Putting God's Design In Perspective

[tas8831]

You don’t have to speculate much, we know that at least a big portion of non-codign DNA has a function…

How big a portion?

Please do not rely on thoise earlier ENCODE papers - I know the professional creationists loved them, but they ignored subsequent papers for obvious reasons (ENCODE totally recanted..).

. For example they control gene expression …………this represents more problems for Darwinist, since in order to have an advantage you have to shuffle a gene + you have to shuffle the non coding DNA that controls the expression of that gene, if you don’t have both you don’t have an advantage.

Where do you come up with this nonsense?

Answer this honestly - does all of your knowledge of genetics come from creationist websites?

It looks like you are completely unaware of the following:

1. The timing of gene expression can produce phenotypic modifications during development

2. the extent of expression can alter phenotype

3. 1 and 2 above do not require ANY change to the coding gene involved at all.

Here is an example:

A single p450 allele associated with insecticide resistance in Drosophila.

"Transgenic analysis of Cyp6g1 shows that overtranscription of this gene alone is both necessary and sufficient for resistance. Resistance and up-regulation in Drosophila populations are associated with a single Cyp6g1 allele that has spread globally. This allele is characterized by the insertion of an Accord transposable element into the 5' end of the Cyp6g1 gene."

So, what happened here is that a transposon inserted itself in promoter/enhancer region of a gene and caused it to be over-expressed. This conferred an adaptive benefit, now fixed in these populations of Drosophila.

Single mutation, altered phenotype, no mutation in the gene itself.

A single paper destroys 3 of your claims/implications.

 

[tas8831]

I read your source and the statement was that 3,000,000 difference may lie in protein coding regions. But I must have missed where 50,000 mutations came into the discussion. If there are a total of 60,000,000 differences and three million of them are in protein coding regions, are you saying that the three million differences is the result of some number of mutations less than 50,000.

Isn't it cool how one creationist unwittingly demolished the decades-long claims of professional creationists re: haldane's dilemma, and he didn't even notice? If even 1% of those 3 million 'differences' are beneficial mutations, then it proves Haldane's model wrong, and undercuts ReMine's entire reason to exist.

Again, the question remains, where did you get a cutoff to compare 50,000 mutations too and determine it would not be enough? What is the needed number of mutations?

Good question - I do wish creationists would go beyond merely asserting 'X number of beneficial mutations is just too few!' and actually try to explain why they make that claim.

I have never seen a creationist go beyond the assertion, even the professionals.

 

[Jose Fly]

Shouldn't this be pretty easy to grasp??

One would think so, but as we know when it comes to creationists, they tend to cling to their talking points like Velcro.

 

[Jollybear]

it has views on those things that can be determined and tested by observation. That excludes theology and most philosophy.

"Observation", ok, can we "observe" order, complexity, information and design in the world? Yes or no?

You realize that many fish and amphibians lay eggs and don't take care of them?

Did not know, now i do, thats pretty cool. Although i had a hunch there wer exceptions, yes.

You are thinking about much later stages (probably shelled eggs that are cared for--not even all shelled eggs are) and not the *first* eggs.

Ok, but ALL eggs or babies are born from parrents, yes, no?

The actual science shows this.

Does the actual science say where design and information and the universe came from? If so, what does it say?

 

[shunyadragon]

"Observation", ok, can we "observe" order, complexity, information and design in the world? Yes or no?

Actually no, we can observe order, complexity, and information in the nature of our universe. Intelligent Design is an apologist assertion of their explanation for the cause of what we can observe naturally.

Ok, but ALL eggs or babies are born from parents, yes, no?

Yes, but there are other ways of reproduction.

Does the actual science say where design and information and the universe came from? If so, what does it say?

Science does not say anything about design in terms of the observation of order, complexity, and information.in the natural course of events in our universe. The only objective verifiable evidence at present is for natural origins of our universe and all the outcomes of cause and effect events.

 

[Jollybear]

Actually no, we can observe order, complexity, and information in the nature of our universe. Intelligent Design is an apologist assertion of their explanation for the cause of what we can observe naturally.



Yes, but there are other ways of reproduction.



Science does not say anything about design in terms of the observation of order, complexity, and information.in the natural course of events in our universe. The only objective verifiable evidence at present is for natural origins of our universe and all the outcomes of cause and effect events.

So we can observe complexity, order, information and design NATURALLY?

 

[Jollybear]

Finding order. complexity and information can be easily explained by the Laws of Nature and natural environments. It remains the ID religious proposal cannot propose a hypothesis that does not allow for a natural explanation.

NDE's remain in the unknown category, and the desire for an explanation leads to a desire for an explanation.

An Intelligent cause for the order, complexity and information in the universe IS natural. Its not supernatural or magical no more then my post comes from my mind (intelligence) is magic or super.

 

[shunyadragon]

So we can observe complexity, order, information and design NATURALLY?

No, we can observe complexity, order, and information naturally. Design is NOT observed. it is an apologetic assertion to explain what we can observe naturally.

 

[shunyadragon]

An Intelligent cause for the order, complexity and information in the universe IS natural. Its not supernatural or magical no more then my post comes from my mind (intelligence) is magic or super.

Natural nor super natural, design is not observed.

Engineers design, and Laws of Nature and the nature of our existence do not design.

 

[Prometheus85]

Say, "OK, for the sake of argument let's say evolution is wrong and let's forget about it. Now tell me how does intelligence design work?

 

[leroy]

Please provide evidence that 50,000 FIXED BENEFICIAL mutations are "too few" to account for human evolution from an apelike ancestor.
.

I already provided a source that shows that 3 million mutations where crucial (ie beneficial) in the evolution of humans, what else do you want?. ... Your supposed "reply" is pathetic missleading and dishonest .... Then you disguised your answer with a long series of irrelevant strawman arguments personal attacks irrelevant stuff and other red herrings

But hey this is an open forum , anyone can see your reply and judge whether if I provided a good response or not.

NOT total number of mutations. NOT NOT NOT total number of mutations.

Granted, my mistake was assuming that you where a selectionist , implying that most (or atleast a big portion) of mutations would have to be positive. But ok now I know that you are a neutralist.

But you still have to explain the 3 million mutations that where benefitial. 50,000 is still too few.

Support for this - point mutation in the FGFR-3 gene causing achondroplasia - altered limb-to-trunk proportion, altered facial characteristics, reduced joints, etc. All from one mutation. .

What really impressed me is that in your mind you actually think that you made a valid point.

How do you go from "achondroplasia" to "therefore 50,000 mutations are enough to explain the differences between chimps and humans? And there is no room for reasonable doubt anyone that question my dogma is stupid"

The fact that you seem so sure that 50,000 mutations are enough made me believe that you had something better.

Reminder - I am NOT presenting this as a beneficial mutation, just the reality that MULTIPLE phenotypic traits can be altered, in this case, by a single mutation

The problem is that you where supposed to show a benefitial mutation. .... Or even more specifically you are suppose to show that benefitial mutations usually tend to alter multiple traits.

If you could show that a single mutation was responsable for multiple benefitial traits like bipedalism, brain size, and language etc you would have a point....

BTW, I can also provide examples of traits that require more than 1 mutation, I don't know why would this be relevant, but if in your mind this would dispute your claim I would be happy to provide an example. ...

 

[leroy]

I read your source and the statement was that 3,000,000 difference may lie in protein coding regions. But I must have missed where 50,000 mutations came into the discussion. If there are a total of 60,000,000 differences and three million of them are in protein coding regions, are you saying that the three million differences is the result of some number of mutations less than 50,000. Again, the question remains, where did you get a cutoff to compare 50,000 mutations too and determine it would not be enough? What is the needed number of mutations?

It is part of a long discussion. tas8831 and I agreed that you have a maximum of 50,000 benefitial mutations to explain the difference between chimps and humans

My point is that you need much more than 50,000 mutations to explain the differences between chimps and humans.

His position is that 50,000 is enough to explain all the differences.

Then I presented the article that explains that 3 million crucial differences have been infered when comparing the chimp and human genome. Given that 3 million is more than 50,000 I presented good reasons to assume that 50,000 is not enough to explain the differences between chimps and humans.


You can look at his reply and judge if he was sucsesucce supporting that 50,000 is enough.

 

[leroy]

You mentioned gene regulators before and I am wondering what changes in them would be significant. If some of these mutations were in gene regulatory sequences, would a positive impact on expression of key genes be enough to make a smaller number of mutations equivalent to the your known number of needed differences required for the current level of human-chimpanzee divergence?

My original point was that sometimes you need to change both the gene and the regulator in other to change a trait. (Making the problem harder to solve).

But in response to your question (assuming that I understood correctly) yes if you can show that by changing a single regulator multiple genes would change and produce multiple benefitial traits, that would help to make the number smaller ñ

 

[leroy]

LOL!

Wait - what?

You do realize that if you are comparing chimps and humans, that roughly half of those are in each group?

That is correct , you don't have to explain 3 million, you just have to explain 1.5 million. On each group. 50,000 is still not enough.

Maybe I missed it - what is your source for the 2% difference being all point mutations?

In fact I was wrong the real number is closer to 1%

The DNA sequence that can be directly compared between the two genomes is almost 99 percent identical. When DNA insertions and deletions are taken into account, humans and chimps still share 96 percent of their sequence

2005 Release: New Genome Comparison Finds Chimps, Humans Very Similar at DNA Level

The mutations caused by single twicks (point mutations) and the mutations caused by duplication can be identified

 

[Jollybear]

Say, "OK, for the sake of argument let's say evolution is wrong and let's forget about it. Now tell me how does intelligence design work?

Good question.

Let me anser that like this: when ANY intelligence is doing work, what or how does it do it? It does it by communication or engineering. It isnt just humans that engineer, beavers making a dam or ants building there mountain colony or a bird making its nest out of straw, ect. All of those things are intelligence at work. Humans just have more greater or sophisticated intelligence over bugs or animals. But, also DNA has a code and enzymes and cells read the code and go to work building body parts.

So, in the case for intelligent design of the universe, we see order, complexity, functionality and or design. Then we infer a designer or intelligence was behind the making or building of the universe and things in it.

Now, the sight of design and information like the blueprints for DNA does not SHOW us directly WHO or WHAT the designer is, it just shows evidence through the hallmarks of design, that an intelligent cause was behind this.

To get at WHO the designer is you have to leave the arena of the physical or structural design in nature and then delve into philosophy or logic and spiritual experiences. NDEs are good to look at for showing a direct link to the designer.

But, theres people who believe aliens wer the intelligent designer, while some others believe God was and yet others believe a different God was.

But, to sum up, intelligent design simply works how any intelligence was. Like how im working to type out my message and order its points. Same thing.

Like, one dont need to be religious to abserve intelligent design in the world. You dont need to say a bunch of prayers, go to church or sacrifice pigeons, lol. Design and information is just an abservable byproduct of the world.

 

[Timothy Spurlin]

An Intelligent cause for the order, complexity and information in the universe IS natural. Its not supernatural or magical no more then my post comes from my mind (intelligence) is magic or super.

So your saying that your god is not magical or supernatural? That would make your god natural right? If your god is natural, then it would be detectable by science.

 

[Polymath257]

So we can observe complexity, order, information and design NATURALLY?

Well, certainly complexity, order, and information can come about naturally. Design, by definition, requires an intelligent agent. But complexity, order, and information do not require such an intelligent agent.

 

[Polymath257]

"Observation", ok, can we "observe" order, complexity, information and design in the world? Yes or no?

Yes to the first three. We only observe design by humans so far.

Did not know, now i do, thats pretty cool. Although i had a hunch there wer exceptions, yes.

So what you thought was required is actually NOT required, right? parents do NOT have to take care of the eggs.

Ok, but ALL eggs or babies are born from parrents, yes, no?

Just as all modern life is produced from previous life, yes. So?

Does the actual science say where design and information and the universe came from? If so, what does it say?

Again, design is only known when humans were involved. Information is result of most causal reactions: If A causes B, the B provides information that A occurred.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

select your favorite naturalistic explanation for FT, and explain why is it better than design.

The multiverse hypothesis accounts for fine tuning without the need for an intelligent, potent, volitional agent by generating countless numbers of universes in every possible configuration. That makes theistic hypotheses less likely according to Occam's Razor and the principle of parsimony: The simplest hypothesis to account for all relevant observed phenomena is the preferred one.The multiverse hypothesis needs no god, the least likely thing one can imagine to exist undesigned and uncreated. An unconscious multiverse is more likely.

if the force of gravity would have been a little bit stronger (say 1%) the universe would have collapsed in a black hole shortly after the Big Bang

Not a problem for the multiverse hypothesis

The argument is that the FT of the universe was caused by a designer, whether if this designer is “natural” or “supernatural”

That's an unsupported claim, not an argument.

If you want to establish irreducible complexity, you would have to be able to verify that no lesser iteration of whatever complex structure you were looking at could have a function.

Hey, Dan. Nice to see you back

I know of no way to demonstrate that any biological system is irreducibly complex. You would probably agree that no matter how long one looks unsuccessfully for a path accessible to naturalistic abiogenesis or evolution, there remains the possibility that such a path exists and has not yet been discerned. The claim that something is irreducibly complex is just that - an undemonstrated claim.

Since the bulk of the genomes is non-coding or non-functional, why is it still there? Nobody seems to know why.

The theory of evolution predicts the existence of useless code by naturalistic processes that generate new code without intent or purpose. A mutation that had no effect on the phenotype of the organism containing that DNA could not be selected against and therefore should not be expected to be culled out.

The absence of nonfunctioning code might be an argument for an intelligent designer since we expect such code to be present in a godless universe, and would be stumped as to why it wasn't there if it weren't. Absent a god or other intelligent designer, what would be preventing or removing the nonfunctioning code? Nothing to my knowledge.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

What then does science do?

You were already told. You should be able to answer that question yourself. You are communicating with me and others thanks to several of the gifts of science.

What does religion give the world? I have no need for it. The more people become involved in religion, the less useful they are to others around them.

Bottom line: I have lived a religion- and god-free life for several decades now that has allowed me to live a meaningful, satisfying, and enjoyable life free of much of the pain and confusion others experience chasing after gods and miracles.

The test for God is study nature. As you do, you find order, complexity and information. This implies or infers a designer, a God.

Not to me it doesn't. Order, complexity, and form are the natural results of mindless physical laws acting on matter. Studying nature does not lead to a god belief in clear thinkers. What we find is a world that runs on its own, the nature of which science has well described without reference to gods. Scientific theories derive from the study of nature, and not one has a god in it, nor would any benefit from the ad hoc insertion of one into the theory. Go ahead and stick a god into one and see if it improves its predictive power.

Notice that I changed information to form. Information requires a conscious observer to become informed by external form printed itself onto and into consciousness, thus in-form-ing the observer.

Saying theres no God is NOT rational.

I never said that there are no gods. What I posted was, "There is no god in the rational skeptic's world view" There is none in this rational skeptics world view because I have no reason to believe that any exist, and I have no need to insert one into it. Thatis not the same as saying that no gods exist.

you may as well deny gravity exists or wind exists if you are gonna deny God exists

False equivalence. Wind and gravity can be detected. No god can be detected. And once again, I don't deny that gods exist. Nor do I deny that vampires and leprechauns exist. I have no test that excludes or rules them out. But I also have no need for such a test. I am content to remain skeptical of all of these claims, and to hold a world view free of vampires, gods, and leprechauns.

Notice that if I choose to disregard the existence of gravity, I will likely be harmed or die. Not so with gods, leprechauns, or vampires, and all for the same reason.

We CAN detect God by the design, order, information and spiritual experiences like NDEs. This is a form of detection.

Sorry, but all of us see these things, but do not conclude that a god is needed for any of them. The can all be explained naturalistically.

Yes, intelligent design is falsifiable. If you or anyone could prove the universe either came from nothing or was always here, then youd falsify ID.

And what finding would you accept as proof that reality is godless? None at all, if you are honest with yourself.

Give examples of those predictions and controlling outcomes within science?

Science can predict eclipses. If you like, you can use the science to point your mounted camera to the part of the sky where science has informed you to expect the eclipse to occur, and set the timer on it to shoot a picture at the time science told you the eclipse would be visible, thus controlling the outcome of the photographic effort.

How is it that you need to be told these things? Aren't you presently predicting and controlling outcomes when you post to RF? Aren't you predicting that your post will appear to yourself and others under certain predictable circumstances, such as turning on one's computer and manipulating it to open the thread to which you posted, at which point you expect that the words you chose will be present for others to read?

Science allows that. Religion does not. Religion cannot compare with science for predictive power or utility (usefulness).