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.
171 thoughts on “Descent with Modification misrepresentation”
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I suppose I should add literary criticism to the list of your many talents. 🙂
It’s not that complicated. Apropos my last post, I think the words “descent” and “ascent” in evolution are simply 19th century conventions. We are “descendants” of our ancestors. As humans, we “ascend” to God-like heights, etc., etc., etc…….
I don’t know about “as restrictive,” because I don’t have a rigorous model that would allow me to make such fine-grained comparisons.
Human culture has certainly changed drastically in the past 10,000 years, and I doubt that web-spinning has changed much since it evolved millions of years ago.
I don’t have a rigorous theoretical model that would allow me to compare restrictions or freedoms across multiple dimensions.
In the absence of any such model, all I could say is that it’s easy to imagine how I’m much more free than my ancestors of 10,000 years ago in some respects and also much less free than them in other respects.
But the main thing my ancestors of 10,000 (or 100,000) years ago share with me is that we depend upon organized cooperation with other humans in order to satisfy our biological needs. Kim Sterelny calls this “obligate cooperative foraging” and explains how hominid evolution involved our distant hominid ancestors getting better at obligate cooperative foraging and at the same time more dependent upon it.
chuckdarwin,
It’s worse: Charlie’s archetype does not even exist as an organism. But by process or processes unspecified, real organisms are supposed to become more (or, according to Charlie’s whim, less) like it with the passing generations.
CharlieM,
You become more like a cartoon Creationist with each passing day. Seems you can only talk of biology in the kind of soundbite version you pick up from their diatribes. Add in Hoyle’s dreadful 747 argument you peddled elsewhere and it becomes a massive dose of same old same old.
So, having sufficiently antagonised you: consider subspecies. I just returned from Ash Meadows, an oasis in the desert where there are 26 species known only from there. What process(es) can you envisage that led to their divergence from species elsewhere? Are they moving towards, away from or sideways with respect to their ‘archetype’?
CharlieM,
Yeah, good old frigging humans. We’re ace, we are. Look at those other creatures, grovelling to survive. We showed ’em!
Such species-chauvinism. It’s all about us. The Chosen. Actually no, it’s all about you. The epicentre of Creation.
By all means! I calls ’em as I sees ’em. Unless you live your life by Deuteronomy?
This is all that needed to be said in this thread. Any further response to nonlin is a total waste of time.
Allan Miller,
I am the center of my universe, but only mine…….. LOL
For sure Darwin meant genetic changes something something… “evolution” . Because he knew genetics so well he didn’t even had to read Mendel. Only he could not express himself. Woof woof!
Of course it’s not that complicated. It’s simply fraud passing one for another.
The problem with “19th century conventions” is that it meant back then exactly what it means today, namely “populations change”. And that’s after we forgive his incoherent wording.
Are you reading something else into it? If so, what?
Furthermore, why is 19th century misrepresentation being repeated ad nausea in the 21st century?
So a trend in “evolution” means something else than in all other fields? Do tell, that’s so exciting.
Well, censorship is evil and not to be tolerated one bit. Meanwhile Alan Fox is pleading the 5th as you can see. Which means he did it intentionally. Censorship is also a very good indicator your argument is failing miserably. Not that any more proof was needed.
What do you mean? “Ever” what?
But it’s obvious coexisting variants disprove “natural selection”. All you have to do is observe a farm and note that variants are separated. That’s the closest you will ever come to selection.
I was gonna say, the rival hypotheses have been formulated and you have no choice. You can’t dismiss them as you try. Not in science.
“evolution” is the second and obviously failed hypothesis to intelligent-design which was the first hypothesis historically and never invalidated. There you have it.
Seeing how this is a 19th century hypothesis, when there were no alleles known, it’s obvious your “definition” is invalid. And as far as “descent with modification”, what do you know, it’s what we’re talking about in this post. Finally you almost get it. Too bad that’s poppycock as shown. Unless you disagree with solid arguments.
And “no particular change” is by definition noise. That leads nowhere. Obviously “evolution” is not possible in that case. Strangely, I agree with you on that.
The whole church establishment is pro “evolution” for God’s sake. You sir are badly misinformed and willfully ignorant.
Meanwhile, would any person or corporation voluntarily pay for the unproductive army of “evolutionary biologists”? Obviously not. Judge yourself.
Imagine being Nonlin spamming his own thread, and people just laugh and move on.
LOL
I might laugh if I read any of it. But this debate got boring ten or 15 years ago.
Was this ever any sort of legitimate debate? At one time, long ago, the basic structure of evolutionary theory was a genuine debate, but that time is long past, and AFAIK never was a religious debate (though rejection on religious grounds, as opposed to debate, was common in Darwin’s day.)
I read colewd’s arguments as basically dishonest – a collection of misdirections, cherry-picking, carefully selected partial understandings and the like, seen through religious blinders. In contrast, nonlin strikes me as honest. He makes no attempt to disguise either his idiocy, or his contempt for all who do not share it. Colewd tries to weasel around the facts; nonlin remains a determined stranger to any of them.
When I say, ‘Descent from a common archetype’, I could have said, ‘ascent from a common archetype’, or, ’emergence from a common archetype’, or, ‘manifestation within the common archetype’, or various other phrases. The phrase used is less important than trying to understand this concept, ‘archetype’ and to think about how the particular is related to this archetype. Here, ‘archetype’ can be considered as a potential which can be conceived as an infinite series, and the particular manifestation as the coming into being of its physical expression.
The archetype is not a ‘thing’ in the physical sense, It is the totality of a fluidic movement. Ron Brady wrote an article which goes into great detail about this. I does expect anyone here will read it in full, but here are some tasters from it that gives us some idea of its thrust:
Archetypes in the Goethean sense is nothing like the archetype as a physical ancestral organism, or Owen’s archetype which can be drawn as an image. They are not particular forms. If we could lay out all the tetrapod limbs that have ever existed and then imagine processes whereby they all morphed into each other in every direction, then this dynamism which is constantly active, then this is as accurate a representation that I can explain as my understanding of the archetypal tetrapod limb.
I’m not asking for models, all I am asking is that you look around, examine the behaviour of spiders in your vicinity, think about the activities of the people you come in contact with, and make comparisons.
So isn’t that a measure of change over time, which evolution is taken to be? We have had measurably more change over the period.
Again, you don’t have to build models. Just ask yourself questions such as: Were ancient humans able to circumnavigate the earth in a matter of days? Could an indigenous American communicate in real time with a person native to the shores of the Mediterranean? Would a person living in sub-Saharan Africa 10 000 years ago have had the same freedom of belief as a person living in modern day Sweden? What about choice of food? Asking these sort of questions should give you some idea of relative freedoms.
Can you give some examples of these modern restrictions?
Yes, we were social beings then and we are social beings now. And the emergence of social groups is according to Darwin a feature of the goal of evolution to produce moral beings. Today’s social groups tend to be multi-cultural while those ancient social groups were much more tribal and kin orientated.
True it doesn’t exist as an organism.
In my latest reply to chuckdarwin I did specify an example of how an archetype can be regarded as non-specific. 🙂 But it would be wrong to say that any specific physical form is more or less like the archetype than any other form of the same type. Neither the human forelimb nor the whale’s flipper are closer than the other to the archetypal tetrapod limb. The archetype and the physical limb are different in kind.
I was using the 747 example purely as an example of an impossibility. I could have used the example of taking a watch apart, placing the bits in a container and shaking it. It would be impossible to reconstruct the watch in this way. I am not saying that there could be naturalistic processes which increase the probability. If origin of life researchers were to take inorganic constituent parts and let them interact to form a living entity, that would demonstrate that it could be achieved.
”
Our intercourse stimulates me more than antagonizes me. Not in a sexual way, you understand! 🙂 I do feel a bit guilty that I may occasionally cause you some frustration.
Like any other reproducing lines, the offspring have ‘descended’ with modification. The ancestors would have been physical expressions of their archetype just as the extant organisms are. A physical living entity can just as easily approach the archetype as the points on the circumference of a circle can approach the centre while remaining on the circumference.
I would agree with that assessment.
I am thinking primarily of how it is impossible for the vast majority of people to satisfy their basic need for sustenance without money. The need for money imposes significant restrictions on what people can do with their time.
I also do not equate freedom with “freedom of choice” per se. I understand freedom as the absence of domination. Insofar as hunter-gatherers lived with little to no domination, their lives were significantly more free than the lives of people who live under conditions of personal domination (domination by a ruler) or the impersonal domination of capitalism.
Maybe a bit of objectivity is called for here. Don’t you agree that humans are in the unique position of having some responsibility for the state of the planet in the future? Worrying about the future of the planet isn’t in evidence in any other species. Maybe you can convince me otherwise.
So long as you know your place. 🙂
Here I was talking about our responsibility an hour or two ago and now I’ve just come across here
The endemic flora and fauna of Ash Meadows are good examples of Darwinian evolution. But does anyone believe that these species are destined to provide any novelty that will further the evolution of life?
Just for fun I thought I’d provide this classic to entertain Allan as he seems to be having a bit of car trouble.
Noble Savages.
Fundamentally, the need for money is no different than the need for sustenance. All of this involves people being able to acquire the commodities that will satisfy their desire to survive. Money, being in lieu of sustenance is a guarentee that possessors have the means to obtain what they require, with the benefit that it does not decompose in the way that food does.
Ideally modern societies will be organized so as to ensure all its members are provided with an ample supply of food and shelter. Laws are designed to ensure the basic needs of individuals are met.
Neither do I restrict the idea of freedom with “freedom of choice”. I might freely choose to take addictive substances, but will I end up with more fredoms as a result? I don’t think so. If I choose to act because I am trying to please others, or I know it isn’t healthy but it gives me pleasure, these are not free acts.
I consider allowing individuals to be free thinkers is much more important than having free choice. Societies which allow their individuals their own beliefs and world views, with no state imposed religion and such like, will leave room for free-thinking individuals. A person can be put in chains and still be a free-thinker. Physical restrictions need not restrict this freedom.
Ancient people were very tribal and group orientated. Their behaviour was much more governed by the customs of the group to which they belonged. Families tended to stick together. Don’t you think hunting and gathering restricted the time people had available for other pursuits. I have known many hunters over the years and have done some gathering, mainly tattie picking” and raspberry picking as a teenager. But, as individuals, we were free to be hunters or gathereres by choice. Ancient hunters and gatherers had no option but to spend their time on these activities.
Modern Western society gives people much more freedom to be individuals regardless of their roots.
Not in Rousseau’s sense — in fact quite the opposite.
It would seem that you don’t recognize the difference between foraging, herding, and farming for one’s means of subsistence and having no choice but to sell one’s labor power in exchange for a wage.
The whole point of capitalism is to make impossible for the basic needs of all individuals to be satisfied. Capitalism only works so long as the vast majority of people are compelled by the need for money to sell their labor power on the market.
I don’t think that contemporary humans have any less need for community than our prehistoric ancestors did, and there’s ample evidence that the compulsory individualism enforced by neoliberal capitalism is behind the current pandemic of mental illness, especially anxiety and depression.
And while it’s true that ancient humans had no choice but to engage in procuring the means of subsistence (for them, hunting and gathering), the same is true of us. Though hunting and gathering can be for us a mere hobby, we are no less compelled than they were to procure the means of subsistence. That meant hunting and gathering for them — for us, it means having a job, unless one is born into inherited wealth.
The compulsion to engage in procuring the means of subsistence has changed form over the millennia in order to arrive at the current form of neoliberal capitalism. But we are no more free from that compulsion than our distant ancestors were — or any other animal.
Flint,
Hi Flint
You would appear dishonest to those who do not understand materialist bias as you are dismissing out of hand problematic data for the single origin theory..
You either don’t comprehend or live in the scientism world that has faith that science will fill the gaps. The contradictory evidence for the single origin theory is growing every year but with enough materialistic bias you cannot see it.
Bill, accusations of dishonesty are against the site rules.
Alan Fox,
Not how I read Bill’s comment.
Yes, I agree.
I have seen no such data. I have seen you misrepresent things taken out of context and forced to fit your religious requirements. I understand that from your point of view, reality itself has a materialist bias. I’ll stick with reality.
This claim (of contradictory evidence of reality) is simply not true, and when you make such false claims all you accomplish is to emphasize the intense wishful thinking that leads you to error. But I’m willing to attribute to willful blindness what might otherwise be attributed to dishonesty. You simply assume everyone else must be blind because they cannot see the inside of the blindfold you can’t help wearing.
Who is bill?
colewd is Bill
Flint,
What do mean by contradictory evidence of reality? My claim is about contradictory evidence of a single origin event explaining life’s diversity.
Do you agree that there is contradictory evidence to the theory of universal common descent?
What do you think is the most troubling evidence if any for this theory?
Alan Fox,
Flint: I read colewd’s arguments as basically dishonest
Ok. Now I did not return the favor as I said his reply would appear dishonest due to materialist bias and did not accuse him of dishonesty
How did you accuse me of this and miss Flints original accusation?
As far as I can tell, there is no compelling evidence at all for multiple origins. This is not a scientific position, it’s a religious position.
No. But I do agree that there are people like you who desperately NEED such contradictory evidence, and who will misinterpret or misrepresent whatever they can find to fulfill this need.
If by “this theory” you mean multiple origins, the most troubling evidence is that a single origin model is simply not contradicted or in any way inconsistent with the evidence currently known. Whereas if multiple origins is correct, it must explain a truly mind boggling amount of morphological and genetic evidence consistent with a single origin. Just for example, where in the chain of ancestry do you place your various origin points? If chimpanzees and bonobos have separate origins, why are they so amazingly similar? Or if those two had a common ancestor, did that ancestor have a separate origin from hominids? But hominids themselves have had many species; which ones had separate origins, or did they all have a common ancestor?
So my question to you is, looking back into the past, where and when exactly did current species originate? Speciation is happening today, of course, so are we witnessing unique origin events? As gene flow between two or more groups of a current species diminishes, at what point do you decide a unique origin has taken place? Is it a 60% reduction? 80%? 95%? A common origin theory provides a fully sufficient, testable answer to all these questions.
Flint,
Where I think discussion of species with unique origins should be considered is where we see unique chromosome and a gene patterns. For instance at PS I generated a post, “do all deer share a common ancestor”.
The problem is different deer have different chromosome and gene patterns. How would these be generated by reproduction and natural variation?
If there was more than one abiogenetic event — i.e. if life emerged from prebiotic chemistry more than once — it would seem to bolster the case for “materialism”, not weaken it.
Not necessarily. In medieval times people (writing philosophers) believed that sweat generated mosquitoes, rancid meat generated flies etc. Instead of thinking that this points to materialism, they thought Creator created these species to work this way.
I believe there are quite a few very capable professional biologists participating at PS. How did they respond? Did they agree with you that intraspecies variation in chromosome numbers will not be tolerated in mammals? Could they name plausible genetic processes that result in different chromosome numbers and chromosomal rearrangements? If they brought up valid criticisms, could you briefly paraphrase them?
ETA: rephrasing
Corneel,
Not yet.
They are appealing to the nested hierarchy and then asserting common descent as the only explanation. The problem is the test of common descent is against chance so any explanation such as design with common cellular components that reduces chance will pass the test.
The current increasing availability of high frequency sequencing data is moving the target away from the plausibility of evolutionary mechanisms incorporated into population genetics explaining the observations.
The plot thickens 🙂
This is completely and utterly wrong. The incorrectness of this claim has been explained to you in detail many times. Given that the current topic is chromosomal re-arrangements, your statement is even more wrong than your usual output, and that’s impressive. The repeated parroting of de-bunked claims is not a good look.
Actually, the reverse is true. As I have explained to you before, every time someone sequences a previously unsequenced piece of DNA, there is the opportunity to refute UCD. Still waiting for the DNA sequence “preCambrian rabbit”…
It’s not the plot that’s getting thicker.
😉
Like everything else and its opposite, the precambrian rabbit would be explained somehow by “evolution”. It’s just “descent with modification” and “alleles frequency” dontcha know? And a little bit of major misrepresentation, but who will notice?
On another note, Meyer says: “Nobody doubts that natural selection and random mutation is a genuine biological process.”
Nobody??? He must have asked everyone from Mumbai to Buenos Aires… No wonder the DI folk get no traction.
Remarkably, this is almost true! If a genuine precambrian rabbit were found, it would require some explanation. After all, it would be a truly relevant observation that any theory must account for. You understand, such a theory would ALSO have to account for the bazillions of other observations.
My personal speculation is that if such a rabbit were found, the theory most under threat would be part of geology rather than evolution.
Good point. I’d guess very few of those people would know what random means, what a mutation is, or anything about biological processes. But I’d also guess Meyer knows that, and presumed you would grasp that he was referring to people who aren’t ignorant of these things.
DNA_Jock,
They are comparing the chromosomal re arrangements to a phylogenetic tree for deer. While the fit for the selected deer is reasonable going beyond deer will not work. What does this do for the UCD mythology?
Your comparison of the a rabbit in the Cambrian is a genetic test? What we have with the deer Venn diagram shows genetic similarity of white deer closer to humans than musk deer. Much better than a rabbit in the Cambrian. 🙂
Really? Did they not mention Robertsonian translocations, chromosome fusions or chromosome fissions? Did they not explain to you how one can use synteny to examine whether such events have taken place? Didn’t anybody give you examples of modern species that sport polymorphisms for karyotype?
ts… I am duly disappointed. Those biologists at PS have become pretty dull.
Oh but look, they did mention all those things. And now I wonder why you have failed to mention them. Is it because you do not understand those arguments or did you truly miss them?
Nope! Common Design does not predict a hierarchically nested distribution of characters.
Speaking as someone who actually analyses high throughput sequencing data for a living I can confidently say:
Nope again!
Is Bill’s memory that bad?