I promised John Harshman for several months that I would start a discussion about common design vs. common descent, and I’d like to keep my word to him as best as possible.
Strictly the speaking common design and common descent aren’t mutually exclusive, but if one invokes the possibility of recent special creation of all life, the two being mutually exclusive would be inevitable.
If one believes in a young fossil record (YFR) and thus likely believes life is young and therefore recently created, then one is a Young Life Creationist (YLC). YEC (young earth creationists) are automatically YLCs but there are a few YLCs who believe the Earth is old. So evidence in favor of YFR is evidence in favor of common design over common descent.
One can assume for the sake of argument the mainstream geological timelines of billions of years on planet Earth. If that is the case, special creation would have to happen likely in a progressive manner. I believe Stephen Meyer and many of the original ID proponents like Walter Bradley were progressive creationists.
Since I think there is promising evidence for YFR, I don’t think too much about common design vs. common descent. If the Earth is old, but the fossil record is young, as far as I’m concerned the nested hierarchical patterns of similarity are due to common design.
That said, for the sake of this discussion I will assume the fossil record is old. But even under that assumption, I don’t see how phylogenetics solves the problem of orphan features found distributed in the nested hierarchical patterns of similarity. I should point out, there is an important distinction between taxonomic nested hierarchies and phylogenetic nested hierarchies. The nested hierarchies I refer to are taxonomic, not phylogenetic. Phylogeneticsits insist the phylogenetic trees are good explanations for the taxonomic “trees”, but it doesn’t look that way to me at all. I find it revolting to think giraffes, apes, birds and turtles are under the Sarcopterygii clade (which looks more like a coelacanth).
Phylogeny is a nice superficial explanation for the pattern of taxonomic nested hierarchy in sets of proteins, DNA, whatever so long as a feature is actually shared among the creatures. That all breaks down however when we have orphan features that are not shared by sets of creatures.
The orphan features most evident to me are those associated with Eukaryotes. Phylogeny doesn’t do a good job of accounting for those. In fact, to assume common ancestry in that case, “poof” or some unknown mechanism is indicated. If the mechanism is unknown, then why claim universal common ancestry is a fact? Wouldn’t “we don’t know for sure, but we believe” be a more accurate statement of the state of affairs rather than saying “universal common ancestry is fact.”
So whenever orphan features sort of poof into existence, that suggests to me the patterns of nested hierarchy are explained better by common design. In fact there are lots of orphan features that define major groups of creatures. Off the top of my head, eukaryotes are divided into unicellular and multicellular creatures. There are vetebrates and a variety of invertebrates. Mammals have the orphan feature of mammary glands. The list could go on and on for orphan features and the groups they define. Now I use the phrase “orphan features” because I’m not comfortable using formal terms like autapomorphy or whatever. I actually don’t know what would be a good phrase.
So whenever I see an orphan feature that isn’t readily evolvable (like say a nervous system), I presume God did it, and therefore the similarities among creatures that have different orphan features is a the result of miraculous common design not ordinary common descent.
That post is a joke right?
No, it shows basic experiments and justifies the theory with appeal to rotational moment of inertial calculations. My classical mechanics is a tad rusty, but the derivation in the video looked spot on. The bottom line is the physical experiments.
No, the post isn’t a joke. Neither was the appeal to Faint Young Sun Paradox, nor to erosion rates, nor to bioturbation, nor to racemization state, nor to C14, etc. etc.
John keeps writing it off as minor anomalies. They don’t look minor to me.
So this “explanation” for the chronological order of the fossil record is that different species are where they are because of “ecological sorting” of the water column?
That’s incredibly idiotic. That would imply any time we find a terrestrial organism in a layer below one containing marine organisms, we must infer that the terrestrial organisms lived deeper in the water column than shellfish and crustaceans.
By that account, since Dinosaurs like T-rex are in lower layers, they must have lived, wait for it, deeper in the water column than whales? Man, those dinosaurs and early terrestrial mammals must have had an interesting life trying to squeeze out a living below the bottom of the ocean.
And the terrestrial whale ancestors with four legs must have lived deeper in the water column than their fully aquatic descendants that are found in younger layers?
How can you believe that complete nonsense? You have an extreme gullibility and a complete lack of critical thinking towards these fataous creationist attempts to account for the fossil record.
Every scientific conclusion is tentative.
Your conclusion is not tentative, and it’s not scientific. See how this works?
And there are thoughts on how the evolution of the nervous system happened: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/218/4/501
Seems like a tentative conclusion to me. Unlike your religious beliefs.
Have you ever thought of explaining why there’s enough kerogen in the rocks to combine with several atmospheres’ worth of oxygen? That doesn’t take time to form? Where is the oxygen released when the carbon and hydrogen were reduced, eventually to form kerogen?
How have rocks cooled from being molten or hot enough to metamorphize to become essentially cold, in masses that take millions of years to cool?
We’re talking about basics physics here, that you will never bother with at all. No one with a brain cares about polystrate trees–some sediments were deposited quickly. But you stick with completely stupid creationist bullshit while ignoring colossal problems for the young earth (and just forget the stupidity of young life on an old earth), because, of course, you don’t care about dealing with evidence, only with trying to destroy what science has discovered.
Above all, why does relative dating, which was worked out prior to “absolute dating,” manage to agree (with some anomalies, of course, like real life) with absolute dating? Just coincidence?
I know, you don’t know, you don’t care, you’ll blather on about the faint young sun paradox and anything else in order to avoid the real issues.
Glen Davidson
The fossil layers are indexed by sea shells. How do you explain those sea shells that index bird fossils and other land fossils.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_index_fossils
Besides, did you actually look at the experiments and try to understand the physical theory.
I wouldn’t give precedence to phylogeny over physics.
Actually we find out of place fossils, but those are disregarded just the same way John Harshman disregarded 200 million year old bacteria that looks modern. We call that re-working of the fossil record. CHERRY PICKING toward a foregone conclusion.
Btw, an artists rendering of the whale before it evolved to a whale (30 centi-meters):
Do you have a list of those fossils?
Though rare, mammal species adapting to life in the sea has happened at least seven times in different major groups of mammals. Why is this a problem? If we all evolved from a proto-cell then you could put a picture of that next to a gibbon and say the same thing, and it would be as meaningful.
Out of interest, are the anomalies you cite the majority or the minority of the data? If the minority are you not also just cherry-picking to suit your narrative?
One way might be if the bird fossils are in a strata between two strata containing index fossils. Thereby establishing a range of age.
I guess plate tectonics is a non starter for YEC.
More to the point, how do you explain them if all fossils were created at once in a big mixture with no sorting by age?
OMagain,
These are the stories that make the theory nonsensical. If we evolved from a photo-cell? How does a spliceosome evolve? How does a ribosome evolve? How does an electron transport chain evolve? How could anyone in there right mind think all biology built itself?
Sal:
That’s a problem for you, not for us. Think, Sal.
When they could just say that an unperceptible intelligence did it? Not, of course, that intelligent people say that all biology built itself, that’s just creationist propaganda.
We’re waiting for your explanation of the data, complete with proper evidence of the causes. We’re just going to wait, though, aren’t we?
Glen Davidson
Glen, to Bill:
Why bother with all that work when you can cut to the chase, like this?
1. Assume God exists.
2. Assume God is omnipotent.
3. Claim that evolution couldn’t have done it.
4. Assume God did it.
5. Conclude that God did it.
You evolutionists are so dumb.
GlenDavidson,
It would be nice to have an explanation that made sense wouldn’t it. If you accept we are in a created universe the pieces start to fall together. The materialist view, on the other hand, is indeed irrational.
So, no explanation, no evidence.
Glen Davidson
keiths,
Infer that God exists. Based on the evidence that surrounds you.
GlenDavidson,
The evidence is all around you. Just look in the mirror. You are a conscious being that can observe the universe.
You mean like sea shells on top of birds? 🙂
Just look at the stars. Or your hand. Or the colors.
Gag, is there any older bit of tripe that anyone could use? But Bill has to give his sermon, no matter how cheesy.
Glen Davidson
Here is an article from a secular geologist who I met in person at a conference organized by Kurt Wise, Todd Wood and friends.
http://www.icr.org/article/8769
There are very few out of place fossils. That’s the only way you can claim they’re out of place; otherwise there would just be a jumble with no expected place. And of course the jumble is what’s predicted by your flood theory.
Now why should there be any such thing as index fossils, or fossils with a narrowly determined stratigraphic range? Why should there be a framwork of such fossils, capable of correlating strata across the world and through time? Why should radiometric dating fit this framework well? Why are only Cambrian species known from the Cambrian, and Cenozoic species known from the Cenozoic? Why should there be both terrestrial and marine deposits throughout the record?
Isn’t that a fine record of evolution, especially when combined with other whale fossils?
You mean like the ones that were faked with plaster?
If he’s a secular geologist why is he publishing on the ICR web site? Why is he at a creationist conference?
Just not true. You can find a lot of crap on the web. These fossils were all published and are kept in museums. You are free to look at the publications, and even to arrange to examine the fossils. Scientific literature is not based on plaster.
He also published in secular venues:
Interpretation: Hirshman does’t want it to be true, because he just can’t understand why someone would try to deceive first himself and then the public
So? He’s a young earth creationist. By what stretch of imagination is that a “secular geologist”?
But you understand why someone would try to deceive himself first and then the public, because that’s what you do best.
So you consider that “Grand Experiment” website a reliable resource? Is there a reason, other than that because its claims confirm your presuppositions?
I was left wondering how could anybody determine that some 200 million year old bacteria look “modern” (or otherwise). By what measure?
There are a few geologists who publish genuine research that is based on the correct age of the earth, and then go on to publish the usual crap that appears in YEC sources as well. Whether they should be considered “secular” is probably a moot question. And how they reconcile such blatant hypocrisy and dishonesty is a matter for their own immortal soul, I suppose.
Give examples.
By calling them 200 million year old you are begging the question.
No actually it’s just healthy skepticism towards an extraordinary claim.
The DNA sequence of their 28s rRNA was identical to that of modern bacteria. And it’s not 200 million; it’s 250 million. But of course they aren’t 250 million years old; the most parsimonious explanation is that they’re modern contaminants. I suppose the alternative is that the fossil record is only a few thousand years old and everything we know about geology is wrong, but that’s somewhat less parsimonious.
My experience has been that when I disagreed with all the experts, I was usually wrong.
There are exceptions, but they usually involve things at the bleeding edge, about which the experts disagree.
Things like evolution, age of the earth, heliocentricity, and such aren’t on the table. I quit reading anyone who questions them.
They fell into water and got buried in sediment?
Yes. I find the whole thing ridiculous as an attempt to try to handwave away the entirety of the geological column by handwaving in the direction of an experiment that consists of stirring differently sized and colored particles around in water.
It is not that I have any reason to doubt the underlying physical principles, rather it is that there is no attempt made to actually account for the actual strata found on Earth. Nothing is done to actually demonstrate that all of Earth’s strata were laid down by the processes shown. Nor is any attempt made to account for the many convergent lines of evidence for a deep history of time.
All that really takes place in that video is a handwavy suggestion that certain physical processes can yield a “layering” pattern that superficially looks like stratification. No attempt is made to demonstrate that the stratigraphic layers really DID form by such processes, no predictions are derived by the theory and tested against yet-to-be-made observations.
That statement is nonsensical.
Physics is why phylogeny gives us an obvious signal.
You’ll throw out anything to cling to your prior beliefs, however.
Glen Davidson
Well that’s not strictly true in every case now…
petrushka,
Yes, and when you find yourself disagreeing with all the experts, the rational response is a) to provisionally assume that you are wrong, and b) to try to figure out your mistake. In rare cases you may turn out to be right, but that should hardly be your default assumption.
For guys like Sal and Bill, it is their default assumption.
Ponder how ridiculous it is for a guy like Bill, hopelessly unskilled and uninformed, to assume that he’s spotted mistakes that have escaped the notice of the entire evolutionary biology community.
It’s just you (and Sal) making dumb mistakes, Bill.
So what experiments do you have that suggest the geological column evolving the way you say it does? Answer: none. Only in the imagination of paleontologists. So I provide experiments (by the Colorado school of mines) and you disregard them in favor of your imagination. You don’t see a problem with that?
Real world observation of the process of sedimentation and stratification. Sedimentary layers primarily form by the slow accumulation of particulate matter sinking slowly to the bottom of aquatic bodies and piling up slowly on top of each other. That is mostly how they form. This process predicts all sorts of corroloraries about what should be found in the various sediments.
To pick an example, lake varves: Annual and seasonal variations in the activities of various microorganisms and climate-associated chemical processes affect the constituents of the layers.
I don’t “disregard the experiments” at all. It is entirely possible that you can get stratigraphic layering by the processess observed in those experiments. It’s just that there’s no good reason to think the actual geological column in fact formed by those processes.
You seem to think we MUST conclude the stratigraphic layers were formed by processes observed in these experiments. This shows your desperation to reach a certain conclusion.
Let me make your basic error in reasoning as explicit for you as I can:
Hypothetically can account for (some of) the data =/= does in fact account for (all of) the data.
You mean like this bird that is dead as a dead duck? How will the feathers and soft tissues sink and fossilize with the skeleton?
Remember Sal: “It’s not a lie, if you believe it…”
Rumraket,
Looks like Rum really believes it or he is just relating us a so story that he was brainwashed to recite because he really sounds like he was there… 😉
J-Mac:
That’s Sal’s motto, J-Mac.
stcordova,
I hope you and Harshman get to 10 .000 comments so that we can go out to dinner… I always enjoy listening to people and their reasons why they stopped believing in ID/God…
Not a good mechanism for T-Rex burial nor bird burial for the reasons you can see for yourself in the picture of that bird that is dead as duck…
I don't know of many Birds (except maybe penguins) that are swimming down at the bottom of lakes, and besides if they die, their feathers and soft tissue need to sink down and be preserved without being scavanged.
How the heck do you explain flowering plants FOSSILIZED down there with the sea shells?
Do you think your lake Varve explanation explains this? Seriously, some of your thinking about this is obviously superficial:
Do you mean like you were there “in the beginning,” when the tale said that “God” created the Heavens and the Earth? Do you mean like that kind of “relating”? Like that kind of “so story”? Like that kind of brainwashing? 🤣
It’s just astounding that some guys rely on stories in some fantasy old books, and then turn to people who rely on scientific findings, and mock them by likening the scientific findings to the very fantasies that they believe to be true. 🤣
http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/1305.htm
I don’t think the lake varve explanation will help you hear Rumraket. And why the cretaceous period?
But here is a problem for you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber
So much for phylogenetic progression. Chemical evidence puts that in doubt, but like the way John Harshman ignored the bacteria in amber results, he’ll just write this off as another “minor” anomaly.