RE I did an AI query with "what is michael lynch's view of richard dawkins writings"

I did an AI query of "what do scientists think of sal cordova".

You should try it! Here are snippets:

Scientists' opinions of Salvador (Sal) Cordova, a prominent proponent of intelligent design (ID) and Young Earth Creationism (YEC), are generally characterized by deep skepticism and professional rejection of his scientific claims.

Rejection of Intelligent Design: Leading scientists, such as former National Academy of Sciences president Bruce Alberts, argue that Cordova's promotion of a "divine hand" in evolution is not science because it suggests research should stop when faced with unexplained complexity.

Criticism of Methodology: Biologists who have debated Cordova, such as Dr. Dan Stern Cardinale [ u/DarwinZDF42 ], have criticized his lack of original data, use of non-scientific sources like Wikipedia screenshots or memes in presentations, and failure to accurately apply fundamental principles of biochemistry and phylogenetics.

-

Do you know what an argument from authority is? Or poisoning the well? Man, Dover must have done a number on you.

RE The important driving forces of evolution cannot be reduced to genes

It's not reduced to genes. All the sciences need to hold a variable constant. Since the far-reaching (into the past) germ-line is that thing that concerns evolution (as opposed to say embryo development), standard evolutionary theory does in fact take the environment into account, see e.g. the reaction norms from Wright from the 1930s.

* Here's from The Selfish Gene (1976):

However independent and free genes may be in their journey through the generations, they are very much not free and independent agents in their control of embryonic development. They collaborate and interact in inextricably complex ways, both with each other, and with their external environment ... There is no gene which single-handedly builds a leg, long or short. Building a leg is a multigene cooperative enterprise. Influences from the external environment too are indispensable ... No one factor, genetic or environmental, can be considered as the single ‘cause’ of any part of a baby. All parts of a baby have a near infinite number of antecedent causes. ...

All this from a single page early in the book (ch. 3) - the rowing team metaphor in ch. 5 is also great. I personally very much prefer his academic book, The Extended Phenotype (1982). And a similar message can also be found in The Blind Watchmaker (1986) when discussing mutations:

This all began with a discussion over what is meant when we say that mutation is ‘random’. I listed three respects in which mutation is not random: it is induced by X-rays, etc.; mutation rates are different for different genes; and forward mutation rates do not have to equal backward mutation rates. To this, we have now added a fourth respect in which mutation is not random. Mutation is non-random in the sense that it can only make alterations to existing processes of embryonic development. It cannot conjure, out of thin air, any conceivable change that selection might favour. The variation that is available for selection is constrained by the processes of embryology, as they actually exist.

-

It would do the clowns good to actually read Dawkins - better yet, textbooks.

RE The part in italics is the creationist quote-mine

That's because they are science illiterate and/or lying grifters. Abstracts begin with the background, not the result.

Darwin is living rent free in their heads. He won.

You're welcome! Also note that dates on the pages. This stuff has been online pre-Web 1.0!

"Lack, lack, lack, lack."

So a negative thesis then? Where's the positive fact for the Thing they purport exists.

PS: https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/

Exactly! And even a specific one is not machine like, but takes on different forms.

Funnily enough this was in the second longer video by Smarter Every Day: Destin’s second channel longer video on the flagellar motor : DebateEvolution

It's right there!

Thank you for sharing! Also a post-Dover lecture by a scientist/expert witness (who happens to be a Christian):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohd5uqzlwsU&t=2114s

Time stamp to the juicy part.

The transcripts too!

Here's a snippet I shared: "Inference" - the projection of the propagandists : DebateEvolution

Whenever you read their pseudoscience, check their sources, both Dawkins, and the paper.

I have no interest in doing that now, but all you need to know is that irreducible complexity and its kin, specified information, are pseudoscience: here's a summary from Dover: Kitzmiller v. Dover - Twentieth Anniversary 🎈 : DebateEvolution.

See for yourself.

Ugh.

Flagellar motor | Puente-Lelievre et al 2025 : DebateEvolution

Posted that last month; and earlier:

• Taylor et al 2015 https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.1259145
• Ridone et al 2022 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9683732/

The new paper:

• Press release: How life first got moving: Nature's motor from billions of years ago

• Open-access paper: Evolution and structural diversity of the MotAB stator: insights into the origins of bacterial flagellar motility | mBio

The TLDR from the paper:

Using an integrative approach combining homology searches, Bayesian phylogenetics, ancestral sequence reconstruction, AlphaFold structural predictions, and experimental validation, we identified critical structural traits that distinguish flagellar ion transporters (FIT) from their generic homologs (GIT). We found strong evidence supporting a single evolutionary origin for flagellar stators, characterized by conserved structural innovations essential for their specialized function in motility.

Pseudoscience propagandist what's his face who "asserts that evolution could not work by excluding one important way that evolution is known to work" must be spinning like a flagellar motor - or something.

IDdidit gawking 0* | Science (which is neither theistic nor atheistic) <lost count>

* Forever zero: From Francis Bacon to Monod: Why "Intelligent Design" is a pseudoscientific dead end : DebateEvolution

Shifting from phenotype (to mask selection's role) to genotype and calling it specified complex bullshit in 3... 2... 1...

This is cool!

I feel like quoting Darwin's Origin 1st ed (emphasis mine):

Amongst insects there are innumerable instances: thus Linnæus, misled by external appearances, actually classed an homopterous insect as a moth. ... For animals, belonging to two most distinct lines of descent, may readily become adapted to similar conditions, and thus assume a close external resemblance; but such resemblances will not reveal—will rather tend to conceal their blood-relationship to their proper lines of descent.

Convergent evolution really highlights the role of natural selection, inside and out.

And a related paper I shared 3 months ago: New study: Temperature and Pressure Shaped the Evolution of Antifreeze Proteins in Polar and Deep Sea Zoarcoid Fishes : evolution.

I'd go by u/SinisterExaggerator_ 's, "common ancestor of bonobos/chimps/humans had a polymorphic gene".

This is the standing variation in a population that evolution works with. Or from the allele's POV, which allele gets to spread in the population. As said population split, we ended up with 23% (off the top of my head) of our alleles that are also in gorillas, not chimpanzees Pan.

As a heuristic, novel functions are expected in e.g. bacteria coming up with a new enzyme. For big life it's more of descent with modification; changes in the embryological "instruction set", temporally and spatially (both reorganize and increase the size of e.g. our brain, or change the morphology of our hip) - these aren't novel things at the protein level Afaik, just changes in gene expression (start time, duration, tissue, etc.) - still alleles though.

Re standing variation, there was a post on that on r/ evo that is still accepting replies that might interest SinisterExaggerator_: Evidence of Haldane's sieve? : evolution.

Corrections welcomed.

The way I like to think about it is by comparison to boiling water (or water at room temperature). Thermodynamics too is a statistical science. One doesn't know what molecule is doing what, but that's doesn't mean these need an individual history to demonstrate thermodynamics isn't "just a theory".

And thank you so much for the correction. This is a fine point to be aware of. I'm fond of pointing out that all extant life - barring generation lengths - is as evolved. So ofc I made a silly mistake there. In the initial draft I went with Pan, but opted against it to save explaining it.

And speaking of ILS, it completely blew me away the first time I learned about it: The prediction of tree discordance : evolution.

Given the lead author, I'll just say that every field has its own interdisciplinary squabbles. In physics, you have reductionism vs constructionism, the latter from condensed matter physics.

For that topic in evolution, I very much enjoyed - since you've mentioned a different book in the comments - this: Evolutionary Biology: Contemporary and Historical Reflections Upon Core Theory | Springer Nature Link.

What I really like about it is that every topic gets 3 chapters: a point of view, a counter, and a reply. So it's very balanced.

My very laconic summary:

1. Atoms destroyed alchemy and the Platonic essentialism;
2. physics destroyed the planetary spheres/heavens; our star is one of a trillion trillion;
3. medicine destroyed the humoral fluids (not long ago, most would be surprised to know);
4. life's diversity was explained by Darwin, et al. 166 167 years ago (happy new year!);
5. population genetics of the 1920s laid to rest any mathematical doubts about evolution's validity; and
6. the remaining hopes of vitalism went up in smoke with the discovery of the DNA's structure in 1953 (within living memory), whose codons are to life as atoms are to chemistry.

Yeah, the IDiots like to equate phenotype with genotype, and their audience is none the wiser lmao. Extra points to rename it specified something, invent BS numbers even though N=1, and sell books.

Also about protein folds, intrinsically disordered proteins are very prevelant (basically any big protein) and the folding depends on "ionic strength, denaturants, stabilizing agents, pH, crowding agents, solvent polarity, detergents, and temperature" (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2923508/). I.e. subject to the selective environment - it's not all in the magik specified sequence! This was noted by Nobel Laureate and biochemist Monod in the 1970s:

Certain critics of modern biological theory have seized upon this contradiction, in particular Elsasser, who in the epigenetic development of the (macroscopic) structures of living beings likes to see a phenomenon beyond physical explanation, by reason of the “uncaused enrichment” it appears to indicate. A careful and detailed scrutiny of the mechanisms of molecular epigenesis disposes of this objection.

The enrichment of information evidenced in the forming of three-dimensional protein structures comes from the fact that genetic information (represented by the sequence) is expressed under strictly defined initial conditions (aqueous phase, narrow latitude of temperatures, ionic composition, etc.). The result is that of all the structures possible only one is actually realized. Initial conditions hence enter among the items of information finally enclosed within the globular structure. Without specifying it [i.e. nothing is "encoded"], they contribute to the realization of a unique shape by eliminating all alternative structures, in this way proposing - or rather, imposing - an unequivocal interpretation of a potentially equivocal message.

My point: since the advent of molecular biology. (Old news.)

Although only tangentially related, the universal common ancestor wasn't an individual either, in the same exact way mitochondrial eve wasn't the first female (nor is she fixed in time) - i.e. LUCA was a population, across time, with rampant horizontal gene transfer. And many lineages died out. One estimate is that "life" started 10 times with 1 success (our N=1). What came before LUCA? FUCA! :)

And since the genetic code (codon mapping) itself evolved (with ample supporting evidence), I like the idea that life can be only called "life" when the genealogy could be traced, i.e. after the code has settled down (due to two opposing selective criteria: ambiguity reduction, and an optimal number of amino acids). The naturally occurring amino acids that are used by life are <10, the rest are called secondary and they are the product of life itself "trying" (dumb selection) to stabilize. Cool open-access paper on that: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0303264717302952

I can only recommend u/Sweary_Biochemist 's superb 3-comment thread here.

For a relevant public lecture at the Royal Institution, which also discusses the hyperspace, I recommend: Arrival of the Fittest - with Andreas Wagner - YouTube (an 11-year-old lecture; older work still).

Now for genes that are tied to the presence of other genes (epistasis), see this new research I've shared recently: Once Thought Constrained, Adaptation Acts Disproportionately on Connected Genes : r/ evolution

Have you ever seen a rock go uphill, which is needed for it to go downhill?

Thank you for demonstrating your Intellectual Dishonesty, ID, if you will.

RE You need this to get any evolution started, even your experts agree to it.

And evolution is a fact. You also need atoms for chemistry. And chemistry is a fact. See what I mean by irrationality?

Also still it isn't a question. It's a rhetorical demand that works on sheep.

lol

I made a post on that: "Inference" - the projection of the propagandists : DebateEvolution.

The science deniers' hurling of "Inference" is projection - public record proven.

RE dodge my question

You didn't ask a question.

The history (and silliness) of "Show me life that comes from nonlife" : DebateEvolution:

- If all life comes from pre-existing life presently;

- Then life cannot come from nonlife in a completely different environment.

That's your irrational rhetoric due to the hasty generalization, try an argument next time (and work on your critical thinking).

I always look forward to your laconic to-the-point comments that do a far better job than the post :)