Phylogenomics Produces New and Improved Tree of Birds
Posted 15 January 2015 by Emily Thompson
What do flamingoes and pigeons have in common? You might say very little---after all, flamingoes are long--legged, vibrantly--colored water--dwellers and the pigeons we often see inhabiting our cities appear to be completely the opposite. But according to a study published last month in Science magazine, flamingoes and pigeons are more closely related than previously thought.
The groundbreaking new study used phylogenomics to compare the genes of 48 bird species. It is the first study of its kind to use whole genomes to construct the tree of birds, thousands of genes altogether. Prior studies attempting to resolve some of the more controversial bird relationships only examined 10--20 genes, meaning that the researchers in the new study had much more data to analyze and could be more confident in their results.
Flamingoes and pigeons are more closely related than you might think, according to a new study. Images: Wikipedia
Scientists have been revising our understanding of the tree of birds using phylogenetics over the past decade. In 2006, when the cost to sequence a single genome was $10 million, Ericson et. al. published one of the earliest phylogenetic bird papers, using 5 genes from 87 species for their analysis. Hackett et. al. conducted another phylogenetic study of birds in 2008, when sequencing a genome had fallen to $1 million, this time using 19 genes from 169 species for comparison. While these studies were able to divide modern birds into their larger classifications, some of the deeper relationships remained unresolved and the researchers were still unable to establish with certainty the timing of the bird "big bang"---the rapid and successive divergence of birds into many species. Scientists agree that this divergence occurred around the time of the mass extinction of non-avian dinosaurs about 65 million years ago, but they debate whether birds diversified before or after the mass extinction.
Jarvis et. al. (2014) found that the bird big bang happened immediately after the extinction, taking a relatively short 10--15 million years. Using thousands of genes, they could draw this and other conclusions with more certainty. But with so much data, the researchers could not use standard phylogenetic analysis tools; they needed to develop new ones.
First of all, the team developed a custom algorithm for filtering out gene sequences that were unaligned or incorrectly aligned. Once the data from the aligned genes were gathered, the researchers used a new and more efficient program (implementing a maximum likelihood model) to construct the phylogenetic relationships from the raw data. Finally, the researchers used a method called data binning to reduce errors that arise from the mathematical assumption that species divergence occurred instantaneously (when it more likely occurred gradually). Using these new methods and the added information from so many genes, the researchers were able to confirm and reject with more conviction some of the branches proposed by the previous studies, like the flamingo-pigeon relationship.
The red-billed tropicbird is a member of the Tropicbird family, which is excluded from Pelecaniformes in the new phylogenetic tree of birds. Image: Wikipedia
Along with this relationship and resolving the timing of the bird divergence, the researchers discovered several other important findings about birds. From some of the traits of the bird tree, they could conclude that the common ancestor of land birds was an apex predator, or a predator at the top of the food chain with no predators of its own. Also, the new tree of birds contradicts previous trees by excluding eagles and New World vultures from Falconiformes, the group containing falcons, kestrels, and other birds of prey. Similarly, the group Pelecaniformes excluded tropicbirds, a family of seabirds. Finally, the study revealed some characteristics about the way songbirds gained their vocal abilities with a gene that is similar to the one giving humans the ability to learn speech. This finding has gained a lot of recognition because of its potential application to the study of human speech.
As we've talked about in previous posts, using a complete set of genomic data can give us a more accurate phylogenetic tree and more confidence in results like the ones we just mentioned, as long as the analytical methods are appropriate for big data sets. Because the researchers in this new study improved their methods to reduce the error and noise that can be found in big data sets, their tree is probably the most accurate tree of birds produced so far. But all mathematical models of natural phenomena are at least somewhat incorrect, so it is likely that researchers will make further improvements to the methods and the tree.
Regardless, the field of phylogenetics is changing to realize the full potential of genome sequencing. As the tools to analyze these data improve, we'll continue to gain new insights into species relationships and evolution with greater confidence than ever before. Who knows what other surprising relationships we'll discover?
See the complete tree of birds here.
This series is supported by NSF Grant #DBI-1356548 to RA Cartwright.
While there are some unexpected results from that study, they aren't the ones you happened to mention.
flamingoes and pigeons are more closely related than previously thought
This, for example. Since Ericson et al. and Hackett et al., we've known that flamingos and pigeons are in the same neighborhood. This study merely improves the resolution a bit. And of course, the coolest thing about flamingos is their close relationship to grebes, discovered by van Tuinen et al. way back 2001, and which is now so well-established that Jarvis et al. didn't bother to test it.
Also, the new tree of birds contradicts previous trees by excluding eagles and New World vultures from Falconiformes, the group containing falcons, kestrels, and other birds of prey.
Nope. This is one of the quite robust results of Hackett et al.
Similarly, the group Pelecaniformes excluded tropicbirds
Ditto.
Now, what they did find that was interesting is mostly confirmation of previous results that were weakly supported, like the existence of two groups within Telluraves: Australaves and Afroaves. (Though the first had previously been confirmed by Suh et al.) The new groups they propose are in need of further confirmation, which I hope will come soon. The group uniting Gruiformes and Charadriiformes, plus the final (?) settling down of the hoatzin and mousebirds, are definitely something to watch.
I would also urge caution on the timing of the radiations. 48 genomes, though an incredible achievement, is not a good sample for dating the ages of early divergences. Many of their fossil calibrations should actually be attached to nodes much younger than the ones present in the sample, nodes that could have been represented given a much larger taxon sample.
While entire genomes are great for many purposes, not just phylogenetics, I think the phylogenetic effort could have been greatly improved with a larger taxon sample of a smaller piece of the genomes. Of course, current techniques make whole-genome sequencing much easier than quarter-genome sequencing, so that might not be an option. Still, I hope they're working hard now on increasing the sample size. It would improve a lot of their results, from phylogenetics and time-calibration to basic alignment. As so often in science: great result; need more data.
van Tuinen, M., Butvill, D. B., Kirsch, J. A. W. and Hedges, S. B. 2001. Convergence and divergence in the evolution of aquatic birds. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 268: 1345-1350.
Robert Byers · 15 January 2015
This and all such trees of relationship are founded on a presumption that there can not be sudden genetic change exactly mimicking genetic sequences already in other creatures/birds. Its all based on consistent gene flow. Yet its a option, perhaps a creationist one, that birds upon some other trigger got a CONVERGENT gene type. Its just presumed its a unbroken line from a-b.
Another point is how they MUIST say after the "extinction' at the k-t line there was a 10-15 million year space where most/all of the bird branches appeared. Yes in a post flood world did a small number of kinds of birds explode and that in decades/century. Yet I think this is not what evolution should be welcoming. Why so front heavy and back light. It suggests there is not a consistent evoltionary trail. Very fits/starts.
Henry J · 15 January 2015
Flamingos had better not start pooping on my car.
Well, as some famous philosopher once said, poop happens.
Although he didn't phrase it quite that way.
Henry
Palaeonictis · 15 January 2015
Robert Byers said:
This and all such trees of relationship are founded on a presumption that there can not be sudden genetic change exactly mimicking genetic sequences already in other creatures/birds.
Its all based on consistent gene flow. Yet its a option, perhaps a creationist one, that birds upon some other trigger got a CONVERGENT gene type.
Its just presumed its a unbroken line from a-b.
Another point is how they MUIST say after the "extinction' at the k-t line there was a 10-15 million year space where most/all of the bird branches appeared.
Yes in a post flood world did a small number of kinds of birds explode and that in decades/century.
Yet I think this is not what evolution should be welcoming. Why so front heavy and back light.
It suggests there is not a consistent evoltionary trail. Very fits/starts.
TRANSLATION FROM BYERSESE TO ENGLISH: "I don't know what I`m talking about nor do I give two shits, thus that makes me qualified to debate matters which I know absolutely fucking nothing about!"
gdavidson418 · 16 January 2015
Palaeonictis said:
Robert Byers said:
This and all such trees of relationship are founded on a presumption that there can not be sudden genetic change exactly mimicking genetic sequences already in other creatures/birds.
Its all based on consistent gene flow. Yet its a option, perhaps a creationist one, that birds upon some other trigger got a CONVERGENT gene type.
Its just presumed its a unbroken line from a-b.
Another point is how they MUIST say after the "extinction' at the k-t line there was a 10-15 million year space where most/all of the bird branches appeared.
Yes in a post flood world did a small number of kinds of birds explode and that in decades/century.
Yet I think this is not what evolution should be welcoming. Why so front heavy and back light.
It suggests there is not a consistent evoltionary trail. Very fits/starts.
TRANSLATION FROM BYERSESE TO ENGLISH: "I don't know what I`m talking about nor do I give two shits, thus that makes me qualified to debate matters which I know absolutely fucking nothing about!"
Robert Byers said:
This and all such trees of relationship are founded on a presumption that there can not be sudden genetic change exactly mimicking genetic sequences already in other creatures/birds.
Its all based on consistent gene flow. Yet its a option, perhaps a creationist one, that birds upon some other trigger got a CONVERGENT gene type.
Its just presumed its a unbroken line from a-b.
Another point is how they MUIST say after the "extinction' at the k-t line there was a 10-15 million year space where most/all of the bird branches appeared.
Yes in a post flood world did a small number of kinds of birds explode and that in decades/century.
Yet I think this is not what evolution should be welcoming. Why so front heavy and back light.
It suggests there is not a consistent evoltionary trail. Very fits/starts.
TRANSLATION FROM BYERSESE TO ENGLISH: "I don't know what I`m talking about nor do I give two shits, thus that makes me qualified to debate matters which I know absolutely fucking nothing about!"
Let's give Byers a break. He's a ludicrous halfwit, but it's not his fault, and he's doing his best.
On the other hand, it IS his fault that he keeps coming here and GOATSEing at us.
Go away, Byers.
pete moulton · 16 January 2015
Hush, John Harshman! We don't ever want the flamingos to learn that they comprise the sister lineage to such awesome birds as the grebes. They'll begin to put on airs and become insufferable.
DS · 16 January 2015
Why give Byers a break? All he has is a line of reasoning with no biological evidence. What a hypocrite.
John Harshman · 16 January 2015
Byers has a line of reasoning? When did that happen?
John Harshman · 16 January 2015
By the way, if you want an idea of what is new in Jarvis et al. and what isn't, their Figure 2 will help. It should also give you an idea of what is well-supported and what isn't. Over on the right are previous analyses, of which the left-most (Hackett et al.) is the one to note. Cells that are red or pink there are new with Jarvis et al., while cells that are gray or black are not. On the left are various treatments of the genomic data; solid or mostly solid black is pretty good, while rows with a lot of pink or red are potentially problematic.
mattdance18 · 16 January 2015
Where are the storks? The reason I ask is that the last I had heard (admittedly, not exactly yesterday), the New World vultures were indeed excluded from the Falconiformes -- because they were contained within the storks, Ciconiiformes. Has Ciconiiformes itself been completely subsumed by another group (e.g. Pelecaniformes)? Are New World vultures still considered within it? Eagles, too? What exactly is the relatedness among eagles, New World vultures, and storks?
Just nerd-curious.
mattdance18 · 16 January 2015
Robert Byers said:
This and all such trees of relationship are founded on a presumption that there can not be sudden genetic change exactly mimicking genetic sequences already in other creatures/birds.
Do you have evidence that it does? Wherein would this evidence consist? How would it be more consistent with your creationist hypothesis than with the evolutionary hypothesis?
Its all based on consistent gene flow. Yet its a option, perhaps a creationist one, that birds upon some other trigger got a CONVERGENT gene type. Its just presumed its a unbroken line from a-b.
It's not a presumption: it's an inference. It's consistent with the evidence, in a way that actually explains the evidentiary pattern, rather than just declaring that there's a gap.
Ever hear of projection?
I've asked this at least three times before, and I'll ask again now, limiting myself to this single example since it's related to the avian topic at hand: Why are crocodiles genetically more similar to chickens, even though they're outwardly morphologically similar to iguanas?
Do you ever think about why genetic similarities and differences are as they are? about how they are related to or divergent from morphological similarities and differences? about the implications of such similarities and differences for the viability of your creationist hypothesis? For pity's sake, Robert, learn how genetics actually works, even just a little. I'm no geneticist, nor even a biologist, but I know enough about the topic to realize that it doesn't work the way your hypothesis would require. The evidence isn't on your side.
Another point is how they MUIST say after the "extinction' at the k-t line there was a 10-15 million year space where most/all of the bird branches appeared. Yes in a post flood world did a small number of kinds of birds explode and that in decades/century.
Then prove that this is all it takes. Prove that in mere decades or a century, you can generate more than 10,000 bird species from a handful of common avian ancestors. Give us the evidence.
Even if that were possible, it would hardly count against evolution: it would just mean the evolution occurs much more rapidly than evolutionists have hitherto believed. Saying "no, no, that's just adaptation, not evolution," as you creationists often do, misses the point: it's adaptive evolution.
But the evidence again suggests that, when we're talking about large organisms, adaptive evolution does not proceed so rapidly.
Yet I think this is not what evolution should be welcoming. Why so front heavy and back light.
You do realize that this question would apply even more strongly to your own claim that diversification occurred even more rapidly. What am I saying, of course you don't.
It suggests there is not a consistent evoltionary trail. Very fits/starts.
Which fits the evidence. Mass extinctions happen, opening up niches that were previously filled and allowing numerous organisms to evolve in ways that refill them. How exactly is this a problem for evolution?
Come on, Robert. Have you ever studied how biology actually works? or do you just make up whatever fanciful speculative bullshit will allow you to maintain your creationist "presumptions?"...
Projection, indeed.
callahanpb · 16 January 2015
mattdance18 said:
Where are the storks?
And how do we explain their symbiotic role in the delivery of human babies?
John Harshman · 16 January 2015
mattdance18 said:
Where are the storks? The reason I ask is that the last I had heard (admittedly, not exactly yesterday), the New World vultures were indeed excluded from the Falconiformes -- because they were contained within the storks, Ciconiiformes. Has Ciconiiformes itself been completely subsumed by another group (e.g. Pelecaniformes)? Are New World vultures still considered within it? Eagles, too? What exactly is the relatedness among eagles, New World vultures, and storks?
Just nerd-curious.
Jarvis et al. didn't sample any storks so have nothing to say on this. However, the hypothesis you cite (storks + NW vultures) has long been discredited. NW vultures are related to the hawks and eagles, and all of these are excluded from Falconiformes, which turns out to be falcons and nothing else. This is from Hackett et al. 2008, though Jarvis et al. confirm the bits that don't have anything to do with storks. Storks are somewhere in the neighborhood of Pelecaniformes; according to Hackett et al. they're the sister group of Pelecaniformes, which includes herons and ibises in addition to the usual suspects.
mattdance18 · 16 January 2015
John Harshman said:
mattdance18 said:
Where are the storks? The reason I ask is that the last I had heard (admittedly, not exactly yesterday), the New World vultures were indeed excluded from the Falconiformes -- because they were contained within the storks, Ciconiiformes. Has Ciconiiformes itself been completely subsumed by another group (e.g. Pelecaniformes)? Are New World vultures still considered within it? Eagles, too? What exactly is the relatedness among eagles, New World vultures, and storks?
Just nerd-curious.
Jarvis et al. didn't sample any storks so have nothing to say on this. However, the hypothesis you cite (storks + NW vultures) has long been discredited. NW vultures are related to the hawks and eagles, and all of these are excluded from Falconiformes, which turns out to be falcons and nothing else. This is from Hackett et al. 2008, though Jarvis et al. confirm the bits that don't have anything to do with storks. Storks are somewhere in the neighborhood of Pelecaniformes; according to Hackett et al. they're the sister group of Pelecaniformes, which includes herons and ibises in addition to the usual suspects.
Thanks, John. I hadn't realized it was such an out-of-date hypothesis.
Robert Byers · 16 January 2015
mattdance18 said:
Robert Byers said:
This and all such trees of relationship are founded on a presumption that there can not be sudden genetic change exactly mimicking genetic sequences already in other creatures/birds.
Do you have evidence that it does? Wherein would this evidence consist? How would it be more consistent with your creationist hypothesis than with the evolutionary hypothesis?
Its all based on consistent gene flow. Yet its a option, perhaps a creationist one, that birds upon some other trigger got a CONVERGENT gene type. Its just presumed its a unbroken line from a-b.
It's not a presumption: it's an inference. It's consistent with the evidence, in a way that actually explains the evidentiary pattern, rather than just declaring that there's a gap.
Ever hear of projection?
I've asked this at least three times before, and I'll ask again now, limiting myself to this single example since it's related to the avian topic at hand: Why are crocodiles genetically more similar to chickens, even though they're outwardly morphologically similar to iguanas?
Do you ever think about why genetic similarities and differences are as they are? about how they are related to or divergent from morphological similarities and differences? about the implications of such similarities and differences for the viability of your creationist hypothesis? For pity's sake, Robert, learn how genetics actually works, even just a little. I'm no geneticist, nor even a biologist, but I know enough about the topic to realize that it doesn't work the way your hypothesis would require. The evidence isn't on your side.
Another point is how they MUIST say after the "extinction' at the k-t line there was a 10-15 million year space where most/all of the bird branches appeared. Yes in a post flood world did a small number of kinds of birds explode and that in decades/century.
Then prove that this is all it takes. Prove that in mere decades or a century, you can generate more than 10,000 bird species from a handful of common avian ancestors. Give us the evidence.
Even if that were possible, it would hardly count against evolution: it would just mean the evolution occurs much more rapidly than evolutionists have hitherto believed. Saying "no, no, that's just adaptation, not evolution," as you creationists often do, misses the point: it's adaptive evolution.
But the evidence again suggests that, when we're talking about large organisms, adaptive evolution does not proceed so rapidly.
Yet I think this is not what evolution should be welcoming. Why so front heavy and back light.
You do realize that this question would apply even more strongly to your own claim that diversification occurred even more rapidly. What am I saying, of course you don't.
It suggests there is not a consistent evoltionary trail. Very fits/starts.
Which fits the evidence. Mass extinctions happen, opening up niches that were previously filled and allowing numerous organisms to evolve in ways that refill them. How exactly is this a problem for evolution?
Come on, Robert. Have you ever studied how biology actually works? or do you just make up whatever fanciful speculative bullshit will allow you to maintain your creationist "presumptions?"...
Projection, indeed.
To take your croc/chicken point.
It would follow from a creationist model that like dna could exist between them. BECAUSE its not a trail, or need be, of biological relationship/descent etc. Simply biology gives you what you need and it has a atomic number as it were.
Like us. We have very like dna with apes BECAUSE we have like bodies. Yet its not evidence of common descent, even if CD was true by the way, but only evidence that like parts equals like dna.
So in biology this would be discovered .
Evolutionists presume ONLY one option for likeness in dna and so these trees start appearing.
Its not evidence and only it would be that way if different unrelated birds simply had like parts.
Evidence is evidence and mere lines of reasoning from a point is not evidence. Even if it was accurate.
These trees are wrong for so many reasons.
phhht · 16 January 2015
Robert Byers said:
To take your croc/chicken point...
Gods you're dumb, Byers.
mattdance18 · 17 January 2015
Robert Byers said:
To take your croc/chicken point. It would follow from a creationist model that like dna could exist between them. BECAUSE its not a trail, or need be, of biological relationship/descent etc. Simply biology gives you what you need and it has a atomic number as it were. Like us. We have very like dna with apes BECAUSE we have like bodies. Yet its not evidence of common descent, even if CD was true by the way, but only evidence that like parts equals like dna.
Oh, I see -- "like parts," such as the crocodiles' wings, compared with those of the chickens. You're arguing that chickens and crocodiles have "very like DNA" because of their "like" bodies.
Ridiculous. You don't get this AT ALL. Study some genetics, for pity's sake, Robert.
So in biology this would be discovered .
What would be? Your made-up "atomic number" for DNA likeness?
Evolutionists presume ONLY one option for likeness in dna and so these trees start appearing.
Its not evidence and only it would be that way if different unrelated birds simply had like parts.
Evidence is evidence and mere lines of reasoning from a point is not evidence. Even if it was accurate. These trees are wrong for so many reasons.
So is your grasp of science. Try studying some actual biology sometime.
loujost · 17 January 2015
John, you said Falconiformes now includes falcons and nothing else. Surely it still includes the caracaras?
DS · 17 January 2015
Byers prefers his own ignorant musings to any actual knowledge. When you point out to him that his "hypothesis" is not supported by any evidence he just pretends that it is and goes merrily on his way. Of course he still tries to claim that you don't have any evidence, which necessitates him ignoring all of the evidence, but I guess hypocrites don't recognize things like that. When you point out to him that his hypothesis is just some weird kind of hyper evolution, also not supported by the evidence, he just shrugs and ignores it. When you point out to him that he has no clue how science works and doesn't even comprehend the things he is criticizing, he just doubles down and pretends that he really does understand things that he obviously does not. He thinks that genetics is "atomic and unproven" but still wants to determine the "atomic number" of "dna"! It's worthless to argue with anyone who is so delusional. But for some strange reason, the moderators allow him to post here anyway, even though he has demonstrated over and over again that he is not only incapable of, but completely uninterested in learning anything, ever. Hell he hasn't even learned the capital of North Dakota, even though he capitalized BECAUSE he still doesn't know the capital of dna.
John Harshman · 17 January 2015
loujost said:
John, you said Falconiformes now includes falcons and nothing else. Surely it still includes the caracaras?
Caracaras are a group of falcons. But yes, of course. Perhaps I should have said it includes the family Falconidae and nothing else?
Henry J · 17 January 2015
even though he capitalized BECAUSE he still doesnât know the capital of dna.
G, A, C, and T?
Daniel · 19 January 2015
Robert Byers said:
To take your croc/chicken point.
It would follow from a creationist model that like dna could exist between them. BECAUSE its not a trail, or need be, of biological relationship/descent etc. Simply biology gives you what you need and it has a atomic number as it were.
Like us. We have very like dna with apes BECAUSE we have like bodies. Yet its not evidence of common descent, even if CD was true by the way, but only evidence that like parts equals like dna.
So in biology this would be discovered .
Evolutionists presume ONLY one option for likeness in dna and so these trees start appearing.
Its not evidence and only it would be that way if different unrelated birds simply had like parts.
Evidence is evidence and mere lines of reasoning from a point is not evidence. Even if it was accurate.
These trees are wrong for so many reasons.
It's kind of endearing to see Byers try to make sense of it all in his brain... like a baby learning how to write (which incidentally kinda looks like Byers writing style).
Take his fabulously contradictory sentences here. He asserts that "We have very like dna with apes BECAUSE we have like bodies", and that it is "only evidence that like parts equals like dna". So, like parts means like DNA... ok Byers, we got it. However, he began his Masters Dissertation with this sentence: "To take your croc/chicken point. It would follow from a creationist model that like dna could exist between them".
I mean, come on... you gotta admire the mental gimnastics here. He says that we have very similar DNA to apes because we are very much alike, and that is consistent with the Creation model. But!! similar DNA, housed in very un-similar forms, like a crocodile and a chicken... is also somehow consistent with Creation.
Have you ever wondered Byers, why is crocodile DNA more similar to that of any bird than it is to that of any other reptile? Is it because crocodiles are so very similar in shape to a bird? It surely can't be because they walk in 2 legs, have feathers, have lost their tail, have a beak, are warm-blooded, etc. Also ask yourself the same question regarding Thylacines haveing more similar DNA to all other marsupials than to any placental... and I know you think thylacines are "modified" dogs.
Evolutionists presume ONLY one option for likeness in dna and so these trees start appearing.
No Byers, you got it exactly backwards. It is because these trees keep appearing that we presume common descent happened, not the other way around. Repeat after me: "We presume common descent because these trees consistently keep appearing in pretty much the same way, every time."
harold · 19 January 2015
The basic difference between Byers and other more famous ID/creationists is spelling and grammar, period. The ideas he expresses are standard stuff. If anything he has a higher tolerance for acknowledging scientific results (but then trying to rationalize them) than some creationists.
His comments are exactly as correct as the most sophisticated spew put out by the DI or the most meticulously constructed UD blather.
I think this is an important point. It's often implied here that Byers' output is somehow "even worse" than regular creationism. It isn't. It's regular creationism. The problems with grammar and spelling are somewhat unique, but other than that, it's at worst the same. Any ridicule of Byers that goes beyond commenting on his spelling and grammar should be understood to equally apply to all evolution deniers.
TomS · 19 January 2015
harold said:
The basic difference between Byers and other more famous ID/creationists is spelling and grammar, period. The ideas he expresses are standard stuff. If anything he has a higher tolerance for acknowledging scientific results (but then trying to rationalize them) than some creationists.
His comments are exactly as correct as the most sophisticated spew put out by the DI or the most meticulously constructed UD blather.
I think this is an important point. It's often implied here that Byers' output is somehow "even worse" than regular creationism. It isn't. It's regular creationism. The problems with grammar and spelling are somewhat unique, but other than that, it's at worst the same. Any ridicule of Byers that goes beyond commenting on his spelling and grammar should be understood to equally apply to all evolution deniers.
Depending on one's criteria, one can rate, for example, geocentric creationism more favorably than heliocentric creationism. For geocentrism is more faithful to the premise that one must take the plain words of the Bible literally and inerrant. Or that YEC is more substantive than ID, for it tells us when the sudden appearances took place and identifies who did it.
But they all rely on straw man characterisations of evolutionary biology and ad hoc premises and self-contradictions and vague (to put it politely) language etc. etc.
harold · 19 January 2015
TomS said:
harold said:
The basic difference between Byers and other more famous ID/creationists is spelling and grammar, period. The ideas he expresses are standard stuff. If anything he has a higher tolerance for acknowledging scientific results (but then trying to rationalize them) than some creationists.
His comments are exactly as correct as the most sophisticated spew put out by the DI or the most meticulously constructed UD blather.
I think this is an important point. It's often implied here that Byers' output is somehow "even worse" than regular creationism. It isn't. It's regular creationism. The problems with grammar and spelling are somewhat unique, but other than that, it's at worst the same. Any ridicule of Byers that goes beyond commenting on his spelling and grammar should be understood to equally apply to all evolution deniers.
Depending on one's criteria, one can rate, for example, geocentric creationism more favorably than heliocentric creationism. For geocentrism is more faithful to the premise that one must take the plain words of the Bible literally and inerrant. Or that YEC is more substantive than ID, for it tells us when the sudden appearances took place and identifies who did it.
But they all rely on straw man characterisations of evolutionary biology and ad hoc premises and self-contradictions and vague (to put it politely) language etc. etc.
There are really only three ways to deny scientific reality while being internally consistent.
1) Claim to value objective evidence and standard logic, but lie about the actual evidence.
2) Invoke Last Thursdayism explanations; admit that things "look evolved" but claim that they were actually generated by magic, in a way that makes them look evolved when examined scientifically. This can never be disproven but is useless, since it does not distinguish between any two magical explanations, as well as, by definition, not allowing distinction between scientific and magical. That infinite subset of a larger infinite subset of hypothetical magic, "magic that creates results that coincidentally appear to be explained by science", is always possible and always trivially pointless to consider.
Creationists do these two things in varying proportion.
3) Not much favored by creationists but known in other circles and occasionally adopted by creationists, is the "one step earlier Last Thursdayism" approach, in which a claim is made that logic itself or something is not valid. Under this approach, all perception of reality is arbitrary, and one can simply choose whatever one likes. I've noticed that home schooled early adolescents often temporarily perceive this as a great argument in favor of creationism ("like, nobody really knows anything, so, like, I choose to 'believe' in creationism"). However, those who use this approach usually demonstrate hypocrisy by choosing to "believe" whatever version of reality science would predict that they would find self-serving. The problem for this approach is that it is true that when we use the scientific method we must accept certain axioms, but those axioms seem to almost universally be intuitively accepted by humans. Indeed those who sincerely reject them are perceived, usually correctly, as suffering from psychosis. A transient claim to reject "linear thinking" or some such thing, invoked only to defend a self-serving bias that runs afoul of it, and abandoned when the topic is changed, is not very convincing.
TomS · 19 January 2015
harold said:
There are really only three ways to deny scientific reality while being internally consistent.
1) Claim to value objective evidence and standard logic, but lie about the actual evidence.
2) Invoke Last Thursdayism explanations; admit that things "look evolved" but claim that they were actually generated by magic, in a way that makes them look evolved when examined scientifically. This can never be disproven but is useless, since it does not distinguish between any two magical explanations, as well as, by definition, not allowing distinction between scientific and magical. That infinite subset of a larger infinite subset of hypothetical magic, "magic that creates results that coincidentally appear to be explained by science", is always possible and always trivially pointless to consider.
Creationists do these two things in varying proportion.
3) Not much favored by creationists but known in other circles and occasionally adopted by creationists, is the "one step earlier Last Thursdayism" approach, in which a claim is made that logic itself or something is not valid. Under this approach, all perception of reality is arbitrary, and one can simply choose whatever one likes. I've noticed that home schooled early adolescents often temporarily perceive this as a great argument in favor of creationism ("like, nobody really knows anything, so, like, I choose to 'believe' in creationism"). However, those who use this approach usually demonstrate hypocrisy by choosing to "believe" whatever version of reality science would predict that they would find self-serving. The problem for this approach is that it is true that when we use the scientific method we must accept certain axioms, but those axioms seem to almost universally be intuitively accepted by humans. Indeed those who sincerely reject them are perceived, usually correctly, as suffering from psychosis. A transient claim to reject "linear thinking" or some such thing, invoked only to defend a self-serving bias that runs afoul of it, and abandoned when the topic is changed, is not very convincing.
I have seen (3) with Bible proof-texts, like "my ways are not your ways, says the Lord", or "the wisdom of the world is foolishness". And I'd count "how do you know, were you there". To me, they are tacitly admitting that the evidence and reasoning in favor of evolution is so overwhelming that one has to be willing to reject vast areas of knowledge to avoid accepting evolution.
I always like the snarky reply to "were you there?" - "Yes, I was there. How could you know that I wasn't?" Pointing out that everybody recognizes that we do know some things about the past.
And my other response to some of those ad hoc restrictions on knowledge - "Maybe if reality does not agree with your standards, it is a failure of your standards, not that reality is lacking."
Robert Byers · 19 January 2015
Daniel said:
Robert Byers said:
To take your croc/chicken point.
It would follow from a creationist model that like dna could exist between them. BECAUSE its not a trail, or need be, of biological relationship/descent etc. Simply biology gives you what you need and it has a atomic number as it were.
Like us. We have very like dna with apes BECAUSE we have like bodies. Yet its not evidence of common descent, even if CD was true by the way, but only evidence that like parts equals like dna.
So in biology this would be discovered .
Evolutionists presume ONLY one option for likeness in dna and so these trees start appearing.
Its not evidence and only it would be that way if different unrelated birds simply had like parts.
Evidence is evidence and mere lines of reasoning from a point is not evidence. Even if it was accurate.
These trees are wrong for so many reasons.
It's kind of endearing to see Byers try to make sense of it all in his brain... like a baby learning how to write (which incidentally kinda looks like Byers writing style).
Take his fabulously contradictory sentences here. He asserts that "We have very like dna with apes BECAUSE we have like bodies", and that it is "only evidence that like parts equals like dna". So, like parts means like DNA... ok Byers, we got it. However, he began his Masters Dissertation with this sentence: "To take your croc/chicken point. It would follow from a creationist model that like dna could exist between them".
I mean, come on... you gotta admire the mental gimnastics here. He says that we have very similar DNA to apes because we are very much alike, and that is consistent with the Creation model. But!! similar DNA, housed in very un-similar forms, like a crocodile and a chicken... is also somehow consistent with Creation.
Have you ever wondered Byers, why is crocodile DNA more similar to that of any bird than it is to that of any other reptile? Is it because crocodiles are so very similar in shape to a bird? It surely can't be because they walk in 2 legs, have feathers, have lost their tail, have a beak, are warm-blooded, etc. Also ask yourself the same question regarding Thylacines haveing more similar DNA to all other marsupials than to any placental... and I know you think thylacines are "modified" dogs.
Evolutionists presume ONLY one option for likeness in dna and so these trees start appearing.
No Byers, you got it exactly backwards. It is because these trees keep appearing that we presume common descent happened, not the other way around. Repeat after me: "We presume common descent because these trees consistently keep appearing in pretty much the same way, every time."
No. The trees are presumed because of a superficial observation of dna likeness.
i don't know how close chickens are to crocs. They both lay eggs and havbe no fur and are scaly. The flying thing must be accounted for in the dna.
Anyways.
The point is that common design easily predicts like dna equals like looks.
Evolutionism has too quickly presumed like dna ONLY could mean common descent.
so crazy ideas of trees gets in the way of a better concept of connections.
phhht · 19 January 2015
Robert Byers said:
Daniel said:
Robert Byers said:
To take your croc/chicken point.
It would follow from a creationist model that like dna could exist between them. BECAUSE its not a trail, or need be, of biological relationship/descent etc. Simply biology gives you what you need and it has a atomic number as it were.
Like us. We have very like dna with apes BECAUSE we have like bodies. Yet its not evidence of common descent, even if CD was true by the way, but only evidence that like parts equals like dna.
So in biology this would be discovered .
Evolutionists presume ONLY one option for likeness in dna and so these trees start appearing.
Its not evidence and only it would be that way if different unrelated birds simply had like parts.
Evidence is evidence and mere lines of reasoning from a point is not evidence. Even if it was accurate.
These trees are wrong for so many reasons.
It's kind of endearing to see Byers try to make sense of it all in his brain... like a baby learning how to write (which incidentally kinda looks like Byers writing style).
Take his fabulously contradictory sentences here. He asserts that "We have very like dna with apes BECAUSE we have like bodies", and that it is "only evidence that like parts equals like dna". So, like parts means like DNA... ok Byers, we got it. However, he began his Masters Dissertation with this sentence: "To take your croc/chicken point. It would follow from a creationist model that like dna could exist between them".
I mean, come on... you gotta admire the mental gimnastics here. He says that we have very similar DNA to apes because we are very much alike, and that is consistent with the Creation model. But!! similar DNA, housed in very un-similar forms, like a crocodile and a chicken... is also somehow consistent with Creation.
Have you ever wondered Byers, why is crocodile DNA more similar to that of any bird than it is to that of any other reptile? Is it because crocodiles are so very similar in shape to a bird? It surely can't be because they walk in 2 legs, have feathers, have lost their tail, have a beak, are warm-blooded, etc. Also ask yourself the same question regarding Thylacines haveing more similar DNA to all other marsupials than to any placental... and I know you think thylacines are "modified" dogs.
Evolutionists presume ONLY one option for likeness in dna and so these trees start appearing.
No Byers, you got it exactly backwards. It is because these trees keep appearing that we presume common descent happened, not the other way around. Repeat after me: "We presume common descent because these trees consistently keep appearing in pretty much the same way, every time."
No. The trees are presumed because of a superficial observation of dna likeness.
i don't know how close chickens are to crocs. They both lay eggs and havbe no fur and are scaly. The flying thing must be accounted for in the dna.
Anyways.
The point is that common design easily predicts like dna equals like looks.
Evolutionism has too quickly presumed like dna ONLY could mean common descent.
so crazy ideas of trees gets in the way of a better concept of connections.
Gods you're dumb, Byers. You need remedial lessons in how to tie your shoes.
Keelyn · 19 January 2015
Robert Byers said:
Daniel said:
Robert Byers said:
To take your croc/chicken point.
It would follow from a creationist model that like dna could exist between them. BECAUSE its not a trail, or need be, of biological relationship/descent etc. Simply biology gives you what you need and it has a atomic number as it were.
Like us. We have very like dna with apes BECAUSE we have like bodies. Yet its not evidence of common descent, even if CD was true by the way, but only evidence that like parts equals like dna.
So in biology this would be discovered .
Evolutionists presume ONLY one option for likeness in dna and so these trees start appearing.
Its not evidence and only it would be that way if different unrelated birds simply had like parts.
Evidence is evidence and mere lines of reasoning from a point is not evidence. Even if it was accurate.
These trees are wrong for so many reasons.
It's kind of endearing to see Byers try to make sense of it all in his brain... like a baby learning how to write (which incidentally kinda looks like Byers writing style).
Take his fabulously contradictory sentences here. He asserts that "We have very like dna with apes BECAUSE we have like bodies", and that it is "only evidence that like parts equals like dna". So, like parts means like DNA... ok Byers, we got it. However, he began his Masters Dissertation with this sentence: "To take your croc/chicken point. It would follow from a creationist model that like dna could exist between them".
I mean, come on... you gotta admire the mental gimnastics here. He says that we have very similar DNA to apes because we are very much alike, and that is consistent with the Creation model. But!! similar DNA, housed in very un-similar forms, like a crocodile and a chicken... is also somehow consistent with Creation.
Have you ever wondered Byers, why is crocodile DNA more similar to that of any bird than it is to that of any other reptile? Is it because crocodiles are so very similar in shape to a bird? It surely can't be because they walk in 2 legs, have feathers, have lost their tail, have a beak, are warm-blooded, etc. Also ask yourself the same question regarding Thylacines haveing more similar DNA to all other marsupials than to any placental... and I know you think thylacines are "modified" dogs.
Evolutionists presume ONLY one option for likeness in dna and so these trees start appearing.
No Byers, you got it exactly backwards. It is because these trees keep appearing that we presume common descent happened, not the other way around. Repeat after me: "We presume common descent because these trees consistently keep appearing in pretty much the same way, every time."
No. The trees are presumed because of a superficial observation of dna likeness.
i don't know how close chickens are to crocs. They both lay eggs and havbe no fur and are scaly. The flying thing must be accounted for in the dna.
Anyways.
The point is that common design easily predicts like dna equals like looks.
Evolutionism has too quickly presumed like dna ONLY could mean common descent.
so crazy ideas of trees gets in the way of a better concept of connections.
It seems that common design can easily "predict" anything, twit. How is that scientifically useful, Booby?
fnxtr · 19 January 2015
But they all rely on straw man characterisations of evolutionary biology and ad hoc premises and self-contradictions and vague (to put it politely) language etc. etc.
Heh. I initially read that as "self-congratulations"... which really isn't too far off the mark.
mattdance18 · 20 January 2015
Robert Byers said:
The point is that common design easily predicts like dna equals like looks.
Robert, the entire point of my bringing up the chicken/crocodile/iguana comparison is that "like dna equals like looks" is false.
You always ignore the third term of the comparison, and that's really crucial. A crocodile's "looks" are similar to an iguana's: four legs, with a splayed posture; scaly skin, with nary a feather in sight; a mouth full of teeth, not a beak; etc, etc. On the basis of your "prediction," the crocodile's dna should be similar to the iguana's -- and yet, its dna is actually more similar to a chicken's, whose "looks" are quite different from the crocodile's in numerous respects.
One could reverse the initial comparison and end up with the same problem inverted. A crocodile's dna is similar to that of a chicken's. On the basis of your "prediction," a crocodile should "look" a lot like a chicken -- and yet, it looks much more like an iguana, whose dna differs from the crocodile's more than does that of the chicken.
This is how all of the examples I've brought up to you in the past work. A hippo looks more like a pig, but its dna is more like a whale. A marsupial mole's dna indicates greater affinity to a kangaroo, even though its looks are startlingly close to a common (placental) mole. A wood roach looks like most other roaches, but its genetic resemblance is stronger with termites.
So I will phrase this bluntly and extremely clearly: like dna does not equal like looks. Or in other words: your "prediction" based on "common design" is FALSE. Far from being "a better concept of connections," your "common design" hypothesis simply does not fit the evidence.
And that is exactly why I kept bringing up those examples. Do you get it, yet? Now that I've spelled it all out for you?
I have my doubts. So here's a "prediction" of my own. Not a scientific prediction, let alone an evolutionary one. Just a hypothesis about how you will respond to this. Namely: either (a) you won't respond at all, or (b) you will respond without acknowledging that the claim "like dna equals like looks" is demonstrably false.
Feel free to prove me wrong, however, by admitting your mistake.
Scott F · 20 January 2015
mattdance18 said:
And that is exactly why I kept bringing up those examples. Do you get it, yet? Now that I've spelled it all out for you?
No, he won't.
I have my doubts. So here's a "prediction" of my own. Not a scientific prediction, let alone an evolutionary one. Just a hypothesis about how you will respond to this. Namely: either (a) you won't respond at all, or (b) you will respond without acknowledging that the claim "like dna equals like looks" is demonstrably false.
Feel free to prove me wrong, however, by admitting your mistake.
Option c): Since he has claimed both sides of the argument, that creationism claims that "like DNA" equals "like form" and that creationism claims that "like DNA" can be found in very different "forms", all he has to do is agree with you, which simply proves what he's been saying all along.
As Keelyn points out, creationism predicts anything and everything, even stuff you just make up.
This trees/forest BS is, in my mind, one of the best arguments for teaching the history of scientific thought as early in science education as possible. If all you are presented with are a bunch of sciency facts, you miss so much. I find it far more interesting to learn how we know what we know. What were the wrong turns that early scientists took? What were the "obvious" conclusions about science that turned out to be wrong? More specifically, the student's preconceived misconceptions or objections to scientific conclusions are not "new". That's where the creationists' "killer" "gotcha" arguments fall down. If you could think of it, then Science already has considered it, and rejected it. It helps to know that the path of science is not a straight line, and that science has explored a lot of dead ends already. Including yours.
Scott F · 20 January 2015
I presume that Robert's creationism would also predict that humans share ~50% of their DNA with bananas.
Because "like DNA equals like form".
Right, Robert?
eric · 20 January 2015
Robert's claim also fails the Onion test. Specifically, the second bit of it, where Dr. Gregory points out that "members of the genus Allium range in genome size from 7 pg to 31.5 pg. So why can A. altyncolicum make do with one fifth as much regulation, structural maintenance, protection against mutagens, or [insert preferred universal function] as A. ursinum?"
Robert Byers · 20 January 2015
mattdance18 said:
Robert Byers said:
The point is that common design easily predicts like dna equals like looks.
Robert, the entire point of my bringing up the chicken/crocodile/iguana comparison is that "like dna equals like looks" is false.
You always ignore the third term of the comparison, and that's really crucial. A crocodile's "looks" are similar to an iguana's: four legs, with a splayed posture; scaly skin, with nary a feather in sight; a mouth full of teeth, not a beak; etc, etc. On the basis of your "prediction," the crocodile's dna should be similar to the iguana's -- and yet, its dna is actually more similar to a chicken's, whose "looks" are quite different from the crocodile's in numerous respects.
One could reverse the initial comparison and end up with the same problem inverted. A crocodile's dna is similar to that of a chicken's. On the basis of your "prediction," a crocodile should "look" a lot like a chicken -- and yet, it looks much more like an iguana, whose dna differs from the crocodile's more than does that of the chicken.
This is how all of the examples I've brought up to you in the past work. A hippo looks more like a pig, but its dna is more like a whale. A marsupial mole's dna indicates greater affinity to a kangaroo, even though its looks are startlingly close to a common (placental) mole. A wood roach looks like most other roaches, but its genetic resemblance is stronger with termites.
So I will phrase this bluntly and extremely clearly: like dna does not equal like looks. Or in other words: your "prediction" based on "common design" is FALSE. Far from being "a better concept of connections," your "common design" hypothesis simply does not fit the evidence.
And that is exactly why I kept bringing up those examples. Do you get it, yet? Now that I've spelled it all out for you?
I have my doubts. So here's a "prediction" of my own. Not a scientific prediction, let alone an evolutionary one. Just a hypothesis about how you will respond to this. Namely: either (a) you won't respond at all, or (b) you will respond without acknowledging that the claim "like dna equals like looks" is demonstrably false.
Feel free to prove me wrong, however, by admitting your mistake.
one must understand what dna is.
Its not just representing trivial outside looks but inside the body.
in fact all biology has like dna because all biology is very alike. its a common design at basic levels.
Then when one adds the outside looks the dna is alike with like looks.
the marsupial case is a important point. Yes the marsupial mole is just a regular mole. so the dna differencve simply comes from the secondary later adaptation of marsupialism. so this later genetic change simply changed the dna generally.
the marsupial mole only has a few like traits with a kangaroo. its has hundreds of like traits with placental moles.
So the marsupialism indeed is what is ALIKE in making kangarros and moles have like dna. Thats what is alike and specially changed.
The trees or anything that uses dna to make biological relationships is always not far off what they plain look like.
The ape/man case is case in point. WE look like apes and so must have like dna. How not if there was a common design??
We wouldn't have like dna with a croc and a ape with a chicken.
The croc/chicken/iguana thing will show the same thing. its not mere looks but I mean the anatomy is what one should use to investigate.
genetics is a new subject and its structures origins are not settled.
However like looks(important ones) equals like dna. Yes eyeballs get a like dna scire and so everyone has it.
there is no evidence common descent is proved by dna likeness across great thresholds.
Common design predicts the same thing at basic levels and predicts it at later levels like in the marsupial case.
Why not?
gdavidson418 · 20 January 2015
Common design predicts the same thing at basic levels and predicts it at later levels like in the marsupial case. Why not?
Because you have never ever provided evidence of a designer that designs like that--as if constrained by evolution's limits. That's why it's not science, why it's not worthy of consideration.
The fact that you're too stupid to deal properly with these matters is no argument to the contrary. And no, this isn't for the ignorant Byers, but for any lurkers who might be more capable of thought than he. Evidence or GTFO.
Glen Davidson
DS · 20 January 2015
No matter how many times you explain it to booby, he still won't get it. No matter how many times you prove him wrong, he will never admit it. His mind is made up and that's that. Typical creationist horse puckey. Don't bother even trying to correct him. Don't bother to even try to understand what he thinks he is trying to say. He's like a broken record, repeating garbled idiocy over and over.
Why in the name of all that is decent would a dipstick who claims that "genetics is atomic and unproven" urge you to "understand what dna is"? Doesn't he realize that he is talking to people who study DNA for a living? Doesn't he realize that not correcting his spelling and grammatical errors, even after having been corrected multiple times, is just plain rude and insulting? Doesn't he realize that proudly displaying his ignorance is counterproductive? Obviously not.
You look like an ape booby, because you are an ape. Deal with it already.
stevaroni · 20 January 2015
Robert Byers said:
one must understand what dna is.....
Must... resist... ironic ... outburst ...too big.... could be fatal.
Just Bob · 20 January 2015
Robert Byers said:
one must understand what dna is.
I guess I need help, and you're the guy who can provide it.
I confess, I don't understand what dna is.
Now, DNA, I have a pretty fair understanding of what that is, but dna? I'm at a complete loss.
So please explain to me what dna is.
Henry J · 20 January 2015
So please explain to me what dna is.
It's DNA that has lost pixels due to decay after the Fall.
phhht · 20 January 2015
I think we've seen the last of Robert Byers, at least for a while. He'll never be able to explain why his designer designed in cancer. He's running like a mangy rat with its tail on fire.
mattdance18 · 21 January 2015
Apropos of Glen's comment, here's more for the lurkers.
Robert Byers said:
one must understand what dna is.
Indeed, one must. Based on your comments, it's pretty clear that you do not.
... Then when one adds the outside looks the dna is alike with like looks.
No, Robert, it is NOT.
I truly don't know what it will take to get you to see this. "Like looks" does not correspond to "like DNA." "Like DNA" does not correspond to "like looks."
I'll point it out again: your mistake is comparing things only "two-by-two" -- the scientific danger of being too steeped in tales of floods and arks, perhaps? But I digress. Of course when you compare only two organisms, there will be similarities on some morphological level, and there will also be some degree of genetic similarity. But once you start comparing more than two organisms at a time, what you see is that the degrees of likeness between the two kinds of similarity don't always correspond.
I'm going to address the next point out of order, to help organize your chaotic nonsense:
the marsupial mole only has a few like traits with a kangaroo. its has hundreds of like traits with placental moles.
Really? Care to list the common features? Not superficially, but exhaustively?
Yes the marsupial mole is just a regular mole.
No, Robert, it is NOT.
so the dna differencve simply comes from the secondary later adaptation of marsupialism.
No, Robert, it does NOT.
so this later genetic change simply changed the dna generally.
No, Robert, it did NOT.
So the marsupialism indeed is what is ALIKE in making kangarros and moles have like dna. Thats what is alike and specially changed.
-sigh-
The fact is, Robert, genetics just doesn't work the way that you keep insisting it does. Even if marsupialism were a long-distance dispersal adaptation -- and I've asked you several questions about this on multiple occasions, never receiving answers -- gaining a single adaptation does not produce "general" changes to DNA, making organisms with similar functional adaptations more genetically similar, too.
Think about the logic of what you're saying for a second. Your claim is that marsupial moles and kangaroos are "generally" genetically similar because they both have a marsupial adaptation. But by exactly the same reasoning, we would expect that marsupial moles and placental moles should be "generally" genetically similar because they both have adaptations for digging. And yet, they aren't. Marsupial moles, despite their functional similarities with placental moles, are more genetically similar to kangaroos.
And I hate to break this to you, Robert, but while there are functional similarities between marsupial and placental moles, there are also many differences in the details of their bodies, even where those functionally similar parts are concerned. Placental moles use a digging surface that is mainly formed from the palm of the hand, though the spade shaped claws help; in marsupial moles, there are a pair of flattened, massively enlarged claws that do the digging. They also have very different back leg and hip structures. As a result, their digging locomotion and behavior are quite different.
The point is this: your hypothesis explains nothing. It does not explain why, despite the functional similarities of marsupial and placental moles, the two are so genetically different. It does not explain why, despite the functional similarities of marsupial and placental moles, the two have so many detailed differences in anatomy and morphology and physiology. It does not explain why there are genetic similarities between marsupial moles and kangaroos, similarities that have no functional connection with marsupial modes of reproduction. It does not explain why there are non-adaptive similarities between marsupial moles and kangaroos. It does not explain a damn thing.
The trees or anything that uses dna to make biological relationships is always not far off what they plain look like.
Sorry, Robert, I call bullshit. Crocodiles are more closely related to chickens than to iguanas. Yet in terms of what they "plain look like" -- what a bullshit subjective approach all this "looks" talk is! -- I would say that a croc just plain looks much more like an iguana. Hippos are more closely related to whales than to pigs. Yet in terms of what they "plain look like," I would say that a hippo just plain looks much more like a pig.
So again, I'm sorry, but: bullshit. You're just making bald assertions that are directly refuted by basic facts.
The ape/man case is case in point. WE look like apes and so must have like dna. How not if there was a common design??
By common ancestry. Which explains not only why we are, in a general sense, more similar to apes than to any other organisms, but also why we are, more specifically, more similar to chimps than to any other apes.
We wouldn't have like dna with a croc and a ape with a chicken.
And yet, Robert, we DO have "like DNA with a croc," and apes DO have like DNA "with a chicken!" The point is, our DNA is more like an ape's than it is like a crocodile or a chicken, and the crocodile's DNA is more like a chicken's than it is like a human or ape. I will say it again for the last time: you have to compare more than two organisms at once to unravel their relationships.
However like looks(important ones) equals like dna.
Nope. It doesn't get more true the more you say it.
Sorry, Robert. But you just don't know anything about real biology.
gnome de net · 21 January 2015
Thanks for letting Robert Byers continue to expose the nakedness of his one-dimensional "lines of reasoning" for the whole world to see.
Keelyn · 21 January 2015
Really, mattdance, I have to take the short time I have to extend you special praise for your noble and valiant effort at attempting to educate the obviously uneducable Byers. I am certain, however, that you realize it is a futile waste of time, as the one and only synapse-free-neuron that is ricocheting about in his skull is totally incapable of computing the data. I am personally convinced that he cannot tie his shoes without a simple pictogram instruction manual available each time he tries. Frankly, I would have just gone to the punchline:
mattdance18 said:
Sorry, Robert. But you just don't know anything about real biology.
To which I would add:
Chemistry
Physics
Paleontology
Astronomy
Geology
Cosmology
Zoology
Botany
Oceanography
Meteorology
Ecology
And every single sub-discipline of the aforementioned that begins with any letter of any alphabet, and all of the mathematical tools that are essential to understanding them.
DS · 21 January 2015
Just Bob said:
Robert Byers said:
one must understand what dna is.
I guess I need help, and you're the guy who can provide it.
I confess, I don't understand what dna is.
Now, DNA, I have a pretty fair understanding of what that is, but dna? I'm at a complete loss.
So please explain to me what dna is.
Please booby, please. Explain to us all what the atomic number of dna is. Until you can explain it in your own words, everyone will continue to assume that you are just an ignorant boob who can't comprehend reality.
eric · 21 January 2015
Robert Byers said:
The trees or anything that uses dna to make biological relationships is always not far off what they plain look like.
To repeat, some species of onion have five times the amount of DNA as other species of onions. Some have about 6.8 billion base pairs in their DNA, others have about 31 billion base pairs in their DNA. So no, as MattDance points out, what you are saying about DNA being 'not far off what they look like' is just not true. In some cases species that look superficially similar* turn out to be closely genetically related (humans and chimpanzees). But in many other cases they do not (wolves and thylacines).
*The biologists among us will point out that wolves and thylacines aren't even superficially similar, if by 'superficial' we include reasonably serious assessments of bone structure and similar traits. These two species are only similar at the 'I have nothing but a blurred picture' level of superficiality. But let's let that go for now.
Common design predicts the same thing at basic levels and predicts it at later levels like in the marsupial case.
Then common design is wrong. The vastly different genome sizes of different varieties of onions completely undermines your hypothesis.
mattdance18 · 21 January 2015
Keelyn said:
Really, mattdance, I have to take the short time I have to extend you special praise for your noble and valiant effort at attempting to educate the obviously uneducable Byers. I am certain, however, that you realize it is a futile waste of time....
Thanks for that. I do indeed realize that Byers himself is a lost cause. But I keep hoping, and more importantly, I wouldn't want any lurkers to get the wrong impression, i.e., the impression that what he's saying makes a damn bit of sense in light of the evidence.
But Byers himself really is a case study for the Dunning-Kruger effect.
mattdance18 · 21 January 2015
eric said:
The biologists among us will point out that wolves and thylacines aren't even superficially similar, if by 'superficial' we include reasonably serious assessments of bone structure and similar traits. These two species are only similar at the 'I have nothing but a blurred picture' level of superficiality.
Indeed. There are plenty of differences, especially in the skull.
But then, looking at some pictures, dreaming up speculative hypotheses based upon them, and not bothering to test those hypotheses against empirical evidence, considering instead whether they are consistent with already-held religious ideology -- well, that's "science" in Byers' book.
I truly wonder, what would scientists do, if science worked according to the Byers model? Would there even be a need for experiments or fieldwork? Or just an office with a few naked-eye specimen displays and a whole lot of texts on Biblical exegesis?
Matt Young · 21 January 2015
But Byers himself really is a case study for the Dunning-Kruger effect.
You think he is that good?
mattdance18 · 22 January 2015
Matt Young said:
But Byers himself really is a case study for the Dunning-Kruger effect.
You think he is that good?
I'm pretty sure that he thinks he is. :-)
Yardbird · 22 January 2015
mattdance18 said:
Matt Young said:
But Byers himself really is a case study for the Dunning-Kruger effect.
You think he is that good?
I'm pretty sure that he thinks he is. :-)
(Off topic snark)
He doesn't appear to think much at all.
(Done now.)
Robert Byers · 22 January 2015
mattdance18 said:
Apropos of Glen's comment, here's more for the lurkers.
Robert Byers said:
one must understand what dna is.
Indeed, one must. Based on your comments, it's pretty clear that you do not.
... Then when one adds the outside looks the dna is alike with like looks.
No, Robert, it is NOT.
I truly don't know what it will take to get you to see this. "Like looks" does not correspond to "like DNA." "Like DNA" does not correspond to "like looks."
I'll point it out again: your mistake is comparing things only "two-by-two" -- the scientific danger of being too steeped in tales of floods and arks, perhaps? But I digress. Of course when you compare only two organisms, there will be similarities on some morphological level, and there will also be some degree of genetic similarity. But once you start comparing more than two organisms at a time, what you see is that the degrees of likeness between the two kinds of similarity don't always correspond.
I'm going to address the next point out of order, to help organize your chaotic nonsense:
the marsupial mole only has a few like traits with a kangaroo. its has hundreds of like traits with placental moles.
Really? Care to list the common features? Not superficially, but exhaustively?
Yes the marsupial mole is just a regular mole.
No, Robert, it is NOT.
so the dna differencve simply comes from the secondary later adaptation of marsupialism.
No, Robert, it does NOT.
so this later genetic change simply changed the dna generally.
No, Robert, it did NOT.
So the marsupialism indeed is what is ALIKE in making kangarros and moles have like dna. Thats what is alike and specially changed.
-sigh-
The fact is, Robert, genetics just doesn't work the way that you keep insisting it does. Even if marsupialism were a long-distance dispersal adaptation -- and I've asked you several questions about this on multiple occasions, never receiving answers -- gaining a single adaptation does not produce "general" changes to DNA, making organisms with similar functional adaptations more genetically similar, too.
Think about the logic of what you're saying for a second. Your claim is that marsupial moles and kangaroos are "generally" genetically similar because they both have a marsupial adaptation. But by exactly the same reasoning, we would expect that marsupial moles and placental moles should be "generally" genetically similar because they both have adaptations for digging. And yet, they aren't. Marsupial moles, despite their functional similarities with placental moles, are more genetically similar to kangaroos.
And I hate to break this to you, Robert, but while there are functional similarities between marsupial and placental moles, there are also many differences in the details of their bodies, even where those functionally similar parts are concerned. Placental moles use a digging surface that is mainly formed from the palm of the hand, though the spade shaped claws help; in marsupial moles, there are a pair of flattened, massively enlarged claws that do the digging. They also have very different back leg and hip structures. As a result, their digging locomotion and behavior are quite different.
The point is this: your hypothesis explains nothing. It does not explain why, despite the functional similarities of marsupial and placental moles, the two are so genetically different. It does not explain why, despite the functional similarities of marsupial and placental moles, the two have so many detailed differences in anatomy and morphology and physiology. It does not explain why there are genetic similarities between marsupial moles and kangaroos, similarities that have no functional connection with marsupial modes of reproduction. It does not explain why there are non-adaptive similarities between marsupial moles and kangaroos. It does not explain a damn thing.
The trees or anything that uses dna to make biological relationships is always not far off what they plain look like.
Sorry, Robert, I call bullshit. Crocodiles are more closely related to chickens than to iguanas. Yet in terms of what they "plain look like" -- what a bullshit subjective approach all this "looks" talk is! -- I would say that a croc just plain looks much more like an iguana. Hippos are more closely related to whales than to pigs. Yet in terms of what they "plain look like," I would say that a hippo just plain looks much more like a pig.
So again, I'm sorry, but: bullshit. You're just making bald assertions that are directly refuted by basic facts.
The ape/man case is case in point. WE look like apes and so must have like dna. How not if there was a common design??
By common ancestry. Which explains not only why we are, in a general sense, more similar to apes than to any other organisms, but also why we are, more specifically, more similar to chimps than to any other apes.
We wouldn't have like dna with a croc and a ape with a chicken.
And yet, Robert, we DO have "like DNA with a croc," and apes DO have like DNA "with a chicken!" The point is, our DNA is more like an ape's than it is like a crocodile or a chicken, and the crocodile's DNA is more like a chicken's than it is like a human or ape. I will say it again for the last time: you have to compare more than two organisms at once to unravel their relationships.
However like looks(important ones) equals like dna.
Nope. It doesn't get more true the more you say it.
Sorry, Robert. But you just don't know anything about real biology.
Well you strayed into the marsupial/placental issue more then I meant to go.
I was making a point that new genetic change, as a option as a creationist thinks possible, would give a superficial general DNA likeness in points but hide that in fact the creatures are not related.
Or the ape/man case is still a good case.
I don't know croc genes or chicken ones.
I suspect they are not as close as you claim.
Yet the principal is still dominat that like anatomy etc etc equals like dna.
You say it doesn't. Well one would have to analysis a accurate sample to determine this in biology.
I expect creatures with marsupial traits to have the "marsupial" dna points. Yet they are not what one defines the creatures by in a group.
The marsupial dna easily can hide the placental mole/marsupial mole being the same dumb mole.
its a good option. DNA is not settled in its origin . Its just presumed by evolutionism to be a trail of relationship.
anyways the trees they invent using dna DO mirror the likeness in their looks inside/outside of their bodies.
Thats why dna trees only slightly surprise the previous conclusions of relationships in creatures when made before dna testing.
The literature shows a little surprise but not much.
Robert Byers · 22 January 2015
eric said:
Robert Byers said:
The trees or anything that uses dna to make biological relationships is always not far off what they plain look like.
To repeat, some species of onion have five times the amount of DNA as other species of onions. Some have about 6.8 billion base pairs in their DNA, others have about 31 billion base pairs in their DNA. So no, as MattDance points out, what you are saying about DNA being 'not far off what they look like' is just not true. In some cases species that look superficially similar* turn out to be closely genetically related (humans and chimpanzees). But in many other cases they do not (wolves and thylacines).
*The biologists among us will point out that wolves and thylacines aren't even superficially similar, if by 'superficial' we include reasonably serious assessments of bone structure and similar traits. These two species are only similar at the 'I have nothing but a blurred picture' level of superficiality. But let's let that go for now.
Common design predicts the same thing at basic levels and predicts it at later levels like in the marsupial case.
Then common design is wrong. The vastly different genome sizes of different varieties of onions completely undermines your hypothesis.
Despite your onion case its accurate to say like looks equals like dna.
It isn't just man/ape.
Yes wolves and marsupial wolves are the same wolf.
The dna difference is just from the difference of marsupial traits having been acquired. Then easily this whole dna change from these new traits can do a bigger dna change.
There is no reason to presume dna is not flexible after important interference and no reason to say that any changes in dna just adds a few points.
The whole thing can be presumed to change from the new radical dna change.
you guys must prove the DNA trees of biology are very different from the trees made in biology before dna testing.
its not been that long. they had trees long before.
I say they are almost the same thing .
Sometimes dna does surprise them in the trees relative to before but not much.
Its looks they scored it on before and the looks equal the dna score pretty good.
callahanpb · 22 January 2015
Robert Byers said:
you guys must prove the DNA trees of biology are very different from the trees made in biology before dna testing.
The fact that they are close is an independent validation of common descent. If DNA showed something substantially different from prior phylogenetic trees, that would be a problem.
phhht · 22 January 2015
Robert Byers said:
eric said:
Robert Byers said:
The trees or anything that uses dna to make biological relationships is always not far off what they plain look like.
To repeat, some species of onion have five times the amount of DNA as other species of onions. Some have about 6.8 billion base pairs in their DNA, others have about 31 billion base pairs in their DNA. So no, as MattDance points out, what you are saying about DNA being 'not far off what they look like' is just not true. In some cases species that look superficially similar* turn out to be closely genetically related (humans and chimpanzees). But in many other cases they do not (wolves and thylacines).
*The biologists among us will point out that wolves and thylacines aren't even superficially similar, if by 'superficial' we include reasonably serious assessments of bone structure and similar traits. These two species are only similar at the 'I have nothing but a blurred picture' level of superficiality. But let's let that go for now.
Common design predicts the same thing at basic levels and predicts it at later levels like in the marsupial case.
Then common design is wrong. The vastly different genome sizes of different varieties of onions completely undermines your hypothesis.
Despite your onion case its accurate to say like looks equals like dna.
It isn't just man/ape.
Yes wolves and marsupial wolves are the same wolf.
The dna difference is just from the difference of marsupial traits having been acquired. Then easily this whole dna change from these new traits can do a bigger dna change.
There is no reason to presume dna is not flexible after important interference and no reason to say that any changes in dna just adds a few points.
The whole thing can be presumed to change from the new radical dna change.
you guys must prove the DNA trees of biology are very different from the trees made in biology before dna testing.
its not been that long. they had trees long before.
I say they are almost the same thing .
Sometimes dna does surprise them in the trees relative to before but not much.
Its looks they scored it on before and the looks equal the dna score pretty good.
So Byers, why did your loving and just Designer (fleas be upon him!) design in syphilis? Why did he design in cancer?
Of course you cannot say. You're too dumb.
Daniel · 23 January 2015
Robert Byers said:
Then easily this whole dna change from these new traits can do a bigger dna change.
There is no reason to presume dna is not flexible after important interference and no reason to say that any changes in dna just adds a few points.
The whole thing can be presumed to change from the new radical dna change.
Wait, are you saying that small changes can accumulate to form big changes? Are you saying that DNA change can actually produce new beneficial traits? Are you saying that DNA can further change from a previous change?
Well, congratulations then! You have become an "evolutionist"! Welcome to the camp.
You see guys? Byers denied evolution, up until the point where denying it interfered with his mind-boggingly crazy idea that marsupials are the same as placentals. But once he wanted to develop it, then evolution did happen, managing to create not only the many anatomic differences marsupials have with their placental counterparts, but also a whole new reproductive method.
Henry J · 23 January 2015
then evolution did happen, managing to create not only the many anatomic differences
But that's anatomic and not proven!
Just Bob · 23 January 2015
Henry J said:
then evolution did happen, managing to create not only the many anatomic differences
But that's anatomic and not proven!
But anatomic must mean not atomic (like anisotropy), so it's OK.
John Harshman · 23 January 2015
It's really depressing how Byers is able to hijack every comment section in which he appears, just by posting something ignorant.
mattdance18 · 23 January 2015
I don't know croc genes or chicken ones.
Obviously not.
I suspect they are not as close as you claim.
And yet, they are. Do your homework.
Come on, Robert: if you say "I don't know," what basis for suspicion do you actually have? "Matt's an evil evolutionist -- can't trust him!" Baloney.
Crocodiles are genetically closer to chickens (and to any other bird, for that matter), even though their "looks" (as you so vaguely use the term) are closer to an iguana (or to any other lizard, for that matter). Why is that? How would "common design" explain such a discrepancy?
Yet the principal is still dominat that like anatomy etc etc equals like dna. You say it doesn't.
Because it doesn't. Tons of exceptions to your supposed "principle." Do your homework.
The marsupial dna easily can hide the placental mole/marsupial mole being the same dumb mole.
Then do tell. Explain how. Not with bullshit assertions of "same dumb mole." Show, with evidence, how this genetic "hiding" works.
DNA is not settled in its origin . Its just presumed by evolutionism to be a trail of relationship.
Give me a break, Robert. How do you think paternity tests work?
Sorry, but you truly have not a leg to stand on. You don't understand how genetics actually works, or how it is actually related to morphology and anatomy and physiology.
I've engaged you on this thread for a variety of reasons. Part of it is because you always gripe about how no one engages you. Figured that I'd give it a shot for a few days. Another part of it is because there are lots of lurkers on these sorts of forums, so I'd hate for your erroneous claims to go completely unchallenged on the main threads. The bathroom wall is mainly diehards.
But another part of it is -- and I'm being completely honest here -- I genuinely would like to help you understand things more effectively. I teach college students by trade. I like helping people learn. And that's where the problem is. You make bald assertions, unsupported by any evidence at all, indeed, in direct contradiction to what evidence there is -- yet no matter how many times your errors are pointed out, whether by me or by anyone else, you just keep repeating them. It's a futile cycle: assertion, correction, uncorrected reassertion. You're not even trying to understand biological science. You won't learn unless you try, so you won't learn. Not can't: won't. And that's sad.
I see no point in continuing to engage you in any thorough way. Rest assured, I will always respond to a single post with a single response. That's worth it for the lurkers. But I'm not going to engage in any sort of ongoing discussion with you unless and until there is some sort of indication that you recognize the degree of your deficiency in biological understanding, and that you are at least trying to do something about it.
Mike Elzinga · 23 January 2015
John Harshman said:
It's really depressing how Byers is able to hijack every comment section in which he appears, just by posting something ignorant.
It appears that endless mud wrestling with ID/creationists causes those who do it to adopt exactly the same methods of argumentation. Those who show up at UD to argue with the denizens over there start retorting by quote mining the abstracts of papers they have never read and couldn't read if their lives depended on it.
After Elizabeth Liddle left, TSZ became a battered psyche shelter for a bunch of people with separation anxiety who had been excommunicated from UD; and many of them, alleging they were arguing for science, argued in exactly the same manner as the worst over at UD.
Mud wrestling for eternity with ID/creationists is bad for one's mental health. Learning the real science and studying how it is abused by ID/creationists and demagogue politicians is probably the better choice.
Immersing oneself too deeply in ID/creationist literature is also not healthy for the brain. Learn the real science first; then you won't have to spend much time figuring out what is wrong with ID/creationism. Almost all of it is wrong at the high school level.
callahanpb · 23 January 2015
mattdance18 said (to Robert Byers):
I've engaged you on this thread for a variety of reasons. Part of it is because you always gripe about how no one engages you. Figured that I'd give it a shot for a few days.
He may gripe, but there is always some engagement. Usually, my first reaction is "Translation, please?" because his comments are incoherent and ungrammatical, whatever the domain.
E.g., I had to read your response to "dumb mole" and reread Byers' comment several times to understand what he was going on about. I admire your patience.
Of course, it's even worse when you finally decode it. Shorter Byers: I don't need your fancy science. I know a little mousey-looking thing when I see one.
And I guess seahorses are actually horses too.
But another part of it is â and Iâm being completely honest here â I genuinely would like to help you understand things more effectively.
Is there any point at which you'd cut your losses?
Another part of it is because there are lots of lurkers on these sorts of forums, so I'd hate for your erroneous claims to go completely unchallenged on the main threads.
In principle, I agree, but maybe you should reserve it for the moderately articulate creationists. When I read Byers I wonder if he is drunk or heavily medicated. I don't have a lot of concerns about his statements going unchallenged.
mattdance18 · 23 January 2015
callahanpb said:
Is there any point at which you'd cut your losses?
On this thread, that point is now.
Robert Byers · 24 January 2015
callahanpb said:
Robert Byers said:
you guys must prove the DNA trees of biology are very different from the trees made in biology before dna testing.
The fact that they are close is an independent validation of common descent. If DNA showed something substantially different from prior phylogenetic trees, that would be a problem.
In this discussion it proves my point. not your point.
It shows bio relationships were concluded by examination of bodies before dNA testing. The dna testing mirrors these conclusions pretty good and so makes my point that like looks equals like dna and this , as a good/better option, because of common design.
Common descent is a , unlikely, option but because its only a option the likeness is not the proof evidence of common descent.
Evolutionism has presumed/persuaded themselves like dna is bio sci evidence for evolutionary heritage. In fact its just a line of reasoning from raw data.
Creationism has a option and disproves that likeness in dna is bio sci evidence for evolution.
We do a better analysis here.
Robert Byers · 24 January 2015
Daniel said:
Robert Byers said:
Then easily this whole dna change from these new traits can do a bigger dna change.
There is no reason to presume dna is not flexible after important interference and no reason to say that any changes in dna just adds a few points.
The whole thing can be presumed to change from the new radical dna change.
Wait, are you saying that small changes can accumulate to form big changes? Are you saying that DNA change can actually produce new beneficial traits? Are you saying that DNA can further change from a previous change?
Well, congratulations then! You have become an "evolutionist"! Welcome to the camp.
You see guys? Byers denied evolution, up until the point where denying it interfered with his mind-boggingly crazy idea that marsupials are the same as placentals. But once he wanted to develop it, then evolution did happen, managing to create not only the many anatomic differences marsupials have with their placental counterparts, but also a whole new reproductive method.
No. The mechanism, not understood but apparent, is not from small changes. The dna small changes , as a option, throws the whole dna structure into a twist.
Like peoples looks , creatures can instantly change their bodies upon crossing some important threshold.
Marsupials ARE just pouchy placentals. Likewise this theme occurred in creatures many times. Creodonts and many others.
A little off thread however.
Yet it does show genetics is a score of relationship but get the score right.
Robert Byers · 24 January 2015
John Harshman said:
It's really depressing how Byers is able to hijack every comment section in which he appears, just by posting something ignorant.
Its not a hijack. Its a discussion while flying.
Sometimes I'm the only creationist. If others were here the discussions would sway in many directions or a few.
The threads are about defending evolutionism etc and so the critics of it would be the ones they respond to.
Why not?
Robert Byers · 24 January 2015
mattdance18 said:
I don't know croc genes or chicken ones.
Obviously not.
I suspect they are not as close as you claim.
And yet, they are. Do your homework.
Come on, Robert: if you say "I don't know," what basis for suspicion do you actually have? "Matt's an evil evolutionist -- can't trust him!" Baloney.
Crocodiles are genetically closer to chickens (and to any other bird, for that matter), even though their "looks" (as you so vaguely use the term) are closer to an iguana (or to any other lizard, for that matter). Why is that? How would "common design" explain such a discrepancy?
Yet the principal is still dominat that like anatomy etc etc equals like dna. You say it doesn't.
Because it doesn't. Tons of exceptions to your supposed "principle." Do your homework.
The marsupial dna easily can hide the placental mole/marsupial mole being the same dumb mole.
Then do tell. Explain how. Not with bullshit assertions of "same dumb mole." Show, with evidence, how this genetic "hiding" works.
DNA is not settled in its origin . Its just presumed by evolutionism to be a trail of relationship.
Give me a break, Robert. How do you think paternity tests work?
Sorry, but you truly have not a leg to stand on. You don't understand how genetics actually works, or how it is actually related to morphology and anatomy and physiology.
I've engaged you on this thread for a variety of reasons. Part of it is because you always gripe about how no one engages you. Figured that I'd give it a shot for a few days. Another part of it is because there are lots of lurkers on these sorts of forums, so I'd hate for your erroneous claims to go completely unchallenged on the main threads. The bathroom wall is mainly diehards.
But another part of it is -- and I'm being completely honest here -- I genuinely would like to help you understand things more effectively. I teach college students by trade. I like helping people learn. And that's where the problem is. You make bald assertions, unsupported by any evidence at all, indeed, in direct contradiction to what evidence there is -- yet no matter how many times your errors are pointed out, whether by me or by anyone else, you just keep repeating them. It's a futile cycle: assertion, correction, uncorrected reassertion. You're not even trying to understand biological science. You won't learn unless you try, so you won't learn. Not can't: won't. And that's sad.
I see no point in continuing to engage you in any thorough way. Rest assured, I will always respond to a single post with a single response. That's worth it for the lurkers. But I'm not going to engage in any sort of ongoing discussion with you unless and until there is some sort of indication that you recognize the degree of your deficiency in biological understanding, and that you are at least trying to do something about it.
You have not prove your point. You just repeat it like you say I do.
You lean on your crocs equals chickens claim in dna.
I don't know the dna score of these two but yes i think its not very close.
Prove me wrong?
the bigger point is your saying dna is not related to the bodies of creatures and so its a surprise, when dna testing is done, to find relationships.
I say it isn't and literature backs me up.
IF you use the iguana case well its a special case.
In fact at those levels of dna tiny details could be doing the uniting/dividing of bio relationships.
I think your pulling tiny dna points together here and missing the greater differences.
Yet I don't have a dna readout of these critters.
Put it in percentages?
I don't think crocs and chickens are very close. I do think like looks equals like dan.
So it would be other reasons for why iguanas , not really croc look alikes anyways, i didn't pick this option, are less alike then chickens. It could be by trivial differences.
However this seems to hit a nerve.
Then raise the intellectual stakes!!!
Its a great point to say dna trails are unrelated to other physical trails in classifying biological origins of creatures IF TRUE.
You are in effect saying that all previous conclusions of TREES of relationships of creatures HAS BEEN OVERTHROWN by DNA testing.
I say its not made much of a bump.
This thread started with trivial comparisons of birds. Even in bird studies I bet dna testing has not ruined all previous ideas of relationships. in fact its a noted point when it does. NOT the rule.
Yet thats just bird kinds. THey made great trees before dna testing.
I say copmmon design is proven by common dna in like structures of bodies. Inside and out.
The ape/man case being a special case but still proving we have a ape body.
It was this before dna testing.
Commit to a bigger principal. Prove same.
This could be a important thing in creationist/evolutionist contentions.
Remember your saying NO like looks is unrelated to like dna.
In fact your saying the birds having like dna and like looks is a surprise.
Thats what your saying and this is my homework.
Robert Byers · 24 January 2015
Mike Elzinga said:
John Harshman said:
It's really depressing how Byers is able to hijack every comment section in which he appears, just by posting something ignorant.
It appears that endless mud wrestling with ID/creationists causes those who do it to adopt exactly the same methods of argumentation. Those who show up at UD to argue with the denizens over there start retorting by quote mining the abstracts of papers they have never read and couldn't read if their lives depended on it.
After Elizabeth Liddle left, TSZ became a battered psyche shelter for a bunch of people with separation anxiety who had been excommunicated from UD; and many of them, alleging they were arguing for science, argued in exactly the same manner as the worst over at UD.
Mud wrestling for eternity with ID/creationists is bad for one's mental health. Learning the real science and studying how it is abused by ID/creationists and demagogue politicians is probably the better choice.
Immersing oneself too deeply in ID/creationist literature is also not healthy for the brain. Learn the real science first; then you won't have to spend much time figuring out what is wrong with ID/creationism. Almost all of it is wrong at the high school level.
Using terms like REAL science is just another mudslinging on folks who draw different conclusions after sciency investigation.
Its a option one side is not doing REAL science but also a option both sides are not or another option both sides do, as far as origin subjects allow, and its simply the right answer has not been proven.
Why not?
Keelyn · 24 January 2015
That's enough to make a shark barf.
mattdance18 · 24 January 2015
Keelyn said:
That's enough to make a shark barf.
Shark barf is more intelligent and uses better grammar. Jesus, what a waste of time.
John Harshman · 24 January 2015
Meanwhile, does anyone have any thoughts on "Phylogenomics produces new and improved tree of birds"?
gdavidson418 · 24 January 2015
mattdance18 said:
Keelyn said:
That's enough to make a shark barf.
Shark barf is more intelligent and uses better grammar. Jesus, what a waste of time.
Yet here he is, freely giving of his vast ignorance, with the supreme confidence of a master of same.
You know you're special when even creationists think you're a crackpot. Of course that's also what really makes Byers a waste of time, as his is an ignorance that most creationists don't obtain. For him, the most basic evidence doesn't even exist, since it doesn't fit with his a priori assumptions.
Glen Davidson
TomS · 24 January 2015
John Harshman said:
Meanwhile, does anyone have any thoughts on "Phylogenomics produces new and improved tree of birds"?
I wonder about the three orders of birds which were not included in the study. What are they? I there some reason why they were not included? (Other than it's just so difficult to make a complete survey of anything.) Is there anything that studying them might make it worth the effort?
John Harshman · 24 January 2015
TomS said:
John Harshman said:
Meanwhile, does anyone have any thoughts on "Phylogenomics produces new and improved tree of birds"?
I wonder about the three orders of birds which were not included in the study. What are they? I there some reason why they were not included? (Other than it's just so difficult to make a complete survey of anything.) Is there anything that studying them might make it worth the effort?
Let's see. Those three orders are Ciconiiformes and...what? I don't see any other missing orders unless you're talking about paleognaths. What am I missing? And yes, it would have been great to see a stork instead of, say one of the two eagles. The position of storks within Aequornithes is not completely certain.
What we could really use is another 48 or perhaps 96 species to shorten long branches. Shouldn't be much trouble, right?
TomS · 24 January 2015
John Harshman said:
TomS said:
John Harshman said:
Meanwhile, does anyone have any thoughts on "Phylogenomics produces new and improved tree of birds"?
I wonder about the three orders of birds which were not included in the study. What are they? I there some reason why they were not included? (Other than it's just so difficult to make a complete survey of anything.) Is there anything that studying them might make it worth the effort?
Let's see. Those three orders are Ciconiiformes and...what? I don't see any other missing orders unless you're talking about paleognaths. What am I missing? And yes, it would have been great to see a stork instead of, say one of the two eagles. The position of storks within Aequornithes is not completely certain.
What we could really use is another 48 or perhaps 96 species to shorten long branches. Shouldn't be much trouble, right?
I think that they are paleognaths.
Steady Eddie · 26 January 2015
"Finally, the researchers used a method called data binning to reduce errors that arise from the mathematical assumption that species divergence occurred instantaneously (when it more likely occurred gradually)."
How do they know that species divergence did not occur instantaneously? They don't; they merely assume it based on Darwinian assumptions.
Interesting how Darwinian assumptions are used to "massage" the data to support Darwinian assumptions. You'll find that this type of circular reasoning is behind every unverified Darwinian "fact claim".
Henry J · 26 January 2015
Thou shalt not confuse assumption with conclusion.
John Harshman · 26 January 2015
We know that species divergence doesn't occur instantaneously because of what we see and what we don't see. We see populations in all states of divergence from zero to complete separation. We don't see species poofing into existence. I suppose you could claim that all the pooling has for some reason ended just as we started watching for it and that species were poofed into existence in various stages of separation. But would that be credible? I don't think so. Further, the genetic evidence of speciation taking a long time is still present in modern genomes, i.e. the different gene histories caused by lineage sorting, the amount of which corresponds well to reasonable estimates of population size and divergence times, for example in the great apes.
John Harshman · 26 January 2015
Autocorrect insists that "poofing" is not a word and wants to change it to "pooling". It was successful in the second instance above.
Just Bob · 26 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
How do they know that species divergence did not occur instantaneously? They don't; they merely assume it based on Darwinian assumptions.
Interesting how Darwinian assumptions are used to "massage" the data to support Darwinian assumptions.
You'll find that this type of circular reasoning is behind every unverified Darwinian "fact claim".
Well, WE can get species to diverge, but NOT instantaneously. Working very purposefully, over very MANY generations, we can get animals to diverge into what would, in the non-human-controlled natural world, be considered different species. Dogs, for instance. Starting with a wolf, we can produce the meanest bear-killer ever; or an absolutely infallible scent-tracker; or a lean, fast racer; or the cutest little fluff-ball lap dog. But that's with a definite end in mind, and applying the same selection criteria every generation. Nature, without an 'end' in mind, and with selection criteria varying unpredictably with the environment, takes a bit longer.
Steady Eddie · 26 January 2015
John Harshman said:
We know that species divergence doesn't occur instantaneously because of what we see and what we don't see. We see populations in all states of divergence from zero to complete separation. We don't see species poofing into existence. I suppose you could claim that all the pooling has for some reason ended just as we started watching for it and that species were poofed into existence in various stages of separation. But would that be credible? I don't think so. Further, the genetic evidence of speciation taking a long time is still present in modern genomes, i.e. the different gene histories caused by lineage sorting, the amount of which corresponds well to reasonable estimates of population size and divergence times, for example in the great apes.
And how do you know that species divergence has occurred? I assume by "divergence" you mean actually changing into all of the different forms, not just losing the ability to interbreed.
eric · 26 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
And how do you know that species divergence has occurred? I assume by "divergence" you mean actually changing into all of the different forms, not just losing the ability to interbreed.
That's like asking how we know the continents move, if by "move" we mean actually receding over the horizon not just shifting a centimeter or so every year.
IOW, a silly question that (a) explicitly ignores a key bit of important evidence and (b) asks for a human-scale observation of an event that does not take place on human scales.
Steady Eddie · 26 January 2015
eric said:
Steady Eddie said:
And how do you know that species divergence has occurred? I assume by "divergence" you mean actually changing into all of the different forms, not just losing the ability to interbreed.
That's like asking how we know the continents move, if by "move" we mean actually receding over the horizon not just shifting a centimeter or so every year.
IOW, a silly question that (a) explicitly ignores a key bit of important evidence and (b) asks for a human-scale observation of an event that does not take place on human scales.
And by "key bit of important evidence" do you mean the fact that evolution occurs within a species (adaptation, genetic drift etc.), and that species can lose the ability to interbreed?
Or was there some other important evidence?
John Harshman · 26 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
And how do you know that species divergence has occurred? I assume by "divergence" you mean actually changing into all of the different forms, not just losing the ability to interbreed.
By "divergence" I simply mean becoming less similar, and in fact context should have told you I was referring to genetic divergence. I know it happens because it's impossible to avoid. Mutations and drift inevitably result in divergence of populations that lose the ability to interbreed.
Let me ask you again what your alternative explanation (other than speciation and divergence) is for the genetic data, either for the birds or for the great apes. Do you in fact have one?
Just Bob · 26 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
eric said:
Steady Eddie said:
And how do you know that species divergence has occurred? I assume by "divergence" you mean actually changing into all of the different forms, not just losing the ability to interbreed.
That's like asking how we know the continents move, if by "move" we mean actually receding over the horizon not just shifting a centimeter or so every year.
IOW, a silly question that (a) explicitly ignores a key bit of important evidence and (b) asks for a human-scale observation of an event that does not take place on human scales.
And by "key bit of important evidence" do you mean the fact that evolution occurs within a species (adaptation, genetic drift etc.), and that species can lose the ability to interbreed?
Or was there some other important evidence?
Ah, and now we're expected to trot out all the evidence for evolution (as though it were not easily accessible), each bit of which will be either ignored, simply denied, or "debunked" with canned crap from creationist websites. If we neglect to play along with the tiresome game, then it's because we're "afraid to debate", because we know it's all bogus, having thrown in our lot with Satan and waging war with the god we don't believe in but hate.
That about covers it, so we can move along.
DS · 26 January 2015
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Daniel · 26 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
How do they know that species divergence did not occur instantaneously? They don't; they merely assume it based on Darwinian assumptions.
So, species NOT occurring instantaneously (but instead gradually), is an evolutionary assumption. But you don't believe in evolution because you have never seen a species arising instantaneously, for example a dog giving birth to a cat, right?
Daniel · 26 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
How do they know that species divergence did not occur instantaneously? They don't; they merely assume it based on Darwinian assumptions.
So, species NOT occurring instantaneously (but instead gradually), is an evolutionary assumption. But you don't believe in evolution because you have never seen a species arising instantaneously, for example a dog giving birth to a cat, right?
eric · 27 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
eric said:
Steady Eddie said:
And how do you know that species divergence has occurred? I assume by "divergence" you mean actually changing into all of the different forms, not just losing the ability to interbreed.
That's like asking how we know the continents move, if by "move" we mean actually receding over the horizon not just shifting a centimeter or so every year.
IOW, a silly question that (a) explicitly ignores a key bit of important evidence and (b) asks for a human-scale observation of an event that does not take place on human scales.
And by "key bit of important evidence" do you mean the fact that evolution occurs within a species (adaptation, genetic drift etc.), and that species can lose the ability to interbreed?
Or was there some other important evidence?
Yes, I'm saying that ignoring changes in breeding like you suggest we do, is like ignoring cm-level movement of the continents when looking for evidence of continental drift. Its a fairly ridiculous idea and the only justification for doing so seems to be a personal bias against the likely conclusion one would draw if one *did* include that evidence.
mattdance18 · 27 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
"Finally, the researchers used a method called data binning to reduce errors that arise from the mathematical assumption that species divergence occurred instantaneously (when it more likely occurred gradually)."
How do they know that species divergence did not occur instantaneously? They don't; they merely assume it based on Darwinian assumptions.
Because organisms don't have offspring of different species from themselves. Each generation can still interbreed with the generations immediately before and after it, and probably a few more than that. But take a hundred generations, or a thousand, or a million, and the accumulated differences make it less and less likely that the first generation of the set and the last will still be able to interbreed. We may be able to designate the endpoint generations as different species, but not the adjacent generations.
In other words, "species" is an essentialist concept that has little bearing on the realities of how real populations of real organisms work over time. "Species" is really just a construct that we use to denote populations of organisms that we have reason to differentiate from other populations of organisms. And one of the results of Darwinism over the last 166 years is to reveal the artificial character of that construct, and how nature isn't always so tidy as the concepts that we impose upon it. We've inherited Aristotelian and Linnaean concepts that don't correspond to nature as well as we once thought they did.
There's nothing wrong with continuing to use the concept of "species." One just has to get over essentialist thinking, as if there were a sharp break where one could pinpoint the switch from one species to the next.
Interesting how Darwinian assumptions are used to "massage" the data to support Darwinian assumptions.
Taking steps to reduce the impact of a known risk factor for error is hardly "massaging the data." It's a perfectly normal methodological procedure. By contrast, take any procedure in science or engineering that you like -- if you knew that there were a risk of a certain kind of error, would you do nothing to mitigate that risk? That seems like a perfectly terrible methodological procedure.
You'll find that this type of circular reasoning is behind every unverified Darwinian "fact claim".
And you'll find a failure to understand what Darwinism actually says, as well as a failure to understand how contemporary biology actually works, behind every irrelevant creationist allegation of Darwinian "circular reasoning" and "massaging evidence."
mattdance18 · 27 January 2015
Steady Eddie said, to John Harshman:
And how do you know that species divergence has occurred? I assume by "divergence" you mean actually changing into all of the different forms, not just losing the ability to interbreed.
Steady Eddie said, to Eric:
And by "key bit of important evidence" do you mean the fact that evolution occurs within a species (adaptation, genetic drift etc.), and that species can lose the ability to interbreed? Or was there some other important evidence?
And as these comments indicate, it would appear that we are dealing with essentialist baraminological nonsense at odds with the empirical biological evidence. The artificial concept "species" is being treated as an essential feature of nature, thereby short-circuiting the possibility of using any evidence to ground inferences that would conflict with that essentialist concept.
I love how creationists accuse the scientifically-minded of just making assumptions when it's scientists who make inferences based on evidence and creationists themselves who stick with the assumptions and a priori implications of their ideologies no matter what the evidence might indicate. Psychological projection and a failure to distinguish inference from evidence do not a strong case make.
Steady Eddie · 27 January 2015
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Steady Eddie · 27 January 2015
mattdance18 said:
Steady Eddie said:
"Finally, the researchers used a method called data binning to reduce errors that arise from the mathematical assumption that species divergence occurred instantaneously (when it more likely occurred gradually)."
How do they know that species divergence did not occur instantaneously? They don't; they merely assume it based on Darwinian assumptions.
Because organisms don't have offspring of different species from themselves. Each generation can still interbreed with the generations immediately before and after it, and probably a few more than that. But take a hundred generations, or a thousand, or a million, and the accumulated differences make it less and less likely that the first generation of the set and the last will still be able to interbreed. We may be able to designate the endpoint generations as different species, but not the adjacent generations.
In other words, "species" is an essentialist concept that has little bearing on the realities of how real populations of real organisms work over time. "Species" is really just a construct that we use to denote populations of organisms that we have reason to differentiate from other populations of organisms. And one of the results of Darwinism over the last 166 years is to reveal the artificial character of that construct, and how nature isn't always so tidy as the concepts that we impose upon it. We've inherited Aristotelian and Linnaean concepts that don't correspond to nature as well as we once thought they did.
There's nothing wrong with continuing to use the concept of "species." One just has to get over essentialist thinking, as if there were a sharp break where one could pinpoint the switch from one species to the next.
Interesting how Darwinian assumptions are used to "massage" the data to support Darwinian assumptions.
Taking steps to reduce the impact of a known risk factor for error is hardly "massaging the data." It's a perfectly normal methodological procedure. By contrast, take any procedure in science or engineering that you like -- if you knew that there were a risk of a certain kind of error, would you do nothing to mitigate that risk? That seems like a perfectly terrible methodological procedure.
You'll find that this type of circular reasoning is behind every unverified Darwinian "fact claim".
And you'll find a failure to understand what Darwinism actually says, as well as a failure to understand how contemporary biology actually works, behind every irrelevant creationist allegation of Darwinian "circular reasoning" and "massaging evidence."
MM Hmmm... I'll believe that when I see it.
Just Bob · 27 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Who intentionally designed them to give the appearance of a branching tree of common ancestry. So that we would think it was evolution. So that we could be sent to hell.
Yup, the god of love and justice.
Just Bob · 27 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
MM Hmmm... I'll believe that when I see it.
Well, you're apparently able to believe in instantaneous magical creation without ever having seen it.
Or have you?
John Harshman · 27 January 2015
mattdance18 said:
And as these comments indicate, it would appear that we are dealing with essentialist baraminological nonsense at odds with the empirical biological evidence. The artificial concept "species" is being treated as an essential feature of nature, thereby short-circuiting the possibility of using any evidence to ground inferences that would conflict with that essentialist concept.ase make.
Eddie is also currently appearing in Talk.origins, in which he has revealed that he thinks the Biological Species Concept is a scam recently perpetrated by biologists to fool people into thinking that macroevolution happens. "Look, these populations have evolved reproductive isolation, so they're separate species; that's macroevolution!" Nothing will convince him otherwise. Nothing, of course, will convince him of anything contrary to his current beliefs, because Jesus.
John Harshman · 27 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Sorry, but that doesn't explain the nested hierarchy. That might explain any universal feature, like having the same genetic code for all life (ignoring the exceptions). It might explain common, identical motifs sprinkled here and there. What it won't explain is why genetic similarities have the particular pattern of nested hierarchy, and the same (or very similar) nested hierarchy for different bits of the genome. It will especially not explain the presence of that nested hierarchy in non-functional bits, but in fact there's no reason to expect functional bits to do it either. Try again.
John Harshman · 27 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
MM Hmmm... I'll believe that when I see it.
You have that backwards. You'll see it when you believe it. But you won't believe it, and you will never see it.
eric · 27 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
No, that does not explain nested hierarchy at all. Its underpants gnome logic:
1. Same designer
2. ....
3. Nested hierarchy!
Can you provide #2? Why would a designer choose to design this way? Humans don't because we consider it stupid. If computers followed nested hierarchies, only Xerox computers would have mice and pointers. How smart does that sound? Not at all, right? Instead, with humans, the best ideas get incorporated across designs. You would think that God would've eventually stumbled on to the idea of "hey, that's a good idea...why don't I add it to some other creations!" But I guess not.
eric · 27 January 2015
John Harshman said:
Eddie is also currently appearing in Talk.origins, in which he has revealed that he thinks the Biological Species Concept is a scam recently perpetrated by biologists to fool people into thinking that macroevolution happens.
Recently? The term in its current meaning is 400 years old, from the 16th century.
Yardbird · 27 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
Simple....
Yes, you are.
phhht · 27 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
So, Steady Eddy, why don't you tell us what makes you think gods are real.
They sure don't look real. There is not a scintilla of empirical evidence for their existence. In the entire vast knowledge structure of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, there is not a single solitary sign of any god. Gods have no tangible effects on the world. As far as I can see, gods are fictional characters, just like vampires and werewolves and superheroes. There is no way to detect design, just as there is no way to detect a god. There are people who have cognitive disorders that cause them to believe in things that are not real.
So tell us, Eddy: what makes you think gods are real at all?
If you're like the other believers who post here, you cannot say.
Steady Eddie · 27 January 2015
John Harshman said:
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Sorry, but that doesn't explain the nested hierarchy. That might explain any universal feature, like having the same genetic code for all life (ignoring the exceptions). It might explain common, identical motifs sprinkled here and there. What it won't explain is why genetic similarities have the particular pattern of nested hierarchy, and the same (or very similar) nested hierarchy for different bits of the genome. It will especially not explain the presence of that nested hierarchy in non-functional bits, but in fact there's no reason to expect functional bits to do it either. Try again.
LOL You are so brainwashed by your Darwinian education that you CAN'T CONCEIVE of a nested heirarchical pattern meaning anything but Darwinian common descent!
You know that's not the most reasonable position, don't you?
Malcolm · 27 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
John Harshman said:
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Sorry, but that doesn't explain the nested hierarchy. That might explain any universal feature, like having the same genetic code for all life (ignoring the exceptions). It might explain common, identical motifs sprinkled here and there. What it won't explain is why genetic similarities have the particular pattern of nested hierarchy, and the same (or very similar) nested hierarchy for different bits of the genome. It will especially not explain the presence of that nested hierarchy in non-functional bits, but in fact there's no reason to expect functional bits to do it either. Try again.
LOL You are so brainwashed by your Darwinian education that you CAN'T CONCEIVE of a nested heirarchical pattern meaning anything but Darwinian common descent!
You know that's not the most reasonable position, don't you?
Feel free to explain the pattern of endogenous retroviruses in primates.
DS · 27 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Really? So this designer designed things to look exactly as one would expect if they had evolved! Interesting.
So why is the hierarchy the same whether you look at morphology or DNA? (Hint: the answer is not common design).
So why is the hierarchy the same whether you look at nuclear DNA or mitochondrial DNA? (Hint: the answer is not common design).
So why is the hierarchy the sam whether you look at nucleotides or SINE insertions? (Hint: the answer is not common design and SINE insertions generally do not affect morphology).
So why do the whales and dolphins fit into the hierarchy deeply nested within the terrestrial mammals instead of within the fish? (Hint: the answer is not common design).
You are so brainwashed by your creationist pseudo education that you CANâT CONCEIVE of a nested heirarchical pattern meaning anything but common design! You know thatâs not the most reasonable position, donât you?
Look dude, if you really want to play the troll, there is a place called the bathroom wall that is intelligently designed just for people like you. Go there if you want to continue displaying your ignorance. At this point, it is obvious that you need to be segregated from the intelligent and educated segment of society. Just click the button marked "Wall" at the top of this page, if you dare.
Yardbird · 27 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
John Harshman said:
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Sorry, but that doesn't explain the nested hierarchy. That might explain any universal feature, like having the same genetic code for all life (ignoring the exceptions). It might explain common, identical motifs sprinkled here and there. What it won't explain is why genetic similarities have the particular pattern of nested hierarchy, and the same (or very similar) nested hierarchy for different bits of the genome. It will especially not explain the presence of that nested hierarchy in non-functional bits, but in fact there's no reason to expect functional bits to do it either. Try again.
LOL You are so brainwashed by your Darwinian education that you CAN'T CONCEIVE of a nested heirarchical pattern meaning anything but Darwinian common descent!
You know that's not the most reasonable position, don't you?
I'll play this one. What, Eddie, is the most reasonable position and why is it so?
Steady Eddie · 28 January 2015
Yardbird said:
Steady Eddie said:
John Harshman said:
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Sorry, but that doesn't explain the nested hierarchy. That might explain any universal feature, like having the same genetic code for all life (ignoring the exceptions). It might explain common, identical motifs sprinkled here and there. What it won't explain is why genetic similarities have the particular pattern of nested hierarchy, and the same (or very similar) nested hierarchy for different bits of the genome. It will especially not explain the presence of that nested hierarchy in non-functional bits, but in fact there's no reason to expect functional bits to do it either. Try again.
LOL You are so brainwashed by your Darwinian education that you CAN'T CONCEIVE of a nested heirarchical pattern meaning anything but Darwinian common descent!
You know that's not the most reasonable position, don't you?
I'll play this one. What, Eddie, is the most reasonable position and why is it so?
The most reasonable position is:
"It fits within the framework of common descent".
That's all - circumstantial evidence for common descent. Not conclusive evidence.
bigdakine · 28 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
John Harshman said:
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Sorry, but that doesn't explain the nested hierarchy. That might explain any universal feature, like having the same genetic code for all life (ignoring the exceptions). It might explain common, identical motifs sprinkled here and there. What it won't explain is why genetic similarities have the particular pattern of nested hierarchy, and the same (or very similar) nested hierarchy for different bits of the genome. It will especially not explain the presence of that nested hierarchy in non-functional bits, but in fact there's no reason to expect functional bits to do it either. Try again.
LOL You are so brainwashed by your Darwinian education that you CAN'T CONCEIVE of a nested heirarchical pattern meaning anything but Darwinian common descent!
You know that's not the most reasonable position, don't you?
Weird then way your designer makes designs exactly the way biological evidence does. I suppose he/she/it don't want to be noticed.
Steady Eddie · 28 January 2015
Malcolm said:
Steady Eddie said:
John Harshman said:
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Sorry, but that doesn't explain the nested hierarchy. That might explain any universal feature, like having the same genetic code for all life (ignoring the exceptions). It might explain common, identical motifs sprinkled here and there. What it won't explain is why genetic similarities have the particular pattern of nested hierarchy, and the same (or very similar) nested hierarchy for different bits of the genome. It will especially not explain the presence of that nested hierarchy in non-functional bits, but in fact there's no reason to expect functional bits to do it either. Try again.
LOL You are so brainwashed by your Darwinian education that you CAN'T CONCEIVE of a nested heirarchical pattern meaning anything but Darwinian common descent!
You know that's not the most reasonable position, don't you?
Feel free to explain the pattern of endogenous retroviruses in primates.
Feel free why you darwinists are sure they're viruses at all. I'll let you know when your reasoning circles around itself. Just try it.
Steady Eddie · 28 January 2015
bigdakine said:
Steady Eddie said:
John Harshman said:
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Sorry, but that doesn't explain the nested hierarchy. That might explain any universal feature, like having the same genetic code for all life (ignoring the exceptions). It might explain common, identical motifs sprinkled here and there. What it won't explain is why genetic similarities have the particular pattern of nested hierarchy, and the same (or very similar) nested hierarchy for different bits of the genome. It will especially not explain the presence of that nested hierarchy in non-functional bits, but in fact there's no reason to expect functional bits to do it either. Try again.
LOL You are so brainwashed by your Darwinian education that you CAN'T CONCEIVE of a nested heirarchical pattern meaning anything but Darwinian common descent!
You know that's not the most reasonable position, don't you?
Weird then way your designer makes designs exactly the way biological evidence does. I suppose he/she/it don't want to be noticed.
The evidence points to a designer. i suppose you don't want to notice it.
phhht · 28 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
bigdakine said:
Steady Eddie said:
John Harshman said:
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Sorry, but that doesn't explain the nested hierarchy. That might explain any universal feature, like having the same genetic code for all life (ignoring the exceptions). It might explain common, identical motifs sprinkled here and there. What it won't explain is why genetic similarities have the particular pattern of nested hierarchy, and the same (or very similar) nested hierarchy for different bits of the genome. It will especially not explain the presence of that nested hierarchy in non-functional bits, but in fact there's no reason to expect functional bits to do it either. Try again.
LOL You are so brainwashed by your Darwinian education that you CAN'T CONCEIVE of a nested heirarchical pattern meaning anything but Darwinian common descent!
You know that's not the most reasonable position, don't you?
Weird then way your designer makes designs exactly the way biological evidence does. I suppose he/she/it don't want to be noticed.
The evidence points to a designer. i suppose you don't want to notice it.
So how do I detect design, Eddie? How do I detect a god, since they are the same thing to you?
See Eddie, I think it is you who is brainwashed. I think you believe in the reality of things for which there is no evidence whatsoever.
Like design. Or gods.
You cannot offer any alternative to the theory of evolution - it's simply too big, too powerful, too explanatory, too well-supported.
You can't even demonstrate that a common pocket watch is designed. You've got nothing but bluster.
LOL, stupid.
gdavidson418 · 28 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
Yardbird said:
Steady Eddie said:
John Harshman said:
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Sorry, but that doesn't explain the nested hierarchy. That might explain any universal feature, like having the same genetic code for all life (ignoring the exceptions). It might explain common, identical motifs sprinkled here and there. What it won't explain is why genetic similarities have the particular pattern of nested hierarchy, and the same (or very similar) nested hierarchy for different bits of the genome. It will especially not explain the presence of that nested hierarchy in non-functional bits, but in fact there's no reason to expect functional bits to do it either. Try again.
LOL You are so brainwashed by your Darwinian education that you CAN'T CONCEIVE of a nested heirarchical pattern meaning anything but Darwinian common descent!
You know that's not the most reasonable position, don't you?
I'll play this one. What, Eddie, is the most reasonable position and why is it so?
The most reasonable position is:
"It fits within the framework of common descent".
That's all - circumstantial evidence for common descent. Not conclusive evidence.
Funny, in the courts DNA evidence is considered to be basically conclusive evidence. Even the sleaziest defense attorneys don't try the mindless tripe that "a Designer might have put DNA identical to mine at the crime scene." The equivalent is standard for the creationist/ID scam.
Anything at all could be done by some unknown magic designer, of course, but only when it's evidence for evolution do your creationist frauds suddenly think that's something that we must consider. Any evidence pretended to point to design isn't a fraud by the Designer, only evolutionary evidence is, in their deluded brains.
You're just busily trying to defraud yourself into believing your ludicrous BS.
Glen Davidson
gdavidson418 · 28 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
Yardbird said:
Steady Eddie said:
John Harshman said:
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Sorry, but that doesn't explain the nested hierarchy. That might explain any universal feature, like having the same genetic code for all life (ignoring the exceptions). It might explain common, identical motifs sprinkled here and there. What it won't explain is why genetic similarities have the particular pattern of nested hierarchy, and the same (or very similar) nested hierarchy for different bits of the genome. It will especially not explain the presence of that nested hierarchy in non-functional bits, but in fact there's no reason to expect functional bits to do it either. Try again.
LOL You are so brainwashed by your Darwinian education that you CAN'T CONCEIVE of a nested heirarchical pattern meaning anything but Darwinian common descent!
You know that's not the most reasonable position, don't you?
I'll play this one. What, Eddie, is the most reasonable position and why is it so?
The most reasonable position is:
"It fits within the framework of common descent".
That's all - circumstantial evidence for common descent. Not conclusive evidence.
Funny, in the courts DNA evidence is considered to be basically conclusive evidence. Even the sleaziest defense attorneys don't try the mindless tripe that "a Designer might have put DNA identical to mine at the crime scene." The equivalent is standard for the creationist/ID scam, the claim that God just magically made lion and tabby cat DNA look the same while stupidly not even considering the use of bird DNA to make spermatogenesis occur at high temps (then testes could stay in the body cavity, unlike with the evolutionary limitations inherited by mammals).
Anything at all could be done by some unknown magic designer, of course, but only when it's evidence for evolution do your creationist frauds suddenly think that's something that we must consider. Any evidence pretended to point to design isn't a fraud by the Designer, only evolutionary evidence is, to their deluded brains.
You're just busily trying to defraud yourself into believing your ludicrous BS.
Glen Davidson
TomS · 28 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
bigdakine said:
Steady Eddie said:
John Harshman said:
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Sorry, but that doesn't explain the nested hierarchy. That might explain any universal feature, like having the same genetic code for all life (ignoring the exceptions). It might explain common, identical motifs sprinkled here and there. What it won't explain is why genetic similarities have the particular pattern of nested hierarchy, and the same (or very similar) nested hierarchy for different bits of the genome. It will especially not explain the presence of that nested hierarchy in non-functional bits, but in fact there's no reason to expect functional bits to do it either. Try again.
LOL You are so brainwashed by your Darwinian education that you CAN'T CONCEIVE of a nested heirarchical pattern meaning anything but Darwinian common descent!
You know that's not the most reasonable position, don't you?
Weird then way your designer makes designs exactly the way biological evidence does. I suppose he/she/it don't want to be noticed.
The evidence points to a designer. i suppose you don't want to notice it.
1) Let us suppose that there are designers. How, then, does that account for anything of biological interest? Take some observation about the world of life and tell us how that happens, out of all the possible designs. For example, human eyes are typical vertebrate eyes (rather than like the eyes of insects, of octopuses, or potatoes). What do we surmise about the designers, their methods and their opportunities and intentions, to end up with that design?
2) We know that design is not enough. What manufacturing processes, raw materials were used?
3) "Necessity is the mother of intention." what deficiencies were the designs addressing?
4) How does design mean that evolution is impossible?
eric · 28 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
Malcolm said:
Feel free to explain the pattern of endogenous retroviruses in primates.
Feel free why you darwinists are sure they're viruses at all. I'll let you know when your reasoning circles around itself. Just try it.
Whoa, we got a live one here Sarge. Okay Eddie, I'll bite. If they aren't viruses, what are they?
TomS · 28 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
Malcolm said:
Steady Eddie said:
John Harshman said:
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Sorry, but that doesn't explain the nested hierarchy. That might explain any universal feature, like having the same genetic code for all life (ignoring the exceptions). It might explain common, identical motifs sprinkled here and there. What it won't explain is why genetic similarities have the particular pattern of nested hierarchy, and the same (or very similar) nested hierarchy for different bits of the genome. It will especially not explain the presence of that nested hierarchy in non-functional bits, but in fact there's no reason to expect functional bits to do it either. Try again.
LOL You are so brainwashed by your Darwinian education that you CAN'T CONCEIVE of a nested heirarchical pattern meaning anything but Darwinian common descent!
You know that's not the most reasonable position, don't you?
Feel free to explain the pattern of endogenous retroviruses in primates.
Feel free why you darwinists are sure they're viruses at all. I'll let you know when your reasoning circles around itself. Just try it.
What creationists call "circular reasoning" is the standard Bacon description of scientific method:
1. Make an observation
2. Make a generalization of the observation
3. Test the generalization
Now, of course, this is only a small part of what science does. But creationists seem to think that it's the cat's pajamas of science.
In the
eric said:
Steady Eddie said:
Malcolm said:
Feel free to explain the pattern of endogenous retroviruses in primates.
Feel free why you darwinists are sure they're viruses at all. I'll let you know when your reasoning circles around itself. Just try it.
Whoa, we got a live one here Sarge. Okay Eddie, I'll bite. If they aren't viruses, what are they?
Whatever you want to call them, they are real. And they represent complex specified data. Therefore, according to ID, they cannot occur by mere chance. To go on with ID, either the pattern is due to a regularity of nature or else the pattern is deliberately formed that way by agency with a purpose.
There is a proposal of a regularity of nature, in brief, common descent with modification. There is more to the specification that just that, but we're keeping things here shorter than a couple of five-foot shelf of books and five-foot stacks of peer-reviewed literature.
So, where is the suggestion of what purpose an agency would have for this pattern? Or what mechanism the agency used to implement the design? Or what material was used, or what rules were followed, or when or where that happened? Or what we can imagine about the agency?
The answer, of course, from ID is silence.
So the situation is this:
We have a complex (more complex than a bacterial flagellum) specified (for we make predictions about the pattern) data. And we have a pretty good explanation for it from natural processes. And we have no alternative explanation.
So, I'd say that that that is a good reason to give tentative assent to the natural explanation. Pending our search for other possible explnations Pending our search for data that don't fit the explanation.
Of course, one can always say, this being about features of the natural world, that we do not have mathematical proof, so we don't care about the natural world. We can say that the natural world does not come up to our demands. While others would say that that is a fault in our demands, not a fault of the world.
Dave Luckett · 28 January 2015
My understanding is very faulty, but as I understand it, endogenous retroviruses are called that because they are close copies of retroviral DNA, with point mutations, found in germ line cells. It's possible to group the mutations by comparing the copies across different species. This allows those species to be arranged cladistically - and the branching pattern of clades thus formed is practically identical to one derived from morphology. Since the retroviral DNA in a germ line cell is inherited by the host's descendents, this is incontrovertible evidence for common descent.
The mechanism by which a retrovirus creates a copy of its own DNA and inserts it into the genome of any cell, is well-known, and frequently observed. So is the incidence of point mutation in various genomes. This mechanism explains both the presence of retroviral DNA in the genome of the species, and also its variations in descendents. If this purely natural explanation is to be overturned, it will not be by something that amounts to "I don't know how it happened, but I reckon it must have been designed." Still less by a blank assertion that God did it.
Dave Luckett · 28 January 2015
I might say that the very same method is used by Biblical scholars to sort out "families" of manuscripts by arranging their copying variations into clades. Of course this treats the mss as "descending" from earlier copies - which was pretty much what happened, back when copying was slow and laborious and the manuscripts themselves were rare and precious. Scribes copied the manuscripts that they had, which included preserving earlier errors.
Ironic, isn't it?
DS · 28 January 2015
So that would be a no. Unsteady Eddie can't answer a single one of my questions and he hasn't got the guts to go to the wall. Well I guess we're done here.
By the way Eddie old boy, endogenous retroviruses are indeed the remnants of once active viruses. We know a great deal about how they transpose and the dynamics of how they spread through populations. You should increase your knowledge if you don't understand this basic point about molecular biology. And yes, they are near perfect phylogenetic markers. And yes they show the exact same nested hierarchy in primates as that produced by other molecular data and the fossil record. Quite a coincidence, don't you think? If you want to be educated some more, go to the bathroom wall. Maybe someone there will bother to enlighten you.
John Harshman · 28 January 2015
So first Eddie, in response to DS, says this:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
And then, in response to my request for an explanation of how the data suggest a common designer, he says this:
The most reasonable position is: âIt fits within the framework of common descentâ. Thatâs all - circumstantial evidence for common descent. Not conclusive evidence.
Now, that seems like a serious retreat. The nested hierarchy is evidence for common descent, with no attempt to explain how it could be explained by "common design". Circumstantial evidence is, of course, all science ever has. And now he's reduced to claiming that retroviruses aren't really retroviruses. This is what creationism does to people.
DS · 28 January 2015
John Harshman said:
So first Eddie, in response to DS, says this:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
And then, in response to my request for an explanation of how the data suggest a common designer, he says this:
The most reasonable position is: âIt fits within the framework of common descentâ. Thatâs all - circumstantial evidence for common descent. Not conclusive evidence.
Now, that seems like a serious retreat. The nested hierarchy is evidence for common descent, with no attempt to explain how it could be explained by "common design". Circumstantial evidence is, of course, all science ever has. And now he's reduced to claiming that retroviruses aren't really retroviruses. This is what creationism does to people.
Indeed. Eddie probably thinks that retroviruses aren't really viruses. After all, don't they reverse the effects of a regular virus? Aren't they used to cure the common cold? No Eddie, they are not. IF you want to get in the game, you have to have some basic knowledge. You obviously have never bothered to study any biology, let alone try to understand evolution is all about. I guess you were too busy going to church and chanting "designer, designer, oh magic designer" over and over. You are still doing that I see and you still haven't bothered a to learn a thing.
DS · 28 January 2015
Dave Luckett said:
My understanding is very faulty, but as I understand it, endogenous retroviruses are called that because they are close copies of retroviral DNA, with point mutations, found in germ line cells. It's possible to group the mutations by comparing the copies across different species. This allows those species to be arranged cladistically - and the branching pattern of clades thus formed is practically identical to one derived from morphology. Since the retroviral DNA in a germ line cell is inherited by the host's descendents, this is incontrovertible evidence for common descent.
The mechanism by which a retrovirus creates a copy of its own DNA and inserts it into the genome of any cell, is well-known, and frequently observed. So is the incidence of point mutation in various genomes. This mechanism explains both the presence of retroviral DNA in the genome of the species, and also its variations in descendents. If this purely natural explanation is to be overturned, it will not be by something that amounts to "I don't know how it happened, but I reckon it must have been designed." Still less by a blank assertion that God did it.
That's pretty close, but actually it's the presence or absence of an insertion at any particular insertion sequence that is used as a character for phylogenetic analysis. The mutation rate is usually too high for sequences to be useful for phylogenetic inference over larger time scales, due to lack of functional constraint. Indeed, almost all copies are rendered incapable of autonomous transposition and must rely on enzymes coded for by other copies in oder to transpose. SInce there are literally millions of insertion sequences and insertion is random, there is a very low probability of character state convergence. And since there is no known mechanism for extraction, there is also an extremely low probability of character state reversal. All this means that the data has extremely low levels of homoplasy, in other words, there is almost no noise in the data and the phylogenetic signal is very strong. That's why they are so useful for phylogenetic inference over larger periods of divergence.
And of course all unsteady eddie has is incredulity about the basic biology. He can't begin to comprehend the evidence that has been compiled over the last one hundred and fifty years, all of which points inexorably to common descent.
John Harshman · 28 January 2015
DS said:
Thatâs pretty close, but actually itâs the presence or absence of an insertion at any particular insertion sequence that is used as a character for phylogenetic analysis. The mutation rate is usually too high for sequences to be useful for phylogenetic inference over larger time scales, due to lack of functional constraint.
Depending on what you mean by "larger time scales", that's untrue. If we're still talking about birds, definitely untrue. Endogenous retroviruses evolve at the rate of their hosts, which is slow enough that neutrally evolving sequences can be used back to the Cretaceous, at least. And while insertions themselves are most commonly used as characters, the sequences of the ERVs are also sometimes analyzed to determine phylogeny. Different nodes, of course: only the phylogeny subsequent to the insertion.
Dave Luckett · 28 January 2015
Thank you both. It's a pleasure to have the brain stretched a little more.
DS · 28 January 2015
Thanks for the clarification John.
DS · 28 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
MM Hmmm... I'll believe that when I see it.
Just like air, right Unsteady Eddie?
DS · 28 January 2015
John Harshman said:
Eddie is also currently appearing in Talk.origins, in which he has revealed that he thinks the Biological Species Concept is a scam recently perpetrated by biologists to fool people into thinking that macroevolution happens. "Look, these populations have evolved reproductive isolation, so they're separate species; that's macroevolution!" Nothing will convince him otherwise. Nothing, of course, will convince him of anything contrary to his current beliefs, because Jesus.
He is described there as an "old earth creationist". Perhaps he would like to debate the age of the earth with some of the other resident trolls?
On a recent thread he mangles the science by confusing "neutral" with strongly selected and "each child" with all children. The guy is obviously a nut job with an axe to grind and the worst kind of hypocrite. Ban it to the bathroom wall and restrict comments and replies to that location.
Malcolm · 28 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
Malcolm said:
Steady Eddie said:
John Harshman said:
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Sorry, but that doesn't explain the nested hierarchy. That might explain any universal feature, like having the same genetic code for all life (ignoring the exceptions). It might explain common, identical motifs sprinkled here and there. What it won't explain is why genetic similarities have the particular pattern of nested hierarchy, and the same (or very similar) nested hierarchy for different bits of the genome. It will especially not explain the presence of that nested hierarchy in non-functional bits, but in fact there's no reason to expect functional bits to do it either. Try again.
LOL You are so brainwashed by your Darwinian education that you CAN'T CONCEIVE of a nested heirarchical pattern meaning anything but Darwinian common descent!
You know that's not the most reasonable position, don't you?
Feel free to explain the pattern of endogenous retroviruses in primates.
Feel free why you darwinists are sure they're viruses at all. I'll let you know when your reasoning circles around itself. Just try it.
Unlike those buffoons at the Discotute, scientists actually do research. We know what proteins retrovirus sequences code for, and what those proteins do in the cell.
Bobsie · 28 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Interesting to note that one confirmed substantial unexplainable violation of the nested hierarchy pattern of all life would discredit evolution science. Yet that has never occurred?
What evidence does SE have that could discredit his simple "created by the same designer" theory?
Henry J · 28 January 2015
I'm not certain that one confirmed counterexample would cause the whole thing to be thrown out. After all, some details of Mercury's orbit were counterexample to Newton's laws, and those still get used. I guess it's just a matter of identifying what it is that the old theory doesn't account for, and figuring out how to tell where it applies and where it doesn't.
callahanpb · 28 January 2015
Bobsie said:
Interesting to note that one confirmed substantial unexplainable violation of the nested hierarchy pattern of all life would discredit evolution science.
Henry J said:
I'm not certain that one confirmed counterexample would cause the whole thing to be thrown out.
I think Bobsie's comment shows a misunderstanding of experimental science.
Science is not like mathematics, where indeed a single counterexample to Fermat's Last Theorem would be reason to start looking for the mistake in Andrew Wiles's proof.
The preponderance of evidence backs up common descent as the primary mechanism of inheritance. That is not going to be discredited, though any new wrinkles could lead to a more nuanced view of what is possible. For that matter, small cases of lateral gene transfer are possible, and I think some have conclusively been observed. It is still very useful to think in terms of common descent ("All models are wrong. Some are useful.")
The phrase "substantial unexplainable violation" presumes a lot, depending on what you mean by unexplainable. Some data that appears anomalous could eventually be explained without throwing an entire theory into crisis, and this is a common occurrence in all sciences.
Note that Newton's laws are still sound science. We know know that they are not exact and that outside of their domain they are not even good estimates. But they are not "discredited" in any sense.
gdavidson418 · 28 January 2015
I think I'd add to the objections that a single "unexplainable violation" would overthrow evolutionary theory that the big problem is that there would still be millions of organisms that, at least approximately, do fit evolutionary expectations. You still have to explain them, even if evolutionary doesn't explain that one confounded rabbit in the precambrian.
Above all, exceptions may simply be exceptions. One designed organism might actually exist on earth (not likely, from all that we've seen thus far), while all other organisms still evolved in roughly the manner that evolutionary theory explains. There's simply nothing in evolutionary theory that prohibits the co-existence of design with evolution, instead it just explains what has evolved. It has never explained a host of non-evolved phenomena (geology, etc.), and it wouldn't explain a genuinely designed (and essentially unevolved) organism, either. But it would still explain the evolved organisms, even if a designed organism had been found.
Bobsie said:
What evidence does SE have that could discredit his simple "created by the same designer" theory?
What evidence does SE have that could truly credit his "created by the same designer" theory?
Would it require two things that are identical? I don't know, for I don't know enough of the "created by the same designer" theory.
For, what does "created by the same designer" account for?
Even if there were two identical things, how does "created by the same designer" account for why they are both blue (when they could, as far as we know, they could be black or yellow or a magenta-and-cerise paisley), why they are big (when they could be small), why they are long-lasting (when they could be gone in a trice). Indeed, why they exist at all (for just being designed is not enough, as the Superconducting Supercollider was certainly designed). Or why there aren't three or more of them, or why they happen to exist now.
And, now that I think of things that were created by Leonardo Da Vinci, they aren't all the same. What does a helicopter which he designed, but never made, have to do with the Mona Lisa?
Some theory. Not only is it not falsifiable, it is also not verifiable.
callahanpb · 28 January 2015
TomS said:
What evidence does SE have that could truly credit his "created by the same designer" theory?
I can imagine positive evidence that would favor common design, and I can find it designed objects, but it is entirely missing from living things.
The evidence consists of systems that are too complex and too similar to be explained by convergent evolution, but also violate common descent. E.g., bicycle tires can use either Schrader valves or Presta valves. Auto tires generally use Schrader valves. In the case of bicycle tires, both are adequate solutions, and they suggest that someone starting out from scratch to invent a new tire valve would probably not come up with exactly the same idea. (Caveat: a valve is pretty simple, so there might not be that many reasonable designs.)
When we find subsystems like this in manufactured artifacts, we reach the reasonable conclusion that the design was copied rather than independently reinvented in every detail, particularly those not constrained by function--e.g. the screw threading on Schrader value. But unlike living things, we don't see signs of common descent. E.g., we might see a Schrader valve on something that isn't a tire at all, but requires access to be filled with air for some other reason. If you start grouping artifacts by these kinds of homologies, you don't get a tree, and you are more likely to conclude that there is largescale lateral transfer.
In living things, we find a lot of things that look very similar at first glance, such as vertebrate eyes and octopus eyes. But examined more closely, it becomes clear that they differ in many functional details. When they are similar in ways that are not constrained by function, we inevitably find common descent, not lateral transfer.
To me, this is a stronger argument against design than saying it is unverifiable. In fact, there are reasonable ways of inferring design that are inconsistent with common descent. The fact that we find these things in manufactured artifacts and do not find them in nature is strong evidence that "design" is not a good way to explain what is going on in nature.
stevaroni · 28 January 2015
Bobsie said:
Interesting to note that one confirmed substantial unexplainable violation of the nested hierarchy pattern of all life would discredit evolution science.
then Henry J said:
I'm not certain that one confirmed counterexample would cause the whole thing to be thrown out.
It's kind of like the old arguments about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Whether it would take one counterexample, or more than one, or how conclusive a counter example is, at the moment, completely irrelevant.
It's like speculating about what would have happened had the South won the Civil War or the ancient Mayans developed the transistor.
Why yes, that would completely change the game. But it's kind of immaterial arguing about exactly what it would mean since it didn't happen.
Unless there's been some sudden breakthrough that I'm unaware of, creationism has produced exactly zero counterexamples in its entire 3000 year history.
Ironically, that's a track record that really is impressive, although, from their point of view, for all the wrong reasons.
Scott F · 28 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Which explains nothing, because it can explain anything.
Why is it this way, instead of some other way? Because it was created by a designer. Why do giraffes have long necks? Designer. Why does (almost) all life have common DNA? Designer. Why can tigers and donkeys interbreed? Designer. Why does an octopus have fur and give birth to live young? Designer. Why does a pile of dirty rags turn into rats and cockroaches? Designer.
In contrast, Evolution is pretty good at explaining the evidence that we actually see in the real world. Evolution is a terrible explanation for things that we actually know are designed.
Scott F · 29 January 2015
gdavidson418 said:
There's simply nothing in evolutionary theory that prohibits the co-existence of design with evolution, instead it just explains what has evolved. It has never explained a host of non-evolved phenomena (geology, etc.), and it wouldn't explain a genuinely designed (and essentially unevolved) organism, either. But it would still explain the evolved organisms, even if a designed organism had been found.
You mention "geology" as a non-evolved phenomena. I would posit that plate tectonics is a reasonable approximation to the "evolution" of geologic features. The shape and structure of continents "evolves", in the sense of changing over time with prior contingency. Layers of folded sediments look like they do because of how they were made and changed over time. You don't see an existing continent that was "created" fresh from scratch anywhere. (Yes, yes. That leaves out all of the differential mortality and reproduction and such, but⦠work with me here. :-)
Also (counter to "Creationism") where we do see the handiwork of nature in "creating" continents, we can plainly see how they were created. The process of continental creation (and evolution), all the "scaffolding", is plain to see. (Well, okay. "Plain" might be too strong a word. I don't want to belittle the field of geologists.) But the "creation" of "Life"? We just don't see the evidence for it. The evidence that we do see, has all the hallmarks of evolution, of common descent, and none of the hallmarks of having been "created".
gdavidson418 · 29 January 2015
Scott F said:
gdavidson418 said:
There's simply nothing in evolutionary theory that prohibits the co-existence of design with evolution, instead it just explains what has evolved. It has never explained a host of non-evolved phenomena (geology, etc.), and it wouldn't explain a genuinely designed (and essentially unevolved) organism, either. But it would still explain the evolved organisms, even if a designed organism had been found.
You mention "geology" as a non-evolved phenomena. I would posit that plate tectonics is a reasonable approximation to the "evolution" of geologic features. The shape and structure of continents "evolves", in the sense of changing over time with prior contingency. Layers of folded sediments look like they do because of how they were made and changed over time. You don't see an existing continent that was "created" fresh from scratch anywhere. (Yes, yes. That leaves out all of the differential mortality and reproduction and such, but⦠work with me here. :-)
Also (counter to "Creationism") where we do see the handiwork of nature in "creating" continents, we can plainly see how they were created. The process of continental creation (and evolution), all the "scaffolding", is plain to see. (Well, okay. "Plain" might be too strong a word. I don't want to belittle the field of geologists.) But the "creation" of "Life"? We just don't see the evidence for it. The evidence that we do see, has all the hallmarks of evolution, of common descent, and none of the hallmarks of having been "created".
Google will give you hordes of responses if you type in "landform evolution," "evolution of the continents," or "evolution sedimentary rock." I'd even maintain that there's a small bit of a kind of natural selection at times, such as in the production of natural arches (I suspect that it's not just that an arch forms randomly and survives because it's an arch, but that the pressure distribution itself preserves the arch "hidden within" while non-arch material falls away).
But generally "evolution" used without qualification, or thoroughly contextualized in the non-biologic subject, means "biologic evolution." And natural arch production isn't biologic evolution, either, to say the least.
What can be said of the connection of geology and biology, though, is that geology did more or less point the way forward to using presently observable causes (later, extrapolations and models supplemented pure "the present is the key to the past" thinking) acting over deep time to produce what may be called "spectacular results." Real causes for real effects, not "Designer wanted it that way." In our "intellectual evolution," geologic thinking preceded, and assisted in guiding, biologic thinking, most notably about evolution.
Glen Davidson
TomS · 29 January 2015
Scott F said:
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Which explains nothing, because it can explain anything.
Why is it this way, instead of some other way? Because it was created by a designer. Why do giraffes have long necks? Designer. Why does (almost) all life have common DNA? Designer. Why can tigers and donkeys interbreed? Designer. Why does an octopus have fur and give birth to live young? Designer. Why does a pile of dirty rags turn into rats and cockroaches? Designer.
In contrast, Evolution is pretty good at explaining the evidence that we actually see in the real world. Evolution is a terrible explanation for things that we actually know are designed.
Too often supporters of "Intelligent Design" get away with directing attention from their lack of an alternative. It isn't merely s terrible explanation, it does not even attempt to offer an account of what happens. It is an extreme example of the fallacy of the "false dilemma": "If you cannot prove your position to my satisfaction, then I must be right".
The problem is that the evolution-deniers present a red herring of attacks on evolutionary biology which are begging for scientists to respond to the attack. That can make it seem as if the creationists have something to say about science. They are being let off from the need to present a positive, substantive alternative.
Even if there were something seriously wrong with today's evolutionary biology, that does not mean that "Intelligent Design" is the answer. There could be some other explanation. That's always a possibility. But in the case of "Intelligent Design", no one is even making an attempt to offer an account.
DS · 29 January 2015
Scott F said:
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
Which explains nothing, because it can explain anything.
Why is it this way, instead of some other way? Because it was created by a designer. Why do giraffes have long necks? Designer. Why does (almost) all life have common DNA? Designer. Why can tigers and donkeys interbreed? Designer. Why does an octopus have fur and give birth to live young? Designer. Why does a pile of dirty rags turn into rats and cockroaches? Designer.
In contrast, Evolution is pretty good at explaining the evidence that we actually see in the real world. Evolution is a terrible explanation for things that we actually know are designed.
Actually, I'm not sure that the "hypothesis" of "intelligent design" can explain everything. For example, it can't explain unintelligent design. Why does your eye have a blind spot? Why don't whales have gills? Why do your teeth rot? Why can't plants absorb light in the green wavelengths? Why can't you make vitamin C? Why does your genome have lots of "junk DNA", including millions of ancient viral sequences? Why is your back so poor for bipedal locomotion? Why do blind cave dwellers have eyes? Why can't your brain repair lesions? Why can't birds produce milk? Why can't you see in the infrared? Why can't you hold your breath for half an hour?
You could list literally thousands of things that any competent designer could have done a lot better. Of course the theory of evolution explains all of these things and a lot more. Creationism, not so much. WIth just a little foresight and planning, things could have been a lot better. Evolution has none of that, what's the designers excuse? I guess you could always fall back on the old "inscrutable god who works in mysterious ways" routine. But then you are back to the old "explains nothing" problem.
mattdance18 · 29 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
mattdance18 said:
Steady Eddie said:
"Finally, the researchers used a method called data binning to reduce errors that arise from the mathematical assumption that species divergence occurred instantaneously (when it more likely occurred gradually)."
How do they know that species divergence did not occur instantaneously? They don't; they merely assume it based on Darwinian assumptions.
Because organisms don't have offspring of different species from themselves. Each generation can still interbreed with the generations immediately before and after it, and probably a few more than that. But take a hundred generations, or a thousand, or a million, and the accumulated differences make it less and less likely that the first generation of the set and the last will still be able to interbreed. We may be able to designate the endpoint generations as different species, but not the adjacent generations.
In other words, "species" is an essentialist concept that has little bearing on the realities of how real populations of real organisms work over time. "Species" is really just a construct that we use to denote populations of organisms that we have reason to differentiate from other populations of organisms. And one of the results of Darwinism over the last 166 years is to reveal the artificial character of that construct, and how nature isn't always so tidy as the concepts that we impose upon it. We've inherited Aristotelian and Linnaean concepts that don't correspond to nature as well as we once thought they did.
There's nothing wrong with continuing to use the concept of "species." One just has to get over essentialist thinking, as if there were a sharp break where one could pinpoint the switch from one species to the next.
Interesting how Darwinian assumptions are used to "massage" the data to support Darwinian assumptions.
Taking steps to reduce the impact of a known risk factor for error is hardly "massaging the data." It's a perfectly normal methodological procedure. By contrast, take any procedure in science or engineering that you like -- if you knew that there were a risk of a certain kind of error, would you do nothing to mitigate that risk? That seems like a perfectly terrible methodological procedure.
You'll find that this type of circular reasoning is behind every unverified Darwinian "fact claim".
And you'll find a failure to understand what Darwinism actually says, as well as a failure to understand how contemporary biology actually works, behind every irrelevant creationist allegation of Darwinian "circular reasoning" and "massaging evidence."
MM Hmmm... I'll believe that when I see it.
When you see what, exactly? To which of the points I made were you responding?
In any event, I thank you for a most revealing response. I offer a few paragraphs substantively responding to your substantive claims, challenging your essentialist assumptions about the concept of "species" and your mischaracterization of simple methodology, and you respond with a non-substantive, non-specific "Nuh-uh." Very well. Most revealing, indeed.
mattdance18 · 29 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
DS said:
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Simple: they were all created by the same designer.
By the same token, do all the genetic differences revealed among various organisms reveal that "they were all created by [different] designer[s]?"...
mattdance18 · 29 January 2015
Steady Eddie said:
Malcolm said:
Feel free to explain the pattern of endogenous retroviruses in primates.
Feel free why you darwinists are sure they're viruses at all. I'll let you know when your reasoning circles around itself. Just try it.
Several people have now explained it to you, and without a smidgen of circularity. Got any response? Demonstrating the circularity of these non-circular explanations is a doomed endeavor. But have you any response at all?
mattdance18 · 29 January 2015
phhht said:
Steady Eddie said:
The evidence points to a designer. i suppose you don't want to notice it.
So how do I detect design, Eddie?
It's funny. As a philosophy professor, I teach the "argument from design" every time I teach introductory-level philosophy of religion. I teach it alongside the other classic attempts at proving God's existence, like the cosmological and ontological arguments. And with all three, we not only examine what the arguments are and how they work and why someone might hold them to be correct, but also consider their weaknesses and why someone might consider them incorrect or irrelevant.
And the vast majority of my students, even the theists among them, quickly figure out that the argument from design is actually the weakest of the three, as it rests primarily (a) a highly dubious analogy between organisms and artifacts, and (b) a failure of imagination with respect to possible alternative explanations. It expresses little more than the subjective prejudices of those who already believe in a designer.
It's why I've always liked that line from Cardinal Newman: I believe in design because I believe in God, not in God because I believe in design. Leave aside the issue of why he believes in God and whether that's the best way to go. At least this is an intellectually honest assessment of the relationship between the ideas of God and design.
mattdance18 · 29 January 2015
John Harshman said:
Steady Eddie said:
The most reasonable position is: âIt fits within the framework of common descentâ. Thatâs all - circumstantial evidence for common descent. Not conclusive evidence.
Now, that seems like a serious retreat.
Seriously. I had to reread that three or four times to make sure I hadn't somehow missed that Eddie really believes in evolution after all.
But of course that "circumstantial" vs "conclusive" evidence pseudo-distinction renders his whole point nonsense.
TomS · 29 January 2015
mattdance18 said:
phhht said:
Steady Eddie said:
The evidence points to a designer. i suppose you don't want to notice it.
So how do I detect design, Eddie?
It's funny. As a philosophy professor, I teach the "argument from design" every time I teach introductory-level philosophy of religion. I teach it alongside the other classic attempts at proving God's existence, like the cosmological and ontological arguments. And with all three, we not only examine what the arguments are and how they work and why someone might hold them to be correct, but also consider their weaknesses and why someone might consider them incorrect or irrelevant.
And the vast majority of my students, even the theists among them, quickly figure out that the argument from design is actually the weakest of the three, as it rests primarily (a) a highly dubious analogy between organisms and artifacts, and (b) a failure of imagination with respect to possible alternative explanations. It expresses little more than the subjective prejudices of those who already believe in a designer.
It's why I've always liked that line from Cardinal Newman: I believe in design because I believe in God, not in God because I believe in design. Leave aside the issue of why he believes in God and whether that's the best way to go. At least this is an intellectually honest assessment of the relationship between the ideas of God and design.
As anyone ever addressed the problem raised by William Paley in chapter 1 of his Natural Theology?
One question may possibly have dwelt in the reader's mind during the perusal of these observations, namely, Why should not the Deity have given to the animal the faculty of vision at once? ... Why resort to contrivance, where power is omnipotent? Contrivance, by its very definition and nature, is the refuge of imperfection. To have recourse to expedients, implies difficulty, impediment, restraint, defect of power. ... amongst other answers which may be given to it; beside reasons of which probably we are ignorant, one answer is this: It is only by the display of contrivance, that the existence, the agency, the wisdom of the Deity, could be testified to his rational creatures.
(ISTM that his solution is open to the objection that there certainly other ways that the Deity could obtain testimony, if need be, to his his existence and wisdom. As to his agency, this opens a can of worms: what is his agency? Evolution?)
148 Comments
gdavidson418 · 15 January 2015
Flamingos had better not start pooping on my car.
Glen Davidson
John Harshman · 15 January 2015
Robert Byers · 15 January 2015
This and all such trees of relationship are founded on a presumption that there can not be sudden genetic change exactly mimicking genetic sequences already in other creatures/birds.
Its all based on consistent gene flow. Yet its a option, perhaps a creationist one, that birds upon some other trigger got a CONVERGENT gene type.
Its just presumed its a unbroken line from a-b.
Another point is how they MUIST say after the "extinction' at the k-t line there was a 10-15 million year space where most/all of the bird branches appeared.
Yes in a post flood world did a small number of kinds of birds explode and that in decades/century.
Yet I think this is not what evolution should be welcoming. Why so front heavy and back light.
It suggests there is not a consistent evoltionary trail. Very fits/starts.
Henry J · 15 January 2015
Palaeonictis · 15 January 2015
gdavidson418 · 16 January 2015
phhht · 16 January 2015
pete moulton · 16 January 2015
Hush, John Harshman! We don't ever want the flamingos to learn that they comprise the sister lineage to such awesome birds as the grebes. They'll begin to put on airs and become insufferable.
DS · 16 January 2015
Why give Byers a break? All he has is a line of reasoning with no biological evidence. What a hypocrite.
John Harshman · 16 January 2015
Byers has a line of reasoning? When did that happen?
John Harshman · 16 January 2015
By the way, if you want an idea of what is new in Jarvis et al. and what isn't, their Figure 2 will help. It should also give you an idea of what is well-supported and what isn't. Over on the right are previous analyses, of which the left-most (Hackett et al.) is the one to note. Cells that are red or pink there are new with Jarvis et al., while cells that are gray or black are not. On the left are various treatments of the genomic data; solid or mostly solid black is pretty good, while rows with a lot of pink or red are potentially problematic.
mattdance18 · 16 January 2015
Where are the storks? The reason I ask is that the last I had heard (admittedly, not exactly yesterday), the New World vultures were indeed excluded from the Falconiformes -- because they were contained within the storks, Ciconiiformes. Has Ciconiiformes itself been completely subsumed by another group (e.g. Pelecaniformes)? Are New World vultures still considered within it? Eagles, too? What exactly is the relatedness among eagles, New World vultures, and storks?
Just nerd-curious.
mattdance18 · 16 January 2015
callahanpb · 16 January 2015
John Harshman · 16 January 2015
mattdance18 · 16 January 2015
Robert Byers · 16 January 2015
phhht · 16 January 2015
mattdance18 · 17 January 2015
loujost · 17 January 2015
John, you said Falconiformes now includes falcons and nothing else. Surely it still includes the caracaras?
DS · 17 January 2015
Byers prefers his own ignorant musings to any actual knowledge. When you point out to him that his "hypothesis" is not supported by any evidence he just pretends that it is and goes merrily on his way. Of course he still tries to claim that you don't have any evidence, which necessitates him ignoring all of the evidence, but I guess hypocrites don't recognize things like that. When you point out to him that his hypothesis is just some weird kind of hyper evolution, also not supported by the evidence, he just shrugs and ignores it. When you point out to him that he has no clue how science works and doesn't even comprehend the things he is criticizing, he just doubles down and pretends that he really does understand things that he obviously does not. He thinks that genetics is "atomic and unproven" but still wants to determine the "atomic number" of "dna"! It's worthless to argue with anyone who is so delusional. But for some strange reason, the moderators allow him to post here anyway, even though he has demonstrated over and over again that he is not only incapable of, but completely uninterested in learning anything, ever. Hell he hasn't even learned the capital of North Dakota, even though he capitalized BECAUSE he still doesn't know the capital of dna.
John Harshman · 17 January 2015
Henry J · 17 January 2015
Daniel · 19 January 2015
harold · 19 January 2015
The basic difference between Byers and other more famous ID/creationists is spelling and grammar, period. The ideas he expresses are standard stuff. If anything he has a higher tolerance for acknowledging scientific results (but then trying to rationalize them) than some creationists.
His comments are exactly as correct as the most sophisticated spew put out by the DI or the most meticulously constructed UD blather.
I think this is an important point. It's often implied here that Byers' output is somehow "even worse" than regular creationism. It isn't. It's regular creationism. The problems with grammar and spelling are somewhat unique, but other than that, it's at worst the same. Any ridicule of Byers that goes beyond commenting on his spelling and grammar should be understood to equally apply to all evolution deniers.
TomS · 19 January 2015
harold · 19 January 2015
TomS · 19 January 2015
Robert Byers · 19 January 2015
phhht · 19 January 2015
Keelyn · 19 January 2015
fnxtr · 19 January 2015
mattdance18 · 20 January 2015
Scott F · 20 January 2015
Scott F · 20 January 2015
I presume that Robert's creationism would also predict that humans share ~50% of their DNA with bananas.
Because "like DNA equals like form".
Right, Robert?
eric · 20 January 2015
Robert's claim also fails the Onion test. Specifically, the second bit of it, where Dr. Gregory points out that "members of the genus Allium range in genome size from 7 pg to 31.5 pg. So why can A. altyncolicum make do with one fifth as much regulation, structural maintenance, protection against mutagens, or [insert preferred universal function] as A. ursinum?"
Robert Byers · 20 January 2015
gdavidson418 · 20 January 2015
DS · 20 January 2015
No matter how many times you explain it to booby, he still won't get it. No matter how many times you prove him wrong, he will never admit it. His mind is made up and that's that. Typical creationist horse puckey. Don't bother even trying to correct him. Don't bother to even try to understand what he thinks he is trying to say. He's like a broken record, repeating garbled idiocy over and over.
Why in the name of all that is decent would a dipstick who claims that "genetics is atomic and unproven" urge you to "understand what dna is"? Doesn't he realize that he is talking to people who study DNA for a living? Doesn't he realize that not correcting his spelling and grammatical errors, even after having been corrected multiple times, is just plain rude and insulting? Doesn't he realize that proudly displaying his ignorance is counterproductive? Obviously not.
You look like an ape booby, because you are an ape. Deal with it already.
stevaroni · 20 January 2015
Just Bob · 20 January 2015
Henry J · 20 January 2015
phhht · 20 January 2015
I think we've seen the last of Robert Byers, at least for a while.
He'll never be able to explain why his designer designed in cancer. He's running like a mangy rat with its tail on fire.
mattdance18 · 21 January 2015
gnome de net · 21 January 2015
Thanks for letting Robert Byers continue to expose the nakedness of his one-dimensional "lines of reasoning" for the whole world to see.
Keelyn · 21 January 2015
DS · 21 January 2015
eric · 21 January 2015
mattdance18 · 21 January 2015
mattdance18 · 21 January 2015
Matt Young · 21 January 2015
mattdance18 · 22 January 2015
Yardbird · 22 January 2015
Robert Byers · 22 January 2015
Robert Byers · 22 January 2015
callahanpb · 22 January 2015
phhht · 22 January 2015
Daniel · 23 January 2015
Henry J · 23 January 2015
Just Bob · 23 January 2015
John Harshman · 23 January 2015
It's really depressing how Byers is able to hijack every comment section in which he appears, just by posting something ignorant.
mattdance18 · 23 January 2015
Mike Elzinga · 23 January 2015
callahanpb · 23 January 2015
mattdance18 · 23 January 2015
Robert Byers · 24 January 2015
Robert Byers · 24 January 2015
Robert Byers · 24 January 2015
Robert Byers · 24 January 2015
Robert Byers · 24 January 2015
Keelyn · 24 January 2015
That's enough to make a shark barf.
mattdance18 · 24 January 2015
John Harshman · 24 January 2015
Meanwhile, does anyone have any thoughts on "Phylogenomics produces new and improved tree of birds"?
gdavidson418 · 24 January 2015
TomS · 24 January 2015
John Harshman · 24 January 2015
TomS · 24 January 2015
Steady Eddie · 26 January 2015
"Finally, the researchers used a method called data binning to reduce errors that arise from the mathematical assumption that species divergence occurred instantaneously (when it more likely occurred gradually)."
How do they know that species divergence did not occur instantaneously? They don't; they merely assume it based on Darwinian assumptions.
Interesting how Darwinian assumptions are used to "massage" the data to support Darwinian assumptions.
You'll find that this type of circular reasoning is behind every unverified Darwinian "fact claim".
Henry J · 26 January 2015
Thou shalt not confuse assumption with conclusion.
John Harshman · 26 January 2015
We know that species divergence doesn't occur instantaneously because of what we see and what we don't see. We see populations in all states of divergence from zero to complete separation. We don't see species poofing into existence. I suppose you could claim that all the pooling has for some reason ended just as we started watching for it and that species were poofed into existence in various stages of separation. But would that be credible? I don't think so. Further, the genetic evidence of speciation taking a long time is still present in modern genomes, i.e. the different gene histories caused by lineage sorting, the amount of which corresponds well to reasonable estimates of population size and divergence times, for example in the great apes.
John Harshman · 26 January 2015
Autocorrect insists that "poofing" is not a word and wants to change it to "pooling". It was successful in the second instance above.
Just Bob · 26 January 2015
Steady Eddie · 26 January 2015
eric · 26 January 2015
Steady Eddie · 26 January 2015
John Harshman · 26 January 2015
Just Bob · 26 January 2015
DS · 26 January 2015
Well if unsteady Eddie can explain the nested hierarchy of genetic similarities that exists between all organisms, then maybe somebody will take him seriously. If not, then I guess he will just be dismissed as yet another ignorant troll who cannot be bothered to learn anything.
Daniel · 26 January 2015
Daniel · 26 January 2015
eric · 27 January 2015
mattdance18 · 27 January 2015
mattdance18 · 27 January 2015
Steady Eddie · 27 January 2015
Steady Eddie · 27 January 2015
Just Bob · 27 January 2015
Just Bob · 27 January 2015
John Harshman · 27 January 2015
John Harshman · 27 January 2015
John Harshman · 27 January 2015
eric · 27 January 2015
eric · 27 January 2015
Yardbird · 27 January 2015
phhht · 27 January 2015
Steady Eddie · 27 January 2015
Malcolm · 27 January 2015
DS · 27 January 2015
Yardbird · 27 January 2015
Steady Eddie · 28 January 2015
bigdakine · 28 January 2015
Steady Eddie · 28 January 2015
Steady Eddie · 28 January 2015
phhht · 28 January 2015
gdavidson418 · 28 January 2015
gdavidson418 · 28 January 2015
TomS · 28 January 2015
eric · 28 January 2015
TomS · 28 January 2015
Dave Luckett · 28 January 2015
My understanding is very faulty, but as I understand it, endogenous retroviruses are called that because they are close copies of retroviral DNA, with point mutations, found in germ line cells. It's possible to group the mutations by comparing the copies across different species. This allows those species to be arranged cladistically - and the branching pattern of clades thus formed is practically identical to one derived from morphology. Since the retroviral DNA in a germ line cell is inherited by the host's descendents, this is incontrovertible evidence for common descent.
The mechanism by which a retrovirus creates a copy of its own DNA and inserts it into the genome of any cell, is well-known, and frequently observed. So is the incidence of point mutation in various genomes. This mechanism explains both the presence of retroviral DNA in the genome of the species, and also its variations in descendents. If this purely natural explanation is to be overturned, it will not be by something that amounts to "I don't know how it happened, but I reckon it must have been designed." Still less by a blank assertion that God did it.
Dave Luckett · 28 January 2015
I might say that the very same method is used by Biblical scholars to sort out "families" of manuscripts by arranging their copying variations into clades. Of course this treats the mss as "descending" from earlier copies - which was pretty much what happened, back when copying was slow and laborious and the manuscripts themselves were rare and precious. Scribes copied the manuscripts that they had, which included preserving earlier errors.
Ironic, isn't it?
DS · 28 January 2015
So that would be a no. Unsteady Eddie can't answer a single one of my questions and he hasn't got the guts to go to the wall. Well I guess we're done here.
By the way Eddie old boy, endogenous retroviruses are indeed the remnants of once active viruses. We know a great deal about how they transpose and the dynamics of how they spread through populations. You should increase your knowledge if you don't understand this basic point about molecular biology. And yes, they are near perfect phylogenetic markers. And yes they show the exact same nested hierarchy in primates as that produced by other molecular data and the fossil record. Quite a coincidence, don't you think? If you want to be educated some more, go to the bathroom wall. Maybe someone there will bother to enlighten you.
John Harshman · 28 January 2015
DS · 28 January 2015
DS · 28 January 2015
John Harshman · 28 January 2015
Dave Luckett · 28 January 2015
Thank you both. It's a pleasure to have the brain stretched a little more.
DS · 28 January 2015
Thanks for the clarification John.
DS · 28 January 2015
DS · 28 January 2015
Malcolm · 28 January 2015
Bobsie · 28 January 2015
Henry J · 28 January 2015
I'm not certain that one confirmed counterexample would cause the whole thing to be thrown out. After all, some details of Mercury's orbit were counterexample to Newton's laws, and those still get used. I guess it's just a matter of identifying what it is that the old theory doesn't account for, and figuring out how to tell where it applies and where it doesn't.
callahanpb · 28 January 2015
gdavidson418 · 28 January 2015
I think I'd add to the objections that a single "unexplainable violation" would overthrow evolutionary theory that the big problem is that there would still be millions of organisms that, at least approximately, do fit evolutionary expectations. You still have to explain them, even if evolutionary doesn't explain that one confounded rabbit in the precambrian.
Above all, exceptions may simply be exceptions. One designed organism might actually exist on earth (not likely, from all that we've seen thus far), while all other organisms still evolved in roughly the manner that evolutionary theory explains. There's simply nothing in evolutionary theory that prohibits the co-existence of design with evolution, instead it just explains what has evolved. It has never explained a host of non-evolved phenomena (geology, etc.), and it wouldn't explain a genuinely designed (and essentially unevolved) organism, either. But it would still explain the evolved organisms, even if a designed organism had been found.
Glen Davidson
TomS · 28 January 2015
callahanpb · 28 January 2015
stevaroni · 28 January 2015
Scott F · 28 January 2015
Scott F · 29 January 2015
gdavidson418 · 29 January 2015
TomS · 29 January 2015
DS · 29 January 2015
mattdance18 · 29 January 2015
mattdance18 · 29 January 2015
mattdance18 · 29 January 2015
mattdance18 · 29 January 2015
mattdance18 · 29 January 2015
TomS · 29 January 2015