Whats on your mind? Rare mistargetting of SHM?
That was the one you didn’t provide a link to, only a cite. But that’s being pedantic, so not an issue[1]. Nor was I complaining.
It’s just that “prominent evolutionary biologists” is very reminiscent both of Meyer et al’s misleading textbook Explore evolution (which keeps referring to unnamed scientists who disagree) and of various on-line ID/creation supporters to whom anyone who says something they like is trumpeted as being ‘prominent’ or similar regardless of their actual status.
Sonia Sultan is a plant ecologist. Denis Walsh is a philosopher. Armin Moczek is actually an evolutionary biologist, but doesn’t seem especially prominent. So although you may not have been deliberately inflating their expertise, that’s the impression you give. Their prominence is also irrelevant unless you’re arguing from their authority, which would be fallacious anyway.
Perhaps you don’t mind coming across as a biased fallacy-unaware creationist. But again, it makes you look bad.
unless you insist. ↩︎
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Premise one is false.
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No, it does not. I have already explained why that also counts as random mutations. An increase in the RATE of mutation does not make THOSE MUTATIONS non-random. That doesn’t make sense.
I’m not. Expend your efforts on comprehension, not argumentation.
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Do we need to know it “for sure” to be able to make such a claim?
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Also, it assumes that the first life was cellular, a common misrepresentation employed by evolution deniers.
We also can see the silliness of @Midhun’s argument by changing a single term:
Premise One: Only humans (and genetic algorithms) have demonstrated the power to produce large amounts of functional information.
Premise Two: No materialistic causes have been discovered with the power to produce large amounts of functional information necessary to produce the first cell.
Conclusion: Human (or genetic algorithmic) design is the most rational explanation for the origin of the functional information in the first cellular life.
Just to be clear, I don’t think that humans provided the information in the first cellular, or even proto-cellular, life.
@Midhun, where is the empirical support for your claim that somatic hypermutation is site-specific?
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I’m also not interested in endless discussions. I waited for two days and nobody has given a reference that proves the alleged creative power of a particular evolutionary mechanism that I mentioned in last paragraph of my initial post.
I confirm that it does not. I’m shocked that an IDcreationist proponent would cite an article that does not support his claim.
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No, that your claim is simply, categorically false. Define “rare” mathematically, please; we have actual numbers for these phenomena.
Your attempt to elide this objective fact with the deliberately vague “rare,” as well as reiterating your disputed conclusion in the form of “mistargetting,” suggests intent to deceive.
I’m disputing the claim of targeting, so “mistargetting” is obviously included.
Wrong, because the microbe is in no way “primitive.” It has been evolving for billions of years, just as many as your own lineage has.
Here you go. Knock yourself out.
evolution insect wings - Search Results - PubMed (nih.gov)
evolution placenta - Search Results - PubMed (nih.gov)
Now, can I ask you a question? Could you describe, in detail, how you believe a designer created any of the biological systems or structures that biologists generally acknowledge to have resulted from evolution? Any example, your choice.
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I’m not interested in accepting empirically false premises.
Interesting. I’m waiting for you to support your claim that somatic hypermutation is site-specific. You cited absolutely nothing to support it, IIRC.
If organisms are designed to evolve, then material evolution is possible. If material evolution is possible, then by definition a materialistic cause possesses the power to produce functional information. Your argument seems to me to be about abiogenesis more than functional information.
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I see. In a sense, you are right, the « for sure » doesn’t add much to my question. So let me rephrase it:
Are you saying that we know that ATP synthase originated through random accidental mutations getting fixed by selection or drift? What are the proofs for this extraordinary claim?
How do you distinguish between design and implementation of said design?
We know it in the same way we know ancient weather operated on the same principles as current weather, rather than magical forces.
There’s no reason to think DNA didn’t undergo mutations, and no reason to think that those mutations weren’t subject to drift and selection back then too, anymore than there’s reason to think gravity was absent, or that the sun’s rays didn’t heat the atmosphere.
So since we don’t need to posit invisible magical mutation-guiding forces in the present, I see no reason to posit them in the past either. I concede That doesn’t constitute “proof” magical forces didn’t operate back then, just like I can’t prove they aren’t operating right now to produce effects that just looks like chemistry.
Of course if this sort of agnosticism with respect to ultimate causes of events is your refuge, so that you can say I don’t “really know”, then have at it. You are free to believe in undetectable magic.
Mmm, good point. We haven’t produced large amounts of novel genetic information, we’ve only copied and shuffled what was already there.
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Maybe just “vacuous”.
Premise One : Intelligent causes have demonstrated the power to produce large amounts of functional information.
FI is a marker for degree of function among many ways the same function might be accomplished. “Producing FI” doesn’t mean producing new genetic function unless we choose to read that meaning into the statement - which we should not, IMO. Better to demand a meaningful premise.
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You misunderstand. Nothing we’ve done is, or could be, evidence of ‘intelligent causes’ doing anything. Merely evidence of physical processes doing something. That’s the fatal problem with Midhun’s analysis.
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Ok, got it. You’re right.
Can I at least claim to be an intelligent cause that is affecting physical processes that leave evidence? Otherwise I’d get in trouble with Descartes.