Summations Only

HBD writes: Dredge writes: I could demonstrate this point by becoming a competent biologist. despite being a creationist who rejects Darwinism outright. I have no doubt that you could. My brother is a competent veterinarian and is also a YEC, but he certainly accepts the evolution of resistance and disease. One of my lab mates is a YEC and I believe he will make a competent scientist... however, when we talk about the phylogeny of the organism he works with and determining its evolutionary history in the context of disease management and detection, he is right on board. Of course, Creationists/ IDists will argue that those issues are completely compatible with their hypothesis (which ever particular brand it may be) and represent "microevolution" or some other definition that attempts to downplay the significance of the contribution of evolutionary biology, but that completely misses the point. It is evolutionary biology that developed those ideas not "creation theory." Creationists accept evolutionary theory up to a point and object to certain aspects which they perceive as objectionable such as universal common descent and non-teleological origins. So creationists/ IDists try to redefine words and concepts so that they can keep the parts that work and reject the parts they find objectionable. For example, one of the creationists here recently stated that the modern Felidae species descended from a common ancestor that had been preserved on the ark. But... that this is an example of "microevolution," which is, quite frankly, very dumb... an entire family of very diverse species descending from a common ancestor is clearly, by definition, "macroevolution." So creationists accept "macroevolution" but don't want to admit it so they change the definitions.

This is a horrible injustice to YECs. The concept of intraspecies variation was quite clear even in Darwin's day. When Darwin extended the principles of variation beyond the species a new name was needed for what was already understood to be normal intraspecies variation, or descent with modification confined to the species, so it was the ToE that forced the redefinition to "microevolution" to keep the distinction clear. It's the ToE that imposes the idea of "macroevolution" on us, it's the ToE that has done all the redefining.

All evolution from the Ark IS microevolution, intraspecies variation built into the genome of the Kind, or descent with modification within the Kind; it's the ToE that forces the idea of macroevolution on us. It's a major headache now just to try to say what you mean when talking about these things. Speciation is now defined as macroevolution, and in fact it's aggressively insisted upon when you try to make a creationist point about it. While some creationists will accept that definition for the sake of communication with evos it makes for all kinds of confusion when you want to discuss the fact that genetically the new "macroevolved" "species" is still the same species that has merely lost the ability to breed with the parent population, as I'm always trying to do.

And that's all you're doing here. You're insisting on a definition that has nothing to do with the reality of the actual genetic situation which is INTRASPECIES variation, or microevolution. I believe there is a natural barrier to variation beyond the species as I've argued millions of times here already, based on loss of genetic "information" through any kind of selection from natural selection to reduced population size for any reason. Alleles are lost with these population reductions, which is necessary to the formation of new phenotypes.

I also reject mutation as contributing anything beneficial or in any way furthering evolution, so I'd like to stay out of that morass here if I can, but I think my reasoning holds up just fine. Genetically you CAN'T get from one species to another, all variation is only possible within the genome, period.

Dredge is quite right, the ToE is utterly useless on a practical level. All the useful stuff comes from the knowledge of how species vary within their own genome, the rest is all fantasy. And the reason YECs can be competent biologists is just that, all the useful knowledge agrees with YEC assumptions.

Maybe I'll come back to try to deal with the rest of your post.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It is also true that there were some very wrong "creationist" ideas that Darwin did in fact deal with effectively. Special creation was one that completely violates the Biblical account; another was the immutability of species, despite the fact that it has always been apparent that species vary from generation to generation. Those errors did need to be corrected and should not be denied.

But Darwin's "solution" created far worse problems.

Another example is including universal common descent in the definition of evolution.

I avoid that but it's perfectly understandable after all.

Evolution is the change in heritable traits of biological populations over time due to mutation and natural selection (or descent with modification). It is the process by which different organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth.

Unfortunately defining it doesn't help. Up to a point it works for intraspecies variation or evolution but you obviously don't mean to restrict it to that. You are implying interspecies evolution. Without that implication a YEC wouldn't object. (I said this before I thought it through and correct it below)

NOTE: the word "process" in that second part of the definition! Evolution or the ToE is the process of diversification not the diversification itself.

Somehow I'm failing to grasp your point here.

So let's accept that the entire family Felidae descended from a common ancestor. What was the process by which that happened? Evolution. Evolution is the process that scientists study and understand fairly well (there is still a lot yet to learn) and think it explains the diversification of the Felidae. So it is inconsequential to the theory or to the definition of evolution if Felidae and Canidae are related by common ancestry or not (maybe both "kinds" began through an act of special creation). Either way, the theory is supposed to explain the diversification of those groups.

This defines microevolution just fine, as long as you are leaving out that part about Felidae and Canidae being possibly related, which apparently you are at this point. There is no problem DEFINING the diversification of a particular species this way, although when it comes to explaining how it comes about we may run into some problems, such as what you say above: " change in heritable traits of biological populations over time due to mutation and natural selection (or descent with modification). "

Cuz I think this is already a BIG problem and doesn't even really describe microevolution accurately.

Mutations weren't known in Darwin's day, but that didn't prevent him from talking about "change in heritable traits" because that was observable in his day too. His experiments with breeding pigeons took him to some rather dramatic changes just by careful selection of mating pairs. But when he left them to their own devices they eventually reverted to the original pigeon type. His idea that selection could have eventually produced something that wasn't a pigeon was pure fantasy. But I digress: Mutation is now assumed to be the basis for these heritable changes but there is no reason for that assumption if you understand that each gene can vary in four different ways, and that there may be many genes for a single trait. You don't need mutations and since everything that is actually known about mutations suggests they only rarely ever do anything beneficial it is a tremendous leap in illogic to make them the cause of it all.

So remove the mutations and you get "change in heritable traits of biological populations over time due to mutation built-in allelic differences and natural selection (or descent with modification)" the definition would be getting closer to the genetic truth. The "over time" part isn't really necessary either since the heritable changes occur from generation to generation. And natural selection isn't the only way these heritable changes can form a new population or subspecies: all it really takes is the reproductive isolation of a "selected" portion of a population, which could be by natural selection or random selection it doesn't matter; could be drift, could be migration and geographic isolation it doesn't matter. It's the change in gene frequencies brought about by the new collection of individuals that leads to the phenotypic changes.

So even the definition isn't true to the reality of what happens genetically.

Now, what we need to recognize is that if a pair of felines did survive on the ark and founded the current population of Felidae a mere 4,400 years ago, that would be, for the most part, incompatible with the ToE.

Some of it anyway.

An alternate model for diversification would need to be put forward. The closest answer to that I have seen is the idea that all the diversity was "built in" to the original pair. But I don't see that model as being compatible with the data and at this point, it is pretty much unworkable.

Too bad because it IS the model for how heritable changes come about within species. I doubt it's the "data" that is the problem. Rather it's the definition that is the problem.

Darwin contributed nothing to biology that could be considered useful... who rejects Darwinism outright. This obsession with Darwin is a creationist phenomenon, not an evolutionary religious tradition. Darwin is mentioned on the first day of Evolutionary Biology courses for about 5 minutes and then the discussion moves on to other historical figures. While Darwin was generally correct in his theory, and he deserves recognition as the grandfather of evolutionary theory, we pretty much don't study Darwinian evolution any more, we have moved way beyond the topics that Darwin discussed. Darwin is not the "evolutionist's patron saint," it is creationists that are obsessed with Darwin.

But it is Darwin who started the whole miserable mess by positing that heritable changes are not confined to the species but that natural selection could proceed indefinitely making all kinds of changes. He'd seen dramatic changes with his pigeons through his extreme selection and isolation of traits and made the utterly unwarranted leap to the ToE, the idea that all change is open-ended.

Personally, I accept that life was "intelligently designed" and I accept and believe that the God of the Bible is the Creator of all seen and unseen. Yet I believe that evolution is the process that God used to create. I would say, form a personal position, that God "causes" a flower to grow and bloom, and yet that is not the process he uses to do so. The process by which flowers develop and bloom can be explored and understood. This does not diminish my belief that God is the ultimate "cause" but my belief that God is the "cause" does not create a roadblock to my scientific curiosity and investigation. They are two separate but yet also inseparable things, if that makes sense... ID and creation science do not offer any alternative to evolutionary theory, they only try to pick apart the theory and assume their premise (intelligent design or special creation) is true by default if evolution is false. In my mind, all they do is create a false dichotomy that does nothing to promote understand in biology.

The problem in reality is that the ToE has co-opted all the actual processes and definitions of biological variation/evolution to its own ends and made it just about impossible to separate out the truth from the elaborate fiction Darwin invented -- yes Darwin invented it though his fantasy has been perpetuated by others. You blame the problems on the IDers and creationists, who are in fact struggling to extricate the truth from the big fat lie of the ToE in which it has been submerged.

In my mind, all they do is create a false dichotomy that does nothing to promote understand in biology. Science is the study of natural processes, such as flower development and evolutionary development. Creationist's and IDist's rhetoric places road blocks to understanding those processes.

Not so. It's the ToE that has created the road blocks. Without all that weight of twisted fantasy the study of natural processes would be a lot easier.

It's quite OK to object to particular aspects, such as universal common descent and non-teleological origins, but changing and manipulating the definitions doesn't help your case at all.

Sad but true. Once a false paradigm has a death grip on a subject forget finding any convincing way to demonstrate the actual truth of the matter. The definitions are wrong, they have to be changed, but oh does the Evo howl and bash us when we try.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

When Darwin extended the principles of variation beyond the species a new name was needed for what was already understood to be normal intraspecies variation, or descent with modification confined to the species, so it was the ToE that forced the redefinition to "microevolution" to keep the distinction clear. Here you argue that variation was confined to species, and in your addendum you argue that the immutability of species was a "wrong idea."

Apparently I misunderstand that term, if it allows for intraspecies changes, which of course it should. I thought it was being used to suggest no change at all occurred or even that variations and races were confused with species. I see that it couldn't have assumed absolute immutability in any case. So my mistake. Too bad to contribute to the confusion here, it's bad enough without my help.,

Faith writes: It is also true that there were some very wrong "creationist" ideas that Darwin did in fact deal with effectively. ... another was the immutability of species, This is exactly the type of word play I am talking about. Which is it? Is Felidae all one species or does the family consist of numerous species?

Tried to correct that above.l Sorry, my mistake, not being familiar enough with the term "immutability of species." Apparently I agree with it as properly understood.

If it is all one species, then you are manipulating the definition of "species" that was recognized prior to Darwin by taxonomists like Linnaeus.

Just a mistake, not understanding how the term immutability was used. Felidae are all one species.

If it is multiple species, then you are manipulating the definition of "macroevolution" that was coined by an evolutionary biologist, not creationists.

All one species. Just another definitional headache for me. I would never call a species "immutable" because of INTRAspecies variation, but apparently that is not how the term is used.

And that's all you're doing here. You're insisting on a definition that has nothing to do with the reality of the actual genetic situation which is INTRASPECIES variation, or microevolution. So Felidae IS all one species. OK then, it is you who are insisting on a definition that has nothing to do with reality. The point is, Faith. Instead of arguing definitions (which you have demonstrated my point that 90% of discussions with creationists focus on definitions) argue mechanisms. Argue processes. So what if Felidae is an example of macroevolution, what you are concerned about is that it does not connect or share an evolutionary history with any other family. Can you demonstrate that without resorting to definitional manipulation?

It wasn't a manipulation, it was a misunderstanding of the term.

Sure you have proposed some ideas about genetic variation and how speciation occurs, but they are not very convincing to those of us who have actually studied genetics and biological variation.

I think this is probably more a problem with the definitions than with the data, processes etc.

Of course, you can fall back to the accusation that I am deceived and that I am a false Christian and the myriad of other accusations that negate my experience, but ultimately I have to put biological principals to the test and use them to solve problems. You don't. You just get to sit there and accuse and speculate.

Lucky me.

Have you come up with a research approach to the problem I presented?

What problem is that?

No. You only accuse me of doing something deceitful and manipulative.

Probably has to do with context, but I would guess that the accusations are a lot thicker flying in my direction than yours. Not necessarily from you, but it is particularly hard to be criticized by a fellow Christian.

But those are the kinds of problems I have to work at solving, they are real biological issues with real world applications.

I don't know what you are talking about. I recall a somewhat recent exchange in which I thought it was you who dropped the ball, but I don't even remember what it was about.

I challenge you to come up with a viable solution using only creationist principals and not employing principals that were derived from evolutionary biology research.

I don't think you know what you are asking. The principles are so muddled together where would I begin?

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Hello CRR, thanks for your post. You are much more up on the technical side of all these questions than I am, and the definitions too. I'm still not clear what immutability of species means, or fixity if that's the same thing. I'm sorry I got into that with HBD. I did want to say that I'd had the impression from reading the Origin of Species that there were some ideas in Darwin's day that did need correction. There was the idea for instance that a particular animal on an isolated island had been specially created by God to be there, which contradicts the Biblical account of God's finishing all Creation within the first six days. The point of all this being that theory in Darwin's day wasn't something we'd want to go back to. But since I goofed up the terminology I'd like to drop the whole thing for now.

About mutations, yes we disagree about that.

I also reject mutation as contributing anything beneficial ... I disagree with you there. Whether something is beneficial or not depends on the environment.

Yes, in some cases, as you go on to discuss, but the point overall is that mutations are not a normal process of variation, they're mistakes that in most circumstances don't change the function of the gene, sometimes change it to a disease process, and occasionally change it in a way that allows for the beneficial effects you go on to discuss, which are usually some kind of trade-off, sickle cell being the clearest example of that.

Take human adult lactose tolerance as an example. All mammals normally produce lactase as infants so they can digest their mother's milk but this normally ceases after they are weaned. A mutation allows lactase production to continue into adulthood and where milk is available from cows or other sources for adults to consume this becomes beneficial. However it is still something broken within the original system rather than the production of new genetic information. Similar situations cover most (possibly all) examples of antibiotic resistance. While the mutations can have a net benefit in some situations it usually has some detriment as well. Antibiotic resistant bacteria gradually lose resistance if the antibiotic is discontinued. An example is sickle cell trait. This is definitely detrimental but where malaria is prevalent can give a net beneficial result. Roughly, the benefit for the population is directly proportional to the frequency of the sickle cell allele but the detriment is proportional to the square of the frequency. At low frequencies the benefit outweighs the detriment but at higher frequencies the detriment outweighs the benefit, so even in areas with a very high incidence of malaria the frequency doesn't get above 20%.

About lactose tolerance, it's hard for me to see the normal development as weaning us off milk, because so many cultures are very big on milk products, particularly cheese of all sorts, yogurt, etc. etc. etc. I'd be more likely to see the normal function as favoring milk and the loss of tolerance as the disease process. But this is more of a side point and not really much about biology anyway.

However, I don't think any of those considerations speak to the main point I have in mind in rejecting mutations, which is that they are not part of the process of producing viable alleles, even if occasionally it seems to be the case. Mutation seems to me to be a mistake, a disease process.

I don't know where you stand on biblical issues but to my mind mutation is one of the disease processes we inherit from the Fall, which introduced death in every form to all living things. Some accept evolution for animals but not humans, so attribute death to animals before the Fall. I find this indefensible myself, but just want to note that I'm aware there are different ways of putting these things together.

So mutation isn't normal, overall it's part of genetic deterioration. As I think of it, all normal variation is built into the genome of each Kind. Yes the terminology can get very difficult, because the word "Species" is just the Latin form of the English word "Kind" and basically we end up with a hierarchy of kinds or species and can easily get lost among them. But let me continue trying to clue you in to what you may think is a somewhat idiosyncratic system of thinking about these things:

Speaking only of sexually reproducing creatures, all variation is a function of the maximum of four different alleles a couple can have. Adam and Eve had two each. It's possible there is a maximum of two rather than four, but since there are two people I go with four. Since some populations have many alleles or different forms of a gene for a while I pondered how that could have come about from one male and female pair, and considered that maybe there is a normal form of mutation for that purpose that degenerated. But recently I changed my mind, mostly based on the impression that most of those allelic variants in a population are neutral mutations that don't change the function of the allele. This led me to the conclusion that the original built-in mechanisms for variations are the two allelic variants per gene in the original male and female, but that there may be many genes for a particular trait which increases the possibilities of variation quite a bit.

Bear with me, I know I'm not following standard scientific thought. I'm trying to spell out a creationist point of view that goes down a different path while hopefully not contradicting actual fact. A creationist model, which we're always being asked to come up with.

So what I said above is where I ended up about the basic built in genetic system for variation within a Kind. The original pair had to have all the genetic capacity to produce every variation of the Kind that exists today, but also probably a lot of different forms that died in the Flood. In human beings that would mean all the different races were built in to Adam and Eve's genomes, and those who were saved on the Ark. Although again many variations would have been lost in the Flood. The genetic possibilities in the people on the Ark (animals too of course) had to be able to create every race and variety of everything living today. How that is possible was a puzzle for a while, but I think the answer is pretty simple in the end: they had more functioning genes with more intact allelic variants than we have now. One creationist source (I'll remember his name eventually) said human beings now have about 7% heterozygosity IIRC, and all our variations come from that; on the Ark the percentage must have been much higher. 50% would be enormous. All the cats and dogs today could easily have "evolved" from that degree of heterozygosity.

My main argument since I came to EvC has been that there is a natural barrier to evolution beyond the genome of the Kind, which is that the processes of evolution themselves decrease genetic diversity, so that ultimately wherever evolution is continuing from population to population a point will be reached where no further evolution is possible. I have my own cutesy slogan for this: Evolution defeats Evolution. Each population that develops from a portion of a former population, which is a common situation, has new gene frequencies that bring out new traits -- this is how how new phenotypes evolve -- but also a trend toward loss of alleles (some creationists think in terms of information here, I think in terms of alleles) -- and this loss of alleles, which is necessary to developing new traits from the remaining alleles, will eventually continue until you have nothing but homozygosity or fixed loci for all the salient traits of any race or variety.

I have to stop here for now, but I want to come back and finish the thought when I can. I've never had a creationist here to try to spell this out to, at least not a YEC type creationist, and I don't know at this point even if you are a YEC. But I've been very happy to have you and dredge here who are more like YECs than any others who have been here. We should at least try to sort out our differences and similarities on these things. HBD is a creationist but to my mind way too much of an evolutionist. Kbertsche is also a creationist with some evolutionist thinking. You and dredge seem to have less of the evolutionism.

More later God willing.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What mechanism stops evolutionary change?

Running out of genetic diversity/ allelic options as new populations develop from old, especially as they near the point of "speciation" where their allelic options are severely reduced.

You asked. But since this is off topic I'll see if I can find another place to take it.

But again, why try to create impossible scenarios for how the flood story worked in real life when you can simply invoke magic? That has always puzzled me too. Of necessity, the flood story includes at least two supernatural acts of magic - God "making" the flood happen; and God "making" all the animals march up to the ark from all over the world in pairs. There is no doubt that those two things are both acts of Godly magic - there's no natural mechanism - God decided to do them, and supernaturally made them happen. Magic is absolutely and unavoidably needed for key parts of the flood story. If you accept the magic there, why not simply say the whole thing was magic ?

Actually I think the Flood was a natural consequence of the accumulation of sin in the world, which does have physical effects, but I guess if I'm going to say that I might as well say God did it because I'd have to try to make the case for the fundamentally spiritual nature of the universe. I might also suggest that the animals would have a "sixth sense" about their survival, but I do have to agree in that case that since they came two by two or in sevens that God must have guided them. And there's another miraculous event you didn't mention: It was God who shut the door to the Ark after they were all in.

There should be evidence if the Flood was real, no matter how it was brought about, and that's the strata the strata the strata. How it occurred is mostly speculative but not really all that miraculous, but it should have had certain effects and I think those can be guessed at to some extent as I keep trying to do. God does do miracles from time to time but for the most part He created this world to run by natural laws, and that's how science can exist at all.

But again, the evidence is the strata. I know there is a terrible need to rationalize it in terms of the Geological Time Scale against all logic, and as long as people keep doing that nothing reasonable can ever be said against it that will stick with those who have that frame of mind. But as I keep saying, the strata are clear evidence of a worldwide Flood, and really really difficult to defend as evidence for ancient time periods without turning your mind into a pretzel: Sediments full of dead creatures deposited horizontally across a continent? Really?

I could see the usefulness of knowing the microevolutionary history which is about all you can know anyway, especially since there is no further history involved.

Who's asking you to believe anything? Use your critical thinking: the strata and the fossils are great evidence for a worldwide Flood. The problem is you guys have bought into a really nutty theory about those things and can't see the true situation for what it is.

Weird. You are quoting me but not the post you are answering.

Pelycodus is such a joke, a perfect example of how the theory dictates the interpretation when there's a better one easily at hand.

Those are fossils of the animal for sure, but their depth of course says absolutely nothing about their age. As usual they all died in the Flood and were buried wherever they were buried. Some were young, some old, just as you'd find in a catastrophic mass burial, accounting for the differences in body size, and if there are some features that suggest microevolution that would make them cousins, not a later macroevolved generation.

The ToE is not proved by such facts, it's just an interpretive paradigm laid on the data and the Flood is so much better at explaining it.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

And you have been told before many times that the Flood is a much better explanation for this sort of example. SO much better, so much more sensible.

Snort

Are you pawing the ground too?

Here comes another red cape:

Water sorts stuff, RAZD. It does. I'm sure it wouldn't matter how it sorted them you'd still find evolution in the picture. (Comes to mind of course what dwise said on the Hidden Figures thread about us being pattern-seeking creatures. That's really all the ToE is, the seeing of patterns in the data where there really aren't any -- not the ones you're seeing anyway.)

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Pelycodus doesn't show any evo pattern. I don't think any of the fossils do, I think it's all evo invention but I don't usually try to argue it. Pelycodus I do because it's such a Flood case.

I suspect the order is an illusion but I can't prove it so why try? I've proved the Flood hundreds of times on other issues anyway.