b. July 15, 1928
d. December 30, 2012
“Thus, we regard as rather regrettable the conventional concatenation of Darwin’s name with evolution, because there are other modalities that must be entertained and which we regard as mandatory during the course of evolutionary time.”
“I have concerns about scientists thinking that they’re God when it comes to biology.”
“A future biology cannot be built within the conceptual superstructures of the past. The old superstructure has to be replaced by a new one before the holistic problems of biology can emerge as biology’s new mainstream.”
“I do not like people saying that atheism is based on science, because it’s not. It’s an alien invasion of science.”
- Carl Woese
Suzan Mazur: Why do you think NAI chose to give you and your team $ 8M, since you are known as a challenger of Darwinian dogma? Is NASA finally acknowledging the Darwin approach is wrong?
Carl Woese: I would hope so because that’s very clear from our NASA Astrobiology Institute grant application.
Suzan Mazur: You’ve described the “disconnect between Darwinists, who had taken over evolution, and microbiologists, who had no use for Darwinian natural selection.” Do you have anything to say about the recent decision of Huffington Post to block publication of microbiologist James Shapiro’s response to Darwinist Jerry Coyne following Coyne’s attack on Shapiro’s thinking about a reduced role for natural selection in evolution?
Carl Woese: I think that’s immoral. Science must be free to examine what it sees. If you’re going to say everyone must follow the Darwinian line, that’s not free science.
Carl Woese, evolution skeptic.
Shit, some of the evidence for evolution is unassailable – better co-opt it.
The extremely closely matching twin nested hierarchies of the fossil and genetic records. The same answer you were given the last dozen times you asked the same question.
My little niece like to keep asking the same question over and over when she doesn’t like the answer too. Of course her excuse is she’s only five. What’s your excuse?
You have to have evidence for any design before you can claim common design. You don’t have evidence for either. FrankenJoe fails again.
Of course common design has entailments- similarities should abound. Linnaean classification is based on the concept of a common design. Common design is observed in engineering and construction. It is a well known concept. We even have ways of telling when people copy designs illegally. There is plagiarism, copy right and patent infringements, knock offs, etc.
Please tell us why common descent says the genetic code cannot change over the duration of billions of years.
The problem with common ancestry is that you don’t have a mechanism capable of accounting for all of the changes required to get from prokaryotes to the diversity observed. All of your “evidence” assumes common ancestry is true
Sal: “One can’t shove a eukaryotic gene “as is” into a prokaryote like E. Coli and expect it to make protein.”
Except for that nagging little fact that there is a large biotechnology industry that does just that.
There is plenty of evidence for ID and ID is not anti-evolution. What we lack is a methodology to test the claim that blind and mindless processes did it. And all the alleged evidence for universal common descent is absent a mechanism. Why is that?
You haven’t established any design occurred let alone common design. You might as well claim “MAGIC!” which is all ID proposes now.
There isn’t any evidence that the proposed mechanisms of natural selection and drift are up to the task. No one knows how to test the claim that they are. And all the foot stomping and name calling is never going to change that.
Moved a comment to guano.
But are they?
No, because you also need to contrast it with multiple independent origins of the code by chance, and multiple independent origins of the code by some sort of biased stochastic process.
This isn’t a dichotomy. There isn’t just Common Descent vs It Was All Designed By A Single Designer, among the logical possibilities. Each of those hypothesis would have to be evaluated against the evidence.
None of these transitions have been shown to be infeasible, and in fact the overwhelming support for the phylogenies they fit into is evidence that not only aren’t these transitions infeasible, they actually happened in biological history.
Right, but this is one of those cases where if you actually look at the details (tRNA and aaRS phylogenies), what emerges is that these alternative codes are recently(in geological terms) evolved adaptations of the standard code. You can’t just ignore this data or that evolution explains it much better than any ad-hoc design hypothesis you can come up with.
That’s not because of the genetic code, that’s because eukaryotic genes usually contain introns that bacteria have no way of removing, and because they use different enhancer and promoter sequences. When it comes to the genetic code itself (the correspondence of codons to amino acids), the mapping is fine. All the amino acids map to the same codon, and all the codons that mean “start” in the standard genetic code, also mean start in E coli.
While exceptions to the universality of the code exist, they are minor deviations and as a general rule, on can IN FACT expect to move a gene from one organism to another and get the same protein out the other end. Exceptions to this usually have to do with methods of initiating transcription and mRNA processing, not with the mapping of codons to amino acids.
The exchange about what? You mean we should take the less than 1 minute quips from a public discussion, talking about whether there is a tree or a bush of life, of which one asked a question and the other failed to answer it, to be authoritative on this matter?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXrYhINutuI This shit is what you’re talking about? Where Dawkins asks a question of Craig and he doesn’t answer and also doesn’t in the full video?
Craig doesn’t make anything clear. None of the terms are defined. What does he mean by another “form” of life. He points out metabolic differences between different domains. Does that make them another “form” of life? Surely he doesn’t mean they’re not longer cellular life? Doesn’t the idea of a domain merely constitute another branching? Doesn’t he in fact use the term “deep branching” himself? What publications are there on this by Venter et al? I found this: Stalking the Fourth Domain in Metagenomic Data: Searching for, Discovering, and Interpreting Novel, Deep Branches in Marker Gene Phylogenetic Trees
It seems to me there’s nothing in here about the genetic code not implying common descent, and the short exchange of words between Dawkins and Venter was actually more confusing than informative. In fact I think they talked past each other. Dawkins was concerned with whether there is universal common descent (and whether the genetic code implies this), while Craig was conserved with whether the root of the tree of life is a bush rather than a single stem. It seems neither of them got what the other one was saying.
Do you take this confusion between them to be an authoritative statement that the genetic code does not imply universal common descent? If so, I don’t think you know what constitutes proper academic rigour.
stcordova,
What, because of the insurmountable differences between their genetic codes? Which happen also to be the difference between nuclear and mitochondrial codes in us.
What do you think of the evidence that Tryptophan-coding UGG evolved from a STOP (see your ‘atypical’ thread)? Why did the Creator make so many similar-but -different ciliate codes?
But, heaven forbid we ask FranjenJoe about the mechanisms behind ID.
Actually we do. Science has known the mechanisms of evolution for many decades. Just because you’re ignorant of them doesn’t make everyone else ignorant too.
[IDiot Mode]
ID isn’t about mechanisms! ID is about the design!
[/IDiot Mode]
And for those without a dictionary- design is a mechanism. Intelligent agencies manipulating nature for a purpose is a mechanism.
Evolutionary algorithms model evolution by Intelligent Design and have a known mechanism- targeted search/ active search for solutions
Frankie,
Joe, you’re painting yourself into a corner. Why would such an incredible designer limit herself so? Take for example cognition and the associated substrate – nerve conduction velocity is about 120 m/s – glacial compared to what actual human designers can do. Obviously this is somewhat compensated for via parallelization, but one can’t but help recognize life has a terrible internal bus. Was the designer so incompetent? What capable designer only (poorly) uses one tool from a limitless toolbox?
Tryptophan- the structure of which made Doug Axe think that blind processes are impotent for being able to create. So how does blind and mindless processes account for tryptophan?
It’s just another day at Creationism Central. They’ve been trying to make capital out of Venter and Dawkins’s mutual confused looks in that short clip for years.
If Venter thinks a 1-codon difference is profound, he is a bit ill-informed.
I posted this already, showing a bewildering array of differences in ciliate codes, including one with no STOPs. That’s the difference, usually, a STOP here or there. And it’s usually the same small group of codons involved.
It certainly seems like ciliates are genetically related, and the variations evolved.
What persuades one otherwise?
What’s the Design reason for the differences?
The nested hierarchy of a common design makes it easy to control and not get confused as to what organism gets what parts. As for nerves, do you realize what would happen to us if the impulses traveled at the speed of light? Have you even thought about it? Others have and what we have is the best for living tissue
Alan Fox,
Again this is a “just so” story without empirical support. Where did the complex genetic information come from to accomplish this task. The blind watchmaker or a trial and error process worked through these sequences to function?
The fact that you think this is a bizarre question is telling. You just have not thought through the difficulty of coming up with the sequences that are required for these transitions. My question was based on needing the genetic information to make this story feasible.
If I ask you to come up with the code to transition a single celled organism to a multicellular one and gave you 10 protein experts and all the computer power in the world do you think you could solve this in a year, 10 years, 100 years?
So your answer is it happened on its own from cell division and variation leading to what?
How is the physical manipulation of matter done in the ID scenario? Sooner or later your Designer has to work with the physical layer. Evolution doesn’t need to manipulate matter to achieve preconceived goals because there are no preconceived goals. It’s just the normal laws of chemistry and physics making changes more or less randomly
Must be MAGIC! Right Joe?
Allan Miller,
Should I let Craig know that Miller consulting services are available to clean up his basics on biology 🙂
stcordova,
That’s right – including little ole us! We use CUG in certain proteins. ‘Cos it’s better there. It’s what the Designer would have wanted.
There isn’t any evidence that the laws of physics and chemistry can produce the diversity of life starting from populations of prokaryotes. There isn’t any evidence that the workings of a cell can be reduced to the laws of physics and chemistry and there is no way top test the claim that random, as in happenstance, mutations can produce protein machines let alone the diversity of life.
Testability is the hallmark of science and UCD doesn’t have that
From the process of genetic variation and selection interacting with the environment. The same answer you got the last dozen times you asked the same question.
Do you have OCS in normal life too?
colewd,
I would happily discuss with him.
In a dispute between one expert and another, you side with Expert A. Why? Couldn’t be because Expert B is – spit – Dawkins, could it? And Venter is on every Creationist site from here to Tuesday disagreeing with him.
So what has Douglas Axe have to say about tryptophan?
Wow. That’s special. Feel free to link to what “others have” thought. Obviously the whole system would be different – one does not put wings on a car to get a plane. But it highlights why it wasn’t designed but evolved – evolution had to work with what was there already.
That it is evidence for design- intentional design.
Adapa,
So why the big conference in London to extend the synthesis? You really don’t realize that the “just so” story is dying.
What could possibly be a first step to multicelluar organisms? Could you conceive of the idea of single-celled organisms sticking together rather than separating? Just needs some component in the cell membrane to evolve that is a bit “sticky”. Maybe clumping together gives some slight adaptive advantage depending on the niche. Doesn’t need a vast number of changes.
ETA a Nature paper for you to have a look at.
Allan Miller,
Ok. Whats you’re hourly rate? 🙂
colewd,
What was the most significant development to come out of this conference you know so much about?
colewd,
I spy a joke, but don’t see how it follows from what you quoted. I guess you had to be there. Why is Venter right and Dawkins wrong? Why is a one-codon difference fatal at all conceivable stages?
LOL! The imminent death of evolution, the longest running failed prediction in the 150+ year history of YECkery. 😀
Why don’t you tell us the mechanism the Designer used to physically manipulate matter? Let me guess, GAWD “spoke” things into existence.
Sorry FrankenJioe, but that is not the definition of design. Try again.
http://sandwalk.blogspot.ca/2016/12/suzan-mazur-doesnt-like-carl-zimmer.html
FFS learn the difference between your and you’re.
The designer can get confused? That might be news to most of the ID proponents.
So what does Douglas Axe have to say about tryptophan? Is it written down somewhere? The bare claim “tryptophan is evidence for ‘intentional design'” is not much of an argument, is it?
Where does the leg go again?
Yeah he can talk to me too, it seems he’s not aware of the statistical basis of phylogenetic inference. Apparently Venter thinks all individual gene-trees should agree. Which is a rookie mistake. Douglas Theobald directly addressed this misconception in his 29 Evidences for macroevolution and common descent.
Alan Fox,
You need to evolve proteins that can allows cells to communicate. Then you need to evolve the systems that will allow the cells to form a multicellular cell cycle so you need apoptosis in addition to DNA repair.
Did LUCA have DNA repair?
Then you need a system for oxygen to get to all the cells. This is the respiratory system.
Then you need a central nervous system and muscles to move.
Do you think humans currently have the capability to come up with the DNA sequences for a respiratory system?
How about just the sequences for an oxygen/co2 transport protein?
How about the ability of the cells to differentiate during animal development?
Cells sticking together is not a multicellular organism. You need to organize DNA with 4^500000 possible ways to arrange and build all this. So how did all that DNA become arranged to build the first multicellular organisms we observe in the fossil records?
Do you agree it requires a pretty complex design just to get to a Cambrian animal?
Adapa,
Just to understand. Are you claiming the RMNS and genetic drift account for all life’s diversity?
He’s already done that: according to Bill, Jeebus downloads genetic “information” into reproductive cells so that dinosaurs give birth to birds, lancelets to vertebrates and monkeys to people. Pregnant women, get ready cause you’re gonna shit bricks one day
That’s not a leg. That’s a fin.
It’s become apparent that Venter is emphatically not an expert in the logical basis of phylogenetic inference.
Listen to this https://youtu.be/EcUD_6dKJ7k?t=45m58s
Dawkins asks Craig Venter repeatedly about the impact of HGT on molecular taxonomy, as he calls it, as a field, and Venter either manifestly doesn’t understand what he’s being asked, or actually doesn’t understand the logic of making phylogenies using statistics.
As Theobald writes in 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution – The Scientific Case for Common Descent:
Yes.
Why do you say that?
Exactly! Things don’t need to happen all at once. Did you look at that Nature paper I linked to?
You also need cell differentiation , Hox genes and so on! But not all at once!
You already asked this. Why would an organism that had no DNA need a system to repair it? There have been detailed responses from other posters on this.
Exactly! You don’t need everything happening at once!
You are familiar with the cube-square law.? It depends how big you are.
Bacteria move without muscles. Octopuses manage to be good problem solvers without a brain.
What’s a repertory system? As I don’t think humans had a hand in the processes that led to the diversity of life we see on Earth, why would I worry?
People have been over this with you. Evolution is not a search and doesn’t need to check every theoretical sequence for functionality. It just needs to stumble across one that works well enough.
The environment had nearly three billion years to design the Cambrian organisms. It didn’t happen all at once.