the actual process of variation.

A correct description of how variation arises would include mechanisms like mutations, recombination and HGT.

Ultimately selection is a destructive filtering process, you start with a larger set of options, and end with a smaller one. right? i.e.- the opposite of the 'tree of life'

You're talking about two different things. The former involves selection within a population. The latter involves divergence between populations over time.

And so 'Origin of species, by means of natural selection' is oxymoronic.

That is the title of a book written over 150 years ago. The science of evolutionary biology has moved on quite a bit since.

 

[Subduction Zone]

see above post

So your answer is "No".

 

[sjastro]

Attempting to use probability arguments to argue against biological evolution and/or abiogenesis is a fool's errand.

Indeed it is.
In the physics version the rarest event ever observed was the decay of Xe-124 to Te-124 in a dark matter detector.
What makes this amazing is Xe-124 has a half life of around 18 sextillion years which is over a trillion times older than the age of the universe.
The half life is an average value, observing the decay of Xe-124 in our relatively young universe makes it a statistical outlier, not an example of creationism or ID at work.

Abstract
Two-neutrino double electron capture (2νECEC) is a second-order weak-interaction process with a predicted half-life that surpasses the age of the Universe by many orders of magnitude1. Until now, indications of 2νECEC decays have only been seen for two isotopes2,3,4,5, 78Kr and 130Ba, and instruments with very low background levels are needed to detect them directly with high statistical significance6,7. The 2νECEC half-life is an important observable for nuclear structure models8,9,10,11,12,13,14 and its measurement represents a meaningful step in the search for neutrinoless double electron capture—the detection of which would establish the Majorana nature of the neutrino and would give access to the absolute neutrino mass15,16,17. Here we report the direct observation of 2νECEC in 124Xe with the XENON1T dark-matter detector. The significance of the signal is 4.4 standard deviations and the corresponding half-life of 1.8 × 1022 years (statistical uncertainty, 0.5 × 1022 years; systematic uncertainty, 0.1 × 1022 years) is the longest measured directly so far. This study demonstrates that the low background and large target mass of xenon-based dark-matter detectors make them well suited for measuring rare processes and highlights the broad physics reach of larger next-generation experiments18,19,20.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

So your answer is "No".

• Evolution. As mentioned, the T3SS is closely related to the bacterial flagellum.[21] There are three competing hypotheses:[22] first, that the flagellum evolved first and the T3SS is derived from that structure, second, that the T3SS evolved first and the flagellum is derived from it, and third, that the two structures are derived from a common ancestor. There was some controversy about the different scenarios,[2][22] since they all explain protein homology between the two structures, as well as their functional diversity.[23] Yet, recent phylogenomic evidence favours the hypothesis that the T3SS derived from the flagellum

 

[tas8831]

• Evolution. As mentioned, the T3SS is closely related to the bacterial flagellum.[21] There are three competing hypotheses:[22] first, that the flagellum evolved first and the T3SS is derived from that structure, second, that the T3SS evolved first and the flagellum is derived from it, and third, that the two structures are derived from a common ancestor. There was some controversy about the different scenarios,[2][22] since they all explain protein homology between the two structures, as well as their functional diversity.[23] Yet, recent phylogenomic evidence favours the hypothesis that the T3SS derived from the flagellum

So no Wiki quotes on the veracity of creation by magic?
Found one:

Scientific refutation[edit]
The vast majority of scientists refute young Earth creationism. Around the start of the 19th century mainstream science abandoned the concept that Earth was younger than millions of years.[122] Measurements of archeological, astrophysical, biological, chemical, cosmological, and geological timescales differ from YEC's estimates of Earth's age by up to five orders of magnitude (that is, by factor of a hundred thousand times). Scientific estimates of the age of the earliest pottery discovered at 20,000 BCE, the oldest known trees before 12,000 BCE[clarification needed], ice cores up to 800,000 years old, and layers of silt deposit in Lake Suigetsu at 52,800 years old, are all significantly older than YEC estimate of Earth's age. YEC's theories are further contradicted by scientists' ability to observe galaxies billions of light years away.

Spokespersons for the scientific community have generally regarded claims that YEC has a scientific basis as being religiously motivated pseudoscience, because young Earth creationists only look for evidence to support their preexisting belief that the Bible is a literal description of the development of the Universe. In 1997, a poll by the Gallup organization showed that 5 per cent of U.S. adults with professional degrees in science took a young Earth creationist view.​

 

[SLP]

see above post

There you are! I've asked you a couple of times to show us the truth of one of your claims, and I'll be jiggered, each time you... don't. 3rd time a charm?

Back in 2019, you wrote, most confidently:

"Apart from differences in jargon, the pages of a molecular-biology journal might be interchanged with those of a computer-engineering journal"​

Because 'Designer'. And I replied, 1 day later, with:

Cool - give it a try:​

In vitro reconstitution of DNA replication initiated by genetic recombination: a T4 bacteriophage model for a type of DNA synthesis important for all cells​

Now, you replied to a bunch of other people, but not me - which was so rude since it was a thread I had started, and I replied to a bunch of your claims (which, despite the way you carry yourself, were not as sound and scientific as you want others, perhaps even yourself, to believe).

But maybe now you can support one of your assertions? Probably not.

For those wondering what "macroevolution" actually is...

For those wondering what "macroevolution" actually is...

Oh - then there was this 'scientific' argument against evolution:
For those wondering what "macroevolution" actually is...
Didn't address that one, either.

Oh - and you are wrong about junk DNA, too - funny, you ignored that post as well:
For those wondering what "macroevolution" actually is...

 

[Subduction Zone]

• Evolution. As mentioned, the T3SS is closely related to the bacterial flagellum.[21] There are three competing hypotheses:[22] first, that the flagellum evolved first and the T3SS is derived from that structure, second, that the T3SS evolved first and the flagellum is derived from it, and third, that the two structures are derived from a common ancestor. There was some controversy about the different scenarios,[2][22] since they all explain protein homology between the two structures, as well as their functional diversity.[23] Yet, recent phylogenomic evidence favours the hypothesis that the T3SS derived from the flagellum

You are making an error here. The T3SS we see today may have come from the flagellum. Bacteria with flagellum have been very successful and the original simpler bacteria likely went extinct. That does not mean that an earlier simpler bacteria that had the original T3SS was not the ultimate source of the flagellum.

Either way the irreducible complexity claim of the flagellum has been refuted. You may not understand what IC claims. It claims that such evolution is impossible. Since it is possible that the T3SS version is one possible route, there could be others, the claim of impossibility has been shown to be unjustified.

 

[SLP]

Either way the irreducible complexity claim of the flagellum has been refuted. You may not understand what IC claims. It claims that such evolution is impossible. Since it is possible that the T3SS version is one possible route, there could be others, the claim of impossibility has been shown to be unjustified.

Especially when there is NOT "a bacterial flagellum" - there are many different types, with diverse protein components. And then there are the non-bacterial ones.

When investigating Archaean flagellar structures, we see "These motors share homology to type IV pili and the homologous type II secretion system (T2SS), rather than the type III secretion system (T3SS), which shares homology with the BFM. The AFM differs from the BFM in the structure of the rotor and filament and, notably, in being powered by ATP hydrolysis rather than ion transit. "

So I guess this means deities sat around designing multiple yet similar flagellar motors and structures?

 

[Phred]

100% of astrologers believe in astrology, and they should know- they're the experts, right?

I don't think we should simply 'believe' anyone, especially based on academic authority- I do like to listen to their arguments and judge for myself.

re. the type III secretion- here's wiki's take (not known as skeptics of Darwinism)

• Evolution. As mentioned, the T3SS is closely related to the bacterial flagellum.[21] There are three competing hypotheses:[22] first, that the flagellum evolved first and the T3SS is derived from that structure, second, that the T3SS evolved first and the flagellum is derived from it, and third, that the two structures are derived from a common ancestor. There was some controversy about the different scenarios,[2][22] since they all explain protein homology between the two structures, as well as their functional diversity.[23] Yet, recent phylogenomic evidence favours the hypothesis that the T3SS derived from the flagellum

^ so we can't know for sure, but it only stands to reason when you think about it- the whole point of picking the flagellum was that it is not a newcomer, it is found at the very base of life- in bacteria and the simplest predecessors of eyes which got this conversation started- it is the go-to form of microbiological locomotion for all kinds of uses.. whereas bacteria able to interact specifically with entirely different species- would logically be something that came along later

And this is not an isolated case but a pattern I see emerging - lots of examples of higher functionality being broken through random mutation- birds losing flight, fish losing sight etc- and I do not contest the process by which random action causes random destruction. How it creates specific new functional nanomachines like the flagellum is a little more tricky to explain.

There's a tragic disunderstanding in your comments. At some point you made a decision that evolution just can't possibly have happened. So you're seeking out reasons to justify your position. I'll grant you that you're doing a better job of it than "Why are there still apes?" but it's the same thing. Just elevated to a more detailed argument.

 

[SLP]

That is the title of a book written over 150 years ago. The science of evolutionary biology has moved on quite a bit since.

And even Johnny Science can't help but argue like a creationist when the bafflegab stops impressing...

 

[Guy Threepwood]

You are making an error here. The T3SS we see today may have come from the flagellum. Bacteria with flagellum have been very successful and the original simpler bacteria likely went extinct. That does not mean that an earlier simpler bacteria that had the original T3SS was not the ultimate source of the flagellum.

Either way the irreducible complexity claim of the flagellum has been refuted. You may not understand what IC claims. It claims that such evolution is impossible. Since it is possible that the T3SS version is one possible route, there could be others, the claim of impossibility has been shown to be unjustified.

Here's a link to the study article- you could argue their findings with them- but we find ourselves in a familiar position, science shines an objective light on a subject, Darwinism must retreat into the shadows where the imagination can still propose 'maybe it could have happened'- 'prove it didn't!'- 'anything can happen in billions of years' etc etc

But of course this is not demanded by the evidence, quite the contrary- it is merely demanded by a theory still clinging to a Victorian age reductionist/simplistic view of reality

1. Abby SS, Rocha EP (September 2012). "The non-flagellar type III secretion system evolved from the bacterial flagellum and diversified into host-cell adapted systems". PLOS Genetics. 8 (9): e1002983. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1002983. PMC 3459982. PMID 23028376.

 

[pitabread]

Darwinism must retreat into the shadows where the imagination can still propose 'maybe it could have happened'

What is with this fascination with "Darwinism"? Darwinian evolution hasn't been a thing for 150 years. The actual science of modern evolution has changed quite a bit since Darwin's time.

I never understood why creationists/ID proponents keep fixating on arguing against science that is 150+ years old.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

There's a tragic disunderstanding in your comments. At some point you made a decision that evolution just can't possibly have happened. So you're seeking out reasons to justify your position. I'll grant you that you're doing a better job of it than "Why are there still apes?" but it's the same thing. Just elevated to a more detailed argument.

You are the one who said "Life evolved. If you don't accept that it did we're pretty much at an impass."

That seems a lot more cemented than my position!

As I have said I acknowledge my beliefs as such, I may be wrong, I've changed my mind once on this already- and I could have a very heated debate with myself 20 years ago! So the only thing I can prove for certain is that my opinion is totally unreliable!

I made no decision that evolution is impossible, rather I acknowledge that there are real gaps in understanding how it happened - when you try to reconstruct events over 100's of millions of years it is simply not something we can repeat, observe and measure empirically. I don't trust any 'absolute certainty' there - blind faith is faith which does not recognize itself.

Other than that, my argument is not just from incredulity (though that's certainly part of it)- but also an argument in the affirmative. Biological form is instructed by DNA, digital code, quaternary (base 4) rather than binary (base 2), and is arranged in a hierarchical system with many striking similarities to our own software architecture.

It's not that we can't explain how such information systems can be produced, we can- we have lots of examples, we are using one right now- we just don't know how it could possibly have happened via unguided natural mechanisms.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

So no Wiki quotes on the veracity of creation by magic?
Found one:

Scientific refutation[edit]
The vast majority of scientists refute young Earth creationism. Around the start of the 19th century mainstream science abandoned the concept that Earth was younger than millions of years.[122] Measurements of archeological, astrophysical, biological, chemical, cosmological, and geological timescales differ from YEC's estimates of Earth's age by up to five orders of magnitude (that is, by factor of a hundred thousand times). Scientific estimates of the age of the earliest pottery discovered at 20,000 BCE, the oldest known trees before 12,000 BCE[clarification needed], ice cores up to 800,000 years old, and layers of silt deposit in Lake Suigetsu at 52,800 years old, are all significantly older than YEC estimate of Earth's age. YEC's theories are further contradicted by scientists' ability to observe galaxies billions of light years away.

Spokespersons for the scientific community have generally regarded claims that YEC has a scientific basis as being religiously motivated pseudoscience, because young Earth creationists only look for evidence to support their preexisting belief that the Bible is a literal description of the development of the Universe. In 1997, a poll by the Gallup organization showed that 5 per cent of U.S. adults with professional degrees in science took a young Earth creationist view.​

I can't speak for creationists, let alone young earth creationists, but as renowned paleontologist David Raup said- I doubt if there is any single individual within the scientific community who could cope with the full range of [creationist] arguments without the help of an army of consultants in special fields.

The Bible describes a beginning to the universe (dismissed and ridiculed by mainstream cosmology until fairly recently)- it describes a dark and fluid early state- also only recently verified- with light - pure photons, appearing later- life beginning in the ocean, developing in distinct stages and culminating later with mankind- even the earth existing as a great ocean with a single continent appearing later

All lucky coincidences perhaps- But I can understand how someone might come to see the Bible as a more reliable account of reality than the vagaries of academic fashion!

Other than that I agree with Ben Carson- if God wanted to create a 14 BY old universe 10,000 years ago- he can arrange that sort of thing, he's God!