Creationists: Explain your understanding of microevolution and macroevolution

[Guy Threepwood]

There is no evidence of any guiding being done. Nor does there appear to be a need for any. That is why scientists tend to laugh at ID people as much as they laugh at creationists. Look at your poor argument. All you have is a claim that something exists that you cannot support with evidence and a bunch of hand waving.

But thanks for admitting that you have no evidence. I gave you a more than reasonable challenge but you could not meet it.

As they laughed at Lemaitre-

'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win'
Mahatma Gandhi

I don't laugh at Darwinists at all- I used to be one, I understand entirely how intuitive, compelling and intellectually gratifying the theory can appear. 'Laughing' at an idea says a lot more about a person's ideological resistance to it than any scientific objection.

 

[Alan Kleinman]

The Miller Challange: Define macroevolution. Specifically, you need to tell us "what percentage of genes or how many base pairs of DNA have to change."

Take the example of the treatment of HIV to 3 simultaneous selection pressures targeting just two genes. One of the fastest evolving replicators with a high mutation rate, it does recombination, and isn't driven to extinction cannot evolve efficiently in this environment. There is a mathematical reason for this but people with dumbbell math training don't understand this reason.

Then take the example of the Lenski experiment. In order to achieve about 100 adaptive mutations in this single selection pressure environment, it takes about 500,000,000 million replications/day for 30 years to accomplish this microevolutionary process. If you have trouble doing the math for the total number of replications using your dumbbell math course training, I'll show you how to do the math when trained in a hard science program where the first two years of math coursework are the same courses that mathematics majors are required to take.

Biologists need to come back to reality and study and understand how the multiplication rule of probabilities affects DNA microevolutionary adaptation and other random processes such as abiogenesis. If biologists want to waste their lives believing in abiogenesis and macroevolution, that's their business. But don't indoctrinate naive school children with this stupid and dangerous mathematically irrational nonsense.

 

[Alan Kleinman]

I don't laugh at Darwinists at all- I used to be one, I understand entirely how intuitive, compelling and intellectually gratifying the theory can appear. 'Laughing' at an idea says a lot more about a person's ideological resistance to it than any scientific objection.

Here's where we may have a slight disagreement. I happen to think that Darwin was qualitatively correct with his understanding of biological evolution. Darwin wrote that evolution is composed of two components, competition (what Darwin called "the struggle for existence") and adaptation. What Darwin and biologists who believe in this concept have failed to do is quantify his concept correctly. Biologists have done a good job in quantifying competition with the Haldane and Kimura models (I think Haldane's model is better) but have failed to correctly quantify DNA microevolutionary adaptive evolution. Both the Kishony Mega-plate experiment and the Lenski long-term evolutionary experiments are good examples of Darwinian evolution. The Kishony experiment demonstrates DNA microevolutionary adaptation in a minimally competitive environment and the Lenski experiment demonstrates Darwinian evolution in a highly competitive environment. What you will find is that competition slows DNA microevolutionary adaptation. Try and find the correct mathematics for these experiments in the literature written by someone that believes in macroevolution, you won't find those papers.

 

[Subduction Zone]

As they laughed at Lemaitre-

'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win'
Mahatma Gandhi

I don't laugh at Darwinists at all- I used to be one, I understand entirely how intuitive, compelling and intellectually gratifying the theory can appear. 'Laughing' at an idea says a lot more about a person's ideological resistance to it than any scientific objection.

Lemaitre had evidence, you don't. Laughing at scientists whose ideas are supported by scientific evidence is usually a bad idea. Laughing at those that just wave their hands and say "magic" is pretty safe.

 

[Subduction Zone]

In the 1920s and 1930s, almost every major cosmologist preferred an eternal steady-state universe, and several complained that the beginning of time implied by the Big Bang imported religious concepts into physics; this objection was later repeated by supporters of the steady-state theory.[56] This perception was enhanced by the fact that the originator of the Big Bang theory, Lemaître, was a Roman Catholic priest.[57]

Correct, because that was the interpretation of the evidence at that time. And did you not see how your source refuted you? It said that "several" opposed the Big Bang on religious grounds. Even back then there were far more than just "several" physicists.

 

[Job 33:6]

So if we dig through history and see sudden appearances, similarities- some gaps, jumps, redundant features and even some dead ends, but a general trend towards greater sophistication over time- what does this pattern tell you about how these different forms came into existence?

Depends on the pattern. So of we look at fossils of mammals, we follow the trend and it takes us back to mammals that shared features with reptiles. And followed further, reptiles that shared features with mammals.

You know the story.

Follow the trend back further and mammals disappear. Then when we follow the reptiles with mammal features back in time, eventually those reptiles lead back to reptiles with amphibious features, like salamanders. Then eventually just as mammals did, as we go further back, reptiles disappear and we are left with amphibians. Then as we track amphibians back, we stumble across amphibians with fish like features, amphibians with gills and scales and such. Them eventually as we go deeper and deeper into the rock record, those amphibians disappear and we are just left with fish.

We keep following the trend deeper and deeper and the fish become more like finless eel-like annelids.

Before then, we have things like animals that look kind of like plants, and things with off body plans like anomalocaris or opabinia or even other odd things like charnia and other sea pen like animals

Then beyond that, you get things like microscopic species and species without bones and without shells, and the fossil record largely ends (with the exception of the presence of things like fossil algae and such).

So the question becomes what best explains the reasoning for this transition of life through time.

 

[Frank Robert]

Nothing will shut up mathematically incompetent dogmatists. But if you want an explanation of macroevolution, it is the misguided belief that there is some mechanism for large genetic transformation. There is no experimental evidence for this, there is only experimental evidence of microevolution where DNA microevolutionary adaptation to a single selection pressure requires about 1/(mutation rate) replications for each adaptive evolutionary step on that evolutionary trajectory. The number of replications for each adaptive step for more than a single simultaneous selection pressure goes up exponentially if improvement in fitness requires more than 2 (adaptive) mutations on an evolutionary trajectory. This is because of the multiplication rule of probabilities. And you better learn to live with your nausea because the Kishony and Lenski evolutionary experiments give well-measured evidence of this. If biologists took more than a couple of courses in dumbbell math (and breath a big sigh of relief when they barely pass those courses and say "I hope I never see that again) and a survey course in physics where they certainly don't master the laws of thermodynamic, these biologists and you might understand these mathematical and physical facts of life. And of course, this is why biologists can't explain the evolution of drug resistance, herbicide resistance, pesticide resistance, and why cancer treatments fail. They are too busy living in this fantasy world of macroevolution. No wonder biology is referred to as a soft science, really, soft pseudo-science is a better description of what biologists have made of their field of study.

You continue to be insulting and not specific while displaying that you are unable of defining the very thing you say does not exist. Your comment a poor attempt at misdirection and personal incredibility. Misdirection works well in hypnosis but not well elsewhere, and arguing from incredulity is not science it is a fallacy.

The Miller Challenge: Define macroevolution. Specifically, you need to tell us "what percentage of genes or how many base pairs of DNA have to change."

 

[Job 33:6]

It was from your first link:



which clearly points out "the animal was closely related to the common ancestor of sivatherium and samotherium, but it evolved in another direction."

Of course there are other Giraffe-like animals, of course we see similarity in design- what is much more difficult to identify is a record of gradual development occurring as Darwin predicted.

What we generally see are sudden appearances in the record, followed by large periods of virtual stasis- and often decline in size/ sophistication as with the Giraffa Jumae, which was about a meter taller than it's modern decedents and predates your non-ancestor by 4 millions years!

Oh I see, you quoted a small portion of my link then added info from another source of your choice.

I see what you did there

And what you're saying isn't true.

Paleobiota of the Liushu Formation - Wikipedia

Liushu formation of shorter ancestors dates back 11mya to 6mya, whereas giraffe jumae dates back 5mya.

Climacoceras - Wikipedia

Here is what is considered a "giraffoid" of the oligocene. Also short necked and older than all of them. It's a giraffe-deer-antelope mix. It's described as having ossicones which in today's world we only see on giraffes as far as I am aware. Though they resemble antlers as well. Two species of climacoceras have been discovered in Kenya, also where we might expect prehistoric giraffes to be.

Here is another short necked giraffe as well from the mid Miocene, also older than jumae:
Palaeotragus - Wikipedia

Palaeotragus ("ancient goat") is a genus of very large, primitive, okapi-like giraffids from the Miocene of Africa and Eurasia.

Palaeotragus primaevus is the older species, being found in early to mid-Miocene strata, while P. germaini is found in Late Miocene strata. P. primaevus is distinguished from P. germaini by the lack of ossicones. It was also the smaller species, being a little under 2 m (6 ft 7 in) at the shoulders. P. germaini had a pair of ossicones, and in life, it would have resembled either a short-necked, 3 m (9.8 ft) tall giraffe, or a gargantuan okapi.


What's funny about this description is that it's larger than an okapi, yet smaller than modern giraffes. It's a short necked smaller giraffe essentially.

 

[Frank Robert]

Biologists need to come back to reality and study and understand how the multiplication rule of probabilities affects DNA microevolutionary adaptation and other random processes such as abiogenesis. If biologists want to waste their lives believing in abiogenesis and macroevolution, that's their business. But don't indoctrinate naive school children with this stupid and dangerous mathematically irrational nonsense.

Scientists do not accept your claims on macroevolution. Did you ever wonder why after all these years of self-promotion why no scientists agree with you?

 

[Subduction Zone]

I have visited the gravesite of the Wright brothers near where some of my family grew up- it struck me that my own father-in-law is old enough, that he may well have passed the inventor of powered flight walking down the street in his home town..

After such a miniscule period of time in human history, far less geological history, we have gone from a few feet of the ground, to space probes leaving the solar system, and orbiting telescopes powerful enough to examine other solar systems for suitability of habitation. What could be achieved in another 100 years, 1000, 100,000?

I'd say the observation fits the math, we are probably alone - belief in ET seems to rely on a fairly narrow assumption; where it is rare enough that not a single race would ever colonize the galaxy, yet still plentiful enough in other galaxies to render humanity gratifyingly 'insignificant'

As a hypothetical, if it could be proven that we are in fact alone- would this shake your atheist beliefs? Or could you write this off as yet one more staggering 'coincidence'?

Again, this belief of yours is based upon an ignorance of science. Unless we find a way to "warp" space or find some other what would be science fiction cheat around the distance then interstellar travel may be beyond being practical. Please note, I did not say it is not practical, but there are problems that may be insurmountable.

And what observations are you talking about? There have been no observations that support aliens that I know of.

And no, proving that we are alone in our galaxy would not cause me to believe in a God. I am not sure how good this website is but it says that there could be on the order of 300 million planets that could have life on them:

Scientists pinpoint how many planets in the Milky Way could host life

Even if they have life the vast majority would almost certainly have only single celled life. With the short period of time where we have had civilization. Let's call it 5,000 out of 4.5 billion years that alone would be odds of 1 out of a million by improper and crude statistics. And your hypothetical is rather pointless since if we could tell if we were alone there would be quite a bit more knowledge that came with that which could sway the argument either way.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Nothing will shut up mathematically incompetent dogmatists. But if you want an explanation of macroevolution, it is the misguided belief that there is some mechanism for large genetic transformation. There is no experimental evidence for this, there is only experimental evidence of microevolution where DNA microevolutionary adaptation to a single selection pressure requires about 1/(mutation rate) replications for each adaptive evolutionary step on that evolutionary trajectory. The number of replications for each adaptive step for more than a single simultaneous selection pressure goes up exponentially if improvement in fitness requires more than 2 (adaptive) mutations on an evolutionary trajectory. This is because of the multiplication rule of probabilities. And you better learn to live with your nausea because the Kishony and Lenski evolutionary experiments give well-measured evidence of this. If biologists took more than a couple of courses in dumbbell math (and breath a big sigh of relief when they barely pass those courses and say "I hope I never see that again) and a survey course in physics where they certainly don't master the laws of thermodynamic, these biologists and you might understand these mathematical and physical facts of life. And of course, this is why biologists can't explain the evolution of drug resistance, herbicide resistance, pesticide resistance, and why cancer treatments fail. They are too busy living in this fantasy world of macroevolution. No wonder biology is referred to as a soft science, really, soft pseudo-science is a better description of what biologists have made of their field of study.

To be fair- ToE is an extremely intuitive idea at a superficial level- as was the reductionist model of physics that it was born out of.

A pivotal breakthrough was discovering that light waves did not 'obey the rules' at extreme frequencies.
What is very telling is that this phenomena was coined- not the ultraviolet 'breakthrough' or 'enlightenment' but the 'ultraviolet catastrophe'. Classical physics was very hard for many to let go of.

And this is an overarching problem re. atheistic dogma v open scientific investigation. It is ever obliged to run with the simplest conclusion at hand, for fear of uncomfortable implications hiding in deeper complexities.

A skeptic of atheism has no such barriers to embracing whatever sophistication in design science can reveal.

'Science progresses one funeral at a time'
Max Planck (skeptic of atheism and originator of quantum theory)

 

[Subduction Zone]

The Kishony and Lenski experiments are experimental evidence, but it takes more than a couple of courses in dumbbell math and a survey course of physics to understand it.

Experimental evidence of what? You already admitted three times that you have no evidence.

Real scientists take more than a couple of courses in dumbbell math and a survey course in physics. It is you who fail to understand the thermodynamics and trivial mathematics of DNA evolution. It is worse than simple-mindedness to claim that DNA is "on the order of a recipe".

Yep, so are you saying that you are not a real scientist? That appears to be the case here. You are a one trick pony with a fairly decent understanding of statistics, but that is about it. And no, my statement was far more accurate than any of yours. Calling it a "code" and trying to refute evolution because codes are manmade is a far worse failure. Context matters.

 

[Subduction Zone]

So if we dig through history and see sudden appearances, similarities- some gaps, jumps, redundant features and even some dead ends, but a general trend towards greater sophistication over time- what does this pattern tell you about how these different forms came into existence?

You appear to be making a bit of an equivocation fallacy here. When paleontologists speak of the "sudden appearance" of a new species they are referring to a geologically sudden appearance. They are not speaking of "suddenly" in a biological sense. For example the Cambrian Explosion was over 20 million years long. A lot of evolution can occur in 20 million years. So what do we see when we look at the fossil record? Evidence that perfectly jibes with the theory of evolution.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Again, this belief of yours is based upon an ignorance of science.

sticks and stones, if you have any substantive point to make then do so and I will gladly respond (to save you time I don't generally read anything with personal attacks)

 

[Frank Robert]

A skeptic of atheism has no such barriers to embracing whatever sophistication in design science can reveal.

Atheists are not the only ones who do not embrace any "sophistication in design.
The Flagellum Unspun | The Collapse of "Irreducible Complexity" |Kenneth R. Miller
Also see 2 Christian scientist and one atheist:

 

[Subduction Zone]

sticks and stones, if you have any substantive point to make then do so and I will gladly respond (to save you time I don't generally read anything with personal attacks)

Please do not spread falsehoods about others. You probably do not even understand the concept of scientific evidence and why there is none for your beliefs. Don't get mad because people are constantly correcting your errors. Take the opportunity to learn.

The fact that you are ignorant of the sciences is not a personal attack. At this point the theory of evolution is the only concept supported by evidence. There is no scientific evidence for other concepts. In fact most creationists avoid learning what scientific evidence is and what the scientific method is. When I see someone making statements that demonstrate that they are ignorant or dishonest I usually give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are merely ignorant and not lying.

What "personal attack" did I ever make? You just made a big one.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Atheists are not the only ones who do not embrace any "sophistication in design.
The Flagellum Unspun | The Collapse of "Irreducible Complexity" |Kenneth R. Miller
Also see 2 Christian scientist and one atheist:

The crux of the argument was that the type III secretion system represented an intermediate evolutionary step towards the flagellum.

What many are still not aware of, is that the Flagellum predates the type III secretion system.
i.e. this would be like presenting a penguin as an intermediate evolutionary step towards flight.

 

[Alan Kleinman]

You continue to be insulting and not specific while displaying that you are unable of defining the very thing you say does not exist. Your comment a poor attempt at misdirection and personal incredibility. Misdirection works well in hypnosis but not well elsewhere, and arguing from incredulity is not science it is a fallacy.

What's insulting about the fact that biologists take a couple of courses in dumbbell math and a survey course in physics as their scientific training? That's the well know curriculum of biologists.

The Miller Challenge: Define macroevolution. Specifically, you need to tell us "what percentage of genes or how many base pairs of DNA have to change."

Specifically, 2 genes subject to 3 simultaneous selection pressures. If we are talking about a genome with 20,000 coding genes, that's 2/20,000 equals a fraction of 0.0001 or 0.01%. But that number will be much smaller if you include portions of the genome which control the coding portions.

If you think this is not correct, post an experimental example of DNA evolution demonstrating otherwise. Tell your buddy Ken Miller and Joshua Swamidass to learn something about the mathematics of DNA adaptive evolution. Then they might understand why 3 drug combination therapy works for the treatment of HIV.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The crux of the argument was that the type III secretion system represented an intermediate evolutionary step towards the flagellum.

What many are still not aware of, is that the Flagellum predates the type III secretion system.
i.e. this would be like presenting a penguin as an intermediate evolutionary step towards flight.

You have been corrected on this before. Do we need to do so again?

 

[Subduction Zone]

What's insulting about the fact that biologists take a couple of courses in dumbbell math and a survey course in physics as their scientific training? That's the well know curriculum of biologists.


Specifically, 2 genes subject to 3 simultaneous selection pressures. If we are talking about a genome with 20,000 coding genes, that's 2/20,000 equals a fraction of 0.0001 or 0.01%. But that number will be much smaller if you include portions of the genome which control the coding portions.

If you think this is not correct, post an experimental example of DNA evolution demonstrating otherwise. Tell your buddy Ken Miller and Joshua Swamidass to learn something about the mathematics of DNA adaptive evolution. Then they might understand why 3 drug combination therapy works for the treatment of HIV.

Posts like this would be much more convincing if you knew what was and what was not evidence in the sciences.

By the way, how far along are you in developing a test on your non-hypothesis? What reasonable test based upon your idea's merits could possibly refute it?