Okay, here’s my response. I think it will be my last, as I’m getting tired of this conversation. I have decided not to respond to some of your more foolish assertions and assertions in which I would have to repeat myself. Also, for those reading this: I have often quoted Walter quoting me, so when you see the heading “YOU:” Note that these words are Walter’s and that words in quotation marks are actually mine. (Walter’s words are not in quotes).
YOU:
—— “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.”
ME:
No. My argument is:
1. Living things by definition can metabolize and reproduce.
2. By definition they must have structures to perform these tasks.
3. Since the amount of variation which can take place is limited, if all living things today share a common ancestor then they should have inherited the structures for reproducing and metabolizing.
YOU:
—— “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.]
ME:
I suppose that is correct. However, for the genetic codes present in all living things to have changed beyond recognition would surely require lots of time. Do we know how much time it would take for such change to accumulate? Has that much time passed? No one knows, yet I predict that if someone did the calculations they would find that there has not been enough time for anything more than slight variations to evolve. Note here that I am making a falsifiable, scientific prediction.
However, I have not done these calculations.
UPDATE: I'd like to once again call attention to the study cited previously showing that "silent mutations" affect protein production:
I feel this has relevance to this debate, and here's why: In organisms with large genomes, completely deleting a specific codon and replacing it with another would affect protein production, and such a drastic change, across the whole genome (many proteins) would almost certainly be lethal (indeed, the article notes how these synonymous codons affect protein production, and how too much of a protein results in cell toxicity). This finding reinforces the idea that the genetic code is limited in how much it can change, and, therefore, a universal (or near universal) genetic code remains evidence of common descent.
YOU:
—— “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.
ME:
No, it does not, as discussed above.
YOU:
—— “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.
ME:
No. You are confusing “earlier lifeforms” with replicating systems thought to have preceeded life. The earliest lifeform, as discussed above, necessarily had certain structures to metabolize and reproduce (that is the definition of life). However, it is possible that it evolved from something simpler, for instance, and RNA molecule.
Now, if this RNA molecule split into many different “lineages” each of which independently evolved into living organisms, that would qualify as multiple origins of life. And multiple origins of life would indeed predict more than one genetic code. However, even multiple origins of life would not change the fact that certain groups of plants and animals have to be related and could not be the result of separate origins: For example, all vertebrates would have to share a common ancestor and would therefore have to share a similar code (or at least, vertebrates which reproduced less quickly would be expected to show less variation in their code than other organisms, based on the type of reasoning I have established previously).
YOU:
—— “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.
ME:
I have still have no idea what you mean by “transposition”. I know what transposable genetic elements are, yet I have no idea how they would have any bearing on the issue at hand. As for atavisms I have already addressed them.
YOU:
—— “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…
ME:
No. What I meant was that evolutionary reasoning (under the paradigm of common descent) would lead one to the conclusion of convergent evolution.
The nearest ancestors of whales (mammals) did not have tails adapted for swimming, and so they had to be re-evolved in that lineage. Convergent evolution predicts different designs will often emerge, as previously stated. It is therefore no surprise that the whale’s tail differs from the fish’s. On the other hand, God could have designed the whale and fish tail the same. In fact, since God wants to make everything look as if it is the product of one designer, why not simply do it like that?
