Mendelian genetics is good enough to describe the majority of genetic events within a species genome no matter what sophisticated hooha is being taught in the name of the ToE.
Nice to have a cheerful discussion at least. So here's the rest of your earlier post:
I am going to try to explain why the theory of evolution has such value to biological science and why we consider the ToE to be the "unifying theory of all biology."
Oh good, bring it on.
. I hope to make a case for how the concept of common descent is useful (and indeed a central concept) in biological science.
I'm all ears. Carry on.
In order to make my point here, I am going to use the germ theory of disease (GT) as an example.
Somehow I don't think this is going to go well.
Before the GT was developed, there was all kinds of wacky ideas about what caused disease. Angry and vengeful gods inflicted disease on rebellious persons, the four humors, evil night air, spontaneous generation etc. The GT gave us a framework with which to explain the cause of disease. No longer do we have to test all these alternate hypotheses about the cause of disease, we go straight to the germ theory and expect that disease is caused by some type of microorganism. Follow me so far? The GT gave us a framework that allows us to automatically reject discredited hypotheses and follow an hypothesis that can lead to curative treatments.
But wait! Hasn't the germ theory of disease been disproven? There are diseases that are genetic with no microbe association (ie. Down syndrome) and diseases that are caused nutrient deficiencies (ie. scurvy). So this disproves the GT right? Nope. We have learned to recognize the symptoms of the various types of diseases and can test for which category any particular disease belongs.
Gosh HBD, this is the sort of history of science we all got in elementary school. It's really kind of embarrassing. Why are you talking down to dredge like this? He's a creationist, not a child.
In the same way, the theory of evolution provides us with a framework by which we can reject failed hypotheses about how organisms change over time and allows us to focus on research that works.
I really see no reasonable comparison here. It just seems like an article of faith that they must be the same because you really do believe the ToE is science that explains the formerly unexplainable or wrongly explained. But I have a question, which it seems to me you should have answered already in your discussion: What "failed hypotheses" were there "about how organisms change over time" that the ToE answered? I'm drawing a blank. Were there such hypotheses? And what if the ToE's answer is also wrong? Is that a possibility? And I think I'm going to need an example of how research based on the ToE "works" since of course the idea gets a big eye-roll from me.
This is a really important aspect of scientific theories, they offer a cohesive explanation of the facts that allow us to immediately apply that framework to a question.
Uh yeah, but the question itself has to be important and I really don't see how it is. Why do you need to know "how organisms change over time?" How does that help you in your work?. On the scale of species-to-species evolution of course. I can certainly see a use for knowing how variations occur within a species, but that's not the ToE.
For example, my daughter and I have a good natured argument about the reality of mermaids. Her claim is that since we have not explored but a small proportion of the ocean we can't say for certain that mermaids don't exist. My argument is that I know mermaids don't exist because they would not fit anywhere on the tree of life.
While this is kind of a silly example, it illustrates the concept of the predictive power that the ToE has. If I discover a new organism, I don't wonder if it was created yesterday...
I must interject here that neither does a YEC creationist, we know it descended from the same kind of organism as itself, because that's how reproduction works, and you shouldn't have to look far to discover the parent organism which would be very much like it with some differences. It should be nearby if it's a plant. That doesn't take much predictive power.
I know, based on the theory of evolution, that it has an ancestral population.
You don't need the ToE to recognize that obvious fact. You probably don't even need to know much Mendelian genetics either, it's just common knowledge.
When I study a group of species, I know, based on the ToE, that they share a common ancestor
*
ANY old group of species? Surely you mean species that obviously have much in common? This is on the level of microevolution/ ordinary variation within a species too since any group of such species would have a common parent or at most grandparent, all with the same genome, and far from any species-to-species level of change. If you actually mean you know ANY set of species "share a common ancestor" then you are heavy into the theory of evolution and are failing to show how any of this is important. I have no idea why you consider it important to your work to see this relationship though, you don't say why.
and the examination of how they are related can give insight into how they evolved,
As I just said I'm sure they "evolved" within a particular genome and if you think they don't share a genome you need to prove it, but there is no reason to think so at all if you are talking about a group of very similar organisms. And again, why it matters remains a mystery.
how traits are regulated,
What does this mean and why is it necessary to know the history of its descent in order to study it?
how they utilize resources, etc.
Same questions as above.
Believe it or not, this idea of relatedness forms the foundation of most biological inquiries.
This is just some kind of mystification without more explanation.
Your idea is that every genus is specially created (or whatever your position is specifically) and that this idea explains observations just as well as the ToE.
Well, something like that is my position but I also don't see how the ToE helps with the questions you have in mind and I also don't see the importance of it.
That's like saying that the idea of a painted dome above the earth explains why the sky is blue. I mean, yea it does explain it... but the explanation doesn't provide any predictive power.
This is such a bizarre straw man I don't see how you could bring yourself to make it. I also don't see how any of this has any importance in any of your examples so far. Regulation of traits? Whatever that means. Utilization of resources? Must be easier ways to get this information.
What predictive power does special creation have that allows us to better understand life on earth? What objective criteria do you use to determine if two organisms share a common ancestor or not?
Gosh, similarity of any two (sub)species ought to tell one a great deal about any relatedness between the two, if it matters, and I'm really not seeing how it matters as you are claiming it does.
What advantage would a theory of special creation have over the current theory?
The phrase "special creation" is meaningless to me. You mean creation of separate Kinds at the Creation or what?
Offhand my answer to your question is that it's always better to know the truth than to be in thrall to a fantasy such as the ToE, but as for the specific question about advantage I don't see any particular advantage to anything you've said about the ToE's influence so I don't really know how to answer you. I always think in terms of variation within the Kind or its genome, I find it quite useful. And variation within the genome can form a very complex tree all of itself, you really don't need the ToE's species to species idea.
Perhaps dredge will do a better job with this.
Summary: While the specifics of a universal common ancestor may not be particularly useful to biology, the concept of common descent is
Do you think you've demonstrated this? I still see nothing of any particular interest about this concept or how you make use of it. How does knowing the relatedness of species you just happen to come across benefit your work? Why do you need to know this? Oh regulation of traits, utilization of sources or something like that? And that matters how and why? and why would genetic relatedness govern that anyway?
- in fact, it is central to biological studies. Biology relies on the concept of common ancestry to allow comparisons between organisms and to narrow down the search field to those comparisons that would provide the most likely chance of answering the question.
A question whose importance continues to elude me based on what you've said about it so far.
Currently, there are no groups that are know to NOT share a common ancestor.
Oops now we are way beyond my supposition of similarity into the realm of pure theory. How do you know this? What on earth are you talking about?
Discovering that 2 or more groups do not share a common ancestor would have little effect on the ToE, but would introduce some caveats and not allow direct comparison between those groups.
I have a feeling this discussion just took a dive into the Twilight Zone.
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ABE:
* Later I realized I didn't really grasp what you were saying about studying a group of species. I did ask what you meant, but now I think you meant ANY group at all? A tropical big-leafed plant plus a delicate small-leafed fern plus a rhododendron bush plus a stunted African tree plus a desert-blooming wildflower etc etc etc. Yes?. So what you are saying is that all plants, and I'm assuming you had plants in mind since you are a botanist but I suppose animals would do as well, so all you are really saying is that you approach all plants in terms of the ToE's descent from a common ancestor, and that you find this useful for your work? Then you give three ways it is useful: knowing how they evolved, regulation of traits and utilization of resources. None of which makes any sense to me. That is, how common descent helps with this is not described and to my mind doesn't seem necessary at all. Even if there's something useful about knowing such things which also wasn't explained. So this gets me out of the Twilight Zone but I'm still in the dark about what you think you are saying.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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