Are there problems with the evolutionary scenario?

@NonlinOrg

All you have to do is establish that there is nothing about Godless Evolution that is scientific. And you have yet to do it … other than to offer the proclamation.

Here, let me help you out. Let’s say you wanted to prove that Astrology is not scientific. How would you prove that? The usual approach is to take 1000 psychological survey of 1000 adults … and sort them into relevant categories:

  1. employment categories;
  2. extroversion categories vs. introversion;
  3. selfless vs. selfish categories;
  4. or any other categories that the survey can be shown to provide significant differences.

Then correlations are attempted is with 1000 birthdays… using the Rising Sign, Sun Sign and Moon Sign. If there are no correlations (which is usually the case) Astrology is shown (we would expect) not to correlate to anything being measured by the psychological survey.

Okay… so … all you have to do is offer a Valid evolutionary hypothesis… and show that valid observations show no correlation to the valid Evolutionary hypothesis.

If you propose such a hypothesis, are you willing to accept feedback on how to adjust the hypothesis, within reason? Because I think the odds are that you will not propose a workable hypothesis on your first attempt.

@NonlinOrg

  1. I mentioned the Bible so that you would understand that flatly dismissing Evolution as non-science is equivalent to flatly dismissing the Bible as Non-Religious.

  2. You need to be able to parse the idea that the non-Scientific aspect of God-guided Evolution is the part that mentions God. And that the part that doesn’t involve God’s miraculous powers is the part that involves science.

  3. The problem with this experimental design is that Lenski has no real idea of how to challenge the genetics of the original population with ecological changes to Direct evolution towards an Amoeba. You can’t just watch bacteria for a million years and expect that they become Amoebae. Mutations are not just shaped by mutations… but also by specific sequences of changing environments.

Are you saying that ignoring most of the fossil record is a mere interpretive choice?

You seem to be missing the important point that the only way in which a hypothesis can be considered to be verified is for it to tested without being falsified.

What’s your hypothesis, BTW?

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I will correct your error, and then I will have nothing more to say to you. My suggestion is to get hold of some good basic biology texts, and do some studying. There are actually real facts, (not alternative facts) and knowledge that biologists have gathered over the years. One of these is the Hardy Weinberg principle which demonstrates that your statement is wrong. New births do not in fact change the gene pool, and allele frequencies in populations remain constant (in equilibrium) in the absence of selection. This is not, of course, the only argument from ignorance you have made, and I believe further discussion with you is fruitless.

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The transition from something like a bacterium to something like an amoeba (which is a eukaryote) has, as far as we know, happened just once in the several billion year history of life. An amoeba is more similar to a human – genetically and in terms of basic biology – than it is to a bacterium. So no, we shouldn’t have seen a transition like that in the lab.

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The allele frequency definition you just rejected answers exactly that question. That definition is not intended to describe the whole of evolution; it’s intended to mark the boundaries of the subject. If it involves a change in allele frequency, we consider it evolution. If not, no. For a description of what it is that evolutionary biology studies, “descent with modification” is much better, but for demarcation, the frequency definition is good.

Why does it matter, anyway? We don’t have a clear definition of what a “particle” is – and certainly not one that’s been stable across time – and the boundaries of the field are pretty fuzzy, yet particle physicists manage to study particles anyway.

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That’s an excellent idea for people who are truly interested in learning some facts. Your librarians can help you find books. You can take courses in biology for very little money at a community college. Coursera.org has a wealth of free or inexpensive courses in biology, genetics, etc. and many start at a very basic level suitable for folks who just graduated from high school.

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“Do you agree that Christian scientists have a large area …” - my opinion doesn’t matter.

“…it took 500 million (5 x 10^8) years across an entire globe…” - what does another year and another gallon add? Lenski designed his experiment to demonstrate evolution and he failed. So did Miller–Urey with their abiogenesis experiment. Feel free to design a better experiment.

A theoretical model is not “real facts”. Here is the long list of assumptions behind Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium:

  • organisms are diploid
  • only sexual reproduction occurs
  • generations are non overlapping
  • mating is random
  • population size is infinitely large
  • allele frequencies are equal in the sexes
  • there is no migration, mutation or selection

…and there’s no need to be angry.

“Are you saying that ignoring most of the fossil record is a mere interpretive choice?”
No.

" for it to tested without being falsified.

What’s your hypothesis, BTW?"
I am not sure where you’re going with this, but falsifiability is overrated: http://nonlin.org/hard-science-is-soft-science/

I am not sure what you argue. Why do I “have to” offer anything? Are you arguing for the sake of it?

I am not dismissing anything. Just pointing out that Evolution doesn’t meet the ‘scientific method’.

“Lenski has no real idea of how to challenge the genetics…” - so you agree is a failed experiment just like Miller-Urey? But not for lack of trying. Feel free to design a better experiment. Beyond that, I am not sure what your point is.

That was Coyne’s example. Feel free to demonstrate “cats to dogs” (his other example) or any other reasonable transition.

That’s not good enough, as alleles change a bit with every live birth. And even if one allele changes back next generation, many others change in other directions.

There’s some uncertainty when it comes to particles, but there’s really no comparison. Each electron has the same exact properties like any other electron as far as we know. Are you kidding?

You mean something like this?


Or were you looking for more subtle changes? (Photo by Ellen Levy Finch.)

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Yes, I know. Why is that a problem?[quote=“NonlinOrg, post:65, topic:26482”]
There’s some uncertainty when it comes to particles, but there’s really no comparison. Each electron has the same exact properties like any other electron as far as we know. Are you kidding?
[/quote]
No, I’m not kidding. If it’s so clear, define a particle for me.

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That’s quite the odd statement for someone who has felt moved to opine 24 times in one thread. :slight_smile: I will take it as tacit acceptance of my point that Christians, atheists and adherents of other faiths can collaborate in a common enterprise of scientific inquiry.

Also, you have dramatically misunderstood Lenski’s goals and his team’s findings. Here’s how he described them a while ago:

You might wonder if the twelve lineages improved in the same or in different ways. Just how repeatable would evolution be if, in the metaphor of Stephen Jay Gould, we could replay the tape of life? On the one hand, mutations are random, so the lineages would tend to diverge. On the other hand, selection would favor the same adaptations because they live in identical environments. We have seen many cases of parallel evolution. The individual cells in all twelve lineages are larger than their ancestors, and all are more efficient at using the glucose in the culture medium we grow them in. Also, all twelve lines have similar mutations in several genes. In other ways, however, they have diverged, including a striking case where a single lineage evolved the ability to consume citrate, another source of energy in the medium, but one the ancestors could not exploit. In fact, a characteristic feature of E. coli as a species is that it cannot grow on citrate. We are now investigating the series of mutations that enabled this transcendent change.

Given the inherent time limitations of any such experiment, they were not expecting to observe the emergence of amoebae or alligators from E Coli. They were expecting to see parallel genetic changes, adaptation, and some divergent genetic changes as well. They have in fact confirmed their evolutionary hypotheses in striking ways. It has been an amazing success in experimental biology.

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You call that evolution? By all definitions, they’re part of the same species.

Unlike electron which are all identical as far as we can tell, organisms are all different and across time too. So how do you define evolution without a baseline? What change constitutes evolution? Is every live birth evolution? If not, what biological change is evolution and what biological change is not evolution?

You’re going in circles.

.[quote=“Chris_Falter, post:68, topic:26482”]
adherents of other faiths can collaborate…
[/quote]

I am not opposed to that one bit.

Far from it. If Lenski’s E.Coli experiment is evolution, then the Japanese people have also evolved after WW2 seeing that they grow bigger and have adopted the citrate (I mean western) diet. And not all of them mind you, just some strains of them Japanese. See? Just like in Lenski’s experiment.

This is my original point: Evolution lacks a testable definition. No one knows what biological transformation is evolution and what transformation is not evolution. And that makes ‘Evolution’ a philosophy and not science.

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