Brainstorms: Using phylogeny to detect design

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Topic: Using phylogeny to detect design

Alex Wild
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Member # 165

posted 03. March 2002 14:54

This post is not an elaboration of a method but a question: can we use reconstructions of the patterns of evolutionary descent to identify points of intervention or engineering by a designer?

Corollary questions:

-Would the branching patterns themselves be able to reveal design?

-Can the mapping of traits onto these branching patterns give us clues to which traits may have emerged through a design mechanism?

-Would mapping Dr. Dembski's concept of specified complexity onto each ancestral node of a tree be able to identify sudden jumps in complexity that might indicate design?

I don't have any answers, but I thought some of you might be able to provide useful comments.

Alex

(ps- I post as "Myrmecos" at ARN and elsewhere)

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Tristan Abbey
Member
Member # 154

posted 03. March 2002 20:47

See Evan's thread on the "Synthesis of Evolution and Design." He's proposing a very similar (homologous or analogous? bahaha) idea, I believe. Basically, from what I understand, if the change was improbable and fits the design filter, then we attribute it to the designer.

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