Harry Marks wrote:I think Dawkins has trouble accommodating multi-objective approaches to big worldview gestalts. For him, there is only one aspect of the question which matters: what is the evidence? And that is a salutary attribute for a natural scientist.

The problem for me Harry is that R.D.is well aware of the problem of conflicting family trees in comparative genomes yet flat out asserts that on the contrary these show clear cut hierarchies and a "perfect family tree."
This is simply false. These problems are well known by biologists. Here's one example on comparisons in primates.
http://www.newcreationist.blogspot.ie/2 ... trees.html

The iconic tree of life is also being questioned within molecular biology. Here's an interesting exchange between Craig Venter and Richard Dawkins from a longer discussion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXrYhINutuI

New Scientist published an article in 2009 on problems with Darwin's tree of life. The proffered solution is that different species interbreed much more than previously thought. Well maybe, but it would be interesting to know how they define species.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2009 ... -tree-life

There are other problems such as orfan genes which are not satisfactorily explained but waved aside with mere hypothesizing of rapid evolution.
The theory has lots of problems but for a philosophical naturalist it's the only game in town. Dawkins is not ignorant of these problems in genetics but dismisses those who raise them as ignorant.
Here are the problems scientifically as laid out by a theist. http://www.newgeology.us/presentation32.html

I might also add that in that C.N.N clip the iconic Archaeopteryx fossil was shown as a link from reptiles to birds but it's known by paleontologists that bird fossils have been found predating this supposed ancestral link.
Homology of limbs can just as easily be explained by common design as common ancestry.

Flann 5 wrote: The problem for me Harry is that R.D.is well aware of the problem of conflicting family trees in comparative genomes yet flat out asserts that on the contrary these show clear cut hierarchies and a "perfect family tree."
This is simply false. These problems are well known by biologists.

Well, you know what Kuhn found about new paradigms - the resistance from advocates of the old paradigm can be downright intransigent. I looked at the guardian piece and it does look interesting, and new to me.
I knew about micro-organisms exchanging genetic material - in fact that was the basis for Rifkin's objections to GMO's and still has not received a satisfactory answer.
I also know about hybrids - usually these are sterile, which is a requirement for declaring separate groups to be separate species. They are allowed to have interbreeding capacity, but the offspring must be, at least for the most part, sterile.

It may be a while before I get around to checking out "new creationist" and "new geologist" source material. Creationists are just not honest. Whenever one of their anomalies gets explained, they just move on to some other new material.

The fundamental problem is that science needs to be a program for investigation. When an anomaly shows up, if nobody has a hypothesis for following up further investigation of a mechanism, there is no place for it. It cannot be turned into science. If creationism ever gets around to positing a mechanism that is based on special creation and can be investigated, then it has some chance of being supported by evidence. But so far the extent of their science is "there are anomalies" and they have no mechanism to explain that, which might be investigable.

Flann 5 wrote:The theory has lots of problems but for a philosophical naturalist it's the only game in town.

I think that is quite literally true. There is no alternative conceptual structure with any possibility of being investigated.

Flann 5 wrote:Homology of limbs can just as easily be explained by common design as common ancestry.

So what difference does it make? If a designer works by ancestry, as is overwhelmingly the case, then ancestry is the mechanism. And if there is some other mechanism, how can we sniff it out and elucidate its workings?

Flann, what you see as "problems" are just course corrections for the vehicle of science. Darwin's tree of life, as you say, was merely metaphoric. And we would expect Darwin, who wrote The Origin of Species before the work of Gregor Mendel was known, would quite naturally have been wrong about quite a lot of things. But he was right about natural selection as the main mechanism for diversity of life on our planet. The intervening years have only piled on the evidence supporting Darwinian evolution.

From the article:

But modern genetics has revealed that representing evolutionary history as a tree is misleading, with scientists saying a more realistic way to represent the origins and inter-relatedness of species would be an impenetrable thicket. Darwin himself also wrote about evolution and ecosystems as a "tangled bank".

So even Darwin envisioned a "tangled bank." There is no problem, only refinement. The question is, why do you persist on finding "problems" where credible evolutionary scientists find none?

The problem for me Harry is that R.D.is well aware of the problem of conflicting family trees in comparative genomes yet flat out asserts that on the contrary these show clear cut hierarchies and a "perfect family tree."
This is simply false. These problems are well known by biologists. Here's one example on comparisons in primates.
http://www.newcreationist.blogspot.ie/2 ... trees.html

You trust information from a man who has been a pastor for many churches, and is a lone voice proposing these ideas? It should occur to you that this man's bias is necessarily so large that his interpretation of the data can't be trusted, even if you agree with him.

Everything you post follows this format Flann. Apply the standards of good thinking to what you post, and you'll see it all wash away under the bridge.

Interbane wrote:You trust information from a man who has been a pastor for many churches, and is a lone voice proposing these ideas? It should occur to you that this man's bias is necessarily so large that his interpretation of the data can't be trusted, even if you agree with him.

Everything you post follows this format Flann. Apply the standards of good thinking to what you post, and you'll see it all wash away under the bridge.

He's certainly not a lone voice on the subject of conflicts in family trees as indicated by genome comparisons. The article provided examples of this, but it's common knowledge among molecular biologists.

http://www.quantamagazine.org/20130604- ... e-of-life/

That's why I find it bizarre that Richard Dawkins denies this and pretends everything is hunky dory and that genome comparisons provide overwhelming evidence for specific family trees. They are conflicting and confused in many cases.

geo wrote:Flann, what you see as "problems" are just course corrections for the vehicle of science.

You can see it that way Geo. I think many of these problems are intractable. Origin of life. Orphan genes appearing de Novo. Cambrian explosion. Convergent evolution of systems and morphology in radically different creatures.
Limitations of mutations for radical variation as seen in fruit flies,bacteria and the great experiment inducing mutations in crops as detailed by Loennig.
R.D. says it's a fact!
I question that sacred cow.

What's with the creationist derail??

Flann 5 wrote: You can see it that way Geo. I think many of these problems are intractable. Origin of life. Orphan genes appearing de Novo. Cambrian explosion. Convergent evolution of systems and morphology in radically different creatures.
Limitations of mutations for radical variation as seen in fruit flies,bacteria and the great experiment inducing mutations in crops as detailed by Loennig.
R.D. says it's a fact!
I question that sacred cow.

You think many of these problems are intractable, but you're not a scientist. That would be like me saying there are problems with quantum physics based on my own lack of understanding of the science.

The "problems" you mention are merely areas where more research is needed. They would be problems only if scientists were unwilling to look at new information and unwilling to try to figure it out.

But Robert is right. This thread is way off topic. Are you reading the book, Flann?

geo wrote:But Robert is right. This thread is way off topic. Are you reading the book, Flann?

O.K. I'll leave you guys to get back on track. Did you discover where brains come from?

Flann wrote:
Did you discover where brains come from?

According to Harrison, It is not possible to pin point the origins of brains. (something that I find agreeable)
Its clearly very difficult if not impossible to know the moment of every evolutionary development of the past 4.5 billion years.