Forgive me, but I can’t help forwarding an extract from Eric Voegelin’s "The History Of The Race Idea" which I lifted from an online site. We really do live in a dark age where philosophical illiterates like Hawkings pass as authorities. I suppose though that instead of getting hot under the collar we should take Voegelin’s advice and calmly work to recover the intellectual substance of history that the perennial dross of scientism can bury but never replace.


. . . .The theory of the descent of the species is fully developed [in the Critique of Judgment ], even including, as an explanation for the current fixity of the species, a theory of the former, now extinct, fertility of the productive force, such as Georges Cuvier was to advocate subsequently.
Nineteenth-century theories of evolution, especially Darwin's, added factual details to Kant's theory and improved it by removing many objective difficulties, but they changed nothing in the basic framework. On the other hand, compared to Kant's theory, the theories of the nineteenth century actually represent a huge step backward on account of the decline of theoretical culture and the consequent naiveté with which relatively insignificant details are considered important and lauded as progress in treating the question, while the crucial speculative-theoretical basic questions are overlooked.
Kant deals briefly but thoroughly with these crucial questions in a few sentences appended to the well-meaning consideration of the possibility of a real descent of species. He points out that if the radically immanent theory of evolution were accepted, researchers would have to ascribe to the universal mother, with her generative power, an expedient organization geared to all the creatures that have come forth from her and without which the appropriate forms of the animal and plant worlds would be impossible. "They have then only pushed the basis of explanation further back and cannot claim to have made the development of those two kingdoms independent of the prerequisite of ultimate causes. " In this one sentence the idea of the inner law of evolution is carried to its conclusion—at the same time that its theoretical significance is blunted.
The turn to the theory of evolution has the theoretical goal to explain the building principle [Baugesetz]of each species based on the preceding evolution of species. If this idea is followed to its logical conclusion, the law according to which species develop moves closer and closer to the beginning of the history of evolution, until the first life-form is endowed with the evolutionary tendency for the entire living world, and finally speculation pushes back beyond the first life-form into inorganic matter, from which the former spontaneously originated. The "explanatory" law that was intended to be immanent thus turns again into a transcendent one, into a law that "precedes" the evolutionary series of life. And the types of organisms, the species, in spite of their supposed historical descent from each other, nevertheless stand again side by side, inexplicable through each other since the conditions for the development of any one species cannot be found in the one that precedes it historically and generationally, but only in the law that stands outside the whole series of species.
The attempt to "explain" the species leads to the unexpected result that the species once again stand side by side as fixed types, similar to the way Linnaeus saw them, even though in reality they may be related to one another through genesis.
We have come to the end of our investigation of the transformation of the idea of the transcendence of evolution to that of immanence. Just as for the organic individual his structural law, the immanence of his being, could not be replaced by the preformist theory of the series, just as there the problem of infinity had to be resolved within the species in order to arrive at the finite concept of the individual life-form's formative drive, so in the theory of evolution the doctrine of the descent of species must be dissolved as the explanation of the individual species, so that the idea of the fixity of the species, of the immanent law of the species form, can be found again.
The theoretical situation is only less transparent in evolutionary theory than in the infinite series of species. While in the latter we only had to trace the dissolution of the concept of series to arrive at the immanent concept of the organism, in evolutionary speculation we had to (1) investigate the transformation of evolutionary theory from the transcendent to the immanent idea, as it ran its course from Leibniz to Herder, Goethe, and Kant; and (2) see, behind the evolutionary theory's becoming immanent, the dissolution of its explanatory law all the way to the reappearance of the fixity of the species.
Kant's argument that the theory of evolution merely shifts the real origin of the species back to the origin of evolution not only takes the theory of evolution to its logical conclusion but also destroys it as meaningless as far as its explanatory purpose is concerned. It does not explain what it was intended to explain, in fact, it explains just as little as Leibniz' principle of continuity or Herder's or Goethe's idea of morphological kinship.
The kinship relationships of the living world are primary phenomena just as the life of the species and the life of the individual organism are primary phenomena, which one can see or not, but there is nothing about them that needs to be explained. The primary phenomenon of life becomes visible in a threefold way: in the living individual, in the species, and in the interconnectedness of the entire living world. It is impossible to use a part of this phenomenon to explain the same phenomenon in another of its manifestations.
The life of the individual cannot be explained through the life of the species, as the theory of series has attempted to do; the life of the species cannot be explained by the totality of the phenomenon of life, as the theory of evolution attempts to do; and the totality of the phenomenon of life can most definitely not be explained through the laws of non-living nature. In the substantially genuine movement of the spirit, the theory of evolution has come to an end in the Critique of Judgment— although in the history of derivative theories on this issue, theories that move ever farther away from the center of the spirit, evolutionary theory did not flourish until the following century.
Kant appended a note to his radical destruction of the explanatory value of any theory of evolution in which he conceded that the fact of bodily kinship was not impossible. It was not, he remarked, totally absurd and a priori impossible that, for example, certain water animals might gradually evolve into marsh animals and, after some further generations, into land animals. "However, experience gives no example of it; according to experience, all generation that we know is generatio homonyma. This is not merely univoca in contrast to the generation out of unorganized material, but it brings forth a product that is in its very organization like the one that produced it; and generatio heteronyma, so far as our empirical knowledge of nature extends, is found nowhere." This sentence, written in 1790, still applies word for word today; biology has nothing to add to it.

For thirty years Stephen Hawking persistently maintained that he was right and all of the other physicists were wrong with regard to his notion of information being lost from black holes. A few years ago he finally admitted that he had been mistaken. Why he would be considered an expert in evolutionary theory is beyond me.

What interests me about this is that natural selection can't be an ultimate explanation for why things are the way they are and why we are here because it would be a law of nature that must account for its own existence--we would be entitled to ask where it came from. The laws of nature couldn't have been created spontaneously along with the universe because spontaneous creation--or any kind of causation in nature--depends on there already being laws of nature in place. Where did those laws of nature come from?

Beyond this embarrassment for atheists, whatever happened to the debate about (as the title of my senior thesis had it) "the tautological status of natural selection"? If natural selection is tautological--essentially vacuous--that might explain why the idea of natural selection is used as a catch-all explanation of so many diverse things, in the wooly-minded sort of way that Professor Oakes points out.

MacGabhann,

Thank you so much for the excellent quote from Voegelin. I'm not sure what I can add to that, except to say that the decline of systematic philosophy has indeed been one of the greatest and mostly unlamented losses incurred by modernity. Wondeful.

"The "explanatory" law that was intended to be immanent thus turns again into a transcendent one, into a law that "precedes" the evolutionary series of life. And the types of organisms, the species, in spite of their supposed historical descent from each other, nevertheless stand again side by side, inexplicable through each other since the conditions for the development of any one species cannot be found in the one that precedes it historically and generationally, but only in the law that stands outside the whole series of species."

This passage is pretty questionable. It certainly is true that evolution by natural selection does not explain the origin of life. That is as true as the statement that the theory of plate tectonics does not explain the origin of the earth. Instead, the fact that the earth came into existence as a massive ball of molten metal and carbon with complex convection currents that is now cooling gives rise to the tectonic plates and the movements of those plates that we can study and observe.

As to the origin of species, neither Darwin nor anyone else denied that it is extremely useful to classify organisms into different species. The point is that these classifications are inherently man-made. Darwin points to how much disagreement there is within the scientific community over whether two specimens should be classified as representing varieties within a species or two distinct species. There is never a hard-and-fast rule valid for all times and places on how to make such a distinction.

All modern evolutionary theory tells us is that if you have organisms that reproduce subject to occasional random mutations and "gene-shuffling" through sexual reproduction and that genes influence the rate of reproduction, natural selection will operate on a gene pool over time and change the frequency and distribution of genes. Physically separate the organisms so that they live in different environments and cannot reproduce with one another or invade the other's turf and eventually the organisms will drift apart until they become so different, one has to classify them separately.

That's a pretty powerful idea we see again and again in natural history. Whether all the information that is known or knowable about the species today existed billions of years ago is a bit of a side issue. Evolution by natural selection is subject to the rules of complexity where the only way to know the outcome of the process is to actually kick off the process in real time and observe it. There are highly complex feedback loops at work where the natural world modifies the earth's environment and the environment modifies the natural world through natural selection. Evolution in one species also causes evolution in another species which causes evolution in yet another species. While all this is going on, you have tectonic plates creating new islands, solar activity creating lakes where there were once deserts and millions of other forces at work.

As an additional contribution to this discussion, here is a letter I once wrote to a Physical Anthropology professor of mine, called "Questioning Allopatric Speciation."

Hi James,

The subject line of this letter may be a little misleading. This is not so much a question as it is a diplomatic disagreement with some aspects of the hard-line Darwinist position. If you don’t feel like responding to it, you certainly don’t have to; but if you’re not too busy grading tests and enjoying life, your responses will be most welcome. I would like to begin by reprising my earlier concerns about adaptive radiation. This time, however, I will take a rather fine-grained approach in an effort to fully explore the conceptual space occupied by the theory of adaptive radiation, to see if actually explains the observed variations in an unproblematic way. I apologize for the length and tedium.

The paradigm case of adaptive radiation, the case from which the theory was developed in the first place, is, of course, the Darwin Finches of the Galapagos island chain. These finches, presumably descended from a common ancestor, now comprise 15 related species which exhibit various beak polymorphisms designed to exploit the different food sources occurring in the several islands/biomes. It was asserted by Darwin that these polymorphisms resulted from the operations of a natural selection whereby random genetic mutation among the finch population produced phenotypic distinctions that allowed some individuals to better exploit their environment, hence conferring upon them a reproductive advantage. The offspring of these successful individuals inherited the beneficial traits of their parents, eventually forming closed breeding colonies resulting in allopatric speciation. Working from these definitions, can we tell a plausible story about how allopatric speciation actually transpired?

One question to be developed here is basically the panmixic question: How do species diverge from one another if the original population was composed entirely of potential partners? If a species is just that collection of individuals that are maximally interbreedable, what accounts for its diffraction into non-interbreeding groups? Certainly, factors such as geographic isolation can (note the modal claim) result in groups that are de facto non-interbreeding. The cessation of gene flow between these groups then allows the processes of genetic drift to produce genetically dissimilar sets of individuals. However, we begin this line of reasoning by assuming that a subset of breeding individuals from the original population somehow got to the “geographically isolated” locale in the first place; thus geographic isolation is something of a relative concept. If individuals can get from one place to another (say, from one of the Galapagos Islands to another island), then it requires no great stretch of the imagination to assume that successive waves of emigrants can follow in their footsteps. Nor should we assume that individuals from the new location can never get back home again; we cannot allow translocation for the purposes of adaptive radiation, but not for the purposes of panmixic integration. This raises the question of whether gene flow is ever entirely extinguished between populations. So if we persist in ascribing allopatric speciation to the mechanisms traditionally adduced to explain it, we must replace the law of complete genetic isolation with a pair of scale-dependent temporal factors, viz. the rate of beneficial genetic mutation and successful breeding among a local population must be faster than the rate of successful breeding between translocated individuals and the local population (i.e., mutation and genetic drift must exceed gene flow). Given the motility and adaptability of animal life forms, this doesn’t always seem like a reasonable assumption. Something else must be asserted—perhaps something different in each special case—to explain why translocated individuals meet with little reproductive success. Perhaps the individuals who have resided in the new location the longest have better knowledge of local food sources and the habits of local predators; or perhaps they have acquired behavioral distinctions such that they no longer recognize outside individuals as potential mates. But that is nothing to the present point. These differences must be explained either in terms of genetics or in terms of learned behavior. If explained in terms of genetics, then we are just begging the question. If explained in terms of learned behavior, then there is no reason to assume to that the new immigrants couldn’t learn the behavior too, since the old immigrants must have learned it. We still need something else, some deus ex machina, to categorically prevent gene flow between populations. Thus we cannot build any prima facie case for allopatric speciation that is not wildly disjunctive and full of one-off incidents.

“So what,” the Darwinist might say. “The real world is wildly disjunctive and full of one-off incidents. We ought to expect those facts to be reflected in the picture of phylogeny.” This would be a fairly devastating reply, but for the presence of deeper structural antinomies lurking within the problem. For instance, in order for new adaptive traits to become normative amongst an emigrant population, the rate of at least one component of genetic change within that population—gene flow—must exceed the rate of mutation within that population. But the “gene flow” of the emigrant population is simply the “genetic drift” of the emigrants plus the original population considered as a unit. Or to put it whimsically, one man’s gene flow is another man’s genetic drift. So now we have an example of the rate of gene flow exceeding the mutation rate and the drift rate. But we’ve already said that, generally speaking, mutation and drift must exceed gene flow if allopatric speciation is to occur. It looks like we have the makings of a reductio here, for of course it makes no sense to say that A is happening faster than B, and B is happening faster than A.

Before the objections pile up, let me admit that I am alive to the possibility that the above description comes off sounding entirely equivocal and specious. At this point the Darwinist could simply say that it is precisely the presence of some external factor—geographic isolation, for instance—that causes the change in the relative rates of gene flow vs. drift/mutation. He might say that I have simply described Darwin’s theory without discovering a weakness in it. I address this concern by saying that, no matter how we choose to look at it, the Darwinist is still faced with two equal and opposite problems: how to get speciation started, and how to stop it again. If, in the long run, gene flow exceeds drift/mutation, then we should expect all species to approach a level of absolute genotypic uniformity. If drift/mutation exceeds gene flow, then we should expect an endlessly divergent cascade of speciation-incidents, and it is difficult to see how we could ever arrive at rigorously circumscribed species in the first place. Perhaps the claim then becomes that these different processes occur at highly variable rates across different scales of time and space, that real life is too complex to ever be fitted into any formulaic scheme, and that this accounts for the remarkable diversity we see in the world…que sera, sera. However, there are problems with this, too.

For one thing, the Darwinist himself regards the mutation rate as fairly fixed; this is how he measures the time that has elapsed since two species last shared a common ancestor. On this view, if there is rate variability at all, it must be the result of the variability between drift and flow. Specifically, the rate of drift must exceed the rate of flow. But the rate of genetic drift is essentially nothing more than the mutation rate plus a coefficient to allow for the chance elimination of alleles resulting from the accidental reproductive failures of certain individuals within the population, failures which are otiose modulo reproductive fitness. The presence of the coefficient means that it is logically necessary that the drift rate exceeds the mutation rate. So, knowing that drift is greater than both mutation and flow, the question now become where to affix the mutation rate with respect to the flow rate. Given that the mutation rate among eukaryotes like finches is extremely slow, we have good reason to believe that flow occurs at a much greater clip than mutation does. This means that the lion’s share of genetic divergence between populations must be accounted for by drift, and especially by the otiose component of drift. But how can how can otiose genetic drift result in meaningful phenotypic changes? On the other hand, if we ascribe meaningful phenotypic change solely to mutation, then the much higher rate of gene flow would have spread the (ostensibly beneficial) genetic variation throughout the entire population before speciation could occur.

In response to all this, the Darwinist still has a trump card. He can simply say, “Just look at the facts, Matt. Obviously some form of allopatric speciation occurred. We have these closely related finches who exhibit meaningful phenotypic variations. This is enough to make the case for Darwinism. So what if you can’t understand how it happened—your conceptual difficulties are your own!” This is a good point; phenotypic variation among the Darwin Finches is an indisputable fact, after all. Now I turn the tables on the Darwinist and insist that he has just proven my point: Genetic variation and natural selection alone cannot account for all observed phenotypic change.

And in the margin, this isn’t really saying anything new. Contemporary biologists already assert that the genotype-phenotype relation is highly elastic, i.e. it isn’t one-to-one. Certainly there are some notable cases where it is one-to-one, such as can be seen in the case of knockout mice. But knockout mice are atypical with respect to naturally occurring genetic variability. My point, which I don’t think contemporary biology adequately addresses, is that if the relation is indeed elastic, this deprives Darwinian selection mechanisms of most of their sorting powers. The fact that we do observe phenotypic variation both emerging and persisting in spite of low rates of mutation, high rates of gene flow, and otiose genetic drift, means that something else must be postulated to account for it. To elucidate the exact nature of this “something else” would require a rather long disquisition of its own, and at present I am ill-prepared to say precisely what it might be. However, I think the beginning of an answer can be found in Leibniz’s Monadology, esp. paragraphs 69-76.

Clearly the thoughts expressed in this essay need a lot of work, but I hope I have succeeded in raising an important question. I appreciate your time, and look forward to your thoughts.

Best,

-Matt Beck

Hi Mark:

When you say that species are “inherently man-made” classifications I take it you mean that they constitute purely nominalist categories that aid us in rendering our world intelligible, but that in and of themselves species do not “exist.” If this is the case then I am not sure what it means to talk about the evolution of species. What is evolving from what?
You talk of random mutation, but what is the difference between random mutations and natural variations? I can see how a family of giraffes, for example, may produce a range of variations in its offspring with respect to neck size, and, depending on the environment, how natural selection may favour those with longer necks over time; but it seems to me that this only accounts for adaptation within a species, not “evolution” into another species. On the other hand, what constitutes an “occasional, random mutation?” and how are we to intelligibly account for such an occurrence? And why, given a first occurring mutation, should this very mutation be prone to be inherited by subsequent generations? I mean, the mutation in any one generation cannot be said to arise from any previous generation simply because that mutation is the first, and consequently any “evolutionary” change cannot be ascribed to a preceding life form. So, as Voegelin and Kant say, any one species cannot account for its difference and kinship with any other species unless “randomly generated mutation” is to be considered an intelligible theoretical ground (and if it is it must be considered a transcendent, not immanent, ground) and, as Kant further says, there is in fact no evidence that such randomly generated mutations actually occurr, ever; and the reason for this is that you cannot intelligibly observe and identify such randomly generated mutations.
Nor am I sure I follow your point about plate tectonics. These account for variations in island and land mass shapes, not in that which once accounted for the shapes of islands and land masses but now account for something other than the shapes of islands and land masses.

Regards,
MacGabhann

"Because of variations in genes and upbringing, “some individuals are better able than others to draw the right conclusions about the world around them and to act accordingly. These individuals will be more likely to survive and reproduce, so their pattern of behavior and thought will come to dominate.”

Taken to an extreme but logical conclusion, the genes of those that spend the majority of their time thinking about such intellectually demanding questions to "draw the right conclusions about the world around them" would have died out ten thousand years ago, in favor of those of the non-nerds who were spending their time pondering the wooing of women so that they could "draw the right conclusions" as to the quickest route to reproducing.

Like most folks, I have no problem whatsoever with natural selection in regards to biology. It seems, however, that certain other folks try to use it to explain absolutely everything, which is never a good sign...

MacGabhann: in and of themselves species do not “exist.” If this is the case then I am not sure what it means to talk about the evolution of species. What is evolving from what?

The best definition of species applies to sexually reproducing organisms: a species is a group where any given male-female sexual pairing will tend to lead to viable, non-sterile offspring. Even this definition would have to be fleshed out quite a bit more and would almost certainly be subject to many exceptions. For instance, I believe it is the case that if you have two very different varieties within the same species, a pairing of those two variants may be more likely to result in miscarriage.

A species (defined as a gene pool) will drift over time much in the same way as average height in Europe and the U.S. has very gradually increased over the past 150 years (a non-genetic phenomenon, as far as anyone knows). The average changes over time until eventually individuals show lots of differences from their ancestors. They may be so different we may want to put them in a different category of species. And if you split the gene pool into several parts and scatter the specimens across the world with geographic or other barriers to prevent mating across those barriers, you will see several different species emerge from the common ancestor over a very long period of time.

MacGabhann: On the other hand, what constitutes an “occasional, random mutation?” and how are we to intelligibly account for such an occurrence? And why, given a first occurring mutation, should this very mutation be prone to be inherited by subsequent generations?

Unfortunately, I'm not a chemist, a physicist or a biologist. But my understanding is that we can indeed account for mutations through imperfections in mitosis and meiosis (the processes of DNA replication). Information sometimes gets shuffled in the process which creates new genes and new combinations of genes. Most of the time, these errors are detrimental and do not propagate. But occasionally they do. "Occasionally" over billions of years across millions of varieties and species translates to an awful lot in raw numbers, though.

Why do these mutations get propagated? Well, they don't if they are detrimental to reproduction. But if they are conducive to reproduction, they tend to propagate through the normal processes of meiosis and mitosis. By way of analogy, imagine a Xerox machine where you copy an original, then copy the copy, then the copy of the copy, etc. Now imagine a stray hair winds up on the glass cover of the copier by accident. The copy you make and the subsequent copies will all have a hair superimposed on the image.

Given the fact that chemists and biologists who study this stuff for a living have indeed observed random mutations and errors in DNA, I am puzzled by your claim that there is no evidence these actually occur.

Ah, the gravitational pull of determinism - so irresistible to so many trained minds. Without God, it can capture and impose its own event horizon as effectively as any other intellectual black hole.

"Provided that that unfortunately loose term evolution means strictly “descent with modification,” it hardly seems possible to deny it without denying the findings of genetics."

Hold that statement........

Hypervariable genes are showing that rapid response variation is very common (adaptation), while DNA fights against mutations taking hold. In addition there are roughly 500 ultra-conserved genes that all organism share that were there at the beginning. Different body plans can be built much like a lego set can combine to build many different things. The fantastic language of DNA has the built in capability from the outset. Epigenetics plays a huge part.

Matt Beck: "If individuals can get from one place to another (say, from one of the Galapagos Islands to another island), then it requires no great stretch of the imagination to assume that successive waves of emigrants can follow in their footsteps. Nor should we assume that individuals from the new location can never get back home again; we cannot allow translocation for the purposes of adaptive radiation, but not for the purposes of panmixic integration. This raises the question of whether gene flow is ever entirely extinguished between populations."

In some cases, barriers tend to increase over time. For instance, climate change that results in forests or corral reefs dying out means that what was once a massive ecosystem becomes a collection of isolated pockets of life where it is not possible to jump from one reef or forest to the other. Dawkins points to the example of Lake Malawi as another good one: the water level in the lake has decreased over time so that what was once a fairly deep lake is now too shallow in some parts for plants or animals to traverse the lake. Then you have continental drift where primates or horses in the Americas became separated from their Asian and African counterparts once the continent broke away (the horses were most likely hunted to extermination by arriving humans 12,000 years ago but were then replaced by Eurasian breeds in the 1500s by arriving Spaniards).

In the case of relatively fixed(?) islands, you really just need traveling between islands to be a very rare phenomenon. Once species sufficiently diverge from one another across different islands, interbreeding becomes literally impossible even if one specimen manages to make the journey home. It will not be able to mate with the natives of the home island either because the natives will not find the specimen to be a good sexual mate (sexual selection) or else it will just not be able to produce a viable, fertile offspring.

As an example of this, horses and donkeys evolved through artificial selection from a common ancestor: both were specifically bred by humans in Europe and Asia. Yet a horse and a donkey mating produce an infertile mule. Therefore, there is no way for genes to flow between horses and donkeys.

Are you eliminating HGT as a mechanism? How about snake DNA found in a cow?

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Jim: Are you eliminating HGT as a mechanism? How about snake DNA found in a cow?

I don't really have an informed opinion on it. HGT does exist at the level of bacteria. But as I understand it, HGT would just be an additional source of variation in genes. It doesn't affect the theory of evolution by natural selection in big picture terms.

For the curious, geneticist Richard Lenski reports 27 pages' worth of genetic mutations observed in a long running experiment involving E. Coli reproducing in a neutral laboratory setting for 50,000 generations. These involve both nucleotides flipping as well as entire insertions and deletions into the genetic code through errors in mitosis.

Link here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7268/extref/nature08480-s1.pdf

The empirical facts of mutation and the inheritance of (generally beneficial) mutations in future generations are indisputable at this point.

Lenski's experiment confirms the rapid capability of bacteria drawing from a "memory" if you will to adapt to their environment. The bacteria adapted not mutated.

The theory of facilitated variation - http://www.pnas.org/content/104/suppl.1/8582.abstract

Jim: Lenski's experiment confirms the rapid capability of bacteria drawing from a "memory" if you will to adapt to their environment. The bacteria adapted not mutated.

This is simply not correct. Again, please look at the paper I posted a link to. Lenski's team meticulously sequenced the DNA of E. Coli bacteria and documented numerous changes in the DNA that occurred through the experiment.

For instance, the very first mutation he records is a gene where a codon (sequence of three nucleotides [the famous A,C,G,T] that "codes" for the production of a particular amino acid) switched from AAC to CAC. This caused the amino acid associated with that codon to change as well. Which means the gene that the codon was a part of produced a different protein. That's what a mutation is.

Mark: Thanks for your patience. Let me try to put it to you like this: You speak of “imperfections” and DNA “errors” occurring in natural generational processes, and these errors, provided they are not “detrimental” to reproduction, are what ultimately give rise to different species. Indeed, you say that these errors lead to a sort of “shuffling” that in turn leads to “new genes” and “new combinations” of genes.

What does it mean to say that nature (or a generational process) makes an error? Does it mean a) that within nature at any moment one may have a state, and that in the next moment one may have a different state which cannot be accounted for (rendered intelligible) by the previous state? Or does it mean b) that within nature there is something that is supposed to happen but because of some unexpected, if not unintelligible event, that which was supposed to happen did not happen and instead something else happened?

If a), then we do not possess a scientific theory and we dwell in the realm of magic. If b), then we acknowledge that all natural process accords (or is intended to accord) to a purpose that comprehends and transcends it.

In either case evolution as an immanent explanatory theory is incoherent. But then again there might be a third meaning of error?

Regards,
MacGabhann

Mark,

Changes can be adaptive and/or mutative.

What drove the changes observed?

MacGabhann: What does it mean to say that nature (or a generational process) makes an error?

All I mean by this is the empirical fact that when a DNA molecule is replicated according to the laws of physics and chemistry, its copy is not always a perfect copy of the original. I'm not sure what the rate of mutation is and I think that is one of the questions the Lenski project is trying to get at. But I would guess that DNA is at least 99.9% the same when replicated. "Error" may be a poor choice of words if it implies that the replication process is somehow guided from outside. "Mutation" or "change" work just as well.

We now know DNA will fight the mutation several times attempting to repair and correct it.

Mark: Are you saying (guessing) then that in 0.1% of the generational occurrences the laws of physics and chemistry do not operate as they do in the other 999 cases? Is that the “empirical” observation?
Or if this is not the empirical observation, are you saying that indeed the same laws of physics and chemistry operate in all 1,000 cases, however in the thousandth case there is an additional reason, call it X, that must be invoked to explain the emergence of a different genetic pattern, or indeed of a new gene? If this latter is what you are saying, then what is this X? What is this X that causes the thousandth to be different from the rest? And don’t say it is a random mutation. Random mutation is not a scientific notion used to describe a scientific reality. It is a magical notion used to pretend to describe a scientific reality.

Not unlike many Christians and Catholics who were and still are confused about evolution, Father Oakes is mistaken about Tennyson:

"Tennyson's work, disencumbered of all that uninteresting accretion which he had inherited or copied, resolves itself, like that of any other man of genius, into those things which he really inaugurated. Underneath all his exterior of polished and polite rectitude there was in him a genuine fire of novelty; only that, like all the able men of his period, he disguised revolution under the name of evolution. He is only a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of the Conservative." (G. K. Chesterton, Tennyson)

And, by a logical extension, dare I say many of these Christians and Catholics are thus also confused about the basic principle of Christianity, which they compromise by their confusion and ignorance:

"All descriptions of the creating or sustaining principle in things must be metaphorical, because they must be verbal. Thus the pantheist is forced to speak of God in all things as if he were in a box. Thus the evolutionist has, in his very name, the idea of being unrolled like a carpet. All terms, religious and irreligious, are open to this charge. The only question is whether all terms are useless, or whether one can, with such a phrase, cover a distinct IDEA about the origin of things. I think one can, and so evidently does the evolutionist, or he would not talk about evolution. And the root phrase for all Christian theism was this, that God was a creator, as an artist is a creator.... This principle that all creation and procreation is a breaking off is at least as consistent through the cosmos as the evolutionary principle that all growth is a branching out. A woman loses a child even in having a child. All creation is separation." (G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy)

MacGabhann: Are you saying (guessing) then that in 0.1% of the generational occurrences the laws of physics and chemistry do not operate as they do in the other 999 cases? Is that the “empirical” observation?

Of course not. The empirical observation is that, indeed, mutations do happen quite routinely during mitosis and meiosis. My guess was not all that bad, actually: http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/full/148/4/1667

As I said, this is not my field. Radiation such as UV rays from the sun and certain chemicals can increase the mutation rate by altering the chemical reactions that are behind DNA replication. In the case of radiation, the effect is almost certainly random. Whether or not a given photon or beta particle dislodges an electron and changes the replication process is governed by quantum uncertainty.

Some light relief:

My favourite rebuttal to an evolutionist is by Hilaire Belloc.

Criticizing HG Wells' secular bias and his belief in evolution by means of natural selection, a theory that had been completely discredited, asserted Belloc, his review of Wells’ epic ‘Outline of History’ noted that it was a powerful and well-written volume, "up until the appearance of Man, that is, somewhere around page seven."

Wells responded with a small book, “Mr. Belloc Objects”.

Not to be outdone, Belloc followed with, "Mr. Belloc Still Objects".

Belloc had some justification for his criticism of Wells’ position as he pointed out elsewhere that H. G. Wells had “more space in his "history" to the Persian campaign against the Greeks than he had given to the figure of Christ”.

The evolutionist must ask oneself, if every know living cell has DNA in it, and this DNA has the complete blue-print of the whole creature-to-be, what came first (in evolution), the cell or the DNA?

Which is just a remake of that first rebuke to ancient antiquity’s first evolutionists, ‘what came first, the chicken or the egg?’

Mark: Governed by quantum uncertainty? That’s actually funny, if also actually sad. It also shuts me up. I cannot think of any approach to you in the face of it beyond, perhaps, referring you to my original post on Voegelin above, starting from the bit about the decline of theoretical culture and its consequent naiveté.
Regards:
MacGabhann

Comprehend your terms

Natural Selection Defined
Beyond Historical Concepts

Natural selection is E (energy) temporarily constrained in an m (mass) format.
Period.

Dov Henis
(Comments From The 22nd Century)
03.2010 Updated Life Manifest
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/54.page#5065
Cosmic Evolution Simplified
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/240/122.page#4427
"Gravity Is The Monotheism Of The Cosmos"
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/260/122.page#4887

=======================
Origin And Nature Of Natural Selection

Longevity Schmongevity Genes

It's Not The Procedure, But The Concept That Is Absurd

Longevity Genes Search Reflects Science Decadence
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/320/122.page#6368

A. For most centenarians, longevity is written in the DNA.
A study of people who live past 100 reveals many genetic paths to a long life.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/60772/title/For_most_centenarians%2C_longevity_is_written_in_the_DNA


B. Longevity, survival, natural selection, evolution

- Merriam-Webster OnLine
Longevity = a : a long duration of individual life b : length of life

- Longevity is about survival, which is about "natural selection", which is about energy constrainment, which is about life evolution, which is about cosmic evolution. Every mass is destined to become energy to fuel the ongoing cosmic expansion. This is why organisms and black holes etc., eat, digest energy in mass forms, to avoid-postpone conversion to energy. This is evolution, which is natural selection, which is survival, which is longevity.

- All mass formats age. Life is a mass format. Searching for longevity genes is searching for evolution genes...


C. The search for longevity genes is a reflection of the 20th-21st centuries science decadence

Its concepts and terminology reflect the abandonment of basic science for adoption of the pretentious cancerous capitalist 20th-21st century technology culture.


Dov Henis
(Comments From The 22nd Century)

Update Concepts And Comprehension

Life is another mass format.
All mass formats are subject to natural selection.
Natural selection is delaying conversion of mass to energy fueling cosmic expansion.
Cosmic expansion is reconversion of all mass to energy.

Natural Selection Updated 2010
Beyond Historical Concepts

Natural Selection applies to ALL mass formats. Life is just one of them.
Natural Selection Defined.

Natural selection is E (energy) temporarily constrained in an m (mass) format.
Period.

Natural selection is a ubiquitous property of each and every and all cosmic mass, spin array, formats. Mass strives to increase its constrained energy content in attempt to postpone its conversion to energy and the addition of its constitutional energy to the totality of the cosmic energy that keeps fueling the cosmic expansion that goes on since the big bang.

Dov Henis
(Comments From The 22nd Century)
03.2010 Updated Life Manifest
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/54.page#5065
Cosmic Evolution Simplified
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/240/122.page#4427
Gravity Is The Monotheism Of The Cosmos
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/260/122.page#4887
EOTOE, Embarrassingly obvious TOE, expanding the horizon beyond Darwin And Einstein
http://www.molecularfossils.com/2010/05/formal-test-of-theory-of-universal.html

=======================
Origin And Nature Of Natural Selection

Longevity Schmongevity Genes

It's Not The Procedure, But The Concept That Is Absurd

Longevity Genes Search Reflects Science Decadence
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/320/122.page#6368

A. For most centenarians, longevity is written in the DNA.
A study of people who live past 100 reveals many genetic paths to a long life.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/60772/title/For_most_centenarians%2C_longevity_is_written_in_the_DNA


B. Longevity, survival, natural selection, evolution

- Merriam-Webster OnLine
Longevity = a : a long duration of individual life b : length of life

- Longevity is about survival, which is about "natural selection", which is about energy constrainment, which is about life evolution, which is about cosmic evolution. Every mass is destined to become energy to fuel the ongoing cosmic expansion. This is why organisms and black holes etc., eat, digest energy in mass forms, to avoid-postpone conversion to energy. This is evolution, which is natural selection, which is survival, which is longevity.

- All mass formats age. Life is a mass format. Searching for longevity genes is searching for evolution genes...


C. The search for longevity genes is a reflection of the 20th-21st centuries science decadence

Its concepts and terminology reflect the abandonment of basic science for adoption of the pretentious cancerous capitalist 20th-21st century technology culture.


Dov Henis
(Comments From The 22nd Century)

Of course not. The empirical observation is that, indeed, mutations do happen quite routinely during mitosis and meiosis. My guess was not all that bad, actually: http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/full/148/4/1667 Beyond this embarrassment for atheists, whatever happened to the debate about (as the title of my senior thesis had it) "the tautological status of natural selection"? If natural selection is tautological--essentially vacuous--that might explain why the idea of natural selection is used as a catch-all explanation of so many diverse things, in the wooly-minded sort of way that Professor Oakes points out.

On Genes And Genomes, Concepts And Terminology
http://darwiniana.com/2010/11/11/epigenetics-9/comment-page-1/#comment-355245

Dispel Some Figments Of Present Science Imagination

"Galaxies pin down dark energy"
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/44468


- Dark energy and matter YOK. Per E=Total[m(1 + D)] all the energy and matter of the universe are accounted for.

- Higgs Particle YOK. Mass begins to form below some value of the above D.

- Sleep is inherent for life via the RNAs, the primal Earth ORGANISMS formed and active only under direct sunlight in pre-metabolism genesis era.

- Natural selection is ubiquitous for ALL Mass Formats. It derives from the expansion of the universe.

- Epigenetics: Where Life Meets the Genome
http://www.bionews.org.uk/page_66997.asp?dinfo=rWfnKzZO4tkhJf38jsJ5EeJo

Epigenetics =
a) the study of heritable changes in gene function that do not involve changes in DNA sequence
b) the science of enduring changes in the pattern of gene activity, during embryo development and beyond, that do not involve alteration of the DNA sequence.

The "heritable or enduring changes" are epiDNAtics, not epigenetics. Alternative splicing is not epigenetics, even if/when not involving alteration of the DNA sequence. Earth life is an RNA world.

It's the RNAs that evolve proteins. AND IT'S THE RNAs THAT HAVE EVOLVED AND PRODUCE AND EMPLOY THE DNA ( and RNA ) templates to carry out life processes, for enhancing Earth's biosphere, for augmenting and constraining as long as possible some energy by augmenting its self-propagation, constraining some of the total energy of the universe, all of which is destined to fuel the ongoing cosmic expansion.

IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN AND IT STILL IS AN RNA EARTH LIFE.

Science should adjust its vision, comprehension and concepts.


Dov Henis
(Comments From The 22nd Century)
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/user/profile/1655.page

Seed of Human-Chimp Genomes Diversity
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2SF3CJJM5OU6T27OC4MFQSDYEU/blog/articles/53079
03.2010 Updated Life Manifest
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/54.page#5065
Cosmic Evolution Simplified
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/240/122.page#4427
Gravity Is The Monotheism Of The Cosmos
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/260/122.page#4887
Evolution, Natural Selection, Derive From Cosmic Expansion
http://darwiniana.com/2010/09/05/the-question-reductionists-fear/

UNRAVEL COMPLEXITIES OF GENETICS.
Extend Evolution/Natural Selection Backword To Genes/Genomes, BOTH ARE ORGANISMS.


Again, Correct Some Figments Of Science Imagination
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2SF3CJJM5OU6T27OC4MFQSDYEU/blog/articles/273273?listPage=index&bb=0



1. Dark energy and matter YOK. Per E=Total[m(1 + D)] all the energy and matter of the universe are accounted for.
Adopt space-massdistance concept, mass-to-enrgy reconversion.

2. Higgs Particle YOK. Mass forms below some value of the above D.

3. Galactic clusters formed by conglomeration?
Galactic clusters formed by Big-Bang's dispersion, evidenced by their Newtonian behaviour including expansion acceleration.

4. The universe expansion is fueled by the mass-to-enrgy reconversion. Eventually, as expansion will slow down, will run out of massfuel, gravity will overcome expansion and initiate empansion back to singularity. The universe is a cyclic array of energy-mass dualism, between all-energy and all-mass poles, under omnipresent gravity.

5. Natural Selection is a trait of organisms, life?
No. Natural selection is ubiquitous for ALL mass formats, all spin arrays. It derives from the expansion of the universe. All mass formats, regardless of size and type, from black holes to smallest particles, strive to increase their constrained energy in attempt to postpone their own reconversion to energy, to the energy that fuels cosmic expansion.

6. Life is an enigma?
Life is just another type of mass array, a self-replicating mass array. Earth life is a replicating RNAs mass. It has always been and still is an RNA world. ALL Earth's organisms are evolved RNAs, evolved for maintaining-enhancing Earth's biosphere, for prolonging RNAs survival.

7. Cells are Earth-life's primal organisms?
NO. Earth's life day one was the day on which RNA began replicating. RNAs, genes, are ORGANISMS. And so are their evolved templates, (RNA and DNA) genomes, ORGANISMS, as evidenced by life's chirality and by life's sleep.

8. Circadian Schmircadian sleep origin?
Sleep is inherent for life via the RNAs, the primal Earth ORGANISMS originated and originally active only under direct sunlight, in their pre-metabolism genesis era.

9. Epigenetics are heritable gene functions changes not involving changes in DNA sequence?
The "heritable or enduring changes" are epiDNAtics, not epigenetics. Alternative splicing is not epigenetics, even if/when not involving alteration of the DNA sequence. Earth life is an RNA world.

10.Genetics drive biology and culture modifications?
NO. It is culture that modifies genetics, not genetics that modifies culture. Culture modifies genetics simply via the evolutionary natural selection process of the RNA ORGANISMS. Likewise many natural genetic changes are due to aging and/or circumstantial effects on the genes and/or genomes ORGANISMS, similar to aging and/or evolutionary processes in monocell communities or in multicelled organisms.


SCIENCE SHOULD UNFREEZE. SCIENCE SHOULD ADJUST ITS VISION, COMPREHENSION AND CONCEPTS.


Dov Henis
(Comments From 22nd Century)
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/user/profile/1655.page
Seed of Human-Chimp Genomes Diversity
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2SF3CJJM5OU6T27OC4MFQSDYEU/blog/articles/53079
03.2010 Updated Life Manifest
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/54.page#5065
Evolution, Natural Selection, Derive From Cosmic Expansion
http://darwiniana.com/2010/09/05/the-question-reductionists-fear/
Rethink Evolution/Natural Selection
http://darwiniana.com/2011/03/29/comment-from-dov-henis/comment-page-1/