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Author Topic:   Problems with evolution? Submit your questions.
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 661 of 752 (607160)
03-02-2011 10:34 AM
Reply to: Message 655 by havoc
03-02-2011 10:16 AM


Re: DNA, mutation AND selection
If a cell once had the ability to regulate say the production of a certain protein and now it doesn’t this is loss of information ...
So if it gains this ability, this is a gain of information, correct?

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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 662 of 752 (607161)
03-02-2011 10:37 AM
Reply to: Message 657 by havoc
03-02-2011 10:18 AM


Recurrent informational mess
Most of the cases I'm aware of for cave fish involve outcrossing between different populations. So the necessary information for eye development is split between the 2 lineages although neither has it in isolation. By mixing the 2 lineages a complete eye developmental pathway can be reconstituted (Borowsky, 2008).
If a cell once had the ability to regulate say the production of a certain protein and now it doesn’t this is loss of information
I'd echo Dr. A here, does this mean you would consider the gain of a regulatory mechanism for a gene to be a gain of information?
TTFN,
WK

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 663 of 752 (607162)
03-02-2011 10:37 AM
Reply to: Message 646 by havoc
03-02-2011 9:35 AM


Re: my karma ran over your dogma
There is plenty of evidence consistent with a designer. Much we would agree upon, Homology, DNA etc. It’s really more a world view question than evidence based; I mean we all look at the same fossils and draw different inferences.
Well, this is not true. Paleontologists look at fossils; creationists, by and large, look at dumb lies that other creationists have written about fossils.

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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 664 of 752 (607164)
03-02-2011 10:59 AM
Reply to: Message 651 by havoc
03-02-2011 9:58 AM


Informational nonsense
Fluoroquinolones Loss of affinity to gyrase
There is probably a lot wrong with this list but this particular example is one that I covered in detail with Smooth operator in [msg=-1588,-185] on the thread What is an ID proponent's basis of comparison? (edited).
Fluoroquinolones are a synthetic antibiotic that binds to and interferes with Gyrases in bacteria. As an antibiotic resistance mechanism a strain of bacteria arose which had changed the epitope that Fluoroquinolones bound to so that they bound less well.
In what way is this a loss of information for the bacterial genome? The bacterium didn't evolve gyrase to bind this modern antibiotic, it didn't lose any biological function due to the mutation.
So what logical rationale is there to describe this as a loss of information for the bacterial genome?
TTFN,
WK

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9972
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.5


Message 665 of 752 (607165)
03-02-2011 11:13 AM
Reply to: Message 646 by havoc
03-02-2011 9:35 AM


Re: my karma ran over your dogma
Much we would agree upon, Homology, DNA etc. It’s really more a world view question than evidence based; I mean we all look at the same fossils and draw different inferences.
The nested hierarchy is a fact, not a worldview. The mixture of characteristics in fossils is a fact, not a worldview. If your first step is to ignore the facts then you are on very poor footing.
There cannot be a code without a code maker.
Dogma.
Creation is evidence of a creator.
Dogma.
You find an arrow head in the desert you know it had a maker even if you know nothing else of the maker.
You can also use evidence to show that this designer exists independently of the arrow head.

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9972
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.5


Message 666 of 752 (607166)
03-02-2011 11:16 AM
Reply to: Message 645 by havoc
03-02-2011 9:25 AM


Re: DNA, mutation AND selection
However this is not how selection works. Only traits that give that generation a breeding advantage will be selected. This does not explain how sight or flight or micro motors or proteins can come into existence the first time.
Why not?
You’re not saying that evolution new that it wanted to create the compound eye before there was such a thing?
No more so than the ping pong balls in the lottery machine knew who the winner was.
Every famous mutation such as herbicide and antibiotic resistance once examined at the molecular level has been shown to involve information loss.
What mutation, if observed, would be considered an informational gain?

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9972
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.5


Message 667 of 752 (607167)
03-02-2011 11:18 AM
Reply to: Message 655 by havoc
03-02-2011 10:16 AM


Re: DNA, mutation AND selection
If you hang your hat on Shannon theory of info you are deluding yourself.
Actually, evolution has been shown to be capable of increasing Shannon information:
quote:
Nucleic Acids Res. 2000 Jul 15;28(14):2794-9.
Evolution of biological information.
Schneider TD.
National Cancer Institute, Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center, Laboratory of Experimental and Computational Biology, PO Box B, Frederick, MD 21702-1201,
Abstract
How do genetic systems gain information by evolutionary processes? Answering this question precisely requires a robust, quantitative measure of information. Fortunately, 50 years ago Claude Shannon defined information as a decrease in the uncertainty of a receiver. For molecular systems, uncertainty is closely related to entropy and hence has clear connections to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. These aspects of information theory have allowed the development of a straightforward and practical method of measuring information in genetic control systems. Here this method is used to observe information gain in the binding sites for an artificial 'protein' in a computer simulation of evolution. The simulation begins with zero information and, as in naturally occurring genetic systems, the information measured in the fully evolved binding sites is close to that needed to locate the sites in the genome. The transition is rapid, demonstrating that information gain can occur by punctuated equilibrium.
Full paper: Evolution of biological information - PMC
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 655 by havoc, posted 03-02-2011 10:16 AM havoc has replied

Replies to this message:
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 668 of 752 (607176)
03-02-2011 11:44 AM
Reply to: Message 640 by havoc
03-02-2011 8:53 AM


Re: my karma ran over your dogma
Hi again havoc,
I admit that certain evidence is consistant with common ancestor, such as DNA.
A good start, the question remains what evidence do you think is not consistent with common ancestry?
This however is also consistant with a common designer.
Actually it isn't. I'm a designer, and I don't limit my designs to nested hierarchies of development, rather I use a cross-fertilization of traits and features from a number of products, where I copy and paste from several previous designs and then modify, add and adapt as needed for the new design.
This would show up as cross-linking of the trees of descent, with several branches converging on new designs and the addition of brand new features not in previous designs.
It can only be consistent with a common designer if you torture the design process with vast restrictions on what you can work with.
For example, the human eye retina faces away from the lens, and light needs to travel through the nerves and supporting tissues to reach the rods and cones that sense the photons of light.
If this were done by common design, the retina would have been turned around at some stage in the development of mammals to face the light, correcting an early (in the eye development lineage that led to mammals) error in orientation, and improving the ability of mammals, in general (and humans in particular), to see.
This type of correction of substantial inherited ancient errors has not happened as features continue to be adapted by descendants: if it did then this would invalidate evolution.
By comparison the octopus eye (separately evolved) does face the light, so it would be an easy matter for a common designer to copy and paste that feature to any mammal in question.
The wholesale copy and paste of highly developed features like an eye from one lineage to another has not happened: if it did then this would invalidate evolution.
In addition, the octopus eye focuses by changing the shape of the eye to move the retina towards and away from a fixed focal length lens, while the mammal eye focuses by changing the shape of the lens to focus to the fixed length to the retina. Human designers have combined these different methodologies in binoculars, telescopes and camera lenses to provide telescopic variations in image capture, and in humans that would additionally eliminate the need for glasses.
Combination of features from different lineages has not happened: if it did then this would invalidate evolution.
Once again it is not falsifiable because it is dogma not science.
Once again it is not dogma because falsification has not happened. Falsification has not happened (yet) because no evidence has been found that does invalidate it.
... your Darwinist ideas.
Only creationists call modern evolution darwinism. Genetics is not part of "darwinism" for the simple reason that Darwin did not know about genes and DNA. It IS a part of modern evolution, so the term "evolutionary" is more comprehensive, scientifically accurate, and descriptive of this field of science.
Curiously I think if we did find some organism that used a different system than dna I don’t think you all would abandon your Darwinist evolutionary ideas.
If it were an animal from earth then it would violate the common descent prediction of evolution. There would still be the question of whether that life form also went through evolutionary processes.
If it were an organism on another planet, then there would be intense investigation to see whether evolutionary science applied to that life as well as ours.
Enjoy.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 640 by havoc, posted 03-02-2011 8:53 AM havoc has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 672 by havoc, posted 03-02-2011 1:25 PM RAZD has replied

RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 669 of 752 (607186)
03-02-2011 12:25 PM
Reply to: Message 653 by havoc
03-02-2011 10:10 AM


Re: my karma ran over your dogma
Hi again Havoc.
I showed you an example of information gain in my Message 622.
No you did not. This study as it is laid out by you shows a previously winged insect losing that info and regaining it. This is possible and not evolution.
Denial does not make you right.
From Message 18 of the "Silly Design Institute: Let's discuss BOTH sides of the Design Controversy..." thread:
quote:

A Wing and A Walkingstick

Walkingstick Insects

See Figure 1 from Nature 421, 264 - 267 (16 January 2003); doi:10.1038/nature01313 (reproduced below)
Walkingstick insects originally started out as winged insects (blue at start and top row). That diversified.
And some lost wings (red). And diversified.
And some regained wings (blue again). And diversified.
And one lost wings again (Lapaphus parakensis, below, red again).
And this doesn't even address the ones where one sex (usually male) has wings and the other sex doesn't (the red includes these, so it is hard to determine from this graphic how many times the female sex gained and lost wings independent of the winged males).
From a Design standpoint, this is not intelligent design, it is either "Make up your #*! mind" design, or it is classic "Now you see it now you don't" silliness.
No you did not. This study as it is laid out by you shows a previously winged insect losing that info and regaining it. This is possible and not evolution.
Curiously, you just said that it gained information to have wings again. Amusingly, you previously said:
Message 620: mutations lead to loss of function. wingless beatles etc. they can be advantagious but are inverably in the opposite direction of your theory.
First off, there is no direction in evolution, per se, so it is impossible to be in the "opposite direction of your theory ... there is only fitness, and fitness may sometimes result in reversal of previous evolved traits, sometimes going back and forth several times. The fact that this happens shows that there is no direction to evolution: it is a response mechanism.
Second, here we have another family of insects ("beetle" is not a species) where whole species lose wings, lose function, but we also see whole species gain wings, gain function. This too is advantageous, or it would not have been selected for survival and reproduction.
Message 655: If a cell once had the ability to regulate say the production of a certain protein and now it doesn’t this is loss of information, ...
Therefore, if it gains the ability to regulate say the production of a certain protein that regulates the formation of wings in wingless insects, then this is gain of information, ... OR the concept of "information" used is irrelevant to what evolution can and cannot form.
You need to show novel info being created.
This is called moving the goal-posts when your previous point is totally refuted by the evidence that shows you, in fact, were WRONG. This is a dishonest creationist tactic.
The specific reason for using examples like this is to show that either mutations add and subtract "information" or that the concept of "information" used is not any challenge to what can and cannot evolve. If it is useless to control or stop evolution then it is irrelevant to the science of evolution.
Using examples like this removes other variables from the equation of whether or not new information is added, and this is how science is done to establish facts and increase knowledge.
Enjoy.
Edited by RAZD, : qs

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)

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havoc
Member (Idle past 4754 days)
Posts: 89
Joined: 03-01-2011


Message 670 of 752 (607194)
03-02-2011 1:06 PM
Reply to: Message 667 by Taq
03-02-2011 11:18 AM


Re: DNA, mutation AND selection
Actually, evolution has been shown to be capable of increasing Shannon information:
That was my point Shannon theory is an inadequate way of measuring the information content of the genome. Specified complexity is how the code works not just random bits which is what Shannon measures.

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 Message 667 by Taq, posted 03-02-2011 11:18 AM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
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Taq
Member
Posts: 9972
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.5


Message 671 of 752 (607199)
03-02-2011 1:18 PM
Reply to: Message 670 by havoc
03-02-2011 1:06 PM


Re: DNA, mutation AND selection
That was my point Shannon theory is an inadequate way of measuring the information content of the genome.
Why?
Specified complexity is how the code works not just random bits which is what Shannon measures.
So how is specified complexity measured? What is the specified complexity of this sequence?
quote:
GCGTATCCTATATATTAAGTTAATTCTTATGGAATATAATAACATGTGGATG
GCCAGTGGTCGGTTGTTACACGCCTACCGCGATGCTGAATGACCCGGAC
TAGAGTGGCGAAATTTATGGCGTGTGACCCGTTATGCTCCATTTCGGTCAG
TGGGTCATTGCTAGTAGTCGATTGCATT GCCATTCTCCGAGTGATTTA
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

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Replies to this message:
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havoc
Member (Idle past 4754 days)
Posts: 89
Joined: 03-01-2011


Message 672 of 752 (607201)
03-02-2011 1:25 PM
Reply to: Message 668 by RAZD
03-02-2011 11:44 AM


Re: my karma ran over your dogma
For example, the human eye retina faces away from the lens, and light needs to travel through the nerves and supporting tissues to reach the rods and cones that sense the photons of light.
If this were done by common design, the retina would have been turned around at some stage in the development of mammals to face the light, correcting an early (in the eye development lineage that led to mammals) error in orientation, and improving the ability of mammals, in general (and humans in particular), to see.
First let me ask you to admit that you are making a theological statement here. That you know how a designer would design.
Second there are numerous reasons for the eye to orientated the way it is including prevention of blindness at bright lights.
By comparison the octopus eye (separately evolved) does face the light, so it would be an easy matter for a common designer to copy and paste that feature to any mammal in question.
So instead of calling someone an eagle eye we should be calling them an octopus eye?
Is the Octopus eye not a violation of your Nested Hierarchy? You call it convergent evolution which is a catch all for everything that doesn’t fit you neat little line charts. So again my point from earlier there is no way to disprove your theory because it is dogma.
I’m still looking for the mermaid but something tells me this would not shake your unequivocal FAITH.
Edited by havoc, : No reason given.

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Replies to this message:
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Taq
Member
Posts: 9972
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.5


Message 673 of 752 (607203)
03-02-2011 1:35 PM
Reply to: Message 672 by havoc
03-02-2011 1:25 PM


Re: my karma ran over your dogma
First let me ask you to admit that you are making a theological statement here. That you know how a designer would design.
Then it is also a theological statement when Behe claims that the flagellum appears to be made up of purposefully placed parts.
Second there are numerous reasons for the eye to orientated the way it is including prevention of blindness at bright lights.
Then all octopi and squid are blind?
Is the Octopus eye not a violation of your Nested Hierarchy?
Why would it be? The vertebrate eye and cephalopod eye evolved in different lineages. A violation would be a vertebrate species with an eye like that of a cephalopod. Since squid and tuna have a common designer then why don't we see the same eye in both? Why does every species with a backbone also have an inverted retina? Why are these two traits always found together?
You call it convergent evolution which is a catch all for everything that doesn’t fit you neat little line charts.
The vertebrate and cephalopod eye are not homologous, as has been pointed out previously. They differ quite a bit. The only thing they have in common is a superficial resemblance. All of the important stuff (e.g. ennervation, retina) is different.
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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havoc
Member (Idle past 4754 days)
Posts: 89
Joined: 03-01-2011


Message 674 of 752 (607204)
03-02-2011 1:36 PM
Reply to: Message 671 by Taq
03-02-2011 1:18 PM


Re: DNA, mutation AND selection
That was my point Shannon theory is an inadequate way of measuring the information content of the genome.
Why?
Specified complexity is how the code works not just random bits which is what Shannon measures.
So how is specified complexity measured? What is the specified complexity of this sequence?
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GCGTATCCTATATATTAAGTTAATTCTTATGGAATATAATAACATGTGGATG
GCCAGTGGTCGGTTGTTACACGCCTACCGCGATGCTGAATGACCCGGAC
TAGAGTGGCGAAATTTATGGCGTGTGACCCGTTATGCTCCATTTCGGTCAG
TGGGTCATTGCTAGTAGTCGATTGCATT GCCATTCTCCGAGTGATTTA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Open the operating code for you pc and just start hitting the keys on the keyboard. Then hire a Microsoft employee who is Adept at writing code. Your attempt could generate twice the bits of info as measured by Shannon but which program do you want running on your pc?
The SETI project looks for specified complexity in the form of radio waves in space. They can tell the difference of ordered complexity like a pulsar and random background noise and specified complexity which interestingly enough would be touted by most everyone as proof of intelligent life. That is that a code containing specified complexity is proof of an intelligent code maker.

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havoc
Member (Idle past 4754 days)
Posts: 89
Joined: 03-01-2011


Message 675 of 752 (607205)
03-02-2011 1:41 PM
Reply to: Message 673 by Taq
03-02-2011 1:35 PM


Re: my karma ran over your dogma
The vertebrate and cephalopod eye are not homologous, as has been pointed out previously. They differ quite a bit. The only thing they have in common is a superficial resemblance. All of the important stuff (e.g. ennervation, retina) is different.
Well thenneither is the vertebrate bone structure. But they sure like to throw that one out there as the gospel.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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