Gpuccio on Common Descent

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

Continuing the discussion from Gpuccio: Functional Information Methodology:

@Gpuccio just joined our forum, and the conversation is unfolding about how he has computed FI gains to infer design at the vertebrate transition. I am sure some disagreements will be uncovered. At the same time, i wanted to explore our common ground.

One place of common ground appears to be @gpuccio’s affirmation of common descent, which makes his connection to Uncommon Descent somewhat of a misnomer. This puts him in a rare group of “theistic evolutionists” within ID, that includes Michael Behe and Denton.

He states:

@gpuccio

I affirm common descent of all living organisms, at least as the best current theory. Including, of course, humans.

Another poster here, @Giltil, has commented on this recently too.

@Giltil

A powerful argument for common descent (but not for blind/unguided evolution) was given to me by gpuccio, a gifted contributor at the ID blog « Uncommon descent ».
According to him,

the simple observation of the frequency of synonymous mutations in different species is the strongest argument for common descent that we can imagine.

I’ve tried to find a way to counter his argument, but after several exchanges, I was forced to realize that it was very powerful and I gave up.

For those that may be interested to know more about the argument, I invite you to look at posts 1/123/131/144/159/161/164/169/171/175/181/184 of the conversation below.

Consider the opossum: the evidence for common descent | Uncommon Descent

At some point, I’d like to look more closely at the argument for common descent that @gpuccio is making. I am hopeful this will be a place of common ground.

[Dan_Eastwood]

@Giltil I’ll try to give that a read - but I already running a few weeks behind, so no promises!