Is Intelligent Design dead?

[Uncle Rhynchus]

Tengers,

I'll have to give you my comments tomorrow.

[Uncle Rhynchus]

Quote by: tengers Darwin believed that extinction was selective and by that I mean that species competed until they died out or survived, as the case may be.

He said that was the case in general. Here is a Darwin quote from the paper you cited :

"the complete extinction of the species of a group is generally a slower process than their production"

Not always, not absolutely, but generally.

It very well may be that extinction was in fact the driver of events and that Darwin's selective extinctions were and are a minor part of evolution and that other more grand extinctions take place for a variety of reasons, and these extinctions set the stage for unlikely co-existing species to then flourish.

That's been a part of evolutionary theory for quite some time.

When the dinosaurs died out, perhaps as the result of an environmental incident, mammals then expanded to fill the gap.

Actually, that popular conception has recently been challenged by new data.

It may be that Darwins speciation may be a lower order activity to the extinction process that occurs not as a result of competition,but as a result of other calamities that result in major changes to the biosphere and to certain types of life forms.

Or it may be both. But either way, as has been demonstrated, neither are ignored.

I have attached a paper on this subject in the event that you were not able to open the biology online article. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pic...0&blobtype=pdf

I guess I'm having a little trouble understanding what your point is. Darwin thought extinctions were typically gradual....and....?

[tengers]

Quote by: Uncle Rhynchus He said that was the case in general. Here is a Darwin quote from the paper you cited : "the complete extinction of the species of a group is generally a slower process than their production" Not always, not absolutely, but generally. That's been a part of evolutionary theory for quite some time. Actually, that popular conception has recently been challenged by new data. Or it may be both. But either way, as has been demonstrated, neither are ignored. I guess I'm having a little trouble understanding what your point is. Darwin thought extinctions were typically gradual....and....?

Darwin did not believe in mass extinctions. He believed there was a flaw in the fossil records. He also believed that the driver of change in life forms came from modest inherited changes that allowed them to compete and reproduce better. If they didn't they became extinct.

Most of the posts that I have read on this forum simply do not deal with the possibility that extinction may be as much or more of a driver of evolution than modest inheritable trait changes. Most of the work on extinctions is relatively new, including the posts you reference above. I only wished to bring this up because it is a rather different view of things than Darwinism, which saw extinction as a natural selective process. It may even be that the natural selective process is a relatively low power tool relative to the more calamitous events in history that have brought about speciation, a sort of screwdriver/sledgehammer comparison.

[Uncle Rhynchus]

Quote by: tengers Darwin did not believe in mass extinctions. He believed there was a flaw in the fossil records. He also believed that the driver of change in life forms came from modest inherited changes that allowed them to compete and reproduce better. If they didn't they became extinct.

And........? Again, I fail to see the point.

Most of the posts that I have read on this forum simply do not deal with the possibility that extinction may be as much or more of a driver of evolution than modest inheritable trait changes.

You're not making sense. Evolution is "inheritable trait changes" (or more technically, "changes in allele frequencies in populations over time"). So you're basically saying "Extinction may be more of a driver of evolution than evolution".

. I only wished to bring this up because it is a rather different view of things than Darwinism, which saw extinction as a natural selective process.

Again, that was over 150 years ago.

[Uncle Rhynchus]

More relevant to this thread....

A technical review of the Dembski & Marks paper in IEEE

And as has been pointed out multiple times in this thread, the ID creationist argument relies on misrepresentation. From the review:

The fundamental lesson here is that the Dembski-Marks approach to evaluating model assumptions is both arbitrary and a poor reflection of scientific reasoning. Model assumptions are not accepted or rejected based on a numerical measure of how many logical possibilities that are ruled out or how far probability distributions deviate from uniform measures. Rather, model assumptions are accepted or rejected based on predictive and descriptive accuracy, domain of applicability, ability to unify existing models and empirical knowledge, and so on. Merely talking about target sets requires assumptions that impose structure on the search space and processes related to it. Dembski and Marks (2009a) mention “a simple self-replicating molecule, an autocatalytic set, or a lipid membrane” as examples of biological targets. However, these chemical concepts presuppose model assumptions from physics, chemistry and biochemistry and they could hardly be independent of the chemical processes by which they are thought to arise. The same chemistry that allows us to define self-replicating molecules, autocatalytic sets and lipid membranes also has consequences for how such phenomena might arise in nature. In the language of the Dembski-Marks (or Wolpert-Macready) representation, this means that the target set (or fitness function) and the search algorithm are not independent of each other—they are both consequences of chemical model assumptions.

[tengers]

Quote by: Uncle Rhynchus And........? Again, I fail to see the point. You're not making sense. Evolution is "inheritable trait changes" (or more technically, "changes in allele frequencies in populations over time"). So you're basically saying "Extinction may be more of a driver of evolution than evolution". Again, that was over 150 years ago.

Evolution is generally seen as how you describe it above, namely changes caused by inheritable trait changes and so forth with extinction being the end result of a failed species. Extinction is in fact caused by several reasons, some having nothing to do with natural selection and it is these extinctions that may allow other things to happen. The nature of extinctions, whether randomly generated, or some form of failed adaptiveness or if generated by calamity have really only been looked at seriously in the past few years. It is possible that extinction may be the end result after a certain number of cycles, no matter what happens in the process. The exact role of extinction and how it occurs is not well understood or even readily predictable.

A good mathematical example of this occurs when you try to mimic rabbit populations with the infamous logistic difference equation using feedback loops. Simply changing a constant in that model of the birth cycle can extinguish all rabbits, or it can lead to a single stable population, or it can lead to populations that will double at precise intervals or it may become chaotic and totally unstable. No one understands how simply making a minor change allows this to happen and this may be going on in nature all of the time. In other words, there are circumstances that support survival and circumstances that don't and sometimes they are only a rat hair apart and it just takes a number of reproduction cycles to find out.

[Jinei]

Quote by: tengers Evolution is generally seen as how you describe it above, namely changes caused by inheritable trait changes and so forth with extinction being the end result of a failed species. Extinction is in fact caused by several reasons, some having nothing to do with natural selection and it is these extinctions that may allow other things to happen. The nature of extinctions, whether randomly generated, or some form of failed adaptiveness or if generated by calamity have really only been looked at seriously in the past few years. It is possible that extinction may be the end result after a certain number of cycles, no matter what happens in the process. The exact role of extinction and how it occurs is not well understood or even readily predictable.

I wouldn't say extinction has a role. Rather, it has incidental consequences. For example, look at the extinction of the dinosaurs. It allowed mammals to move out into the open land and dominate, spawning newer forms and greater diversity (Evolutionary Radiation).

[tengers]

Quote by: Jinei I wouldn't say extinction has a role. Rather, it has incidental consequences. For example, look at the extinction of the dinosaurs. It allowed mammals to move out into the open land and dominate, spawning newer forms and greater diversity (Evolutionary Radiation).

You have just struck upon the key point. You are here not because of Natural Selection, but because some meteor may have hit the Earth. This was not so incidental. It may be the origin of most species, as opposed to the "duking it out theory"

[Jinei]

Quote by: tengers You have just struck upon the key point. You are here not because of Natural Selection, but because some meteor may have hit the Earth. This was not so incidental. It may be the origin of most species, as opposed to the "duking it out theory"

Yes, a great deal of modern species we see today would not exist if that asteroid had not hit (whales, for example, evolved from a land mammal that was the direct result of the mammalian radiation at the time). But the evolutionary histories of every organism on this planet are contingent upon these sorts of evolutionary accidents, big or small - extinctions being big, random genetic mutations being small. In this sense, natural selection takes advantage of a myopic few lineages upon the vast range of possibilities random mutations produce. It's an extended example of the Butterfly Effect. One small change - one small mutation - can change the entire course of evolutionary history, even if it has no immediate phenotypical effect.

And I would add to your point about natural selection; I agree, I am not here because of natural selection. The evolutionary tree of life was never spreading toward our prestigious location among other possible twigs. But extinctions can't be responsible for my appearance here, either. Both natural selection and extinction push evolutionary lineages in altering directions, neither pushing for any preferred end product, like humans, and least of all, myself.

[Uncle Rhynchus]

Saw this today:

On the Origin and Spread of an Adaptive Allele in Deer Mice Adaptation is a central focus of biology, although it can be difficult to identify both the strength and agent of selection and the underlying molecular mechanisms causing change. We studied cryptically colored deer mice living on the Nebraska Sand Hills and show that their light coloration stems from a novel banding pattern on individual hairs produced by an increase in Agouti expression caused by a cis-acting mutation (or mutations), which either is or is closely linked to a single amino acid deletion in Agouti that appears to be under selection. Furthermore, our data suggest that this derived Agouti allele arose de novo after the formation of the Sand Hills. These findings reveal one means by which genetic, developmental, and evolutionary mechanisms can drive rapid adaptation under ecological pressure.

But...but...how can this be? Mutation and natural selection producing novel functional genetic information? I thought that wasn't supposed to happen!

[Meleagar]

Both natural selection and extinction push evolutionary lineages in altering directions, neither pushing for any preferred end product, like humans, and least of all, myself.

If there is no preferred product, then there is no algorithmic differential contained in natural selection that outperforms chance. A differential that doesn't differentiate based on some value (especially a survival differential) is simply random.

However, there is a preferred product: more fecund organisms. That's it. Everything else is a purported byproduct of the fecundity differential. Unfortunately, it's been demonstrated in peer reviewed, published science to not be up to the task of generating those supposed side effects.

Also, as far as extinctions, I would look into genetic entropy and overpopulation scenarios generated by random mutation and natural selection - at least those not generated by environmental catastrophes.

[Jinei]

Quote by: Meleagar If there is no preferred product, then there is no algorithmic differential contained in natural selection that outperforms chance. A differential that doesn't differentiate based on some value (especially a survival differential) is simply random.

Wrong. Natural selection does operate on differential reproduction. But when the environment changes in so many unpredictable ways, to suggest a preferred "end product" were in sight would be unwarranted. Natural Selection "prefers," or rather selects for, those organisms more adapt to their environment - this is a non-random differential. But if you then take the whole of natural history, no one can claim natural selection was leading to our lineage the whole way - humans as an "end product."

However, there is a preferred product: more fecund organisms. That's it. Everything else is a purported byproduct of the fecundity differential. Unfortunately, it's been demonstrated in peer reviewed, published science to not be up to the task of generating those supposed side effects.

Not so. There is no trend in increasing fecundity in natural history. Nor does evolutionary theory claim to select for higher and higher fecundity to begin with. And no such paper you've cited supported any such conclusion. We've been through this. Throw us something new, please.

Also, as far as extinctions, I would look into genetic entropy and overpopulation scenarios generated by random mutation and natural selection - at least those not generated by environmental catastrophes.

What should I expect to find? Bacteria mutate faster than animals do, yet they don't all go extinct. What are you trying to say here?

[Uncle Rhynchus]

Again, posted examples of evolutionary mechanisms doing exactly what Meleagar insists they can't do.....and he ignores it.

Very symbolic of ID creationism as a whole.

[Uncle Rhynchus]

Saw this in my journal browsings (yes, I'm a nerd)...

Reptilian heart development and the molecular basis of cardiac chamber evolution The emergence of terrestrial life witnessed the need for more sophisticated circulatory systems. This has evolved in birds, mammals and crocodilians into complete septation of the heart into left and right sides, allowing separate pulmonary and systemic circulatory systems, a key requirement for the evolution of endothermy1, 2, 3. However, the evolution of the amniote heart is poorly understood. Reptilian hearts have been the subject of debate in the context of the evolution of cardiac septation: do they possess a single ventricular chamber or two incompletely septated ventricles4, 5, 6, 7? Here we examine heart development in the red-eared slider turtle, Trachemys scripta elegans (a chelonian), and the green anole, Anolis carolinensis (a squamate), focusing on gene expression in the developing ventricles. Both reptiles initially form a ventricular chamber that homogenously expresses the T-box transcription factor gene Tbx5. In contrast, in birds and mammals, Tbx5 is restricted to left ventricle precursors8, 9. In later stages, Tbx5 expression in the turtle (but not anole) heart is gradually restricted to a distinct left ventricle, forming a left–right gradient. This suggests that Tbx5 expression was refined during evolution to pattern the ventricles. In support of this hypothesis, we show that loss of Tbx5 in the mouse ventricle results in a single chamber lacking distinct identity, indicating a requirement for Tbx5 in septation. Importantly, misexpression of Tbx5 throughout the developing myocardium to mimic the reptilian expression pattern also results in a single mispatterned ventricular chamber lacking septation. Thus ventricular septation is established by a steep and correctly positioned Tbx5 gradient. Our findings provide a molecular mechanism for the evolution of the amniote ventricle, and support the concept that altered expression of developmental regulators is a key mechanism of vertebrate evolution.

Interesting how they not only hypothesized that Tbx5 was responsible for the evolution of new chambers in reptiles, but they also tested their hypothesis by knocking out the transcription factor in lab mice and observing them go back to a single-chambered heart.

So where's the equivalent from ID creationists? Where do they propose a specific mechanism for a structure, and then follow that up with a test?

[tengers]

Quote by: Meleagar If there is no preferred product, then there is no algorithmic differential contained in natural selection that outperforms chance. A differential that doesn't differentiate based on some value (especially a survival differential) is simply random. However, there is a preferred product: more fecund organisms. That's it. Everything else is a purported byproduct of the fecundity differential. Unfortunately, it's been demonstrated in peer reviewed, published science to not be up to the task of generating those supposed side effects. Also, as far as extinctions, I would look into genetic entropy and overpopulation scenarios generated by random mutation and natural selection - at least those not generated by environmental catastrophes.

Evolution, at some deep level, may be like water running down a hill. It finds the path that requires the least amount of energy and builds that critter. If the ground is too pervious, the stream may disappear at some point, when running down the hill, if there is an earthquake, and a crack opens up, the stream disappears altogether. The development of species and their extinction seems to depend on what happens. Sometimes the critter's own body can generate changes that might be needed and at other times, it can't, but in virtually all cases, it seems that all critters eventually disappear, including the critter that takes its place.

If you really wish to argue this case for ID, the only place to go is to back up a notch, say the Id'er created a pile of laws that all of his creation must obey, and call it a day. Then Scientist's can continue figuring out what those laws are and that will make them happy and you can take a rest knowing that your seemingly unknowable ID'er probably has the system set on auto-pilot, since he(she, it) seems to never be around and only speaks through certain people, usually male conservatives.

[Meleagar]

Quote by: tengers Evolution, at some deep level, may be like water running down a hill. It finds the path that requires the least amount of energy and builds that critter. If the ground is too pervious, the stream may disappear at some point, when running down the hill, if there is an earthquake, and a crack opens up, the stream disappears altogether.

Yes, Darwinian evolution is just like that; a metaphor that doesn't require anyone to produce real math with real differential algorithm, search space and probability bound numbers that actually predict results. Metaphors, analogies, and ad hoc stories is all we need to transform materialist mythology into scientific fact.

[Uncle Rhynchus]

Quote by: Meleagar Yes, Darwinian evolution is just like that; a metaphor that doesn't require anyone to produce real math with real differential algorithm, search space and probability bound numbers that actually predict results. Metaphors, analogies, and ad hoc stories is all we need to transform materialist mythology into scientific fact.

Yeah, and it helps a lot if you ignore all the examples of it happening in real time.

[tengers]

Quote by: Meleagar Yes, Darwinian evolution is just like that; a metaphor that doesn't require anyone to produce real math with real differential algorithm, search space and probability bound numbers that actually predict results. Metaphors, analogies, and ad hoc stories is all we need to transform materialist mythology into scientific fact.

Forgetting evolution for the moment, what exactly, in simple terms is your belief in your words with regard to the origin and development of life forms and in what time frame (years) did all this take place?

[Meleagar]

Quote by: tengers Forgetting evolution for the moment, what exactly, in simple terms is your belief in your words with regard to the origin and development of life forms and in what time frame (years) did all this take place?

I have no belief about it whatsoever. However, I think that it is more likely that some form of intelligent observer (probably us) has collapsed quantum potential states (yes, including historic ones, since I consider time just another dimension) in a manner necessary for our existence, regardless of how virtually impossible such seqences seem to be (such as: the origin of life and many probability-defying evolutionary sequences). Time span? Billions of years, but I think "how much time it took" is a fairly moot point in a 4-dimensional, quantum-collapse, universal instantaneity framework. IOW, the mind is primary; we exist at some location in infinite quantum potentional, and by observation we have manufacture that which must exist to support our existence. The timleline is just a collapsed contrivance that "explains" our existence.

That's about as simple as I can make my provisional assessment of what I think is the most likely cause for a finely-tuned universe, abiogenesis, and the genetic-entropy defying and probability defying rise of functionally specified complexity towards minds that can functionally comprehend that universe. But I'm not wedded to it or anything - it's just an interpretation of various scientific facts.

I find the materialist mythology based on appeals to infinite chance and a survival differential algorithm (natural selection) that can miraculously generate functioning eyes and winged flight as side effects to be about as preposterous and absurd as many other primitive superstitions we've grown past. What is the appeal to chance other than "insert secular miracle here" ?

Now, if we're retro-collapsing the universe via quantum observer collapse, then we should find a universe finely tuned for our existence and finely tuned to our comprehension of it, even if we find the pathways from big bang to human consciousness only molecule-wide and virtually impossible.

[Thanatos]

Quote by: Meleagar I have no belief about it whatsoever. However, I think that it is more likely that some form of intelligent observer (probably us) has collapsed quantum potential states (yes, including historic ones, since I consider time just another dimension) in a manner necessary for our existence, regardless of how virtually impossible such seqences seem to be (such as: the origin of life and many probability-defying evolutionary sequences). Time span? Billions of years, but I think "how much time it took" is a fairly moot point in a 4-dimensional, quantum-collapse, universal instantaneity framework.

It appears that you're trying to express the strong anthropic principle. I read Tipler's books. They did not amuse me.

Anthropic principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In this view, quantum phenomena need an observer to collapse their wavefunctions. Therefore observers appear.

In actuality the observer need not be human. Or alive. This is testably wrong. It's more like a current going to ground. A human makes a perfectly good ground, as does a large rock or a metal plate.

This is actually a major nuisance in studying quantum phenomenon; scientists would very much like to be able to place something in a state of superposition by merely not looking at the object they're testing. Damn those metal plates and infrared photons, they must be secretly intelligent. Your hypothesis is wrong.