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Fish Evolve Immunity To Toxic Sludge
RedEaredSlider writes "Fish in the Hudson River and the harbor in New Bedford, Mass., have evolved resistance to PCBs. In the Hudson, a species of tomcod has evolved a way for a very specific protein to simply not bind to PCBs, nearly eliminating the toxicity. In New Bedford, the Atlantic killifish has proteins that bind to the toxin (just as they do in mammals) but the fish aren't affected despite high levels of PCBs in their cells. Why the killifish survive is a mystery."
It's good for evolution!
Ananda Chakrabarty developed a microorganism that actual feeds on PCBs by simple selection in his lab some 40 years ago.
We have weeds that have evolved resistance to glyphosate in the wild. That is a much more impressive adaptation because glyphosate interferes with the production of key amino acids by plants.
Life on earth has been adapting and evolving to its environment for billions of years. Why would anyone think it would stop?
That which kills other fish only makes them stronger!
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
"All fish not immune to toxic sludge killed by said toxic sludge"
Because that is really what evolution in this context means. The fish didn't react to the toxic sludge and develop immunity to it; There was already a population of fish at least somewhat immune to the toxin, and due to them being the only survivors, the whole population living in the sludge now is immune.
So what happens to the animals that eat them and that aren't immune to the PCB?
And you know who is at the top of the food chain ......
N.B. this user is far too lazy to write a witty and intelligent sig.
Problem solved!
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
I don't see how a mutation in a fish proves or disproves creation. Creationist just believe it all started at the word of a God. It doesn't exclude the idea creation has the ability to adapt to changes.
Soon totally new organisms will crawl out of that river and demand welfare and voting rights.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Fish Evolve Immunity To Toxic Sludge
If fish can do it, then it should be no problem for humans. You left wing environmentalists lose again. We Conservatives can pollute and know there is nothing wrong with it. Again, more evidence promoting the Conservative lifestyle.
Even though a single evolutionary change can mean the difference between living and dying I would think it also effect everything else, especially when it has to do with metabolism. In this case the fishs' genes have found a local maxima, so to say, that makes them resistant to PCB; nobody knows what evolutionary possibilities they've sacrificed and what it does to them in the long run.
You are correct, it doesn't prove or disprove creationism because creationism isn't a scientific theory.
This is gonna make it much harder to finally wipe them out.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
This is simply a case of fish that have a certain trait mating and passing on that trait to offspring, not a case of spontaneous evolution.
But thats what evolution is. A small fraction of those traits will have come from mutations, not from the previous generation.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Not spontaneous? Obviously it's a random mutation causing a difference in biology was selected by environmental pressure. Evolution works.
This is simply a case of fish that have a certain trait mating and passing on that trait to offspring, not a case of spontaneous evolution.
That is evolution...
...only they will be healthy. I, for one, welcome our new piscine masters.
I'll wait until I hear from Al on this one. everyone knows Al Gore is the only trusted opinion when it comes to anything environmental. From global Warming, to Spotted Left Foot Owl/Squirrel Hybrids, he is the real leader in the field.
Evolution is essentially the same thing as survival of the fittest followed by passing its traits on to the offspring because it enabled the fittest to reproduce more or live long enough to reproduce... and over time, the offspring with that trait will begin outnumber other members of its species without the trait because they have a better chance of survival. Also, spontaneous evolution is an oxymoron.
I didn't hear anything about proving or disproving anything in the parent post. It is in all likelihood a jab at creationists as a shown example of an organism exhibiting traits of evolution for a very specific purpose. Also, for the record, while it is true that the idea of creation doesn't preclude the notion of the ability to adapt. Most creationists are firm deniers of evolution, and the parent post was in all probability a jab at them.
It says a lot about PCB distribution and signal strength if multiple species have evolved responses over sub-century time frames.
It was convenient while it lasted for the fish who ingested our industrial waste stream to grow carbuncles and remove themselves from the human menu by simple visual inspection. But I guess we're heading back to the days where the host takes a brave first bite, and all the guests applaud if dinner proceeds. We'll all be double checking the Russian royal penumbra to ensure our host doesn't carry any midichlorians of Rasputin lineage.
Canaries in the coal mine all the way up the food chain. Tag, you're it.
Have you heard that microevolution != macroevolution? Well, now you have! It would not do to imply that an all-powerful, all-knowing being needs not play with their creation like an ADD toddler playing with their ant farm.
The problem here is that any argument (I hesitate to call it debate or even discussion) involving evolution vs creation is that it immediately degrades into an "us" vs "them" fight.
To the hardcore evolutionists, all creationists get lumped together. It doesn't matter if their stance is "I don't think the big bang was an accident" or "the Bible says the Earth is 4000 years old, so that's how old the Earth is". You're a superstitious and mentally deficient nutjob who is at best to be ignored and at worst should be sterilized and exiled.
The converse also occurs. To a fundamentalist creationist, anyone ranging from "I could see how evolution might account for certain things" to "evolution is the correct and only possible explanation" is a godless empty shell of a human who at best should be shunned and at worst should be burned at the stake.
Modern science is built around the idea that you can never actually prove a theory, only disprove it and build a better theory. When you stop trying to disprove your models and accept them as truth, you stop being a scientist and step into the realm of faith.
It's been my experience that fights are not between scientists and zealots; they are between zealots and other zealots.
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
...you refer to selection as evolution. Selection is well understood, and pretty much everyone from the most fundamental creationist to the most outspoken evolutionist will agree on the fact that when a species is faced with an unavoidable situation in which most of them will be killed off, only those that exhibit traits allowing them to survive will persist to pass on their genes. If it can be demonstrated that not a single one of them had that trait previously, then that would be interesting, to be sure, but proving that is nigh impossible.
Misspelling the word "they" in the summary doesn't help your credibility either.
IOW, the others just died from the PCB and the ones that we have now are the survivors. As per Darwin prediction. Excellent, in a marauding way.
Most creationists I know don't believe in speciation, but do believe individual species change and adapt.
They also believe in animals having sex to spread genes and adapt. It's simply an argument about the source of Bio diversity.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Basically the fish are an example of mutations and natural selection. The damage genes in the fish make it better suited to it's environment but it doesn't show it getting more complex, actually the opposite, a weaker fish. But you dont get published without towing the line of Evolution. Notice how the mutations are limited to the Hudson area. The fish are less fit than the wild fish in the oceans.
How do you think evolution produces different species? You have the same species in 2 different areas. The conditions change in one area or favor certain traits over others. Eventually, the animals in that area evolve into a different species. You cannot say that one species is weaker that the other. What you claim to be the "stronger"fish would not survive in the Hudson, while these "weaker" ones can. Each one is stronger than the other in their respective environments.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Nope. Otherwise we wouldn't be seening all the attempts such as "teach the controversy" and "teach both" in schools.
Maybe on Internet sites it is zealots vs zealots. But in the real world it is zealots vs everyone-else.
And what, exactly, is a "hardcore evolutionist"? Since current medical/biological science is 100% based on evolution.
So far, so good.
Nice. But you haven't identified anyone who is doing that.
But it is easy to find the Creationist zealots.
That is evolution...
I'm glad to see somebody was awake in Freshman biology class.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
It's only a matter of time before we experience the same effects. Its kind of the like the "bird in the mine" What happens to our fellow world companions will soon happen to us. Thank You
[($)]
They're in my fridge right now!
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
There's just two problems with that one:
1. There's enough evidence for evolution that it must be mostly correct
2. If evolution is flawed, it won't result in concessions towards the creationist stance
For instance, take Newton. Yes, he wasn't entirely correct. But what he figured out, in the conditions he tested it in, worked. That Newton wasn't 100% correct didn't suddenly mean that the reality was any more aligned with the view of Aristotle.
The same way, the argument isn't about whether evolution exists. That got figured out long ago, even before scientists figured out how genetics work. The current arguments are all about the details of it. That the current understanding isn't 100% correct isn't going to suddenly mean that the creationist stance is right, it's just going to mean that some of the details weren't entirely correct, like exactly how some features evolved, how important different mechanisms are, and so on.
If so, all they need to accept now is the fact that random gene mutations happen, and they'll accept evolution as actually happening. The starting point and the origin may be still debatable, but I dare say that it's hard for creationists to deny actual evolution happening on this planet as we speak, and in the past.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
(I define evolution as change going up hill, or as to quote a catch parse, "goo to you via zoo". I do not defined it as "things changes", as Natural Selection & Mutations cover that area already.)
Too bad your definition isn't the same one as the rest of the world's. YOU don't get to create definitions that suite your limited understanding of the world.
Go do some reading and then come back and talk at the next thread.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
How long until deer evolve to not walk in front of my car?
They already have. Those are in the woods, safe and sound. You're doing your part to help clean up the evolutionary dead ends.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Evolution is a tricky argument for we the living.
Gently reply
GP is wrong; evolution involves the species level. You're talking about spontaneous mutation, which is only one element of natural selection.
to be made at the Little Lisa Recycling Plant.
"It doesn't matter if their stance is "I don't think the big bang was an accident" "
Frankly, that's a strawman. You're essentially saying all those who believe in evolution are atheists, which is demonstrably false. If you went to an evolutionary biology conference and said "I believe God created the Big Bang, and once life arose, evolution kicked in" most would have no problem with that and would not qualify you as a "creationist."
"life, uh... finds a way."
All genes have tons of variants, and these variants had to be introduced into the population at some time. Evolution doesn't need to for traits to be introduced due to environmental pressures in order to work; they are introduced at random by mutations. So whether the trait was introduced before or after the dumping of PCBs began really isn't that interesting as it is just a matter of chance, and doesn't prove anything about evolution. The interesting part is that it occurred at all.
These fish couldn't be selected for their immunity to PCBs if some of them hadn't already obtained the trait in some manner to begin with, and selection is an integral part of evolution. Thus arguing that this is "just" selection and not evolution is making a distinction without a difference.
Life finds a way. What I find really amusing is that we humans have convinced ourselves that we need to take care of our environment for the sake of other animals that live among us. In reality, we should be worrying about our own survival. You see, since we lack basic survival skills, we have developed large brains to create a buffer from harsh environments, thus slowing our own evolution (micro and macro). It's not the end of the world if we destroy our environment. Life will find away....without us. tl;dr? This comic sums it all up: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2011/06/what_mother_nature_thinks_of_u/sweetnature.jpeg
What exactly doesn't complexity have to do with this? And fitness is a measure within an environment. The environment in this case are these bodies of water with high levels of PCBs. Your post is so fucking muddled, as typical of Creationist bullshit, that you can't even keep the point straight. What does "weakness" have to do with complexity? What is complexity in this situation?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"Kind" has no biological meaning at all. What is a "fish" kind? Is a shark a "fish" kind?
Evolution, simply put, is change in the genetic makeup of a population over time.
And as to your infantile attack on abiogenesis, well, that, I suppose is just thrown in there for good measure.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Sure it would. You're still claiming that God was involved in creating the universe. I don't see how you can claim that and NOT be a creationist. And a theist.
Not in colloquial English. Words have specific meanings, and "creationist" refers to something specific that your definition doesn't accurately capture.
http://articles.cnn.com/1996-09-06/us/9609_06_fishy.name_1_mayor-george-carter-peta-animal-rights-group?_s=PM:US
pretty funny actually
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You're implying a symmetry that isn't there.
Creation versus evolution is one of those cases of pseudoscience where the unscientific side (the creationists, if I must spell it out) claims that they want to "compromise" between the two sides by claiming that each side can account for some things, or that each side has a certain amount of faith, or "we have no way to be sure about creation, but we have no way to be sure about evolution either". Almost any time someone says this it's a case where the science and the pseudoscience aren't equal at all, the person who is trying to "compromise" supports the pseudoscience, and they don't like that science is completely on the other side and they would rather that the two sides at least be equal.
All creationists get lumped together because the "compromise" creationist is just as wrong as the blatant creationist. Either you accept evolution or you don't. "I'm not saying the creationists are right, but evolution can't explain this" followed by a list of misconceptions means you don't.
Evolution doesn't work by producing ever-more complex examples. Case in point - cats. The domestic cat brain loses 2/3 of its brain cells during it's early growth - they simply aren't needed for its' environmental niche, and a waste of resources, so the cats that pruned back on brain cells were able to survive on less food, etc.
Adders Tongue has 1200 chromosomes. Guess that makes them more complex than humans.
Or if you want to go by the number of genes, Amoebas got us beat 209 times over (670,000,000,000 for the amoeba, 3,200,000,000 for humans).
Natural selection never made any claims about producing anything other than creatures best fit for their environmental niche. Not as your "evolution as change going up hill". More complex encoding/expressing techniques allow for fewer resources, much easier disruption/mutation, and quicker evolution through natural selection for each niche. That's one reason why we saw such quick evolution in humans despite the relatively small number of genes, and one reason why amoebas are still amoebas - too much redundant stability and too many genes that only encode for one trait, or are just there as junk pairs, acting as scaffolding to stabilize the dna structure.
In reality, there's no such thing as a "species".
It's purely a human concept that we use to make sense of things. Even Darwin already noted that the number of species drastically varies depending on who and how does the counting.
Say, does it count as species if they can interbreed if genetic material is exchanged, but:
A. Live separately? Eg, lions and tigers
B. Have incompatible courtship rituals?
C. Are interested in mating at incompatible times?
D. Consider each other too alien looking to try breeding in normal circumstances?
E. Offspring are rarely viable?
New species don't really pop into existence, we create them by deciding "this animal looks different enough that we should give it a new name".
If one were to look at how a wolf got turned into a domestic dog, there wouldn't be a fixed moment where a wolf suddenly became a dog. Rather, there'd be a population of more and more sociable wolves (some of which would be nice, and some less), until most people would agree that this wolf adopted by the more radical parts of the village is starting to look rather different from the kind we find in the wild, so we might as well name it something else.
There are also plenty of creationists who will firmly state that individual species don't change and adapt: God created all animals to be the way that they are, forever. Inconveniently for them, we have observed speciation happening.
Example 1 is evolution, and is probably far more frequent than Example 2 -- you're just missing the fact that evolution starts before Sol even increases its ouput.
In times of relative stability, a lot of mutations happen and they all survive because the species is still generally well-adapted to their environment, even if some adaptations have minor disadvantages. Then an environmental change happens, and suddenly the minor disadvantage is a major advantage and the adaptation spreads throughout the population (other pre-existing adaptations that became major disadvantages also fade away).
Evolution doesn't require that the "new" thing happen before the environmental change that makes it important.
So you see, Example1 is actually identical to Example2, except that the novel protein happened before Sol increased its UV output. And why wouldn't it evolve before? Evolution is undirected and purposeless; it's not "trying" to solve melatonin so there's no reason it would happen more often after than before.
These mutations dont show evolution (things breaking dont show "Goo to you via zoo" evolution)
Who are you to say it is broken? If anything, it would be the ones who don't change that are broken, because they die without the adaptation. It is letting them survive in an area that other things can't. By definition, that would be working, not breaking. If a mutation gives rise to a new population that is identifiably different from another species, that is evolution. The classic example is the finches. Different species of finches evolved with different beak structures that best fit their environment.
And your car analogy is horrible. A broken window causing you to drive slower in a snowy area is not evolution. Now, a car that is sold with snow tires as standard in a snowy area would be. The exact same car in a warm, but wet environment may come with rain tires. Both of these models were adapted from an original model with regular tires, ie. they evolved to fit the surroundings where they will be used.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
So, loganberries (a cross between blackberries and raspberries) doesn't exist. Neither do peppermint, tangeloes (even though they've been around for thousands of years), grapefruits, triticale (wheat+rye), durum wheat (oh well, guess all that pasta is fake after all), grizzly+polar bear hybrids, sheep (54 chromosomes)+goat (60 chromosomes) hybrids, wild horse(66 chromosomes)+domestic horse(64 chromosomes) hybrids, beefalo, coydogs, coywolves, wolfdogs, mules, hinnies, zebroids, wholphins (dolphin+false killer whale), blynx, and wolves with black pelts (from breeding with dogs).
As for your contention that wolves had all the information necessary to create dogs, that's false. While all dogs today are descended from grey wolves, there were 4 different gene clade mutation events that gave rise to the domestic dog, starting with one ~40k-130k years ago. Breeding 2 wolves doesn't ever create a chihuahua.
Pics of ligon, tigon, leapon, zorse, zonkey, zony, etc
Also, Dawkins is not a hard-core atheist.
The problem here is that any argument (I hesitate to call it debate or even discussion) involving evolution vs creation is that it immediately degrades into an "us" vs "them" fight.
Well, yes, humans have an instinct to be tribal, and humans may act in a tribal way around any social disagreement that is large enough to partition society.
Modern science is built around the idea that you can never actually prove a theory, only disprove it and build a better theory. When you stop trying to disprove your models and accept them as truth, you stop being a scientist and step into the realm of faith.
Here you seem to be adopting the standard anti-science argument - that since "science can't prove anything", then we should accept all hypothesis as equally valid. And that is the problem. All hypotheses are not equally valid. The entire fields of modern genetics and molecular biology is built around the theory of evolution. The evidence for evolution is so strong that it is literally inconceivable to people who are educated in these fields that people outside the field could dismiss it. And let's be clear: the dismissals of evolution are not scientific - they do not propose an alternative testable hypothesis, they just wave their hands in the air and claim that a mystical magical man did it. That is not science. That is why scientists and other educated people dismiss it. It is not scientists who have adopted their models as absolute truth, it those who have rejected science who claim that they have the absolute truth - the mystical magical man. Come to think of it, I've actually never, ever, met a creationist who would even admit that they might be wrong. And that says it all, really.
No, creationists believe that any "big bang" was God's handiwork:
So, if you believe that some imaginary invisible and mathematically impossible in this universe God created the Big Bang to set thing in motion, you're definitely a creationist.
BTW, in colloquial english, that would be "religious nutbar", not "creationist"
first definition of colloquial from dictionary.com: characteristic of or appropriate to ordinary or familiar conversation rather than formal speech or writing; informal.
Also, spontaneous evolution is an oxymoron.
Just because you don't like a term doesn't mean the idea it represents is wrong. People becoming so scared their hair turned white is impossible, but does happen. Spontaneous evolution comes in the same. It's both impossible (as you point out), yet happens, as it did here. Further, depending on your definition of "spontaneous" it isn't impossible, but instead how *all* evolution comes about.
Learn to love Alaska
"I've actually never, ever, met a creationist who would even admit that they might be wrong. And that says it all, really." I admit that I might be wrong. Often enough I am, and it is the ability to learn from being wrong that separates me (and perhaps a few others) from zealots. Others would just make up psuedoscience to get around the fact that they're wrong. Evolution has enough proof for itself that I think it is true. I am willing to accept any answers science can give, as long as they are proven. In the end, I might even go with the Creed: "Nothing is true, everything is permitted."
Any comments made by the owner of this signature should be disregarded as irrelevant, uninformed, and idiotic.
Mutations leading to evolution can be what creates the fittest. The two are not mutually exclusive terms. You could easily argue that survival of the fittest is one key attribute to evolution which is the result of (some) mutations. As for being in God's image... I don't subscribe to that particular newsletter so I won't comment on it.
Also, I'm unclear on your entire comment of how things that are impossible are true. Citations? I have never heard of someone's hair turning white as a result of being scared. As for spontaneous evolution being an oxymoron... that doesn't mean its impossible, just that the two words have opposite meanings. Spontaneous in this case is generally taken to mean quickly or instantly. Evolution on the other hand is generally defined as a slow change over time (as opposed to revolution).
HTH
Nothing presently suggests that any of these fish will accumulate more PCB simply because they're resistant to its toxic effects, and thus predators will not learn to avoid them based on heightened PCB content. The Tomcod in particular will actually accumulate much less PCB, because the biochemical component with which it used to bind will simply let it pass.
In fact, these resistances could be one of evolution's many double-edged swords: if the predators learn anything, it may be that they should eat these fish, because PCBs are very dangerous teratogens (they fuck up embryo development), and any prey containing less of those poisons could lead to higher levels of survival in the predators' offspring.
The are intelligently rev'ed.
more cowbell
I've been reading the biblical creationist perspective on this since Feb 2011: Rapid tomcod ‘evolution by pollution’? Yeah, right and wrong.
This is not the kind of "evolution" needed to evolve lower-order organisms into higher-order ones. In fact, a better description for this particular case is "develution"
If you look close enough at any of these examples of evolution we keep hearing about, they're never the kind that molecules-to-man evolution requires.
Try again
Selah.ca. Pause, and calmly think on that.
2. If evolution is flawed, it won't result in concessions towards the creationist stance
I'm confused by this statement. How do you possibly know this, other than by assertion you're psychic as to the future determinations of science? You wouldn't consider a biological structure that -could not- come into existence apart from design, due to the probability of the aggregate mutations required while retaining survivability, to be a "concession"?
I'm not asserting such will be found, I'm wondering by what means you are asserting it -will not- be found.
Really, though, I've already fallen into your misleading equivocation of meaning "evolution" as "an exhaustive explanation of origins" rather than "a set of biological processes that are observed to occur". This is, the equivocation of "evolution occurs" to "-only- evolution occurs". Yes, I understand you absolutely need the second to be the case for your worldview preference to be viable, but it is, despite you personally needing it to be otherwise, of course, a wholly untestable, unfalsifiable, and unscientific premise.
Well, actually, it might be falsifiable, but only in the sense that it already has been falsified. We cannot account for all biological features through evolutionary processes, as an issue of fact, rather than conjecture, ever since we ourselves started doing the designing. We know this falsification via the news, as one of hundreds of sources. How you know it won't also be further falsified by further examples from earlier timeframes, a priori, is beyond me, outside of your apparent psychic powers.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
I have never heard of someone's hair turning white as a result of being scared.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=hair+suddenly+turning+white
Spontaneous in this case is generally taken to mean quickly or instantly. Evolution on the other hand is generally defined as a slow change over time (as opposed to revolution).
I've never seen "slow" being a requirement in biological evolution until you posted it. I always thought of it as a description, not a requirement. I understand the word "evolution" requires slow, but the technical term of biological evolution was named for one thing, but vernacular word definition doesn't change a technical definition. "Broadband" is defined by the FCC in a manner directly contradictory to the technical definition use by electrical engineers for years before the FCC started getting seriously involved in 1996. Most fiber is not broadband, despite the FCC's definition to the contrary. Pretty much all wireless (including screaming-fast 9.6 kbps GSM modems) is EE "broadband", despite the FCC disagreeing. The FCC adopted a definition more close to the vernacular, and no matter how many people agree what speeds make "broadband", the EE definition will not change. The fact that the dictionary definition touches on biological evolution doesn't change the fact that it has no bearing on the actual biological evolution definition. And I think that's where you are getting tripped up. Biological evolution doesn't require "slow." But the dictionary definition one would use to contrast with "revolution" does require slow.
Spontaneous evolution is simple if you just think about it. The actual evolution could have taken 1,000,000,000,000 years or more. But the sudden act that culls the non-evolved is immediate and instant, thus "evolving" the species suddenly (and in a real manner, as the genetic makeup in the species changes instantly and broadly).
Learn to love Alaska
There were certainly other mutations, same as in every species, that were not competitive even in the short run. The thing is, sometimes a mutation, such as the last one, coincides with a change in the environment, such as humans transitioning from hunter-gatherer to farmer-herder, so a mutation that allowed dogs to be less timid of humans than wolves are (if you've ever owned a wolf-dog cross you'd know what I mean), given the benefits of living with humans that are herders, would rapidly propagate.
Wolves, coyotes, and dogs are very distinct. We had a coydog when I was a kid, and one of my current dogs is part wolf, and their behaviours are markedly different from "regular dogs".
Because as formulated, that's not scientific. It's not enough to just make a statement "X was designed", there must be some testable consequence of that, and you're not offering any.
So for instance, Netwon disagreed with Aristotle and said that everything falls at the same speed in a vacuum, regardless of weight. You can go and test that.
So if something had to be designed the result is... what exactly? What could somebody go and test in a lab?
Understood. I'll give a little thought to the question of testing that biology was designed, rather than knowing it was designed as -fact-, as we currently know, and propose a test which would test for it, as if we had the absence of the -facts- the test would ostensibly resolve.
As it stands, generally, "the fact we saw it designed" seems to define the testability criteria, for which it now passes admirably.
As for historical cases, though of course you have the exact same limitations of testability (well, except you could offer no test, even theoretically, that would resolve that biology can be accounted for without design, as that result would be contrary to established fact) for your premise, I'm confident a test to differentiate what we now easily differentiate can be formulated, to resist even your most overwhelmingly biased attempts to exclude it.
But, it's 3 AM here, and I'd rather sleep for now. Stay tuned.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
I hope I can convince you to relegate your "environmental karma" to the fiction department, where frankly all such nonsense belongs. Karma has a (very) dark side, the caste system. But that's entirely beside the point. "Environmental karma" is bogus because :
Your extinction theories are not how evolution works, except in a rudimentary absolutist pre-20th century understanding perhaps. So let's this time include theories from the 20th century (imagine that, biology did not stop evolving after Darwin ...). Here's the idea of what happens if a predator eats PCB infected fish.
A population of predators eats a population of PCB resistant fish. Some of the fish will be infected with a virus. Some of the virusses inside the fish will have copied the resistant version of the gene into the viral DNA. Happens all the time. In practice every lifeform is constantly infected with hundreds of different viruses, so this is not as unlikely as you would think.
Some of the predators will get infected with the fish. Some of the female predators will get their eggs infected, some of the males their balls (or equivalent ...). BTW: it's usually the males that get their eggs ("sperma") infected. Look up how it works, and it will be obvious why. These fish, with the "infected" genes, being ever so slightly more active (evolution massacres entire races because they're 1% worse performers in a matter of a dozen generations, sometimes faster) take over the entire population. For fish, with generation lengths of at most 1 year, mostly less than that, we're talking a decade or less.
Does that satisfy you ? We *cannot* kill any significant part of nature. No matter how hard we try to do so. Nor can Krishna relegate "evil" species to dalit status and make slaves out of them, so you can you please not scare people with such eventualities ?
That species expansion only happens if natural barriers go up. Global transport is the real cause of species extinction'. The fact that people and goods move to all regions of this planet, bringing new diseases, new rodents, cats, dogs, and sometimes even new predators to all remote regions of this planet, where they proceed to destroy the local fauna that never evolved a defense against them. We're connecting the islands, google "island species".
The parties the most responsible for species extinction are probably the British empire, the east-india trading company and the Spanish kingdom. Remember : species' diversity loss is not exactly a recent problem.
It's not oil, it's not poison, it's not heavy metals (not even the music), it's not co2, it's not rising sea level, it's none of those things. It's tourism, discoveries and transport, and it doesn't matter *at all* whether said tourism happened by unpowered sailing ships, or kerosene-spewing 747's. You want to save species and races (including the diversity in human races) ?. Destroy tourism. Destroy international trade. Destroy *every* long distance interaction you can think of, first and most important in things to destroy would probably be the internet.
You want to save species diversity ? Break the connection, restore the islands. (read up a bit on island species on google and you will understand what this means). If this is not done, expect one human race to become utterly dominant (> 90% of the population) in at least 99 human species that didn't make it. For most animal and plant species this number will be far, far higher. The vast majority of species created by evolution ... lose. Link the habitats, even for memes, and where there used to be 300 countries and, for example, languages, there will remain only one. Every Western European, from Swedish kids, to Italian infants speak English, it's only a matter of time till they decide that's the easiest way to communicate. The only languages that seem to be pushing back are French and Chinese. Please remember that there are currently 394 lan
But, if biology is designed, then what?
Don't see how. First there's a lot of evidence of descent. Parts get reused over and over, species can be organized as a tree, and change is seen gradually through it. A designer wouldn't need to do incremental improvement. They could suddenly go and plug an entirely new part somewhere, but there's no evidence of that. (if you have any please provide it).
And as a design, ours is incredibly lousy. Why would a designer leave in various junk like a the remains of a tail (humans can be born with one), wisdom teeth, appendix (which does more harm than good these days), goose bumps (which would raise our fur if we still had any) and the ability some people have to move their ears (which makes perfect sense for monkeys with large ones)?
Then there's plain bad construction. The spine is curved, leading to no end of medical issues (which isn't a big deal for animals that don't walk erect). The eye is made wrong, with obstructive blood vessels. Squids have better vision than we do. Our large head makes childbirth painful and problematic.
Then, I don't understand how you'd see evidence of design, specifically. The way I see it, the best one can find is that "the current theory doesn't explain adequately how feature X appeared". But there more potential answers to that than design. For instance DNA transfer by virus, or a yet unknown mutation mechanism.
"there are intentional mechanisms built into the DNA pathways that deliberately cause genetic mutations during stress events"
While that sounds very unorthodox I may be wrong.
Do you have any reference to support this? Or is it wishful thinking? ;)
It would really help to see some references.
Falsifying the Newtonian (implied) hypothesis that spacetime was flat merely added a correction term into the Newtonian laws of motion. Falsifying the theory of phlogiston was a major first step to modern chemistry. The GP is confused as to the difference. Nobody bothers to try to "disprove" Newtonian mechanics when designing a car, because they are a good enough truth for almost all terrestrial engineering. Whereas anyone who doesn't try to disprove the Phlogiston model won't get far with chemical engineering.
Evolution is very definitely in Newtonian mechanics territory; no biochemist, drugs researcher or animal breeder is ever going to fail in their goals through a blind belief in evolution, no matter how complicated the details become at the molecular and ecosystem level.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Incidentally, if you ever happen to spend time with some real theologians, rather than Bible-addled thumpers, they will be among the first to point out the infinite regress in the idea that the Universe came into being through the agency of a "God". The really big philosophical question is "why is there anything at all", and "God did it" cannot be the answer because the next question is "Why is there anything at all, including the God you just postulated?".
For some modern theologians, the other big question is "where do concepts like truth and justice come from?". (Philosophers may claim ownership of these problems too).
Do they matter? If you are concerned about the kind of society you inhabit, I think they do.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
But, if biology is designed, then what?
Then we've discovered a very interesting fact of science. Though it wouldn't make a difference from a philosophical viewpoint (as "evolution designed up-front" or "specific design occurring in-process" are both viable positions), it would be very interesting scientifically, such as developing methods of discerning cases of each, likely expanding our abilities at design by reference to pre-existing designed structures, implications for various theories of life-formation or development (e.g. "panspermia" theories of external origination), etc. Since when would, or should, science be indifferent to such discoveries?
Don't see how.
I think you are confused by my statement. Design per se is a fact. That all biological features cannot be accounted for outside of design is fact. If you want to soften your position to "evolution as a causal explanation is sufficient up to a certain point in time", then do so. That the general (universal) statement is false is a matter of the reality of 20'th century genetic engineering.
And as a design, ours is incredibly lousy.
No. Apart from arguing this point with the reality that our design, if we were designed, is astonishingly brilliant to a degree we cannot remotely replicate (such as self-aware intelligence), you are wandering into teleological claims that you have no basis to make within a worldview of naturalism. From the perspective of naturalism, whatever survived, survived, and its survival is fully sufficient to meet the only criteria there is--survival.
But there more potential answers to that than design.
And there is design--the sole one you exclude, for personal reasons that are clear, and have nothing to do with scientific integrity.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
That's all too vague, and not what I asked for. I asked for predictions, of the future. Like, what does that predict about epidemiology?
For instance, Newton's laws allow us to predict the future position and speed of objects, and Darwin predicted that human ancestors originated in Africa, which matches the fossil record that was found later.
Why would it? The process by which something evolved may be interesting, but it isn't particularly necessary to copy something. We could duplicate whole organisms by cloning without having a clue how to make one from scratch.
That's an assertion with absolutely no proof behind it. Please provide some. So far you haven't.
That we can replicate is given -- if we didn't, then we wouldn't be here to talk about it. There'd just be a lifeless rock floating in space. And no, it's not brilliant in any measure, it's messy and often inefficient. For instance, why would a designer create multiple incompatible blood types?
I would find design a lot more believeable if humans were without misfeatures and vestigial organs. No things like wisdom teeth, transplants of organs between any two individuals of the same species without complications with the immune system, no autoimmune diseases, eyes done the right way and not inside out, no defects like myopia and baldness, and no random cancer. There's also a big problem in that things like that make perfect sense in the light of our ancestry. There's absolutely no reason for them to be there otherwise.
And yes, we're getting ever closer to replicating it. Intelligence will come eventually.
Well, of course. But the environment favours particular kinds of survival. Here we have an example of that -- a poison resulted in the individuals that can best deal with it surviving better, and the ones that couldn't dying.
I know a bunch of creationists who are very highly educated, are critical thinkers, and who also accept evolution as true. There does not have to be an either or, and it is quite possible to believe that "God" created the universe as well as in the evolution of life on earth. I don't necessarily agree myself, but I do see that there is a rather large contingency of what I like to call the "regular" religious folks who are accepting of science as a way to find truth. They simply believe that there is some kind of higher power that has (or had) some influence in getting it all kicked off, and in some cases, binds us all together somehow. I think when you say creationist what you mean is really just the extreme, and not characteristic, subset.
Same reason all 2 year old squirrels know what a car is.
That's all too vague, and not what I asked for. I asked for predictions, of the future.
Okay, to be clear on what you want, "testability" in a scientific sense isn't sufficient? Because in no way is "predictions, of the future" an essential criterion of a scientific test.
For a "test", that will definitively fall out in a quantifiable sense when we are able to specify the specific set of mutations required for a particular biological feature, apply it across the population size that could have a pre-existing state of, or lack of, that feature, and specify the probability of this occurring as a question of what is ultimately chemistry, across the range of biological features that are proposably "Irreducibly Complex". Not by general conjecture as to how it might have formed, but by calculation of what happened and what could have happened with reasonable probability over the population and timeframe. That is, by hard, quantifiable brute-force calculation of the probability necessary changes on the level of chemistry.
As for epidemiology, as we are differentiating natural viruses from designed ones, the implications of an instance being one or the other would be tremendous. It's the difference between concluding the common cold is going around versus that we are probably being attacked by a biological weapon.
That's an assertion with absolutely no proof behind it. Please provide some. So far you haven't.
Although, of course, asking for "proof" in a scientific context is almost never appropriate, I feel confident this actually suffices as that for our purposes:
Fluorescent cats.
There are many, many such equivalent examples, but this one seems particularly... obvious. This biological feature is only explainable as design--because it was factually designed. If you want to modify your stance against design to say "design is not a reasonable explanation for the range of biological features we observe, other than recently, in which case it's plain fact instead", then please do so. Right now you have a universal dismissal of design, which cannot be rendered as a universal statement of biology that remains in any sense "science". That design isn't a factor -previously-, the possibility that remains open, I suppose yields to your psychic powers that no equivalent case of design to what you now have a picture of, before the 20'th century, will ever be identified. Additionally, if you mean you are unconcerned about the scientific question of design, and only care about rejecting theism as your motivation (such that "Intelligent Design" means "design by God", even though it doesn't), please stipulate that too.
That we can replicate is given -- if we didn't, then we wouldn't be here to talk about it.
Replicate--intelligence, technologically or by other means. Which we can't, and we are not "close". That claim's been around since the 40's, and in fact, we're still "20 years away", until another 20 years go by, when we'll again be "just 20 years away". I did not mean "reproduction" in a having-offspring sense.
I would find design a lot more believeable if humans were without misfeatures and vestigial organs. No things like wisdom teeth
Okay, well since you're bringing it up again, with respect to this and the appendix, current scientific consensus is these absolutely did had a purpose, on the basis of our earlier diet, chewing and digestion of it, with the fact dentists were not always available to replace the teeth before migration of the wisdom teeth in the jaw would handle it. Obviously, a "good design" would include functionality over the range of time it needed to be functional, and not only right-this-moment, so I'm not sure where you are going with this. I also don't see how it is a requirement that there are no health problems--that people would be designed to be physically immortal if they were designed a
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Don't see how. First there's a lot of evidence of descent. Parts get reused over and over, species can be organized as a tree, and change is seen gradually through it. A designer wouldn't need to do incremental improvement. They could suddenly go and plug an entirely new part somewhere, but there's no evidence of that. (if you have any please provide it).
And as a design, ours is incredibly lousy. Why would a designer leave in various junk like a the remains of a tail (humans can be born with one), wisdom teeth, appendix (which does more harm than good these days), goose bumps (which would raise our fur if we still had any) and the ability some people have to move their ears (which makes perfect sense for monkeys with large ones)?
I was watching a crazy show a while ago called Ancient Aliens. One of the theories was that there is a group of genes that may have been inserted by aliens to use us as slaves for mining gold. Our ancestors were not intelligent enough to order around, and tended to be too violent. By messing with the ape genes and adding some of their own they created a slave race and could get them to mine gold for them as gods
This site describes the discovery of these genes and why it seems unlikely to be slow genetic drift. I don't see why bacteria insertion could not be the cause though, unless there are no other copies of this group of 223 genenes in our biosphere.
Personnaly I find this interesting but pretty far fetched. But I rank it above the creationist ideas. There are a lot of old religions that have people from the sky visiting or creating humans. It is not that hard to imagine ancient people would see a fire spewing ship as a dragon or the visitors as angels.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
We've got Killerfish resisting all our efforts to kill them, defying scientific explanation. This is the start of the fish takeover! Take to the high ground!
That still won't work. First, millions of years multiplied by millions of organisms makes even quite unlikely events a lot more likely to happen.
Second, that an event is very unlikely is not a guarantee that it never has or that it never will. Winning the lottery is unlikely, yet people do, and getting struck by lighting is very unlikely as well, but there's a guy who got hit 7 times.
Third, "irreducibly complex" is a big thing to claim, and I've yet to see any instance that hasn't been disproved. So please provide some.
Of course it is appropiate. If you claim you saw a polka dot patterned penguin, I'm going to ask for proof of it. And Darwin didn't just go and say "stuff evolves", he produced several books with evidence.
Still waiting for your.
Heh. I'm talking about history here. Unless you're going to claim somebody travelled back in time to run genetic experiments, or that aliens dabbled in genetic experimentation for some reason. But the record we have just doesn't match that. Traits don't suddenly appear out of nowhere outside their place in the phylogenic tree.
Yes, genetic engineering and such exist and are possible, problem is that there's no evidence of it in the historic record. Like I said, still waiting for your evidence.
Our permanent teeth are that, permanent. Wisdom teeth only make sense with a larger jaw, which we don't have. If permanent teeth were supposed to get replaced, then that'd be all of them, and not just a couple in an oddly inconvenient location.
Also, yes, diet was different, but the jaw was larger, and the brain was smaller. At that time wisdom teeth weren't a problem, because there was room for them.
Ok, what would be the negative consequences if we could produce vitamin C?
That still won't work. First, millions of years multiplied by millions of organisms makes even quite unlikely events a lot more likely to happen.
"That won't work". Okay. In the absence of you demonstrating that it won't, I'll put that one down as another psychic claim. As I directly said, the population size and time available would be factored into the probability calculation--it would still resolve to a given probability.
Third, "irreducibly complex" is a big thing to claim, and I've yet to see any instance that hasn't been disproved. So please provide some.
You throw around "proved" and "disproved" remarkably lightly for a discussion about science. To set our context a little, can you name for me a single theory anywhere in any part of any science that has been -proven-? As for these specific cases, I've seen alternate scenarios provided. That is not equivalent to demonstrating that the alternate scenario occurred, or even could occur. Frankly, I don't think genetics is at the point yet of specifying specific causal chains of mutations for relatively-complex biological structures, and I doubt you could provide a single nontrivial case of a proposed IC structure that was -proven- to not be. In any case, this is not the point of my argument, as I stated at the outset--I am not claiming an unassailable IC example will be determined, I am asserting you have not validly argued that it will not be.
Of course it is appropiate. If you claim you saw a polka dot patterned penguin, I'm going to ask for proof of it. And Darwin didn't just go and say "stuff evolves", he produced several books with evidence.
Again, a single case anywhere in science, of something that is -proven-. Science is theory, and theories are contingent. That's what science is. As least this time you aren't phrasing your expectations in such a way as to guarantee the set of words couldn't even theoretically refer to anything in reality, regardless of the topic or the actual facts. There is no such thing as "some proof", or a fractional degree of proof, and so you'll never see such a thing or be given it. Any given thing to which "proof" could apply, would either be proven, or not proven, period. Scientific theories are such as case where "proven" is explicitly off the table if we want to actually be discussing science.
Unless you're going to claim somebody travelled back in time to run genetic experiments, or that aliens dabbled in genetic experimentation for some reason. But the record we have just doesn't match that. Traits don't suddenly appear out of nowhere outside their place in the phylogenic tree.
More accurately, I'm claiming, accurately, that you cannot exclude these possibilities other than by application of the supposed psychic powers you claim. In fact, on some level, traits do "appear out of nowhere", depending on the subjective differential we stipulate from other structures that supposedly pre-exist it. As for "the phylogenic tree", the reality is this is under ongoing revision, most recently with strong biological argument that we will need to add an entire new biological domain. To state that a particular "tree" is established biological fact as opposed to provisional relationships under ongoing correction is simply to misuse the concept.
Like I said, still waiting for your evidence.
Complexity is evidence. However, complexity is not "proof", which is precisely why you asked for a criterion applicable to no actual scientific theory, so that you can decide your stance with information so compelling you have no decision to make--such "proof" would compel your conclusion.
Our permanent teeth are that, permanent.
Well, I'll offer a quote on that, though, unfortunately the original cited document does not appear to be available on-line:
"According to the British Journal of Oral an
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
I think it's because these types of people (I know I'm generalizing here) have a very active but very poor imagination.
Won't work for the simple reason that something being improbable doesn't really prove that it never happened.
There are 3 billion base pairs in human DNA, I'm made of a very specific and extremely improbable combination of them, yet I'm still here.
Fair enough, I'm not being very careful. And given that no evidence seems to be forthcoming from you I'm not sure it's worth bothering.
My problem with your argument is twofold:
1. Your assertions still are getting presented without evidence
2. You're making the assumption that if not evolution, then design, as if there were only two possibilities.
All classifications are of course human made and subject to revision. However, if there was design inserted somewhere in there it ought to look very out of place. Which means you shouldn't have a problem with pointing to some evidence of that happening.
You're still making assertions. I do not agree that complexity is evidence. Complexity as we understand it arises in nature all on its own without much trouble. Simple things can interact in ways we perceive as complex.
But anyway, complexity according to what standard? On what basis does our ability to understand something affect reality? The way I see it, reality doesn't care if I think it's complex or not.
That's still unconvincing, given that human ancestors have large enough jaws to have room for the wisdom teeth without problems, and regardless of diet.
Also, it doesn't add up. There's no evidence to my knowledge of extra teeth suddenly appearing in the neolithic. There is however evidence that our jaw size shrunk, which provides an explanation that makes a lot more sense: jaw shrunk, teeth had a hard time fitting but for a while due to the diet it wasn't too bad, and now that diet changed the problem is no longer so effectively hidden.
So, either our number of teeth is from before the jaw shrinkage, in which case wisdom teeth are an evolutionary problem, or you have to find some evidence for extra teeth appearing at around neolithic time.
And humans are just cockroaches with a few mutations specific to humans.
Those "few specific mutations" make a lot of difference, both in appearance, and in basic functions such as how often they come into heat. Wolves, once a year. Dogs ... normally twice a year, but they can come into heat pretty much any time. Wolves pair bond, dogs don't. Wolves generally don't do incest ... dogs, they're dogs, they'll screw anything, including your leg, given a chance.
There is nothing to indicate that an omnipotent deity could not have created a universe where evolution would not occur.
Where is it the bible that denies evolution anyhow? I'm not a religious person, but one thing is true form it - that there will be people trying to lead others astray, and they will be false prophets. This is a very human desire to read things into the documents that arent there for purposes of controlling others.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
My second sentence had a typo. Should have read:
There is nothing to indicate that an omnipotent deity could not have created a universe where evolution would occur.
If God could not create evolution, then she isn't omnipotent. Given that the Christian God is omnipotent, and the lack of direct denial of Evolution in the documents, then by definition, those who would reject the apparent reality of evolutional processes are by definition playing with eternal damnation by denying their God's omnipotence.
P
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Okay, in brief.
Won't work for the simple reason that something being improbable doesn't really prove that it never happened.
"Proof" has nothing to do with what "evidence" is, or what "science" is. I don't know to put your inappropriate expectations for the domain under discussion, and escalation of my original statement to what it was not, any more clearly.
1. Your assertions still are getting presented without evidence
2. You're making the assumption that if not evolution, then design, as if there were only two possibilities.
1. I have given evidence (that is, visual, conclusive evidence) of everything I have asserted--that all biological features existing cannot be accounted for without reference to design. This is a fact of present-day, and at base we are arguing about -when- this fact applies to, not -if-. That is the scope of my expressed position.
2. No, absolutely not. You are making the assumption that features cannot have design as a causal factor. That was your statement at the beginning, what I responded to, and what my position has been since. I am well aware there could be additional causal factors -beyond- that.
I do not agree that complexity is evidence.
Fine. Nonetheless, it is evidence. It is not -conclusive- evidence, as I have stated. If it were not evidence at all, there would not be a few million debates on-line and throughout history debating the strength of that evidence. Again, you are equivocating disingenously.
So, either our number of teeth is from before the jaw shrinkage, in which case wisdom teeth are an evolutionary problem, or you have to find some evidence for extra teeth appearing at around neolithic time.
I am quoting an authority in the field. If he ultimately is incorrect, it makes no difference. The wisdom teeth still have partial utility in the case of tooth loss, giving a rationale for its presence, and even if it were not the case, it remains undemonstrated that causing their elimination by design would not create more issues than it solved, and even if -that- were demonstrated, we are using conjectural, rather than objective, standards for judgment--again, from a naturalist evolutionary perspective, what survived, survived, and it's survival is the only criteria by which we can "measure" it, which it by definition passed.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
That's not what I'm saying. I mean that you can't draw the conclusion "it must have been designed" from the observation "There's only a 0.001% chance it could have happened over the known timeline". As far as we can tell, the universe doesn't seem to be full of life, so it may well be that it's something that very rarely happens.
Er, no, you haven't. You've not even described a single thing you think is irreductibly complex. You just keep claiming that there is, but never show.
No, I'm not. However, it's a farfetched enough claim that I think it needs a lot more justification, and you're not providing any.
The largest problem I have is that "complexity" isn't something that exists in reality. An atom is an atom, 1 Kg is 1 Kg, and a second is a second in the US, in China and everywhere else. They either correspond to physical things that can be measured, without depending on the judgement of the observer.
However, "complexity" is a purely human valuation. A watchmaker might comment that a design is simple an elegant, a layman would see a complicated mess of parts. People comment that Apple devices are simple when looking at the external design and user interface, ignoring the incredible internal complexity. Conway's Game of Life is simple if you look at the list of rules, and complex if you look at how they interact.
Which is why I think that a judgement based on complexity is inherently invalid, because I do not even know what you mean when you say something is complex. Come up with with a measure of complexity that's based on something universally calculable and which does not depend on anybody's judgement, and try again.
He may well be entirely correct, but like I said nothing your authority says seems to indicate design. There is a plausible evolutionary explanation for the same situation.
Given that, you should explain why the design based explanation fits the events better, but it doesn't. Design ought to be detectable in the fossil record.
I mean that you can't draw the conclusion "it must have been designed" from the observation "There's only a 0.001% chance it could have happened over the known timeline". As far as we can tell, the universe doesn't seem to be full of life, so it may well be that it's something that very rarely happens.
I'm not drawing the conclusion it must be designed. I am drawing the conclusion it is -plausible- it is designed. I know precisely the scope of claims I am making, and am making them to precisely that degree. I will be continuing to decline amplification of "evidence" to "proof" and "is plausible that" to "must be". I know the arguments after the amplification is implicitly accepted, for those who fail to notice, or don't know exactly what their position is. I'm not among them. My objection, from the beginning, was and stems from your statement that you apparently know that design will not be a conclusion in the unknown future of science. I continue to maintain that you cannot, and am not claiming that I can "prove God did it". We have, though, as knowns, 1 "successful" production of intelligent life out of 1 verifiable universe "attempts"--if we allow for teleology--and this in itself to me speaks to plausibility, though not "proof".
Er, no, you haven't. You've not even described a single thing you think is irreductibly complex. You just keep claiming that there is, but never show.
I'm not sure if I'm being unclear, or if my point is just so rock-simple on its basic level that you can't believe my point was actually what it was--but it is. I showed you a picture of fluorescent cats that were demonstrably designed, by virtue of being designed by genetic engineers. I am quite aware of the effect an established paradigm has over habitual interpretation of information, and I am attempting to break that paradigm for the purposes of discussion by pointing out a fact which, though it may be banal, is conveniently unarguably true. We cannot, as a matter of fact and science, say "We can account for all biological features without reference to design". This can no longer be -accurately- proposed as a universal fact about biology. It's immediately falsified by present-day genetic engineering. Were I discussing it with a biology professor, say, in a class, I'd actually make him do the circumlocution every time he made a claim from the perspective of naturalism, such as "evolution and ancillary processes can account for all biological features" to say, if nothing else, "evolution and ancillary processes can account for all biological features up until approximately 1970 A.D." Why? Because a) it's the rendering of the statement that actually is scientifically viable, and b) it forces consideration of the issue outside of a default paradigm. Further, this impacts the question of testability--on the face of it, either we are suddenly unable to test for basic facts (testing to detect design, performed by testing the organism itself, rather than happening to know it was designed from publications/media about the engineers), or testability in this case has wider aspects than a simple "not testable, not scientific" (lest we be forced to say that fluorescent cats were designed is a fact, but this is not a "scientific fact").
The largest problem I have is that "complexity" isn't something that exists in reality.
I disagree with this notion, that it is merely a question of perception, or subjective evaluation, but I'm not really prepared at this point to offer an exhaustive counterargument. I believe such is quantifiable, by, for example, specifying the minimum Finite State Machine that could fully "emulate" the entity in question, and determining the number of State-Event transitions such a model requires. There are probably objections to this that could be made, though, so I'll leave it at that counterproposal without further analysis.
Design ought to be detectable in the fossil record.
Seems plausible, but I still think we lack t
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Following this, you two seem to be talking around each other.
Er, no, you haven't. You've not even described a single thing you think is irreductibly complex. You just keep claiming that there is, but never show.
I thought the fluorescent cats were sufficient proof that, of biological organisms currently present, some were designed rather than evolved. Historically, that happened. Some guy said "Hey, you know what would be awesome? Glowing cats." And then he made them. It isn't that this is irreducibly complex, it's that you can't point at them and factually state "these evolved." They have features that cannot factually be accounted for without reference to design, because that's how they got there. Those cats were designed. Those traits appeared out of nowhere outside of their phylogenic tree. Right there. You can see it. It's historical, it happened before the present moment.
You acknowledged it right then, as well. That was all he was saying. "Genetic Engineering happens, so you can't accurately state that evolution accounts for all biological features on current organisms". He was pointing out that you need to put a time-stamp on that -- e.g. "Before genetic engineering in the 20th century, no organism had any features that could not be accounted for by evolution." The secondary claim was "You should acknowledge that since it can be shown here and now, it might be possible to find a similar unexpected and inexplicable jump in biology in history. We have not yet found such, but it would be intellectually dishonest to discount the possibility to 0."
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
My objection is that it still needs more evidence to make it even vaguely plausible.
There are other options you don't seem to be discussing for some reason. Like "It just happened despite the improbability", "there's a yet unknown mechanism that made it happen", "it got copied as-is from another source", and so on.
Yet you oddly concentrate specifically on design, despite design requiring a designer we have not the slightest shred of evidence of, despite having looked for other civilizations with SETI, and constantly looking at space with telescopes, for instance.
Don't be silly. The argument is and always has been about the historic "origin of species", which covers a huge timeline that we are a tiny part of.
Sure, let's ignore say, the last 1000 years, it doesn't make a difference for the sake of argument.
Don't you think you should figure that out first? How can you argue about complexity before even figuring out what it is?
And for that matter, I don't think the FSM is going to solve your problem. Say, how do you reduce fractal to a FSM? Do you have some algorihtm that can take any piece of data and somehow figure out the most efficient algorithm possible to generate it? Or do you judge by your best attempt to make a FSM to generate the image without using the formula for the Mandelbrot set, despite that the algorithm and initial data needed to make it is tiny in comparison?
What about other things, like say, pi? Is it complex because it never ends? Is then 1/3 complex? Or is it simple because it's the result of a division? Does the algorithm to calculate arbitrary digits of it change its complexity?
Finally, how are you going to apply this to genetics?
Then on what basis do you suggest ID?
I dismiss it on the basis that you've yet to provide a good reason to even propose ID as a possibility. Nothing in the record that conflicts with evolution, no coherent definition of what is this complexity you keep talking about, and now you even admit that you can't figure out what kind of characteristic would be a strong candidate for ID.
You're talking out of your ass, basically.
The argument is and always has been about the historic "origin of species", which covers a huge timeline that we are a tiny part of.
In summary, as I see no real reason to continue this as you are now simply trotting out stock arguments to what is outside the scope of my objections...
No. "The argument" may be this to you, but it is not based on everything I have said from the beginning. My objection is solely centered around the potential damage to science of your psychic a-priori exclusion of a particular causal explanation.
Don't you think you should figure that out first?
No. Absolutely not. I'm interested in developing understanding, not complying with your irrelevant expectations. That's how science, as opposed to the various things you erroneously think science is, advances. With proposals that, at the point of proposal, lack even any tests, much less conclusive "proof". Conceptualization of a hypothesis -always- precedes a test, every single time, and often by decades, such as some attributes of Relativity, which were only testable 50 years after the theory was presened.
In short, I reject your erroneous notions of "science" in toto, and really have nothing more to say on it.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Oh yes, absolutely yes.
Look, if we were arguing about whether travelling from New York to Paris in 4 hours is "too fast" (substituting a "too fast" for the "too complex" argument), we'd have to agree on a whole bunch of stuff beforehand. Like, what exactly does it mean to travel from New York to Paris, what does "4 hours" mean, what is the speed of the known transport, and so on. Only with that you can begin to argue that me going from New York to Paris in 4 hours might be "too fast". We can't possibly have a meaningful argument if you only insist that it's too fast, but refuse to explain why or by what metric is it considered to be too fast.
So same here. Until you explain what complexity is, any discussion is meaningless, as without the explanation your claim has an enormous unexplained void in it which makes it effectively meaningless, and allows you to fill it with whatever you deem convenient.
That won't do. This cannot proceed until you explain precisely what complexity is, an exact observer-independent way of measuring it, and provide a good explanation of at what level complexity becomes excessive and why (perhaps by measuring the complexity of a lot of things and proving that it doesn't follow a normal distribution would be a start)
Only with that you can begin to argue that me going from New York to Paris in 4 hours might be "too fast".
That's okay--I'm content to not begin, and let entropy conclude your side of the argument.
We can't possibly have a meaningful argument if you only insist that it's too fast
And this is precisely what I'm not doing. You are arguing it is not too fast (for the available "modes of travel")--presciently with respect to all future cases. Intuitively, one might say that the immune system is "too complex" (yes, I suggest you do give some credence to the validity of complexity as "real", because you yourself likely know this is a more appropriate example than, say, explaining having fingernails--I suspect it would be a challenge for you to discuss this for more than a few paragraphs without contradicting yourself as to recognizing that complexity "exists"). In answer to that, one might counterargue that it isn't too complex given incremental changes--again plausible. We won't get any farther than this until genetics can provide what we actually require to resolve it--an enumeration of all the specific mutations required to produce the biological feature. Given that, we can approach the frequency of mutations anywhere in DNA as a matter of chemistry, and from there determine the expected frequency of all the required mutations for the result. Adding to this at least provisional estimates of population size and years at hand, we should be able to provide a fairly-specific probability--eventually. So, though we may at this point heuristically conclude different things, say, "too complex" on one side versus "not too complex" on the other, those are just general opinions until we have the means to quantify it. What such a quantification would yield, I am not prepared to say, and I suspect no matter what the probability figure is, those predisposed against design will argue it isn't overly improbable, by such means as the Anthropic Principle. Nonetheless, such a calculation would be useful both with respect to the question of design and for science in general, and I see no legitimate reason to argue it should not be pursued based on one's own personal worldview bias.
As for measurement of the complexity, though I am again not proposing to offer a definitive methodology for this domain (other than the Finite State Machine suggestion), I find it rather unreasonable to conclude there is -no- functional methodology to address "complexity" as something that exists. It simply isn't credible to say that, in fact, no engineering projects actually proceed, despite the evidence of the economy, because when the executives and investors ask "How complex will this be to do", the answer is inescapably "There's no such thing as complexity, so I can offer you no scope or cost projections to create this, invest accordingly". This notion flies in the face of basic reality.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
And you say that while still refusing to explain what you mean by it.
On what grounds? Another assertion with nothing behind it. I don't care about your "intuitively". Where's the data?
Again, on what grounds to you say that? I still have no clue what you mean by "complex".
So why aren't you trying to do it? Where's your attempt to do anything of the sort?
For somebody who likes to pontificate on science, you sure talk a lot with nothing backing it up. I want to see data. Tables of measurements, statistics, that kind of thing.
Then again it's obvious you don't have anything, because I'm sure you could point to something if you had it.
Precisely. You have no argument until you come up with some data. Once you do, come back and try again.
Well, excellent! You're doing the claim here though, so it's up to you to do the work. I'll be waiting.
Please address some of my questions on that respect
Until you provide something more than empty talk, I'll continue assuming there isn't.
You're mixing meanings here. One thing is thi
Intuitively, one might say that the immune system is "too complex"
No reason anywhere to care about what you care about, but this is an example of how you can't seem to help equivocating someone's statements to what they are not.
One might indeed say this, and you can verify this by noting someone could make that statement. If you're unable to discern that I'm using a very qualified rendering of this for a wider context, I'm not sure how you communicate, but there it is. If you're going to (rather humorously) excerpt sections and demand I literally do that, I'll at minimum note what I actually said--literally.
Please address some of my questions on that respect
Ah, no? Now what?
I have no need to present to you on-demand anything. I have stated what my view is, with what I felt is appropriate qualification. Go ahead and address the proposal before you, if you like. The minimum FSM for full emulation of a given entity, and the count of states needed.
What I'm asking for, is what is the universal, observer-independent, never changing measure of complexity.
This does not exist with reference to anything in reality whatsoever. An easy way to avoid addressing it by stipulating impossible criteria, but it's really nothing more than silly evasion.
Precisely. You have no argument until you come up with some data. Once you do, come back and try again.
No, of course not, clearly. As clearly as you know it with absolute clarity in your own mind as you proceed to go ahead and simply lie anyway. That I insist we remain open to future data, requires no data to assert. The argument is self-contained and has no such contingencies. Again, my argument is what it is, not what you'd prefer to make up that it is.
The complexity of engineering you're talking about is unrelated and extremely relative.
Should have expected this sort of evasion. No, it's not. You are saying "complexity" doesn't exist. "Exist" includes all contexts, including engineering.
Stonehenge is impressive by ancient standards.
How is pointing this out relevant to the discussion of "complexity"? Wait... are you saying it's not complex? Speaking unrelated verbal constructions having nothing to do with the point at hand? Yes, you can go ahead and say you yourself consider this "less complex", and that is precisely why you chose it as an example, and that is why you yourself think such a statement can be validly asserted. It's transparent anyway.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
I have no clue what you're talking about here, but thought I'd point out you seem to be replying to yourself here.
I'm still unconvinced, and you're not making any progress there.
It's not that you don't "need" to present anything, it's that you don't have anything that could be presented.
Like I said, the minimum FSM is an impossible problem because you can't deduce the algorithm from the data that it generated, therefore it doesn't work for the purpose you're saying. Unless you've managed to revolutionize the field of mathematics, in which case please go collect your Nobel prize.
But it's precisely what your position requires. Therefore, either you figure it out, or rephrase your position in some terms that don't involve complexity.
Except that you keep saying something about complexity, and are pushing one specific point, (and not "we should keep an open mind in general"), which implies you did measure something and on that basis decided that your argument has merit. So please go and present whatever you measured.
Not in reality, no. Just like species don't exist either, they're just arbitrary labels we assign to things to make things easier for ourselves. In nature, there are no platonic forms. There's a continuum we try to subdivide into kingdoms and species, but which never fit reality 100%, because reality doesn't actually work like that.
We start from a neat classification of "animal" and "vegetal", and then it turns out that at some points it's unclear which is which, and new strange things like viruses and prions force us to rearrange our classification.
I'm saying that your position requires an absolute measure of complexity, and we don't have one. Stonehenge went from complex to simple, to soon trivial. Therefore engineering difficulty is not a good example of complexity for your purpose.