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.
Chuckle.
New ‘kinds’ are your sides concern actually.
Not that it matters whether I just found out or remembered it from a few years ago. It still IS an example of a beneficial mutation in the human lineage, which means it is an example of exactly what you asked for. I also linked a video that detailed some others (8th foundational falsehood of creationism).
Heh, I see that you have become intensely butthurt over that comment. Oh well.
That would be copy and paste, but yes I don’t remember the details by heart so I copied it here. It doesn’t diminish the value or strength of the evidence that is is being copied from elsewhere or whether i type it out in my own words. LOL.
Your commentary reeks of butthurt and desperation.
Uhm, it directly states it has happened multiple times in the human lineage, in specific populations within the last 12.000 years, due to the invention of agriculture and a transition to high-starch diets among certain demographics. For example, asians have substantially more copies of the salivary amylase gene than african hunter-gatherer societies, because they(asians) have been eating rice for thousands of years. It helps with digestion of starch, meaning people with more copies of the gene get more energy from the fruits, vegetables and grains they eat, and there is even evidence that people with low copy numbers of the gene are prone to obesity.
I googled this, didn’t know about it beforehand, still supports my example just as well regardless:
Low copy number of the salivary amylase gene predisposes to obesity.
The mutation is an adaptation to high-starch diets. In populations that transitioned to a form of agriculture with a high carbohydrate content (such as grain, rice and maise) benefited substantially from it, which is why they usually have about twice as many duplications of the gene.
It’s multiple tandem duplications. You know what a duplication is, right?
And it did not purport to, since that is not what you asked. It’s pretty silly to complain that questions you did not ask when I responded, were in fact not answered.
So it’s back to whack-a-mole apologetics. Every time we answer something, you just invent a new goal to be reached. Once all the goals have been scored you just start over.
Their ability to digest starches is indicative of the type of diets they normally feed on. Predators do not have the amylase gene at all. It’s exclusive to omni and herbivores. Guess why?
I was answering your request for an example of a beneficial new gene in the primate family. I succeeded in providing such an example.
I know, everyone but you knows, apparently. Fuck it, I think even you know, you’re just pissed because I said you needed to learn. A bit touchy aren’t you?
Suppose that really is what I did, it still managed to succeed at meeting your request, so your methodological complaint is an irrelevancy.
I thank you for stating your opinion so clearly.
But your duplication is not really an observed mutation. It’s just a polymorphism.
Were you there?
As KF might say, it seems to be a smokescreen tactic from phoodoo. It’s like anything you say is wrong just because it’s you saying it and that spills over to everything! Even quoting!
Rumraket,
Here’s what you don’t get and never seem to get about what a theory like ID predicts, as opposed to your hit and miss theory.
Your hit and miss theory says things happen by accident, and then they just so happen to hit upon an unfulfilled need. Sometimes these accidents happen to animals that don’t need them yet get them anyway, but sometimes these accidents also happen to animals that by sheer luck actually could use such a change.
So which is the case of salivary amylase? Is it the case that some animals have it but don’t need it. is it the case that some animals don’t have it, but if they did it would be beneficial for them? Or is it simple the case that the animals that need to be able to break down carbohydrates acquire the ability to breakdown carbohydrates.
Because if it is the latter, THAT is the kind of thing that a theory like ID design predicts. That the more we need a new function, the more we get it, accidents be damned.
Well, guess what we can find out, by looking at salivary amylase? Whereas wolves don’t need to eat many carbohydrates, there digestive system lacks the ability to secrete much in the way of salivary amylase. AND YET, domesticated dogs do! Huh? How can that be? We are selecting the dogs, we are making the dogs diets for them, so it can’t be natural selection and accidental benefits that give domesticated dogs this ability now can it?
And of course we see the same thing in humans. In areas where they eat less starch they have less copies. In areas where they eat more starch, more copies. Wow, its magic. Its almost like in areas where there is lower oxygen, humans have higher hemoglobin concentrations to give them more oxygen. Or where people climb mountains a lot they have different muscles in their legs. Again which is it, a lucky accident or something else.
Well, we know what evolutionists always call it, they always call it natural selection, no matter what the case. The accident happens, and by golly it sure was needed! In fact in the case of people from Tibet, evolutionist call it :
“These people have undergone extensive physiological and genetic changes, particularly in the regulatory systems of respiration and circulation, when compared to the general lowland population.[1][2] This special adaptation is now recognised as a clear example of natural selection in action.[3] In fact, the adaptation account of the Tibetans has become the fastest case of human evolution in the scientific record, as it is estimated to have occurred in less than 3,000 years.”
WELL WHAT DO YOU KNOW! When it is needed, accidents can happen even faster! Who says evolution takes time?? Less than 3000 years!
But what makes a better case than this. Hm, let me think?? What if there was some way whereas when animals need to adapt to an environment, their bodies find ways to adapt? What if instead of waiting for accidents that may never come, their bodies do the adapting for them? Like exactly what Lamarck said. Like what seems to happens to domesticated dogs, and people in high climates, and people who live in high starch environments rather than areas where there is less starch eaten. Isn’t it all just a magic coincidence?
If every time one population adapts perfectly to its environment, you get to call that a lucky accident, then gee, I guess you are going to find a lot of lucky accidents. Or maybe organism adapt- which is language that YOUR SIDE steals, when they mean to say that organisms get lucky accidents that just so happen to be needed.
But our side uses the term adapt to mean they adapted. Which way seems to make more sense when we observe? I will leave that answer to those that actually take the time to contemplate it.
I may not remember correctly, but long ago I read that what is now part of Wyoming was, a dozen million or more years ago, a warm shallow sea. Teeming with life. And over the course of the millions of years, that land gradually moved north and rose in elevation. In the process, it became a whole lot colder and drier.
Now, what was interesting was that almost none of the organisms in that area originally, were able to adapt to this gradual change, despite the very long periods of time available to wait for the right lucky mutations. Those that lasted the longest weren’t the recipients of happy mutations, they simply had the necessary genetic variations to allow them to adapt — up to a point.
Still, there was plenty of life in the area during the entire time. Partially, this was due to speciation, and partly it was due to new critters moving in as the area became more suitable for them. Life goes on, even though I’ve seen estimates of over 99% of all species going extinct in the past. Species seem to have lifespans, but in the long run, all of them are unlucky.
Now if only the liars and charlatans who run the ID-Creationism clown circus could, you know, actually predict a new discovery instead of merely plagiarizing real scientific results and claiming after the fact ” ID predicted that!”.
Adapa,
Whereas every biological study goes something to the effect of….The scientists were surprised to find out….
My prediction is that things adapt much more quickly than evolutionary theory predicts. My prediction is virtually always right.
Laughable. You only read the abstract and can’t even understand that. But how many have you read, as you’re talking about “every biological study”?
In that wall of text you actually forgot to say what ID predicts!
Got any predictions we don’t already know about then? Got a list of your previous predictions and how they were more accurate?
If that is the case it would be simple to demonstrate with an experement.
Your ‘what if’ questions have in fact been asked and answered generations ago but I’d not expect someone like you to be aware of that. But do continue to talk, it illustrates your level.
Virtually always? So not 100% When were your predictions incorrect? Can you be specific?
So, let’s recap.
ID makes predictions (via phoodoo) that are virtually always correct.
There is no support or evidence for evolutionary theory.
Evolutionary theory steals it’s evidence as it’s really evidence for ID.
And despite all that it does not look as if ID will be becoming the dominant theory any time in our lifetimes.
Personally I think it’s a conspiracy phoodoo, what do you think?
ID predicts whatever we see. The Designer can do anything. We see anything, therefore the Designer did it.
It’s just basic ID.
Glen Davidson
There is no scientific theory of intelligent design. Intelligent design creationism makes no predictions which, if they fail, would serve to falsify it. It’s just fundamentalist Christianity dressed up in a costume lab coat.
Actually, if Phoodoo’s ‘what if’ was the case, nothing would ever have gone or go extinct.
I mean, if everything got the mutation it needed at just the right time, why didn’t the
Ivory Billed Woodpecker adapt to any other environment?
ETA: Correction: there would be no extinction in Phoodoo’s scenario unless Phoodoo et al’s “Designer” is just a jerk.
Deleted duplicate post.
Robin,
“The ivory-billed woodpecker recently went from near total obscurity to superstardom when birders reported a sighting of the believed-to-be-extinct species. The world’s third largest woodpecker was condemned to oblivion some 50 years ago, but in April 2005, a stunning video emerged from a vast Arkansas swamp forest. The tape confirmed the sighting of a live ivory-billed woodpecker—and captured the attention of the world. It was hailed as the birding equivalent of finding Elvis alive.”
Robin doesn’t even know about woodpeckers.
Patrick,
There is no theory of evolution, at least not one that anyone can agree on.
I”m missing you’re thinking here, Phoodoo. How does your article demonstrate I don’t know about woodpeckers? More to the point, what in the article suggests that a species that has been seen possibly once in the last 50 years couldn’t benefit from the ability to adapt to a different environment?
And just fyi from the research team at Cornell:
Methinks you could stand to actually read a little before making yourself look silly Phoodoo…
Why did only one lineage in the LTEE evolve aerobic citrate transport phoodoo? They are in identical environments.
Rumraket,
Why do they devolve the ability to metabolize citrate once the citrate is taken away?
Robin,
Whoever said animals can’t be killed?
I’ve no idea what you are referring to above.
My Ivory-billed example says nothing about being “killed”, but rather losing environment in which to breed. If there were some “Designer” creating “necessary” adaptations (as you and other IDists seem to insist there is), why would any organism not be able to adapt to new areas in which to breed? Or rather, why wouldn’t said “Designer” give those birds the “needed” mutation to be able to move somewhere else?
That’s both wrong and a separate topic. You made a claim about “ID theory”. There is no such thing.
Piliateds are thriving. They have a nearly identical “body plan.” But apparently they aren’t as fussy about co-existing with suburban development. Lots of species have adapted to urban and suburban environments. It mostly involves a reduction in their fear response. A bit like domestication of cats and dogs.
Technically, Pileated Woodpeckers are not that closely related to Ivory-billed Woodpeckers. More similar species are the Imperial and Cuban Ivory-billed Woodpecker (currently considered a separate species from the American Ivory-billed). However, since all of these species are critically endangered (if not all extinct), it’s likely it’s rather moot.
But you’re are correct: the Piliated is not nearly as fussy about where its young are raised. For Ivory-billed the issue appears not to have been so much about the nest site (though it is sorta picky about the trees it uses), but rather the water sources nearby.
Just for trivia: Imperials were apparently even more picky than Ivory-billed used to be. They pretty much exclusively sought sites in continuous pine forests above 2000 feet. Now THAT’S picky!
ETA: What would be great is if we could get a breeding population of Magellanic Woodpeckers (Campephilus magellanicus) to move to the southern US as they are a close relative of the Ivory-billed (they are likely the last remaining representative of the Campelphilus genus). Alas, they pretty much only go for nothofagus trees, so…
Robin,
What does closely related mean? How do you determine how closely the different woodpeckers are related?
Are St. Bernards more or less closely related to a wolve than a pekinese? In fact they are all just different versions of existing alleles, so claiming one is more or less related is meaningless.
And this is all adaptation is, it is just different varieties of the same animal.
phoodoo:
Fercrissakes, phoodoo. Crack a book.
My point would be that extinctions can be more related to behavior than to obvious physical characteristics. Might be a lesson there.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105579030600073X
Probably neither given the types of likely changes in the alleles of St. Bernards and Pekinese from wolves. My guess is they are equally closely related, but it’s not my area of study.
Your “in fact” at the beginning is dubious Phoodoo as you don’t, in fact, know that. While it’s likely accurate, given your reluctance to actually study anything on the subject, your insistence on something as fact just reduces your credibility.
…except it isn’t in quite a lot of cases. Why not, for once, actually do some research on the subject. Just sayin’…
Oh yes, quite true.
It is fascinating to me that such similar animals can exhibit such a range of behaviors (some that seem quite detrimental in fact). Spotted Owls vs Barred Owls is a great example of your point as well.
keiths,
Fercrissakes find a new fucking line.
Robin,
This is the point you were trying to make??:
“We analyzed 2995 base pairs of nucleotide sequence data (nuclear β-fibrinogen intron 7 and mitochondrial cytochrome b and ND2 genes), using parsimony and model-based approaches to infer phylogenetic relationships of the woodpeckers and allies, yielding novel hypotheses for several critical gaps in the knowledge of picid phylogeny. We tested the monophyly of sub-families within the Picidae, and sampled from widely distributed and diverse genera (Celeus, Colaptes, Dryocopus, Melanerpes, Picoides, Picumnus, Sasia, Piculus, and Picus). Relationships of three poorly known Southeast Asian genera (Dinopium, Reinwardtipicus, and Blythipicus) were also examined, revealing unexpected sister relationships. All phylogenetic approaches recovered largely congruent topologies, supporting a monophyletic Picinae and paraphyletic Picumninae, with the monotypic piculet, Nesoctites micromegas, as sister to the Picinae. We report paraphyly for Celeus and Piculus, whereas the broadly distributed genera Picumnus and Dryocopus were supported as monophyletic. Our phylogenetic results indicate a complex geographic history for the Picidae, with multiple disjunct sister lineages distributed between the New World and Asia. The relationships and geographic distribution of basal picid lineages indicates an Old World origin of the Picidae; however, the geographic origin of the Picinae remains equivocal, as the sister relationship between the Caribbean N. micromegas and the true woodpeckers presents the possibility of a New World origin for the Picinae.”
You didn’t answer my question phoodoo. Your claim is that organisms get the mutations they “need”, because of the designer.
So I ask again, why did only one lineage (out of twelve!) in the LTEE evolve aerobic citrate transport phoodoo? They are in identical environments, with citrate in it.
To answer your question, the primary method of evolution in LTEE is genome reduction, because the strongest selection pressure in the flasks is replication speed due to competition for a limited resource. The shorter the genome, the faster the cell can replicate itself because the fewer bases there are, the less time it takes to copy them. So deletions are hugely favored, meaning genes that aren’t used will eventually degrade to deletion mutations.
Your turn.
No that is not the point I’ve been trying to make; it is simply my response to your one question above. You asked what “closely related” means and how it’s determined for different woodpeckers and I provided you the abstract of a study that defines the relatedness of woodpeckers and how that relatedness was determined. In other words, the research that Benz et al did (and that is related in that paper) directly answers your question. Did you want something else?
Robin,
So I posted the part that answered the question? Because I posted the entire paper.
phoodoo,
This is consistent with other reading. Do you have evidence that Dogs can produce amylase in their saliva?
Rumraket,
Genome reduction is evolution?
Interesting. I wonder how far that will take us.
That seems to fall under the heading of “change in allele frequency over time.” If you’re that unfamiliar with evolution, you could just ask. There are some very friendly and helpful experts here.
Yes, you still haven’t answered my question.
Seemingly the bacteria are doing just fine, they even evolved the ability to metabolize citrate under aerobic conditions.
No, that’s not the entire paper; it’s just the abstract, which you can use as a starting point to find the answers to your questions. It certainly provides enough information to answer your question in general, but the paper itself gets into the details of the genetic testing used to determine relatedness and even provides some nice diagrams to illustrate the points. So if you want more details (particularly how I determined the relative relatedness of D pileatus, C. magellanicus, C. principalis, and C. principalis-bairdii), go read the full paper.
I had somehow missed this when it was published, or perhaps I had forgotten. But piculets are paraphyletic? Not surprising, but still cool. It makes for a nice symmetry with toucans/barbets.
phoodoo:
Robin:
I can hear Rich laughing his ass off right now.
Phoodoo, you are priceless.
He actually thought this was the entire paper.
Unbelievable.
When you can’t kick their asses, make them laugh off their own asses.
Creationist logic.
Glen Davidson
I confess, this was brand new news to me when I first read this research, along with Piculus and Celeus. Cool relationships we are now discovering.
Patrick,
Change in allele frequency doesn’t give you novelty, so sorry, no that is not evolution.
Robin,
The part of the paper that you referenced is useless (and the full paper is pretty certainly going to be the same) for the reasons I have been explaining. If you looked at dogs from around the world, you can also claim that one type of dog is more closely related to one than another.
But that is a specious claim, because they are all just wolves with different expressions of their alleles.
This is why Patricks claim that different frequencies is evolution. Dog breeds are not evolution. A poodle will always still be a wolf, just like Andre the Giant and dwarf Pygmies are still humans.
Not just everything we see, everything we could possibly see as well. The Designer already did it, we just haven’t found it yet!