[_ Old Earth _] Mimicking and Safety

[Asyncritus]

Barbarian observes:
Ideologically, creationists and atheists tend to want to make God and evolution mutually exclusive. Not all of them, of course. But a lot of them.

(Asyncritus gives numerous examples, supporting Barbarian's observation)

Don't you meant that you've got some serious thinking to do? If you're lining up with all these atheists, isn't that a tip-off in itself?

No, I meant that YOU've got some thinking to do.

Evolution is a one way street to atheism. Ask any president of the AAAA.

 

[jasoncran]

while theres a tendecy to deny god with evolution, it doesnt meant that all will. there are some godly theistic evolutionists out there.

i could say the same with old earth creationists. i have been warned of that by an yecer. when i was an oecer.

 

[Asyncritus]

(Barbarian offers to demonstrate how new mutations produce new information in a population)

Let's take a simple example. Suppose in a population, there is a gene with two different alleles. That means that the total information of that gene is:

Or about 0.30. I'm assuming that two alleles are equally distributed, but if you like, I can show that it works if they are not. Now, suppose that another mutation occurs, and soon there are three equally-distributed alleles. The information is now about 0.48. An increase.

That looks like Sewall Wright or R A Fisher striking again. What do mathematicians know about Biology?

You can prove anything with these kamikaze equations if your assumptions are wrong - and nobody but a trained mathematician or statistician could say nay. Do you know enough mathematics or statistics to make an informed comment on the above?

My experience is that an average biologist would be absolutely unable to follow the gobbledy-gook. So maybe you aren't an average biologist - but on the other hand you may be.

Another example:

Nat Genet. 2002 Apr;30(4):411-5. Epub 2002 Mar 4.
Adaptive evolution of a duplicated pancreatic ribonuclease gene in a leaf-eating monkey.
Here we use both computational and experimental approaches to address these questions in a study of the pancreatic ribonuclease gene (RNASE1) and its duplicate gene (RNASE1B) in a leaf-eating colobine monkey, douc langur. We show that RNASE1B has evolved rapidly under positive selection for enhanced ribonucleolytic activity in an altered microenvironment, a response to increased demands for the enzyme for digesting bacterial RNA. At the same time, the ability to degrade double-stranded RNA, a non-digestive activity characteristic of primate RNASE1, has been lost in RNASE1B, indicating functional specialization and relaxation of purifying selection. Our findings demonstrate the contribution of gene duplication to organismal adaptation and show the power of combining sequence analysis and functional assays in delineating the molecular basis of adaptive evolution.

What a load of irrelevant tripe.

You are being called to account for the origin of species and higher taxa - and you produce this irrelevancy, which, note well, is based upon both computational and experimental approaches.

Did douc langur become douc anything else? I bet it didn't, or they'd have been shouting pretty loudly about it. So take it away. I's useless.

First one I know having been directly observed was O. gigas from O. lamarkania, following a polyploidy mutation.

There are also gradual ones, the first of those being observed back in the 30s, in fruit flies.

DROSOPHILA MIRANDA, A NEW SPECIES
TH. DOBZHANSKY
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California
Received January 30, 1935
http://www.genetics.org/content/20/4/377.full.pdf

Higher taxa tend to take longer than a human lifetime to observe, but note that the Institute for Creation Research says that new species, genera, and families evolve. (per John Woodmorrap's "Noah's Ark; A Feasibility Study")

Heh heh heh.

You mean it has never been observed, don't you?

And you don't believe what ICR says, do you? That'd be a first. If that's what he says, then they're really up a gum tree.

And WOWEE! A new species of Drosophila to justify his X-ray brutalisation of those poor flies!

Here:

"Out of 400 mutations that have been provided by Drosophila melanogaster, there is not one that can be called a new species. It does not seem, therefore, that the central problem of evolution can be solved by mutations."—*Maurice Caullery, Genetics and Heredity (1964), p. 119.

"In the best-known organisms, like Drosophila, innumerable mutants are known. If we were able to combine a thousand or more of such mutants in a single individual, this still would have no resemblance whatsoever to any type known as a [new] species in nature."—*Richard B. Goldschmidt, "Evolution, As Viewed by One Geneticist," American Scientist, January 1952, p. 94.

"Fruit flies refuse to become anything but fruit flies under any circumstances yet devised."—*Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong (1982), p. 61.

Want to give up about now?
Now given that there areabout 6 million species now extant, how long do you suppose it took to generate all those species by mutation? And where are the transitional fossils to support that idea?

 

[Asyncritus]

A few more bits from Dobzhansky himself:

"Most mutants which arise in any organism are more or less disadvantageous to their possessors. The classical mutants obtained in Drosophila usually show deterioration, breakdown, or disappearance of some organs. Mutants are known which diminish the quantity or destroy the pigment in the eyes, and in the body reduce the wings, eyes, bristles, legs. Many mutants are, in fact lethal to their possessors. Mutants which equal the normal fly in vigor are a minority, and mutants that would make a major improvement of the normal organization in the normal environments are unknown."—*Theodosius Dobzhansky, Evolution, Genetics, and Man (1955), p. 105.

"A review of known facts about their ability to survive has led to no other conclusion than that they [the mutated offspring] are always constitutionally weaker than their parent form or species, and in a population with free competition they are eliminated . . Therefore they are never found in nature (e.g. not a single one of the several hundred [types] of Drosophila mutation), and therefore, they are able to appear only in the favorable environment of the experimental field or laboratory."—*H. Nilsson, Synthetische Artbildng (1957), p. 1186.

Give up?

 

[Free]

Sure - but you are also proposing that I accept Barbarian's statement, aren't you?

I don't know. Which statement?

Now these guys like Stalin, seem to have the wrong idea, do they? You got any proof?

Like you, they made a category mistake by failing to distinguish between mechanism and agency. Evolution is a mechanism, God is an agent. It is false to equate the two as though one needs to decide between the two.

 

[Barbarian]

That looks like Sewall Wright or R A Fisher striking again.

Claude Shannon. Pretty much wrote the book on information.

What do mathematicians know about Biology?

Shannon actually wrote first about the information content of organisms:
Claude Shannon founded information theory in the 1940s. The theory has long been known to be closely related to thermodynamics and physics through the similarity of Shannon’s uncertainty measure to the entropy function. Recent work using information theory to understand molecular biology has unearthed a
curious fact: Shannon’s channel capacity theorem only applies to living organisms and their products, such as communications channels and molecular machines that make choices from several possibilities. Information theory is therefore a theory about biology, and Shannon was a biologist.
http://www.ece.iit.edu/~biitcomm/re...annon/Information Theory used in Biology).pdf

You can't get through a course in population genetics witout dealing with Shannon's theorm. But how do you get through college without understanding summation notation?

You can prove anything with these kamikaze equations if your assumptions are wrong - and nobody but a trained mathematician or statistician could say nay. Do you know enough mathematics or statistics to make an informed comment on the above?

Yep. I have a master's degree in systems, with a specialty in biological systems and human factors.

My experience is that an average biologist would be absolutely unable to follow the gobbledy-gook.

It's very easy to understand. Quite straightforward, and it works. Shannon's discovery is used to communicate reliably with low-powered spacecraft radios millions of kilometers from Earth.

So maybe you aren't an average biologist - but on the other hand you may be.

More knowledgeable about information, at least.

Nat Genet. 2002 Apr;30(4):411-5. Epub 2002 Mar 4.
Adaptive evolution of a duplicated pancreatic ribonuclease gene in a leaf-eating monkey.
Here we use both computational and experimental approaches to address these questions in a study of the pancreatic ribonuclease gene (RNASE1) and its duplicate gene (RNASE1B) in a leaf-eating colobine monkey, douc langur. We show that RNASE1B has evolved rapidly under positive selection for enhanced ribonucleolytic activity in an altered microenvironment, a response to increased demands for the enzyme for digesting bacterial RNA. At the same time, the ability to degrade double-stranded RNA, a non-digestive activity characteristic of primate RNASE1, has been lost in RNASE1B, indicating functional specialization and relaxation of purifying selection. Our findings demonstrate the contribution of gene duplication to organismal adaptation and show the power of combining sequence analysis and functional assays in delineating the molecular basis of adaptive evolution.

What a load of irrelevant tripe.

Demonstrates new information coming about by mutation.

You are being called to account for the origin of species

Nope. This conversation concerned whether or not mutation produces new information. As you see, it does. However, speciation is also well-documented.

Did douc langur become douc anything else?

Yep. Langur with more information in the genome. Which is what your guy claimed couldn't happen. But there it is.

Barbarian, regarding speciation:
First one I know having been directly observed was O. gigas from O. lamarkania, following a polyploidy mutation.

There are also gradual ones, the first of those being observed back in the 30s, in fruit flies.

DROSOPHILA MIRANDA, A NEW SPECIES
TH. DOBZHANSKY
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California
Received January 30, 1935
http://www.genetics.org/content/20/4/377.full.pdf

Higher taxa tend to take longer than a human lifetime to observe, but note that the Institute for Creation Research says that new species, genera, and families evolve. (per John Woodmorrap's "Noah's Ark; A Feasibility Study")

You mean it has never been observed, don't you?

Wrong, both were observed.

And you don't believe what ICR says

They gave up on the "no new species" story a long time ago. So did "Answers in Genesis." They could hardly argue against it, seeing the evidence.

"Fruit flies refuse to become anything but fruit flies under any circumstances yet devised."—*Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong (1982), p. 61.

And yet, we have directly observed, a new species. Opinions are opinions, but facts are facts.

Want to give up about now?

The quote-mining game isn't even very impressive to creationists, anymore.

Now given that there areabout 6 million species now extant, how long do you suppose it took to generate all those species by mutation?

You do know they don't have to take turns, right?

And where are the transitional fossils to support that idea?

Well, let's find out. You pick two major groups, said to be evolutionarily related, and I'll see if I can find a transitional. Better yet, pick several. Let's see how that plays.

 

[Asyncritus]

Well, let's find out. You pick two major groups, said to be evolutionarily related, and I'll see if I can find a transitional. Better yet, pick several. Let's see how that plays.

1 Angiosperms and gymnosperms

2 Prokaryotes and eukaryotes

3 Aquatic plants and land plants

4 Non-living and living

 

[Asyncritus]

And look, Barbarian, you've got a miserable handful of examples of speciation. I personally don't dispute that some, limited examples of speciation have occurred.

Usually in 'reproductive isolation' situations: where inbreeding is probably the order of the day.

BUT WE HAVE ABOUT 6,000,000 SPECIES EXTANT TODAY, AND A ZILLION OTHERS NOW EXTINCT.

How are you going to extrapolate from your miserable handful to the 6,000,000 existing species, and the extinct zillion?

And what are your comments on Dobzhansky's own remarks I quoted above? Any? Or none?

Just to remind you:

"Most mutants which arise in any organism are more or less disadvantageous to their possessors. The classical mutants obtained in Drosophila usually show deterioration, breakdown, or disappearance of some organs. Mutants are known which diminish the quantity or destroy the pigment in the eyes, and in the body reduce the wings, eyes, bristles, legs. Many mutants are, in fact lethal to their possessors. Mutants which equal the normal fly in vigor are a minority, and mutants that would make a major improvement of the normal organization in the normal environments are unknown."—*Theodosius Dobzhansky, Evolution, Genetics, and Man (1955), p. 105.

If I read that correctly, mutations can never produce improved species. But you can show me otherwise.

 

[Asyncritus]

Like you, they made a category mistake by failing to distinguish between mechanism and agency. Evolution is a mechanism, God is an agent. It is false to equate the two as though one needs to decide between the two.

Free, if you can't see that a theory which denies everything in Gen 1 and 2 leads to atheism, then I am more than a little disappointed in you.

Too bad.

But as I said, try asking any president of the AAAA. I'm sure they'll point you in the right direction.

 

[Free]

Free, if you can't see that a theory which denies everything in Gen 1 and 2 leads to atheism, then I am more than a little disappointed in you.

Too bad.

But as I said, try asking any president of the AAAA. I'm sure they'll point you in the right direction.

And yet, as I stated, it is a category mistake which leads you and others to believe that evolution denies the Creation account and leads to atheism. Just because some believe that to be the case does not mean that that is actually the case.

Be disappointed if you like but you are the one making the error.

 

[Barbarian]

(Barbarian suggests naming two major groups said to be evolutionarily connected)

1 Angiosperms and gymnosperms

Amborella trichopoda, for one. Mostly like an angiosperm, but lacks some features of angiosperms, such as specialized vascular tissues. In the stem, it's anatomically more like gymnosperms. The primitive flowers have several features that are consistent with modified gymnosperm structures. Particularly, the bracts are similar in structure to those forming scales in gymnosperms.

Prokaryotes and eukaryotes

The evidence indicates that eukaryotes are not evolved from prokaryotes, but are rather a result of endosymbiosis with a number of organisms. Would you like to see the evidence for that?

Aquatic plants and land plants

Charophytes

Non-living and living

Two major groups said to be evolutionarily connected. Evolutionary theory is not about the origin of life. If you want to imagine God magically made the first living things, that doesn't affect evolutionary theory.

 

[Barbarian]

And look, Barbarian, you've got a miserable handful of examples of speciation.

But, of course, even if it happens so slowly that we rarely see it, it still establishes the evolution of new species as a fact.

BUT WE HAVE ABOUT 6,000,000 SPECIES EXTANT TODAY, AND A ZILLION OTHERS NOW EXTINCT.

So, we see a new species can evolve in as little as a decade. And we have several billion years to get it done, and they all evolve at the same time. (no waiting in line)

How are you going to extrapolate from your miserable handful to the 6,000,000 existing species, and the extinct zillion?

The math is obvious.

And what are your comments on Dobzhansky's own remarks I quoted above? Any? Or none?

Don't see any that denies what he reported seeing. Since you've acknowledged the fact of speciation, it's a moot point.

"Most mutants which arise in any organism are more or less disadvantageous to their possessors. The classical mutants obtained in Drosophila usually show deterioration, breakdown, or disappearance of some organs. Mutants are known which diminish the quantity or destroy the pigment in the eyes, and in the body reduce the wings, eyes, bristles, legs. Many mutants are, in fact lethal to their possessors. Mutants which equal the normal fly in vigor are a minority, and mutants that would make a major improvement of the normal organization in the normal environments are unknown."—*Theodosius Dobzhansky, Evolution, Genetics, and Man (1955), p. 105.

You can find that in any genetics textbook as a historical error. The reason for that is that until we had good ways to check DNA, the mutations we could see were generally large-scale ones that did massive changes, which are mostly harmful. But we now know that most mutations don't do much at all. You and I almost certainly have a few.

If my DNA is mutated, is there something wrong with me?

No! A mutation is just a change in DNA. Mutations are not necessarily harmful; in fact, most mutations don't do anything at all. Occasionally a mutation may cause a disease (like hemophilia), or a condition (like deafness or dwarfism), or a harmless physical variation (like green eyes). Sometimes a mutation may even be helpful.
http://www.moonzstuff.com/dna/mrca.html

This is new, and it turns out that mutations are more common than previously thought:

Each human walking this planet receives approximately 60 new mutations in our genome from our parents, according to the first-ever direct measure of new mutations coming from mother and father in whole human genomes.

The researchers have been able to answer the questions: how many new mutations does a child have and did most of them come from mother or father? The researchers measured directly the numbers of mutations in two families, using whole genome sequences from the 1000 Genomes Project. The results reveal that human genomes, like all genomes, are changed by the forces of mutation: our DNA is altered by differences in its code from that of our parents. Mutations that occur in sperm or egg cells will be 'new' mutations not seen in our parents.

New mutations are the ultimate source from which new variation is drawn. But finding new mutations is extremely technically challenging as, on average, only 1 in every 100 million letters of DNA is altered each generation.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblo...utations-60-new-mutations-in-each-genome.html

If I read that correctly, mutations can never produce improved species.

Humans have a couple of good ones which are relatively recent. There's a gene that provides apparently perfect immunity to HIV. The cell marker on which HIV attaches is just not there, in the mutants. So they can't get an HIV infection.

The CCR5 receptor gene mutation locks HIV out of the cell, and without access to the interior of the cell, it's unable to reproduce.

The other is a mutation (which can be traced back to a single individual) prevents hardening of the arteries. It involves a mutation of a duplicate gene to increase information in the person.

But you can show me otherwise.

Yep.

 

[jasoncran]

http://creation.com/mutations-new-information

revalant to this argument.

 

[Barbarian]

The author of the link begins by assuming what he proposed to prove. He claims, without evidence that the genome is "planned." And later, he uses that assumption to prove it is planned. This circular argument.

In fact, any mutation in a population will increase information in the population as I showed Async.

It's the way information works.

 

[jasoncran]

then join this forum and debate with them. and be warned dont use any steve project from the talk origins and read the evo bable warning as well.
http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/forum/index.php?act=idx
they will remove you forum for that. and if i recall he lists where he gets that from.

ah yes the given enough time thing. we cant observe macro but since micro occurs we must presume that it does happen. yet if the earth sun its as old as the as the time frame for evolution to occur then its done. and i havent found any tests done to see if the sun is that old.

 

[Barbarian]

then join this forum and debate with them. and be warned dont use any steve project from the talk origins and read the evo bable warning as well.
http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/fo...ex.php?act=idx
they will remove you forum for that.

If they are afraid to openly debate, then they can't be very confident of their ideas. Guys like that hole up in protected places where the flaws in their ideas won't be probed.

ah yes the given enough time thing. we cant observe macro but since micro occurs we must presume that it does happen.

Evidence matters. And it says that a giant redwood can grow from a seed, even if no one has ever seen the entire process in one tree.

yet if the earth sun its as old as the as the time frame for evolution to occur then its done. and i havent found any tests done to see if the sun is that old.

About 4 1/2 billion years old. We know, because of the stage it's in. Stars of different sizes have different lifetimes, because they fuse their atoms at different rates.

 

[jasoncran]

really i have gone to science sites and they dont have presumption.

and uh if its so well known that we elvolved then why all the changes such as this

archertopertyx no longer a transitional

http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archi...y-raises-new-doubts-about-dinosaur-bird-links

so if its so well known then and that easy it should be really easy to find. and prove but oh time is what we need. so we cant observe it and we cant deny it.

so we are left with the equivocation that is all too common. we can go to a lab and see the small changes but we cant see how life went from one species in one kingdom to another.

argumentem non destrostratum isnt valid. sooner or later by now we should have something change its been 150 plus years. and yet only kinds of animals or plants not from for example a plant to animal.

 

[Barbarian]

and uh if its so well known that we elvolved then why all the changes such as this

archertopertyx no longer a transitional

http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archiv...aur-bird-links

By definition, its a transitional. It has features found only in dinosaurs and others found only in birds. A few ornithologists think birds and dinosaurs have a common ancestor that gave rise to both, rather than dinos giving rise to birds, but no one doubts common ancestry of dinos and birds as a clade.

so if its so well known then and that easy it should be really easy to find. and prove but oh time is what we need. so we cant observe it and we cant deny it.

Occasionally, speciation happens quickly enough that we can actually see it in a lifetime. So we know it's a fact.

so we are left with the equivocation that is all too common. we can go to a lab and see the small changes but we cant see how life went from one species in one kingdom to another.

Nor can we watch a giant redwood tree grow to full size from a seed. For the same reason. But we have abundant evidence that it happens.

 

[jasoncran]

By definition, its a transitional. It has features found only in dinosaurs and others found only in birds. A few ornithologists think birds and dinosaurs have a common ancestor that gave rise to both, rather than dinos giving rise to birds, but no one doubts common ancestry of dinos and birds as a clade.



Occasionally, speciation happens quickly enough that we can actually see it in a lifetime. So we know it's a fact.



Nor can we watch a giant redwood tree grow to full size from a seed. For the same reason. But we have abundant evidence that it happens.

thats apples to oranges, you dont any evidence on that scale for evolution and that isnt the only site that agrees that birds didnt evolve from dinosaurs.

can you explain what convergent evolution is?

how does totally different genes come to the same organ or bone structure and be classified evolution when by definition the general theory of evolution means all life came from the single cell from wherever it appeared.

we can measure a tree and place it in a glass container and watch it grow you cant do that with man from luci and ardi.

so your based on a presumption that is that obvious.,

 

[Asyncritus]

(Barbarian suggests naming two major groups said to be evolutionarily connected)


Amborella trichopoda, for one. Mostly like an angiosperm, but lacks some features of angiosperms, such as specialized vascular tissues. In the stem, it's anatomically more like gymnosperms. The primitive flowers have several features that are consistent with modified gymnosperm structures. Particularly, the bracts are similar in structure to those forming scales in gymnosperms.

Sorry B. This won't do.

http://www.seedbiology.de/evolution.asp

"The gymnosperms have 'naked seeds', i.e. their ovules and seeds (fertilized ovules) are exposed on the surface of sporophylls and analogous structures.

In contrast to the gymnosperms [...] ("Nacktsamer"), the angiosperms are "Bedecktsamer", i.e. their ovules and seeds are enclosed inside the ovary, which is the base of a modified leaf and is called carpel.

Another very important difference to gymnosperms is the angiosperm double fertilization. This leads to an additional novel tissue with maternal protuberance, the triploid endosperm. In mature seeds of most angiosperm species, the embryo is enclosed by endosperm tissue. In addition, angiosperm seeds can be dispersed as fruits, i.e. the seeds can have in addition pericarp (fruit coat) around the testa (seed coat). [...]

The rapid rise and early diversification of the angiosperms occurred during the Cretaceous time and was called 'an abominable mystery' by Charles Darwin."

I find it positively imbecilic that any botanist can look at Amborella and call it a 'primitive, ancestral' plant.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amborella

View attachment 2173
​

I wonder if he knew what he was saying here:

That is, it represents a line of flowering plants that diverged very early on (about 130 million years ago) from all the other extant species of flowering plants.
So there were already other angiosperms at the time Amborella 'diverged' from them. It therefore is not and cannot be ancestral to them. Now you have the problem of identifying Amborella's ancestors too, especially given the following description:

Typically, 1 to 3 carpels develop into fruit per flower. The fruit is an ovoid red drupe [..] The inner pericarp is lignified and surrounds the single seed. The embryo is small and surrounded by copious endosperm."

The seed is 'enclosed' within the pericarp.

This, the most fundamental difference between the angiosperms and the gymnosperms is in full existence in the allegedly 'primitive' Amborella. The carpel is already enclosed.

* in gymnosperms seed is on the surface of the sporophyll
Gymnosperms include plants whose seeds are not enclosed in an ovule, hence why they’re called “naked seeds” (Think of a pine cone).

* Angiosperms include plants whose mature seeds are enclosed in an ovule (think of an apple).

Q. How did one change into the other? No intermediates are possible. The seed is either in, or out. Darwin gave up on this one, so why don't you?

You have some accounting to do, not, please note, hypothesising.e

The evidence indicates that eukaryotes are not evolved from prokaryotes, but are rather a result of endosymbiosis with a number of organisms. Would you like to see the evidence for that?

Yes please. GENUINE evidence I mean, not another batch of guesswork and hypothesising. I mean evidence that accounts clearly for such statements as these:

There is such a large difference between prokaryotes and eukaryotes that the creation of eukaryotes is virtually a total re-design, a second creation on a par with with the original creation of prokaryote life.

For one thing, the simplest eukaryotes have over 10 times the DNA found in the most complex prokaryote[FOOTNOTE: Scott F. Gilbert, Developmental Biology, 5th Ed. p.5] and are much larger. Figure 3 illustrates one prominent feature of eukaryotes: the extensive use of membranes to form controlled micro-environents where various specialized activities occur.

http://www.ps-19.org/Crea07Eukary/index.html

Yes indeed. I'd really like to see something that does not exist. That will definitely be a first.

Two major groups said to be evolutionarily connected. Evolutionary theory is not about the origin of life. If you want to imagine God magically made the first living things, that doesn't affect evolutionary theory.

A nice cop-out, don't you think?

Suppose tomorrow, they managed to create some life in a lab somewhere. Don't you think there'd be enormous evolutionary chortling and trumpeting everywhere? I promise you, there would.

But haven't you heard of 'pre-biotic evolution' and such like? What do you make of them?