Re: How evolution itself brings evolution to a halt
Of course you may get scattered new phenotypes in a population by migration or mutation etc., but again, GAINING genetic diversity contributes nothing to the active evolution I am talking about.
OK, that's fine. As long as you acknowledge that during passive evolution genetic diversity is gained we're on the same page. Of course, this does mean your argument about running out of genetic variation fails, but that's OK, right?
To get a new subspecies still requires selecting from that genetic diversity, losing more or all of it.
Right, and then gaining it back again.
I know it's hard to accept but increases in genetic diversity do absolutely nothing to further evolution as such, you still need to isolate or select from that diversity to get the new characteristics of a new population, which is what we all think of as evolution although you all are at some pains to try to deny it here.
OK, I have no problem with this, as I said. I'll use words your way if you want. If we agree that diversity goes up, then goes down, then goes up, then goes down etc then we're basically talking about the same things.
It's CHANGE that is considered to be evolution, change that becomes characteristic of a whole new population, subspecies, breed etc.
Exactly. Change.
Random scattered changes within a population are not evolution, they have to be selected from, isolated, worked through to the point of characterizing a new population.
Exactly. Random changes within a population have to be selected before we can say we have evolution in the sense that Darwin was talking about. The random changes in the population are important, right? Otherwise there is no selection!
And that process reduces genetic diversity OF NECESSITY, which eventually makes further evolution impossible.
Which would be true, as Fisher notes, if it weren't for those random changes in a population that increases genetic diversity OF NECESSITY, which ends up making further evolution possible.
If you want to argue against some process that Darwin and Fisher and Hamilton rejected, you can do. Fisher's famous treatise explicitly rejects alternative evolutionary models. One model is as you described. No variations but from recombination. He showed mathematically it would run out of steam pretty quickly despite the huge number of possible ways to recombine existant genetic material. Some alleles get lost by chance or by selective forces meaning eventually changes stop really happening.
But evolution as described by evolutionary biologists does not result NECESSARILY in a loss of diversity. 'In The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection', 1930 from where I drew those earlier quotes, Fisher provides the maths that shows how much mutation and how much selection is needed to avoid eventual complete loss of genetic diversity. That book is not irrelevant. It's a much more important book than 'On the Origin of Species' is as far as laying out the framework for evolution. Darwin argued it was plausible and consistent and coherent. Fisher proved it was possible.
No I was intimating that you are using these terms, to confuse and distinguish science with investigation, trying to make a distinction, that does not exist.
I'm just trying to get you to explain what you mean by the sentence
'There is science in creationism'
Do you mean the same as saying
'There is investigation in creationism'?
Furthermore, are you using abductive reasoning or not? First you said deductive, then you said it was obvious that you were using abductive reasoning now you are telling me that you have no testing method for your abductive reasoning or that you aren't using abductive reasoning?
I'm confused about what you are trying communicate. I think it's because you reject the thesis that words have meanings.
You still need to demonstrate by reality, not by words, that science is nothing more than an investigation.
You'll need to phrase that by reality, not by words. How can I show what 'science' is in relationship to an 'investigation' if I don't know or can't rely on, the meaning of those words? It's an incoherent challenge that I have therefore no obligation to consider.
Instead, I ask what you mean when you say
"There is science in creationism"
What do you mean by 'science', what do you mean by 'creationism' how is the relationship between the science you propose could be best communicating with the preposition 'in'. In short, what are you trying to communicate to me, when you use those words? You are using words so that you can communicate, I think. So I'm confused as to why you are finding it so burdensome to explain what you mean by them.
Unless you really are just saying 'words are meaningless' or 'science in creationism' is meaningless.
I have no inclusions or exclusions. I don't decide what science is or is not, reality does, not you.
Science is a word with meaning. Meanings are decided by people.
What a person want or imagines he needs, is not the same as the reality that can be witnessed in intricate design in the human eye or brain.
Well yes. But Astrology isn't about biology. It's about social matters. They exist just as obviously as design does.
The laws or motion are what they are, they have nothing to do with someone's imagination
Absolutely. The question is, should we humans who are speaking English to one another, call what Newton did with regards to the laws of motion (derive them through educated guesses, logic and observation), 'science'? It's up to you. I think we should. Most other people thing we should. It seems to me, that if the intent of language is to communicate to other people that unless we have very good reason not to, we should err on the side of common usage.
Do you have a very good reason to not call Newtonian Mechanics, science?
Pay close attention Modulous, my "observations" are not what support Intelligent Design, the design in realty,which would exist even if I didn't observe them are what support design.
I can't observe Intelligent Design, sorry. Your argument fails from the outset if it requires this kind of direct observation. I look, I do not see Intelligent Design. The test has failed replication. The proposition is rejected.
There are no word games, there is only reality
So you say, let us dispense with words as much as possible I will break down your argument denoting concepts with letters rather than words. They will mean nothing but what we can establish through the logic. No word games.
things exist (Message 21) Some things have cP (Message 24) cP exists because of d (Message 41) d is best explained by der (Message 121) some der are i through induction, all der are i i is not n (Message 103)
Is that right? No word games here, I'm just piecing together the form of your argument as best as I understand it in the most persuasive form I could.
There are problems all over the place here, such as the tension in the idea that all known der have d and cP therefore are best explained by der. We end up with an infinite regress that can only be resolved with the special pleading argument at the end that is not based on the original induction. If i is not n, it is excepted from the need to be explained in terms of another der, I suppose. Thus, special pleading.
Re: How evolution itself brings evolution to a halt
I'm not ignoring anything. Natural Selection is what has always been understood to be what MAKES THE CHANGES that we know of as evolution. It has to have something to work on but that is not what I'm defining at the moment, if you wouldn't mind just following the argument and cutting out all the distracting irrelevant side issues.
OK. There is something that reduces genetic diversity. So what?
Re: How evolution itself brings evolution to a halt
Why is it always necessary to trot out this ridiculous canard whenever someone invokes the best known and most relevant point about evolution, which is that Species evolve into other Species? Instead of automatically shooting down any version of it someone comes up with why not just give what you think is the true version of it?
It's not a ridiculous canard, it's evolution.
Dogs may well evolve into other species. But they will remain dogs.
Ah yes the silly precision simplified. But the most interesting thing about this typical Evo style fairy tale
Oh, sorry, I thought you were complaining about making it too complicated. I refer you to Fisher's book, it is freely available online, if you want something more hard. But the point of the 'evo fairy tale' was to illustrate how dogs will always be dogs in the evolutionist perspective. If you missed this point, I am not sure how I can make it clearer.
The tale, of course, doesn't include an explanation of where this genetic diversity comes from.
It does not. The tale was about the nested hierarchy and why dogs will always be dogs - even a species descended from a species descended from a species of dogs will be dogs.
Once you are in a family, you can't leave it. You can't change your parents.
I guess it just poofs out of nowhere as needed. Well, but we know that poofing goes by the name of mutation don't we?
That's right. Errors that occur during reproduction.
Mutation, you know, that frequent mistake that occurs in the reproductive machinery of DNA that mostly produces results not healthy for the organism, followed by results that appear not to make any difference (but if not eliminated may sit there like a sort of time bomb until something triggers its unhealthy effects), plus a minuscule occasional result that seems to have a useful or at least interesting and not unhealthy effect.
Yes that's right, mutation.
Ah yes, that occurs SO infrequently a genetically wobbly organism is more likely to go extinct before it might benefit from it.
Fisher's maths disagrees with your impression. I'll believe Fisher's maths over your say so.
Unless you have some actual science that is critical of Fisher you'd like to enter into the discussion?
In other words the invocation of increased genetic diversity is a total fraud.
So you say.
But you haven't backed up your words. Fisher did.
It can't happen, it doesn't happen, it's just part of the Evo Fantasy.
Fisher disagrees. The challenge to beat Fisher is in your court.
What actually happens in reality is what I'm describing: change or evolution occurs when the built-in genetic variability in any organism is selected from so that new versions of the organism are expressed and other expressions are reduced or lost, making for an overall decrease in genetic diversity from one new subspecies to the next.
That's what ACTUALLY happens is it? How do you know?
For the sake of argument, however, should you actually have the mutations you are hallucinating, should there be this constant stream of new variation that is fantasized, as soon as a particular phenotype is selected for its benefit to the organism, or as soon as a random population split leads to the geographic isolation of some portion of the original population, the subsequent mixing of the new gene frequencies will eventually bring out a new subspecies, BY LOSING THE GENETIC MATERIAL that would support other phenotypes.
Sheesh, this is so obvious and so simple.
I'm not disagreeing.
I'm just pointing out that when you have an additive process like mutation and a subtractive one such as selection you need to do maths if you want to say that mutation rates are not sufficient. Otherwise your criticism of evolution is not science, its just words.
I guess not, since hallucinated genetic diversity is considered to be essential to evolution.
Mutation is considered essential, and basically always has, to evolution. This isn't a shell game, the text I was quoting from was written half a century before I was born.
I must be talking about only the specific part of evolution where the selection or subtractive processes bring out new traits and create new subspecies out of whatever variation is present
That's right. And since that isn't the theory of evolution in totality, pointing out that it wouldn't work doesn't falsify the theory of evolution.
I submit Feynman as an authority on science. In case anyone thinks I'm playing any shell games this is the gist of it. This was from 1964, before I was born. No shell games, the target was set up a long time ago. Ready? Aim? Wait you aren't ready? You don't know how to aim? Sorry about that, not my fault.
Never said words didn't have meanings, I said reality gives words thier meaning. Secondly I said when the definitions ascribed by man given to words, try to contradict or ignore simple observable truths, then those meanings need to be discarded
Since I don't know what you mean by 'The science in creationism' I can't comment.
I know your definition is not correct, because you CANNOT show the chain of causality from the brain to consciousness.
I've never claimed to have a scientific theory of consciousness.
Right, but if the word doesn't conform to reality or ignores reality, then it is the meaning ascribe to the word that is wrong, not reality.
Cheese is a word, but we know the moon is not made of cheese.
But we can only meaningfully disagree or agree with one another if we mean the same thing when we talk of 'moon' and 'cheese'. Right?
Social matters are a creation of the mind, with no relation to the natural world.
Are you denying humans exist? Are you denying humans interact with one another?
There you go again, asking me to give you direct evidence for my conclusion, assuming your direct evidence of just your process is the same type of evidence, to demonstrate mu conclusion, it's not
But none of your observations have supported that life is Intelligently Designed, the existence of a Creator or an Intelligent Designer, you have not provided any causal link from the Creator to the Created, so you've done nothing but look at something. I don't see why it's of any interest. All you have supported is design and some kind of thing that explains the design, this is nothing to do with what most people would call 'Creationism'.
But that's the point Modulous, you are erring on the side of common usage, EVEN IF, the the common does not conform to reality. You saying let's stick with the meaning of the word, no matter what?
I'm just asking what you mean by using the word. I've told you what I mean. I've told you what was meant in the thread that came before this. Now tell me what *you* mean.
Really, this shouldn't be difficult to do. You do *know* what you mean, right?
Do any of these symbols in logic, or all of them demonstrate in reality, that design is not design, or that I can not easily observe design.
No, they suggest that design is design and that you can observe it.
The letter 'd' replaces your English word 'design' because, as you said
quote:When words, phrases, ideas "arguments" or whatever conflict with reality, we have to abandon those
SO I've abandoned the word 'design' and replaced it with the letter 'd'. You are talking observing 'd' and inferring a 'der'.
Roman's 1:20
But just to be clear, you HAVE NOT raised any God in support of your position - right?
1) Cuz makin new species costs alleles, and 2) if you guys were honest about it you'd have to admit mutations couldn't do what the ToE requires them to do anyway.
Well we've looked, you see. We've done the maths is the thing. And erm. You appear to be wrong.
quote:The human mutation rate per nucleotide site per generation (μ) can be estimated from data on mutation rates at loci causing Mendelian genetic disease, by comparing putatively neutrally evolving nucleotide sequences between humans and chimpanzees and by comparing the genome sequences of relatives. Direct estimates from genome sequencing of relatives suggest that μ is about 1.1 10−8, which is about twofold lower than estimates based on the human—chimp divergence. This implies that an average of ∼70 new mutations arise in the human diploid genome per generation.
With say an average human population size of say 5 million that's 350,000,000 mutations per generation. That's 20 years. That's 1,800,000,000 in a century. There are 60,000 more centuries between us and chimps. Humans have 3 billion base pairs. Not sure the numbers are looking good for you Faith.
Consider the FOXP2 gene, it does not labour or spin...no sorry wrong kind of speech, wikipedia notes:
quote:In humans, mutations of FOXP2 cause a severe speech and language disorder.
And my point being, that since all the elements are there, the brain, the mechanism and the process, you should be able to see a chain of causality, using your very involved scientific method. I mean is something missing for you to NOT do this?
I don't know what consciousness, and I don't understand the mechanisms of the brain. And I'm not opening threads claiming I do know these things and that this knowledge is scientifically derived.
If you can't and you should be able to
There is no guarantee I can understand everything, nor does anything I see say suggest there is.
It's the science of investigation by observation of simple undeniable truths, that don't need involved processess.
I think most people call that basic logic, not science. But whatever floats your boat.
When you can demonstrate my processes needs to be involved to support my conclusion, then you will have,won the discussion
Why? My position is that the word science has a meaning and you are using it wrong. Which I have already demonstrated. I won this argument a long time ago, Dawn.
Creationism can be detected in many ways. The only question before us is there science in my process.
If there is, you haven't shown it. Unless you are talking about your private definitions of words that nobody else knows about. In which case, who the hell knows?
The answer is yes. Design is as easily detectable as awareness or consciousness
As I said, none of your observations have supported that life is Intelligently Designed, the existence of a Creator or an Intelligent Designer, you have not provided any causal link from the Creator to the Created, so you've done nothing but look at something. I don't see why it's of any interest. All you have done is defined what you see as 'design' and postulated that something explains the 'design', this is nothing to do with what most people would call 'Creationism'.
So if you don't have a scientific theory or causal link for consciousness, can you still know that it exists
Yes.
and are you doing science when you detect it's reality.
No.
While, I'm not using an involved processess to detect design, but we can see that it exist, is there any thing really wrong with my conclusion, that follows from this processess, or do you not like it personally
The existence of 'd' is not disputed by me remember? It's the fact that you have no explanation for existence of 'd', nor can you explain how the 'd' got there, what rules govern the 'd' or anything. So that's why there is no science here.
The SUPPORT of my proposition is my process, presently.
And your reasoning is pre-scientific. I'm not suggesting this makes it wrong. I'm just saying it is not science.
Again, what would be be your educated guess, at what the source would be of consciousness.
An evolved brain seems the best explanation. I've studied this subject at university so it is an educated guess if ever there was one.
Is there even the smallest link you can identify using the scientific method
Sure. Remove the brain, remove consciousness. Damage the brain, damage consciousness. Ergo there is likely a connection between the organ and the phenomena.
You haven't explained what this has to do with the topic, incidentally.
Detective Bertot: What is it officer? PC Mod: Gunshot wound sir DB: Hmm, yes I can see with my eyes and my consciousness that this is plainly a murder! PC: You think so sir, could it not be.... DB: No no, a murder implies a murderer, and murderers murder, and this, being a murder a man who was murdered must have happened by no other means than a murdering murderer who murders the soon to be murdered. PC: The thing is sir, there are three guns on the scene but only two has fired, one fired twice. DB: That sounds like a complex gun fight. Gun fights have gunfighters. Somewhere there must be a gunfighter who gunfought with this gun fighter in a gun fight involving guns in a adversarial paradigm proving that a murder happened and a murderer was responsible. PC: Yeah, but the erm...victim...was seen juggling three guns before the accident. DB: Juggling guns is not easy. Clearly the juggler was the best juggler ever if he could juggle guns while engaged in a gun fight. The murderer who murdered him has taken away a talented man. PC: Victim was also heavily drunk sir, couldn't seem to walk in a straight line. This doorman refused him entry because he was drunk and only wearing a T-shirt trying to get in some classy restaurant screaming about how he wasn't drunk and how he would prove it. DB: Only a fool would juggle guns when drunk unless they were the greatest gun juggler of all time. Since a gun juggler aint no fool, clearly this is an Intelligent Gun Juggler to have done so. The murderer must have had a grudge against juggling guns in a T-shirt.... PC: Erm, I don't think that's.... DB: Silence, I'm doing Science over here! I'm investigating a murder, that makes it science. Now, find me the top 5 gun jugglers in the world...we need to teach that community they have a right to bare arms.
Strange inverted reasoning from Darwin to Dawn for Da win
"In the Theory with which we have to deal, Absolute Ignorance is the artificer, so that we may enunciate as the fundamental principle of the whole system, that IN ORDER TO MAKE A PERFECT AND BEAUTIFUL MACHINE IT IS NOT REQUISITE TO KNOW HOW TO MAKE IT. This proposition will be found, on careful examination, to express in a condensed form the essential purport of the Theory and to express in a few words all Mr Darwin's meaning; who, by a strange inversion of reasoning, seems to think Absolute Ignorance fully qualified to take the place of Absolute Wisdom in all the achievements of creative skill." {Robert Mackenzie Beverley, 1868.}
Exactly! Darwin's "strange inversion of reasoning" was in fact a new and wonderful way of thinking; completely overturning the Mind-first way that John Locke "proved" and David Hume could see no way around... But the idea of treating Mind as an effect rather than as First Cause is too revolutionary for some -- an "awful stretcher" that their own minds cannot accommodate comfortably. This is as true today as it was in 1860, and it has always been as true of some of evolution's best friends as of its foes. {Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, 1995}
Comprehension requires competence. Competence does not require comprehension.
For instance, an ant does not need to understand how it knows where food is. It just walks towards food. It walks towards the food competently, without any comprehension as to why or how it walks where it walks.
Is it possible that the world once had no reasons? Tide comes in tide comes out to the benefit of nothing.
How did reasons happen? A grammatical nightmare, "How did why be?". The answer, I don't know exactly. Let's simply call it 'replicating information interacting with an environment '. At this point there were reasons for things. How did replicating information come about - no idea. From what I can tell it all comes down to shapes of molecules and crystal interacting with the shapes of other molecules and crystals, and the effects of these interaction etc.
This isn't science so much as philosophy. But once such a replicator existed reasons existed. The two concepts, I propose are interlinked. If the replicator could interact with the environment then slight changes in the replicator as it replicates imperfectly could have different effects on the environment. Say the replicator has a shape that when organic chemicals bump into it often creates a chemical, X, that lowers the pH level locally. Maybe that gives the replicator a little more time to gather materials for replication before. So now we can say 'the reason the replicator is that shape is so as to gather chemical X which extends its lifespan'. This philosophical account is based on science, but it is not intended to be considered a scientific account of history.
Thus reasons without entities to represent them, just like with ants. Competencies without comprehensions. Builders without brains, watchmakers without eyes.
Teleology
What about the telic response? Is it science?
It is Aristotlean Science. Let's agree to that compromise, shall we? It's really just ancient Greek philosophy, but it's among the best stuff.
What are the causes of something? There are 4 Aristotlean causes for a thing. We look at life and we see there are 'reasons within reasons' (or order and purpose) and we presume there must be reasons there are reasons within reasons, so:
1) Material explanation (what is its substance): It is flesh. 2) Formal explanation (what makes it uniquely it): It moves around, it reproduces, it has parts that all work together towards keeping it moving around and reproducing, it has purposes, reasons, order, there are repeating patterns in reproduction cycle... 3) Efficient explanation (where did it come from, directly?): Ancestors. 4) Final (or telic) explanation (to what end? / cui bono?): erm, cos organic life is for erm, eating? No wait we're alive....erm, admiring? Who is watching but us? AHA! GOD. QED
That's the best they've got and unfortunately Dawn didn't even make it so far as Aristotlean science.
Dawn observed the reasons and purposes and order and defined this as 'design' and through the power of grammar conjugated this noun/verb into 'designer', relying heavily on the associative power of the meaning of words to make the implication that the 'designer' is the 'creator' and wanted to call this process science because its true.
Well the observations count, but observations aren't 'Creationist observations' or 'Evolutionist observations', they're just 'observations'. So these observations, scientifically made or not, are nothing to do with Creationist science. They're just science. Adding a linguistic trick to the end doesn't make it any more credible to me, though it fools others.
Modern Creationism
And Faith's argument? Do criticisms against evolution / flaws in the theory count as science. Yes they do. If they are criticisms against evolution and flaws in the theory. If not they may well be accurate criticisms, but they aren't against a scientific theory but against a philosophical theory that isn't held seriously by anybody.
The flood doesn't disprove evolution. It may be consistent with some stories. But stories about fictional things usually contain some real things. So if the flood did happen it wouldn't support Creationism per se, though it would verify one of the points in their historical narrative, and it would be interesting if it were true.
Faith's general position has strange tension in it. After the flood there were very few organisms alive, and these through the normal processes of microevolution populated the world in diverse species. OK. But at the same time microevolution results in a decrease in diversity, which is odd given the 2-6 individuals from most populations after the flood.
Where did all that genetic variety come from? From what I can tell Faith seems to think that every single gene that is any modern canidae(?) was in the 'dog kind' flood survivors and it was heterozygotic at every loci and that recombination is sufficient to explain the whole 'dog kind'.
So from Faith's perspective, when a split happens some genes are conserved but some genes go one way some go another. So you have 100 genes and a split happens. 97 genes go to both populations but population A gets 2 of the remaining and population B gets 1 of thers so they have 99 and 98 in each, and thus by this process the genes get 'diluted' to the point of no variability.
Evolution may suggest that it's more probable that the conserved genes are conserved in both lineages through inheritance, and the genes that are novel to one lineage or the other mutated at some point after the speciation split. Faith maintains that the mutation is so improbable so as to be discounted. The maths and observations disagree with her I think, and another thread has opened (Molecular Population Genetics and Diversity through Mutation)
Re: Strange inverted reasoning from Darwin to Dawn for Da win
So you can't with the Scientific Method show a chain of causality from the brain to consciousness. There should be some chain we can point to that shows even a couple of links, since all the elements are there for us to examine.
So until you can come up with some reality that shows its a result of just natural causes, I'll have to go with the reality that it is not a part of simply natural processes
Until you can come up with some reality that shows it is the result of non natural causes, I'll just stick with referencing things I know about. As such why not stick with 'Neither of us knows all of the causes of consciousness are. We know some natural causes. We know of no non-natural causes.', which are the plain facts of the matter?
For example, do I need to falsify the fact of consciousness to demonstrate that consciousness is an actual reality or can I know that by the simple observation of simple science?
Falsification is only useful for certain types of proposition derived through abduction. If you hypothesize that consciousness is explained by the existence of a soul, then you need to test that hypothesis. That's where falsification is obviously required, as a test that cannot fail is not a test.
If you hypothesize the eye was built or pre-designed by a designer, then you need to test that hypotheses and it needs to be falsifiable or it is not a test at all.
You can observe what you like, no falsifications are needed. It's what you think explains your observations that needs testing. That's the part you've studiously avoided dealing with in this thread. And that's the part that separates 'noticing things' from 'science' in most people's eyes. Yes, science involves 'noticing things', but it also 'guesses why those things might be' and 'works out the consequences of those guesses' and 'notices more things to see if they are inconsistent with the consequences we worked out'.
You can call what you are doing whatever you like, but the moment you say 'this is best explained by a designer' you need to show how you can test this or you are not doing science you are just saying things.
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