What exactly is ID?

As you probably already know, this is why sexual recombination is such an important mechanism and the "cure" for Muller's Ratchet. When recombination puts several deleterious mutaitons in the same haploid genome this genome is strongly selected for resulting in selective sweeps of deleterious mutations.Using SO's CD analogy, imagine making two copies of the CD and randomly swapping bits between the copies. You then check both copies for errors and elimate the one with the most errors, or better yet eliminate the copies that fall below a specific QC level.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

Dr Adequate's posting privileges for this forum have been removed.Smooth Operator, I appreciate the effort you're making as reflected in your quote from Sanford's book, but I also need you to stop responding to sentences and instead respond to arguments. If I see something like this excerpt from Message 650 again you're out:

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

On the 649th post of this thread you refer to a link that may or may not be on this thread. Message 115. The link does not appear to be what you claim it to be however, why exactly do you think this paper has any impact at all on evolution?Sadly, even if you had actually shown this to be true, it doesn't even address what I posted. Nor does it even resemble a passing similarity to statement you made, and I quoted, that shows this. Either you didn't bother to read my post that invited you to prove to the world that evolution is wrong via basic math or you cannot provide said evidence.So how about it? Do you have any data to support your claim that we can count the loss of, I believe the claim was, base pairs? I have never claimed to know much about genetics but I can subtract with some success.

Smooth, I just want to make it clear that you're putting all your eggs in one basket and that basket is "Dembski's argument".Here's Dembski talking about Creationism in regard to a comment by a Christian critic of his latest book: While this quote doesn't necessarily rule out his argument, the fact that he's the only one making it and it's the only one you are referencing does make the "Adam and Eve were literally historical people" part sort of jump off the page.You continue to protest when we reference "God" or the "Jew Wizard" as the designer, but you are only referencing someone who in turn is making that exact claim.

Lets be explicit here. The paper is specifically only about certain mammalian mitochondrial genomes a very small and discrete genetic subset distinct from the chromosomal genome. It further does not show that these 110 species are doomed to genetic meltdown and extinction, it merely suggests that as mammals grow larger their effective population size tends to reduce and they are therefore more prone to the accumulation of slightly deleterious mutations, as we would expect given the effects of small effective populations on drift.The paper says some interesting things about the effects of increasing body size on population genetics and possible consequences in terms of trends in extinction. It certainly doesn't provide any evidence that all species are on a continual downward spiral of genetic entropy which will inevitably end in genetic meltdown.TTFN,WK

Sorry Percy, I know you don't like replies to moderator messages but I just had to mention the alternative (great I think) ending of the prison joke you told in message 596.After the warden explains to the new convict that the inmates have assigned numbers to the jokes, our new convict shouts out "One million forty eight thousand, five hundred and seventy six."Immediately the place is in an uproar. "What's so funny?" our convict exclaims."We haven't heard that one before!"Now I'll slink back to reading this absorbing thread....I might even join in......

OK....having read all this thread (OK a lot of it skim read) I've decided to throw my hat into the ring....The OP asked "What is really ID", and referenced age of Earth, when and how did designer create life, and observations for the answer.I think all here on both sides would agree that ID is presented as the (supposedly) scientific alternative to the ToE in describing life on Earth. The intention of Philip Johnson et al was to introduce ID into the science classroom as a competing theory against the ToE.Therefore, to be classed as science it MUST take the scientific approach and no other. If it abandons the scientific approach it can be taught in say religious studies classes - perhaps as a theological mechanism to explain creation......but it cannot be taught in a science class unless it follows scientific methodology.So,Let's remind ourselves what scientific methodology entails:1) Observation of real-life data/events
2) Formulation of a theory that explains the observations.
3) Generations of predication that the theory would support
4) Generation of predications that cannot happen
5) Test the predications against the model, then reject, or tentatively accept dependent upon the real life data
6) Look for other forms of real-life data that support or falsify the model and refine accordingly.OK then:For ID to be accepted in science, these science threads, and (most important of all!) in school classrooms, the six categories above need to be adhered to.1) Exactly what real life events do ID'ers want to use for their model?
2) What is the working model of ID? Is it only "God did it" or something more qualitative?
3) What predications can ID make in support of its central theory?
4) How can ID be falsified - what does it predict cannot happen?
5) How can the predictions be tested against the theory?
6) What supporting evidence from elsewhere can be used to refine the theory?The ToE passes all these categories and has done so repeatedly for 150 years. It is up to the ID'ers to explicitly say now how each of these scientific investigative steps has been met and passed (with citations please).

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Except that sequence wasn't evolved to have specificity to streptomycin. If I shape my hand to fit into a particular hand hold when climbing a rock have I suddenly increased the rock's 'information' because I have specified my hand to fit it? You seem to be saying that as soon as the full streptomycin biosynthesis pathway had evolved the specified information content of the ribosomal genes jumped despite there being no change in its sequence, we might consider that information to have been 'free' since it only served the function of the antibiotic rather than the ribosome. I don't see why this is more logical than me suggesting that it can lose that binding specificity without losing information content. All you seem to be doing is highlighting why your conflation of the specificity in CSI and binding specificity is meaningless when you don't actuslly look at the functional biological context.

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It doesn't matter if it lost affinity specifically to streptomycin. It probably can bind to something else too. The original structure is the original information content. Now, if it loses the affinity, to anything, it got degraded, and it lost information.

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Once again you are making up a system where things can't help but 'degenerate' because you are defining any change from the initial state as degeneration. Would you consider any mutation which increased binding affinity to anything to therefore represent an increase in information/CSI? Even if the subsequent binding served no functional purpose for the mutated protein?

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You can't gain CSI by one mutation. You would have to gain at least 400 bits. Yet information can be lost by one mutation.

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You are just showing us why these creationist/ID measures of information divorced from actual considerations of function are totally useless. They are just ad hoc measures based on arbitrarily selected starting points and in many cases arbitrary criteria for what constitutes a gain or loss of information.

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What exactly is arbitrarily in my starting point. The ribosome is not arbitrary in any way.

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Remember the Durston et. al FSC measure we discussed, where they base their estimates essentially on conservation, totally regardless of actual functionality beyond very crude classification. Their method means that any novel mutation which allows the maintenance or even improvement of function for a protein nevertheless would represent a loss of FSC. There is no possible route in their approach which allows a novel mutation to produce an increase in functional information.

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I see no reason why a bunch of mutations couldn't build a fully functional ATP synthase. I mean, it won't happen. But if it did, it would be an increase in FSC for sure.

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My point is that we do not know whether the mutated enzyme had no function or if it did. That is what I said. Perhaps you should try harder to remember just what you are arguing against ?

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We know it lost one. It's an observable, empirical, fact! And we are going to stick with that. Unless you think we should invent imaginary functions just for the sake of the argument?

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In other words, your real "specification" is the E Coli flagellum plus near variants of it. And as I have pointed out, this is a fabrication. (The probability calculation is wrong, too, but that isn't important now).

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WHY!? Why the hell is it a fabrication? If it can be described without looking at the event E, than it's not a fabrication. And yes, it can be described in such a way, therefore, it's a specification.

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Since actually doing the calculation would be a complete waste of time, why exactly do I need to explain how to do it ? After all, I don't care whether you do it or not.

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If you do not want to show me what calculation I should do, than don't bother me with it anymore.

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If D is "bidirectional rotary motor-driven propeller" then it makes no mention of 50 proteins. That is just an unspecified detail read off the event (i.e. fabrication). The "complexity"(or rather the information content) is calculated from the probability (it's -logmax(P(D|H)) over all possible explanations H). That's Dembski's method.

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Which comes out at 1:10^2954, as I have mentioned for a trillion times already. With simply applying this here equation.χ = —log2[120^10 ϕ s(T)P(T|H)]

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Obviously if the information was only input in the creation of the first E Coli (or it's ancestor) it cannot also be input in the ordinary operation of the growth mechanisms.

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The first growth mechanism was designed together with the first bacteria.

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Natural sources do not produce Complex Specified Information in Dembski's sense (or rather they almost certainly do not, even if Dembski were entirely right). However we cannot work out if something is Complex Specified Information by Dembski's method without looking into its origin. By Dembski's definition, natural sources can and do generate information, even complex information and specified information (because his measure of information is simply an measure of improbability).

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So, without applying Dembskis method to this information, we cannot work out whether it is CSI or not. And if it is not CSI - if the specified part of the information (D*) is not complex - then, according to Dembski, it could have a natural source.

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Basicly what you're saying is that we can't know if something is CSI if we do not know how it arises. Why?

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Even if it is the case that the frequencies are constant (and I'm far from certain of that), it isn't the same sort of selection as applies to sickle-cell.

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Than what kind of selection is operating on sickle cell? Is it some magical one? Obviously it's not. It's the same as the one that is operating on any other gene frequency. Why would this one be special?

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Which means that all you are really doing is pointing out the weakness of drift in large populations. Remember, it was you who introduced sickle-cell as an example of a beneficial mutation (and even claimed that it was spreading), so comparing it to neutral mutations really misses even your own point.

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Well it did spread didn't it? It is irelevant if it is considered a neutral, a deleterious or a beneficial mutation. And it is also irelevant which mechanism has spread it. A certain population in Africa has this mutation fixed in.

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This is the same noise that - according to you - is having absolutely no effect on the frequency of hair or eye colour. Which means that it isn't going to have much effect against selection either.

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It affects everything. Including genes for eyes, and red blood cells.

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For that to be true, the effect of drift would have to be so strong as to completely overwhelm selection. To be entirely true it would mean that there were no advantageous or deleterious mutations at all. All mutations would be strictly neutral. A completely sterile individual would - on average - have the same number of offspring as the best and most fertile member of the population. Obviously that cannot be the case.

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No it wouldn't. Just is some cases. I'm not saying that positive selection is non-existent. It's here. But it's not as effective as you think it is.And you completely miss the point. It doesn't matter if a certain individual gets a super beneficial mutation, and another gets a super deleterious, but non-lethal mutation. Because of teh noise, the one with the super deleterious mutation can on average get selected by teh natural selection, and the one with the super beneficial one, not get selected.You are totally misunderstanding my point. I'm not saying that the drift is cause by a large amount of neutral mutations. But by other traits that natural selection selects also. The individual will get selected according to:1.) Environmental variation.
2.) Interaction of the environment with the genotype.
3.) Epigenetics
4.) Epistasis.
5.) Dominance.
6.) Homeostasis and cyclic selection.
7.) Genetics.So all this traits get evaluated before an individual gets selected for. It's obvious that just because a particual individual has a beneficial mutation, that doesn't mean that such an individual will on average get selected for by natural selection. Becasue that is only one trait, there are 6 more others to evaluate before it gets selected.

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The number of times you say it, doesn't matter. Genetic entropy IS a cumulative loss of fitness, leading to mutational meltdown and extinction.

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But every single mutation that increases genetic entropy does not have to automatically cause loss of reproductive fitness.

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Aside from the fact that that is going well beyond what the experiment can reliably tell us, it isn't even relevant to the real point. You claimed that it was evidence that genetic entropy increases. And it isn't. The monster beat genetic entropy.

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How could he have beat the genetic entropy if he WAS CONSTANTLY DECREASING IN SIZE!!!!!!?????!?!!?!?!?!

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However, the evidence indicates two things. First, compensatory mutations arise which ameliorate the effects of slightly deleterious mutations:

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Sometimkes they do. I already addressed that. It's possible for that to happen. But it does not happen ALWAYS, or even on average. And if it doesn't. Than the only thing that is happening is that genetic entropy is slowing down, but not stopping. And if it is nto stopping, that just means that it will take more time for the genetic meltdown to happen.

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So the first mechanism to overcome genetic entropy are mutations which increase fitness. That is, beneficial mutations.

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Which on average destroy genetic information, still causing genetic entropy.

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The second mechanism is negative selection. That is, those with the highest deleterious mutation rate are selected against. This ongoing process stops Muller's ratchet.

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No because of the noise. Just becasue somebody has the highest amount of deleterious mutations, that does not mean such an individual will be selected against on average. Even if they do, others are still mutated, and they spread their mutations through the population, constantly increasing entropy. Yes, even if the worst ones always get selected out. And as your source says, it limits the effect. It does not stop it.

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In order for this to be an accurate analogy you need a source of selection.

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Whichever CD has te most un-damaged information gets copied again.

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Would a gain in specificity be a gain in specified information?

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Yes, but not in complex specified information, unless it was 400 nucleotide change.

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Would a gain in function be an increase of specified information?

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Both in specified and in complex specified information, yes.

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That may look familiar since you copied it onto your post as well.

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You CAN NOT use Creationism as an example of something which is NOT CREATIONISM to test against CREATIONISM.

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I was EXTREMELY specific in my request. Give us something OTHER THAN CREATIONISM which demonstrates design without knowing mechanism so we can VALIDATE your claim about Creationism.

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And the _ONLY_ example you can come up with is...

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Creationism. Again.

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Is Creationism the only thing that the magical wizard designed? Is it the only thing that CSI (or any other method) can determine was designed?

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If so, CSI is just another Zimzom Detector.

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I gave you the example that I find good enough. If you don't think it's good enough, than explain why. That would be like me saying you can't give me evidence for evolution if it comes from an evolutionist source and is evidence for evolution. Do you have evidence for evolution which is not evidence for evolution? You do understand that you are asking me for something that is impossible?

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That it's wrong. It's as though you said: "The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that there's a unicorn in my backyard playing the trombone".

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Well, no it doesn't.

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Pace Percy, I don't think that I have to teach you a beginner's course in thermodynamics to explain to you why that is not what the Second Law of Thermodynamics says.

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I'm still waiting for a detailed explanation, and I'm not going to leave it like that. I gave you all the explanations, quotes, and what not you saked for.

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If we use Sanford's definition, then genetic entropy does not occur except in very small populations.

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Sanford says that ALL life is experiencing genetic entropy. I say so too. Now, explain in detail, how exactly is my definition different to his.

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No it doesn't.

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This is why you can't quote any part of that article that supports your fantasies.

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LOL? I quoted the part where it said just that. Did you not see it? Here is the quote again.

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In many vertebrates Ne approximately 10(4), while G approximately 10(9), so that the dangerous range includes more than four orders of magnitude. If substitutions at 10% of all nucleotide sites have selection coefficients within this range with the mean 10(-6), an average individual carries approximately 100 lethal equivalents. Some data suggest that a substantial fraction of nucleotides typical to a species may, indeed, be suboptimal. When selection acts on different mutations independently, this implies too high a mutation load. This paradox cannot be resolved by invoking beneficial mutations or environmental fluctuations.

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Read the last statement in the quote. It says:"This paradox cannot be resolved by invoking beneficial mutations or environmental fluctuations."

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Yes, according to you this might happen if we wait ten billion years.

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But even if this daydream was true, it would not contradict reality.

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And what is reality? Show me this reality you are talking about. You are saying evolution can work miracles. Well than, show me where has evolution done anything.

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If your definition of increase of genetic entropy includes every event that biologists claim has taken place, then you are not arguing against biology.

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And I'm not arguing against biology. When did I say I am? I'm arguing against evolution, particualry darwinian one.

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Where did Kimura write that "darwinism only, can not account for all diversity of life on Earth"?

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Actually, that's an unfair question, since the moderators have decided that your repeated and ridiculous untruths about Kimura are off-topic. I suggest that if you want to tell blatant, absurd, and libelous falsehoods about Kimura, you should start a new thread.

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I gave you a quote where he said that darwinism is like any dogma that is drilled into people at young age, and is championed by all the elite, so an average personw ill come to think it's true.And that quote was from his book "The Neutral Theory of Evolution", which is opposed to darwinism. Because darwinism claims that positive selection brought about all the diversity of life on Earth. As opposed to neutral theory, which claims that genetic drift caused the majority of diversity, and the positive selection had only a minor role.Read the website I quoted from. It's an anti-darwinian, pro-neutralist website.

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Your links showed strong experimental evidence that genetic meltdown does not occur except in populations which have been artificially reduced in size.

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So if a population of that size existed in nature would it undergo a genetic meltdown? Yes it would. Therefore, genetic entropy exists, it leads to a genetic meltdown, and a small population could have never evolved into anything else. Becasue it was small from the start.

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On the 649th post of this thread you refer to a link that may or may not be on this thread. Message 115. The link does not appear to be what you claim it to be however, why exactly do you think this paper has any impact at all on evolution?

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Please read carefully.

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Furthermore, because in the course of mammalian evolution body size tends to increase and, consequently, Ne tends to decline, evolution of mammals toward large body size may involve accumulation of slightly deleterious mutations in mitochondrial protein-coding genes, which may contribute to decline or extinction of large mammals.

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Just a moment...Notice what the article claims. It says that during the course of mammalian evolution, teh body size had increased. Therefore, the accumulation of slightly deleterious mutations increased also. And than they finish it off by saying that this could contribute to the extinction of large mammals.

Your task was to come up with an example of design without mechanism APART from the one you are claiming so that we can use it to check your claim AGAINST.Do you not understand why presenting the EXACT same thing as something to check itself against fails? Really?If you don't have ANY examples of ANYTHING which was designed without mechanism APART from Creationism than your argument is over. You have nothing. No, that's quite possible. There are a myriad of examples of non-biological evolution which we can demonstrate evolution against.The evolution of transportation is one such example - from chariot to wagon to motorized transportation. Off branches would include subcatagories such as dogsleds to snowmobiles, the evolution of various safety features, the appearance and disappearance of fins, etc.This shows CHANGE over TIME while NOT demonstrating mutation. It allows us to verify the change over time aspect of evolution.If you want to talk about selection based on non-deliberate variables (ie NOT designed changes) you can look at non-biological software/firmware studies on mini-robots where switches are randomly assigned on/off positions and the best combinations are "bred" together. This has resulted in examples of simple programs which accomplish a goal with less code than those designed by people.YOU are the one claiming that you don't need to be able to present a mechanism to prove design.I have REPEATEDLY shown you EXAMPLE after EXAMPLE of things which would be mistaken for design if you didn't know the mechanism.I have ONLY asked you for ONE EXAMPLE apart from your claim which demonstrates mechanismless design.Do you or do you not have such an example? Is there ANYTHING in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE _ASSIDE FROM_ your claim which is an example of design for which there is no mechanism to describe how it was done?

The first and foremost thing which contributes to the extinction of all animals is low population size.Since large mammals tend to have lower population numbers over all, it's easier to transition them from "low" population to "no" population (which is the definition of extinction).