[continued from previous message]   
      
   >>> not all that had to happen during the evolution back to an aquatic   
   >>> lifestyle.  The new structures that needed to form like Baleen in the   
   >>> place of teeth had to also evolve.  It wasn't just losing things like   
   >>> teeth and hair.  The whale's tail had to bend and horizontal fluke's   
   >>> had to evolve where nothing existed before.  Behe can't demonstrate   
   >>> that these new structures did not evolve by Darwinian mechanisms   
   >>> because he notes that Darwinian mechanisms were obviously working to   
   >>> select for the broken genes.   
   >>   
   >> I tend to agree. Whether one considers whales to be designed or   
   >> evolved, they are clearly highly suited to their environment such that   
   >> progressive functional subtractions from an aquatic anscestor as a   
   >> primary source of adpaptations is surely inadequate.   
   >>   
   >>>   
   >>>>   
   >>>> The nature and measurement of information seems slippery. As you   
   >>>> mention, is it Kolmogorov complexity or Darwkin's "incomplete record   
   >>>> of the historical environment", or something else?   
   >>>   
   >>> No matter how the ID perps have tried to measure information, nothing   
   >>> has panned out for them.  At one time Dembski admitted that natural   
   >>> selection could be the designer.  None of them have been able to   
   >>> demonstrate that any of their examples of information could not have   
   >>> evolved by descent with modification.  They aren't even dealing with   
   >>> the information that they need to deal with when they lie about the   
   >>> genetic code.  The information required for life is not in the   
   >>> genetic code, but in the 3 dimensional structures created by the   
   >>> string of amino acids produced using that code, and as the ID perps   
   >>> themselves admit life has only had to explore a very small portion of   
   >>> possible protein space in order to evolve the diversity that it has.   
   >>> It is just a fact that only a very small bit of protein space has had   
   >>> to be tested in order to do everything that needs to be done.  This   
   >>> seems to be due to the fact that the vast majority of protein genes   
   >>> have evolved from existing protein genes, and that sequence has only   
   >>> had to be changed a little in order to create the new function.  Your   
   >>> adaptive immune system would not work by mutation and selection if   
   >>> this was not the case.   
   >>>   
   >>> Ron Okimoto   
   >>   
   >> "Dembski admitted that natural selection could be the designer" - do   
   >> you have reference for that?   
   >   
   > It was after the bait and switch had started to go down and like   
   > Dembski's claim that space aliens were the most scientific option for an   
   > intelligent designer Dembski was trying to note that the ID perps were   
   > not designating what the designer was (they were not claiming that it   
   > had to be a supernatural god-like being), and he was just pointing out   
   > that natural selection could result in functional designs.  My guess is   
   > that it is a stupid enough admission of reality that it likely has made   
   > it into one of the Wiki's on the subject.  It might even be in Dembski's   
   > wiki.  He was making the point to claim that ID was science because they   
   > were lying about who their designer was, and it did not have to be a   
   > god.  All the ID perps would eventually admit that their designer was   
   > the Biblical god, but they were and are still lying about what ID is to   
   > them in order to keep using it as bait to fool the rubes.  They are only   
   > fooling creationists like yourself that want to be lied to.   
      
   Hang on, this is a big claim - cites please, not more bluster.   
      
   >   
   >>   
   >> The issue though is not what fraction of the possible protein space   
   >> life has explored, but rather how explorable is it? E.g. is it sparse   
   >> plains with occasional local maxima, or is it a rugged terrain of   
   >> endless valleys and ridges? In either case, the maxima will be mostly   
   >> undiscoverable to incremental search relying on incremental   
   >> improvements each conferring survival advantage sufficient to drive   
   >> the associated mutation to fixation in the population.   
   >   
   > Your adaptive immune system would not work if the search parameters were   
   > what you want them to be.  Biological evolution by descent with   
   > modification works because the space that needs to be searched is   
   > minimal and within what is possible.  Really, new antibodies that bind   
   > specific antigens would not be routinely selected for by an immune   
   > response if the search parameters were too distant from the existing   
   > protein sequences.  If you look up the abzyme work where they use the   
   > adaptive immune system to evolve new enzymatic activity you will find   
   > that they have found that less than 10 changes in the antibody sequence   
   > can produce the new enzymatic activity that was selected for.  It wasn't   
   > just any enzymatic activity, but the one that they were selecting for.   
   >   
   > The paper that you put up trying to claim that too many new genes needed   
   > to be produced to evolve multicellular animals should have told you that   
   > very little protein space seems to have been needed to be searched.   
   > Those thousands of new genes evolved after a basic set of genes had   
   > already evolved, and they evolved over a billion year period before the   
   > Cambrian explosion.  The initial gene set had been evolving for over 2   
   > billion years to produce that Eukaryotic gene set.  It looked like   
   > nearly all the new genes that evolved within the billion year period   
   > before the Cambrian explosion had evolved from an existing gene.  You   
   > should have seen that in their tables of the origins of the new genes.   
   >   
   > It just turns out that very little protein space has had to be tested to   
   > get to where we are now.   
   >   
   >>   
   >> The way to and up countless Mount Improbables need to be largely   
   >> smooth and monotonically increasing.   
   >   
   > The mount improbables are only in your head.  What exists are just   
   > additions to what had already existed.   
   >   
   >>   
   >> I realise too that this not a settled question, and in some instances   
   >> a random polymer can be effecively to function, e.g. https://   
   >> journals.plos.org/plosone/article?   
   >> id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0000096&utm_source=chatgpt.com   
   >   
   > The likely reason that nearly all new genes have evolved from existing   
   > genes is that just a random sequence of amino acids will fold up and   
   > could have some function, but most random sequences do not efficiently   
   > produce the same structure.  It can take time to fold up, and the   
   > sequence might not fold up into the same structure every time.  De novo   
   > coding sequence that produces a new protein has to go through a   
   > selective process where the sequence needs to further evolve so that it   
   > will efficiently fold up into its functional structure.  Genes that have   
   > existed for billions of years already fold up efficiently, and it turns   
   > out that just changing the sequence a little can produce a new function,   
   > so we end up with related gene families.   
   >   
   > There is even some stability issues with existing proteins, and   
   > chaperone proteins have evolved to help them maintain the shape they   
   > need to be in in order to function.   
   >   
   > It is just how life has adapted to reality.   
   >   
   > Ron Okimoto   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>>   
   >>>>   
   >>>> ID posits a lawlike conservation of information, which I find   
   >>>> intuitively appealing, but Dembski's efforts to formally define this   
   >>>> have yet to land it seems.   
   >>>>   
   >>>>   
   >>>>   
   >>>>   
   >>>>   
   >>>   
   >>   
   >   
      
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