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Darwin's Illusion

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
What argument? What are you talking about? I am not making any controversial arguments…………all I am saying is that we can´t know yet if any system is IC or not.

We can't know if gravity is regulated by graviton pixies either.
Here's your problem: you say this as if IC is an actual potentially valid, and worth talking about, idea.
It is not, however.

And appealing to ignorance isn't making it a valid contender either.



Borrowing form the analogy, we don’t know if you can drive from LA to New York because we dong know if there is an obstacle like a river, that would make the trip impossible.

No, the trip has already happened.
The car was at the east coast and then it was at the west coast some time later.
The mileage meter has also gone up a sufficient amount of miles to cover this distance.
All points to and confirms the car drove from east to west.

But we don't know what "exact route" was taken.

So can you rule out that he wasn't teleported with the mileage meter being tampered with?
Is that really something worth discussing and pondering over?
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
Again, what is your point? Are you suggesting that fish transformed into humans through genetic engineering? Who did the engineering? The ostrich? Don’t get me wrong; it’s an interesting theory.
Yeah, 100% sure. That is a nice joke. No, the genetic engineering was not done by an ostrich. It was done by natural selection and mutation.

5.2.1.jpg
Embryos
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
You haven’t shown that the flagellum is not IC. You haven’t shown that Behe is wrong
Maybe, just maybe, it is upto those that claim that something IS "irreducibly complex" to demonstrate that it is.
If they can't, then one should reject the claim. And the fact that it can't be shown / demonstrated / supported, is sufficient to reject it. One does not need an endless stream of near infinitely detailed evidence to the contrary. One does in fact not need anything else but to point out how there aren't any evidence based reasons to accept said claim.



So tell me, what objective test can be performed to test if something is IC?
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Again, what is your point? Are you suggesting that fish transformed into humans through genetic engineering? Who did the engineering? The ostrich? Don’t get me wrong; it’s an interesting theory.
Not exactly "engineering".

More like "nature's trial & error process".
You know.... standard evolutionary processes.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Their no mechanism for the “good” to emerge randomly.

Especially not if you ignore natural selection


First, the “good" is supposedly a final product of a long random process that comprises numerous slow meaningless steps. There is no mechanism to keep these meaningless random steps (DNA replication errors) till finally the “good” emerges somehow.

You know... when a male and a female make a baby, 'lo and behold, they pass on their DNA.
They die, but their (mutated) genes get passed on.


Selection works on today’s options not future benefits that didn’t and may never materialize.

I didn't say otherwise.
I'm sorry you can't seem to comprehend simple concepts.

Second, randomness as a rule dictates a reality of chaos. 99.9999999999 % of the time, selection would be extremely busy discarding the “bad”. We don’t see that in nature.

Maybe that is the case because mutations aren't harmful 99.99999999 % of the time?



If you see selection busy cleaning dark colors emerging among polar bears, longer limbs on one side, eyes on the back of heads, muscles that doesn’t respond to the orders of the brain, hearts with random pace that take random breaks, etc. (the list has no end), If you ever see any evidence of such chaos in nature (among living organisms or fossils), then come back and claim randomness. But if you don’t, then you should stop the nonsensical claims of randomness.

Maybe you should first read up about the theory you are so hellbend on arguing against before continuing this charade.
It might prevent you to say stupid nonsense like the above.
I don't even know where to begin to address this nonsense. It's in the category of "not even wrong".


Again, its not about the amount of change but rather the kind of change. Keep changing your car tires to the end of time; it will never be an airplane. This is the kind of change that happens in nature, merely alleles of the same genes. Keep changing these alleles to the end of time, it will never change the function of the gene, IOW, it will never give rise to new genes.

Actually it's more like two blinds join forces together will never see. Random mutation is a blind purposeless process and selection can never see a future benefit, it can only work on what is available today. If what is available today is purposeless, then it gets eliminated.

No, it’s not. The blinds even if they join forces can never draw the Mona Lisa. Give them random colors, paper, brushes and let them keep painting tell the end of time, stand next to them (assuming you stay alive) every time you see that they did something good, trash the bad paintings and give them the good ones to continue on, what would you expect to happen? They will mess up the good ones, simply because the blinds don’t have the ability to utilize current random progress (the good) towards a future goal. Then you will take it from them and trash it.

The blinds can never draw the Mona Lisa.
Funny.

 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
Yeah, 100% sure. That is a nice joke. No, the genetic engineering was not done by an ostrich. It was done by natural selection and mutation.

5.2.1.jpg
Embryos

No, you’re not sure. You are just misled. You chose to trust those who are not worthy of trust.

Haeckel’s comparison of embryos that was done in 1868 was a fraud. Scientists disputed his work, Haeckel confessed. The fraud was exposed and published in the Münchener Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 8, 1909

In a 2000 article in Natural History, Stephen Jay Gould acknowledged that Haeckel’s drawings are fraudulent and that it has been inappropriately used in textbooks:

“Haeckel’s drawings, despite their noted inaccuracies, entered into the most impenetrable and permanent of all quasi-scientific literatures: standard student textbooks of biology. . . .We should therefore not be surprised that Haeckel’s drawings entered nineteenth-century textbooks. But we do, I think, have the right to be both astonished and ashamed by the century of mindless recycling that has led to the persistence of these drawings in a large number, if not a majority, of modern textbooks!”

How fudged embryo illustrations led to drawn-out lies | New Scientist

And now after more than 150 years of the fraud, you are still use it as your trusted reference. How long do you need to wake up?

Here is the true photo:
1692956998924.png
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
Not exactly "engineering".

More like "nature's trial & error process".
You know.... standard evolutionary processes.
Except that “error" is not allowed. (because of selection)

The “good” doesn’t pop out suddenly in a single step but rather it’s supposedly the end product of a long route of numerous steps of "bad” (non-functional). If the steps are not allowed, the end product is not possible.
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
Especially not if you ignore natural selection
Especially because of natural selection. Selection will not allow random non-beneficial steps to accumulate towards a future benefit.
You know... when a male and a female make a baby, 'lo and behold, they pass on their DNA.
They die, but their (mutated) genes get passed on.
Irrelevant, such mutations are neither new functions nor new genes and will never be.
I didn't say otherwise.
I'm sorry you can't seem to comprehend simple concepts.
You fail to understand that the new function is the end product of numerous constituents that are not functional. If these constituents are not allowed (selection should eliminate it), the function is not possible.
Maybe that is the case because mutations aren't harmful 99.99999999 % of the time?
Do you mean that mutations are harmful only 99.9% of the time?

But no, this not how it works. The problem is that you cannot understand the difference between DNA replication errors, i.e., random mutations and directed mutation, i.e., adaptation.
I don't even know where to begin to address this nonsense. It's in the category of "not even wrong".
When you have a clue, let me know.
Pathetic.

That is intelligent purposeful programming for a goal.
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
"Punctuated equilibrium and phyletic gradualism are not mutually exclusive (as Simpson's work demonstrates), and examples of each have been documented in different lineages. The debate between these two models is often misunderstood by non-scientists, .. Some critics jokingly referred to the theory of punctuated equilibrium as "evolution by jerks", which prompted Gould to describe phyletic gradualism as "evolution by creeps".
The “good” doesn’t pop out suddenly in a single step but rather it’s supposedly the end product of a long route of numerous steps of "bad” (non-functional). If the steps are not allowed, the end product is not possible.
That is OK, I do not dispute that. The Dinosaurs failed where rodents (our ancestors) succeeded.

79961400.jpg
 
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Dan From Smithville

He who controls the spice controls the universe.
Staff member
Premium Member
Walking is not travelling. Only driving and flying are travelling.

If you travel from New York to Los Angeles going through Canada and south through Washington and Oregon, it is the same trip as if you went south through the Carolinas, Mississippi, west to New Mexico and through Arizona to Los Angeles.

Prove me wrong.
 

Dan From Smithville

He who controls the spice controls the universe.
Staff member
Premium Member
I started with a dollar and worked hard. At some point I could buy a house, but that was bad, because I wasn't rich. Further along I made more money and could afford to add several vehicles as assets. This step was still bad, because I wasn't a millionaire. As time passed, my investments became more profitable, I had top shelf healthcare and lavish vacations to maintain the vigor of life. But these steps were all bad, because I wasn't a millionaire. Finally, after hard work, trial and error, I am a millionaire. The only good step in that evolution.

Others made it to some of those bad steps, but not as far as I did.

Now I find out that there are billionaires and those with many, many billions. My latest step is bad too.

Some people have been misled to believe this is an analogy of evolution. Or they are using a similar scenario as a straw man to beat on.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Except that “error" is not allowed. (because of selection)

Sure, add some strawmanning semantics to the mix, why not.
"error" here refers to mutation and doesn't imply anything good OR bad. It just implies a mutation.


The “good” doesn’t pop out suddenly in a single step but rather it’s supposedly the end product of a long route of numerous steps of "bad” (non-functional).

Again, non-functional would not be "bad".
You seem to only be able to argue against these points by first misrepresenting them.

If the steps are not allowed, the end product is not possible.

And if being dishonest is all you can do, then you won't be scoring debate points.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
If you mean "never", then we are in agreement. such imaginary transformations are not possible.
And neither does evolution theory (the actual theory, not the strawman you and your ilk like to rant against) predict such a thing to be possible.

So why are you even mentioning it?
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Especially because of natural selection. Selection will not allow random non-beneficial steps to accumulate towards a future benefit.

That is just false.
There's nothing in natural selection that pushes towards eliminating neutral mutations.
Why do you think are they called "neutral"? Neutral in context of what? Could it perhaps be selection pressures / fitness? Hmm?

Irrelevant, such mutations are neither new functions nor new genes and will never be.

Those mutations are mostly neutral mutations that potentially play a part in future phenotype changes in combination with other mutations.
You should read up a bit.
And also, it's moving the goalpost. I was responding to your silly claim that there is "no mechanism" that keeps neutral mutations present in the genepool.

Reproduction, does exactly that.

You fail to understand that the new function is the end product of numerous constituents that are not functional.

I understand that very well. The failings to understand seems to be entirely on your end.

If these constituents are not allowed (selection should eliminate it), the function is not possible.

Again, this is the root of your mistake.
You think selection will actively try and eliminate neutral mutations. This is simply not true.
They are NEUTRAL. Meaning that they don't affect selection processes at all. They are not subject to selection pressures in any sense.

Whatever selection does with the dna these mutations are on, will depend on other factors, as the mutations themselves are neutral

Do you mean that mutations are harmful only 99.9% of the time?
No, that seemed to be what you were implying.
The vast majority of mutations are in fact neutral.

But no, this not how it works. The problem is that you cannot understand the difference between DNA replication errors, i.e., random mutations and directed mutation, i.e., adaptation.

Your wording reveals your ignorance on the theory.
There's no such thing as "directed mutations = adaption" and "other mutations = errors".
Mutations are mutations. They are random with respect to fitness.
Some will be harmful, some will be beneficial, most will be neutral (ie: no effect on phenotype, which selection pressures act on)


Pathetic.

That is intelligent purposeful programming for a goal.
No, it's not. If it were, then the picture would be final in generation 1.

What that is, is a (simplistic) genetic algorithm.
The "goal" of mona lisa is just the defining of selection pressures.
The end result is achieved by starting with a random string of coordinates and colors for max 50 polygons, which is randomly mutated slightly every generation. Top performers (= those matching the selection criteria best) then get to reproduce.

That's exactly what evolution does.
This is exactly what you claimed can't happen with your "the blind can't create mona lisa".
Off course, that claims also hides a bit of a strawman, since evolution isn't exactly "blind"....

Selection pressures acts like a filter which inevitably leads to ever-more optimalization.

You're not interested in learning, are you?
 
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