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.
Phoodoo, how do you know trees can become thousands of years old and over 130 meters tall? You’ve never observed it happen. It’s all just micro-growth within a limited observed range.
While on that subject, here’s creationist assessment of the Homo naledi fossils:
(Some say fully human, others say fully ape). That’s clearly transitional.
You know that multiple fossils of the organism has been found right? Some of them have preserved tail anatomy. Here’s one:
Hey Sal, why were scientists even able to predict that the titaalik fossil would exist? If young Earth creationism is true, there’d be absolutely zero reason to expect that a fossil of the particular age and morphology could be predicted to exist on the basis of other fossils.
Yet the only difference we observe as we go down (or up) the tree is one of degree. It is curious for example that a particular SINE insert, or an inversion or deletion, should appear at a particular site in a group of taxa having no genetic connection.
So, if a SINE is shared by rats and mice, does this indicate common descent or not? If yes, what happens when we add other rodents? At what point does this invisible discontinuity manifest itself? And why does the pattern continue past it?
Fossils are very relevant in creating cladograms and phylogenetic trees. They’re essentially used in the same way as genetic sequences, as extensive character tables of different fossils and extant species are used and compared.
An ignoramus like Sal will look at a fossil and call it a “mangled piece of mud” and act like it is utterly incomprehensible how anyone can get anything meaningful from it, but when it is actually competently analyzed, the many diagnostic characters of such a fossil becomes a very significant piece of data that can be robostly used in phylogenetic analysis.
Here’s a character table from some insect fossils and living species. This can be done by fossil and fish and transitional tetrapods and so on. The presence/absence and state of development of tiny characers are counted up and compiled into such tables.
Forgot to attach picture: https://i.imgur.com/vUrRfoB.png
I never said I was fine accepting micro-evolution, because I don’t buy what you are calling is micro-evolution. A dog getting longer hair, or a shorter snout isn’t evolution at all, any more than some finches have longer beaks and some have smaller ones. There is nothing new there. Some people have fat noses and are short. I don’t know who calls that micro-evolution. If you took everyone with a fat nose and who was short and made them only reproduce with other short fat nose people, you would probably get even shorter, fatter nosed people. And you haven’t made anything new, anymore than ANY reproduction is different than the one before, but that is not novel. Its not new genes, its not new function, its no a new path of life. A dachshund is not a transitional species to a swimming hot-dog like bomb-sniffing fish.
Saying that dogs are examples of how things evolve, is a very ridiculous notion of evolution. Saying midgets are examples of micro-evolution is equally ludicrous.
So we observe all organisms reproduce and inherit their DNA from their ancestor(s) with a few copying errors. We realise if they all share a common ancestor we should be able to arrange them in a nested hierarchy. Lo and behold, the nested hierarchy is there, universally, corroborated by multiple lines of independent evidence… but the Sals & Bill Coles of the world object to it because, you know, some barrier must exist and God could have spoken any organism into existence with just the same DNA sequence they would get if they were descended from a pre-existing organism… and they called that “common design”… they then looked at the crap they said, and they thought it was very good
Ohh so now it’s about your nebulous definition of “new” that you can just change as you go along.
Even if we showed you examples of arms evolving into wings, you’d say they’re not really new, because some crap about all the proteins to make muscle, bone and skin already exists, so while the limb may have a different shape it’s still just all “the same information” bla bla bla bla.
The endless moving of the goalposts with creationists. It’s not new in the right sense of new until a fully formed novel organism instantly transforms into existence in thin air before us. In other words, it’s not evolution until it’s… creationism, where radical transformations happen in a single generation, or from out of a vacuum an elephant comes into existence.
Meanwhile, it IS evolution yes when organisms change. Whether they just become taller or shorter, or more or less hairy, or brighter or darker or what have you, those are examples of evolutionary change. They’re due to the evolutionary mechanisms of changes in the frequencies of allele genes in populations over generations. They arise from a combination of mutation and genetic recombination, and are subject to selection and drift, splitting, migration and so on. Yes, it’s evolution.
By the way, please give a rigorous definition of new. When does it stop being the same, and become new? How much must it change? In what way must it change? How quickly must it change?
No, it isn’t. Different breeds of dogs with their large variations in morphology are examples of evolutionary change. There’s nothing ridiculous about it. I have to note that you’re not even making an argument here, just a value judgement. “It’s ridiculous” isnt’ an argument for why it’s not an example of evolutionary change.
Rumraket,
If all evolution meant was a change of frequency of genes, it wouldn’t even be slightly controversial. Every new birth is of course a change is the frequency of genes. That’s not going to make life as we know it, unless every thing that we need for all of life’s variety already existed. Your whole “if we could show you evolution, you would ask for something else” is laughable. Because you can’t show evolution, so its an empty complaint.
Your sister, my brother, your friends kids, those all are examples of evolution, because they don’t look exactly like their mothers. Who believes such nonsense.
But I am grateful that you have shown that we don’t need to take the talk about any supposed humanoid transitional species seriously, because they could well just be poodles and Great Danes.
We can show you everything that is needed to rationally support the claim that life’s diversity is the result of evolution.
But the problem is that you have a hypocritical double standard for evolution that you require for no other area of scientific investigation, only for evolution. There are many processes taking place right now on Earth that are too slow for human beings to see complete in their life times. The formation and erosion of mountains is one, the generations and lives of stars in the universe is another. But you’re not all up in arms about geology and plate tectonics or astronomy.
The fossil record and comparative genetics exhibit the sorts of patterns we would expect if evolution and common descent was the explanation for life’s diversity. if the sorts of changes we observe in the here and now were allowed to continue over deep time.
But that’s not good enough for you, you want to see complete radical transformations before your own eyes. You don’t want to see a mountain grow several kilometers into the air for some reason. For that particular transformation you are fine with inferring it happens from certain patterns in the types and distributions of rocks and minerals.
But you are not fine doing essentially the same when it comes to biology, here you don’t accept inferences about patterns by observational hypothesis testing.
You do for every other subject than biological evolutionary change.
Radical cosmological, stellar, meteorological, ecological, geographical and geological change you are fine accepting has happened over deep time, simply by infereces through observationally testing hypotheses that do no more than predict certain patterns in the spectra of distant stars, or in the distribution and types of minerals and sediments in the rocks of the Earth.
But when it comes to biology, the combination of mall changes observed in the here and now, and the confirmed predictions about patterns from comparative anatomy, genetics and the fossil record, is no longer enough. Now you essentially want to see magic happen.
That makes you a person with a huge double standard and reveals you’re not being rational because, for some reason, this particular subject is too close to something that you take to have consequences for other psychoemotionally important aspects of your life.
Look at you, you’re so desperate to deny evolution that a manifest instance of it denoted microevolution you don’t even want to call by it’s name because it includes the word evolution. Even the word scares you.
You’re really just revealing yourself to be a man with a gigantic subconscious bias.
If you are fine accepting such transformations in physiology can happen within species (as long as we don’t call it evolution), it just makes it all the more hypocritical and perplexing that you reject such transformations between distinct species can happen over deep geological time.
I actually think that geologic processes is a great way to think about the problems with the sorts of gradualism inherent in Darwinism.
I happen to live in an area where the bedrock is often a very hard chert limestone.
under certain circumstances chert will fracture leaving jagged very sharp stones that look superficially like arrow heads. however when I find an arrowhead I don’t assume that it’s shape came about as a result of natural processes.
But lets not dwell on something as obviously designed as an arrow head.
My region also has an abundance of artificial sharp chert gravel. We call it chat. It is a byproduct of the explosives used in mining the minerals from the bed rock. There are millions of tons of the stuff around here.
“Chat” gravel is sharp and jagged just like the much larger chert stones that occur naturally from time to time but you won’t find large quantities of naturally occurring chat.
That is because over time the sharp jagged edges of naturally occurring chert gravel become smooth by the effects of eons of water polishing. The combination of small size and sharp edges does not occur naturally and are a dead give away.
If you find chat on the surface of the ground you are safe in assuming it came from mining activities because those sharp edges just don’t persist over time.
Those who have difficulty with macro-evolution are experiencing a similar intuition. We would expect that over time the sharp edges we see between species would be smoothed out by evolution and that is not what we see.
All of that does not mean that macro-evolution can’t or doesn’t occur it just means that it seems “unnatural” in some way.
peace
Going by your analogy, a take that to mean that you think that evolution predicts all species must converge into a single one, is that right?
not necessarily.
I’m only saying that we would expect to see no sharp edges.
peace
Like a perfect continuity in extant organisms? why?
What does that even mean?
Fair enough. Perhaps explain to him the characters that place the lungfish and the pigeon in the same clade. Apologies if you have already done so.
My thought processes. Me growing up. I can think of a great many.
No, Just less discontinuity in organisms whether extant or known from the fossil record.
Because that is what Darwinism predicts.
It means that species should all bleed together and they don’t seem to.
peace
OK Rumraket, Here are pictures of 3 skeletons here:
Lungfish (a Sarcopyterygiian fish)
http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/04_African-lungfish_Skeleton1.jpg
Tuna (an Actinogypteriian fish):
http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/caljsiol_sio1ca175_060_118a1-1024×689.gif
Pigeon (a bird, a tetrapod):
http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/bird_skeleton1.jpg
Which two skeletons are most structurally similar in terms of shape in your view without using phylogenetic phantasies please. Just use geometry and structure.
State the reasons why to the readers, please.
1. Tuna and Lungfish
2. Tuna and Pigeon
3. Lungfish and Pigeon
The definition used “and/or” for notochord, you can’t even mince words properly in your petty objection.
And every time a cell divides, that’s evolution too. So just like how the birth of a baby is evolution, it’s development in the womb is also evolution, and so is its continued development after being born. It’s all evolution!
No, we can actually observe the evolution of mountains.
watch a mountain evolve
You mean breed together?
It still is a mountain.
John Harshman is having some problems with geometry.
There is a thing called a line segment, it joins two points. Each of the bones can be approximated with a line segment, and some bones are connected with joints that enable them to move in relation to the rest of the body when the appropriate muscle moves them.
John is invited to justify, in terms of geometry why he thinks, in light of these skeletons:
Lungfish (a Sarcopyterygiian fish)
http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/04_African-lungfish_Skeleton1.jpg
Tuna (an Actinogypteriian fish):
http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/caljsiol_sio1ca175_060_118a1-1024×689.gif
Pigeon (a bird, a tetrapod):
http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/bird_skeleton1.jpg
a pigeon is structurally and geometrically more similar to a lungfish than a tuna to a lungfish. He needs to provide his answers in terms of geometry, not phylogenetic phantasies and sophistry.
Thanks to Mung, it is also apparent Don Prothero holds the view that Lungfish are more similar to birds than they are to tuna. Like I said, it takes PhD level evolutionary biology to mangle basic structural comparisons that are obvious even to a first grader.
Now since John recommended I re-read Joe Felsenstein’s book, this is what I recommend to John from first grade science:
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/92/59/40/9259406266a87c6baaec75b37581d518–classifying-animals-classroom-charts.jpg
Now it’s not 100% accurate, but close. Lungfish breathe with a lung but also have some respiration with gills. Whales and dophins also live in water, etc. But it’s a lot better than what John is trying to teach.
We can also observe the evolution of organisms.
And it’s still just a fruit fly. 🙂
Exactly
I have no compunction admitting I’m not trained to assess morphological character states. I know when I’m ignorant of something, unlike you who have no problem making yourself appear like a fool over and over again.
Lol, I don’t think Mung even realizes he just shot himself in the foot.
Thanks to technologies like ultrasound we can observe evolution in the womb!
Look Sal, we didn’t need any more evidence that you are completely out of your depth. Your efforts here are completely superfluous to requirements. You have us utterly convinced already that you don’t know the slightest thing about the subject.
By your fatuous analysis you might as well group whales with fish, and all terrestral tetrapods are “cows”.
I didn’t know that, but thanks for informing me. I thought that was called embryonic development, but you can use whatever word you feel comfortable with. But don’t tell phoodoo you use the word evolution, he gets an aneurysm when he reads it.
Well maybe John Harshman can explain in terms of geometry and structure of the skeleton why a Lungfish and Pigeon are a more similar than a Lungfish and Tuna.
It seems, when confronted with some obvious differences, you suddenly punt. I mean, don’t you have eyes? Where the heck are the legs, toes, wings and arms in that Lungfish or in that Tuna but are present in the Pigeon?
I know, you have to save face for the Darwinist side of the aisle. We aren’t even talking about creationism in the last several comments, per se, we’re just doing comparative anatomy.
Ok so from comparative anatomy how about we compare the 3 skeletons. Here’s our chance to learn something, to learn so science! Yay!
I’m using a word that I thought you would be comfortable with, because it’s a word you used. Have you forgotten already?
How does this not apply to development? Are you denying that allele frequencies change during development?
I think bleed as in colors bleed. Just like when a sculptor creates a statue each step in the process will be preserved and each will bleed into the next.
Because rocks and evolution are just the same.
Well, actually they’re very different. Languages diverge through common descent plus variation, and so does life. Weathering and evolution aren’t even superficially similar.
Glen Davidson
Oh, I see, thanks.
Looks like FMM doesn’t understand species tend to diverge
Maybe you can fuck off, Sal.
Don’t care if this is guanoed, but will the egregious rule violation of the asshole Sal be guanoed?
He really can never be decent, or ask the kind of question that an honest participant would. It’s a “have you stopped beating your wife?” question, trying to inveigle his viciously stupid premises into any subsequent answer. Is there any chance that total douchebaggery, such as Sal perpetually engages in, will ever be sanctioned here?
Glen Davidson
I think you’re confused. I it is not that they are supposed to be “more similar” in their shared characters, it is the presence of certain characters that yield particular groups. So when chickens are grouped with lobe finned fish in sarcopterygii by the method of cladistics, it is because they share at least one particular character not present in actinopterygii. Whether the shape of their skulls and spine are more similar between the lungfish and the tuna is irrelevant, as they are essentially a character shared by all three species, e.g. they are vertebrates.
It’s not based on the degree of similarity of shared characters you gimp. Hiearchies are defined by characters exclusive to a particular group. You can find a snake and a worm superficially similar with their long slim bodies, but the snake is a vertebrate and the worm is not.
Carl Linnaeus didn’t group snakes and worms together Sal. Why?
It is hard to know what Fifth understands sometimes.
I don’t believe I have ever called embryonic development for an evolutionary process. But if you insist, then sure we can call it embryonic evolution.
No, it actually does. Mutations arise as somatic cells divide, differentiate and so on and so the frequencies of alleles in those populations of somatic cells.
I would make sure to distinguish between evolutoin of species and evolution of populations of embryonic and somatic cells though.
Rumraket,
Your example of three trees did not show what you wanted. It demonstrated that random mutation will rapidly break down a sequence and you will not get any phylogenetic nested hierarchy over time.
You dismiss the computer example but you don’t have a counter argument yet. You have stopped thinking through issues Rum and are grasping at assertions. Common design may indeed be the right high level description of what we see.
Common descent isn’t even clearly defined yet and we are almost at 4700 comments.
Not the first time I post this
http://www.onezoom.org/life.html
That’s rather clearly defined to me, with all those species and their divergence time
No,
Bleed together.
Darwinists at times want to use the idea that they don’t breed together to be an explanation for why they don’t bleed together but we know the biological concept of species is whacked. 😉
peace
Yet:
And:
Such wonderful double-speak.
Don’t blame me
According to Rumraket we are being hypocritical if we don’t expect the same sorts of results over deep time when it comes to evolution as we do with geology
peace
I’d need a citation for that.
Glen Davidson