The myth of the "Nested Hierarchy of Common Descent"

[The Cadet]

That's not a test. The ERV's could be quite scrambled from their present state and be easily accommodated by invoking incomplete lineage sorting.

Then publish that paper and establish that this falsification criteria is non-viable. For some reason, I doubt you'll make it past peer review, as this seems like an extremely simplistic ad-hoc justification.

 

[lifepsyop]

I never said that it could accommodate completely different results.

But it could, without a doubt, by invoking incomplete lineage sorting. This is already invoked for human,chimp,gorilla dna inconsistencies.
Your ignorance of this is not a defense.

 

[lifepsyop]

Then publish that paper and establish that this falsification criteria is non-viable. For some reason, I doubt you'll make it past peer review, as this seems like an extremely simplistic ad-hoc justification.

Show me a paper that establishes the falsification criteria is viable.

I don't think you'll find one as biologists are well aware that many different conflicting ERV patterns could be explained by invoking incomplete lineage sorting.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2675975/

 

[DogmaHunter]

You're really shooting yourself in the foot here, as the strength of a theory is typically based on a hypothetical discovery of what you imagine would potentially falsify the theory.

My head hurst from the massive facepalm.

Evolutionists str constantly bring up hypothetical scenarios that they claim would disprove the theory.

Yes. Many things could potentially disprove the theory. Many things indeed.
Yes, it is also true that these things are never found in reality.

Think about what that implies.

Let's see if you can figure this out by yourself......

I guess no more ranting about hypothetical "Cambrian rabbits", then?

Can you explain what the "cambrian rabbits" is about, as you understand it?

 

[lifepsyop]

Yes. Many things could potentially disprove the theory. Many things indeed.
Yes, it is also true that these things are never found in reality.

See, to examine this claim, we have to be able to discuss these potential/hypothetical discoveries and how evolution theory would either accommodate or be falsified by them. Do you understand?

Do you now understand why you were wrong for chastising me for discussing those hypothetical discoveries?

 

[DogmaHunter]

See, to examine this claim, we have to be able to discuss these potential/hypothetical discoveries and how evolution theory would either accommodate or be falsified by them. Do you understand?

Sure. It has been explained numerous times why violations of the nested hierarchy would be problematic.
That's not to say that there aren't any explanations for some violations. Horizontal gene transfer would be one.
Others would not be explainable.

Mammals in pre-cambrian layers would not be explainable.

Do you now understand why you were wrong for chastising me for discussing those hypothetical discoveries?

There's a difference between hypothesizing (without expertise) about hypothesized reactions to hypothetical finds on the one hand, and discussing actual scientific predictions on the other.

 

[The Cadet]

See, to examine this claim, we have to be able to discuss these potential/hypothetical discoveries and how evolution theory would either accommodate or be falsified by them. Do you understand?

I understand it just fine. The problem is that you, a complete layperson, are making a whole lot of really quite baseless assumptions about how this would work and what the response would be.

 

[Oncedeceived]

How did you determine that they didn't acquire them by common descent?

I didn't, the researchers did.

What pattern of DNA homology does common design predict in this situation, and why? These genes are found in vocal birds, humans, and chimps. What does common design predict when we compare their DNA sequence, and why?

The chimps do not have the 50 gene specialization humans and vocalizing birds do. I explained why it is more in line with common design.

And?

How does this answer the question?

Why would matching DNA sequence and morphological phylogenies point to common design instead of common ancestry? Please explain.

This ability is acquired independently and is very specialized which points more to a common design.
The research shows that the brain circuits for this complex trait was very limited in which it could have evolved from a common ancestor.

 

[lifepsyop]

I understand it just fine. The problem is that you, a complete layperson, are making a whole lot of really quite baseless assumptions about how this would work and what the response would be.

Not true. I draw from the evolutionary community's own reasoning and explanatory devices, often with similar examples found in the literature.

 

[Loudmouth]

But it could, without a doubt, by invoking incomplete lineage sorting. This is already invoked for human,chimp,gorilla dna inconsistencies.
Your ignorance of this is not a defense.

Whole genome comparisons produce the predicted nested hierarchies.

 

[Loudmouth]

I didn't, the researchers did.

Where did they say that?

The chimps do not have the 50 gene specialization humans and vocalizing birds do. I explained why it is more in line with common design.

"Gene specializiations"? What the heck is that?

This ability is acquired independently and is very specialized which points more to a common design.

Independently acquired, specialized, and lineage specific adaptations ARE EXACTLY WHAT EVOLUTION PRODUCES.

Here is the situation. Let's use cytochrome C as our model. Here are the pairwise comparisons for human, chicken, and macaque DNA for cytochrome C.

Human -- macaque = 98.1%
Human -- chicken = 81.6%
Macaque -- chicken = 81.3%

I would strongly suspect that the genes in the paper you are citing follow the same pattern for humans, vocal birds, and primates. We would expect the human and primate sequence to be much closer than the human and vocal bird sequence.

So how do you explain this? Wouldn't a common designer use the most similar sequence for humans and vocal birds while giving non-vocal primates much more divergent genes?

The research shows that the brain circuits for this complex trait was very limited in which it could have evolved from a common ancestor.

What does that even mean, and where does the research support this conclusion?

 

[Loudmouth]

I don't think you'll find one as biologists are well aware that many different conflicting ERV patterns could be explained by invoking incomplete lineage sorting.

It is predicted that the majority of genetic markers will produce the expected nested hierarchy, and they do. The phylogenetic signal is there.

 

[lifepsyop]

It is predicted that the majority of genetic markers will produce the expected nested hierarchy

The problem is evolution theory expects too many substantially different nested hierarchies.

I suspect you concede this point in the case of your prior ERV example, as you've now retreated from it back into a fog of ambiguity and typically vague evolutionary claims.

 

[Loudmouth]

The problem is evolution theory expects too many substantially different nested hierarchies.

The problem is that you don't understand what a substantially different nested hierarchy is. Again, your claim is not backed by a shred of evidence. It is something you have invented from whole cloth.

I suspect you concede this point in the case of your prior ERV example, as you've now retreated from it back into a fog of ambiguity and typically vague evolutionary claims.

I concede no such thing. Please address the evidence and stop ignoring it.

 

[[serious]]

So you believe that nested hierarchy was tested but at the same time you admit it could accommodate completely different results. That sums up the point of this thread nicely.

No, it could accommodate a specific kind of different result, but could not accommodate other changes. For example, if we saw a prokaryote vertebrate, there is no way for the system to incorporate that. Such a find would turn our understanding of the past on it's head.

 

[Loudmouth]

No, it could accommodate a specific kind of different result, but could not accommodate other changes. For example, if we saw a prokaryote vertebrate, there is no way for the system to incorporate that. Such a find would turn our understanding of the past on it's head.

For DNA sequence, a substantially different phylogeny would have a chicken and human gene that was 99% similar and only 60% similarity for the chimp paralog. There is absolutely nothing like that seen in genomes. Not even close.

 

[[serious]]

.

 

[lifepsyop]

For DNA sequence, a substantially different phylogeny would have a chicken and human gene that was 99% similar and only 60% similarity for the chimp paralog. There is absolutely nothing like that seen in genomes. Not even close.

You mean your theory predicted that two similar looking mammals will be more similar to each other than either is to a chicken? Amazing.

Also, Evolution could accommodate that discordance by just having the gene similarly conserved in human, chimp, and chicken lineages until the human-chimp split. At which point the gene becomes rapidly non-conserved in the chimp lineage over 6+ million years, while the conservation (similarity) remains stable in human and chicken lineages.

 

[The Cadet]

You mean your theory predicted that two similar looking mammals will be more similar to each other than either is to a chicken? Amazing.

Yeah, just like the Whale Shark and the Blue Whale are more similar to each other than each are to bony fish and hippos, respectively. Oh wait...

Also, Evolution could accommodate that discordance by just having the gene similarly conserved in human, chimp, and chicken lineages until the human-chimp split. At which point the gene becomes rapidly non-conserved in the chimp lineage over 6+ million years, while the conservation (similarity) remains stable in human and chicken lineages.

Why are genes more or less conserved?

 

[lifepsyop]

Why are genes more or less conserved?

Because evolution/natural selection did it. That is always the "explanation" for unexpected molecular patterns.