Does Common Descent Follow Logically From Darwin's Four Postulates?

[Michael 345]

See Sanford's Genomic Degeneration Theorem as an extremely clear example.

No thanks

 

[Eugene Shubert]

By research and evaluation of evidence.

Evidently, you have no opinion on the most compelling argument at the most elementary level. Is that because you've never seen anything like that, have no understanding of the science yourself and prefer to repeat religious dogma?

 

[Michael 345]

How often must I beg for a link to the most compelling argument at the most elementary level?

I hope forever since I am sure you have investigated the subject and rejected it all and nobody will bother trying to provide you with more

Without a heart you're nothing
Without a dream you're lost
You gotta keep on begging
Gotta keep on begging
Without a heart you're nothing
And if all seems lost
Just gotta keep on begging
Gotta keep on begging

Sincere Apologies to

The Living End

 

[iceaura]

How often must I beg for a link to the most compelling argument at the most elementary level?

I handed the basics of one of the many mutually reinforcing arguments to you pages ago - the common structure and means of cellular reproduction based on a common coding of DNA implies a common ancestor. See any high school biology text.

The game of mathematics is to formulate definitions and to specify axioms so that by straightforward arguments, either extremely complex or trivial, one can create a useful theorem. See Sanford's Genomic Degeneration Theorem as an extremely clear example.

In science you need research and evidence. Math doesn't have to answer to the physical world - science does. Sanford's little theorem is in conflict with the evidence - so it's changed, or discarded.

 

[Eugene Shubert]

Without a heart you're nothing
Without a dream you're lost

Didn't you read my God-given dream where I have been selected by God to be His duly appointed prophet-trainee? http://everythingimportant.org/EugeneShubert

 

[Michael 345]

Didn't you read my God-given dream where I have been selected by God to be His duly appointed prophet-trainee? http://everythingimportant.org/EugeneShubert

Yes

And you suck at it

If you're listening upstairs take my advice

Put a ad in the Religion Weekly for a replacement

 

[Eugene Shubert]

The common structure and means of cellular reproduction based on a common coding of DNA implies a common ancestor.

I understand your claim. Every self-replicating molecular machine can transmute itself into every other self-replicating molecular machine.

But that's the very definition of having an inheritable, maximally-magical DNA molecule.

 

[Eugene Shubert]

In science you need research and evidence. Math doesn't have to answer to the physical world - science does.

I have never heard credible sources mention the miraculousness of transmogrification science. It seems that anything that bizarre should be widely known and talked about.

 

[Michael 345]

I understand your claim. Every self-replicating molecular machine can transmute itself into every other self-replicating molecular machine.

But that's the very definition of having an inheritable, maximally-magical DNA molecule.

Nooooo

Evolution is a slow division down different pathways

Once the division is great enough the different pathways do not loop back

I have never heard credible sources mention the miraculousness of transmogrification science. It seems that anything that bizarre should be widely known and talked about.

It is

Evolution is debated widely

As it is not miraculous or bizarre it is not presented as such

Religion has the patent on miraculous or bizarre

 

[billvon]

Common descent isn't testable because the thesis that all life is governed by inheritable, maximally-magical molecules isn't testable.

OK. No one is proposing that thesis. Why do you bring it up?

 

[iceaura]

I understand your claim. Every self-replicating molecular machine can transmute itself into every other self-replicating molecular machine.

No, that's not it. That's backwards.

Reread the actual post - it's a simple declarative sentence, without clauses or complications. What it says is almost the opposite - that the difficulty, the extreme unlikelihood, of such a transmutation implies a common ancestor for all examples of sufficiently complex molecular machinery.

 

[Eugene Shubert]

No one is proposing that thesis. Why do you bring it up?

The common descent postulate is logically equivalent to the thesis that all life is governed by inheritable, maximally-magical molecules.

Every self-replicating molecular machine can transmute itself into every other self-replicating molecular machine.

But that's the very definition of having an inheritable, maximally-magical DNA molecule.

Please note: I didn't say how many steps would be required.

 

[Write4U]

Imagine speciation for all species on an ancient, imaginary world taking place at an undeniably fantastic rate. Assuming that life began on this ancient world with a specific number of distinct species, how could you measure the initial number of original species?

IMO, that becomes difficult to ascertain. Life can originate in a variety of ways.
However related species always have certain similarities which are lacking in other species.
Thus if we find a species that have no apparent commonality with any other species, it is possible that it arose from a different precursor.
Roger Hazen explains that this is a plausible scenario in the world of chemistry.
But then, if life around a black smoker is so different from other surface life, then it stands to reason that bananas are also not descendants from those precursors.

Thus we cannot verify that all life originated from a single location, but then they would lack the commonality in DNA and could be ruled out as having evolved from the same ancestor.
Assuming that this actually is the case, certain indicators might suggest a different origin and evolutionary path.
One such indicator might be the color of blood. All surface vertabrates have red blood, due to the iron based red blood cells. A cuttlefish (evolved deep ocean slug) has blue-green blood, due to the copper based blood cells.

Pfeffer's Flamboyant Cuttlefish, from Sipadan, Malaysia. The blood of a cuttlefish is an unusual shade of green-blue because it uses the copper-containing protein haemocyanin to carry oxygen instead of the red iron-containing protein haemoglobin that is found in vertebrates. This is similar to the blood of arthropods.

But as life itself started as a single cell, the probability that fundamentally all life comes from a single source is the accepted view in biology (I believe)

 

[Eugene Shubert]

Evolution is a slow division down different pathways

I didn't say anything about how long it should take.

 

[Eugene Shubert]

Once the division is great enough the different pathways do not loop back

Every child mathematician knows that the probability for a self-replicating molecular machine X to eventually produce self-replicating molecular machine Y is precisely the same probability for Y to eventually produce X. The existence of a reverse path is trivial. All the steps of incremental mutations of inheritable, maximally-magical molecules could simply undo all the previous mutations in a reverse order.

 

[Michael 345]

I understand your claim. Every self-replicating molecular machine can transmute itself into every other self-replicating molecular machine.

But that's the very definition of having an inheritable, maximally-magical DNA molecule.

The common descent postulate is logically equivalent to the thesis that all life is governed by inheritable, maximally-magical molecules.


Please note: I didn't say how many steps would be required.

Surely if you have a maximally-magical DNA molecule

the max defaults to 0

After all its magical

 

[Michael 345]

Every child mathematician knows that the probability for a self-replicating molecular machine X to eventually produce self-replicating molecular machine Y is precisely the same probability for Y to eventually produce X. The existence of a reverse path is trivial. All the steps of incremental mutations of inheritable, maximally-magical molecules could simply undo all the previous mutations in a reverse order.

Let me know when you return to being a banana or a one cell green slime

 

[iceaura]

Every child mathematician knows that the probability for a self-replicating molecular machine X to eventually produce self-replicating molecular machine Y is precisely the same probability for Y to eventually produce X.

Uh, no.
Physical reality, remember? You always have to check in with physical reality.

 

[billvon]

The common descent postulate is logically equivalent to the thesis that all life is governed by inheritable, maximally-magical molecules..

Nope. No magic, maximal or otherwise, required.

 

[Eugene Shubert]

No magic, maximal or otherwise, required.

Magic numbers are defined in chemistry and physics and magic squares are defined in mathematics. There are some atheists who refuse to use these phrases for religious reasons. Apparently, you are among those who are so fiercely devoted to atheism that you don’t want to violate the sanctity and purity of your religious faith.

I believe that you do engage in magical thinking. That's why I've defined a certain molecular property to be magical.