—— “Life is defined as being able to reproduce, evolve, and have metabolism. Therefore it must have had some of the biological universals.”
You gave a non sequitur, that is, your conclusion does not follow logically from your starting premise. Reproduction and metabolism are broad abstract processes, not specific implementations — whereas life’s biologic universals (as listed by Dobzhansky and other evolutionists) are specific physical implementations. Your argument is like saying, “Houses are defined as stable buildings, therefore all houses must have been held together with staples.”
—— “The scenario I presented requires that a codon be rendered very rare (or nonexistent) in an organism’s genome and then be reassigned to code for another amino acid. A codon being rendered rare or nonexistent in the genome is not something that would happen in many lineages, nor would such a thing happen very often. So the code cannot change without limit.”
You mistakenly think ‘not very often’ means ‘limited change’. Your argument is about frequency or probability, and your argument identifies a process whereby, over time, the genetic code can drift endlessly and accumulate change without limit — all it needs is time. [Note: Neutral drift would occur because (as implicit in your presentation) one genetic code is as good as any other, and therefore stabilizing selection would not prevent the drift.]
—— “The fact that all life on earth has the same genetic code is explained by postulating a common ancestor which possessed that code.” (italics added)
You continue to emphasize the ability of evolutionary theory to “explain,” which is not the issue since evolutionary theory can “explain” virtually anything and its opposite. The issue is that evolutionary theory predicts neither a unified biochemistry nor a unified genetic code: on the contrary, if evolutionary theory predicts anything clearly on the matter it predicts the opposite of what we observe.
I repeat, in order to salvage evolutionary theory from falsification, origin-of-life researchers now claim countless other biochemistries and genetic codes must have existed on this planet.
—— “Fine. I don’t owe you any explanation as to why any other lifeforms went extinct, nor is that relevant to the subject.”
You’re trying to dodge the issue. Here it is again: Origin-of-life specialists now acknowledge that known lifeforms are far too complex to have originated by known processes aided by chance and the available time. That would falsify the evolutionists’ worldview, so to salvage it they assume the first Earthly lifeforms were vastly simpler, and contained essentially none of the known biologic universals. The absence of those lifeforms is yet another falsification of the evolutionists’ views. In another attempt to salvage the evolutionists’ views from falsification, you were “explaining” why those other lifeforms are absent, and I responded that your explanation is untestable and therefore unscientific. In summary, the evolutionists’ position is either false, or unfalsifiable, and either way it is unscientific.
You are trying to dodge this by walking away from it, saying you “don’t owe” anything. On the contrary, evolutionists owe on their promise of a scientific explanation, and they don’t have it.
I wrote:
If each of the animal phyla had a different genetic code, then evolutionary theory could effortlessly accommodate that observation. “These genetic changes,” evolutionists would say, “happened way back before the Cambrian Explosion, lost in the mists of time” and blah, blah, blah, you can figure the rest. Evolutionists could explain it as many separate origins of life, for example. Evolutionary theory never predicted a unified genetic code.
—— “you ignore my fourth reference, which quotes an article published in 1963 predicting the universality of the genetic code.”
Astrologers make many “predictions,” and some of those predictions actually come to pass, which is not surprising. The issue is whether the prediction is actually spoken by a coherent theory, and in the case at hand it is not. Evolutionary theory does not predict a universality of the genetic code. If anything, it predicts the opposite, because evolutionary specialists now claim countless other genetic codes must have existed on this planet.
By 1963, scientists had already sampled the genetic codes of numerous diverse organisms; enough to conjecture that further sampling would detect ‘more of the same.’ You don’t even need evolutionary theory to make that prediction: you just predict ‘more of the same’. (This prediction method typically works for many things, such as for predicting tomorrow’s weather; you just predict ‘more of the same’.) Again, evolutionary theory never predicted a universality of the genetic code, instead evolutionists adapted their stories to that observation.
—— “the instance with the tail of the fish is different: For one thing, you would think that the genes controlling its development would not have simply been shutoff, like the bird’s teeth, but transformed into something else.”
Evolutionists have countless stories in their vast structureless smorgasbord of “explanations”, and you are overly impressed by your ability to pick one that meets your fancy. Modern evolutionists now claim evolution occurs mostly by gene duplication, where one set of genes is preserved while a duplicate set is transformed — but your story contradicts that. Don’t worry, you still have lots of other smorgasbord to choose from, so you’ll just find another “explanation” that satisfies you.
The evolutionists’ expansive abilities — to “explain” virtually everything and its opposite — blinds them to the fact that life is very well-designed (perhaps even optimally designed) to resist their explanations while still looking like the product of one designer.
—— “You have not demonstrated your claim that convergent evolution is implausible.”
You mis-read my claim. First, I claimed your “convergence” stories are experimentally undemonstrated and untestable — and therefore unscientific. [Note: Untestability and unfalsifiability is my most persistent objection to macro-evolutionary theory. If you missed that, then you haven't been paying attention.]
Second, I said so-called “convergences” cannot be explained by common descent, nor by Transposition, nor by Atavism (those are three different versions of inheritance), so evolutionists are left with their least plausible (emphasis added there) explanation: The independent origin of similar complex traits. In short, so-called “convergences” are well-designed to resist macro-evolutionary explanations, and to serve the goals of the biotic message.
—— “If the designer wanted to design things as similarly as possible, as you suggest, why didn’t he design the above examples the same way?”
It is not the goal “to design things as similarly as possible”. You are misrepresenting Message Theory. (see below)
—— “If living things had a designer who intended to leave all his creations with his imprint, why would he design the two tails differently?”
You are again mis-stating Message Theory. Message Theory claims all life was designed: (1) to look like the product of one designer (and unlike multiple designers acting independently); and simultaneously (2) to resist all macro-evolutionary explanations.
Point #1 is successfully accomplished, because no one — not even you — claims life is compatible with multiple designers acting independently. So the designer had the latitude (indeed the intent, according to Message Theory) to also design life toward point #2, which is where the answer to your question resides: The whale-tail and fish-tail are designed sufficiently differently that they cannot be “explained” by Transposition, nor by Atavism, nor can the similarity between the two tails be explained by common descent. Evolutionists are left with their least plausible “explanation”, the independent origin of complex traits that “converged” toward a similar design solution.
The pattern known as “convergences” are designed to demand special explanation, yet they are sufficiently different that they cannot be explained by Transposition, nor by Atavism, and they are systematically placed so their relationship cannot be explained by common descent. Concerning any two “convergent” traits, evolutionists are prevented from claiming the complex design was merely “inherited” from one to the other (via any of these three processes). As just described, this pattern requires precisely balanced design and is fundamentally anti-evolutionary in thrust: yet this pattern is abundant in life, as predicted by Message Theory.
—— “We know that there are often many solutions to the same problem, so when some adaptation has arisen in independent evolutionary lineages, we will often expect to see that they have “hit on” different solutions.”
Your story is commonplace among evolutionists. It silently assumes-away Transposition and Atavism, when these cannot be assumed away, since they are part of modern evolutionary theory. As I said before, evolutionists have countless contradictory stories to tell; they just choose the ones that match the pattern they want to explain (and then silently ignore the rest). If the whale-tail and fish-tail had been identical, then evolutionists would “explain” it as Transposition or Atavism — as mere inheritance.
The substantial absence of Atavism and Transposition patterns from the fossil-bearing organisms is a prediction of Message Theory.
—— “No, I addressed the point head on, by allowing the definition of common descent to be bent…”
You’re trying to change the issue there. The issue (quoted in my post, but excised in your latest) was explicitly your complaints about the definition of “evolution” (not the definition of common descent).
—— “It is explained by the theory of common descent, although the explanation … is not that their design stems from a common ancestor.”
You are contradicting yourself. Write your essay more carefully next time…
