It’s the opposite. You use random change as the null and see if what you are observing falsifies the null. The proposed ID mechanism is mind which is a deterministic mechanism for generating sequences.
This is what evolutionary biologists have done to try and confirm common descent. Compare the sequence to random change as the null and falsify random change.
Dawkins tried to solve this issue by modeling cumulative selection as an algorithmic process that could find a functional sequence. What he ended up modeling is a process that required an algorithm and a mind by using the desired sequence as the target the samples were compared against.
The fact we are observing translatable sequences here is evidence of Gods handiwork.
And here is where you fail High School Science. Again.
Let’s suppose that we need 4 different systems to make language work:
The brain cortex has to reach a certain percentage of total brain mass to achieve a minimum threshold of networking. This increased cortex helps humans hunt better, and anticipate the behaviors of others, which is pretty important if they don’t have a real language yet. Ironically, the increased brain cortex also allows humans to better understand the vocal codes that other humans make.
The throat configuration that enables articulation of animal noises useful in hunting has become more common in the plains hominid groups… because it helps humans entice animals to come closer to human traps and ambushes. Ironically, improved configuration also enables more articular human-to-human communication.
Changes in the amygdala help humans control their fear and anger more intentionally, thus giving them a greater chance ability to cope with a danger or a provocation. Ironically, these changes also give humans a greater presence of mind to think of a way to avoid running or fighting too automatically, and thus are more able to devise a vocal sign that reassures or soothes others in the group.
Connections between visual and auditory cortexes, when they reach a certain density, make it possible for humans to retain thoughts about the future for a longer period of time, and about more aspects of that visualization. Ironically, improvements in this density make it possible for humans to include more vocal signs and sounds to mean more and more new things.
So, @scd, as these hypothetical four things continue to improve … all of a sudden… you have a hominid with language ability. You seem to think that mutations can only be good for one thing… when the whole is greater than the sum of the parts!
You just wrote me that some mutations are random, and you estimate the probability of them.
But I’m saying that no mutations are random … they are all part of God’s design for life. How can you, a Creationist, tell me I’m wrong in that? Has an alien landed and taken control of your limbs and voice?
Bill, you seem to be unable to differentiate between your pure-iron-will opposition to anything that sounds like Evolution … even when the Evolution being described is 100% in line with God’s will and design?
And that you are so opposed to Evolution, you are even willing to say Changes are Random in order to get away from the position that God uses Evolution.
I can’t even say “if it walks and talks like a duck …” to you … because you are intentionally jumping around like a Kangaroo to avoid being labeled an anti-evolution Duck…
I think I’m going to throw you back to @John_Harshman… you are just too oppositional for me to accept.
I don’t have a problem with evolutionary claims that are supported. The issue I have is when I see claims that are not supported.
I also have a problem with the circular reasoning that is part of the theory. Ie Homology: genes that are related by common descent.
If you believe in God guided universal common descent I don’t have a problem as you have invoked a deterministic mechanism that explains what we are observing. I cannot discount what you are claiming is possible. I don’t think the nested hierarchy on its own is strong evidence for universal common descent especially if Gods hand is invoked but again I believe it is a possible explanation.
I can discount current evolutionary mechanisms explaining complex adaptions. I do think they can explain simple adaptions. Do we have some common ground here?
Science counts on deterministic mechanisms. With a deterministic mechanisms we can create a model.
So if we don’t understand everything, we don’t understand anything?
If I have understood the research correctly, the case for human-chimp common ancestry does not stand or fall on the ability (or not) to map sequence differences to phenotype differences. Instead, it is based on the ability to construct a nested hierarchy from genomic data. (Fossil evidence also figures, but I’ll set it aside in this post.) Just as a geneticist can construct a nested hierarchy of the relationships between human populations from genomic data, s/he can construct a nested hierarchy of primate relationships from genomic data.
You ask a good question, though, and biologists of diverse religious inclinations are working hard to answer it.
Look… you seem to be confusing yourself about who you are disputing what point and with whom.
I am 100% Pro-God’s teleology (with the only caveat being that Science cannot prove it).
I show up with the great news… someone who agrees with you about God’s design being the solution to Evolution … and the first thing you do is BACK-PEDAL that not everything is designed by God.
Then you introduce the problem of toxic genetics … which I think is one of the favorite topics of Atheist and Agnostic opponents to Creationism. And you top the whole mess off with the statement that circular reasoning has something to do with 100% teleology… it doesn’t.
So … remind us again what your religion is? I think you should change your religion. I don’t think you are doing anybody any favors at this point.
That, and the fact that the proportions of genomic differences are consistent with mutational mechanisms, such as transition bias, duplications in repetitive regions, transpositional activity, and so on.
It would seem very odd to independently create two species, and then ensure that the genetic differences between them look like they all were caused by mutation from the same template.
