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Author Topic:   DNA sequence comparisons, a similar designer or heredity?
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 16 of 26 (289564)
02-22-2006 12:50 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by Parasomnium
02-22-2006 9:31 AM


Re: Failing analogy
I'm afraid the gospel choir can sit down again, because your analogy does not disprove Crashfrog's point. On the contrary, it is just another example of it.
Well, hey, Parasomnium, that's what I thought. Funny nobody else seems to have noticed that it works. But what it does is prove that the correspondences discovered are trivial, even obvious. The method doesn't produce anything new, only the expected correspondences. It can refine them, but it can't tell us that there is a relatedness for instance, only confirm and refine the pattern of similar characteristics.
Crashfrog's statement basically describes, in very general terms, a way of proving a certain claim by doing measurements in different ways, and understanding that if the different results independently confirm the claim, then that is evidence for it.
Yes, but all it confirms is the similarity of design that is already observed and is not contested. It shows design similarity genetically as well as morphologically, it doesn't prove descent.
Your analogy, albeit more specific, is no different: it describes the process of proving the claim that certain cupcakes are made according to certain recipes. You do this by "measuring" cupcakes in two ways, one of which is an analysis of the actual cupcakes, the other an examination of the recipes. The results of both measurements point in the direction that this cupcake is made according to that recipe, & cetera.
Yes, and in no case could it show that there is any relation between the different cupcakes. All the comparison of observations of the various methods can do is confirm and refine the already observed similarities and differences of design, which is trivial.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 17 by FliesOnly, posted 02-22-2006 1:28 PM Faith has replied
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FliesOnly
Member (Idle past 4145 days)
Posts: 797
From: Michigan
Joined: 12-01-2003


Message 17 of 26 (289569)
02-22-2006 1:28 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by Faith
02-22-2006 12:50 PM


Re: Failing analogy
Faith writes:
Yes, and in no case could it show that there is any relation between the different cupcakes. All the comparison of observations of the various methods can do is confirm and refine the already observed similarities and differences of design, which is trivial.
Perhaps...but here's a fundamental difference. The results we expect to find (using methods like crashfrog suggested) are predictable based on the ToE. Your design nonsense has so such power. It's all "after the fact" garbage. It's pathetic. Nothing we have learned is a result of any creationism predictions followed by rigorous testing and peer-review. Once we (science) find some relatedness which we PREDICTED, you creationists simply claim that it was all designed that way. Why did you (by “you”, I mean creationist...not you specifically) not predict that cladistics would so beautifully compliment genetics, for example? Well get bold Faith...make a prediction based on your design nonsense. Show us the power of design. In other words, make a prediction using design, state a hypothesis, set up and run an experiment, reach a conclusion based on the evidence obtained, and see if your prediction holds.

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 Message 16 by Faith, posted 02-22-2006 12:50 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 19 by Faith, posted 02-22-2006 1:40 PM FliesOnly has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 18 of 26 (289571)
02-22-2006 1:31 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by Faith
02-22-2006 12:50 PM


Re: Failing analogy
But what it does is prove that the correspondences discovered are trivial, even obvious. The method doesn't produce anything new, only the expected correspondences.
No, it doesn't. I've given three examples that would detect for common ancestry; each of the three detectes common ancestry so common ancestry must be present.
Now, for any one means of measurement, it's possible that common design could be obfuscated in such a way that we would detect it as common descent.
But here's the thing. The way that that obfuscation would occur is different for each of those three measurements. So it's not possible that we're being fooled three different ways by the same single factor. The only explanation for the concurrence of these three different means is that they're validly measuring what they purport to measure - the evolutionary relationships between organisms.
There's no other reasonable conclusion.
It shows design similarity genetically as well as morphologically, it doesn't prove descent.
But in genetic studies we don't measure functional sequences. We measure errors. Why would common design mean common errors? Especially when the design is by a perfect God?
It's one thing for a cosmic engineer to borrow from his own past successful designs. That makes perfect sense. But to borrow his own errors? The burden of proof for convincing us to accept such a counterintuitive idea about design is encumbent on you.
Yes, and in no case could it show that there is any relation between the different cupcakes.
Of course it does. You stipulated that the ratio of ingredients was exactly the same. That could only be possible if these cupcakes were all from the same original batch of batter. No baker can exactly duplicate the proportions in a batch every single time, or even twice. Not even a factory situation can do that. This principle is so universal and established that crime labs can use it; by chemical analysis of a fiber or a crumb or whatever, they can determine exactly what batch and manufacturer that sample came from.
If you have three identical cupcakes, in terms of the ratio of their ingredients, you know they're from the same batch. It's 100% conclusive. It's so conclusive that you could put a man in jail based on that evidence. It's been done.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 19 of 26 (289573)
02-22-2006 1:40 PM
Reply to: Message 17 by FliesOnly
02-22-2006 1:28 PM


Re: Failing analogy
I'm not saying anything about "the power of design," all I'm saying is that the methods under discussion can show that there are design similarities but not descent.

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 Message 17 by FliesOnly, posted 02-22-2006 1:28 PM FliesOnly has replied

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 20 of 26 (289574)
02-22-2006 1:43 PM
Reply to: Message 19 by Faith
02-22-2006 1:40 PM


Re: Failing analogy
I'm not saying anything about "the power of design," all I'm saying is that the methods under discussion can show that there are design similarities but not descent.
If it wasn't clear in my previous post, let me state again - the genetic analysis, in particular, shows descent and not design because the technique compares duplication errors inside of non-functional sequences. We might expect a designer to plagarize his own "blueprints" but why would we expect him to plagarize his own mistakes?

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 21 of 26 (289589)
02-22-2006 2:50 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by Faith
02-22-2006 12:28 AM


NESTED hierarchies are the key.
Unless what you are measuring is, say, cupcakes, and you find that they are all composed of similar but different proportions of sugar and flour and eggs and baking powder, amazing coincidence, and then you also check the recipes by which they were made, and oh double amazing coincidence, there is the flour, the sugar, the eggs and the baking powder, and in VERY SPECIFIC QUANTITIES TOO, oh happy day.
As has been pointed out to you, you have just used independent lines of enquiry to arrive at a conclusion.
However, the difference between your cupcakes and the sequence comparisons is that we can independently generate the same nested hierarchy with different methods. You can't make a nested hierarchy with cupcakes. Once again referencing the 29+ Evidences:
quote:
. Several different statistical tests have been developed for determining whether a phylogeny has a subjective or objective nested hierarchy, or whether a given nested hierarchy could have been generated by a chance process instead of a genealogical process
Any phylogeny generated surrounding your cupcakes would be subjective rather than objective (at least that is my prediction). I don't know the maths, but on the subject of common descent:
quote:
Seventy-five independent studies from different researchers, on different organisms and genes, with high values of CI (P < 0.01) is an incredible confirmation with an astronomical degree of combined statistical significance (P << 10-300, Bailey and Gribskov 1998; Fisher 1990). If the reverse were true”if studies such as this gave statistically significant values of CI (i.e. cladistic hierarchical structure) which were lower than that expected from random data”common descent would have been firmly falsified.
Its confusing so let me explain. CI stands for consistency index. It depends on the number of different categories the objects are being nested into. Clever maths can be used to determine what would be a statistically significant result, and what could just be chance.
This is where the big difference lies. Not only can we develop objective nested hierarchies, but we can develop them using different data, and they will all arrive at the same hierarchical structure. This is so highly improbable it surely can't be a coincidence. So:
1) A designer deliberately designed it that way
2) A designer accidentally desigend it that way (coincidence again, we can strike this)
3) Common descent through heredity.
Option 1: As far as I can see leads us back to the Loki scenario
Option 3: Macroevolution
If you want to consider coincidence you have to also start considering the possibility that a random pool of amino acids spontaneously got together and became alive.

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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 22 of 26 (289713)
02-23-2006 7:47 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Modulous
02-21-2006 7:48 PM


base pairs as opposites
If the passage across a DNA strand is based on the logical difference of opposites rather than some relation to simple semantic information transfer across generations, and by autonomy one relates both origin and diversity in the same synthesis, and Mayr is mistaken that organisms do more contstructing during speciation than allopatry warrants, and it is the engineered(sic!(likely mistake in evo literature))effect of abiota (as well as the living contructs) then there may be indeed still a nested relation of clades and molecular phylogenies but still it was an intelligent god that did the construction individually first. Sex might also be instructed when not mathematical.
When I first took a course on molecular evolution at Cornell I had not thought all the above paragraph through and I had thought then that the only reply was about the molecular clock but this is not strictly true if there is a significant amount of coconstruction between organisms and environments that Mayr denies. Mayr does this for ornithological and philosophical reasons its seems rather than letting a theoretical possibilty overwhelm any speculation. I will demonstrate that Percy might be mistaken on "autonomously" later.

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FliesOnly
Member (Idle past 4145 days)
Posts: 797
From: Michigan
Joined: 12-01-2003


Message 23 of 26 (289722)
02-23-2006 8:25 AM
Reply to: Message 19 by Faith
02-22-2006 1:40 PM


Showing Design
Faith writes:
I'm not saying anything about "the power of design,"...
And why is that Faith? Could it be because "design" has no predictive power...that it's a useless concept...that it's in no way supported by any evidence?
Faith writes:
...all I'm saying is that the methods under discussion can show that there are design similarities but not descent.
How can you possibly arrive at this conclusion? The methods under discussion show nothing but common descent and in no way support design. Did you not read anything Crashfrog has written...or Modulous? Your uncanny ability to simply take anything that is written which fully and completely supports common descent and the ToE and somehow just hand wave it away and say "Nope...it shows design" is amazing. None of this information was obtained via anything done by creationists. Yet creationists take this valuable information and claim it shows design. How utterly dishonest! We do all the true scientific work, obtain consistent, independent, verifiable, and falsifiable results, go through peer-review, conduct further research...etc, etc, etc, and creationists "scientists" just hijack the idea and lie about what it says. And people like you just eat it up. Rather than learning, you just act like a lemming.
Crashfrog asked a very good question, Faith. Think about it, would you? Why would a perfect creator duplicate errors (and importantly, errors in sections of DNA that don't code for proteins)?
Modulous mentions a very important piece of the puzzle as well...consistency index. It's a bit complicated...and I'm by no means a math wiz so I won’t even attempt to explain it (remember what happened when I tried to use cupcakes to explain cladistics, time and genetics . )...but I'm sure someone as intelligent as yourself can read up on cladistics and certainly grasp the concept. Try it Faith. Learn about cladistics before you simply dismiss it, or make a feeble, unfounded, and unsupportable attempt to claim that cladistics actually shows common design...not common descent.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by Faith, posted 02-22-2006 1:40 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 25 by Brad McFall, posted 02-23-2006 2:10 PM FliesOnly has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 24 of 26 (289761)
02-23-2006 11:27 AM
Reply to: Message 23 by FliesOnly
02-23-2006 8:25 AM


Re: Showing Design
I'm not saying anything about "the power of design,"...
And why is that Faith? Could it be because "design" has no predictive power...that it's a useless concept...that it's in no way supported by any evidence?
No, it's merely because I'm not thinking about any theory of design at all, I am using the term in the most casual descriptive sense.
I will try to get back to the rest of your post later, as I have a busy morning.
This message has been edited by Faith, 02-23-2006 11:28 AM

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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 25 of 26 (289833)
02-23-2006 2:10 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by FliesOnly
02-23-2006 8:25 AM


Re: Showing Design
They are possibly categorized as erroneous from a simple semantic information transfer concept wherein language is conceived in fintistic Chomskian formations of bounded contructions but not if they are opposites that determine an outside that is currently "above" the present consensus science horizon. The perfection is only a problem for those who think independence , no matter the probability, applies to both beyond and above this horizon whereinstead the horizon should be reworked such that the perfection is found in how the instruction interactively interacts between abiota and biota and informs the math, that IS perfect, and by GOD I needlessly add.
Working out what the opposities ARE NOT formely is some determination of electrons and photons not the simple signs we use to mark a location in internal celluar space by "A","G","C","T". One needs only hold to Crick's notion of a real "force" that streches whatever signs sign for. Thus the baramin and like kinds of ideas AFTER THE KIND may indeed be "hybrid" in two different senses of the word, one as used in biology and the other as used in logic where Kant wrote on the four figure subtility based on not errors in DNA copies but 1-D symmetries still to be named but formerly "ad hoc" for what adapation adapts to and from. It would explain how the earthworm has a freshwater kidney but lives on land. I dont feel like spending my whole time on the underground so I hope the logic is what is focused on rather than the soma that disseminates the same as this would entail explaining away aposteriori feedback throughs, too much for one guy to do on my budget.
This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 02-23-2006 02:15 PM

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 26 of 26 (293686)
03-09-2006 1:52 PM


bump due to indirect request
Ooook! writes:
As WK has already pointed out, I don't think this is a fair asessment of the molecular evidence but that is definitely a topic's worth on its own.
I shamelessly bumping this as a response to some of the issues in the Dissecting the Evolutionist Approach thread, I think this is a good place to explore in depth some of the ideas that are being scratched upon there.

  
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