A simple case for intelligent design

[Polymath257]

I didn't forget to take a class, I had statistics for my Bachelor's and my Master's. Statistics and statistics manipulation should be at the fore of classroom learning IMHO, as statistics (and statistic cherry picking) are vital to better understanding law, forensics, intelligence-led policing, politics and propaganda, media advertising, biology, phylogeny, etc., etc.

Here's what you're laying out before me:

1) I don't understand statistics
2) I propose raising the odds to the 32nd power for 32 separate iterations of the same evolutionary trait
3) You feel important factors modify the odds, and rightly so, e.g., easy to evolve something over and again (that is circular reasoning on your part, since you accept mechanistic and not theistic evolution as axiomatic, but okay) and I'll add to your assumption natural selection, enhanced survivability (despite claims the thing becomes vestigial!), etc.

I'm willing to evaluate the odds, I learned something new this week--no skeptic at this forum will say anything but "incalcuable odds" or "your odds are creation bs" or "you are stacking the odds, man"!

If I take your factors into account, and reduce the numbers vastly, from X^32 to X^16, do you see we are dealing with laws of large numbers? If I accept odds of 10^50 as technically null, impossible, do you understand I see X^32 as possible, but highly unlikely? That is, I'm open-minded, especially as I better understand evolution, since all learning should tend toward open-minded behavior?

And, as has been explained to you several times, this isn't even close to the correct calculation. Mutation and selection *greatly* reduces the number of trials required to find (close to) optimal solutions. So the exponentials you use are *completely* inappropriate. I gave a specific scenario where I compared the one-shot, everything must fit perfectly, otherwise discard and start over', which is the basis of your calculation, and the evolutionary 'build up in pieces', adjusting what you already have to fit what promotes survival' scenario. The rates of finding even long sequences are dramatically different. The point is the the evolutionary scenarios tend to produce 'exponents' not of 32 or 16, but of 2 or 3.

We can, and many do, model evolutionary scenarios as methods for solving complicated problems.

So, let's be clear what our starting point is and what you want to be the ending point.

We know of species that only have *two* proteins. One is a serine protease, a digestive enzyme, and the other is a protein that when split increases its solubility. There is nothing magical about either: all that is required of the protease is that it divide proteins. All that is required of the other is that it undergo a conformation change upon cleavage that reduces its solubility. Both general types are in abundance in ALL organisms. And yes, their 'purpose' may have NOTHING to do with blood clotting in the ancestors.

This is another aspect of evolution that makes calculations very difficult to impossible: it is *common* for proteins and structures that evolved for one 'purpose' to be adapted to another just because they are there and work well enough. What this means, in this scenario, is that the precursors to blood clotting proteins may have nothing to do with the blood at all.

And, for example, what happens in lobsters is that one protein is inside of cells and the other is generally outside of them. When the lobster is injured, cells are split open and the two proteins come together, the protease acts on the soluble protein and makes it insoluble, which clots the area.

Because of the way evolution works, it is NOT required that all 32 proteins be produced simultaneously. ALL that is required initially is a two protein system that works well enough in an animal with low blood pressure. After *something* works, other systems can be co-opted to help out and make for a more complicated system that amplifies the signal, works in animals with higher blood pressure, etc.

 

[tas8831]

No body fluids in any higher species "release" or "flow" without neurological and multiple systems also moving/catalyzing, even at the prebiotic level!

Amazing stuff - I was unaware that bacteria are now considered fluids and that their movements require neurological and multiple systems also moving/catalyzing - even at a level devoid of life! Amazing insights!

But I note that did not explain why none of the papers (at least one of them from which you must have gleaned your appendix information) even contained the word "enzyme" even as they described the function of the appendix.

I would also like to learn more about this movement and catalysis - what is moving and what needs to be catalyzed for fluid bacteria to re-colonize the gut after a bout of diarrhea. I am especially intrigued about this prior-to-life level that you speak of - is that the spirit realm? Can't wait to see the evidence!

Are you familiar with gene regulatory networks?

Having taught college genetics for about 6 years, yes, yes I am. Not sure what that has to do with enzymes or bacteria being fluid or the Spirit realm.

 

[tas8831]

Statistics and statistics manipulation should be at the fore of classroom learning IMHO, as statistics (and statistic cherry picking) are vital to better understanding law, forensics, intelligence-led policing, politics and propaganda, media advertising, biology, phylogeny, etc., etc.

You know what else should be at the fore and is vital to understanding things like biology and phylogeny? BIOLOGY and PHYLOGENY.

You could be the greatest statistician alive, but if you think that all observable genome sequences were the result of 'random change, all at once' forces (as many creationists do), then who cares that you can run an equation?

If I take your factors into account, and reduce the numbers vastly, from X^32 to X^16, do you see we are dealing with laws of large numbers? If I accept odds of 10^50 as technically null, impossible, do you understand I see X^32 as possible, but highly unlikely?

Interesting cut off of 10^50. Did you get that from Dembski?

Now, what is the "X"? Can you name ten body structures at any level from genetic to whole systems necessitated to evolve simultaneously with a cecal appendix, 32 separate times?

Can YOU?

It seems not.

GARBAGE IN:

X includes (positive and negative):

*Beneficial mutations, no harmful ones, create a vestigial appendix

Why do creationists do this? WHY 'no harmful mutations'?

Is it your learned and open-minded position that the existence of a harmful mutation anywhere in the gene(s) associated with the appendix nullify the beneficial mutations?

If so, please explain - with references - how this was determined.

Also let us know how many beneficial mutations (with, of course, no bad ones) were required to get a bit of cecum to expand into an appendix, and how this was determined.

After all, if you cannot provide your numbers and JUSTIFY them, why take you seriously?

*Colocated systems work with the cecal appendix

Please explain the anatomy of the appendix and the cecum, and explain what structures must have also been altered to get the appendix.

Is it your understanding that, say, the cecum also has to be mutated in order to allow the appendix to be present?

*Evolution is powerful, and clearly includes rapid speciation
*Systems evolve to trigger release of appendix bacteria as appropriate
*Etc.

Please establish that there must be a 'system' to "release" bacteria from the appendix - which you have indicated are now a liquid.


GARBAGE OUT:

Let's go with your side, and make X less than 1, much less than 1, a certainty!

Odds of 32 different iterations: 1:10,000,000

Now, we need only 10,000,000 planets in the universe with seafloor vents during their Hadean periods to spring abiogenesis (a mathematical certainty, I'll say, for those planets) and we got it right 32 times. Certainly if we push aside Fermi's paradox, Great Filter issues, Earthocentric issues, it works.

It's still unlikely it happened on Earth.

While I can cite other issues I have when I think about evolution, I can say from a more informed place--since you obliged me by challenging my assumptions and blinders, that I'm still on track.

And there we have, a great example of GIGO.



Multiple independent appearances of the cecal appendix in mammalian evolution and an investigation of related ecological and anatomical factors

"No correlation was found between appearance of an appendix and evolutionary changes in diet, fermentation strategy, coprophagia, social group size, activity pattern, cecal shape, or colonic separation mechanism."
"Keith's ideas were supported by numerous others in the following decades (Barker et al., 1988, Boroda, 1961, Bremner, 1964, Burkitt, 1969, Burkitt, 1971, Gelfand, 1956, Janssens and de Muynck, 1966, Scott, 1980, Trowell, 1960, Walker et al., 1973), culminating with the identification of the vermiform appendix as a “safe-house” for beneficial bacteria with the capacity to re-inoculate the gut following depletion of the normal flora after diarrheal illness (Bollinger et al., 2007, Laurin et al., 2011)."

I checked several of this paper's cites, and none indicated what you are implying ('system' to "release" bacteria from the appendix).


Again, I see no actual math, just a series of largely bogus assertions, culminating in a reiteration of your initial assertions.

 

[Jose Fly]

I tend to be Socratic on the forum with skeptics. But I'm also willing to learn. Are you willing to acknowledge that modern flightless birds have full wings, not protowings, coloring the interpretation of fossils? Are you acknowledging that scientific assumptions are mainly from skeletons, with a few feathers? Do you recall that the bee's wings "are not supposed to support flight", per scientists? Do you understand that Protozygoptera is assumed 300 million years old, with fully formed wings, and looks just like today's damselfly, with absolutely no protowings appearing in this record?

Do you ever stop to think, "Yes, Carbon 14 should not be present beyond 250,000 years ago in ancient protobird fossils, but is present?"

Do you feel that science knows all regarding cosmology, genetics, biology, or, like me, do you read articles at least weekly on new theories for dark matter, cosmology, Hubble constant measurements, etc.?

FYI, this is why no one takes you seriously. The fact remains, you challenged us to provide an example of a "proto-wing". One was provided. But since then, you've done everything but directly address that and instead are dancing all around.

This is also why creationists always lose in court and science. You can get away with this sort of evasive behavior in internet forums, but not in courts or in science. Dodging around like you are here carries serious consequences in those arenas.

 

[Jose Fly]

Looks like he has already forgotten, since he is still asking about evidence for wing evolution in birds.

I don't think it's that he's forgotten, rather he's just doing what most internet creationists do.....demand to see X, and after X is shown do everything you can to avoid acknowledging that X exists.

IOW, he didn't ask his question in good faith and was instead trying to "stump the evolutionist".

 

[Jose Fly]

Do you ever consier that with very small quantities of C14, there can be measurement errors? And that, maybe, the amount of said error depends on the type of equipment?

Or that there are other, very minor sources of C14 (radiation from surrounding rock) that become dominant when the amounts are very small?

No, of course not.

I hope you realize that he just threw that out there as a red herring to distract folks from seeing that his challenge had been met. My suggestion is to not fall for it.

 

[tas8831]

3) re-verify that skeptics hate teaching, hate listening, and love ad homs, when patience and self-control fails

I don't hate teaching, I do it professionally. What I DO hate is when people that claim to want to learn demonstrate that they do not at all want to learn, and in fact, actually want to try to score rhetorical points for their faith.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I can see modern flightless birds with fully formed wings, so it may have been unfair for us to try to define protowings from forensics.

In a later post you are asking me if there are modern flightless birds, but here you indicate that you are aware of examples of modern flightless birds. I find that to be a sign that the person I am discussing with is being, at a minimum, intentionally misleading and perhaps is trying for a "gotcha" moment. If you want to be taken seriously in this discussion, then you should not even give the hint of impropriety.

But your second post requires defining terms, via statistics.

Then you go on to define nothing, using statistics or any other tool.

For example, evolutionists concluded a cecal appendix evolved independently at least 32 separate times in mammals.

A reference you found indicates that the cecal appendix may have evolved 32 times, it said nothing about whether that find was universally accepted by evolutionary biologists. You like to make sweeping statements without benefit of knowing if they are true or not.

This would raise the odds of this development alone to the 32nd power, with some modifications for an appendix helping a species.

Demonstrate that.

Do you think a vestigial organ was so helpful, it evolved 32 times separately?

Do you know what vestigial means? Apparently not. Do you know if it is considered vestigial in every animal that has one? Apparently not.

Vestigial means a vestige of a former condition and says nothing about current function if any. Our appendix can be vestigial and have a function.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

A vestigial appendix evolved 32 separate times in different genera? Really?

I find that people that post statements that they intentionally end with a question mark that is not actually a question are being dishonest. Do you find that to be true as well?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Wings require complex changes in body mass, proprioception, sight, thermoregulatory systems. Be real. Be consistent. Be logical.

Fully formed wings require these things, but that is not required for them to evolve. Thermoregulation may have been the selection pressure for feathers.

You should be real, be consistent and be logical.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Sure, and so you are aware of gaps like complex eyes or morphological leaps, with no forensic evidence of gradual change?

You do not like to listen to the people you keep calling liars do you? Evidence is for all that you claim there is no evidence for is freely available for review by anyone that wants to look at it. This goes back to that "we have the same evidence" claim and fits with my conclusion that creationist are not looking at it or bothering to learn about it.

Several people have given you examples of the very evidence you claim does not exist.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Rapid speciation is part of the creationists' viewpoint. But an actual study of transposons and creation and genomes and creation and diversity in creation is also telling.

Where did transposons come into this discussion?

Since creation is a believed event with no evidence, how can you have an actual study of it compared to transposons, genomes, or diversity. What you would have from that attempt is information about transposons, genomes and diversity and nothing else except an empty claim. That is telling.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I didn't say "impossible" I said "statistically unlikely". It's highly statistically unlikely that a "simple protein" comes from random amino acids, or that "only" 8 proteins create clotting while "only" several thousand generations of pre-clotting creatures don't bleed to death and "only" highly, highly complex body systems activate clotting. Think!

You are claiming "statistically unlikely", but you have failed to demonstrate it to be so. You should do some thinking and stop believing you are an expert biologist with no training or experience as one.

These systems did not come into existence fully formed. You cannot seem to get that idea out of your head and it clouds your thinking, but that is because you want it clouded to support your bias.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Natural selection should avoid parts that did not have all their components existing, in place, connected, and regulated because the parts would not work.

This does not make sense. Even you should be able to figure that out. If all the parts of a system are present and in place, why would there be a need for selection to drive the evolution of the system?

Thus 100% of the right mutations (and none of the destructive ones) must happen simultaneously.

False.

"Neutral in effect" seems to go against the modern facts we know--that very slight genetic changes reach limits (modified crops and animals), cause sterility, disease... negative mutations must also be in effect.

Most of any genome is neutral changes or insertions that do nothing.

A one-celled species is as complex as New York City.

New York did not spring up fully formed either.

A micron contains an unfathomably long sequence of DNA.

Why is it unfathomable? I think it is fathomable. Hyperbole is not a substitute for facts.

To breathe, pulmonary and respiratory and autonomic and a dozen other systems have to evolve together.

For us to breath we have to have these systems in place, but to evolve that is not true.

We don't jump from planes without parachutes, hoping a net is exactly where we'll land, and that the net maintenance crew was on that day, and the winds right, and the GPS satellites accurate, and I land feet first.

You jump without a chute every time you post on here.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

"We cannot compute" does not compute. Throw in every factor you like and I'll add contributing factors:

You have been well informed why your attempts at probabilities is bogus.

* You add natural selection, I say the good bacteria has to have systems to guide it to the appendix

You say a lot of things that are pure speculation without benefit of any evidence.

* You add "enhances survivability", I say "note the placement of the appendix in all 32 systems", etc.

Tell us which are the 32 systems and what is the placement.

My liver perform 500 functions! My appendix is not "vestigial", if it is, evolution screwed up in 32 "new species" iterations. Think! (Pray?)

Your appendix can function and still be vestigial. It is that you do not understand or want to understand what that means. You think vestigial means non-functional and as long as you can keep slinging it in support of denial, you will continue to think erroneously that it is.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I tend to be Socratic on the forum with skeptics.

Socratic you say. I would not have come up with that one. I had a few other choices that start with "s" though.

But I'm also willing to learn.

Evidently not.

Are you willing to acknowledge that modern flightless birds have full wings, not protowings, coloring the interpretation of fossils?

Another example of you posting information you know and then later asking a question as if you do not know. What is up with that?

Some modern birds have secondarily lost the ability to fly. In some cases the wings have become vestigial (there's that word you do not understand, again) and in others the wings have been co-opted by evolution for a different function. Accepting that does not strengthen your denial of the fossil record.

Are you acknowledging that scientific assumptions are mainly from skeletons, with a few feathers?

If it is a conclusion based on evidence, it is not an assumption. You have an extraordinary ability to redefine words.

Do you recall that the bee's wings "are not supposed to support flight", per scientists? Bumblebees, not just all bees. That was an entomologist from the 1930's and it stuck in the cultural contest without challenge until other scientists--not creationists--discovered how bumblebees fly.

Do you understand that Protozygoptera is assumed 300 million years old, with fully formed wings, and looks just like today's damselfly, with absolutely no protowings appearing in this record?

The age of Protozygoptera is not assumed to be 300 million years old. It is determined to be that old based on evidence. So assumption in your dictionary means "conclusion based on evidence". I will have to remember that. Certainly, you are not being deceitful. Not you.

Insect flight evolved much further back than 300 million years. Insect wings are, in part, an evolution of the tracheal system.

Do you ever stop to think, "Yes, Carbon 14 should not be present beyond 250,000 years ago in ancient protobird fossils, but is present?"

This has been dealt with, but is certainly something that you would not ever look into and would rather go with the popular creationist notions and assumptions.

Do you feel that science knows all regarding cosmology, genetics, biology, or, like me, do you read articles at least weekly on new theories for dark matter, cosmology, Hubble constant measurements, etc.?

Why would anyone conclude this?

Do you read science that is not filtered through a creationist source?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Okay, my ancestor had those 30 proteins, and 1,000 combinations of proteins (bad estimate, good for our purposes) provide functioning hemostasis:

1) What are the possible combinations of proteins?

2) What are the possible permutations of proteins?

3) Can you name 10 other body systems to recognize bleeding, enforce clotting, send white cells to the site, etc.?

4) Are you comfortable with the fact that 100% of the good changes (mutations) have to be in place at once, with zero bad mutations?

I can go very conservative on 1-4, and build some statistics. Is there a skeptic who will stop saying "we can't calculate the odds"?

You cannot calculate the odds you are claiming you can. This has been explained and there is no need for us to be skeptical of your claims about probability any longer.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

No body fluids in any higher species "release" or "flow" without neurological and multiple systems also moving/catalyzing, even at the prebiotic level! Are you familiar with gene regulatory networks?

I cannot make any sense out of this, but that is only because I do not see anything to make sense of.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

The absolute minimum number of tries it would take a supercomputer spitting out 26 random English characters at a time to produce abcedfghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz is ONE.

Now ask yourself a math question, such as 2+3=X, then throw a pair of dice against the wall and accept the numbers you roll ONCE as the answer. Do you see my point here relating to abiogenesis, speciation, fully-formed complex eyes and morphology, etc.?

No. Your rejection of science remains completely based on your belief system and bias.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Are there modern flightless birds with fully formed wings? Should this knowledge affect our knowledge of what a protowing or vestigial/ancillary wing could be?

Now we get to the question. I can see you are using this to commit me to something you can turn back on me. I am pretty confident that your attempts will be about as good as they have been so far. You can calculate the odds for that if you want.

Modern birds, including species with vestigial wings, should impact our understanding of evolution in general.

We have evidence for wing evolution, so we do not have to speculate on what we should expect to see.

Are you comfortable with going by partial skeletal remains and occasional feathers to say, "proto wing, wing, limb, vestigial appendage"?

I am confident in the reports I have read that demonstrate the evolution of wings leading up to and through the evolution of birds.

If you are comfortable, how is that phylogeny is constantly changing?

Do you know what you are asking here? I do not. Classification changes based on evidence.

Are all phylogenics experts in current agreement?

Of course. Here is the case cracker. Phylogeneticists are in disagreement of something, that means evolution did not happen. We can all go home.

You like to ask silly questions that do not have an impact on the discussion. I applaud you on injecting humor into this.

If all the info coded in DNA got there via evolution as you wrote, do you feel problems of chirality, abiogenesis, whether it was an RNA-world at the time of abiogenesis, etc. have been solved?

Inserting technical terms without valid context or appropriate use does not make you look like you know what you are talking about. Very much the opposite. If you are going to do that, then at least write them in proper sentences.

I think that my answer to abiogenesis was very clear for some time. We do not know.

I think Stephen Jay Gould, Carl Sagan and others were/are super-intelligent people, to be admired, to be listened to. When people of this caliber say/have said "space seed", "alien encoding", "don't know" or even "impossible via mechanistic only!" do you scoff?

Do you really expect an answer here. Like a lot of questions you post, all they do is tell me that you really do not know as much about science, or discussion for that matter, as you claim you do. It is interesting that you name scientists that would not say the phrases you mention, side by side with the phrases you mention. I was almost feeling bad that I had labelled you dishonest, now I am feeling pretty good for having caught you when I did.