An ID hypothesis: Front-loaded Evolution

So your dice doesn't always roll a six but only 7 time out of 10? Doesn't your certainty only depend then on how many times the dice is rolled?

Eh, would you mind elaborating?

Actually, it happens all the time. Investigators do disagree on the origin of the type III secretion system, for example (i.e., there is a good bit of disagreement on whether the TTSS and the bacterial flagellum are sister groups or whether the TTSS descended directly from the flagellum).

Ah, I missed this until Percy replied to it.

I was being really really sarcastic. Really, really, really sarcastic.

My point remains. You want to turn all biology on its head. Again, I admire your ambition and wish you luck. But you can't do that with reference to evidence that people don't actually agree is evidence and that many scientists think is untrue. Maybe one day someone will prove that it's true. But until then you can't back up a speculative hypothesis with equally speculative evidence, 'cos that doesn't work.

Not meaning to quibble over semantics here, but science isn't so much about proving things as it is about providing evidence.

Using the phrase: "Not meaning to quibble over semantics" does not in fact stop you from quibbling about semantics when that is in fact exactly what you're doing. When I am king, that phrase will be banned along with all sentences beginning with the words: "No offense, but ..." and "I'm not a racist, but ..."

Being king is awesome.

Actually, I thought that was sufficiently clear ...

No.

Speaking as an onlooker trying to figure out what you mean, no, that was not remotely clear. That was obscure. Next time you try to explain your idea to someone, do not call it front-loaded evolution, and explain from the very start that you believe that the evolution of humans (for example) was a matter of mere chance rather than foreordained necessity.

Genomicus writes: Eh, would you mind elaborating?

Well a dice can be loaded to always throw a 6 or to be only slightly more likely to throw a 6 than pure chance - and all points in between.

If the chimp ancestor plays with the former dice, he'll evolve every time, if he plays with the latter he may or may not on any single roll.

But let him roll it 1,000 times and he's almost as certain of evolving as using the fully loaded dice.

So a front loaded single roll of the dice may be chance (depending on how heavily loaded it is) but a loaded dice rolled many times is a certainty.

Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Geno writes: Alternatively, the front-loading designers could have designed such a population from the start: where some cells have genes for plants, and others have genes for animals.

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Message 119

Still think he is making an agnostic argument?

Theodoric writes: Still think he is making an agnostic argument?

Maybe 'agnostic' is the wrong word for me to have used.
I think I should have said 'non-specific'.

Geno's intelligent designer has not shown any aspects that would require it to be a god.
(Sure - the designers would need to be more advanced than us, but that does not make them gods.)

As an aside: I have never seen an argument that crosses the 'intelligent designer' -> 'god' divide.
It always falls at the "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" hurdle.
If it was proved/accepted that life on Earth was intentionally seeded/designed/front-loaded, that would still not be an argument for a deity.
Any claim that "design=god" is an argumentum ad ignorantiam.

But I have yet to see Geno make that leap or even hint that he wants to.

Panda writes: Maybe 'agnostic' is the wrong word for me to have used. I think I should have said 'non-specific'. Geno's intelligent designer has not shown any aspects that would require it to be a god. (Sure - the designers would need to be more advanced than us, but that does not make them gods.) As an aside: I have never seen an argument that crosses the 'intelligent designer' -> 'god' divide. It always falls at the "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" hurdle. If it was proved/accepted that life on Earth was intentionally seeded/designed/front-loaded, that would still not be an argument for a deity. Any claim that "design=god" is an argumentum ad ignorantiam. But I have yet to see Geno make that leap or even hint that he wants to.

All that works as long as he only addresses design as a possible and proximal cause of life on earth.

But if he aspires to an argument for the necessity of designed life, it is difficult to see how he, or any other IDist, will arrive anywhere other than at a supernatural designer.

We can agree to put phenomenological brackets--local and possible--around his argument, but I don't see why we should let him kick our cans down the road.

As a general statement, I still feel that your hypotheses suffers from the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. For example:

I argue that the FLH predicts that proteins of major importance in eukaryotes and advanced multi-cellular life forms (e.g., animals, plants) will share deep homology with proteins in prokaryotes.

You are painting the target around the bullet hole. If we had a time machine and were transported back in time to the era where the first life appeared (by whatever mechanism) I really, really doubt you could have predicted which proteins would be deeply conserved through life. Referring back to the Sharpshooter fallacy, you are arguing that the odds of the bullet hitting where it did were increased simply because the bullet hit where it did.

Even more importantly, it may just be happenstance that certain lineages were as successful as they were. I really doubt that if we travelled back in time that you would be able to pick which species would give rise to successful lineages. It is only thorugh hindsight that we know which lineages were the most successful.

Specifically, we could look at cilia and metazoans.

Given that the existence of Metazoa seems to require the existence of cilia, under the FLE model, cilia were front-loaded.

This is a perfect example of the Sharpshooter fallacy. I see no reason why the evolution of animals requires cilia. Yes, modern metazoans do require cilia, but there is no fundamental physical law that requires ambulatory organisms to have cilia. It seems to me that it is entirely happenstance that cilia became an important function in the lineage that gave rise to modern metazoa. Other proteins could have evolved just as much importance, but they didn't.

Let's look at the game Jenga. IMHO, it is a great analogy for biological interdependence. As you move more and more blocks to the top of the stack you will find that certain blocks are absolutely vital to keep the stack upright. However, there is no way you could have predicted ahead of time which blocks those would be. These vital blocks only become vital as time moves forward. No one had to stack the deck to make these blocks vital. It just happens. Evolution is the same way. Certain proteins will start towards the "top of the stack" and are not a vital function. However, as more and more functions become dependent on that function (i.e. more blocks are stacked on top of it) it becomes a vital function. You want to say that this requires foresight and planning, but I see no reason why it does and you have offered no evidence as to why it would.

I still have not seen a prediction made by FLE that could not be the product of evolution. FLE seems to be superfluous to the whole process. It is easily sliced away by Occam's Razor.

In my opinion, at present there is need for a new, general theory of the origin of the material life. Including the origin of organic life on Earth. Nature, mechanisms, and the principle of origin will give spectrum of available range for the evolution.
Leonid

Hi Perdition,
as a layman i find your description of FLt very good and useful. Particularly i found inderesting your first question:
Pertition writes:

1) He admits that most of evolution happens via mutation and natural selection. The problem is, what mechanism does he propose that would shield these front-loaded genes, or protogenes from mutations that would make them unusable in the thousands or millions of years before they are needed? Secondly, does he have any evidence for this mechanism? He seems to try to get around this issue by saying that these protogenes would do something different in the original life forms until they are changed to do what they are needed to do in later life. Again, by what mechanism does the geneome ensure the right mutation to change the gene in question, at the right time, to make it do the funtion it was front0loaded for, and does he have any evidence for it?

IMHO he could be more persuassive at least to me if he had be using the following argumentation to answer your logical questions:
If we accept Lamarckism, according to which organisms interplay dynamicly with environment (not just passively through natural selection) through accepting information from it, then your questions are easily answered.
As for the evidence it would be be just the evidence brought by contemporary wide research findings that make Lamarckism a reliable theory of evolution today.
Note please that being an advocate of Lamarckism does not mean that i am an advocate of FL theory.

Speaking as an onlooker trying to figure out what you mean, no, that was not remotely clear. That was obscure. Next time you try to explain your idea to someone, do not call it front-loaded evolution, and explain from the very start that you believe that the evolution of humans (for example) was a matter of mere chance rather than foreordained necessity.

Well, under the FLE hypothesis, the origin of eukaryotes and Metazoa and plants and animals was not a matter of mere chance, but a matter of chance and direction. In other words, the first genomes anticipated the rise of these taxa and this increased the likelihood of their origin. Chance does play a role in FLE, but so too do other factors - the initial states are what channel evolution in specified directions.

Well, under the FLE hypothesis, the origin of eukaryotes and Metazoa and plants and animals was not a matter of mere chance, but a matter of chance and direction. In other words, the first genomes anticipated the rise of these taxa and this increased the likelihood of their origin.

Hold on, aren't you jumping the gun here?

Why should we assume that eukaryotes were the intended result?

You've shown homologies between modern prokaryotes and modern eukaryotes, but why should it then follow that the eukaryotes are the ones that the front-loader is interested in? Why can't it be the other way around and the modern prokaryotes are the intended outcome?

You appear to be kind of assuming your conclusion here.

Of course, I could hazard an educated guess at why ID/front-loading enthusiasts prefer to think that metazoans are the intended outcome, but you won't like it...

Mutate and Survive

So a front loaded single roll of the dice may be chance (depending on how heavily loaded it is) but a loaded dice rolled many times is a certainty.

Front-loading would not be a fully loaded dice, where there is absolute certainty. But the dice are loaded in favor of pre-planned outcomes, nonetheless.

Still think he is making an agnostic argument?

I am. When the human species has the capability to design life, that won't make us gods, now will it?

You appear to be kind of assuming your conclusion here. Of course, I could hazard an educated guess at why ID/front-loading enthusiasts prefer to think that metazoans are the intended outcome, but you won't like it...

In my first essay, I stated that a premise of the FLE hypothesis is that eukaryotes and Metazoa were front-loaded. This is the premise of the front-loading, and the one from which we can draw testable predictions.

And no, I don't think I'd particularly care for your guess about why the FLE posits this as an initial premise, precisely because you'd guess that it's because of theology. That's simply not true. It's based on the notion that if humans were to seed a planet and front-load, we would almost certainly choose to front-load Metazoa and try to front-load intelligent life forms, would we not?

You've shown homologies between modern prokaryotes and modern eukaryotes, but why should it then follow that the eukaryotes are the ones that the front-loader is interested in? Why can't it be the other way around and the modern prokaryotes are the intended outcome?

Ummm, because prokaryotes were around for about a billion years before eukaryotes came on the scene.

Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.