RoR: Forum

..and Hoyle turned out to be wrong on both counts.

Wasn't aware of that. Naturally, you have links, quotes, citations . . . something . . . anything . . . to support your assertion.

My point is that your actual argument with Darwinism is not science based.

It's logic-based. As far as I'm concerned, Darwinism still has to provide a model, some calculations, some predictions, etc. If Darwinism is a science, then it had better do what other sciences do. Otherwise it loses its status as "science" and gets thrown into the heap labeled "mere belief."

It is that it does not fit your view of how things should be and so you find what you want to pick at.

If only it were so. But I didn't invent probability; I just make use of it. If Darwinist claims of gradualism strain credulity, given the mere 10^17 seconds the universe has apparently been around, it isn't because I wish it so. It's because that's the way it is.

You don't want to address what you really believe, because you cannot back it up.

Whatever. If that mantra makes you feel as if you're more of a true-blue, pure-blooded Objectivist, fine by me.

There are no valid alternate theories,

I don't know what you mean by "valid." Are you suggesting some sort of "validity test" that a theory first has to go through in order to be declared "valid"? And then, after that, you'll get around to testing it against the data to see if it's true? Interesting, but I don't think scientists actually operate that way.

and most of your criticisms attack errors that have been addressed by newer theories since. For instance, most now believe that changes happen under shorter time spans (which may affect the fossil record) and within isolated populations where the environment has significant differences.

(1) Given probability, making your time span shorter makes things worse for the Darwinian argument. Random mutation + natural selection would require more time, not less. See above posts. (2) To the extent that evolutionists posit short geological time spans is the extent to which they assume non-Darwinian processes. Darwinian processes don't happen in short time spans; only long ones. So here's your choice:

Long time spans = Darwinian processes, which need more time than 10^17 seconds to search through combination spaces, whether the issue is abiogenesis or speciation.

Short time spans = non-Darwinian processes = "no valid alternative theory" according to you.

Geographic isolation + small population is also called "The Sewall Wright Effect" and "Genetic Drift." Since the population geneticists proved that a rare beneficial mutation would simply get swamped by a large population, they then switched the notion that the rare beneficial mutation could take over a very small population, if the small population were a subset of the original larger population and happened to get separated from it.

Good. I'll by that story ONCE. Maybe TWICE if I find it really entertaining. Evolutionists, apparently, want us to buy it for every species. So, every species that has evolved started out in a small isolated population that got separated from its larger parent group? A very entertaining "Just So" story, but you'll have to offer evidence that it actually happened; something more than "But it could work."

Anyway, small populations are more vulnerable than large ones to annihilation through storm, earthquake, predators, etc. The idea that it happened this way for all species is a form of cheating that in playwriting is called the "Deus Ex Machina." When the imagination fails to resolve the plot, just instruct the backstage crew to lower the basket with an actor dressed as a god or goddess to solve all the plot problems for the characters and the audience. Similarly, when all else fails for random mutation plus natural selection acting over long periods of time, just wave your hand and instruct the students in your classroom that it probably occurred as a result of the "Sewall Wright Effect" in which a very small population separated geographically from its parent population, no predation, plenty of rare beneficial mutations, natural selection acting generously to "fix" most of them, no environmental disasters, and voila! a new species! So simple! As simple as lowering an actor dressed as a god in a basket when the writer couldn't think of anything else to solve a problem.

Result: Standing ovation from the class, plus cries of "encore"!

Post 102

Wednesday, January 9, 2008 - 8:59pm

Manfred Schieder wrote (to Claude Shannon): "So 'consciousness is not inherent in matter' (I take it that you mean in this case 'human matter')!.

Claude replied, "I mean any matter whatsoever."

Manfried: "Well, where is it then? In a non-existing ethereal dimension?"

Claude: "Is time in a non-existing ethereal dimension? No. Yet time is non-material . . ."

Not true. Time does not exist apart from material entities, which was Aristotle's view as well as Rand's.

(1) That we only observe and measure time as a relation among material entities in no way means that it cannot exist without those material entities.

(2) Time is obviously not the same thing as the entities or their motion. Even if we accept your position, it follows that time is something different and distinguishable from entities and motion, which (as Rand claims) are merely used to measure time. They are not time itself. Thermometers are used to measure average kinetic energy of molecular motion; it is not the same thing as average kinetic energy of molecular motion. You confuse the measuring stick with the thing being measured.

"The universe is finite, and the concept of time applies to the relationship between entities.

A relationship between or among entities is not itself an entity. It is perfectly distinguishable from those entities, as Rand herself admits. Aristotle admits it, too, in the first book of the Organon called "Categoriae", the "Categories."

Specifically, time is a measurement of motion,

Unfortunately, Rand reverses herself here. Motion is used to measure time; time is not a measure of motion.

We already have direct evidence that mind (or consciousness) is a property of certain living organisms -- a faculty of awareness possessed by all animals. We have no evidence that mind or consciousness exists apart from living organisms

Never said it was separable. I said it was distinguishable.

Mind is obviously not a property of living organisms; if that were so, it would be governed by the same physics and chemistry that govern all the other properties of living organisms, as well as of non-living entities, i.e., statistical laws of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics. These laws are simply statistical forms of strictly deterministic laws, and they operate on the macroscopic level in predictably deterministic ways. If you claim that mind is a property of certain living organisms, then you claim that mind is ultimately explainable by reference to these same statistical laws.

You can't have it both ways: if mind is a property of certain kinds of matter, then it's deducible, explainable, and determined by the same laws that deduce, explain and determine everything else about matter; if, however, mind is not deducible, explainable, or determined by the same laws that deduce, explain, and determine all properties of matter, then mind is not a property of matter. The former position opposes the notion of free will; the latter position supports it.

that it is non-material in that sense of the term.

There's nothing in the concept of "non-material" that requires that it be separable. In any case, it really is just more concept-stealing. "Separable" itself implies a corporeal nature.

Consciousness itself has attributes that cannot be explained by reference to anything physical. "Will", for example; "intellect", "emotion", "imagination". These are all faculties of consciousness, and completely irreducible to anything physical.

So, there is indeed an answer to the question, "Where does mind exist?" It exists within those living organisms that possess it.

A philosophical position cannot answer a scientific question. There is no evidence from medicine, psychology, etc., that proves that consciousness has its locus inside of matter, let alone inside the brain. That position is the same as saying that the TV show "I Love Lucy" is located inside your television set.; after all, it can't be separated from your television set (the live action on the studio set, of course, is not the same as the broadcast); if you break something inside your set, the show on your tv screen is affected; etc. On this basis, we could claim that "I Love Lucy" is a property of certain television sets.

Also, the notion that consciousness is "inside" the brain is a subjective experience reinforced by linguistic and cultural habit. It wasn't always so. Cultures in the past have claimed that the heart was the locus of consciousness; pre-Homeric Greece believed that the liver and spleen were the seat of the soul.

In fact, it is logically impossible for consciousness to exist apart from any physical means of awareness. The reason is that mind or consciousness requires physical sense organs to perceive reality and a physical brain to process, integrate and store sensory information.

Furthermore, all sensory awareness must take a specific form that is determined by the animal's means of perception, e.g., visual, auditory, tactile, etc.

Trivially true. "Sensory awareness requires sense organs."

Without any physical means or form of perception, there could be no awareness of reality.

True for passive observation. Untrue for intellect, imagination, will, and other faculties of consciousness. Rand takes the idea of "passive observation" and conflates it to mean "consciousness, per se." Passive observation is only one faculty of consciousness; one that requires sense organs for its exercise.

There is no separate spirit or soul that exists independently of the body, any more than there is a 'life force' or elan vital that exists independently of the action of living organisms.

If it makes you feel better. But this is mere assertion of belief. Your philosophical argument above doesn't stand up to scrutiny and there's no empirical evidence given to invalidate the notion of an independent spirit, or even, for that matter, an elan vital.

Quoting Rand, “To exist is to possess identity.

Identity. Not physicality or separability.

Post 103

Wednesday, January 9, 2008 - 11:31pm

I don't know if anyone else realizes this or not but you are not going to get anywhere with Claude in the discussion about transitional fossils. Claude will never admit to a transitional fossil. Any transitional fossil proposed he will say belongs to either one species or the other.

If you’re speaking of Archaeopteryx, it wasn’t I who said that it was not a transitional fossil, but a noted ornithologist, Alan Feduccia.

This is usually the case. Specialists in their field, even when declaring their allegiance to Darwinism, are often much more skeptical of the easy explanations offered up by the non-specialist evolutionist. It was horse experts, not the race-track touts on sites like “Panda’s Thumb”, who painfully admitted that the “transitional fossils” between Eohippus and Equus were not transitional after all, but distinct species unto themselves. The same has happened with hominid fossils, giraffe fossils, and is happening now with whale fossils.

On closer study, the supposed “transitional forms” that are supposed to represent branches from an imagined central trunk of the “tree of life” begin to look progressively more distinct rather than transitional. This changes the imagined “tree of life” into something that would look more like a bush than a tree; i.e., lots of twigs splaying out radially from a central origin, but no TRUNK; no “common ancestor” from which the branches would normally emanate. In fact, in systematics, they even use the term “bushy” or “bushiness” to describe such hierarchies.

Finally, what I would like to see is evidence whose existence flows as a deduction from the theory. The theory predicts slow gradual changes. Each change presumably existed, so each change should have left fossilized evidence of itself. The panoply of slowly changing fossils, leading from one form to another doesn’t exist. What the fossil record shows is precisely what Stephen Jay Gould said: it shows mainly stasis punctuated by short bursts of rapid change. He called it “punctuated equilibrium”; I call it “non Darwinist.” Though he maintained his allegiance to Darwinism, Gould wasn’t very convinved of the truth of Darwinism by the fossil evidence. Neither am I.

(In fact Claude, I challenge you to tell me what characteristics you would accept for a transitional fossil between dinosaurs and birds.) To phrase this in the Randian Objectivist type terminology: think of Claude as a realist in terms of Universals.

Lots and lots of gradually morphing fossils, leading from dinosaurs to birds. However, a famous ornithologist and Darwinist, Alan Feduccia, claims that dinosaurs have nothing to do with birds. Period. The so-called “birdlike dinosaurs” that were supposed to be the distant ancestors of Archaeopteryx turn out to be millions of years younger. Additionally, according to him, there are no fossil precursors to hawks. There are also no fossil precursors to bats. They simply appear in the fossil record – complete with sophisticated sonar – out of nowhere.

Two additional quick comments regarding post 84.

The first couple of paragraphs seem to be discussing nothing more than the change in allele frequency over time and, in somewhat broader terms, this can mean macro-evolution.

The first couple of paragraphs of post 84 have to do with Darwin’s unwarranted assumption that if breeders can select certain traits, ergo, nature can too. My reply was that breeders are purposeful and nature is not. Goodbye unwarranted assumption.

I should add that if even purposive human agents, purposely selecting certain desirable traits from certain species, have been unable to create a new species, then it certainly does NOT follow that non-purposive nature ought to be able to do so if only we allow it enough time. It's not only an unwarranted assumption on the part of Mr. Darwin, but a non sequitor as well.

I also repeated a conclusion I made in an earlier post. Whether it’s the abiogenesis of proteins or DNA; or the speciation of an organism by random mutation and natural selection; the total number of possible combinations that nature would have to sort through in order to hit upon a successful one would require more time than has elapsed in the universe since the Big Bang (approximately 12 billion years, or 3x10^17 seconds). For nature to search through an astronomical number of possibilities in a mere 10^17 seconds and find a functional protein, for example, is like trying win 100 times at roulette in a casino with a trillion roulette wheels, and with only 5 minutes to place all your bets. In some cases, it’s merely absurdly unlikely; in others, it’s actually physically impossible, because you exhaust all the probabilistic resources in the entire universe.

I can't remember the last time I ran across a creationist who seriously challenged macro-evolution.

I never said I was a creationist. I am merely a skeptic, demanding that Darwinism do what other sciences do. Additionally, all creationists challenge macro-evolution; they may or may not accept some variant of micro-evolution.

The old chestnut about moths in England during the industrial evolution illustrates a selection pressure that was not the result of an attempt "to reach a pre-selected goal". See here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution.

Your Wiki article is about as up to date and relevant as Ed’s Wiki article on Archaeopteryx. Wiki is wrong on both of these. Bird specialists pretty much accept Achaeopteryx as a true bird, not as a transition between bird and dinosaur; and the peppered moth issue of industrial melanism has turned out to be a hoax perpetrated by Kettlewell. The British journalist Judith Hooper (who is not a creationist, by the way) wrote an entire book about it called “Of Moths And Men.” So much for that old chestnut.

Claude, have I misunderstood your argument? Do you really mean that only a continuous effort towards a predetermined goal can bring about a change in the traits of animals in a breeding population (i.e. a change in allele frequency)?

Not sure what you mean by “continuous” effort. You mean “unbroken by any time interval”? I never said that. My post #84 makes clear that I am talking about the unwarranted assumption that nature can do what purposive agents do, if only given enough time. This is manifestly and demonstrably untrue with that other chestnut, “monkeys tapping on typewriter keys will eventually produce the plays of Shakespeare, or Atlas Shrugged, given enough monkeys, enough typewriters, and enough time.” It’s also untrue for proteins, DNA, and speciation.

Are you saying it was "pure dumb luck" that caused the changes in the moths in the wiki example I provided?

Dark moths were already a part of the moth population before pollution. During pollution, dark moths predominated. So what.

Same for another chestnut, Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos. Large beaked finches didn’t mutate from the small beaked finches. They existed side by side in the population, with the small beaked ones in the majority. During a drought, the large beaked ones became a majority. When the drought ended, the small beaked ones again became the majority. Upshot: no net evolution; no new species.

Big deal and so what. If this is the extent of evidence for Darwinism, then Darwinism is in big trouble.

This is the essence of what I posted earlier. “Things change” is about all that evolution can say. I agree that things change. How and why are a different story that Darwinism hasn’t answered in a scientific manner.

Second, you said this in later paragraph regarding the shortcomings of "DARWINISM": "Anyway, there were positions in classical Darwinism that contradicted Mendel's discoveries that had to be resolved. For example, Darwin believed that traits would blend smoothly; Mendel showed that traits are segregated and discrete -- the first hint that it had something to do with "information"." Darwin’s idea was that there would be a smooth blending of the traits from both parents appearing in the offspring. Mendel showed that the process was more discrete but so what.

In what way is that a significant "contradiction"?

Not sure what you mean by “significant” contradiction. Darwin said “X will happen”; Mendel showed that “X will not happen.” That’s a contradiction, whether you find it significant or not.

Mendel did not contradict the main thrust of Darwin's theory of dissent with modification or that the traits of the offspring are inherited from the parents.

Say wha? You mean, before Darwin, people didn’t know that the traits of the offspring are inherited from their parents? You credit Darwin with a bit too much. That’s been known by mankind since “Day 1.”

I can't see how Mendel’s ideas do anything but refine or make small corrections to Darwin's theory. Lamark's ideas might contradict Darwin's about heredity, but Mendel just applied a slight adjustment to the theory and, in fact, provided proof for Darwin's theory by demonstrating the mechanism by which the traits were, in fact, hereditary.

Mendel demonstrated no such mechanism. The mechanism of transmission, specifically, is DNA, which was a 20th century discovery, the exact structure and function of which was not clarified until the 1950s.

And finally, the last bit at the end of that sentence "...the first hint that it had something to do with "information"." In what way does "segregated and discrete" imply that all of this has something to do with information while "blend smoothly" does not?

Because (as I posted earlier) information is a message, and messages have a certain structure. Among other things, the structure requires segregation, discreteness, and linearity. The bases on DNA are segregated, discrete, and linear, and therefore are capable of bearing information, like a code or an alphabet. In fact, the nucleotides along DNA are completely “isomorphic” with computer codes – meaning they have the same form. DNA is an information-bearing molecule; it carries coded messages to the ribosome which uses its messages (via RNA) to build specific amino acids that are then formed into specific proteins.

The segregated nature of heritable traits that Mendel discovered with his pea experiments is a sign of DNA’s information-bearing property. I certainly didn’t intend to imply that Mendel recognized that any of this was so.

Isn't the change from "blend smoothly" to "segregated and discrete" simply a change from a continuous function to a discontinuous function?

Functions have nothing to do with this. Neither continuous functions nor discontinuous functions generate codes. For a code to convey information, its elements must be distinguishable from one another – discrete and segregated – and the elements must be linear. In written language, information is lost if you start blending one letter into another so as to be indistinguishable. The letters have to be distinct unto themselves, and clearly separated from their neighbors. In spoken language, information is lost if you slur your speech so as to make one phoneme blend in with another. Words are pronounced by keeping the elements distinct, and following one after the other, linearly.

Because information is discrete and linear, it’s measurable. It’s measured as a decrease in uncertainty (or, conversely, an increase in surprise). Another to say this is that the amount of information in an event is inversely proportional to the probability of that event. If the event has a very high probability of occurring, it doesn’t contain much information. Since you already knew that it had a high probability of occurring, it didn’t reduce much uncertainty in you when it actually occurred; it caused very little surprise. Again, something that occurs with a probability of “1” (100%) – such as the odds of tossing “heads” on a double-headed coin – would contain no information at all: you already knew it would occur, so it reduced no uncertainty and caused no surprise.

Conversely, things that occur that are very unlikely to occur can contain lots of information; they reduced lots of uncertainty and caused lots of surprise.

The order of nucleotides along the DNA helix are not determined by any function; they are freely “written” as it were. There’s nothing physical connecting one nucleotide with its upper and lower neighbors; and the neighbors to the left or right are joined by the slimmest of bonds (necessarily so, as this is where the molecule divides in order to replicate). It’s this very undetermined aspect of the discrete, linear bases in DNA that allows it to bear information.

By the way, in order to make the measure of information additive instead of multiplicative (like other probabilities), information theorists change the probability of an occurrence to its binary log (Log(2)). To show that it’s inversely proportional, they take the negative of the binary log (-log(2)). The number that comes up in a calculation is called a “binary digit” or “bit.” So the information-bearing capacity in a DNA molecule can be calculated exactly in terms of bits, just like computer code. In fact, DNA is a sort of computer code, except it uses four digits – A, C, T, G – instead of two – 0, 1.

In what way is a continuous function any less able to convey information than a discontinuous function?

A continuous function, such as a first-order differential equation cannot contain or express information: the states of the system it describes are completely determined by the equation and its initial conditions. Thus, there is no reduction of uncertainty or increase in surprise in calculating with it. A discontinuous function is also incapable of expressing information for the same reason: the states of the system it describes are completely determined by the equation itself and by initial conditions.

“Blending” wouldn’t work as a way of transmitting traits, in Darwinism or in any other paradigm, because the traits have to be discrete and separate in order to be selected and “fixed” (or conserved in the germ line).

Post 104

Thursday, January 10, 2008 - 2:39am

Excellent post Bill. Is the fallacy of a mind as an existing entity separate from an organism the same confusion as any descriptive quality attributed to an entity existing separately from it? For example while there can exist in nature three balloons, there cannot exist threeness independently from that which three is used to describe an entity(s)? Would that be called philosophical realism?

Post 105

Thursday, January 10, 2008 - 6:27am

..and Hoyle turned out to be wrong on both counts.

Wasn't aware of that. Naturally, you have links, quotes, citations . . . something . . . anything . . . to support your assertion.

Right here you already acknowledge the Big Bang yourself, so you admit he is wrong: Post 103 ...lapsed in the universe since the Big Bang (approximately 12 billion years, or 3x10^17 seconds).

Here is a good link on your other BS:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

Here are some of the issues in summary - and note you are, indeed, a Creationist! You believe, in essence, that magic caused new species, a magic brought about by a deity, which is the same reason you believe mind is not connected to body - it is all magic to you. You offer nothing of any substanstive credibility, no science, zilch as any valid explanation for anything - just "creator"

Problems with the creationists' "it's so improbable" calculations
1) They calculate the probability of the formation of a "modern" protein, or even a complete bacterium with all "modern" proteins, by random events. This is not the abiogenesis theory at all.
2) They assume that there is a fixed number of proteins, with fixed sequences for each protein, that are required for life.
3) They calculate the probability of sequential trials, rather than simultaneous trials.
4) They misunderstand what is meant by a probability calculation.
5) They seriously underestimate the number of functional enzymes/ribozymes present in a group of random sequences.
I will try and walk people through these various errors, and show why it is not possible to do a "probability of abiogenesis" calculation in any meaningful way.

Post 106

Thursday, January 10, 2008 - 8:25am

I wrote, "Time does not exist apart from material entities, which was Aristotle's view as well as Rand's." Claude Shannon replied,

(1) That we only observe and measure time as a relation among material entities in no way means that it cannot exist without those material entities.

It doesn't? Time IS the measurement of motion in the sense that when you say that a person has existed for a certain period of time -- e.g., for five years -- you're saying that he has existed for five revolutions of the earth around the sun. You're taking the motion of the earth around the sun as your standard or unit of measurement and calculating the duration of the child's existence in relation to it.

(2) Time is obviously not the same thing as the entities or their motion. Even if we accept your position, it follows that time is something different and distinguishable from entities and motion, which (as Rand claims) are merely used to measure time. They are not time itself.

Time is a relationship between the motion of entities and cannot exist without them.

Thermometers are used to measure average kinetic energy of molecular motion; it is not the same thing as average kinetic energy of molecular motion. You confuse the measuring stick with the thing being measured.

You're missing the point. The measuring stick in the case of time is a standard or unit of motion, like "one revolution of the earth around the sun," which is then used to measure other kinds of motion.

"The universe is finite, and the concept of time applies to the relationship between entities."

A relationship between or among entities is not itself an entity. It is perfectly distinguishable from those entities, as Rand herself admits. Aristotle admits it, too, in the first book of the Organon called "Categoriae", the "Categories."

Of course. And neither are properties of entities like color, shape and size entities, but that doesn't mean that they don't depend for their existence on entities.

"Specifically, time is a measurement of motion."

Unfortunately, Rand reverses herself here. Motion is used to measure time; time is not a measure of motion.

It is a measure of motion in the following sense. When we ask, how much time something takes, we're asking how many units of a particular kind of motion it takes to be completed. For example, if I ask, how much time in days it takes for someone to finish a job, I'm asking for the relationship between the motions (or work) required for its completion and the number of rotations of the earth on its axis.

I wrote, "We already have direct evidence that mind (or consciousness) is a property of certain living organisms -- a faculty of awareness possessed by all animals. We have no evidence that mind or consciousness exists apart from living organisms."

Never said it was separable. I said it was distinguishable.

You said that mind had no location. I was simply specifying its location in a certain kind of living organism.

Mind is obviously not a property of living organisms; if that were so, it would be governed by the same physics and chemistry that govern all the other properties of living organisms, as well as of non-living entities, i.e., statistical laws of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics.

Why? There is no reason to assume that goal-directed behavior, which is a property of living organisms, must be explained by Newton's laws of motion, just because the behavior of inanimate matter is explained by them. We don't look to Newton's first law of motion to explain biological reproduction, but that doesn't mean that biological reproduction isn't a physical process.

These laws are simply statistical forms of strictly deterministic laws, and they operate on the macroscopic level in predictably deterministic ways. If you claim that mind is a property of certain living organisms, then you claim that mind is ultimately explainable by reference to these same statistical laws.

Not so. The fact that deterministic laws of physics explain the behavior certain kinds of material entities (those that are inanimate) does not imply that if something is a material entity, its behavior can therefore be explained by these laws. The explanation for its behavior may require different laws.

"that it is non-material in that sense of the term." There's nothing in the concept of "non-material" that requires that it be separable. In any case, it really is just more concept-stealing. "Separable" itself implies a corporeal nature.

What are you talking about? All I was saying is that we have no evidence that mind or consciousness exists apart from living organisms. Are you honestly disputing this? And if you are not, then I don't understand your reply. What is your point? They're all faculties of consciousness yes, but they depend on a physical brain and nervous system in order to exist and function. There is no such thing as a disembodied mind or consciousness.

I wrote, "So, there is indeed an answer to the question, "Where does mind exist?" It exists within those living organisms that possess it."

A philosophical position cannot answer a scientific question. There is no evidence from medicine, psychology, etc., that proves that consciousness has its locus inside of matter, let alone inside the brain.

The evidence comes from the kind of empirical observation -- both introspective and extrospective -- that is available to virtually anybody, and which the sciences of medicine and psychology are ultimately based upon.

That position is the same as saying that the TV show "I Love Lucy" is located inside your television set; after all, it can't be separated from your television set (the live action on the studio set, of course, is not the same as the broadcast); if you break something inside your set, the show on your tv screen is affected; etc. On this basis, we could claim that "I Love Lucy" is a property of certain television sets.

It depends on what you mean by "the show." Obviously, if you mean the original action on the studio set, then of course that's not a property of your television set, but if you mean the picture on your screen, then it is a property of your television set. In any case, your analogy doesn't apply to consciousness. Mind or consciousness is obviously a property of certain living organisms. This is a directly observable fact, just as directly observable as the fact that the show "I Love Lucy" took place originally on a studio set.

Also, the notion that consciousness is "inside" the brain is a subjective experience reinforced by linguistic and cultural habit. It wasn't always so. Cultures in the past have claimed that the heart was the locus of consciousness; pre-Homeric Greece believed that the liver and spleen were the seat of the soul.

Yes, but we now have incontrovertible evidence from neuroscience that the cerebrum is where perception, imagination, thought, judgment, and decision occur.

I wrote, "In fact, it is logically impossible for consciousness to exist apart from any physical means of awareness. The reason is that mind or consciousness requires physical sense organs to perceive reality and a physical brain to process, integrate and store sensory information.

Furthermore, all sensory awareness must take a specific form that is determined by the animal's means of perception, e.g., visual, auditory, tactile, etc."

Trivially true. "Sensory awareness requires sense organs."

Once again, you're trying very hard not to understand what I'm saying. AWARENESS of the external world requires sense organs, and memory and imagination require a physical brain.

I wrote, "Without any physical means or form of perception, there could be no awareness of reality."

True for passive observation. Untrue for intellect, imagination, will, and other faculties of consciousness. Rand takes the idea of "passive observation" and conflates it to mean "consciousness, per se." Passive observation is only one faculty of consciousness; one that requires sense organs for its exercise.

Well, how do you get the information that you need in order to engage in imagination etc., if not through an observation of the external world?

I wrote, "There is no separate spirit or soul that exists independently of the body, any more than there is a 'life force' or elan vital that exists independently of the action of living organisms."

If it makes you feel better. But this is mere assertion of belief. Your philosophical argument above doesn't stand up to scrutiny and there's no empirical evidence given to invalidate the notion of an independent spirit . . .

Oh, yes there is! I just gave it. Without material sense organs, a brain and nervous system, there could be no consciousness.

Quoting Rand, “To exist is to possess identity.

Identity. Not physicality or separability.

So, what kind of identity does a pure, disembodied consciousness have? The answer is: none.

- Bill

Claude, you wouldn't happen to be the poster on this list who goes by the pseudonym "Leibniz" would you?

(Edited by William Dwyer on 1/10, 11:26am)

Post 107

Thursday, January 10, 2008 - 8:54am

William: (Post 100) Excellent contribution to this thread! Now Claude should provide a proof for "That we only observe and measure time as a relation among material entities in no way means that it cannot exist without those material entities."

Claude:

"That we only observe and measure time as a relation among material entities in no way means that it cannot exist without those material entities." Provide a proof for this. Else, it can be considered as mere empty chatter.

Also: "Mark Twain: "When the body gets drunk, does the spirit remain sober?" Easy. The answer is yes." Twain spoke of drunkenness, not of paralysis, which is a different matter. So, provide here too the required proof. Else, this can also be considered as beating around the bush.

"Would you, therefore, please provide a quote. I don't remember her mentioning Darwinian evolution as one of the "trees" to which she was referring." Rand, as you know or, at least, should know, didn't write or speak about any specific science; so your request to cite Rand as specifically referring to Darwin's evolution as the science of evolution lacks as much sense as requesting a Rand quote referring to the sciences of zoology, botany, chemistry, physics, geology, etc. She referred to science in general, as she had to do being the absolute philosopher she was. Since "it is philosophy that defines and establishes the epistemological criteria to guide human knowledge in general and specific sciences in particular", she wrote: "Science was born as a result and consequence of philosophy… Philosophy is not dependent on the discoveries of science; the reverse is true." She merely set the basis for all sciences."

Now, as unfortunate as this will surely be for you (Kurt Eichert having said the truth that you are a Creationist, though a hidden one, as the eagerness with which you reject this indication in Post 103 evidences) the philosophical basis Rand pointed out doesn't provide any basis nor justification for the claims of religious beliefs of any sorts on which Creationists rely.

"Ayn Rand was not a materialist." You don't need to repeat what I held from the very beginning. Objectivism eliminated the soul-body dualism by integrating both into one unit: "A body without a soul is a corps; a soul without a body is a ghost… You are an indivisible entity of matter and consciousness. Renounce your consciousness and you become a brute. Renounce your body and you become a fake. Renounce the material world and you surrender it to evil."

You should know by yourself all the references from which I cite.

This closes the issue (which, however, doesn't give you an excuse to not provide the proofs requested above). I'm sure William will relish the eely slipperiness of your answer!

Post 108

Thursday, January 10, 2008 - 11:16am

Claude,

If Darwinism is a science, then it had better do what other sciences do. Otherwise it loses its status as "science" and gets thrown into the heap labeled "mere belief."

The thinking error required for you to make that statement is to personally hold that every held human notion stems from either science or mere belief -- but that's a false dichotomy. Knowledge ultimately comes from 2 places (actually 3) ...
==================
1. What's self-evident in our direct perceptions

2. What's self-evident to our Reason -- i.e., what becomes evident to us after the active integration of ...

a) what's already evident from our direct perceptions -- i.e., what it is that perceptions directly entail; what it is that self-evidently follows from all those perceptions, taken together (the corollaries)
b) previous integrations (except, of course, for the very first integration)
==================

Here's an abbreviated example of obtaining knowledge without "science" or "mere belief":
-A man sees a bright light in the sky in the morning (the Morning Star) -- that light is self-evident
-That man sees a bright light in the sky in the evening (the Evening Star) -- self-evident
-That man, through observing the sky without any "laboratory" experimentation, comes to know that the Morning Star and Evening Star are one and the same planet, Venus

That's knowledge without "science" or "mere belief."

Are you suggesting some sort of "validity test" that a theory first has to go through in order to be declared "valid"? And then, after that, you'll get around to testing it against the data to see if it's true?

There IS such a test. The "validity test" that theories have to go through in order to be declared "valid" is a test to see if they are philosophically-sound. This requires 3 things ...

(1) noncontradictory definitions (statements of factual relations which effectively differentiate stuff)
(2) nonarbitrary assertions (assertions which integrate the axioms of Existence, Identity, and Consciousness)
(3) noncontradictory integration of perceptual data (correct reduction to the self-evident; either what's self-evident to perception or to Reason)

[Adapted from here.]

It was horse experts, not the race-track touts on sites like “Panda’s Thumb”, who painfully admitted that the “transitional fossils” between Eohippus and Equus were not transitional after all, but distinct species unto themselves. The same has happened with hominid fossils, giraffe fossils, and is happening now with whale fossils.

On closer study, the supposed “transitional forms” that are supposed to represent branches from an imagined central trunk of the “tree of life” begin to look progressively more distinct rather than transitional. This changes the imagined “tree of life” into something that would look more like a bush than a tree; i.e., lots of twigs splaying out radially from a central origin, but no TRUNK; no “common ancestor” from which the branches would normally emanate.

You're assuming that a "transitional" creature has to be a creature of the SAME species, but that's not necessary for finding a transitional form of life. It's circular reasoning. You're, in effect, saying that the transitional form has to be "similar enough" to be of the same species as one of the two different species it's supposed to connect or "transition" from and to -- while being "different enough" to be a distinct form of life.

Here's an example of this faulty reasoning:
You find a lemon and a grapefruit -- 2 distinct species of plants (or fruits thereof). You look for a transitional form. You come across an orange -- which has a peel, is larger than a lemon, and smaller than a grapefruit -- and you say: "Eureka! I've found it!" But then you examine the orange and find that it's a "distinct species unto itself." You say: "Darn! It's no longer a transition!" But why do you say that?

Because you were looking for a large lemon and/or small grapefruit -- i.e., you arbitrarily preclude the idea that a transition could be from a 3rd species; unwarrantedly assuming it had to be from 1 of the 2 species which you had first found.

Other than that, I'd be interested in your response to the points brought up by Kurt in post 105 and by Bill in post 106.

Ed
[By the way: Whether you call it a bird or not, Archaeopteryx has features -- jaws, claws, and a bony tail -- peculiarly reptilian; and in light of that it's beyond me how can you just sit there (with a straight-face) and type the words: "Archaeopteryx is not transitional"!]

Post 109

Thursday, January 10, 2008 - 12:06pm

Claude,

There's good evidence that archaic humans (hominids) skillfully hunted animals at least half a million years ago (some animals -- e.g., the straight-tusked elephant in Europe -- which are now extinct).

Would you please personally comment on that? Do you acknowledge the found evidence, etc.?

Ed

Post 110

Thursday, January 10, 2008 - 7:49pm

.and Hoyle turned out to be wrong on both counts.

Wasn't aware of that. Naturally, you have links, quotes, citations . . . something . . . anything . . . to support your assertion.

Right here you already acknowledge the Big Bang yourself, so you admit he is wrong: Post 103 ...lapsed in the universe since the Big Bang (approximately 12 billion years, or 3x10^17 seconds).

Not at all. Big Bang is simply the theory accepted by most scientists. Too bad for you, however, since Steady State would have given you the necessary time to search through extremely large combination spaces. If you could reason more calmly about this issue, you'd be able to figure that out without crying "Creationist!" to everyone who points it out to you. Anyway, someone else on this board posted a link to a site regarding the re-emergence of Steady State theory in astronomy. You should check it out.

Here is a good link on your other BS:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

Ah, yes. TalkOrigins.org. These are the "fundamentalists" of Darwinism. No matter which way the evidence goes, they see it as all equally proving their pet theory.

Here are some of the issues in summary - and note you are, indeed, a Creationist! You believe, in essence, that magic caused new species, a magic brought about by a deity, which is the same reason you believe mind is not connected to body

I've already carefully stated -- several times, for the slower members in this fraternity -- that "to distinguish" is not the same as "to physically separate." Ergo, I won't bother reading or responding to your rubbish on this topic. You clearly haven't read my previous posts.

Problems with the creationists' "it's so improbable" calculations
1) They calculate the probability of the formation of a "modern" protein, or even a complete bacterium with all "modern" proteins, by random events. This is not the abiogenesis theory at all.

Unfortunately for you, talkorigins, and abiogenesis, living things require a minimum genome size, and minimum number of proteins -- you can't just invent laws of biochemistry to suit your fancy and pretend that you can make living things as simple as you wish. Even the simplest organisms could not have formed through abiogenesis. And to date, no simple living thing has formed through controlled abiogenesis experiments. I think it's pretty clear that, in this case, lack of evidence is evidence of lack.

2) They assume that there is a fixed number of proteins, with fixed sequences for each protein, that are required for life.

Not sure what you mean by "fixed number of proteins". As for amino acid sequences, however, they are similar to the sequence of words in a sentence; there's some flexibility but not a lot. The very way in which a protein folds into a 3D configuration is dependent on that sequence. If the sequence is not specific enough, the protein won't fold, and will not function.

3) They calculate the probability of sequential trials, rather than simultaneous trials.

The odds of getting a six with one die in three sequential tosses are 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6, or 1/216.

The odds of getting a six on three dice, tossed once simultaneously, are 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6, or 1/216.

The same applies to mutations. Each is independent of the other. They have to be, even according to Darwinism; if they were NOT independent of one another, then they could not truly be random. If the occurrence of a mutation somehow made the next mutation more likely, or more "preferred" by the organism, then it wouldn't be a random mutation but a preferential mutation -- a concept that has nothing to do with Darwinism.

So much for the issue of sequential vs. simultaneous occurrences.

4) They misunderstand what is meant by a probability calculation.

Since you misunderstood that independent events (like mutations, like coin tosses, dice throws) are the same if you calculate them sequentially or simultaneously, your quote doesn't inspire confidence.

Why don't you personally perform a probability calculation and show the rest of us how it's done? Here's a sample problem you can dazzle us with:

Given a base-pair-substitution mutation rate of about 1/10^10 for mammals, what is the probability of getting from a distant ancestor of the horse to the modern horse over 1.5 trillion horse births? Assume that it would take about 500 beneficial mutations to occur and to get selected. Assume a selection value of 0.1. ("500" was cited by Stebbins as a typical number of necessary cumulative beneficial mutations; "0.1" was cited by Simpson as being a typical value, at least for mammals. So, you see that I'm not pulling numbers out of a hat; I'm using numbers cited by big Darwinists like Ledyard Stebbins and Gaylord Simpson).

5) They seriously underestimate the number of functional enzymes/ribozymes present in a group of random sequences.

Random sequences of what? Be specific.

I will try and walk people through these various errors, and show why it is not possible to do a "probability of abiogenesis" calculation in any meaningful way.

If you cannot model and perform a calculation, your subject matter is not a science. Science makes models and performs calculations based on them. I'm perfectly willing to accept the idea that Darwinism cannot, in principle, calculate on condition that we all acknowledge that the REASON it cannot calculate is because it is a belief system, not a true scientific theory.

Post 111

Thursday, January 10, 2008 - 11:37pm

Claude,

The odds of getting a six with one die in three sequential tosses are 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6, or 1/216.

The odds of getting a six on three dice, tossed once simultaneously, are 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6, or 1/216.

The same applies to mutations. Each is independent of the other. They have to be, even according to Darwinism; if they were NOT independent of one another, then they could not truly be random. If the occurrence of a mutation somehow made the next mutation more likely, or more "preferred" by the organism, then it wouldn't be a random mutation but a preferential mutation -- a concept that has nothing to do with Darwinism.

So much for the issue of sequential vs. simultaneous occurrences.

Incorrect. The reason that it matters is due to the limitation of time-constraints, not restraint to a single genome's (or a single or multiple chromosome's) replication(s). Genome --- or chromosome(s) -- replication, particularly with male spermatogenesis, is not a limiting factor in mutation rate. Having multitudes of replications going on all the time, it's the total time -- not the total replications of any single genome as a whole; or any single chromosome; or any combination of chromosomes.

And this is why your reasoning above is faulty -- it ignores the total time. It takes 3 times as long to get sequential "sixes" by rolling one die 3 times -- as it does by rolling 3 dice once. Now envision the male rate of spermatogenesis. It's value is astronomical. Males aren't limited by how many "dice" they can roll out, IF you know what I mean (there are always millions getting produced)! Here's some relevant research ...

Mutations do not always arise as single events. Many new mutations actually occur in the cell lineage before germ cell formation or meiosis and are therefore replicated pre-meiotically.-- Genetica.>Genetica. 2005 Nov;125(2-3):333-9.

Five datasets consisting of samples jointly typed for Y-chromosomal Unique Event Polymorphism (UEP) and simple tandem repeat (STR) markers were re-examined with independent methods for dating the different UEP-defined lineages. ...

... As to STR mutation rates the main findings are: (1) large variations among loci within the same dataset with both methods, also when the same prior was used for all loci; (2) figures in most cases above 1x10(-3) and often above 2x10(-3); (3) a few loci that mutate differently across studies.--Hum Genet. 2005 Nov;118(2):153-65.

Male-biased mutation could cause adaptive changes to accumulate more readily on certain kinds of chromosomes and favor animals with Z-W sex determination to have rapidly evolving male sexual displays.--Evolution Int J Org Evolution. 2004 Feb;58(2):437-40.

... species with intense sexual selection may maintain elevated mutation rates because sexual selection continuously benefits viability alleles expressed in condition-dependent characters. Sexual selection may increase mutational input, which in turn feeds back on sexual selection because of increased variance in viability traits.--BMC Evol Biol. 2003 Apr 18;3:6.

You continue ...

Given a base-pair-substitution mutation rate of about 1/10^10 for mammals, what is the probability of getting from a distant ancestor of the horse to the modern horse over 1.5 trillion horse births? Assume that it would take about 500 beneficial mutations to occur and to get selected. Assume a selection value of 0.1.

The problem with the "HORSES ASSumptions" above is that the 3 values -- base-substitution (mutation) rate, base-substitution (mutation) requirement, and (base-substitution) selection value -- are likely to be over- or under-estimated; each error pointing in the (wrong) direction of your conclusion. Here's research showing this ...

For over 3 decades, the rate of replacement mutations has been assumed to be equal to, and estimated from, the rate of "strictly" neutral sequence divergence in noncoding regions and in silent-codon positions where mutations do not alter the amino acid encoded. This assumption is fundamental to estimating the fraction of harmful protein mutations and to identifying adaptive evolution at individual codons and proteins.

We show that the assumption is not justifiable because a much larger fraction of codon positions is involved in hypermutable CpG dinucleotides as compared with the introns, leading to a higher expected replacement mutation rate per site in a vast majority of the genes. Consideration of this difference reveals a higher intensity of purifying natural selection than previously inferred in human genes.

We also show that a much smaller number of genes are expected to be evolving with positive selection than that predicted using sequence divergence at intron and silent positions in the human genome. ... --Mol Biol Evol. 2006 Dec;23(12):2283-7.

Recap:
Overall average base-pair-substitution mutation rates (such as 1/10^10 for mammals) under-predict actual "mutation potential" by ignoring the higher values and focusing on the average, rather than the highest (driven upward by hypermutable dinucleotides). In essence, hypermutable dinucleotides could "carry" more mutations than the average (mean) rate would predict.

Also, estimated base-substitution requirements over-predict what is actually required (for replicative benefit) by counting mutations in non-coding and silent-coding regions with the same weight as the coding regions, but "a much larger fraction of codon positions is involved in hypermutable CpG dinucleotides as compared with the introns, leading to a higher expected replacement mutation rate per site ...". The number of mutations required (for replicative benefit) is much smaller than previously predicted.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 1/10, 11:46pm)

Post 112

Saturday, January 12, 2008 - 10:04am

In Post 100, I wrote, "In fact, it is logically impossible for consciousness to exist apart from any physical means of awareness. The reason is that mind or consciousness requires physical sense organs to perceive reality and a physical brain to process, integrate and store sensory information. Furthermore, all sensory awareness must take a specific form that is determined by the animal's means of perception, e.g., visual, auditory, tactile, etc."

Claude Shannon replied,

Trivially true. "Sensory awareness requires sense organs."

I already commented on this, but I want to stress a point that may not have been entirely clear.

Observe that Claude's reply is non responsive to the point I was making. I was not simply saying that sensory awareness requires sense organs. I was saying that awareness of the external world as such requires sense organs AND that such awareness must take a specific FORM. The crucial point here is that awareness of the world CANNOT EXIST without a specific form of awareness. In other words, awareness must have a definite character; it must be in the form of vision, hearing, touch, etc. It doesn't have to be in those particular forms, but it must have SOME form, otherwise, it couldn't exist. Moreover, the form it takes depends on a functioning sense organ. If a person's eyes are rendered dysfunctional, his vision is destroyed and he becomes blind; if his auditory nerve is destroyed, he loses his hearing and becomes deaf, etc.

In other words, a "pure" consciousness -- one without sense organs or a physical brain -- is a logical impossibility. In fact, it is literally inconceivable, because to conceive of awareness, one must conceive of it in a specific form. Most people when they conceive of consciousness imagine it in the form of vision, without realizing that that's what they are doing. One example comes to mind.

Take "remote viewing" or "out-of-body" experiences. Patients who have been operated on sometimes report seeing the operation from some point external to their body, as if their "soul" had migrated out of their body and was watching the operation from above the operating table. And people often take this as evidence that their consciousness has literally left their body during the operation. What's wrong with this?

Well, observe that they are describing their perception of the operation in terms of vision -- of looking down on the operating table and seeing the operation take place. But what's required for them to "see" the operation taking place? They must use their eyes, optic nerve and visual cortex in order to process that form of awareness. But their eyes, optic nerve and visual cortex are down there on the operating table in their body. So it is logically impossible for them to watch the operation from outside their body above the operating table.

The conclusion to draw from such "out-of-body" experiences is that they are mere hallucinations induced by the operating procedure and resulting from an altered state of consciousness under anesthesia. But people often do not draw that conclusion, because they don't understand that awareness of the external world must take a specific sensory form that is determined by the nature of the physical sense organ through which it takes place. If one grasps that consciousness is a physical process, one will see the fallacy in the view that the soul can leave the body, either while one is alive or after one has died. A disembodied soul or spirit is a contradiction in terms. The idea of remote viewing or of an afterlife can be rejected out of hand as a logical impossibility.

- Bill

Post 113

Saturday, January 12, 2008 - 11:32am

And this is why your reasoning above is faulty -- it ignores the total time. It takes 3 times as long to get sequential "sixes" by rolling one die 3 times -- as it does by rolling 3 dice once.

Unwarranted assumption on your part. A fast gambler could roll a single die three times extremely quickly -- in one second. A slow gambler could roll three dice extremely slowly -- in three seconds. So now, sequential rolls occurred faster than one simultaneous throw.

You are invited to take the rest of the data-dump you inserted into your last post and actually do something with it: perform a calculation with hard numbers.

Tell me what the odds are of getting from one species to another in 500 evolutionary steps. Assume an SV of 0.1.

Regarding your statement about science vs. mere belief:

True, just because something is not science doesn't make it empty of knowledge, wisdom, etc. In that case, you must be willing to accept this about things like religion and Freudian psychoanalysis. So, as long as you seem to agree tacitly that Darwinism is not science -- but nevertheless may express some sort of knowledge about the real world -- I'll go along with you . . . on condition that we all agree to teach it that way in schools. That would mean removing the teaching of Darwinism AS IF it were science from science classes, and teaching it as something else.

Post 114

Saturday, January 12, 2008 - 11:58am

Claude,

In response to Bill's post 112 criticism of your argumentation regarding the point about sense-perception, you may intend to defend either what you said or what you meant (either the Letter, or the Spirit) when you wrote the words that you did. In expectation of that, here are some key, additional criticisms of argument which you may decide to address in a similar vein ...

-My post 108 criticism of your use of a dichotomy of Darwinism being either science or a mere belief -- with science being narrowly-viewed as the field of empirical hypothesis testing (experimenting); and belief being viewed as a mental assent without (or "contrary to") evidence. A stance which denies any knowledge gained that was not achieved by conventional experimentation.

-My post 108 answer to what it is (3 things) that theories must do -- effectively differentiate, effectively integrate, effectively generalize -- in order for them to be deemed valid.

-My post 108 criticism of your arbitrary preclusion of any 3rd species as a transition between 2 others (where transitions would only be accepted if they were from 1 of the 2 species already involved).

-My post 109 inquiry regarding your personal position on the research indicating that archaic humans skillfully hunted prehistoric animals half a million years ago.

-My post 111 criticism of your inadequate integration regarding "the issue of sequential vs. simultaneous occurrences" wherein there is an actual (time) difference between them in terms of relevant outcome; even though -- as you show -- statistically, in an abstract realm without time, there's no difference.

-My post 111 criticism of your use of inappropriate estimates of:

(a) base-pair-substitution mutation rates
(b) base-pair-substitution mutation requirements
(c) base-pair-substitution selection values

Ed
[EDIT: Claude, our postings got crossed-over like a genetic recombination or something. I see that you just addressed my 1st and 5th bullet points. I'll have more to say about that; and I hope that you will have something to say about points 2, 3, 4, and 6.]

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 1/12, 12:06pm)

Post 115

Saturday, January 12, 2008 - 1:07pm

Claude Shannon wrote:

The odds of getting a six with one die in three sequential tosses are 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6, or 1/216.
The odds of getting a six on three dice, tossed once simultaneously, are 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6, or 1/216.

Wrong. 1/216 is the probability of getting 3 6's. The probability of getting one 6 on 3 tosses is .3472, computed using the binomial distribution. The probability of getting at least one 6 on 3 tosses is 0.4213. For 6 tosses the probability of getting at least one 6 is 0.6651. For 10 tosses it is 0.8385.

Guessing, Ed's point about simultaneous trials is that correctly computing the probability of a successful mutation must consider the population of the species.

Extending this to evolutionary questions is not so simple, since reproductive rates must be considered. But the main point holds. Population size is very relevant. Also, computations should be for one or more successful mutations, not simply one. I don't know about Claude Shannon, but I have seen creationists asserting probabilities based on "junk math", not taking into account these other factors.

Post 116

Saturday, January 12, 2008 - 3:46pm

Good points, Merlin.

Guessing, Ed's point about simultaneous trials is that correctly computing the probability of a successful mutation must consider the population of the species.

My point about simultaneous trials (i.e., having more "mutation potential" than sequential ones do) is best illustrated by a concrete, though hypothetical, scenario:

You have an island (island 1) with a population of 1 man and 10 women (11 organisms; 10 potential repetitive matings) -- and another island (island 2) with a population of 2 identical-twin males and 10 women (10 potential repetitive matings).

If Claude's point about "sequential vs. simultaneous occurrences" were true, then -- after a sufficient time of, say, a million years -- there'd be about the same phenotypic variation on each of the 2 islands (assuming that the one man had successfully and continuously mated with all 10 women for his lifetime; and each of the 2 men had done this with 5). The variation would be predicted as being roughly equal because of the false notion that sequential mutations occur at the same rate as simultaneous ones.

But that's not true. Instead of equal variation, there will be more variation on the 2nd island (even though, in each case, only 10 women started out pregnant). Here is an explanation of this difference in expected outcome:

-the man on island 1 will make "X" million sperm in his life and continuously and sequentially impregnate the females in a cyclical fashion; the chance of a point mutation might be once per century; the total sperm production from 1 man in a century is astronomical -- let's say that it's 100 trillion spermatozoa

-the 2 men on island 2 will make twice as much sperm in their lives (let's say: 200 trillion sperm); that's twice the lifetime chance of mutation; mutation potential for island 2 is at least double that of island one; the doubled total sperm count -- even though it's "processed" through the same number of viable females (10) -- will roughly double the mutation rate on island 2

-it's precisely because each man's sperm production is independent (and therefore additive) that there'd be roughly twice as many base-pair-substitutions

The drawback to this example is it's incompleteness. Drawbacks which I'm asking readers to ignore are:

-the relative-difficulty for one man to keep 10 women pregnant versus the relatively-easy job of 1 man keeping 5 women pregnant all the time (e.g., many professional basketball players do this)
-the different rate of incest (and how that affects offspring viability) occurring in the first few generations of offspring
-the different rate of "nutrigenomics" (alteration of gene expression via nutrient ingestion; such as from omega-3 fatty acid intake)
-other odd considerations dream-able
-etc.

Ed

Post 117

Saturday, January 12, 2008 - 5:05pm

The point which I'm trying to drive home is that there's not a single cell being replicated with a certain fixed probability of mutation each replication but rather, there are millions of cells (sperm) being produced all the time. If you just have to copy one cell's genome and wait for a million copies before a mutant arises, then fine --> sequential = simultaneous = sequential. But that's not the case in the biological male. In fact, there is probably a mutant cell in every ejaculate.

And that disqualifies Claude's use of that average base-pair-substitution rate for mammals (which ignores the outcome-altering issue of spermatogenesis). There are additional criticisms but I'll leave them lie for now -- until this first point is understood by all vocal readers.

Ed

Post 118

Saturday, January 12, 2008 - 5:29pm

Claude,

When you say that "A fast gambler could roll a single die three times extremely quickly" -- you are ignoring the context in which we are supposed to be speaking. We are supposed to be speaking about a uniformly-rapid process of cell replication. There is no non-arbitrary reason for either one of us to presume that this biological process would run at different speeds, depending on the "effect" that our thinking has on reality (thinking doesn't affect reality -- as your line of argument presumes).

You've got to know when to hold them. And the "gambler" with which we're each working is a standard "cell replication rate" -- multiplied by a mutation rate (per cell replication, or per million cell replications, or whatever); in order to achieve a mutation potential of a live organism that mates. Your answer to my criticism is, in effect, just empty (contradictory) rhetoric.

Also, regarding what's science and what's not, there are 2 criteria. Things aren't science if they're not at least indirectly based on integration of perceptual data -- and things aren't science when they don't require special investigation by special means (but, instead, are -- as in the case of philosophy -- available to the "common man"). But here's the rub: There are 2 ways to investigate something: experimentation and observation. When I qualified what I think you meant by science (post 114), I narrowed it down to what folks conventionally think -- that "science" is "experimentive." However, there's still observation.

An example of a science based on observation (instead of experimentation) is Astronomy. Another is Evolution.

;-)

Ed

Post 119

Saturday, January 12, 2008 - 6:24pm