RE: How do we identify design? (Full Version)

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gluadys -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/25/2008 5:29:15 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jhud
I have answered it a few times, most recently when I said:

"...unless you think that the ancestor of the bat was some spectacularly unusual mammal, there is no reason to think that we can't test the specific effects of modifying a standard mammalian genome and testing how the various combinations of gene expression and regulation that we see in a bat impact that genome. After all, if the simple expression of a gene can demonstrate the activity of evolutionary mechanisms, then then testing several of them in concert should give us even more information in terms of how those changes impact an organism."

The fact that people keep asking the same question again and again doesn't mean that I haven't responded to it.


But you have not followed up on my response to that.



Jhud -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/25/2008 6:06:46 PM)

quote:

But you have not followed up on my response to that.


You basically repeated the same argument; I am not sure what else needs to be said on the issue.



gluadys -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/25/2008 7:10:54 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jhud

quote:

But you have not followed up on my response to that.


You basically repeated the same argument; I am not sure what else needs to be said on the issue.



As lomg as you understand why your proposition was inadequate, I suppose that is the case.



Agahnim -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/25/2008 8:35:53 PM)

In order for us to have any chance of getting somewhere with this, I think this particular aspect of the topic needs to be discussed in more depth. That’s what I was trying to get to happen in the other thread about this, until Jhud stopped replying to any of my posts there.

Gluadys, I understand your point because I’ve used it myself, but I think we need to go into more detail about why for any mammal, what’s an advantage or disadvantage depends entirely on its environment and niche.

Let’s think of an environment where mammals live—any environment will work, really. Arbitrarily, I choose the African Serengeti, since most of the animals that live there are pretty well-known. When we consider the animals that live there, what sorts of biomechanical traits are advantageous to them? The long necks of giraffes are useful for reaching the leaves of trees, the cleat-like claws of cheetahs are useful for pursuing other animals, the ears of elephants are useful for dissipating excess heat, and so on.

Now, let’s consider these same animals in an entirely different environment, such as the tundra. There would be no trees there for giraffes to eat from, elephants’ ears would most likely be subject to frostbite, and if cheetahs could use their cleats on the permafrost at all, there wouldn’t be any large, fast-running prey animals for them to pursue. Pick any other pair of environments, and you’ll see the same thing: what’s an advantage in one environment is useless or harmful in another.

Jhud, you’re claiming that unless the ancestors of bats were very “unusual” mammals, it will be possible to tell what mutations would or wouldn’t have been useful to them by observing these mutations in laboratory mice. The Serengeti example shows why this is incorrect. It isn’t just “unusual” mammals for which what is or isn’t useful to them is dependent on the environment; this is true of almost all mammals, and probably most other groups of animals also.

There: I’ve taken everything you’ve said about this into consideration, and provided a rebuttal which you have yet to address. I don’t know why you didn’t accept it when Gluadys and I explained this before in les detail, but in any case here’s another chance to show yourself to be as open-minded as you claim to be. But on the other hand, it will present pretty compelling evidence against your claim about yourself if you simply ignore our point, and continue making the same argument about bat’s ancestors without even attempting to address what we have to say about what’s wrong with it.



Jhud -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/25/2008 11:24:27 PM)

quote:

As lomg as you understand why your proposition was inadequate, I suppose that is the case.


I don't consider it to be inadequate at all; I just consider that we disagree on the proposition, and neither of us will convince the other, so there is nothing more to be said about it.



gluadys -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/26/2008 12:32:08 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jhud

quote:

As lomg as you understand why your proposition was inadequate, I suppose that is the case.


I don't consider it to be inadequate at all; I just consider that we disagree on the proposition, and neither of us will convince the other, so there is nothing more to be said about it.


Well, I disagree with your proposition because it is inadequate for the reasons given.



Jhud -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/26/2008 12:34:06 AM)

quote:

There: I’ve taken everything you’ve said about this into consideration, and provided a rebuttal which you have yet to address. I don’t know why you didn’t accept it when Gluadys and I explained this before in les detail, but in any case here’s another chance to show yourself to be as open-minded as you claim to be. But on the other hand, it will present pretty compelling evidence against your claim about yourself if you simply ignore our point, and continue making the same argument about bat’s ancestors without even attempting to address what we have to say about what’s wrong with it.


Well, I made my primary case based on the claim by the researchers in the cases I cited that the changes they evoked through genetic modifications were evidence of evolutionary change; I am taking them at their word - there is always the possibility they could be wrong.

But if it is the case that the simple changes to genetic expression are the same sort that led to the structures we see in a bat (again, their claim, not mine) then it follows that as we discover the specific changes to genetic expression that make up bat morphology, that we should be able to continue to test them in a mouse model - and not only test a single change, but multiple changes in conjunction. Then we may actually be able to test some of supposed adaptations that evolutionists claim played a part in bat evolution.

For example, you made the claim that a gliding animal was most probably ancestral to bat evolution; well, could any set of genetic changes cause a mouse to become a glider? Why or why not? If none of the genetic precursors could lead to that, then we can test other theories - could we make a mouse a better climber? Could we adjust its balance for the sake of flight? Or the sound it emits and receives for the sake of echolocation?

The fact is time is growing short for evolutionists; the full oeuvre of possible genetic changes, particularly among mammals, is rapidly approaching - there isn't going to be much room to imagine anymore how these changes came about, we will know - and I am predicting that evolutionary scenarios, as you know assert them from your imagination, will largely be dismissed.

Now it may be in the end that you are right – that what is largely asserted by evolution (imagined selective pressures, imagined transitions, imagined gradual accumulations of changes) is untestable and resides only in the imaginations of yourself and other evolutionists – but that isn’t a good thing for evolutionary theory either.



gluadys -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/26/2008 12:45:13 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jhud
But if it is the case that the simple changes to genetic expression are the same sort that led to the structures we see in a bat (again, their claim, not mine) then it follows that as we discover the specific changes to genetic expression that make up bat morphology, that we should be able to continue to test them in a mouse model - and not only test a single change, but multiple changes in conjunction. Then we may actually be able to test some of supposed adaptations that evolutionists claim played a part in bat evolution.


So far, so good.

quote:

For example, you made the claim that a gliding animal was most probably ancestral to bat evolution; well, could any set of genetic changes cause a mouse to become a glider?


Possibly. But not necessarily in the same way a bat was formed, because a) we are not beginning with the same genome and b) we don't have the same ecological niche.



quote:

Why or why not? If none of the genetic precursors could lead to that, then we can test other theories - could we make a mouse a better climber? Could we adjust its balance for the sake of flight? Or the sound it emits and receives for the sake of echolocation?


We can, and probably will, test all of these things, but none of them will actually change a mouse into a bat. Even a flying mouse would not be a bat.



Jhud -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/26/2008 12:48:26 AM)

quote:

Possibly. But not necessarily in the same way a bat was formed, because a) we are not beginning with the same genome and b) we don't have the same ecological niche.


We know the base mammalian genome know; there is not an 'unknown genome' out there - the bat has a base mammalian genome, irregardless of niche.

quote:

We can, and probably will, test all of these things, but none of them will actually change a mouse into a bat. Even a flying mouse would not be a bat.


You may say it's not a bat, but if it genetically equal to a bat, how is it not a bat?



Agahnim -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/26/2008 1:55:45 AM)

Jhud, either you don’t understand my point, or you’re still intentionally avoiding it.

I am not asserting that the researchers were wrong about any of the things you mentioned. What I am asserting is that when researchers use lab mice to observe the genetic changes responsible for flight in bats (note that I am not claiming they would be unable to observe these changes), they will not be able to tell from a mouse in a laboratory what changes would or wouldn’t have been useful to an animal in a different niche and a different ecosystem. To use your own words, your claim about this is “every independent change poses a number of potential problems for the survivability of the organism to which they are occurring”, and it’s possible to test this claim and/or know it for certain. This is what I was addressing with my Serengeti example, what Gluadys was addressing before me, and what you have consistently avoided responding to even while claiming that we weren’t making any points you hadn’t addressed.

None of what you’ve said in post #58 even attempts to answer this specific question of how researchers will be able to tell from lab mice what would or wouldn’t have been useful to an animal that lived 50 million years ago. Are you going to try and answer this question, or not?



Jhud -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/26/2008 2:48:10 AM)

quote:

I am not asserting that the researchers were wrong about any of the things you mentioned. What I am asserting is that when researchers use lab mice to observe the genetic changes responsible for flight in bats (note that I am not claiming they would be unable to observe these changes), they will not be able to tell from a mouse in a laboratory what changes would or wouldn’t have been useful to an animal in a different niche and a different ecosystem. To use your own words, your claim about this is “every independent change poses a number of potential problems for the survivability of the organism to which they are occurring”, and it’s possible to test this claim and/or know it for certain. This is what I was addressing with my Serengeti example, what Gluadys was addressing before me, and what you have consistently avoided responding to even while claiming that we weren’t making any points you hadn’t addressed.

None of what you’ve said in post #58 even attempts to answer this specific question of how researchers will be able to tell from lab mice what would or wouldn’t have been useful to an animal that lived 50 million years ago. Are you going to try and answer this question, or not?



Well, you seem to be missing my response; it may be (note the agreement) that the researchers indeed can tell us nothing about what evolutionists imagine the previous conditions might have been to produce a bat from some sort of other mammal, in the imaginary ancient Serengeti, or whatever imagined niche or ecosystem you can come up with. If this is the case, it renders what they did do rather useless in terms of demonstrating evolutionary change, and evolution, as many here have posited, is something that really can’t be tested or demonstrated.

So you seem intent on gutting evolutionary theory either way.

However, if what they did has any validity in terms of evolution, then my scenario is certainly a reasonable way to proceed.



Agahnim -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/26/2008 4:17:14 AM)

quote:

Well, you seem to be missing my response; it may be (note the agreement) that the researchers indeed can tell us nothing about what evolutionists imagine the previous conditions might have been to produce a bat from some sort of other mammal, in the imaginary ancient Serengeti, or whatever imagined niche or ecosystem you can come up with. If this is the case, it renders what they did do rather useless in terms of demonstrating evolutionary change, and evolution, as many here have posited, is something that really can’t be tested or demonstrated.

So you seem intent on gutting evolutionary theory either way.

However, if what they did has any validity in terms of evolution, then my scenario is certainly a reasonable way to proceed.

Let me get this straight. You’ve been claiming all this time that Intelligent Design makes a specific hypothesis about this: that all of these individual mutations would have been harmful or useless, and one of the strengths of Intelligent Design is that this hypothesis can be tested. And you said that it has been tested, and the test results support Intelligent Design, while showing evolution to be astronomically improbable. But now that it’s been explained to you why this hypothesis can’t be tested, you say that isn’t a problem for Intelligent Design; it’s a problem for evolution.

When an aspect of the past (such as whether or not these mutations were useful) is inherently undeterminable, I would say the best way to describe it is simply that it does not support any theory. Not evolution, not Intelligent Design, and not anything else. So you say it’s just speculation for me to think that bats evolved at all—I guess you could put it that way, but I’ve already explained why I consider this reasonable. I’ll explain it again:

We already have evidence for common descent in the form of things such as ERVs (some of which are shared among all mammals), and in the present mutations plus natural selection have also been observed causing the types of changes associated with this. For example, the Nylonase example shows how mutations can produce novel functions, and the HIV example shows how multiple advantageous mutations can accumulate in a single organism. So when we see that bats most likely shared an ancestor with other mammals, how do we attempt to explain the mechanism by which they gained the ability to fly? Well, we can propose that it was the result of a known process (mutations plus natural selection) that has been observed to cause these types of changes, if there isn’t a specific reason why it wouldn’t have been possible, and I’ve just explained why there isn’t. Or we could propose that it was the result of a process which has never been observed under any circumstances (genetic code being altered by a supernatural entity). In the absence of any other evidence about this, if the origin of flight in bats can be explained without invoking a hypothetical process that’s never been observed, Occam’s Razor favors the explanation that involves only known processes.

Note that I’m not saying evolution as a process is never testable; I’m only saying that it and Intelligent Design are both untestable in this one specific case, where testing either of them would rely on knowing the function of an ecosystem 50 million years ago. I’m also not saying that we shouldn’t search for ways to test the evolutionary hypothesis about this specific animal, or abandon it if it’s actually disproved. But as long as there’s no evidence for or against it in cases like this one, evolution a more parsimonious explanation than Intelligent Design because it involves nothing but observed processes.

Get it now?



gluadys -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/26/2008 8:54:40 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jhud

quote:

Possibly. But not necessarily in the same way a bat was formed, because a) we are not beginning with the same genome and b) we don't have the same ecological niche.


We know the base mammalian genome know; there is not an 'unknown genome' out there - the bat has a base mammalian genome, irregardless of niche.


All mammals have the base mammalian genome, but all of them also have variations on it specific to themselves. If they all had only the base mammalian genome, there would be only one mammalian species.

quote:

quote:

We can, and probably will, test all of these things, but none of them will actually change a mouse into a bat. Even a flying mouse would not be a bat.


You may say it's not a bat, but if it genetically equal to a bat, how is it not a bat?



Genetically equal would not be the same thing. It would have to be genetically identical. And in all respects, not just the obvious forearm and ear differences. It should even have the same pseudogenes and ERVs. Otherwise it is not a bat. Just a mouse that has learned to fly.

Note also that you would not have even a viable flying mouse through genetic changes alone. You would also have to create the ecology in which the changes would be adaptive. And that would be difficult if bats are already in that niche.



Jhud -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/26/2008 12:47:29 PM)

quote:

We already have evidence for common descent in the form of things such as ERVs (some of which are shared among all mammals), and in the present mutations plus natural selection have also been observed causing the types of changes associated with this. For example, the Nylonase example shows how mutations can produce novel functions, and the HIV example shows how multiple advantageous mutations can accumulate in a single organism. So when we see that bats most likely shared an ancestor with other mammals, how do we attempt to explain the mechanism by which they gained the ability to fly? Well, we can propose that it was the result of a known process (mutations plus natural selection) that has been observed to cause these types of changes, if there isn’t a specific reason why it wouldn’t have been possible, and I’ve just explained why there isn’t. Or we could propose that it was the result of a process which has never been observed under any circumstances (genetic code being altered by a supernatural entity). In the absence of any other evidence about this, if the origin of flight in bats can be explained without invoking a hypothetical process that’s never been observed, Occam’s Razor favors the explanation that involves only known processes.

Note that I’m not saying evolution as a process is never testable; I’m only saying that it and Intelligent Design are both untestable in this one specific case, where testing either of them would rely on knowing the function of an ecosystem 50 million years ago. I’m also not saying that we shouldn’t search for ways to test the evolutionary hypothesis about this specific animal, or abandon it if it’s actually disproved. But as long as there’s no evidence for or against it in cases like this one, evolution a more parsimonious explanation than Intelligent Design because it involves nothing but observed processes.


Well, we already know an intelligence is capable of producing complex information systems and complex interdependent structures; so the positive case for the capability of design is established.

In this case we know that an intelligence is capable of modifying a genome of mammal in a specific manner to produce a specific result (a bat) – so this case is established.

We have no evidence nor have we observed multiple independent modifications to a vertebrate genome producing novel structures and systems lending themselves to new capabilities apart from intelligence. In short, there is no observable or testable evidence thus far that can do what you claim evolution does. The researchers and I offered a possible means of doing this; you have countered (oddly, considering your presumed support) with a ‘mutation and environment’ of the gaps argument – namely that some unknown mutations acting in some unknown environment worked together to produce the morphology of a bat; and this is the magical thinking I reject because it is wholly untestable.

As evidence, you oddly refer to ERVs – even though ERVs don’t and can’t have anything to do with the known changes in the bat, nor have they ever been shown to produce such changes! And neither do the frame shifts of the Nylonase example or the HIV mutation, both of which have been dealt with separately. So of all your supposed examples of evolutionary change, every single last one is irrelevant to the unique genetic expressions we see in a bat, which are for the large part already known.

So your entire argument, which you claim to be a more elegant one, relies on cases that are either imaginary (the magic bat making forest) or definitively unrelated – and that is a complete contradiction to Occam’s, particularly when we can actually observe the exact changes neccesary being produced by researchers aka, intelligent designers.



Jhud -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/26/2008 12:56:03 PM)

quote:

Genetically equal would not be the same thing. It would have to be genetically identical. And in all respects, not just the obvious forearm and ear differences. It should even have the same pseudogenes and ERVs. Otherwise it is not a bat. Just a mouse that has learned to fly.


I don’t think it has ‘learned’ to do anything, obviously.

So then, you would argue by the same logic, then when significant portions of non-coding genes are removed from the mouse genome, it ceases to be a mouse?

quote:

Note also that you would not have even a viable flying mouse through genetic changes alone. You would also have to create the ecology in which the changes would be adaptive. And that would be difficult if bats are already in that niche.


Well, if you have shown that such changes could occur in a step-wise fashion in the right set of circumstances, you will have created a model of an adaptive ecology as well. We don’t need to show that a particular ecology can produce a particular set of interdependent and independent modifications to produce new capabilities, just that anyone can.



gluadys -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/26/2008 2:14:54 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jhud

quote:

Genetically equal would not be the same thing. It would have to be genetically identical. And in all respects, not just the obvious forearm and ear differences. It should even have the same pseudogenes and ERVs. Otherwise it is not a bat. Just a mouse that has learned to fly.


I don’t think it has ‘learned’ to do anything, obviously.


Obviously.

quote:

So then, you would argue by the same logic, then when significant portions of non-coding genes are removed from the mouse genome, it ceases to be a mouse?


No, for it to cease being a mouse, you would have to remove all genetic information specific to a mouse, IOW take it back the the genome of the last common ancestor mice share with their nearest rodent relative.

quote:

Note also that you would not have even a viable flying mouse through genetic changes alone. You would also have to create the ecology in which the changes would be adaptive. And that would be difficult if bats are already in that niche.


quote:

Well, if you have shown that such changes could occur in a step-wise fashion in the right set of circumstances, you will have created a model of an adaptive ecology as well. We don’t need to show that a particular ecology can produce a particular set of interdependent and independent modifications to produce new capabilities, just that anyone can.



Or rather that it can occur in the right set of circumstances. The challenge is to have enough ecological information to create the right set of circumstances.

Note that you would still not get a bat, since a bat is the product of a particular set of circumstances. A different set of circumstances might get you a different flying mammal, but not a bat.



Agahnim -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/26/2008 7:14:07 PM)

quote:

As evidence, you oddly refer to ERVs – even though ERVs don’t and can’t have anything to do with the known changes in the bat, nor have they ever been shown to produce such changes!

You need to read my posts more carefully. All I am saying is that ERVs establish common descent; not that they support any specific mechanism of change.

As for the rest of your claim, you aren’t being particularly clear, but it seems to be something like this: since researchers working in a lab are capable of modifying mouse genes in order to produce some of the same structures that exist in bats, this means you think that there’s empirical evidence for the design process by which you think bats originated. This is true if and only if the process by which you think bats originated is the same process being used in this laboratory. Is that actually what you think? That this “designer” was a normal, physical being that inserted genes into the ancestors of bats the same way that these researchers have done to mice?

What most ID proponents believe is that this designer was something supernatural, and that the mechanism by which these changes took place is not the same process that human researchers use. If that’s what you believe, then what human researchers have done does not establish this supernatural design process as an observed entity.

Everything else you’re saying is something I’ve addressed before, and to which you had nothing to say in response. Yes, I don’t have an example of multiple mutations working together to produce a novel function, but I’ve provided an example of a novel function resulting from one mutation, and after I explained how it’s possible to determine that this was a coding mutation for a function that couldn’t have existed beforehand, you never argued with this example any of the times I mentioned it. And multiple coding mutations can accumulate in a single organism; you’ve never disputed that also. When we put these two things together, what does it tell us? It means that a mutation is capable of producing a novel function (since this has been observed), and further mutations are capable of refining that function (since the accumulation of multiple mutations which improve existing functions has also been observed.)

Working together along with natural selection, these two known mechanisms are capable having produced flight in bats. Your main argument against this thus far has been that each of the individual mutations involved would have been harmful, but I’ve explained why that claim can’t be tested or supported. With that claim shown to be unsupportable, what we have is an observed process that could have produced flight in bats, even if there’s no direct evidence that it actually did. And as long as this is capable of being explained by a known mechanism, there’s no reason to speculate an unknown process for it.

The point you are making is incredibly vague. You say “We have no evidence nor have we observed multiple independent modifications to a vertebrate genome producing novel structures and systems lending themselves to new capabilities apart from intelligence”, and I’ve told you exactly what the evidence is. We have observed every individual part of this process, even if we haven’t observed all of them happening at once, and I have just explained why there isn’t some sort of barrier preventing all of these parts from working together. In other words, evolution involves nothing but a combination of multiple known processes. If you think there’s something that prevents novel functions and further modifications from accumulating in a single organism, what is it?



Agahnim -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/28/2008 10:10:48 AM)

All right, Gluadys and I have provided a pretty detailed refutation of what you’re saying here, even if in my case what you’re saying contradicts evidence I’ve already cited, so I basically just have to re-explain it. And I asked you a question here—I’m not trying to get the last word; I’m actually soliciting a reply—but you apparently don’t have anything to say in response.

So now, if you continue to use the same claim that was refuted here while ignoring everything that was posted in this thread, it will become particularly obvious that you don’t care whether the arguments you use false. I look forward to finding out whether or not this is the case.



Kath -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/28/2008 12:30:30 PM)

There are several members posting personal attacks against other members. Lets just stick to the OP and not discuss motives for posting or how someone needs the last word.

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Jhud -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/28/2008 8:20:40 PM)

quote:

All I am saying is that ERVs establish common descent; not that they support any specific mechanism of change.


Which is why they are irrelevant to this discussion.

quote:

As for the rest of your claim, you aren’t being particularly clear, but it seems to be something like this: since researchers working in a lab are capable of modifying mouse genes in order to produce some of the same structures that exist in bats, this means you think that there’s empirical evidence for the design process by which you think bats originated. This is true if and only if the process by which you think bats originated is the same process being used in this laboratory. Is that actually what you think? That this “designer” was a normal, physical being that inserted genes into the ancestors of bats the same way that these researchers have done to mice?


My simple claim is that the genome of mammals is amenable to intelligent design (in a rather straightforward manner once it is understood) and that demonstrates the positive case for the ability of an intelligence to modify genomes in the manner we see in life’s history; whether it is ‘exactly’ the same is irrelevant, particularly as there are a number of way to intelligently manipulate a genome.

quote:

Everything else you’re saying is something I’ve addressed before, and to which you had nothing to say in response. Yes, I don’t have an example of multiple mutations working together to produce a novel function, but I’ve provided an example of a novel function resulting from one mutation, and after I explained how it’s possible to determine that this was a coding mutation for a function that couldn’t have existed beforehand, you never argued with this example any of the times I mentioned it. And multiple coding mutations can accumulate in a single organism; you’ve never disputed that also. When we put these two things together, what does it tell us? It means that a mutation is capable of producing a novel function (since this has been observed), and further mutations are capable of refining that function (since the accumulation of multiple mutations which improve existing functions has also been observed.)


Well, the demonstration of multiple mutations working together to in an interdependent and independent manner is critical because that is what we see is necessary to produce novel capabilities in organisms.

In the case of a bat it would have been at least dozens of such modifications, and they would have had to have been very specific in order for them to work in the manner necessary to produce flight; particularly the sort of echolocation dependent flight we see in microbats. The fact that you don’t think researchers would be able to put together even a few such modifications to produce useful changes to a model mammal is telling; if even a well planned set of changes are unable to produce useful novel structures and systems in an animal, what reason is there to believe that dozens of them could arise incidentally? None.

quote:

Working together along with natural selection, these two known mechanisms are capable having produced flight in bats.


There is absolutely no reason to believe this. It is wholly assumed.

quote:

Your main argument against this thus far has been that each of the individual mutations involved would have been harmful…


Actually, I didn’t say each individual mutations is harmful. It said it couldn’t be demonstrated to produce a benefit.

quote:

…but I’ve explained why that claim can’t be tested or supported. With that claim shown to be unsupportable, what we have is an observed process that could have produced flight in bats, even if there’s no direct evidence that it actually did. And as long as this is capable of being explained by a known mechanism, there’s no reason to speculate an unknown process for it.


Well, you seem to keep missing the point; even if it is only shown that it would do so, that would be significant evidence against the notion that it couldn’t, which is one of the primary points of ID – but you don’t seem to trust that it couldn’t, and thus your reticence.

quote:

The point you are making is incredibly vague. You say “We have no evidence nor have we observed multiple independent modifications to a vertebrate genome producing novel structures and systems lending themselves to new capabilities apart from intelligence”, and I’ve told you exactly what the evidence is.


Actually, you admitted in this post that you, “don’t have an example of multiple mutations working together to produce a novel function” – this is because there is no such evidence; there are single mutations, and your speculations.

quote:

We have observed every individual part of this process, even if we haven’t observed all of them happening at once, and I have just explained why there isn’t some sort of barrier preventing all of these parts from working together. In other words, evolution involves nothing but a combination of multiple known processes. If you think there’s something that prevents novel functions and further modifications from accumulating in a single organism, what is it?


I agree the individual ‘parts’ are familiar; but it’s really no different than the old notion of spontaneous generation – they ‘knew’ that when they put together certain known components – a medium, some nutrients, air, etc – they could generate a living organism. It involved nothing but a combination of known elements. It failed however to actually explain how such a result was achieved, and when subjected to the harsh reality of observation, the presumed ‘process’ fell apart.

That is what is happening with the 19th century Victorian notion of evolution in the light of modern genetics, information theory and engineering principles.



gluadys -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/28/2008 10:06:23 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jhud
That is what is happening with the 19th century Victorian notion of evolution in the light of modern genetics, information theory and engineering principles.


May I ask, "So what?" I mean who is still working with Victorian notions of evolution?



Jhud -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/28/2008 10:06:58 PM)

quote:

May I ask, "So what?" I mean who is still working with Victorian notions of evolution?


Most evolutionists it would appear.



gluadys -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/28/2008 10:15:44 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jhud

quote:

May I ask, "So what?" I mean who is still working with Victorian notions of evolution?


Most evolutionists it would appear.



How so? In Victorian times the existence of genes was still basically unknown. DNA and the DNA codes were unknown. "Mutation"still referred to a morphological rather than a genetic difference. And a significant number of scientists were still pursuing the vision of orthogenesis.

What scientists are still working on that basis?



Agahnim -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/28/2008 10:20:17 PM)

quote:

Which is why they are irrelevant to this discussion.

I mentioned them because I didn’t want you, or anyone else, to claim that there was no reason to assume bats shared a common ancestor with other mammals. I’ve found it’s necessary to cover all the bases in discussions like this.

quote:

My simple claim is that the genome of mammals is amenable to intelligent design (in a rather straightforward manner once it is understood) and that demonstrates the positive case for the ability of an intelligence to modify genomes in the manner we see in life’s history; whether it is ‘exactly’ the same is irrelevant, particularly as there are a number of way to intelligently manipulate a genome.

It’s relevant as far as Occam’s Razor is concerned. You understand how that principle works, right? An unknown intelligent designer is one entity, and people working in a lab are separate entities. The existence of one does not imply the other. Therefore, even though the existence of the researchers in the lab (and their ability to modify genes) has been demonstrated, that does not make an unobserved intelligent designer any less of an unknown entity, and one whose existence shouldn’t be assumed unless it’s necessary in order to explain something.

The rest of your explanation about this is pretty long, but doesn’t actually answer the question I was asking. The point I am making is fairly simple: if processes A, B, and C have all been demonstrated separately, and these are the only processes required in order for evolution to occur, then this amounts to the same thing as the entire process of evolution being demonstrated. In the case of spontaneous generation, the people who assumed it needed nothing but these certain parts were wrong. If evolution is wrong for the same reason, then it would have to require something more than the combination of individual parts that are known to occur separately.

You keep saying that the problem with evolution is that it requires “multiple mutations working together to in an interdependent and independent manner”, as though this were something that could not result from the individual parts of it that have been observed. But why not? Once a mutation produces a new ability, and is modified and refined by subsequent mutations, it’s inevitable that the usefulness of some of those new mutations will be specific to the new function that was introduced by the first mutation. After this has happened several times, there would be a number of separate mutations that are interdependent. This is what appears to have happened in the case of the leaf-eating monkeys that I described a while ago.

Whether or not you think this is just “speculation” isn’t relevant to the point you’re making, because your claim is that there’s something specific that makes it impossible for these individual parts to work together in the way I’ve described. This is necessary in order to support your argument that bats must have been designed, since if their ability to fly is entirely capable of being explained by known processes, there’s no reason to speculate an unknown entity as an explanation. So what makes it impossible for these individual parts to work together in order for evolution to occur? That’s what I was asking before which you didn’t answer, and I’d like you to answer it as specifically as possible.



Jhud -> RE: How do we identify design? (5/28/2008 11:13:08 PM)

quote:

I mentioned them because I didn’t want you, or anyone else, to claim that there was no reason to assume bats shared a common ancestor with other mammals. I’ve found it’s necessary to cover all the bases in discussions like this.


Well, actually, I had already established this; genetically, bats appear to be closely related to the clade that contains horses and carnivores; exactly as evolutionists always predicted because they are so incredibly bright.

quote:

It’s relevant as far as Occam’s Razor is concerned. You understand how that principle works, right? An unknown intelligent designer is one entity, and people working in a lab are separate entities. The existence of one does not imply the other. Therefore, even though the existence of the researchers in the lab (and their ability to modify genes) has been demonstrated, that does not make an unobserved intelligent designer any less of an unknown entity, and one whose existence shouldn’t be assumed unless it’s necessary in order to explain something.


That may be the worst exposition on Occam’s I have ever heard. Intelligence is one cause, regardless of the source.

In fact, if that is the way Occam’s works, then it devastates evolution, because evolution is predicated on the notion that unknown mutations produced the living systems we see based on the action of some mutations we have observed, or as you so aptly put it, “the existence of one does not imply the other”.

Indeed, we could go further using you very own arguments, “Therefore, even though the existence of the [mutations] in the lab (and their ability to modify genes) has been demonstrated, that does not make an unobserved [mutation] any less of an unknown entity, and one whose existence shouldn’t be assumed unless it’s necessary in order to explain something.”

Wow, who needs me!? You pretty much have done yourself in. Suicide by Occam’s razor.

I am not sure there is anything more that can be added.



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