Ah… so your reputation does exceed your skills. You have considerable skills in twisting and turning… but your answer is non-responsive, exaggerated and totally beside the point.
What I heard in all that gyration is: “George, I really don’t have any idea how to explain that one away.”
George, the irony here is that rather than having to “explain away” something, what you are suggesting is highly problematic. You are not seriously engaging the problems that you have with what you are proposing. For the evolution of humans, you have an enormous amount of evolutionary change that needs to arise, it must come from random changes such as mutations, the change is highly complicated, the fitness landscape is rugged, the effective population size is small, and the timeline is relatively short. The science doesn’t add up, and it confirms what anyone would have said from the outset simply from an intuitive perspective. Just as one example, look at behavior. Human behavior is incredibly complex and defies evolution.
But you ignore this enormous scientific failure because of the argument from dysteleology. This argument goes back to the Epicureans. They mandated a naturalistic origins because of nature’s apparent lack of design. As Lucretius wrote:
You are, quite literally, an Epicurean, and it is an argument that has failed over and over. For centuries we have been trying to make this argument, and it doesn’t have a very good history. Science doesn’t cooperate, and we keep on finding function for what was deemed useless. The mammalian retina is a good example, and in the end evolutionists are left with a purely subjective, philosophical claim, well exemplified by Richard Dawkins:
This is utterly pathetic. This argument has completely failed and our retina has incredible optical properties, with precisely what evolutionists have identified as dysteleology–and compelling proof for their theory–contributing to those properties! The optics are far more complex than any evolutionist ever dreamed of.
Instead of engaging in the science, evolutionists are dogmatically insisting their Epicurean interpretation is a fact, driven by the failed argument from dysteleology.
You brought up pseudogenes. There are several potential explanations for pseudogenes. Even evolutionists are forced to agree they arise independently when the pseudogenes don’t fit the model. This is silly.
I think you are still flexing your mental muscles as though you were discussing Evolution with Atheists or Agnostics.
BioLogos supporters like me, do not think the changes are random in God’s view. He is directing ecological and genetic factors to arrive at what his plan requires.
And, just so you can keep up, your definition of Evolution is inaccurate and self-serving. Evolution is any genetic change… whether it includes snakes losing the genetic expression of limbs … or whales “losing” the genetic expression of four limbs to walk on land… or birds (most/all ?) “losing” the genetic expression of teeth that their ancestors had.
Your explanations are side-stepping, and not answering …
Could you please elaborate? I don’t know the field well enough to recognize what specific research and/or overview papers you’re referring to.
Purifying selection applies to deleterious genes. How does the GLO pseudogene act in a harmful way to humans and other primates? Until you can show that the GLO pseudogene is likely harmful, your argument doesn’t make sense to me.
In fact, I just read Lachapelle’s paper in Genetica (2011) on the GLO pseudogene. He already takes into account the fact that selection works differently on pseudogenes than on functional genes. In fact, his molecular clock calculations rely on the fact that the nonsynonymous mutations appear in pseudogenes at a different rate than they appear in functional genes. I won’t go into the math here, but it’s quite elegant. I can supply the PDF to anyone who PMs me here at Biologos, as I understand that such an arrangement lies within the fair use provisions of copyright law.
Thanks, and have a great day in southern California.
Chris Falter
George:
I’m glad to see you agree that evolutionary theory is insufficient and fails to explain the origin of species, such as the primates. So it boils down to this:
You say the improbability of evolution is not a problem because your God controls or guides it, but often he must not control or guide it because of dysteleological designs, such as pseudogenes. One could just as easily allow that pseudogenes might have a function (as some have been found to have), or that they could have arisen independently (as even evolutionists must sometimes agree). And these are far more parsimonious explanations than saying the creator sometimes controls and sometimes looks the other way, depending on … something. And of course you have the classic “God of the gaps” problem, invoking the creator to bridge the gaps in your theory.
So there are perfectly reasonable explanations, well supported by the history and philosophy of science, for dysteleology that you reject. Instead you opt for a theory that is problematic.
Science is not _dys_teleological, it is **a**teleological. There’s a huge difference in those tiny prefixes.
Because science is **a**teleological (not **dys**teleological), a Christian is free to view it from a teleological perspective. We can say by faith that God created the universe and its workings in order to display His glory, to provide us with an arena in which to work for Him and know His goodness, etc. Science can describe the workings of the universe, but it cannot describe its purposes. You need faith to describe purposes, and science (which is **a**teleological) cannot supply it. But neither can **a**teleological science disprove the purposes we discern by faith.
It is true that Dawkins thinks that science is **dys**teleological. But we do not have to accept his opinion on the matter, do we? When did the writings of Dawkins become canonical for the church?
I agree wholeheartedly with you that science does not explain everything. It does a terrible job of explaining non-kin altruism, as your essay points out. It also does a terrible job of explaining Beethoven’s symphonies and Dali’s artwork.
Science does, however, explain genomic data and geological data, among other things, quite well.
Actually, it does add up. You and Joshua Swamidass have already had a conversation about this. Here’s what Joshua said:
Our ancestors have explored billions and trillions of mutations since they diverged from chimpanzees 6 millions of years ago (try the rough calc. 6 million x 20,000 popsize x 100 mutations/gen / 15 years / gen). So we have very roughly trillion trials to tweak a few thousand gene expression and splicing signals, and there are many ways it can happen (there is not a unique solution), most of the differences we se are not even necessary (they are random drift), and sexual reproduction means they can happen in parallel (not one after the other). Remember we see this mechanism at play already on directly observable timescales.
Here is your reply:
For AS, or GE, or ATI/ATT, or epigenetics, etc., to create a human from a primitive ape would mean evolution had to have created 25000 genes, and the molecular mechanisms to create that change.
The entire human genome consists of 25,000 genes. You seem to be stating that every single one of the 25,000 human genes is de novo. Yet we know that the vast majority of human genes have homologues on the chimpanzee genome. So your analysis is off by orders of magnitude.
You also made the appeal to incredulity in response to Swamidass’ analysis:
The level of serendipity is astronomical. Can you imagine the chance evolution just happened to create all that stuff, which incredibly turned out to make humans?
But science often defies credulity. As Feynmann stated about quantum theory:
Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there.
Or as Mermin stated with more pith:
Anybody who’s not bothered by Bell’s theorem has to have rocks in his head.
So the value of a scientific theory should not be decided on whether it seems fantastic or quotidian. Rather, the question is how well does the theory match up with our carefully gathered data? As it turns out, we have observed the mechanisms of evolution at work in Lenski’s lab and in the mice of Madeira and in a metaphorical gas giant of other research.
You are bothered by the mechanisms postulated by the theory of evolution. Perhaps we should all be, even as we should all be bothered by Bell’s theorem in quantum physics. But that does not mean that Bell’s theorem or the theory of evolution are not good science.
So I disagree with you on the scientific analysis. But I agree with you on your most important point: we are not an accident of randomness. God created us with divine purpose!
Have a great weekend. Will we see an LA team in the Super Bowl soon? Now that would stretch credulity too far! 
Chris Falter
I’m curious too. No idea what he’s talking about.
You are right. The claim about purifying selection is false, indeed the opposite is the case.
Are you familiar with the urate oxidase pseudogenes?
Why then did you say you have “No idea what he’s talking about”?
Because you wrote this, which is baffling, probably because it’s wrong:
“There are several potential explanations for pseudogenes. Even evolutionists are forced to agree they arise independently when the pseudogenes don’t fit the model.”
Since you also wrote nonsense about purifying selection, I think we probably won’t get anywhere discussing actual evolutionary science.
Well I’m sorry to see such a terse response. It would help if you could explain why you think this is “baffling, probably because it’s wrong,” because it actually isn’t. You indicated you are familiar with the urate oxidase pseudogenes. They provide examples of independent mutations. And yet you are baffled by my simple point that other explanations for pseudogenes are conceivable.
This is actually very simple. As you saw, George appealed to pseudogenes as powerful, compelling evidence for evolution. Among other things, my point was simply that other explanations are possible. The oxidase pseudogenes are an example where non evolutionary explanations are used. That is a relevant response to George’s claim, and I’m sorry to see that you seem to be avoiding this simple point.
I’m afraid there is nothing nonsensical about it. The argument is that millions of years ago a mutation occurred crippling Vitamin C synthesis. That certainly would seem to degrade fitness. Of course one could argue that dietary intake of Vitamin C did the job. Hence the remainder of my paragraph which you failed to acknowledge. You also failed to acknowledge the overall context—that George was appealing to a broken gene as evidence for evolution. The extent to which it degraded fitness is not the key point. The point is, one way or another, it is not a very strong evidence.
You then said that “indeed the opposite is the case.” I’m afraid this just makes the argument worse. If under evolution there was positive selection, then why is evolution so compelling? Why would this be such powerful evidence for evolution?
Depends on the details. A couple of shared mutations as highly mutable sites isn’t evidence of anything. Many shared mutations that fall consistently into a phylogenetic tree and that are highly unlikely to be recurrent mutations do constitute strong evidence.
That’s because pseudogenes are created by mutations. There are not a lot of explanations.
Pseudogenes are not evidence of evolution. Conservation of pseudogenes, bearing the same inactivating mutations, in the same place in the genome, accumulating mutations in nearly perfect correlation with postulated phylogenetic relationships – now that is compelling evidence of common ancestry. One ought not, IMO, simply type vague claims about pseudogenes, omitting the actual scientific context of their prominence in evolutionary theory.
The urate oxidase story is very interesting. It is not about some new route of pseudogenization. There is an interesting pattern of mutation that has been discussed elsewhere.
Steve:
No, shared mutations provide zero evidence or demonstration of “How fundamental innovations” arose, “How body pattern evolves,” how “limbs arose from fins,” “the origin of animal form,” etc., etc. Yes, sure, similarities in species is evidence for evolution, but it is very, very weak evidence. Furthermore, if you genuinely hold that position, then you are now bequeathed a load of falsifying evidence (all those many, many cases where the characters violate the tree).
What you wrote, specifically that “broken genes are subject to purefying selection,” is nonsensical because it is known to be untrue in so many cases. Purifying selection, by definition, applies to deleterious alleles. A “broken gene” is only the focus of purifying selection if the loss of function is itself deleterious, or if the “broken gene” encodes a new deleterious “function.” This is certainly why mammalian genomes contain hundreds of olfactory receptor pseudogenes – the gene family is very large, and so the loss of an individual receptor is not so likely to decrease fitness.
Of course, there are other well-known reasons why a particular pseudogene may not be purged by selection, including linkage and, most notably, changes in selection pressure as the environment or the organism’s physiology changes over time.
These are basic and widely known facts about evolution.
Did you intend this reply to be in response to some other post? It seems to have nothing to do with my post that you’ve attached it to. Whom are you quoting, and who said anything about limbs arising from fins? Shared mutations are evidence for common ancestry. That’s it. They say nothing about the origin of innovations or anything else in your list. [quote=“Cornelius_Hunter, post:58, topic:34703”]
Yes, sure, similarities in species is evidence for evolution, but it is very, very weak evidence.
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If they are highly improbable to have arisen by chance, and if no other mechanism is known or proposed – which is the case here – then they are indeed strong evidence. Assertions to the contrary don’t change the probabilities
Characters that violate the tree are only falsifying evidence if they occur significantly more often than expected under the model of common ancestry. No one has demonstrated that they do.
Actually they have. There are many evidences which surprised evolutionists because they were not expected.
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