(Note: my recent interview with Edouard Tahmizian of Internet Infidels is at the end of this post.)
Christian apologist Dr. Jeremiah Johnston, a New Testament Baptist scholar, pastor and author who ministers internationally as president of Christian Thinkers Society, was recently interviewed by Ruth Jackson on the show, Unapologetic, from Premium Unbelievable about his latest book, Body of Proof: The 7 Best Reasons to Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus–and Why It Matters Today (Bethany House Publishers, 2023). Dr. Johnston wrote a 93,000-word dissertation while he was studying at Oxford on the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus, concluding that the resurrection was the best explanation for what happened. In his interview, he makes an even stronger claim (13:11): “We can prove the resurrection of Jesus really happened.” That’s a very tall claim, to put it mildly. As Scripture testifies, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”
The “meat” of Dr. Johnston’s 30-minute interview starts at (13:55) and ends at (29:12). My overwhelming impression, after listening to the interview, was that Dr. Johnston’s reasons would not impress an unbeliever. I’d now like to explain why, by briefly commenting on each of Dr. Johnston’s seven reasons. The quotes are from Dr. Johnston’s interview.
1. Christianity created a better world
“Number one is: it’s the only way you can explain that everywhere the Christian movement goes, society has improved for the better.”
My comment: You have got to be kidding me. Does “everywhere” include pre-Columbian America, where tens of millions of native Americans died from wars, genocidal violence, enslavement, oppression and above all, diseases (such as smallpox, measles and influenza), after coming into contact with European Christians in 1492? And what about the Atlantic slave trade, which imposed hellish conditions on Africans and their slave descendants in the New World, over a period of several centuries, resulting in tens of millions of deaths? (If Dr. Johnston doesn’t think that Christianity was responsible for these crimes against humanity, then I’d suggest that he read All Oppression Shall Cease (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2022), a highly acclaimed history of slavery and the Catholic Church by Jesuit priest Fr. Christopher Kellerman.) To convincingly counterbalance these appalling numbers, one would have to demonstrate that Christianity saved hundreds of millions of lives, in other ways. So, where are the stats? I don’t see any.
Dr. Johnston also mentions hospitals and health care, and he does have a valid point here, as atheist scholar Professor Bart Ehrman himself acknowledges:
“Hospitals – defined as buildings or building complexes that provided both outpatient and inpatient health care by professionally trained doctors and nurses based on the most advanced medical knowledge of the day — were a Christian invention. The services they provided were free of charge.”
Dr. Ehrman, who is currently working on a book tentatively titled, The Invention of Charity: How Christianity Transformed the Western World, notes that “in the Roman world at large, those with wealth showed almost no concern for those in need, even desperate need.” When they did give to the poor, it was usually out of a desire for self-improvement, rather than concern for the suffering of the poor. However, as Ehrman points out, the Christian concept of charity ultimately derives from Judaism. Christianity served as the vehicle to universalize this notion throughout the Roman empire.
It is not that Christians invented the idea of “charity”: they inherited a concern for the needy from their Jewish forebears. But they, not the Jews, converted the Roman world, and, in the end, universalized and, to some extent, institutionalized the imperatives, incentives, and practices of charity… Prior to the Christian conquest of the Empire, the Western world knew of no such things as hospitals, orphanages, private charities, or governmental assistance to the poor. These are Christian innovations.
So while Christianity has done a ton of good in the world, it has also done a lot of harm. Which is greater, the good or the harm? It’s really hard to say. And while the tireless labor of Christian medical missionaries may have saved a great many lives in Third World countries during the 20th century, one could fairly argue that modern science, rather than religion, deserves much of the credit here.
2. Jesus predicted his own resurrection
“Number two: Jesus called it. If the Church had a hash tag, it would be: on the third day… Jesus called his resurrection. He predicted his violent death and resurrection in Mark 8:31, Mark 9:31, and Mark 10:33-34. He quotes Hosea 6:2-3 – ‘After two days he will revive us. On the third day [he will restore us.]'”
My comment: If Jesus actually predicted his own resurrection, then he created an expectation in the minds of his disciples that he would rise. And if that’s the case, then the popular apologetic argument, that the disciples couldn’t have hallucinated the risen Jesus because they were beaten men whose hopes had been dashed by seeing him crucified, is rendered invalid. On the contrary, the disciples were primed to expect a resurrection. And we know for a fact that three of them (Peter, James and John) were prone to seeing visions: Mark 9:2-13 explicitly tells us that even before Jesus’ death, they’d seen him arrayed in clothes of dazzling white, accompanied by Moses and Elijah, and that they’d heard the voice of God speaking from a cloud, on a mountain. A skeptic might say that these were highly imaginative and impressionable witnesses.
But did Jesus really predict his own resurrection? The vast majority of critical Biblical scholars would say that he did not. Let’s not forget: the Gospels were written decades after Jesus’ alleged resurrection, by people who were already committed Christians. Certainly, Jesus may have expected some last-minute miraculous vindication from God, immediately before his death, which would account for his cry of desolation on the cross when none eventuated. Alternatively, he may have been resigned to his crucifixion at the hands of the Romans, but looked forward to being vindicated at some future point in history, when he would return at God’s right hand to judge the living and the dead. But the prophecies of the resurrection found in Mark’s Gospel are generally regarded by scholars as theologically motivated: if God actually raised Jesus from the dead, then He must have told Jesus in advance, and of course, Jesus must have told his disciples. At any rate, when Dr. Johnston claims that Jesus predicted his own resurrection, he is going against the consensus of New Testament scholars. That doesn’t make him wrong, but it does make his argument questionable.
3. Jesus was able to raise the dead
“Three: Jesus performed. He demonstrated resurrection power… He raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead. That’s Mark, chapter 5. Luke 7: the widow of Nain’s son. He stops a funeral procession. The boy would have died that day. He said, ‘He’s not dead; he’s sleeping.’ Jesus raised him up. And of course, John 11: Lazarus, where he brings Lazarus forth from the dead, after being dead four days. So Jesus showed that he did indeed have power over death… Jesus is the first-fruits [of the] resurrection, never to die again. We will have ‘un-dieable’ bodies in the resurrection. They will never need to be upgraded… They will always be in perfect condition. And Jesus’ resurrection body is a model of that. What’s fascinating to me is: I also talk about those who had to die twice – these individuals who were not the first fruit of the resurrection like Jesus. They would have died twice. We actually have two different burial spots for Lazarus: Bethany and on the island of Cyprus, where he was buried a second time, which is really cool.”
My comment: The resurrection miracles described by Dr. Johnston were written down by the Gospel writers at least three decades after they actually happened, at a time when many (and perhaps all) of the original witnesses would have been dead. Would Dr. Johnston believe a claim that a Hindu healer had worked such a miracle three decades earlier, if he were unable to interview the witnesses? I doubt it.
Another point that needs to be considered is that Jesus himself declared that Jairus’ daughter (whom he healed) wasn’t dead, but asleep. What if he was right, and the girl was actually in a deep coma? The same applies to the widow of Nain’s son. Even in today’s world, people can be mistakenly pronounced dead, and there have been tragic cases of people buried alive. So, were the people Jesus raised really dead? Maybe not. To be sure, the story of Lazarus being raised four days after his death cannot be explained away in this fashion, but despite allegedly happening right before Palm Sunday, it is found only in John (which is generally thought to be a late Gospel): Matthew, Mark and Luke don’t mention it at all.
But even if the narratives were all true, and Jesus actually had the power to raise the dead, the point is that they died again, as Dr. Johnston rightly points out. Such narratives fail to establish that Jesus was able to raise himself to life (or be raised back to life) in an immortal, indestructible, “un-dieable” body (to use Dr. Johnston’s term). That’s a much taller claim.
4. There was no motivation for the disciples to invent the story of Jesus’ resurrection.
“We [previously] talked about number four: there was no motivation to invent a resurrection narrative. That’s the original contribution to knowledge in Body of Proof.” Earlier on in the interview (10:12), Dr. Johnston declared, “I’ve talked to a lot of marketing people, and if you were trying to market a new religion, … you talk about a tone-deaf way to start a new religion. Female witnesses, your Messiah is killed by Roman crucifixion, your Messiah is resurrected from the dead. Nobody believed in resurrection outside Judaism in the Roman Empire. You could not have started with worse talking points than what the new Christian movement started with, if you wanted to draw a following. The only reason it did, in spite of the marketing bias, … is that’s what actually happened… It was what they experienced, and it was true… There is no psychological motivation to invent an early resurrection narrative about Jesus, if it didn’t happen… Judaism is a coherent religion. They believe that there will be a resurrection at the end of days, a general resurrection… There was no reason to claim that Jesus rose from the dead. You could have honored him as a great prophet, a great thinker, a moral teacher. You had no reason, there was no psychological motivation to go out and about and say, ‘Hey, he really rose from the dead.'”
My comment: What the above argument demonstrates is that the resurrection narrative wasn’t invented out of whole cloth, as there would have been no religious motive for such a fabrication. What the argument fails to establish is that the resurrection narrative is actually historical. Other explanations for the disciples’ belief in Jesus’ resurrection are possible: perhaps the unexpected discovery of the empty tomb (after the body had been stolen by grave robbers), coupled with Jesus’ repeated predictions (assuming he made them) that he would be raised back to life, was enough to trigger spontaneous, post-mortem visual and tactile apparitions of Jesus among Peter, James and John, and later the other disciples, causing them to believe that he had indeed risen. (In this connection, see Dale Allison’s discussion of the best skeptical scenario here, at 55:42.) I’m not claiming that this scenario is a likely one; I’ll leave that for others to judge. My point is that belief in Jesus’ resurrection didn’t need a motivation. All it needed was a sufficiently powerful cause.
5. Archaeology supports the reliability of the Gospel accounts
“Number five: … it’s the truth that written and archaeological sources overwhelmingly support the Gospel resurrection narratives, which are embedded in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. When we study the material culture, we see that archaeology is Christianity’s closest cousin. We see that unlike any other faith [or] belief system in the world, Christianity puts itself to the historical test, and says, ‘Hey! Test us!’ … I go into depth [in my book] about Jewish burial traditions… No Jew would lose track of their loved one… Scholars have sold lots of books by saying that Jesus’ body was likely eaten by stray dogs, that his body was never buried [in a tomb]; it was buried in a mass criminal pit… When we acquaint ourselves with Jewish burial tradition, we understand that you would not lose sight of your brother, even if he was an executed criminal. Even if he died as a crucified criminal, you would not lose track of his bones. We have this from Jehohanan, who was discovered during the reign (sic) of Pontius Pilate. Crucified, had to be buried before nightfall, in accordance with Jewish burial traditions. He was buried with a crucifixion spike stuck through his heel. When you look at the archaeology, I quote Jodi Magness from the University of North Carolina. She’s an atheist archaeologist, but she says, ‘When you look at the Jewish juridical procedure, as presented in the Gospels, … the Gospels get it right.’ And that’s from an archaeologist… We have to appeal to Roman emperors for the same level of textual attestation as Jesus of Nazareth.”
My comment: Dr. Magness’s conclusion is a fairly modest one: “Although archaeology does not prove there was a follower of Jesus named Joseph of Arimathea or that Pontius Pilate granted his request for Jesus’ body, the Gospel accounts describing Jesus’ removal from the cross and burial are consistent with archaeological evidence and with Jewish law.” Moreover, Dr. Magness’s proposal differs from the Gospels in a key respect. In her article, What did Jesus’ Tomb Look Like? (Biblical Archaeology Review, 32:1, January/February 2006; reprinted in The Burial of Jesus, Biblical Archaeology Society, Washington DC, 2007), Dr. Magness puts forward her own novel interpretation of statements found in the Gospels, that Jesus was laid in a new tomb where no-one had ever been laid (Matthew 27:60, Luke 23:53, John 19:41). She thinks they simply mean that Jesus’ body was laid in a new burial niche in the wall (or loculus) inside Joseph of Arimathea’s family rock tomb:
Joseph’s tomb must have belonged to his family because by definition rock-cut tombs in Jerusalem were family tombs… The Gospel accounts apparently describe Joseph placing Jesus’ body in one of the loculi in his family’s tomb. The “new” tomb mentioned by Matthew probably refers to a previously unused loculus. (2007, p. 8)
However, the Gospels speak of Jesus being laid in “a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid” (Luke 23:53). That’s completely different from a new niche in the wall of an existing tomb, where many bodies have already been laid. Thus even Dr. Magness doesn’t think the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ burial are completely accurate.
I might add that I don’t know of any critical Biblical scholar who believes that Jesus was buried with 100 Roman pounds of myrrh and aloes (or 75 of our pounds), as John 19:39 informs us – an amount literally fit for a king!
But here’s the thing: even if the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ burial were accurate in all details, how on earth would that establish the truth of Jesus’ resurrection? Burial is a completely natural event; resurrection, a supernatural one. To infer the latter from the former is to make an invalid inference.
Finally, although the textual evidence for Jesus’ existence compares favorably with the textual evidence for the Roman emperors, Dr. Johnston overlooks the fact that we have coins commemorating the Roman emperors. We don’t have any such coins for Jesus.
6. The conversion of two prominent skeptics: Paul and Jesus’ brother James
“Number six is really key, because Jesus appeared to those who believed in him, Jesus appeared to those who doubted him, Jesus appeared to those who opposed him… I talked in detail in [my] chapter about the apostle Paul, and how radical his conversion was, but also, I want to talk about the Lord’s brother, James. When Paul is converted in A.D. 31 or 32, … Paul goes into Arabia, and then after Arabia, he goes to Jerusalem… Paul goes and he spends fifteen days, according to Galatians 1 and 2, with Peter and with James, in the city… And they talk all about the Gospel. Paul wants to make sure he [has] … the Gospel right. And so, here’s the fascinating thing: James did not believe that his brother was the Jewish Messiah until the Resurrection… What would it take for you to die, believing and proclaiming your brother was the Son of God? We know that … Jesus appears to James. That’s 1 Corinthians 15:7… Hyper-critical scholars acknowledge Paul wrote 1 Corinthians [15] verse 7: ‘And he appeared to James.’ What’s fascinating, James then becomes a pillar of the Church. He then dies in A.D. 62. According to Josephus, he is stoned to death, proclaiming that his brother is the resurrected Son of God, the Messiah. So, wow! So when you look at the ‘hostiles’ that came to Christ – those that doubted him, those that opposed him – it’s compelling evidence.”
My comment: Two quick points. Regarding Paul, we don’t know exactly what he saw when he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus, but judging from the descriptions in Acts 9:1-9, Acts 22:1-11 and Acts 26:9-18, he seems not to have seen a flesh-and-blood Jesus but a blindingly luminous being of light, as well as hearing a voice from the sky. In other words, whatever he encountered, it was not Jesus’ resurrected body, but an apparition. Therefore it cannot count as evidence for Jesus’ bodily resurrection.
Regarding James, Paul’s mention of him in 1 Corinthians 15:7 is indeed authentic, as scholars of all stripes acknowledge. However, as Christian apologist Ryan Turner acknowledges in his online article, An Analysis of the Pre-Pauline Creed in 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 (October 1, 2009), verse 7 (which refers to Jesus appearing to James) is most likely not part of the original creed: it was appended by Paul. In any case, as Professor Dale C. Allison points out in his widely acclaimed book, The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Polemics, History (T & T Clark, 2021), we do not know if James’ conversion came before or after Jesus’ resurrection appearances. Perhaps he was already a believer by the time he encountered Jesus. Or perhaps he was only half-hearted in his opposition to Jesus, or possibly, he vacillated back and forth between supporting and opposing Jesus. Professor Allison concludes that “‘conversion’ might be too strong a word for what happened to him” (2021, p. 79). What’s more, details of Jesus’ resurrection appearance to James are scant: we don’t know where or when it happened, what Jesus looked like when he appeared to James, what (if anything) Jesus said to James, or how James felt when he saw Jesus. Finally, Josephus’ narrative of the death of James in A.D. 62 (Antiquities 20, chapter 9) does not say that he was martyred for his faith in Jesus’ resurrection, but rather, for being a breaker of the law.
7. Jesus’ resurrection is the only reason why we are able to make sense of suffering
“Number seven … Jesus’ resurrection is the only reason we can make sense of the suffering in our lives. When we look at Romans 8:18, the apostle Paul said, ‘I don’t count these sufferings worthy to be compared with the glory that I will receive some day, in heaven.’ Paul said …, ‘Better for me to die in Christ than to live.’ He was looking constantly to the hope of the resurrection as the answer to all the suffering… The resurrection is what ultimately makes sense of all the suffering.”
My comment: Here’s a question for Dr. Johnston. Suppose you were living in Judea before the time of Christ, but after the time when the Jewish Scriptures had been compiled. Do you really mean to tell me that you’d be utterly unable to make any sense of the suffering in the world, despite growing up in a society based on ethical monotheism? Or again: suppose you lived in fourth-century B.C. Athens, and you were listening to philosophers debate the existence of a supreme, benevolent God. Do you really mean to say that you think the atheists would have the better of the argument, prior to Jesus’ resurrection? I think not. In that case, all you can possibly mean is that you believe Christianity makes better sense of the suffering we see in the world than other religions (including Judaism and philosophical monotheism). But even if this is true, it, at best, a supplementary reason for believing in Jesus’ resurrection, and it’s a theological reason, not a historical one.
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And finally, ere’s a recent 42-minute interview I did with Edouard Tahmizian, Vice-President of Internet Infidels, about my recent article on The Skeptical Zone, Dr. Gavin Ortlund’s defense of C.S. Lewis’s “Liar, Lunatic or Lord” trichotomy, and Why I think it won’t work on skeptics. Most of my readers will already be familiar with this post. At about 24:00, when I conclude my presentation, the discussion gets more interesting, and you’ll see me looking up at the camera again, instead of looking down at my notes. Ed also raises some points relating to his Internet Infidels paper, The Origin of Evil (which he’s recently revised), and we talk about Jesus mythicists (whom Ed knows very well). Finally, around 30:30, I talk about life in Japan. Enjoy!
Yes, but Dawkins isn’t the the last word on this! In fact I think Dawkins simplifies things to the point of falsification, and perhaps is genuinely muddled about what he means by “random” – he uses it in different senses at different times without seeming to understand the difference!
“Random”, in the context of natural selection, really means “orthogonal to function” – in other words, the chance of a given novel sequence isn’t affected by whether it’s likely to be useful in the current environment. But that does NOT mean that catastrophic variants are just as probable as near-neutral variants. They aren’t – near-neutral variants are much MORE likely than catastrophic ones.
“Random” in the context of evolution does NOT mean “equiprobable”. “Stochastic” is a better term – variants are “randomly” (with respect to function) drawn from a non-uniform distribution in which near-neutral variants are fare more probable than catastrophic ones.
Dawkins likes to contrast “random” mutations with “non-random” natural selection. But that is misleading. Both are stochastic processes. The difference is that the probability of a given mutation is a function of the way genetic sequences are copied, whereas the probability of an organism leaving viable progeny depends, a little bit, on whether it carries a genetic variant that could help. But even a wonderful novel variant that makes you irresistable to a potential mate won’t help if someone steps on you before you’ve found her. The boot is just as random as the mutation.
So “Dawkins uses it” isn’t a reason to accept the analogy IMO!
That isn’t really the point. Sure, novel sequences themselves come from “copying errors”, but novel functions come from combinations. You could build an airplane out of bits of bicycle and bits of sailing dinghy! And it’s functions, not proteins, that are “selected” – or rather it’s what the sequences dothat helps, or hinders, an organisms chance of leaving progeny, not what they are. And most useful functions are polygenic!
Your genotype isn’t just a list of the gene variants you have. It’s the combination of gene variants you have. A allele that makes your hair lustrous isn’t going to help if you also have an allele that makes you bald.
No, the thing we are facing is a process that replicates a molecule that may or may not have an effect on the chances of its owner leaving viable progeny.
“The math” is only as good as the processes you are using it to model. If it’s a bad model, the it doesn’t matter how good the math is. And the relevant math is to do with the probability distributions of the events that govern an organism’s chances of leaving viable progeny. Those are quite different from the probability distributions of typos in a printing press.
Which, weirdly, is kind of relevant (by analogy!) to vjtorley’s OP!
Lots of things govern how stories get replicated, how they don’t, what gets written down, what fragments of writing survive, what people remember, what people believe.
They all have probability distributions and we don’t have direct access to the Ground Truth! All we have are models.
And all models are wrong! The trick is figuring out which are useful.
Erik,
I agree with you. Thanks for the correction.
This is far from the first time Bill has been corrected on this. The infamous Howe diagram has had a long internet life, both here and at Peaceful Science. Many have accused Bill of “sealioning”.
Maybe ‘you’ could build or not. It certainly won’t build itself. Speaking of which, what “natural selection”? Don’t you know that Darwin’s crazy dream cannot possibly work?
Also, the underlying assumption to DNA – in this discussion of yours – is that it uniquely specifies how organisms are built and behave. This is obviously false. Do you know why?
Bill’s Math Class
Elizabeth,
This is true for certain genes and not true for others. Certainly non amino acid substitutions are neutral but that accounts for 33% of changes. Here is evidence of no AA substitutions getting fixed in several populations of mammals.
https://www.uniprot.org/align/clustalo-R20230510-215531-0177-55252117-p1m/percent-identity-matrix
.
I agree.
Without the math to predict a single point of origin all we have is speculation. Current population genetics mathematics works well on existing populations.
My point was a trivial one – that new combinations of genes build new functions rather than new sequences themselves – as when we combine existing things to make new things.
The issue of HOW the novel function is “built” is a quite different issue and the bicycle/boat analogy doesn’t work. Organisms are nothing like bicycles.
You would probably agree, but for a different reason from mine, judging by your second point, which I would say is quite wrong. DNA does not “uniquely specify” how organisms are built and behave. Nothing like. If all you had was DNA you would have no clue how to build a behaving organism.
What “is true for certain genes but not for others”? I think you may have misread what I wrote. Or perhaps quoted the wrong part of my post?
You’ll have to be more specific about “the math”. I’m not seeing your point here, I’m afraid. We have more than math – we have actual observations.
Whereas Bill has a complete thread at Peaceful Science with people asking him to show his work.
Heh. I didn’t know – not sure I have met colewd before! But I googled and I see there is a 5000 comment post here somewhere!
Oh well. It does seem to be amazing that ID people think that somehow math can “prove” that current explanations are inadequate. I mean, of course they are inadequate! All models are incomplete – if they were complete they wouldn’t be models, they’d be the-thing-itself!
But more seriously, statistical models are only as good as the assumed probability distributions. You can’t declare the probabilty distributions to be flat, and then say that sequences are improbable based on the assumption! What the “math” tells us is that the probability distributions aren’t flat!
Elizabeth,
Hi Elizabeth
Maybe certain ID people do believe this. One ID person I respect is Mike Behe and he would never make a claim like this.
All models are estimations but the key is the ability of the model to make empirically verifiable predictions. An example of a theory that does this is general relativity. The mathematical model Einstein built can predict space time curvature which Eddington experimentally verified.
While population genetics can do this for existing populations it cannot predict how a population came into existence. As physics cannot predict how matter came into existence. As you have noted science is inherently limited.
BTW thank you for starting Skeptical Zone I have enjoyed the discussions over the years.
Well Dembski seemed to believe it. Not sure if you are a Dembski fan!
I’m not sure about Behe (or perhaps you don’t call what Behe does maths) – he seems to me to think that his “irreducible complexity” concept is some kind of logical, if not mathematical, proof of the unlikelihood of complex systems evolving – but his math seems to me to make an unsupported assumption, which is that near neutral, or even slightly deleterious variants can’t become quite numerous in a population. If they can (and there’s plenty of evidence that they can) then “irreducible complexity” isn’t a problem, because you don’t need two otherwise neutral mutations to occur simultaneously in the same organism for the “irreducibly complex” function to emerge. One of them can be hanging around in a population for many generations, so there are plenty of opportunities for the second one to occur in one of the bearers of the first.
But not with complex feedback systems. That’s a crucial difference. Complex feedback systems aren’t predictable at systems level, how ever predictable they are at the level of fundamental laws. It’s why we can’t forecast our own planet’s weather very well, even though we can make phenomenally accurate predictions about orbits.
Well populations don’t exactly “come into existence”. They emerge from earlier ones! And why would it matter anyway? We can’t predict what specific eddy will come into existence in a turbulent stream, but that doesn’t mean we don’t understand the mathematics of turbulence!
I’m glad that you and others have been here to keep it thriving!
Nice to be back 🙂
My point was a trivial one – that new combinations of genes build new functions rather than new sequences themselves – as when we combine existing things to make new things.
The issue of HOW the novel function is “built” is a quite different issue and the bicycle/boat analogy doesn’t work. Organisms are nothing like bicycles.
You would probably agree, but for a different reason from mine, judging by your second point, which I would say is quite wrong. DNA does not “uniquely specify” how organisms are built and behave. Nothing like. If all you had was DNA you would have no clue how to build a behaving organism.
Elizabeth,
I think Bill’s work is interesting but on its own it is only a partial explanation as it is a purely a mathematical approach. While the mathematical problem with currently evolutionary theory is substantial discovery of a new mechanism could change the game.
Here is a empirically based paper from Winston Ewert who works with Demski.
It is an expansion of the Venn diagram I posted earlier.
https://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2018.3/BIO-C.2018.3
Mike is much more on the empirical side than Demski. He is very careful with his arguments not to set himself up to have to prove a negative. He did generate a mathematical paper with University of Pittsburg professor David Snoke in 2004 that generated a mathematical model of the population sizes required to generate 2 or more functional mutations (in less then 100 million years) based on gene duplication and divergence. What was interesting is that population geneticist Michael Lynch provided a competing model in 2005, Lynch’s model was limited to 2 mutations and assumed all amino acid substitutions were neutral. As you mentioned Bene assumed that amino acid substitutions were deleterious prior to gene duplication. After gene duplication both models assumed mutations were neutral.
One of the examples Behe uses for his irreducible complexity argument is the bacterial flagellum. His claim is a structure like this is a powerful challenge to the Darwinian mechanism. Given the flagellum’s DNA is an organized arrangement of about 100K nucleotides prior to function I think Mike is on pretty solid ground that this is a challenge to Darwins theory.
I agree with you here.
I don’t think the current empirical data supports the claim that all populations emerge from earlier ones. This was Darwins grand claim but the genetic evidence no longer supports the idea that all life is reproductively connected given our current understanding of how reproduction works.
Molecular phylogenetics confirms common descent independently from and consiliently with comparative taxonomy.
My understanding of how reproduction works does not conflict with common descent in any way. Your understanding is what precisely? And who else apart from you is included in “our”?
Alan Fox,
How do think it confirms common descent? I am assuming you mean universal common descent were all species are the result of reproduction and natural variation.
What we see in various Venn diagrams is different gene and chromosome patterns. How do you think reproduction and natural variation can account for these different patterns?
At least. In my view all living organisms (and all extinct ones) are connected by an unbroken line of descent via parent to offspring (broadened to include binary fission in prokaryotes) right back to the universal common ancestor. That’s a lot to shoot at, Bill
What you see is not what all the folks at Peaceful Science have been telling you for months, maybe years. The Howe diagram (round two) back in August 21. Do you just forget these previous discussions?
Alan Fox,
.John Harshman the phylogenetic expert at PS simply claimed gene gain and loss in order to explain the pattern in the Howe with no reconciliation of how all these changes occurred and became fixed in the population.
I agree there was a lot of discussion at PS but at the end of the day the expert could not reconcile the Howe pattern using population genetics. The models discussed (Behe and Lynch) showed gene duplication and variation was very limited in what it could explain. As it stands until the pattern can be mechanistically explained a single origin event is not based on current evidence but on an obsolete legacy model.
I doubt that. I’ll check out the thread.
I’ve seen this claim debunked. Bill, I generously put this repetition of debunked claims down to your poor memory. But others have called it “sealioning”.
Alan Fox,
Not even seriously challenged. You need a higher standard for the word “debunked” :-). Sweeping contradictory data under the rug is not good for science.
John Harshman tried to explain the diagram but could not explain how the pattern occurred other than to show were genes where gained and lost.
Here are unanswered questions that I asked on post 21.
Where is the model that has been shown to show the magnitude of changes we see in gene Venn diagrams are due to gene duplications?
How has this model been developed over the years?
How do you account for the Schmidt paper that shows 2 functional mutations taking 160million years in humans and chimps. Is Schmidt lying?
How do you support the claim that most all gene changes are neutral?
Why don’t you just move on from the claim that most changes are caused by gene duplication and neutral mutations?
Where are they answered?
Again, I doubt that. I doubt that you understand what the Howe diagram shows. But I’m not going to reinvent the wheel. Sal Cordova already had fun with it here for a while. So that’s more background checking for me.
This is a new one on me. Link to the paper and try explaining coherently how it is evidence against evolutionary processes.
Bill on a previous trip around the goldfish bowl.
Gene and genome duplication are indeed a rich source for selection snd drift to act on.
John Harshman
Alan Fox,
A rich source? Have you read the relevant papers on this subject?
You seem to have lots of opinions but no background knowledge on the subject, Why don’t you do your own homework first before you use words like debunked on a subject you don’t yet understand. You are welcome to read the paper and show how given 2 functional mutations by gene duplication takes 160 million years to get fixed in primate populations will support your claim above.
The other option is to realize there is no population genetic explanation for the species Howe Venn diagram all coming for the same ancestor.
Which would those be?
30 seconds Googling got me this:
2006 paper that seems to support my point.
And now for something more recent (2022).
The multiple fates of gene duplications:
Alan Fox,
If you read your papers and the Behe Lynch paper you will see where gene duplication is assumed and when a model is tested for feasibility. This is why guys like Behe are valuable. They are testing the untested assumptions which challenges the model. This opens the door to more research based on a more realistic model.
An interesting question is how many points of origin were required to explain the diversity of life we are observing.
I see Michael Lynch is co-author on some papers on whole genome duplication. Frinstance:
McGrath et al 2014
Bill, you are getting eviscerated at Peaceful Science.
Apologies to Vincent for derailing his thread. I should know better.
Alan Fox,
Bill, you are getting eviscerated at
Really? The data clearly supports multi origin events….stay tuned and stay open minded.
Alan, truth will always out live a lie.
Even if I am discussing this with several very dishonest pseudo scientific types using political debating tactics that could care less about facts.
I disagree, Bill. Those threads speak for themselves: you resolutely fail to engage. When this is pointed out to you, you descend into tone trolling. That is, as they say, telling.
Bill why do you say things you know are untrue?
In the numerous years between when we first started arguing on this website, and now, something has happened to you. It’s like you stopped caring about truth or accuracy. You are no longer willing to listen or consider any point. You just repeat the same old tired things over and over, even despite lengthy explanations and quotes.
What happened to you? You know what you just said is untrue.
Rumraket,
I am sorry you feel this way Rum but I appreciate you reaching out here. I think the problem with the single origin claim is real and quite obvious from the data. There is no model that comes close to explaining the patterns we see in these Venn diagrams.
You probably understood the population genetic models better than anyone over there at PS. We agreed that the stronger model (Behe or Lynch) depended on the protein.
The truth is the models show that gene duplication and divergence is very limited in what it can explain in prokaryotic cells let alone multicellular vertebrates.
The other issue is the reproductive process itself is limiting variation through DNA repair, purifying selection and genetic drift. The big question I would like to see discussed is how much variation can reproduction provide? Until some people yield on the single origin dogma this discussion is impossible outside Creationist circles.
What’s to yield?
I have no commitment to dogma. A single tree or an orchard — it makes no difference to me. But the data seems to strongly argue for a tree, rather than an orchard. You are fighting against the data.
You might also expand this question to ask how many other sources of variation there might be besides reproduction, and how much does each of the sources contribute. There’s this virus going around that I really wish would stop varying, and I’m not convinced it’s using reproduction to produce the variation.
What data?
I’m aware I’m missing a lot of history here, but first you seem to be arguing from math, but now you seem to be arguing from data.
Can you summarise your argument?
Which math? What data? Because if the math doesn’t fit the data, that would suggest it’s the wrong math, not the wrong data!
What, exactly, makes you think that “multi-origin events” fit the data better than common ancestry?
Or is it that you can’t make “the math” give you a single-origin fit to the data?
Hi Elizebeth
The issue in the mechanism of gene duplication and divergence and basic population genetics explaining the various Venn diagrams that show gene distribution of various animals.
Tests have shown this mechanism is very limited in prokaryotic cells which should be the most favorable type of test. The models suggest that this mechanism is limited to a couple of mutations over reasonable evolutionary time frames in prokaryotic cells. It also suggests that with the longer generation times of vertebrates and smaller populations that this mechanism is not viable at all.
The Venn diagrams show there are differences of up to thousands of unique gene sequences. This is strong evidence that these animals have separate points of origin.
Without a mechanistic explanation for a viable mechanism explaining how there is a single point of origin a competing model of multiple origin points needs to be explored,
We started discussing the Howe Venn diagram here over 5 years ago and we are no closer to showing how the Howe Venn would fit into a single origin model than we are today. Rodent and Primate Venn diagrams are showing the same pattern of unique gene sequences between the different species.
Some people start off as creationists and become dishonest; others start off as dishonest and become creationists.
colewd,
Rumraket at Peaceful Science in parallel.
Well, not quite all of them. Dawkins writes about an exceptional case:
https://scepsis.net/eng/articles/id_2.php
Flint,
And there’s Todd Wood, of whom Lizzie has spoken of highly.
Well, that may be a problem with “basic population genetics”. How “basic” is the “population genetics” you are using?
For instance, do you allow your selection coefficient to vary as a function of the evolving population?
Or is it a constant in your model?
Because of course it isn’t a constant in reality.
Which mechanism? What tests?
Why?
This seems to be a quite different, and very odd, argument. Are you saying that without an an explanation for a single point of origin we need to posit several? Why would several be easier to explain?
Yes, I like Todd 🙂
.
These are the two that have been discussed.
https://doi.org/10.1110/ps.04802904
https://doi.org/10.1110/ps.041171805
Different selection coefficients are tested.
The mechanism is gene duplication and divergence. The two tests are in the papers above.
The tests above show the mechanism of gene duplication and variation is very limited and does not explain the pattern of differences in the Venn. The animals in the Venn have smaller populations, longer generation times and many more functional mutations (resulting in functional genes) to explain.
With separate trees we can work toward a realistic model. The single origin model is stuck. We have been discussing this for 5 years without progress on a viable single origin model. There are too many changes to assign to reproduction and natural variation.
According to this more realistic model, where do you assign the root of each tree? How many trees do you think would be most reasonable? For example, what would be the root organism of the squash tree, or the squid tree? Would either of these ancestor species be alive today?