Fallacy of “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution,”

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@T_aquaticus,

This fellow assures me that De Nile is only a river in Egypt…

When I respond that it may be something else … he tells me No, No, No!

[Argon]

@gbrooks9

These are non-controversial areas. But he just throws these discussions back in our faces and says they are nothing.

Picking another one I remembered…

@NonlinOrg

Don’t be fooled by adaptations like skin color, beak size and pesticide or antibiotic resistance. These all revert when conditions change.

Again, in this thread, the claim that ‘antibiotic resistance always reverts when conditions change’?

Back in June I provided an number of references in the literature…

Study in Nature shoots down three basic claims of evolutionary theory

Lenski’s strain used in the experiments started with a single cell. Here’s the technique microbiologists use to start colonies from a single cell. Antibiotic resistance is not “evolution” but a “devolution” also. How so, you ask? Because despite all fears, it never spreads outside of the specific environment. It goes away by itself once favorable human intervention is removed. That turns out to not be the case in many instances. It had been proposed by some that antibiotic resistant bacteri…

[T_aquaticus]

@Argon

Again, in this thread, the claim that ‘antibiotic resistance always reverts when conditions change’?

Using NonlinOrg logic, if a terrestrial mammal evolves to live in open water (e.g.seals, otters) that isn’t evolution because they will adapt back to being terrestrial mammals if you change the conditions so that they are no longer near water. By the same token, the polar bear is very poorly adapted because a polar bear would almost immediately die if you put one in the Sahara desert.

[NonlinOrg]

@T_aquaticus

They started with base nucleotides and synthetically built the genome.

“…Then they removed a bacteria’s genome and replaced it with the synthetic one.”
It’s quite common these days to modify the genome (see crispr cas9, GMO, etc.). That is modified but not created life.

@Argon

I cited a specific, easy to understand experiment in which fitness was readily determined.

Which I read (partially) and addressed, even though I suspected it would not add any new info (it didn’t). And you cannot be bothered to answered clearly formulated simple questions? Cause you collected 4 likes and “there are other resources”? Fine, suit yourself.

@T_aquaticus

if a terrestrial mammal evolves to live in open water

That’s a very big “if”. Let me know when you observe that scenario outside of a movie theater.

[Chris_Falter]

@NonlinOrg

2. There is no direct and exclusive link between survivability and phenotype (and genotype).
3. Natural Selection is described as “the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype”.
4. Propositions 2. and 3. are mutually exclusive.

Hi Nonlin -

What our friend @Argon is saying is that Propositions 2 and 3 are not mutually exclusive. The correlation between phenotype and successful reproduction (you focus on survivability [sic], but fitness is related to reproduction) is direct but not exclusive because there are stochastic factors in play for any individual. Because there is a correlation, there is a differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. But the presence of stochastic factors imply that the differential is not exclusive.

Have you done any mathematics with multivariable linear regression?

Best,
Chris Falter

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

Here is a test question I designed for the topic of “Fitness”. Maybe it will help someone… but I fear he will not understand the grammar of the sentences.

Question #[ ]:
Darwin coined the phrase “Natural Selection.” But the phrase “Survival of the Fittest” was coined by an English biologist, Herbert Spencer, in 1864, Darwin included the phrase in the 5th edition of Origin of the Species, published in 1869. He intended the phrase to mean “individuals better designed for an immediate, local environment”, rather than a reference to “physical or mental fitness”.

Modern scientists tend to avoid the phrase because of all these reasons, except this one. Which sentence is not the reason:

1. “Survival” is only one aspect of Natural Selection.

2. Some species have created successful lifestyles that produce numerous offspring despite the process of reproduction hurrying the death of the procreating individual.

3. “Survival of the Fittest” is a meaningless tautology.

4. Some species reproduce generations successfully based on traits other than factors of “physical fitness”, such as muscular strength, physical stamina or intelligence.

5. In the Evolutionary meaning of the term, “fitness” is a measured factor, assigned to groups with specific genetic variation, related to higher rates of surviving fertile offspring.
   .
   .
   .
   NOTE:
   Sentence (5) demonstrates that the term “fitness” can be measured, and can be assigned valid meaning in Evolutionary hyptheses. But even without the term “fitness”, the measurements themselves are what is important in questions touching on Evolutionary success.

[Chris_Falter]

Hi Nonlin -

The theoretical foundation for evolutionary biology is Bayes Theorem. It is also the theoretical foundation for scientific disciplines that you seem to accept without quibble, including (but certainly not limited to) particle physics, astronomy, and chemistry.

Have you ever worked with Bayes Theorem? What do you know about its history, its applications in science, and its applications outside of science?

The reason I ask is that basically every post you make is an implicit attack on Bayes Theorem. In so doing you are implicitly attacking the foundation of other sciences that also rely on Bayes Theorem.

Best,
Chris Falter

[RHernandez (Roberto L Hernandez)]

@Daniel_Pech

I wish you were joking. Unfortunately, you have here made my whole point in this thread. For, you here are equating (a) my free access to claims as to what the empirical facts are with (b) my own direct-hand witness of those facts!

There is no credibility to this equation. I have implied this in many of my prior posts!

Daniel,

I think there is a misunderstanding. Perhaps my english is the problem.

I am not saying anything about access to claims.

I am saying that your claim that you have no access to empiricals is incorrect. We both have internet access, we have free access to all of the DNA and protein sequence data. This is the most important and largest set of empiricals.

I am asking if you would like me to show you how the creation.com page is wrong, using the empiricals themselves.

Are you interested?

[RHernandez (Roberto L Hernandez)]

@NonlinOrg

What “mechanistic predictions”? It doesn’t make any predictions at all.

Why do you ask if you deny the existence of any predictions? It seems that you are here to deny, not to discuss.

[Daniel_Pech]

@RHernandez

your claim that you have no access to empiricals is incorrect. We both have internet access, we have free access to all of the DNA and protein sequence data. I am asking if you would like me to show you how the creation.com page is wrong, using the empiricals themselves.

You misunderstand. Completely. Over and over and over.

There are at least two main issues here:

1. Representations of empirical fact do not constitute the empirical fact they represent.

(How is this not abundantly obvious to you, I can well guess: You are so deeply presupposing that progressive, goo-to-you, biogenetic change is fact that you take at face value any and all representations that confirm that presupposition. For the purposes our debate-discussion here, unless or until you can keep issue 1., above, clear in your side of the discussion, then you and I have absolutely nothing to talk about.)

The other main issue, therefore, has to do with your offer to prove to me that the said CMI page is wrong. Specifically, unless some at CMI fully participate with me in the debate over your attempts at proving this to me, then I personally have no way to be sure as to whether or not I am getting an adequate said ‘proof’ from you.

Let me repeat: I have no access to the empirical realm at issue here. So it does not matter to me one tiny bit if you do have such access. But it DOES matter to me VERY much that you keep mistaking mere representations of empirical fact with the empirical fact represented (and you ALSO mistake interpretations of either with empirical fact).

Therefore, I really, really, hope that you can now finally agree with me that I have little prima facie reason to trust anything you might offer to me as said proof.

…and, therefore, that I AM WITHIN MY RIGHTS to require basic full participation from CMI in the discussion with you of said ‘proof’. Because, I have no first hand access to the facts being represented in any data sets that you might ever offer in such ‘proof’.

Have the above words in my present post failed to be clear to you?

[Jay313 (Jay Johnson)]

@Daniel_Pech

Specifically, unless some at CMI fully participate with me in the debate over your attempts at proving this to me, then I personally have no way to be sure as to whether or not I am getting an adequate said ‘proof’ from you.

So, essentially, the only “representations of empirical fact” that you trust are those provided by CMI, who share your own presuppositions and therefore can be trusted to represent those “facts” truthfully. This sort of circularity is why the “presuppositions” and “worldview” arguments are sterile and stifling. They are closed systems that permit only such evidence as already fits.

Open the windows and breathe some fresh air! It does the mind and body good!

[Daniel_Pech]

@Jay313

So, essentially, the only “representations of empirical fact” that you trust are those provided by CMI, who share your own presuppositions and therefore can be trusted to represent those “facts” truthfully.

Not at all.

Yet I find it telling that you have attempted that very kind of a rebuttal to my points. You want to grossly simplify my position so as to make it be the idiocy that you wish that mine actually is. You’ve been attempting such rebuttals all along. But now that you have found such a seemingly perfect opportunity to do so, I am now telling you that you’ve accomplished only the exact opposite of that which you intended by such a rebuttal.

And so you realize—I hope—that my estimation of your position keeps sinking lower. Because unless, or until, certain of your presuppositions about your opponents become at least somewhat more objective, you shall continue to find that such kind of your rebuttals to me are mistaken.

[cwhenderson (Curtis Henderson)]

@Daniel_Pech

Let me repeat: I have no access to the empirical realm at issue here. So it does not matter to me one tiny bit if you do have such access. But it DOES matter to me VERY much that you keep mistaking mere representations of empirical fact with the empirical fact represented (and you ALSO mistake interpretations of either with empirical fact).

As Roberto has mentioned twice, I believe, you DO have access. You have some device capable of posting to the forum. With that same device, you can access the same data that Roberto can. What you DO NOT have is a knowledge base. You repeatedly make claims based on items you have read, but when asked to explain them in your own words, you avoid answer and instead claim “I have no access to empirical data!!” If you have no access, why do you cling so tenaciously to CMI claims of science that are easily disproven? I can only conclude that you are uninterested in hearing scientific explanations if they are contrary to your own conclusions, regardless of their accuracy.

[RHernandez (Roberto L Hernandez)]

@Daniel_Pech

You misunderstand. Completely. Over and over and over. [/quote]
Amigo, I understand you very well. You do not want to know.

@Daniel_Pech

Representations of empirical fact do not constitute the empirical fact they represent.[/quote]

This objection is ridiculous, because I am sure that CMI does not differ with me on the representations of DNA bases as letters. We agree that these are the empiricals. I can see that you don’t want to look.

@Daniel_Pech

For the purposes our debate-discussion here, unless or until you can keep issue 1., above, clear in your side of the discussion, then you and I have absolutely nothing to talk about.)

It is my understanding that this forum is not for debate. It is for respectful Christian discussion, no?

@Daniel_Pech

The other main issue, therefore, has to do with your offer to prove to me that the said CMI page is wrong.

I made no offer to prove anything, as this is a forum for discussion, not debate. I did offer to show you why the CMI page is wrong, using the actual evidence. It is an offer to teach, in the spirit of this forum.

@Daniel_Pech

Specifically, unless some at CMI fully participate with me in the debate over your attempts at proving this to me, then I personally have no way to be sure as to whether or not I am getting an adequate said ‘proof’ from you.

However, I have to ask, why did you link to that CMI page if you have no idea whether it is correct or not?

@Daniel_Pech

Let me repeat: I have no access to the empirical realm at issue here.

Let me repeat. You do.[quote=“Daniel_Pech, post:173, topic:36621”]
But it DOES matter to me VERY much that you keep mistaking mere representations of empirical fact with the empirical fact represented (and you ALSO mistake interpretations of either with empirical fact).

It does not seem to matter to you very much that CMI and me do agree on the representations of the sequencing data as ATCG. This is the data, amigo. You don’t want to look.[quote=“Daniel_Pech, post:173, topic:36621”]
Therefore, I really, really, hope that you can now finally agree with me that I have little prima facie reason to trust anything you might offer to me as said proof.

I am not asking you to trust me at all. I am offering to show you the evidence.

You are also saying that you had no reason to trust CMI but you cited them any way. Correct?

@Daniel_Pech

…and, therefore, that I AM WITHIN MY RIGHTS to require basic full participation from CMI in the discussion with you of said ‘proof’. Because, I have no first hand access to the facts being represented in any data sets that you might ever offer in such ‘proof’.

No rights are involved, so I do not see your need to invoke them. I have not used the word proof and you do have first hand access to the facts.

Do you not see the inconsistency between your extreme postmodernism with science and your denial that any one else should interpret a small part of the Bible differently from you?

[Daniel_Pech]

@cwhenderson

As Roberto has mentioned twice, I believe, you DO have access. You have some device capable of posting to the forum. With that same device, you can access the same data that Roberto can.[/quote]

Access to representations, yes. But I have no first-hand knowledge of what they are supposed to represent. And since I already side with CMI in general, there is no way:

(1) for you here to prove to me anything about the biological facts at dispute by just throwing more representations at me, (including, but of course not limited to, your claims as to what is true and what is not true about the biological facts);

and

(2) for me to get any objective sense of your claim about the wrongness of CMI without their own participation here. I am sure that at least some of you here will admit that any objective opportunity for me in all this is IF I am presented with both sides, live. (And I am not a little concerned for other, far more problematic issues thereon, such as how, through this electronic media, I can be confident that anyone who claims to me to being a CMI person actually is.)

Yet you keep presuming that things are far more neat that I claim to think that they actually are. Your view, of course, is that I am being unreasonable. But your aim is convince me, or at least to show me that I can place my trust in your judgement. I find that to be a prime characteristic of poor judgement overall. And here I am one who has a neurodevelopmental shortfall in terms of Theory of Mind!

What you DO NOT have is a knowledge base.

I keep saying that. Yet what you mean by that is a body of testimony on matters to which I have no access. Specifically, on matters that I think ought to be naturally required in the interest of objectivity. You would reduce that ‘knowledge base’ to a lack of sufficient testimony, regardless that even you admit that testimony of any particular complex details of microbiology is based on at least somebody’s first-hand knowledge of those details (that otherwise it is rather baseless testimony, or ‘bald’ assertion). And, by ‘sufficient’, that would be sufficient according to you. Therefore, from the outset, you have prejudged me: if, in the event that I do not see it as sufficient, you will doubt my sincerity, or my genuineness, thereon. That’s a key to my whole efforts thus far. I do not find my intention thereon too obscure.

You repeatedly make claims based on items you have read, but when asked to explain them in your own words, you avoid answer and instead claim “I have no access to empirical data!!”

I’m trying to see how you respond to basic issues. And your replies have, altogether, caused me to strongly doubt your general judgement. Of course, you, I presume, are quite assured of your own general judgement: that it is basically sound. But if there is to be any progress here between you and I, you are going to have to admit that I am not you in terms of what we each think is basic enough to accomplish a properly-founded debate. You do not want a conversation. You want one in which you are always basically the better. That is plain condescending. (This is not to say that such a kind of condescension is not justified. In many debates it is justified. But, as best as I can see at this point, that is not helping your case.)

If you have no access, why do you cling so tenaciously to CMI claims of science that are easily disproven?

…‘easily disproven’ so you say. You are ‘talking to the choir’ in that regard. Yet you are addressing me as if I am that choir in that regard!

And you are frustrated that I have not just jumped right in so you can prove that to be the case, as you are convinced it is. I am no novice to this problem.

But I keep clearly (I thought) emphasizing that I do not know that to be the case, and that that poses huge problems for any attempt, on my part, to just jump right in.

First, I hope that, by now, I have made it at least somewhat clear to you that I doubt your ability to convince me that you even know what you are talking about in that regard. Other’s—you admit—could well make the same mistake about you. So please do not expect me to just take your prior word for this one!

Second, I am sure that you want to save yourself the frustration of finding that I happen not to find your own conviction thereon so convincing. But, in order for me to head off any accusations, from your camp, that I am then just being foolish, then you and I shall absolutely have to be in agreement on the more basic issues. Up to this point, that is far from established.

I for one, have little time or interest in frustrating either of us more than surely shall eventuate here. And I do not want to risk causing you to ‘write me off’ any sooner than I can manage to avoid. Is that not a good approach?

[quote]regardless of their accuracy

…there you make my whole point. I think that you ought to be as sure that I will defend my pre-commitments as carefully and committed-ly as any on your side has ever defended that of your side. To presume that I ought to do anything less is to act blindly, condescendingly, in favor of your own side against that of a disinterested third party.

For, I presume… that you presume…that all of your own deepest arguments are disinterestedly objective. I do not presume that mine are, even though I keep claiming to you that I have NO epistemic access to anything about microbiology except in the form of testimony.

I’ve implicitly been giving you the opportunity to defend your position from the bottom, up…to convince me that it is worth my participation in the first place. So far (in my view), you have failed to do so.

So I presume that you grant that I am telling the truth when I say that I have no me-my-own-first-personal conscious articulate access to microbiology. (((We all, I presume, agree that we each are made up of the micro, but that we also all recognize that that does not constitute the empirical articulation of the micro (much less the degree of that articulation as currently exists among its primary researchers.)))

What I mean to say is that, once I realized that your own sense of basic objective judgment was (to me) rather lacking, I backed out completely from any attempt to deal at all with the testimonial realm, so that I could get to the present point regarding the more basic issues. If you want me to waste your time, I am not interested in doing so just so you can keep being confirmed of (A) your sense of the basic soundness of your own general judgement, and (B) my lack of it.

[cwhenderson (Curtis Henderson)]

@Daniel_Pech

For, I presume… that you presume…that all of your own deepest arguments are disinterestedly objective. I do not presume that mine are, even though I keep claiming to you that I have NO epistemic access to anything about microbiology except in the form of testimony.

I’ve implicitly been giving you the opportunity to defend your position from the bottom, up…to convince me that it is worth my participation in the first place. So far (in my view), you have failed to do so.

How is anyone to defend a position if you never actually make any concrete assertions that are open to discussion? You make the vaguest of possible assertions about the inadequacy of the theory of evolution, but apparently have no real knowledge of the science behind it and have no plans of learning more than you currently do.[quote=“Daniel_Pech, post:178, topic:36621”]
So I presume that you grant that I am telling the truth when I say that I have no me-my-own-first-personal conscious articulate access to microbiology.
[/quote]

I would suggest reading up on a particular topic. There is a tremendous amount of information available at your fingertips. But it is certainly your prerogative to NOT learn anything new and blindly assert that no one can convince you to rethink evidence, because you are unfamiliar with any concrete evidence to begin with. You seem content with the latter.

[NonlinOrg]

@Chris_Falter

But the presence of stochastic factors imply that the differential is not exclusive.

Have you ever worked with Bayes Theorem?

Doing great in math, thanks for asking. Bayes is fine - leave him alone.
Not my definition and believe stochastics factors are assumed negligible or offsetting.

@gbrooks9

“fitness” is a measured factor, assigned to groups with specific genetic variation, related to higher rates of surviving fertile offspring.

Offspring survival is all they ever measure.

@RHernandez

It seems that you are here to deny, not to discuss.

Fine. What “mechanistic predictions”? But this is a long way from this topic - do you agree that Dobzhansky was illogical with his oft-cited statement?

[Jay313 (Jay Johnson)]

@Daniel_Pech

my estimation of your position keeps sinking lower.

I have not yet begun to sink!

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@Daniel_Pech

Representations of empirical fact do not constitute the empirical fact they represent.

@Daniel_Pech

Again with the dismissals… assuming it is all so obvious … and yet you do not provide a shred of evidence that this is a serious consideration in this particular thread/discussion.

Nit picking, hair-splitting, red-herring-ing … it’s becoming very tiresome…

[T_aquaticus]

@NonlinOrg

What “mechanistic predictions”? It doesn’t make any predictions at all.

Here are 29+ predictions.

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent[quote=“NonlinOrg, post:155, topic:36621”]
What’s a “natural process”? We do not have any “natural processes” in which order comes out of disorder without external intervention.
[/quote]

I would agree. The problem is that the external intervention can be a simple input of energy, such as sunlight. This is what produces the ordered systems we find in Earth’s atmosphere, as one example.[quote=“NonlinOrg, post:155, topic:36621”]
Looks like you have it all figured out. Did you do abiogenesis and biologic transmutation (aka evolution, aka alchemy) in your lab too?
[/quote]

I see that you are avoiding the question. Here it is again:

Where in the process of DNA replication, RNA transcription, protein translation, and protein folding is there an intelligence involved?