You might want to go deeper than the clickbait title, Valerie. It’s just pointing out that nested hierarchies from DNA are better than those from anatomy alone. They’re still nested.
It’s that evidence thing.
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A model does not exist for many of the specific claims for common ancestry. The current model can successfully test common ancestry of vertebrates against separate natural origins (methodological naturalism) but fails against separate designed origins if methodological naturalism is not followed.
A model can exist but still be a weak test against the hypothesis. I think evolution in itself is a very good theory when it is limited to claims that can be directly tested. The problem with the theory is the unrealistic and untested claims assigned to it.
Common ancestry exists and we all agree the question is how pervasive it is.
I certainly wasn’t prepared for him to invoke “wonky things preflood” in defense of his silly “3 daughters-in-law” interpretation of the unrooted mitochondrial tree, nor for him straight up admit he’s using a per-generation mutation rate as a long-term substitution rate in his TMRCA calculation. So yes, I was not prepared for his answers. I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting, but…it wasn’t that.
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Sure it does. It’s called mutation, selection, and vertical inheritance. Common ancestry between all vertebrates can be easily and directly tested using these simple concepts.
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Would you agree to the eukaryotic kind?
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I’m at a scientific conference right now and I can not overstate how absent Jeanson’s ideas and those of every other creationist are, you know, those ideas he said that were so compelling and changing everything.
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It’s kinda hard to prepare for people just making stuff up they haven’t published anywhere, whereas the theory of evolution has a vast and established literature that crackpots can go quotemine and misrepresent for the benefit of people who don’t understand what they say. It was quite revealing how the hosts for the discussion @dsterncardinale had with Jeanson basically admitted they didn’t understand what Dan and Jeason were talking about.
This is the great disadvantage of such discussions. One side just has to have to say technical sounding things to give the appearance of saying stuff back, even if it doesn’t make any logical sense.
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How would you test the hypothesis?
What is the path from a yeast to a fish? What is the path from a fish to a human? What is the population genetic model for building new genes? What is the population genetic model for building the ubiquitin system, new cell types, new tissue and new organs?
Current population genetic models work with existing populations. Using population genetic models we cannot account for the change we are observing in the Howe diagram. It appears we do not have a powerful enough mechanism to account for the changes.
It is a very interesting question you propose. Where does creation stop and evolution start?
Hey, Bill, just so we’re all on the same page, here, what responses from this forum have you received to this claim?
Thanks!
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So it isn’t a lack of an evolutionary model that’s the problem; it’s a lack of a creationist model. Isn’t that what you should be working on? Why is there no creaitonist model?
And yet you can’t distinguish tested claims from untested ones. You need to specify at least one claim you think is unrealistic and untested so we can consider the possibility. You might also specify at least one creationist claim you think is testable and, if possible, tested.
How would you tell? You have so far been unwilling to hypothesize any kinds or any method to discern them.
We would predict a nested hierarchy within eukaryotes. And that prediction is borne out.
Mutation, drift, selection, and branching.
Mutation, drift, and selection.
Same model.
You will have to support your claims here. Why shouldn’t there be an existing population at the root of vertebrates? Why can’t existing models account for the observed change? In what way are gene gain and loss not able to account for the changes?
Why isn’t it obvious? It seems to me that separate kinds should be clearly visible by, for example, the absence of phylogenetic structure between them and the presence of abundant unique characters.
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Common ancestry doesn’t make claims. People make claims. One cannot communicate by changing the meanings of basic terms.
No, models don’t test hypotheses.
I don’t see how. Why don’t you present a hypothesis and its empirical predictions? That’s how we scientists do science.
Models are not tests against any hypotheses.
I think that theories, like hypotheses, make empirical predictions. People make claims. Why do you conflate these different things?
Claims are not assigned to theories by anyone.
It’s common. That’s what the word “common” means in that context.
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The population geneticists so far agree that the limit of population genetics models are changes to existing populations.
Yeast are sister species, not ancestors. Fish did not evolve from fungi.
That’s just population genetics. Are the number and types of genetic differences between species greater than our current understanding of population genetics allows? Nope. In fact the numbers are much less than the spontaneous rate of mutations (of all their types), implying the continued action of purifying selection against the majority of the mutations that occur. Which shows that in fact there is more than enough change happening to give rise to the differences we see.
That’s a bold-faced and blatant lie. Why do you lie Bill? You’ve been told this is wrong before and we’ve done simple calculations to show that what you say is demonstrably false. You’ve read those responses and changed the subjected in response. Which means you read and understood that you were wrong. And now you’re back repeating falsehoods you know are false. That means you lie.
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Another flat out lie.
Edit: One has to wonder what your statement is supposed to imply, if not that population genetics somehow can’t deal with the idea that some ancestral population evolved into a later descendant.
Of course in a certain sense it’s true that in order for an ancestral population to evolve into a descendant population, that would be by changes to an existing population, but then your assertion becomes completely without meaning as that is all that is required for evolution to occur. And the only thing that population genetics has to account for are the differences that separate any two populations. Which it easily can.
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Hi Rum
Thanks for the explanation. @Joe_Felsenstein has acknowledged the current limitations of population genetics mathematics in previous posts.
In needs to account for the change in genetic make up if the design argument is the alternative. This includes new genes with new functions. If you are using methodological naturalism as the alternative I agree the standard for an explanation is much lower. The problem is this allows for “just so” stories as an explanation. You should not expect people to accept that very limited explanations are convincing.
Do you really think random change (with a selection coefficient) can find thousands of new genes in vertebrates? If so what experimental evidence supports this? Again the makeup of the Howe diagram supports Behe’s design argument.
That entire post of Bills is word salad. Models doing tests, claims assigned to theories, theories making claims, common ancestry “exists”.
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Hi, Bill, thanks for the reply. I doubt that’s actually true, but in any case, I was not as specific or clear in my question as I intended, so let me narrow it down.
What responses have you received on this forum about the following claim:
Thanks in advance!
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You unfortunately have no comprehension of what Joe said. All that’s necessary for all of evolution after the origin of life is changes to existing populations. Nobody here has any clue why you think that’s a problem. Changes to existing populations do include both gene gain and loss, if that’s your objection.
Yes, as the mutations that result in new genes are known, and they’re the sort of thing that happens all the time. You have shown zero understanding of “the Howe diagram”, and you have never even attempted to explain how it supports Behe’s design argument. Also, you should notice that Behe’s ideas are not your ideas of separate creation. You can’t use him to support your basic claims.
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Stop invoking the names of people who don’t agree with you in support of your lies. Joe has not acknowledged any agreement anywhere, with any assertion you’ve made about population genetics in this thread.
Stop lying.
And it does.
I agree, which is why the entire community of biology rejects the Intelligent Design just-so story and instead considers the testable theories of common descent and molecular evolution as the only game in town.
Yes. The evidence that shows that novel genes can evolve though mechanisms ranging from duplication and divergence, through recombination, insertion, deletion, and fusion, to de novo by expression of a novel ORF from previously non-coding DNA.
No it actually supports evolution, and common descent as you’ve had explained to you in great detail many times before.
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