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The book Darwin Devolves

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  • #46
    Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
    But does this mean you haven't read the paper?

    Blessings,
    Lee
    This is the reason I try to avoid citing sources based on limited access abstracts only, and I want to emphasis you were guilty of this here:

    http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...no-acids/page6

    repeatedly citing this reference: http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...no-acids/page6

    . . . and ignored my request to access the article so we could put your claims concerning the authors citation in context.
    Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
    Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
    But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

    go with the flow the river knows . . .

    Frank

    I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

    Comment


    • #47
      Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
      Well, that is what we are discussing! Evidence that a deity designed the universe.
      This is an argument from ignorance. As a deductive argument it fails because there is no way to verify the truth of the premise, namely god exists. Therefore you cannot assume the truth of the conclusion. There is no verifiable evidence that a deity or deities exist or responsible for designing anything.
      “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

      Comment


      • #48
        Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
        Well, that is what we are discussing! Evidence that a deity designed the universe.
        We're discussing Behe's malpractice and your attempts to argue from ignorance.
        Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

        MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
        MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

        seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

        Comment


        • #49
          Originally posted by Tassman View Post
          This is an argument from ignorance. As a deductive argument it fails because there is no way to verify the truth of the premise, namely god exists. Therefore you cannot assume the truth of the conclusion. There is no verifiable evidence that a deity or deities exist or responsible for designing anything.
          One way to verify that God is real is to ask him to reveal himself to you if he exists. "Those who seek, find." (Jesus)

          Blessings,
          Lee
          "What I pray of you is, to keep your eye upon Him, for that is everything. Do you say, 'How am I to keep my eye on Him?' I reply, keep your eye off everything else, and you will soon see Him. All depends on the eye of faith being kept on Him. How simple it is!" (J.B. Stoney)

          Comment


          • #50
            Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
            This is the reason I try to avoid citing sources based on limited access abstracts only, and I want to emphasis you were guilty of this here:

            http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...no-acids/page6

            repeatedly citing this reference: http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...no-acids/page6

            . . . and ignored my request to access the article so we could put your claims concerning the authors citation in context.
            Could you post more specific links? Glad to make amends if I did this.

            Blessings,
            Lee
            "What I pray of you is, to keep your eye upon Him, for that is everything. Do you say, 'How am I to keep my eye on Him?' I reply, keep your eye off everything else, and you will soon see Him. All depends on the eye of faith being kept on Him. How simple it is!" (J.B. Stoney)

            Comment


            • #51
              Yesterday yet another damning review of Darwin Devolves was released, this time by two biology professors at Lehigh University, Behe's own school.

              Evolution unscathed: Darwin Devolves argues on weak reasoning that unguided evolution is a destructive force, incapable of innovation

              The central premise of Darwin Devolves—alluded to in the title—is that the combination of random mutation and natural selection, in addition to being incapable of generating novelty, is a powerful degradative force. Darwin Devolves contains a few factual errors and many errors of omission that have been pointed out by others (Lents and Hunt 2019; Lents et al. 2019), but it is two critical errors of logic that undermine Behe's central premise that degradative mutations cripple evolution. First, Behe falsely equates the prevalence of loss‐of‐function mutations to the inevitable degradation of biological systems and the impossibility of evolution to produce novelty. By selective presentation of data, he exaggerates the role of degradative processes in evolution. Second, as he has previously, Behe attempts to argue from analogy, equating proteins with machines and convincing us that machines cannot evolve. Calling a flagellum an outboard motor may have some merit as a teaching tool, but it is not reality. Showing that a hammer cannot evolve into a fishing rod tells us nothing about real constraints on protein evolution.



              By reviewing Behe's latest book, we run the risk of drawing attention—or worse, giving credibility—to his ideas. Books like Darwin Devolves, however, must be openly challenged and refuted, even if it risks giving publicity to misbegotten views. Science benefits from public support. Largely funded by federal grants, scientists have a moral responsibility (if not a financial obligation) to ensure that the core concepts of our respective fields are communicated effectively and accurately to the public and to our trainees. This is particularly important in evolutionary biology, where—over 150 years after On the Origin of Species—less than 20% of Americans accept that humans evolved by natural and unguided processes (Gallup 2014). It is hard to think of any other discipline where mainstream acceptance of its core paradigm is more at odds with the scientific consensus.
              Worth the read as it goes into some detail of the blunders and deliberate misrepresentation Behe has become infamous for.

              Comment


              • #52
                Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
                Could you post more specific links? Glad to make amends if I did this.

                Blessings,
                Lee
                Post #53, #54, and #58

                The paper the blog is about: Gayle K. Philip and Stephen J. Freeland, “Did Evolution Select a Nonrandom ‘Alphabet’ of Amino Acids?”

                'Chance alone.' cannot explain anything, nor does it cause anything, and it is not the basis of scientific explanations. Laws of Nature are the explanation and the natural process of evolution over millions of years.

                This citation was from the abstract of an article without any article available. I requested you provide the article to put the citation in context, and you failed, and just repeated the reference.
                Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                go with the flow the river knows . . .

                Frank

                I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                Comment


                • #53
                  Originally posted by HMS_Beagle View Post
                  Yesterday yet another damning review of Darwin Devolves was released, this time by two biology professors at Lehigh University, Behe's own school.
                  Source: Lehigh

                  Behe falsely equates the prevalence of loss‐of‐function mutations to the inevitable degradation of biological systems and the impossibility of evolution to produce novelty.

                  © Copyright Original Source


                  Well, that's an overstatement, Behe shows that evolution usually selects mutations that break or degrade a gene.

                  Source: Lehigh

                  Behe rightly points out that loss‐of‐function mutations are common in evolution, and that breaking or blunting a functional gene can sometimes be beneficial. This leads Behe to conclude that irreversible and deteriorating mutations are the only inevitable outcome (the “poison pills”) of unguided evolution.

                  © Copyright Original Source


                  Again overstating Behe's point.

                  Source: Lehigh

                  Behe attempts to argue from analogy, equating proteins with machines and convincing us that machines cannot evolve. Calling a flagellum an outboard motor may have some merit as a teaching tool, but it is not reality.

                  © Copyright Original Source


                  But where is the argument here? Is this all they can say in reply?

                  Source: Lehigh

                  Compared to the vast majority of natural genetic variants, loss‐of‐function variants have a much lower allele‐frequency distribution (MacArthur et al. 2012).

                  © Copyright Original Source


                  But I'm not sure how they're getting that from the MacArthur paper:

                  Source: MacArthur

                  Here we apply stringent filters to 2951 putative LoF variants obtained from 185 human genomes to determine their true prevalence and properties. We estimate that human genomes typically contain ~100 genuine LoF variants with ~20 genes completely inactivated.

                  Source

                  © Copyright Original Source



                  As I have heard there are about 10-100 mutations per generation.

                  Blessings,
                  Lee
                  Last edited by lee_merrill; 03-14-2019, 10:40 PM.
                  "What I pray of you is, to keep your eye upon Him, for that is everything. Do you say, 'How am I to keep my eye on Him?' I reply, keep your eye off everything else, and you will soon see Him. All depends on the eye of faith being kept on Him. How simple it is!" (J.B. Stoney)

                  Comment


                  • #54
                    Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                    Post #53, #54, and #58

                    The paper the blog is about: Gayle K. Philip and Stephen J. Freeland, “Did Evolution Select a Nonrandom ‘Alphabet’ of Amino Acids?”

                    'Chance alone.' cannot explain anything, nor does it cause anything, and it is not the basis of scientific explanations. Laws of Nature are the explanation and the natural process of evolution over millions of years.

                    This citation was from the abstract of an article without any article available. I requested you provide the article to put the citation in context, and you failed, and just repeated the reference.
                    Though I think I'm allowed to quote from an abstract!

                    Blessings,
                    Lee
                    "What I pray of you is, to keep your eye upon Him, for that is everything. Do you say, 'How am I to keep my eye on Him?' I reply, keep your eye off everything else, and you will soon see Him. All depends on the eye of faith being kept on Him. How simple it is!" (J.B. Stoney)

                    Comment


                    • #55
                      Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
                      One way to verify that God is real is to ask him to reveal himself to you if he exists. "
                      Merely asking the question implies belief in his existence or do you ask all the gods?

                      Those who seek, find."
                      Confirmation bias will likely lead you to that conclusion if you are desperate enough.

                      (Jesus)
                      Not Jesus, but whoever wrote Matthew around 85 CE.
                      “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                      Comment


                      • #56
                        Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
                        Source: Lehigh

                        Behe falsely equates the prevalence of loss‐of‐function mutations to the inevitable degradation of biological systems and the impossibility of evolution to produce novelty.

                        © Copyright Original Source


                        Well, that's an overstatement, Behe shows that evolution usually selects mutations that break or degrade a gene.
                        Actually, that is Behe's claim, which as we can see by the polar bear example is poorly backed by cherry-picked evidence and misrepresentation.

                        I'm always still in trouble again

                        "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                        "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                        "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                        Comment


                        • #57
                          Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
                          Source: Lehigh

                          Behe attempts to argue from analogy, equating proteins with machines and convincing us that machines cannot evolve. Calling a flagellum an outboard motor may have some merit as a teaching tool, but it is not reality.

                          © Copyright Original Source


                          But where is the argument here? Is this all they can say in reply?
                          No, it's not all they can say in reply, or even all that they do say in reply. The argument can be found in the very next sentence:
                          Source: ibid

                          ]"Behe attempts to argue from analogy, equating proteins with machines and convincing us that machines cannot evolve. Calling a flagellum an outboard motor may have some merit as a teaching tool, but it is not reality. Showing that a hammer cannot evolve into a fishing rod tells us nothing about real constraints on protein evolution."

                          © Copyright Original Source

                          Why didn't you quote that sentence, Dory?

                          Further expansion on the argument can be found later in the article:
                          Source: ibid

                          Proteins are promiscuous. They moonlight, by chance interacting with other cellular components to effect phenotype outside their traditionally ascribed roles. These adventitious functions can be strengthened by selection, allowing a protein to assume a new or a dual role. This topic was raised in a recent review of Darwin Devolves in Science, where the authors highlight a study that employed experimental evolution to strengthen the weak nascent ability of a protein in the histidine biosynthesis pathway to act on a similar substrate in tryptophan biosynthesis. For multifunctional proteins, gene duplication and divergence can parse specific functions into separate proteins, each now free to specialize to its own task.

                          By acknowledging the reality that proteins are proteins, and not machines, we immediately recognize the shortcomings of irreducible complexity—a central pillar of the intelligent design movement. An irreducibly complex system, as defined by Behe, is “a single system composed of several well‐matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning (p230).” Such systems, according to Behe, could not have arisen by unguided evolution. The concept of irreducible complexity is flawed for two reasons. First, it considers a system only in its current state and assumes that complex interdependency has always existed. Second, irreducible complexity does not consider that proteins perform multiple functions and, therefore, evolutionary paths that seem unlikely when considering only one function may be realized through a series of stepwise improvements on another function.

                          © Copyright Original Source



                          Source: Lehigh

                          Compared to the vast majority of natural genetic variants, loss‐of‐function variants have a much lower allele‐frequency distribution (MacArthur et al. 2012).

                          © Copyright Original Source


                          But I'm not sure how they're getting that from the MacArthur paper:

                          Source: MacArthur

                          Here we apply stringent filters to 2951 putative LoF variants obtained from 185 human genomes to determine their true prevalence and properties. We estimate that human genomes typically contain ~100 genuine LoF variants with ~20 genes completely inactivated.

                          Source

                          © Copyright Original Source

                          They probably read the paper:
                          Source: ibid

                          the signature of strong purifying selection against high-confidence LoF variants as a class, and the discovery of numerous known and predicted severe recessive disease alleles, indicates that many LoF alleles with large effects on human fitness exist at low frequency in the human population.

                          © Copyright Original Source

                          Quote-mining coprolite.
                          Last edited by Roy; 03-15-2019, 06:13 AM.
                          Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

                          MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
                          MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

                          seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

                          Comment


                          • #58
                            Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
                            Though I think I'm allowed to quote from an abstract!

                            Blessings,
                            Lee
                            Anyone can cite from anything, but you made the accusation that an article was not available only the abstract to understand what was cited. This the case with your reference, only the abstract was cited and no article was available without the article and conclusions to put your citation in context. Your citation was misleading from the context of the intent of the author's intent.
                            Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                            Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                            But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                            go with the flow the river knows . . .

                            Frank

                            I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                            Comment


                            • #59
                              Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
                              Source: Lehigh

                              Behe falsely equates the prevalence of loss‐of‐function mutations to the inevitable degradation of biological systems and the impossibility of evolution to produce novelty.

                              © Copyright Original Source


                              Well, that's an overstatement, Behe shows that evolution usually selects mutations that break or degrade a gene.
                              That's kind of the whole point: he doesn't show that, because it's not true. The review cites extensive data showing that's only likely to be true in lab-based long term evolution experiments.

                              Behe wants to believe that, because it makes a nice argument. But as we all know, what we want to be true and what is true can be very different.
                              "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

                              Comment


                              • #60
                                Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
                                Though I think I'm allowed to quote from an abstract!
                                Originally posted by Roy View Post
                                They probably read the paper:[cite=ibid]the signature of strong purifying selection against high-confidence LoF variants as a class, and the discovery of numerous known and predicted severe recessive disease alleles, indicates that many LoF alleles with large effects on human fitness exist at low frequency in the human population.
                                You're "allowed" to do anything you want. To participate in an honest debate, however, you also need to make sure what you're quoting accurately represents the content of the paper.
                                "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

                                Comment

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