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.
Ahh sorry, I don’t like to assume my own ignorance is everyone else’s too. I’ll stop doing that immediately 😛
Talking of humans and fruit flies
Why would there be any correlation between interspecies (“Common Design”) and intraspecies (“Common Descent”) variation, design fans?
John Harshman,
We have direct evidence of common descent supporting that number if we assume all humans share a common ancestor.
How about 99.8% ?
Rumraket,
Probably works 🙂
Allan Miller,
You guys are going to have to take a trip outside space time to view this process but as Allan said it is a little dicey out there 🙂
But don’t worry, colewd knows that the requisite causes exist outside of space-time.
How he does is the unanswered question.
Glen Davidson
GlenDavidson,
If all these papers went through a mechanism that made them identical to a 10^-9 error rate then we must assume that they were written in separate classrooms.
colewd,
Why? What persuades us it happens outside spacetime, when the tinkerings definitely follow a temporal sequence?
(The term ‘outside spacetime’ actually makes no sense to me. It’s just something people say without, I feel, truly conceiving of that to which they refer).
The designer wanted it like that!
Allan Miller,
Why shouldn’t there be such correlation? Are you saying this implies evolution? The same old “Look how similar the genes are. There must be a common ancestor!”
Guess what, creationists argue the same way when they posit the creator: Same genes, same creator. Happy?
Based upon what?
Someday you should start to think about causes and effects.
Glen Davidson
GlenDavidson,
We already know how for example JF thinks about causes and effects, Not going to go there.
So science, then. Thinking God’s thoughts after Him.
In response to your at least $29 advice, here’s a free advice to you: Gather up some stock examples in support of your theories that you can summarize and reference whenever wherever. It has at least two great benefits. It leaves the impression that you are learned in your supposed area of expertise and it shows didactic-mindedness. Very useful when teaching smart kids at the university, for example. Good pedagogy.
This very positive review of Coyne’s book says,
Well, fine. Does not look like the experiment or observation I was asking, but looks like a very good step towards some such. Congrats.
So your assumption provides the evidence. Do you realize that makes no sense? And anyway, why restrict your assumption to humans? What about other species?
Erik,
Not as happy as I was. For some reason, my happiness diminishes when I converse with you.
You are applying ‘same genes, same creator’ between species, but ‘common descent’ within. So, different causes. But somehow, they correlate? That does not follow.
There are such things as libraries, you know. Have you tried?
I’m not sure what your quote from the review meant to you. Do you suppose that because there are gaps in our understanding that we don’t have what you are asking for? I suppose if I gave you a book on gravity that said there were gaps in our understanding, we wouldn’t be able to calculate planetary orbits. Sure there are gaps; we don’t know everything and probably never will. We do however have the experimental evidence of speciation that you seemed to be asking for, as well as evidence of speciation in the wild, and of course the nested hierarchy of life telling us that all those species are related.
But that isn’t how science works.
Or are you saying that, at one time, God had geocentric thoughts. And then he changed his mind and had heliocentric thoughts. I guess that works if one believes that man created god.
Neil Rickert,
And all of this happening outside spacetime, ‘cos … well, whatever.
It’s about time for you to understand that we live on different continents. In my country we have libraries, but books in English have no priority.
I asked for an observation or an experiment. You alleged that that book has those. Summarize the experiment. Otherwise I might get a strong suspicion that the book does not quite live up to your claims.
John Harshman,
I think humans ability to interbreed makes them a safer assumption then species that can’t. Two species that can interbreed would be the next best assumption.
John Harshman,
Gaps and evidence that contradicts the hypothesis.
In other words, evidence is only good when you already know the answer from other evidence.
That is, when the issue is something someone wants to deny, like evolution.
Glen Davidson
Erik,
Even though intended mockingly, I fail to see why this does not make sense. One can do much more, of course – in Creationists’ imaginations, that’s as far as things go – but it’s an excellent start. I mean, what sort of a moron would deny out-of-hand digital evidence that would generally be agreed common descent simply because the species could not currently interbreed? There is a clear and logical path to that diverged situation from one population, but some Creationists would rather dash their own eyes out than accept it even arguendo.
I think when Creationists say ‘similar;’ they are thinking of the pre-molecular kinds of argument on morphology. But when there is digital alignment, that is not just ‘similar’ in the vague sense that a whale’s limbs are ‘similar’ to a zebra’s. Digital sequence shows runs of identity, into which differences embed. This binary pattern is, IMO, much more compelling than the word ‘similar’ adequately conveys.
I swear you don’t know where your sentence is going when you start typing. That would explain why it ends up in a swamp. Start over, and think about what you want to say first.
My point was that there are single species with much more genetic distance among members than humans have. And sometimes these distances are greater than those between members of some separate species. Genetic difference is not, in fact, a very good guide to whether two individuals belong to different species, though certainly the greater the distance, the greater the probability, all things being equal. So if you’re going to go with genetic distance being what will allow you to believe two populations share descent, and you are also willing to assume that members of each single species share descent, then you are going to be forced to the conclusion that members of some different species share descent too.
I think John’s finally beginning to figure out how science works.
I don’t recall that where you live has ever come up before. But OK, you don’t have acess to an English-language library. Pity.
There are many experiments. Most commonly, one subjects two laboratory populations, most often of some species of fruit fly, to different environments for some number of generations, then gives a sample from each population the choice to mate with members of their population or members of the other population. In this way it can be discerned that a preference for mating with their own population has evolved. Taken far enough, it produces complete assortative mating, i.e. reproductive isolation between the two populations. Would you like a list of citations, or was that good enough?
How about explaining one thing!
One thing in my list of orphan systems was sliceosomes. You can start with that.
You’re obviously content to believe with incomplete evidence. That’s fine. So let’s not pretend your belief is actually an observed fact, it is a belief an unknowable, untestable, unobservable, statistically miraculous entity. You’re little different from the creationists in that regard.
To quote Haeckel:
Claim everything is a miracle?
Are you saying that since the evidence is “digital” then it has more weight? When it’s digital, it’s abstracted and therefore more error-prone with regard to causality and other relevant ontological relations. If the data is statistical to begin with, then it has no necessary causal implications in the first place. In comparison, the fact that organisms reproduce along the lines of species is a rock-solid empirical observation.
Your task is to prove that direct observation is deceptive. Not an easy task.
A please might be polite
All incomplete evidence is not equal
And there is an option?
You already said you pretend things are true if it is to your benefit
If it is unknowable how do you know it is statistically miraculous?
Got it, even if the world is not 10,000 years old nobody can tell me otherwise.
Sure. I pick the nested hierarchy of life. It’s common descent. OK, done. Now you explain one thing.
Why do you suppose anyone should be able to explain any particular thing you pick? Clearly you have picked it because you think it can’t be explained by common descent, and of course it can’t. Common descent doesn’t explain differences, only similarities. Of course it does explain why eukaryotes all have similar spliceosomes, but it doesn’t explain why they have spliceosomes at all.
Can you explain spliceosomes, incidentally?
As everyone must, since evidence can never be complete. The question isn’t whether it’s complete, it’s whether it’s sufficient. And the evidence for common descent of a great many groups, including all life, is certainly sufficient.
Creationists, on the other hand, are content to believe with a few scraps of cherry-picked evidence while the great ocean of evidence lies all undiscovered before them.
stcordova,
Sliceosomes, heh heh. There is a lot of work available on the evolution of introns and their excision, as you know. But, say I explain the spliceosome, you move onto something else. I’m no mug! The pretense that you are not still saying ‘explain everything!’ when you say ‘explain the spliceosome!’ is clear for all to see. You’re just breaking ‘everything’ into chunks.
I don’t have any particular beliefs about the spliceosome. I’m happy to accept it probably evolved – inductive reasoning, y’know? Gaps have been filled in the past, increasing confidence that other supposed mysteries have similar solutions. And I’d note the patterns of apparent phylogeny in the proteins involved. One may construct elaborate scenarios whereby a starfish spliceosomal protein has to be less like that of a deer’s or an octopus’s but more like that of a sea urchin’s, but I’d say you were probably making it up.
Certainly beats the idea that a bunch of organisms all appeared on Day-Whatever, fully introned-up and ready to roll, with subtle hierarchies embedded within.
So far so good.
But it was not “taken far enough”? If it was, then references, thanks. If not, then forget it.
Erik,
When
speciesindividuals reproduce, the conservation of their digital genome sequence is a rock solid empirical observation, with a well-known causal basis. You seem to think the genome is converted into binary, or something. Even if it were, digital conversions are famously better at conserving signal than analogue methods.I don’t know why you brought up statistics.
stcordova,
” Evolution is henceforth the magic word by which we shall solve all the riddles that surround us, or at least be set on the road to their solution. But how few have really understood this password, and to how few has its world-transforming meaning become clear!”
John Harshman,
I am not going with ” genetic distance”. I am going with a specific genetic distance that can be correlated with some other supporting evidence like the ability to interbreed.
John, you’re thinking is circular based on the a priori assumption of common descent. You are not alone here because almost all papers on evolution I have read do this.
Eric is right that you have no objective criteria to conclude common descent other then similarity.
Orthodox common descent is not a claim about similarity. It is a claim that the species are connected solely by reproductive mechanisms. The inability of two species to interbreed is evidence against orthodox common descent.
Yes, and the causal basis is along the line of species.
Because I have read Theobald 2010. It operates on statistical significance of sequence similarity. Not on the causes of the similarity, but on statistical significance. Crucial difference.
So “Evolution” is like ABRACADABRA!”?
But how few have really understood this password, and to how few has its world-transforming meaning become clear!
lol, this is like saying it is a rock solid empirical observation that the grand canyon was always like we see it now.
colewd,
Oh, please!
It cant’ be “the same old” if noone actually ever said that. Besides you, and a whole host of creationists who also never got how the inference of common descent works. And that isn’t for a lack of you having it explained to you.
Allan, he didn’t say it was an ideal circle.
Erik,
Wrong. Only individual genomes are replicated. The causal basis is the conservation (with mutation) of those genomes’ digital sequences. That individuals replicated with fidelity resemble their parents is no kind of proof that they are following some ‘conservation of species’ constraint. How does ‘the species’ constrain the genome?
So you brought up a paper on the entirety of life in a discussion focussed at the species level, in particular 2 sequences with very high similarity on either side of the ‘interbreeding boundary’. Obviously, higher taxa can’t interbreed at all, so Theobald is utterly irrelevant here.
Have you actually read Theobald 2010 that Harshman keeps recommending?
Bill, didn’t you claim in another thread you have a degree from UC Berkeley?
If that’s true, then I now believe in divine intervention.
Allan Miller,
Its arguments like this that that support the outside space-time hypothesis 🙂
What evidence?
Okay. Still, there must be some evidence for that there is no such constraint. The evidence is….?
How does the genome replicate across species when the species cannot interbreed?