I’m all in favor of mocking stupidity, and here’s something definitely worth mocking.
In arguing for evolution, author Alan R. Rogers appeals to the Nilsson and Pelger paper on how simple it is to evolve an eye. He writes:
If eyes evolve, they must do so often and easily. Could it really be so easy?
Dan-Eric Nilsson and Susanne Pelger have answered this question. They constructed an evolutionary story much like the one that I told above.
– The Evidence for Evolution. p. 42.
And what did he write about the story that he told above?
This story is of course a fabrication. p. 40
I’m serious! Can it get any more stupid than that?
Do evolutionists believe fabrications? When it comes to how to evolve and eye it would certainly seem so.
Hi everyone,
I would like to say one thing. Personally, I have no difficulty in believing that the eye evolved, but to cite the Nilsson and Pelger paper as evidence of the plausibility of eye evolution is simply ridiculous. Nilsson and Pelger’s model isn’t an example of Darwinian evolution; it’s actually Intelligent Design, and their own testimony establishes this fact. Not many people know this. I wrote a post on the subject back in 2013, titled, Could the eye have evolved by natural selection in a geological blink?. Here’s the money quote:
Sad to say, Nilsson and Pelger’s 1994 paper has been misreported by evolutionists over the last two decades. Two great myths have been recycled in the literature again and again: the fiction that Nilsson and Pelger’s model was a computer simulation, and the fiction that the variations in the model were random, like the variations in Darwinian evolution. We now know – thanks to the indefatigable research of Dr. David Berlinski – is that Nilsson and Pelger’s model didn’t even use a computer. And now we also know that the variations introduced into the model were deliberately designed, rather than random.
So did the eye evolve in a Darwinian fashion? I have no idea. Until we have some solid numbers on the probability of the various steps involved, we should keep an open – and prudently skeptical – mind.
I think Rumraket is trying to suggest that there is no reason to believe that that bridge couldn’t have happened by accident. Unless you have proof to show it couldn’t have happened, well then…
VJ is now taking credit for discrediting the Nilsson Pelger nonsense. Haha. Who knew?
I think VJ may have also been the one who uncovered the Haeckel’s embryos hoax, and Piltdown Man fraud.
Vince, you misunderstand the role of randomness in Nilsson & Pelger’s model. The selection argument doesn’t assume particular changes happen in a particular order. All they assume is that random variation in each parameter of approximately the degree present in natural populations will arise and will be subject to selection. In such a case, if increased acuity is advantageous, they have shown that selection is capable of following that pathway. In order to attack their conclusion, you will have to attack their assumptions, not creationist strawmen.
The model is of course not a computer model, though Nilsson did do some computer graphics to illustrate the model. That didn’t take any research, just a quick read of the methods section of the paper. But that’s irrelevant. The variation was not deliberately designed. I suppose you could say that the pathway was, though more reasonably you would say that it was found, by figuring out what would increase acuity given a particular starting point. But the model certainly involves selection. The existence of a fitness criterion and a fitness surface doesn’t require design.
Why does Mung have to use such a recent source to attack eye evolution? Why not go right to the original?
“To suppose that the eye … could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.”
Checkmate, evolutionists!
Haha, haha, haha.
I wonder if they used a Macbook for their graphics, or if they just hired an artist?
You mean maybe the optic nerve formed first, and then the pupil second and the liquid filled cavity formed next?
So was the eve designed? Yes, it was. Until we have some solid numbers on the probability of the step involved, we should keep an open – and prudently skeptical – mind that it was not designed.
Hello everyone, my internet handle is phoodoo and I have a problem with analogies.
He goes on with individual chapters on that evidence immediately following the section where he describes models.
They’re named:
Traces of common descent in opsins
Traces of common descent in developmental genes
Traces of common descent in lens proteins
Traces of common descent in eye morphology
But you just said there’s no evidence. Notice how this is exactly what I described in my previous post to you. After narrowing down the set of concievable stories for how eyes came about to a small subset that is at least consistent with evolution, we can then go and look at the actual genetic, molecular, and comparative morphological evidence.
If your IDcreationist position was defensible, you wouldn’t have to lie to do it.
No you idiot, there is evidence for the common descent of the gradual morphological change of eyes. It’s not just that eyes also testify to the common descent of species, the particular pattern in the molecular genetics and morphology of eyes in a large ensemble of different species testify to their gradual evolution over time.
It does apply to snails:
“Why would snails have such a diversity of eyes? It is not that traces of common descent are wholly lacking, for closely related snails have similar eyes. Heteropod sea snails, for example, all have long narrow eyes.” (p 46).
My bold.
How can you fail to notice these things?
Mung believes in common descent you moron. He doesn’t believe in mindless evolution. You don’t understand the difference?
Gimp.
You believe in fartless christianity tho…
I know he’s said this previously, but he shows no ability to even be able to articulate why. And he doesn’t seem to understand how the evidence that implies common descent of species, also can be used to elucidate the gradual evolution of certain organs, such as eyes.
I already know this, but it isn’t relevant to the particular point he brought up. Or at least, if his point really was something along the lines that we can’t show that the genetic changes that took place in deep time were “undirected/blind/mindless/whatever”, then his posts fail to give any hint of this.
I have a question about this because I admit I frequently assume I know what you mean by the phrase “mindless evolution” and as a corollary, what you believe about in what way evolution isn’t mindless.
When you say that Mung (and I presume you too?) don’t believe in mindless evolution, that means you believe in some sort of theistic evolution, and if you do, in what way do you think this actually happens?
More specifically, do you think God is causing individual mutations to happen? When some gene is duplicated, or some stretch of nucleotides
(say) AGCCGATCGTACGATG is lost in some gene, or when a G is replaced by a T, God was metaphorically speaking “behind the scenes hitting the delete or find-and-replace button”?
Or do you think God is causing the selection process by which they rise in frequency in a population?(as in, God has somehow orchestrated the cosmos such that, at some point in the future, some particular Gazelle will be eaten by some particular lion, and it’s genotype thereby is lost, and God intended this very deliberately?). Or maybe God caused some spark inside the lion’s brian so it happened to look in some particular direction at the right time to spot the gazelle and so on and so forth?
Or both?
Or perhaps even further, that literally everything that happens in the entire cosmos is the deterministic outcome of how the whole thing was set up to begin with like a colossal set up of dominoes? Atom #1 was placed next to atom #2, and a bit further from atom #3, and then God pushed atom #1 in the exactly right way such that it came nearer atom #3 causing them to attract and make molecule #1 etc. etc.
Or all three?
Below is a figure which I have used previously. It shows a series of leaves which is typical of those found along the stem of a single buttercup plant. The fact that they can be placed in a sequence shows that they have a certain relationship. But this relationship does not involve any one leaf developing out of the previous leaf in the series.
A similar sequence can be made up using various stages of eyeball formation in different animals. And as in the buttercup leaves this does not demonstrate that any instance of eyeball design is necessarily produced out of any other examples in the series. It only shows that they are all specific examples of a common overarching pattern. Each organism has developed a specific eyeball arrangement taken from the common overall pattern as is their need.
I, too, was thinking, “How can this be someone who accepts common descent?”
Mung believes in common descent, but he regularly mocks it… here’s just one example
Let’s ignore the pathetic caricature for a second: if bears and whales share a common ancestor, and Mung believes that, then he must believe that something became a bear and a whale too.
Creotards are incarnated logic fails
If that was how common descent was inferred I’d be right there with you.
Then why aren’t organisms’ structures and organs chosen according to need, rather than being slavishly derivative as dictated by common ancestry?
If need were what underlies the existence of the information used to form organisms, that would be evidence for design. Since it’s the cluster of ancestral traits that provides the possibilities and limitations of the organism, we conclude that evolutionary processes were responsible.
It’s like you’ve never read anything here at all, except with just enough superficiality to repeat your stock responses that never had anything to do with the evidence.
Glen Davidson
Or thinks.
Glen Davidson
Structures and organs cannot be abstracted out of the context of the organism as a whole. Every breeding organism is a successful member of the population because its structures and organs are configured in the context of the whole.
I am not arguing that life does not evolve.
I have come to my conclusions because of the evidence not in spite of it. For instance it explains convergent evolution of structures such as eyes.
A few weeks ago Mung and I seemed to agree that there’s no empirical evidence that can allow us to determine whether evolution is “mindless”, “unguided”, “guided”, etc.
I still think that. If Mung does as well, then I have to say that I’m not at all sure what the heck we’re supposed to be arguing about.
And?
Why couldn’t bats have feathers? Of course they’d have to be configured according to mammalian context, but there’s nothing special about feathers that means that only dinosaurs could have anything like them.
Anyway, we’ve managed to move Bt toxin from Bacillus thuringiensis into corn. It’s not like there aren’t many traits that aren’t especially context-dependent.
I didn’t say you were. And even if life’s traits were picked according to need that wouldn’t be evidence only for design, as other possibilities exist too. However, need being the basis for “choosing” traits is most associated with intelligence, so I’m not really clear why you bring up need as the supposed principle behind what is “chosen” for life if you’re not pushing design. Still, I don’t particularly care except for the design claims being pushed here and elsewhere, so whatever you think (and I suspect it’s hardly clear in any case), my point is that life’s patterns in fact falsify any reasonable design hypothesis.
How?
Have you noticed how physics limits the possibilities for, say, lens configuration? And how evolution limits the possibilities that organisms have for producing lens configurations?
Anyway, if you think traits have been “chosen” according to need, clearly you didn’t get that from the evidence, rather, you have a belief contrary to the evidence.
Glen Davidson
I’m not attacking eye evolution John. I am attacking arguments that purport to prove that complex eyes evolved via the Darwinian mechanism. There is a difference.
I’m with VJT. I accept common descent. The eye may very well have evolved. But evolutionists haven’t shown that the Darwinian mechanism was responsible in spite of their claims to the contrary.
Moreover, I’ve exposed the sleight of hand they use.
Because the arguments I am making are not arguments against common descent. Don’t let Rumraket mislead you.
This:
And this:
And whether his story about how the eye evolved is even plausible.
For starters. 🙂
I thought he was making a bridge of the gaps argument. That it was a metaphor for the gaps in his understanding.
The selection argument doesn’t have to be true. It’s conclusion doesn’t have to be true. It’s premises don’t have to be true. Yet for some reason evolutionists find it persuasive. Can John explain why?
And based on the evidence for common descent he claims he has proven that “even a complex organ [such as the eye] can evolve by intermediate steps that are all adaptive.”
And you don’t see the problem with that. It’s a non sequitur Rumraket. Where in any of those sections you listed does he actually make an argument that the mechanism by which the eye evolved was Darwinian?
He doesn’t. The reader is supposed to make the illogical leap with him from the premise that common descent is true to the conclusion that the eye evolved by a series of small changes, each of which was advantageous.
How can you fail to notice that the subject was ALL snails. Not SOME snails?
“Yet if we knew only about the anatomy of their eyes, no one would think ALL SNAILS were relatives.” (p 46).
“the various kinds of eyes in modern snails cannot be traced back to a single ancestral eye. They are independent inventions” (p 47).
So?
What I know for sure is that the eye couldn’t have been designed, it just isn’t plausible:
It seems reasonable to believe that the number of stories as to how that eye was designed that are actually not true would be practically innumerable
And if that’s the case, there’s no good reason to think any one story out of that huge number of almost certainly false stories is plausible.
Tom English,
Everyone accepts some level of common descent. The debate is how close is your acceptance to universal common descent. If you don’t have universal common descent as an a priori assumption then by what standard do we determine that two species share a common ancestor? Until this is solved Alan’s reasoning is beyond non sense.
That’s funny. Charlie Darwin did not assume universal common descent, he said that life had one or a few common ancestors. He preferred one but did hedge his statements.
So I guess, by colewd’s logic we can’t discuss whether dinosaurs and lizards have a common ancestor without first discussing bacteria.
People really do come up with remarkable statements here …
You must not have met the old-fashioned hard-core YEC creationists who had all species riding on The Ark. 200 years ago scientists were still concerned about whether all species were separately created.
Because from the moment a type assumes a physical form all the subsequent animals within that type are restricted to assuming forms within that type. In the same way that when specialist cells develop from stem cells then they naturally remain specialised barring external manipulative interference.
Bats can fly but they still fall within the characterisation of mammals. And some birds become incapable of flight but they still retain the characterisations of bords.
Joe Felsenstein,
How do you answer this?
Can we be safe assuming that all species with eye’s share a common ancestor? If not has your statement trashed Alan’s argument?
According to Simon Conway Morris camera eyes evolved independently at least seven times and compound eyes at least four times.
Doesn’t that prove that:
a) it’s easy to evolve an eye
b) that compound eyes obviously evolved from camera eyes
c) that camera eyes obviously evolved from compound eyes
d) that all eye evolution is Darwinian
e) that evolutionists cherry pick their data
I don’t have access to pages 47-50, so I can’t verify what you claim here. I’m not taking your word for it, you have a proven record of deceptive quotation.
I’m not claiming you’re arguing against common descent, I’m claiming you’re failing to understand how that same evidence also demonstrates the gradual evolution of eyes.
Again again again. He’s not merely claiming that comparative eye morphology implies a common genealogical relationship of the species that have those eyes. He is claiming that the patterns in the distribution of eye morphologies allows us to infer the gradual nature of eye evolution.
You are bringing up the aspect of eye evolution that is selection and saying you don’t see how anything he’s spoken about lends any support to the idea that the “Darwinian mechanism” (by which I take you to mean natural selection) made eyes evolve. Okay, but I’m missing three possibly crucial pages between where the freely available part of the book stops, and where your quote from page 50 apparently appears, so I can’t speak to whether he says anything about selection there. By your quotation you imply he doesn’t. I’m not convinced.
Which kind of proposed mechanism of eye evolution are you ok with then?
Yes, it actually does. Which is one of the pieces of evidence that supports there being a strong aspect of selection involved in eye-evolution.
You would obviously (to me) have to look at the patterns in the distribution of compound and camera eyes to determine which evolved from which.
The simple statement that different eyes exist at different frequencies in the diversity of life does not lend itself to any particular conclusion about the order of events. And nobody claims it does.
If we can see from comparative evidence that eyes have arisen many times, then yes it certainly implies that selection favors eye evolution in general.
How would Morris’ statement that “camera eyes evolved independently at least seven times and compound eyes at least four times.” somehow prove that “evolutionists cherry pick their data” ? You’re going to have to spell this one out for me.
For example, because some species have more opsins than others, we can infer that all eyes evolved gradually. Which says nothing about the mechanism.
I quoted the only mention. It’s simple enough for him (or anyone else who wants to bother) to verify.
“Natural selection seems to have invented the camera-type eye more than once.”
It’s just bald assertion.
As CharieM points out, he could just have easily have also written:
Natural selection seems to have invented the compound-type eye more than once.
It too would have been bald assertion.
There’s nothing simple (or easy) about eye evolution.
http://www.pigeon.psy.tufts.edu/avc/husband/avc4eye.htm
Did the author do this?
According to your own stated criteria, wouldn’t the author need to do this in order for us to decide whether his account is even plausible?
Disclaimer: I am NOT saying that Rogers argues that camera-type eyes evolved from compound-types eyes or that compound-type eyes evolved from camera-type eyes.
The point is that one could tell a story in which one evolved from the other and declare it plausible, but that don’t make it so.
You’re confused again. Nobody has claimed that all eyes imply common descent of all species.
But you were the one claiming that he had somehow selectively thrown away the principle that more closely related species should have more similar eyes.
You wrote
No, the same principle still applies to snails as I showed. It is still true that within snails, if eyes evolved there, then we should be able to detect the same pattern of more similar eyes for more closely related snails.
And if eyes evolved in snails multiple times, it would STILL be true. Then for each of those times eyes evolved in snails, it would still be true that more closely related snails should have more similar eyes.
You are exceedinly deceptive in your quotation and reading of the material. It is amazing how you can so consistently fail to understand the things he write. Have you ever heard of this idea in philosophy called the principle of charity?
I see many people here (not just you ID guys I readily concede) failing to apply it. But don’t let the fact that other people fail to apply it constitute an excuse for your own. Read for comprehension first, then criticize. It will save us all a lot of time.
And then selectively brought it back in, as you pointed out. I call that cherry picking, what do you call it?
IF all snails are closely related
THEN all snails will have very similar eyes.
That’s the freaking argument Rumraket.
Yet they don’t, and the author admits it. So the premise is false.
Put another way:
Closely related species will have similar eyes.
All snails do not have similar eyes.
Therefore, all snails are not closely related.
IF all snails are closely related, THEN the premise is false.
I see it all the time in your name-calling.