Prove it or remove it challenge

[Paterfamilia]

Why would this possibly be true? Cyanobacteria emerged somewhere around 1.6-2 billion years later than the earliest life we have evidence for, certainly no earlier than 1 billion years:

The Evolutionary Diversification of Cyanobacteria: Molecular- Phylogenetic and Paleontological Perspectives

"Time Calibration for the Tree of Life. Integrating molecular phylo-genetic, physiological, paleontological, and geochemical data, we
propose that the clade of cyanobacteria marked by heterocyst and akinete differentiation evolved once between 2,450 and 2,100 Ma." [Ma = million years ago]​

Are you aware of just how diverse cyanobacteria are? Or that their genetic diversity provides another strong layer of evidence for evolution?

Phenotypic and genetic diversification of Pseudanabaena spp. (cyanobacteria).

"Our preliminary results on population genetic analyses of the PC genes suggest an evolutionary diversification of Pseudanabaena through purifying selection"​

Cyanobacteria are unusually morphologically and genetically diverse. We know of 60 plus basic morphotypes that we can trace genetically back to cyanobacteria in the 1.5-2 Ma period alone.

There are entire TEXT BOOKS written about them and their evolutionary history. Clearly geneticists and biologists have no issues with cyanobacteria and evolution, otherwise they wouldn't be using it as a teaching example.

No, no my point was that on ToE, Cyanobacteria are way too complex to be the EARLIEST life form.

And that takes us back to my point, and that is that the more scientific progress we make, the high complexity of even the simplest life forms becomes ever more apparent, and daunting, from a naturalist rationale standpoint.

 

[Gene2memE]

No, no my point was that on ToE, Cyanobacteria are way too complex to be the EARLIEST life form.

Really? You don't say.

Perhaps that's why no-one proposes as such. From what we know via the study of abiotic genetics, the earliest life would have been very different indeed.

 

[Paterfamilia]

What is abiotic genetics?

 

[VirOptimus]

No, no my point was that on ToE, Cyanobacteria are way too complex to be the EARLIEST life form.

And that takes us back to my point, and that is that the more scientific progress we make, the high complexity of even the simplest life forms becomes ever more apparent, and daunting, from a naturalist rationale standpoint.

It really doesnt. And moreover, even if your reasoning wasnt flawed; therefore god/creationism doesnt follow.

 

[The Cadet]

Irreducible complexity as a concept is understood to refer to multi-part structures or processes that lose capacity to function if any discrete part is removed.

I feel the need to point out that structures like this can evolve fairly easily through the removal of parts. A dry-stone arch is "irreducibly complex"; remove any piece, and it will fall apart. Does this mean they aren't put together piece by piece? No, it simply means that the step before the keystone was placed and the arch was finished was not a bunch of rocks defying gravity, it was a bunch of rocks held up by a support structure, which can be taken away once the keystone is laid.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Okay. Irreducible complexity is not a failed argument, and there are quite a few examples at this point.

Your "best" analogy fails on several points. First, if the complex pay structure disappeared, the army would generate a different pay structure. The army wouldn't die.

Second, modern cells differ very little from ancient cells. They had all the same components.

Of course it is a failed argument. It was an argument from ignorance, at least that is what Behe used. He found problems in evolution where he could not understand how they evolved. That is because he made the typical creationist mistake of assuming that the present life form was a goal, when it was merely a result. His favorite, the bacterial flagellum, has been totally busted.

 

[Subduction Zone]

This is from a paper "Quantitative linguistic study of DNA sequences" published in "Science Direct" that was mentioned on a physics forum that I frequent.

"ABSTRACT
A new family of compound Poisson distribution functions from quantitative linguistics is used to study the linguistic features of DNA sequences that go beyond the Zipf's law. The relative frequency distribution of n-tuples and the compositional segmentation study can be fit reasonably well using this new family of distribution functions. On the other hand, the absolute values of the relative frequency come out naturally from the linguistic model without ambiguity. It is suggesting that DNA sequences have features that resemble natural language and it may be modeled by linguistic methodology."

Please let me know if you want me to translate any of it for you, or explain the ramifications.

So a person used the fact that there are similarities between languages and DNA to try to make a claim. So what? Let's hear what you think he meant. And this is only one paper. There may be others that refute this, this is not my area of expertise and I know it is not yours. You are merely a fan of creationist sites.

 

[-57]

I feel the need to point out that structures like this can evolve fairly easily through the removal of parts. A dry-stone arch is "irreducibly complex"; remove any piece, and it will fall apart. Does this mean they aren't put together piece by piece? No, it simply means that the step before the keystone was placed and the arch was finished was not a bunch of rocks defying gravity, it was a bunch of rocks held up by a support structure, which can be taken away once the keystone is laid.

And you can also form faces of presidents from the side of a mountain by removing stone from strategic points.

 

[Paterfamilia]

Really? You don't say.

Perhaps that's why no-one proposes as such. From what we know via the study of abiotic genetics, the earliest life would have been very different indeed.

So first off, we can agree that there is no such thing as abiotic genetics. Perhaps you meant abiogenesis and the auto-correct sabotaged you? I hate when that happens. But there is an edit function so you can change it if you like.

 

[Paterfamilia]

It really doesnt. And moreover, even if your reasoning wasnt flawed; therefore god/creationism doesnt follow.

Yes you are right. I wasn't saying that it does, from this argument.

 

[Paterfamilia]

I feel the need to point out that structures like this can evolve fairly easily through the removal of parts. A dry-stone arch is "irreducibly complex"; remove any piece, and it will fall apart. Does this mean they aren't put together piece by piece? No, it simply means that the step before the keystone was placed and the arch was finished was not a bunch of rocks defying gravity, it was a bunch of rocks held up by a support structure, which can be taken away once the keystone is laid.

Right. I agree. Very easy to do by people building an arch.

I have a question, do you know the likelihood of a single beneficial point mutation? I know that it can happen, so I'm not saying that it can't. What I am asking is, do you know the average number of years it takes?

And then the likelihood of a second beneficial mutation at the same point? And then a third at the same point?

 

[Paterfamilia]

Of course it is a failed argument. It was an argument from ignorance, at least that is what Behe used. He found problems in evolution where he could not understand how they evolved. That is because he made the typical creationist mistake of assuming that the present life form was a goal, when it was merely a result. His favorite, the bacterial flagellum, has been totally busted.

Your entire argument is from ignorance. You acknowledge that in your post #687, but more on that in a moment.

Michael Behe is a true stud. Talk about a guy who can stand up and take a punch. His observations on the bacteria flagellum are not busted, but rather alive and doing well. And yes, the list of irreducible structures and processes grows daily.

 

[Nithavela]

Right. I agree. Very easy to do by people building an arch.

I have a question, do you know the likelihood of a single beneficial point mutation? I know that it can happen, so I'm not saying that it can't. What I am asking is, do you know the average number of years it takes?

And then the likelihood of a second beneficial mutation at the same point? And then a third at the same point?

The material Nylon was invented in 1935, and saw commercial use since 1938.

In 1975, a bacterium was discovered that could digest Nylon, a material that didn't exist anywhere on the world before 1935.

Considering that the bacterium was most likely not discovered at the day it evolved, let's eyeball it and say that the time needed for this beneficial mutation was 30 years.

Of course, this says nothing about the time it takes. Bacteria evolve far quicker then, let's say, elephants, because they procreate far faster. Still, you can see that such a beneficial mutation can happen extremely quickly.

 

[Paterfamilia]

So a person used the fact that there are similarities between languages and DNA to try to make a claim. So what? Let's hear what you think he meant. And this is only one paper. There may be others that refute this, this is not my area of expertise and I know it is not yours. You are merely a fan of creationist sites.

Did you read the quoted material? If there are refutations they should be easy to find. I tried and didn't find any but you should be able to. Give it a try.

Again you claim ignorance, and that's fine. It's just that it's an incongruent claim juxtaposed to your often repeated admonition to "learn something". Are you saying I should shut up about it because I don't have a terminal degree in the relevant field? Then it follows that you should shut up as well. So should Krauss, and so should Harris, and so should....

The "So what?" Is that your claim that I used the term "information" in the wrong sense. I did not, and I knew that going in. It seems that you're pretty immune to getting slapped in the face by your own mistakes, which then necessitates me trudging through the process of spelling it out.

What I think this paper, and many others, and the considered conclusions of the bulk of educated people in the relevant disciplines is, that DNA is an example of both main categories of information.

This is a quote from a respected atheist physicist:

"There's a very broad definition of infomation that is used in physics that is basically 'any property of a system', for example, a cloud of gas falling into a black hole results in a loss of information - you cannot retrieve the configuration of the cloud to recreate it.

But there's more narrow definition about codifying sequences of events. Wiki has a defintion: "any kind of event that affects the state of a dynamic system." but I'm not sure it needs to affects a dynamic system.

What's been bugging me is that I cannot find an example of information (in the codified instructions sense) that does not involve life."


So, I agree with his conclusion. Is that an acceptable conclusion?

 

[Paterfamilia]

The material Nylon was invented in 1935, and saw commercial use since 1938.

In 1975, a bacterium was discovered that could digest Nylon, a material that didn't exist anywhere on the world before 1935.

Considering that the bacterium was most likely not discovered at the day it evolved, let's eyeball it and say that the time needed for this beneficial mutation was 30 years.

Of course, this says nothing about the time it takes. Bacteria evolve far quicker then, let's say, elephants, because they procreate far faster. Still, you can see that such a beneficial mutation can happen extremely quickly.

Yes sir. But that bacteria already had the gene for that prior. It turned on a marker (an absolutely incredible feat of adaptation); it didn't mutate a new one.

What I was asking is if you know of a relevant study that you can point out that concludes some estimate of the time it takes for a single beneficial point mutation. And then a second at the same point.

 

[lasthero]

is a quote from a respected atheist physicist:

Who? Because when I tracked the quote, I just found a software engineer posting on a Physics forum.

 

[JonFromMinnesota]

Michael Behe is a true stud. Talk about a guy who can stand up and take a punch.

Is this the same Michael Behe who was embarrassed on the witness stand in the Dover case when his irreducible complexity argument was shown to be in error?

His observations on the bacteria flagellum are not busted, but rather alive and doing well.

Actually it was busted......in a court of law.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB200_1.html

And yes, the list of irreducible structures and processes grows daily.

It's nothing more than an argument from personal incredulity.

 

[Paterfamilia]

Hi JFM!

Is this the same Michael Behe who was embarrassed on the witness stand in the Dover case when his irreducible complexity argument was shown to be in error?



Actually it was busted......in a court of law.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB200_1.html



It's nothing more than an argument from personal incredulity.

Yes that same Michael Behe. Quite a guy, a hero. And if his argument is from incredulity, it's the same incredulity that Darwin expressed.

An argument from incredulity says that since we don't know how it could have happened, it couldn't have happened. This situation is different, since we do know the claimed mechanism for the obvious result, that being gradual step by step mutation and natural selection.

It's not an argument from incredulity to say that you can't use room temperature gasoline to put out a fire. A person could say - "sure you can, you just don't know how!" I would say, "let's see the demonstration" (from a safe distance of course).

If Darwinian evolution is by random mutation and natural selection, it can't by definition account for the formation of complex structures or processes though concurrent multiple mutations. That would be a different theory.

And you would be taking your chances to offer that as an explanation.

 

[Paterfamilia]

Who? Because when I tracked the quote, I just found a software engineer posting on a Physics forum.

Yeah, which doesn't make him "not a physicist" or "not respected".

You would agree that a physicist who works as a software engineer knows a bit about information?

 

[JonFromMinnesota]

Yes that same Michael Behe. Quite a guy, a hero.

His side lost that court case badly didn't they?

And if his argument is from incredulity, it's the same incredulity that Darwin expressed.

Are you referring to his comments about the eye? That seems to be a favorite part of his book creationists quote mine. If I remember correctly, he expressed if it could be shown that natural selection shaped the different types of eyes we see among species, it wouldn't harm his theory. And it has been explained. Just as the bacteria flagellum has been explained.

An argument from incredulity says that since we don't know how it could have happened, it couldn't have happened. This situation is different, since we do know the claimed mechanism for the obvious result, that being gradual step by step mutation and natural selection.

It's not a claimed mechanism, it's an observable fact.

It's not an argument from incredulity to say that you can't use room temperature gasoline to put out a fire. A person could say - "sure you can, you just don't know how!" I would say, "let's see the demonstration" (from a safe distance of course).

What does this example have to do with anything?

Do you need a demonstration of natural selection? Sign up for a biology lab at your local university.

If Darwinian evolution is by random mutation and natural selection, it can't by definition account for the formation of complex structures or processes though concurrent multiple mutations. That would be a different theory.

Actually it can. I'll let cell biologist Kenneth Miller explain that to you: