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ORIGINAL: EverLearning

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ORIGINAL: Rasico
You seem to misinterpret what I meant, which is probably my fault, I'm generally not precise.

I think it hard to misinterpret what you originally wrote. It was pretty straight forward.

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Let me get back to you about this. Now that we’re debating about genetics again, I’m having the same problem with not being particularly familiar with this field, and I’d like to bring it up with someone who’d studied genetics in more depth.

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JHud if I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying every single function these bacteria have exhibited was already in the gene pool, and was simply turned on or off? How are these gene regulators passed on and what might cause them to change from parent to offspring? I find it fascinating that such diversity can be contained within one organism, and demonstrates an amazing ability for life to adapt to different conditions. Perhaps you could clear up any misconceptions or over generalizations I have?

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Though I have to say I am a bit confused about why, if you aren't particularly familiar with genetics, you brought up an example that is almost wholly predicated on genetic activity.

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Every time we discuss this, I think I understand what you’re demanding to see before you’ll consider Behe’s claims to be falsified, but then when I find an example of what you’re asking for you come up with additional requirements. In the post of yours that I quoted in my OP, you said you would consider it an adequate falsification if we were to discover certain types of changes resulting from a certain number of mutations, but now in this thread you’ve begun saying they can’t be just any mutations; they have to be coding mutations rather than regulatory mutations.

Even if their effect is only to alter the expression of other genes, they’re still mutations. This is definitely an example of what you were asking me for in the post from you that I quoted in my OP. But now that I’ve provided one, you’re doing something called “moving one’s goalposts”.

So basically, I posted this because I wanted to see how you would react to being shown an example of what you’d asked for in the post I quoted. The answer was that you move your goalposts. That’s fine, but it means that in order to meet your new requirements I’m going to have to bring this up with people who have studied genetics more than I have.

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You have given me what appear to be enhancements of extant capabilities resulting from a few simple changes (as one paper mentioned, a single mutation) the result of which did not lead to a unique evolutionary path, but a plateau over which no further changes were evident.

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Don’t oversimplify it. One of the changes (the ability to develop mats) was not an enhancement to an existing ability, and the other which was an enhancement involved multiple mutations. Your problem in the latter case was that there was no way to prove that these multiple mutations were coding mutations rather than regulatory mutations, which don’t qualify in your book.

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With this in mind, someone at Christian Forums who knows more about genetics has pointed me to a similar change involving three separate coding mutations, which can be found here. Whether or not you consider this an enhancement to an existing ability is irrelevant in this case, because the three mutations that caused the change have all been identified—they’re substitution mutations, resulting in entirely new genetic information, rather than simply turning existing genes on or off. This goes against Behe’s claim that multiple mutations are unable to accumulate in order to create new abilities like this.

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Do you even have any idea what the mutations do, or how they do it? Do you care?

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It’s three separate substitution mutations in HIV, all of which have the combined effect to reduce its susceptibility to the drug DMP 266. The type of mutations that they are is the relevant part—they aren’t simply changing the regulation of a piece of code that already exists. The code itself is what’s being altered.

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Why are you bringing up an ad hominem now? Are you just trying to evade my point? You know very well why this is relevant. You claimed that multiple mutations aren’t able to accumulate in order to cause something like this, and regulatory mutations don’t count because they’re only changing the expression of code that already exists. All right, fine, so here’s an example of a series of three mutations causing a new trait to appear by altering the coding itself. Are you going to admit you were wrong that multiple coding mutations are unable to cause these types of changes?

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Perhaps you would fair better, Agahnim, if you choose not to employ the unfairly sullied word of evolution in the future as your antagonists are overtly jaundiced to any report with positive reference to it.

In lieu I would suggest "quirky emergent divergence" or as a recent post has shown a fondness of acronyms in these discussions...

Q.E.D.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
Or more appropriately a Rare Incidental Permutation.

R.I.P.

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ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
Or more appropriately a Rare Incidental Permutation.

R.I.P.

RIP evolution, RIP.

Btw, I would like to read Drmark's take on this thread, since this seems to be something he would be familiar with (probably more so than anyone else here).

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ORIGINAL: DanJames
Only if he's had a reason to study genetics.

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ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize

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ORIGINAL: DanJames
Only if he's had a reason to study genetics.

Well, if memory serves me correctly, he has his bachelors in biology and he's a medical doctor who specializes in the immune system and infectious diseases. So how bacteria work should be something he is very familiar with. I remember seeing him discuss specifics on related topics and he does seem to be very familiar with this stuff (Since his job pretty much relates to having to figure out how to overcome antibiotic resistance. Unfortunately, when people do get into too much detail, it seems to confuse most people which isn't very beneficial, but most here try to explain things as simply as possible so all could understand).

(BTW, RIP = Rest in Peace)

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ORIGINAL: DanJames
Sorry, maybe the signal was too low to get a reading on the irony meeter. That was a joke.

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That wasn't an ad hom - I seriously want to know if you really care how it works, because from where I am sitting you seem to rather desperately be trying to find an example, any example, to win some sort of debate.

Personally, I don't care all that much about the debate; I want to know how things really work, and I have to say that is one thing that rather annoys me in the conversations I have had with evolutionists over the last 20 years or so; they are more interested in defending evolution than they are in understanding how things work.

I mean, here we have a rather lengthy examination of the science behind the structure and activity of microorganisms and how they actually work, which in my mind is incredibly fascinating whatever it says about evolution and intelligent design.

And so papers are cited and discussed, explanations are offered, and the actual process of science, which is supposed to be about exploration and understanding, is enabled.

And what do you want out of it all? Apparently to score some points.

Anytime we subvert our thinking to certain presumptions that prevent the adoption of new paradigms that actually provide explanations for phenomena, we fail to think scientifically; it is ultimately anti-intellectual.

So, not having access to the full paper or later studies on it, I only have some suspicions about how these mutations cause a reduction in susceptibility to anti-viral medications (partly based on the paradigm under which I operate). If you actually know how these mutations do this, I would love to hear it.

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But there’s something unusual in your case, which is that you seem intelligent and knowledgeable enough that I think you’re capable of applying the scientific method to all areas of science; for one reason or other you just seem to be choosing not to. And as a result, this bothers me more in your case than it does for most of the other posters here.

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What I’m talking about involves more than just the difference between you believing in life’s current diversity being the result of evolution, and it being the result of evolution with some divine intervention here and there. If the latter where what you believed, and that’s all there was to it, there would actually be a larger disagreement between you and young-earth creationists at this forum than there is between you and people like me. It sounds like you believe in an old earth, which means you disagree with YECs in the areas of geology, astrophysics, biogeography, and radiometric dating. But those disagreements are never what you want to talk about in this section of the forum—it’s always just the biochemical shortcomings that you think exist in evolution, even though those are pretty minor compared to what you disagree with YECs about.

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Let’s suppose for a moment that there’s something wrong with my HIV example also, and Behe is right that nobody has ever observed a new function evolving as a result of multiple coding mutations. Let’s suppose he’s even right that there are certain biochemical functions for which nobody can currently explain how they would have evolved. What would it mean? It would mean that evolution is exactly the same in this respect as Quantum Mechanics, astrophysics, most theories of psychology, and almost every other scientific theory in existence—it’s a work in progress, that will gradually be extended to explain more and more as people learn how to incorporate new data into it. And in the meantime, the data that all of these theories are able to explain still makes them the best explanation we have for the way the world works. You clearly aren’t stupid; I think you’re probably aware of what evidence like this exists in evolution’s case. But if you aren’t, there’s a very general overview of it here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

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I mentioned in my post at the bottom of this page that you seem to be holding evolution to a different standard from what you apply to any other scientific theory. I also mentioned what the Discovery Institute has stated is their reason for doing this, and I wonder a little whether you’re doing it for the same reason. You never replied to my post there, though, so I don’t know the answer. What I know for certain is that you’re doing very much the same thing for which Jesus rebuked the Pharisees—you defend the young-earth creationists at this forum because of the speck you see in the eye of evolution, while never saying anything about the plank in the eye of your own “side” in this debate.

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Yes, I have a problem with that, and I was hoping to discuss it with you when I brought it up previously. But since you don’t seem willing to discuss the actual methodology of ID, or what’s hypocritical about it, what am I left to discuss about this? The main aspect of ID that you seem interested in discussing here is its claims about the biochemical shortcomings of evolution, so if I’m going to find any kind of flaw in ID, it’ll have to be there.

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If you want to know what matters to me here, it’s what I described. It isn’t “winning points” in the debate.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
Unlike quantum mechanics, and astrophysics, etc, evolutionary theory is 150 years old. It is of the same thought process that produced Marxism and Freud. It began when no one knew about genetics, or complex cellular structures, or replicating information systems. I think science needs to look forward, not get stuck in a Victorian parlor wrangling over pet theories.

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Again, I was probably aware of such information long before you were; indeed, I probably used it to debate against non-evolutionists (better I might say than most evolutionists around here ever manage to) long before you started parroting talkorigins.

Unlike quantum mechanics, and astrophysics, etc, evolutionary theory is 150 years old. It is of the same thought process that produced Marxism and Freud. It began when no one knew about genetics, or complex cellular structures, or replicating information systems. I think science needs to look forward, not get stuck in a Victorian parlor wrangling over pet theories.