RoR: Forum

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Bob Kolker replies:

Yea but... Astronomical processes and objects are understood only in the context of physics which is an experimental science. All of our understanding of the heavens is derived from an understanding of the basic physical processes.
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Ed retorts:

"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." --Theodosius Dobzhansk

As astronomy and physics can relate, so too do biology and evolution (i.e., they both seem to be required in order to explain each other).

Ed

Post 121

Sunday, January 13, 2008 - 1:17pm

Mr. Robert J Kolker:

"The closest thing to experimental astronomy is the estimation of the Moon's distance by bouncing a laser light on the reflectors left on the Moon by prior Apollo missions. The placement of the reflectors on the Moon constitutes an intervention of sorts."

The first estimation of the moon's distance from the earth was prior to January, 1958 by bouncing radar waves off the surface of the moon. This was accurate to 150 m. and required no "intervention of sorts."

Radar Echoes from the Moon at a Wavelength of 10 CM
Yaplee, B.S.; Bruton, R.H.; Craig, K.J.; Roman, N.G.
Proceedings of the IRE
Volume 46, Issue 1, Jan. 1958 Page(s):293 - 297
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JRPROC.1958.286790
Summary:Radar contact has been made with the moon with short pulses at 2860 mc, beginning a program of short-pulse lunar radar. The principal objective of the program is to obtain more accurate moon-to-earth distances than presently are known. Other information may result from the program, such as the earth's diameter, the interplanetary electron density, and the lunar surface characteristics. To date, the program has yielded the following results: earthmoon distances have been measured over several days with consistencies of less than one-half mile; several rough reflectivity measurements have been made which indicate that the radar cross section of the moon is 975 square miles at 2860 mc with pulses of 2-Â¿sec duration, and the fine structure of echoes may be correlated with lunar topography.

(Edited by Sam Erica on 1/13, 2:23pm)

Post 122

Sunday, January 13, 2008 - 2:34pm

Reply to #121

I suppose the few instances were we have -touched- distant bodies would be landing stuff on the Moon and digging out rocks to test them. The land men on the Moon to dig out some more rocks. The Russians actually landed a probe on Venus that barely lasted an hour. That is hands on astronomy or pretty close to it.

For Mars we have landed a number of remote sensing craft, including several that can dig out pieces and analyze the.

In this instances it is a case of both looking and touching.

I believe the Cassini has launched a remote probe to Europa which is another touch and feel mission.

Bob Kolker

Post 123

Monday, January 14, 2008 - 11:39pm

Wrong. 1/216 is the probability of getting 3 6's.

That's what we've been talking about. The chances of getting a target sequence of 3 sixes. It matters not if the tosses are sequential or simultaneous. It also doesn't matter, by the way, if it's three sixes, or three anything else; just as long as the sequence is a specified target.

No one has argued that there are no mutations in living organisms. The argument is that most of them are either neutral (they do nothing) or they are harmful (they kill the organism or make it sterile). There's no particular law, mathematical or otherwise, preventing beneficial mutations from occurring; it's simply an empirical fact that beneficial mutations rarely, if ever, occur.

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

Thanks, but we've gone into this issue already. To update you: in playwriting and storycrafting, there's a form of cheating (i.e., cheating your audience out of their money's worth for a good story, well told) called the "deus ex machina", or "God of the machine." In antiquity, it took the form of an actor, dressed as some Olympian god, lowered onto the stage in a basket on a pulley. Once lowered, the "god of the machine" would proceed to solve all the plot problems for the characters, the audience, and especially the writer, who was too damned lazy to figure out how to unravel the plot complications and resolve the storyline himself. Audiences hated it then; they hate it now.

In Darwinism, the equivalent of the deus ex machina is the "Sewall Wright Effect" or "Genetic Drift." In this scenario, mutations are supposed to have no problem taking over a population because -- voila!-- the populations are by definition always small enough for the small number of beneficial mutations that might conceivably occur to overwhelm them and thus becomes fixed. What causes this "voila!"? Easy. Just be certain to lower the god of the machine onto the stage of academia and instruct the actor in the basket to say these lines: "In all cases of speciation, the big population became fractured, splitting off a small subsection of itself. In all cases of speciation, this small subsection became geographically isolated from the original parent population. In all cases of speciation, this small subsection managed to survive the sorts of natural disasters that normally wipe out small populations: predators, hurricanes, drought, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. Statistically speaking, a rare beneficial mutation has a much greater chance of becoming fixed in a very small population than it does in a large population, where it would simply get drowned out (this was shown to be so by the population geneticists back in the 1930s)."

(The god of the machine makes a dramatic pause and continues):

"Then this small, lucky population mutates into either an independent species, or a superior form of the original species. It then rejoins the original parent population, which it can now overwhelm because it has had chance to grow strong, 'far from the madding crowd.'"

The audience -- made up of a friendly mix of academics, Darwinians, members of a local Objectivism Discussion Group, and journalists -- applauds loudly, shouting "Encore! Author!" A few persons sitting in the back -- I among them -- give the raspberry, like this "pppppppppppp" -- because the author promised to tell a great story about the Origin of Species -- you know, a scientific story with evidence, experimental proof, empirical evidence from field work, mathematical calculations -- but unable to resolve the plot and tell us how species originated, he resorted to this gimmick that just happens to come along in the nick of time -- every time -- to help species evolve.

I accept the Sewall Wright Effect as THE great deus ex machina that solves all the problems of speciation: everything -- butterflies, porcupines, whales, giraffes, birds, man -- all found safe refuges in geographical isolation from a go-nowhere parent population; free of predators (which can gobble up a small population a lot easier than it can a large one); free of storms; etc. Then in each case, they all had those rare beneficial mutations that became fixed, they became new and/or better species, and then they rejoined their original population.

Extending this to evolutionary questions is not so simple, since reproductive rates must be considered.

Yes, they certainly must be considered. In millions if not billions of generation of bacteria, and in hundreds of thousands if not millions of generations of fruit flies, there has emerged not ONE "non-bacteria" or "non-fruit-fly." It's all just more bacteria and more fruit flies.

But the main point holds. Population size is very relevant. Also, computations should be for one or more successful mutations, not simply one.

Already taken into a account. That's what SV is: "Selection Value." It applies (by definition) only to successful mutations.

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.

I have seen almost no math by Darwinians, junk or elegant. But since you seem to have a handle on the problems involved, and since you seem to understand how to take into account these other factors, why don't you perform a calculation for us and show us how it's done?

Post 124

Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 12:10am

We are supposed to be speaking about a uniformly-rapid process of cell replication.

If we forget about the problem posed by sequential mutations -- that the number of combinations exceeds the time-resources of the universe (assuming the correctness of Big Bang theory), and put our hopes on combinations or beneficial mutations occurring simultaneously, we either exceed the space-resources of the universe -- the search-space is thousands of orders of magnitude larger than the total number of fundamental particles in the known universe -- or we exceed common sense; because to say that out of all the 10^2,000 or so WRONG choices that blind-search could have made to find the few that work to create, e.g., a functional protein, a functional cell with a functional genome with functional DNA, etc., nature SOMEHOW found JUST THOSE combinations that worked, and found them SIMULTANEOUSLY -- like quintillions of gamblers, all rolling a six simultaneously -- is to do nothing but invoke creationism . . . because that's actually what creationism says: someone or something cheated blind-search by TARGETING all the correct choices of amino acids, sorting through the left-hand enantiomers from the right-handed ones, weeding out the rare good mutations from the common neutral or harmful ones.

To the extent you invoke simultaneity of mutation+selection is the extent that you unwittingly invoke the logic of creationism.

Here's the Darwinian paradox: accept sequentiality of rare beneficial mutations and run out of time; accept simultaneity of rare beneficial mutations and run out of space -- and implicitly accept the same logic as creationism.

Post 125

Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 12:14am

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

Astronomy may be based on observation; not so astrophysics, which rests on an inverted pyramid of observation: little observation with lots of inferences based on those observations. That's why Big Bang Theory may yet prove to be incorrect. Who knows?

As for evolution, you're welcome to cite the observations that support Darwinism (and don't bother mentioning Archaeopteryx again; it doesn't support a thing for your argument).

Post 126

Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 10:04am

quote

Claude,

I'll be starting each post with the criticisms you've continually failed to answer (and just keep adding to the list as they accrue), and then I'll address your most recent argumentative positions. From post 114 (w/comments) ...

-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.

Here, your post 125 answer -- that though astronomy is based on only observation (it's not experimentative), astrophysics is something related that is based on less observation (because there's more inference) [!] -- is guilty of a non sequitor. Regarding the point at hand -- whether any science can be known without experimentation -- nothing follows from your pseudo-argument that there's a science related to astronomy that's based on less observation (because there's more inference). You complete side-stepped the main point about any science being known without 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.

I'll just let this one slide, it's really a tangent (for now).

-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).

You've just ignored this one.

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

Ditto.

-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.

You -- in post 124 -- bring up the limitation of space (rather than time) for the simultaneous occurrences. What you conveniently (?) ignore is spermatogenesis -- where millions of reproductive cells are being produced all the time; in a SINGLE organism.

Instead, your "space limitations" argument is based on breeding cycles or "generations" (for humans, about once every 20 years). But a single male should be looked at as a continuous breeder -- potentially impregnating an average of at least 10 females every 20 years (I wouldn't doubt that many professional athletes have "achieved" this). And each of these fertile males -- as long as there are adequate females -- effectively multiplies the nominal "generation" rate (the "20-year" number) by another order of magnitude. The men don't take up more space, but they make more cells (than your logic integrates).

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

(a) base-pair-substitution mutation rates

(a)
I've shown that some mutation rates are much faster than the average mutation rate which you rely on (more than a million times faster!). If you've got some greyhounds racing just for 1st prize (or a mutation "racing for" one successful replication), and some greyhounds are much faster, then the race is finished much faster. You don't calculate the time of the race by using the average speed of the greyhounds. Instead, you use the fastest greyhound and count the race over when he/she crosses the finish line. In the case of mutation rates, the fastest ones occur at a rate of above 1/500. You can't continue to rely on an average rate of 1/10,000,000,000 when there are mutations that occur as fast as 1/500!

I'm out of time for now, but I think that that's enough to chew on.

Ed

Post 127

Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 10:03pm

ET:

Re my post 125: Actually, I hadn't even read your post #118. My post on astronomy and astrophysics was an addendum to Bob Kolker's post #119. At the beginning of that post, he cited you. I was responding to his post (which happened to include a bit of yours), and not to yours.

I can't help noticing, however, that you always repeat assertions just at those times when you should be substantiating them. Neither you nor anyone else in this thread has provided any of that "mountain of evidence" that Darwin and his disciples supposedly have in favor of random mutation plus natural selection as the driver of evolution. Bacteria always remain bacteria despite resistance to antibiotics; fruit flies always remain fruit flies despite radiation-induced changes causing extra eyes to appear on the wings or extra legs to stick out of the head. Archaeopteryx is a bird, not a "missing link" between dinosaurs and birds. As for your harping on the same old string regarding apparently "reptile-like" features in Archaeopteryx, it's called Convergent Evolution, and has nothing to do with common descent. Bean nodules, buffaloes, and humans, have the same hemoglobin molecule in them. Convergent evolution; not common descent.

Re your post #108: effectively differentiate, effectively integrate, effectively generalize.

That sounds very much like the old ad copy for the "Maidenform bra": "It lifts, and separates!"

"Yes, ladies and gentlemen in our studio audience, our scientific theories, like the scientifically-designed Maidenform bra that lifts and separates, effectively differentiate, effectively integrate, and -- when you've had enough lifting, separating, differentiating, and integrating -- our theories also effective generalize! Order one theory now, and get two more FREE! (Not sold in stores.)"

(Who gets to decide what "effectively" means?)

Anyway, practicing scientists, as well as practicing philosophers of science, don't practice their craft that way. Read Karl Popper "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" or "Conjectures and Refutations."

Re "transitions": Darwinism advocates gradual changes over long time periods. The theory predicts lots and lots of morphological changes leading from one species to another; the theory leads us to expect that all those changes would be preserved, more or less intact, in the fossil record. Honest Darwinians like Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard admit that this is precisely what the fossil record does NOT show. It isn't simply that the fossil record has "gaps", as the popular saying goes; it's that the fossil record is nothing BUT gaps. If Darwinists were real scientists, testing and revising their theory in response to empirical evidence, then the fossil record would simply DISPROVE Darwinism. The theory says "We ought to see XYZ"; the evidences shows "We do NOT see XYZ." If this were a typical theory in, e.g., physics, the theory would be overhauled entirely. Any real science, when faced with such absence of evidence would overhaul the theory; it wouldn't make excuses for the lack of evidence. Darwinism (with few exceptions, Gould and Lewontin being two) makes excuses for the lack of evidence because it's not really science. It's a "just so" story about how life began and developed.

Re your post #109: I acknowledge that hominids in prehistory successfully hunted animals. What does this have to do with the Darwinian claim that random mutation + natural selection are the drivers behind the origin of life and speciation?

Re your post #111: The odds of evolving a horse via random mutation (DNA point mutations in germ cells) and natural selection (assuming a selection value 0.1, or 1/500, and about 1.5 trillion horse births since the beginning of the horse line, and assuming that it would take about 500 "steps", or critical mutations) are about 1/10^2,700. The odds of a benevolent mutation both occurring and getting selected for each step are about one in 300,000. Since one mutation doesn't seek out another mutation, or make the next mutation more likely -- like dice throws and coin tosses, each occurrence of a mutation is a randomly occurring independent event -- that 1/300,000 has to be multiplied by itself 500 times. So the total adds are about 1/10^2,700.

There are about 10^85 fundamental particles in the known universe. Even if there were as many spermatozoa as there are particles, and even if all of them were benevolently mutant, and even if all of them impregnated as many female horses, you haven't significantly changed the order of magnitude. You have about 10^2,700 combinations you can search through; you're only generating combinations in the 10^85 range. Ten times that (the equivalent of 10 universes) would only be 10^86 particles (or impregnated female horses). So with due respect for your obsession with sperm and spermatogenesis, I'm afraid the numbers are against you.

Re your post #111:

Your textbook copy/pastes are not talking about single point mutations, but mutations of larger units. Most mutations of larger units such as genes are not random but highly regulated -- the opposite of random. I agree that such genomic changes might perhaps cause major morphological changes; I also agree that, because they are not truly random changes, they cannot be included as part of a Darwinian pathway. Darwinian changes must be RANDOM, and the only mutations that consistently occur over time that can be called random are accidental single-base substitutions during DNA replication.

The purpose of this thread has not been to argue against the possibility of evolution by any means possible; it was to argue against the possibility of evolution according to the Darwinian dogma of random mutation and natural selection.

Rand did not claim to be agnostic toward evolution per se. She claimed she was agnostic toward Darwinism, which is one narrow way of looking at evolution.

Post 128

Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 9:50am

Claude,

My post on astronomy and astrophysics was an addendum to Bob Kolker's post #119. At the beginning of that post, he cited you. I was responding to his post (which happened to include a bit of yours), and not to yours.

That explains why you said what you did -- but it doesn't substantiate your point (which I've shown to be irrelevant). Is astronomy, which is based on observation rather than experiment, a science or not? And, if so, wouldn't 'Evolution via Natural Selection' (EvNS) be a science, too?

I can't help noticing, however, that you always repeat assertions just at those times when you should be substantiating them.

This criticism has to be taken in light of the fact that I've marshalled more scientific evidence for my assertions than anyone in this thread. I'll accept that you notice this, as long as you accept the fact that I'm heretofore the least guilty of it.

Neither you nor anyone else in this thread has provided any of that "mountain of evidence" that Darwin and his disciples supposedly have in favor of random mutation plus natural selection as the driver of evolution.

The key word here -- in your interpretation of the evidence I've marshalled -- is "random." It's a new focus on your part. I address this further down.

Archaeopteryx is a bird, not a "missing link" between dinosaurs and birds.

This appears to be merely a repeated assertion -- rather than any kind of substantiation. Jaws, claws, and a long, bony tail; are there any other birds with these features? Categorizing speciations, like concept formation, is based on shared features (against a background of difference). Is there even one other species of bird sharing such basic features as jaws, claws, or a long, bony tail?

Bean nodules, buffaloes, and humans, have the same hemoglobin molecule in them. Convergent evolution; not common descent.

This appears to be an assertion without substantiation. In order to substantiate this assertion -- which is an interpretation of the way that things are in the world -- reasons would have to be marshalled; reasons to believe that these instances of shared features (hemoglobin molecules) have a bearing on the theory of common descent. Here's how that reasoning would go ...

If the same molecule shows up in widely disparate species (but not in the species "in-between"), then that disproves common descent (rather than merely showing that a successful molecule has a good chance of getting repeated in organisms).

It does.
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Therefore, common descent is disproved.

But the first premise is false. So this reasoning gets nowhere.

Who gets to decide what "effectively" means?

This is an argument from the Primacy of Consciousness. It ignores a common base of knowledge for mankind or, more specifically, for the sciences. It ignores the ability for individual humans to apprehend difference in the world. Take a leaf and a stone. They are both things we can see and touch. Then take another stone, so that you now have 2 stones and a leaf. Now, you can effectively differentiate and integrate (you can "see" that stones, contrasted against leaves, are similar in their hardness, etc.). This effectiveness slowly grows to become a science (either of stones or leaves). The aim of all sciences is the characterization (read: generalization) of what is -- showing us how the things in the world are, and how they interact with the other things in the world.

Read Karl Popper "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" or "Conjectures and Refutations."

I've debated this issue before (more on it, later).

I'll stop there for now.

Ed

Post 129

Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 8:11am

Observation is the more fundamental aspect of science than experimentation, in my view. Conducting an experiment is is merely setting up the conditions so that a certain kind of observation can be made.

Thus, if a biologist looks under a rock, that is just as much a scientific act as doing a chemistry test. Now, if you want to argue that observation is just another kind of experiment, since you lift up the rock in order to learn what happens next (that is, what you see), I will answer that you have to observe what happens next.

It should be obvious why observation is more fundamental: it basically means becoming aware of reality, which is the goal of science. On the other hand, experimentation means doing something in a controlled way that will enable you to become aware of reality.

These ideas were implied in my previous article on this site, "667," so I thought I would express them at this point, because it seems relevant.

Post 130

Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 9:22am

Claude still has not told us what his view is as to how new species come into being. Not even how it might happen in some possible way that fits with any known science. How does he propose that humans came to exist, or cats, for example? Does he have an alternate, or less narrow, view of evolution?

Post 131

Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 10:27am

Kurt hat geschrifft:

Claude still has not told us what his view is as to how new species come into being. Not even how it might happen in some possible way that fits with any known science. How does he propose that humans came to exist, or cats, for example? Does he have an alternate, or less narrow, view of evolution?

Ich Scheibe:

Claude denies evolution so he has no view of evolution.

Bob Kolker

(Edited by Robert J. Kolker on 1/17, 10:28am)

Post 132

Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 11:45am

Claude,

Re "transitions": Darwinism advocates gradual changes over long time periods. The theory predicts lots and lots of morphological changes leading from one species to another; the theory leads us to expect that all those changes would be preserved, more or less intact, in the fossil record.

Not so fast. I would say that Darwinism "expects" gradual changes over long time periods. Actually, it's people -- not theories -- that "expect" things. People who've championed the theory of Darwinism may or may not expect ONLY gradual change. Your line of reasoning is, essentially, a case of Ad Hominem or of Poisoning the Well. It basically says not to believe in Darwinism because "people who believe that also believe in gradual change."

And even if the theory automatically leads us to expect that all morphological changes would be preserved in the fossil record -- when is the right time to close the file on this record and say to the world that it is complete? Preserved in the potential (not the actual) fossil record is more apt. You can't assume that at a certain point, that the fossil record is complete. Even an estimation as to how complete the fossil record is -- is problematic!

Claude, could you tell me whether the fossil record is, say, 90% complete or not??? Can you even tell me if it's over half-complete by now?

... the fossil record is nothing BUT gaps.

As I've argued elsewhere, this finding was to be expected.

If Darwinists were real scientists, testing and revising their theory in response to empirical evidence, then the fossil record would simply DISPROVE Darwinism.

Argument from Intimidation.

If this were a typical theory in, e.g., physics, the theory would be overhauled entirely. ...

... Any real science, when faced with such absence of evidence would overhaul the theory ...

Weak Analogy. The objects of physics are not related enough to the objects of evolution in order to make the comparison. You're taking the 'hypothetico-deductive' nature of non-"theoretical" physics and transcribing it onto evolution. That's employing a Floating Abstraction. In your view, "real science" would have to resemble physics. But, as for Evolution via Natural Selection (EvNS), there's no direct evidence of black holes, yet "science" still speaks of them without intellectual shame.

It's a "just so" story about how life began and developed.

That's partly true, but still inaccurate. In order to accurately portray the science of EvNS, you'd have to integrate that it's more than just a story -- it effectively explains a wide array of observations.

Re your post #109: I acknowledge that hominids in prehistory successfully hunted animals. What does this have to do with the Darwinian claim that random mutation + natural selection are the drivers behind the origin of life and speciation?

Just checking to see if you were an intentionally-ludicrous, Young-Earth Creationist. That's all.

Since one mutation doesn't seek out another mutation, or make the next mutation more likely -- like dice throws and coin tosses, each occurrence of a mutation is a randomly occurring independent event -- that 1/300,000 has to be multiplied by itself 500 times. So the total adds are about 1/10^2,700.

Your point is that "Nature" has to sequentially search through mutations (they have to "follow" each other). That's invalid. It doesn't incorporate the fact that millions of cells are co-produced all of the time (and may include multiple mutations in a single "batch") in the human male.

There are about 10^85 fundamental particles in the known universe. Even if there were as many spermatozoa as there are particles, and even if all of them were benevolently mutant, and even if all of them impregnated as many female horses, you haven't significantly changed the order of magnitude.

Here, you use the faulty reasoning of what (I believe) Adam Reed dubbed a Scope Violation. In genetics, the proper scope of molecules isn't the 10^85 fundamental particles in the known universe. Instead, there is a much more limited scope of molecules with which we contend. Some may call this a Category Mistake.

Most mutations of larger units such as genes are not random but highly regulated -- the opposite of random. I agree that such genomic changes might perhaps cause major morphological changes; I also agree that, because they are not truly random changes, they cannot be included as part of a Darwinian pathway. Darwinian changes must be RANDOM ...

This harkens back to the point above. In order for changes to be "random" -- you assume that the scope of what's changing has to include every fundamental particle in the universe.

Another way to say this is that for something to change randomly, the changing thing couldn't have had an Identity. And, in a way, you are correct in making that statement. A thing cannot act in contradiction to its nature. That means that there's a limited scope of what it could do. But that doesn't entail "finalism" or the "vulgar teleology" of the Leibniz variety (where everything's assumed to be unfolding according to a Master Plan).

Call it mitigated-randomness, if you must -- but genetic change isn't totally random for the fact that nothing in the universe is! And that doesn't disprove Darwinism, which simply speaks of the lack of finalism, not the embracement of pure, unadulterated "chance" (i.e., causeless events).

Ed

Post 133

Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 1:28pm

Here's some research indicating evolution via natural selection (EvNS) ...

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Differentiation between two salt marsh beetle ecotypes: evidence for ongoing speciation. Evolution Int J Org Evolution. 2007 Jan;61(1):184-93.

The plausibility of trait divergence under divergent natural selection in the presence of gene flow in natural populations is a contentious issue in evolutionary research. Its importance lies in the fact that this process is thought to be one of the key triggers in ecological speciation in which a species splits into ecologically distinct forms when separate niches are occupied.

In this study we demonstrate strong genetic divergence at the IDH1 locus between pond- and canal-inhabiting individuals of the salt marsh beetle Pogonus chalceus from the Guérande salt fields. Moreover, wing size, a trait that has a heritable basis in this species, was significantly larger in the pond populations, which is in concordance with the unstable nature of this habitat. ...

... We conclude that speciation is ongoing and that divergence reflects a balance between selection and gene flow.

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Recap:
We see speciation (development of new species) happening.

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Large punctuational contribution of speciation to evolutionary divergence at the molecular level. Science. 2006 Oct 6;314(5796):119-21.

A long-standing debate in evolutionary biology concerns whether species diverge gradually through time or by punctuational episodes at the time of speciation. We found that approximately 22% of substitutional changes at the DNA level can be attributed to punctuational evolution, and the remainder accumulates from background gradual divergence.

Punctuational effects occur at more than twice the rate in plants and fungi than in animals, but the proportion of total divergence attributable to punctuational change does not vary among these groups.

Punctuational changes cause departures from a clock-like tempo of evolution, suggesting that they should be accounted for in deriving dates from phylogenies. Punctuational episodes of evolution may play a larger role in promoting evolutionary divergence than has previously been appreciated.

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Recap:
At least a fifth of the changes in DNA are non-gradual; entailing a necessary conceptual departure from the previously-held notion of a "clock-like tempo of evolution" -- and an expectation of the kinds of changes already noted in the fossil record.

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Evolutionary acceleration in the most endangered mammal of Canada: speciation and divergence in the Vancouver Island marmot (Rodentia, Sciuridae). J Evol Biol. 2007 Sep;20(5):1833-46.

Our study uses three-dimensional coordinates of cranial landmarks to further assess phenotypic differentiation of the Vancouver Island marmot. A pattern of strong interspecific divergence and low intraspecific variation was found which is consistent with aspects of drift-driven models of speciation.

However, the magnitude of shape differences relative to the putatively neutral substitutions in synonymous sites of cytochrome b is too large for being compatible with a simple neutral model. A combination of bottlenecks and selective pressures due to natural and human-induced changes in the environment may offer a parsimonious explanation for the large phenotypic differentiation observed in the species.

Our study exemplifies the usefulness of a multidisciplinary approach to the study of biological diversity for a better understanding of evolutionary models and to discover aspects of diversity that may be undetected by using only a few genetic markers to characterize population divergence and uniqueness.

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Recap:
Marmot skulls are too different to be adequately explained by a few genetic markers meant to characterize uniqueness.

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Evolution: natural selection in the evolution of humans and chimps. Curr Biol. 2005 Nov 22;15(22):R919-22.

A few hundred genes show significant evidence for adaptive evolution in the two lineages, but the actual number might be much higher. Natural selection has eliminated about 75% of amino acid changes in coding sequence since the split of the human and chimpanzee genomes.

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Recap:
Of all the changes in genetic coding for amino acids since the divergence of humans and chimps, only 25% remain (75% of them have already been made). The significance of which is unknown to myself.

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Positive natural selection has driven the evolution of the Hsp70s in Diguetia spiders. Biol Lett. 2007 Aug 22;3(4):439-44.

Hsp70s are a ubiquitous family of highly conserved proteins. Hsp70s are chaperones and have important roles in both protein folding and thermotolerance. It has been widely assumed that Hsp70 sequence evolution is governed by the strong functional constraints imposed by its crucial cellular functions.

In this study of cytosolic heat-inducible Hsp70s from three spider families, we have found clear evidence of positive natural selection altering Hsp70s in desert-dwelling and heat-loving Diguetidae spiders. These spiders are a small family restricted to deserts. They display heat-tolerant behaviours not seen in their closest relatives, the Pholcidae and Plectreuridae.

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Recap:
Natural Selection has been identified and measured.

==============
From prebiotic chemistry to cellular metabolism-The chemical evolution of metabolism before Darwinian natural selection. J Theor Biol. 2007 Nov 21

It is generally assumed that the complex map of metabolism is a result of natural selection working at the molecular level. However, natural selection can only work on entities that have three basic features: information, metabolism and membrane. ...

... In the present work we propose that these protocells could be built by chemical evolution, starting from the prebiotic primordial soup, by means of chemical selection. This consists of selective increases of the rates of certain specific reactions because of the kinetic or thermodynamic features of the process, such as stoichiometric catalysis or autocatalysis, cooperativity and others, thereby promoting their prevalence among the whole set of chemical possibilities.

Our results show that all chemical processes necessary for yielding the basic materials that natural selection needs to work may be achieved through chemical selection, thus suggesting a way for life to begin.

==============
Recap:
A kind of "Chemical Evolution" or "Chemical Selection" can explain the origin of life itself.

==============
Regulatory divergence modifies limb length between mammals. Genes Dev. 2008 Jan 15;22(2):141-51.

Natural selection acts on variation within populations, resulting in modified organ morphology, physiology, and ultimately the formation of new species. Although variation in orthologous proteins can contribute to these modifications, differences in DNA sequences regulating gene expression may be a primary source of variation.

We replaced a limb-specific transcriptional enhancer of the mouse Prx1 locus with the orthologous sequence from a bat. Prx1 expression directed by the bat enhancer results in elevated transcript levels in developing forelimb bones and forelimbs that are significantly longer than controls because of endochondral bone formation alterations.

Surprisingly, deletion of the mouse Prx1 limb enhancer results in normal forelimb length and Prx1 expression, revealing regulatory redundancy.

These findings suggest that mutations accumulating in pre-existing noncoding regulatory sequences within a population are a source of variation for the evolution of morphological differences between species and that cis-regulatory redundancy may facilitate accumulation of such mutations.

==============
Recap:
Genetic changes can be "stored up" in genomes before they are abruptly expressed -- which would explain all observed data on evolution rates. It's not just gene-change or base-change -- it's a change in expression, or the "turning on" or the "turning off" of pre-existing (or recently changed) genetic material

Ed

Post 134

Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 11:05pm

POST 130:
Claude still has not told us what his view is as to how new species come into being. Not even how it might happen in some possible way that fits with any known science.

I don’t think new species came into being by means of any known science; so I plead Socratic ignorance. The point of this thread is to show that confident Darwinists like Richard Dawkins are also ignorant (they just have a hard time admitting it).

POST 131
Claude denies evolution so he has no view of evolution.

I agree with Harvard Darwinists like Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin: if evolution occurred at all, it wasn’t Darwinian. I.e., no gradual changes over long periods of time. No random mutations occurring just when you need them in small populations that happened to have been separated from the parent group. No undefinable “natural selection.” As per Gould, Lewontin, and Richard Goldschmidt (a geneticist from the 1940s who puzzled over the absence of evidence for gradualism), if evolution occurred at all, it happened in relatively sudden “catastrophic” events. Fine by me if you call this evolution; just don’t call it Darwinian evolution, because it isn’t.

With the advent of information theory and its application to genetics, a theory of abiogenesis and evolution would have to explain (i) where the original genomic information came from, because a system of coded chemistry is unique to biological organisms; it isn’t found in non-biological nature, nor are codes produced by nature; and (ii) where additional genomic information came from that could be capable of causing new phenotypes to appear, along with new abilities on the part of the organism. Stochastic shuffle and gradualism are, at best, inadequate explanations.

Actually, it's people -- not theories -- that "expect" things.

Right. Just as “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”

People “expect” things on the basis of the theories they hold. That’s what the theories are there for – to tell you WHAT to look AT and what to look FOR.

People who've championed the theory of Darwinism may or may not expect ONLY gradual change.

To the extent that they expect sudden change, or non-random mutation, is the extent to which they champion someone else’s theory of evolution, but not Darwin’s. Darwin’s theory is “random mutation and natural selection.” Read Darwin; read Huxley; read Ernst Mayr; read Niles Eldridge; read Th. Dobzhansky...heck, if you can stand the constant haranguing, read Dawkins.

Your line of reasoning is, essentially, a case of Ad Hominem or of Poisoning the Well. It basically says not to believe in Darwinism because "people who believe that also believe in gradual change.

That’s nothing compared to the ad hominem that Rand would have suffered had she outed herself as an anti-Darwinist, rather than merely claiming to be agnostic about it. Just because someone has deep suspicions about the adequacy of Darwinism to explain how life began and how it speciated doesn’t mean he or she is a creationist or mystic. The ad hominem arguments mainly come from the Darwinist camp.

Claude, could you tell me whether the fossil record is, say, 90% complete or not?

It’s the paleontologists who claim that the fossil record is incomplete (they say it’s “discontinuous”; a polite way of saying “lots of stuff ain’t there that should be there of our theory was doing what a theory is supposed to do: model and predict).

In the current war between the molecular systematists and the traditional-backroom-of-the-museum systematists, most evolutionists are apparently sticking with the backroom guys...meaning, most evolutions are beginning to distrust the interpretation of molecular data and trust the fossil data. So, the fossil record – discontinuous though it be – is complete enough for the experts.

As I've argued elsewhere, this finding was to be expected.

Only by you. Not by the overwhelming majority of Darwinians. Additionally...what a theory! “Our theory predicts that we WON’T find evidence for our theory when we go digging to look for it. In fact, when we dig, we do NOT find the evidence that our theory claims we will NOT find! Ergo, our theory has made a prediction! It’s a successful model! It’s scientific! We’ve proven our case!”

Your notion sounds like an outtake from Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22”.

The bat appears suddenly in the fossil record; no precursors. Same, apparently, for the hawk. According to Alan Feduccia, a Darwinian ornithologist, the idea that hawks and owls are related by descent is a fantasy constructed on paper in small branch-like diagrams called “cladograms”, used within the science of “cladistics” (“clade” is Greek for “branch” or “twig”).

In Canada, there’s a large fossil record known as the Burgess Shale that gives ample evidence of a Big Bang for life – all of the major body-plans (“phyla”) appeared suddenly, within a short geological time period; no precursors. Since the fossils date from the Cambrian period, the event is popularly known as the “Cambrian Explosion.”

Weak Analogy. The objects of physics are not related enough to the objects of evolution in order to make the comparison.

Faulty premise. Science is science. We don’t adjust the standards of hypothesis, theory, observation, and experimentation, for each individual science. If a field of study is incapable of making models that predict future observations, that field may be worthy of one’s time, but it isn’t science.

it effectively explains a wide array of observations

“Effectively” means different things to different people. Creationists can rightly claim that instantaneous creation of individual species also “effectively” explains a wide array of observations.

Your point is that "Nature" has to sequentially search through mutations (they have to "follow" each other). That's invalid. It doesn't incorporate the fact that millions of cells are co-produced all of the time (and may include multiple mutations in a single "batch") in the human male

Your reply ignores empirical facts that beneficial mutations almost never occur. Your reply also ignores mathematical reality: “millions” are anywhere from 10^6 to 10^8. Paltry numbers compared to numbers like 10^2,700. Even if every sperm (since that was probably on your mind again) had a million beneficial mutations (already an impossibility), and there were hundreds of quintillions of individual sperm (10^17), you’re still lagging behind with a number like 10^25. Ten times that is only 10^26. You’ll never get to the astronomical numbers generated by the odds of evolving actual organisms. By analogy, it’s like trying to recreate Atlas Shrugged by having billions of monkeys tap randomly on billions of typewriters. The numbers are against you.

Genetic changes can be "stored up" in genomes before they are abruptly expressed -- which would explain all observed data on evolution rates. It's not just gene-change or base-change -- it's a change in expression, or the "turning on" or the "turning off" of pre-existing (or recently changed) genetic material

I’ve made that point already earlier in the thread. When you turn on a light-switch, or turn off a light-switch, guess what element has been there all the time...THE LIGHT-SWITCH! So the turning on or off of genetic information that was already there is fine, just as long as you understand that the information – like the light-switch – was THERE all the time. It didn’t “evolve” from random mutations and natural selection. As for the mechanisms that do the turning-on and the turning-off, they are anything but random; must are highly regulated (“regulated” means the opposite of “random”). Seems like you’ve indulged in some Category Errors yourself.

But I see that you either haven’t read what I wrote later about fundamental particles (it was clearly an example to show that even if the number of sperm equaled the number of particles, you wouldn’t have enough mutations to make it probable for a horse to evolve, given an SV of .1 and the number of evolutionary steps at 500); or you have misunderstood it . . . probably intentionally, since it was clear what I wrote. Therefore, I’m ending this reply as per Lady Hong’s advice not to feed the trolls.

Post 135

Friday, January 18, 2008 - 11:44am

Claude,

People “expect” things on the basis of the theories they hold. That’s what the theories are there for – to tell you WHAT to look AT and what to look FOR.

That's actually a good point, Claude. Consider it integrated.

To the extent that they expect sudden change, or non-random mutation, is the extent to which they champion someone else’s theory of evolution, but not Darwin’s. Darwin’s theory is “random mutation and natural selection.”

We are going to have to look a little deeper into term-definition than this. There are 2 points here. First, you're equating "sudden change" with "non-random mutation" and secondly, you're defining Darwin's theory as if it requires the absence of non-random mutations. Both of these points are questionable. For instance, read this:

==============
Let's look at some of the implications of Mayr's analysis. At first blush, (4) Gradualism seems like it might conflict with Gould & Eldredge's "punctuated equilibrium" theory; but on closer examination, not so. Here [thanks to Robert Low] are two relevant quotes from On the Origin of Species:

"... it is probable that the periods, during which each [species] underwent modification, though many and long as measured by years, have been short in comparison with the periods during which each remained in an unchanged condition." (from the final 6th edition, 1872)

"Varieties are often at first local...rendering the discovery of intermediate links less likely. Local varieties will not spread into other and distant regions until they are considerably modified and improved; and when they do spread, if discovered in a geological formation, they will appear as if suddenly created there, and will simply be classed as new species."

Darwin did not claim that evolutionary change is slow and continuous -- only that it does not proceed by "jumps" in a single generation (what Mayr calls "saltational" change). That is, despite the distortions of some anti-evolutionists, Darwin explictly did not think that evolution proceeds by the production of "hopeful monsters" -- Darwin himself never proposed that a fully-dinosaur parent gave birth to fully-bird progeny. ...
==============
From:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/darwinism.html

Recap:
Darwin's prediction regarding finding new species in the fossil record: "if discovered in a geological formation, they will appear as if suddenly created there, and will simply be classed as new species." As I said before -- as did Darwin -- gaps are what is to be expected in a fossil record.

Astute readers will realize that this quote & recap effectively answer your criticisms on this subject. I'll concede the points about Weak Analogy, the sciences, explaining observations, etc. -- because I no longer need them (as I've just successfully defended Darwin's theory).

Your criticism about "evolution" having to "search through" the number of particles in the universe etc. is unsound and therefore does not require a comprehensive response, as it relies on the false assumption that life doesn't have Identity (i.e., that there's no limit to the kind of "change" that a thing might undergo -- i.e., it contradicts the fact that life limits possibilities).

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 1/18, 12:11pm)

Post 136

Sunday, January 20, 2008 - 6:33pm

Darwin did not claim that evolutionary change is slow and continuous -- only that it does not proceed by "jumps" in a single generation (what Mayr calls "saltational" change).

Darwin was forced to admit changes to his sixth edition (1872) from the first edition (1859) because reality punched him in the nose: colleagues began pointing out to him some of the absurdities that he committed to writing in his first edition -- such as bears turning into whales as they timidly, then courageously, waded deeper and deeper into the water searching for food. Nonsense. Darwin fully believed that whole panoplies of slowly-morphed fossils would exist for all species; when the fossil evidence was not forthcoming -- and in fact, pointed more to stasis than to change -- he changed his tune in the last edition to something that permitted long periods of stasis.

The problem is that the fossil record shows some continuities where they are irrelevant to the overall theory (i.e., between closely related varieties of a single species), and big discontinuities where they are most needed to prove the theory (i.e., between higher-up taxa, such as phyla; e.g., no fossils between mouse and whale). If the gaps were merely sampling errors based on insufficient searches, we would expect to see the same sorts of continuities/discontinuities between varieties as between phyla. We do not. The discontinuities between larger groups are universal; they ARE the fossil record, not gaps in the fossil record.

That is, despite the distortions of some anti-evolutionists, Darwin explictly did not think that evolution proceeds by the production of "hopeful monsters" -- Darwin himself never proposed that a fully-dinosaur parent gave birth to fully-bird progeny. ...

Straw man argument. No one ever claimed that Darwin believed this. However, going from mouse to whale in 2 generations is still putting faith in hopeful monsters:one between the mouse and the monster; the other between the monster and the whale. No one in the profession argues with the notion that the more steps there are between species A and species B, the more "natural" the process appears to be (as opposed to "supernatural"), and the more it conforms to classical and neo Darwinism. The fewer the intermediates, the less comfortable Darwinists are with the evidence.

Re probability. You're still trolling.

The chances of rolling 2 sixes with two dice are 1/6 x 1/6 or 1/36. This doesn't mean that you must roll 36 times to get two sixes. It's a simple representation of fact: you have 36 2-dice combinations; you have 1 desired target: [6, 6]. You might be lucky enough to roll it on your first roll. The number [36], representing the total number of 2-dice combinations, is your "search space". The pair [6, 6] is your target. Obviously, counting on luck (i.e., chance) to achieve your target gets progressively more foolish as the search space increases. The chances of rolling 10 sixes simultaneously with 10 dice are 1/6^10 or 1/60,466,176. In other words, you have about 60-1/2 million different 10-dice combinations, of which only one of those -- [6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6] -- is the correct one. It does not mean that you will hit your target if and when you roll 60-1/2 million times.I never said that; never implied that; that's your mistake, not mine.

However, suppose I phrase it this way:

What are the odds of throwing heads on a coin toss? 1/2
What are the odds of seeing ONE HEADS on 3 coin tosses? They are 1-[1/2x1/2x1/2] = 7/8.
What are the odds of seeing one heads on 6 coin tosses? 1-[1/64] = 63/64. Pretty close to 1.

The odds of seeing one heads on one toss are 1/2 or 4/8. The odds of seeing one heads on 3 coin tosses are 7/8. Obviously, regardless of your specified target (in this case "seeing one heads"), the more times you toss the coin, the better your luck -- the likelier you are to see your target. In order to toss more times, you either need more time (for sequential tosses), or you need more space for more coins (simultaneous tosses). It makes no difference to the outcome.

The math is no different for random mutations (DNA point mutations), or for the fortuitous coming together of amino acids to form a functional protein in an abiogenesis scenario. In the latter problem, if you have a short protein of about 100 residues, with an alphabet of 20 amino acids, the total number of combinations that you have is 20^100 or about 10^130. Since proteins are very specific as to the order of their amino acids, only one of those combinations will be the target protein. Just like coins and dice, the more times you "roll", "toss", or "combine and select" some combination, the likelier it becomes to get to your target.

This certainly doesn't mean that you must create 10^130 combinations in order to get the target one. It means that the target is one correct combination out of 10^130 differing possibilities, and the more you try, the more likely it is that you will hit upon the correct one.

You continue to troll about the number of fundamental particles. Once more: even if the number of mutating sperm in the biocosm on earth were of the order of 10^85, it wouldn't be enough to make it likely to get a target benevolent mutation when the total number of mutant combinations -- most of which are malevolent -- is on the order of 10^2,700. The example relates to the putative evolution of the horse through 500 critical mutations that are also selected, over the approximate total number of horse births since the line began: 1.5 trillion.

That life has identity is precisely why Darwinian gradualism and stochastic shuffling cannot explain how it came into being and how it speciated. The functional target sequences must have already been preferred by whatever process was in set in motion to cause life and to cause it to speciate. It obviously cannot be random mutation and natural selection because these processes are blind: they do not prefer one combination to another.

Post 137

Sunday, January 20, 2008 - 8:07pm

Claude,

Re probability. You're still trolling.

This is psychological transference. You're the troll here (see below).

... to make it likely to get a target benevolent mutation when the total number of mutant combinations -- most of which are malevolent -- is on the order of 10^2,700. The example relates to the putative evolution of the horse through 500 critical mutations that are also selected, over the approximate total number of horse births since the line began: 1.5 trillion.

You're using the total number of chemically-possible mutant combinations, but you need to reduce your scope to the total number of biologically-possible mutant combinations. Everything that's chemically-possible isn't also biologically-possible. And when I say biologically-possible -- I'm not just talking about benevolent mutations (which are, in their own instances, biologically-preferable).

You assume that any DNA change is equally possible, that there are no biological constraints (i.e., no Identity to this biological process). By failing to integrate that the process is biological, you are able to talk about DNA change like it's as simple coin-flipping. It's not, though -- and you've been getting a lot of mileage out of tricking people into thinking it is, or that it has to be (when judging Darwin's theory).

And that (the dissemble) is what makes you the troll, Claude.

Ed

Post 138

Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 7:22pm

You're using the total number of chemically-possible mutant combinations

That’s correct.

but you need to reduce your scope to the total number of biologically-possible mutant combinations.

That’s incorrect.

You are clearly clueless as to what we’ve been talking about all along. I’ll try once more.

I’ll use an analogy from language. With a little luck, you’ll finally get it.

Suppose a guy named Chucky Darwin had a theory that there’s no such as “authorship.” After all, that would smack of mystical concepts like “consciousness” and “purpose”. So in order to explain the obvious appearance of things like books and magazine articles, he comes up with a hypothesis: all these things appear by chance. Stochastic shuffle of letters. The books from antiquity, as they were hand-copied by scribes, ever so slowly accumulated small unintentional copying errors: an “a” for an “e”; a misspelling here; an inversion there; etc. Over the course of centuries, these errors accumulated to the point that a great epic poem supposedly by Homer could mutate into a great epic poem supposedly by Milton: The Iliad mutated into Paradise Lost.

Suppose a skeptic then said the following:

The Gettysburg Address, apparently authored by some fellow named Abraham Lincoln, has about 1,500 characters in it (comprising the letters and the spaces between words) . The odds of just that particular combination of words appearing by chance – regardless of the mechanism involved – are almost zero. The reason they are almost zero is that the total number of 1,500-character essays using 26 letters and 1 space are astronomical – 27^1,500 = 10^2,147. In other words, there are about 10^2,147 different 1,500-character combinations with the alphabet and 1 space; but Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is just one of them.

The skeptic correctly points out that there’s no way for man or machine to sort through all of the 10^2,147 combinations in order to find the one that we recognize as the Gettysburg Address. Either you run out of space or you run out of time.

Then an Objectivist ambles over and says “Hey! No problemo! The vast majority of those 10^2,147 combinations are just gibberish; all you have to do is reduce the scope of the calculation to just those combinations that English grammar allows – that are “grammatically correct” – and you’ll have a much, much smaller number of combinations to search through!”

And the skeptic responds thus:

Alas, poor, self-deceived Objectivist! That may be true, but it’s entirely irrelevant. The rules of English grammar that would, in principle help someone (or help a computer programmed by a someone) sort through the vast pile of gibberish in order to cull a much smaller search space of grammatically correct 1,500-character combinations, are not a physical property of the letters as such – the rules of grammar don’t reside in the ink that’s used to print the letters, or in the paper on which the letters are printed – the rules of English grammar exist as INFORMATION, in the heads of the people who can read and write. The rules of English grammar are themselves non-material; they are applied to text; they are not a property of the text. The reason that Scrabble squares must be placed in a certain order to win the game has nothing to do with the chemistry of the wooden squares or the chemistry of the ink printed on them.

Random processes don’t know anything about “rules of English grammar.” Purposive agents make use of those rules; not blind, random nature.

Same with biochemistry and life. Life is not “extremely complicated chemistry.” The actual chemistry of life is rather ordinary. The thing that differentiates living from non-living is information; in this case, the information is in the form of a system of coded chemistry that exists nowhere in the universe except in living organisms. The information – the code – is like the rules of English grammar; the code (like any code) is non-material. It’s a relation among bases on the DNA spine that contains a message: “manufacture this particular amino acid and put it HERE; then manufacture another particular amino acid and put it THERE.” This is what the ribosome reads when it receives the DNA message via mRNA.

Random processes such as the Darwinian’s conception of mutation obviously cannot “know” anything about this code, for the same reason that a random process obviously could not “know” anything about English grammar. A truly random process would simply have to sort through some, most, or all 10^2,147 combinations, until one – the one we call the Gettysburg Address – was “selected”.

In the case of horse evolution, chance would have to sort through 10^2,700 combinations until Natural Selection found the one it wanted. Neither random mutation nor natural selection can know anything about information and codes – that would imply consciousness and teleology in blind, “objective” nature.

Everything that's chemically-possible isn't also biologically-possible.

Not everything that is textually possible is also grammatically possible. But the difference between “grammatically possible” and merely “textually possible” lies within a field called “Rules of English Grammar” which cannot be used by blind nature. In biology, the “sequence problem” – the problem of how DNA managed to form a code that is itself not determined chemically or physically – lies within some process other than randomness or natural selection. Blind processes cannot sort grammatically correct text from gibberish; blind processes cannot sort biological organisms with information from mere biochemical sludge that has no information.

And when I say biologically-possible -- I'm not just talking about benevolent mutations (which are, in their own instances, biologically-preferable).

If benevolent mutations were “preferable” then they wouldn’t be so rare. Besides, you’re concept-stealing again. Blind processes such as random mutation and natural selection cannot – and by definition do not – “prefer” one thing over another. Only something that is goal-directed can have a preference. Something that moves it toward a goal is preferred. The term "preference" can also be used metaphorically to describe processes that are governed by deterministic laws. So if benevolent mutations are "preferred", it's either because they contributed to a goal (teleology), or because they simply had to occur (determinism). Random processes have nothing to do with preferring one state over another. Random processes simply occur.

You assume that any DNA change is equally possible

With point mutations, any base change is equally possible.

, that there are no biological constraints (i.e., no Identity to this biological process).

There are no biochemical constraints. What gives identity to living organisms is something non-biochemical and non-physical: information.

By failing to integrate that the process is biological, you are able to talk about DNA change like it's as simple coin-flipping.

By spouting Randroid buzz-words like “integrate” (as if that means “agree with whatever you say”) you fail to understand the application of simple probability to the issues.

It's not, though -- and you've been getting a lot of mileage out of tricking people into thinking it is, or that it has to be (when judging Darwin's theory).

I admit that the numbers look really bad for the Darwinians. That’s probably the reason that they are crying that the problem is simply too complicated, and that evolution should be judged by standards other than the usual ones for judging science: can it model? can it calculate based on the model? can it predict based on the model? can it retrodict based on the model? To these questions, Darwinists cry “No! And it’s unfair that you even ask!” These, however, are the usual questions one asks of a science. Since Darwinians cannot answer them, or will not answer them, we have no alternative but to declare the Darwinian theory of evolution to be something other than science. I call it “mere belief”; Karl Popper once called it “a metaphysical research programme”; others have called it “a 20th century creation myth”. You can call it what you like, but let’s not call it “science.”

That’s so unfair to all the others who really are practicing science.

And that (the dissemble) is what makes you the troll, Claude.

I thought it was the fact that I like impressionist paintings and dare to listen to music by composers other than Rachmaninoff, as well as the fact that I don’t spout buzz words like “integrate!” and “identity!” as if they’re worth anything in discussion and argument (except when said by an Objectivist who is preaching to the choir).

I continue to stand by my earlier opinion: Rand probably said little about Darwinism (except, evasively, that she “was not a student of his theory”) because she most likely found it unconvincing. To admit that openly would have risked being called a “closet creationist” by friend and foe alike. Wisely, she did the same as Atlas: she feigned ignorance and shrugged.

Post 139

Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 10:06pm