Darwin defined “evolution as “descent with modification”. But modification of what? The messy mix of DNA in sexual reproduction is not modification of anything. Two become three in sexual reproduction while one becomes two in mitosis and budding. No parent is being modified. Either way, descent by definition is the creation of new entities. Modification by definition is the same one entity before and after. The combination “descent with modification” is simply incoherent. Is this just an unfortunate linguistic error that hides a real process? Could this apply to populations instead? Populations change, but they do not descend – just individual members do. OK then, “descent with modification” is just a pleasant but otherwise incoherent soundbite. So what? That is not right either. Population changes happen – everyone and their dog knows that. Yet that is not a substitute for “evolution” which claims much more. The essence of “evolution” are extreme claims like “fishes turn into reptiles”, “reptiles into birds” and “monkeys into humans” among many others. These claims go well beyond ‘populations may change’. Can we confirm any of those? Of course not. Temporary, limited, reversible and inconsequential changes do not qualify as “evolution”. Substituting one for the other is simply swindling – the modus operandi in “evolution”. Still, let us be as accommodative as possible and ask the internet oracle for examples of “descent with modification”. Maybe there is something to it despite all logic and observations. Nothing. Just examples of change that do not go as far as “evolution” (Galapagos finches), groupings of fossils that cannot be confirmed to be related, adaptations that are supposed to represent “evolution” (another trick) and reiterations of the dogma. In conclusion, “descent with modification” is at best a pretentious way of saying ‘populations change’ which is trivial and not enough to affirm “evolution”. A trickster like Darwin should have lost right there and then all credibility.
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I doubt it. But like most of the anti-evolution crowd, Bill argues very much like a lawyer trying to defend a guilty client, and very much UNlike a scientist trying to understand how reality works.
Corneel,
Yet the paper Rum posted recognized that these were merely speculative.
The mechanisms are not known as evidenced that there is no population genetics model that can reconcile these changes. You obviously did not read the question the opp asked.
Since there is no known mechanism that supports a population genetics model for fixating these changes the argument left is the nested hierarchy and the assertion that common descent is the only explanation.
On what logic do you base this assertion?
Have you used the data to generate a model that can reconcile how all the different gene families and chromosome changes could have been the product of reproduction and natural variation?
Arguing from authority is a logical fallacy. A false claim of authority is even better 🙂
What’s the point that you are trying (but failing) to make?
Let’s pretend that chromosome change is an instance of magic poofing (or an act of God if you prefer that terminology). What difference would that make?
We would still see these chromosome changes as occuring in nature, so we would still consider them to be natural. Since we cannot predict them, we would consider them to be random. So we would take them to be random mutations. We would not think of them as separate origins.
Theistic evolutionists already think of mutations as divine interventions. Yet biologists don’t have any serious objections to theistic evolution. From the perspective of Occam’s razor, this just introduces an unnecessary additional entity. It doesn’t otherwise change anything.
Neil Rickert,
The question at hand is if the model of a single ancestor for all deer exists? I believe if you look at the gene and chromosome data against the observed limits of the reproductive process and all it entails this does not appear to be an accurate model vs fully functioning animals being the starting point for most deer populations.
Population genetics currently starts with existing animal populations. What is inconsistent is that universal common descent or a single origin is assumed true and used (improperly) to make conclusions. The model is inconsistent with the current available evidence.
We do not see any “beneficial mutations” in nature. As I pointed out many times, there is no viable “evolution” mechanism. Hence the need for misrepresentation. Even if “common descent” were true, another explanation other than “evolution” would be required. But since “evolution” is an assumption for “common descent” the whole forced fitting exercise is highly dubious.
Moved a comment to guano. Don’t question other’s mental abilities.
Since often enough, there’s no question.
Which paper? Oh, this one? The one that says in the abstract “We identified numerous fusion events unique to and shared by muntjacs relative to the cervid ancestor, confirming many cytogenetic observations with genome sequence”? The one with the nice alignment plot that maps all homologous regions between the genomes of two muntjac species, red deer and cow and plots the inferred chromosome fissions and fusions on a phylogenetic tree (Figure 1)? That one?
Sure I did. I read your complete opus magnum and both questions and the answers are “Yeps” and “Nope” respectively. At least, I think they are. I confess I had some major problems deciphering your personal idiom.
I base it on a thorough investigation of this authoritive post on TSZ that demonstrates in over 5000 hilarious comments that creationists cannot explain how Common Design would create a nested hierarchy, cannot decide between explaining the nested hierarchy and denying that the pattern exists and ultimately do not appear to have a clue what it is they are supposed to explain.
Absolutely. Sadly, the model appears to only want to output the number “42”. LOL
But let’s put the goal posts back in their original positions, and revisit your initially suggestion that the increased availability of high throughput sequencing data would somehow diminish “the plausibility of evolutionary mechanisms incorporated into population genetics explaining the observations”. This, of course, is simply wishful thinking.
Now, I would love to exhaustively discuss this topic, but there is not a lot I could add to the comments at PS.
colewd,
What I am more interested in is your reaction to Flint’s post that your contributions are “a collection of misdirections, cherry-picking, carefully selected partial understandings and the like, seen through religious blinders”. You replied that in your eyes, it is the “materialists” that ignore problematic data for the single origin theory and you offered the example of karyotype variation in Muntjac deer. When I searched out that discussion, I found that your “problematic data” have been extensively discussed and that you received multiple detailed explanations from various knowledgeable participants. So that’s why I asked you whether you could reproduce those arguments and it turned out that you couldn’t.
In my view that means that your “problematic data for the single origin theory” only exist in your imagination. You either lack the understanding or otherwise fail to recognize when people address your concerns.
Hence my question. You seem to have missed it, so I’ll ask it again: I wonder why you have failed to mention the criticisms that were brought up. Is it because you do not understand those arguments or did you truly miss them?
Corneel,
I am 180/262ths through that conversation, and it is hilarious.
What a dweeb.
Although Bill’s description of TSS did clear up somethign that had been puzzling me since my interaction with gpuccio.
Exactly so.
I think the point could be made a bit more clearly as follows: while common design is consistent with a hierarchically nested distribution of characters, the logical consistency is paid for by adding additional stipulations. (“Auxiliary hypotheses”, in the patois of philosophers of science.)
By contrast, common descent explains why we see a hierarchically nested distribution of characters, to the extent that we do, and also we don’t, to the extent that we don’t. This is further bolstered by the fact that common descent entails specific claims about what is necessary and what is impossible, and so far, those claims have withstood considerable empirical scrutiny.
It’s cute to say that “intelligent design is creationism in a cheap tuxedo”, but it’s false. Creationism does make very specific claims that can be tested and which have all been shown to be false. Intelligent design makes no specific claims at all: it consists entirely of saying “but that’s consistent with intelligent design!” or “how could evolution explain that?”, for every claim that biologists make.
One could write a simple computer script that arbitrarily assigns one of those two responses to everything that biologists do and replicate 90% of everything that counts as “intelligent design”. (The other 10% consists of repeating basic probability theory as if it were some profound truth of the universe.)
Corneel,
Is it my imagination that no model exists how these changes occur in populations? You are underestimating the problem that different animal populations have different gene and chromosome arrangements is for shared ancestry. Why do you accept the superficial answers as being sufficient?
Where in the post is an explanation that reconciles how given the differences in both chromosome count and gene arrangements that all deer share a single common ancestor?
Do you think pointing to some points of homology is sufficient?
Yeah, there were some amusing parts.
Not sure what you are referring to, but I enjoyed the bit about “bullet holes arranged in known shapes like stars. squares and circles”.
Haha. Yes, pointing to some points of homology is sufficient by definition.
But apart from that, as you have been told in the Muntjac thread, there are multiple consilient lines of evidence that all Muntjacs share a common ancestor. As I understand, you believe the differences in chromosome count between species to be problematic for the position that Muntjacs are related by common descent. However, we know that fusion and fission can change the chromosome count and we know of extant species that are currently polymorphic for chromosome count. Moreover, we can actually recognize that such events have taken place by comparing synteny of genes among chromosomes ( and in the olden days the banding pattern).
Now, I do not have the illusion that I can convince you when the PS folks could not. I just wanted to draw your attention to the fact that you are incapable of reproducing the arguments of your opponents. This is, of course, run-of-the-mill for internet arguments but you may agree with me that we should aspire to understand the position of our discussion partners.
So here we go, for the third time: You failed to mention the criticisms that were brought up by your opponents in the Muntjac thread, even after I prompted you. Why is that? Is that because you did not understand those arguments or did you just miss them altogether?
It’s also possible that facts are omitted or ignored because they are uncongenial, all the moreso if they are noticed and understood.
So it is, but there are rules here at TSZ, Flint. 😉
I guess I don’t understand these rules. As I see it, people here are arguing a case for what they believe is correct. It’s nearly unavoidable that if you sincerely believe something that’s not correct, you’re going to use omission of uncongenial facts as one of your techniques of argument. As another paraphrase, it’s very hard to get a man to understand something uncongenial to his religion.
Well, if you do this deliberately then you are being misleading and the rules discourage us from accusing other posters of this. I am no fool, so I know we have participants that abuse the “good faith” rule but we are in the happy circumstance that those miscreants usually are very bad at hiding it and are perfectly capable of making an ass of themselves without us having to point this out. On the whole it is probably better this way, since conversations tend to proceed a bit more light-hearted without the j’accuse.
To me, this is a fine line. If I am trying to present a case I sincerely believe to be true, then I’d most likely regard whatever undermines or conflicts with my belief as being not relevant, so I’d omit it. Another technique is the “look over there” subject change, which I might consider relevant in some cases (hey, he did it too and it was OK for him).
I see you, perhaps unintentionally, implying that no matter how sincere the belief, a creationist simply cannot argue in good faith. After all, such a belief is wildly incorrect according to every possible rational metric. So any defense must be composed of lies, misunderstandings, misrepresentations, and all manner of fallacies (logical errors, appeals to authority, misapplied analogies, etc.) How can you counter such an approach without pointing out these errors?
That’s one of the misrepresentations in “evolution”. Just define something which presupposes “evolution” and then point to that definition as justification for said “evolution”.
Poor Bill’s mistake is that he lets himself being dragged into n-th degree sterile discussions when “evolution” fails at its most basic level.
You honestly believing nonsense like “evolution” is irrelevant. The truth is out there and it clearly shows “evolution” is false. The best you can do is to ignore the truth. Many do. They hide for a while, perhaps until they die not feeling like complete failures having dedicated their life to utter nonsense.
Speaking of which, will Corneel tell us how he earns a living? Is the “state” paying for it? And, absent the taxpayer victim, would a person or corporation have found his services worthwhile? Let it be known Joe F ignored the question as did others. I wonder why. Not.
Is this the darwinist misrepresentation discussed?
No. You do not fit the description I presented. You fit the description that might describe a flat-earth fanatic. You would simply repeat that the round earth is a myth and nonsense, because you do not make the slightest attempt to argue against either evolution itself of the theory that explains it. You just deny, sticking to rigid ignorance no matter what. Laughing at you becomes thin entertainment after a while; you need a new schtick.