768 thoughts on “I lost my faith in ID”
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The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
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Flint,
Well, the “Darwinists” of Larry’s post are a mythical group of strict adaptationists who also cannot do math, specifically, they were unable to figure out the low level of selection against ‘extra’ DNA in a not terribly fecund mammal.
I did enjoy colewd interpreting Larry as saying that Behe was doing science.
The reality: four years ago (i.e. before the “blunting or breaking ” dishonesty, and the mutilated table), Larry reckoned that Behe might be attempting to do science in good faith, but failing miserably.
I doubt he still holds that opinion.
Maybe you can explain the ENCODE bruhaha in terms I can understand, since I don’t know the jargon or what it refers to. My recollection is that the ENCODE people had a very loose, or very inclusive, definition of “function”, and I got the impression that they considered function not in terms of what some DNA actually does, but in terms of what happens to that DNA. There was some issue about “transcribing” but I don’t know what that means.
You’re still misinterpreting. Larry seems to think, since he says so, that what the IDiots do is science, only very bad science. So, that’s not an “admission”, but Larry’s opinion about whether that crap, or some of that crap, should be called science.
Larry also seems to think of Darwin and Dawkins as focused on positive natural selection as the main, if not the only, mechanism in evolution. Larry seems to be focused on non-adaptive phenomena. So, he’s saying that positive natural selection is not the one and only mechanism of evolution, not that your “issues”, or Meyer’s, are spot on.
Flint,
Simply put, the ENCODE project used an insanely broad definition of ‘functional’, which included any sequence that is ‘transcribed’ (i.e. for which, at some level in some cells, an RNA copy is made). Most regions of the genome are subject to low level ‘read-through’ transcription, which has no functional significance.
ENCODE also included DNAseI hypersensitive sites; these are sequences that are unusually accessible to a DNA-cutting enzyme — it is a characteristic of sites that are interacting with transcription factors, but it can also arise for non-functional sequence-dependent reasons. They also included any sequences that bound a transcription factor, whether or not there was any functional consequence to that binding.
Because of the goals of their project, they were using an all-encompassing, deliberately over-broad definition of function. Some of the authors then gave ill-advised, wonderfully breathless interviews to journalists. Hence the bruhaha.
350,000 vs 17 million. 1960’s vs source of all the prophesies, patient zero. One interpretation refers to Jesus the other, “The unchanged common view among many Jews today, including Karaites, is that if the entire book of Isaiah is read from start to finish, in Hebrew, then it is clear that Isaiah 53 is not talking about one individual but instead the nation of Israel as a whole.”
Let me rephrase, 17,000,000 Jews whose tradition is the source of the Torah, do not have any difficulty with Jesus not being their Messiah.
Somebody is wrong about what is the inerrant word of God.
If only there was some way to find out!
I know, let’s use the same mechanisms the theists have used to elucidate objective morality!
colewd,
Well, an enormous number of biologists – the vast majority – don’t see this as a problem for evolutionary theory. So by your own evidential standard of consensus omnium, it’s a clincher.
It has, indeed, provided a rich resource for studying relationships at a finer grade of detail than permitted by morphological analysis, curious in a world where those relationships are impossible.
If the only people insisting it’s a problem for biology are non-biologists waving bibles, a disinterested observer might conclude that they are probably mistaken.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humani_generis
I meant Mani. Sorry for the typo. Anyway, the point was clear enough from the other examples.
It is evident that they did. And their standard in interpreting the prophecies permits them to say that a passage about an Immanuel confirms Jesus. Orthodox Jews evidently do not permit such looseness and therefore have not converted.
No big deal but the error was yours. Had you written Mani, I would have said he was a historical character somewhat embellished.
How was the standard of interpretation established and it is observed consistently?Thanks
Actually, the discovery that DNA and proteins are sequential, that there’s such thing as a primary structure, made the explanations of evolutionary phenomena much easier to understand. After all, the mechanisms for divergence were easier to interpret and model at the molecular level had it being something much more cumbersome.
The simplicity of having a sequence at the very foundation of biological inheritance makes evolutionary explanations straightforward. We know exactly where to look. We find mutations, we find evidence of divergence going from those without selective effects to those with strong selective ones (positive and negative selection effects). You’ve got it backwards. Sequences are a beautiful foundation for evolutionary biology.
newton,
Unchanged because once you change remaining an Orthodox Jew remains difficult. The latest consensus is that 20% of the youth in Israel now believe Jesus is their Messiah.
So between Judaism and Christianity less than 1% believe that Jesus was not the Messiah. 99% compliance for anything is pretty difficult.
Allan Miller,
I guess it is settled science :-). What do you think the 2016 meeting and the Royal Society that Larry Moran attended was all about? Celebrating that Evolution and its grand claims were now universally accepted?
Entropy,
I left out that he thinks it is bad science. Thanks for the correction. Your implying that he thinks that all ID guys are Idiots. He does not. He has respect for both Behe and Meyer.
Entropy,
It is very problematic for the claim that random genetic change and selection/drift are responsible for complex adaptions.
Pretty much, yes.
You’d have to be specific about what is in dispute. I’m not aware that Larry has dropped acceptance of evolution as a fact, nor even selection as one of its mechanisms. And if he has … shrug. He’s not the boss of me. 😁
Allan Miller,
You have got all the spin down :-). oh forgot you’re missing: the most studied complete theory of all time.
You’d do a lot better if you were a lot less vague. What particularly am I supposed to be concerned about vis à vis the ToE?
Bill is in his cute arrogance phase. It would be kind of fun if it wasn’t the 9999th rerun
I think you are trying to say that you have a problem with your characterization of evolution. Now, I think it’s very problematic that nothing more than the vagaries of topology plus gravity are sufficient to generate enormously complex, and often dynamic, watersheds. Really, we have randomness (the topology) plus selection (gravity), and how can that possibly be enough to produce complex, interconnected watersheds covering more than half a continent?
Clearly, watersheds are designed and guided by a higher agency, using mechanisms imperceptible to us. Pay no attention to the fact that the forces we’re familiar with are fully capable of what we see, in both evolution and watersheds. There must be more to it!
Haploid to diploid – the nec plus ultra of duplications! Once you have two sets of genes, well, opportunities multiply.But without selection, what other mechanism is there that accumulates adaptations?
@ Bill
If you want to supplant Darwinian evolution, attack selection.
The sequential nature of the genome has no direct bearing on the complexity of phenotypes. But we can, within it, see clear signals both of descent and of mechanism.
Transition/transversion bias gives clear support to the source of point mutational change being DNA polymerisation error. Silent/chemically conservative substitution biases give a clear indication of purifying selection at work. Inversions, deletions, transpositions are all observed at low level as part of the apparently random noise within populations – and these same things pop up between clades. So, far from being problematic, sequence analysis lends support.
Allan Miller,
How does all this end up in a complex adaption? It’s like explaining how Jackson Pollock’s painting process delivers the Mona Lisa.
Small steps accumulated by selection.
Alan Fox,
It’s been supplanted according to Swamidass, Moran and Lynch. But neutral theory only explains genome variation by neutral mutation.
The best theory for complex adaption belongs to Behe.
You claim that but you are wrong, I suggest. Lets have some quotes from Moran and Lynch.
Nonsense. He has no mechanism!
Alan Fox,
There is an example of this mechanism between your ears. :-). Your categorical denial of evidence is cute.
It is interesting that this same tactic is used when arguing against Christianity.
Why don’t you work with KN and redefine evidence so that it supports your worldview. I am sure this is possible.
We’re not the ones who are redefining evidence that it supports your worldview. That’s what you are doing.
Alan Fox,
Even more so if you alternate, with reciprocal recombination on each separation … 😁
These facts remain, writ large in the genome. You’d rather do a Pollock by splashing paint over them, but have no explanation for them.
If Jewish scholars had the position on Isiah previous to the birth of Jesus, then Isiah would not be evidence for Jesus as Messiah. Only followers of Jesus would need to change the interpretation of Isiah to provide evidence. So sure, I can see why they changed the interpretation of the inerrant word of God
Then why not add the rest of the world’s population, what would be the rate of compliance be then ? Under 40%, 30%?
colewd,
It’s been supplanted according to Swamidass, Moran and Lynch according to you.
Kantian Naturalist,
I offered an available dictionary definition which did not allow you to categorically claim that biblical documentation was not evidence.
Again, the discussion is in the detail of the quality of the evidence and not the various definitions. You said the evidence was not acceptable to you and I agreed that position is fine. Your position also agreed with the definition I posted.
Ooh look, Lynch co-authored a book called Evolution and Selection of Quantitative Traits in 2018. This appears to be an update to 1998’s Genetics and Analysis of Quantitative Traits. That doesn’t sound like the action of someone who thinks selection has been supplanted.
Eta – it’s worth a quick look inside. The work attempts to collect the whole of population genetics in one volume, so there’s stuff going back to the 1920s. I wish I was better at maths so I could follow it all! But it’s pretty clear that Lynch does not think that old stuff is obsolete; it’s foundational.
Allan Miller,
🙂
So, what is Behe’s mechanism that supplants selection? Try and be clear and specific.
newton,
For the Jews Isaiah 53 was a messianic prophecy in the first 1000 years after Jesus. It was first argued to be talking about the Jewish people about 1000 AD and this became a source of internal argument.
BTW: Muslims also believe that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah so that kicks this above the 50% point.
Still not clear to me what there is in Isiah that can be construed as a prediction fulfilled by the New Testament version of Jesus.
I doubt that anybody is arguing for “neutral theory alone”.
PS
Or why it isn’t post hoc!
ETA referring to Isiah predicting something about Jesus.
Alan Fox,
Selection as a mechanism for building complex adaptions has never been modeled so what is there to supplant?
The sequential nature of DNA and Proteins killed this idea along with the observation of irreducible complex structures inside cells.
The only known demonstrable mechanism capable for some of what were are observing is a mind.
Argument Alan: It’s a human mind we are observing not a Devine mind.
Argument Bill: Evidence for a Devine mind.
Argument Alan: A human mind is different than a Devine mind.
Argument Bill: A human mind can test the hypothesis that a mind is capable of producing some irreducibly complex structures in biology.
Anything new to add?
Neil Rickert,
I agree.
Alan Fox,
Do you mean written after Jesus crucification?
Alan Fox,
Start here
Isaiah 7 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you[a] a sign: The virgin[b] will conceive and give birth to a son, and[c] will call him Immanuel
(b) Young Woman in Hebrew
Immanuel in Hebrew means God with us.
On the completeness of evolutionary theory, pp 11 et seq of Lynch & Walsh (screen grabbed from ‘look inside’; I trust that is not a copyright violation) are well worth a read, speaking directly to both wild evolutionary speculations and to those convinced that evolutionary theory is somehow in crisis. You’re looking for a standard-bearer for the latter view, you need to look to someone other than Lynch.
So young women give birth?
Jesus is not called Emmanuel
I’m not seeing the connection.
I mean, if you are looking for a messiah, Emmanuel Macron is up for it.