Twin-Nested Heirarchy

Goddy (my creationist alter-ego) is back!One of the key evidences presented for common descent is the twin-nested heirarchy. That is, the hierarchies created from both the morphological evidence and the genetic evidence are correlated far more than would be expected by chance.But what they (the evilutionists) don't tell you is that similarities are not evidence of common descent. They can also be indicators of common design.Seeing as the DNA provides the instructions for building the organism, one should not be surprised that the two trees match up fairly well. Just as one would not be surprised that smaller cars would have smaller engines, we should not be surprised that organisms that look like people have genes similar to those of people.Because these criteria used to create the two trees are not independent of one another, a correlation between the two offers no evidence for evolution or common descent.In addition, if common design of phenotypes between kinds is valid, then so is common design between genotypes. While it is true that the genetic code is redundant and there is a lot of plasticity available in the amino acid sequence of proteins (e.g. conservative mutations), it doesn't follow that the genotype should vary more than it does. The designer clearly would have known about mutations, and so if one genome is good (i.e. sequence is arranged in such a way that it minimises information loss via evolution) for the dog kind, a very similar genome would be good for the cat kind too.So, the twin-nested hierarchy doesn't disprove special creation at all, does it?

Because the metabolism is needed to fuel the organism.If the creature is a small, active one (e.g. finch) it will have a metabolism designed for that sort of action. On the other hand, a large, slow creature (e.g. a tortoise) will have different metabolism again, and so will have different metabolic enzymes.Morphology does match with metabolism too.

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Life is not finely tuned to appear like it evolved. Rather, evolution was adapted to the conditions of life. Its evidences, assumptions and techniques all have been DESIGNED to make life appear like it was designed.It wouldn't matter how life was designed. As long as it was a good design, the evilutionists would still find a way to get the designer out of it.

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Sigh...can you guess what I'm going to say?BUT THEY'RE STILL GOPHERS AND STILL LICE!Of course one could work out a phylogeny using either morphology or molecular data. It might even closely match how the species actually diverged. But, one first has to assume common ancestry before either of the two methods can be used. In that thread you linked me, you say:

quote:

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It's a basic principle of reason that when two independent groups, using independent methods, measure and get the same results, we strongly conclude that they're actually measuring something that's really there (like an evolutionary history) and not simply making it up. The odds of two parties working independently developing the same falsehood are very, very low.

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But, they are not independant. The two parties are measuring the same thing, but it's not phylogeny. Rather, it's just plain similarity. One has to infer from that similarity, what the phylogeny is.To do this, both groups have to assume the falsehood that similarities indicate common descent rather than common design. Fortunately, most creationists will accept that gophers have a common ancestor, and probably also that lice have a common ancestor.I don't think that the phylogenetic trees are seeing patterns in noise. Rather, I think they are seeing real patterns that do exist, and intepreting them according to their assumptions, therefore coming up the conclusion (which they assumed anyway) that all life is related.

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Really? Prove it!

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Why do you say that? Darwin only came up with the theory...other people have tried to support it too. They are the ones who are finding the other 'evidence' for it. Whoops...wrote that in a hurry. Sorry.

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The analysis assumes that similarity is evidence of common descent. Yes, I agree. And I've already said that in that instance, I do think the common ancestry assumption is true. But is it always true?

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That validates it in the case of the gophers and their lice, but that does not immediately validate any phylogenetic tree constructed with cladistic techniques. Ok...that requires me to accept the existence of DNA that has no effect on morphology.As a creationist, I'm afraid I can't do that.But, because I am trying to be a reasonable one, I'll have to provide a source for that. Fortunately, there is a researcher at my university who specialises in just this issue:John S. Mattick "Non-coding RNAs: the architects of eukaryotic complexity" European Molecular Biology Organization Reports 2(11):986-991, November 15 2001

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Nonsense. Rather, it's like a scale that reads those gram weights accurately, and then you start to use it to weigh beached whales.Microevolution of lice and gophers within a kind is one thing, but that doesn't validate the technique for use on every living creature at once. There is evidence aplenty. I just used a nice summary article because it was available for free. Besides, science is ever changing. You can't assume that the protein-centric view is right when for the past 5-10 years much evidence is suggesting that it is too limited.Even in E.Coli, RNA encoded by non-coding regions (such as the 3' untranslated region) has been shown to have a function in stabilising mRNA (). I may suggest that you pick up a recent textbook on genetics and look up ncRNA/functional RNA or RNA regulation.But, to discuss it in-depth would be out of the realms of this topic, I fear.Edited by Goddy, : url tags

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It's just lice losing information as they evolve within the lice kind, and likewise for the gophers. No macroevolution involved. I have no reason to believe you when you continually assert that simply because you can use molecular techniques accurately on some piece of microevolution, that it will automatically work on a broader scale too. But while the assumption of common descent may actually be true for different lice species and different gopher species, you have to make a leap to assume it will be true for all life. I know that (well, at least Doddy knew that)! But the example is still valid because it shows that short sequences of non protein-coding RNA, even in the simple prokaryotes, can regulate morphology. Do you have some reason to think that it won't be the same in the more complex eukaryotes? The idea that they are immediately digested and thus play no functional role is being challenged! At the very least, some introns do persist long enough to either interfere with or stabilise mRNA, thus affecting their translation.Here is recent review: Rana T " Illuminating the silence: understanding the structure and function of small RNAs" Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology 8, 23-36 (January 2007)For God's sake, just go to Google Scholar, PubMed or Web of Science and look up 'miRNA', 'siRNA' or 'RNA interference'! Surely, if I can come up with papers that suggest that introns are actually functional, some professional geneticist would have published a rebuttal to denounce such talk.

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But, why couldn't common design also result in such a pattern in the data?

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Clearly, a change within a lice genus is much simpler and more straigthfoward to compare than, say, mice and men. But how does convergence of a set of results immediately prove all results collected by that method? *Sigh* Perhaps I should be more specific. Instead of citing reviews and opinion pieces (which in and of themselves, contain no evidence) to give you a broad overview, how about a research article:Okamura K, Hagen JW, Duan H, Tyler DM, Lai EC. "The mirtron pathway generates microRNA-class regulatory RNAs in Drosophila." Cell. 130(1):89-100 (2007 Jul 13)

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And, as I said, you can't measure ship tonnage with a scale calibrated with a 100g weight.You asked why I think that gophers are more simple than any other species complex. I don't think that. I think that other species complexes are probably fairly similar. If the gophers and lice are at 100g, then the other species complexes will be in the range of 20-300g.But to be able to use the same techniques on a much broader scale, say at the level of the family or order, is going beyond what has been calibrated. One can't say that because we can accurately construct a phylogeny for various species of gophers, that we can also construct one for various orders of eutherian mammals. That's extrapolating too far for creationist me. You're going to have to show that it works at the level of tonnage.

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Who says that the designer would always want to use similar designs? We can't know the mind of the designer. Perhaps there is a very good reason for this design, but we might not know it yet.Edited by Goddy, : clarify

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So, you are just assuming that all life evolved from a common ancestor to do some cladistics that allegedly is evidence of exactly what you assumed to begin with. Yep, not even me. Never said that was design. Enough with the strawmen already. Never said there wasn't. Just said that you can't use a method that is known to work on the genus level and expect it will work on the order level, say constructing a phylogenetic tree containing mice and men. When you say:If we are correct in our assumption that all life is commonly descended, our cladistic analysis will be correct. Therefore, life was all descended from a common ancestor.And expect me to believe you, I have to disagree. At worst, you are begging the question. At best, you are affirming the consequent. Choose your fallacy.

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