Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions)

Wall Of Sleep wrote:
Iain wrote:
Wall Of Sleep wrote:

Iain wrote:


Wall Of Sleep wrote:


Richard Forrest wrote:



Wall Of Sleep wrote:

<snipped>

"Purpose" is an assumption which cannot be tested by scientific
hypothesis.

In science one investigates by testing hypotheses.


So where is the testable falsifiable hypothesis for how evolution
produced protein synthesis?



Read the literature.




Given the fact that we are able to design and build systems similar to
the systems involved in protein synthesis, and given the fact that we
are able to manipulate DNA, it is no stretch to say that an advanced
intelligent agent could put together something along the lines of
protein synthesis from scratch. The closer we get, the more it proves my
point.


Another "heads I win, tails you lose" scenario:

If we synthesise proteins in the lab, it's supports the assertion that
an intelligent designer did it.
If we can't synthesise proteins in the lab it supports the assertion
that an intelligent designer cleverer than us did it.

What test do you propose for which the explanation that an intelligent
designer, of unspecified but possibly supernatural powers using
unspecified but possibly supernatural methods is *NOT* possible.

The example you gave earlier - from memory a cat giving birth to dog -
is perfectly explicable in terms of an intelligent designer of this
type. So is the sudden appearance of pink and blue unicorns in
Trafalgar Square dancing a quadrille, or a dog giving birth to a new
and fashionable shade of purple.




Yet where is the falsifiable testable progression from the precursor to
protein synthesis to the final process via evolution?



Read the literature. "An intelligent designer did it" is not an
scientifically valid explanation. Something which can "explain"
anything is in scientific terms utterly useless.

So believe in an "intelligent designer" if you want - but don't kid
yourself that your convictions constitute a scientific theory.

RF


I take your "Read the literature" answers as "I don't know".
It's par for the course here. Evolutionists spout all this high and
mighty rhetoric about how they have the market cornered on real science,
yet when asked to provide one simple example for the success of their
"unchallengeable" theory, they resort to vagueness, artful dodges and
innuendo.


Wrong, pure wrong. You claim there is no evidence but there quite
simply is. There are *millions* of fossils FLAWLESSly placed in
geographical time and space. We OBSERVE natural selection acting in a
synchronised way.

To me, the most compelling evidence for evolution is the elegance,
complexity, and synchronised workings of organisms, _greater_ than any
designer has ever come up with.

The normal operation of natural selection is obvious to anyone who
imagines its absence. Each birth throughout recorded history has been a
miscopy, so why hasn't our species been extinguished by random
development? No small intricacy of the human form can escape the slight
miscopying that happens once per birth; It's why each of us is
unique. If you were to allow this repetitive miscopying to continue
unselected, by manually miscopying genomes using a computer, your
population would go from mankind to freaks to tumors to random
outgrowths. The genome has been decomposed by repetitive copying.

In nature, however, the environment ensures that variations cannot
accumulate past a set of complex boundaries, because to do so would be
at the expense of reproductive ability, and so lineages fizzle out. As
these boundaries shift over the centuries, so does the genetic makeup
of the species. This is evolution.

Given that the whole genome is in a constant state of what some might
call decomposition, and that the whole human form is dictated by the
genome, then ****natural selection is the only thing maintaining the
physical integrity of the human species****. Of course, this leaves one
wondering whether "decomposition" is an appropriate word. A typical
mutation is so small that it makes no sense to talk of whether it alone
is constructive or destructive.

Furthermore, the criteria for selection are circumstantial - That is,
they depends on the environment plus all the other erstwhile mutation.
Because of this, a species is always fine-tuning to the changing
environment.

~Iain



You speak of "miscopying" as the source of variation.



Miscopying is the source of variation, and affects every reproductive
act.

There's sexual inheritance also, of course, but the reason there is
difference between anything AT ALL is because of miscopying.


WRONG! All sexually reproduced creatures are a *combination* of the
male and female parents' DNA.


Nope. There is mutation alongside that, every time. You yourself have
maybe twelve.

Also, the reason mummy and daddy are different in the first place is
because of all the other mutation that came before them, right up to
their common ancestor maybe a thousand years ago.

Get an education, or sense of humility to go with that ignorance of
yours.


"Miscopying" is another word for mutation


Yep.


- it is *not* the only source of variation.


Previous mutation is shuffled sexually, but that's it.

Some species don't *** at all, but they do vary.


In fact it is a minor (and
usually detrimental) source.


It is the reason there is any difference between living things at all
whatsoever.



How do you know
that variation is not designed into the genomes of organisms?



Because DNA copies badly like a photocopier, or cassette tape.

Every birth is a random but small miscopy.


DNA copies as it was designed to - with built in variation.


It doesn't need to be "built-in" -- Miscopying is just natural chaos.

This is elementary, late 19th century (& high school) science. Your
ignorance is glaringly obvious.


If it was
as bad as you say, the genome would be destroyed in short order.


My point exactly! But it hasn't been destroyed! (or decomposed)

Why? Come on, why?

Answer: Selection! The cross-section of the population that reproduce
are the ones who vary in such a way that allows reproduction under the
present environment. Please try to grasp the implications of this small
fact before one of us dies.

It's really not that difficult to grasp.

For example, in an environment where eyesight is crucial, every
generation is descended from the optically sufficient members of the
previous generation. This creates various thresholds, see? Variation
can't add up past certain points. No matter how many generations of
blurry eyed creatures hump, eventually their lineage will fizzle out
when they get too blurry. If the nature of the threat changes, the
threshold shifts gradually. That's evolution. Now and always.


Randomly generating "mistakes" into DNA sequences will eventually cause
irreparable harm.


You're forgetting selection!

Irreparably harmed creatures do not reproduce! Slightly disadvantaged
creatures _might_ not reproduce, and so on.

Now think of a whole sexually reproducing gene pool and those
statistics acting upon it.


Until this random miscopying can be verified through
experimentation


It is! God knows it is! This is so elementary it's incredible.


as the source of variation amongst life,


It is!


it's just an
untested hypothesis.


You're going to take this personally, but what the heck -- You're an
ignoramus. I mean that in a pragmatic sense so that you can deal with
it. You're no more ignorant than the next person but when you go around
claiming there's no evidence that the source of variation isn't
mutation I am left wondering where one is supposed to start.

Maybe you should start by forgetting what you think you know.


How do
you know that the error checking mechanisms built into our DNA are not
programmed to allow for variation?



Because it's simple enough to see how it works : DNA miscopies,
organisms vary, and then are selected. Variation is random and subtle,
so why should it be "pre-programmed"?


Where is your observed, verifiable, falsifiable evidence that random
miscopying is 1. the source of variation within a genome,


I would look at some of the later work of Watson and Crick, seeing as
this is probably one of the most basic facts about DNA.


2.
produces variations that are beneficial enough to be selected?


Well, for starters _your_ genome is riddled with mutations that
happened to it shortly before _your_ birth, and _you_ are obviously
faring well enough to compose a Usenet post.

Beneficial mutation? = Beneficial Variation. Beneficial Variation?
Piece of cake. Athletes win races thanks to beneficial variation. Ever
see anyone genetically advantaged over another? That's it.

Example of beneficial variation: Increase in *** size such that it is
a step further within the threshhold of functionality.


When I say "variation", I mean you and me vary, personally. The
dimensions of your heart, your nose, your veins, the shades of your
eyes, your hair, the length of your spine, the curliness of your inner
ear, your lens focus, the diameter of your eyeball, the wiring of your
inner brain -- are not quite the same as mine. The combination of such
things in each being give each one a particular liklihood of surviving
the present environment.


You are not like me, but you are a combination of *your parents'* DNA,

Plus mutation, and all the mutation that seperate my parents from their
common ancestor.

You and I might have, as a male common ancestor, a medieval dung
gatherer from France. The mutation and selection from then till now is
what seperates us, combined with a similar bunch of stuff regarding our
mother's sides of our families.

and I am the product of my parents'. You may very well have your
mother's nose, your father's eyes... etc.

Yes, plus mutation.

If you can show that the differences between us are *purely* the result
of miscopying, you'll have a case. But you can't.


It's a buildup of miscopying\mutation\natural chaos upon DNA.

Oh, and selection. That's evolution's non-random element, and it's very
pervasive.


It all adds up in different ways over the millenia, among the whole
population, that is, to keep up with the changing environment. Features
all influence other features' development. This makes it synchronised.
And that's why I keep using that word, synchronised, because that's
what you keep forgetting.

The bottom line is, the members of a species do not revolve around any
sort of "fixed" essence. There is no "memory", or reference point. That
is a shortsighted illusion.


I think you are wrong. Observed evidence suggests a "reference point"
of some sort.

Nope, none.

Any miscopying that strays "too far" from this point
results in sterility or death.


Right! That's natural selection! It defines the thresholds that
maintain the integrity of the species.

You've answered your own question "How, if every birth is a miscopy,
does a species maintain its overall form"?

I earlier said, "selection is the only thing maintaining the integrity
of the species". If you were to copy the genomes using a computer, as
if death didn't really exist, you'd quickly get a population of
"splats".





How do you know that random > "miscopying" can produce whole new organisms?



I'm going to have to guess what you mean here.

By and large, no single birth can be expected to produce a new species,
if that's what you mean. If so, you're barking up the wrong tree.

The _build-up_ of this miscopying does produce new species, and we see
this occuring today. Often it's a case of one section of the population
becoming isolated, and adapting to their share of the environment
seperately.

I think you probably mean "can a reptile-like species become something
like a mammal-like species", etc.

Well, no. But that isn't necessary.

The fossil record shows that very early mammals were very like the
reptiles of that time, and in fact there is an ancient group of fossils
called the "mammal-like reptiles". They all match up, in geographical
time and space.

So no, there is no "huge, awesome" speciation, if that's what you mean.
Or at least, none is needed to make the idea cogent.


What concerns me most is that random copying errors (mutations) has
never been shown to be capable of producing novel, useful, DNA sequences
- without destroying the function of the original sequence.


You are living proof of that fact.

You are a mutation upon the DNA of your parents --- yet you function.

You are a functioning mutant.

QED.

This is
troubling because it's widely *assumed* that this type of process is
capable of building new features on top of old ones - essentially


You have not defined "feature". Embryos don't work in features.

You are a wad of differentiated cells, grown in a layered way,
described by the sequence of nucleotides in your genome.

Evolution is not an "outgrowth" of features. Old bits develop, other
bits stretch, coil, cell's slowly change their nature, a pouch at the
back of a fish's mouth stops being called a lung and starts being
called a swim bladder, etc. We might look at a bump on the skull and
start calling it a horn, etc.


refining a feature and adding new ones as well. To my knowledge, all
observed evidence contradicts this assumption. As far as I can tell,
all observed evolution either replaces one feature with another (usually
of lesser quality) or simply causes the loss of a feature.



If the leg length of a grazing species increases, neck length increases
to make up for increased distance from grass. The process is quite
graceful.

To understand why, you have to think in the demographics of sexually
reproducing populations. Moreover, you have to think in statistics.


If you have
evidence of a novel feature produced by mutation *without* the loss of
another feature, please cite it.

Nowhere in biology is "feature" defined for such purposes. That's your
own jargon.




You make a very eloquent
defense of a theory whose mechanism is essentially untested.


How about unknown to you?


The theoretical and mathematical _cogency_ of the theory of evolution
is proven and is very tested. Today I've been copy-editing a ruthlessly
thick wad of Evolutionary Computing journals -- I'm dashed if I can
understand it all -- But I assure you, there are few things so
thoroughly scrutinised inside out as the way natural selection adapts
populations.

As for testing the mechanism in the lab, then even schoolchildren do
that.

The result of the test, as always is _synchronised_, harmonious
adaptation. Dwell on that.


Synchronized, harmonious adaption is a sign of intricate planning in my
book, so yes, I'll dwell on that.


Talking of books, try reading one on evolution.

Or biology.

~Iain

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