Actually, scratch that. There is not a first step. Ever. Nothing in evolution begins to exist without arising from something that existed previously. I’m inclined to say that applies to everything, and not just evolution. Or, as Carl Sagan said “To make a pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”
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Are you from another planet?
Will that comment get me canceled?
Where do you get this notion that I “have already sorted everything out”
Please post something that supports such an assertion.
Have I inadvertently made an assertion that would support such a claim from you? Maybe? But I don’t think so. Please show your evidence. And it would somehow have to override my repeated assertions that I’m a layman, trying to sort out what I can from my vantage point.
You are not alone in asserting that. Does that comfort you? It however misses the point entirely. My point is what do I do today with the knowledge I have? I inclined to agree with nearly everything Behe asserts. I watched Behe and Swamidass here, https://youtu.be/wXU2Z3GVNFM and again for about the hundredth time, from the knowledge standpoint I have now, Behe wins.
If you can’t accept that the terms (Darwinism and non-Darwinian mechanisms) are used by nearly everyone equivocally that’s your incomplete reading.
What does this even mean? Other than being random nonsense tossed out before the rest of the nonsense.
People talk about ‘Darwinian mechanisms’, do you think that means they are talking about ‘Darwinism’? If so, you should learn the way the words are used in the field.
‘Nearly everyone’ is not an evolutionary biologist, but it is exclusively their usage of the terms that matters in a conversation about the science of evolutionary biology with evolutionary biologists.
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From every one of your posts. For example:
Why would you start with Behe’s “material” if you were just “the layman trying to sort things out a bit”? Why would you make it all about rhetorical material, but nothing about evidence?
Your “vantage point” is the assumption that Behe is correct. IOW, you’ve already sorted!
What knowledge do you have? You appear to have zero knowledge of the evidence, just rhetoric. If you’re avoiding the evidence you’re not trying to sort anything out.
So let’s look at your “knowledge standpoint.”
Science resolves things with evidence, not YouTube debates. You’re admitting right up front that you’re not trying to sort anything out.
I don’t see what basis you have for lumping those terms together.
I doubt that you have gone from not even knowing of the existence of non-Darwinian mechanisms to being able to cite even a single case of someone using the term “non-Darwinian mechanism” equivocally, much less “nearly everyone.”
My point is that you and Behe are simply ignoring those mechanisms, but I think you know that.
Did you read my paper, Sam? Am I a biochemist? We can use it as a platform to reinforce your “knowledge standpoint” by discussing its relevance to neutral evolution.
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What “knowledge standpoint” do you have now to declare Behe the victor?
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I second the motion. @Sam, please explain why you are inclined to agree with Behe. Is it rational?
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Accept that it is very scanty and mostly wrong, and this makes you vulnerable to the falsehoods that Behe propagates.
Right. Whereas anyone here who is not as lacking in knowledge as you realizes that Behe got destroyed.
So what does this tell us about Behe? That he’s not a very good scientist, but he is very good at convincing people who know little about science that he is a good scientist.
This is not something of which he should be proud.
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Ok. Thanks, Michael Okoko.
That is not a lot different, if any from what I thought.
I think this part of the conversation started when I quoted Behe.
Now big breath here, (I know a lot of people here love to hate on Behe and maybe anyone who likes him) but don’t you pretty much agree with this statement, “The obvious reply is that the evolution of biochemical systems is itself biochemistry. When a protein sequence changes, when DNA mutates, those are biochemical changes. Since inherited changes are caused by molecular changes, it is biochemists—not evolutionary biologists—who will ultimately decide whether Darwin’s mechanism of natural selection can explain life. No offense—that’s just the way the world works.”
Another big breath - not everything Behe says is wrong. Rumor has it that he claims 1+1=2.
Now feel free to jump in and correct me, but can’t you have numerous mutations where the DNA sequence changes (do you want to call it randomly) and it won’t have any change whatsoever in the fitness or any other observable feature of the organism? Would that be a neutral change?
Anyway, where I’m going with this, which is where I’ve been trying to go from the beginning is, can’t you have biochemical changes (would you call those mutations) that yield no apparent change in anyway in the organism, but if you have any visible change in the organism you can guarantee that there has been biochemical changes.
But this is where I disagree with @Faizal_Ali (BTW, how do you get this @Faizal_Ali to show up like this? I just copied it from your post, but I notice other here doing the same and I don’t know how to do it.)
And he responds,
Let’s work with the building analogy for a minute and then change to biology.
So, we are talking about removing bricks from a building in order to, let’s say, make a window opening. Faizal says that the bricks themselves have not been affected at the molecular level. Fair enough. I don’t know if I implied that they did, but regardless, there are indeed molecular changes. All of the bond of the brick that was in place has to be removed. This is molecular change. I won’t overstress the details of the analogy. Maybe that is asking the analogy to show more than Faizal expected of it. But I still don’t see that what Behe said in the quote above is incorrect. Hasn’t Faizal implied that you can get change in an organism that doesn’t involve biochemical changes. To work a bit more with the analogy, isn’t it implied that just as I can apparently get bricks moved without molecular change, I could likewise get another arm growing out of my thigh, without molecular changes. I am suggesting that even it the arm was pretty much identical to one that I have, there would be many changes to my thigh to make the connection.
We may have come to the end of the usefulness of the analogy.
Can you just comment on the quote from Behe. Pretend it wasn’t made by Behe. Choose your most respected scientist and assume that he made the comment. Would you still have problems affirming it?
Cheers.
Really?
Do I really need to answer that? Haven’t I pretty much declared that ad nauseam?
Have you watched the debate? It doesn’t really get into much science. If you would at least listen to the point beginning here, https://youtu.be/wXU2Z3GVNFM?t=3694 . Joshua says 1) that he punted on answering how that arose and 2) at the end of his response he says that he will hang out with Jim Tour tomorrow and that they can talk about the question then. If you will watch it for only 3 minutes and 15 seconds you will get a glimmer of what I’m responding to.
People seem extremely frustrated that I come here with the science understanding that I have. I’m not sure if Joshua Swamidass would welcome me or not. But these debates are put on in part expecting people like me either in the audience or watching on the internet. So I came to Peaceful? Science to see what was here.
I don’t feel that I have really answered your question, “What “knowledge standpoint” do you have now to declare Behe the victor?” Not because I am trying to be evasive, I just think it is rather clear what my knowledge standpoint” is. I’m a carpenter. I’m not likely going to get top marks on an epistemology essay.
Of course you are welcomed. No one has stood in your way to ask questions and explore here.
But knock that off. This is an open forum, and we can’t micromanage (and don’t endorse) everyone behaviors here. Don’t knock us for being hospitable to a wide range of views.
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No, I don’t, and I suspect that nobody else here does either. And several of us have tried to explain why to you, but you have managed not to hear any of it. The chemical reactions responsible for mutations are not relevant to whether the resulting allele has any sort of phenotypic effect or whether it’s subject to selection or how much. Exactly equivalent mutations in different parts of the genome can have completely different effects, and biochemistry is of absolutely no use in determining those effects or whether they’re selectively advantageous. Biochemistry could help you determine the relative probabilities of particular mutations, and those frequencies can help to understand evolution, but it’s the frequencies you need, not the biochemistry. And so on. Mutation may happen at the biochemical level, but evolution doesn’t.
True, but everything you’ve quoted is. Not because it’s Behe who said it, but because it’s objectively wrong.
Yes, and whether it’s neutral has nothing to do with biochemistry.
No, actually. Of course evolution doesn’t happen to organisms but to populations, so the literal sense of your words there is problematic. If you’re trying to say that the phenotypic differences between species are due to differences in their genomes, then yes. But understanding evolution doesn’t require you to know the biochemical details in most cases.
No. That’s why he asked. It seems from your answer that you’re saying that your “knowledge standpoint” is ignorance of the subject. But that doesn’t tell us why you believe everything Behe says and nothing of what biologists say. Could you address that question?
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Fair enough, if that is your view then that is your view. This is of course a space for disagreement so it is to be expected that we see things differently.
But I have to say I find it disappointing that we never got to actually discuss the actual biochemistry. The science and the biochemical facts of the matter. Instead all your time around here has seem to have been focused exclusively on arguing about the possibility of the scientific consensus being wrong by pointing to the circumstances surrounding the challenger disaster.
I’d like to actually know what is it you know? This “knowledge standpoint” you have, what is that? Can you describe some of these pieces of knowledge? I’m just curious to see what it is you find compelling that Behe says. I have to assume there’s some sort of biochemical fact you refer to that Behe has articulated, that forms the basis for this knowledge standpoint you have. I understand that you’re not a scientist yourself, so I’m not expecting you to start explaining lots of complicated biochemistry.
Disclaimer: It should go without saying that I strongly suspect you might have been mislead, but I can’t know that if you won’t describe what it is Behe has said that you find compelling. You are of course not under any obligation to debate, defend, or discuss the subject if you don’t feel comfortable doing that. Even so, I’d appreciate knowing at least what it is you refer to even just by a small summary.
Like, “I find the following biochemical facts Behe mentioned, X, Y, and Z, compelling because I think they show that A, B, and C”.
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No. Not even once.
This is extremely confusing to me because you say you have a “knowledge standpoint” to use to declare Behe the victor. When asked to elaborate on this, you link a video with a timestamp where James Tour is asking for chemical details in the changes to a complex system.
This is very odd and I hope you can see why. First of all, it’s not Behe talking. Second, no basis of knowledge is described. On the contrary, we just get an elaboration of James Tour’s personal ignorance. Nobody there, in the video you link, is describing what it is they know that makes Behe “the winner”. I literally can’t make sense of your statement in relation to how you go on to try to elaborate on it.
What is it even that Behe “wins” on? I have to assume it’s something that Behe has made a point of in the past. Some of his signature arguments. What could that be? That intelligent design is required to explain life? That evolution is only ever degenerative on net outcome? That’ there’s an edge of evolution? That some things are irreducibly complex? That something being irreducibly complex can’t evolve? That the scientific consensus can be wrong? There’s so many ways to understand your statement, but none of them make sense in relation to the answer you give (which basically amounts to: See how during a live stage debate @swamidass fails to quickly think of a good rebuttal to James Tour’s rhetorical device - so Behe wins).
What in that video where Tour is asking for more detail, compels that conclusion? And really, what is it exactly you think Behe wins on? Please start making at least some sense.
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Here’s how I understand the analogy relating to what Behe wrote: A builder decides to create an opening in a brick structure to install a window.
A chemist and a physicist, neither of whom has ever built anything in their lives, tell him he cannot be doing it right because he does not know any physics or chemistry, and suggest some other way of doing it based on their specialized knowledge.
From his experience, the builder believes that what they suggest will not work and will result in the wall collapsing.
Should he follow their advice anyway?
Yes. It’s utter nonsense.
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No one here hates Behe or those aligned to his position. Don’t let the persecution complex get to you.
I don’t agree because it’s wrong and I believe several posts on this thread have provided in-depth reasons as to why that is the case.
First, mutations are the changes themselves. If you have ‘numerous mutations’, its the same as saying you have numerous changes or alterations to your DNA sequence.
Second, yes, there are mutations with little or no effect on the fitness of organisms or their phenotype. Mutations with no effect on fitness are neutral mutations.
There are different types of biochemical changes. Mutations falls into one or more classes of such changes. Let’s hone in on mutations as they are relevant to this discourse.
Mutations may or may not affect the phenotype (observable features) of organisms. In the early days of genetics, the only way to know if mutations had occurred was to look for ‘visible’ changes in test organisms. However, we have access to DNA sequencing technology today and with it we can determine whether mutations have occurred regardless of whether it affects the phenotype of organisms of interest.
Faizal is right. In chemistry, we have chemical and physical changes. Physical changes do not lead to the formation of new substances, while chemical changes do. When you separate bricks or use it to make a window, you don’t alter their chemical composition, so its not a molecular change.
Not at all. Bricks in a wall are attached to each with cement or some other adhesive material. This differs from the bonds that hold atoms in a molecule together. If you break the bonds that connect atoms, you get new substances and that’s a chemical or molecular change. In contrast, if you remove bricks from a wall, you still get bricks, and that’s why its not a chemical or molecular change.
Taking out bricks from a wall doesn’t count as a molecular change, but growing an arm involves a vast number of molecular changes. Arm growth will require increased cellular proliferation, which in turn requires increased energy expenditure. Disrupting energy-rich bonds like thioesters or phosphoesters provides the said energy, with the formation of new substances.
I hope you got the difference.
Like I said earlier on, Behe is wrong there. Biochemistry is simply inadequate to account for all the details of our deep evolutionary past.
You definitely haven’t answered it. Please do. What do you know now that makes Behe the victor?
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after all we evolution should start with something. a small bump on the nose (which is made from a different matter) can be a good start.
The major problem is that Behe ignores most of the evidence. However, a lot of what he says is just plain wrong. As a sample, he wrote:
“Like malaria, HIV is a microbe that occurs in astronomical numbers. What’s more, its mutation rate is 10,000 times greater than that of most other organisms. So in just the past few decades HIV has actually undergone more of certain kinds of mutations than all cells have endured since the beginning of the world. Yet all those mutations, while medically important, have changed the functioning virus very little . It still has the same number of genes that work in the same way. There is no new molecular machinery.”
This claim is a cornerstone of his book. True or false, Sam?
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According the theory of evolution as you, er, understand it, would there not be something that preceded that small bump on the nose? Or do you think it works like one day there is a blinding light and sparks flying from a spot on the face of a baby rhino then, out of nowhere, there is a small bump on his nose?
Suppose you did see a small bump on the nose of some creature that may or may not look like a rhino? Are you saying you would know that this small bump will one day be a large horn on its descendants? Do you not have some small bumps on various parts of your body? I know I do. Are you saying these will all turn out to be horns on the bodies of my distant descendants? Yikes.
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It’s all good and well pointing out the possibility of some conflict between two different (but very much related) fields of science, at least in theory, and then asking whether if contradiction arises between inferences in these two fields then who are going to be the arbiters of truth in such a potential conflict? The fact is that ultimately the data, the physical evidence, is what is going to decide matters there, not the title of the field or it’s relative position in the so-called “scientific pecking order”.
And more importantly, I don’t think there’s any conflict between evolution and biochemistry. On the contrary. I think biochemistry shows not only that evolution is possible, but that it is inevitable and unavoidable. Life couldn’t possibly fail to undergo transgenerational change, that is descent with modification, under natural selection.
The mechanism of reproduction and inheritance, at the molecular level, intrinsically lends itself to gradualistic, step-wise, incremental evolutionary change. The digital polymer molecule DNA, with it’s sequence of bases that can mutate, and with all the types of mutations one could wish to have if you wanted to incrementally change it, appears to be exactly the sort of thing that would evolve. DNA basepair by DNA basepair.
Think about it. There is a mutation for essentially any sort of change you could hope for if you wanted to incrementally change a DNA sequence.
You can get point substitutions(any base can be substituted for another), insertions and deletions, chromosomal inversions, duplications of effectively any size. DNA can move from one organism to another through horizontal gene transfer and insert basically anywhere, and carry any combination of genes.
And these things unavoidably occur both during the lifetime of an organism, and as it reproduces.
The end-products of transcription and translation, that is proteins, also exhibit these unavoidably evolutionary properties that lend themselves to incremental evolutionary change. Proteins have secondary structural elements (turns, sheets, helixes) that can be shuffled around by DNA mutations, changed incrementally in sequence amino acid by amino acid in a way that gradually alters the hydrophobicity, flexibility, activity, and stability of the molecule. They can be fused together, either end-to-end, into one large protein, or smaller fragments of existing proteins can be combined into new proteins. Small peptide repeats can oligomerize into larger proteins, or form supramolecular structures such as molecular machines. The same is of course true of full-blown proteins, which can also combine into quaternary structures. In eukaryotes, the whole system seems to have been transformed into one that is even better geared towards large-scale protein structural exploration, with the exon-intron-exon structure of protein coding genes facilitating the splicing, shuffling and recombination of protein coding gene fragments into new genes.
Had I been a religious person it is not inconceivable I would have thought life looks like it was made to evolve. Of course, many religious people do.
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I haven’t been following the recent discussion, but what’s the big deal about rhino horns? IIRC they are made of keratin (like fingernails or hair), and it’s no surprise that mammals have hair. WHY such a structure forms on the nose is a better question, but HOW shouldn’t be a big deal.
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