Replies

"The genetic codes of organisms make no sense unless there is common descent."

Then they are not subject to being falsified. You are unwilling to be wrong and therefore confuse dogma with science.

Yeah, thanks for lecturing me on science, a field that despite 80 or so published papers, I'm totally ignorant about. You've published how many? Several hundred or so?

You think that because ribosomal 16S/23S yields a single phylogenetic tree, its common descent can't be falsified? So if we found an entirely separate and distinct tree, that wouldn't be falsification?

So it's the regularities that prove UCD... oh, except when there are irregularities, then that proves UCD.

No one said or even implied the latter. You've started lying: you must be getting desperate.

The scientifically correct way to state this is that UCD leads us to predictions of gene and protein sequences which are confirmed by testing. The question is whether other possibilities are supported by the same predictions. A correlation between structure and gene sequences, or a correlation between function and gene sequences hardly amounts to UCD being essential. It could just as easily support common design

No. We can always come up with multiple hypotheses consistent with any body of data, last Thursdayism being the most universal. The fact that you can hypothesize an all-powerful being that, because of said being's omnipotence, can explain anything, doesn't mean you have another scientific explanation. You've merely got another explanation.

You could claim to already have your doctorate in molecular biology. The difference is that I know my friend. I don't know you. (And you don't know me.)

My regular web page is linked on my profile.

Here's my (somewhat outdated) web page and publication list, at a University of Nebraska domain name. Here's my blog. If you dispute I'm the author of them, send me an innocuous phrase by FReepmail, and I'll include it in the latter. Alternatively, I'll update the c.v. up to any publication number less than 83 that you request.

"thanks for lecturing me on science, a field that despite 80 or so published papers, I'm totally ignorant about"

Well, science is what the debate is about isn't it? I guess someone without a science degree can not be right about a scientific issue, and someone with one can never be wrong. Correct? Based on your expertise, what standard of demarcation do you accept for what is and is not science? Supportability, falsifiability, utility, elegance, empiricism, realism, what?

"You think that because ribosomal 16S/23S yields a single phylogenetic tree, its common descent can't be falsified? So if we found an entirely separate and distinct tree, that wouldn't be falsification?"

No. I challenge the claim that common characteristics are equivalent to common heredity. Identifying common features is certainly useful, but interpreting them as irrefutable support for UCD is not. Taxonomic nomenclature is a useful paradigm for categorizing life, but that does not make it an infallible road map of history.

As far as falsification goes, finding life that has no DNA would work too. But that is beside the point. Why is the interpretation that common characteristics always imply common ancestry? How can you falsify this correlation between features and heredity? What if there are common features without common heredity? If you assume UCD axiomatically, it is impossible to identify where the correlation fails.

"No one said or even implied the latter. You've started lying: you must be getting desperate."

I'm not lying, and I resent the accusation. I have heard other evolution proponents claim common flaws prove heredity. Maybe you have not made such claims, but that is no reason to call me a desperate liar.

"We can always come up with multiple hypotheses consistent with any body of data... You've merely got another explanation."

OK. Then what is your standard of demarcation?

"My regular web page is linked on my profile."

I did not intend to imply that I was impeaching your credentials. I only mean that the quality of someone's arguments is a better measure for the purpose of debate. (That, and because your credentials are so much better than mine.) Anyway, I prefer to debate someone who knows what they are talking about. I would rather lose a debate and learn something , than win against someone who is ignorant of the subject any day.

I have made a couple of major concessions over the past couple of years in this debate. I have learned a lot from reading and participating. I am not completely closed minded even if I get a bit competitive.