The Appendix/Cave Fish Eyes/Etc. are (NOT) vestigial

[Ashwin_s]

@gbrooks9

Any model of Evolution of that excludes God’s participation is rejected;

@gbrooks9

Evolution must include a teleological role for God.

Which means Biologos rejects the Scientific theory of evolution which is a theory that excludes Gods participation and excludes a teleological role for God.

@gbrooks9

So, what you are saying is that your own position is also deceptive? If it isn’t, how exactly do your positions differ from the positions set out by BioLogos?

My position is not deceptive because i don’t use the term evolution to describe a belief that is patently not Evolution and in fact denies evolution is ultimately a natural process.

@T_aquaticus

Given that you don’t accept the refined theory, does it really matter?

Yes it does. It shows whether the so called “theory” is falsifiable … and what exactly the theory itself is. For example, if evolution as a theory can be refined ad infitum and all its components replced at some point or the other, its not a falsifiable theory. Its an over arching philosophy which is essentially untestable.
I hold that the idea of evolution is unfalsifiable… and every component which can be falsified has been falsified.

@T_aquaticus

The one mechanism that Darwin put forward was natural selection, and it is still a central pillar of the theory.

Ever heard of the neutral theory of evolution? Natural selection has been cut down to size. It is not what Darwin claimed it would be… i.e a unifying principle. Its valid in some cases/example of evolution and invalid in others…
Its also untestable/unfalsifiable… Biologists are even now looking for a definition of Natural selection that would permit falsification.

@T_aquaticus

“To be sure, much of evolution has been tree-like and is captured in hierarchical classifications. Although plant speciation is often effected by reticulation (80) and radical primary and secondary symbioses lie at the base of the eukaryotes and several groups within them (81, 82), it would be perverse to claim that Darwin’s TOL hypothesis has been falsified for animals (the taxon to which he primarily addressed himself) or that it is not an appropriate model for many taxa at many levels of analysis. Birds are not bees, and animals are not plants.”

Yes… the point being that Tree of Life is Falsified… At best… its a “Tree of animals”…
not even plants and animals. Reticulated evolution is another word for data that is not tree like… it refers to a network.
You have lost Prokaryotes, eukaryotes and plants…
Even creationists wouldnt have a problem with the last comment
** Birds are not bees, and animals are not plants.”**

@T_aquaticus

What creationists are claiming that all eukaryotes share a common ancestor and evolved from that common ancestor?

Even Biologist are not claiming eukaryotes have a common ancestor… The current understanding is that eukaryotes are a hybrid of Eubacteria and archebacteria traits/genes… also cyanobacteria contribute to plants at some level too…
I dont think anyone even claims the first hybrid gave rise all the families of eukaryotes… thats also a reticulated mess and scientists are trying very hard to fit it into a tree…
Why would creationists make such a claim when even evolutionary biologists hesistate to?
My point is that Biologists are now beginning to repesent life as creationists wouls… as a unrooted network on an overall level with trees found among more similar organisms.

No the idea is, life is not a tree… its a network of gene sharing.

@T_aquaticus

The tree is real for very large groups of species, such as the eukaryotes. Do you accept common ancestry for all eukaryotes? If not, then why make the argument you are trying to make?

Are you claiming that common ancestry started only with eukaryotes?
And if most unicellular eukaryotes turn out not to show tree like patterns (which is a highly likey scenario considering the various conflicting results with respect to where the eukaryote Ca is positioned in the tree), would you claim common ancestry started out only with multicellular organisms? And what do you do when plants show extensive reticulation (as they are shown to do)?

@T_aquaticus

The tree for animals has already been determined empirically, as the authors of the papers you are quoting have already pointed out.

Yet they somehow feel compelled to propose a network type of relationship… reticulated networks are currently being used to show the relationship between birds also for your information… Basically we have a broken chain of several tree like patterns. this is not the unbroken chain of descent predicted by Common ancestry.

@Chris_Falter

It seems to me that you are willing to agree with the biologists that descent with modification explains from the scientific perspective how the primates are descended from a common ancestral population, and that descent with modification, be it structured as a tree or as a network, explains from a scientific perspective the origin of species both small and large. You do have serious reservations about origin-of-life pronouncements, and think that the first cellular organism was the result of God’s direct intervention–i.e., a miracle–rather than through regular scientifically tractable means. You also believe that any tree that biologists can reconstruct will only reach back to the origin of multi-cellular life some 630 MYA.

I was pointing out where science stands currently in my view.I am currenlty agnostic on primate evolution.I am not philosophically commited to any from of scientism as it stands on a false belief in the inerrance of scientific consensus.Let me give an example. In Einsteins times, it was the opinion of most scientists including Einstein that the universe was eternal, and went through and endless cycle of expansion and collapse. If any one changed their theology based on Einsteins then scientifically valid view, they would have been in great error.Though i do read science, i am very careful about what i believe is truth with a capital T. I allow philosophy and world views (including views on the bible) to educate my final beliefs and i would expect this from any rational person.
I prefer a wait and watch policy with respect to scientific consensus. My theological views are formed in the traditional way. reading the bible and praying.
I expect the next few decades to show the following based on my understanding of the issues-

1. That natural genetic engineering is responsible for novelty/and big changes in phenotypes/morphology.(LGT, endo-Symbiosis, Hybridisation, and other yet to e defined processes that achieve phenotypic change through inserting pre-defined genetic content into a host genome).
2. As knowledge of complete genomes increase, i expect reticulated networks to emerge as a better representation of the relationships among species even in more complex domains such as the animal kingdom.
3. That someone would redefine evolution to mean “Descent with modification”, where said modification is not restricted to causes related to lineage or something along those lines…
4. Textbooks will be updated decades after the fact with new just so stories…

There is a big need for a paradigm shift in biology…

@Chris_Falter

You are basing your conclusions on a 2011 paper. However, later research that used a much larger dataset strongly refuted the conclusions of that paper. The 2017 paper is:

Its possible to arrive at a statistical tree of life (i.e a tree of trees) and also a tree of life from single genes. I don’t dispute that. However, there is no reason why one set of genes should tell a different story from the other if both are inherited from a CA. Its the overall picture that is reticulated… I dont think the 2011 paper disputes that Trees of life can be created…
They just tell different stories based on the genes you select. Introns tell different stories… coding sequences tell another story… micro Rna based comparisons tell something else.
If the introns are inherited from a CA, then where do the CDS and other gene sequences which tell a different story come from?
This is why Scientists like Baptiste say that these genomic trees need not really represent the history of a species vis a vis its lineage.Its just a way to classify or represent organisms.