Evidence for evolution: Congruence
r norman
because, as a historic science, it cannot be demonstrated by
controlled laboratory experiments. I have recently found an excellent
statement of the refutation is this argument in
A. Adoutte, G. Belavoine, N. Lartillot, O. Lespinet, B. Prud'homme,
and R. deRosa
The new animal phylogeny: reliability and implications.
Proc. Nat Acad Sci 97:4453-4456 (2000)
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/9/4453
"Congruence Is a Powerful Argument. Phylogenetic reconstruction, as
much as cosmology, is an exercise in which there cannot be direct
experimental testing of hypotheses through reconstitution of
evolutionary history in the laboratory. In such scientific
disciplines, congruence between results obtained from independent data
sets remains the most decisive argument. Such congruence has
increasingly emerged in animal phylogeny, as will be seen below. We
claim that the improvements just listed now allow one to reach quite a
few solid conclusions, enabling an independent confrontation with the
vast and precious amount of morphological data"
I suggest that we emphasize to a far greater extent than we do now the
importance of congruence of information from very different sources:
the fossil record, comparative morphology, comparative embryology,
comparative biochemistry, molecular biology in answering complaints
about evolution. It is not the fossil record, it is not the genome
sequence data, it is not the similarity of body parts that "proves"
evolution. It is all of these things and a lot more all together.
Perplexed in Peoria
"r norman" <r_s_norman@_comcast.net> wrote in message news:mh65j2tje3cj4td91...@4ax.com...
Hmmm. Congruence is certainly a powerful argument that the proposed
tree is the true tree. But have anti-evolution people ever seriously
disputed the tree-like nature of taxonomy? Even Linnaeus (sp) proposed
a tree-like structure, but he wasn't positing that it was a tree of
descent. I was under the impression that even most YECs will admit
that in terms of a natural biological classification scheme, man is
an animal, a mammal, and a primate. But that classification does not
in itself prove that all primates share a common ancestor, except maybe
as a common scheme in the Designer's Mind.
r norman
The congruence between morphology and molecular biology, combined with
the fact that molecular biology is directly connected to the machinery
of genetics which does establish a tree of reproductive ancestry, plus
the fact that molecular biology is connected (though less directly) to
morphology through evo-devo produces and enormity of congruent ideas
which are then tied to ancestry.
Of course no argument will convince a confirmed creationist who can
always fall back, not only on Goddidit , but on Goddidit in that
particular way to produce every indication of biological evolution for
purposes we cannot fathom. Not to mention that Goddidit in such a way
that all the geology and all the radioactive dating and all the other
evidence was created to be entirely congruent with evolution for
purposes we cannot fathom. There is no answer to that argument.
Steven J.
Perplexed in Peoria wrote:
>
-- [snip]
>
> Hmmm. Congruence is certainly a powerful argument that the proposed
> tree is the true tree. But have anti-evolution people ever seriously
> disputed the tree-like nature of taxonomy? Even Linnaeus (sp) proposed
> a tree-like structure, but he wasn't positing that it was a tree of
> descent. I was under the impression that even most YECs will admit
> that in terms of a natural biological classification scheme, man is
> an animal, a mammal, and a primate. But that classification does not
> in itself prove that all primates share a common ancestor, except maybe
> as a common scheme in the Designer's Mind.
>
question the congruence of the nested hierarchy:
<http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v15/i2/eldredge.asp>
"This means that, whereas a nested hierarchy may well characterize
living things when viewed in terms of general similarities and
differences, it does not exist when large numbers of detailed
morphological similarities and differences are simultaneously
considered."
<http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v16/i1/chimeras.asp>
"When the pakicetids were discovered along with a host of other
finds,61 the artiodactyls began to displace the mesonychids as the
closest known relatives of cetaceans (Figure 5). The
'double-pulleyed' astralagus now appears to be an unambiguous
component of both the pakicetid and protocetid skeletons. This
synapomorphy (shared form) links artiodactyls and cetaceans as sister
groups, to the exclusion of mesonychians, which do not possess this
kind of specialized heel. The three mammalian orders are clearly
chimeras. Once again, the evolutionary nested hierarchies have been
turned upside down, as chimeric creatures are incompatible with any
sort of nested hierarchy, and only create headaches for evolutionists."
Those ID proponents who don't explicitly embrace any particular school
of creationism tend to argue differently: that the nested hierarchy is
real and, presumably, congruent, but that since this is an intelligible
pattern, it shows design rather than "random evolution."
-- Steven J.
John Harshman
Creationists claim all sorts of things, many of them mutually
contradictory. I have had the same creationist claim that there is no
objective nested hierarchy *and* that the nested hierarachy is evidence
for a purposeful god.
But in fact a nested hierarchy can easily be demonstrated, which
falsifies the first claim, and makes no sense as the product of design,
which falsifies the second claim. A creator could of course come up with
any design scheme he liked. But why, out of all the ones he could have
picked, did he pick the only one that exactly matches our expectations
from common descent? This line of argument leads rapidly to a deceptive
creator.
John Wilkins
> Even Linnaeus (sp) proposed
> a tree-like structure, but he wasn't positing that it was a tree of
> descent.
Linnaeus' "tree structure wasn't a tree, it was a nested set of
classifications that could be, and was by George Bentham in the 1830s,
represented as a tree in accordance with the old tradition of Porphyry's
Tree that goes back to the middle ages. It was a logical tree, not a
real one. Linnaeus used instead the metaphor of a map of geography -
each species and each genus was a region in the territory. When he
allowed that novel species might be created by hybridisation, he treated
this as the filling in of a vacant piece of territory.
--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."