Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions) 2nd draft

John Harshman wrote:

Wall Of Sleep wrote:

[There's something wrong with your thread line; it's attaching your
response to your previous post, not to my reply. You should try to get
that fixed.]


John Harshman wrote:

[snip]


Convergent evolution in response to similar selective regimes is hardly
a difficult concept. What about it confuses you?

What's your explanation?



That they were designed to "make their livings finding invertebrates
under rocks, where touch is the main way of searching" - hence they were
equipped with the right tool for the job.

Good design.


In order for that to be true, the blue duck must be unrelated to other
ducks, and the platypus must be unrelated to other monotremes. Yet the
evidence to the contrary is plentiful. The NZ blue duck has relatives
without that special bill. Are you claiming that somebody came in and
tweaked an ancestral blue duck, or are you claiming that someone created
a blue duck from scratch?

The blue duck is an offshoot of the original "duck" design type. It's
specialized bill was part of the original genome and "evolved" when the
duck was placed in that environment. The coding is probably still there
in some other ducks, probably in the "junk" DNA - just a tweak away from
springing forth when the environment calls for it.

And your evidence for this belief is what?


The same as yours - unless you *don't* believe the blue duck evolved

from another type of duck.

I'm asking for the evidence for the particular evolutionary mechanism
you claim exists, in which all specialized characters are encoded, in
dormant form, in the ancestral genome. There is no evidence for this
claim and much against it.

If all the "junk" DNA has been examined and found to contain no
sequences that could be of any use, then your claim that there is "much
evidence" against such sequences would be valid. Somehow I doubt, given
the scope of such an endeavor, that that has, or will ever be done.


Oops. Forgot to comment on this part. You are, perhaps accidentally,
moving the goalposts. Junk DNA has plenty of sequences that could be of
use in some circumstances. New genes are made from junk fairly often in
evolution. But it's through random mutation and selection. You are
arguing for something quite different and much fancier: a preprogrammed
process that creates both new genes and specific modifications (which we
would call mutations) in old genes. There is no sign of that. If you
think such a mechanism could be hiding somewhere in what we don't know,
that's hardly evidence, is it? And even so, I don't think there's any
room for such a mechanism.

Now what you are talking about hasn't been done, but something that's
just as good for our purposes has been done: a search of the human
genome for regions that are conserved and non-conserved. Any
preprogrammed mechanism must be conserved, meaning that it does not
change quickly in evolution. There are a few regions of unexplained
conservation, but nowhere near what you need for this fancy mechanism of
yours. Of course in order to believe the bit about "conserved" and "not
conserved", you have to accept a certain amount of common descent, and
we don't know yet how much common descent you are willing to believe.
But if you don't accept common descent, you need to explain these
patterns of higher and lower similarity regions in genomes, and the fact
that the patterns correspond well with functional and non-functional
regions, based on prior criteria.

Well, the mechanism has been observed in action. The Laysan finches is
one example:
http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/people/faculty/pimm/publications/pimmreprints/56_TREE_1988.pdf
The author seems puzzled as to how such a rapid transformation took
place. When they find the answer, (if they do) I'll bet it has something
to do with a "pre-programmed" genetic sequence lying dormant - just
waiting for it's environmental trigger.


I find it hard to believe that you actually read that article. The
obvious explanation, to me and to the author (and to the author of the
study that this news item is reporting) is natural selection acting on
existing variation. For a more exhaustive study of similar processes,
look at the Grants' work on Galapagos finches. There is no need for,
evidence of, or suggestion of any pre-programming in any of this, or in
any other work by any scientist.

What you have here is nothing more than an argument from personal
incredulity. You, for unspecified reasons, don't think that natural
selection is capable of acting this fast, despite abundant lab and field
evidence to the contrary. Your "bet", on the other hand, is based on
nothing. This is common in creationists. You believe your
preconceptions, without evidence, but place an unreasonably high bar on
evidence against them.


I did not say that *natural selection* doesn't work this fast! That's
not the point. The point is that *mutations* are not responsible for
this because *mutations* don't produce new features that fast. My point
is that this was a pre-existing selectable variation - not a new feature
built by *mutation*. Please don't confuse the issue and then argue
against terms which you have switched.


In that case, I don't see how this (natural selection happening without
mutations) is any sort of argument for what you think it is. Existing
variation is hardly any sort of pre-programmed mechanism for change. It
certainly has nothing to do with junk DNA, so I don't know why, if this
is your mechanism, you have been talking about junk DNA all this time.
Rather than having any sort of testable theory, you seem to be saying
the first thing that comes into your head, whether or not it makes sense
or is consistent with what you were saying before. That's not the way to
gain respect for your theory.

Well, the variation did not present itself until the environment
required it. It's not like natural selection killed off all the birds
with the wrong beaks, it's more like the right beaks began to appear as
they were required. This is more along the lines of a built in
variation whose appearance was triggered by the environmental changes.
It's in line with Spetner's Non Random Evolutionary Hypothesis (NREH).


What evidence do you have for this very odd concept? It certainly
doesn't come from the papers you cited. Does the term "additive genetic
variance" mean anything to you? Yes, natural selection did kill off (or
reduce the reproductive potential of) birds with non-optimal beaks,
before and after the change in selective regime. And your claim makes no
sense as a defense of recombination among existing variation, which is
what you were saying before. Once again, your ideas are highly confused.
There is no place in the genome for variation to hide until it's needed,
and mutations do not happen at need either. Beak size was always
influenced by selection, acting on multiple loci. The only change was in
the target of that selection.


Well, I'm no biologist so my ideas may be a bit confused - especially
in regard to my misuse of terms. My contention with you is on one main
point: The change in beak shapes is *not* the result of random
mutation. That's it. If you are saying that it *is* random mutation,
we are in disagreement. If you are saying it's *not* random mutation,
we are in agreement (at least on that point).



For Dr. Lee Spetner's take on this (and other examples) see:
http://www.britam.org//now/now366.html


Dr. Spetner is profoundly confused. I would be happy to discuss any
specific points you would like to raise.


How about the issue of complex specified information *gain* through
mutation? Know of any examples?


Until you can quantify CSI sufficiently to tell when it's been gained,
lost, or unchanged, it's impossible to tell whether I know of any examples.

Dembski has defined and refined CSI.


Not that I can find. Not in any form that can be applied operationally.


Have you read any of his books?


Spetner defines it as simply
"Information".


That's a useless definition, because if I show you a case of information
increasing, you will just tell me that it may be information, but it's
not CSI.


That's true, but his definition includes the concept of "meaning" -
which makes it CSI.


The info is out there if you're interested.


If so, you will be able to find it and tell me the definition, one that
I can actually use, instead of this pointless obfuscation.


It stands
there as a challenge for evolutionists and, so far as I can see, they've
only managed to quibble about definitions. They've never proposed a
testable mechanism that can produce or increase CSI.


Again, impossible until you define it. Which you refuse to do. All you
do is claim that somebody, somewhere, has defined it. If so, that is
easy to demonstrate by posting that definition. Here's a space:



I have given my definition for complexity and specification elsewhere in
this thread - several times in fact. What exactly did you find wanting
in it?

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions) 2nd draft
    ... In order for that to be true, the blue duck must be unrelated to other ... And your evidence for this belief is what? ... But it's through random mutation and selection. ... would call mutations) in old genes. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions) 2nd draft
    ... In order for that to be true, the blue duck must be unrelated to other ... And your evidence for this belief is what? ... But it's through random mutation and selection. ... conservation, but nowhere near what you need for this fancy mechanism of ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions) 2nd draft
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    (talk.origins)
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