Aron: Yes, we can. I get at least a few emails every week from former believers thanking me for leading them out the delusion you're still in. This has been going on for at least a decade or so. Many of them were just as certain as you are, until they began to see around wool over their eyes.
Reply: Nice dodge. You are good at it. They will not thank you anymore, once they realize they were blind, following a blind.
Aron: The citations you show now are talking about developmental biology, being pre-programed by heredity, literally by evolution in some cases, but not by a god.
Reply: Your alternative is chance to pre-program the minimal genome to have life a first get-go. You believe in the magical powers of chance, don't you?
Aron Common descent is not a hypothesis. It is confirmed.
Reply: Well, then why do science papers disagree with you? Prokaryotic evolution and the tree of life are two different things
The concept of a tree of life is prevalent in the evolutionary literature. It stems from attempting to obtain a grand unified natural system that reflects a recurrent process of species and lineage splittings for all forms of life. Traditionally, the discipline of systematics operates in a similar hierarchy of bifurcating (sometimes multifurcating) categories. The assumption of a universal tree of life hinges upon the process of evolution being tree-like throughout all forms of life and all of biological time. In prokaryotes, they do not. Prokaryotic evolution and the tree of life are two different things, and we need to treat them as such, rather than extrapolating from macroscopic life to prokaryotes. In the following we will consider this circumstance from philosophical, scientific, and epistemological perspectives, surmising that phylogeny opted for a single model as a holdover from the Modern Synthesis of evolution.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2761302/
And i am wondering if you know something about the 9 points i mention demonstrating why common ancestry is bunk, that i don't know?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2239-evolution-common-descent-the-tree-of-life-a-failed-hypothesis
Aron: We have observed the change from unicellular to multicellular organisms in the lab,
Reply: Did cell-cell adhesion proteins, and signaling evolve in parallel ? If so, based on what evolutionary pressures ?
Aron: Now in the 21st century, they added a couple more mechanisms, epigenetics and endosymbiosis, and it is now the "modern evolutionary synthesis".
Reply: Yes, of course, easy deal. What evolved first: The histone code, readers, erasers, or writers?
Post-transcriptional modifications (PTMs) of histones affect gene transcription
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2727-post-transcriptional-modifications-ptms-of-histones-affect-gene-transcription
Aron: In this case, you were once again expected to produce some truth to your position, which you simply refused to do.
Reply: That would actually have to be your job. Once you prove that natural mechanisms suffice to explain all phenomena in the natural world, you can categorically accuse creationists to be liars. Then we are on the same level as flat earthers. I have not yet seen that day come. And until then, you are doing what you accuse us of doing. Making unsupported claims.
Aron: You citation agreed with this, listing one and only one scientific method, and then explained how that one method is applicable to both current or historical applications. But it's not a different "kind" of science.
Reply: Koonin disagrees with you. And so do i. They are different disciplines because they answer different questions. The origin of life is the most difficult problem that faces evolutionary biology and, arguably, biology in general. Indeed, the problem is so hard and the current state of the art seems so frustrating that some researchers prefer to dismiss the entire issue as being outside the scientific domain altogether, on the grounds that unique events are not conducive to scientific study.
Aron: If you're going to use abduction, which you said you were, then you would need to know something about the supernatural. And you don't.
Reply: We know what signs of intelligent actions are. We can distinguish it from what unguided random mechanisms can't.
How to recognize the signature of (past) intelligent actions
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2805-how-to-recognize-the-signature-of-past-intelligent-action
Aron: If we detected that an intelligent designer was involved, we would use science, not theology.
Reply: We use science to understand how the world works. That gives us hints and direction if intelligene was more likely involved or not to create it. The identity is a quest of philosophy and theology, since God is not demonstrating himself to us.
Aron:You didn't even properly define what a god is.
Reply: A personal agent, endowed with power, and intelligence, existing above the natural world, without a beginning, and without an end.
Aron: You can't simply eliminate hundreds of gods worshiped by millions of people for thousands of years
Reply: The identity of God is a follow up, after the first ladder in a cumulative has been answered: If there rather IS a God(s) rather than not.
A cumulative case for the God of the Bible
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1753-a-cumulative-case-for-the-god-of-the-bible
Aron: It doesn't make any difference how the universe began or if it did.
Reply: If your aim is to defend naturalism as a consistent worldview, the origin of the universe, and why there is something rather than nothing, is a central issue.
Aron: More quote-mining. It is deliberately dishonest and misleading, but as I said, it is ubiquitous among creationists.
Reply: Nice doge. Do you expect me to provide an answer that comes from experimental evidence that has grown out of my own crap in the backyards ?
Nonrandom mutations : How life changes itself: the Read-Write (RW) genome
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1476-non-random-mutations-how-life-changes-itself-the-read-write-rw-genome
Werner Arber Nobel Prize in 1978, Physiology or Medicine (sharing the honor with Daniel Nathans and Hamilton O. Smith) for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to molecular genetics.
The deeper we penetrate in the studies of genetic exchange the more we discover a multitude of mechanisms" involved in human genetics that falsify the mutation plus natural selection core of macroevolution.
Arber, W, D. Nathans, and H. O. Smith. 1992. 1978 Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Lectures: Physiology or Medicine 1971-1980, 469-492.
-Mutation - the vast majority are negative.
Toward a realistic model of mutations affecting fitness. Keightley & Lynch, 2003, Evolution, 57:683 {685, 2003) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/.../j.0014-3820.2003... "...THE VAST MAJORITY OF MUTATIONS ARE DELETERIOUS. THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST WELL-ESTABLISHED PRINCIPLES OF EVOLUTIONARY GENETICS, SUPPORTED BY BOTH MOLECULAR AND QUANTITATIVE-GENETIC DATA."
"...a great deal of evidence from several sources strongly suggests that the overall effects of mutations are to REDUCE FITNESS."
"All of these experiments detected DOWNWARD trends in MA (mutation accumulation) line population mean fitness relative to control populations as generations accrued. As far as we know, there is NO CASE of even a single MA line maintained by bottle-necking that showed significantly higher fitness than its contemporary control populations."
"Ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) mutagenesis experiments, in which controls are given identical treatment to mutagenized lines, other than a dose of mutagen, have also shown consistently strongly NEGATIVE EFFECTS on fitness traits in Drosophila."
"Similarly, transposable element insertional mutagenesis leads to REDUCED fitness in Drosophila."
"Although the above studies have focused on the fitness effects of mutations in the context of laboratory environments, substantial indirect evidence derived from molecular studies supports the contention that MOST MUTATIONS IN NATURAL POPULATIONS ARE DELETERIOUS."
"If mutations are neutral on average, C, the proportion of ‘missing’ amino-acid substitutions, would have an expected value of 0.0. However, IN ALL TAXA EXAMINED SO FAR, average values of C are in excess of 0.7, implying that the MAJORITY of amino-acid altering mutations are deleterious."
"The 214 generation experiment of Vassilieva et al. (2000) clarifies the slowly emerging pattern — as the period of MA (mutation accumulation) extended, PROGRESSIVELY LOWER FITNESS CLASSES ACCUMULATED, whereas the frequencies of the highest fitness classes observed in the controls PROGRESSIVELY DIMINISHED. Contrary to the suggestions of Shaw et al. (2002), there is NO EVIDENCE for improved fitness IN ANY periodically bottlenecked C. elegans line." (all emphasis added)
-Selection - has absolutely no ability to generate anything in order to add complexity... it's nothing more than what is already available.
-Sexual intercourse - actually constrains major change...
From the article below...
Heng and fellow researcher Root Gorelick, Ph.D., associate professor at Carleton University in Canada, propose that although diversity may result from a combination of genes, the primary function of sex is NOT about promoting diversity. Rather, it’s about keeping the genome context — an organism’s complete collection of genes arranged by chromosome composition and topology — as UNCHANGED as possible, thereby maintaining a species’ identity. This surprising analysis has been published as a cover article in a recent issue of the journal Evolution.
“If sex was merely for increasing genetic diversity, it would NOT have evolved in the first place,” said Heng. This is because asexual reproduction — in which only one parent is needed to procreate — leads to HIGHER rates of genetic diversity than sex.
In fact, two billion years ago in Earth’s biosphere, life relied exclusively on asexual reproduction, and every organism was capable of bearing young without costly competition to mate. With asexual species’ faster and more efficient mode of reproduction, the origin and maintenance of sex — not exactly the fittest means of reproduction — puzzles scientists, who for decades have been asking, Why has sex evolved and survived?
According to Heng, the hidden advantage sex has over asexual reproduction is that it CONSTRAINS MACROEVOLUTION — evolution at the genome level — to allow a species’ identity to survive. In other words, it PREVENTS “Species A” from morphing into “Species B.” Meanwhile, it also allows for microevolution — evolution at the gene level — to allow members of the species to adapt to the environment.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/rel.../2011/07/110707161037.htm
Aron: Now you know better. Evolution is a theory of biodiversity wherein one cannot grow out of one's ancestry.
Reply: Each branching point in the tree of life would therefore not be possible. You refute your own phylogeny claim, LOL.
Aron: See? I told you didn't know what macroevoluiton is. So that you do know, do you understand and accept that these are the actual definitions of those terms?
Reply: Did you just ignore the follow up at the link, just to make a point and attempt to portray me as ignorant? yes, i agree with your decription. But you are not telling me anything new that i have to be educated with. I continue:
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1390-macroevolution-fact-or-fantasy
What is a macroevolutionary novelty?
The change/transition, where one "kind" can evolve into another beyond the species level (i.e. primary speciation), like an organism, randomly changing/transition into a whole entire different organism with new fully functioning biological features, the emergence of new complex functions, a new genus or higher rank in taxonomy. The origin of new body plans, forms, and architecture. The origins of novel branches of the tree of life at levels above that of primary speciation. The origin and diversification of higher taxa. Of new phyla. From the supposed Last Universal Common Ancestor to unicellular eukaryotic cells. From unicellular to multicellular life. There Are Six Important Patterns of Macroevolution: Mass Extinctions. Adaptive Radiation. Convergent Evolution.
Aron: In addition to the documented development of new enzymes and chromosomes, novel synthesis abilities, denovo genes, and retroviral resistance, notable examples include the evolution of a new multicellular species arising from unicellular algae under direct observation in the lab.
Reply: Volvox is not helping you.
Unicellular and multicellular Organisms are best explained through design
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2010-unicellular-and-multicellular-organisms-are-best-explained-through-design
The situation in Pleodorina and Volvox is different. In these organisms, some of the cells of the colony (most in Volvox) are not able to live independently. If a nonreproductive cell is isolated from a Volvox colony, it will fail to reproduce itself by mitosis and eventually will die. What has happened? In some way, as yet unclear, Volvox has crossed the line separating simple colonial organisms from truly multicellular ones. Unlike Gonium, Volvox cannot be considered simply a colony of individual cells. It is a single organism whose cells have lost their ability to live independently. If a sufficient number of them become damaged, the entire sphere of cells will die.
Reply: Nice dodge. You are good at it. They will not thank you anymore, once they realize they were blind, following a blind.
Aron: The citations you show now are talking about developmental biology, being pre-programed by heredity, literally by evolution in some cases, but not by a god.
Reply: Your alternative is chance to pre-program the minimal genome to have life a first get-go. You believe in the magical powers of chance, don't you?
Aron Common descent is not a hypothesis. It is confirmed.
Reply: Well, then why do science papers disagree with you? Prokaryotic evolution and the tree of life are two different things
The concept of a tree of life is prevalent in the evolutionary literature. It stems from attempting to obtain a grand unified natural system that reflects a recurrent process of species and lineage splittings for all forms of life. Traditionally, the discipline of systematics operates in a similar hierarchy of bifurcating (sometimes multifurcating) categories. The assumption of a universal tree of life hinges upon the process of evolution being tree-like throughout all forms of life and all of biological time. In prokaryotes, they do not. Prokaryotic evolution and the tree of life are two different things, and we need to treat them as such, rather than extrapolating from macroscopic life to prokaryotes. In the following we will consider this circumstance from philosophical, scientific, and epistemological perspectives, surmising that phylogeny opted for a single model as a holdover from the Modern Synthesis of evolution.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2761302/
And i am wondering if you know something about the 9 points i mention demonstrating why common ancestry is bunk, that i don't know?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2239-evolution-common-descent-the-tree-of-life-a-failed-hypothesis
Aron: We have observed the change from unicellular to multicellular organisms in the lab,
Reply: Did cell-cell adhesion proteins, and signaling evolve in parallel ? If so, based on what evolutionary pressures ?
Aron: Now in the 21st century, they added a couple more mechanisms, epigenetics and endosymbiosis, and it is now the "modern evolutionary synthesis".
Reply: Yes, of course, easy deal. What evolved first: The histone code, readers, erasers, or writers?
Post-transcriptional modifications (PTMs) of histones affect gene transcription
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2727-post-transcriptional-modifications-ptms-of-histones-affect-gene-transcription
Aron: In this case, you were once again expected to produce some truth to your position, which you simply refused to do.
Reply: That would actually have to be your job. Once you prove that natural mechanisms suffice to explain all phenomena in the natural world, you can categorically accuse creationists to be liars. Then we are on the same level as flat earthers. I have not yet seen that day come. And until then, you are doing what you accuse us of doing. Making unsupported claims.
Aron: You citation agreed with this, listing one and only one scientific method, and then explained how that one method is applicable to both current or historical applications. But it's not a different "kind" of science.
Reply: Koonin disagrees with you. And so do i. They are different disciplines because they answer different questions. The origin of life is the most difficult problem that faces evolutionary biology and, arguably, biology in general. Indeed, the problem is so hard and the current state of the art seems so frustrating that some researchers prefer to dismiss the entire issue as being outside the scientific domain altogether, on the grounds that unique events are not conducive to scientific study.
Aron: If you're going to use abduction, which you said you were, then you would need to know something about the supernatural. And you don't.
Reply: We know what signs of intelligent actions are. We can distinguish it from what unguided random mechanisms can't.
How to recognize the signature of (past) intelligent actions
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2805-how-to-recognize-the-signature-of-past-intelligent-action
Aron: If we detected that an intelligent designer was involved, we would use science, not theology.
Reply: We use science to understand how the world works. That gives us hints and direction if intelligene was more likely involved or not to create it. The identity is a quest of philosophy and theology, since God is not demonstrating himself to us.
Aron:You didn't even properly define what a god is.
Reply: A personal agent, endowed with power, and intelligence, existing above the natural world, without a beginning, and without an end.
Aron: You can't simply eliminate hundreds of gods worshiped by millions of people for thousands of years
Reply: The identity of God is a follow up, after the first ladder in a cumulative has been answered: If there rather IS a God(s) rather than not.
A cumulative case for the God of the Bible
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1753-a-cumulative-case-for-the-god-of-the-bible
Aron: It doesn't make any difference how the universe began or if it did.
Reply: If your aim is to defend naturalism as a consistent worldview, the origin of the universe, and why there is something rather than nothing, is a central issue.
Aron: More quote-mining. It is deliberately dishonest and misleading, but as I said, it is ubiquitous among creationists.
Reply: Nice doge. Do you expect me to provide an answer that comes from experimental evidence that has grown out of my own crap in the backyards ?
Nonrandom mutations : How life changes itself: the Read-Write (RW) genome
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1476-non-random-mutations-how-life-changes-itself-the-read-write-rw-genome
Werner Arber Nobel Prize in 1978, Physiology or Medicine (sharing the honor with Daniel Nathans and Hamilton O. Smith) for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to molecular genetics.
The deeper we penetrate in the studies of genetic exchange the more we discover a multitude of mechanisms" involved in human genetics that falsify the mutation plus natural selection core of macroevolution.
Arber, W, D. Nathans, and H. O. Smith. 1992. 1978 Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Lectures: Physiology or Medicine 1971-1980, 469-492.
-Mutation - the vast majority are negative.
Toward a realistic model of mutations affecting fitness. Keightley & Lynch, 2003, Evolution, 57:683 {685, 2003) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/.../j.0014-3820.2003... "...THE VAST MAJORITY OF MUTATIONS ARE DELETERIOUS. THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST WELL-ESTABLISHED PRINCIPLES OF EVOLUTIONARY GENETICS, SUPPORTED BY BOTH MOLECULAR AND QUANTITATIVE-GENETIC DATA."
"...a great deal of evidence from several sources strongly suggests that the overall effects of mutations are to REDUCE FITNESS."
"All of these experiments detected DOWNWARD trends in MA (mutation accumulation) line population mean fitness relative to control populations as generations accrued. As far as we know, there is NO CASE of even a single MA line maintained by bottle-necking that showed significantly higher fitness than its contemporary control populations."
"Ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) mutagenesis experiments, in which controls are given identical treatment to mutagenized lines, other than a dose of mutagen, have also shown consistently strongly NEGATIVE EFFECTS on fitness traits in Drosophila."
"Similarly, transposable element insertional mutagenesis leads to REDUCED fitness in Drosophila."
"Although the above studies have focused on the fitness effects of mutations in the context of laboratory environments, substantial indirect evidence derived from molecular studies supports the contention that MOST MUTATIONS IN NATURAL POPULATIONS ARE DELETERIOUS."
"If mutations are neutral on average, C, the proportion of ‘missing’ amino-acid substitutions, would have an expected value of 0.0. However, IN ALL TAXA EXAMINED SO FAR, average values of C are in excess of 0.7, implying that the MAJORITY of amino-acid altering mutations are deleterious."
"The 214 generation experiment of Vassilieva et al. (2000) clarifies the slowly emerging pattern — as the period of MA (mutation accumulation) extended, PROGRESSIVELY LOWER FITNESS CLASSES ACCUMULATED, whereas the frequencies of the highest fitness classes observed in the controls PROGRESSIVELY DIMINISHED. Contrary to the suggestions of Shaw et al. (2002), there is NO EVIDENCE for improved fitness IN ANY periodically bottlenecked C. elegans line." (all emphasis added)
-Selection - has absolutely no ability to generate anything in order to add complexity... it's nothing more than what is already available.
-Sexual intercourse - actually constrains major change...
From the article below...
Heng and fellow researcher Root Gorelick, Ph.D., associate professor at Carleton University in Canada, propose that although diversity may result from a combination of genes, the primary function of sex is NOT about promoting diversity. Rather, it’s about keeping the genome context — an organism’s complete collection of genes arranged by chromosome composition and topology — as UNCHANGED as possible, thereby maintaining a species’ identity. This surprising analysis has been published as a cover article in a recent issue of the journal Evolution.
“If sex was merely for increasing genetic diversity, it would NOT have evolved in the first place,” said Heng. This is because asexual reproduction — in which only one parent is needed to procreate — leads to HIGHER rates of genetic diversity than sex.
In fact, two billion years ago in Earth’s biosphere, life relied exclusively on asexual reproduction, and every organism was capable of bearing young without costly competition to mate. With asexual species’ faster and more efficient mode of reproduction, the origin and maintenance of sex — not exactly the fittest means of reproduction — puzzles scientists, who for decades have been asking, Why has sex evolved and survived?
According to Heng, the hidden advantage sex has over asexual reproduction is that it CONSTRAINS MACROEVOLUTION — evolution at the genome level — to allow a species’ identity to survive. In other words, it PREVENTS “Species A” from morphing into “Species B.” Meanwhile, it also allows for microevolution — evolution at the gene level — to allow members of the species to adapt to the environment.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/rel.../2011/07/110707161037.htm
Aron: Now you know better. Evolution is a theory of biodiversity wherein one cannot grow out of one's ancestry.
Reply: Each branching point in the tree of life would therefore not be possible. You refute your own phylogeny claim, LOL.
Aron: See? I told you didn't know what macroevoluiton is. So that you do know, do you understand and accept that these are the actual definitions of those terms?
Reply: Did you just ignore the follow up at the link, just to make a point and attempt to portray me as ignorant? yes, i agree with your decription. But you are not telling me anything new that i have to be educated with. I continue:
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1390-macroevolution-fact-or-fantasy
What is a macroevolutionary novelty?
The change/transition, where one "kind" can evolve into another beyond the species level (i.e. primary speciation), like an organism, randomly changing/transition into a whole entire different organism with new fully functioning biological features, the emergence of new complex functions, a new genus or higher rank in taxonomy. The origin of new body plans, forms, and architecture. The origins of novel branches of the tree of life at levels above that of primary speciation. The origin and diversification of higher taxa. Of new phyla. From the supposed Last Universal Common Ancestor to unicellular eukaryotic cells. From unicellular to multicellular life. There Are Six Important Patterns of Macroevolution: Mass Extinctions. Adaptive Radiation. Convergent Evolution.
Aron: In addition to the documented development of new enzymes and chromosomes, novel synthesis abilities, denovo genes, and retroviral resistance, notable examples include the evolution of a new multicellular species arising from unicellular algae under direct observation in the lab.
Reply: Volvox is not helping you.
Unicellular and multicellular Organisms are best explained through design
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2010-unicellular-and-multicellular-organisms-are-best-explained-through-design
The situation in Pleodorina and Volvox is different. In these organisms, some of the cells of the colony (most in Volvox) are not able to live independently. If a nonreproductive cell is isolated from a Volvox colony, it will fail to reproduce itself by mitosis and eventually will die. What has happened? In some way, as yet unclear, Volvox has crossed the line separating simple colonial organisms from truly multicellular ones. Unlike Gonium, Volvox cannot be considered simply a colony of individual cells. It is a single organism whose cells have lost their ability to live independently. If a sufficient number of them become damaged, the entire sphere of cells will die.