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Author
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Topic: can some aspect of Darwinism be falsified?
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Shi
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Member # 1923
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posted 16. June 2006 20:14
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He clearly stated he didn't have the empirical evidence to back up his hypothesis.
He has a fact and no real hypothesis that works or canbe verified. He has plenty of emprical evidence to back up his observation of adaptive mutation.
PLA says that accident has nothing to do with nature. Why are you so silent about it?
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Shi
Member
Member # 1923
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posted 16. June 2006 20:26
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Shi: "Whatever Hall thinks about NDE is his personaly opinion."
You mean expert opinion, and the very expert you cited.
I cite him to verify facts not opinions. An expert in NDE can only express biased opinions in favor of NDE, and so has little credability. I would be much more impressed by the opinion of a neutral expert, who knows all knowledge on issues concerning evolution.
In a way, NDE people is doing a valuable service to mankind by providing the hard facts for all people to interpret. We only need to trust their facts, if properly collected, but we dont have to believe their so called expert opinions. It is precisely because they are experts in NDE, they are incapable of interpreting their facts from a new perspective. That is why paradigh change never comes from a so called expert. Einstein is a patent clerk, not a main stream physicist. Mandel is monk and totally ignored by his expert peers.
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IF
Member
Member # 1904
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posted 17. June 2006 08:16
This has become an excellent discussion on both sides!
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John A. Davison
Member
Member # 1425
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posted 17. June 2006 22:49
Neither chance nor Mendelism had anything whatsoever to do with evolution. It was all emergent from within and independent of the environment in which it took place. The only conceivable role for the environment was to act as a trigger for a "prescribed," latent, endogenous potential.
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peter borger
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Member # 722
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posted 18. June 2006 03:44
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However, the effect that Cairns identified in 1988 has been determined to be a result of hypermutation of bacteria under stress possibly due to a breakdown in the genetic repair mechanism.
The bacteria have been found to have more than one type of DNA polymerases [1]. During stress situation they apply a more error-prone one, that non-randomly changes DNA sequences.
peebee
[1] which essentially make a genetic redundancy.
[ 18. June 2006, 03:45: Message edited by: peter borger ]
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Bruce Fast
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Member # 924
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posted 18. June 2006 10:35
PB: What is "non-random" about the changes in DNA caused by the "more error-prone" polymerases?
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peter borger
Member
Member # 722
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posted 19. June 2006 03:15
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What is "non-random" about the changes in DNA caused by the "more error-prone" polymerases?
The NRM is WRT nucleotide and location. Do a "Rosenberg AND adaptive mutations AND bacteria" on the NCBI homepage (pubmed) an you will find many articles on this concept.
peebee
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peter borger
Member
Member # 722
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posted 19. June 2006 10:01
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Here is a challenge: what is the purpose of life according to PEH or MPG.
The purpose of life is not addressed by GUToB. GUToB is a theory to explain the observations we do on biological, living systems.
GutoB addresses the purpose of living systems however. Living systems were designed as multipurpose genomes with built-in mechanisms for rapid change and were an excellent tool to occupy all niches of the once void earth. The purpose of living systems was rapid differentiation into species, which could only be achieved through reproduction. These were the two main characteristics of MPGS and reproduction is now the only one remaining. Why?
The primary law of biology is: "Nothing in biology makes sense accept in the light of reproduction". Dobzhansky believed it was evolution, but the evolution he referred to can now be understood as pre-existing cryptic variation of MPGs. Reproduction is required for reshuffling the MPG in the offspring and the MPG is sufficient to unleash variation.
I believe the original MPGs were constructed thus that they could last for ever (in a sense we still see this for microorganisms). Considering the primary biological rule above, loads of genetic elements not required for reproduction were lost or inactivated since the incipience of the MPGs.
There is plenty of evidence for this vision and not only from genetic redundancy, and chimp-human genome comparisons. Personally, I find the "Spalanzani mice" good scientific evidence for my view that advantagous traits not immediately required for reproduction have been inactivated, but can be regained as they still are part of the MPG. Like genetic redundnacy the spallanzani mice challenge the evolutionary long ages.
GUToB explains all observations on living systems without the Darwinian assumptions.
peebee
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Bruce Fast
Member
Member # 924
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posted 19. June 2006 11:54
PB: "Nothing in biology makes sense accept in the light of reproduction." This is much better than the original quote.
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Shi
Member
Member # 1923
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posted 19. June 2006 12:32
The more general and correct statement in my view is this: nothing in nature makes sense except in light of creation. The word creation embodies the concepts of evolution (since evolution is nothing without creation) and reproduction, but is more broad and general, including also the most important and meaningful natural phenomenon, human creativity.
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Shi
Member
Member # 1923
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posted 19. June 2006 12:47
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Here is a challenge: what is the purpose of life according to PEH or MPG.
The purpose of life is not addressed by GUToB. GUToB is a theory to explain the observations we do on biological, living systems.
There are essentially two opposite world views or theories: the world is either the result of a purposeless accident or the result of a purposeful act. The best theory for a purposeless world is NDE. The opposite to NDE is presenly yet to be articulated in a detailed and scientific manner. PEH is not detailed enough and is not much different from simply saying that God did it. GUToB may be detailed but lacks a critical element: purpose. NDE is purposeless. Any opposite theory to NDE is necessarily teleological and must explain what is the purpose of nature and existence. Until the purpose issue is resolved by logic and law, any challenge to NDE will remain sterile. Religion says that the purpose of Nature and human is to glorify God. It is a nice guess but is not formulated based on reason and law.
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Shi
Member
Member # 1923
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posted 19. June 2006 13:31
Kant: I maintain, however, in any special doctrine of nature there can be only as much proper science as there is mathematics.
Lord Kelvin: When you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind.
NDE has zero mathematics and is psudoscience by the standard of Kant and Kelvin and is in no way on a par with any of the fundamental physical laws. It is purely juvenile and stupid for NDE people like Dawkins and Dennett to exclaim that NDE is the best idea that human has ever had. In claiming NDE to be a scientific theory, these people have no idea what science is. It is mathematics, stupid.
A replacement theory of NDE must be expressible by numbers. Until human can do that, his understanding of evolution will remain meager and unsatisfactory. God, ID, PEH, GUToB, whatever.
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Bruce Fast
Member
Member # 924
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posted 19. June 2006 13:46
Shi: "Any opposite theory to NDE is necessarily teleological and must explain what is the purpose of nature and existence." First, let me question this necessity. The strong anthropic principle clearly shows that the universe came into existance purposefully, yet in this discovery is no clarity about what the purpose is. I agree with you when you say that PEH "is not detailed enough." The PEH seems to be a great foundation, it is not by any means the final word. However the PEH makes it very clear that homo-sapiens were the purposeful end of creation. We still do not know why the designer chose to make man.
"NDE has zero mathematics and is psudoscience by the standard of Kant and Kelvin." I would disagree with this statement. Though there is something not fully expressed mathematically in NDE, there is a lot of NDE math. There is a lot of math, for instance, in the field of genetic drift, in the molecular clock hypothesis, in genome sizes, etc. NDE definitely has a mathematical component about it.
"A replacement theory of NDE must be expressible by numbers. Until human can do that, his understanding of evolution will remain meager and unsatisfactory."
I am coming to agree with you on this one. It seems more consistant to me that the designer who created a universe that is mathematically representable, would also make a biology that is mathematically representable. It seems also to me that though I see some mathematics in NDE, that all of life, including abiogenesis, must be inevitable, law driven, and fully mathematically modelable.
Neither NDE nor all variations of ID are anywhere close to achieving this end. It is only this end that will be scientifically satisfactory. Once this end is achieved, we will conclude that the strong antropic principle applies to biology as surely as it applies to physics. God did it, and he did it with a precisely tuned masterplan that was fully in place the moment the big bang happened.
I fully recognize that the above position is a purely philisophical one. It is based solely on the expectation that the logical nature of the universe as seen by physicists is also the logical nature of the biosphere.
If my current philisophical position is correct, however, then science has a lot of law-finding to do. I believe that the main reason that this law-finding has not occurred is because the biological community has been resting on its laurels, content that NDE explains it all. I actually think, however, that a move to ID will continue a search in a direction that will not find fruit because the major ID position is seeking agency, when a search for law is called for.
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Shi
Member
Member # 1923
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posted 19. June 2006 14:19
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The strong anthropic principle clearly shows that the universe came into existance purposefully, yet in this discovery is no clarity about what the purpose is.
That is why the principle still belongs to the domain of guess work.
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NDE has zero mathematics and is psudoscience by the standard of Kant and Kelvin." I would disagree with this statement. Though there is something not fully expressed mathematically in NDE, there is a lot of NDE math.
The core value of NDE must be expressible by numbers if it is to be a true scientific law. That core, as everyone knows, is that random variation selected by accidents can create meaningful complexity and all of nature. Can this core idea explain any phenomenon within the mathematical reality? Can any mathematical phenomenon model such an idea? The answer is no.
Population genetics has mathematics and is only a theory of microevolution or species stability. Indedd, the part of NDE that explains species stability and microevo/pouplation genetics is sound in terms of mathematics and is a true law of nature. But NDE people wants NDE to explain more than that. Indeed the core of NDE is not about population genetics or any part of it that is expressible by numbers. It is not about how a fish evolves into different subspecies of fish but is about how a fish evolves into an amphibian. From fish to fish is to maintain the species or to be like fish but from fish to amphibian is to be unlike fish. They are opposite phenomena and must have opposite principles at work. The fallacy of NDE is to use the same principle to explain opposite phenomena.
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actually think, however, that a move to ID will continue a search in a direction that will not find fruit because the major ID position is seeking agency, when a search for law is called for.
Indeed, until human find the law of the agency, the agency will remain un-established. It may be clear to ID that there is an agency. But until ID uncovers the law by which the agency employed to create the world, it will remain nonscientific and unconvincing.
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Bruce Fast
Member
Member # 924
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posted 19. June 2006 17:57
Shi, "But until ID uncovers the law by which the agency employed to create the world, it will remain nonscientific and unconvincing." There is some truth here. If a mechanism were clearly found which the designer uses to inject "saltations" into organisms, ID would be a lot more convincing. Alas, "saltation" is, in itself, a pretty scientifically unsatisfying answer.
But the majority of ID's discussions to some extent recognizes this. These discussions are more intent on falsifying NDE than on establishing a new mechanism. NDE is obviously false, or at least painfully incomplete. Yet convincing the scientific community that it is false without first replacing it with a more scientifically productive theory is proving to be a challenge. Again, I believe that a search for laws that provoke nature to become what it has become will prove to be a fruitful search, a search that will put NDE into the minor position where it belongs.
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