The Power of the New Intelligent Design...

Old Intelligent Design + More Cowbell = New Intelligent Design

After skimming through your response to AronRa's Phylogenetic Challenge, I think we can safely expect that the rant will be rejected. If you can't even explain the most basic observation in biology, that of a phylogenetic tree, then you have neither falsified the theory of evolution nor have you created a replacement. All you have done is ignored the facts.If you want to even have a hope of tackling the field of biology you need an explanation for why we see a phylogenetic tree. I suspect that your first task would be to learn what a phylogenetic tree is and how cladistics works.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

It's hard to take someone seriously when they take a Phylogenetic Challenge and don't even mention phylogenetics, nor show any evidence that they know what phylogenetics is.Phylogenetics is the most basic foundation of biology. If you don't understand phylogenetics you don't understand biology.

Fist step: learn the basics of phylogenetics. Why would you think that if you don't even understand the most basic concepts in biology?

The theory of evolution predicts that you should be able to measure a statistically significant phylogenetic signal in the genetic data for vertebrates. A lack of this phylogenetic signal would go a long ways towards falsifying the theory.Can you show us that this phylogenetic signal does not exist in the genetic data?

There are several methods for measuring phylogenetic signal:Phylogenetic signal - WikipediaIt is a quantification of how tree-like the data is.

Name one of your discoveries.

There will always be specific adaptations that we don't have a specific answer for. That's just the nature of science in general. No scientist is claiming they are omniscient, or that any theory can explain everything. That's why scientists continue to do research. Perhaps this is why you prefer religious explanations where people claim complete and dogmatic knowledge without needing to do things like have evidence or do the research.What you ignore is what evolution does explain. For example, it explains why we see more transitions than transversions when we compare the human and chimp genome. It explains why there is more sequence conservation in exons than in introns. It explains why we see a nested hierarchy. It explains the distribution of species across the globe. It explains the patterns found in the fossil record. It explains why we can find the same ERV's at the same bases in the genomes of multiple species. It can explain why the LTR's of those same ERV's diverge and produce a phylogeny. Evolution explains massive mountains of observations, most of which I suspect you aren't even aware of.

So even though there is mountains of evidence, you won't accept the theory because it doesn't have a very narrow explanation for one adaptation in one set of species. Got it. How do you determine that a fossil has no evolutionary ancestors?The theory of evolution predicts that we should find the earliest branches in the tree of life in the earliest fossil bearing strata. Wouldn't you know it, that's exactly what we see. What evidence are we ignoring?

Well, since it is a better theory then it should give better explanations for these observations:1. The nested hierarchy2. The difference in sequence conservation between exons and introns.3. The difference in rates for transition and transversions in human-chimp genome comparisons.4. Transitional hominid fossils.5. The pattern of orthologous ERV's in primates.That should be a good start.

I do know where to start. Here are 5 good starting points.1. The nested hierarchy
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2. The difference in sequence conservation between exons and introns.
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3. The difference in rates for transition and transversions in human-chimp genome comparisons.
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4. Transitional hominid fossils.
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5. The pattern of orthologous ERV's in primates.
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Please demonstrate how your theory explains the patterns seen in these 5 examples.

Those aren't explanations. Those are observations. Those are facts. If ID can't explain why those facts exist then it is a failed scientific theory in biology. The theory of evolution absolutely can explain why the changes are due to natural mechanisms. That's exactly what I do in this thread: Mutations Confirm Common Descent

That's ridiculous. If you looked at biology you would observe the very same things because its reality.If you have to ignore reality in order to support your theory of ID then it isn't a theory. It is a fantasy. Why doesn't ID have to explain these things? Doesn't it have to be correct as well?So where are the ID explanations for these observations?1. The nested hierarchy
2. The difference in sequence conservation between exons and introns.
3. The difference in rates for transition and transversions in human-chimp genome comparisons.
4. Transitional hominid fossils.
5. The pattern of orthologous ERV's in primates. What they found is that observations were consistent with natural processes. You don't have to rule out intelligence if you have evidence for natural processes. It's called parsimony.

quote:

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For, be it observed, the exception in limine to the evidence which we are about to consider, does not question that natural selection may not be able to do all that Mr. Darwin ascribes to it: it merely objects to his interpretation of the facts, because it maintains that these facts might equally well be ascribed to intelligent design. And so undoubtedly they might, if we were all childish enough to rush into a supernatural explanation whenever a natural explanation is found sufficient to account for the facts. Once admit the glaringly illogical principle that we may assume the operation of higher causes where the operation of lower ones is sufficient to explain the observed phenomena, and all our science and all our philosophy are scattered to the winds. For the law of logic which Sir William Hamilton called the law of parsimony—or the law which forbids us to assume the operation of higher causes when lower ones are found sufficient to explain the observed effects—this law constitutes the only logical barrier between science and superstition. For it is manifest that it is always possible to give a hypothetical explanation of any phenomenon whatever, by referring it immediately to the intelligence of some supernatural agent; so that the only difference between the logic of science and the logic of superstition consists in science recognising a validity in the law of parsimony which superstition disregards.
--George Romanes, "The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution", 1882
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution, by George J. Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.

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Worse still, you have no ID explanation for these observations. Why do we see a nested hierarchy instead of some different pattern of diversity? You can't say. Evolution explains this pattern perfectly using known and observed natural processes. You are the one denying the reality of these observations:1. The nested hierarchy
2. The difference in sequence conservation between exons and introns.
3. The difference in rates for transition and transversions in human-chimp genome comparisons.
4. Transitional hominid fossils.
5. The pattern of orthologous ERV's in primates.ID is the Flat Earth theory.

Parsimony rules out intelligence. If science has evidence for a natural process it has no need to rule out a supernatural cause. We don't have to rule out invisible pink gravity fairies when a planetary orbit perfectly matches the orbit calculated from Newton's and Einstein's formulas.

That's false. They discovered a natural process that explained the observations.

quote:

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Now, since the days of Linnæus this principle has been carefully followed, and it is by its aid that the tree-like system of classification has been established. No one, even long before Darwin's days, ever dreamed of doubting that this system is in reality, what it always has been in name, a natural system. What, then, is the inference we are to draw from it? An evolutionist answers, that it is just such a system as his theory of descent would lead him to expect as a natural system. For this tree-like system is as clear an expression as anything could be of the fact that all species are bound together by the ties of genetic relationship. If all species were separately created, it is almost incredible that we should everywhere observe this progressive shading off of characters common to larger groups, into more and more specialized characters distinctive only of smaller and smaller groups. At any rate, to say the least, the law of parsimony forbids us to ascribe such effects to a supernatural cause, acting in so whimsical a manner, when the effects are precisely what we should expect to follow from the action of a highly probable natural cause.
--George Romanes, "Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution", 1882
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution, by George J. Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.

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Once you discover a natural cause that is supported by mountains of evidence you accept the natural cause as the best explanation. You don't have to rule out the supernatural. That's as circular as it gets. Life is designed because life is designed? Really? That's all you have? If ID is an actual scientific explanation, then it needs to explain these things, just to start:1. The nested hierarchy
2. The difference in sequence conservation between exons and introns.
3. The difference in rates for transition and transversions in human-chimp genome comparisons.
4. Transitional hominid fossils.
5. The pattern of orthologous ERV's in primates.You should also visit my other thread where I demonstrate that natural causes are behind the evolutionary changes:https://www.evcforum.net/dm.php?control=msg&t=20367