774 replies to this topic

[shadowhawk]

Again, you are the one making the claim, show me any “scientific evidence,” that random mutations drive evolution. Second and again, You are making the claim. Where is the scientific evidence?

http://www.newscient...in-the-lab.html

Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab

A major evolutionary innovation has unfurled right in front of researchers' eyes. It's the first time evolution has been caught in the act of making such a rare and complex new trait.
And because the species in question is a bacterium, scientists have been able to replay history to show how this evolutionary novelty grew from the accumulation of unpredictable, chance events.
Twenty years ago, evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski of Michigan State University in East Lansing, US, took a single Escherichia coli bacterium and used its descendants to found 12 laboratory populations.
The 12 have been growing ever since, gradually accumulating mutations and evolving for more than 44,000 generations, while Lenski watches what happens.
Profound change

Mostly, the patterns Lenski saw were similar in each separate population. All 12 evolved larger cells, for example, as well as faster growth rates on the glucose they were fed, and lower peak population densities.
But sometime around the 31,500th generation, something dramatic happened in just one of the populations - the bacteria suddenly acquired the ability to metabolise citrate, a second nutrient in their culture medium that E. coli normally cannot use.
Indeed, the inability to use citrate is one of the traits by which bacteriologists distinguish E. coli from other species. The citrate-using mutants increased in population size and diversity.
"It's the most profound change we have seen during the experiment. This was clearly something quite different for them, and it's outside what was normally considered the bounds of E. coli as a species, which makes it especially interesting," says Lenski.
Rare mutation?

By this time, Lenski calculated, enough bacterial cells had lived and died that all simple mutations must already have occurred several times over.
That meant the "citrate-plus" trait must have been something special - either it was a single mutation of an unusually improbable sort, a rare chromosome inversion, say, or else gaining the ability to use citrate required the accumulation of several mutations in sequence.
To find out which, Lenski turned to his freezer, where he had saved samples of each population every 500 generations. These allowed him to replay history from any starting point he chose, by reviving the bacteria and letting evolution "replay" again.
Would the same population evolve Cit+ again, he wondered, or would any of the 12 be equally likely to hit the jackpot?
Evidence of evolution

The replays showed that even when he looked at trillions of cells, only the original population re-evolved Cit+ - and only when he started the replay from generation 20,000 or greater. Something, he concluded, must have happened around generation 20,000 that laid the groundwork for Cit+ to later evolve.
Lenski and his colleagues are now working to identify just what that earlier change was, and how it made the Cit+ mutation possible more than 10,000 generations later.
In the meantime, the experiment stands as proof that evolution does not always lead to the best possible outcome. Instead, a chance event can sometimes open evolutionary doors for one population that remain forever closed to other populations with different histories.
Lenski's experiment is also yet another poke in the eye for anti-evolutionists, notes Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago. "The thing I like most is it says you can get these complex traits evolving by a combination of unlikely events," he says. "That's just what creationists say can't happen."

Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0803151105)

Interesting: Thanks. My issue was “And it's also not because the "random mutation" model works. It actually doesn't. I challenge anyone to show me a link, book or source which says, "Here is the actual experiment that proves random mutations drive evolution." Post # 471 http://www.longecity...post__p__492252

Is this what you are saying you have done?

The experiment does not prove evolution through random mutation. It says, “In the meantime, the experiment stands as proof that evolution does not always lead to the best possible outcome” Evolution here is downward as random mutations are. (noise) Please explain how this applies and shows how God is not possible because of it as some recent posters claim. . My argument was in Post #470 I fail to understand how this post defeats it? http://www.longecity...post__p__492250

The arguments I have made go like this:

1. The pattern in DNA is a code (by definition)

2. All codes we know the origin of are designed (by observation)

Therefore we can explore five possible conclusions:

a) Humans designed DNA
b) Aliens designed DNA
c) DNA occurred randomly and spontaneously
d) There must be some undiscovered law of physics that creates
information
e) DNA was Designed by a Superintelligence, i.e. God.

(a) requires time travel or infinite generations of humans. (b)
could well be true but only pushes the question back in time.
© may be a remote possibility, but it's not a scientific
explanation in that it doesn't refer to a systematic, repeatable
process. It's nothing more than an appeal to luck. (d) could
be true but no one can form a testable hypothesis until someone
observes a naturally occurring code. So the only systematic
explanation that remains is (e) a theological one.

Therefore:

3. To the extent that scientific reasoning can prove anything, DNA is proof of a designer.

Contrary to this Atheists believe life was a random accident; that the big bang happened for no particular reason at all; that there's an infinite number of other universes somewhere. They don’t have any burden of proof.

I don’t necessarily believe everything above. There are other compelling theories but you can believe in evolution and be a theist.

Edited by shadowhawk, 23 December 2011 - 11:23 PM.

[shadowhawk]

That debunks God, then

Explain

[Link]

I think when the article says that:

In the meantime, the experiment stands as proof that Instead, evolution does not always lead to the best possible outcome. Instead, a chance event can sometimes open evolutionary doors for one population that remain forever closed to other populations with different histories.

you may be misinterpreting it. I believe what he author means by:

evolution does not always lead to the best possible outcome

is that despite there being 12 E. Coli populations under the same conditions, for the same length of time, only one population developed the ability to metabolise citrate.

If evolution was a systematic process you should expect that several identical populations, isolated and then placed in an identical environment, would evolve in the same way. This experiment shows that is not the case.

Therefore the only way that the one E. Coli population could have developed an ability to metabolise citrate is through a random mutation. Infact the researchers were able to narrow down within a few hundred generations when this mutation must have occured because frozen specimens taken from before the 20,000th generation of that E. Coli population and then allowed to continue growing did not go on to develop the ability to metabolise citrate, however those taken from after generation 20,000 did.

There is simply no other way to explain how this population could have developed the ability to metabolise citrate when none of the other populations did than by a randiom mutation, as variables of time and environment are kept consistent through all populations.

[shadowhawk]

I think when the article says that:

In the meantime, the experiment stands as proof that Instead, evolution does not always lead to the best possible outcome. Instead, a chance event can sometimes open evolutionary doors for one population that remain forever closed to other populations with different histories.

you may be misinterpreting it. I believe what he author means by:

evolution does not always lead to the best possible outcome

is that despite there being 12 E. Coli populations under the same conditions, for the same length of time, only one population developed the ability to metabolise citrate.

If evolution was a systematic process you should expect that several identical populations, isolated and then placed in an identical environment, would evolve in the same way. This experiment shows that is not the case.

Therefore the only way that the one E. Coli population could have developed an ability to metabolise citrate is through a random mutation. Infact the researchers were able to narrow down within a few hundred generations when this mutation must have occured because frozen specimens taken from before the 20,000th generation of that E. Coli population and then allowed to continue growing did not go on to develop the ability to metabolise citrate, however those taken from after generation 20,000 did.

There is simply no other way to explain how this population could have developed the ability to metabolise citrate when none of the other populations did than by a randiom mutation, as variables of time and environment are kept consistent through all populations.

We know that isolated groups of the same species can develop separately. Within each species is a great genetic potential which are not always manifest. DNA can reprogram itself to meet environmental changes. It wouldn’t do this in a frozen state. In a frozen arrested state one isolated group didn’t develop the ability to metabolize citrate. Why would we be surprised and attribute it to randomness?. Were all other environmental conditions really the same? Hmm interesting but not surprising.

Edited by shadowhawk, 24 December 2011 - 01:53 AM.

[Link]

We know that isolated groups of the same species can develop separately. Within each species is a great genetic potential which are not always manifest. DNA can reprogram itself to meet environmental changes. It wouldn’t do this in a frozen state. In a frozen arrested state one isolated group didn’t develop the ability to metabolize citrate. Why would we be surprised and attribute it to randomness?. Were all other environmental conditions really the same? Hmm interesting but not surprising.

You clearly either did not read the article thoroughly or did not understand it.


The researchers created 12 populations of E.Coli, all more or less identical at generation 1.

The 12 populations were isolated from each other and placed in identical environmental conditions.

The 12 populations were allowed to reproduce and evolve over time, however the researchers took a sample of each individual population every 500 generations as a sort of "time capsule" of that population's development at that period in time and froze it.

This allowed the researchers to come back and restart an individual population's evolution from that moment in time.

When the researchers had found that one population had the ability to metabolise citrate, they went back and restarted these "time capsules" of previous generations of that population.

The researchers found that "time capsules" restarted from before generation 20,000 did not go on to develop the ability to metabolise citrate.

Those "time capsules" that were started from generation 20,000 or greater did go on to metabolise citrate.

THEREFORE SOMETHING MUST HAVE OCCURRED IN THIS POPULATION AROUND GENERATION 20,000 WHICH LAID THE GROUND WORK FOR THAT POPULATION TO DEVELOP THE ABILITY TO METABOLISE CITRATE. I.E. A RANDOM MUTATION.

WE KNOW THAT THE MUTATION MUST HAVE BEEN RANDOM BECAUSE IT DID NOT OCCUR IN ANY OF THE OTHER 12 POPULATIONS OF E. COLI BACTERIA.

PLEASE GO BACK AND RE-READ THE ARTICLE THOROUGHLY.

[nupi]

Clearly, god came down from the sky ONCE and put his finger in the petri dish around generation 20K

[shadowhawk]

We know that isolated groups of the same species can develop separately. Within each species is a great genetic potential which are not always manifest. DNA can reprogram itself to meet environmental changes. It wouldn’t do this in a frozen state. In a frozen arrested state one isolated group didn’t develop the ability to metabolize citrate. Why would we be surprised and attribute it to randomness?. Were all other environmental conditions really the same? Hmm interesting but not surprising.

You clearly either did not read the article thoroughly or did not understand it.


The researchers created 12 populations of E.Coli, all more or less identical at generation 1.

The 12 populations were isolated from each other and placed in identical environmental conditions.

The 12 populations were allowed to reproduce and evolve over time, however the researchers took a sample of each individual population every 500 generations as a sort of "time capsule" of that population's development at that period in time and froze it.

This allowed the researchers to come back and restart an individual population's evolution from that moment in time.

When the researchers had found that one population had the ability to metabolise citrate, they went back and restarted these "time capsules" of previous generations of that population.

The researchers found that "time capsules" restarted from before generation 20,000 did not go on to develop the ability to metabolise citrate.

Those "time capsules" that were started from generation 20,000 or greater did go on to metabolise citrate.

THEREFORE SOMETHING MUST HAVE OCCURRED IN THIS POPULATION AROUND GENERATION 20,000 WHICH LAID THE GROUND WORK FOR THAT POPULATION TO DEVELOP THE ABILITY TO METABOLISE CITRATE. I.E. A RANDOM MUTATION.

WE KNOW THAT THE MUTATION MUST HAVE BEEN RANDOM BECAUSE IT DID NOT OCCUR IN ANY OF THE OTHER 12 POPULATIONS OF E. COLI BACTERIA.

PLEASE GO BACK AND RE-READ THE ARTICLE THOROUGHLY.

Thanks again for responding. This is a very busy family time and my priorities right now are on them. I will get back to this. I think you have made a good response, just don't have time right now. Merry Christmas

[shadowhawk]

Clearly, god came down from the sky ONCE and put his finger in the petri dish around generation 20K

Ever hear of "Progressive Creation?"

[shadowhawk]

Merry Christmas

[nickthird]

oops

Edited by nickthird, 25 December 2011 - 10:27 PM.

[shadowhawk]

My argument for Theistic Evolution is in the following posts. This is but one view and not my own as I said before. However I argue that it is possible to believe in God. The Atheists say no. I will defend it here as it applies to evolution.. Please re-read the posts to refresh yourself.
ARGUMENT
1. http://www.longecity...post__p__491476
2 http://www.longecity...post__p__491932
3. http://www.longecity...post__p__492066
4. http://www.longecity...post__p__492250
5. http://www.longecity...post__p__492433

I was going to go on but someone responded to my challenge. “I challenge anyone to show me a link, book or source which says, "Here is the actual experiment that proves random mutations drive evolution." http://www.longecity...post__p__492252

The claimed evidence provided of an actual experiment is Richard Lenski’s 20+ year experiments on E.Coli bacteria. Please re-read it. http://www.longecity...post__p__492515

We will next pick up where we left off, with the claim this experiment is proof of random mutation driving evolution.

[platypus]

So you won't believe if theistic evolution is shown to be bunk? Cannot you believe in non-theistic evolution and God at the same time?

[shadowhawk]

By Perry Marshall

"Are the mutations that drive evolution random?

I’ve been corresponding with a professional scientist about randomness in biology. I told him that the Neo-Darwinian paradigm of “random mutation” is dead, and most people just haven’t gotten the memo yet.

He asked me to offer citations from the literature showing that evolution is non-random. This is what I sent him:

1. Genomic evolutionary change is a systematic response to the environment, not a result of random copying errors:

From James A. Shapiro, “A 21st century view of evolution” http://shapiro.bsd.u...View_Evol.html. Emphasis mine:

“…the prevailing theory of biological evolution postulates a random walk to each new adaptation. In the last 50 years, molecular genetics has revealed features of DNA sequence organization, protein structure and cellular processes of genetic change that suggest evolution by natural genetic engineering. Genomes are hierarchically organized as systems assembled from DNA modules, which themselves generally constitute systems at lower levels. Each genome is formatted and integrated by sequence elements that do not code for proteins. These formatting elements constitute codons in multiple genetic codes for distinct functions such as transcription, replication, DNA compaction and genome distribution to daughter cells. Consequently, the genome has a computational system architecture.”

“Natural genetic engineering functions are sensitive to biological inputs, and their non-random operations help explain how novel system architectures can arise in evolution.”

“Moreover, the fact that natural genetic engineering changes are neither random in nature nor restricted to a single site in the genome means that they can create novel distributed (multilocus) systems and new genome system architectures.”

“One source of this latter view is the conventional theory that evolution occurs by a random walk through adaptive space and produces a virtually endless series of sui generis inventions. One alternative to this conventional view is that there exist design principles and procedures that are used repeatedly in evolution (in other words, evolution occurs as an engineering process).”

“In terms of a 21st Century view of evolution, the major importance of natural genetic engineering is that this capability removes the process of genome restructuring from the stochastic realm of physical-chemical insults to DNA and replication accidents. Instead, cellular systems for DNA change, place the genetic basis for long-term evolutionary adaptation in the context of cell biology where it is subject to cellular control regimes and their computational capabilities.”

“Non-randomness and Regulation of Natural Genetic Engineering Activities

The foregoing discussion and an extensive literature that cannot be cited here make it clear that MGEs and other natural genetic engineering functions have the capacity to reorganize genomes in just the ways needed to reformat modular genome system architectures. This point is increasingly recognized (e.g. 21,22). However, the degree to which these genome reorganization activities are not random is poorly appreciated. Non-randomness is evident at three levels: mechanism, timing, and sites of action.”

“These examples make it clear that natural genetic engineering occurs episodically and non-randomly in response to stress events that range from DNA damage to the inability to find a suitable mating partner.”

“We have come to realize some of the basic design features that govern genome structure. Combining this knowledge with our understanding of how natural genetic engineering operates, it is possible to formulate the outlines of a new 21st Century vision of evolutionary engineering that postulates a more regular principle-based process of change than the gradual random walk of 19th and 20th Century theories.”

“Molecular genetics has amply confirmed McClintock’s discovery that living organisms actively reorganize their genomes (5). It has also supported her view that the genome can “sense danger” and respond accordingly (56). The recognition of the fundamentally biological nature of genetic change and of cellular potentials for information processing frees our thinking about evolution. In particular, our conceptual formulations are no longer dependent on the operation of stochastic processes. Thus, we can now envision a role for computational inputs and adaptive feedbacks into the evolution of life as a complex system. Indeed, it is possible that we will eventually see such information-processing capabilities as essential to life itself. “

2. Jean-Claude Perez’ discovery of the golden ratio in the ergodic patterns of DNA:

Codon patterns in DNA conform to a checksum matrix to a precision of 0.1%. Microorganisms like bacteria and HIV all the way to most human chromosomes follow this unusual mathematical pattern.

Layman’s version http://www.cosmicfin...ematics-of-dna/
Published journal article: http://www.springer....s/journal/12539
PDF free of charge: http://www.resurgenc...f/ADN-perez.pdf

3. Biologist Lynn Margulis, advocate of the theory of Symbiogenesis:

“Many ways to induce mutations are known but none lead to new organisms. Mutation accumulation does not lead to new species or even to new organs or new tissues… Even professional evolutionary biologists are hard put to find mutations, experimentally induced or spontaneous, that lead in a positive way to evolutionary change.”

-Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, “Acquiring Genomes”

4. I’ve had over 3 million visitors to my Cosmic Fingerprints website over the last 7 years, I have an email list of 200,000 people. I’ve challenged skeptics on my blog email list to come forward with experimental evidence that shows that random changes to DNA produce new features. No one has ever been able to come up with one.

The closest anyone has come is citations of Richard Lenski’s bacteria experiments, where he simply assumes the mutations were random without backing up his statement. And as I’ve said before, it’s mathematically impossible to prove randomness; it’s entirely possible to prove non-randomness.

5. The patterns in DNA are linguistic, they follow the rules of universal grammars.

“The Linguistics of DNA: Words, Sentences, Grammar, Phonetics and Semantics” by Sungchul Ji of Rutgers University – www.rci.rutgers.edu/~sji/Linguistics%20of%20DNA.pdf In this paper, Dr. Ji explains that human language has 13 linguistic characteristics and DNA has 10 of them. He says cells speak a language called “cellese.”

The opening sentence of his paper says this:

“There are theoretical reasons to believe that biologic systems and processes cannot be fully accounted for in terms of the principles and laws of physics and chemistry alone, but they require in addition the principles of semiotics – the science of symbols and signs, including linguistics.”

The italicized words are his, by the way, not mine. He goes on to say:

“Recently it was postulated that language is more than just a metaphor and that linguistics provides a fundamental principle to account for the structure and function of the cell. The conclusion is supported by the facts that cells use a language, called cell language or cellese, defined as “a self-organizing system of molecules, some of which encode, act as signs for, or trigger, gene-directed cell processes,” and (2) that cell language has molecular counterparts to 10 of 13 design features of human language (humanese) characterized by Hockett and Lyon, thus suggesting an isomorphism between cellese and humanese.”

I challenge you to offer any example of any language that can be subjected to random mutations and not be systematically destroyed. After all, why do computer systems devote so many resources to error detection and correction?

6. Cells actively repair damaged DNA. E. coli reproduces with less than one mistake for every billion new nucleotides. “The extraordinarily low error frequency results from monitoring the results of the polymerization process and correcting incorporation mistakes after the fact, not from the inherent precision of the replication apparatus.” -from the book Evolution: A View from the 21st Century, James A Shapiro, 2011. He goes on to describe two separate error correction mechanisms which monitor for mistakes and correct in real time.

Also see “Revisiting the Central Dogma in the 21st Century” http://shapiro.bsd.u...t.Salbzburg.pdf

7. The genetic code is 2/3rds redundant, mapping 64 combinations to 20 amino acids; ie GGA, GGG and GGC all code for Glycine. This is a form of Forward Error Correction http://en.wikipedia....ror_correction. I quote from “Nanoscale Communication Networks” by Stephen F. Bush, p. 51: “…Forward error correction (FEC) techniques which are clearly used in biological systems such as DNA…”

DNA uses parity to detect errors as well. From the same book, further down in the page: “Each of the DNA bases has a sequence of three connecting structures, either hydrogen donors or hydrogen acceptors. Thus, each nucleotide base can be considered a sequence of three binary values. The fact that the base is either a pyrimidine or a purine appears to serve as the final parity bit.”

Another form of error detection found in DNA is checksums. In most chromosomes of single-stranded DNA, the total number of times each codon appears is controlled to within 0.1% by a checksum matrix. The cell adds up the total number of codons and checks for errors. Checksums are the subject of Perez’ paper, cited above.

One may ask: If there are thousands of books and papers that say evolution is random, why should I pay attention to a minority that say it is not?

Quite simply, because these people methodically proved their assertions and the Neo-Darwinists did not.

The #1 problem is that randomness is not experimentally or mathematically provable. If you think that the sequence of numbers 2905739303023745748 is random, you may or may not be right, but it’s not possible to prove it. However you can calculate the statistical odds of whether the number sequence 111122223333444 is random or not – odds are 99.99+ percent that it is not random.

Those who claim evolution is random have not proven this assertion and it is impossible for them to do so. However those who claim it is non-random offer systematic, documented, predictable mechanisms that produce evolutionary change.

Given a choice between a hypothesis that a process is random vs. a hypothesis that a process is non-random, the non-random hypothesis is always inherently more scientific. Why? Because science is the presumption of discoverable underlying order, not disorder. The “random mutation” paradigm of 20th century biology is contrary to the most basic aims of science.

This has obscured many of the discoveries cited above, because science is the presumption of discoverable underlying order, not disorder. The “random mutation” paradigm of 20th century biology is anti-scientific and has obscured many of the discoveries cited above."



APPLICABLE QUOTE
“The closest anyone has come is citations of Richard Lenski’s bacteria experiments, where he simply assumes the mutations were random without backing up his statement. And as I’ve said before, it’s mathematically impossible to prove randomness; it’s entirely possible to prove non-randomness.”

Edited by shadowhawk, 29 December 2011 - 01:00 AM.

[shadowhawk]

So you won't believe if theistic evolution is shown to be bunk? Cannot you believe in non-theistic evolution and God at the same time?

Where did your first statement come from? I do not believe this is a non theistic reality we live in, but yes I believe you can believe in evolution in its various forms and God at the same time. I have posted videos of Scientists who do.

Edited by shadowhawk, 29 December 2011 - 01:13 AM.

[platypus]

So you won't believe if theistic evolution is shown to be bunk? Cannot you believe in non-theistic evolution and God at the same time?

Where did your first statement come from? I do not believe this is a non theistic reality we live in, but yes I believe you can believe in evolution in its various forms and God at the same time. I have posted videos of Scientists who do.

But can you believe in non-theistic evolution and God at the same time? If you can, why this hopeless crusade against evolution? Is it so hard to accept that evolution works perfectly well without divine intervention?

[shadowhawk]

So you won't believe if theistic evolution is shown to be bunk? Cannot you believe in non-theistic evolution and God at the same time?

Where did your first statement come from? I do not believe this is a non theistic reality we live in, but yes I believe you can believe in evolution in its various forms and God at the same time. I have posted videos of Scientists who do.

But can you believe in non-theistic evolution and God at the same time? If you can, why this hopeless crusade against evolution? Is it so hard to accept that evolution works perfectly well without divine intervention?

I answered this.

[shadowhawk]

So you won't believe if theistic evolution is shown to be bunk? Cannot you believe in non-theistic evolution and God at the same time?

Where did your first statement come from? I do not believe this is a non theistic reality we live in, but yes I believe you can believe in evolution in its various forms and God at the same time. I have posted videos of Scientists who do.

But can you believe in non-theistic evolution and God at the same time? If you can, why this hopeless crusade against evolution? Is it so hard to accept that evolution works perfectly well without divine intervention?

From my copy of Darwin's Origin of Species (1859), “To my mind, it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes . . . .” And again: “There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one . . . from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.” If you take this position we agree. Do you believe Darwin?

[Link]

“The closest anyone has come is citations of Richard Lenski’s bacteria experiments, where he simply assumes the mutations were random without backing up his statement. And as I’ve said before, it’s mathematically impossible to prove randomness; it’s entirely possible to prove non-randomness.”

To say that "suggesting an occurence is random without being able to prove it is unscientific" is nonsense.

The scientific method is to look at what is the most likely reason for the outcome of an experiment based on all available knowledge.

Science changes it's views when new information comes to light or someone proposes a more logical interpretation of current knowledge, so if you wish to challenge the conclusions of the experiment then you must offer a MORE LIKELY reason for the outcome of the experiment than that which is proposed.

[shadowhawk]

Link:To say that "suggesting an occurence is random without being able to prove it is unscientific" is nonsense.

Where did “suggestion” come from? I asked for scientific evidence not suggestion.

The scientific method is to look at what is the most likely reason for the outcome of an experiment based on all available knowledge.

Can you think of any alternative interpretations that may reasonably support what I have written? I’ll “suggest,” one below.

Science changes it's views when new information comes to light or someone proposes a more logical interpretation of current knowledge, so if you wish to challenge the conclusions of the experiment then you must offer a MORE LIKELY reason for the outcome of the experiment than that which is proposed.

OK, Nothing you have said supports your position. MORE LIKELY THAN WHAT?

For the last several years Lenski has refuses to release raw data and cultures to anyone he doesn't consider qualified. Show us the data! Opinions may vary on whether or not this refusal is justifiable, but the refusal itself is a matter of fact. How many times have we seen phoney evidence for evolution in the past? I am not saying this is the case here, only it is strange.

There have been many critiques of Lenski but this one is in ‘The Edge of Evolution.’ (See chapter 7)
http://www.amazon.co...m/dp/0743296206

It is pointed out that all of the beneficial mutations identified from the studies so far seem to have been degradative ones, where functioning genes are knocked out or rendered less active. So IT IS MORE LIKELY that random mutations more easily breaks genes than builds them, even when it helps an organism to survive. That’s a very important point. A process which breaks genes so easily is not one that is going to build up complex coherent molecular systems of many proteins, which fill the cell. It is like a drop of water trying to go up Niagra Falls. Even if it manages to go up the odds are overwhelmingly against it making it to the top.

In his study Lenski reports that, after 30,000 generations, one of his lines of cells has developed the ability to utilize citrate as a food source in the presence of oxygen. (E. coli in the wild can’t do that.) Now, wild E. coli already has a number of enzymes that normally use citrate and can digest it (it’s not some exotic chemical the bacterium has never seen before). However, the wild bacterium lacks an enzyme called a “citrate permease” which can transport citrate from outside the cell through the cell’s membrane into its interior. So all the bacterium needed to do to use citrate was to find a way to get it into the cell. The rest of the machinery for its metabolism was already there.

As Lenski put it, “The only known barrier to aerobic growth on citrate is its inability to transport citrate under oxic conditions.” Other workers (cited by Lenski) in the past several decades have also identified mutant E. coli that could use citrate as a food source. In one instance the mutation wasn’t tracked down.. In another instance a protein coded by a gene called citT, which normally transports citrate in the absence of oxygen, was overexpressed. The overexpressed protein allowed E. coli to grow on citrate in the presence of oxygen. “It’s MORE LIKELY,” that Lenski’s mutant will turn out to be either this gene or another of the bacterium’s citrate-using genes, tweaked a bit to allow it to transport citrate in the presence of oxygen. (He hasn’t yet tracked down the mutation. It’s in the phenotype as I said before and you said I didn’t understand.

I think the results fit a lot more easily into the viewpoint of the book, “The Edge of Evolution.” One of the major points of the book is that if only one mutation is needed to confer some ability, then Darwinian evolution has less problems finding it. But if more than one is needed, the probability of getting all the right ones grows exponentially worse. “If two mutations have to occur before there is a net beneficial effect — if an intermediate state is harmful, or less fit than the starting state — then there is already a big evolutionary problem.” And what if more than two are needed? The task quickly gets out of reach of random mutation. Don’ gtive me another lecture on how science supposedly works, prove it is random mutations making it MORE LIKELY.

The Edge of Evolution says, “To get a feel for the clumsy ineffectiveness of random mutation and selection, consider that the workers in Lenski’s lab had routinely been growing E. coli all these years in a soup that contained a small amount of the sugar glucose (which they digest easily), plus about ten times as much citrate. Like so many cellular versions of Tantalus, for tens of thousands of generations trillions of cells were bathed in a solution with an abundance of food — citrate — that was just beyond their reach, outside the cell. Instead of using the unreachable food, however, the cells were condemned to starve after metabolizing the tiny bit of glucose in the medium — until an improbable series of mutations apparently occurred. As Lenski and co-workers observe: “

Such a low rate suggests that the final mutation to Cit+ is not a point mutation but instead involves some rarer class of mutation or perhaps multiple mutations. The possibility of multiple mutations is especially relevant, given our evidence that the emergence of Cit+ colonies on MC plates involved events both during the growth of cultures before plating and during prolonged incubation on the plates.

In The Edge of Evolution Behe argues that the extreme rarity of the development of chloroquine resistance in malaria was likely the result of the need for several mutations to occur before the trait appeared. Even though the evolutionary literature contains discussions of multiple mutations , Darwinian reviewers drew back in horror, acted as if I had blasphemed, and argued desperately that a series of single beneficial mutations certainly could do the trick. Now here we have Richard Lenski affirming that the evolution of some pretty simple cellular features likely requires multiple mutations. If the development of many of the features of the cell required multiple mutations during the course of evolution, then the cell is beyond Darwinian explanation. Behe shows in The Edge of Evolution that it is very reasonable to conclude they did. It is in the DNA code already. Among those supporting Lenski, which is MORE LIKELY.

Edited by shadowhawk, 30 December 2011 - 11:48 PM.

[nupi]

How many times have we seen phoney evidence for evolution in the past? I am not saying this is the case here, only it is strange.

You must be confusing something here - it is creationism/intelligent design that supplies phoney evidence for their outrageous claims.

Edited by nupi, 31 December 2011 - 02:19 PM.

[platypus]

Scientific arguments are based on reason and can in principle convince anyone. Cretinist arguments can only convince a minority of theists. Why is this? (my answer is that cretinism is bullcrap since you need a religious ideology to buy their ideas)

[platypus]

Intelligent design is pseudoscience. Don't fall into believing crap like it:

https://en.wikipedia...ign#Peer_review

In sworn testimony, however, Behe said: "There are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred".^[155] As summarized by the judge, Behe conceded that there are no peer-reviewed articles supporting his claims of intelligent design or irreducible complexity. In his ruling, the judge wrote: "A final indicator of how ID has failed to demonstrate scientific warrant is the complete absence of peer-reviewed publications supporting the theory".

Edited by platypus, 31 December 2011 - 04:57 PM.

[Link]

OK, Nothing you have said supports your position. MORE LIKELY THAN WHAT?

???

That was my challenge to you. If you believe an old man in the sky with magic powers who shapes the animals of the lands as he sees fit is more likely an explanation than random mutations driving evolution, then you should be able to prove it scientifically.

Don’ gtive me another lecture on how science supposedly works, prove it is random mutations making it MORE LIKELY.

More likely than God? How about the fact that random mutations are known to occur and have been observed by scientists, where as God has never been observed by anyone. At least not anyone without an agenda.

I think the results fit a lot more easily into the viewpoint of the book, “The Edge of Evolution.” One of the major points of the book is that if only one mutation is needed to confer some ability, then Darwinian evolution has less problems finding it. But if more than one is needed, the probability of getting all the right ones grows exponentially worse. “If two mutations have to occur before there is a net beneficial effect — if an intermediate state is harmful, or less fit than the starting state — then there is already a big evolutionary problem.” And what if more than two are needed? The task quickly gets out of reach of random mutation. Don’ gtive me another lecture on how science supposedly works, prove it is random mutations making it MORE LIKELY.

Such a low rate suggests that the final mutation to Cit+ is not a point mutation but instead involves some rarer class of mutation or perhaps multiple mutations. The possibility of multiple mutations is especially relevant, given our evidence that the emergence of Cit+ colonies on MC plates involved events both during the growth of cultures before plating and during prolonged incubation on the plates
In The Edge of Evolution Behe argues that the extreme rarity of the development of chloroquine resistance in malaria was likely the result of the need for several mutations to occur before the trait appeared. Even though the evolutionary literature contains discussions of multiple mutations , Darwinian reviewers drew back in horror, acted as if I had blasphemed, and argued desperately that a series of single beneficial mutations certainly could do the trick. Now here we have Richard Lenski affirming that the evolution of some pretty simple cellular features likely requires multiple mutations. If the development of many of the features of the cell required multiple mutations during the course of evolution, then the cell is beyond Darwinian explanation. Behe shows in The Edge of Evolution that it is very reasonable to conclude they did. It is in the DNA code already. Among those supporting Lenski, which is MORE LIKELY.

So your argument is that a change that requires multiple mutations to acheive an outcome is impossible because the odds of this occurring are too low, or;

that intermediary states must be either helpful or harmful to the organism and that the odds of intermediary states being helpful is extremely unlikely?

Evolution takes billions of years, this is well established so the first point doesn't really hold water.

As for intermediary states why do they need to be inherantly good or bad for the organism? There are plenty of genetic diseases where a person can be a carrier of a gene but they are unaffected by the disease.

Among those supporting Lenski, which is MORE LIKELY.

So if your question is which is more likely evolution or intelligent design, the answer is evolution.

Also can you just explain something to me, if you believe in intelligent design, why do you think it is that God made malaria?

[shadowhawk]

The study by Lenski was presented by you, as proof of random mutations. Your response with a fallacious appeal to ridicule calling God an Old Man in the sky with magic powers is nothing I ever tried to prove. The claim was made bu you and you have the burden of proof. The subject is “Is God Possible?” I asked you if you were saying “no,” by your position. Typically of most you didn’t answer that. Would I be correct from your ridicule your answer is ‘no.”

I asked you for proof “random mutations” drive evolution. What “fact?” Where are they? Again am I correct in assuming you are presenting this supposed evidence, as evidence there is no God? All you have shown is perhaps there is no mutation.

Link: So your argument is that a change that requires multiple mutations to acheive an outcome is impossible because the odds of this occurring are too low, or;

that intermediary states must be either helpful or harmful to the organism and that the odds of intermediary states being helpful is extremely unlikely?

Evolution takes billions of years, this is well established so the first point doesn't really hold water.

As for intermediary states why do they need to be inherantly good or bad for the organism? There are plenty of genetic diseases where a person can be a carrier of a gene but they are unaffected by the disease.

No, I didn’t say, “impossible.” I see nothing in this study that keeps one from believing in God, but apparently you do. The more necessary mutations have to be lined up, the more improbable it will be positive. You try to overcome this by appealing to billions of years and billions of billions of mutations occurring. Surely one of these mutations would be positive to survival! Yes if billions of billions are not also negative in their impact on survival. It goes two ways.

So if your question is which is more likely evolution or intelligent design, the answer is evolution.

So we disagree. Let’s not try to fool anyone. Science is not on your side, “belief in God is possible.”
You finished off your post with a philosophical question on the problem of evil. Why evil disease?

[shadowhawk]

Intelligent design is pseudoscience. Don't fall into believing crap like it:

https://en.wikipedia...ign#Peer_review

In sworn testimony, however, Behe said: "There are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred".^[155] As summarized by the judge, Behe conceded that there are no peer-reviewed articles supporting his claims of intelligent design or irreducible complexity. In his ruling, the judge wrote: "A final indicator of how ID has failed to demonstrate scientific warrant is the complete absence of peer-reviewed publications supporting the theory".

endless Ad Hominem attacks. Deal with the subject sometime.

[Link]

The subject is “Is God Possible?” I asked you if you were saying “no,” by your position. Typically of most you didn’t answer that. Would I be correct from your ridicule your answer is ‘no.”

I never said i didn't believe in God.

Although that depends on how you define God. If your asking do i believe in a biblical God who advocates the death penalty for those who work on the sabbath, talks via burning bushes and who flooded the world in order to kill everything except for a boat containing two of every animal, then no, i do not believe in God.

If you want a definition of God that i do agree with then i would take that of Dutch philosopher Spinoza, which is nicely summarized in this passage:

NATURE is everything. There is mass, energy, atoms, molecules, life, thought, people, societies, galaxies and perhaps even multiple universes (pure speculation). But there is nothing outside nature, including spiritual visions and other phenomena we don't yet understand. If they exist, they are part of nature.

Spinoza asserted that for a concept of god to make any sense at all, it must simply be nature. That is, god cannot be something outside nature that controls it, but must necessarily be part of it. According to Spinoza, God IS nature. While Spinoza was excommunicated from his Jewish community in Amsterdam and condemned by Christians as well for being an atheist, he was very devoutly religious. He saw the traditional anthropomorphic (man-like) god as an abomination, completely rejecting the wonder of nature, from which life comes. To Spinoza, nature is the true expression of God. And each of us is part of it.

I asked you for proof “random mutations” drive evolution. What “fact?” Where are they? Again am I correct in assuming you are presenting this supposed evidence, as evidence there is no God? All you have shown is perhaps there is no mutation.

No, not evidence there is no God. Simply one piece on a huge pile of evidence that evolution is more likely than intelligent design - of which there is no evidence at all.

No, I didn’t say, “impossible.” I see nothing in this study that keeps one from believing in God, but apparently you do. The more necessary mutations have to be lined up, the more improbable it will be positive. You try to overcome this by appealing to billions of years and billions of billions of mutations occurring. Surely one of these mutations would be positive to survival! Yes if billions of billions are not also negative in their impact on survival. It goes two ways.

Yes mutations can have a negative impact on survival. This is a core principal of evolution, however if an animal's mutation puts it at a disadvantage it will not survive to reproduce and those negative mutations will be removed from the gene pool. Those animals whose mutations give them an advantage in an environment will thrive, have many offspring and their mutant genes will be carried forward into future generations, this is how animals change and evolve.

So we disagree. Let’s not try to fool anyone. Science is not on your side, “belief in God is possible.”
You finished off your post with a philosophical question on the problem of evil. Why evil disease?

Yes belief in god is absolutely possible. But why anyone would believe in a Judeo-Christian God i have no idea. However, i believe we were discussing evolution vs intelligent design not whether or not God was possible, so if you believe that "science is not on my side" please put forward your scientific evidence of intelligent design. And please don't give me "Life is too complex to be formed by evolution" argument.

I watched your video on "The Problem of Evil". It was a very long winded version of other arguments i have heard many times before such as "God works in mysterious ways" and "It's all part of Gods master plan which we as humans could never understand or comprehend" which i don't buy into.

If there is a God, then i believe he is neither benevolent nor evil, those are human ideas.

[shadowhawk]

The subject is “Is God Possible?” I asked you if you were saying “no,” by your position. Typically of most you didn’t answer that. Would I be correct from your ridicule your answer is ‘no.”

I never said i didn't believe in God.

Although that depends on how you define God. If your asking do i believe in a biblical God who advocates the death penalty for those who work on the sabbath, talks via burning bushes and who flooded the world in order to kill everything except for a boat containing two of every animal, then no, i do not believe in God.

If you want a definition of God that i do agree with then i would take that of Dutch philosopher Spinoza, which is nicely summarized in this passage:

NATURE is everything. There is mass, energy, atoms, molecules, life, thought, people, societies, galaxies and perhaps even multiple universes (pure speculation). But there is nothing outside nature, including spiritual visions and other phenomena we don't yet understand. If they exist, they are part of nature.

Spinoza asserted that for a concept of god to make any sense at all, it must simply be nature. That is, god cannot be something outside nature that controls it, but must necessarily be part of it. According to Spinoza, God IS nature. While Spinoza was excommunicated from his Jewish community in Amsterdam and condemned by Christians as well for being an atheist, he was very devoutly religious. He saw the traditional anthropomorphic (man-like) god as an abomination, completely rejecting the wonder of nature, from which life comes. To Spinoza, nature is the true expression of God. And each of us is part of it.

I asked you for proof “random mutations” drive evolution. What “fact?” Where are they? Again am I correct in assuming you are presenting this supposed evidence, as evidence there is no God? All you have shown is perhaps there is no mutation.

No, not evidence there is no God. Simply one piece on a huge pile of evidence that evolution is more likely than intelligent design - of which there is no evidence at all.

No, I didn’t say, “impossible.” I see nothing in this study that keeps one from believing in God, but apparently you do. The more necessary mutations have to be lined up, the more improbable it will be positive. You try to overcome this by appealing to billions of years and billions of billions of mutations occurring. Surely one of these mutations would be positive to survival! Yes if billions of billions are not also negative in their impact on survival. It goes two ways.

Yes mutations can have a negative impact on survival. This is a core principal of evolution, however if an animal's mutation puts it at a disadvantage it will not survive to reproduce and those negative mutations will be removed from the gene pool. Those animals whose mutations give them an advantage in an environment will thrive, have many offspring and their mutant genes will be carried forward into future generations, this is how animals change and evolve.

So we disagree. Let’s not try to fool anyone. Science is not on your side, “belief in God is possible.”
You finished off your post with a philosophical question on the problem of evil. Why evil disease?

Yes belief in god is absolutely possible. But why anyone would believe in a Judeo-Christian God i have no idea. However, i believe we were discussing evolution vs intelligent design not whether or not God was possible, so if you believe that "science is not on my side" please put forward your scientific evidence of intelligent design. And please don't give me "Life is too complex to be formed by evolution" argument.

I watched your video on "The Problem of Evil". It was a very long winded version of other arguments i have heard many times before such as "God works in mysterious ways" and "It's all part of Gods master plan which we as humans could never understand or comprehend" which i don't buy into.

If there is a God, then i believe he is neither benevolent nor evil, those are human ideas.

You are a theist! Great, brother. If you want to discuss what the nature of God may be, that is another subject. Perhaps we should start another subject for theists to discuss the nature of God? Atheists would not be part of it???? This topic is about God, not science. Didn't you look before you started posting? Science is part of the topic only as it relates to the possibility of God.

Edited by shadowhawk, 04 January 2012 - 07:32 PM.

[shadowhawk]

ON THE MULTIVERSE AND FINE TUNING.

Here’s the article from Harpur’s magazine. The MIT physicist says that the fine-tuning is real, and is best explained by positing the existence of an infinite number of universes that are not fine-tuned – the so-called multiverse.
Excerpt:

While challenging the Platonic dream of theoretical physicists, the multiverse idea does explain one aspect of our universe that has unsettled some scientists for years: according to various calculations, if the values of some of the fundamental parameters of our universe were a little larger or a little smaller, life could not have arisen. For example, if the nuclear force were a few percentage points stronger than it actually is, then all the hydrogen atoms in the infant universe would have fused with other hydrogen atoms to make helium, and there would be no hydrogen left. No hydrogen means no water. Although we are far from certain about what conditions are necessary for life, most biologists believe that water is necessary. On the other hand, if the nuclear force were substantially weaker than what it actually is, then the complex atoms needed for biology could not hold together. As another example, if the relationship between the strengths of the gravitational force and the electromagnetic force were not close to what it is, then the cosmos would not harbor any stars that explode and spew out life-supporting chemical elements into space or any other stars that form planets. Both kinds of stars are required for the emergence of life. The strengths of the basic forces and certain other fundamental parameters in our universe appear to be “fine-tuned” to allow the existence of life. The recognition of this fine­tuning led British physicist Brandon Carter to articulate what he called the anthropic principle, which states that the universe must have the parameters it does because we are here to observe it. Actually, the word anthropic, from the Greek for “man,” is a misnomer: if these fundamental parameters were much different from what they are, it is not only human beings who would not exist. No life of any kind would exist.
If such conclusions are correct, the great question, of course, is why these fundamental parameters happen to lie within the range needed for life. Does the universe care about life? Intelligent design is one answer. Indeed, a fair number of theologians, philosophers, and even some scientists have used fine-tuning and the anthropic principle as evidence of the existence of God. For example, at the 2011 Christian Scholars’ Conference at Pepperdine University, Francis Collins, a leading geneticist and director of the National Institutes of Health, said, “To get our universe, with all of its potential for complexities or any kind of potential for any kind of life-form, everything has to be precisely defined on this knife edge of improbability…. [Y]ou have to see the hands of a creator who set the parameters to be just so because the creator was interested in something a little more complicated than random particles.”
Intelligent design, however, is an answer to fine-tuning that does not appeal to most scientists. The multiverse offers another explanation. If there are countless different universes with different properties—for example, some with nuclear forces much stronger than in our universe and some with nuclear forces much weaker—then some of those universes will allow the emergence of life and some will not. Some of those universes will be dead, lifeless hulks of matter and energy, and others will permit the emergence of cells, plants and animals, minds. From the huge range of possible universes predicted by the theories, the fraction of universes with life is undoubtedly small. But that doesn’t matter. We live in one of the universes that permits life because otherwise we wouldn’t be here to ask the question.

I thought I was going to have to go outside this article to refute the multiverse, but Lightman is honest enough to refute it himself:

The… conjecture that there are many other worlds… [T]here is no way they can prove this conjecture. That same uncertainty disturbs many physicists who are adjusting to the idea of the multiverse. Not only must we accept that basic properties of our universe are accidental and uncalculable. In addition, we must believe in the existence of many other universes. But we have no conceivable way of observing these other universes and cannot prove their existence. Thus, to explain what we see in the world and in our mental deductions, we must believe in what we cannot prove.
Sound familiar? Theologians are accustomed to taking some beliefs on faith. Scientists are not. All we can do is hope that the same theories that predict the multiverse also produce many other predictions that we can test here in our own universe. But the other universes themselves will almost certainly remain a conjecture.

The multiverse is not pure nonsense, it is theoretically possible. The problem is that the multiverse generator itself would require fin-tuning, and, as Lightman indicates, we have no independent experimental evidence for the existence of the multiverse. Atheists just have to take it on faith, and hope that their speculations will be proved out. Meanwhile, the fine-tuning is just as easily explained by postulating God, and we have independent evidence for God’s existence, like from the cosmological argument, the moral argument, and so on.
We need to be frank about atheists and their objections to the progress of science. Within the last 100 years, we have discovered that the physical universe came into being out of nothing 15 billion years ago, and we have discovered that this one universe is fine-tuned for intelligent life. Atheists are 100 years out of date, and they are hoping that all of this 100 years of progress will be overturned, so that they can go back to their comfortable belief that the universe is eternal and that the parameters of this universe are undesigned.
While I was listening the Dennis Prager show, an atheist caller called Prager and asserted that atheism was true because he has a happy life as an atheist. And I think that’s what atheism is. They believe that God, if he exists, should have the goal of making them happy. And if they are already happy, then why would they care about whether there is a God out there who might ask them to do things (like not kill babies) which might make them unhappy.
Atheists don’t care about science as something that determines what they should or should not believe. If science proves that they are accountable to God, then they invent speculations and hope in those speculations against the science – as with the multiverse or the aliens seeding the Earth with life or the unobservable, untestable hyper-universe that spawned this universe.
What atheists want – at bottom – is to have happy feelings, and to not be made to feel guilty or to have their freedom to feel happy bounded by morality. They want things like the freedom to have recreational sex and then to kill the baby that results from their actions so that they don;’t have to waste money and time on a baby who will diminish their happiness. That’s basically what atheism amounts to, in practice – the pursuit of happy feelings and the use of force against anyone or anything that threatens that pursuit of happiness. And the hope in an eternal universe or an infinite number of universes that are not finely-tuned is nothing more than a delusion that they invent – a useful fiction – that justifies their preference for avoiding the demands of God and his design for their lives.
To see these arguments examined in a debate with a famous atheist, simply watch the debate between William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens, and judge which speaker is willing to form his beliefs on scientific progress, and which debater is forming his beliefs against the science we have today, and hoping that the good science we have today based on experiments will be overturned but speculative theories sometimes in the future. When you watch that debate, it becomes very clear that Christian theists are interested in conforming their beliefs to science, and atheists are very interested in speculating against what science has shown in order to promote their own happiness. Whatever standard of morality they invent for themselves has to be self-made, so that they can satisfy it merely by doing whatever they feel like doing. And if science shows that the universe doesn’t conform to invented morality, because it is designed, then atheists just say “so much the worse for science”.
Just to re-cap, we’ve had peer-reviewed scientific publications in the last month that have made the illusion of naturalism even less likely, in the areas of the fossil record and the origin of life. And we now have the Borde-Vilenkin-Guth theorem, showing that any cosmology that features an expanding universe will have a beginning. The progress of science marches on against atheism, in virtually every area, and all we see from the likes of Richard Dawkins is the complete refusal to engage in debates with theists about the evidence. So who is anti-science now?
Positive arguments for Christian theism

• The kalam cosmological argument and the Big Bang theory
• The fine-tuning argument from cosmological constants and quantities
• The origin of life, part 1 of 2: the building blocks of life
• The origin of life, part 2 of 2: biological information
• The sudden origin of phyla in the Cambrian explosion
• Galactic habitable zones and circumstellar habitable zones
• Irreducible complexity in molecular machines
• The creative limits of natural selection and random mutation
• Angus Menuge’s ontological argument from reason
• Alvin Plantinga’s epistemological argument from reason
• William Lane Craig’s moral argumen

[shadowhawk]

Atheists and Intelligent Design.

[platypus]

Intelligent design is pseudoscience. Don't fall into believing crap like it:

https://en.wikipedia...ign#Peer_review

In sworn testimony, however, Behe said: "There are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred".^[155] As summarized by the judge, Behe conceded that there are no peer-reviewed articles supporting his claims of intelligent design or irreducible complexity. In his ruling, the judge wrote: "A final indicator of how ID has failed to demonstrate scientific warrant is the complete absence of peer-reviewed publications supporting the theory".

endless Ad Hominem attacks. Deal with the subject sometime.

Where's the ad hominem? Intelligent Design is pseudoscience so you have been fooled, ha ha! :D