No, it does not. Two species can evolve convergently irrespective of whether or not they are reproductively connected. They evolve in that the distribution of their genotypic and phenotypic features is different in one generation than it is in some other generation, and their evolution can converge in that the feature sets between the two species may be more similar between some pair of points in their history than between some other pair of points in their history. Jargon is not a political toy. Calling this phenomenon convergent evolution is not an expression of a commitment to any particular scientific model. It is a good name for it, because it correctly states what the thing is with words the etymological roots and meanings of which have been stable for thousands of years. There is nothing objectionable about this name.
I cannot begin to imagine how it would be even possible to do that. “Random”, as I said, and as you keep ignoring, is not a statement. So it cannot serve as a null hypothesis or any other kind of thing that would require it to first be an actual statement.
No, it does not. “Random” is a word we use to describe occurrences that follow less than entirely deterministic rules. Nothing about that word “supports” any statement about reproductive relationships.
Again, I have no clue how one could. “Divine creation”, as I said, and as you keep ignoring, is not a statement. So it cannot serve as a null hypothesis or any other kind of thing that would require it to first be an actual statement.
No, it will not. It is not a null hypothesis’ job to “bring a competing hypothesis in the mix”. Holding the door open for favoured conclusions is not what statistical hypotheses do.
Remember: @colewd doesn’t understand words and how they work. Just keep reminding yourself of that, and it will all make sense. He won’t make sense, mind, but you know what I mean.
@chuckdarwin
I just read the letter from Luskin who is also an Attorney. This needs to be handled very carefully as the public exposure could be problematic for scientific fund raising which is already under assault.
Hi Dan
I don’t think guys like Behe or Nelson would engage in this type of debate.
I had a chance to look at the paper briefly and there is indeed much more interesting information than mere sequence differences. What I don’t understand in the comparison is for instance Gorilla is a genus. Did they pick one species of Gorilla?
A debate that tells us very little about common ancestry yet is designed by its simplicity to influence the general public. Reconciling common descent vs special creation goes way beyond a a simple claim of sequence commonality.
If you look at the paper there a mentions of
-Gene differences
-Chromosome arrangement differences
-Repeat sequence differences
I addition to the paper
-the frequency of deleterious mutations
From the paper
These are the challenges to reconcile given what we know about population genetics and time to fixationSuch regions include newly minted gene families in lineage-specific segmental duplications, centromeric DNA, acrocentric chromosomes and subterminal heterochromatin. This resource serves as a comprehensive baseline for future evolutionary studies of humans and our closest living ape relatives.
I see. So you don’t think Behe, Nelson and the rest of the ID movement are at all concerned if some of their colleagues blatantly lie to promote ID? Interesting. From their silence, (not to mention their complicity in Luskin’s coverup attempt) it seems you are correct.
So you mean to tell me, that people who’ve made their entire careers consist of trying to smuggle religious extremism into public education instead of making one meaningful contribution to the study of origins would hesitate to engage in a “type of debate” that has nothing to do with the science and everything to do with engineering a particular political atmosphere?
There is nothing to reconcile. All the evidence points one way, and ‘but me no wanna’ points the other.
I am simply trying to get you to clarify what you mean by lying.
Michael Behe does not agree that RMNS can account for the differences. Without a mechanism the common descent claim is without real support and is a trivial claim.
a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity
In asking such inane and irrelevant questions you are implicitly refusing to address the topic of Luskin’s disgusting dishonesty in forging a doctored chart to hide the embarrassing fact that using a different method of calculating differences, whilst increasing inter-species differences, also increased intra-species differences – demonstrating that the increased differences are merely an artifact of the calculation method, and thus really are no barrier to evolution.
It’s worse than that. While Luskin’s unstated objective is to undermine the evidence that supports common descent, his explicit objective was to demonstrate that evolutionary scientists deliberately hide data that might cause one to doubt evolution. However, in order to make this claim he did exactly what he (falsely) accuses evolutionary scientists of doing: He deliberately concealed parts of the chart that refuted his point for the reasons you explain.
And then, hypocritically and hilariously, when his mendacity was exposed, he tried to say it was no big deal because the original data was right there - in the exact same place he had claimed evolutionists were trying to hide it!
It’s hard to believe people could be stupid and gullible enough to fall for this, but here is @colewd to provide living evidence that some of them can be.
You guys are making bald assertions with little if any support. I already stated that I don’t think Luskin’s argument is a detailed analysis. You’re accusing him of lying because of omitting some data.
The Smithsonian has a sign that claims 1 to 2% sequence similarity of DNA yet they are omitting that they are only measuring gene sequences.
No one in these debates has the absolute moral high ground.