Real Science Radio CRSQ (Vol 43, Num 1)

[aharvey]

If you are able to tell us how these cells arose by natural means, please do not hesitate to do so, oh wise one who is years ahead of us in the field.

Well, the first notion you'll need to disabuse yourself of is that the earliest cells were just like modern cells (your misapplied Occam's razor). The second thing you'll need to do, ironically enough, is stop personalizing cell processes ("how do cells know to do this?"). The third thing you'll need to understand is that the irreducible complexity argument only works if you assume it's true in advance. The fourth thing you'll need to do is understand why the third thing is necessary, which could take a while since you routinely tell us how accurate the scriptures seem to be once you assume them to be true! The fifth thing you'll need to do is provide a common evaluatory framework; that is, what common level of explanation/evidence/logic would one use to judge the merits of a natural vs. supernatural origin of cells? One simply can't say "You don't have enough evidence for that hypothesis, so my hypothesis must be right (regardless of the total lack of supporting evidence)."

There's no doubt more, but these are minimum requirements for a fair discussion of the topic. Feel free to add more, but be prepared to justify them (as I am these).

 

[SUTG]

Intelligent Design scientists are working to identify a relatively small number of cases of what they call "specified complexity" in organisms, and then scientifically eliminating the possibilities of "necessity and chance" for their origin, which then leaves only the possibility of design (which being always the result of intelligence, means that the term "Intelligent Design" is strictly speaking redundant: Design is really the only word required).

Hi bob,

Can you provide the names of some of these scientists and inofrmation on the experiments they are working on? Also, please let us know what the results of their scientific test have been so far.

I look forward to your answer.

thanks,
SUTG

 

[Stripe]

this will get us nowhere. abiogenesis needs the first cells to be stupendously simple things compared to modern cells ... my guess is that if life can originate naturally from non-living material then it shoudl be simple enough to be replicated in the lab. until that happens every theory on this issue is going to be almost wholly conjecture.

 

[aharvey]

this will get us nowhere. abiogenesis needs the first cells to be stupendously simple things compared to modern cells ... my guess is that if life can originate naturally from non-living material then it shoudl be simple enough to be replicated in the lab. until that happens every theory on this issue is going to be almost wholly conjecture.

Let me play devil's advocate here (won't require too much of a stretch for most TOL posters!). If it were that simple for life to originate from non-living material, then it would probably have happened more than once in 4 billion years. And yet evidence points to a single common ancestor. So I would suggest that it must be extremely unlikely, though not impossible, for life to originate naturally from non-living material.

I do agree that origin of life questions are still mostly in the realm of conjecture. Fortunately, we don't need to know how life originated in order to figure out what's been happening since, any more than we need to know how life originated in order to figure out how living organisms function today.

 

[bob b]

Let me play devil's advocate here (won't require too much of a stretch for most TOL posters!). If it were that simple for life to originate from non-living material, then it would probably have happened more than once in 4 billion years. And yet evidence points to a single common ancestor. So I would suggest that it must be extremely unlikely, though not impossible, for life to originate naturally from non-living material.

You are almost there, but not quite, because you cling to the faint possibility that life might have arisen naturally.

Once you abandon that extremely unlikely possibility you are ready for the next step.

 

[aharvey]

You are almost there, but not quite, because you cling to the faint possibility that life might have arisen naturally.

But you've skipped over the logic of the argument, which is that the numbers do support the very idea that it's not easy for life to have arisen naturally!

Once you abandon that extremely unlikely possibility you are ready for the next step.

So what's the logical basis for rejecting the "naturally improbable" in favor of the "naturally impossible"?

And since I strive not to misrepresent the views of others, can you please tell me how I misrepresented that quote of yours?

 

[Yorzhik]

Well, that’s trivial and probably irrelevant. Trivial if all you mean by “general advantage” is “something that allows a gene to spread in a population,” because that’s kinda the definition of “selective advantage.” Irrelevant in that it has no bearing on what I understood to be the original question, in which an individual in a generally superior, generalist ancestor population acquires a mutation that improves its ability to function in one habitat/environment/respect but hurts its ability to function in all others.

I'm only focusing on your use of the words "advantage" and "improvement". You say that something has a selective advantage and that a mutation can improve an ability to function. I'm just wondering why these advantages don't mean that the organism is actually improved.

Not in an evolutionary sense. Under normal (read environmentally constrained) conditions, each of those 999,999 deleterious mutations would have an extremely slim chance of persisting, whereas that millionth, beneficial, mutation would have a much better chance of persisting. Interesting how easily you reverse your thinking here. A given mutation is “most likely” deleterious, which you equate with “only” deleterious, and yet mutations that are really really “most unlikely” to persist in the face of natural selection (remember, the probability of fixation of a deleterious mutation in the face of selection is by definition very much worse than chance) are not only not impossible, but are a certainty (your appeal to “mutational load”). What’s up with that?

You just aren't making sense. The 999,999 mutations that are not an advantage, (this time around) still have a good enough chance of persisting. Whereas the one with a beneficial mutation has an even better chance. But those 999,999 mutations start piling up each generation, even in the progeny of the organism that initially had the good mutation. Thus mutational load overtakes all organisms in a population.

Really? I was presenting a pretty basic idea. If the original forms were advanced, and modern forms are less so, then somehow the advanced forms had to have been replaced by the less advanced forms. As I mentioned, unless the offspring of advanced forms were all and equally defective, it's not clear how this replacement could happen. Especially the innumerable times you are implying.

The subsequent generations don't need to be equally defective. But they will all eventually be defective in some way.

Which is hypothetically OK. Even so, I still answered the question when I said "less advanced forms were not always so bad as to be selected out every generation".

That doesn't answer the question at all. For less advanced forms to not only persist, but spread and become fixed, in the population, they would have to be considerably better than "not always so bad."

Yes, it answers the question. In order for the "not always so bad" to selected out of a population, they have to be swept out quickly. But in the real world they aren't. They persist and mate with the one (if it were possible) that is perfect in his/her generation or even the one that carries a beneficial mutation.

No, see, that’s the assertion you need to be demonstrating. You don’t demonstrate it by repeating it. You’ll do better to avoid borrowing pages from bob b’s playbook. Think selection intensity.

No, see, it's common knowledge that mutational load is a problem in any population. Google it, even the layman's explanations are clear. I noticed Haldane is by necessity mentioned, and so this will probably end up being an integral part of Haldane's dilemma.

It should be obvious. Luck and chance happen to us all. The more fit individual will not necessarily survive maybe because they just happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time and get struck by lightning.

I can’t believe you seriously think the role of chance is not taken into account. Silly us! Look, let’s go back to Vegas for a second. The casinos loudly advertise their favorable odds (at least they used to, haven’t been there in decades), odds far, far, far, far better than those we’re talking about here. "You’ve got a 49.5% chance of winning at keno." And yet, the income pours into the casino with at least the same predictability (and far greater amounts) than it does at your average grocery store. Luck may help, or hurt, one individual, but the law of large numbers is an utterly formidable opponent for a defective genotype in a selective environment.

Yes, silly you. It's never mentioned. It is assumed that even with the horrid odds a population has to get a good mutation fixed, that the odds are even worse if we add the chances of life.

Furthermore, it is assumed by evo's that a good mutation will get fixed in a population because the others in the population that didn't get the good mutation will die. But in real life they don't die. Less fit individuals live and breed just because of luck. It isn't in any genetics calculations because it is not calculable (at least without more information), but it would only make Haldane's dilemma a worse problem, not better, if they could be calculated. I'm going to go out on a limb and make a prediction that if we could add the luck factor to the calculations that we'd find the luck factor had more to do with what genetics got fixed in a population than how much more fit an individual introduced into a population was (at least in the higher life forms). You can add that one to the list of creationist predictions.

And as a side note, has a program ever been created to model population genetics? Do they ever add a luck factor?

Factors on who survives and who doesn't change so rapidly, that "who is the most fit to survive" can change daily.

Daily, eh? Don’t you think you’re rather desperately overstating your case?

That would be a literary convention called "exaggeration". You probably use it a thousand times a day.

But back to the topic, conditions change so rapidly in any particular environment that who is most fit to breed could change within a single breeding cycle.

Difficult or not, mutational load will eventually win out in the end in all groups.

Well, when you feel like defending, rather than merely repeating, this assertion, let me know. And please at least acknowledge that the outcome will likely be different in a selected vs. nonselected population, and as you're doing that take a guess as to which state characterizes most populations most of the time.

First, I only need to defend mutational load knowing that mutations happen at a fairly large rate in every generation. Most of them neutral. Or would you deny that?

Second, I don't think it matters if the population I'm talking about is selected or not. However, perhaps what I'm assuming you are saying a selected population is isn't what you are actually saying a selected population is. What do you say is a selected population is especially in the context of a non-selected population?

 

[aharvey]

I'm only focusing on your use of the words "advantage" and "improvement". You say that something has a selective advantage and that a mutation can improve an ability to function. I'm just wondering why these advantages don't mean that the organism is actually improved.

Because the advantage is specific to a set of circumstances, and thus so is the concept of "improvement." Since bacteria live in a different set of circumstances than do humans, it makes little sense then to consider humans to represent an evolutionary improvement over bacteria.

You just aren't making sense. The 999,999 mutations that are not an advantage, (this time around) still have a good enough chance of persisting.

So maybe this is the problem: for a mutation to "persist" in a population merely means it has not yet been eliminated, right? So a mutation that is present in five out of every billion members three generations later is still "persisting." I've been talking about mutations that pretty much take over within the population, essentially becoming the new "wild type." This point seems critical enough to your entire argument that we'd better get it straight before we continue. Deleterious alleles can certainly persist in a population, but they're not going to characterize that species.

 

[bob b]

But you've skipped over the logic of the argument, which is that the numbers do support the very idea that it's not easy for life to have arisen naturally!

So what's the logical basis for rejecting the "naturally improbable" in favor of the "naturally impossible"?

You are apparently not ready for the next step, because you are desperately trying to avoid thinking about the ramifications of considering the possibility that cells did not arise "naturally".

 

[Stripe]

think about it .. life from non-lfe requires earth and air and fire and water meshing together to form something ..

you dont need a science degree .. its PREPOSTEROUS ...

 

[aharvey]

You are apparently not ready for the next step, because you are desperately trying to avoid thinking about the ramifications of considering the possibility that cells did not arise "naturally".

"Desperately"?

By "consider the possibility" do you mean "uncritical accept the possibility"? If not, then you are mistaken, because I have considered the possibility. The ramifications of this possibility are exactly the same as the ramifications of considering the possibility that anything did not arise "naturally," agreed? And there really aren't any! Now, on the other hand, there may well be ramifications to uncritically accepting the possibility that cells did not arise "naturally." And it may be worth considering the ramifications of the possibility that cells did not arise "naturally," which also would be exactly the same as the ramifications of the possibility that anything did not arise "naturally." Namely, that some things are unnatural in origin! Oh, and with no further leaps in logic, of course, that your interpretation of Genesis represents a literal and inerrant history of the universe, the Earth, and life.

Seriously, bob, you're on a fool's errand if you're setting out to show that I have never, and am incapable of, contemplating the possibility of a supernatural realm.

 

[Stripe]

so whats the alternative?

 

[bob b]

Seriously, bob, you're on a fool's errand if you're setting out to show that I have never, and am incapable of, contemplating the possibility of a supernatural realm.

Since you have previously indicated that you are a Christian, I would assume that you not only consider the possibility, but also already believe in the supernatural. True?

 

[aharvey]

Since you have previously indicated that you are a Christian, I would assume that you not only consider the possibility, but also already believe in the supernatural. True?

So if you already had this information, what on earth did you really mean by claiming that I refuse to consider the possibility that cells did not arise naturally? Was my "consider = uncritically accept" equation more accurate than you are comfortable admitting?

 

[bob b]

So if you already had this information, what on earth did you really mean by claiming that I refuse to consider the possibility that cells did not arise naturally? Was my "consider = uncritically accept" equation more accurate than you are comfortable admitting?

I assume that you are one of those Christians who have fallen for the Gould concept of separate realms, and so are able to insulate your beliefs about the supernatural and Jesus Christ as God in the flesh, but since you think that the Old Testament conflicts with contemporary biological thought you probably write it off as consisting mainly of fairy tales.

I doubt if anything could persuade you otherwise, which is why my posts are mainly directed at people who are willing to look at the evidence and discover that it actually is consistent with God's creation story, not evolution from a hypothetical primitive protocell.

 

[aharvey]

Wasn't it you who just a couple days ago talked about the evolutionist's ploy of changing the subject?

I assume that you are one of those Christians who have fallen for the Gould concept of separate realms, and so are able to insulate your beliefs about the supernatural and Jesus Christ as God in the flesh, but since you think that the Old Testament conflicts with contemporary biological thought you probably write it off as consisting mainly of fairy tales.

You can assume whatever you want. Since I have always scrupulously held to the idea that since science cannot say anything about the supernatural, then my, or anyone else's, beliefs about the supernatural are expressly irrelevant to the scientific merits of an idea.

I doubt if anything could persuade you otherwise,

Look who's talking. At least I don't assume my conclusions. And as I don't have the same emotional attachment (nay, unshakable devotion) to my particular hypotheses, I can safely say that if enough new evidence accumulates to seriously compromise the idea that organisms evolve, or a new and internally consistent interpretative framework is proposed that provides a superior alternative to evolutionary theory, then I'm there. So far, try as I may, I've seen nothing that comes close in either case.

which is why my posts are mainly directed at people who are willing to look at the evidence

So how come you never provide any? Remember, "evidence" is not the same as "assertion," and it is more than just "observation." You need to establish the logical connection between the observation and the hypothesis for an observation to be "evidence" for a particular hypothesis. Otherwise one could merely sit back and say idiotic things like "See, look at the complexity of this blade of grass. That's evidence of a designer!" Or, "See, look how almost everywhere we look, the geologic strata has layers. This is evidence that a single global flood laid down all the geologic layers at the same time. (What? No, the facts that local floods lay down sediment locally and local floods occur on a global scale most certainly do not mean that sediments are being laid down on a global scale by local floods!)" And surely you wouldn't want that to happen!

and discover that it actually is consistent with God's creation story,

Well, as you've acknowledged that the only way to see this is by first assuming the story is correct, then of course all potential evidence will either be 1) consistent with the story (and as you know, "consistency" is the weakest level of scientific support, and yet it's the strongest you'll ever have, won't you?), or 2) found to have some rationalization that disqualifies it as evidence. And before you avoid this question and instead merely claim that this is exactly what evolutionary biologists do, please go back and review some of the threads I used to post giving evolutionary explanations and asking for creationist explanations, before realizing I was never going to get a straight answer. Just a few examples: distribution and diversification of modern and fossil marsupials; coral atoll composition and distribution; minor bladder issues in late stage human pregnancies; stratigraphic and developmental trajectories in whale nostrils; hierarchical nature of genetic differentiation (in rice weevils, I believe my specific example was).

not evolution from a hypothetical primitive protocell.

Remember, people, all you have to do is assume evolution from a common ancestor is false and then it won't matter what the evidence says, because it is meaningless for evidence to support a false hypothesis!

 

[Jukia]

. Just a few examples: distribution and diversification of modern and fossil marsupials; coral atoll composition and distribution; minor bladder issues in late stage human pregnancies; stratigraphic and developmental trajectories in whale nostrils; hierarchical nature of genetic differentiation (in rice weevils, I believe my specific example was).

!

bob b, if you cannot address any of these issues perhaps you can convince some ID or better yet, creation scientist (oxymoron alert ignored) to address them. Come on, you must have some contacts in the creation science community who can address the issues raised by the real working scientist who thinks evolution is pretty well established as an accurate representation of how the world works.

 

[bob b]

Remember, people, all you have to do is assume evolution from a common ancestor is false and then it won't matter what the evidence says, because it is meaningless for evidence to support a false hypothesis!

Yes, once one comes to the conclusion that evolution could be false then it becomes much easier to see that the evidence is quite consistent with multiple types of advanced creatures at the beginning.

 

[Jukia]

Yes, once one comes to the conclusion that evolution could be false then it becomes much easier to see that the evidence is quite consistent with multiple types of advanced creatures at the beginning.

And that evidence is????

 

[aharvey]

Quote:
Originally Posted by aharvey

Remember, people, all you have to do is assume evolution from a common ancestor is false and then it won't matter what the evidence says, because it is meaningless for evidence to support a false hypothesis!


Yes, once one comes to the conclusion that evolution could be false then it becomes much easier to see that the evidence is quite consistent with multiple types of advanced creatures at the beginning.

Aren't there any creationist types with any kind of scientific awareness out there who have a problem with bob's continual and easy adoption of the "assume your conclusions" fallacy?!? I mean, come on!