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Author Topic:   The Origin of Novelty
mindspawn
Member (Idle past 2660 days)
Posts: 1015
Joined: 10-22-2012


Message 598 of 871 (692202)
03-01-2013 1:35 AM
Reply to: Message 595 by Taq
02-28-2013 2:16 PM


Birds also nurture their young, such as in the case of penguins. Penguins would benefit greatly from mammary glands given that a parent has to stay with the young for months at a time while the other parent goes out for food.
Do you honestly think that I am saying that mammals/birds/fish share no features? I never said anything dumb like that, they all have eyes too, so your shared features argument is completely a strawman argument, and not a very well thought out strawman argument.
You still have not explained why nested hierarchies make sense as part of ID. Not at all.
Yes I have, an intelligent designer would group features and DNA according to similar functions. Thus you would see specific groupings in many cases. What don't you understand??? Its a pretty simple point I am making, and explains the groupings. The exceptions are something a creative intelligent designer would do too, like the platypus, the penguin, the bat, the archaeopteryx, the mole.
How does fur, cusped cheek teeth, and three middle ear bones aid in nurturing young? What is it about feathers, lack of teeth, and a single middle ear bone that prevents a species from nurturing young? Why do penguins, who also nurture their young, not have mammary glands or a placenta? Why does the platypus, a mammal, lay reptillian like eggs?
I'm getting confused, some of you evolutionists are requiring an intelligent designer to show flexibility in design, some are requiring consistency. I feel both are logical. There are general groupings according to a "package" that works best. and there are exceptions that sometimes work well too. Remember there have been major extinction pressures as well, so combinations that did not work due to changing environments have largely died off.
I am sure that bats would be stunned to hear this.
I said birds are grouped for flight
Mammals are grouped for adaptability.
these are the general rules, with some rare exceptions.
I wasn't implying that birds are unable to adapt, or mammals are unable to fly. You are reading your own strawman argument into my words.
Edited by mindspawn, : No reason given.

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mindspawn
Member (Idle past 2660 days)
Posts: 1015
Joined: 10-22-2012


Message 599 of 871 (692203)
03-01-2013 2:25 AM
Reply to: Message 564 by Taq
02-27-2013 12:33 PM


Then why aren't the sequences for cytochrome c identical in both humans and yeast when they are performing the same function? Why isn't the design repeated when you claim it should be? Why do the differences between cytochrome c sequences in different species fall into the nested hierarchy predicted by evolution?
They are not identical due to a slight fitness advantage.
The differences between cytochrome c fit into nests/grouping due to similarity of organisms. This is obvious. Similar DNA - similar organism.
What evidence, if observed, would not favor creationism/ID?
Nothing.

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mindspawn
Member (Idle past 2660 days)
Posts: 1015
Joined: 10-22-2012


Message 600 of 871 (692204)
03-01-2013 2:33 AM
Reply to: Message 593 by Taq
02-28-2013 12:40 PM


We also see crossovers that violate a nested hierarchy within the car group. This is what we expect from designed objects, a lack of a nested hierarchy.
Not at all, you keep repeating this strawman argument. A designer would create groupings, and exceptions. Car designers do the same.

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mindspawn
Member (Idle past 2660 days)
Posts: 1015
Joined: 10-22-2012


Message 601 of 871 (692205)
03-01-2013 2:54 AM
Reply to: Message 587 by PaulK
02-28-2013 2:15 AM


But if you would like to agree with me that the conserved elements aren't evidence either way then we will have made progress.
Conserved elements over millions of years favors the ID view.
Fortunately I don't make that assumption. I rely on the fact that ID does NOT have a good and fitting explanation for the evidence.
Taq has been repetitive that an ID designer wouldn't design in groupings, Its obvious and observed that is what intelligent designers actually do. Others are saying there are exceptions like the penguin, bat, etc that do not conform to groupings and this somehow contradicts ID. Its obvious and observed that intelligent designers actually do make crossover products between their groupings as well as designing in groupings.
Other than these two strawman arguments that are ironically opposite to eachother, have you got any evidence against ID?
Unfortunately the ID explanation does not fit that well, we've discussed, at length, the pattern of similarities forming a nested tree, which ID does not predict. We've discussed the absence of clear baramins which your view does not predict. And we could discuss other things too. So evolution really does have an empirical advantage.
Boring strawman argument. Repeated ad nauseum throughout this thread. No clear example of any "nested tree" has been given which in any manner that contradicts the ID position. So your repetitive "nested tree" example is based on the louder more numerous kids shouting down the others in the nursery playground, unfortunately you have supplied no studies on intelligent designers that show that they do not design products in groupings. You have showed no examples of particular nested trees. (someone mentioned the reptilian mole - except the mole isn't even reptilian).

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mindspawn
Member (Idle past 2660 days)
Posts: 1015
Joined: 10-22-2012


Message 602 of 871 (692206)
03-01-2013 3:17 AM
Reply to: Message 592 by Taq
02-28-2013 12:35 PM


They are groups WITHIN GROUPS of similarities. We do observe this with life. We do NOT observe this with cars. Cars do NOT fall into a nested hierarchy.
Nested hierarchies are much more than just sharing similarities. It is the PATTERN of shared similarities that matters.
Could you kindly explain further what you mean by groups within groups. The Berkeley description of nested hierarchies did not seem to be describing it that way. Please give examples of the patterns you are referring to in order to clarify your meaning.
That is 50 mutations PER INDIVIDUAL per generation. If there are 100,000 individuals in a population that is 5 million mutations within the population produced in a single generation. If only 100 become fixed that is a tiny, tiny percentage of the mutations that existed.
Your stats still make no sense. There is no logic in looking at an entire population's mutations when trying to explain the retaining of mutations over 600 000 generations.
We have never observed a designer copying a genome and changing the sequence. Not once
I know, but abiogenesis has never been observed either. this thread is not about comparing theories on origins, its about how novel features came about. Can you prove the nested groupings reflect evolution rather than ID?
You could start with the wiki page:
Ka/Ks ratio - Wikipedia
Ka is the number of non-synonymous mutations which are the changes in DNA sequence that change the amino acid sequence of the translated protein. Ks is the number of synonymous mutations. If you think about the word "synonym" it will make a bit more sense. Some amino acids are coded by more than one codon which differ at the third base (i.e. third base wobble). Therefore, some of the mutations that occur at the third base do not change the amino acid sequence because some codons are "synonyms".
This argument is based on evolutionary circular reasoning. Differences between genes are assumed to be mutations, and ratios are determined according to those assumptions. ID is not considered.

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mindspawn
Member (Idle past 2660 days)
Posts: 1015
Joined: 10-22-2012


Message 603 of 871 (692207)
03-01-2013 4:10 AM
Reply to: Message 580 by Taq
02-27-2013 5:51 PM


So why would a designer be limited to the pattern of shared and derived features that evolution would produce? Why does ID look exactly like evolution when it doesn't have to?
Is this an argument from nagging? Bombard with numerous repetitive questions, and hope he goes away? What you see is EXACTLY what a designer is observed to do. Make groupings, and make exceptions to the groupings as well. Just the fact that you guys are split between those who think its logical that there should be clear groupings and those that think its logical that there should only be unmatching organisms reveals that both are logical projections of what a designer would do, and vehicle manufacturing bears these same patterns.

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mindspawn
Member (Idle past 2660 days)
Posts: 1015
Joined: 10-22-2012


Message 604 of 871 (692210)
03-01-2013 7:21 AM
Reply to: Message 588 by bluegenes
02-28-2013 10:24 AM


Re: Novel protein coding gene in an Antarctic fish
Artificial gene amplification reveals an abundance of promiscuous resistance determinants in Escherichia coli.
The very place they chose to artificially amplify genes, is the very place that nature already has multiple gene copies in most organisms (areas of disease resistance/antibodies/toxin resistance). So it was no arbitrary position that they chose to amplify, they were copying nature's ability to amplify disease/toxin resistance through multiple copies. Now that I look at the study, it could merely be a reflection on nature's preference for multiple copies when under selective pressure. Just because nature SELECTS multiple gene copies for amplification under pressure, does not mean that nature PRODUCES multiple gene copies under pressure.
Just a moment...
It should have occured to you by now that as positive and neutral duplications can occur, and positive and neutral point mutations can occur, you have no argument against neofunctionalization, which is merely a combination of duplication, then further mutation. What is there in duplicated genes that stops them mutating new function in exactly the way that non-duplicated genes do?
I like this study, probably the first to support your position, providing the original population was devoid of duplications, which appears to be the case. I am cautious and will reserve my judgment as I look into this more, but thanks for the study. As you say neofunctionalization or changed genes is a possibility ( I hope you know how extremely rare this is, I have only ever heard of two cases, both being doubtful) and so even if not observed, it is theoretically possible that a duplicate coding gene can then gain a new function.
No. You asked me whether I had thought of the possibility that there were high copy numbers in the "original population", and I said that I had. I had thought of it both in terms of an evolutionary scenario at some point in our ancestral group, and in terms of your 6,500 year old biosphere. That's why I knew you'd have problems with the idea of a supergenome and deletions going down less than 300 generations.
Ok so you have thought about the possibility that the high copy numbers could have already been in nature. Have you got any evidence that they were not there already?
So, anyone inheriting a lower number could duplicate up to a higher number without getting sick from too much dosage. Gone is the claim of duplications always causing problems.
But now you're catching on to what your model would require. In reality, there has to be a lot of diversity in the population 6,500 years ago in order to fit what we see today. Have you tried finding anything out about Copy Number Variation in humans, and fitting the data into your model?
No , those with a higher number delete down. Those with ten, delete down to 7 if there is no positive selection. Those with 5 , delete down to 3. My model does not have duplications, it has deletions, and not too many either. the same logic applies to humans.
And have you found out in which region of the world humans have the greatest diversity yet, as I suggested you should? It isn't the Middle-East.
Yes, I did find out. Its the Middle East. I have yet to see your arguments against haplotypes reflecting diversity, and against the Middle East having the greatest diversity. My evidence is that through mitochrondial haplotype studies, the Middle East has the greatest diversity.
Its only under evolutionary assumptions that the number of mutations in a population relates to how old that population is. Haplogroup diversity makes more sense.
High-throughput sequencing of complete human mtDNA genomes from the Philippines - PMC
Such studies typically try to make inferences about population history based on the age of haplogroups (estimated from the number of mutations that have accumulated among mtDNA lineages belonging to the haplogroup) and their geographic distribution. However, making demographic inferences about populations (such as population size changes, population divergence times, migration/admixture events, etc.) from phylogeographic studies is problematic because different phylogenies can arise under the same demographic history, and vice versa (Nielsen and Beaumont 2009). Some studies equate ages of haplogroups with ages of populations, even though a haplogroup that arose a long time ago may have been introduced into a population only recently. Moreover, the method commonly employed to estimate the age of mtDNA haplogroups, namely, the ρ statistic, has been shown to often give misleading results for simulated data (Cox 2008).
The paper I thought you'd read before disagreeing with its conclusions.
I can't give you more detail than the research team.
I did read it, just couldn't remember all the details. Honestly, if they don't say how similar the genes are then its not supporting evidence for evolution. The one with two genes seem far fitter, it seems that the fish with one gene is the one struggling with new and imperfect adaptations. ie the SAS gene has adapted some antifreeze ability to cope with the lack of the antifreeze gene. Anyway its not conclusive in any manner.
Edited by mindspawn, : No reason given.
Edited by mindspawn, : No reason given.

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Replies to this message:
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mindspawn
Member (Idle past 2660 days)
Posts: 1015
Joined: 10-22-2012


Message 628 of 871 (692567)
03-05-2013 2:11 AM
Reply to: Message 605 by kofh2u
03-01-2013 9:51 AM


Re: ...off by 10, but very important point...
1) From Science and the Bible, both, we have evidence of three Racial Stocks emerging from Africa at exactly the same time that all other humanoids were becoming extinct. This is an important set of correspondences, that both religion and science agree on the basics:
A All other "humanoids" went extinct 40,000 years ago
B Modern Homo sapiens appeared 40,000 years ago in three flavors some call Hamites, Japhethians, and Shemians, while science referred to them as Caucasians, Negroids, and Mongolians.
C Modern studies of race by geneticists support that these early initial three racial stocks differentiated into seven genetically identifiable groups living today.
D Genetic evidence indicates that the original three racial stocks that lead to the seven kinds of people alive today are all related to just on man, presumably a Noah, who lived 40,000 years ago.
This is a lot of evidence in support of ancient reports that tell the same story.
Thanks for this, yes what you say is true. Except for the dates, I'm still going back to the dating thread in order to dispute dates commonly accepted by science.
2) Yes, Paleontology refers to the 22 humanoid creatures that they list as the 22 now extinct humans in our ascent to modern man as humans.
They were.
They were just not as evolved as we are today, but they walked upright, had their thumbs like our own, and every cell in their body had 23 Chromosomes, including one pair that was actually two sets fused together.
The ancient writings that report the "flood" out-of-Africa, occurring 40 thousand years ago, itemized and enumerated descriptions of the 22 humans which went extinct. In that listing many points are in line with our own discoveries and knowledge about those previous 22 links in our ascent.
Very interesting kofh2u. You seem very committed to biblical truth, the bible is so accurate on so many scientific issues, and as you point out was way ahead on science regarding migration patterns and human genetic origins. Is there any reason for you to doubt that the bible will turn out to be more accurate on the time scale too?
Your argument is an excellent example of how ID and YECs ought better align their arguments for Scripture with the Scientific Facts rather than fudge by 10 the time lines as you attempt to so do here.
I've made no attempt to "fudge" the time lines, I will make an attempt in the Dates thread to give alternatives to current dating methods. I'm certainly am not going to re-align the bible with science, so many times science has to re-align with the bible when the true scientific facts are revealed. Recognising this pattern that archaeology, human history, DNA analysis, all confirm the bible and yet have been incredibly slow to do so, it makes more statistical sense that in other fields science will continue to confirm the bible. ie we are ahead of science by taking the bible seriously and literally, because the bible is continuously borne out to be accurate than scientists original perceptions.

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mindspawn
Member (Idle past 2660 days)
Posts: 1015
Joined: 10-22-2012


Message 629 of 871 (692568)
03-05-2013 2:20 AM
Reply to: Message 606 by kofh2u
03-01-2013 10:08 AM


Re: ...right about the wrong things...
Your are right, that Science has no concrete evidence to support Abiogenesis,...
... but you are wrong not to agree with them on this Spontaneous Generation which was that Act-of-God where he said, "Let the earth bring forth (bacteria, i.e.; NOTE: the Hebrew word is not grass but means "first sprouts of life on Earth"), "grass," (from which condition shall evolve) the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, (all the Plant Kingdom to come), whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so."
If God can make one amazing organism, fully fit for life, He is able to make many at the same time too. The difficulty for some is to believe in a God, once you believe in an all-powerful being, the creation of a single prokaryote or a multiple complex life-forms like humans is just as easy.
Knowing that, on what empirical basis would you prefer the theory of one created common ancestor, compared to multiple baramins? Have you got anything for me, because the evidence for these extra novel features that a human has compared to a prokaryote being EVOLVED is lacking in this thread.

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mindspawn
Member (Idle past 2660 days)
Posts: 1015
Joined: 10-22-2012


Message 630 of 871 (692569)
03-05-2013 2:28 AM
Reply to: Message 609 by Taq
03-01-2013 11:12 AM


Re: Evidence again
We observe that intelligent designs do NOT fall into nested hierarchies. Cars do not fall into nested hierarchies. Computers do not fall into nested hierarchies. Airplanes do not fall into nested hierarchies.
Intelligent designers do design according to groupings (cars). Cars do fall into nested groupings. In biology genetic evidence confirms the groupings, genetic evidence also confirms the exceptions to the groupings as well. Genetic evidence does not confirm evolution's claim of long-term hierarchies, these are just imaginary.

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mindspawn
Member (Idle past 2660 days)
Posts: 1015
Joined: 10-22-2012


Message 631 of 871 (692570)
03-05-2013 3:07 AM
Reply to: Message 610 by Blue Jay
03-01-2013 11:16 AM


Obviously, we're not thinking on the same wavelengths here. Let me see if I can figure out why we're not seeing eye-to-eye on this.
The way I understand it, the Designer designed a functioning biosphere by creating a whole bunch of organisms. The Designer had to make sure the biosphere was properly balanced, in order to maintain its stability over the long term. So, the Designer had to purpose-build organisms to fit all the different ecological niches.
So, when I think of Intelligent Design, I imagine the Designer sitting down in a garage with an unlimited assortment of parts, and saying, "Now I need a baramin of apex predators. What traits would an apex predator need?"
Then I see that, in one case, the Designer apparently needed to create a baramin of cursorial, terrestrial herbivores. So, the Designer took a bird's heart, a bird's brain, a bird's backbone, a bird's ear bones, a bird's legs, a bird's feathers, a bird's wings, a bird's beak, a bird's eggs, and a bird's lungs, and made an ostrich.
In another case, the Designer apparently needed to create a baramin of nocturnal, flying insectivores. So, He took a mammal's heart, a mammal's brain, a mammal's backbone, a mammal's ear bones, a mammal's legs, a mammal's hair, a mammal's arms, a mammal's teeth, a mammal's placenta, and a mammal's lungs, and made a bat.
This baffles me. I don't understand why the Designer would do this. If all those bird characteristics are specially-designed for flight performance, why didn't the Designer use any of them when purpose-building a flying baramin? And why did the Designer use all of them when purpose-building a non-flying baramin?
You guys are just repeating your two strawman arguments over and over again.
1) Some of you feel that the designer should make varieties that are highly individualistic, not in groupings of features, and that these organisms arranged in nests of features point to evolution.
2) some of you feel the exceptions to groupings points to evolution.(bats/penguins/ostriches)
I am saying that a designer actually does groupings and exceptions, and both are perfectly logical, cars are such an example of intelligent design, or alternatively look at the wider category of forms of transport. (a balloon, a jetski, a car).
By creating groupings, and yet exceptions to the groupings, it allows the one type to dominate if conditions become unsuitable for the other type. ie Large flying insect predators during the carboniferous, flying reptiles during the Jurassic, birds currently. If the atmosphere becomes too oxygen depleted, birds are more vulnerable in this area to bats, and then we would find bats filling the ecological gaps left behind by birds, even if not quite so swift in the air.
By creating both groupings, and the variety of exceptions to the groupings, this shows creative design. The ability to dominate a niche, and the ability for some within the grouping to survive within another niche, creates a flexibility and a rapid ecological balance when there are sudden extinctions. This I believe is the major explanation for the fossil record, rather than evolution. Its the ability of rare organisms to rapidly dominate an environment when common organisms rapidly die off. Sometimes ecological gaps can be rapidly filled due to the fact that there was some exceptional "crossover" type that was already operating in that ecology and so can fill that gap. This all points to a highly creative Creator, even if to evolutionists, the variety seems to you guys to point to evolution.
Edited by mindspawn, : No reason given.
Edited by mindspawn, : No reason given.

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mindspawn
Member (Idle past 2660 days)
Posts: 1015
Joined: 10-22-2012


Message 632 of 871 (692571)
03-05-2013 5:28 AM
Reply to: Message 615 by Tempe 12ft Chicken
03-01-2013 11:53 AM


Re: Evidence again
Now, let's look at your intelligent designer. The cephalopod eye was extant long before the mammalian eye came around. Also, the design of this eye does not have the blind spot flaw that is evident in the mammalian eye. So, when this intelligent designer decided to create the human "Baramin", he or she decided, unlike a human car designer, to completely redesign the eye. Not only did he or she decide to do a redesign, but he or she chose to redesign the eye to non-optimum standards. Why, would an intelligent designer, creating a crossover (like your car analogy) redesign a system to make it worse? Your own analogy shows the issues within ID and with "Baramins".
I enjoyed this point, because it was well thought out instead of the usual "an intelligent designer wouldn't do that" repetitiveness on this thread.
wikipedia indicates the cephalopod eye is specialized for marine purposes:
Cephalopods, as active marine predators, possess sensory organs specialized for use in aquatic conditions.[1] They have a camera-type eye, which consists of a lens projecting an image onto a retina. Unlike the vertebrate camera eye, the cephalopods' form as invaginations of the body surface (rather than outgrowths of the brain), and consequently they lack a cornea. Unlike the vertebrate eye, a cephalopod eye is focused through movement, much like the lens of a camera or telescope, rather than changing shape as the lens in the human eye does. The eye is approximately spherical, as is the lens, which is fully internal.[2]
They are apparently colorblind:
Squids and octopi imitate color despite being colorblind
Cephalopods often change color to confuse their prey or escape their predators. They can't see color, but their predators and prey can.
There eyes stay horizontal to gravity:
Viasat Internet Oregon | Satellite Internet Provider OR
A most unique characteristic of the cephalopod eye is its rotational ability and its consistent orientation in relation to gravity. Using their statocyst, (a balance organ common to many invertebrates), the pelagic or water-dwelling cephalopods are able to always keep their slit-shaped pupils in a horizontal position. Therefore the brain can always safely interpret visual information on the basis that the eyes are horizontally aligned, though the body may be at any angle in the three dimensional water column. Even seafloor dwelling or benthic octopuses have kept this trait as evidence of their pelagic ancestry.
If you think the cephaloid eye is superior to humans, you can keep it, maybe you like diving? I prefer my human eye thank you very much, optic nerve, blind spot and all. We have two eyes that largely negates the blind spot propblem.
As to the topic of novel features and functions, I believe that you have been shown substantial evidence that these mutations occur and I think you even buy into them. You simply have to cover your tracks by saying that they were already present in the genome because saying otherwise would go against your beliefs. You have been shown the Pocket Mice, the E. Coli, and the evidence for the evolution of the middle ear. Now, you must remember that we have only been focusing on evolution for a mere .0000045% of the history of the Earth and .0000056% of the time life has been present. And, in that time we have already shown that mutations occur, and we can provide evidence of this fact. However, no one has yet to discover a mechanism that stops mutation at a certain point, other than the weeding out done by selection. So, looking at the precentage of time we've been looking, plus no known stopping mechanism we can see that this data can be extrapolated, whether or not it defies your beliefs.
E.Coli, hey I'm still not convinced. When this novel function was showed to me, the entire discussion of the extent to which the aerobic Staphylococcus resembles the E.Coli never became relevant. E.Coli could have lost an aerobic function , and merely regained this function that already exists in Staphylococcus, and so I'm still not convinced of this so-called "new function" in mutated E.Coli.
As for a mole that looks like a mammal, and doesn't look like a reptile, being the great "missing link" between the two due to its ground vibration hearing, naaah I need something more convincing. (Its quite funny actually - the great missing link between mammals and reptiles, is a mole)
The pocket mice?? Tell me more.
Now, you must remember that we have only been focusing on evolution for a mere .0000045% of the history of the Earth and .0000056% of the time life has been present. And, in that time we have already shown that mutations occur, and we can provide evidence of this fact. However, no one has yet to discover a mechanism that stops mutation at a certain point, other than the weeding out done by selection. So, looking at the precentage of time we've been looking, plus no known stopping mechanism we can see that this data can be extrapolated, whether or not it defies your beliefs
I'm happy with mutation rates being extrapolated. Whenever anyone present this kind of information, there are normally bad holes in it, to account for evolutionary timeframes. You may do so.

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 Message 615 by Tempe 12ft Chicken, posted 03-01-2013 11:53 AM Tempe 12ft Chicken has replied

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mindspawn
Member (Idle past 2660 days)
Posts: 1015
Joined: 10-22-2012


Message 641 of 871 (692638)
03-06-2013 5:29 AM
Reply to: Message 633 by NoNukes
03-05-2013 9:41 AM


Re: Evidence again
Here is one thing we can agree on. "[A]n intelligent designer wouldn't do that" is a poor argument.
In principle, the argument that some creatioon is a life form only an intelligent designer could have make is an infinitely easier argument to make. The theory of evolution can be used to make predictions about things that should never show up, while an omnipotent, intelligent, and unfathomable God could have created anything.
But in practice the latter argument never works either. Those things that cannot be the result of common descent and the theory of evolution just never occur.
I appreciate your thoughts regarding the intelligent design view as being an "easy argument". It is easy , that is why the arguments against it seem weak. It would be interesting to have a qualified biologist in this discussion, but I am sure they would freely admit that all the internal processes and interactions in the body are not yet known, and so to conclude that an organism is not an intelligent design, and more reflects processes of nature is a little difficult for you guys when even the well-studied human body has many unknown factors.
HOWEVER, the evolution argument is also an easy one. You won't find me often saying the genome does not look evolved. I understand to you guys it looks evolved, its not a difficult argument. There are ways around the irreducible complexity argument, its conceptually possible, even if I believe its not practically possible for nature to create complexity. Unfortunately you are lacking key fossils between the biological kingdoms and between most phyla to back up your view.

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mindspawn
Member (Idle past 2660 days)
Posts: 1015
Joined: 10-22-2012


Message 642 of 871 (692639)
03-06-2013 5:55 AM
Reply to: Message 621 by Dr Adequate
03-01-2013 3:33 PM


Well, they look like they do. These nested groupings are what we would expect to see if common descent had occurred.
Are they what we would expect from an intelligent designer? No.
Consider, for example, the grouping known as birds. Consider the kiwi, the hummingbird, the ostrich, the owl, the penguin. They have widely different lifestyles, as I'm sure you know. Now, if we are to entertain the ID hypothesis, we have to believe either that the designer was jerking us around by making it look as though common descent occurred; or we have to believe that for reasons totally unknown to us, every time it was a good design decision to give an organism feathers rather than, for example, fur, it was also a good design decision to give it an edentate beak, a synsacrum, a pygostyle, etc, and make it oviparous.
Meanwhile, when it was a good idea to make another creature which does the same job as a hummingbird, it was the best decision not to give it any avian anatomical features, but instead to give it all the distinctive anatomical features of a moth, producing the hummingbird moth.
I guess the guys who first put diesel engines into pickup trucks were deliberately jerking us around too. The fact that two separate designs look and behave the same HAS to point to evolution and not design according to evolutionist deductive reasoning. LOL really I do not see your logic, for God to duplicate a function and use two completely different "phyla" to do so, just appears to me like interesting creativity and does not even come close to evidence against creation. And it adds flexibility and adaptability to the ecosystem when two species that have different vulnerabilities can perform the same ecological job. When the one loses fitness, the other can maintain the function.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 621 by Dr Adequate, posted 03-01-2013 3:33 PM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
mindspawn
Member (Idle past 2660 days)
Posts: 1015
Joined: 10-22-2012


Message 643 of 871 (692640)
03-06-2013 6:19 AM
Reply to: Message 637 by Tempe 12ft Chicken
03-05-2013 10:58 AM


Re: Evidence again
I would not say it is superior, obviously there should be some differences due to enviromental niches. However what I would say is that if I was designing eyes for animals and I had already used a system that did not create a blind spot in the vision, I would still use that system in the new eye.
I'm not a biologist. Who knows, maybe the eye NEEDS to be continuously fed by the retinal artery in non-marine conditions. Maybe your land based cephaloid eye would make you color-blind AND shortly thereafter completely blind as your vitreous body dries up without being continuously nourished by the retinal artery. I'm just guessing here, my point is I do not know enough about biology and for you to say your designs would be better than my Intelligent Designer when most biologists know how little we know about biology seems a little overconfident. I personally have never experienced any problem with the blind spot, I have never noticed a problem in my 44 years of life. I kinda like the thought that my eye is being fed by the retinal artery and wouldn't want it any other way, the design seems to be well balanced to me (an insignificant problem seems a good trade-off). Regarding putting animal body parts into humans, I also wouldn't want a turtle shell. I wouldnt mind wings though but they would have to be so huge to counter my body weight that they would be a bit of an inconvenience behind my back as I sit on the chair typing. I would have to sit on a bench or stool and type, only problem then is that I would probably need a strong backbone if I am going to be typing a lot without a back support and with those heavy wings on. But a strong back isnt conducive to flying that needs a light backbone. Oh well, I will leave it to the designer to get the balance right, I'm probably better off without wings or octopus eyes.
Edited by mindspawn, : No reason given.
Edited by mindspawn, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 637 by Tempe 12ft Chicken, posted 03-05-2013 10:58 AM Tempe 12ft Chicken has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 647 by Taq, posted 03-06-2013 9:20 AM mindspawn has replied

  
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