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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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Actually, you continually and persistently overlook the impact on the population and that IS the evolutionary perspective.

You tend to use the word "organism" as if it were a synonym for "species", but whenever convenient, you treat it as an individual. I expect that what you are really doing is adopting an essentialist notion of "organism". Well, evolution does not operate in essentialist concepts. It operates in populations and gene pools through changes that occur originally in individual genomes and affect the lives of individuals. Evolution is the study of how differences which first appear in individual genomes come to impact populations.

Until you can deal with a population/gene pool perspective, you will continue to misrepresent what evolution is and what evidence is pertinent to evolution.

Oh, I am quite familiar with the concept - but just to be clear, you agree the trait for sickle cell arose as a mutation in a single human ancestor, correct?

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IOW, there is no reason to attribute all current occurrences of sickle cell trait to a single mutation in a single ancestor. Yet, each occurrence of sickle cell trait does go back to a specific single mutation in a specific single ancestor--unless it is new in the victim.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
Well, and please be exceedingly honest here – you have no idea how complex the presumed ‘the last common ancestor of all life’ was, do you?

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I didn’t say they equated, so the faulty logic is yours, as is the presumption.

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Again, asking for exceeding honesty here; you have no idea when the Hox genes arose, do you?

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Certainly it is – unless you are going to purport that nothing that exists can be explained as the result of an intelligent cause.

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First I would have to know that you agree that intelligent causation is a legitimate consideration when contemplating the origin of any structure – do you?

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
Well, I am just trying to cget some clarity here. So it seems we agree then that each occurence for sickle cell trait arose as a mutation in a single human ancestor.

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A pretty good idea, yes. The LCA would need to incorporate everything that all species share. This would include metabolic pathways, three base codons, transcription and translation pathways, DNA replication, etc.

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Yes. They arose some time prior to the Cambrian explosion and the appearance of complex multicellular life. Given the fact that hox gene paralogs are found in cnideria that the hox genes originated prior to the cnideria/bilaterian split.

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"The Designer Did It" is a placeholder for a real explanation.

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"The Deisgner Did It" has never been a legitimate explanation. It explains nothing. It's like telling kids that rainbows are caused by magic.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
Well, aside from the obvious complexity of that set-up, it could have been more complex than the 'simplest' species, and later species simply lost certain aspects, couldn't it have?

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Well, that would 'prior than', not when. I mean, obviously hox genes arose prior to the point at which they existed, but you do not know when, do you?

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So then, are you saying nothing that exists can be explained as the result of an intelligent cause?

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So if I found a lengthy symbolic inscription on a stone wall on another planet where humans had never been, I could not legitimately claim it was the product of the work of an intelligence?

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Sure. We see this in parasitic organisms, for example. But there had to be a minimum level of complexity that would include all of the features that all life shares.

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Are you looking for a time of day? I already told you. Prior the Cambrian, at the root of the cnidirian/bilaterian tree.

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We never explain anything as "intelligent causation". We explain them as the actual physical process that produces things.

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You would first ask "How was it made" and "What does it mean". Intelligent causation does not answer any of these questions.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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IOW, there is no reason to attribute all current occurrences of sickle cell trait to a single mutation in a single ancestor. Yet, each occurrence of sickle cell trait does go back to a specific single mutation in a specific single ancestor--unless it is new in the victim.

Well, I am just trying to cget some clarity here. So it seems we agree then that each occurence for sickle cell trait arose as a mutation in a single human ancestor.

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Okay, now do you agree that the reason sickle cell conveys resistance to malaria is because of a change to the structure of hemoglobin proteins?

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

Not as a cause. For example, what is causing these words to appear on the screen?

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You would first ask "How was it made" and "What does it mean". Intelligent causation does not answer any of these questions.

Well, those are answers to how an intelligence might have worked or what an intelligence might have intended, but this does not tell us what caused the symbols to be put on the wall, does it?

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You do realize you are equivocating with different meanings of "cause", right?

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
Of course there had to be a minimum, but there is no way to know what was actually there, right?

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Well then, point taken – you don’t when.

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Not as a cause. For example, what is causing these words to appear on the screen?

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Well, those are answers to how an intelligence might have worked or what an intelligence might have intended, but this does not tell us what caused the symbols to be put on the wall, does it?

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All of it? Of course not, and no one is claiming to know this. What we can know, if we use the theory of evolution, is what traits were definitely there.

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Last I checked, between the pre-cambrian and cambrian is a "when".

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Electric excitation of chemicals in the screen, electric charges in the computer, electric oscillations in the Cat 5 line, firing of your neurons, etc.

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Yes, it does. The way in which things are manufactured tells a lot about the manufacturer and the purpose of the item. Those are important things that "intelligent causation" can not explain. "Intelligent causation" tells us bupkus.

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So, to sum up: each mutation occurs in a single individual.

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That is my understanding, yes.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
So you can't know what was there, but we can know what had to be there. Good enough.

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I don't think we need evolution for this.

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Given that you conceded you don't know what the last common ancestor of all life had in terms of genetic capabiities, you really don't know if the last common ancestor didn't also have a genetic toolkit, do you?

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So those thing alone can cause words representing cohesive thoughts to appear on the screen?

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Why would we need to consider purpose and the existence of a manufacturer upon discovering the symbols on a wall on another planet?

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Just to make sure there are no misunderstandings, we can know what was there, just not all of it.

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You would need evolution if you were doing the actual science.

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I would expect to see some bacteria or archaebacteria with hox genes if it was present in the LCA.

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It appears so. We could shut off the firing of your brain neurons and see if the words still appear.

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It tells us a lot about their technology, environment, etc. For example, the materials used to make cave paintings tell us a lot about the technology of those people. The way in which a piece of pottery is constructed allows us to trace cultural changes, migrations, etc. If I simply state that a piece of pottery was produced through "intelligent causation" what does that tell us about the culture, technology, history, etc. of the pot maker? Zip. Nada. Zero. Intelligent Causation is nothing more than a phrase to appease people's religious convictions. It has never been meant as a helpful explanation, because it is obviously not helpful.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
No, you wouldn’t need evolution because as a theory it is unnecessary to make such a statement; it is self-evident that the minimum genetic information present in the first life form was required genetic information. Evolution adds nothing to this.

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Not if they lost them.

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We could shut off the computer or the network as well as well to the same effect; are they equivalent?

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Also, a baby, and an insect also have brain neurons that fire – could they produce the words we currently have on the screen?

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You didn’t answer the question. If the marks on the walls were merely pits produced by wind blowing sand grains, would we have to consider the purpose or existence of a manufacturer? What is it about written symbols that would cause us to consider these things?

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Jhud, I know you’re debating with a few people at once here, but I would like you to at least attempt to address the point I’m making about how your own point with me relies on the evolution of bats’ wings being impossible, and why in order to support this argument you’ll need to show that natural selection definitely wouldn’t have favored any of the mutations responsible for their structure. Do you understand what I’ve said in post #185 and #215 about why when your argument relies one something being impossible, the burden of proof is on you to show that it is?

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If all life did not evolve from the proposed LCA then how can you claim this?

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All lineages of bacteria lost them? Extremely, extremely unlikely.

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Equivalent as to the appearance of letters on my screen.

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Not anymore than you sprouting insect wings. The ability to write sentences is a function of our genetics and development as much as an insect's ability to grow wings and fly.

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Humans use symbols to communicate, so we would assume that the purpose of unknown symbols is communication.

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"Intelligent causation" is incapable of giving us purpose. I could splatter a wall with mud and it would be "intelligent causation".

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Did I say it was impossible? I mean I may have somewhere, but I don't think I did.

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What you said, in reference to the mutations that would have been responsible for flight in bats, is “every independent change poses a number of potential problems for the survivability of the organism to which they are occurring”. If this is really true, then for all practical purposes the origin of flight in bats via evolution alone is impossible, and you’re right that we’d have to come up with another explanation for their origin, even if that involves some sort of unknown and unobserved process. In order to support this assertion, though, you will need to show that every independent change really does pose a problem to the organism that has it. The burden of proof is definitely on you for this.

I pointed this out twice before in this thread. The first time you didn’t appear to understand my point, and responded that even though your argument relies on knowing for certain that these mutations couldn’t have provided any advantage, the burden of proof was on me to show that they did. When I explained why the burden of proof definitely is not on me for this, you didn’t respond at all. This is the point I made in post #215, and I’d appreciate you not ignoring it.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
If a minimum genetic contingent was required for life to exist, then that would be true however life came about or developed.

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All lineages of bacteria lost them? Extremely, extremely unlikely.

Why, if they were unnecessary?

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Exactly; so this doesn't demonstrate the cause of such letters appearing on the screen.

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You said it was a function neurons firing; are you changing this now? And a baby obviously doesn't differ significantly genetically.

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One thing I appreciate about you Method is that you dance so fiercely around something that it becomes obvious to everyone how absurd your positions are.

Nonetheless, I will keep demonstrating it.

So while we might assume that symbols indicate communication, this doesn't tell us about the cause; but it might help us there - what would be the cause of written symbolic communication?