“ID is wrong” can’t possibly be based on any single fact. Particular ID arguments may be wrong because duplication double information. Other ID arguments may be wrong for other reasons, and still other ID arguments are in the category of ‘not even wrong’.
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Actually, Marty, the question stems from my question long ago in the thread, and it was an honest question, not ad hominem. Daniel’s professor seems to exhibit a very old-fashioned objection, and since I have no idea how old Daniel is, I wondered how long ago this happened. An honest question that Daniel has never answered. If he chooses not to, that’s fine.
@sfmatheson has sworn off the forum, but he has an excellent description of the “frame shift” that created an “overnight recipe” for a new gene. I’ll let @DennisVenema or @glipsnort explain what that might mean as far as creating “new” information by a single point mutation.
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Yah think? Lol
So, let’s instead start a list of good analogies for evolution that do not fall apart as soon as anyone tries to pry into them too deeply. That would be extremely helpful.
I will start the list off with genetic algorithms. It seems they are a pretty close analogy to evolution, and it is easy to customize a GA with whatever evolutionary mechanism we can think of. I think Felsenstein says if anyone were to show there were limitations on GAs that would say something about evolution itself.
Yes you are. There is no more information in you than in amoeba because math? How does your mere assertion follow? This is apophenia both ways incorporating your blinkered, one dimensional view of information.
I think you misunderstand me. I did not say that that a new gene would never provide a selective advantage. I was asking how a new gene with no selective advantage (which as you pointed out, is often the case) could become fixed in the human population.
Sir, just to clarify, as I didn’t catch which specific example is being referred to: are we talking about a gene duplication event or process that was demonstrated in a laboratory setting? Or one that has been presumed to have happened by comparing the genes of presumed ancestor and descendant species?
Also, I’m having trouble understanding the argument about increase of information from duplication… Dr. @DennisVenema, are you suggesting that 4 descendent bacteria, after 2 generations, together posses four times as much information as did their single ancestor bacterium?
I didn’t misunderstand you. I answered your question (and you even just quoted the answer): it doesn’t become fixed.
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Neither. We’re talking about duplication that occurred in the wild but that is present in only some members of the species (in this case humans). There are also examples of beneficial gene duplications occurring in the lab, though, e.g. duplication of pfmdr in Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasites under drug pressure in lab studies.
I have to say, though, I’ve never understood the point of asking for lab studies in this kind of context. If God is creating new species by miraculously duplicating genes, he’s also quite capable of creating drug resistant parasites by duplicating genes in the lab.
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Thank you for the new word! Apophenia is actually the fundamental question of ID: how do we distinguish the bunnies in the clouds from skywriting? The former is due to natural processes, but the latter can only be explained by intelligent agency.
which, specifically?
Also, as strange as it may seem, constrained dimensions is actually a good thing. If we have too many degrees of freedom in our analysis, then we can easily overfit our data, and read our conclusion into the premises. Thus, one of the keys to avoiding apophenia is being one dimensional in our information modelling.
The two examples I’ve been referring to are (a) the two whole-genome duplication events on the vertebrate lineage, which you can read about here:
and (b) the various duplications of the gene for the amylase enzyme, which digests starch, which is both duplicated and diverged in dogs and humans, as well as variable in copy number. You can read about that here:
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Eric, if evolution cannot produce new information according to you and ID, how do you account for the evidence for whole genome duplication events and subsequent neofunctionalization of paralogs? I’m genuinely curious.
- It didn’t happen.
- It happened but it’s not new information.
- Something else…?
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- random variation and natural selection didn’t do it, instead intelligent intervention.
So the designer uses processes we cannot distinguish from evolutionary ones?
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Or you are coopting design processes and calling them evolution? My perception is that everything that happens is lumped under “evolution” without any attempt to distinguish what can actually be the result of random variation and natural selection.
So, if I understand you correctly, you think that two sequential whole-genome events separated by several million years (with subsequent divergence and neofunctionalization) occurred in the vertebrate lineage, but that this did not occur through what we would call a natural process? Or are you saying that the designer/God did it much more rapidly than that, but it looks like the results of natural processes we can observe in other contexts?
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I can’t answer your question at this point due to lack of knowledge. Reading through your excellent evolution basics series, btw. For all I know, what you describe could be reachable the natural processes.
All I am doing is delineating possibilities as requested.
The big thing we all need to do is keep an open mind and start with the data and math, and not try to cram everything into a priori theories.
Meaningful information, even the DNA variant, is a kind of mutual information, which has a well defined mathematical form in both Shannon and Kolmogorov theories of information. I believe Dr. Swamidass made this most excellent observation. Happy to explain more if you are interested. Interestingly enough, both have conservation of information laws that are equivalent to Dembski’s COI law.