Jonathan McLatchie still doesn’t understand Dembski’s argument

Posted on by

Over at Uncommon Descent, Jonathan McLatchie calls attention to an interview that Scottish Christian apologist David Robertson did with him.  The 15-minute video is available there.

The issue is scientific evidence for intelligent design.  As so often occurs, they very quickly ran off to the origin of life, and from there to the origin of the Universe.  I was amused that from there they tried to answer the question of where God came from, by saying that it was unreasonable to push the origin issue quite that far back.  There was also a lot of time spent being unhappy with the idea of a multiverse.

But for me the interesting bit was toward the beginning, where McLatchie argues that the evidence for ID is the observation of Specified Complexity, which he defines as complex patterns that conform to a prespecified pattern.  He’s made that argument before, in a 2-minute-long video in a series on 1-minute apologetics.  And I’ve complained about it before here.  Perhaps he was just constrained by the time limit, and would have done a better job if he had more than 2 minutes.

Nope.  It’s the same argument.

His Specified Complexity argument is William Dembski’s pre-2005 argument.  It turned out that the argument required a conservation law to show that natural selection could not put this Specified Complexity into the genome.  Dembski did have such an argument, but it turned out not to work (see my 2007 article for the details).

In 2005-2006 Dembski changed the argument, by redefining Specified Complexity to have an additional condition.  Now you could only call a pattern Specified Complexity if it was not only complex and conformed to a prespecified pattern but also could not be brought about by natural evolutionary forces such as natural selection.  A number of people here and at Panda’s Thumb pointed out that this fails to show us how this condition is to be evaluated.  It makes SC something that comes in after one has somehow decided that an adaptation cannot have been achieved by natural selection.  In short, it has been safeguarded against the criticism that evolution could bring about SC by defining the issue away.  That makes SC a useless criterion.

But McLatchie has somehow missed all this history.  He is back where Dembski was in the book No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot be Purchased Without Intelligence, published in 2002.  McLatchie has totally missed both the refutations of Dembski’s original criterion, and the 2005-2006 fix that rendered the SC criterion useless.  In spite of having 15 whole minutes to clean up the mess, McLatchie and Robertson preferred to spend the extra time back at the origin of the Universe.

480 thoughts on “Jonathan McLatchie still doesn’t understand Dembski’s argument”

  1. colewd,

    The first transition to multicellular life is the eukaryotic cell. Can we demonstrate common ancestry with empirical evidence of the relationship? Is UCD still a reasonable hypothesis other than what else could it be?

    I don’t know about ‘the first transition’. It is a transition, sure, as is the eukaryotic version of sex, and all the eukaryote-specific things Sal imagines can only happen in 1 generation. (Hey, I wonder what hypothesis might account for all subsequent eukaryotes conforming to the same basic pattern, operated by broadly the same genes in the same way?)

    If you have read and absorbed the rationale behind Theobald’s paper, you will understand why UCD is indeed a reasonable hypothesis. Clearly it is not a matter of ‘what else could it be?’, because the ‘what else’ includes a set of independent origins, or a common origin with no remaining signal. Those are competing hypotheses making predictions about the pattern we should expect if they hold. Those hypotheses can be tested, using phylogenetic methods. Such methods uncover exceptions to the ‘tree’ assumption all the time, which is how we are able to identify things that do not conform to the simple ‘descent’ pattern – LGT and gene loss events, gross rearrangements, symbioses etc.

    Phylogenetic analysis is a probe. Your attitude to it is reminiscent of that Creationist approach to evolutionary computing – ‘they ‘smuggle in’ the answer. People spend many hours, whole careers, building tools when they already know the answer? Utter hogwash.

    I’m waiting with bated breath for the first Creationist to realise that phylogenetic analysis is the ideal tool for ‘proving’ Creation and Noah’s Ark.

  2. stcordova,

    Half-implemented chromatin remodeling managed by half-implemented inter-histone signaling is worse than just keeping the prokaryotic DNA repair.

    So we’ve moved on from ‘why are there still monkeys?’ to ‘what use is half an eye?’. Ye gods!

  3. stcordova,

    If he properly titled his book, “Origin of Species by Means of Non-Existent, Un-Natrual Selection” the absurdity of his views would have been readily apparent

    Good grief. “This Book Is Full Of Shit” by C Darwin. Yeah, that‘s what he should have done. He could have lobbed it at puppies.

  4. phoodoo,

    Ignicoccus/Nanoarchaeon archael system whereby ATP is passed from one cell to another in intimate association is nothing akin to an ecosystem is it?

    Of course it is. They are in an ecological relationship. It’s not the whole system, but neither is it nothing-to-do-with-the-system. How ’bout a weather system? Is that a ‘system’? Gosh, they even keep the words separate.

    Anyway, that was the sense in which I used the word. If you think it incorrect usage, thank you for your input.

  5. Rumraket,

    Under such a scenario the one major hurdle is genome replication during cell division, which would massively favor deletions and shortening of the genome.

    And, interestingly, slack DNA repair, which has led to a ‘mutator’ phenotype in half the flasks.

  8. “You have no examples of mutations; all you can point to is polymorphisms”. Aaaaargh!

  9. Allan Miller: “You have no examples of mutations; all you can point to is polymorphisms”. Aaaaargh!

    Hahahahaha. Yep, this is what we’re up against.

  11. There seems to be a strong reluctance among creationists and ID advocates to admitting that any mutation can be beneficial. They seem to think that there is some general principle of information theory and/or theology that is violated by having a beneficial mutation.

    The simplest example I can think of is when there is a DNA sequence, and at some position, say site number 136, an A changes to a C and makes the resulting protein less functional, so the fitness of the organism goes down by 10%. Everyone seems OK with that.

    But now a subsequent mutation from C back to A is a beneficial mutation, raising the fitness by 11%. Is there really some law of physics that says that replacing an A by a C is an ordinary event, but replacing the C by an A is impossible? I’d like to hear what this law is.

  13. Allan Miller:

    (Hey, I wonder what hypothesis might account for all subsequent eukaryotes conforming to the same basic pattern, operated by broadly the same genes in the same way?)

    Common design, and here’s why, the absurdity of the phyletic transformation scenario. Evolutionists complain the all-at-once-overnight scenario is absurd, but they never think how absurd the mechanical details of evolutionary scenario is.

    Ok, so how many millions of years will it take to have all the major components of Eukyotes:

    1. spliceosomes
    2. spliceosomal introls
    3. nucleosomes
    4. histone writers
    5. histone readers
    6. histone erasers
    7. chromatin remodelers
    8. organelle’s and organelle inheritance
    9. nuclear complex

    So assume all this evolved. It must happen in some warm contained little pond for hundreds of millions of years while phyletic transformation happens on the entire population (all the while fighting Muller’s ratchet) lest half-baked eukaryotes leak out of the contained pond.

    I mean we don’t have extant Eukaryotes that have spliceosomal introns but no nucleosomes, right. Or Eukaryotes with nucleosomes and no organelle’s right. In other words, not a lot of half-baked extant transitionals are extant.

    After all those wonderful parts get incorporated into the eukaryotic population, then they have that diversification and become yeast, protists, fish, birds, tigers, grasses, flowers, and trees. It practically looks like a POOF!

    The alternative is the half-baked eukaryotes just didn’t make it, and the descendants of that one exceptional eukaryote, that 1 in a buzzilion is the mother of all Eukaryotes (to quote Saddam Hussein). Thus we have a highly exceptional scenario, a black swan if you will.

    But if you say, “well the guys without all the hardware listed above got selectied against, that’s why there are no transitionals left or half-baked eukaryotes”. But that just proves the point half-baked Eukaryotes will be selected against, but do you really want to argue that since that proves that Natural Selection will not evolve full-baked Eukaryotes since it selects against half-baked Eukaryotes. Just as I said. So then one has to invoke a selection scenario indistinguishable from miracles to get it through the fitness valley.

    Do you guys ever think through you’re ideas before jumping to pre-mature conclusions that melt in the light of careful scientific skepticism? If you don’t like the idea of God, black swans, isn’t “we don’t know” then an acceptable thing to claim rather than saying “Evolution is God’s truth” or “Evolution is Darwin’s Truth”.

    So, as always, evolutionary theory only pretends to invoke ordinary and typical mechanisms, but examination of the theory shows implicit utter reliance on events so exceptional they are hardly distinguishable (statistically speaking ) from miracles. Darwin’s book should have been, “The Origin of Fantastic Novel Complexity by Imagined, Absurd, Statistically Unlikely Selection Indistinguishable from Miracles of Supernatural Creation” or the shorter title that Allan Suggested:

    “This Book Is Full Of Shit” by C Darwin. Yeah, that‘s what he should have done. He could have lobbed it at puppies.

    http://wallpapershidef.com/wp-content/gallery/sad-puppy-images/Animals___Dogs_Sad_beagle_puppy_waiting_for_mom_049933_.jpg

  14. Joe Felsenstein: They seem to think that there is some general principle of information theory and/or theology that is violated by having a beneficial mutation.

    Simple principle: God knows best. Therefore any mutation is a change away from what is best.

    No, I’m not a theist and I don’t believe that. But many theists do believe it.

  15. Cretionist sale day. All IQs 30 percent off.

    Seriously, Sal, what are you trying to accomplish with the Texas Sharpshooter argument?

  17. Allan Miller:
    stcordova,

    So we’ve moved on from ‘why are there still monkeys?’ to ‘what use is half an eye?’. Ye gods!

    Now who could have predicted that? Oh, wait, me:

    I get the distinct impression that you’re building up to the old creationist “What use is half an eye?” argument.

    Creationists are disappointingly consistent.

  18. stcordova: But that just proves the point half-baked Eukaryotes will be selected against, but do you really want to argue that since that proves that Natural Selection will not evolve full-baked Eukaryotes since it selects against half-baked Eukaryotes.

    That’s plain dumb. It’s not that half-baked eukaryotes are selected against in any and all cases, it’s that half-baked is worse than fully baked, but better than one-quater-baked. Get it?

    The one percent-baked eukaryote did very well alongside it’s bacterial and archeal ancestors, but not quite as well as the two-percent-baked eukaryote, which outcompeted it. It had decendants of it’s own, which got baked a little further, proving even tastier to the Great Environmental Taster. Then at some point the half-baked eukaryote was spawned by the 49.5% baked eukaryote, and it was strong. And the Great Environmental Taster saw that it was good, so it annihilated the 49.5% eukaryote in a great flood (of saliva).
    The half-baked eukaryotes left half and one hundredth of one tenth-baked eukaryote descendants, which outcompeted the half-baked ones. And so on. Until they arrived at fully 100%-baked eukaryotes. The fully (and a few almost-fully) baked eukaryotes the went on to produce layered cake-eukaryotes of countless flavors.

  19. 1. Isolated islands of function.
    2. What good is half an eye?
    3. What are the odds of this particular list of lotto winners in this particular sequence?

    Anything else?

  20. OMagain: The funny thing it’s it’s one more petri dish then has even been involved in any ID experiment!

    Not true. Ann Gauger has been photographed in front of a green screen, holding a Petri dish.

  21. Joe Felsenstein: There seems to be a strong reluctance among creationists and ID advocates to admitting that any mutation can be beneficial.

    Can you give some examples in primates of mutations that cause new genes, that appear to be beneficial? How long do you think it has been since the last one happened?

    If primates is too tough, how about in cows? Pigs? Anything you can point to in large mammals which shows that beneficial mutations exist?

  22. So we’ve moved on from ‘why are there still monkeys?’ to ‘what use is half an eye?’. Ye gods!

    Actually the quote is “what good is half a wing” by Stephen J. Gould.

  23. stcordova,

    Common design, and here’s why, the absurdity of the phyletic transformation scenario. Evolutionists complain the all-at-once-overnight scenario is absurd, but they never think how absurd the mechanical details of evolutionary scenario is.

    I think you missed the point. Once all the distinctive characteristics of a eukaryotic lineage are in place, by whatever mechanism, all that needs be invoked is common descent from that. All the things you listed occurred prior to the common ancestor of all eukaryotes, if such an ancestor there was. ‘Common Design’, in a lineage with common descent, means only ‘common origin’.

    You can’t just ignore common descent, as if it never happens. Clearly it does. Your ‘mechanical impossibility hypothesis’ refers to the origin of eukaryotes, not the possession of the same characteristics by multiple descendant eukaryotic lineages. Unless you invoke mechanical impossibility for every branch of the tree except … what? Where does Salvador’s Razor fall? How broad or limited is your imagination? Give an example. Name two sexual eukaryotic lineages that are commonly descended but cannot exchange genes.

  24. She also found a beneficial mutation once, but that was never reported in the UD “journals”. No reason to publish inconvenient results of course. *whistle*

  25. stcordova,

    I mean we don’t have extant Eukaryotes that have spliceosomal introns but no nucleosomes, right. Or Eukaryotes with nucleosomes and no organelle’s right. In other words, not a lot of half-baked extant transitionals are extant.

    Allow me to introduce you to the concept and implications of extinction.

  26. phoodoo: Can you give some examples in primates of mutations that cause new genes, that appear to be beneficial?

    If primates is too tough, how about in cows?Pigs?Anything you can point to in large mammals which shows that beneficial mutations exist?

    Salivary amylase duplications. New beneficial genes, and it’s in humans.

    From wikipedia:

    Carbohydrates are a food source rich in energy. Following the agricultural revolution 12,000 years ago, human diet began to rely more on plant and animal domestication in place of hunting and gathering. This shift also symbolizes the beginning of a diet composed of 49% carbohydrates as opposed to the previous 35% observed in Paleolithic humans. As such, starch became a staple of human diet. Large polymers such as starch are partially hydrolyzed in the mouth by the enzyme amylase before being cleaved further into sugars. Therefore, humans that contained amylase in the saliva would benefit from increased ability to digest starch more efficiently and in higher quantities. Despite the obvious benefits, early humans did not possess salivary amylase, a trend that is also seen in evolutionary relatives of the human, such as chimpanzees and bonobos, who possess either one or no copies of the gene responsible for producing salivary amylase.[21] This gene, AMY1, originated in the pancreas.[clarification needed] A duplication event of the AMY1 gene allowed it to evolve salivary specificity, leading to the production of amylase in the saliva. In addition the same event occurred independently in rodents, emphasizing the importance of salivary amylase in organisms that consume relatively large amounts of starch.[22]

    However, not all humans possess the same number of copies of the AMY1 gene. Populations known to rely more on carbohydrates have a higher number of AMY1 copies than human populations that, by comparison, consume little starch. The number of AMY1 gene copies in humans can range from six copies in agricultural groups such as European-American and Japanese (two high starch populations) to only 2-3 copies in hunter-gatherer societies such as the Biaka, Datog, and Yakuts. The correlation that exists between starch consumption and number of AMY1 copies specific to population suggest that more AMY1 copies in high starch populations has been selected for by natural selection and considered the favorable phenotype for those individuals. Therefore, it is most likely that the benefit of an individual possessing more copies of AMY1 in a high starch population increases fitness and produces healthier, fitter offspring. This fact is especially apparent when comparing geographically close populations with different eating habits that possess a different number of copies of the AMY1 gene. Such is the case for some Asian populations that have been shown to possess few AMY1 copies relative to some agricultural population in Asia. This offers strong evidence that natural selection has acted on this gene as opposed to the possibility that the gene has spread through genetic drift.

    Got any more god of the (not even a) gap-questions?

  27. stcordova,

    Actually the quote is “what good is half a wing” by Stephen J. Gould.

    So the sentiment “what use is half an eye” has never been uttered by a creationist? Methinks you are just trying to appear cleverer than the evilutionist.

  28. It’s not that half-baked eukaryotes are selected against in any and all cases, it’s that half-baked is worse than fully baked, but better than one-quater-baked. Get it?

    Apparently you’re not getting the problem: Evolutionary theory doesn’t provide credible explanations for the lack of extant half-baked Eukaryotes in the present day. I described what they should look like:

    I mean we don’t have extant Eukaryotes that have spliceosomal introns but no nucleosomes, right. Or Eukaryotes with nucleosomes and no organelle’s right. In other words, not a lot of half-baked extant transitionals are extant.

    So, what’s the explanation for that? Did they just incubate in an isolated warm little pond for a billion years before finally getting released to the rest of the world?

    Allan said all Eukaryotes have the same essential hardware, implying common descent according to him. Ok, so how did the common Eukaryotic ancestor appear on the world stage with everything fully intact except by incubating in an isolated warm little pond for a billion years before getting released into the world.?

    C’mon you have to admit this would be an unusual set of circumstances, I mean, think of all the geological and solar system processes happening at the time like the Faint Young Sun paradox where the Earth is complete iceball where life can’t emerge, must less evolve during the Cambrian and before.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faint_young_Sun_paradox

    The faint young Sun paradox describes the apparent contradiction between observations of liquid water early in Earth’s history and the astrophysical expectation that the Sun’s output would be only 70 percent as intense during that epoch as it is during the modern epoch. The issue was raised by astronomers Carl Sagan and George Mullen in 1972.[1] Explanations of this paradox have taken into account greenhouse effects, astrophysical influences, or a combination of the two.

    The unresolved question is how a climate suitable for life was maintained on Earth over the long timescale despite the variable solar output and wide range of terrestrial conditions.[2]

    Oh that’s it, the bacteria got trapped in a glacier for a billion years and that’s the cold little pond where Eukaryotes competed with smaller more metabolically efficient prokaryotes in that cold little frozen pond. And despite the natural selection favoring bacteria, the Eukaryotes emerged victorious.

    Oh, that’s the other thing, Woose pointed out Eukaryotes and Prokaryotes couldn’t be isolated, they had to be having lots of HGT to explain away all those phylogenetic anomalies.

  29. stcordova,

    Allan said all Eukaryotes have the same essential hardware, implying common descent according to him.

    Not just according to me. Many of the genes are homologous in all species (and, indeed, show homology with genes in prokaryotes, often with different functions but detectable sequence similarity). Since homology is accepted as indicative of descent at low taxonomic ranks, we need a reason to reject it at higher. Your lack of imagination is not it.

    Ok, so how did the common Eukaryotic ancestor appear on the world stage with everything fully intact except by incubating in an isolated warm little pond for a billion years before getting released into the world.?

    Why would it need to be contained? If something provides a lineage with an advantage, one of the things that is postulated to happen is elimination of the lineage which is at a disadvantage. Evolution sweeps up after itself, by its very nature, brushing over the tracks. You would not expect everything to survive if NS were in operation. So the lack of extant less-competitive intermediates is hardly a fatal strike against evolutionary origin. You can contain them in the oceans; you don’t need to restrict this to a pond. Whole lineages can still die out after hundreds of millions of years.

  30. That is literally what I actually explained. Are you a bit dyslexic or is the godgoggle dial turned to 11?

    Again: Fully Eukaryote is better than half Eukaryote, so half is selected against when competing with FULLY eukaryote. Right?

    But half eukaryote is better than quarter eukaryote, so quarter is selected against when competing with HALF eukaryote .

    But quarter eukaryote is better than one 8th eukaryote, so one 8th is selected against when competing with QUARTER eukaryote.

    So every step is beneficial compared to it’s lesser-eukaryotic ancestor. Get it?

    Need I continue?

  31. stcordova,

    Oh, that’s the other thing, Woose pointed out Eukaryotes and Prokaryotes couldn’t be isolated, they had to be having lots of HGT to explain away all those phylogenetic anomalies

    Most people disagree with Woese on the extent of HGT required to explain the patterns. But either way, HGT is hardly ‘not evolution’, and phylogenetics is hardly incapable of detecting it. The reverse. Do you only accept phylogenetics when it appears to go against vertical descent?

  32. I am flabbergasted I had to even type that out. What the fuck is wrong with you religionutters? The obtuseness is tar thick .

  33. Go on, admit it, having your gast flabbered is one of the reasons you come!

  34. Most people disagree with Woese on the extent of HGT required to explain the patterns. But either way, HGT is hardly ‘not evolution’, and phylogenetics is hardly incapable of detecting it. The reverse. Do you only accept phylogenetics when it appears to go against vertical descent?

    Ok, so I always hear the necessary details of evolutionary theory is being worked out, that there is no resolution on the details, but evolution is absolutely true even if the details aren’t worked out. The problem is that without direct experimental evidence, maybe it’s better not to assume it is true.

    It would seem to me, “I don’t know” is a better default assumption than “it evolved for sure” until the details are worked out or direct experimental evidence is happened upon — but that’s not likely to happen.

    I have no problem saying, “I don’t know for sure, but I believe”. The problem is evolutionists should say the same, but they don’t since that would sound more like a creed than a scientific fact which they want to pretend it is rather than admit its true status as an untestable hypothesis with no credible mechanical details.

    At least Haeckel confessed the creed:

    Evolution is henceforth the magic word by which we shall solve all the riddles that surround us.

    Ernst Haeckel
    http://new.bostonreview.net/BR21.3/Orr.html#1

  35. stcordova: I have no problem saying, “I don’t know for sure, but I believe”. The problem is evolutionists should say the same, but they don’t since that would sound more like a creed than a scientific fact which they want to pretend it is rather than admit its true status as an untestable hypothesis with no credible mechanical details.

    I say that all the time about the earth as a spheroid. It’s just a belief.

  36. Allan Miller:

    Evolution sweeps up after itself, by its very nature, brushing over the tracks. You would not expect everything to survive if NS were in operation.

    So why are prokaryotes around if nature selected for Eukaryotes? Answer, selection between prokaryotes and eukaryotes had to be prevented in order to allow Eukaryotes to compete. In other words for natural selection to work, it has to not exist.

    I called you this problem a while back.

    TSZ Allan Miller says Natural Selection has to fail for evolution to work

    And also, according to what you just wrote, for natural selection to work in the case of Eukarytoes, it has to erase evidence that it worked. We call such theories No-Go science theories, which calls into question whether it should be a science theory at all!

  41. stcordova: So why are prokaryotes around if nature selected for Eukaryotes? Answer, selection between prokaryotes and eukaryotes had to be prevented in order to allow Eukaryotes to compete. In other words for natural selection to work, it has to not exist.

    They often cooperate for mutual benefit.

    Next.

  42. stcordova: So why are prokaryotes around if nature selected for Eukaryotes? Answer, selection between prokaryotes and eukaryotes had to be prevented in order to allow Eukaryotes to compete.

    How absurd. Likely, at least a lot of eukaryotes were in fact eating prokaryotes. Eukaryotes are generally much larger than are the prokaryotes (I’m talking single-celled organisms here), making the latter candidates for eukaryote food.

    What is interesting is that so many prokaryotes are obligatory anaerobes. Seems that many never evolved to use, or even tolerate, oxygen after it became common. Another constraint of unthinking evolution shows up, while clearly the Designer could have just rejiggered them to at least to tolerate oxygen.

    Makes sense with evolution. Something Sal never manages to make with design.

    Glen Davidson

  43. 1. Isolated islands of function.
    2. What good is half an eye?
    3. What are the odds of this particular list of lotto winners in this particular sequence?
    4. Why are there still monkeys?

    Anything else?

  44. stcordova:
    At least Haeckel confessed the creed:

    Evolution is henceforth the magic word by which we shall solve all the riddles that surround us.

    Ernst Haeckel

    That’s dangerously close to a quote mine. Here’s a bit more context:

    “Evolution is henceforth the magic word by which we shall solve all the riddles that surround us, or at least be set on the road to their solution. But how few have really understood this password, and to how few has its world-transforming meaning become clear!”

    Haeckel was certainly not suggesting that evolution is magical. Magic is what creationists claim as historical fact.

  45. Quote mining is a symptom of impoverished intellect.

    But even if a great thinkers says something stupid on occasion, it does not have the force of scripture.

    Quoting scientists in the same way one might quote revelations from a god is one of the symptoms of Evolution Derangement Syndrome. A brain suffering from EDS is not a prety sight.

  46. stcordova,

    Ok, so I always hear the necessary details of evolutionary theory is being worked out, that there is no resolution on the details, but evolution is absolutely true even if the details aren’t worked out. The problem is that without direct experimental evidence, maybe it’s better not to assume it is true.

    The question of HGT is pretty much worked out. Why should we be provisional on it? It happens. When it does, it can be very informative. It can, indeed, provide clear support for common descent – eg the insertion of a virogene from primates into the cat lineage. We don’t need to do an experiment, resurrecting the ancestral cats and primates.

    There is absolutely no reason to throw one’s hands in the air. Especially not on the question of what Carl Woese does or does not believe.

  47. stcordova,

    So why are prokaryotes around if nature selected for Eukaryotes? Answer, selection between prokaryotes and eukaryotes had to be prevented in order to allow Eukaryotes to compete. In other words for natural selection to work, it has to not exist.

    The selection envisaged in Rumraket’s and my sketches is between proto-eukaryote lineages with and without a particular amendment from among your ‘look-at-all-this-shit’ list. The modus operandi of eukaryotes and prokaryotes is such that they probably did not compete to anything like the same degree. You might equally wonder why whales haven’t been outcompeted by plants yet.

  48. Patrick: Haeckel was certainly not suggesting that evolution is magical. Magic is what creationists claim as historical fact.

    I don’t know about that. Haeckel was more in the German Romantic strain of thought, and tended to think in ways that at least we think of as magical. His whole ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny thing makes a “principle” out of some empiric information, which is that many things really do go through developmental stages similar to ancestral stages of development (but only the early stages).

    Of course Sal isn’t interested in the fact that Haeckel thought in ways that are rather foreign to mainstream evolutionary theory, but only in using Haeckel to claim something that he can’t actually demonstrate. He has “reasons” for rejecting evolution, but as they fail he doesn’t give up his evolution denial. For him, as for almost all creationists/IDists, the data only exist as possible objections to evolution, not as avenues of discovery.

    Glen Davidson

  49. stcordova: So why are prokaryotes around if nature selected for Eukaryotes? Answer, selection between prokaryotes and eukaryotes had to be prevented in order to allow Eukaryotes to compete. In other words for natural selection to work, it has to not exist.

    Brilliant stuff, Sal. That’s even better than “Why are there still monkeys” and “What use is half an eye”.

  50. Joe Felsenstein: I’d like to hear what this law is.

    Its the law that information can’t increase due to natural laws exclusively. A designer is required. IDers would like to believe that this is on a par with the laws of thermodynamics despite Dembski’s complete failure to produce it.
    Physical laws can’t have exceptions ( or its not a law) so any examples of such information increase have to be argued at all cost. This is done either by denying that information has in fact increased or deflecting attention from the issue at hand.. So offering the adult lactase expression as an example is met with: “where did lactase come from” etc etc

Leave a Reply