Owen’s particular version of structuralism actually rejects universal common descent. However, you could argue that his model is just a different model of universal common descent since his theory suggests that invertebrates are precursors of vertebrates according to the article:
This framework does not assume a sexually reproducing ancestral “kind”; it treats early or stem lineages (e.g., modular microbial architectures) as recurring design components within broader constraint governed state spaces.
The current version may have Fuz Rana and Hugh Ross’s names on it, but…
RTBsupporter has claimed that:
RTBsupporter has also said that:
The ‘authors’ names are annotated “on behalf of the Reasons to Believe Scholars Community”
The downloadable files have had various author names in the document properties, including “Meer Kat”, but not either Fuz Rana or Hugh Ross.
Meerkat has previously asked about the possibility and ethics of sending articles to journals under some-one else’s name.
and
Meerkat was blathering on about his universal design theory incorporating Owen’s archetypes, virus origins and collapsing wave functions for several years before the first version of this was uploaded to OSF.
So despite the paper’s attribution, it’s likely that RTBsupporter aka Meerkat bears far more responsibility for the paper’s contents than either Fuz Rana or Hugh Ross.
Back to the subject, sorta. I have to admit in reading the article, I find it hard to understand how Owen’s ideas of constraints differ from current evolutionary thought. Of course, evolution is constrained by the laws of physics that govern the universe figuratively through God’s providence and creation, excepting those times when the miraculous intervenes, also though God’s will, for those of us who believe that. How could it be otherwise? I think those constraints of how matter interacts is also the basis of Simon Conway Morris’ books referenced previously.
Which leads me to wonder, when asked in the context of the ID, RTB, EC discussion, on a molecular, or even quantum basis, how could you ever differentiate a purely naturalistic evolution event from a God guided event? Would they not be the same? Statistically, I suppose, but if that event or that constraint in the framework was laid down at the time of creation, doesn’t it become just philosophical speculation?
And it does explain why all space aliens look a little like us in Star Trek.
Mobility in water necessitates that hydrodynamics will impress defining selective pressures for apex predators such as cretaceous marine reptiles, sharks and whales. The marine environment strongly favors adapting to the familiar hydrodynamic body shape and stabilizing hydrofoils. Classical variation and selection provides a fully satisfactory accounting for the observation that environmental pressures promote convergent solutions, while ancestry constrains the details; hence despite similarities, shark fins have cartilage while whale flippers feature many bones of the same name as in our hands. This is exactly what we would expect from common descent.
So if “deeper” structure limits are some hazy notion of biotech angels nudging some blueprints along, they are out of a job, or in business parlance, redundant.
Okay, you’re not a bot or AI. This is a tiny little corner of the internet. You can add your real name as a “descriptor” next to your @ RTBSupporter handle. It’s not hard, and no one is going to chase you down IRL. The subject isn’t that important and obviously isn’t going to upend evolutionary science.
You entirely miss the point. When I pointed out the scientific reviewers were unanimously negative, you claimed a very positive review. That turned out to be something produced by RTB itself. Not exactly objective. As for addressing the reviewers objections, I refer you to what I said earlier:
If the answers to the objections are so awesome, why wasn’t the paper resubmitted? Oh, wait, maybe it was, and it didn’t even merit an answer from the journal. Have I got that right?
They put their names on other people’s work every time. A direct comparison is the senior scholar running a lab who puts his name on a paper authored by a junior scholar at the lab without credit. It’s unethical, as I said previously. Look at how actual scientific papers handle multiple authors:
Is it worth discussing non-mainstream science? I suppose we do it all the time.
The whole concept of “archetypes” in biology is misguided. First, an archetype is a literary pattern, not biological. Second, the idea is nothing but a recycling of the YEC discussion of “kinds” in Genesis. Third, God will never show his hand and give us “proof” of his existence.
So just to clarify—are you saying that current evolutionary thought has moved away from the standard view that mutations are fundamentally unguided, and that features like pseudogenes and endogenous retroviral insertions are primarily interpreted as byproducts of stochastic processes (e.g., mutation, drift, pleiotropic trade-offs, or incomplete optimization under selection)?
Because that assumption seems to remain a core part of the modern framework. My point is that Owen’s concept of constraints appears to operate differently—less as post hoc outcomes of stochastic processes and more as underlying structural principles shaping biological form from the outset.
Is this a theological/personal proposition or a scientific one?
I agree that Simon Conway Morris emphasizes constraints arising from how matter and biology interact. However, that’s not quite the same as Richard Owen’s framework. From what I understand, Morris still operates within a broadly Darwinian model—naturalistic, non-teleological, and largely grounded in classical physics.
By contrast, Owen’s framework is more explicitly structural and arguably teleological, where constraints are not just emergent from material interactions but reflect deeper organizing principles. So while there’s overlap in recognizing constraint, the underlying explanatory basis is quite different.
I think it depends on what level of explanation we’re talking about.
If constraints are framed purely within a classical, materialistic model, then yes, distinguishing between a purely naturalistic process and a guided one becomes difficult and can appear philosophical. However, the article attempts to move beyond that in Section 2.8.1 by pointing to DNA charge transport (CT) as a concrete example.
The key point is that CT-based genome surveillance depends on coherence-sensitive, sequence-dependent electronic properties that directly influence mutation detection and repair efficiency. Current evolutionary theory typically treats mutation as largely stochastic and only filtered after the fact by selection. What mechanisms like CT suggest is that there are built-in physical constraints actively biasing which mutations persist in the first place.
Does common descent predict frequent conflicts between morphological and molecular phylogenies that are concentrated at deep nodes corresponding to early divergences among major vertebrate groups?
Well, I never showed you the positive review I was referring to. So I am not sure why you think I came from RTB themselves.
No, I am afraid you got it wrong. Even though PNAS Nexus never explicitly mentioned in their rejection decision that they would be ok with resubmitting the article, it was resubmitted to them anyways and was rejected without PNAS Nexus sending the revised version back to the reviewers.
Then, as stipulated in the peer-review history document, the article was submitted and rejected by the journal Entropy without them sending it out to reviewers.
I think there are a few important differences in this situation that are being overlooked.
First, organizations like Reasons to Believe are not operating with the same primary objective as academic research labs. Their goal is not strictly to advance science within the peer-reviewed literature, but to communicate and defend the Gospel using scientific arguments. Because of that, the standards they prioritize—such as accessibility, clarity, and public impact—can differ from those of formal academic publishing. In that context, using preprints or public-facing articles without adhering to traditional authorship conventions may be intentional rather than negligent.
Second, authorship ultimately depends on consent. If contributors choose not to have their names listed, then including them anyway would be inappropriate. The comparison to academic papers assumes that all contributors want formal recognition, but that’s not always the case—especially in collaborative or ministry-oriented contexts where individuals may prefer to remain unnamed.
Third, while uncommon, there are legitimate cases in academia where large collaborations are represented under a group name rather than listing every individual on the front page. This shows that authorship conventions can be flexible depending on the size and structure of the collaboration.
That said, I do agree that transparency is important. Even in non-academic contexts, it’s reasonable to expect some clarity about who contributed and in what capacity. The key question, though, is whether the situation reflects a lack of transparency or simply a different set of goals and norms than those used in traditional scientific publishing.
What makes you say all this based on what is said in the article?
Personal, obviously, from a Christian perspective but accepting evolution. I’m just trying to understand in 8th grade terms what makes Owen’s ideas different, particularly from the RTB perspective that is pushing them.
Yes and no. Obviously, ERIs differ from run of the mill substitution mutations, but also I think science recognizes that simple models do not always explain what we see perfectly, hence we have seen Darwin’s ideas expanded into the Modern Synthesis, and with new insights into the EES. There is ongoing debate as to whether the EES is really a big enough change to consider it a new thing, or if it is just a refining of the Modern Synthesis, but that is largely semantics.
What are these structural principles, how are they defined and tested, and how do they differ from the principles of physics? My assumption is that it is that of God acting on the sub-atomic level, but how does that differ from what we consider miraculous, except for the level of scale? Are you proposing essentially “the butterfly effect” on a subatomic level? Sorry but my physics is not up to date enough to discuss specifics, but in general terms?
When I refer to “structural principles,” I’m not talking about something separate from physics, or simply inserting “God acting at the subatomic level” in an ad hoc way. The idea is that biological systems may be shaped by constraints that emerge from how physical processes—potentially including quantum-level dynamics—organize information and energy.
For example, one case discussed in the article ,but I will try to summarize, is the structure of the genetic code. All known organisms use the same coding system: four nucleotides forming 64 codons that map onto 20 amino acids. The specific structure of that mapping—its redundancy and error tolerance—has long been an open question. Some work has compared it to optimization patterns seen in quantum search algorithms (e.g., Grover-like behavior), suggesting that the code may reflect efficiency constraints in how molecular systems explore possible configurations, rather than being purely arbitrary or historically contingent.
If that line of reasoning holds, then the “constraint” isn’t something imposed externally in a miraculous sense, but something that emerges from how systems behave under certain physical conditions—particularly when coherence, tunneling, and energy landscapes are involved. In that sense, it’s closer to optimization under physical laws than to a one-off intervention.
The USCWF framework tries to generalize that idea. It treats processes like coherence, tunneling, and collapse as part of a structured hierarchy that can bias systems toward stable, information-efficient configurations. A helpful analogy is quantum annealing: a system explores many possibilities simultaneously, uses tunneling to bypass inefficient pathways, and then settles into a stable state when constraints are met.
So the distinction I’m making isn’t between “natural vs miraculous” in the traditional sense, but between a purely stochastic model where variation is largely random and only filtered afterward, and a constraint-based model where the search space itself is structured and biased from the outset.
That’s the level at which I think these “structural principles” operate.
Because Owen’s theory was published before Darwin’s and quickly discarded in favor of natural selection.
The only evidence you offered was the “report” containing the responses to objections. See below:
Is there more than what you’ve already shared?
I got it wrong, but that’s exactly what you describe. Huh? The paper was resubmitted and rejected out-of-hand without a response. Entropy rejected it without review. What am I missing?
Right. It’s a propaganda machine not interested in science. And by the way, they’re not defending the gospel with scientific arguments. They’re defending Genesis with twisted logic loosely based on science.
Why would anyone not choose to have their names attached to a paper they effectively authored? Is it because their name would be harmful, or they have no credentials to lend credence to the paper? This makes no sense.
I let go of my first claim. The second is simple: YEC claims about the animals that entered Noah’s Ark being “kinds” is no different than Owen’s claim of “archetypes” in evolution. Body plans are basically fixed and determined by God; everything afterward is just a variation on the plan. The third seems self-evident.
That’s all fine and dandy and full of woo-hoo quantum jargon to impress non-experts, but I’ll return to the fact that every scientist who reviewed the paper rejected it. I don’t feel pressed to reply to a concept that has been so roundly rejected by experts as this one. Sorry.
That does not explain why it would not upend Darwin’s theory today. It just describes the process behind what happened. What you said also does not explain why it is not that important.
Well, I got access to the report itself that contains the one and only positive review because anybody can get access to it upon request as stipulated in the peer-review history document.
This description is much more accurate now than it was described before.
They are. It’s just not in the way that you want it to be.
Oh really, how so? Can you give examples?
Because the main goal would not necessarily be to advance their career or science but to advance the gospel. But I think a non-believer ,like yourself I assume, might have a hard time fully understanding this reality about how Christians operate.
How can they be no different when Owen explicitly suggested in his writings that he rejected the idea of a global flood in Genesis or flood geology science?
Yes, I can see that for you but for me and probably most Christians on this forum, it is a different story.
Again, if you feel they were not able to successfully address the reviewer objections, then by all means point out where they failed and we can discuss it here.
