We would know by looking at phylogenies. If the same mutations occurred independently in many different branches even though there is a lot of sequence space for the same function, then that would be a bridge too far for natural processes.
That would seem to run into the same theological problems as God creating the Earth with a fake geologic history, or God planting fingerprints and DNA at crime scenes. Could God create genomes so that they look exactly like they were produced by the natural processes we observe in living populations? Of course, but why do it that way? Why go through all of the extra effort to make genomes look like they evolved if they didnât?
I agree to the extent that I do not think God falsifies data to make things look any particular way. But I would argue that the data does not, to me, look like evolution, by itself, produced the data.
The diagram below you will never see in a biology text. But as I understand it, it shows how the fossil record used to be drawn, how it is drawn now, and what the fossil record really looks like.
NOTE: You have to click on the image to see the whole thing!
Click on the above to see the third image, which is most important! Argh! SoftwareâŚ
The separations get increasingly severe as you go up the toxonomic tree. Certainly some skips can be explained by âitâs hard to become a fossil.â But Niles Eldredge stated, âWe palaeontologists have said that the history of life supports [the story of gradual adaptive change] knowing all the while it does not. ⌠When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on somewhere else.â There is something here that we do not know, that leaves us âscratching our headsâ as George pointed out. Is that the fingerprints of God, or not? We cannot be sure either way.
You are focused on the genetic data, but I suspect the same is visible there.
You can argue, as Daniel points out, that the anomalies must have a naturalist explanation. But usually that is an a priori philosophical orientation. If one only looks at data that supports the theory, then one will conclude the theory is correct. The problem is not there, but where the data does not fit the theory.
The picture that you reference is what we should see if evolution is the mechanism behind change in biology. We should see novelty that stays within lineages. What we shouldnât see is the same novelties appearing at the tips of those lines, and they donât. A designer could move adaptations anywhere on the tree, but that is not what we see. We see that adaptations stay on one branch and one branch only, just as we would expect from evolution.[quote=âMarty, post:122, topic:36197â]
There is something here that we do not know, that leaves us âscratching our headsâ as George pointed out. Is that the fingerprints of God, or not? We cannot be sure either way.
[/quote]
That is venturing very close to a God of the Gaps argument.
I understand this to mean that a continued pursuit of a natural explanation will always be preferred to ever concluding direct, intelligent intervention.
If so, then I must stand by my original assessment, that certain conclusions are in fact ruled out from the outset.
If a creationist site so similarly and clearly claimed âwe do not see any reason to give up on pursuing a supernatural explanationâ for any particular phenomenon, I would similarly criticize them as ruling out certain conclusions (I.e., natural ones) from the outset.
You are skipping over the important first step: constructing a hypothesis. You go straight for conclusions without doing the steps before it. What they are highlighting is the pursuit which involves research, constructing hypotheses, testing those hypotheses, and repeating the entire process over and over. ID/creationism does not do this. There is no pursuit of a supernatural explanation.
The image you shared reminds me of a video of whale evolution that someone sent me claiming this was the best proof of evolution. And I have seen elsewhere others claim similarly, that whale evolution is the best attested of the fossil record.
So I watched the video (Whales evolution - YouTube) with an open mind, but saw what certainly strike this observer as 4 entirely different animals artificially and rather laboriously tied together in the video. The direct, step-by-step, gradual evolution between these animals lies only in the imagination of the artist, it is not something attested to by evidence.
Sure, I would grant the hypothetical possibility that it really did happen this way, and we just happen to find these species while the hundreds of thousands of slight variations that would be required to show a gradual evolution are lost and will remain missing links⌠but if so, can we grant that there are huge gaps in this record? I just donât like being accused of âignoring the fossil evidenceâ!
Then what features would a real transitional fossil have that these fossils were missing?
Since we have searched such a tiny, tiny fraction of the Earth for fossils, I donât know why you would expect anything other than gaps in the fossil record we do have.
⌠and which will continue to repeat that process over and over and over ad infinitum, never willing to conclude direct, intelligent agency as the scientific conclusion, even if all the evidence pointed that way.
Hence, ruling out certain conclusions from the outset.
Unless you [quote=âT_aquaticus, post:127, topic:36197â]
Then what features would a real transitional fossil have that these fossils were missing?
[/quote]
This would be rather obvious, no? Unless you think that one day a kutchicetus gave birth directly to a dorudon, then the transitional fossils would show all the various small, gradual, morphological changes from one to the other.
So consider this video (Evolution of Whales Animation - YouTube)⌠notice the places where one animal âmorphsâ into the other, and freeze frame multiple times between those morphs⌠all those animals that exist in the mind of the artist (or are the result of the computerâs morphing algorithm) during that âmorphingâ animation are the creatures that presumably must have existed but which are missing.
Interesting your focus on hypotheses⌠does the BioLogos philosophy allow them to posit direct, intelligent agency as a legitimate scientific hypothesis, and conduct research and gather data which could lead to either a confirmation or refutation of that hypothesis?
My understanding is no, Their view requires that this is not even a legitimate scientific hypothesis to be tested. But I stand to be corrected if I am mistaken?
However, if I am right that design is not even permitted as a scientific hypothesis to be tested. Then my assessment stands.
i fear you are missing the point⌠but Sure, we can talk populations instead if you think it would helpâŚ
Unless either one individual or a larger population of dorudon arose immediately from their parent population which consisted entirely of of kutchiceti, then all the various small transitions that appear between these two animals would have existed throughout the various populations that existed over those multiple generations, their new features existing and potentially combining and being isolated and speculating through the various generationsâŚ
And we could talk more population dynamics, but the bottom line is we have fossils of a supposed ancestor and a supposed descendent that remain radically different in many ways. And unless this was an immediate parent/offspring mtation, then through the various populations in which this gradual, step-by-step evolution was happening, they would have large numbers of organisms that reflected this slow, gradual transition. But all the fossils that would reflect that transitionare lost of all those very numerous organisms⌠the many, many of which would of course have existed since each successive generation would have had large populations to allow each small adaptation or mutation to spread through the larger population so that natural selection had its working pool from which to select the more fitâŚ
But none of this changes the basic observation⌠unless I am misinformed, there are fossils of kutchiceti, and dorudon, and nothing in between.
But none of that changes the basic observation⌠unless one day a kutchicetus gave birth directly to a dorudon, then we would expect some organisms between them to exhibit further gradual evolution. But if so, it remains that all animals that would demonstrate this transition remain lost to the fossil record and are missing links.
if we had found nothing in the fossil record but land animals and full fledged whales, they could still be transitional (if the theory were in fact true), but it would be less convincing. you donât need every step, but the fewer there are, and the bigger the gaps, the harder it is to convince ignorant, uneducated, weak minded skeptics like meâŚ
[quote=âDaniel_Fisher, post:134, topic:36197â]
Interesting your focus on hypotheses⌠does the BioLogos philosophy allow them to posit direct, intelligent agency as a legitimate scientific hypothesis,[/quote]
âDirect, intelligent agencyâ is not a hypothesis, Daniel. Two adjectives and a noun can never be a hypothesis. Whatâs the mechanism?
Hereâs a scientific hypothesis from Wikipedia: In medicine, the hygiene hypothesis is a hypothesis that states a lack of early childhood exposure to infectious agents, symbiotic microorganisms (such as the gut flora or probiotics), and parasites increases susceptibility to allergic diseases by suppressing the natural development of the immune system.
Do you see the mechanistic part? Now, do you have a hypothesis? Try formulating one.
[quote]⌠and conduct research and gather data which could lead to either a confirmation or refutation of that hypothesis?
[/quote]What hypothesis? You havenât offered a hypothesis. Scientific hypotheses make empirical predictions. Got any?
Youâre also dodging the fact that your research should be designed to test the empirical predictions of your hypothesis, not wishy-washy âconduct research and gather data which could lead toâŚâ
[quote=âDaniel_Fisher, post:137, topic:36197â]
Unless either one individual or a larger population of dorudon arose immediately from their parent population which consisted entirely of of kutchiceti, then all the various small transitions that appear between these two animalsâŚ
[/quote]Youâre still stuck in the denialist trap of framing evolution as happening to individuals. Weâre talking about many, many animals.
And youâve checked that there are none in between? To which anatomical features, specifically, do you refer?
