I had written:
> >Those theists who continue to
> >seek for a reconciliation of darwinism with the concept of design
> >will need to come up with something much more substantial than they
> >have to date.
Glenn:
> David, What about what I have suggested in the design of the sequence
> spaces of the DNA? That is most assuredly a way for God to exercise design
> and still have evolution. The following is something I wrote a couple of
> years ago but it explains the way i think God controlled the evolution of
> living systems
I am not sure I can do justice to the points you raise in the limited
time available - but here is my reaction to what you have written.
After mutating a DNA sequence, Glenn asks:
> where is the limit to this procedure? Mathematically I can change FROM any
> sequence TO any other sequence by random replacement. There is no limit to
> the sequence I can generate in this fashion.
There is no limit to the mathematical procedure. But do you want to
live in a virtual world or a real world? You must anchor your
theoretical models in testable ways to biology. Various points then
need to be addressed:
1. The idea that DNA has all the information content of an organism
is dogma, not the fruit of research.
2. Neither experimental work nor studies of fossil lineages lead to
the conclusion that there are "no limits" to variation.
3. "Random replacement" fails to address the issue of irreducible
complexity - the response is just to deny that IR exists.
> Now for your objection that I know you are making to the above. You will say
> that 99.9% of all sequences won't work and are fatal. That is true. But
> sequences have associated with them a mathematical object known as a phase
> space or a sequence space. Each nucleotide position becomes a dimension in
> the phase space. ....
OK.
> But most phase spaces are like sponges, with caverns and connecting
> passageways. ...
> The phase space looks like a cavern system with passageways. The major
> caverns are the stable species the passageways are the rapidly traversed
> regions. The caverns explain the stasis of species and the narrow passageways
> explains the punctuated part of evolution.
How do you know the passageways exist? Is this theory or experiment?
> By random mutation of sequences
> one can find a path between position X and Y. There is no barrier or limit to
> change. All intervening positions allow for living organisms. There are
> isolated places like that marked Z which have no entry way and they may never
> have an organism with that genome. In that case there is a barrier and I can
> not go from X to Z.
This is definitely asserting theory.
> Now, where does the information come from for these major changes? God
> designed them into the phase spaces!!!!! Life is not creating these major
> innovations. Life is DISCOVERYING what God has already created! If you start
> a creature with our DNA you get a human because our cluster of points is
> marked 'human' in the phase space. If you use a similar length DNA but with
> 1-2% changes, you can get a chimpanzee because those cluster of points in the
> phase space are marked 'chimpanzee'.
Are you arguing that the "design" is in the environment, which
exercises a natural selection pressure on the genome? I am happy to
discuss this further, as there has been quite a history of people
arguing that the design is in the mutation/variation - but most
Christians have not found it very attractive to think that "design"
is to be found in environmental selection pressures. They tend to
think that the environment is good for weeding out the imperfects and
the unfit, but not for taking the design forward. How do you handle
this point? Having a selection "pressure" does not thereby generate
the variations necessary to exploit the developing niche. If the
theory is limited to Darwinian mechanisms, then the organism may not
develop according to its theoretical potential.
> Is this a purposiveless view of nature? Does this view destroy God's
> control? Of course, not.
Agreed. But we are not talking about "purpose" but "design".
> God designed the phase spaces and in doing so, God was
> essentially laying down a nearly undetectable railroad track which would lead
> from one animal to the next, not according to an unplanned sequence of events
> but according to His foreknowledge. In other words, God rigged the roulette
> wheel, BY DESIGN.
Having an undetectable track does not guarantee that something will
travel along it! This is where most theists have thought there needs
to be a design input to the variations that occur - equipping the
organism to "travel".
> What experimental evidence is there of this? Lots. 3 or 4 mutations perform
> most of the physical transformation between two species of monkeyflower.
> These
> 3-4 mutations make most of the changes required to change the flower from a
> bumblebee designed flower to a hummingbird designed flower. See H.D.
> Bradshaw
> Jr., S. M. Wilbert, K. G. Otto and D. W.Schemske, "Genetic mapping of Floral
> Traits Associated with Reproductive isolation in monkeyflowers (Mimulus),"
> Nature, 376 Aug. 31, 1995, p. 762-765
Why is this evidence FOR the view you have advocated? Exactly the
same data may be appealed to by advocates of "Basic Type Biology" or
"Discontinuity systematics" or "Baraminology" - or whatever you wish
to call those who do consider that there are unbridgeable
discontinuities between groupings of organisms.
Best wishes,
David J. Tyler.