Posted: Jan 06, 2015 12:53 pm
Rumraket wrote:
Some hypotheses cannot be directly empirically tested because the timescales involved are practically not achievable. That's when we use phylogenetics or computer simulations instead. These testify that evolution did in point of fact happen, get over it.
As an analogy, nobody has seen an entire star form from a coalescing disc of interstellar dust and gas. We can only see snapshots of the process by taking pictures of distant stars, but the timescales are still way beyond practical human timescales. It's the same with evolution and geological time. We cannot practically reconstruct this process in the laboratory, stars are bigger than our planet, the masses, distances and timescales involved are beyond all human capacity to control. Some things really just are too big, or take too long a time, for us to be able to directly observe and control them in nice experimental fashion. This is where we build models instead, out of practical necessity. And then we test the predictions of the models against observations in the real world, whether those be pictures of distant stars and galaxies, or sequences of proteins in living organisms.
These models in turn then serve as justification for the claim that evolution (or gravity) produced the diversity of life (stars).
Bad rationalization(making excuses). Apeal to a large time scale is really funny if we consider the recent development of evolutionary thought. Have you heard of the new phrase that originated(evolved) in evolutionary Think Tank : "rapid evolution"? In a study of Caenorhabditis briggsae and related species, researchers compared over 2000 genes. They proposed that these genes must be evolving too quickly to be detected and are consequently sites of very rapid evolution. So, at first evolution is not observable and empirically testable because it is too slow, but now evolution is not observable and empirically testable because it is too quick.
Rumraket wrote:You cannot compare the rate of origin of de novo genes in an experimental bacterial population to the evolution of large multicellular eukaryotes WHEN THE FORMER HAVE NO JUNK-DNA.
So, the new ad hoc hypotheses(excuse for science ignorance) in evolutionary thought is as follows: organisms that have junk in their genomes can evolve new genes. But when junk is missing, evolution of new genes is not possible or is to slow to be detectable and empirically testable. Gotcha.
But... your ad hoc excuse have been debunked by science, again.
http://genome.cshlp.org/content/14/6/1036.full
However, most bacteria contain large numbers of ORFans, that is, annotated genes that are restricted to a particular genome and that possess no known homologs.
...
The high frequencies of ORFans detected in bacterial genomes were originally attributed to the limited set of sequenced genomes then available for comparison, and it was predicted that this category of genes would dwindle as databases expanded. Nevertheless, the number of ORFans in databases has grown despite an increase in the number and diversity of complete genome sequences. A recent survey estimated their frequency to be 14% of the total genes from 60 completely sequenced genomes.
Rumraket wrote:Wait, new alleles did not arise and take control? What qualifies as a "new" allele? What does that even mean "and take control"? Where has this prediction been made?
Where's the problem? The experiment shows that even strong natural selection does not successfully weed out large genetic variation.
In a population genetics new allele is a new gene variation. Mutation is the primary source of those variations(new alleles). "To take control" - to increase allele frequency in population(gene pool).
The researchers were looking for the fixation of positive mutations within the genome and within the whole population. This is referred to using the term "selection sweep". When it occurs, the new mutation at a base pair (a novel single nucleotide polymorphism or SNP) not only experiences replication to be transmitted to the descendants of the organism, but the gene pool of variation is effectively swept clean as the new mutation becomes dominant in the whole population. However, such sweeping was conspicuous by its absence.
"Recent research on evolutionary genetics has focused on classic selective sweeps, which are evolutionary processes involving the fixation of newly arising beneficialmutations. In a recombining region, a selected sweep is expected to reduce heterozygosity at SNPs flanking the selected site. . . . Notably, we observe no location in the genome where heterozygosity is reduced to anywhere near zero, and this lack of evidence for a classic sweep is a feature of the data regardless of window size."
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... bal=remove
This empirical work is worth noting because we are considering a mechanism that is central to Darwinian evolution. Positive natural selection of hereditable variation is the key to understanding how descent with modification occurs. However, the empirical data relating to a sexually reproducing species does not confirm that modification works this way. This is why the primary investigator, ecology and evolutionary biology professor, Anthony Longsaid said: "This research really upends the dominant paradigm about how species evolve".
http://news.uci.edu/press-releases/uci- ... uit-flies/
Rumraket wrote:As just shown, they do nothing of the sort. By the way, you have never detailed a rigorous metric for "newness". And regardless, we already know evolution has created basically the entire biosphere, we know this from phylogenetic evidence.
You haven't shown anything scientifically important, you just offered(produced) a mental construct of a human mind(excuse) - a rationalization for ignorance of scientific discoveries. When an orderly long term procedure is carried out(long term evolution experiment) and empirical connection with the two causes - random variation and natural selection is established, a new gene, as na effect is not produced. So, the scientific fact is that evolutionary processes can not create new genes. Your rationalizations will not make this fact ceases to exist.
Rumraket wrote:I notice you have completely ignored the rather large first post I made in this thread where I present some of this evidence. Why is it that ID proponents are invariably always totally silent on phylogenetics? It's almost as if the field does not exist in your minds.
Because the phylogenetics is just the construct of a human mind, which can conceptually be applied to any set of objects with similar characteristics, such as vehicles. So, by your reasoning, if vehicles are recognized, differentiated and grouped into categories that proves that random processes create vehicles.
We have actual concrete empirical evidence that vw golf 6 and vw golf 7 are related. How this proves eventual assumption that the blueprint for golf 7 resulted from random change in the blueprint that shows how golf 6 will be made?Rumraket wrote:Yes, because we have actual concrete empirical evidence that it did from phylogenetics.