Re: macroevolution or macromutations? (was ID) 2/2

From: Stephen E. Jones (sejones@iinet.net.au)
Date: Mon Jul 03 2000 - 17:30:25 EDT

  • Next message: Stephen E. Jones: "Re: on atheistic principles? (was macroevolution or macromutations? (was ID) 1/2)"

    Reflectorites

    I apologise for this being late and out order, but I just discovered
    it in my "Drafts" folder.

    On Tue, 13 Jun 2000 03:04:59 -0700, Cliff Lundberg wrote:

    >SJ>"Gradualism" is not a "straw man". It is what they actually *teach* in
    >>schools and university Biology classes.

    CL>They've taught plenty of wrong things over the years.

    That it is "wrong" is not the point. The point is that "Gradualism" is *not*
    a "straw man", if that is in fact what is being "taught"!

    >SJ>And "Irreducible-complexity" is *precisely* the test that Darwin himself set
    >>as falsifying his theory: ... (Woodward T., "Meeting Darwin's Wager,"
    >>Part 1 of 3, Christianity Today, Vol. 41, No. 5, April 28, 1997, p.14.
    >>http://www.christianity.net/ct/7T5/7T514a.html)

    CL>Behe is right, the gradualism part of Darwin's theory does break down,
    >it does not satisfactorily explain the evolution of certain complexes in
    >nature.

    Again, I give full credit to Cliff for acknowledging it. So how does Cliff's
    symbiosis theory explain the origin of the blood-clotting cascade, which has
    many components which have to be in place for any of it to work at all, and
    indeed part of the system would be worse than none of it:

    "Blood clotting has to work within very narrow restrictions. When a cut
    occurs in an organism with a pressurized blood circulation system like ours,
    a clot must form quickly or the organism will bleed to death. On the other
    hand, if clots occur at times or places other than the site of an injury, they
    may block blood circulation, as they do in heart attacks and strokes.
    Furthermore, when a cut occurs the dot has to stop the bleeding all along
    the length of the cut, sealing it completely. But blood clotting must also be
    confined to the area of the cut or the entire blood system of the animal
    could solidify, killing it. Therefore the clotting of blood must be tightly
    controlled to make sure the clot forms when it needs to and not otherwise.
    ... The formation, limitation, strengthening, and removal of a blood clot is
    an integrated biological system, and problems with single components can
    cause the system to fail. In this characteristic it is like the car engine
    mentioned earlier, which fails to work if the fan belt is missing, or the
    distributor cap, or the spark plugs; and is severely hampered even by a flat
    tire The lack of certain blood clotting factors, or the production of
    defective factors, often results in serious health problems or death. The
    most common form of hemophilia occurs because of a lack of anti-
    hemophilic factor, which helps Christmas factor in the conversion of Stuart
    factor to its active form. Lack of Christmas factor is the second most
    common form of hemophilia. Severe health problems or even death can
    also result if defects occur in other proteins of the clotting pathway. ...
    Why is the blood clotting system incompatible with a nonintelligent
    evolutionary view of nature? Macroevolution means a change from a
    simpler to a more complex state. Let us try to envision such a change for
    blood clotting. Assume that we initially start with an organism that contains
    just a primitive version of thrombin and fibrinogen. The thrombin would
    immediately cut all the fibrin, causing a massive clot and the speedy death
    of the organism. Suppose instead we started with fibrinogen and
    prothrombin. In this case there is nothing to initiate clotting when a cut
    occurs and the organism would bleed to death. We may try many smaller
    sets of components to get started-fibrinogen, prothrombin, activated Stuart
    factor and proaccelerin, or inactive Stuart factor or proaccelenn, or
    fibrinogen plus an imaginary protein that cleaves fibrinogen to fibrin-death
    is nearly always the certain result. In fact, having a primitive, poorly
    controlled clotting system would probably be more dangerous to an animal,
    and therefore less advantageous, than having no such system at all! Thus
    the blood clotting system cannot have emerged piecemeal. Like a car or a
    sentence, it requires the cooperative interaction of pre-existing components
    to work. How do Darwinists explain the origin of the blood clotting
    system? They don't, at least not in any detailed, step-by-step fashion. It is
    important to realize that no one has ever offered a credible hypothesis to
    explain how the blood clotting system could have started and subsequently
    evolved. " (Davis P. & Kenyon D.H., "Of Pandas and People," 1993,
    pp.141-145)

    >SJ>Evolutionists who rule out "Irreducible-complexity" in principle, are
    >>unwittingly making Darwinism even more unfalsifiable, and showing that
    >>Darwinism is to them a `religion', rather than just a scientific theory.

    CL>It is indeed, note how they put their fish on the back of their cars
    >like the Christians do their own. With its implications of progress,
    >happy advancement to better and better things, it really is filling in
    >for religion.

    Yes. Johnson made the wry comment somewhere that Supreme Court Justices
    who had heard the Darwinists put their hands on their heart and testify
    that Darwinism was science, and creationism was religion, might notice
    on their way home those Darwin fish bumper stickers!

    >>CL>The general principle can explain how the interrelated machinery of the
    >>>cell came to exist.

    >SJ>See above. One would then have to come up with a symbiotic story for
    >>each one of the separate components of the prokaryotic cell, like:

    CL>One doesn't have to come up with a story, one need only recognize
    >that this is a plausible mechanism.

    Just about *anything* could be "a plausible mechanism" if one did
    not bother with the *details*!

    If Cliff cannot come up with a "symbiotic story for each one of the
    separate components of the prokaryotic cell" then why should we prefer
    Cliff's symbiotic theory, when Darwinism at least claims to have "a plausible
    mechanism", namely random mutation and natural selection?

    >SJ>Cliff would then need to explain how all those mindless pre-prokaryote
    >>symbionts eating each other also just happened to get it so right to lay the
    >>foundations for all prokaryotic *and* eukaryotic life for the next 3.8 billion
    >>years.

    CL>Well, it took a long time and a lot of luck

    And this is Cliff's idea of a *scientific* explanation, that is
    better than Darwinism's explanation of random mutations and
    natural selection?

    CL>whether it happened originally on Earth or somewhere else.

    If "somewhere else" Cliff would then have to explain how the
    components "somewhere else" "just happened to get it so right to lay the
    foundations for all prokaryotic *and* eukaryotic life for the next 3.8 billion
    years" on an entirely different planet.

    >>CL>Just so happened, in the midst of an astronomical number of what could
    >>>be viewed as unsuccessful attempts.

    >SJ>Cliff has no independent evidence that there were "an astronomical number
    >of... unsuccessful attempts". It is just an *assumption* based on naturalistic
    >>philosophy that it must be so, otherwise they couldn't have just happened
    >>to get it right in a small number of successful attempts.

    CL>This is a basic tenet of evolutionary theory, that most mutations are
    >unsuccessful.

    We were not talking about "mutations". We were talking about
    *symbiotic* "unsuccessful attempts".

    >SJ>The evidence is that if they did all merge, that it was a series of unique
    >>events. In the case of the mitochondria, for example, the free-living
    >>components components, the prokaryotes exist in the trillions, yet never
    >>show any signs of forming new, permanent symbiotic mergers like that
    >>which would have had to have formed into eukaryotes.

    CL>Such bizarre experiments would have had a better chance of viability
    >before all the predatory eukaryotes and metazoans appeared.

    There is however no evidence of this. Cliff now needs to populate the
    primordial sea with "an astronomical number of" ... "bizarre experiments"!

    >>CL>Successful innovations accumulate, lineages diverge, I don't see
    >>>the problem.

    >SJ>So in the end, Cliff is back to Darwinism and the `blind watchmaker'! But if
    >>that is the case, then why so we need his theory, since Darwinism can
    >>explain it all without Cliff's pan-symbiosis?

    CL>Darwinism is gradual, my proposed model is not. Darwinism explains
    >everything, as does ID. My model is more limited.

    What exactly *are* the limits of Cliff's model? That is, what does it:
    1) claim to explain; and 2) claim not to explain?

    >>>SJ>I don't understand Cliff's point. I am able to follow the "logical
    >>arguments" that evolutionists make and yet believe that they are "false".

    >>CL>If the conclusion is false, then either the premises or the logic must be
    >>in error.

    >SJ>Not really. A scientific theory can be logically sound, but the *evidence* is
    >>simply against it. Almost all failed theories were at least logically sound.

    CL>But you claim that without God, evolution must logically be gradual; even as
    >you point out that the evidence is against this.

    First, I don't claim that "evolution must *logically* be gradual.

    Second, the word "evolution" is so vague it could mean anything.

    Third, I don't claim that "without God, evolution" (in the sense of building
    complex designs must ... be gradual). *Darwinism* claims that.

    >SJ>There is an "irreducible complexity" problem in Cliff's own pan-symbiosis
    >>theory. Each one of the free-living components had to be complex enough
    >>to survive and flourish in plentiful enough numbers so they could find each
    >>other and merge by chance. But if they were that successful already, why
    >>did they *need* to merge?

    CL>To outcompete the old independents.

    So we are back to good old Darwinistic "survival of the fittest"?

    >>CL>I have doubts about conventional kinds of testing being able to reproduce
    >>>rare events of a billion years ago; we can only theorize as best we can.
    >>>But even these long-ago events are observable in principle, and so testing
    >>>cannot be logically excluded.

    >SJ>So in the end, Cliff's theory is untestable?

    CL>Theories about history are always in principle testable.

    So why should we beleieve Cliff "untestable" theory in preference to Dawkins'
    or Margulis' "untestable" theory?

    >SJ>If science is about what works, then ID *will* work!

    SJ>ID can do anything, with the greatest of ease. That's the trouble with it.

    Well at least "ID" probably *can* explain the origin of life and make a model
    that *works*. That is better than naturalism can do!

    Steve

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------
    "Finally, the evolutionary vision is enabling us to discern, however
    incompletely, the lineaments of the new religion that we can be sure will
    arise to serve the needs of the coming era. Just as stomachs are bodily
    organs concerned with digestion, and involving the biochemical activity of
    special juices, so are religions psychosocial organs concerned with the
    problems of human destiny, and involving the emotion of sacredness and
    the sense of right and wrong. Religion of some sort is probably necessary."
    (Huxley J.S., "The Humanist Frame," in "Essays of a Humanist," [1964],
    Penguin Books: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1969, reprint, p.91).
    Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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