How long does it take to evolve?

The arch provides an excellent example of why irreducible complexity in nature is not proof of God or a designer. All arches were originally more complex, possessing support frameworks during construction. Once all the stones were in place and the arch could support itself, the support frameworks were removed, reducing complexity.But the big problem with irreducible complexity is that almost all examples creationists identify in nature are not really examples of irreducible complexity. For example, a creationist will argue that the eye is irreducibly complex because if you remove just one part, such as the lens, it will no longer function. There are at least a couple significant problems with this argument:

• The "remove one part" scenario completely misunderstands how evolution works, because there was never a time when evolution "added one part." Evolution doesn't produce sudden jumps that produce a complete and novel part in a single generation. Evolution doesn't contend that creatures with no lenses could have offspring with lenses.
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• Even if you do remove one part, the organ still does something. An eye without a lens can still detect light and dark, and can sense the shape of large objects. What this means for evolution is that an incipient and rather poor lens is better than no lens at all and can produce a survival advantage. Incremental change and selection over generations does the rest.

The most amazing thing about irreducible complexity is that a genuine scientist, Michael Behe, thought of it. Shows what evangelical Christianity can do to your mind. Behe is still a professor at Lehigh and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute. By the way, what happened to DI? Seems we never hear from them anymore.--Percy

If you're saying there's no such thing as irreducible complexity in the sense that I think creationists usually mean it (that it couldn't have come about naturally), then I agree. Or more generally, the universe we see today did form from natural processes.--Percy

Breaking DNA down into lengths isn't the right way to go about this. The human genome contains about 3 billion base pairs, so .1mm is 164,041 base pairs. Is that enough for a "simple light receptor"? Though it varies widely, the average gene size in humans 10,000-15,000 base pairs (Average gene size - Human Homo sapiens - BNID 104316), so that would yield around 10-20 genes for a simple light receptor, though that doesn't take junk DNA into account. Anyway, is that enough? Got me. Definitely not the right words. You're asking if DNA information encoding is dense enough to contain all the information for building a living creature. We do know now that some of the information is contained elsewhere in the cell, but the vast majority is in our DNA. If the information isn't in the DNA and a little bit more elsewhere in the cell, then where is it? I'm not saying that's how we reasoned that the information is in the DNA. I'm just trying to get you to see how ridiculous your question is. DNA has to contain the information, else the information is nowhere and we couldn't exist.--Percy

conio.h isn't supported on Linux.--Percy

This seems like an unwarranted criticism. Wasn't it precisely Faith's argument that the designer would have no need to go back to the drawing board, that all the DNA ever needed was seeded into life at the beginning? Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see where DWise1 had this as an "original position." Creationist positions vary all over the map, and all one can do is customize one's arguments to the particular creationist argument of the moment.--Percy

Hi DWise1,My message was a response to NoNukes, so if you're replying to what I said to NoNukes then I guess your reply has me confused. You didn't quote anything, so is it possible you clicked "reply" for the wrong message?If you *were* replying to me then I guess I'd have to say that, no, I'm not "postulating a supernatural creator...etc..." I was just telling NoNukes that when he said you were putting arguments in someone else's mouth that it seemed to me you were just generalizing around Faith's argument.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

What I thought I said was that DWise1 was raising an argument along the same lines as Faith, not putting words in anyone's mouth. The argument is not a reasonable one, and few creationist arguments are. I interpreted DWise1 as arguing against design reuse, based on the fact that we never see it. To elaborate on DWise1's argument, if every creature was designed then why do we never see octopus eyes (in the sense of placement of the blood vessels) in vertebrae? Was there truly not a single vertebrae that would have been improved with an octopus eye? Another example is the laryngeal nerve, whose path in most vertebrae is adequate, but which in the giraffe is absurd and cries out for borrowing a better design from some other creature. At the heart of this is the fact that we never see homologous structures in unrelated species, only analogous ones.If I seem to be missing your argument then perhaps you're making a subtle distinction that I'm just not seeing, but then would a creationist see it either.--Percy

So you're imagining that evolution would produce a new organ, like a kidney? Why? When mammals first evolved, they already had kidneys. Mammals evolved from reptiles, and when reptiles first evolved they already had kidneys. Reptiles evolved from fish, and when fish first evolved they already had kidneys. Whatever fish evolved from may or may not have had kidneys, but whatever the case, kidneys go way back in evolutionary time, as do other organs. (I'm oversimplifying evolutionary history, by the way.)New organs aren't expected to evolve very often. Hearts and livers and kidneys and lungs (or gills) all go way, way back in evolutionary time. They originated in incipient form as just a specialized cell or few cells that provided a small survival/reproductive advantage, and they became more specialized and adapted over generations.But new organs *can* evolve. The baleen whale evolved a new organ in its mouth that helps it feed, though we don't know the specifics of how or when. Not better than before, just better adapted than before. The eyes of blind cave fish are not better than their evolutionary predecessors, but they *are* better adapted to living in a lightless cave. Better is a relative term. Each human child averages around a hundred mutations. Over a hundred million children are born every year, so that's at least 10 billion new mutations. Every year. Year after year. If only one out of a billion mutations are advantageous, that's 10 new advantageous mutations. Every year. Year after year. I don't know the actual rate of favorable mutations, I'm just trying to help you see that the odds are much better than you think. If I could quote you from your opening, when it comes to evolution your "biological education...[is] limited." You're right to be skeptical about the things you believe to be true about evolution, but you're misinformed.--Percy

Hey, Lamden, about the quote codes, it isn't [q], it's [quote] or [qs]. Text using the [quote] code is set off by horizontal lines at the top and bottom of the text, while text using the [qs] code, which is an abbreviation for "quote shaded", is set off inside a slightly darker text box. [quote] or [qs], not [q]. And of course, they're closed with [/quote] or [/qs]. If you click on the preview button after typing your message you'll see if you got the quote codes right. If you see no quoting going on in your rendered message, guess what?--Percy

If you look to the left of the little text box where you're typing your message you'll see a help link for the dBCodes, or you can Click Here, or you can select Message Coding Help from the Essential Links menu item near the top of the page.--Percy

We're just trying to convince Lamdem what the scientific method *is*. Whether scientists are properly following the scientific method when they carry out research into evolution is a different topic. Lamdem is having his own difficulties reining in his enthusiasm for going off-topic, he doesn't need encouragement.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

I don't know if Tanypteryx would agree with me, but I do identify somewhat with what he says. I find some philosophy very interesting, but when I want to understand how the real world works I turn to science that is based upon observations of the natural world. What turned me off most about the Thomas Nagel reference wasn't that he was a philosopher but that it was an argument from authority, and a relatively obscure one at that (sorry, but I never heard of him, either). Didn't Lamden name drop Hawking, too? I think Lamden is still stuck in the stage of figuring out what constitutes a meaningful foundation for knowledge.--Percy

Just looked up Richard Lewontin at Wikipedia, and he's opposed to genetic determinism, which is "the mechanism by which genes, along with environmental conditions, determine morphological and behavioral phenotypes."Am I reading that right? Does this actually say that Lewontin rejects the genetic foundation of how creatures' bodies look and work?--Percy

Hi MrHambre,If you're criticizing those who are skeptical of philosophical criticisms of scientific inquiry and modes of thought, then I don't think we are, at least not all of us. I'm skeptical of what Nagel says about evolution because it doesn't align with the facts and qualifies as only philosophical musings. The finer the distinction being drawn the more words it takes to explain, as is clearly evident in Sober's review of Nagel's Mind and Cosmos, at 4500 words nearly a novelette. I started reading it earlier this week and got through about a third of it before it began to feel like philosophical masturbation of little real world consequence. Sorry.And about Lewontin, apparently Wikipedia didn't quite capture the nuance of his opinion. It seems he objects to the kind of thinking where there's some kind of simple mapping between genes and traits, but I don't think there can be many biologists who still hold such simple ideas. Is he perhaps dressing up what is now the status quo to look like something new? Or was it still something novel when he first began saying it? Or do I still misunderstand his point, in which case I hope it doesn't take 4500 words to make clear.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.Edited by Percy, : Grammar.