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Author Topic:   why creation "science" isn't science
Cobra_snake
Inactive Member


Message 303 of 365 (4156)
02-11-2002 7:37 PM
Reply to: Message 301 by Quetzal
02-11-2002 4:58 PM


quote:
Originally posted by Quetzal:
Cobra: You've now had over a week to respond. I answered your post in good faith. Seems you've decided that my effort was unworthy or something. Please advise whether you intend to continue our discussion or not.
Ok, here we go. Sorry it took so long.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 301 by Quetzal, posted 02-11-2002 4:58 PM Quetzal has not replied

  
Cobra_snake
Inactive Member


Message 304 of 365 (4166)
02-11-2002 9:18 PM


"1. Mutations should almost always cause a bad effect. I guess the first thing to do would be to ask to what extent, or at what scale, mutations have effects which can be unambiguously classified as either beneficial, deleterious, or neutral. IMO, The answer would depend on the particular phenomenon you’re trying to explain. As I pointed out above, the most parsimonious explanation for the different adaptations of hares is that some combination of beneficial traits —based on lagomorph change over time — allowed each of the distinct species to adapt to their environment. Obviously, these traits would be beneficial in the organism’s current context."
Well, a different mutation can be of different use depending on an environment. But (unless you can show me wrong) most mutations either have no real affect or they are deleterious. Even if you grant neutral mutations as evolutionary progress, the large majority of mutations still do not work towards any evolution.
"The deleterious mutation/crash effect would be especially evident in spatially isolated populations such as islands. It turns out that the exact opposite occurs: in geographically isolated ecosystems (such as islands), and dependent on the carrying capacity of the particular area, a net increase in species diversity is observed."
Well, it seems to me that this would be expected. In smaller populations, it would be easier for a change in allelic frequency to occur, and it also increases the chances that any rare beneficial mutations would be passed on. However, neither change in allelic frequency nor beneficial mutations are evidence against Creation.
"2. Mutations should rarely or never increase the amount of information. I have already noted my problem with the concept of information when discussing biological systems in my previous post. Information is a weak and misleading analogy for genetics. The assumption — taken only at face value — would also presuppose that there is no possibility of increasing the amount of genetic material in an organism. Given the experimental evidence available (some of which I noted previously) showing how new biological pathways can develop, even this assumption falls flat."
This is a part of the debate that has interested me. Go to http://trueorigin.org/dawkinfo.asp for more information on the theory. Recently, a few mutations have been shown to me which may indeed increase information. But there are still problems, even if some information can increase. Let's say you start of with 1000 units of information. Let's say mistakes keep occuring to these units over a long period of time.
1000 + 0 + 0 + 1 - 1 -1 + 0 - 1 - 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 - 1 = 996
So, even if every now and then a mutation increased information, it would not make a significant difference when flooded by the mutations losing information and the mutations which do nothing to the information. And beyond that is the difficulty of evolving irreducibly complex structures.
"3. Speciation should occur as a product of the great variability programmed into living things, combined with mutations. In the first place, this assumption would seem to directly contradict your assumption one. The consequences of assumption one — that there will be a net decrease in diversity — indicates there should be less variation observable in nature via subtraction of species which have gone extinct. Another implication is that, given similar environmental conditions, the same type of organism will be found where ever these environmental conditions apply (within the limitations imposed by the programmed variability, whatever that is, within species). Again, this is not what is observed. Similar niches are filled with (often radically) different organisms. Australia lacks placental wolves or big cats, for ex, but it did have marsupial equivalents. A woodpecker finch is practical only in the absence of woodpeckers - thus there is a Galpagos woodpecker finch, Cactospiza pallidus. The pattern is always by area, not by environment type."
I can see why you would think this violates assumption one. I believe I was not clear on my point. Here is what I really mean:
The overall diversity of species INCREASES over time.
The overall diversity of the new species is less than that of the first species.
For example: Let's say Darwin's finch traveled to the Galapagos. The first two finches had enormous variability programmed into the way their beaks may be. After droughts and environmental conditions or whatnot, certain forms of these beaks begin to become advantageous. Natural Selection picks them over time. Now we have 13 different species with different beaks. But, two Finches with beak A cannot mate and produce babies with beak B. Similarly, beak B finches cannot produce beak A offspring. Therefore, the variety of the species of finch has increased, yet the variability within each species of finch has decreased.
As with species fitting their niches, this is partly due to the great variability in kinds. However, I believe that species can fit into a large number of niches. I'm sure there are potential niches that are not realized all over the earth.
"4. All living things should be fully formed from the start. (i.e. no reptiles with "half-wings" or "half-feathers.") On the face of it, this is a true statement. No organism ever made a living as a transitional form. There are actually two difficulties with this assumption, however. In the first place, there is an implicit assumption of linearity or purpose in nature that is not borne out by observation. Living organisms are observed to be, in general, sufficiently functional in their current environment to reproduce their species."
Well the problem is, if there are no half-features, then why would you expect complex things to evolve? For example, feathers are different in numerous ways to scales. There had to be some point in the history of life in which these scales turned into feathers. It seems to me that this process would take many mutations to lead up to a final product.
Another problem with Evolutionist arguments is they point out the most simple form of some structure (like feathers) and make it seem as though evolving the new structure would be no problem. What they don't tell you is that these "primitive" structures are actually fantastically complex. Let's look at your examples:
"All of these organisms have various types of membranes — some more or less effective — to enable them to glide greater or longer distances. Here are transitional forms between terrestrial/arboreal and flight. In addition, several species of fish seem to be transitional between fish and amphibian (ex, lungfish and mud skippers) with various adaptations to — at least temporarily — breath air rather than relying solely on gills [there are also several species of goby which I have personally witnessed having the ability to jump out of their intertidal zone pool and survive on land for up to ten minutes by gulping air.]"
The problem with the gliding example is that the mechanism is almost surely already fantastically complex. Also, I don't see how one could use gliding frogs as an example of a transitional form, because not too many people think that birds evolved from frogs. The example with the lungs seems to point towards Creation to me. Something that amazing seems unfathomable if it were to exist by purely natural causes. Again, the problem is that you assume evolving air breathing lungs is no problem, whereas in reality it would involve a large amount of beneficial mutations, and all of these mutations would have to be slowly selected by natural selection. A fish with gills and lungs does not show how either gills OR lungs could evolve, it only shows a fantastically complex creature.
"5. Due to the typically negative effect of mutations, speciations should arise primarily as a result of LOSS or CORRUPTION of information, which makes the species less varied. Although primarily a restatement of assumption one, this assumption more explicitly states that no improvement can occur (as such, directly contradicting assumption two, three and four.) The assumption seems to imply that if species change over time, such change would make them less fit for their environment. In addition, this assumption explicitly states that daughter species, if they arose, would have net negative fitness correlation as compared to the parent species."
Actually, I do believe "improvement" can occur, and I am sorry if I did not give you that impression. But improvement can occur by loss of information, as shown many times in nature. The assumption is not meant to imply that species become less fit for their environment, as natural selection would tend to stop that from occuring. However, the new species may be less adapt to environments as a whole. Going back to the finch example: If you were to place a population of finches into a radically different environment, which ones do you think would be more likely to survive in the long run? The original finch with all 13 possible beaks programmed into its genetic code, or one of the more specialized finches that cannot hope for new beaks to appear in its offspring" Obviously, the type of finch with the most programmed variety would be most likely to survive different situations.
"1. Fully formed creatures in the fossil record (no "half-features") True as stated. There can be no such thing as half features, for the simple reason that half features would not allow survival. However, the fossil record is replete with forms — obviously related by morphology — which are different in the aggregate, but share numerous traits in common (such as dentition, number and arrangement of phalanges, etc). In addition, the fossil record shows that there is a distinct stratigraphy associated with these fossils: i.e., fossil type A found in a lower (and hence geologically older) strata with primitive features or traits distinctive of one particular taxonomic order, followed in successively younger strata by fossil type B of obviously related organisms which shares traits with A but which also has traits related to a different taxonomic order. Finally, pure forms of this new order (fossil C) are found which share traits with B but not with A, again in younger geologic strata. Now obviously, there may not be a direct linear relationship between A, B, and C. However, it is possible to estimate degrees of relatedeness fairly accurately based on morphological similarity. It may not always be possible to distinguish a direct ancestor, principally because of the vagaries of fossilization, and the disturbance/destruction of fossils over time — in general, a brother or sister of the missing link is close enough. The prediction is proven false by the available evidence."
I will admit, the geological column has been my largest headache of all involving my thought on this debate. I want to do more research involving this particular area. I've already mentioned the difficulty of evolving "dumbed-down" versions of traits, so I will see how you respond to that. As for the geological column, it could be that you are seeing what you want to see. For example: the trilobite is thought to have an extremely complex eye, much more efficient than our own. This would be one case in which a "dumbed-down" version of something appeared after a complex one. I would like to get into this area of research a bit more.
"2. An increased genetic burden over time as a result of the negative effect of mutations. This prediction is probably true in the absence of beneficial mutations or natural selection. If this prediction were true in nature, there should be a net decrease in overall population fitness of any given population of organisms over time. If this was the case, the survival of a given population over more than a few generations is questionable, and relates strictly to the rate that major deleterious mutations occur. Even with the action of natural selection (in the sense that it can select against negative mutations), the best that a population can hope for is a very tenuous equilibrium — that would be completely upset if the environment changed. Again, the evidence we would see would include rapid population crashes, and given the interrelatedness of populations within a given ecosystem, continuous (rather than episodic) mass extinctions. This is not the pattern we observe."
Well, I have stated earlier in this post that beneficial mutations are the exception and not the rule. And yes, natural selection does indeed slow down the process of genetic burden. But negative mutations are generally recessive traits, and therefore are not as likely to kill or hurt a species. the problem with this is that if you start off with one recessive gene, you can eventually end up with great-grandchildren that actually have the defect, even though the person that started never had it.
(Here, D stands for dominant gene and r stands for recessive gene)
Dr---DD
'
--------
' ' '
Dr DD Dr
'
------------
' ' ' '
DD DD DD Dr------Dr
'
----------
' ' ' '
DD Dr Dr rr
It doesn't take too long for the reccesive gene to become active, but it is still rare. When the rare rr occurs, natural selection should weed it out, but the problem of the reccessive gene still continues to affect a member of the family every now and then.
The species can still be well fit (due to change in allelic frequency), but the species will have an increased genetic burden.
I hope you find my model at least somewhat scientific,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was certainly a valiant attempt.
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
although I have a feeling not too many people will.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Probably not.
I would like to thank you for continuing this discussion with me. It seems other evolutionists are still claiming nobody has ever made a model, even though they didn't spend much time evaluating my model. If they think my model is unscientific, then they should say so and provide a substantive response. However, it is unfair that they continue to claim nobody has ever made a method, without giving any consideration to my attempt.
I am sorry it took me so long to give you this response, but I have been trying to keep up on the other topics, and my time on a computer is limited. I hope you find this response at least worthy of further argument.
Until later.

Replies to this message:
 Message 305 by gene90, posted 02-11-2002 9:23 PM Cobra_snake has not replied
 Message 314 by Quetzal, posted 02-13-2002 7:11 AM Cobra_snake has not replied
 Message 315 by mark24, posted 02-13-2002 8:28 AM Cobra_snake has not replied

  
Cobra_snake
Inactive Member


Message 335 of 365 (6159)
03-05-2002 9:45 PM


OK, I finally toughened up and am continuing this discussion.
"If you restate this as natural selection cannot operate on neutral mutations unless expressed (and delete the reference to progress), then I would agree with you. However, your assumption was mutations should almost always cause a bad effect. The vast majority of mutations are actually neutral in terms of their effect on survival."
Are you saying that most mutations don't really affect survival because they are so insignificant? If so, I don't think I disagree with you.
"Also, you can’t seem to get away from comparing the two theories, which was not our intent."
Sorry, I guess it's second nature.
I'll try to avoid that in future discussion.
"I merely worked through the implications of your assumption: if all (or nearly all) mutations are bad, populations will quite rapidly come to a situation of error catastrophe or mutational meltdown (I love that term)."
First of all, it is my belief that life is much more recent than you think, so it would not be likely that many species would have reached the "mutational meltdown" that you are talking about. Also, I think you are overestimating the degree in which I believe mutations affect populations. Mutations are fairly rare, and therefore their effect on a population would not be extreme, although their effect would tend to lead to a downward process. Natural selection and occasional beneficial mutations help to keep species at near equilibrium. (I don't count mutations that have no affect as either good or bad. I realize that these mutations occur often, but mutations are not important until the species is actually affected.)
"(a) Agreed. It is readily observed in nature that a small, isolated population is much more rapidly effected by changes in allelic frequency. However, and this is a key concept, changes in allelic frequency ONLY occur in relation to the marginal fitness of the alleles. (This is defined as the average fitness, weighted by frequency, of genotypes containing the allele of interest.) Any direct fitness effects of the allele translate directly into an effect on its marginal fitness. If there is linkage disequilibrium between the allele of interest and other selected alleles, this will also affect the marginal fitness. IOW, if all you have are negative mutations, even if partially offset by natural selection, your population rapidly goes bye-bye because of the net reduction of marginal fitness. A genetic death spiral. I’d appreciate your comments on what I wrote originally about mutational load==>crash vs the persistence of natural populations, which you failed to address."
I am aware that beneficial and neutral mutations occur, and like I said earlier, I don't think that negative mutations kill off a species as fast as you are saying. I'm not quite clear on one thing though... do you believe that the MAJORITY of mutations are beneficial? Mutations that have no affect do not apply until they do have an effect on the organism.
"(b) Correct, they do not provide evidence against creationism. However, changes in allelic frequency based on your assumption #1, because of what I noted in (a), and the existence of beneficial mutations (which is how natural populations survive in the first place) DO invalidate your first assumption — which you have stated is a necessary pre-condition for creationism to be valid (the definition of a scientific assumption in a theory)."
My prediction was that ALMOST all mutations have a negative affect. As stated earlier, I am aware that some mutations are beneficial. (Mutations that have no affect do not apply until they have an affect) The difference in opinion here, I believe, is that you think that beneficial mutations (and even some neutral mutations) are sufficient enough to allow life as we know it to come about by natural processes, and I don't. I believe beneficial mutations are rare, and even the ones known aren't good examples of evolutionary process. For example, wingless beetles, creatures losing eyes, and even antibiotic resistance are not really showing much evolution. It shows variation within a species, which I of course do not object to, but those examples are far from developing tissues and organs. (And irreducibly complex structures.)
"Your mathematical model is overly simplistic, as it assumes only insertion or deletion of a codon"
I do realize my model is overly simplistic, and I am under the impression that the majority of supposed evolutionary progress comes from gene duplication, but I am just trying to get a point across. IF you accept that genetics can be described as information, and IF you accept that the majority of mutations lose information or keep information content the same, then there is a problem because the ratio of information gain is not high enough to add progress.
"As stated, this makes no sense to me. You seem to be confusing biodiversity with inherited variability. These are two completely different concepts."
That is what I am comparing.
"I guess my question is: how does an increase in biodiversity translate into a decrease in inheritable variability."
First of all, I'm not saying that any of the new Finches (Finch B, for example) cannot speciate further. It's just that Finch B, mating with Finch B, will always produce offspring with Finch B beaks. Finch B could become even more specialized.
"By observation, it appears the opposite is true: more species yields more opportunities for mutation to create novel alleles for natural selection to operate on."
That seems to make sense to me, the more species, the more chance that further speciation can occur. This is because a lot of variability is programmed into the animals, so they have the ability to speciate many times. If I am incorrect on this (and in fact Darwin's Finches speciated by means of beneficial mutations instead of variability), please point this out to me.
"Simply because they are different species and can’t inter-breed does not mean there is any loss of variability within species."
Isn't it true that two Finch B birds cannot mate and produce Finch C beaks? My point is, if the speciation is not because of information gaining mutations, it is not a problem for the Creation theory.
"Besides defining kind so that it can be used in discussion"
Hehe, I'd rather not go down that line of discussion. I know where that ends up!
"you would need to show me some evidence that there were unoccupied niches lying around."
I don't know if I can, as any potential further niche may be very complex. Besides, a relatively large amount of niches being recognized is not really a problem for special Creation (the only real problem comes from determining whether or not that kind of variety could come from the relatively few species on the ark. Of course, that's a different debate entirely!) An important aspect of the Creation model is that the Creator designed species with A LOT of genetic variety, so I would expect them to inhabit a large amount of niches.
"Agreed. Complex organisms, or even complex parts of organisms, are formed by natural selection operating on many mutations over very long periods of time."
Right, but the more mutations required in succession to reach a certain product, the more unlikely that small mutations could account for the change.
"It appears, however, that you are falling into the trap of linearity. To wit, you are assuming the result was known in advance, and that what we see in nature today is some kind of epitome of life."
True, it is very easy to fall into the trap of linearity, but I believe my point is still valid. Wings have developed multiple times in nature (birds, bats, insects, pterodactyls), and I believe that all of those four types are not directly related. Nature must somehow have a knack for developing wings. Given that wings are generally very complex structures, a naturalistic means of developing them again and again become more unlikely. Also, another problem with gradual, natural explanation of wings is that wings seem, to me anyway, fairly useless until at least some sort of flight can be achieved with the structure. I am aware of the different proposed explanations for a gradual development of the wing (pro-avis and whatnot), but I believe there are many difficulties with these proposed scenarios (which we can discuss in detail if you wish).
"This idea contradicts your earlier assumptions that life is going downhill in a handbasket. The apparent implication of your statement is if wings were fully formed from the start, and all change is negative, then over time birds would no longer be able to fly."
Once again, I think you are overestimating the degree in which I think negative mutations affect life. Also, I am under the impression that negative mutations generally involve disease, so I don't think it is likely that negative mutations would eventually destroy the entire wing (a bird born with a hugely negative mutation resulting in the corruption or loss of wings would be treated very harshly by natural selection, thus it would be eliminated quickly and efficiently).
"Careful, you’re slipping away from defense/support of your theory to attacking ToE."
Sorry once again, I will re-word my statement.
The fact that even the simplest form of most features in living things are extremely complex is evidence of an extremely powerful and innovative designer.
"Actually, it isn’t all that complex. If you’ve got skin webbing between grasping members or loose skin between limbs (like the potto), and happen to be a tasty arboreal potential dinner, it is certainly within your interest to be able to jump from limb to limb, tree to tree, or cushion your way to the ground."
Careful, you forgot to include the evolution of feathers in the process! (I also believe that birds have an extremely nifty lung system which is completely different from the reptilian system.)
"As such, the gliding frog would not be transitional to birds (which already exist). It could, however, be transitional to a flying frog down the road
"
Actually, I was joking with my comment. However, if frogs do start to fly eventually, I suppose my theory is invalidated!
"1. You need to define improvement and loss of information and then show with an example from nature of what this means. I can’t really follow your argument."
Well, my information theorist skills are not exactly up to par, but I believe that information describes the complexity of a sequence. So, it is the pattern that describes information.
I have heard of the book "Not By Chance" by Lee Spetner and I wish to purchase that book soon. I have heard that he displays how life can be described as information, and also how beneficial mutations cited by evolutionists do not increase genetic information. Hopefully, I can try to answer your questions more substantially if I get a chance to read the book.
I think an "improvement" could be defined as anything that increases survival chances of an organism.
"2. You are still back on the assumption of some kind of zero-sum game involved with heritable variation as it relates to biodiversity. I think at this point I would be justified in asking for some positive evidence (i.e., an example from nature) of what you mean."
I do think that mutations could occasionally (and probably have occasionally) increase information, it's just that I don't think it likely that the limited examples can be extrapolated to account for all the diversity of life. (Remember, one must still account for irreducibly complex structures, as well as every single innovative feature of nature.)
An example from nature would be anti-bacterial resistance, which has been shown by Spetner to not increase information. I cannot go into detail until I get the book.
"Ummm, what do you mean the difficulty of evolving dumbed down versions of traits?"
What I mean is that earlier, I suggested that even the simplest (most "dumbed-down") version of particular traits are in fact extremely complex, therefore they still are lacking a good Darwinian explanation.
What I am saying about the geological column (while admitting my relative ignorance on the subject) is that it is probably not quite as linear as you think it is. For example, the Cambrian Explosion reveals a large number of phyla appearing in relatively brief geological time (which, I am pretty sure, would not be predicted by evolutionists).
Mark and Quetzal, I am going to have to respond to your points on mutations in the next post. I am going to need a lot of research to answer your questions.

Replies to this message:
 Message 336 by Quetzal, posted 03-06-2002 2:03 AM Cobra_snake has not replied
 Message 337 by edge, posted 03-06-2002 10:13 AM Cobra_snake has replied
 Message 338 by Quetzal, posted 03-06-2002 10:54 AM Cobra_snake has not replied

  
Cobra_snake
Inactive Member


Message 339 of 365 (6219)
03-06-2002 10:47 PM


Well, Quetzal, the level of debate has definitely picked up here, and I am starting to feel myself slip!
It is much different debating somebody who has alot of knowledge on the issue (For example, I heard of Lee Spetner's work, and never really thought about whether or not information was a valid argument in biological terms.)
Because of this, I am going to order the book and see for myself. I will respond as soon as I can, hopefully with a better understanding of information theory.

Replies to this message:
 Message 342 by Quetzal, posted 03-07-2002 9:54 AM Cobra_snake has not replied

  
Cobra_snake
Inactive Member


Message 340 of 365 (6221)
03-06-2002 11:08 PM
Reply to: Message 337 by edge
03-06-2002 10:13 AM


quote:
Originally posted by edge:
You would be wrong. You see, the main purpose of the theory of evolution is to explain what we see in the biological world, including the fossil record. If explosions of diversity were not known, then evolution couldn't and wouldn't have to explain them. However, we do know about them and evolution MUST explain the "explosions" of life.
So, you are saying that every biological phenomenon MUST have an evolutionary explanation? That's fair when evaluating evolution specifically, but it is not fair when determining the origins of life. If evidence found is evidence that is unsupportive of evolutionary theory, that is what it should be claimed as.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 337 by edge, posted 03-06-2002 10:13 AM edge has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 341 by joz, posted 03-06-2002 11:13 PM Cobra_snake has replied

  
Cobra_snake
Inactive Member


Message 343 of 365 (6255)
03-07-2002 4:42 PM
Reply to: Message 341 by joz
03-06-2002 11:13 PM


quote:
Originally posted by joz:
ToE does not deal with origins of life only how it developed once already around....
If you want to talk about the origin of life abiogenesis is the topic, not ToE........

What I meant was origin of life AS WE KNOW IT (not dealing with abiogenesis, just dealing with how life diversified to the present condition). Sorry that what I said was misleading.
By the way, Quetzal, thanks for your encouragement.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 341 by joz, posted 03-06-2002 11:13 PM joz has not replied

  
Cobra_snake
Inactive Member


Message 363 of 365 (6869)
03-14-2002 10:46 PM


I can't get the next pages of this topic to appear

  
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