Over at Uncommon Descent, Jonathan McLatchie calls attention to an interview that Scottish Christian apologist David Robertson did with him. The 15-minute video is available there.
The issue is scientific evidence for intelligent design. As so often occurs, they very quickly ran off to the origin of life, and from there to the origin of the Universe. I was amused that from there they tried to answer the question of where God came from, by saying that it was unreasonable to push the origin issue quite that far back. There was also a lot of time spent being unhappy with the idea of a multiverse.
But for me the interesting bit was toward the beginning, where McLatchie argues that the evidence for ID is the observation of Specified Complexity, which he defines as complex patterns that conform to a prespecified pattern. He’s made that argument before, in a 2-minute-long video in a series on 1-minute apologetics. And I’ve complained about it before here. Perhaps he was just constrained by the time limit, and would have done a better job if he had more than 2 minutes.
Nope. It’s the same argument.
His Specified Complexity argument is William Dembski’s pre-2005 argument. It turned out that the argument required a conservation law to show that natural selection could not put this Specified Complexity into the genome. Dembski did have such an argument, but it turned out not to work (see my 2007 article for the details).
In 2005-2006 Dembski changed the argument, by redefining Specified Complexity to have an additional condition. Now you could only call a pattern Specified Complexity if it was not only complex and conformed to a prespecified pattern but also could not be brought about by natural evolutionary forces such as natural selection. A number of people here and at Panda’s Thumb pointed out that this fails to show us how this condition is to be evaluated. It makes SC something that comes in after one has somehow decided that an adaptation cannot have been achieved by natural selection. In short, it has been safeguarded against the criticism that evolution could bring about SC by defining the issue away. That makes SC a useless criterion.
But McLatchie has somehow missed all this history. He is back where Dembski was in the book No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot be Purchased Without Intelligence, published in 2002. McLatchie has totally missed both the refutations of Dembski’s original criterion, and the 2005-2006 fix that rendered the SC criterion useless. In spite of having 15 whole minutes to clean up the mess, McLatchie and Robertson preferred to spend the extra time back at the origin of the Universe.
Before DNA sequencing, passerine families and genera were a mess. That’s one of the more recent straightenings-out of the mess. More detail here. Not only do euphonias (very fancy birds, by the way) move to a new family, but a number of genera, including Euphonia itself, turn out not to be monophyletic. Of course, as you point out, all this is just circular and doesn’t really mean anything. Also, it’s useless for medical research.
What?
That makes literally no sense whatsoever. DNA contains the code for protein amino acid sequence. So what?
Maybe we’ve questioned it, researched it, and came to a different conclusion than you? Could that be it?
For a counter-argument to be strong, it needs to be an argument against something evolution actually postulates.
For example, evolution doesn’t postulate the spliceosome evolved with 500 proteins simultaneously. Since it doesn’t, it would be literally stupid, idiotic, fallacious (and when explained but ignored, kind of dishonest) to keep trying to build probability calculations as if it says so.
That’s funny, I think your resistance to evolution is something non-scientific, you’re just trying to put sciency-sounding arguments arround the real reason you reject it. Given how patently obvious it is to me that you don’t understand the subject all that well, I think I’m more likely correct in assigning motivated reasoning to you, rather than the other way around.
I think what you see as “serious issues” is mostly due to your many, many misunderstandings, misinformation(from various creationist sources) you have been led to believe and then just plain ignorance.
You don’t seem to understand how predictive hypothesis testing works.
You don’t seem to understand how phylogenies are constructed (and neither does Sal).
You don’t seem to understand the difference between mere similarity and nesting patterns of similarities.
You don’t seem to understand the effect of natural selection on deleterious mutations.
You don’t seem to understand the concept of gradualism (constantly you erect the all-at-once strawman).
You don’t seem to know that there are many types of mutations besides just point-mutations (and show no sign of understanding how this affects the “search potential” of mutations in protein sequence space).
You often quote papers that don’t say what you think they say (such as Lynch 2010 and Hunter 2004).
You ask patently ridiculous questions with obvious answers, such as “what is the alternative to neutral intermediate steps?”. (Yes, the answer there really is obvious).
You show no sign of any familiarity with contemporary hypothesis for eukaryote origins, including how this affects things like the origin of the spliceosome and associate introns, the origin of the nucleus.
You show no sign of understanding what it is mitochondria do or how it affects eukaryotes as opposed to prokaryotes that don’t have them (and neither does Sal).
I could go on but what is the fucking point? It’s like you don’t WANT to understand any of it. I get the distinct impression that you mostly read looking for a way to dismiss and argue against, rather than to understand and to learn. And you really, really do need to learn. Call me an asshole, call me an arrogant prick. Call me, or what it is you think I do, whatever the fuck you want. But it’s a goddamn fact, you need to start reading stuff and stop writing. Entirely. Stop writing anything at all, start reading. Educate yourself, for at least three years. You literally should not post here at all for at least three years, you should just read and think.
I ask all sorts of rigorous questions to you, but you never manage to answer them. Here are some more, and I would appreciate a response to each.
Mostly I ask what the heck you think you’re talking about. What do you mean by “DNA and Proteins are sequence dependent”, and how does this cause you to doubt the theory? What are these “strong counter arguments”, and why have you never made any of them here? Why are you so reluctant to admit that you’re a creationist? Do you have similar doubts about the age of the earth? And if you don’t like common descent, what is your suggested alternative?
Why would you assume the copy is inserted in an area of the genome not under active transcription? In the Lenski experiment, the copy of the citrate transporter got inserted by chance under control of a promoter pretty much constantly active.
Alternatively, many gene duplications are inserted right next to the previous one, so they basically remain active since both are under control of the same promoter.
See, this is another thing you didn’t know, causing you to have issues with something that is pretty much a nonexistant problem. Go read, lots and lots of material. Stop making posts here, stop trying to think you can undermine an entire fucking branch of science from a position of profound ignorance.
It doesn’t. But I have no idea what you’re trying to say. Can you please try a little harder to say what you mean?
Rumraket,
Your response is all true, but it has nothing to do with the subject colewd was talking about right then, which refers to amino acid substitutions in proteins shared by humans and chimps. No duplications, no necessary changes in expression. Just point mutations in codons of orthologous genes. So where he got “copied but not active” is a mystery.
colewd,
Whaaaat? I found this out in 1975!
Your insinuation that we are somehow the ones with blinders extends to everybody who performs or understands molecular phylogenetic analysis. And that is pretty much a whole field summarily dismissed. Talk about broad brushes.
It really is Groundhog Day. petrushka’s list needs “You must have ‘ulterior reasons’ for not seeing what I see as obvious” adding.
Honestly, the sequential nature of DNA and protein is, to me, the clincher. I was always evolutionarily inclined, since about 11, as it made total sense of taxonomy, and I was pretty familiar with that as a bird-watcher and devourer of nature books. But learning in detail about DNA and protein at uni – including the early attempts with the cytochrome c phylogeny – was a massive ‘of course!’ moment. I certainly had no requirement to bolster any metaphysical position by swallowing some line. That’s not it at all. Call me a liar if you like.
So, I am particularly mystified as to how colewd reaches his completely opposite conclusions from the same basic info – the simple fact that DNA is string-y. Its lesions and scratches, its joins and breaks, as well as the meat of it – the whole shebang screams ‘descent’. With modification.
By sequence dependent, I’m guessing he means isolated islands.
Can’t get here from there.
Not so?
Well, we won’t really know what he means until he manages to articulate it, and I’m not holding my breath. But this seems unlikely to me, since the immediate subject was two proteins that differ by one or two amino acids. Not all that isolated, in other words. Of course it’s possible he’s that confused.
If you don’t buy isolated islands, you can’t very well doubt evolution. Everything colewd says shouts isolated islands. He dismisses neutral evolution, dismisses building multi-mutation function via nutral evolution.
I tell you, when the doubts of a guy who learned 18 months ago that “DNA and proteins were sequence dependent” don’t overturn science done by people who have dealt with such facts for decades, the world has just gone crazy!
What greater evidence could there be that it’s the scientists who have the closed minds?
Glen Davidson
John Harshman,
John
I have discussed the sequential space arguments on a dozen posts on this blog. On probably 50 posts on Larry’s blog. I think you guys hear what you want to hear. Allan came up with the best counter argument I have seen but unfortunately it does not scale. The fact that you don’t think I have made arguments here makes me believe you are reading the posts or are reading them with some kind of filter. Mikkel and I were discussing the difficulty of evolving a spliceosome. When you make cavalier comments like “selection can handle it” I don’t believe you are thinking through the issues. For some reason you guys don’t see the weakness in this theory as I do and it is really hard for me to understand why. When you get stuck in an argument you try to put your opponent down like you do continually with Sal.
John, Joe, Mikkel, and Allan why don’t you guys go over to Uncommon Decent and see how well your arguments hold up.
Why would you guys have continually try to sell your expertise, use ad hominem arguments, and make sarcastic remarks if you really had a solid theory you were supporting?
IMHO your argument for UCD, as Sal has commented, is circular until you can validate that the transitions can be achieved by a known mechanism. I have not seen one attempted yet. I look forward to someone giving it a shot.
Is there anyone here who is allowed to post at UD?
colewd,
The hypothesis of common descent fits the evidence literally trillions of times better than the “common design” hypothesis. You would know that if you weren’t so afraid of reading Theobald. We’ve asked you to do so, again and again, and still you refuse.
If you’re so confident that common descent is a “weak” hypothesis, then why are you afraid to confront the evidence and arguments in favor of it? (That’s a rhetorical question. I think we all know the answer.)
Joe Felsenstein,
I am sure you have know this at least as long as Allan has (1975). I would be interested to know why you don’t see this is a very serious challenge to all currently evolutionary theory. In my mind without this issue the ID guys don’t have a leg to stand on.
Rumraket,
I can see above that frustration has inspired you to produce a particularly cogent post. But I’m a bit surprised. You’ve been debating/discussing this with them for years. Neither you nor anyone else has made the slightest headway in convincing the IDers of anything, so why this burst of frustration now? I have to say I admire your ability to keep at it but it does seem to me a bit like ‘spinning ones wheels’
I said this before here a while ago but I think the only way to make progress is to pick one very small topic and debate it in excruciating detail. Discuss every single scrap of data. Leave absolutely no stone unturned. At each step force them to agree to each tiny assumption and conclusion and build the case for the overall picture. I don’t think they’ll accept the science- it wont matter- but at least it will be clear nothing further can be gained from debate.
UCD was NEVER an assumed truth until demonstrated otherwise. UCD started out as a hypothesis to explain observed patterns in the data. There are plenty of things that if found would have disproven the hypothesis, i.e. a strong discongruence between the genetic and fossil phylogenetic trees, but those discoveries have not been made. To date every bit of evidence found, both fossil and genetic, can be accounted for by UCD. It has amasses such a huge quantity and quality of positive evidence that it is now considered a scientific fact.
So no, the idea UCD is an assumption which rests on circular logic just shows the ignorance of all things scientific by those making the claim.
That does nothing for the IDist, but it’s useful for lurkers.
colewd,
You are exceedingly confused. I have asked you a great many questions in an attempt to discover the source of your confusion, but you have ignored all of them. I have given you two papers to read, one on the human-chimp relationship, and one on ratite birds, in an attempt to show you some of the evidence for common descent. Note that I am not talking here about universal common descent but common descent of various assemblages of species. A more narrow focus could aid your understanding here. Neither of these groups has anything to do with this “sequential space argument” you seem so obsessed with.
I don’t think you have thought very clearly about any of this. If you will just focus on answering some of the questions I have asked you, and perhaps if you ask me a few questions too, you might achieve some understanding of what you are claiming and of the evidence against it.
I doubt you will. You don’t seem interested in learning anything. But one may hope.
I put Sal down because he believes nonsensical things. I imagine you think at least some of what he believes is nonsensical too. Unless you think the universe is 6000 years old, as he does, and that a worldwide flood 4000 years ago accounts for most of the fossil record. Is that what you think?
Perhaps we could understand if you could explain why the fact that DNA and proteins are linear polymers (which is apparently what you mean) is any sort of evidence against evolution. So far nobody has any idea what you’re talking about.
Doesn’t work. Every such attempt is ignored. Sure, they always promise to read the paper, but nobody ever gets back.
How do they have a leg to stand on with this “issue”?
What evidence have they for ID at all?
Can you even recognize the important scientific difference between a theory that ties together a host of otherwise disparate phenomena (across clades and on to paleontological evidence) and an idea that fails to explain anything other than as the “will of the designer”? Can you even question your preconceived notion that evolution is impossible due to some very hazy notions in order to look at the robustness of the actual evidence in favor of evolutionary theory?
All that you have really done here is to provide an example of the danger of thinking that your one “big idea” is all that matters, and that all of “coincidences” that would exist without evolutionary theory are of no account because you already have this idea that “negates evolution.” That this is a very common defensive tactic of creationists is obvious across the web.
Glen Davidson
Yes, they can always ignore anything they don’t like, or fob it off with their favorite “disproof of evolution,” and turn it into their little sermon about how evolution can never happen. Perhaps it has been noticed by REW that these are not people who are actually interested in getting to the truth, but in getting their talking points out there.
Glen Davidson
Yes, but I rarely do that.
Just to note where they’re coming from, no matter how wrong-headed it may be, what I’d say is that they’re thinking that “common design” or some such thing is every bit as reasonable as common descent. Of course it’s because they’re not really looking at the evidence, which only fits common descent at all well, they’ve just got it in their heads that “common design” is a reasonable alternative (due to the absolute impossibility or extreme improbability, of evolution, as they think), hence the evidence we produce that indicates common descent can only be due to circular reasoning, to their poorly critical thinking abilities.
The thing is that they’re already dedicated to the proposition that evolutionary theory is wrong-headed, therefore the evidence can’t point to the evolutionary development of life, and “common design” (or maybe other ideas, even, I don’t really know) is at least as good a possibility. If they were right that “common design” were equally reasonable from the evidence (and they’re usually beholden to that claim as well), clearly they’d be right, that common descent is only concluded because it is assumed in the first place. “Common design” is not a reasonable idea from the evidence, however, so of course they’re wrong. But there’s nothing new about them being wrong, that’s sort of the problem.
So I’m certainly not claiming that they’re right to say that common descent is circular, it’s just that from their basically bullshit beginning point it is already assumed to be circular–because they assume that common descent is not the proper conclusion from the evidence. There is a logic to it, then, it’s just that it comes from their vast ignorance and bias against evolutionary theory that colors all of their understanding of evolutionary evidence and ideas.
Glen Davidson
Is there anyone here who wants to post at UD?
Yes, all true. John, your paper on rattites was exactly what I was talking about ( can you repost btw?) Start with the sequences being analyzed. Do they think theyre valid or did the scientists forge them? If they accept them, great, move on to the next step. Work your way methodically through the paper. If they don’t bother to read it, fine, but then they’re not part of the discussion. Why bother with them if they’re not going to do their homework? If they want to preach to the choir they can go to UD. I assume they at least want to learn something if they’re coming here to engage with yourselves and Joe F!
Many of the IDers here are rather smart and accomplished. I picture them taking an advanced biology course at a good university. They’d bomb every exam because they’d use it as an opportunity to spout nonsense but then argue with the prof that they deserved an A.
Here you can spoon feed them. But more to the point why would you waste your time doing anything less?
colewd,
Been there, done that, got banned. Without reason given.
[eta – I’m not really on a mission in any case. Internet discussion is just a hobby, an exercise].
colewd,
You keep saying ‘UCD’ but talking about individual nodes. Which is actually annoying, because I keep pointing this out and it’s like I say nothing.
Forget transition for now, and the whole tree.
1) Are paternity suits based upon circular reasoning?
2) Is the phylogeny of passerine birds based upon circular reasoning?
3) What about when we bring in the thrushes etc?
4) And so on …
At what point in the taxonomic hierarchy does a relationship conclusion based on molecular phylogeny become circular?
What polymers give ID is the ability to confuse themselves with analogies to English sentences, pointless probability calculations and misunderstandings of Shannon. What they give evolution is an enormous amount of supporting data undreamt of by Darwin.
colewd,
You are obviously interested in biology. Why don’t you study it for a couple of years, then you can argue on a level playing field with everybody else who’s also put some effort in?
There’s really no need. There is another world where arguments are made and actually responded to properly. If people at Uncommon Descent have arguments to make they can make them in the correct venue – i.e. publishing their work to a community of experts who can assess it. Not on a blog.
You really don’t get it do you? The behaviour or not of people here represents a tiny % of the people who understand and support the theory. A better question is if people at UD have a solid alternative to the theory why do they refuse to do the work that is required to allow scientists to assess it? Why do they refuse to publish their work? Why does KF prefer to write his words over and over again rather then just once as a published paper?
If you think that because somebody said something sarcastic (and you deserve much more of that tbh) the theory is not well supported, well I guess you’ve much more to learn then you’ve managed to in the 18 months since you discovered that the theory was impossible!
In short, your ignorance matters not at all. Your opinion is irrelevant. You should be grateful that there are people willing to spoon feed you an education at the level you can absorb. If you think that people should go and argue the facts at UK then perhaps you should try that. Go and ask for a calculation of the most complex thing evolution can create, for example. Go on. See what happens!
But really this is what it’s all about. If you were genuine you’d respond to some of the many questions you’ve been asked to try and understand your point of view, and you’d have read some of the resources provided to you. You have not, you will not and so your agenda shows itself. In previous times it would have been assumed you were one of Dembski’s students out for getting course credit arguing against the theory. Now you are just another Creationist who thinks they are able to argue against a specialist with a lifetime of experience after literally just finding out about the theory. And your proof is the sarcastic remarks you receive after flaunting your ignorance and demonstrating you intend to preserve that ignorance at any cost, even your honour.
I doubt your real life success reflects the arrogance displayed here.
Still having my gast intensely flabbered here. What’s with the whole “DNA and protein is sequence dependent” crap?
Rumraket,
“Consider a protein 100 acids long, there are 20^100 chances yadda yadda”
OMagain,
What the fuck makes you think colewd would want a lecture from you about what he should and shouldn’t study, when he clearly knows a whole hell of a lot more about biology than you do?
What have you ever presented here which rises even slightly above the level of “Go read a book”, or “I hate baby Jesus” or “Well, why couldn’t it have happened?”.
You have zero authority to tell him anything. He has responded plenty, with thoughtful, hard to overcome problems, but you have provided nothing worth countering, because your posts are just regurgitations of the same tired theme of you believe it, so why think about it.
Plus your posts are boring and full of spittle.
Personally I don’t care what he wants, I care about what he needs. He needs to study and stop trying to debate subjects he’s not currently equipped to deal with. The same goes for you.
Apparently you are so ill-informed you can’t tell the difference between someone who isn’t even familiar with the basics and one who’s an expert in his field(and I’m not talking about myself). That takes a whole new level of lack of understanding to be so incredibly wrong and misinformed.
Read up on salivary amylase yet?
Such as?
Allan Miller,
Erratum – thrushes are passerines. But the point remains.
I don’t think that conclusion is supported by the evidence. ID is a political and religious movement, not a scientific endeavor. The intelligent design creationists’ goal is not to learn but to proselytize and possibly try out sciency sounding ideas for later use on their co-religionists.
While I very much appreciate and learn from many of the commenters here, most definitely including John and Joe F, I’m primarily concerned about when and where the next creationist whack-a-mole is going to pop up. This is a political battle, at least in the U.S.; we need to know our opponents’ likely tactics.
That’s the case for many people here. Why don’t you invite your friends from UD to join us here, colewd? That is, unless they lack the confidence in their positions required to discuss the topic in a truly open forum where their interlocutors won’t be banned for making them look ignorant and uneducated.
I sincerely hope you will do so. They will not be arbitrarily banned, regardless of their views, unlike at UD.
Question for John: I notice that many data sets in the birds typically incorporate cytochrome b (for mtDNA) and intron 7 of the beta-fibrinogen gene (for ncDNA). Any idea why this latter was chosen? It seems arcane, but I suppose no more nor less than any other similar stretch. Is it just convention that it is commonly used, or is there another reason?
I’ve been unbanned three times and banned four times. You aren’t Lucy and I am not Charlie Brown.
That’s enough, thank you.
Yes. It’s no fun if you can get banned simply for expressing an opinion. Some people enjoy that game, but I think it sucks. Message to Mung: I’ll donate $50 to UD if anyone can find a post of mine there that merited banning by vulgarity or name calling.
As far as I know, the reason is purely historical. Somebody designed primers for it (was it Bill Moore or one of his students?), and other people took advantage of the published primers and sequences. It’s just that it was among the first introns for which that happened. I don’t know why whoever it was picked that intron in particular. In fact it isn’t ideal for a few reasons: it’s inconveniently long, and there’s something odd and so far unexplained happening inside it that sometimes produces weird results. Still, it’s been useful.
John Harshman,
Great, thanks
‘
IIRC the protein itself is one of the fastest evolving sequences. Maybe the idea is that this would make is less likely there are regulatory constraints on the intron? ( I doubt it) There are so many sequences they can use now, like intergenic spacers in mitochondrial proteins, I’m surprised they’d just go with historical convenience.
The big surge in beta fibrinogen intron 7 was over ten years ago, before even publication of the chicken or zebra finch genomes. These days hardly anyone sequences just a single locus. But introns are in general very useful.
Not sure what intergenic spacers you mean here. If you’re referring to spacers in the mitochondrial genome, birds lack them almost entirely.
This was your big find huh Rumraket? You searched online for something that sounds good, and you said, Ah, I can call this a beneficial mutation!
This is why you are so overwhelmingly underqualified to try to tell anyone what they need to go learn. Your little cut and paste job did nothing whatsoever to suggest WHO the beneficial mutation was for (did it happen first in primates, in some other mammal?), it did nothing to suggest what population was disadvantaged for not having the mutation, it didn’t nothing to show where the new gene came from, it did nothing to show how many mutations and what kind it requires to become a system, and it did nothing to show when in history this ability to metabolize first came to exist.
On top of all that lacking of explanatory powers, it is a pointless example of how a mutation leads to a new kind of being. What kind of new being, there are lots of mammals with varying degrees of ability to digest starches. And apparently ALL of them manage what they need just find.
So what were you trying to say? Nobody fucking knows, because you don’t fucking know. You just did a quick search, copied and pasted anything you could find, said see, this is a beneficial new gene, and dusted your hands off as if you have done something. Then you went right back to your bullshit chorus you share with keiths and Omagain and richard of telling others what books they need to go read, while you sit on your ass never bothering to contemplate anything more complex than how much you like watching Star Wars.
And that, folks, is why their side is doing so very well!
It’s funny phoodoo, but given that apparently everyone has bought into a bogus story with no evidentiary support it should be easy to destroy such a castle built on sand.
And yet you and yours never quite manage it do you?
Ever wondered why?
He, like you, has stepped into waters that are far deeper then you can perceive. You don’t understand the evidence for the position you are vaguely critiquing so to you and your lot that means it does not exist! If it can’t be written in language suitable for the layperson it’s a literature bluff! That’s what you lot really think!
And once again I repeat, if you can’t overturn something you claim has no support then what does that say about what you are trying to replace that thing with? Clue: It’s worse.