Enough Time for Evolution?

[Kilgore Trout]

As usual, the actual science paper is a lot more lucid and readable than the creationist "critique". I couldn't even see the source for their two criticisms in the original article. The first one especially, that claims the model used an omniscient oracle to determine which mutations were beneficial. (It didn't.) The second criticism - the one shermana bolded and coloured for us, is complete gobblety-gook. It makes no sense to me whatsoever, so I didn't even try to identify which part of the original study it was addressing.

Funnily enough, nothing in the original study was beyond my understanding but the math. I've never been able to make heads or tails of what creationist pseudo-science is trying to say. It looks like complete gibberish to me. Do you think they do that on purpose? Like, maybe they're hoping real science comes off as gibberish too, so they can make creationism sound scientific by perpetually obfuscating their meaning behind absurdly complicated language.

I think it's just like Deepak Chopra with quantum mechanics. He starts with a scientific field, takes a few concepts out of context, adds in jargon that may or may not be applied in any meaningful way, and then spins out a "sciency" conclusion which supports his mystical nonsense perspective.

"Scientific" critiques of evolution by creationists follow the same method. I think that, often, they don't have the ability to understand that they're out of their depth, and that part of the legitimacy of science to them is how "sciency" it sounds. Additionally, there often seems to be varying amounts of conscious dishonesty.

 

[rusra02]

Saying that there is insufficient time for evolution to occur is much like saying that there isn't such a thing as gravity. You may sincerely believe in it, but it has been demonstrated as wrong all the same.

Was there a Creator? Who knows. Maybe there was.

There is however no good reason to pretend that we have not learned about such things as Evolution, Electromagnetism and Gravity.

Are we expected to make such a pretense and them pray for divine intervention to guide us when we need to do work related to physics or biology? That does not seem to be sound even by strictly religious criteria IMO.

I believe the pretense is claiming the ToE is proven fact when it is nothing of the sort. One example of such lack is mentioned by Michael Behe: "Molecular evolution is not based on scientific authority,” he wrote. “There is no publication in the scientific literature—in prestigious journals, specialty journals, or books—that describes how molecular evolution of any real, complex, biochemical system either did occur or even might have occurred. . . . The assertion of Darwinian molecular evolution is merely bluster.” (Quote from W081/1 p. 16). The assertion of Darwinian molecular evolution is merely bluster. Repeat bluster often enough and you may convince some to believe it, but it will not change the facts.

 

[Falvlun]

You do realize that Behe has been completely and utterly debunked?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Repeat bluster often enough and you may convince some to believe it, but it will not change the facts.

Yeah, this does seem to describe creationists to a tee.

 

[rusra02]

You do realize that Behe has been completely and utterly debunked?

Ah, so. If the idea cannot be attacked, attack the purveyor of the idea. Wasn't that the point made by the first post in this thread?

 

[Sunstone]

Ah, so. If the idea cannot be attacked, attack the purveyor of the idea. Wasn't that the point made by the first post in this thread?

It seems to me she was not making an attack on Behe, but upon his ideas.

 

[Alceste]

It seems to me she was not making an attack on Behe, but upon his ideas.

Exactly. Arguments get debunked, not people.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Exactly. Arguments get debunked, not people.

I wouldn't mind getting debunked by you.

Or, maybe bunked.

 

[Oz-Man]

I believe the pretense is claiming the ToE is proven fact when it is nothing of the sort. One example of such lack is mentioned by Michael Behe: "Molecular evolution is not based on scientific authority,” he wrote. “There is no publication in the scientific literature—in prestigious journals, specialty journals, or books—that describes how molecular evolution of any real, complex, biochemical system either did occur or even might have occurred. . . . The assertion of Darwinian molecular evolution is merely bluster.” (Quote from W081/1 p. 16). The assertion of Darwinian molecular evolution is merely bluster. Repeat bluster often enough and you may convince some to believe it, but it will not change the facts.

In science, a "fact" typically refers to an observation, measurement, or other form of evidence that can be expected to occur the same way under similar circumstances. However, scientists also use the term "fact" to refer to a scientific explanation that has been tested and confirmed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing it or looking for additional examples. In that respect, the past and continuing occurrence of evolution is a scientific fact. Because the evidence supporting it is so strong, scientists no longer question whether biological evolution has occurred and is continuing to occur. Instead, they investigate the mechanisms of evolution, how rapidly evolution can take place, and related questions.

From the National Academy of Sciences......

oh and lol....Behe.....

In 1985, he moved to Lehigh University and is currently a Professor of Biochemistry. Due to Behe's views on evolution, Lehigh University exhibits the following disclaimer on its website:
“ While we respect Prof. Behe's right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally and should not be regarded as scientific.[12]

It takes a whole new level of stupid to have the university you teach in publicly decry you....

Will post the URLS when i have permission to do so

 

[Ouroboros]

I have a gambling wheel and a ball. The ball is power because without power nothing can happen. All the slots on the wheel picture randomness. Sometimes the ball falls into a slot that causes a reaction. Sometimes the reaction creates something that becomes selected but many more times the reaction causes nothing essential. Spin it a thousand times and you get one essential reaction and I believe that is being generous.

How many spins will it take to create just one simple organism? The ball must fall in a reaction slot before the previous reaction becomes useless, isn't that so? The reactions that are essential must more or less be coordinated. How can something random be coordinated also?

How many times do one person or more win on Lotto each week?

Spins a thousand wheels a thousand times and pick one of them that has the best result and discard the one with the worst, then spin one thousand wheels again and so forth.

Evolution, mutations, selection is not singular or linear. It's like having a million orchestras playing a million different melodies at the same time, and then combining the best ones.

Many genetic functions we have in our body did not evolve in our lineage of beings but through viral infections. Also, when two different families that are compatible having two different mutations, there's a recombination. Mendel knew about this hundreds of years ago.

 

[Falvlun]

Ah, so. If the idea cannot be attacked, attack the purveyor of the idea. Wasn't that the point made by the first post in this thread?

Nope. By "Behe" I meant his concepts and his credibility.

You should read the transcripts of the Dover trial. It's really rather amusing how well a prosecutor, not even a scientist, is able to shred his argument. Here's some highlights, courtesy of Wiki:

In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, the first direct challenge brought in United States federal courts to an attempt to mandate the teaching of intelligent design on First Amendment grounds, Behe was called as a primary witness for the defense and asked to support the idea that intelligent design was legitimate science. Some of the most crucial exchanges in the trial occurred during Behe's cross-examination, where his testimony would prove devastating to the defense. Behe was forced to concede that "there are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred"[45] and that his definition of 'theory' as applied to intelligent design was so loose that astrology would also qualify.[46] Earlier during his direct testimony, Behe had argued that a computer simulation of evolution he performed with Snoke shows that evolution is not likely to produce certain complex biochemical systems. Under cross examination however, Behe was forced to agree that "the number of prokaryotes in 1 ton of soil are 7 orders of magnitude higher than the population [it would take] to produce the disulfide bond" and that "it's entirely possible that something that couldn't be produced in the lab in two years... could be produced over three and half billion years."[47][48][48]

 

[LuisDantas]

I believe the pretense is claiming the ToE is proven fact when it is nothing of the sort.

That is an interesting scenario. And very much a sci-fi one. Certainly not what is true in this world we live in.

One example of such lack is mentioned by Michael Behe: "Molecular evolution is not based on scientific authority,” he wrote. “There is no publication in the scientific literature—in prestigious journals, specialty journals, or books—that describes how molecular evolution of any real, complex, biochemical system either did occur or even might have occurred. . . . The assertion of Darwinian molecular evolution is merely bluster.” (Quote from W081/1 p. 16). The assertion of Darwinian molecular evolution is merely bluster. Repeat bluster often enough and you may convince some to believe it, but it will not change the facts.

How many times have this misquotations of Behe been addressed already by now? Several hundred? More?

If you think "evolution has not been proven", then you are simply in denial. I can't help you there.

 

[Alceste]

I wouldn't mind getting debunked by you.

Or, maybe bunked.

OK, but I may have to debrief you first.

 

[mycorrhiza]

Sure, let's start with post 2, please quote from there anything you feel is a specific critique that accurately attacks what they say and backs up the accusations with counter-evidence.

And then feel free to demonstrate for the others. I'm not looking for generalities of the concepts.

How could we provide counter-evidence when you didn't provide us with the original paper? The first post only says that we're supposed to give specifics on why we believe that the review you posted misrepresents the original paper. That's what I did in post 2 as far as I know.

Could you perhaps answer it, despite not feeling that it's what you wanted? Since I posted what you asked for, if you don't answer then I read the whole thing for nothing.

 

[Alceste]

For those wishing to read Wilf and Ewens original peer reviewed scientific paper. (PDF)

There

How could we provide counter-evidence when you didn't provide us with the original paper? The first post only says that we're supposed to give specifics on why we believe that the review you posted misrepresents the original paper. That's what I did in post 2 as far as I know.

Could you perhaps answer it, despite not feeling that it's what you wanted? Since I posted what you asked for, if you don't answer then I read the whole thing for nothing.

See Tumbleweed's post above. Basically, the paper simply argues that the probability model favoured by creationists is based on incorrect assumptions. Specifically, the assumption that every novel trait is the result of a completely random genetic roll of the dice, rather than the result of some genetic mutations being retained each generation that may eventually contribute to a novel trait.

The critique is arguing a bunch of stuff that isn't in the original paper at all, so I can't see why we're supposed to even bother reading it.

 

[McBell]

No it's like asking a person to actually bother to contribute thoughtfully to the thread in a rational and civil manner and not pollute it with their mindless smears.

what, like your own post quoted here, where you are doing the very thing you are complaining about?

 

[Alceste]

staff edit

It's a fine line. You can say the statement is false, you can express incredulity that the person making the statement actually thinks it is true, but you can't call the person a liar. For example, I'm skeptical that Shermana actually thinks the creationist opinion piece he posted is actually a "peer reviewed study", as he stated in the OP. I strongly suspect he thought we'd find it more compelling if he misrepresented the source. But is he a liar? Oh no, I would never resort to name-calling. It's against the rules! OTOH, it is entirely possible that he sincerely doesn't know what a peer reviewed study is and simply misspoke. I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Shermana]

I'm still not clear on why the Journal of Bio-Complexity doesn't meet the definition of "Peer--Reviewed", someone please explain.

http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/issue/current

http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/about/editorialPolicies


I looked here for example and I see nothing that actually explains why it doesn't count as Peer-Review by the standard definition. It appears the only argument is that they are selective which outside commentary they publish. Which isn't too far off the mark from how other journals work too. I wonder if he'd call other journals that refuse to submit comments which disagree with their ideology (for whatever reason) as 'dishonest', or thinks that no others do that. If we want to talk about dishonesty, it's saying that all comments are always published in all other peer-reviewed journals.

So is it appropriate for the DI to make claims about their members publishing in peer-reviewed journals if they are all just reviewing each others work? Well this is not unlike 'mainstream' science. In fact the word peer by definition means that is exactly what happens. But, the case of Lynn Margulis pulling a shifty to get Donald I. Williamson's paper published shows that there can be flaws in the peer-review process among mainstream journals. However, the science literature has a final line of defence in the form of commentary. If a published paper is found by another scientist in the field to be faulty, they can submit a comment to the journal arguing the case. This is exactly what happened with the above paper as with other famous cases like 'arsenic life'.

Not to worry though because according to BIO-Complexity they accept comments or Critiques as they call them. They also say that they "[all research articles] will followed by a brief published Critique when this becomes available." To date there have been no critiques published on any of their five research articles or critical reviews. In science, all comments are peer-reviewed as you would expect. Is it the same for BIO-Complextiy? Apparently not. Commentary is not peer-reviewed. Instead comments are published " at the sole discretion of the editor of the original article". So if I submit a comment challenging any of the papers published the editor is not likely to publish it because they look bad for publishing the original article. Basically because all the crap they publish is supportive of the underlying goals of the journal, all the authors who publish in the journal, and the most likely the ID community at large no comments will ever be published. How dishonest.

http://otbot.blogspot.com/2012/02/this-is-not-peer-review.html

It appears the argument is that if it supports ID, it can't be "Peer-reviewed".

I mean, if you want to say they're lying and committing fraud by calling themselves "Peer-reviewed" because they aren't affiliated with other organizations that you agree or with, or because they promote ID, I think you're having a True Scotsman fallacy and confirmation bias.

 

[johnhanks]

How could we provide counter-evidence when you didn't provide us with the original paper? The first post only says that we're supposed to give specifics on why we believe that the review you posted misrepresents the original paper. That's what I did in post 2 as far as I know.

Could you perhaps answer it, despite not feeling that it's what you wanted? Since I posted what you asked for, if you don't answer then I read the whole thing for nothing.

Echoed wrt post 6.

 

[Shermana]

Okay, while I wait for someone to explain why the JofBC doesn't count as "Peer-Review", let's go with what you said here:

You said this was conflation and bolded "For humans" and then said this doesn't apply to all organisms. Okay, how about actually discussing what it entails for humans then? And please explain how Homeotic mutations would factor in.

Because of genetic drift, beneficial mutations are often lost before they can become established in the population. In fact, the probability of fixation for a beneficial mutation is roughly equal to 2sNe / N, where Ne is the
effective population size, N the census population size, and s is the selection coefficient for that mutation [16]. For humans this translates to a probability of fixation for a strongly beneficial mutation of ≤ 0.01 [5]. Consequently a beneficial mutation may have to arise a hundred times or more in a human population before it becomes established and goes on to fixation