Typology is perfectly consonant therefore with descent with modification. Each cladogram is witness to descent with modification and the existence of distinct Types. The modifications are novel taxa-defining homologs, acquired during the process of descent along a phylogenetic lineage, each of which defines a new Type.
– Denton, Michael. Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis
I repeat, Michael Denton accepts common descent is is not a Creationist. My original thread has been inundated with scoffing and mocking and young earth creationism, all of which are far removed from the subject matter of Denton’s latest book. Trying again.
There is a tree of life. There is no doubt that all extant life forms are related and descended from a primeval ancestral form at the base of the tree. But there is no evidence to support the Darwinian claim that the tree is a functional continuum where it is possible to move from the base of the trunk to all the most peripheral branches in tiny incremental adaptive steps. On the contrary, all of the evidence as reviewed in these first six chapters implies that nature is clearly a discontinuum. The tree is a discontinuous system of distinct Types characterized by sudden and saltational transitions and sudden origins of taxa-defining novelties and homologs, exactly as I claimed in Evolution thirty years ago. The claim has weathered well!
The grand river of life that has flowed on earth over the past four billion years has clearly not meandered slowly and steadily across some flat and featureless landscape, but tumbled constantly through a rugged landscape over endless cataracts and rapids. No matter how unfashionable, no matter how at odds with current thinking in evolutionary biology, there is no empirical evidence for believing that organic nature is any less discontinuous than the inorganic realm. There is not the slightest reason for believing that the major homologs were achieved gradually via functional continuums. It is only the a priori demands of Darwinian causation that have imposed continuity on a basically discontinuous reality.
No matter how “unacceptable,” the notion that the organic world consists of a finite set of distinct Types, which have been successively actualized during the evolutionary history of life on earth, satisfies the facts far better that its Darwinian rival.
In these first six chapters, I have presented my reasons for viewing the biological realm as a discontinuum of isolated Types and pointed out that many of the Type-defining homologs give no indication of being adaptive. I have argued that this empirical picture is incompatible with Darwinism but supportive of typology. Standing on their own, I think the evidence and arguments offered in these first six chapters are sufficient to make a very strong case for my thesis. In the rest of the book, I will provide further evidence for this view by considering in depth the origin of a number of specific novelties. Near the end in Chapter 13 I will also present additional positive evidence for typology.
– Denton, Michael. Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis.
Did Darwin accept the types or offer an alternative to them?
What would the reality of the types mean for neo-Darwinism?
I demand a complete list of all archetypes. I would like to see the ID movement provide a definition of archetypes that objectively classifies things like tiktaaklik and predicts whers they will be found.
🙂
You mean you aren’t just a shill for the Discovery Institute?
Which is why I refer to their god as “it”. I refuse to further sexist norms that any unspecified entity should be assumed to be “he” or “him”.
It’s not a theological objection on my part, although theologically the christians should also resist calling their ineffable deity “he”. That (unconsciously) aligns its supposed powers with those of any ordinary earthly potentate, no doubt a superior example of male human, but limited in the end as every sexist concept is. Do I need to add that calling god “she” would be equally as limiting?
So CharlieM could actually be quite progressive in refusing to call his imagined Designer “he”.
Denton does not claim that feathers evolved for flight.
Denton doesn’t claim that it was ‘internal causal factors’ that led to the spread of the novelties.
Cool. You have, indeed, provided specific examples of forms which possess the quality of being CharlieM-type “novel”. Alas, you have not provided anything resembling an explanation of what it is about all these examples which makes them CharlieM-type “novel”. For all anybody can tell, the only thing these examples have in common is that CharlieM decided to call them “novel”. And if CharlieM calls ’em ‘novel’ actually is the thing those examples have in common, that means CharlieM-type “novel” is not a reference to any intrinsic feature or quality of a thing which is CharlieM-type “novel”; rather, Charlie-M-type “novel” is a reference to CharlieM’s personal, subjective opinion of the thing to which the term CharlieM-type “novel” was applied.
It is unclear to me why CharlieM’s personal, subjective opinion of a thing is, in any way, shape, or form, an indication that standard evolutionary processes cannot produce said thing.
Of course, I might be wrong about CharlieM-type “novel”. Perhaps there actually is an objective, empirical way to distinguish between forms which are CharlieM-type “novel”, and forms which are not CharlieM-type “novel”. But right now, I ain’t seeing it. Can you help me out here?
Okay, you are explicitly anointing the common butterfly as a form which is really, truly, no-foolin’ beyond the limits of what selection-acting-on-random-changes can accomplish. That… tells me everything I need to know about your grasp of relevant concepts.
Yes I am suggesting that changes in proteins and regulation do not cause the features. In the same way that bricklayers and site supervisors are not what causes the building to take the form that it does. They are necessary components but not the cause.
Butterfly wings are like pointillist paintings, each coloured scale contributes to the overall effect. So can you explain how changes in protein and regulation actually come up with the design on the wings?
While you’re at it can you explain how these things produce the effects on the back of a ray when it stops swimming and alights on a patterned surface?
Mung,
I didn’t say he did. I was merely offering my 2c on the appropriateness of the term ‘cumulative selection’ in respect of feather evolution. It’s an argument against people who do say it, not people who don’t.
What did, then? The term ‘internal causal factors’ came from a quote of his you supplied. I have already expressed my puzzlement as to how these became dominant in the population without selection. So I’d be happy to see some content on that, rather than a list of things Denton didn’t say.
CharlieM,
Do you have some reason to suppose genes aren’t involved in these features?
Alternatively, if you are demanding a detailed stepwise breakdown of how these specifically arose in a given species, what’s the equivalent from the Design perspective? We could cover one at a time: you start.
The genes responsible for butterfly wing patters are being mapped. Not an easy or trivial task. I’m not sure what you are asking. What is the alternative to evo/devo?
22 Year Old Article Gives Broad Overview Shock
Article discussing genetic changes behind butterfly wing variation, among other things
CharlieM denies, science studies.
One of these is the better response.
Glen Davidson
The old meaning of evolution was unfolding or unrolling. The “game of life” and Wolfram’s rather beautiful book on cellular automata shows how complex patterns can emerge from simple programs.
Wolfram’s book convinced me that understanding cellular automata is the key to understanding emergence and understanding why it is “impossible” to design biology without trial and error, without evolution.
You simply can’t compute the pattern that will be generated by the simple starting program and configuration. You compute it by computing it, but there is no shortcut to knowing what the pattern will be after many generations.
He’s at the bottom of the pool and has no will to breathe.
Two posts and hundreds of comments later, I still have no idea how Michael Denton thinks the evolution of novelties works, or how type-defining characters differ from others. Perhaps Mung could try to explain what Denton’s views are, rather than making everyone guess and then saying “that isn’t it”.
Here’s how Denton’s verbal magic works: First he establishes a sciency tone by reciting some molecular biology.
Having established how much he knows, he switches to creationist mode:
Does anyone see what he is doing here?
He starts by discussing the genes that enable feathers, then switches to concentrating on how complex are the effects. He completely fails to discuss whether or not the effects require lots of mutations, or whether they are within reach of established evolutionary processes. By ignoring the underlying molecular changes, he makes it sound like evolution has to paint the details of the feather, like an artist with a brush. He makes it sound like evolution has to know something about what it is doing and have a purpose.
I’m pretty sure that is his intention, because that is exactly what CharlieM is arguing. Not whether the complexities of feathers emerge from simple automata like unfoldings, but that the final pattern was deliberate and foreseen.
How do you know that CharlieM agrees with Denton?
Nowhere that can be perceived by the senses. Archetypes are dynamic forms, unseen by the senses but apprehended by the contemplative, thinking mind. To ask, where, you have to imagine three dimensional space. They are not limited to this.
To think of a working genome being worked on from without is a useful abstraction. In reality there is the whole organism to be considered. Imagine an eight stone weakling getting sand kicked in his face at the beach. He decides enough is enough, joins his local gym and transforms himself into Mr Universe. Think of the processes involved, all the genomic activity required to pump out the proteins which transform his bodily appearance so dramatically. Would you ask, how did his thinking, feeling and willing instantiate into the genome? Because that is what has actually happened. He has initiated a substantial change in gene expression.
Well, why are there all the various forms of single and multi-celled organisms, instead of just a continuum of bacteria, which after all have proved to be very successful organisms?
Think of the human form. All the various organs have arisen through descent with modification, they were not separately created. Liver cells, neurons, blood cells, all were descended from the one fertilised zygote. Animal evolution does not demonstrate a progression without bounds, it reveals an individual expression within the animal archytype.
The individual organism is an example of form arriving out of that which was previously prepared.
Just guessing. Things equal to the same bullshit are equal to each other.
I was in two minds as to whether I should respond to this or not. When I was a kid, I used to demand a lot from my mother. Any time I said, I want this or I want that, my mother would reply, “I want never gets”. And so I learned to ask politely when I wanted something.
I am quite comfortable in using the term archetypal plant or archetypal animal, but if I was talking about, say, the feline form or canine form, I prefer the term, sub-type. Dare I mention nested hierarchies? 🙂
Then you will have to ask the ID movement for this as it has nothing to do with me.
Does the ID movement require there to be such a thing as an archetype? I don’t know.
I need to stop being rude. Sorry.
But I doubt there would be and archetype for felines or canines if examples did not exist.
There are good reasons why Christianity and many other religions refer to their God as “He”. The father principle can be thought of as something which creates and then takes no further part during gestation. The mother principle is that which encompasses and nourishes Her creation until it matures enough to become a self-sustaining being in its own right. The father leaves his offspring in the care of the mother who sustains it in its development.
If I found a designed, human-made object that I new nothing about, I could examine it, try to figure out what it was designed for, make a judgement as to whether it was practical or aesthetically pleasing. The question about the gender of the designer need not enter into my thinking. It would be irrelevant.
Apology accepted. I do realise that people communicating solely on the internet act in ways which they would never do face to face. If you want to see rude, watch me driving 🙂
CharlieM,
Adding multiple cells to a colony, instead of having them free-living, is not a good example of a discontinuity. Look at Volvox.
Alternatively, there is still continuity between the cells composing a lichen with algae on the one side and fungi on the other, even though the algal and fungal cells are only distantly related (but note: they are related). That is, there is genetic continuity even though a superficial reading might see them as unrelated to anything.
You have given no reason (beyond, I suspect, the fact that you SEE discrete present forms) to suppose that nature must be fundamentally discontinuous. You see twigs, think that is all there is, and concoct a rather dubious notion of ‘archetypes’ to make history conform to your preesent perception.
And yet, when one tries to find your supposed discontinuity in genomes, it cannot be located. Where, precisely, is the archetype discontinuity between (say) plants and fungi, with reference to a discontinuity in the pattern of shared /unique genes? Provide some evidence for archetypes, rather than supposition.
What is an animal archetype? Does it include worms, bugs, corals? It isn’t clear what it is supposed to mean at all.
More importantly, what about eukaryotes? Are they an archetype? If not, why not? After all, “animals” seem to be quite related to plants, amoebae, etc. It hardly makes sense to talk about archetypes within archetypes, but that would seem to be what animals as part of eukaryotes would be.
Of course I don’t see what evidence would lead anyone to think of archetypes at all.
Glen Davidson
But that is precisely the verbal trick used by Denton.He starts with genomes to make his presentation sound sciency, then switches to phenotypes to make nature seem discontinuous. He can’t dare to show the continuity of genotypes.
I think petrushka is asking for a full listing of the content of the empty set.
You seem to be over-thinking this. I’m safe in presuming that you believe life has evolved from simple beginnings am I not? If so you will no doubt agree that at some point in the past there were no butterflies with patterned wings, yes? Well at the point when they appeared they would have been novel forms and not just CharlieM-type “novel”, do you agree? Surely this is not controversial. What is open to debate is the processes that caused them to first appear.
In that case you can simply ignore my posts as you already have all the answers and there is no point in listening to any other points of view especially mine.
Do you intend to propose a theory of how butterfly wing patterns appeared?
This would be fine if science were politics, where everyone has an opinion, everyone has one vote, and nothing is either right or wrong. But science is not politics, there ARE correct answers, and those who have them see no point in listening to those who do not. Whether a claim is correct or incorrect is NOT a “point of view”.
No I have some reason to believe the opposite. Of course I think that genes are involved.
That’s the thing. Intelligently designed features don’t necessarily need to come about by a stepwise process. For example aircraft used to be powered using reciprocating internal combustion engines, now most are powered by gas turbine engines. Gas turbine engines were not produced by modifying reciprocating engines in a stepwise fashion.
It would be interesting if you could point to anything like that change in life.
The lack of such changes is powerful evidence against design. Even now, bird wing bones develop as a lot of separate bones, much like the articulated forelimbs of dinosaurs, and become fused into single structures. It’s an unnecessarily complicated development process, but evolution doesn’t know any better.
Glen Davidson
There is a difference between genes responsible for and genes involved in. One gene that produces the protein that makes a certain colour of scale needs to be switched on to make the colour. It is the way they are switched on in the various cells that makes the pattern.
Okay, protein coding and regulation.
Most proteins were invented by bacteria before there were any multi-celled organisms.
Most of the novel features that distinguish one animal from another are due to regulation.
I’m still not sure what you’re asking. Yes, there is a complex interaction of genes during development, most genes serve multiple roles at different points in different processes. Those responsible for initiating an on/off switch action aren’t necessarily those involved in carrying the message, which in turn aren’t those that produce the protein variations. But ALL of these genes are responsible, because all are part of a process that requires them all.
It makes sense to me that mutations in the genes that control the timing of the switches can produce very large phenotypic changes with very small genotypic changes.
Everything electronic is pretty much made up of four types of components. Most of the work is done by on/off switches.
Complexity can grow incrementally by changes in configuration.
And lots of human designed configurations, including patentable inventions, have been functionally replicated by GAs. And GAs have designed novel working circuits whose principles are not understood.
Charlie, you asked if anyone is willing to listen to an alternate view.
Do you intend to present an alternate explanation for forms and patterns?
Do you think ATP has always been around? Do you think DNA has always been around? Do you think the genetic code has always been around?
There are all sorts of replacements in biology.
Intelligent little critters.
Those are the product of intelligent design. From where in physics does the concept of a switch come from?
CharlieM,
I don’t care if it’s stepwise or otherwise, provide some detail. When asked for detail, you resort to analogy. Which is all well and good, but it is hypocritical to make demands of specific detail in evolution when all you can do is wave your arms about.
Mung, this is not a reply. We know that humans like us have always been around, but that doesn’t even begin to imply we were poofed up without similar ancestors.
Biological replacements are characterized by being incremental variations on what they replace. Not de novo complete inventions. That was the whole point. So we’re back to Glen’s question, can you point to any biological structure appearing all at once and nothing first. So far, you have only mentioned illustrations of incremental developments.
In electronics, yes. Not in biology.
How is this question relevant to anything? I imagine the idea of a gate predates our species. As I understand it, biologists were somewhat surprised to learn that development involved the operation of thousands of timed switches.
Stay ignorant. I don’t care.
A switch is conceptually among the simplest possible physical devices. A tree falling across a stream temporarily blocks it. A landslide can permanently divert it.
But the point is that a configuration of such simple devices can accomplish extraordinarily complex tasks.
No can do. In my view, standard evolutionary processes can produce forms-Cubist-would-describe-as-“novel” just fine. Since standard evolutionary processes are apparently not capable of producing forms that CharlieM would describe as “novel”, I conclude that Cubist-type “novel” and CharlieM-type “novel” are rather distinct concepts, and that it would be foolish to regard these two distinct concepts of “novel” as being particularly close, let alone interchangeably synonymous.
Is there, in fact, an objective, empirical way to distinguish between forms which are CharlieM-type “novel”, and forms which are not CharlieM-type “novel”?
Do let me know when you plan to provide a clear explanation of what this CharlieM-type “novel” dealie is, and, more importantly, how one goes about distinguishing a form which is CharlieM-type “novel” from a form which is not CharlieM-type “novel”. Or, you know, just keep on keepin’ on with what you’re already doing.
One need not know all the answers before one can be reasonably confident that some specific Answer X is bullshit.
And you want people to ask you questions? Stay a jerk, nobody expects otherwise.
So what did they replace? An equivalent but very different system? That’s what CharlieM was discussing, and your questions have nothing to do with the fact that evolution is always building on what was, not coming up with an entirely different system as we see with turbines replacing piston engines.
Just none that mirrors the revolutionary changes sometimes seen in design.
Glen Davidson
Here are some extracts from the article:
They don’t tell us what causes these genes to be switched on in the appropriate cells to lay out the grid.
They don’t tell us how “nature” decides which cells to kill off and which to spare so that the overall pattern is achieved.
They don’t tell us what is that decides to switch on distal-less in the cells that make up the streak but not in the cells outside the streak.
This article answers none of the questions as to what is controlling the various switchings of protein coding genes which form and pattern the wings of butterflies.
Are you proposing an answer?
Are you kidding?
Glen Davidson