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’s funny, I was thinking of the total lack of relevant predictions testable explanations to the EXCLUSION of common design coming from your side. It’s likely neither side has predictions nor directly testable explanations except maybe the question of a Young Fossil Record (YFR), Young Life, or Young Earth and/or Young Universe.
Would you agree evidence of a Young Fossil record is evidence against evolution.
Note what I wrote in the OP
And what would count as evidence against Universal Common Descent (UCD)? Would Orphan Systems count as evidence against UCD? If not what would?
Nope. Based on direct evidence and observation, I made that inference. Lungfigh like creatures give rise to lunfisht like creatures after N-generations. That’s why the lungfish in the fossil record look a lot like lungish today. Same for the Coelecanth that was mistakenly called a living fossil When you look up “Sarcopterygii” it look like something akin to a Lungfish or Coelecanth.
I don’t believe Lungfish, Coelecant’s,etc. that are illustrative of Sarcopterygii give rise to birds and kangaroos, they give rise to other Lungfish and Coelecanths,etc. YOU on the otherhand have to believe in an UN-natural transformation though UN-natural mutation and UN-natural selection and UN-natural mechanisms. The only place this happens naturally is in the imagination of evolutionary biologists, not in hard-nosed mechanistic analysis.
A mechanistic analysis goes like this:
0. State 0, the ancestral state, the initial state
1. State 1, due to event 1
……
N. Final state, due to event N
Showing hierarchical relationships isn’t a mechanistic explanation, plus I showed a designer can also create taxonomic nested hierarchies. So taxonomic nested hierarchies aren’t proof of UCD.
Practically everyone agreed that a designer can make a taxonomically nested hierarchy. I illustrated the point earlier using phylogenetic software on protein fragments I concocted: (below).
I should point out a Taxnomic Nested Hierachy is evidence against macro evolution because it suggests mammals came from other mammals, not a fish nor an amphibian. At best it is common descent from missing links.
Right, we’re supposed to have testable explanations to the exclusion of something that lacks any theoretic limitations.
Actually, if we simply go for reasonable design hypotheses, based on what we know of real designers, we can readily test for design vs. common descent. Design lacks the limits that derivation via vertical descent (just going for vertebrates and the like, where HGT isn’t much of an issue), so nested hierarchies and the lack of commonality of changes past the stages of divergence simply falsify design. But that’s reasonable design, not the “anything goes” (unless IDists decide otherwise, like the ridiculous “junk DNA” claims they make) “design” of the pseudoscientists.
Glen Davidson
Thanks for conceding defeat right there Sal
Alan Fox,
Thanks Alan
When you say it is not a problem for the theory I take to mean the evolution of the eye is trivial. If you believe this what would close the gap with me is how do you think the hundreds of thousands or millions of nucleotides became organized to build an eye in embryo development?
I was quoting Vincent Torley’s summary (the last paragraph of his OP) in Trilobites: the dangers of too little reading. You might like to read his post. I confess I didn’t really take in the substance of it previously.
Tasty
DNA_Jock,
Nowhere in that rather lengthy comment, complete with quotations bolded for emphasis, do you manage to refute what I said:
This is not rocket science. Do you honestly think that any of the regulars haven’t figured out, by now, that the four of you are not IDers?
DNA_Jock,
Which is perfectly compatible with what I’ve been arguing.
Once again, the dispute is over the claim that John made…
…and that you echoed:
I’ve explained why that’s wrong. Do you have a counterargument?
keiths,
Yikes, keiths.
The bit I am refuting is the bit where you state “Nowhere do I claim that John, or Zachriel, or Mikkel, or you have argued that we should infer guided evolution based on the available data”
You accused me of using a fallacious argument to “support guided evolution”, noting “To infer guided evolution from the ONH is as silly as inferring the Rain Fairy from the meteorological evidence.”
Why even bring it up? To any sane reader, you appear to be claiming that I am arguing that we should infer guided evolution.
Now re-read my comment or, preferably, the entire thread. For comprehension.
My point has always been: the ONH doesn’t support guided evolution, but isn’t compelling evidence against it either. You seem to think that it IS compelling evidence against (partially) guided evolution, and you are wrong.
And you have completely and utterly failed to address the counter-points from four reality-based commenters here.
Yes. Read the comments linked herein. For comprehension.
More cartoons please.
Alan Fox,
This comes from an article where VJT is challenging Cornelius Hunter who was making an argument as how Trilobites challenge evolutionary theory because of their well developed eyes. VJT tries to make the case that eyes are 700 million years old. Personally I think VJT’s case over looks the key issue for the evolution of eyes.
Where did the sequence come from that can build an eye during embryo development. Orispin G proteins are the tip of the ice berg. I don’t think this is solvable given huge populations and the age of the earth. This is something Cornelius understands well and VJT does not.
DNA_Jock,
Regarding my comment:
You ask:
I told you already: I brought it up because it’s my central point. In this thread I am arguing that just as the evidence is fatal to ‘common design’ and the Rain Fairy hypothesis, it is also fatal to the hypothesis of guided evolution. It’s my central point, and you are arguing against it, so why on earth wouldn’t I bring it up? It makes perfect sense to do so.
Contrast that with your bizarre claim that I regard the four of you as closet IDers who believe we should infer guided evolution from the evidence.
As I pointed out incredulously:
You reached a bizarre conclusion due to poor reading skills and bad reasoning. Please rejoin me here in reality, where I do not suspect the four of you to be closet IDers.
keiths:
DNA_Jock:
I read all of the linked comments when they were made, and I’ve responded to the points they make, either directly or in response to similar points made elsewhere in the thread. Why are you ignoring my responses?
Three of the linked comments merely describe scenarios in which guided evolution can produce an ONH. That is perfectly compatible with my argument, and I’ve been making the same point myself.
Your (repeated) error has been in presenting (or pointing to) such scenarios as if they refuted my argument. They don’t.
This is an important point, so let me stress it again: I am not arguing, and have not argued, that guided evolution cannot produce an objective nested hierarchy.
Please ponder that until it sinks in. Until you’ve accepted that, you’ll just keep arguing against a straw man.
Let me get this straight: You first demonstrate that the designer can fake the signature of common descent and then you criticise the pro-evolution side for failing to exclude common design as an explanation.
That doesn’t strike you as unreasonable?
The point was that the opsin family of proteins are (apparently) ubiquitous in sensitivity to light and molecular phylogenics produce a branching descent with a LOCA (last opsin common ancestor) dated to 711 million years ago. This study did not look at trilobite vision and where trilobite opsins might fit the nested hierarchy because DNA and protein sequences do not survive long ages. The oldest DNA sequences I’m aware of are from less than a million years ago and proteins four million years ago. Trilobites disappear from the fossil record at the Permian extinction, about a quarter of a billion years ago.
I assume you are referring to the large family of proteins known as G protein–coupled receptors. Just reading that Wikipedia article made my head spin. And it’s a subject that is more general than trilobite vision, plus we can only infer that trilobite vision involved opsins (though it’s impossible for me to dismiss, as common descent is such a neat explanation that fits the known facts) so now we have two separate subjects: the evolution of opsins from G protein–coupled receptors, the nested hierarchy of trilobite fossils. Two big subjects.
keiths’s response [I paraphrase] “Of course I am: that’s my central point.”
Swooosh.
I have understood your argument from the get-go.
You are arguing that, because there are many more ways for guided evolution to NOT produce an ONH than to produce an ONH, that therefore the ONH is evidence in favor of strictly unguided evolution, and that anyone who thinks that the ONH is compatible with (partially) guided evolution is making unwarranted assumptions about the goals, abilities, and preferred mode of operation of the guider.
You. Are. Wrong. (with the one caveat noted previously…I wonder if keiths can ‘bracket’ my argument, and describe the caveat)
Here’s the ironic thing: I do not think that keiths is an IDist, but here he is making an ID argument. keiths seems to be comfortable with the concept that the environment/niche can “guide” evolution — he even clarified on this thread, in response to Alan’s comment
Sooo, keiths is arguing that, by looking at the results (and not the process) we are able to distinguish between guidance that is intelligent and guidance that is unintelligent.
That is THE ID argument.
In other news, Zachriel is an effing genius.
This has been fun, but I am not sure there’s any point in continuing the argument with keiths. Any argument, really.
That was a challenge the commenter, aiguy, used to make regularly at Uncommon Descent. Whoever claims to be able to distinguish something intelligent from something unintelligent needs to tell us what “intelligent” means. 🙂
Sal features aiguy!
ETA:
I see I commented there thus:
Maybe it’s just me, but I would much rather read people who simply try to clarify things than read people nitpicking other people’s terminology.
Alan Fox,
Opsins are a form of G protein-coupled receptors but are only part of the puzzle how light gets translated to sight in the brain. These processes are part of how multicellular life interfaces with the outside world.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/core/lw/2.0/html/tileshop_pmc/tileshop_pmc_inline.html?title=Click%20on%20image%20to%20zoom&p=PMC3&id=2781858_rstb20090051f01.jpg
The trilobite is an interesting study because it is early in the origin of multicellular life and G proteins originated in eukaryotic cells.
Since opsins are G protein receptors I think the discussion is trying to trace the origin of the G coupled receptor, however since vision is an irreducibly complex system I think the design hypothesis better supports its origin.
How would you validate that the fossils of trilobites fit into a nested hierarchy? Since molecular data is not available how would you validate this?
Hey, thanks for remembering and looking up what I posted at UD.
Yep, I’m obviously sympathetic and respectful of the views AIGUY stated as far as ID being science. It certainly didn’t endear me to Banny Arrington.
AiGuy and I agreed that is fair game to say an object has an empirical property that violates ordinary expectation from a chance process.
See here:
In AiGuy/RDFish’s own words:
I define a chance process to be an uncertainty inducing process. There are formal terms in communication theory and electrical engineering and probability and statistics for “random process”, which is pretty much what I mean, but the idea of “uncertainty inducing” I think captures the spirit of what I’m trying to say.
When an autopilot can fly a missile or aircraft to it’s destination with incredible accuracy it compensates for events whose exact properties are uncertain like the winds and weather. That is mechanistic guidance toward a goal. The guided behavior should be rather obvious even to people with limited knowledge of how autopilots work.
I’m not so sure with limited data, as in short of being God, one can formally say if a conscious intelligence is behind anything since we can’t even formally prove our own minds exists, we simply accept certain things as fact based on reasonable or practical faith: “Cogito Ergo Sum”, “I think therefore I am.”
I accept ID based on certain unprovable axioms which I deem reasonable and which I think are outside of science. I said as much here:
So “guided evolution” can have a lot of meanings, and it’s not worth arguing until one clarifies which meaning of “guided” one means.
Genetic engineering is guided evolution. Selective breeding of creatures that wouldn’t survive in the wild might be called guided evolution. Some Darwinists might call Darwinian evolution guided evolutions, I don’t. Mechanistic guidance, like an autopilot, has compensatory mechanism to actively react to environmental changes. Our ability to maintain temperature I view as a mechanistic guidance system.
I see very limited lab evidence of mechanistic guidance in generation-to-generation evolution. I don’t see a lot of mechanistic guidance that will evolve radically new genes, maybe a tweak here and there.
Could God guide evolution like a selective breeder. Well, yeah, but a selective breeder won’t transform a potato into a rabbit (to paraphrase Hoyle). He would use genetic engineering. At what point is God-made genetic engineering different from a miracles of special creation and thus not really guided evolution at all.
I think the Protein phylogenies and the trees they create are erroneously conflated with the Taxnomic hierarchies created by Orphan systems. Unguided evolution might explain the protein phylogenies, it can explain the Orphan systems. So as far as I’m personally concerned, I don’t have much stake in the question of guided evolution (as in Common Descent with Variation, whether the variation is guided or not).
Right. Your argument is actually much worse than that.
So you think trilobites arose early in the origin of multicellular life?
You might want to check that. Looks to me like they are closer to us in time then to the first multicellular eukaryotes.
stcordova,
Do you mean can’t explain the Orphan systems?
colewd,
You should really follow the link above: that paper also mentions some examples of multicellular bacteria. You know, those organisms that lack splicing, so actually are not properly designed for multicellularity 😉
Corneel,
I can’t find a version of that full paper that is free access but here is Niklas again in 2013. The evolutionary-developmental origins of multicellularity.
Well, Bill, if you want the answer to life, the universe and everything, you’re going to have to accept that nobody can give you a summary in a few blog posts or comments. And if nothing short of that will satisfy you, is there any point in going through the bits where partial (“how”) explanations exist?
There isn’t a design hypothesis that can be falsified or that can be used to make testable predictions. Feel free to present it if I’ve missed its publication.
Nobody can validate the theory that trilobite fossils can be best arranged as a nested hierarchy. But you can examine the evidence that exists, sorting individual fossils by date and morphology. Finding anachronistic fossils (ones that are out of step in morphology and date) would falsify the nested hierarchy predicted by evolutionary theory.
Alan Fox,
If you want to discuss evolution vs design we can use partial data to discuss it but if you are trying to narrow the focus to prove your point don’t you think you are fooling yourself? You want to limit the focus to the receptor, that is fine but it tells us very little about how we process an image. The eye is not just a receptor but a complex set of proteins working together as partially described in the image I attached.
DNA_Jock:
Another failure of reading comprehension. Where did you get the “Of course I am” part?
I am not accusing the four of you of being closet IDers who believe that we should infer guided evolution from the evidence. Obviously. The reason I brought this up:
…is because it’s my central point. It’s IDers who make that silly inference, and they’re wrong to do so. The fact that I brought it up, and that it’s my central point, does not mean that it’s about you. You are not the focus of the discussion, Jock.
As I said above:
You made a bad inference due to poor reading comprehension. Accept it and move on.
Alan Fox,
Can you support this claim? I can certainly show how to falsify it. Isn’t the re use of functional mechanisms something you would predict from design.
If you look carefully at the molecular evidence in Sal’s flower I think it falsifies the prediction of the nested hierarchy. If you disagree I am interested in your argument.
http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/image_10361.jpg
There’s a problem right there. There is a theory of evolution. There isn’t a theory of design. That is if we are discussing theories that have entailments and make predictions. It is not possible to falsify predictions that involve an unentailed designer.
Data exist. Data are used to test predictive models. Good models make predictions and data confirm those predictions or falsify them.
Fooling myself, how? I make the distinction between science and philosophy in that science can tell us how stuff works but not why. Questions such as why we have a universe are not (currently) answerable by Science.
All I’m suggesting is if you are genuinely interested in some aspect of biology be it the evolution of vision, reception, processing and so on or whether trilobite fossils form a nested hierarchy, I’m happy to start that journey with you, hoping fellow members will chip in with corrections and additional info. If it is going to be a nested hierarchy of gotcha’s, I doubt I’ll be able to sustain interest.
How does it do that?
DNA_Jock:
The problem is that what you think is evidence against my argument is not evidence against my argument.
Read this again:
And because of that, you prove nothing by pointing to scenarios in which guided evolution does produce an ONH. They are not a problem for my argument.
DNA_Jock:
You picked an awfully convenient time to flounce. Do you think people will buy your excuse?
It’s your choice, but I would recommend that you stay and defend your claims. Either way, I will be explaining where you went wrong.
colewd:
John:
Yes, Bill, please answer that question. First tell us what the prediction is, and then explain how Sal’s flower falsifies it.
Yes, but in quite a different manner than mostly limited to vertical transmission. Why don’t you ever face the fact that reuse of mammal earbones in birds and other non-mammal vertebrates would be expected of design, and not of evolution? Oh right, you don’t face up to the fact that ID is falsified, so long as it’s a reasonable design hypothesis and not the “anything goes” ID that you believe in.
Why don’t you try to explain how it falsifies nested hierarchy? It seems to affirm it, such as how mice and humans share so many genes lacking in chickens and in zebrafish, while zebrafish and humans share so few lacking in mice and in chickens.
Is that diagram your last resort, you’re just going to mindlessly chant that it falsifies the nested hierarchy without any suggestion of a good reason why?
Glen Davidson
DNA_Jock:
No, that is not THE ID argument. THE ID argument isn’t merely that design can be distinguished from non-design, but also that the evidence — such as the poor overworked flagellum — actually points to design.
Come on, Jock. You shouldn’t need me to remind you of that.
I do believe that the results of design/guidance can sometimes be distinguished from the results of non-design/non-guidance, but that belief is not peculiar to IDers. It’s a commonplace.
I also hold that the available biological evidence, including the ONH, points to non-design/non-guidance. It’s as fatal to guided evolution as it is to ‘common design’.
Likewise, the available meteorological evidence points toward unguided meteorology and away from the Rain Fairy.
I reject Rain Fairyism, but I do so not because it’s impossible for the Rain Fairy to produce the meteorological evidence we see. I reject it because there’s no good reason to expect the Rain Fairy to produce the evidence we see. The Rain Fairy hypothesis requires assumptions that are unjustified — assumptions that just happen to force-fit the hypothesis to the evidence.
Ditto for guided evolution:
I reject guided evolution, but I do so not because it’s impossible for guided evolution to produce the biological evidence we see, including the ONH. I reject it because there’s no good reason to expect guided evolution to produce the evidence we see. The guided evolution hypothesis requires assumptions that are unjustified — assumptions that just happen to force-fit the hypothesis to the evidence.
Because? Your reasoning?
The diagram comes from a 2013 Nature paper announcing the whole genome sequencing of the Zebrafish, Danio rerio. If it casts doubt on the overall nested hierarchy of life, why has it not become the centre of a controversy?
And bicycles are not properly designed for flying.
Alan Fox,
How would you support this claim? If you could show evolution in the lab that would falsify design theory and since you cannot it is not testable science. Both theories are based on inferences from observing the data which is the first step in the scientific method required to generate an untested hypothesis.
I am interested in your arguments about nested hierarchies and how they lead to the conclusion of common descent. I would also again like your opinion of Sal’s flower that shows very sporadic gene flows between classes and how you would explain that there is still a nested hierarchy given this evidence and if so how the nested hierarchy still is evidence of common descent.
There is no theory of evolution.
Alan Fox,
We are in a discussion with almost 3000 posts. The diagram has surfaced multiple times. I think it is the center of the controversy.
I stand corrected, thank you Bill!
That there is no scientific theory of design, with entailments, that makes falsifiable predictions?. Because I know of none. Please link to where such a theory can be found if you claim there is such a design theory.
Bill, this is nonsense. Each theory stands on its own merits. There are plenty of examples of contra-evidence that would falsify common descent, because common descent entails, among other things, a nested hierarchy. There is nothing to falsify in “Design theory” because there isn’t a theory to start with.
no “Design” theory
There is no “Design” theory.
The nested hierarchy is a necessary consequence of branching descent from a common ancestor. It’s not complicated. At all!
What evidence? How does the “flower” diagram undermine common descent?
colewd,
There is no scientific controversy. Just befuddlement on the part of creationists.
You are badly misinterpreting that diagram, and we are trying to get you to see your rather obvious mistakes. That’s all.
I meant in the real scientific world. Are there no ID-friendly scientists or their publicists shouting this from the rooftops? And first we need to establish what it is you think is so damning in the diagram, assuming it is a correct representation of comparative gene homology in humans, mice, chickens and zebrafish?
Mung,
Don’t you start! 🙂
That is so ridiculous. If that were the case there’d be almost no geology, or understanding of stellar evolution.
ID isn’t a theory and it isn’t based on inference, rather on bias. If you had evidence that really pointed to design (that is, not in a homiletics sense alone), then it would be an inference. As it is, you just blather that this or that points to design without any justification.
Why don’t you actually read and think about the many responses you’ve received that you essentially ignored to repeat your ignorant tripe?
What in God’s name could justify your BS that it shows sporadic gene flows between classes? Don’t you understand a damned thing about reading diagrams, or evolution? Do you utterly lack reading comprehension?
For God’s sake, how on earth could evolution occur without a few genes shared with zebrafish and humans remaining while no longer being competent in chickens or mice? You never explain anything, being stuck with your mindless reliance on Sal’s idiotic claims.
Glen Davidson
Alan Fox,
If there was descent based on inheritance I would expect genes to be inherited by different classes in a similar manner. From fish we have 2056 genes being inherited by mammals but not birds and 129 being inherited by birds but not mammals. The gene loss in birds is 10% of the total. Where in world did 10% of those genes go?