Paul Nelson: Testing for Common Descent (Signal + Noise?)

[glipsnort (Steve Schaffner)]

@pnelson

“First principle” sounds like an axiom.

Actually, it sounds in this case like someone laying out the starting point for a particular argument.

@pnelson

I’ve watched one prediction of UCD after another – e.g., the universality of the genetic code, the conservation of early metazoan development, the homology concept [i.e., homologous genes underlie homologous anatomy] – go belly-up, and yet UCD largely holds its place as central theory.

During that same period, you’ve also seen prediction after prediction of UCD validating in truly spectacular fashion as genome after genome has been sequenced and analyzed. Is there a reason you didn’t mention this rather larger aspect of the last 40 years of biology?

@pnelson

Can you see why I’d be troubled?

Honestly, no. You seem more gleeful than troubled. Someone who was interested in actually testing common descent would be weighing the strength of the signal for CD against the noise, and would be assessing each of the proposed reasons for the noise individually, determining whether there is independent evidence for these processes and whether the data are consistent with said processes.