The Evidence for Random Mutations

[exchemist]

"Unevidenced"? Really? Since when have information-rich regulatory systems and patterns ever been observed to begin, undirected, by themselves? Scientific testing always reveals an intelligent source.

Even SETI and related programs look for intelligence that way!



Yes, there's no test for invisible life in this, or any another, realm. Since not being being able to test for -- and falsify -- something is a restriction science imposes on itself....maybe the accepted method should change.

And how does a "Goddidit" explanation, "close down all further enquiry"? (It sounds like you're just repeating what you've heard.)
One of the greatest scientists of all time, Isaac Newton, always attributed to God as the Source for what he discovered....how did that inhibit him? Huh? Or Galileo, Boyle, or Kepler?

If anything, it gave them added reason for closer examination: to search for a purpose behind their discoveries!

1) The fact that we do not have a complete explanation for the origin of life is not evidence that Goddidit. It just means we don't yet know the mechanism, i.e. the status of this question is exactly the same as of the many other currently unanswered questions in science.

2) I agree entirely it is logical that a creationist should argue that the scientific method should change. Changing the basis of the scientific method is the only way to get science to consider supernatural hypotheses. But since excluding such notions is absolutely at the core of the scientific approach to understanding the world, it is not ever going to happen.

3) It is obvious that Goddidit closes down scientific enquiry, if you think about it honestly. Let us say you observe some phenomenon in nature that science does not yet understand. You can presume a natural explanation can one day be found, and set about researching it. Or you can say, aha we don't understand this so God must have done it. If you do the latter, your motive for researching the phenomenon has gone, because you have your explanation already. This is exactly how mediaeval and earlier people rationalised things in nature they could not understand. They were "acts of God", end of story.

The whole approach of natural science, when it got going at the end of the Renaissance, was to throw that attitude in the bin and start from the a priori conviction that a natural explanation could be found, if man looked hard enough, for long enough. That attitude has been brilliantly successful and is what motivates science to this day.

4) Of course Newton, and many scientists, were and are religious believers. As I am constantly pointing out to people of an atheist persuasion, there is nothing in science that prohibits religious belief. (Not that it matters, but I am in fact a vigorous defender of the place of religion in the lives of scientific people.) But there is a huge difference between the methodological naturalism implicit in the scientific method and the worldview of philosophical materialism, a.k.a. physicalism, a.k.a. metaphysical naturalism.

Science demands only the former, not the latter. I think this is perhaps the key distinction that creationists (including IDers) fail to recognise.

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

"Unevidenced"? Really? Since when have information-rich regulatory systems and patterns ever been observed to begin, undirected, by themselves? Scientific testing always reveals an intelligent source.

The things we are talking about reproduce, not begin all by themselves.

Yes, there's no test for invisible life in this, or any another, realm. Since not being being able to test for -- and falsify -- something is a restriction science imposes on itself....maybe the accepted method should change.

That would seem to be a rather worthless epistemology. If anything can be considered true by just believing it then how do we find out what is really true?

And how does a "Goddidit" explanation, "close down all further enquiry"? (It sounds like you're just repeating what you've heard.)

What experiments are you going to do in order to test the idea of "Goddidit"? What experiments can detect "Godidit"?

One of the greatest scientists of all time, Isaac Newton, always attributed to God as the Source for what he discovered....how did that inhibit him? Huh? Or Galileo, Boyle, or Kepler?

If anything, it gave them added reason for closer examination: to search for a purpose behind their discoveries!

Those blokes looked for natural processes.

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

To @sayak83 :


I apologize for the first sentence...I should have just posted a link stating that an increase in oxygen levels as the cause of the C.E. Isn’t ‘obvious’:

After stating how scientists thought that oxygen increases stimulated this explosion, the article continues....

“But last year, a major study1 of ancient sea-floor sediments challenged that view. Erik Sperling, a palaeontologist at Stanford University in California, compiled a database of 4,700 iron measurements taken from rocks around the world, spanning the Ediacaran and Cambrian periods. He and his colleagues did not find a statistically significant increase in the proportion of oxic to anoxic water at the boundary between the Ediacaran and the Cambrian.

“ “Any oxygenation event must have been far, far smaller than what people normally considered,” concludes Sperling. Most people assume “that the oxygenation event essentially raised oxygen to essentially modern-day levels. And that probably wasn't the case”, he says.”

— Excerpt from What sparked the Cambrian explosion? (Date published: 16 Feb. 2016)

Have a good day!

The opening post deals with humans evolving from a common ancestor shared with other primates. This happened well after the Cambrian explosion. Any chance you could respond to the topic of the thread?

 

[David T]

Are we talking about something other than systems? If we are that's definitely confused and not on my part. Then we have nothing to talk about. I.am.talking systems and anything.else.is factually fantasy.

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

Are we talking about something other than systems? If we are that's definitely confused and not on my part. Then we have nothing to talk about. I.am.talking systems and anything.else.is factually fantasy.

Have you read the opening post yet?

 

[David T]

Have you read the opening post yet?

Part of it. It's way long to have to read the same.stuff I.already.know. I already understand evolution extremely well.

All I have really.said change the title from.Random to unpredictable. We.Are talking Systems and random.has nothing to.do.with systems at all.

So unpredictable is fundamental.... God nature is the exact same thing.It really doesn't matter the words are interchangeable..for some.people. I.am.absolutely.not a creationist or an.intelligent design..person not a mechanical.reductionist randomize type either. Ultimately you and I probably agree more than.you suppose.

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

Part of it. It's way long to have to read the same.stuff I.already.know. I already understand evolution extremely well.

Then what do you have to say about the fact that transitions outnumber transversions when we compare the human and chimp genomes? Do you understand how this is evidence that the observed processes of mutation we see right now are responsible for the genetic differences between chimps and humans?

 

[David T]

Then what do you have to say about the fact that transitions outnumber transversions when we compare the human and chimp genomes? Do you understand how this is evidence that the observed processes of mutation we see right now are responsible for the genetic differences between chimps and humans?

I understand that transversions are generally considered to outnumber transitions and so your interpretation is? genome Bias is self evident I prefer having sex with my own species.

there actually is zero bias in random that's really what that term means it does not mean unpredictable..

So We have zero bias or Random along with bias at the genome level and together that makes what exactly? Species?

I will put that in the "scientific" there is no such thing as a free lunch except the cosmos... you cannot have your cake and.eat It too.

Retitle the op zero bias plus bias equals species.
Then the title makes sense.. All I am asking make the title match the theory.
I might add the reasons things fall is because rocks have a bias to fall instead.of floating up their molecules tend to be more attracted to earth than space. Go figure.

 

[Polymath257]

Yes totally agreed. Unpredictable is exactly what I am saying. I might say you have to present objective proof that there are no hidden variables. It's not up to me to prove they exist one must prove.they do not exist. It's easy experimentally. Create a coin toss experiment that includes all known variables and predict with absolute 100% predictability of accuracy of a coin tossed a large enough times to say yep no hidden variables pure mechanical

Just to let you know, quantum mechanics is an inherently probabilistic description of the world. The question of hidden variables has been addressed and found wanting experimentally. There is good evidence that there are no hidden variables underlying QM.

In other words, there is a very specific place where randomness in reality has been proven.

 

[Polymath257]

Like I said Catholic is a cult of books!!! What you didn't think I already knew that about Occam? He'll I know the entire history of christianity I have a degree in an idiotic discipline. The first degree in modern universities, it was "the queen of sciences". Apparently my degree was the original degree in European culture the mother of all sciences... guess the degree..

Btw random realistically rendered.
View attachment 21246

I like the picture. Who is the artist?

 

[David T]

Just to let you know, quantum mechanics is an inherently probabilistic description of the world. The question of hidden variables has been addressed and found wanting experimentally. There is good evidence that there are no hidden variables underlying QM.

In other words, there is a very specific place where randomness in reality has been proven.

All interpretations of quantum mechanics are false it works. I have never Said that there are magical unknowns. A deer stands by the side of the road cars come by it concludes it's random. There brains of a deer. Poor understanding of systems is a lame excuse to declare random.

 

[Polymath257]

That's what I have been saying unpredictable not random. Random is not sound science it sounds like science.

I have to ask between which two randoms must I choose. Religious Noahs ark when literally read, or just plain random without Noahs ark? Noahs ark is random as proposed by creationists.

And the time of the decay of a radioactive nucleus is *random*, not just unpredictable. We can predict the probabilities, but QM is inherently a probabilistic description.

 

[David T]

I like the picture. Who is the artist?

Erik stotik local Portland oregon artist He is fantastic. The image doesn't do it justice. Now art we talk art I get all excited!!!

 

[David T]

And the time of the decay of a radioactive nucleus is *random*, not just unpredictable. We can predict the probabilities, but QM is inherently a probabilistic description.

Shodingers box?spelling...

 

[Polymath257]

All interpretations of quantum mechanics are false it works. I have never Said that there are magical unknowns. A deer stands by the side of the road cars come by it concludes it's random. There brains of a deer. Poor understanding of systems is a lame excuse to declare random.

But we have actual evidence that there are no hidden variables. In particular, the violations of Bell's inequalities have been verified by actual observations. These observations eliminate hidden variables as the explanation of what is observed.

In other words, QM is *actually* random.

 

[Polymath257]

Shodingers box?spelling...

Schrodinger.....and it's usually about a cat.

But that is NOT what I was pointing to. The question of hidden variables in QM has been addressed and actual observations rule them out.

 

[Polymath257]

Erik stotik local Portland oregon artist He is fantastic. The image doesn't do it justice. Now art we talk art I get all excited!!!

He sort of reminds me of Yerka.

 

[David T]

And the time of the decay of a radioactive nucleus is *random*, not just unpredictable. We can predict the probabilities, but QM is inherently a probabilistic description.

 

[David T]

Outside measurement? Beyond understandable measurement? Ok let's Rename Heisenberg uncertainty principle to to random.principle call it a day.

Drift in human reasoning is a historical fact. One generation makes a statement 3 generations later we have confusion. Evolution is absolutely non linear. That's actually pretty easy to understand actually. Random has now taken on characteristics where none exists in regards to anything. Just like christianity long ago did over the course of time.
Un predictable, outside measurements, uncertain all valid, random is not related to the system its related to the observer.

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

I understand that transversions are generally considered to outnumber transitions and so your interpretation is?

Actually, transitions outnumber transversions. When we look at human mutations as they are happening we see that this pattern holds, as shown in the family trio study in post #35.

there actually is zero bias in random that's really what that term means it does not mean unpredictable..

If you knew as much about the theory of evolution as you claim you do then you would know that your statement is false.

Let's use the game of craps as an example. The most common outcome of a roll of two dice is 7 because there are many ways that the pips on two dice can add up to 7. The least likely outcomes are 2 and 12 because there are is only one combination of dice for both 2 and 12. Even though there is a bias towards 7 in the game of craps it is still random because the placement of chips on the table do not influence what the dice do. The same applies to mutations. The needs of the organism do not increase the chance of a specific beneficial mutation which makes mutations random.

Since bias towards transitions does not negate the fact that mutations are random, what do you have to say about the fact that when we compare the human and chimp genomes there are more transitions than transversions, exactly as we would expect if those differences were produced by the known and observed processes of mutation?