The Origin of Novelty

Hi, Kofh2u This is not correct: instincts are not learned, they are innate. I didn't know anything about this particular species of bird, so I looked it up on Cornell's All About Birds website (link). Here are some things Cornell says about the migratory and overwintering behavior of the Pacific Golden-Plover:

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...winters on islands across the Pacific Ocean, through southeast Asia, to northeastern Africa...

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...The winter range of the Pacific Golden-Plover extends across nearly half of the earth's circumference, from California, to Hawaii, to Asia, to northeastern Africa.

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So, there really isn't anything "fine-tuned" about this behavior, at all: some of them go to Hawaii, some of them go to Fiji, some of them go to Indonesia, and some of them go to Africa. And, undoubtedly, some of them go "belly up in the Pacific."This is not really difficult to reconcile with the Theory of Evolution.

Hi, Dash. Hox genes are actually really simple to understand.Basically, hox genes are kind of like a labeling system. A developing embryo can produce all kinds of molecular machinery to develop a given cluster of cells into an arm, an ear, or a gonad. The hox genes basically tell each cell which machinery it will deploy, and when it will deploy it.So, if this fish's three-eyed phenotype actually was caused by a mutation to a hox gene, what it means is that, when the fish was an embryo, the mutant allele labeled three areas of the body as "eyes," and then the machinery was deployed in all three areas, instead of just in two areas, like it normally would have.So, a hox gene mutant could theoretically cause the molecular machinery to "build" an extra, more-or-less complete eye on a human's shin. But, a complete eye that functions like a normal human eye would require the tissues around the eye to develop into muscles, an eye socket, an eyelid and an optic nerve, all of which may be driven by entirely unrelated hox genes.Single hox mutations don't typically produce fully functional, extra organs. So, I bet this fish's third eye was non-functional (like a certain band from the late 90's).Edited by Blue Jay, : superfluous "a"

Hi, Mindspawn.I've only briefly skimmed what other posters have written, because I'm trying to budget my procrastination of work; so, figure me if my responses are somewhat redundant to what you've seen elsewhere. Well, they wouldn't be on equal footing, because of the principle of parsimony. The rule in science is that, every time you propose a new mechanism, you need new evidence to defend it. So, since your hypothesis includes all the basic mechanisms of the evolution hypothesis, plus one more, it needs all the evidence of the evolution hypothesis, plus "one more." If that "plus one" evidence doesn't exist, then we are not justified in adding the extra mechanism, and we fall back on the basic ToE as our "default" position.----- Fair enough, but this effectively robs you of an opportunity to make a unique prediction that would distinguish your hypothesis from the hypothesis of evolution.Still, perhaps you could make some predictions from this. I don't know much about cars, but there was a time in my young life when I really liked World War II airplanes, so I'm going to use that as a parallel to your example.There was an engine called the Rolls Royce Merlin, that was supposed to be one of the best engines for prop-driven aircraft in the 30's and 40's. This same engine (with something like 6-7 variants) was used on many British aircraft, including the famous fighter airplanes like the Hurricane and the Spitfire, and the Avro Lancaster, a four-engined heavy bomber.Some American manufacturers were even able to make a variant of the Merlin under license to use in American fighters, like the Mustang. However, early versions of the Mustang used Allison engines, which had been previously been used in other fighter designs, like the two-engined P-38 Lightning.So, if we're using a "manufacturer" metaphor, then I would predict a "mixing and matching" pattern, like with the airplane engines. A designer should have no problem putting disparate parts together to create each baramin, and, indeed, this would probably be the best way to design animals to prior specifications.So, do we see evidence of this kind of "mixing and matching" dynamic in the diversity of life?----- I wonder if we could cleanly divide the diversity of life this way. I suspect we will find many cases in which a group of organisms clearly looks like it underwent a pattern of "microevolution" via gene deletions and point mutations, except that one member, nestled deep within this pattern, has a gene addition. Thus, that one "member" would be a different baramin, despite nestling deep within what would otherwise look like a "perfect" baramin.

Hi, Mindspawn Well, I can see why you'd think that. But, the problem is that "increased complexity" (however you define it) isn't a mechanism: it's a phenotype. There's no reason to think every class of phenotype has to have a different mechanism. For example, unequal crossing-over is a type of mutation that can cause both gene deletions (decreased complexity) and gene duplications (increased complexity). So, we don't need two separate mechanisms.However, it's incontrovertible that you require a mechanism for microevolution, and a mechanism for creation.----- Can you explain exactly what you think is happening here? Because, I think you've been duped by an offhand comment about the human nervous system (or its genetic components) being found in a coral. This is not what they found.A "homolog" is a gene that two groups of organisms have in common. Homologs are not identical to one another: they are just similar enough in sequence and (sometimes) in function to be considered related in an evolutionary worldview. So, it's not like two unrelated airplanes both having Rolls-Royce Merlin engines: it's like two unrelated airplanes both having piston engines.These researchers sequenced a bunch of genes (or, actually, sections of genes), and found that corals have more homologs with humans than with insects or nematodes. It doesn't say that corals have human genes or that humans have coral genes: it says that insects and nematodes are more different from other animals than other animals are from each other.----- Okay, now I need some clarification. I thought "increased complexity" and "additional coding genes" were the same thing, in your argument. This statement suggests that they are not always. Was I wrong?

Hi, Dash. Look at human hair as an example. There aren't just a couple defined "colors" of hair: it's a gradient of shades. That's what you expect from polygenic traits: each individual mutation would have a subtle effect on the phenotype, so you can have any number of subtle shifts in color. The effect that a mutation will have on functionality depends on the exact nature of the mutation, so how can you know that it will take 7 mutations to change the phenotype? This implies that there are 7 genes that have the exact same function, which is unlikely. It's more likely that they would vary slightly, and each would have a subtle effect on phenotype. In Taq's example, the novel function is production of a new type of melanin.Here's another, similar example: chicken eggshell pigments. Chicken eggshell color is a polygenic trait, like human hair, and traditionally varies from white (no pigment) to various shades of brown. But, there is an unusual breed from South America, the Araucana, that lays blue-shelled eggs. This lay review of chicken eggshell color explains a lot of the details. Basically, blue eggs result from blue pigments produced in the "shell gland" (a gland in a uterus where the shell is synthesized). They are secreted as the shell is forming, so the entire shell is saturated in blue pigments. In contrast, brown pigments are only laid on the surface. So, the function of pigment secretion mechanism is different.The blue-egg allele is a mutation to the oocyan gene (apparently, there are two point mutations, an A-to-T, and a T-to-A), which alters one step in the process by which eggshell pigments are synthesized. This alteration results in a blue pigment that is quite different from the typical brown pigments. The blue pigment is also secreted differently.Interestingly enough, when you cross-breed blue-egg layers and brown-egg layers, you get a green-egg layer, which produces both kinds of pigments (blue saturating the shell, and brown layered on top). So, blue eggshell pigmentation is a new function that's added to the previous function, not an alteration that takes the place of the original function.

Hi, Mindspawn. I should have used the word "effect" instead of "phenotype," since my example was actually an example of genotype complexity. Silly mistake.Complexity (whatever it is) is an "effect," not a "cause." Note that the previous sentence is a axiomatic: it holds for any standard definition of the word "complexity" as used in the context of the evolution/creation debate. It doesn't matter what "complexity" means for the sake of my argument, so we don't have to discuss that at all. The "amount" of complexity (whatever it is) is just an observation. For example, if we decide on a definition for "complexity," we might be able to rank a set of species, A-Z, by their complexity. Some are "more complex," and some are "less complex."We can then come up with hypotheses to explain the differences in complexity. For simplicity, let's call them two possible mechanisms: evolution and creation.

• My hypothesis is that, if two species differ in complexity, the differences are due to evolution. In other words, evolution can explain any differences in complexity between species.
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• Your hypothesis is that, if two species differ in complexity, the difference might be due to either evolution or creation, depending on the exact situation. In other words, evolution can only explain some differences in complexity between species, and creation explains the others.

So, my hypothesis has 1 mechanism, while yours has 2. That means mine is more parsimonious.Now, if you could show that your hypothesis explains the evidence better than mine does, then parsimony won't matter, because explanatory power trumps parsimony.In an effort to determine this, I tried to come up with ways in which your hypothesis could make some unique predictions, and thereby demonstrate its superiority, but you mostly dismissed them because the models I mentioned were too specific for your tastes.So, as we currently sit in our conversation, your hypothesis doesn't make any unique predictions. Instead of trying to make and test those predictions, you have attempted to discredit the idea that my hypothesis is more parsimonious.Specifically, your argument has been that our one mechanism is only able to explain some of the differences in complexity. For this to fly, it's necessary for you to demonstrate this limitation somehow, either by showing how the mechanism is inhibited in the case of apparent* increases in complexity, or by showing how a different mechanism is better at explaining the apparent increases in complexity than evolution is. *A "apparent increase" is any difference in complexity that would require complexity to increase if evolution were the explanation. Obviously, under your hypothesis, it wouldn't be an actual increase, but just another difference.Your arguments so far have focused on insisting that evolutionary mechanisms are inhibited in some way. But, this tactic would require you to demonstrate the absolute impossibility of complexity increases via evolutionary mechanisms, which is, as you surely know, a highly dubious proposal. I suggest that you instead concentrate on developing a way to show that your "creationary" mechanism works better. I already tried, and didn't get much traction, so I'll leave it to you now.

Hi, Faith.It's been awhile.Having three creationists on one thread also kind of brings back the "good ol' days" again! I know it can be hard to accept evolution: it wasn't so long ago that I thought the same way you did about it. As religious people, we're so used to seeing everything in black-and-white. For example, your language here suggests that you think "assume" and "prove" are the only two possible ways to develop a conclusion.But, the whole point of science is to allow us to deal with information and draw conclusions when things aren't strictly black-and-white, using principles of trial-and-error and inductive reasoning.The two together are very powerful. For example, my two-year-old daughter can draw good conclusions using trial-and-error and inductive reasoning. If she gets punished for jumping off the couch, and she gets punished from jumping off the chair, she is able to infer that she will also get punished from jumping off the bed, and adjust her behavior accordingly.And, that's really all we do with science. It's not perfect, and it doesn't prove anything, but it lets us draw reasonable conclusions from incomplete information.-----For me, I see lots of reason to attribute all the differences in genotypes and phenotypes among animals to a process of "genetic accumulation," that is, each organism's attributes can be described as additions to, subtractions from, or modifications of some other organism's attributes. But, it's hard to transform my reasoning into a little blurb or sound byte that creationists won't interpret as an incomplete (and therefore dishonest) logical argument.All three creationists on this thread have argued that the apparent "additions" are not actual "additions," but simply evidence of common design principles. And, that's a fair enough hypothesis, but it needs some support.What I see is this:

1. In one population of chickens, eggshells are blue.
2. No other chicken population has blue eggshells, and the trait has never been seen in any population is likely to be ancestral to the blue-egged chickens.
3. The allele that makes blue eggshells differs from the one that makes white eggshells in two locations: one is an A where the white-egg allele has a T, and the other is a T where the white-egg allele has an A.
4. Random replication errors can make an A change to a T, or a T change to an A.
5. Also, blue eggshell pigment seems to be an "added" function, rather than a modification of an existing function, because it can co-exist with other, similar functions (e.g., brown eggshells)

When I pool all these observations together, I see no reason to think mutations couldn't have added this new pigment function to chicken eggshells. I can't prove that mutations actually did create this new pigment function, but I do know that mutation is a possible explanation, because all the evidence I am aware of is consistent with that hypothesis.Then, I combine that with lots of other examples of very similar things, like the beneficially-mutated gyrase that I presented to you in our Great Debate all those many moons ago, and the black-pigmented field mice Taq mentioned. All of these are consistent with the mutation explanation.I'm seeing a pattern: every time I see differences between two organisms, some error that DNA-replication machinery is known to make is always a possible explanation. There are other hypothetically possible explanations in every case, but most of them have ever been observed before, and none of them has the ubiquity of the mutation explanation. A pattern like this tells me that mutations are a very powerful explanation, even though I can't necessarily prove directly that mutations actually caused every single one of these differences between organisms.Does this reasoning at least make sense to you, even if you don't agree with it?Edited by Blue Jay, : Only one salutation is strictly necessary

Hi, Dash. In the example of the chickens that lay blue eggs, a simple mutation does equal a simple result.

Hi, Dash. Do I know that this isn't the case? I feel like this is the chimpanzee beards all over again. There were two populations melanic pocket mice, and one had specific mutations associated with genes responsible for coat color, which were perfectly associated with the dark-fur phenotype, and showed high prevalence in a population where all other genes appear to be highly mixed and variable. The other melanic population didn't had have these genes, and therefore derived its dark phenotype from some other mechanism (i.e., the two populations used different mechanisms).To me, this is fully consistent with a new mutation, a novel function, and natural selection. Therefore, it would seem odd for me to "know" that this fully consistent explanation "ISN'T the case." Would it be too much to ask that you read the two posts I have already written on blue-egg-laying chickens, and the two links I posted in the first one? After you have done that, I will entertain any questions you might have.But, if you're not going to do that, the answers are "yes," "yes," "yes" and "I think so."

Hi, Taq. It kind of makes me sad. I've made it my mission to learn how to be calm and patient and rational in the face of this, and to try to find and address the substance of a debate in a way that it would be useful to any readers, but there seems to be no means of interfacing between the two sides of the debate.The "chimpanzee beards" thing has become my poster child. Dash and I literally looked at clear, non-blurry photographs of chimpanzee faces, and couldn't agree on whether or not there were beards on those faces. From my perspective, the only explanation I can think of is that he's just too obstinate to admit that he's ever said anything wrong, even when it's completely trivial.Based on our interactions, I can only assume that I must seem just as irrational and incomprehensible to him as he seems to me.Everybody can see that I've tried to be extremely patient and open about this. I've admitted the things about my own theory that still trouble me. And I've tried to explain why I still think evolution is the best explanation, even though I can't fill in all the holes yet. I guess it was all in the hope that it would somehow get Dash to open up a bit and be as reasonable in response.But, if I come off as a crazy person to him, it's no wonder that that didn't work: why would he ever want to think like a crazy person? But, I don't understand why I come off as a crazy person to him, and he utterly refuses to post anything that might give me any insights.I guess I must be crazy if I still think there's a way for him and I to interface meaningfully on this topic.

Hi, Mindspawn. I think this is a fair summary of our two worldviews, and I can see why you think creationism is more parsimonious. Still, I think your assessment is invalid, for the following reasons:

1. Abiogenesis isn't technically part of the Theory of Evolution. ToE explains the diversity of life, not the origin of life. By comparison, creationism includes the origin of each life form as part of the explanation for the diversity of life (i.e., some of the diversity of life is explained by separate origins), so it requires both mechanisms.
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   You could also look at it this way: the origin(s) of life are currently unevidenced. Parsimony dictates that the minimum number of unevidenced entities be assumed. Evolutionary biology (in it's current, "universal common descent" form) has 1 unevidenced origin, while baraminological creationism has many.
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2. As far as I'm aware, there is not currently any interest in the biological community in generating a "Grand Universal Theory" of biology, but it might be possible to view Abiogenesis as the "first mutation." It wouldn't be a perfect fit, because Abiogenesis is thought to have been a protracted period of stochastic chemistry that resulted in a simple replicator, rather than a single "mutation," and, since it predates replication, the term "mutation" doesn't actually apply. But, if we generalized to "stochastic chemical processes," "heritability" and "selective filters," we might get a GUT of biology that encompasses both.

----- Yes, I do. I think I'm about to break my promise to myself about being neutral and patient, but this debate is becoming recursive. The nested-hierarchies thing really is very excellent evidence for evolution, and I don't feel like you've made a good-faith attempt to understand why we all think this.For example, your response was that a mechanism of intelligent design could hypothetically result in a nested-hierarchy pattern that looks like the one we see. This is technically true: a designer could hypothetically generate any pattern he wanted, and "shits 'n giggles" might be the only explanation.But, it's not what we would predict from intelligent design. We would expect an intelligent designer to use the best design possible for each baramin, and, given the large diversity of baramins, we would expect that, in at least a few cases, this would involve things like, for example, a bird with a placenta or a mammal that lays eggs.Since there are 10,000 species of birds on the planet, and none has a placenta, the creationist is forced to argue one of two things:

1. Viviparity (live birth) just couldn't possibly work for any of the niches for which bird baramins were designed.
2. For some unknown reason, the designer refused to ever break from his "bird" mold.

But, how is it possible that, in all 10,000 niches that birds fill, not one of them calls for live birth?
And, how is it possible that, in all 1000 niches that bats fill, not one of them calls for egg-laying?Surely at least some of these 11,000 niches would have been filled better by a blended "bat-bird" organism, right?By comparison, according to Wikipedia, you can get a Nissan Altima with a 5-speed manual transmission or 4-speed automatic transmission; any of three different engines (plus an electric motor on the hybrid variant); and you can even get a 4-door sedan or 2-door coupe.So, if Intelligent Design is like automobile design, why can't we get a bird with a placenta?Edited by Blue Jay, : "qs" tag

Hi, Mindspawn I think you've done some mental gymnastics in order to deny what seems like an extremely obvious fact to me, but you obviously feel the same about me, so I'm trying my hardest to find a way where we can reach a consensus.Assuming you're correct, that the parsimony of the two models is equal, because neither has good evidence for origins, then what are left with? Well, ToE explains all the diversity of life, whereas baraminology only explains diversity within baramins, while the diversity among baramins is left unexplained.So, if we constrain the models to make them equally parsimonious, ToE has more explanatory power.
If we expand to models to maximize explanatory power, ToE is more parsimonious (on unexplained origin, instead of many)----- You mention that there might be some exceptions. That was my point. There are 10,000 species of birds, and you're telling me that not a single one of those 10,000 niches could have been better filled by a bird with a placenta?It seems a lot more likely to me that egg-laying is an ancestral constraint, rather than that it was the best design feature for all bird baramins.----- Back to my Rolls-Royce Merlin example, then. The Merlin was used in single-engine interceptors, single-engine ground-attack fighters, two-engine fighter-bombers, two-engine torpedo bombers, four-engine heavy bombers, four-engine airliners, and a single-engine racing plane. Actually, a variant was even made for use in tanks.A license-built American version of the Merlin was used for some single-engine fighters that had previously been using the Allison engine. That same Allison engine had previously been used for three different single-engine fighters, a two-engine escort fighter, and tested for use on a four-engine heavy bomber.Additionally, most of those airplanes I mentioned also used Browning M2 machine guns, which have also been used as a heavy infantry weapon, as a pintle-mounted gun on helicopters, and a turret gun (twin- or quad-mounted) on tanks or armored fighting vehicles.Designers do not nest or "baraminize" their design features: they mix and match all the time.

Hi, Mindspawn. No, I brought it back in because your hypothesis requires it. Look at this example:Let's assume that tigers and lions comprise a single baramin, and no other animals belong to that baramin.

• Your hypothesis purports to explain "where tigers and lions came from" (i.e., they evolved from a common ancestor).
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• ToE also purports to explain "where tigers and lions came from," but, in addition, also purports to explain "where their common ancestor came from," using the exact same explanation.

Your hypothesis cannot explain this full set of data (i.e., tigers + lions + common ancestor) without dipping into its "subjective, unproven, faith-based" (your words) mechanism of OriginsToE, however, can explain this data without referring to its "subjective, unproven, faith-based" mechanism of Origins.So, like I said in my last post, if we remove the mechanisms associated with Origins, ToE explains more of the data (tigers + lions + common ancestor) than your hypothesis explains (tigers + lions).But, if we leave the "Origins" mechanisms in, both hypotheses can explain lions, tigers and their common ancestor, but ToE does it with fewer mechanisms.That's why ToE is more parsimonious.Is that clear?----- "Sports car" counts as a "baramin" of automobiles in the same way that "flying creatures" counts as a baramin of animals. You can't make a sports car with a heavy truck chassis, because the term "sports car" is defined to exclude automobiles with a heavy truck chassis."Birds and placentas" is just an example, so don't get hung up on the specificity of it. But, it's a particularly interesting example, because it's a pattern that is not violated, but nobody can think of a good, design-based reason for it to be inviolate. I mean, you talked about mammals having higher parental investment and higher social requirements, but this explanation, on top of being factually wrong, also doesn't really explain why all birds would be designed like this, and all mammals like that.Don't you agree that a pattern that is repeated 10,000 times with no exceptions, with no apparent reason for the lack of exceptions, is a bit odd? Can you think of an example of a family of human inventions that matches that?----- Again, you have so far failed to demonstrate any evidence for mixing-and-matching. These examples are genes that exist in all animals, and show different patterns of diversification among subgroups of animals. What you need is a gene that is more similar in two separate types of organisms, than it is in the common ancestor of the two.You should look into cases like this, in which human researchers intentionally insert jellyfish genes into pig embryos. That's what "mixing and matching" would look like.

Hi, Mindspawn. The fact that evolution is a longer and more complicated process isn't really relevant here. What's relevant is the proportion of that process that is explained by known, demonstrated mechanisms, and the proportion that is explained by "subjective, unproven, faith-based" mechanisms.I'll try to approach this from another angle. Let's eliminate Abiogenesis altogether (ToE doesn't technically need it anyway). Let's say that both of our hypotheses have to incorporate a "subjective, unproven, faith-based" Intelligent Design mechanism to explain Origins. Since ToE is not obligatorily linked with Abiogenesis, it is fully compatible with this.So, our hypotheses would look like this:

1. Mine: One life form was created, and all others evolved from it.
2. Yours: Many life forms were created, and all others evolved from them.

My hypothesis is more parsimonious, because we both have the same "subjective, unproven, faith-based" Intelligent Design mechanism, but mine makes much less extensive use of it to explain the evidence.----- Actually, you're both right and wrong here. Bats are actually more efficient flyers than birds, by some metrics, and you've got the mechanism reversed: birds tend to have higher wing loading, which means they are proportionally heavier for their wing area. But, this might support your claim that bats can better bear the extra weight of a placenta.But, it's not universal:

• Swifts, swallows and nightjars have wing loading values comparable to bats', and can match them in maneuverability and efficiency; so, wing-loading isn't limiting for birds.
• Birds frequently migrate long distances, whereas few bats do; so efficiency and exhaustion aren't the limiting factor for birds.
• And, finally, many birds can lift weights several times larger than their eggs with no apparently difficulty (think of an eagle carrying a trout), so weight-bearing capacity also isn't limiting in birds.

So, it isn't clear that flight performance is particularly closely linked to reproductive mode. The only link seems to be that bats take characteristics wholesale from "mammal-like" baramins, and birds take characteristics wholesale from "bird-like" baramins.----- Please read the paper again: this is not what it says. It compares genes that are commonly found in animals. Some of these are lacking in fruit flies and nematode worms. Also, the sequences of specific genes tended to be closer in corals and humans than in corals and flies/worms. This doesn't say anything, except that some animals' gene sequences differ from one another more than others do.----- You seem determined to deny yourself ways to distinguish our two theories based on the evidence. That is, you are good at coming up with reasons for why we don't see evidence that seems like a perfectly reasonable prediction of Intelligent Design.I already showed you two examples of vehicle parts that are used on multiple different types of vehicle: the machine gun and the Merlin engine. And here are some RC model hobbyists discussing how to use model-airplane ducted-fan engines in underwater vehicles.I don't see any reason why this would be uncommon in biological designs.

Hi, Mindspawn. It's not about easy or hard, or simple or complex: it's only about how much of the data you explain with a mechanism that hasn't been demonstrated to exist. But, until somebody does, it remains unexplained. That's a black mark on your hypothesis. I didn't know that it had been. I only remember having contested your use of it as an argument for creationism. I suggested several ways in which intelligent design might look different from evolution.
These were opportunities for you to use your novel hypothesis to make novel predictions.
The only one you were willing to commit to was this "mixing and matching" idea, so I went with that.Your first response was to agree that "mixing and matching" does happen, and that we do see it.
I contested your evidence, and showed something that would be a better, clearer example.
That was when you argued that mixing and matching would not be common.I don't know what you would predict from your hypothesis: it seems like you are more interested in coming up with excuses for why you can't clearly distinguish design from evolution.If you don't like my examples, that's fine. I was only trying to help. This is unavoidable when you fight so hard to make your hypothesis completely indistinct from mine.Edited by Blue Jay, : No reason given.