Replacing Darwin Made Simple

Conversation
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So I did my deep dive into Jeanson’s views on natural selection. Dan, in your video you created a strawman, but… after I read the relevant section in Replacing Darwin, I do think that Jeanson is far too wordy in that section, and in Replacing Darwin Made Simple, he doesn’t answer the question that is the heading of the chapter (eek! :neutral_face:) using the words “natural selection” so his answer reads like “no, but yes,” which is confusing; and you focused far too much on one sentence:

Notice that we haven’t discussed survival of the fittest.

Based on Dan’s screenshots, I believe this webpage is the same as the relevant chapter from the book: Did Natural Selection Play a Role in Speciation? | Answers in Genesis

But @dsterncardinale I think you could have avoided the strawman had you noticed this sentence describing natural selection and the footnote:

Naturally and by chance, some individuals will die, and others will survive to reproduce.4

  1. Nathaniel Jeanson and Georgia Purdom, “Understanding Natural Selection: Clarifying the Confusion,” Answers in Genesis, February 16, 2016, Understanding Natural Selection | Answers in Genesis.

More on why @dsterncardinale created a strawman: As I re-watched your video, from what I could tell, you were explaining pre-existing diversity as if specific alleles of a gene had to be isolated in various migratory populations to form new species.

From Replacing Darwin pg 351:

Again, the formation of a specific new species is not the goal; rather the goal is the formation of new species, period.
To clarify, the model of preexisting genetic diversity invokes multiple mechanisms as this second step - natural selection, migration, genetic drift, etc.

The second step referred to there is “isolation of the distinct individuals.” I found this part of the chapter confusing because in that sentence he referred to a “step” of the speciation process, while mostly using the word “element” previously. He also used ordinal numbers to describe categories within the 3 particular elements of speciation as well as the elements themselves. I had a hard time following what he was saying until I read it multiple times.

This is closer to his views, but also not quite correct.
From Replacing Darwin, page 344:

If human breeders can do so much with so little genetic potential, and if much more genetic potential exists in the wild, then a natural “substitute” for humans is almost unnecessary - natural processes need to accomplish so little.

This section is much clearer than his book, regarding his views on the topic:
Results and Discussion section (C)(1)(i)

Conversely, with respect to our model, the major remaining population genetic questions revolve around identifying which of the specific processes—migration, herding, small population sizes, natural selection, mutation, etc.—were responsible for specific speciation events. Realistically, no one specific process was likely at play. Rather, a combination of these processes probably played a role in each speciation event, and separating the relative contributions of each will be a task for future research to solve.

Sharing this, just because Jeanson’s reply to Guliuzza’s response to his criticism is amusing. Reply to Response to "Does Natural Selection Exist?" | Answers Research Journal

And one more on Jeanson on natural selection:

Since Noah took only two of the cat min on board the Ark, the 30-plus species of cats alive today have formed since the Flood. How? Via adaptation, natural selection, and biological change . This is the modern creationist view.

Does that mean creationists agree with Darwin after all? Well, if recognizing that natural selection happens means agreeing with Darwin, then the answer is a qualified yes . God designed creatures with the marvelous ability to adapt to different environments as they spread out to fill the earth. Species can change; in fact, they do so surprisingly quickly. But one min cannot change into another min .

While I was researching this today, I thought I’d also check on whether Rob Carter agrees with Jeanson and where he differs because I had assumed long ago he agreed with Jeanson’s ideas based on something I heard him say. But I figured out that Jeanson is basically saying that well-known population genetics principles about variation are all that’s needed for speciation too. :sweat_smile: @dsterncardinale I think that was part of your critique…

I came across this series:

Here, Carter seems to agree with Jeanson at least on what’s necessary for speciation…otherwise they seem to differ on a lot.

We don’t need evolution to explain speciation. All we need is an initially high genetic diversity, a way to scramble that diversity, and the isolation of subpopulations.
Species were designed to change, part 2

There and in part 3, he gets into hybridization. I found it very interesting since Carter references his background in marine science to explain. Since Jeanson didn’t refer to hybridization as a mechanism for speciation in his book, is this series a critique of Jeanson without naming him? Probably.

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That sentence doesn’t describe natural selection. It describes genetic drift, if anything. Does Jeanson claim that it’s a definition of natural selection or is that your own misunderstanding?

In that sentence, how would the explanation differ if you removed “created heterozygosity”? What evidence is there for the existence of created heterozygosity? Talk about strawmen!

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That’s a description of genetic drift, not natural selection. It is only natural selection when death or reproduction is consistently biased towards particular phenotypes, rather than being just “by chance”. While the link does affirm the reality of natural selection, that sentence is a very poor description of it, and fits much better with genetic drift.

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Note that this requires there to have been a worldwide Flood, and all evidence tells us that there was no such thing. When a fundamental requirement of your model is wrong, your model can’t be right. The Flood doesn’t depend on biology but on geology. But the scenario is ridiculous biologically too.

He makes it sound like a big deal, but it would be impossible to design creatures without that ability. Adaptation is a consequence of genetic variation, which is a consequence of mutation, which is a consequence of replication. Can’t be avoided. You might as well say that rocks were designed to erode.

What evidence does he have of that? How does he know that the cat min is different from the civet min or the hyena min? Why are min so hard to recognize?

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Selection isn’t “by chance.”

The sentence describes drift, not natural selection. The straw man is Jeanson’s. Therefore the title of the cargo-cult paper would be more accurate as, “Misunderstanding Natural Selection: Amplifying the Confusion.”

How can you tolerate being deceived in such a blatant way?

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Jeanson, in general, is all over the place on this question.

In the chapter I was talking about, he very specifically says natural selection isn’t needed.

I didn’t strawman his argument in the chapter I was talking about. I even showed the text on screen. I think your problem is with his statements and writings being inconsistent over the years.

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One self-evident inconsistency with Jeanson’s post-flood speciation is due to the shift from heterozygosity to homozygosity is that, presumably, this process was going on for the fifteen hundred years between creation and the ark. The animals walking up the gangplank would have already been far down the path to homozygosity. That would leave little left for post flood radiation.

But hey, I suppose it all makes sense when you look at the data through a creationist lens. Let’s say pre flood populations were not isolated so heterozygosity persisted. Ta daaa - Jeanson is proven right again!

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You are quoting Jeanson there but I can’t find it within my post (different post?) so I don’t know what study he is referring to. But his book basically says that created heterozygosity IS a substitute for the idea that random mutations create new information that natural selection can act upon. With created heterozygosity, natural selection can be very ineffecient, and changes can happen in as little as one generation

Also providing an alternative isn’t a strawman.

Fair.

Created heterozygosity doesn’t require a worldwide flood. It is obviously possible without it. Perhaps even old earthers could postulate it and just cite slower change over time.

There’s a possible world where God could design without two sets of chromosomes, genes, recombination, sexual reproduction, etc, but yeah He didn’t so adaptation is an inevitable consequence of variation. It was also inevitable then that creationists wouldn’t come up with this hypothesis once the field of genetics became known.

Well, I’m not aware of any creationist that says those are different kinds.

Sure, I wouldn’t say you had created a strawman if you had said that. But you said it isn’t operating, which is very different. What’s minimally necessary is very different from the entirety of what could be operating in speciation.

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From Mammalian Ark Kinds

Felidae (Cat kind)

There are 14 genera and 40 species of cats. There is a very strong cognitum at the family level, but the relationships within the family have been more controversial (Wilson and Reeder 2005). There is extensive hybrid data within this family, which has been the basis for suggesting that fewer genera should be recognized (Van Gelder 1977). There have been several different creationist studies on cats (Pendragon and Winkler 2011; Robinson and Cavanaugh 1998; Wood 2008a). Because of the extensive hybrid data that crosses the two recognized subfamilies and a strong cognitum, it is natural to place the level of the kind at the family.

Viverridae (Civet kind)

This family is comprised of 15 genera and 35 species. These small to medium-sized carnivores have been difficult to classify. At one time members of Eupleridae, Nandiniidae, and Herpestidae were also included in this family (Nowak 2005b; Wilson and Reeder 2005). Wood (2008a) analyzed a dataset and found that members of Viverridae showed extensive, positive BDC with members of the families Eupleridae and Nandiniidae. One member of Eupleridae ( Cryptoprocta ) showed significant, positive correlation with others in that family including Galidia , which in turn was positively correlated with two members of Herpestidae. Given this, the level of the kind could easily be above the level of the family.

Hyaenidae (Hyena/Aardwolf kind)

Hyaenidae is comprised of three genera and four species. Hyenas have an unusual sloping profile because their hindlegs are shorter than their forelegs. They are able to cover long distances with an energy-efficient ‘loping gallop’ due to this trait. Although the genus name Canis was originally used for some species centuries ago when they were first named, this family is now considered to be more cat-like and is in the suborder Feliforma (Nowak 2005b; Wilson and Reeder 2005).

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I copied it directly from your post. It’s the paper you linked to, and that quote actually appears in the link. This seems indicative of how little you understand what you read or cite.

True. But all diversity arising after Noah’s flood does indeed require that the flood happened, right? If it didn’t, there’s absolutely no need for created heterozygosity, since long time will produce heterozygosity automatically.

None of these are needed for adaptation. And that doesn’t address my point: it’s impossible to create organisms that are not capable of adaptation, so there’s no need to invoke special creation.

Who say what are different kinds? You were talking about the cat kind, and those other animals aren’t cats. Your confusion is understandable since, as I have said, creationists are unable to define kinds.

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If that’s fair, then Jeanson is misleading you. How does that change your stance?

Jeanson described drift and called it natural selection.

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Okay. Look. Here’s the transcript from the review, starting at about 55:42:

so he’s saying you have your ancestral species has this heterozygosity lots of variation and then those differences as those lineages diverge and branch off from each other within your family within your created kind each individual lineage becomes more heteros more homozygous right becomes more homozygous so you have all this variation and it kind of gets apportioned into each lineage and whatever variance each lineage gets that’s responsible for making each lineage its own thing with its own unique traits that’s the argument here for how speciation works he hasn’t discussed survival of fitness he’s not talking about natural selection he’s talking about a completely different mechanism for speciation so you start with enormous genetic variety and then you have reproduction and migration you lose variation in your different lineages they become new species that’s it that’s what he says is the process

Obviously a transcript doesn’t read well as text, but I’ve highlighted the important part.

Now let’s go back to the text. Jeanson, page 50:

Notice that we haven’t discussed survival of the fittest. For homozygous individ- uals to be isolated away from heterozygous individuals, the death of the original heterozygous individuals is not required. Migration of homozygous groups away from heterozygous groups would do the job just fine.

Naturally and by chance, some individuals will die, and others will survive to reproduce.54 As we observed in chapter 5, the vast majority of mammal kinds died permanently—they’re extinct. But repeated cycles of massive population death, followed by survival of a few individuals to found a new population, are not necessary for speciation. Once God created kinds with enormous genetic variety from the start, reproduction and migration were virtually all that was needed to produce a huge number of species.

No selection there. As others have pointed out, he’s discussing drift, not selection.

And from the end of the chapter:

Under the parameters we just laid out, evolution as Darwin described is not possible. In contrast, formation of new species from the kinds onboard Noah’s ark is not only possible, it rep- resents a scientifically superior explanation to any that Darwin or his scientific descendants have proposed to date.

Emphasis mine. What mechanism Darwin proposed (at least originally) for evolution? Natural selection. And Jeanson is proposing an explanation that is superior to “any” of those proposed by “Darwin or his scientific descendants”.

Sure seems like, in this chapter, Jeanson isn’t so hot on natural selection as a mechanism of speciation.

Which is exactly what I f’ing said.

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I feel like it also has to be pointed out that it’s hard to square Jeanson’s affirmation of natural selection in adapting species to their environmental circumstance, in the links given in this thread, with Sanford’s message in his Genetic Entropy book: That natural selection is powerless to stop degeneration and loss of reproductive fitness. It just seems very strange to me, and at odds with one another, that species can somehow simultaneously adapt to their environment but will also degenerate and lose fitness and functions until they go extinct. How does that work again?

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I’ve wondered the same thing, but then I conjured a response from AiG.

Animals were created with a wonderful genetic potential to adapt to various habitats. Even evolutionists are forced to admit that living species are recent, and for them this is a perplexing challenge. With a creationist lens, we know that as kinds repopulated the earth, that their created heterozygosity allowed novel species to fit perfectly into their new environments. Unfortunately, as genetic entropy has taken its toll, the ability to speciate has been eroded away. The formation of new species now is much slower than generations ago back at the flood. That we do not presently see the same level of speciation is actually solid evidence in support of both genetic entropy and the heterozygosity model of speciation.

Maybe I should write copy for these guys. Wonder what they pay?

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Yes, I agree with you. And I don’t agree with him being so cold on it in order to make his point about created heterozygosity. I can’t see how the two wouldn’t have to work together in most cases. And in the section you quoted I thought you did a good job of explaining what the text says.

You just went beyond that around 58 minutes and said “he says natural selection doesn’t play a role…you can ignore that…he says that’s not operating” and that’s what I was trying to explain was a strawman.

Would it be helpful if Jeanson had been much more clear instead of just providing a footnote? Yes.

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Well, if I were YEC I might say something like…

Well duh that’s just adaption through loss read Darwin Devolves by Dr. Michael Behe n00b. If you start with a highly heterozygous state and then the genome degenerates over time as mutations accumulate, you can still get better in a specific environment even though it’s really just degeneration. Nothing new forms through mutations - they just break things. Even evolutionists have to agree, look at the Lenski experiment, the best demonstration of evolution they’ve ever done and they haven’t documented a single new beneficial mutation that added to the genome. Those E. coli have just lost genes, they’re highly mutant and couldn’t survive in the wild

I’m sorry that’s as far as I could go without gagging, I was grimacing by the time I got to the end.

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I’m positive I could do a better job than they do. Plus if I sold out I could ride the “I was an evolutionist but then I was convinced” circuit for a while.

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I’ll bet there is pretty good money in that grift!

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Speaking of being YEC, lol, based on the abstract I was wondering if this was an example of adaptation through loss.

I won’t be able to read it until my kids go to bed but if someone wants to tell me why not before then, feel free. It looked like interesting research either way.

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Y’know, if I didn’t have a decent income already and I didn’t mind burning down civilization itself so that I could cackle to myself amid the ruins, the Discovery Institute’s offices are just a short bus ride away. But there is a good deal more dignity in living under a bridge and hunting rats than there is in that, so it’s not much of a backup plan. Maybe after I’ve been living under that bridge a while and the rats have outsmarted me.

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