Constructive Neutral Evolution

[ETVB]

@swamidass

No-detectable is not the same as non-selectable. Do you see why?

I never said they were. All I was saying is that if most mutations are neutral, wouldn’t that mean their impact on fitness cannot be detected (due to noise, etc), nor selected for?

@swamidass

Biological information does not work very much at all like language does. The analogy becomes misleading very quickly.

Can you elaborate?

[Ashwin_s]

@NLENTS

As we’ve already seen, as scientists fill in the gaps and find evidence for the emergence of de novo genes through genomic rearrangements/duplications followed by natural selection, ID proponents will simply retreat to their safe space of saying, “Okay, but you can’t show that the rearrangements were unguided.” Notice the subtle shift from saying it couldn’t happen, to it couldn’t happen without guidance , which would leave no evidence to be found anyway.

This is not a fair criticism. The basic point that ID makes is not “It couldn’t happen”.
That would be a ridiculous claim because obviously these things happened and that’s why life and bio diversity exists.
The basic claim by ID scientists is that it couldn’t happen without intelligent intervention… and the counterclaim (by evolutionary biologists) is that it could.

Listing out rearrangements doesn’t really tell us anything unless its backed by a theory that shows the mechanism… and if these are all chance happenings…
Well, that’s a pretty tall claim.

[John_Harshman]

@Ashwin_s

The basic claim by ID scientists is that it couldn’t happen without intelligent intervention

First of all: “ID scientists” is an oxymoron. Second, ID encompasses all sorts of views, but the view that it (common descent) did happen appears to be a minority one, largely restricted to Behe and Denton. The rest are in favor of separate creation of one sort or another.

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@NLENTS

Notice the subtle shift from saying it couldn’t happen, to it couldn’t happen without guidance , which would leave no evidence to be found anyway.

@Ashwin_s

This is not a fair criticism.
(…)
The basic claim by ID scientists is that it couldn’t happen without intelligent intervention… and the counterclaim (by evolutionary biologists) is that it could.

Seems to me @NLENTS was spot-on.

[Timothy_Horton]

@Ashwin_s

Listing out rearrangements doesn’t really tell us anything unless its backed by a theory that shows the mechanism…

Evolutionary theory describes the multiple mechanisms. What mechanisms does ID have besides POOF! MAGIC! ?

@Ashwin_s

and if these are all chance happenings…
Well, that’s a pretty tall claim.

It’s also a pretty pathetic strawman as no one says ot thinks evolution happens just by chance.

[sfmatheson]

@Rumraket

Seems to me @NLENTS was spot-on.

Thanks for pointing this out; in this case it’s hard to tell if @NLENTS words were intentionally misrepresented, and I think it’s reasonable to assume carelessness but the response to his post was misleading at best.