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A Fine Napoleonic Retreat
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hersheyh
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 3:37 am Post subject: Re: Steven J gets both the facts about Lenski's work and the

On Jun 29, 8:58 pm, T Pagano <not.va...@address.net> wrote:

Quote:

On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:06:57 -0700 (PDT), "Steven J."

[snip]

5. Most of these minor changes are the result of existing gene
function being broken or degraded. These observations are NOT
evidence of progressive, coherent change towards something novel
requiring thousands of mutations to explain biological diversity.

I decided to respond to this number because it is the only thing that
Tony got partially right. The observation of reality, indeed, does
not show any "evidence of progressive, coherent change *towards* [my
emphasis] something novel requiring thousands of mutations".
*Progressive, coherent change toward something* would be a
teleological process. And evolution is NOT teleological. Oh. My
mistake. Tony actually imagines the evidence *does* show teleological
progress and so evolution needs a goal. My bad.

And most systems in biology do not *require* "thousands of
mutations". Some may have undergone thousands of mutations, but most
of them are the consequence of simple neutral drift. The number of
mutations that were *required* to convert one steroid receptor to a
different one could be counted on the thumbs of your two hands with an
intermediate that could act with either receptor. The number of
mutations required to generate a functional flagella from two
functional subsystems could be counted on the number of penises you
have.

[snip]

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Steven J.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 4:05 am Post subject: Re: Steven J gets both the facts about Lenski's work and the

On Jun 29, 7:58 pm, T Pagano <not.va...@address.net> wrote:

Quote:

On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:06:57 -0700 (PDT), "Steven J."
steve...@altavista.com> wrote:
On Jun 29, 3:37 pm, T Pagano <not.va...@address.net> wrote:
On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:25:21 -0700 (PDT), "Steven J."
steve...@altavista.com> wrote:

-- [snip]

No, Tony, the point of evolutionary theory is that it is possible to
go into a great deal more detail than "nature did it," with testable
predictions about *how* "nature did it."

1. Nonsense. Random mutations coupled to natural selection explains
only a very narrow range of observations. That is, it explains minor
variations---back and forth---within (admittedly) fuzzy limits of
EXISTING characteristics.

You post this shortly after reports of how _E. coli_ in the lab has
evolved the ability to metabolize citrate, an ability hitherto unknown
among this strain.

1. As usual Steven J don't read too well and I suggest he re-read my
response to Spaceman concerning Lenski's work.

2. Spaceman (or rather his usual reporting of what others write)
misled the reader as to what Lenski's observations were. The change
which occurred in a particular E. coli population was the ability to
transport citrate through its cell membrane NOT its ability to
metabolize citrate. E. coli already possessed this ability.

Touche. I stand corrected. The point, of course, is whether this is

a novel ability in itself, and if not, why not (and if not, why does
it matter whether a new trait is "novel?").

Quote:

3. And since neither I nor creationists in general argue for the
immutability of species one wonders how a change requiring two or so
mutations has the slightest thing to do with the issues plaguing
neoDarwinism.

The point is, the bacterium acquired a highly useful trait that had

not existed in its ancestors and had no obvious precursor ability.

Quote:

4. Fact of the matter is that minor changes involving one or two+
mutations conferring some beneficial change to EXISTING functionality
is not all that unusual. The issue is that Steven J and the rest of
the atheists have inappropriately extrapolated this well beyond
observational science to explain how the E. coli came to exist in the
first place.

Then you have no problem with the idea that humans share common

ancestry with lemurs and tarsiers, as long as ... what? We allow that
the last common ancestor of primates had a miraculous origin? Would
you settle for the last common ancestor of mammals? The last common
ancestor of amniotes? Of vertebrates? Of animals? How about the
last universal common ancestor of extant species?

Quote:

5. Most of these minor changes are the result of existing gene
function being broken or degraded. These observations are NOT
evidence of progressive, coherent change towards something novel
requiring thousands of mutations to explain biological diversity.

It seems to me that it is incumbent upon *you* to demonstrate that

"most of these minor changes are the result of existing gene function
being broken or degraded." Once you've done that, you should then
explain why this should be a problem for the claims of evolution.
After all, a seagull's wing has severely degraded functionality as a
grasping forelimb, and a bat's wing functions rather imperfectly as a
walking limb. Mammals have entirely lost the ability to breathe
through gills; this afflicts even aquatic mammals (so much for "common
design"). "Progressive, coherent change" pretty inevitably means loss
of some abilities while others are gained or enhanced; otherwise, I
would think, evolution would have resulted in this planet being
inhabited by a single, universally-competent species occupying every
ecological niche.

Quote:

6. By "novel" it is simply meant some structure, system, or organ
which did not exist in predecessor populations. With this definition
in mind EVERY biological structure, system, and organ which has ever
existed according to the secular prehistorical account was at some
point "novel." At some point each and every structure, system, and
organ had to emerge and develop to maturity.

The trouble, of course, is that structures, systems, or organs arise

through modifications of previously existing structures, systems, and
organs. There are no obvious candidates for "novelty" among the
traits that distinguish mammals from one another. You would have to
go back to very early chordates to find "novel" features like bones
first appearing, as modifications of previous tissues, and further
than that to find a time when, say, hearts or nervous systems were
"novel." Eventually, you get to the point where you're dealing with
relatively minor specializations in the tissues of tiny wormlike
invertebrates, or earlier to precursors to animals.

Quote:

You post it weeks after reports of how Italian
wall lizards, transplanted to a new island home on Pod Mrcaru, evolved
cecal valves in their digestive tracts (again, a trait previously
unknown in this species).

Since Steven J got the facts wrong with regard to Lenski's work with
E. coli I have no reason to believe he gets the facts correctly here.

You are free to look it up and determine this for yourself.

You post it, on the other hand, years after
reports of how random mutation coupled with natural selection have
produced bacteria able to digest nylon, or to resist -- or even feed
upon -- antibiotics unknown in nature. There is NO reason, empirical
or theoretical (as opposed to theological) to suppose that mutation
and natural selection can alter a population "only [within] a very
narrow range." Even Michael Behe's (demonstrably flawed) argument in
_The Edge of Evolution_ only proscribes certain types of
transformations, with no indication that, e.g. the changes needed to
produce lemurs and humans from a common ancestor require any sequence
of mutations that Behe finds problematical.

It is encumbent upon Steven J to show with these examples of 2+
mutations in single-celled organisms where (often) EXISTING gene
function is degraded or reduced has the slightest thing to with how
novel structures, systems, and organs requiring thousands of mutations
in the right order are added coherently and PROGRESSIVELY over time.

*sigh* Tony, there is no "right order." You're making a trivial

error, assuming that if the odds of getting a particular lottery
number were, say, a million to one, then the odds of getting any
lottery number were a million to one. That, actually, was the point
of Lenksi's _E. coli_ paper: evolution is contingent, and the outcomes
we see are a tiny selection of myriad unrealized possibilities. You
see cases where *this* mutation would be useless (or, at least, would
not serve the function it does) if *that* mutation had not happened
first, and marvel at the unlikelihood of the circumstances that led up
to this particular evolved feature. You don't see all the possible
adaptions that never occurred because the "right" mutations didn't
happen in the past of some lineage (think of all the myriad eukaryote
lineages, from amoebas to euglenas, that never gave rise to
multicellular kingdoms for one reason or another). You don't see,
either, all the adaptions that don't occur because some different
contingent mutation precluded them by resulting in a different
adaption. You're falling into the error that Dembski spoke of when he
described firing arrows at a wall, and drawing bull'seyes around
wherever they hit.

Quote:

Oh, and strictly speaking, "nonsense" implies that my assertion is not
merely wrong, but self-contradictory or otherwise absurd on its face.
I think you should stick with the more modest "you err."

"Nonsense" does not have to be self-contradictory and is often so
absurd that the issue of correctness never enters the picture. Your
claim that there exists empirically testable details of how a dinosaur
forearm transformed into an avian wing or how a mesonychid transformed
into a whale is flat absurd. No such tests exist; no such
observations exist; in fact there is a dispute between the Dawkinsians
and the Gouldians about how this even occurs conceptually.

I'm claiming that there exist fossils that show clear intermediate

stages between basal archosaur forelimbs and passerine wings: fossils
that show the appearance of shoulder joints capable of 360-degree
rotation and hence of flapping, fossils that show the appearance of
downy protofeathers and of contour and display feathers, etc. This
does, at least, permit testing of various hypotheses about which
pathway evolution took, whether or not it permits testing of
hypotheses about what forces drove the transformation.

Oh, and I think there is rather less dispute among the "'Dawkinsians"
and "Gouldians" than you imagine.

Quote:

It is amazing how the big lie of atheism blinds its adherents.

It is amazing how often you resort to strings of words without

thinking about what, if anything, they mean.

Quote:

snip

Regards,
T Pagano

-- Steven J.

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John Harshman
Guest

Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 5:56 am Post subject: Re: Can Steven J produce the testable details concerning eme

Steven J. wrote:

Quote:

Prediction: None of these, to Brave Sir Tony, are minor variations
within the fuzzy limits of existing characteristics. Tony wants a fish
to grow legs while you wait. (Of course if that really happened, the
legs would just be a "minor variation" of fins. Very little in evolution
is de novo.)

Quote:

There is NO reason, empirical
or theoretical (as opposed to theological) to suppose that mutation
and natural selection can alter a population "only [within] a very
narrow range." Even Michael Behe's (demonstrably flawed) argument in
_The Edge of Evolution_ only proscribes certain types of
transformations, with no indication that, e.g. the changes needed to
produce lemurs and humans from a common ancestor require any sequence
of mutations that Behe finds problematical.

Oh, and strictly speaking, "nonsense" implies that my assertion is not
merely wrong, but self-contradictory or otherwise absurd on its face.
I think you should stick with the more modest "you err."

2. Secularists don't have a clue how novelty emerges or how it
progresses to maturity. Such events have NEVER been observed---NEVER.

Since you've never defined this quality "novelty," it's not clear what
would qualify as observing it, or as an explanation for it. However,
one can have a pretty good idea of how something happens without
observing it directly (and conversely, one can observe a thing and
have no clue how it is possible). In evolution, "novel" features (as
most people define the term) emerge as modifications of previously-
existing features, or as modifications of duplications of previously-
existing features.

I suspect, to Brave Sir Tony, such features aren't novel.

Quote:

3. The fossil record does not show the ubiquitous transformism that
neoDarwinism predicted. It shows without exception "sudden
appearance" and "STASIS."

The last time we had this discussion, it was painfully clear that you
did not know what "stasis" meant (Gould and Eldredge used the term to
indicate that, at least at the morphological level, a species had
undergone no evolution at all; you use it to describe entire sequences
of similar but clearly distinct species each showing microevolutionary
changes as they transition from one to another). Someone who talks
about the Pearson, _et al._ foram sequence as showing "stasis" is just
using words as magic charms, not to convey meaning or express
understanding.

Note that many of what you seem to regard as "novelties" (e.g. bird
bills, bird wings, and feathers) do not appear full-blown and without
precursors in the fossil record: one can trace intermediate forms in
various maniraptoran theropods. Usually *species*, even entire
genera, appear without clear precursors, but speciation has been
observed in the lab (i.e. the sort of change that is worst-documented
in the fossil record is precisely the kind that has been observed in
the present day among living populations), and the fossil record is
known to be incomplete and incompletely uncovered and described.

You have hit upon one of my hot buttons here. Please don't confuse
speciation, the evolution of reproductive isolation, with morphological
change seen in the fossil record. I would claim that these are nearly
decoupled.

Quote:

Note, by the way, that Darwin himself suggested that a typical lineage
would spend far more time NOT evolving (i.e. in stasis) than it did
changing. Ernst Mayr, one of the founders of modern "neo-Darwinism,"
expanded on this idea, laying the theoretical groundwork for
"punctuated equilibria," the idea that stasis was the normal state of
species and populations, and that evolution took place not slowly over
an entire species but relatively rapidly in isolated populations of
the species. So it would seem that "neoDarwinism" does not
necessarily predict "ubiquitous transformism" in the fossil record.
4. Genetics/Population Genetics have not found any observable

mechanisms that would progressively and coherently incorporate only
beneficial mutations while discarding all the unhelpful ones. All of
the known mechanisms either shuffle existing information or
dramatically attenuate all mutations. Populations in the wild tend
toward stasis not ubiquitous change.

If by "unhelpful," you mean "selectively neutral," there is neither
need nor reason to suppose that they are routinely discarded. If by
"unhelpful," you mean "harmful," the observable mechanism is called
"death before reproducing."

Or, not so dramatically, lower reproductive success.

Quote:

Again, you're using words as though they
were magical incantations, that achieved affects even though neither
you nor your audience know their meaning.

I would particularly like to know what he means by "progressively and
coherently". If anything. He seems to have a personal meaning for
"attenuate" too.

Quote:

Selective breeding does
exactly what you describe: progressively incorporate beneficial
("beneficial" depending on the selective criteria) mutations while
discarding harmful ones. Natural selection -- differential survival
of variants in an environment without intelligent intervention --
accomplishes the same thing, although generally much more slowly.
Since mutations occur constantly, new variation appears to replace
variation that has been lost due to natural selection. Note that in a
stable environment, populations will already tend to be well-adapted,
and will be experiencing stabilizing rather than transformative
selection.
5. One of the founders of population genetics (J.B.S. Haldane)
outlined a serious UNSOLVED problem----the cost of substitution when a
beneficial mutation occurs. This is another dramatic attenuator of
any change.

Haldane's dilemma makes a number of assumptions: that evolution takes
place in populations that are already well-suited to their
environment (i.e. the opposite assumption of punctuated equilibrium),
that all genetic changes are adaptive (i.e. the opposite assumption of
Kimura's theory that most evolutionary change, at the genetic level,
is neutral drift), and various other technical assumptions that are
also questionable in many circumstances. ReMine argued that Haldane's
calculations limited the number of beneficial mutations fixed since
the human-chimp last common ancestor to no more than 1,000, and
blithely regarded this as a disproof of evolution, without bothering
to even assert (much less provide evidence) that in fact there were
even 1,000 (much less a larger number) of adaptive differences between
the human and chimpanzee genome. So it is not clear why Haldane's
dilemma should be any sort of a problem for an evolutionary
explanation of biological diversity and complexity.
6. Natural Selection is a misleading misnomer. It is a term that
refers to "differential survival" in the wild. It is a stochastic
process; which is to say that there are so many variables in the wild
that it is no easier to predict which individuals in a population will
survive than it is to predict the weather. What is "beneficial" is
entirely situational. Populations already express a healthy variation
within its individuals so that it collectively survives in the varied
conditions with which it is faced.

Again, do you even understand the argument(s) you are presenting
here? To say that variables are so numerous that prediction is
difficult means that a process is "chaotic," not "stochastic;" our
inability to predict the outcome of a complex situation does not mean
that the situation is not largely, or even entirely, deterministic.
To say that what is "beneficial" is entirely situational is [a] to
tell me what I've told you on many occasions, and [b] to explain why
the same process can produce such diverse outcomes in nature. And the
point of a "healthy variation" is that some variants *don't* survive
in various environments; their variations are lost (and replaced by
similar or different variants by later mutations). So you've
constructed an argument that evolution must occur, and used it as an
argument that evolution cannot occur.
7. Abiogenesis is completely failed and stagnated.

Have you looked into the recent researches of Jack Szostak?
Abiogenesis research has been exploring a number of new (and new
versions of old) ideas in recent years. In any case, how the first
prokaryotes originated has very little bearing on the evidence that
you share common ancestry with gorillas and ginkos, and whether any
particular theory of abiogenesis holds water has very little to do
with whether mutation and natural selection can modify existing
structures in living things to produce "evolutionary novelties."
8. Finally Niles Eldredge has made clear over the years that
evolutionists not only DON'T know what causes novelty to emerge and
develop to maturity there is no consensus on the conception among
secularists. There are at least two major belief systems: the
Dawkinsian gradualists and the Gouldian Punc Eqers. And there is a
small

Again, you do not support your argument by repeatedly demonstrating
that you do not know what you're talking about. Phyletic gradualism
and punctuated equilibrium are different ideas about the tempo and
mode of evolution: whether species change constantly at a slower-than-
glacial pace, across their entire range, or whether evolution takes
place over centuries rather than millions of years in small areas.

And phyletic gradualism is a strawman with no actual adherents.

Quote:

It's not an argument over natural selection vs. some other mechanism
for adaptive change ("what causes novelty to emerge"). How fast and
how regularly a cause operates is not the same thing as what the cause
actually is.

Though in fact some PE fans, including Eldredge, are interested in
alternative mechanisms to natural selection.

Quote:

But I'll call Steven J's bluff...please produce the EMPIRICALLY
testable details which show how novelty emerged in prehistory (and
should be emerging now), how novel structures progressed to maturity
in prehistory, and how this process overcomes all the attentuating
factors including Haldane's Dilemma. To save time for you a link to a
peer reviewed journal would suffice.

Let's see ... you don't know what you mean by "novelty" (neither do I,
but since you don't know, it won't do me any good to ask you), you
don't seem to understand that evolutionary change is supposed to be
contingent, not moving towards some predestined "maturity," you don't
know what Haldane's Dilemma is or what problems it really poses (and
granted, again, I'm no expert on the matter). So your question is
well-nigh meaningless, and any attempt to answer it (or some more
sensible set of questions in its place) would be beyond your
comprehension. So I shall not link to Lenski's _E. coli_ paper
recently published.

It is very difficult (for reasons you yourself, in your sole more or
less literate paragraph, have detailed) to say what selection
pressures operated in the prehistoric past, or whether the
transformation from theropod forelimb to bird's wing was driven purely
by natural selection or by some other sort of cause (e.g.
"structuralist" internal tendencies dictated by embryonic development
and physical constraints). One can, of course, test to see whether
natural selection operates in the present, or whether it can produce
traits that strike people as "novel" when they actually have some
testable concept of "novelty." My original point, of course, was that
one can much more easily test the whole idea that species are, in
fact, related by common descent, and test hypotheses about phylogeny
and about which structures were modified, in what ways, to produce
"novel" features. So I think you have misidentified my "bluff."

But thank you for responding.

I give him one or two more rounds at most before he runs a way again.
And when he returns, he will have conveniently forgotten every response
he received to his lame arguments, allowing him to repeat them exactly
as before, forever, and never have to deal with objections. Brave Sir
Tony is a phoenix, continually emerging renewed from the ashes of his
last logical pummeling.

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T Pagano
Guest

Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 5:58 am Post subject: Re: Steven J gets both the facts about Lenski's work and the

On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:06:57 -0700 (PDT), "Steven J."
<steven_j@altavista.com> wrote:

Quote:

1. As usual Steven J don't read too well and I suggest he re-read my
response to Spaceman concerning Lenski's work.

2. Spaceman (or rather his usual reporting of what others write)
misled the reader as to what Lenski's observations were. The change
which occurred in a particular E. coli population was the ability to
transport citrate through its cell membrane NOT its ability to
metabolize citrate. E. coli already possessed this ability.

3. And since neither I nor creationists in general argue for the
immutability of species one wonders how a change requiring two or so
mutations has the slightest thing to do with the issues plaguing
neoDarwinism.

4. Fact of the matter is that minor changes involving one or two+
mutations conferring some beneficial change to EXISTING functionality
is not all that unusual. The issue is that Steven J and the rest of
the atheists have inappropriately extrapolated this well beyond
observational science to explain how the E. coli came to exist in the
first place.

5. Most of these minor changes are the result of existing gene
function being broken or degraded. These observations are NOT
evidence of progressive, coherent change towards something novel
requiring thousands of mutations to explain biological diversity.

6. By "novel" it is simply meant some structure, system, or organ
which did not exist in predecessor populations. With this definition
in mind EVERY biological structure, system, and organ which has ever
existed according to the secular prehistorical account was at some
point "novel." At some point each and every structure, system, and
organ had to emerge and develop to maturity.

Quote:

Since Steven J got the facts wrong with regard to Lenski's work with
E. coli I have no reason to believe he gets the facts correctly here.

Quote:

You post it, on the other hand, years after
reports of how random mutation coupled with natural selection have
produced bacteria able to digest nylon, or to resist -- or even feed
upon -- antibiotics unknown in nature. There is NO reason, empirical
or theoretical (as opposed to theological) to suppose that mutation
and natural selection can alter a population "only [within] a very
narrow range." Even Michael Behe's (demonstrably flawed) argument in
_The Edge of Evolution_ only proscribes certain types of
transformations, with no indication that, e.g. the changes needed to
produce lemurs and humans from a common ancestor require any sequence
of mutations that Behe finds problematical.

It is encumbent upon Steven J to show with these examples of 2+
mutations in single-celled organisms where (often) EXISTING gene
function is degraded or reduced has the slightest thing to with how
novel structures, systems, and organs requiring thousands of mutations
in the right order are added coherently and PROGRESSIVELY over time.

Quote:

Oh, and strictly speaking, "nonsense" implies that my assertion is not
merely wrong, but self-contradictory or otherwise absurd on its face.
I think you should stick with the more modest "you err."

"Nonsense" does not have to be self-contradictory and is often so
absurd that the issue of correctness never enters the picture. Your
claim that there exists empirically testable details of how a dinosaur
forearm transformed into an avian wing or how a mesonychid transformed
into a whale is flat absurd. No such tests exist; no such
observations exist; in fact there is a dispute between the Dawkinsians
and the Gouldians about how this even occurs conceptually.

It is amazing how the big lie of atheism blinds its adherents.

snip

Regards,
T Pagano

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Bob Casanova
Guest

Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 6:00 am Post subject: Re: A Fine Napoleonic Retreat

On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:13:00 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by "louann_m@yahoo.com"
<louann_m@yahoo.com>:

Quote:

On Jun 28, 12:50 pm, dmca...@remulak.uwaterloo.ca (David Canzi) wrote:

Creationism – God did it.

Intelligent Design – Somebody did it.

Design Inference – It looks like somebody did it.

I wonder what the next step is going to be?

What I think they're doing is trying a series of promises to
"only put it in a little" until they find out how little is little
enough to get consent.

You are a vulgar, vulgar, insightful, vulgar man.

As I recall, the UCMJ stated specifically "Any penetration
is sufficient to complete this offense", which seems an
appropriate caveat.
--

Bob C.

"Evidence confirming an observation is
evidence that the observation is wrong."
- McNameless

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Bob Casanova
Guest

Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 6:03 am Post subject: Re: A Fine Napoleonic Retreat

On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 08:51:36 -0600, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Desertphile
<desertphile@invalid-address.net>:

Quote:

On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 03:14:21 -0700 (PDT), "Devil's Advocaat"
mankygoat@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

Observe the process by which the certainty of their position appears
to be crumbling into doubt.

Creationism – God did it.

Intelligent Design – Somebody did it.

Design Inference – It looks like somebody did it.

I wonder what the next step is going to be?

We already see the "next step:" the demand that nobody knows the
answer, therefore all opinions ought to be included in public
school's science classes.

I can't wait to see the "Christian" fundies' reaction to the
demand that Vishnu and Sedna be included...
--

Bob C.

"Evidence confirming an observation is
evidence that the observation is wrong."
- McNameless

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John Harshman
Guest

Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 6:04 am Post subject: Re: Steven J gets both the facts about Lenski's work and the

T Pagano wrote:

Quote:

On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:06:57 -0700 (PDT), "Steven J."
steven_j@altavista.com> wrote:

On Jun 29, 3:37 pm, T Pagano <not.va...@address.net> wrote:
On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:25:21 -0700 (PDT), "Steven J."
steve...@altavista.com> wrote:

-- [snip]
No, Tony, the point of evolutionary theory is that it is possible to
go into a great deal more detail than "nature did it," with testable
predictions about *how* "nature did it."
1. Nonsense. Random mutations coupled to natural selection explains
only a very narrow range of observations. That is, it explains minor
variations---back and forth---within (admittedly) fuzzy limits of
EXISTING characteristics.

You post this shortly after reports of how _E. coli_ in the lab has
evolved the ability to metabolize citrate, an ability hitherto unknown
among this strain.

1. As usual Steven J don't read too well and I suggest he re-read my
response to Spaceman concerning Lenski's work.

2. Spaceman (or rather his usual reporting of what others write)

Well, at least Tony finally managed to get that part right, though only
after being told.

[snip]

Quote:

Just for clarity, at what point in the evolution of fins to legs to
wings do we see a novel structure?

Quote:

At some point each and every structure, system, and
organ had to emerge and develop to maturity.

Not necessarily true. Everything could be a modification and/or
duplication of something else, which is what we commonly see.

[snip nonsense]

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Martin Hutton
Guest

Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 6:46 am Post subject: POTM Nomination: Re: Can Steven J produce the testable detai

Good reply to Tony "Fish in Barrel Feet" Pagano:

On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:06:57 -0400, Steven J. <steven_j@altavista.com>
wrote:

Quote:

On Jun 29, 3:37 pm, T Pagano <not.va...@address.net> wrote:
On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:25:21 -0700 (PDT), "Steven J."
steve...@altavista.com> wrote:

-- [snip]

No, Tony, the point of evolutionary theory is that it is possible to
go into a great deal more detail than "nature did it," with testable
predictions about *how* "nature did it."

1. Nonsense. Random mutations coupled to natural selection explains
only a very narrow range of observations. That is, it explains minor
variations---back and forth---within (admittedly) fuzzy limits of
EXISTING characteristics.

You post this shortly after reports of how _E. coli_ in the lab has
evolved the ability to metabolize citrate, an ability hitherto unknown
among this strain. You post it weeks after reports of how Italian
wall lizards, transplanted to a new island home on Pod Mrcaru, evolved
cecal valves in their digestive tracts (again, a trait previously
unknown in this species). You post it, on the other hand, years after
reports of how random mutation coupled with natural selection have
produced bacteria able to digest nylon, or to resist -- or even feed
upon -- antibiotics unknown in nature. There is NO reason, empirical
or theoretical (as opposed to theological) to suppose that mutation
and natural selection can alter a population "only [within] a very
narrow range." Even Michael Behe's (demonstrably flawed) argument in
_The Edge of Evolution_ only proscribes certain types of
transformations, with no indication that, e.g. the changes needed to
produce lemurs and humans from a common ancestor require any sequence
of mutations that Behe finds problematical.

Oh, and strictly speaking, "nonsense" implies that my assertion is not
merely wrong, but self-contradictory or otherwise absurd on its face.
I think you should stick with the more modest "you err."

2. Secularists don't have a clue how novelty emerges or how it
progresses to maturity. Such events have NEVER been observed---NEVER.

Since you've never defined this quality "novelty," it's not clear what
would qualify as observing it, or as an explanation for it. However,
one can have a pretty good idea of how something happens without
observing it directly (and conversely, one can observe a thing and
have no clue how it is possible). In evolution, "novel" features (as
most people define the term) emerge as modifications of previously-
existing features, or as modifications of duplications of previously-
existing features.

3. The fossil record does not show the ubiquitous transformism that
neoDarwinism predicted. It shows without exception "sudden
appearance" and "STASIS."

The last time we had this discussion, it was painfully clear that you
did not know what "stasis" meant (Gould and Eldredge used the term to
indicate that, at least at the morphological level, a species had
undergone no evolution at all; you use it to describe entire sequences
of similar but clearly distinct species each showing microevolutionary
changes as they transition from one to another). Someone who talks
about the Pearson, _et al._ foram sequence as showing "stasis" is just
using words as magic charms, not to convey meaning or express
understanding.

Note that many of what you seem to regard as "novelties" (e.g. bird
bills, bird wings, and feathers) do not appear full-blown and without
precursors in the fossil record: one can trace intermediate forms in
various maniraptoran theropods. Usually *species*, even entire
genera, appear without clear precursors, but speciation has been
observed in the lab (i.e. the sort of change that is worst-documented
in the fossil record is precisely the kind that has been observed in
the present day among living populations), and the fossil record is
known to be incomplete and incompletely uncovered and described.

Note, by the way, that Darwin himself suggested that a typical lineage
would spend far more time NOT evolving (i.e. in stasis) than it did
changing. Ernst Mayr, one of the founders of modern "neo-Darwinism,"
expanded on this idea, laying the theoretical groundwork for
"punctuated equilibria," the idea that stasis was the normal state of
species and populations, and that evolution took place not slowly over
an entire species but relatively rapidly in isolated populations of
the species. So it would seem that "neoDarwinism" does not
necessarily predict "ubiquitous transformism" in the fossil record.

4. Genetics/Population Genetics have not found any observable
mechanisms that would progressively and coherently incorporate only
beneficial mutations while discarding all the unhelpful ones. All of
the known mechanisms either shuffle existing information or
dramatically attenuate all mutations. Populations in the wild tend
toward stasis not ubiquitous change.

If by "unhelpful," you mean "selectively neutral," there is neither
need nor reason to suppose that they are routinely discarded. If by
"unhelpful," you mean "harmful," the observable mechanism is called
"death before reproducing." Again, you're using words as though they
were magical incantations, that achieved affects even though neither
you nor your audience know their meaning. Selective breeding does
exactly what you describe: progressively incorporate beneficial
("beneficial" depending on the selective criteria) mutations while
discarding harmful ones. Natural selection -- differential survival
of variants in an environment without intelligent intervention --
accomplishes the same thing, although generally much more slowly.
Since mutations occur constantly, new variation appears to replace
variation that has been lost due to natural selection. Note that in a
stable environment, populations will already tend to be well-adapted,
and will be experiencing stabilizing rather than transformative
selection.

5. One of the founders of population genetics (J.B.S. Haldane)
outlined a serious UNSOLVED problem----the cost of substitution when a
beneficial mutation occurs. This is another dramatic attenuator of
any change.

Haldane's dilemma makes a number of assumptions: that evolution takes
place in populations that are already well-suited to their
environment (i.e. the opposite assumption of punctuated equilibrium),
that all genetic changes are adaptive (i.e. the opposite assumption of
Kimura's theory that most evolutionary change, at the genetic level,
is neutral drift), and various other technical assumptions that are
also questionable in many circumstances. ReMine argued that Haldane's
calculations limited the number of beneficial mutations fixed since
the human-chimp last common ancestor to no more than 1,000, and
blithely regarded this as a disproof of evolution, without bothering
to even assert (much less provide evidence) that in fact there were
even 1,000 (much less a larger number) of adaptive differences between
the human and chimpanzee genome. So it is not clear why Haldane's
dilemma should be any sort of a problem for an evolutionary
explanation of biological diversity and complexity.

6. Natural Selection is a misleading misnomer. It is a term that
refers to "differential survival" in the wild. It is a stochastic
process; which is to say that there are so many variables in the wild
that it is no easier to predict which individuals in a population will
survive than it is to predict the weather. What is "beneficial" is
entirely situational. Populations already express a healthy variation
within its individuals so that it collectively survives in the varied
conditions with which it is faced.

Again, do you even understand the argument(s) you are presenting
here? To say that variables are so numerous that prediction is
difficult means that a process is "chaotic," not "stochastic;" our
inability to predict the outcome of a complex situation does not mean
that the situation is not largely, or even entirely, deterministic.
To say that what is "beneficial" is entirely situational is [a] to
tell me what I've told you on many occasions, and [b] to explain why
the same process can produce such diverse outcomes in nature. And the
point of a "healthy variation" is that some variants *don't* survive
in various environments; their variations are lost (and replaced by
similar or different variants by later mutations). So you've
constructed an argument that evolution must occur, and used it as an
argument that evolution cannot occur.

7. Abiogenesis is completely failed and stagnated.

Have you looked into the recent researches of Jack Szostak?
Abiogenesis research has been exploring a number of new (and new
versions of old) ideas in recent years. In any case, how the first
prokaryotes originated has very little bearing on the evidence that
you share common ancestry with gorillas and ginkos, and whether any
particular theory of abiogenesis holds water has very little to do
with whether mutation and natural selection can modify existing
structures in living things to produce "evolutionary novelties."

8. Finally Niles Eldredge has made clear over the years that
evolutionists not only DON'T know what causes novelty to emerge and
develop to maturity there is no consensus on the conception among
secularists. There are at least two major belief systems: the
Dawkinsian gradualists and the Gouldian Punc Eqers. And there is a
small

Again, you do not support your argument by repeatedly demonstrating
that you do not know what you're talking about. Phyletic gradualism
and punctuated equilibrium are different ideas about the tempo and
mode of evolution: whether species change constantly at a slower-than-
glacial pace, across their entire range, or whether evolution takes
place over centuries rather than millions of years in small areas.
It's not an argument over natural selection vs. some other mechanism
for adaptive change ("what causes novelty to emerge"). How fast and
how regularly a cause operates is not the same thing as what the cause
actually is.

But I'll call Steven J's bluff...please produce the EMPIRICALLY
testable details which show how novelty emerged in prehistory (and
should be emerging now), how novel structures progressed to maturity
in prehistory, and how this process overcomes all the attentuating
factors including Haldane's Dilemma. To save time for you a link to a
peer reviewed journal would suffice.

Let's see ... you don't know what you mean by "novelty" (neither do I,
but since you don't know, it won't do me any good to ask you), you
don't seem to understand that evolutionary change is supposed to be
contingent, not moving towards some predestined "maturity," you don't
know what Haldane's Dilemma is or what problems it really poses (and
granted, again, I'm no expert on the matter). So your question is
well-nigh meaningless, and any attempt to answer it (or some more
sensible set of questions in its place) would be beyond your
comprehension. So I shall not link to Lenski's _E. coli_ paper
recently published.

It is very difficult (for reasons you yourself, in your sole more or
less literate paragraph, have detailed) to say what selection
pressures operated in the prehistoric past, or whether the
transformation from theropod forelimb to bird's wing was driven purely
by natural selection or by some other sort of cause (e.g.
"structuralist" internal tendencies dictated by embryonic development
and physical constraints). One can, of course, test to see whether
natural selection operates in the present, or whether it can produce
traits that strike people as "novel" when they actually have some
testable concept of "novelty." My original point, of course, was that
one can much more easily test the whole idea that species are, in
fact, related by common descent, and test hypotheses about phylogeny
and about which structures were modified, in what ways, to produce
"novel" features. So I think you have misidentified my "bluff."

But thank you for responding.

T Pagano

-- [snip]

-- Steven J.

--
Martin Hutton

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John Harshman
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 8:21 am Post subject: Re: Steven J gets both the facts about Lenski's work and the

T Pagano wrote:

Quote:

By the way, this shows up in my reader as a reply to my reply to Steven
J. Is there something wrong with Tony's news reader, as well as with Tony?

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Dana Tweedy
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:32 am Post subject: Re: Steven J gets both the facts about Lenski's work and the

"T Pagano" <not.valid@address.net> wrote in message
news:apagano-hb6g64pn09vpjt2ulbcm5t4stibb7a3pia@4ax.com...
snip

Quote:

Uh oh, Tony, this will get you taken off Ray's Christmas card list.......

DJT

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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 1:56 am Post subject: Re: Steven J gets both the facts about Lenski's work and the

On Jun 29, 8:58 pm, T Pagano <not.va...@address.net> wrote:

Quote:

(snip)

Quote:

It is amazing how the big lie of atheism blinds its adherents.

snip

Regards,
T Pagano

What is this mental disorder that you have that leads you, in the
middle of a discussion of science, to veer off into such irrelevancies
as atheism?

Eric Root

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Steven J.
Guest

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 2:41 am Post subject: Re: It is easy to understand why Steven J feigns ignorance o

On Jun 30, 8:43 pm, T Pagano <not.va...@address.net> wrote:

Quote:

abandoned this position) you've identified various features of avian
anatomy (e.g. the wing and the bill) as "novelties." Yet each is a
modification of previously existing structures that can be traced back
to the first tetrapods and even to jawless fish swimming in Ordivician
seas. In those fish, the wing existed in "rudimentary form" as a fin,
and the bill as a gill arch support that had not yet been co-opted as
a jawbone. On other occasions (e.g. when discussing the Pearson, _et
al._ foram series), you've dismissed all modifications of the shell or
test and declared that, since the ancestral form had this test, the
entire series (involving the gradual appearance of an inner chamber)
was an example of "stasis." To be perfectly consistent, you would
have to regard (could it be displayed to you) a complete series
showing every smallest link between _Homo sapiens_ and _Acanthostega_
as exhibiting "stasis."

That is, your definition of "novel" varies purely according to how
detailed and fine-grained the available evidence is (as well as
according to your ability to ignore evidence presented to you).
Gills, of course, are older than bony gill supports, and I suppose the
most striking instance of "novelty" in the chordate evolutionary line
would be the appearance of bones. I do not know what, if anything,
the fossil record has to reveal on that point. Except in rare
_laggerstaeten_, fossils without hard parts are scarcely ever
recognizably preserved, and fossils with partial hard parts would be
hard-to-read fragments (a similar but worse problem would arise with
the origin of hearts, livers, specialized nervous tissue, etc. in
basal bilaterians). So the fossil record on such things would be
spotty in the extreme. And all these traits would appear, first, as
one of many variants within a single species; their importance would
become obvious only in retrospect.

Quote:

2. Evolutionists have NEVER observed the emergence and development of
biological novelty---NEVER. Many evolutionists admit that this occurs
too slowly to be observed. However, unless there exists empirical
consequences of these unobservable transformational changes the theory
is unscientific. Are there empirical consequences of this
conception?

Evolutionists would not expect to see "novelty" as you define it

above. At a fine enough level of analysis, novelty should never
occur; every structure should be a modification or elaboration of some
previous structure. So technically, you're complaining that a
prediction of evolutionary theory has been fulfilled (that's not such
a trivial quibble: if we take typical forms of young-earth creationism
seriously, right after the Fall thousands of "kinds" must have been
suddenly and miraculously retrofitted with "novel" features for
predation and survival in a fallen world; one might expect to find
some indication of this, somewhere).

Of course, there are empirical consequences of common descent with
modification; these range from fetal teeth and hind limb buds in
embryonic baleen whales (which have neither teeth nor hind limbs after
birth, nor need them), to shared pseudogenes and endogenous
retroviruses in these whales and artiodactyls, or in humans and other
primates. The fact that _Tiktaalik_ is found in sediments of the age
when such a fish-tetrapod intermediate ought to have lived (and that,
e.g. early whales like _Basilosaurus_, or aquatic reptiles like
_Mososaurus_, are *not* found in such sediments) is likewise an
"empirical consequence of transformism."

Tests of natural selection as a particular cause of evolutionary
change tend to depend on mathematical analyses of how frequent various
alleles of various genes are. I'm rather grateful that you didn't ask
for empirical consequences of various *mechanisms* for "transformism,"
as I'm not at all sure I could explain them coherently to you.

Quote:

3. The evolutionist theory of biological transformism explains that
the changes resulting in the emergence of novelty and its development
to maturity should be ubiquitous throughout prehistory. Darwin fully
expected some of the emergence and/or its development to maturity to
have been sampled by the fossil record---an empirical consequence.
This empirical consequence has never been observed---NEVER. The
fossil shows nothing but sudden appearance and STASIS.

You are wrong, above, twice.

As I've pointed out (you do not rebut my point; you merely ignore it),
Darwin suggested that lineages spent more time not evolving than they
did evolving; he himself obviously did not expect change to be
"ubiquitous throughout prehistory." Neither did many of the founders
of the "neoDarwinian modern synthesis;" Ernst Mayr and Steve Gould
alike argued that transformation would often be limited to small local
populations over relatively brief spans of geological time.

And Darwin's entire discussion of the fossil is an elaboration on the
theme that "the crust of the earth is a vast museum; but the natural
collections have been imperfectly made, and only at long intervals of
time." That is, Darwin did *not* expect phyletic gradualism to be
documented in the fossil record. I have already dealt with your
absurd and self-contradictory notions of "novelty" and "stasis."

Quote:

4. There may be other empirical consequences of these theorized
ubiquitous and transformational changes leading to the emergence of
novelty and its development. But it is encumbent upon Steven J and
his merry band of atheists to identify them and then find them.

You mean, like the human plantaris tendon, or fossil skulls that

straddle any dividing line you might wish to draw between "fully-
formed humans" and "fully-formed apes?" You simply don't know
anything about the fossil record, or about evolutionary theory or the
implications of the latter for the former. You assume that a few
catch phrases, asserted with sufficient confidence, will constitute a
sound argument (as I've already complained, you don't so much argue as
use stock assertions as magical incantions in hopes of miraculously
exnihilating an argument).

Quote:

However,
one can have a pretty good idea of how something happens without
observing it directly

"A-pretty-good-idea-of-how-something-happens" is also referred to as a
"theory," a "conjecture," or a "guess" and is NOT equivalent to saying
one knows the true explanation. Furthermore such conjectures are NOT
scientific unless we have a means of connecting them to reality either
by observing predicted events directly or observing the empirical
consequence of predicted events. Additionally investigators should
determine what the theory prohibits and make attempts to find the
prohibited events. That is, assuming they are interested in purging
falsity.

"Theories, conjectures, and guesses" are not interchangeable concepts,

and it is quite possible to construct and test theories about things
that have not been observed directly. You have a touching faith in
naive falsificationism, and a somewhat less touching faith that, e.g.
Behe's natterings about "irreducible complexity" actually constitute a
method of falsifying evolution by natural selection, as though Mueller
had not predicted IC as a consequence (not a prohibition) of natural
selection before Behe was even born.

Quote:

Not sure that the high priests of neoDarwinism have done any of this
with regard to the theory's transfomational claims.

I believe you've adequately demonstrated that you're not sure of any

of the things you assert, or at least that you have no good reason to
be sure. Obviously, any of thousands of comparisons of genes and
proteins have offered the chance to falsify hypotheses of common
descent (if, e.g. human cytochrome-c were as distinct from chimp
cytochrome-c as it is from, say, pine tree cytochrome-c, or if the
human GULO pseudogene were disabled in the same way as the guinea pig
GULO pseudogene rather than the ape GULO pseudogene).

Quote:

(and conversely, one can observe a thing and
have no clue how it is possible).

NeoDarwinians see dinosaur forearms and avian wings in the fossil
record and believe that one transformed into the other yet among
themselves cannot even agree conceptually how such a thing happened.

Evolutionary developmental biologists have been investigating some of

the details of this transformation. Would you care to actually
describe some of the differences in opinion about how the change
occurred (note: arguments about the tempo and mode with which this
transformation occurred are not arguments about either the genetic
causes or the role of natural selection in the transformation).

Quote:

In evolution, "novel" features (as
most people define the term) emerge as modifications of previously-
existing features, or as modifications of duplications of previously-
existing features.

Unless such claims are part of naturalist/atheistic philosophy one has
to connect it to reality with direct observation, observation of its
empirical consequences, and attempts to refute.

Time to put up....

Are you planning, at any time in the foreseeable future, to deal with

the actual intermediate fossils linking basal archosaurs to birds?

Quote:

snip

Regards,
T Pagnao

-- Steven J.

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RAM
Guest

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 2:41 am Post subject: Re: It is easy to understand why Steven J feigns ignorance o

On Jun 30, 8:43 pm, T Pagano <not.va...@address.net> wrote:

Quote:

On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:06:57 -0700 (PDT), "Steven J."

steve...@altavista.com> wrote:
On Jun 29, 3:37 pm, T Pagano <not.va...@address.net> wrote:
On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:25:21 -0700 (PDT), "Steven J."
steve...@altavista.com> wrote:

-- [snip]

snip

2. Secularists don't have a clue how novelty emerges or how it
progresses to maturity. Such events have NEVER been observed---NEVER.

Since you've never defined this quality "novelty," it's not clear what
would qualify as observing it, or as an explanation for it.

1. I've defined it dozens of times in this forum and the normal
english language definition of "novel" as an adjective would do
nicely. "Novelty" is the adjective used to describe any biological
structure, system, or organ that did not exist---even in rudimentary
form----in a predecessor populations. Since the secular creation
story is one in which life and all its diversity was generated
linearly (with branching) from some prebiotic self replicating
molecule EVERY structure, system, organ was "novel' at some point in
prehistory. There is nothing controversial about this claim.

2. Evolutionists have NEVER observed the emergence and development of
biological novelty---NEVER. Many evolutionists admit that this occurs
too slowly to be observed. However, unless there exists empirical
consequences of these unobservable transformational changes the theory
is unscientific. Are there empirical consequences of this
conception?

3. The evolutionist theory of biological transformism explains that
the changes resulting in the emergence of novelty and its development
to maturity should be ubiquitous throughout prehistory. Darwin fully
expected some of the emergence and/or its development to maturity to
have been sampled by the fossil record---an empirical consequence.
This empirical consequence has never been observed---NEVER. The
fossil shows nothing but sudden appearance and STASIS.

4. There may be other empirical consequences of these theorized
ubiquitous and t