{"id":9764,"date":"2025-11-19T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=9764"},"modified":"2025-05-24T17:04:05","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T17:04:05","slug":"looking-at-dennis-venema-and-scot-mcknights-book-2017-adam-and-the-genome-part-8-of-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=9764","title":{"rendered":"Looking at Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight\u2019s Book (2017) &#8220;Adam and the Genome&#8221; (Part 8 of 22)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>0071&nbsp;<em>Each<\/em>&nbsp;<em>story about a<\/em>&nbsp;<em>change of genotype potentiating a new phenotype<\/em>&nbsp;also is&nbsp;<em>a story about an adaptation into a niche<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For&nbsp;<em>the nylonase-producing bacteria,<\/em>&nbsp;the niche is&nbsp;<em>a waste pond full of industrial polymers<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For&nbsp;<em>animals with backbones<\/em>, the niche could be related to&nbsp;<em>protection and movement<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For&nbsp;<em>the fruit fly example<\/em>, the niche may consist of proteins or molecules that were not previously transported.&nbsp;&nbsp;<em>The transport protein related to p24<\/em>&nbsp;may be receptive to&nbsp;<em>changes in an environment that is independent of the species<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the S-receptor virus, the niche was&nbsp;<em>a petri dish filled with lots of S bacteria<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0072 In all these examples, genetic changes would not have been of value if the phenotype did not exhibit an adaptive advantage.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Genetic changes may have occurred.&nbsp;&nbsp;But, they would not have been remembered by later generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0073 What does this mean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Phenotype<sub>2b<\/sub>&nbsp;and adaptation<sub>2b<\/sub>&nbsp;are&nbsp;<em>two actualities<\/em>&nbsp;produced by&nbsp;<em>independent methods of inquiry<\/em>.&nbsp;&nbsp;They inherently contradict one another.&nbsp;&nbsp;They also inherently complement.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0074 They intersect and form one actuality:&nbsp;<em>descent with modification<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is my diagram of&nbsp;<em>the intersection of adaptation<sub>2b<\/sub>&nbsp;and phenotype<sub>2b<\/sub>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide03-2.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide03-2.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-9765\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide03-2.png 600w, https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Slide03-2-300x200.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>0075 Intersections are curious beings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Classical Darwinism constitutes the horizontal axis.&nbsp;&nbsp;It assumes some type of inheritance, but does not know how it works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Neo-Darwinism constitutes the vertical axis.&nbsp;&nbsp;It assumes the niche, and does not know how it works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0076 Alone, neither classical nor neo-Darwinism can provide a full explanation of&nbsp;<em>descent with modification<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Likewise,&nbsp;<em>descent with modification<\/em>&nbsp;cannot be reduced to one or the other nested form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0077 Indeed, a miracle lies hidden within each intersection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0078 On one hand, consider&nbsp;<em>the virologists who find the right mix of R and S bacteria to observe the R-killing virus evolve to the S-killing virus<\/em>.&nbsp;&nbsp;They do not know whether other mutations would have produced an S-latching virus.&nbsp;They can only account for the genetic changes retrospectively (that is, after the event).&nbsp;&nbsp;They could not have predicted what mutations would do the trick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So,&nbsp;<em>the genetic part<\/em>&nbsp;is like a miracle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0079 These scientists precisely define the niche.&nbsp;&nbsp;The resulting gene changes are&nbsp;<em>what (miraculously) happen to occur<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0080 On the other hand, consider the geneticists who isolate the chromosomal changes between&nbsp;<em>chordates without backbones<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>chordates with backbones<\/em>.&nbsp;&nbsp;They may understand&nbsp;<em>the DNA-altering mechanisms involved in these changes,<\/em>&nbsp;but they cannot prospectively re-enact&nbsp;<em>the niche that rewarded the phenotypes as adaptations<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So,&nbsp;<em>the niche part<\/em>&nbsp;is like a miracle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0081 These scientists delineate the genetic changes.&nbsp;&nbsp;But, they have no idea how to reconstitute the niche.&nbsp;&nbsp;The niche is&nbsp;<em>what (miraculously) happened to occur<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>0071&nbsp;Each&nbsp;story about a&nbsp;change of genotype potentiating a new phenotype&nbsp;also is&nbsp;a story about an adaptation into a niche. For&nbsp;the nylonase-producing bacteria,&nbsp;the niche is&nbsp;a waste pond full of industrial polymers. For&nbsp;animals with backbones, the niche could be related to&nbsp;protection and movement. For&nbsp;the fruit fly example, the niche may consist of proteins or molecules that were not previously [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[417],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-9764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","tag-intelligent-design"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Looking at Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight\u2019s Book (2017) &quot;Adam and the Genome&quot; (Part 8 of 22) - An Archaeology of the Fall<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=9764\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Looking at Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight\u2019s Book (2017) &quot;Adam and the Genome&quot; (Part 8 of 22) - An Archaeology of the Fall\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"0071&nbsp;Each&nbsp;story about a&nbsp;change of genotype potentiating a new phenotype&nbsp;also is&nbsp;a story about an adaptation into a niche. 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