Bad News for Creationists: Plausible Abiogenesis Path Found

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_Kevin Graham
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Re: Bad News for Creationists: Plausible Abiogenesis Path Found

Post by _Kevin Graham »

I have never read Behe's argument to that effect. Ever. EA's orginal use of quotations suggested he was quoting me. And the funny thing is, nobody has been able to respond to the issue I raised. Evolution rests on the assumption of "random" mutations.

In a truly random process you don't see gradual progress fit to serve a teleological end. I don't know if that is Behe's argument, but it is definately mine.

For example, if it were truly random, then we'd expect nubs (early formation of wings) to start growing "randomly" from all areas of the animal's body.

Did they?

Apaprently not. If they did, then they could only be removed by natural selection. So if nubs also grew from the corners of their eye lids, then we can explan why we don't see evidence of this now because that would have made them blind, reducing their chances of survival. But would a nub on their backside hinder their chances of survival? No. So where did these nubs grow? If they were truly random mutations, then we wouldn't expect an orderly appearance serving a specific function.

Instead, they gradually protruded from exactly where they needed to in order for their future generations to attain flight.

EDIT: I decided to look into thie half-wng argument and what follows s a response from an evolutionist:

One of the most common criticisms of evolution is the question "what good is half a wing?" Anti-evolutionists point out that organs must be functional at every stage of evolution, otherwise they wouldn't be selected, and therefore half-formed wings, eyes, and lungs are impossible.

This is, in fact, a valuable insight that tends to get lost in many simple discussions of evolution, so it's small wonder that creationists are puzzled. The reality is there are no half-evolved organisms. Every organism is fully adapted to its environment all the time, assuming the environment is stable. When the environment changes, then it's a whole new ball game and natural selection does its thing. In fact, you can gain valuable insights into how evolution must have happened by requiring that at every step, organisms must be fully functional. You can easily show that some popular stereotypes, for example, lungfish crawling out of drying ponds onto the land, just can't work. Instead, early amphibians had fully developed limbs, developed for locomotion, sensing in murky environments, maybe even clasping during mating, while they were still completely aquatic.

One problem with the half-a-wing criticism is that it ignores exaptation, the adaptation of a trait originally developed for one function to some other function. But apart from exaptation, the half-a-wing criticism is completely false.

Actually, half-formed eyes and wings can be very useful. Any light-detecting ability, however rudimentary, will enable an organism to seek shelter, find food, and avoid predators. Similarly, half-formed wings aren’t as useless as often imagined. The idea that eyes and wings can only function if fully formed is completely false. Indeed, it’s a lot easier to see how partial versions of these organs could function than it is for many other organs. Creationists assume that problems in evolution are insoluble without making even the slightest attempt to see if solutions exist.


That isn't my argument at all. My argument isn't that wings couldn't have evolved because they have to constantly serve a function throughout their development. My argument is that evolution assumes "random" mutations, so why do modifications via "random" mutatons appear teleological?

Why do teeth grow in a shark's mouth and not on his backside? Will teeth on his backside lower his chances of survival? If not, then natural selection says they will remain there, albeit useles.
_JohnStuartMill
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Re: Bad News for Creationists: Plausible Abiogenesis Path Found

Post by _JohnStuartMill »

Kevin Graham wrote:Why do teeth grow in a shark's mouth and not on his backside? Will teeth on his backside lower his chances of survival? If not, then natural selection says they will remain there, albeit useless.

You're wrong. Natural selection weeds out superfluities with remarkable efficiency.
"You clearly haven't read [Dawkins'] book." -Kevin Graham, 11/04/09
_Kevin Graham
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Re: Bad News for Creationists: Plausible Abiogenesis Path Found

Post by _Kevin Graham »

No, I'm not wrong. Why do we have an apendix? Because it isn't detrimental to our survival, so we just keep it. That is how natural selection works. It doesn't effectively remove anything. We only lose these mutations if they prove detrimental to our survival. The disappear in the sense that those with unfavorable mutations are killed off. The same is true for all evolved organisms.

So again, we would expect a truly "random" mutation to appear "randomly." Instead these features appear exactly where they need to be. Suffce it to say, I have not borrowed any "half-wing" nonsense from the creationist Behe.
_Kevin Graham
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Re: Bad News for Creationists: Plausible Abiogenesis Path Found

Post by _Kevin Graham »

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_25

Here is a useful explanaton of how NS works.
_JohnStuartMill
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Re: Bad News for Creationists: Plausible Abiogenesis Path Found

Post by _JohnStuartMill »

Kevin Graham wrote:I have never read Behe's argument to that effect. Ever. EA's orginal use of quotations suggested he was quoting me. And the funny thing is, nobody has been able to respond to the issue I raised. Evolution rests on the assumption of "random" mutations.

In a truly random process you don't see gradual progress fit to serve a teleological end. I don't know if that is Behe's argument, but it is definately mine.

For example, if it were truly random, then we'd expect nubs (early formation of wings) to start growing "randomly" from all areas of the animal's body.

Did they?

Apaprently not.
Actually, they probably did, at least at first.

If they did, then they could only be removed by natural selection. So if nubs also grew from the corners of their eye lids, then we can explan why we don't see evidence of this now because that would have made them blind, reducing their chances of survival. But would a nub on their backside hinder their chances of survival? No.
That's not true. Superfluous mutations that serve no adaptive purpose rarely last more than a few generation. You'd be surprised at how less fit something like a useless nub can make you.

So where did these nubs grow? If they were truly random mutations, then we wouldn't expect an orderly appearance serving a specific function.

Instead, they gradually protruded from exactly where they needed to in order for their future generations to attain flight.
Nubs were common on the sides of flightless insects because those nubs were useful for swimming, unlike nubs on the backside. In other words, side nubs are immediately beneficial. No teleology required.

http://www.bio.psu.edu/People/Faculty/M ... ject2.html
"You clearly haven't read [Dawkins'] book." -Kevin Graham, 11/04/09
_JohnStuartMill
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Re: Bad News for Creationists: Plausible Abiogenesis Path Found

Post by _JohnStuartMill »

Kevin Graham wrote:No, I'm not wrong. Why do we have an apendix? Because it isn't detrimental to our survival, so we just keep it. That is how natural selection works. It doesn't effectively remove anything. We only lose these mutations if they prove detrimental to our survival. The disappear in the sense that those with unfavorable mutations are killed off. The same is true for all evolved organisms.
You're wrong. The appendix has survival value:

http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jan/fu ... -explained

So again, we would expect a truly "random" mutation to appear "randomly." Instead these features appear exactly where they need to be. Suffce it to say, I have not borrowed any "half-wing" nonsense from the creationist Behe.
No, the features appeared everywhere, and all the ones that weren't immediately beneficial (i.e., within a few generations) to swimming were selected against.
"You clearly haven't read [Dawkins'] book." -Kevin Graham, 11/04/09
_EAllusion
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Re: Bad News for Creationists: Plausible Abiogenesis Path Found

Post by _EAllusion »

1) Victor Stenger isn't a radical atheist. He's an atheist. The term radical here is nothing more than a pejorative meant to poison the well against him.

2) I almost never reference Stenger and find the assertion that he's a favorite atheist of my as strange as it is baseless. On the subject of cosmological arguments on this very thread I explicitly mentioned my favorite philosopher more than once - Wes Morriston. And, for what it is worth, he is a theist.
_EAllusion
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Re: Bad News for Creationists: Plausible Abiogenesis Path Found

Post by _EAllusion »

Mutations that are relatively neutral to selective pressures can disappear in the pool easily through simple genetic drift. They do so all the time. It's a matter of simple statistics. The fact that this happens constantly is the basis for molecular clocks that measure the relatedness between in species and individuals within a species. (Such as genetic testing that forms the basis for those DNA and the Book of Mormon argument you likely are aware of.)
Last edited by Guest on Thu May 28, 2009 8:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
_EAllusion
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Re: Bad News for Creationists: Plausible Abiogenesis Path Found

Post by _EAllusion »

For example, if it were truly random, then we'd expect nubs (early formation of wings) to start growing "randomly" from all areas of the animal's body.

Did they?


My God. See Mikwut? See?
_EAllusion
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Re: Bad News for Creationists: Plausible Abiogenesis Path Found

Post by _EAllusion »

Kevin Graham wrote:Consider the history. Before Christianity took over, the popular belief was that the universe was just an illusion. So there was nothing for the modern scientific method to work with as far as making predictions, experiments, measurements, etc. This method was born from the Christian premise that the universe was indeed real, and that it was governed by laws that we could observe and understand.
Ahahaha!

- EA

(For the lurker, while I'm skeptical that Kevin isn't just screwing with us here, there are fundamentalist Christians who make this argument. Nancy Pearcey and Charles Thaxton come to mind. I mentioned them earlier in this thread in the context of being important creationist leaders.)
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