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Topic: Fernando Castro-Chavez: Some Implications for the Study of Intelligent Design ...
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nosivad
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posted 13. April 2004 20:31
Fernando
Thanks for the additional Einstein quotes. He remains my favorite intellectual. With respect to the apparent de novo appearance of Homo sapiens, it is exactly what one can expect from a discontinuous saltational event such as the reorganization of a chromosome. Apparently, H. sapiens at his inception was very little if at all different from his structure today. The absence of gradual intermediates characterizes the paleontology record in general with virtually no exceptions. Stephen Jay Gould once described it as one of the best kept secrets in paleontology. Of course it is no secret at all, but rather a reality, as Goldschmidt and Schindewolf both recognized more than half a century ago. The restructuring of existing genetic information is an all-or-none process for which intermediate stages are obviously inconceivable. Recently, experiments with yeast have actually demonstrated the reversal of speciation resulting from the restructuring of existing chromosomal information (Nature Vol 422/6 March pp 25-26, 2003) thus providing direct verification for Goldschmidt's contention that it was the chromosome, not the gene, that was the unit of evolution. These findings are but the beginning of a line of research which I predict will continue to support and ultimately prove the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis of organic change, an hypothesis the origins for which can be traced all the way back to William Bateson, the father of modern genetics.
[ 13. April 2004, 20:36: Message edited by: nosivad ]
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Rex Kerr
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posted 13. April 2004 22:52
When you have, say, 15 inversions, 12 deletions, 5 insertions, and 2 translocations, there certainly are a lot of possible intermediates. Any one transformation, however, is obviously a unitary event--as anyone who takes an introductory genetics class should know (and hopefully most people researching evolution have!).
(Side note for Castro-Chavez: Water surrounding the universe?! Is this an error in translation, or do you actually mean H2O?)
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nosivad
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posted 14. April 2004 07:34
I agree with your analysis of the number of intermediates. As a matter of fact the number of demonstrable chromosomal intermediates between two species can be used to exactly estimate the number of discrete steps that led to their original evolutionary separation. The important point is HOW the new chromosomal homozygotes were produced. I agree with Michael J.D. White that they were probably not produced sexually. If not sexually then how? That is what led me to postulate the semi-meiotic hypothesis. This hypothesis circumvents what has always been a glaring weakness in the Darwinian (sexual) model- namely, the necessity for speciation to occur in small isolated populations. The first meiotic division is perfectly designed to automatically produce, from every heterozygous structural alteration, exactly one half of the semi-meiotic products as new structural homozygotes, in principle, new species. This could occur in any population and at any time. For all I know it could be occurring right now although I doubt it. Thus, the number of demonstrable chromosome rearrangements separating two species can be interpreted to be equivelent to the number of discrete species which must have existed during the period of time which has elapsed since their original separation from their common ancestor. A cursory examination of the karyotypes of man and chimpanzee would suggest perhaps no more than a dozen intermediates, a number which I can easily imagine as conceivable. In any event there is no compelling evidence that point (base pair) mutations have ever played a role in evolution beyond the production of varieties or subspecies. Quite the contrary, all expermental attempts with selection for such mutations has met with not only failure but with a decrease in general fitness. Evolution DID occur. The question remains unanswered as to HOW it occurred. The time is long past due to consider some alternatives to the Darwinian model.
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gordon
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posted 14. April 2004 08:43
Fernando:
“The most dogmatic promoter of the religion of evolution…”
Is that sort of inflammatory nonsense really necessary?
Nosivad:
“As a matter of fact the number of demonstrable chromosomal intermediates between two species can be used to exactly estimate the number of discrete steps that led to their original evolutionary separation.”
What do you mean by “chromosomal intermediates”? Not all of what Rex referred to are chromosomal rearrangements. Even if they were, why would such chromosomal intermediates be useful for determining steps in evolution when Grasse writes that such rearrangements are not as important as the genes on the segments, and I agree with him.
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nosivad
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posted 14. April 2004 11:07
Grasse was entitled to his opinions, just as Schindewolf and Goldschmidt were. I prefer the latter interpretation. There is a strong element of nationalism in the evolutionary literature which is not surprising when one considers the history of the French with both the Germans and the Russians. Grasse does not even mention Berg in his text, yet agrees with much of what Berg had proposed as I have explained in the Manifesto. In any event, I certainly do not feel compelled to agree with everything my sources have proposed.
What I mean by chromosomal intermediates is that assuming, as one should, that chromosomal restructurings took place one at a time, that the number of such differences berween any two related forms corresponds, perhaps exactly, with the number of intermediate species through which they became separated. Of course these intermediate species are no longer extant. Does that help you to understand? In any event, I am not prepared to accept the de novo origin of any life form.
[ 14. April 2004, 11:16: Message edited by: nosivad ]
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gordon
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posted 14. April 2004 12:40
quote:
Grasse was entitled to his opinions, just as Schindewolf and Goldschmidt were. I prefer the latter interpretation. There is a strong element of nationalism in the evolutionary literature which is not surprising when one considers the history of the French with both the Germans and the Russians.
Indeed, but I would not single out evolutionary biology for this. I have been reading ‘Birth of the Cell’ and the amount of Nationalism displayed by the early players in Cell Theory was astounding. quote:
Grasse does not even mention Berg in his text, yet agrees with much of what Berg had proposed as I have explained in the Manifesto. In any event, I certainly do not feel compelled to agree with everything my sources have proposed.
I would not expect you to, however, you seem to present his musings as unimpeachable until/unless his musings do not coincide with your own. So I fail to see the relevance of your repeated assertions and reliance upon the possibility that these individuals would have agreed with you or whether or not you agree with them. Why not just present the data/citations? I have read your manifesto and your other available essays, so referring me to them will not address these issues. quote:
What I mean by chromosomal intermediates is that assuming, as one should, that chromosomal restructurings took place one at a time, that the number of such differences berween any two related forms corresponds, perhaps exactly, with the number of intermediate species through which they became separated. Of course these intermediate species are no longer extant. Does that help you to understand?
It helps me understand your personal position, but it does not seem to be relevant to any sort of speciation or evolutionary events, since, again, not all such occurrences result in or necessarily even contribute to speciation events.
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nosivad
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posted 14. April 2004 14:50
Gordon
All I can say is that I am sorry that you cannot understand how either the Semi-meiotic Hypothesis or its derivative, the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis, relate to the evolution of new life forms. I have done my best to clarify my position. As for accepting every position taken by ones sources, do you subscribe to Darwin's Pangenesis Hypothesis? Someone once astutely observed that Darwin was more Lamarckian than Lamarck and (August) Weismann was more Darwinian than Darwin. So was Ernst Haeckel. So much for sources. In the meantime, I fully expect my views to be ignored as were those of my predecessors.
"If you tell the truth, you are certain, sooner or later, to be found out"
Oscar Wilde
I also don't understand how you can say what you did in your terminal statement, since the Semi-meiotic Hypothesis has yet to be tested.
[ 15. April 2004, 16:05: Message edited by: nosivad ]
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Fernando Castro-Chavez
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posted 15. April 2004 17:54
Gordon:
Karl Popper stated that Evolution is not a scientific theory, but a metaphysical one (The Unended Quest, 1976).
Richard Lewontin has als stated that when evolution is stripped down to the bare bones, it is intrinsically religious.
Eugenie C. Scott is a coauthor of the National Academy of Science's book: "Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science". She is executive director of a not-for-profit membership organization that works to promote the teaching of evolution.
Here is Eugenie C. Scott in her own words: "Antievolutionism in many forms is afflicting science education in the United States today..." "largely through the efforts of the "intelligent design" creationists... to teach "evidence against evolution" and/or to disclaim evolution as "only a theory" (meaning guess or hunch). To avoid further decrease in science literacy, scientists actively need to counteract the antievolution threat." "Scientists and science teachers need to teach more evolution and teach it better, and "better" includes keeping nonscientific ideas such as creation science, intelligent design, and philosophical materialism out of the science class. Behe claims that intelligent design is empirically detectable... Indeed, a structure that functions to get something done can be said to be "designed" for that purpose, but this casual usage should not imply a designing agent, much less an intelligent one, and still less a supernatural one. Natural selection, a nonrandom but unintelligent mechanism, can also produce structures that function for a purpose, and as a natural mechanism, for scientific purposes, it is preferable over untestable supernatural ones."
Comments:
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"[I]ntelligent design in biology is not invisible, it is empirically detectable. The biological literature is replete with statements like David DeRosier's in the journal Cell: "More so than other motors, the flagellum resembles a machine designed by a human."...Exactly why is it a thought-crime to make the case that such observations may be on to something objectively correct?" [DeRosier DJ. The turn of the screw: the bacterial flagellar motor. Cell. 1998 Apr 3;93(1):17-20. Review.] (Michael J. Behe, Department of Biological Sciences, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA)
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"Scott's essay seems to have the same faults that Scott finds with "fundamentalists." Scott cites several authors to dismiss views that she opposes." "As a postscript, I do not share Scott's rather rosy view of a highly centralized education system. Such centralization was brought into Europe by military dictators and tyrants" "...children were punished and publicly humiliated in schools for doing so [by doing what? by speaking a different language]. "Scientific" reasons justified this treatment of children." [Dr. B. Colbert, Mathematican]
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"Is evolution the belief that common descent is the only possible explanation for all biological phenomena? A strict insistence that no creation events have ever occurred in the history of Earth is as dogmatic as the most severe creationist position." [Donn M. Stewart, M.D., Clinical Fellow, Metabolism Branch, NCI, NIH]
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"[I] disagree with the rhetoric in her [Scott] Essay. The innuendo in this Essay does little to advance discussion, debate, or understanding. "Wild type" and "mutant" metaphors are poorly considered in light of the history of the two lines of thinking. Sweeping statements like "Biologists have rejected irreducible complexity, and philosophers have been similarly unresponsive..." are rhetorical distortions. By this statement and others in her Essay, Scott seems to do science (of which she is a spokesperson) a disservice. Personally, I find the concepts [of ID] fascinating and congruent with my understanding and observations... As a cell and molecular biologist, the notion that interacting complex systems 'evolved' through mutation and natural selection leaves me concerned that an overarching concept of evolution does not explain what I see in the lab or in published scientific journals." [Marvin J. Fritzler, PhD MD, cell biologist/university professor University of Calgary, Faculty of Medicine]
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"I find it ironic that, in expressing her frustration, Scott uses far more words than the surprisingly few verses in the Bible (on creation) over which this whole tempest is about.... Instead of arguing over whose theory or philosophy is more worthy of being taught, perhaps our public servants should put that aside and focus on teaching basic skills like reading, math, writing, and applied science. If there's any time (and money) left over, maybe we can also try to instill in our future generation such things as self-worth and the value of life." [Larry Berardinis, Engineer/Technical writer, Penton Media]
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"Nobel Laureate, Francis Crick wrote: "It might be thought that evolutionary arguments would play a large part in guiding biological research, but this is far from the case." I am mindful of the statement of a professor at a prestigious medical school, that Darwin is not mentioned in the four-year medical program. And, another from a researcher in the pharmaceutical industry, that his company does not have a Division of Darwinian Concepts to help in making more effective their choices for future research... While we are all vastly indebted to the science community for the excellence of their scholarly activities, this does not give members of our community the right to breach the Wall-of-Separation and to use, as a pulpit, our public schools for indoctrination with their religious or antireligious views. " [Philip S. Skell, Member of the National Academy of Science; Emeritus, Evan Pugh Prof. Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University]
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"By Scott's own words, the concurrence of Gould and Zimmerman, and a reading of the Supreme Court's decision concerning the Louisiana law, it seems clear that the decision did not declare that teaching scientific evidence that supports creation in public school classrooms is unconstitutional and thus prohibited. This false notion is incessantly repeated by those who adamantly oppose such educational activities... Although they constitute inferences based on circumstantial evidence, the evidence supporting each is by nature scientific and should be made available to students in the tax-supported public schools of our pluralistic democratic society." [Duane T. Gish, (7 July 2000) Executive, Senior Vice President, Institute for Creation Research]
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"No constitutional barrier, prevents students in biology classes from expressing their views." "As a long-time teacher of evolutionary biology from grade school through graduate school, I encourage the participation of all students and have always found them excited by this approach." "One sentence on evolutionary biology appears in the last paragraph of Scott’s essay: “According to the neutralist principle in biology, a mutation will eventually replace the wild type unless it is opposed by natural selection.” What is this neutralist principle? I am writing a history of the theories of neutral molecular evolution but am unaware of any such principle." [William B. Provine, Professor, Cornell University]
[ 16. April 2004, 16:40: Message edited by: Fernando Castro-Chavez ]
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nosivad
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posted 15. April 2004 19:44
There is an increasing body of hard scientific evidence, based on studies of separated monozygotic twins, that we are genetically predisposed on such fundamental issues as the death penalty, right versus left politics, the belief or lack thereof in a Creator and how we feel about authority generally. William Wright's book, "Born That Way" summarizes this very revealing research area. These findings, which should not be ignored, can go a long way to explain the intractable positions so evident even in forums such as this one in which we observe incredible polarization on additional matters of personal prejudice such as the question of Intelligent Design and equally biased attitudes as to whether evolution has been in any way guided or predetermined. It is my personal position that these latter questions probably also have a genetic component. In other words they are innately ideological rather than based on empirical evidence just as Phillip Engle has claimed on the adjacent thread. I can offer no other explanation for what we observe right here on "brainstorms", a forum presumably dedicated to the search for the truth. As David Raup observed when asked about the creation/evolution debate -
"Both sides will continue to lie, cheat and steal in order to make their points."
My own personal experience, based on having taken a middle position, sadly forces me to agree. Apparently we really are "Born That Way".
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gordon
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posted 16. April 2004 15:28
John,
The reason that your 'explanation' did not help any is that it does not appear to have addressed my question.
I understand that this sort of thing is frowned upon, but to make sure we are on the same page I want to quote from past posts.
You had written:
“As a matter of fact the number of demonstrable chromosomal intermediates between two species can be used to exactly estimate the number of discrete steps that led to their original evolutionary separation.”
I had asked:
"What do you mean by “chromosomal intermediates”? ... why would such chromosomal intermediates be useful for determining steps in evolution when Grasse writes that such rearrangements are not as important as the genes on the segments, and I agree with him."
You replied:
"...that chromosomal restructurings took place one at a time, that the number of such differences berween any two related forms corresponds, perhaps exactly, with the number of intermediate species through which they became separated. "
It does not follow, as I implied, that your premise - that chromosomal rearrangements correspond exactly (your word) with species intermediates (intermediate morphotypes, whatever we want to refer to them as) - has merit. If "chromosomal rearrangements" do in fact NOT necessarily produce unique morphotypes/species, then how is it that such rearrangements can be used in determining the "exact" number of steps from ancestral state to extant?
I think Grasse would agree with my assessment.
quote:
So much for sources.
Perhaps. I do wonder, then, why you place so much emphasis and reliance on whether or not your group of 'great men' woiuld agree with you. Please, just explain YOUR positions, frankly I do not care if anyone agrees with you or not. that has no bearing on the validity of your claims.
quote:
I also don't understand how you can say what you did in your terminal statement, since the Semi-meiotic Hypothesis has yet to be tested.
I had mentioned that not all chromosomal rearrangements result in speciation.
I should think that one so familiar with Grasse's works would know that in that 1977 book of his - which you have cited in this thread, I believe - he provides documentation for this.
However, I do wonder why you prefer your untested hypothesis, and why you did not test it in the nearly 20 years that you were still faculty at a research institution after you had proposed it.
Not trying to be confrontational, but it seems as though you are employing double standards.
If chromosomal rearrangements and chromosome number variations do not necessarily cause speciation or infertility (also documented in Grasse's book), is your hypothesis ultimately just as dependant on 'chance' as Darwinism is? And if not, why not?
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gordon
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posted 16. April 2004 15:35
Fernando:
I did not realize that this board was morphing into yet another clearinghouse for creationist propaganda.
I certainly hope that is not the case.
If you are here to discuss issues, please do. However, I have instead seen a tendency to post lengthy lists of citations with no apparent reason and now to post inflammatory hyperbole, common creationist tendencies. By the way, I checked a few of your citations. I was surprised to discover some errors in your citations (names reversed, that sort of thing) and was not surprised to see that when reading more than the one or few lines that you presented, the articles did not seem to jibe with the implicit tone of the posts. Please rethink your posting practices.
If you are going to try to justify your derogatory and inflammatory depiction of Scott based on your interpretation of Popper and Lewontin, some choice Gish quotes, and references to teaching 'the controversey', I suggest you simply retract it and move on.
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Fernando Castro-Chavez
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posted 16. April 2004 15:39
Rex Kerr:
Albert Einstein updated his equations regarding a circumscribed universe when he learned that Hubble had found that the universe was expanding.
Those were not initially Einstein's own ideas. Applying Einstein's equations to our Intelligent Design Research has been useful.
We can build up over Einstein's mathematical deductions our own observations regarding the water (H20) in the outermost parts of the universe and its evidence in our nearer planetary surroundings: Nebulae, the Belt of giant 'ice-cubes' in the orbit of Pluto, water in the craters of the dark side of the moon, in Europa, one moon of Jupiter, etc., and the most popular: The Water in Mars. That water came to Mars from a distant place (maybe as a melting comet) and stayed there until it gradually evaporated by the sun (as Mars lacks of an atmosphere as we have it on earth), leaving only traces in its frozen pole, and maybe some went subterranean.
Similar events of water-filled comets seem to have impacted the moon.
I envision that kind of comets also causing The Great Impact on earth that left our planet full of water and in darkness, at the time of the disappearance of dinosaurs:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/95/19/11028
However, melting water entering through the poles seems to have caused the sudden permafrost with its animals and plants left there. Because of the dominant presence of mammoths and not of dinosaurs under the permafrost, it seems to be evident that this inundation of waters over the entire planet happened in a second and different period when compared to The Great Impact. This second time being presumably coincident with the deposition of those > 346 whales:
http://www.gsajournals.org/gsaonline/?request=get-static&name=0091-7613-32-2i
Today is Friday, time to go outdoors. Have a Good Weekend!
[ 16. April 2004, 15:46: Message edited by: Fernando Castro-Chavez ]
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Fernando Castro-Chavez
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posted 16. April 2004 16:07
gordon and nosivad:
If you want to discuss the 'evolutionary' opinions of Davison, it is better to do so in Davison's own brainstorm. His posts here, since the one posted on April 2004 20:31 are not relevant for this board.
gordon:
My quoting of references in Literature Review is helping me to build a database of 'points to consider' for my research, if anyone is benefited with them is welcomed, as well as specific inputs.
The quoting of statements from other people regarding Scott's writings was only necessary to clarify what other researchers have said about it, as she spoke in relation to ID and our molecular knowledge. If anybody wants to read the full quotations and her article in full, do so by going to the website of 'Science'.
Thanks.
[ 16. April 2004, 16:43: Message edited by: Fernando Castro-Chavez ]
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Rex Kerr
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posted 16. April 2004 17:22
I really don't understand what Einstein has to do with this. But even more peculiar is the following:
quote:
I envision that kind of comets also causing The Great Impact on earth that left our planet full of water and in darkness, at the time of the disappearance of dinosaurs
What do comets have to do with water on Earth 65Mya? There's about 1.3 billion cubic kilometers of water on Earth. The KT impactor is estimated to be 10km in diameter, which gives a paltry 500 cubic kilometers of water if it were all water.
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nosivad
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posted 16. April 2004 20:51
Gordon
Since you have said my interpretations have no merit, what is there to discuss? The fact is that what Grasse had to say means nothing concerning the semi-meiotic hypothesis. If you cannot see why the number of discrete chromosomal restructuring differences between two related species might correspond EXACTLY with the number of species that connected them, then I guess you just don't understand the semi-meiotic hypothesis or for that matter any other hypothesis that postulates that it is the chromosome, not the gene, that is the unit of evolution. I don't recall ever putting in hard copy anything about any of my predecessors agreeing with me either. Quite the contrary it is I that have found agreement with just those of their conclusions which I specifically mentioned in my published papers and the Manifesto. There is much in both Grasse and Berg that I cannot even understand, but I agree with both that much of evolution has emerged from within and had nothing whatsoever to do with natural selection. What I find most revealing is how Julian Huxley can maintain in his opus magnus that evolution is probably finished, a conclusion absolutely diametrically opposed to every tenet of the Darwinian model. Of course I agree with him just as I do with Broom and Grasse. As a matter of fact, Huxley got the idea of evolution being finished from Robert Broom as I documented in the Manifesto in Robert Broom's own words. Incidentally, Broom insisted on gradual evolution which I also have rejected as unrealistic, one more example of my discrimination. The fossil record clearly favors saltational speciation in what are often obviously orthogenetic evolutionary series as postulated by Schindewolf and Goldschmidt. The semi-meiotic hypothesis remains not only compatible with saltation but predicts it for obvious reasons which I hope I don't have to further explain. The neoDarwinian model predicts nothing as it denies any intrinsic source of evolutionary information.
I have on other occasions explained that I have not been able to test the semi-meiotic hypothesis and I resent the repeated questions about why I didn't do just that. I can only conclude that my veracity is being questioned. Since my professional competence has already been questioned, a challenge to my honesty doesn't really surprise me. If you or anyone else can begin a dialogue by stating that my views have no merit, I recommend you ask no further questions. I can only refer you to my publications in which not one documented fact upon which my several conclusions securely rest has ever been refuted. I don't really expect them to be refuted for two independent reasons. First, facts cannot be refuted and I, like my many anti-Darwinian predecessors, do not really exist. We have been "nobody-ized" by the evolutionary establishment.
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