Re: Wistar Symposium "Mathematical Challenge to Neo-Darwinism".

jillery wrote:

On Sun, 2 Jun 2024 11:15:24 -0400, Ron Dean
<rondean-noreply@gmail.com> wrote:
 

jillery wrote:

On Sat, 1 Jun 2024 15:45:47 -0400, Ron Dean
<rondean-noreply@gmail.com> wrote:
>

Ernest Major wrote:

 <snip uncommented text>
 

Once again, you conveniently forgot to mention that genetic
information is corrected and amplified by reproduction and natural
selection, no intelligence necessary.
>

No, it is not corrected through reproduction,

  Read for comprehension.  Yes, it is corrected through reproduction
*and* natural selection.  Reproduction amplifies more fit mutations,
natural selection removes less fit mutations.  I know you know this.
 

Yes, and I've recognized and pointed this out. There are countless errors and mutations, caused by radiation, copy error, omissions, but the overwhelming majority or proofread and repaired. But there are a few mutations that the P&R machines does not detect. These mutations are passed on
to offspring. Most hand me down mutations are said to be neutral, many others determental, but a few are said to be beneficial. But these very few (if any) beneficial mutations are actual known.
In bacteria that's mutated in test tubes generally are "designed" to survive in the lab conditions,
but in the real world they do not fare well.

 

but there are 6 known
proofreading and repair machines in DNA.  DNA corrects itself, except
rarely an mutation is not detected or repaired and the mutation is
passed down to offsprings through reproduction.

>
>

The availability constraint biases the genetic
code to simpler amino acids. The utility constraint biases the addition
of amino acids to the code to amino acids which expand the functional
range of proteins, i.e. which have properties (polar vs non-polar, basic
vs acidic, hydrophobic via hydrophilic, etc.) not already found in the
prior set.
>

This is supposition and hypothesis.

>
>
Since you mention it, your arguments are also supposition and
hypothesis.  Once again, your objection above applies as well to your
claims.
>

For example? It's so easy to make accusations without supporting the
charge.

  Since you mentioned it, Ernest Major is still waiting for *your*
example of a purposeful designer of Cambrian life.

 >
I don't always get around to every post addressed to me due to time, my wife and family, my job, eating, sleeping  and other pressing matters. I do the best I can. I'm sorry, but  TO has to take a back seat.
<
OK, in regards to the Cambrian Explosion, there were oceans where an abundance of new, unknown complex organisms abruptly appeared (geologically speaking) where prior to this, there were billions of years where only single cell organisms were found in the strata. Not only was this and explosion of complex organisms, this was accompanied with an explosion of instructive information. The origin of which is unknown.
However, the sudden appearance of a multitude of new organisms also indicates the sudden appearance of multiple strands of new instructive information, that was needed to express for each new complex organism. This is evidence, the appearance of  this instructive information can be seen as evidence of the hand of an intelligence. There is no question this is instructive information and if you trace instructions (information) back to the source, our personal experience always leads us back to an intelligence - a mind. And instructions or information encoded in DNA is no exception.
One may theorize that 3 -4 or more amino acids can exist in the prebiotic world and somehow build on up to the 22 that observed in most modern life forms. OK, but I question there's any evidence indicating any less then the same 22 amino acids were needed in the Cambrian fauna. There may have been 4 or 7 or 10 or more amino acids in the prebiotic world, but like letters in a word in a sentence they need a specific order to have meaning. What is the chance that anino acids express protein and then express the necessary protein folding?  What chance is there for a  proteins to arise by chance in the prebiotic world?  In the prebiotic world is there natural selection?

 

People have studied the robustness of the genetic code. The genetic code
is not optimal for robustness against mutation, but is a lot better than
a random one. Something similar may hold for the set of proteinogenic
amino acids. Other sets might work perfectly well, but a set with, for
example, only hydrophilic amino acids strikes me as likely to be
relatively ineffective, or perhaps even not effective at all.
>

We've discussed this before. I think originally the genetic code was
robust, but over time due to the 2/ND law and missed errors in copying,
the robustness declined and continues to decline. This I
think was anticipated from the beginning of the genetic code and several
proofreading and repair machines were implanted into the code. But even
these proofreading and repair systems are subject to errors over time.
However, they still catch overwhelming numbers of mutations and corrects
them, but not all. The evidence I think supports this. Still, each
generation inherits the mutations from previous generations and develops
new mutations, all of which is passed on down. At some distant time the
genetic code in each species becomes increasingly less robust until
reproduction
ceases and we see this in many extinctions as recorded in the fossil
record.
>
If one looks at the fossil record with _no_ biases, I think what we find
is the abrupt appearance of most (if not all) species in the strata,
then long periods of stasis followed by sudden disappearance.
I think Dr Stephen J. Gould was an honest scientist who voiced what was
actually observed in the fossil record without bias or an overriding
commitment to convention.

>
>
Once again, you conveniently forgot to mention that Dr. Stephen J.
Gould himself said that abrupt appearance and stasis [are] entirely
consistent with Darwinian evolution.
>

He was the first to acknowledge this characteristic of the fossil
record. While searching for evidence of evolutionary change, according
to Gould, paleontologist when they observed abrupt appearance and stasis
they saw this as _no_ evidence. But Gould wrote, "this is evidence". He
labeled what he
observed as punctuated equilibrium. He theorized that evolution occurred
in one location and migrated to another or was cut off by a river or
some other barrow. So, by such means he attempted
to integrate this into evolutionary theory.  So, as I pointed out
several times evolution is non-falsifiable. It's so plastic it can be
stretched to incorporate any contradictions. For example:stasis is the
exact opposite of gradual change.

 Once again, you conveniently forgot that the existence of something
like Cambrian rabbits would be strong evidence against unguided
natural selection and for ID.

 >
As I pointed out before evolution is non-falsifiable. If a rabbit was found in the Cambrian it would be ignored or explained away by the argument that when phyla are found where they should not be, it's due to plate tectonics, or some other natural geological forces causing younger strata to be forced under older strata. It's also true that the earth's strata layers were determine by observing the life forms  found within. The more primitive the living forms were the deeper they were placed in the strata layers whether or not that's where they were found or not. So, if a rabbit along with other mammals were found in the wrong place it would be easy to place the strata where it should be.

 And no, stasis is *not* the exact opposite of gradual change.  Dr.
Stephen J. Gould himself recognized that even so-called living fossils
are not exactly the same as their ancestral forms.  Instead, he
defined stasis as *relatively* little change over *relatively* long
periods of time.  This is exactly what "gradual change" means.

 >
That's your point that you're placing in Gould. I've read a considerable amount of his books and papers, This does not come across as from Gould.

 More to the point, ToE doesn't care how fast or slow, or how much or
little, change happens.  I know you know this.
 

There is one case where there is the observed vs the unobserved. There are situations where most new species are observed appearing abrupt in the rocks, but their evolutionary path is unobserved. The many finely graduate steps between species Darwin worried about are unobserved in virtually all cases. It's faith that they existed. There is no known case where a group from one family is observed that evolved into another family. Where ever we observe a species within a family we do not observe the chain leading to another entirely different species within one family to species in another family. Yet we observe numerous so called "living fossils" that appear identical or very close in appearance to fossil remains of ancient ancestors of million or even hundreds of millions of years ago. These "living fossil" we observe vs the unobserved evolution of these living fossils.
Many appeared early in the history of life and remain very close in appearance today. From what I seen this characteristic of the observed vs the unobserved is rampant throughout the apologue of evolution.

 

And since you mention it, try posting something about evolution that
lacks your well-documented biases, if only for the novelty of the
experience.
>

In my youth I came to accept evolution as a fact. But after reading a
book by Dr Michael Denton, on a challenge, I began to question the
"evidence" for evolution and that's where I am today. So, I've been
there, I could return without any problem if there was shown where ID
was wrong and evolution had the only explanation for what is observed.
It's my conclusion that evolution requires faith.
>
Evolution is more of a philosophy than science, since evidence is
interpretated to fit into the theory. But the exact same evidence can be
intrepretated to fit into the ID model which was done by a man
before Darwin was born, named William Paley. So, evolution is an
alternative explanation for all discovered evidence.

  You're entitled to your opinion, no matter how baselessly biased it
is.
--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge