One of the densest Creationist tropes has to be ‘Common Design’. It is proposed as a direct competitor to Common Descent – template mediated copying of DNA – as an explanation for the high sequence similarity of two DNA segments. But what is actually held in common? If we look at a particular transposon sequence, and find it is in A and B but not C, and another that is in A but not B, etc, we can generally organise a set of such markers into a ‘tree’ structure, much as would be predicted by Common Descent. But no, we are assured that these apparent markers are in fact part of the ‘design’. If A is a whale, B a pig and C a deer, there is something that is vital for the function of both whale and pig but is definitely not required in deer. Instead, a sequence which, in whale and pig, sits either side of the insertion, runs uninterrupted in the deer. That, too, is functional, supposedly, even though the insert would give a product which was the A/B one with a gap and possibly a frameshift, if it were transcribed.
But this is held to be the case even if the sequence, with and without transposon, is never transcribed. A sequence that does nothing, and organises hierarchically exactly as would be expected of common descent, is nonetheless functional … because?
On observation, there must be some genome pairs that are highly similar because they are commonly descended. We can see it happening. But there are, on this notion, supposed to be identically-patterened runs of similarity that are not due to common descent, but instead result from a completely different cause – some entity bolting together genomes, or parts thereof, from scratch, I guess, and choosing to repeat a known pattern – up to a point – in a manner that fools our most adept molecular taxonomists into seeing descent.
There must be a line in a taxonomy where the one shades into the other – on one side, sequence commonality is all Common Descent; on the other, Common Design. Where does this discontinuity reside? Species, genus, family, order? Is it a gradual transition, gene by gene, or all at once? How could you tell? Why does it not show up in computer analyses of blind datasets?
If I were to provide 3 genomes shorn of all differences, it would be impossible to tell which were commonly descended and which commonly designed from the data. But there must logically be a transition of causes, were I to take the genomes from sufficiently distant species and this idea were true. What persuades us to adopt this causal explanation in preference to that which explains the pattern better: Common Descent?
Moved a comment to guano. You were doing so well, Joe.
Frankie,
?
What, I’m moving the goalposts by repeating a question asked in the OP? I want to know where people are drawing this line, and how they account for the fact that the data either side of it is exactly the same – sequence commonality.
So an ur-Sandpiper waddled off the Ark?
We are not actually talking about the future, but the past. At what taxonomic rank do genes shared in common between (say) starlings and sandpipers stop being commonly descended and start being commonly designed? ‘The point where baramins start’ is not much of an answer.
Frankie,
No it isn’t. See modern taxonomy. [eta – I’ll change my answer. This was in response to the statement that ‘design is observed’. Linnaean taxonomy is definitely not an example of design being ‘observed’ in the way we usually mean]
Yes, and there must come a point where sequence due to common descent shades into sequence due to common design. This is kind of the point of the OP, so I think it unfair to accuse me of equivocation. I deliberately avoided the term ‘universal’ because it is not relevant – I was not being equivocal in doing so, because ‘universal’ is not what I mean. I’m not pitting ‘universal common descent’ against ‘universal common design’, whatever that might be.
Bwahahahaha. IDC what you did there!
Common design is an observed phenomena. We have experience with it. We can take the concepts of those observations and experiences and apply them to biology, especially under an Intelligent Design framework.
Linnaean taxonomy pertains to archetypes and a consequence of archetypes is a common design. Linnaean taxonomy came out before Darwin published his book and because of that common design was not an answer to Darwin’s concept of universal common descent. The OP is wrong.
Genera or family level
If Common Descent wants to be different from Common Design then it should start explaining anatomical and physiological differences between two species and how blind and mindless processes (eg. NS and drift) can explain it.
Claiming similarities is evidence for Common Descent all the while ignoring the fact that those differences remain unaccounted for genetically, is not only unscientific it’s desperation incarnate.
Why would it be evidence for design? Humans arising from humans says there is an unchangeable code wrt archetypes.
Frankie,
“Common design is an entailment of Linnaean taxonomy.”
That makes as much sense as stating that an earth centred universe is an entailment of astronomy.
One could say that common design was an assumption, or presupposition, of Linnaean taxonomy.
On the other hand, Linnaeus still used what may be kinship terms for “genus” and “family,” for the obvious reason, those in the genera and families appear related. Aristotle’s use of the term “genus” (also used for things that would not be related) presumably was likely rather influential in retaining that term, of course, but “family” is notably suggestive of relatedness, although he wouldn’t have seen them as truly related “by blood.”
The beauty of evolution was in showing why things appeared to be related. After all, there had never been any actual reason to think that “common design” should exist, and especially not that it should show the peculiar patterns that follow from inheritance and not from design. Above all, the lack of common design in adaptations found in taxa separated at the time these arose makes sense in evolution, and not with design.
Sure, Linnaeus assumed common design, it just didn’t really explain the evident relationships between organisms. Design is promiscuous across the various lineages of evolving designs, while life simply is not. If one is interested in dealing with the facts instead of assumptions, one recognizes the glaring differences between patterns in designed object “evolution” and patterns in biologic evolution.
Glen Davidson
If anything, Linnaeus is a fairly good example of how a person is able to not allow his pre-conceived assumptions (God-did-it) to interfere with his ranking process.
Why don’t you then?
But if we look at the fossil record at some point there are no humans. So where did humans come from, according to your version of IDC? And when?
Frankie
Common Design ‘explains’ those differences as designed and leaves it at that.
The is no natural or stochastic means to accomplish that, therefore design. Didn’t you just make that point?
The designer created the archetypes in the first place. Are you saying the designer cannot use common design to design a new archetypes? What do you know about the designer or the mechanism of design that leads to that conclusion?
newton,
“The designer created the archetypes in the first place. Are you saying the designer cannot use common design to design a new archetypes? What do you know about the designer or the mechanism of design that leads to that conclusion?”
Didn’t you know that ID is about detecting design, not about the nature of
Godthe designer or the mechanismsGodit uses to realize the design? Bad Newton.Must have slipped my mind, I am sure Frankie will explain any discrepancy
Frankie,
That does not mean you can look at sequence similarity and say ‘that similarity is due to Common Design’. Not when sequence similarity is also generated by Common Descent, you can’t. “We observe design (elsewhere), therefore THIS is designed”. What nonsense.
Oh, change the fucking record. Linnaeus, Linnaeus, Linnaeus. He knew nothing about molecular sequences. To say that every bit of fluff in two sequences, right down to every indel or base change, is ALWAYS due to design, is clearly wrong, as you admit yourself. So, since the OP is trying to find where the line between Common Descent and Common Design is drawn
is a massive fail.
Frankie,
Which? And on what basis?
It doesn’t need to.
If a particular signal – say an inversion – is held in common between Common and Spotted sandpipers, we are all happy to say ‘Common Descent’. Why are we suddenly ‘desperate’ to say Common Descent when it’s between a starling and a sandpiper? What would the ‘design’ reason be for a difference that makes no difference to the functional product of the gene (if it even has one) or its ability to bind a factor (if it even does)?
It all depends on the case.
That is what is being debated. It depends how you are defining your term “Common Descent” and what you have to explain the differences observed.
Neither did Darwin. But it follows that the degree of similarity exhibited by his nested hierarchy would be seen in the molecular sequences.
I do not deny convergent evolution exists- or even just chance given the limited selection of nucleotides and the number of times genomes have been regenerated.
And my point about the OP being wrong is that Common Design was not invented to combat Common Descent because the concept clearly preceded it.
The degree of similarity we would expect is depicted by Linnaean taxonomy, starting at the Kingdom and trickling down.
If Common Descent wants to be different from Common Design then it should start explaining anatomical and physiological differences between two species and how blind and mindless processes (eg. NS and drift) can explain it.
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Allan Miller:
Then it doesn’t have any explanatory power. If you can’t even say the transformations required are even possible via genetic changes then you don’t have a scientific theory
I don’t know if we are. There are other explanations and one could ne common descent- I have never looked at these two and gave it any thought. Similarities could also be due to similar environmental triggers causing similar changes.
There are many archetypes and many levels of archetypes. Just look at Linnaean classification. Each Kingdom would be a different archetype. Then as you travel down towards the species level you add on to the basic archetype, creating archetypes along the way.
Haha! Thanks, Google!
Allan Miller,
How do you know it was generated by common descent? Is this an a priori assumption you are making?
colewd,
Nope. We know that common sequence can be generated by common descent. We observe it all the time. So you have to do more work to dismiss it as a possible cause than simply waft it away, and replace it with something that has no reason to fit the pattern observed, which is much more consistent with common descent vis a vis shared characters and concordance of multiple different genomic locations upon the same broad, distinctly tree-like pattern.
Did you ever read the SINE papers on whales?
We don’t know if different archetypes can be generated by common descent. Starting with populations of vision-less eukaryotes we don’t know if a vision system can be generated by common descent.
Given populations of humans we know that common descent can generate more humans.
This is more than pathetic. On one hand we have the ID critics saying “why can’t you tell me something about X” and then when we do say something about X, ie a Common Design, those same critics swing at us with the other hand.
Allan Miller,
This is true but what about new sequences? The sequences that match could be either common descent or common design. The new sequences that don’t match are evidence against common descent but are supported by the design argument because common descent lacks a mechanism that can generate these.
Yes I did read the Whale article but it was months ago.
colewd,
If you were given two genomes identical in every respect, I think the most robust conclusion would be that they were identical twins, not that they had been separately created.
So now you say ‘oh no, I only mean a bit of a genome’. But that bit of genome is embedded in a matrix: the rest of the genome. The entire genome, matched and unmatched, is informative. Complete identity would actually be less informative. But when you have multiple datasets, a pattern emerges, and it’s the one you’d expect from Descent. Differences at one taxonomic level group as similarities at another. As I said in the OP, relating to Species A, B and C. You don’t just have 2 datasets, and only a fraction of the genome.
If it’s really Design, someone is screwing with us big time.
In the case of whale SINEs, there is a flanking sequence alone in some species and flanking sequence plus SINE in others. That’s a neat binary signal. If the SINE is neither transcribed nor bound to, what possible reason would persuafe you that it’s ‘design’? The ‘impossibility of evolution’? But, the assemblage of SINEs – people do not just look at one – produces a mounting, reinforcing set of data in favour of common descent, which certainly supports the contention that it WAS possible. All you can in favour of Design is mumble … “it might be”.
Given that mutation can generate sequences that don’t match, non-matching sequences are not evidence against common descent, though clearly they cannot be used in favour of it if non-matching sequence is all there is.
Not in biological organisms it isn’t. No external “design” of any kind has ever been observed in life forms found in the wild.
Allan Miller,
What if you don’t have a mechanism capable of producing whales?
Another day, another repeat of the same tired old ID-Creationist PRATT.
Adapa,
All common designs are made by people. Ergo, the designers were people.
Except that life designs are impossibly too complicated for people to make.
Which is all the more reason to realize that it was designed like humans design things, only by intelligences that we know nothing about. What we don’t know includes the fact that this Designer (or designers) is that they really design things at all like humans do, despite the fact that the analogy is that the design is indeed very much like what humans design. You can’t simply assume that the Designer really is like humans at all, you know, despite the fact that the analogy indicates that it is.
It’s a really cool science, because they’re not stuck with dull consistent meanings like those evil materialists are.
Glen Davidson
colewd,
Are you ever going to get around to reading — and understanding — Theobald?
The evidence fits common descent trillions of times better than it fits common design.
And that’s an understatement.
Something that you very much wanted to believe is known to be false. Welcome to reality.
I read Theobald. He references Linnaean taxonomy as the observed nested hierarchy never realizing that Linnaean taxonomy doesn’t have anything to do with evolution.
He says his evidence doesn’t support any mechanism and yet without the mechanism you cannot say what pattern to expect.
Here cole, another real world example. Scientists for obvious reasons have been extremely interested in HIV – human immunodeficiency virus. The evolutionary history of the virus has been tracked as seen in this 2010 paper.
The evolution of HIV-1 and the origin of AIDS
Abstract: The major cause of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). We have been using evolutionary comparisons to trace (i) the origin(s) of HIV-1 and (ii) the origin(s) of AIDS. The closest relatives of HIV-1 are simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) infecting wild-living chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) and gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in west central Africa. Phylogenetic analyses have revealed the origins of HIV-1: chimpanzees were the original hosts of this clade of viruses; four lineages of HIV-1 have arisen by independent cross-species transmissions to humans and one or two of those transmissions may have been via gorillas. However, SIVs are primarily monkey viruses: more than 40 species of African monkeys are infected with their own, species-specific, SIVand in at least some host species, the infection seems non-pathogenic. Chimpanzees acquired from monkeys two distinct forms of SIVs that recombined to produce a virus with a unique genome structure. We have found that SIV infection causes CD4þ T-cell depletion and increases mortality in wild chimpanzees, and so the origin of AIDS is more ancient than the origin of HIV-1. Tracing the genetic changes that occurred as monkey viruses adapted to infect first chimpanzees and then humans may provide insights into the causes of the pathogenicity of these viruses.
You can see the phylogenetic relationship of the different varieties of the virus shown in Figure 2 of the paper.
Are all these different strains of HIV evidence of a Common Designer? If so the Designer is one sick sadistic bastard. Or did the different genetic sequences arise through known evolutionary processes?
What were the mechanisms ID uses to physically manipulate matter to achieve desired results again?
Bill, shall we get back to the ratite paper? Like Theobald 2010, it’s really quite a simple argument and a good introduction to the evidence for common descent. I believe I have also previously cited Shedlock et al. 2000, but in case I haven’t, here: Shedlock A.M., Milinkovitch M.C., Okada N. SINE evolution, missing data, and the origin of whales. Systematic Biology 2000; 49:808-817. And just so ratites don’t feel left out, here too: Haddrath O., Baker A. J. Multiple nuclear genes and retroposons support vicariance and dispersal of the palaeognaths, and an Early Cretaceous origin of modern birds. Proc. R. Soc. B 2012; 279:4617-4625. Retroelement insertions may be easier for you to understand.
Adapa,
Zero wavelength radiation
What frequency would that be? 😉
Allan Miller,
Agree.
I agree this implies descent but to confirm it I would need to explain how the differences emerged.
I agree. Evidence of a solid sense of humor 🙂
You point here is noted. Have you heard that SINE’s can be front signals for RNA editing? Not making a claim here just asking if you can validate this.
This is the biggest hurdle for me and you know the source of my skepticism if the different sequences have found function.
John Harshman,
John
I am out of pocket the next couple of days and need some time to review the evidence you provided. Will try to respond by Friday. I am very interested to look through this because with one exception I think you have shown a good case here.
??? First, I’m not sure you know what “out of pocket” means; either that or I don’t. I’m puzzled why you need time to review the evidence, as if I recall you claim to have read all except Haddrath & Baker previously. But go ahead.
I have my doubts.
I’d think it was a miracle if identical twins were found to have exactly identical (in every respect) genomes.
Why is the only alternative to their theory that evolutionist can think of the theory of special creation? I wonder how they calculate the probabilities.
That question is infra dig.
Ok, the non- human that is the closest archetype to human, is there something preventing a designer from bridging that gap in one leap? Wouldn’t the change in specified complexity be evidence of design?
Isn’t that the logic behind the argument that evolutionary processes can not explain the Cambrian Explosion, the sudden appearance of new forms?
Or is the problem that intelligent design theory predicts that the designer is no longer active therefore only evolution faces the test of no observed evidence?
Does it matter? After all, we have it on good authority that frequency equals wavelength.
Right, therefore the lack of a new species being generated is evidence against ID.
In what way?