Repackaging an Old Theory with a Shiny New Ribbon
Evolutionists have embarked on a new old theory that is sure to take them over old territory in a new way so that hope springs anew from well worn ground. It is sure to inspire a whole new generation to tread through their parents’ mistakes with the same misplaced zeal, rejuvenating their enthusiasm for the mausoleum of arguments of times long past. They declare it a “sweeping new law of nature!” How bold. What is it? That the more complex patterns get, the more complex the patterns that result, boldly called the “law of increasing functional information.” Isn’t that a bold title? Inspiring!
The theory does not just say that “evolving systems, biological and non-biological, always form from numerous interacting building blocks like atoms or cells, and that processes exist - such as cellular mutation - that generate many different configurations. Evolution occurs ... when these various configurations are subject to selection for useful functions,” but it also says that it is all due to complex patterns getting more complex. That last part makes it all shiny and new. No need to look at the rust and peeled paint of the old theory underneath the new glittery coating.
Let’s ignore for now that every living thing is made from atoms and cells, regardless of whether it evolves or not, and let’s ignore for now the fact that the claim that evolution is caused by “cellular mutations” generating “many different configurations” was disproved in the 1980’s, and nevermind that selections of those random configurations have never generated a new creature no matter how many generations are propagated, but we must focus on the complex patterns that arise from less complex patters to generate those unproven effects. Surely evolution will be proved now! No argument can bear the overwhelming weight of complex patterns on complex patterns as the indomitable driver of evolution. Someday that rock on your desk is going to randomly spring to life because it is complexity on complexity.
Natural selection got weeded out with no effect. DNA didn't randomly encode the answer. Genetic drift drifted away when RNA pushed against it. Epigenetics scratched the surface to reveal its own preprogrammed effects. Ring theory failed to score new species. Environmental pressures imploded in the face of preprogrammed effects. RNA rallied against viral splicing. But patterns on patterns will surely stack up the wins!
Oh how can the idea that God created all this clockwork machinery from subatomic structures to super mega-galactic structures bear up under the overwhelming avalanche of evolution’s new whitewash coating that kicks the problem up a level? Life is complex, so that must be the cause! It’s not just random, but random upon random upon random. That’ll do the trick!
Wait, isn’t this called “abiogenesis” and don’t evolutionists frown on calling it “evolution”? Make up your mind, people.
Comments
" ... and let’s ignore for now the fact that the claim that evolution is caused by “cellular mutations” generating “many different configurations” was disproved in the 1980’s, and nevermind that selections of those random configurations have never generated a new creature no matter how many generations are propagated"
Evolution is caused by mutations, that's not been disproven. The creationist straw man has been disproven, but no evolutionist believes what creationist claim they do, hence why it's a straw man. When it comes to biological evolution "many different configurations" does not mean the offspring are radically different from their parents. This was the view of Richard Goldschmidt and hardly any scientist took his ludicrous view seriously, EVER. Evolutionists do not think that a the offspring are ever radically different from their parents, EVER. Every single generation is pretty much the same as the parents. Anyone who'd taken the time to research even the basics of evolutionary theory would know this. The change is gradual in the same way an infant matures into an adult is gradual. There is no day when a child goes to bed and wakes up looking like an adult. That change takes years. When it comes to evolution it isn't an induvial but a population that evolve, but the idea is the same, noticeable change is takes long periods of time, in this case millions of years. Hence why nobody expects that in last few decades we would have seen evolution "generate a new creature". Hence to assert that it cannot happen "no matter how many generations are propagated" is silly, as we've not seen enough generation to observe it, just as silly as asking why we've never see, an infant mature into an adult in the space of a week.
Elliot wrote: “Some of this is not inconsistent with the JW worldview. Given that JW are quite happy to accept the Big Bang Theory, and stellar evolves (as opposed to thinking god literally made each planets and galaxies with the planets in their exact positions), so there is no problem with that side of it, until it gets to biological evolution of course. … The colloquial use of the word ‘evolution’ simply refers to any change over time (for example the evolution of the automobile simply refers to how designs of automobiles of changed over time), and it's obviously in this broader sense that the the authors used the word "evolution".
My reply: We have no official stand on the Big Bang Theory. The word “evolution” is not a sin. Since you engage in attempting to name fallacies below, allow me to name this. It is called a fallacy of equivalence. You have traded out the meaning of the Theory of Evolution with the general idea of the evolution of things modifying over time. Not even the articles cited make that mistake. The paper is talking about an organization principle inherent in patterns. So your conflation is erroneous. The author of the paper is talking about a shared mechanism, you are talking about a shared definition. They are not related. Yours is a fallacy, his is a practical, if flawed (incomplete), analysis.
Elliot wrote: “Natural selection is an undeniable fact that's been proven through repeated observation and is still part of the neo-Darwinian synthesis, why you'd say it's been ‘weeded out’ is beyond me.”
My reply: No, it isn’t. In fact, biologists have officially rejected that stand in favor of environmental pressures and later virus-initiated gene editing because they were not able to find sufficient evidence for natural selection since random beneficial mutations were never found.
Elliot wrote: “While other mechanism[s] such as genetic drift, which plays a role in constructive neutral evolution have been added to the modern evolutionary theory the view that natural selection is an important part of the mechanism has not changed,”
My reply: Genetic drift has drifted away when it was found that RNA protects against it. Randkm edits that happen are corrected by RNA. Only purposeful edits by a pre-designed process get left in.
Elliot wrote: “The theory of evolution by natural selection is not the same as abiogenesis, although there may be certain similarities.”
My reply: This is a non-argument as it contains no counterfactuals.
Elliot wrote: “and that mutations are the driving force of evolution has never been discarded from the theory either. … Evolution is caused by mutations, that's not been disproven.”
My reply: It was random mutations (“many configurations”) that have been disproven. If not random, then there is a cause. That cause has been shown to be genetics. If genetic, then it is preprogrammed.
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My reply: A “straw man” means to weaken an argument so as to be able to more easily tear it down, the way you did in this very point when you left off the word “random” when you attacked a denial of “mutations”, where you paraphrase my words to leave off the part I made clear of “no matter how many generations are propagated” and start talking about the very next generation, “the offspring” when it clearly wasn’t my intent.
Elliot wrote: “Hence why nobody expects that in [the] last few decades we would have seen evolution ‘generate a new creature’. Hence to assert that it cannot happen ‘no matter how many generations are propagated’ is silly, as we've not seen enough generation to observe it.”
My reply: I was referring to the ecoli cultures that were grown in a lab in which they used caffeine to excellerate generation production, and after many millions of successive generations, they only managed to come up with different types of ecoli with only preprogrammed modifications already present in the DNA by turning genes on and off. This very thing is paraded around as proof of evolution. Since the mutations already exist in the genes, then it is not evolution.
To Elliot, so as not to blow up inboxes too badly, I will just quote your replies. However, I appreciate your brevity on each point. I apologize, though, that my own responses are necessarily not brief as there are a great many points requiring redress.
I will not be posting any more on this subject in this thread, as enough has been said here. If you wish to continue this discussion, you can contact me using the contact form in the sidebar.
MECHANISM AND DESCRIPTION
Elliot wrote: “Ok, you[‘re] partly right, the author is talking about more than simply change over time. But he isn't claiming that the same MECHANISM that causes biological evolution (which is a theory about population genetics and includes random mutation and natural selection, see below where I discuss this more) is the same as the MECHANISM that applies [t]o non biological "evolution" (which has nothing at all to do with genetics). He's simply describing a general LAW that applies to "evolution" of both living and non living systems. As many philosophers have pointed out, "laws" do not cause anything, rather natural "laws" DESCRIBE the way the world works. In this case "many different configurations are subject to selection for useful functions". While this is true of both living and non living systems, it does NOT mean the MECHANISM of biological evolution is the same as those for non living systems, even though the LAW they mention describes both living and non living systems. There is a massive difference and you cannot confuse the two or you'll end up thinking that the author is saying that there's some mysterious mechanism that guides both biological evolution and the evolution of non living systems. That is not what he's saying.”
My reply: Okay, I’ll accept your first point. They were referring to the dominance of patterns leading to greater complexity, leading inexorably to life and beyond, yes, in the very mechanisms of biological evolution, but not by any specific mechanism except the ever increasing complexity of the patterns for each mechanism.
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Elliot wrote: “You said regarding natural selection that: ‘ ... biologists have officially rejected that stand in favor of environmental pressures and later virus-initiated gene editing because they were not able to find sufficient evidence for natural selection since random beneficial mutations were never found.’
“What are you talking about? They haven't rejected natural selection at all. The website Understanding Evolution states: "Natural selection is one of the basic mechanisms of evolution ... " They didn't replace natural selection with environmental pressures. Natural selection IS when environmental pressures favor certain traits that are passed on to offspring. Your basically saying they replaced natural selection with natural selection. What your saying absurd. A simple google search shows you that natural selection has not been discarded but is still one of the main mechanisms of evolution. [...] at least lie about something that people can't check easily.”
My reply: You have gone into this discussion under the prejudiced assumption that I am ignorant of the issues and a willful liar. I think you will find otherwise. Accusations are easy, but it takes maturity to treat people with whom you disagree with respect and the benefit of a doubt. Personal attacks without proof do not establish your argument and only damage your credibility. I’m sure you would appreciate being taken seriously, as do I.
I said the biologist community, not the general internet community. (I really should narrow this to molecular biology or biochemistry, the ones who actually do the work to find proof of evolution.) Here is the peer reviewed 2008 paper written by a group of microbiologists and computational biologists that identifies significant issues with natural selection as a primary driver that forced a change in the molecular biologist community:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2527516/
Here is a 2022 paper in the online peer review journal Frontiers, written by an actual biochemist, that clarifies that the term you like, “genetic drift” is the primary driver of “non-Darwinian evolution” (not neo-Darwinian evolution) and is contrary to natural selection (the driving principle of Darwinian evolution):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8888898/
I suggest absorbing both of those papers, because they go into excrutiating detail on the history and development of molecular biology and the issues the field addresses.
The first paper highlights that natural selection plays very little, if any, role in the propagation of mutations. They claim it has more to do with perceptions of mate fitness in the partners and seeking out conditions favorable to their mutation, along with extreme conditions that no mutation can survive wiping out populations that should otherwise thrive, leaving behind the less fit. Then there are many mutations that are seemingly dilaterious that never get selected out. There is also the fact that I highlighted, that there is no beneficial mutation that did not come about by pre-programmed genes or purposeful (but temporary) splicing by an organelle.
The reason natural selection is still in the social consciousness is the same reason that the defunct primate skull evolution line-up is. Text books still print it that way. It just gets perpetuated among those with less than academic exposure to the subject, which is most people, even non-biologist scientists and science communicators as evinced in the paper I lampoon in the main post (it was written by cosmologists, not biochemists). Society is often very slow to adopt changes to scientific learning in areas they are not trained in.
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While the theory of environmental pressures has not been abandoned, it has failed to explain evolution since the mutations are still preprogrammed and no new genes or features appear out of thin air. This means that the gene itself, in response to the environment, not the environment itself, is the driver. Natural selection has nothing to do with these things.
Here is a peer reviewed example:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C37&q=%E2%80%9Cenvironmental+pressures%E2%80%9D+in++biological+evolution&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&t=1702826445632&u=%23p%3DtxGXgW8iH5sJ
Though it needs further follow-up, as an example of how environmental pressures is not panning out, here is another peer reviewed paper:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C37&q=%E2%80%9Cenvironmental+pressures%E2%80%9D+in++biological+evolution&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&t=1702826907637&u=%23p%3DKY4cRXy6Ro8J
Now at this point, evolutionists are beginning to say that evolution is too complex to be explained by any one process, but a combination of processes. However, this combination has not been defined, nor discovered at all. But adaptationist creationists have a simple answer that stands out in all the experiments to date: genes are preprogrammed to adapt to specific environmental factors, primarily diet (which creates the quickest change) and long-term exposure to environmental pressures like UV radiation, viral loads or extreme temperatures without ever changing the fundamental body plan of the parent species.
ASSERTIONS ARE NON-ARGUMENTS
Elliot wrote: “You said regarding my comment about abiogenesis: ‘This is a non-argument as it contains no counterfactuals.’
“I was simply responding to your comment in the article where you said ’Wait, isn’t this called “abiogenesis” and don’t evolutionists frown on calling it “evolution”? Make up your mind, people.’ You make it sound like scientists can't make up their mind and are now saying abiogenesis is evolution. They aren't.”
My reply: That is your assertion. Assertions aren’t facts, thus I said you provided no counterfactual. That is, you made no attempt to overturn my statement except with a conflicting statement of your own, which is just he-said, he-said. There are any number of ways to challenge someone's statement, but a counterstatement goes nowhere. It just looks like “yeah-huh,” “uhn-uh”.
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Elliot wrote: You said: "Genetic drift has drifted away when it was found that RNA protects against it. Random edits that happen are corrected by RNA. Only purposeful edits by a pre-designed process get left in."
“Where are you getting your information from? Just last week I was having an email exch[an]ge with a scientist at Purdue Uni. about constructive neutral evolution, which involved genetic drift and negative selection. Genetic drift absolutely is still part of the [] neo-Darwinian syntheis. It hasn't "drifted away". They haven't discarded genetic drift or natural selection, they are ALL involved. This is not debatable. For example the understanding evolution (https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolution-101/mechanisms-the-processes-of-evolution/genetic-drift/) says: "Genetic drift is one of the basic mechanisms of evolution." This is basic stuff.”
My reply: First, “neo-Darwinian synthesis” is way out of date, as I showed in the above links. It became defunct the moment DNA became a thing. Genetic drift is strictly and only non-Darwinian, though an some attempts to merge the two have failed to bear fruit. Second, “Constructive neutral evolution” is also a non-Darwinian (not neo-Darwinian) theory that itself highlights the fallacies of natural selection by focussing on neutral (unchanging) data sets (as used in one or more of the above links), thus the name. Negative selection is itself non-Darwinian and directly counter to natural selection, which therefore rules out neo-Darwinism. So the professor knew what he was talking about, being consistently non-Darwinian in his points, but I suggest that you might want to brush up on modern biochemical evolution and drop the long defunct neo-Darwinian arguments.
Second, I have noted that “genetic drift” gets used in two ways in papers. The first way, the strict definition, is that random gene switching or “genetic flow” occurs to produce specific changes. One paper defines it as a “stochastic change in gene frequency.” Stochastic meaning random. The second, more loose way, is that it represents the genetic changes in a population regardless of the mechanism. The second way is technically incorrect.
The following paper examines and clarifies misunderstandings about genetic drift:
https://www.lifescied.org/doi/full/10.1187/cbe.11-12-0107
Note that paper’s non-Darwinian statement against natural selection: “In contrast to natural selection, genetic drift is nonselective and therefore results in nonadaptive changes in populations.” All this shows that if you don’t want to join the dinosaurs, you’re going to need to dump the terms “natural selection” and “neo-Darwinian”, especially if you’re going to talk about genetic drift.
I said it “drifted away” because it too has failed to pan out and seems to me to be phasing out due to the fading interest in biology papers. I did not mean that it has been discarded or rejected by the scientific community, but time is a brutal mistress. The theory has not aged well because they are unable to penetrate the wall created by RNA
The thing about scientists is that they are very keen to promote new ideas, but not very keen on promoting their failures, so the public remains ill-informed about when ideas have been discarded (or in need of discard), though well informed about the latest ideas. This leads to the late (if ever) expulsion of defunct ideas. They are thus quick to adopt and slow to divorce.
Though the article you cited referenced information in the articles I cited above, it is somewhat unclear about the lack of selection taking place. Also, it was published in 2019 and last updated in 2020. But if you will notice on Google Scholar, papers about genetic drift have become less frequent and are focussed on moving the goalposts or simply remedial. This indicates a theory in retreat.
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Papers like this one demonstrate the problems in every experiment trying to prove evolution. It always comes out neutral.
Also, your article spoke of genetic drift as a fact, while it was, and still is, only a hypothesis as that last link shows. This happens a lot with ideas about evolution, but they end up only exacerbating the issue of society failing to expel defunct ideas. When it is treated as a fact, people accept it as gospel.
ADMISSION OF NOT RANDOM
Elliot wrote: “You wrote: ‘It was random mutations (“many configurations”) that have been disproven.’
“Partly true. It was found that mutation[s] are more likely to occur in certain regions of the genome. For example it was found that in a study of the genes of some plants, "mutation frequency was 58% lower in transcriptional regions of genes than in intergenic regions." ("Genetic mutations may not be random" - Frontline Genomics - 14th Jan 2022) It's still random, but less random than previously thought. In the same way that some stretches of carriageway are more prone to have accidents, it doesn't mean that all automobile accidents are predetermined to occur on certain exact spots.”
My reply: This is your most effective response. (Also, I appreciate your concessions, though I still contest the parts you disagree with.) This again contains no counterfactuals. Your statement is simply that your area of randomness is constrained. Alright. But that statement doesn't provide evidence that it is random. In fact, it suggests the opposite, just as the paper’s title says.
PREPROGRAMMED GENETIC CHANGES
Elliot wrote: “You then said: ‘If not random, then there is a cause. That cause has been shown to be genetics. If genetic, then it is preprogrammed.’
“'The cause is not random mutation, but genetics.' WHAT? What do you think mutations are? Random mutation[s] ARE genetic changes. So you've basically said 'it's not genetics its genetics.'”
I admit only that the word choice is unfortunate out of context, the way you have taken it, as if circular. I mean only as I said multiple times, that the changes are preprogrammed in the genetic code as has been shown time and again in the literature. Preprogrammed means it is already in the genes before it happens. Are you admitting that all mutations are preprogrammed in the genes?
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Elliot wrote: “I know exactly what a "straw man" is. And my claim was not a straw man. What you said (or strongly implied) in your comment was. The reason I didn't mention "random" was because I thought it was obvious they were random, because while there are certain regions in the genome that mutations are more likely to occur, the fact that they aren't FULLY random does not mean that they are specific, which they obviously aren't, hence they are random but less random than previously thought. I didn't leave off "random" to make a point, as I didn't realise at that point that you had this false notion that they weren't random. I didn't realise I'd have to clarify something so obvious. So here it is again corrected:
“Evolution is caused by RANDOM mutations (although less random than once thought), that's not been disproven. [[[Researchers found mutations in a plant[] were less random than expected, more mutation[s] occur in areas that aren't as important in the genome. Why? The researchers said "the plant has evolved a way to protect its most important places from mutation." On the creation hypothesis we wouldn't expect this as there would be no need for the plant to "protect" itself, as if God was the creator of everything there would be no harmful mutations, and if mutations did occur they would be preprogramed as you wrongly claimed they were, but they're not.]]]”
That is not just writing in the word “random”. You rewrote the whole thing that I put in tripple brackets. It’s a new comment. I might have just let you have it, but because you rewrote your comment, I have to address all of it. Rewriting your comment is another type of fallacy called historical revision. This is done in order to avoid addressing the actual problem (It is not that I think you are purposefully doing it; most fallacies are done without awareness). In this case, you also make it a straw man by reassigning what my comment about your straw man actually applied to. Removal of the word “random” was not itself the straw man, but affected the straw man in company with leaving off my other words until it was convenient to address them separately.
So what is the problem being avoided so as to sidestep my straw man claim? Well, the text you deleted from your comment was: “When it comes to biological evolution ‘many different configurations’ does not mean the offspring are radically different from their parents.” This plainly shows that you reinterpreted words to apply to the very next generation. The rest of the text you deleted went from there.
So the fact that you still straw manned me a second time and rewrote your comment to boot, makes it plenty clear that I was not flawed in observing it the first time. I recommend you quietly let this one go because it could only serve to derail the discussion and demonstrate more of this kind of foolishness.
You then go on to make it look like my unambiguous phrasing was ambiguous. We’ll address that next, but for now, let’s tackle the rewritten text above.
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Elliot wrote: “On the creation hypothesis we wouldn't expect this as there would be no need for the plant to "protect" itself, as if God was the creator of everything there would be no harmful mutations, and if mutations did occur they would be preprogramed as you wrongly claimed they were.”
My reply: Despite your claim to the contrary, your words clearly show that my argument is valid by saying it is the only way God could be involved by preventing random mutations. You are borrowing my argument as your own and mischaracterize my usage of it as wrong when clearly your immediately previous words recognize it as valid, saying, “if mutations did occur [in creation by a God], they would be preprogrammed ...”.
It is okay to respect your opponent’s argument and still disagree with their overall stand. If you try to hide your agreement, things like this result. The truth will come out one way or another. You would have been better off just not addressing the validity of my frame at all.
As to your claim that if God were involved, “there would be no need for the plant to ‘protect’ itself,” this is a variation of the so-called “hard problem of evil” argument atheists love, but is so easily dismantled. All that we know of follows laws (whether naturally or by God) on the molecular level that allows larger things to exist. Atheists agree. Great. But just because those laws exist does not mean that, at some point, adjustments won’t need to be made to allow certain things to happen in order for life to exist within the confines of those laws.
(I am going to use Scriptures references in parentheses a few times just to establish that these are not my own ideas. They are not to be seen as me providing some kind of scientific “proof”.)
For example, you would never expect a collection of atoms to just stand up and start talking. The laws that exist are such that complex machines can be made on the molecular level that can be combined in various ways to make a larger organism work. Those machines are left to their devices to do what they were made to do. Here is where the counterargument to the “hard problem of evil” comes in.
In order for those machines to exist in large numbers, they must feed on energy and propagate. Energy dissipates and needs restoring, so animals eat. If those machines never break down, they will continue to propagate exponentially. Thus Jehovah built into the creation a need for things to break down. He also did this on the level of animals, plants and all but one of the other orders of life. He also created methods that would allow animals to die off at faster rates, such as diseases of various kinds, in order for the propagation of life not to get out of control. If things do not happen this way, the cycle of life would break down and chaos would result. At the same time, though, it could still get out of control if there is no one around to stem the propagation of destabilizing organisms, whether by the power of God or a keeper.
Mankind was made as the same kind of animal, physically, in order to take care of life on Earth. (Genesis 1:26; 1 Corinthians 15:50) Our first parents were granted, by default, as the keepers of the Earth, to live indefinitely by God’s power while enjoying its productions. But if mankind chose freedom from God’s rule, then mankind would live as the animals, which is the state we find ourselves in now, subject to corruption and all the disease and death that comes with it.—Romans 8:20, 21.
In other words, God left us alone to fend for ourselves because our first parents chose it. (Let’s avoid the nuances of that subject, since we are talking about evolution vs. creation.) But he did not leave us without a means to protect ourselves, at least for a time, which Jehovah has carefully planned for. (Acts 1:7)
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So the short answer is that life made of matter cannot be made to propagate without planned obsolescence (death). So even if obedient humans are allowed to live indefinitely, most living things are still going to die in order to feed the cycle of life. It is necessary. (In this Jehovah’s Witnesses are theological conditionalists in that not all things are absolutely possible, but what things are possible, God can do. (The Scripture, “With God all things are possible,” is not in reference to His creative power, but in His ability to save his people, a primarily abstract subject not dependent upon material matters; Matthew 19:26.)
AMBIGUATION
Now on to your ambiguating my unambiguous statement.
Elliot wrote: “You said ‘and nevermind that selections of those random configurations have never generated a new creature’, and indeed you did add ‘no matter how many generations are propagated’, but it's not clear exactly what you mean by ‘MANY generations’. Is 50 many? 5000,000? 5,000,000?”
My reply: There is no ambiguity. I said, “No matter how many.” But you couldn’t resist following your stream of consciousness, which reveals that I wasn’t being ambiguous. Let’s look at that now.
PREVENTION OF MUTATION PROPAGATION
Elliot wrote: “It would seem that you can't possibly have meant ‘many generations’ over many millions of years, as you say that we've never seen a new creature come about, which implies that we should've observed a new creature come about if evolution were true, but you couldn't possibly know that a new creature could not gradually come about over many millions of years unless you'd been there for all that time, which is obviously impossible.”
So says the evolutionist who says, ‘that new creatures gradually came about over many millions of years.’ Then there are all the non-biology scientists (like Tyson) who hold up that experiment as undeniable proof of evolution.
The fact is, the mechanism for preventing random mutations is in place. To evolutionists’ credit, this means that random mutations in DNA of a single cell (not caused by preprogrammed processes) can and do happen, no dispute, but they DO NOT PROPAGATE. So far as researchers can tell, this is absolute in all creatures great and small, though atheists hope beyond hope that it’s not absolute. RNA’s only function is as a genetic copier, zipper and folder and it does not and cannot allow for mistakes under any circumstances.
So there is no evidence that there is any weakness in this mechanism seeing as it is fully controlled by a genetic zipper that acts as a filter for random mutations we call RNA. This is because it is the very means by which DNA replicates. It’s just like a zipper on your clothes. If the two sides don’t line up or can’t be folded, the zipper breaks down. The only way the two sides line up in the zipper is if they were designed to. And the only way they fold is if the two sides are compatible. Then there are the many other processes in the body that attack anything that is not already in the body plan, but that’s another can of beans.
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Elliot wrote: “So I had to assume that by ‘many’ you mean ‘many generations’ THAT WE'VE OBSERVED in our lifetime. Which means you either expect that at some point over those ‘many generations’ we should've seen a creature radically different from it's parents (as some creationist think), or that evolution predicts super quick (but not instantaneous) change that we should be able to witness in a human lifetime. So either you implied something you didn't mean, or else you mean that over millions of years ‘selections of those random configurations have never generated a new creature no matter how many generations are propagated’, but you can't possibly know this.”
My reply: This is a poor justification for your claiming that I meant only one generation and makes it clear that you knew that I didn’t mean one generation. You straw manned me and I identified it. Let it go because it only looks worse for you from here on.
This is why you shouldn’t call out people’s fallacies by name. It only causes them to dig the hole deeper. I have demonstrated it repeatedly in order for you to get the sense. If you feel like you have to defend yourself every time one of your fallacies gets called out, then know that this is what you are doing to the other person. To call them out properly without making them defensive, just use the definition and not the word. For example, instead of “straw man”, say, “You left out the part about …” It is just a correction. That is showing that you are not trying to offend them or make them defensive.
I will no longer be calling out your fallacies. I will only make corrections as necessary.
INEFFECTIVE SOURCES
Elliot wrote: "Sources for what I said in my response:
“Biologists have not officially rejected natural selection or genetic drift: https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolution-101/mechanisms-the-processes-of-evolution/natural-selection/
“It's ludicrous to say that environmental pressures "replaced" natural selection, as natural selection and environmental pressures are inextricably connected:
https://manoa.hawaii.edu/exploringourfluidearth/biological/what-alive/evolution-natural-selection#:~:text=Natural%20selection%20occurs%20when%20environmental,evolve%20in%20genetic%20evolutionary%20terms.”
My reply: The first link is not a peer review publication and is written for public school students. The second link is a non-profit for political purposes. The language is dumbed down in both cases, and scientists admit they make many scientific errors when they dumb it down for lay people because they are speaking to what the audience likely already knows or thinks they know. Their goal is never to correct misinformation unless it becomes detrimental to learning, and especially as it affects belief, such as belief in evolution. That website is not involved in the bleeding edge of molecular biology. In other words, it is not sufficient to convince someone who keeps up with the actual papers, like myself.
I cite articles that summarize the papers because they are easier to read and they provide links to the original paper for those who are interested. The links you provided are not linked to papers to be checked.
Since I already addressed your accompanying statements previously, I'll move on.
Continued below ...
Elliot wrote: “One last point regarding this comment you made:
“The longest-running evolution experiment like [the one you mentioned] involves 12 populations of Escherichia coli (E. coli) and was started in February 1988 by Richard Lenski. As of early 2020 there have been 73,000 generations. [T]his is the longest running experiment I guess this is what you were referring to, but it's not "millions" of generations, its only 73,000. I did a quick search but cannot find any E.coli experiment which involved more generations. If there had been it would dwarf Lenski's experiment, and |I would have expected to have found it easily.”
My reply: You are correct. I overstated. I should have checked my numbers. 73,000 doublings of 12 cultures is not quite a million separate generations (876,000 to be exact), or if you prefer, 76,000 generations in at least 12 isolated families. I was going from faulty memory (or rather the assumption of how many doublingss I thought could be grown in that time). I will be more careful in the future.
In all of it, they never observed a single mutation that propagated that was not already a part of their genetic code from the beginning. My point of no new forms stands regardless of your opinion about my claim. My knowledge of whether they could never happen over any period of time is based on the fact that nothing has ever demonstrated even the possibility of it ever happening. The biological family tree gets overhauled every couple of decades, and taxonomists admit that the connections they make all deadend at some point without ever connecting extremely different forms. Every new theory gets falsified, often within months. In fact, the time to falsification seems to be speeding up with each new theory.
FINAL NOTE
The key to a strong argument is to, instead of trying to prove the other person wrong, try first to prove them right, as you would seek to do for yourself, then seek to prove them wrong. When you try simply to prove yourself right, you end up looking for weak evidence for both positions, but when you seek to prove the other person right regardless of your own feelings and biases, ready to accept that you may be mistaken, then it forces you to be more thorough and effective in disproving them or else discovering that you were indeed mistaken. The only evidence in your doing this will be in the strength of the evidence you present and your virtual lack of common fallacies.
You are doing well in challenging your opponent and escalating to evidence. However, I recommend that you scrutinize and raise your standards of evidence. Either the weaknesses in your evidence will elevate your opponent’s evidence or the strength in your evidence will reveal your opponent’s flaws. I think you would agree that the latter is preferable. You would therefore fair better to only use original science papers (Google Scholar will be your best friend) and look for evidence of both views in those papers; scientists often admit to their failures or weaknesses within the paper itself, even if they’re not keen to advertise them.
END OF DISCUSSION.
One author has released a book promoting the idea that the interconnectivity of microbiological processes is possibly self-organizing and may respond when needed.
This will also lead nowhere, but it shows that evolutionist microbiologists themselves are not incapable of evolving past a biological dead end:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00327-x