“For example, evolutionists claim the origin of sight occurred more than forty separate times. And the origin of a complex eye (with a lens and retina) occurred at least five times — in vertebrates, cephalopods (octopus and squid), annelid worms, jelly-fish, and spiders. Likewise they claim the origin of flight occurred many separate times, and likewise the origin of swimming. And so forth, through countless examples. ”
Yes, and in the cases of sight and flight, the eyes and wings are sufficiently different that we could tell that they originated separately. Darwin discussed the eye of the cuttlefish in the Origin, and talked about how the muscles in the eye of the cuttlefish were about as different as they could have been from the vertebrate eye. Bat wings, Bird Wings, and Pterosaur wings are all expected to have evolved separately, and sure enough, they all hit upon different ‘solutions’ for making the wing: Birds, Bats and Pterosaurs all use different modifications of the pentadactyl hand to form a wing. They are so different that no biologist would attribute the evolution of these wings to a wing in the common ancestor of pterosaurs, bats, and birds. They would have had to evolve separateley.
“Life’s abundance of “convergence” is not predicted by evolution. Neither is it experimentally demonstrated.”
Wrong! Convergence is predicted by evolution. We know that there are often many ways to build a wing, an eye, or just about any other biological structure. Therefore, when two lineages independently evolve some adaptation, one expects that they evolve the same adaptation in different ways.
I think I’m done here. I’ve explained this stuff to you again and again and again, and yet you’re apparently not able to get a mental grasp on it.

Andy

He is quite correct that evolutionists have “repeatedly stated” the origin-of-life is separate from the theory of evolution. Yes, they have REPEATEDLY said so. But as ReMine points out, that is how evolutionists obscured from view their self-contradictions. For example, that is how Dobzhansky — in his famous paper, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” — was able to use biologic universals as one of his major evidences for evolution. When the opposite is the case: If evolution predicts anything on the matter, it predicts biologic universals ought not exist.

Evolution is either all-the-way from rocks to rockstars, including the origin-of-life — or else it is creation. That is the simple fact of the matter, and it does no unfairness to evolutionists in saying so.

The origin-of-life issue is now scientifically owned by creationists, and evolutionists are vainly trying to disown the origin-of-life. Ryan is an example of it.

> [Walter wrote] “No evolutionists (not even the
> early Darwinians, who were unconstrained by
> notions of pleiotropy) claim these are the
> result of Atavism.”[END QUOTE]
>
> [Ryan answered] Yeah, because the tails of
> whales and fish are not even remotely alike.

Ryan is agreeing with me. He asked why whale-tails and fish-tails were designed differently. And I answered: to resist being interpreted as Atavisms. He now agrees that is the reason they were not interpreted as Atavisms.

> I never asked you to show me a yeast with
> tusks. No one thinks that the designer should
> have unified organisms in implausible ways
> like that.

Once again, he is agreeing with me.

He asked why the difference between the profoundly unifying similarities at the BIOCHEMICAL level versus the differences at the MORPHOLOGICAL level (as in the whale-tail / fish-tail example). I explained both legs of that issue, and he agrees with both (see above).

> [Walter wrote] “Again, Ryan is misrepresenting
> Message Theory. Designing lifeforms “as similarly
> as is reasonably possible” is NOT the goal claimed
> in Message Theory. Re-read the claims of Message Theory”
>
> [Ryan answered] NOPE. You claimed that the designer
> wanted to make life look like the product of ONE
> designer. What does it mean for life to look like
> the product of one designer? What does it mean for
> life to look UNLIKE the product of a single designer?
> You never gave any criterion for this, so I stated
> that the only way I knew to make sense of this was
> to interpret it the way I did.

I gave a clear statement of Message Theory early in this thread. Ryan continues to misrepresent it, though he has been repeatedly warned of it. All the necessary evidences for his misrepresentations are contained in this thread.

> [Walter wrote] “He is talking nonsense. Life is
> utterly incompatible with life being created by
> multiple designers acting independently — the
> idea of life being created by ONE designer (or
> group of designers acting together as ONE) is
> driven by the data.”
>
> [Ryan answered] Why is it nonsense? What criteria
> do you have for deciding whether something was
> designed by one designer, ten, or none?

Ryan is still advancing nonsense. NO ONE claims life was created by multiple designers acting independently. The staggering unity of life (especially at the biochemical level) falsifies that idea. It is a dead idea. Yet Ryan is trying to breath life into that idea, in order to sow confusion, where there is no confusion.

> [Ryan wrote] Are you mentally deficient?!?
> Convergent evolution explains this. Whales and
> fish acquired their adaptations to water in
> separate lineages, and that is why they are
> the way they are. Message theory predicts
> nothing about this.

He is mistaken. Evolutionary theory “explains” virtually anything and its opposite, and on those few occasions when it makes a clear prediction, it predicts the opposite of what we observe.

Biologic universals are a rare example where ‘similarity’ is awkward for evolutionists to explain. Other than that example, similarity is usually EASY for evolutionists to “explain”, because nothing is easier than saying the similar complex traits were simply “inherited”, as by common descent, by Transposition, or by Atavism. Those are merely three different versions of inheritance. They are three potent, powerful, potential “explanations,” and that is why life’s designer had to especially resist those.

Message Theory predicts an abundance of pattern that evolutionists interpret as “convergence”. Here is how “convergences” are observed: They are complex traits that are sufficiently similar that it demands an explanation, yet sufficiently different that they cannot be “explained” by Atavism nor by Transposition, and are placed (within the system of life) so that they CANNOT be explained by common descent. This special balance requires design. “Convergences” are substantially anti-evolutionary evidences — that is why they are abundant.

For example, evolutionists claim the origin of sight occurred more than forty separate times. And the origin of a complex eye (with a lens and retina) occurred at least five times — in vertebrates, cephalopods (octopus and squid), annelid worms, jelly-fish, and spiders. Likewise they claim the origin of flight occurred many separate times, and likewise the origin of swimming. And so forth, through countless examples.

Life’s abundance of “convergence” is not predicted by evolution. Neither is it experimentally demonstrated. To evolutionists, the ONLY way to refute convergence is to show that the traits evolved by common descent, by Atavism, or by Transposition. In other words, this evolution can be “refuted” only by providing better evidence FOR evolution. As ReMine has said: Evolutionary theory, as practiced by its modern proponents, is not testable, and therefore unscientific by their own criteria.

http://www.uncommondescent.com/philosophy/message-theory-%E2%80%93-a-testable-id-alternative-to-darwinism-%E2%80%93-part-2/

 if [the designer is] so fond of uniting organisms
> on the biochemical level (for some reason) then
> the same reason that caused him to design animals
> alike on the molecular level ought to cause him to
> design animals as similarly as is reasonably
> possible on the macro-level. What flaw is there
> in that reasoning, Walter?

“Ryan is continuing the evolutionists’ mischief of trying to SEPARATE the origin-of-life from evolution — as though the two problems are unrelated. This is how they traditionally obscured (i.e., concealed) their self-contradictions over the biochemical unity of life.”
No, the theory that all living things had a living common ancestor is not the same as the hypothesis that the first living thing (which, by the way, is not necessarily identical to the common ancestor of all life) ultimately came from inanimate matter. Anyone who can understand simple logic can understand that. A is not equal to non-A. The common ancestry of all living things is not the same as the hypothesis that the first life came from inanimate matter.

I did not say that. Those are two separate issues that he mistakenly joined with the word “because”.

Moreover, I did not say “it is theoretically possible”; my wording was stronger than that. Rather, I said leading evolutionists today ACTUALLY CLAIM that numerous other genetic codes and countless lifeforms completely unlike anything known [i]must have existed on this planet.[/i] They make this grand unfalsifiable assertion in order to rescue evolutionary theory from falsification. Why? Because leading evolutionists now acknowledge that a single step from non-life to the simplest known self-reproducing lifeform (containing the known genetic code and the known biologic universals) is vastly too implausible. This would falsify evolutionists on the origin-of-life, so they retreat into unfalsifiability by claiming that other lifeforms — containing essentially none of the known biologic universals — [i]must have existed on this planet.[/i] Evolutionists are now on the horns of a dilemma. On this issue, evolutionary theory is either false, or unfalsifiable — and either way it is unscientific.

> ReMine has missed some crucial points: Atavisms
> (from ancestors millions of generations ago) are
> only plausible if the genetic material in question
> has other functions through which it might be
> preserved, as is the case with hen’s teeth.

Ryan claims Atavism is only plausible if a strong case for genetic pleiotropy can be made. He is thoroughly mistaken. The early Darwinians roundly embraced Atavism [i]even though they had no notion whatever of pleiotropy or genetics.[/i] Moreover, even [i]modern[/i] evolutionists frequently construct claims for pleiotropy out of thin air — they claim the genetic material in question has [i]“other functions”[/i] through which it might be selectively preserved, while scarcely pausing to identify those “other functions” — as in the case of hen’s teeth. 

Ryan is also mistaken about evolutionary thinking. To evolutionists, pattern is king. Evolutionists invoke Atavism whenever the data [i]pattern[/i] suggests Atavism — regardless of the presence or absence of suitable mechanisms or suitable experimental demonstrations. That is, evolutionists invoke Atavism whenever a trait occurs in an organism that is NOT visible in its nearest ancestors, but which is alleged to occur in its more distant ancestors. Since evolutionists easily embrace Atavism based solely on [i]pattern[/i], life’s designer went great lengths to AVOID creating patterns that could be interpreted as Atavism.  This is why, for example, the whale-tail and the fish-tail were given substantially different designs. AND IT SUCCEEDED. No evolutionists (not even the early Darwinians, who were unconstrained by notions of pleiotropy) claim these are the result of Atavism.

[NOTE: According to recent papers by evolutionary geneticists, the typical gene affects 7.5 traits, and some genes affect over 30 traits, which means there is an abundance of pleiotropy in nature. This abundance of pleiotropy is an aid to Atavistic "explanations," but it is a serious problem for the evolutionary origin of new complex traits. Evolutionary stories tend to be of the form "one-gene makes one-trait" because that assumption makes evolutionary stories seem more plausible. When in actual fact the relationship is NOT one-to-one, but many-to-many. A trait (such as a feather) tends to be comprised of many genes (this is called polygeny), and each gene tends to affect many traits (this is called pleiotropy).  This is the evolutionists' polygeny-pleiotropy problem that ReMine has brought up. In general, evolutionists embrace pleiotropy when they want to (as when discussing Atavism), and they [i]ignore[/i] pleiotropy when they want to (as when discussing the origin of new complex traits). As ReMine has said, evolutionary theory is a structureless smorgasbord, from which evolutionists [i]select[/i] whatever [i]Natural[/i] explanations they need — This is ‘Natural’ selection in action.]

> Indeed, if [life's designer is] so fond of
> uniting organisms on the biochemical level
> (for some reason) then the same reason that
> caused him to design animals alike on the
> molecular level ought to cause him to design
> animals as similarly as is reasonably possible
> on the macro-level. What flaw is there in that
> reasoning, Walter?

Again, Ryan is misrepresenting Message Theory. Designing lifeforms “as similarly as is reasonably possible” is NOT the goal claimed in Message Theory. Re-read the claims of Message Theory.

> And the reason you can’t hypothesize that
> the same designer created all living things
> is for the difficulties I outlined earlier.

He is talking nonsense. Life is utterly incompatible with life being created by multiple designers acting independently — the idea of life being created by ONE designer (or group of designers acting together as ONE) is driven by the data.

> An atavism would not be plausible in the case
> of whales [i.e., whale-tails versus fish-tails],
> …. Nor is “transposition” …

He agrees with me that the similarity between whale-tails and fish-tails cannot be explained by Atavism, or by Transposition, or by common descent. This is by design — as predicted by Message Theory.

> if [the designer is] so fond of uniting organisms
> on the biochemical level (for some reason) then
> the same reason that caused him to design animals
> alike on the molecular level ought to cause him to
> design animals as similarly as is reasonably
> possible on the macro-level. What flaw is there
> in that reasoning, Walter?

First, unity at the [i]biochemical[/i] level is the only suitable way to unify any two organisms as the work of one designer — organisms as different as yeast and elephants. (Putting tusks on yeast doesn’t work.)

Second, unity at the [i]biochemical[/i] resists evolutionary explanations (particularly their explanations on the origin-of-life. In other words, biochemical unity neatly advances all the goals of Message Theory.

Third, he again MISREPRESENTS Message Theory. It is NOT the goal “to design animals as similarly as reasonably possible on the macro-level.”

> In conclusion, I think my argument that Common
> Descent predicts a universal code was wrong.

Thank you for that acknowledgement.

> Walter conflates “Evolution” with “all possible
> natural explanations” which is incorrect. ….
> For instance, he conflates common descent with
> multiple origins of life.

Ryan is continuing the evolutionists’ mischief of trying to SEPARATE the origin-of-life from evolution — as though the two problems are unrelated. This is how they traditionally obscured (i.e., concealed) their self-contradictions over the biochemical unity of life. Dobzhansky’s famous paper — titled “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” — used biologic universals (such as the genetic code) as powerful evidence for evolution. Ryan now acknowledges that was wrong, but nonetheless he continues the evolutionist attempt to obscure the issue by separating the origin-of-life from evolution.

Many evolutionists today propose [i]multiple[/i] origins of life. I have not misrepresented that.  

In conclusion, Ryan repeatedly misrepresents Message Theory; he should first straighten that out. If he then thinks he has an argument against Message Theory, he ought publish it in a suitable journal. So far, no one has. I predict he won’t even try. 

First of all, Walt claims that Evolutionary theory could explain everything and its opposite because it is theoretically possible that there might have been enough time for new genetic codes to evolve. Point taken. But he misses the fact that even if a designer created organisms to be unified at the biochemical level, it is also theoretically possible that they may have evolved new genetic codes since the original creation. So Evolution doesn’t predict a universal genetic code and neither does Message “Theory”. And if Message “Theory” does predict a universal code, then Mr. Remine needs to explain why we find organisms with slightly different codes. Is that a falsification of his theory?

Second, Remine has missed some crucial points: Atavisms (from ancestors millions of generations ago) are only plausible if the genetic material in question has other functions through which it might be preserved, as is the case with hen’s teeth. An atavism would not be plausible in the case of whales, because the genetic material which makes the body of the whale would have been radically changed over the course of evolution into amphibians, then reptiles, mammals, etc. Nor is “transposition” (Which I think is his term for lateral gene transfer) a plausible explanation, because lateral gene transfer in higher organisms works with small amounts of genetic material, certainly not enough material to make a tail. The only explanation that makes sense is convergent evolution of fish and whales (adapting to the same environment separately). And convergent evolution makes sense, because whales swim in a manner very similar to the way other mammals swim (by beating their tails up and down). On the other hand, there’s no reason a designer couldn’t have designed whales to swim the same way as fish. Indeed, if he’s so fond of uniting organisms on the biochemical level (for some reason) then the same reason that caused him to design animals alike on the molecular level ought to cause him to design animals as similarly as is reasonably possible on the macro-level. What flaw is there in that reasoning, Walter?

In conclusion, I think my argument that Common Descent predicts a universal code was wrong. I don’t think any theory “predicts” a universal code, including Walt’s “theory” for reasons I outlined above. I think we need to focus on explaining the code. One possible explanation is that there was a single designer (or team of designers, acting in unison) that made the code. After all, Apple and Microsoft design computers to read computer code in the same way. That explanation is possible as long as one does not hypothesize that the designer created all living things (just the first living things). And the reason you can’t hypothesize that the same designer created all living things is for the difficulties I outlined earlier.

Another possible explanation is that the code was inherited from a common ancestor and hasn’t changed much because of difficulties in its evolving and lack of time for it to diverge.  

I said no such thing. Rather, I cited the “Hen’s Teeth” case (including atavism and pleiotropy) as a valid counter-example to what evolutionists here were claiming is not plausible. Evolutionists on this thread claimed that Atavisms crossing millions of years is not plausible, so I cited the Hen’s Teeth case supposedly “resurfacing after 80 million years”, where leading evolutionists today embrace it as a “fact”. The above cited evolutionist here now even claims that is “a perfectly reasonable explanation”, which further validates my point — Evolutionists do indeed embrace atavisms (or genetic throwbacks) resurfacing after many, many million years. Evolutionary theory is quite flexible on this point. 

Frank wrote:
– “In this case [of whale-tail versus fish-tail] such a vast set of changes would have to take place that atavisms are out of the question and nobody proposes this [atavism] as an explanation.”

He and I agree there.  Atavisms were embraced by the early Darwinians, and are still embraced today — along with pleiotropy. Atavism was, and remains today, a part of evolutionary theory. However, the whale-tail versus fish-tail case cannot be explained by atavism/pleiotropy because the differences between these tails is too great, so nobody proposes atavism as the explanation. Curiously, though evolutionary theory includes Atavism, it is seldom invoked by evolutionists. Why?  Because the pattern of life systematically resists that explanation.

A systematic absence of Atavism and Transposition patterns (in the fossil-bearing organisms) is predicted by Message Theory, because life is designed (in part) to resist evolutionary explanations — Atavism and Transposition chief among them (see my previous posts).  Evolutionists cannot explain the whale-tail versus fish-tail similarity by common descent, nor by Atavism, nor by Transposition. So evolutionists are left with their least simple, least plausible, and least experimentally demonstrated “explanation” of similarity — so-called “convergence”.

Frank wrote:
– “Why not give feathers to the bat? It could not be explained by transpositions or atavisms either. No macro-evolutionary explanation would be possible. Why not make the tail of the whale and fish the same? That would be even harder to explain by transpositions and atavisms.”

He has it exactly backwards. When traits are the same, they are easier, (not “harder”), to explain as Transpositions or Atavisms.

Also notice. Darwinians are renowned for their clever ingenuity given in their Darwinian scenarios (or storytelling), which they regard as “perfectly reasonable” (see his above post).  They can “explain” virtually anything and its opposite. So it’s a hoot to see them suddenly TURN-OFF their clever ingenuity and claim if such-and-so existed it “could not be explained by evolution.”  On the contrary, if bats had feathers, or birds had hair, or whales had gills, or the eyes of octopus and human had identical eyes, then evolutionists in Darwin’s day, or a thousand years ago (or even today) would have no trouble “explaining it” via Transposition or Atavism. He has it quite backwards. He does not understand the enormous power of evolutionary theory to “explain” virtually everything and its opposite.

Frank wrote:
– “I guess you will say the designer wanted to amuse us with the spectacle given by [whale] blow holes …”

I said no such thing. Evolutionists abundantly misrepresent their opponents. He is doing that here.

Frank wrote:
– “Pretty much structures will be the same because they come from the same designer unless they are not the same in which case we just wave our hands and say the designer must have wanted them different and you make up some arbitrary criteria, ‘to resist all macro-evolutionary explanations.’”  

He again misrepresents Message Theory. Message Theory is not “arbitrary,” rather it calls out specific design goals that must be simultaneously and systematically met. (see my above posts)