Is Evolution a Dangerous Idea? If so, why?

@Leadfoot,

thts sort of an intelligent response about disavowment, because if life is created in a lab from basic organic chemicals nd structural ligands and propwr energy to accomplish that (I never ever said that it will happen,itd be neat though). That still doesnt mean that the lab-life is THE SAME pathway that was taken on Hadean earth. But, if lif can result, in any form, that doesnt mean that theres only one solution(therefore youd buy the concept of life rising without a set of plans)

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@Leadfoot,

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Yes, knowing how something is designed is a great help in maintaining and repairing it

Careful, youre lening the way of science. Science recognizes that there are many evolutionary solutions to the same problem in what you call "design" and we call "adaptation".
Look at new world v old world hummingbirds, or penguins v puffins, how bout Thylacines v timber wolves??
Many mqny solutions to same and similar problems.

why can ferrets or field mice manufacture vitamin c and primates cant.

horshoe crabs and mammals all have bloodc cept one is Cu based and the other is Fe based.

Again, Ive fed you guys CONVRGENT EVOLUTION and you ignore one of your seemingly best arguments

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@Leadfoot,

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species being able to adapt does not mean macro evolution of new species by natural causes is verified

Yet if they vary significantly from a "Mother species" whose home turf ,in time,is separated from that ofthe new daughter species. Explain the ID ramifications of that . Is your designer that bored and incompetent so as not to be able to deal with such miniscule "design " problems ? Or is he not even in control of the simple edaphics?

Your arguments require so much myth and belief in "woo woo stories" that youre having trouble even coming up with anything but badly worded bumper stickers. Last few weeks it was "paradigm shifts" this eek you borrow "those are mere assumptions", sorta like "Evolution is merely a theory".
Assumptions are only assumptions when they are tried and fail. When they work, they rise to become a tool.

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@farmerman,

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Explain the ID ramifications of that. Is your designer that bored and incompetent so as not to be able to deal with such miniscule "design" problems? Or is he not in control of the simple edaphics?

Those are good questions that need to be answered don't you think?

If a logical assumption is made like " the designer appears to be bored and incompetent" then why not look at that assumption in a more in depth way using the scientific and historical data.

Woo woo is not a scientific term but rather you revealing your inability to look more in depth at what is a logical assumption.

There is a lot of woo woo in scientific interpretations of nature though. But, in spite of that, we keep using explanations of physics that require multiple universes and, Scienctists talk about the spontaneous origin of matter and life .(which are examples of complex patterns that we understand as information that appears to tell a story in which, our intelligence appears to be the most the most important ingredient). If spontaneous origins of those complex systems of infornation management isnt woo woo then nothing is.

So would you agree woo woo is not a diqualifying characteristic of a scientific assumption?

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@brianjakub,

your mischaracterization of my comment was because you only decided to pick a single small segment of my comment.

edaphics is the entire science of the "bottom land" whether dry or underwater. Its the environmental conditions of the soil AT THE TIME THAT A SPECIES (under study) LIVES, In order for ID to be even a valid proposal, the proponents must (t least to me) xplain how an IDer can control these features in order to not appear incompetent or lazy. I didnt include climate because I was merely making a statement not attempting to be fully inclusive.

Its not woo woo, you are accusing me of the very things I criticize you folks for.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

Leadfoot Quote:
"species being able to adapt does not mean macro evolution of new species by natural causes is verified".

farmer said:
Yet if they vary significantly from a "Mother species" whose home turf ,in time,is separated from that ofthe new daughter species. Explain the ID ramifications of that . Is your designer that bored and incompetent so as not to be able to deal with such miniscule "design " problems ? Or is he not even in control of the simple edaphics?

Incompetant? Not at all. I do not know the mix of design flexibility vs frontloading of information used in the design, but I am still in awe of it.

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@Leadfoot,

well, "frontloading" would be an argument for a lack of Universal "free will" , since everything that happens, even results from global warming would have to be pre programmed yes?

Thats too strange for me to get my head around LF. I always lik a simple least complicated process. Thats why, when we carefully look at evolutionary changes, they go through complete wacky pathways to reach the phenotypic change "that works"
Like a whales inner ear, or a horses middle toe, or swim bladders becoming lungs (while yet passing through a phase in which skin inspiration and proto lungs existed on the same organisms.All these occurred as changes to the environment meant either CHANGE OR DIE.

If we were to accept ID, both the environment and the phenotypic varietal would need to be controlled by the IDer. Then I resort back to my half humorous statement that hes ither incompetent or lazy.

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@farmerman,

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in order for IDto be a valid proposal Proponents must explain how an IDer can control these components

Could the intelligence control these features in the same way your intelligence turn switches off and on in your brain?

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@brianjakub,

I suppose. Now, the hard part is going from a nice comic book tale to something with substance. Maybe we should look from you discussing something that contains some evidence?

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@farmerman,

OK. If some of the evidence I provider is from the discovery Institute but with a different interpretation, will it already be discounted as not acceptable because it came from the discovery Institute or someone that uses similar Interpretations and contextual systems?

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@brianjakub,

I only dump on the DI whenever it just goes off the rails. If their argument is merely incredulity or claiming that life is too complicated to have risen without ID, I say that thats the same argument as you just posted. its merely a story with an idea (sans evidence).

Th argument about the Cambrian Explosion was a nice one when it was taken ovr by Creationists. Its only been recently that weve seen complex life in the pre Cambrian assemblage. SO thats a bit of circumstantial evidence that works if it has a number more of other pieces to support it.

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@farmerman,

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well, "frontloading" would be an argument for a lack of Universal "free will" , since everything that happens, even results from global warming would have to be pre programmed yes?

Are you going all theological on me? Looking at things from the materialistic perspective,(the only way one can discuss evolution), then of course there is no free will. Don't be absurd.

But if you insist on another perspective, what has free will got to do with biology? Or Evolution?

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@Leadfoot,

the consequences of "front loading" biological responses to different environmental changes is something that, if true, we need to really learn about because it would be better than CRiSPR Cas9 at editing.
You brought it up, now youre going postal about me wanting to understand you better.

Give me an example of what you even mean.
Something like "pre adaptation"? Thats such a Haldane and Golding topic in pop-evolutionary theory .

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@farmerman,

By frontloading, I meant furnishing 'microbe one' with the necessary genetic codes it would need to survive and develop into other types, long before they were needed.

By "Doing it with a more flexible architecture" I meant the extra layer of encoding (epigenetics) that could regulate DNA expression in both subtle and system wide ways like ros was discussing in his post I first replied to. Makes it easy for an animal specie to grow more hair when the climate changes, etc. even though this system would have been more complex than necessary for the original organism. Pretty clever design . Yeah, I know, just appears that way. And back atcha.

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@Leadfoot,

You are repeating the "Hopeful Monster" hypothesis by just adding a new line (epigenes).

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Folks like BJ and LF deny their religious investment in a topic like this--but they both go around hunting up evolution topics so they can deploy their silly objections.

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@Leadfoot,

Hopeful Monsters Are Here to Stay

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Since 150 years it is hypothesized now that evolution always proceeds in a countless number of very small steps (Darwin in On the origin of species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle of life, Murray, London, 1859), a view termed "gradualism". Few contemporary biologists will doubt that gradualism reflects the most frequent mode of evolution, but whether it is the only one remains controversial. It has been suggested that in some cases profound ("saltational") changes may have occurred within one or a few generations of organisms. Organisms with a profound mutant phenotype that have the potential to establish a new evolutionary lineage have been termed "hopeful monsters". Recently I have reviewed the concept of hopeful monsters in this journal mainly from a historical perspective, and provided some evidence for their past and present existence. Here I provide a brief update on data and discussions supporting the view that hopeful monsters and saltational evolution are valuable biological concepts. I suggest that far from being mutually exclusive scenarios, both gradual and saltational evolution are required to explain the complexity and diversity of life on earth. In my view, gradual changes represent the usual mode of evolution, but are unlikely to be able to explain all key innovations and changes in body plans. Saltational changes involving hopeful monsters are probably very exceptional events, but since they have the potential to establish profound novelties sometimes facilitating adaptive radiations, they are of quite some importance, even if they would occur in any evolutionary lineage less than once in a million years. From that point of view saltational changes are not more bizarre scenarios of evolutionary change than whole genome duplications, endosymbiosis or impacts of meteorites. In conclusion I argue that the complete dismissal of saltational evolution is a major historical error of evolutionary biology tracing back to Darwin that needs to be rectified.

This is posted by a researchr and he hs no idea about how it would work either. It just sounds like hes thinking.

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@farmerman,

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Hopeful Monsters Are Here to Stay

Sounds more like grasping at straws to me.

Science, Darwin- 1859: If true, Evolution must always be found to be gradual.

'Science', post Cambrian discovery: Evolution must always be gradual, except when it isn't.

Darwin was thinking and it mostly fit the evidence. The latter, not so much.

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@farmerman,

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You are repeating the "Hopeful Monster" hypothesis by just adding a new line (epigenes).

The Hopeful Monster belongs to your story, not mine. You believe/hope that an enzyme figured out a way to evolve and become a farmer one day. Along the way you believe this little monster had a few lucky 'profound "saltational" 'changes occur, you sometimes call it P.E. - punctuated equilibrium.

The theory I've been trying to discuss is intelligent design, no hope, luck, etc. required.

Keep your stories straight, this one is yours.

Quote:

It has been suggested that in some cases profound ("saltational") changes may have occurred within one or a few generations of organisms. Organisms with a profound mutant phenotype that have the potential to establish a new evolutionary lineage have been termed "hopeful monsters".

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@Leadfoot,

and your ID point is what??
Has the rate of evolution ever been established? The Nat selection part is usually based upon how quickly environmental change occurs. Remember that mere anatomical similarity among species through time does NOT automatically imply evolutionary connection.
Look at mammals. Everybody was rooting for these mammal legged bigass synapsids that grew in presence throught the PErmian and then WOOOMP, they mostly get wiped out except for a few small ones and mammals appeared from a tiny hair covered possum faced synapsid with more features that are unlike the cynodonts.
IMHO a"frontloading" hypothesis needs tweaking when you think about derived species

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Is Evolution a Dangerous Idea? If so, why?

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