Liberals know little about evolution?

_{Denyse O'Leary

September 4, 2014

Culture, Darwinism, News}

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From Megan McCardle at Bloomberg:

In the ultra-liberal enclave I grew up in, the liberals were at least as fiercely tribal as any small-town Republican, though to be sure, the targets were different. Many of them knew no more about the nuts and bolts of evolution and other hot-button issues than your average creationist; they believed it on authority. And when it threatened to conflict with some sacred value, such as their beliefs about gender differences, many found evolutionary principles as easy to ignore as those creationists did. More.

Couple things here: Let’s assume that “creationists” means something a creationist might at least recognize.

Hey it’s not a quibble. Atheist mathematician Peter Woit and anti-ID biology prof blogger PZ Myers have both been labelled in some quarters as “creationists” (here and here).* So I clarify: I mean people who think that at least some life forms appeared as an act of divine creation. That’s the traditional meaning.

Most creationists actually know more about evolution than McCardle’s liberals. Of course they do. If one truly believes fatuous effluvia from pop sci mags, one needs no reasons other than: It’s me. It’s here. It’s now. It’s in. It’s cool.

The intellectually serious doubter needs fact-based reasons. And in this case, reasons are hardly in short supply. Darwin’s followers have spent so much time stamping out dissent, they haven’t noticed the looming pile of contrary evidence, let alone done much to address it.

Additional semantic note: Based on experience, I profess astonishment that there are still people around who believe that today, liberals are anti-authoritarian. Most anti-authoritarian causes of any reach or depth today are not liberal (in the usual sense of leftist or progressive).

At one time, liberals were low authoritarians, but now that they have embraced utopian politics, they certainly do not mind imposing their views and values on everyone.

But the creationists still know more about evolution than they do, and always will. Because they want to know, that’s why.

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* Both these guys got pegged as “creationists” for dismissing currently popular science circus bandwagons. That should tell many people more than it probably will about where things are really headed.

Comments

sorry, I have the wrong link posted for the confirmation of Leggett's Inequality to 120 standard deviations, here is the correct link: 120 standard deviations level of precision: Experimental non-classicality of an indivisible quantum system - Zeilinger 2011 Excerpt: Page 491: "This represents a violation of (Leggett's) inequality (3) by more than 120 standard deviations, demonstrating that no joint probability distribution is capable of describing our results." The violation also excludes any non-contextual hidden-variable model.The result does, however, agree well with quantum mechanical predictions, as we will show now.,,, https://vcq.quantum.at/fileadmin/Publications/Experimental%20non-classicality%20of%20an%20indivisible.pdfbornagain77_{September 11, 2014
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Thanks Joe,,, yes clarity on that 'unguided, purely material processes' point would be extremely helpful! Arlin, what say ye???bornagain77_{September 11, 2014
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arlin, excuse me if I seem blunt to you, but you seem to have science confused with your philosophical druthers as to how you prefer the world to operate. You state that,,,
"you demand a kind of certainty that science does not provide"
Yet, contrary to what you believe, science is successful precisely because it, through experimental investigation, can deliver us a level of certainty about the 'natural' world not available to us through philosophy and reasoning alone. For instance, when I query as to the integrity of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity to see how much trust I can have in them as theories, I find that they have been empirically tested to almost absurd levels of precision. For example in Quantum Mechanics, I find Leggett's Inequality confirmed to 120 standard deviations,,,
Nonlocal "realistic" Leggett models can be considered refuted by the before-before experiment - 2008 - Antoine Suarez Center for Quantum Philosophy, Excerpt: (page 3) The independence of quantum measurement from the presence of human consciousness has not been proved wrong by any experiment to date.,,, "nonlocal correlations happen from outside space-time, in the sense that there is no story in space-time that tells us how they happen." http://www.quantumphil.org/SuarezFOOP201R2.pdf
The preceding experiment, and the mathematics behind it, are discussed beginning at the 24:15 minute mark of the following video:
Quantum Weirdness and God 8-9-2014 by Paul Giem - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=N7HHz14tS1c#t=1449
The following articles give us a small glimpse as to what it truly means for Quantum Mechanics to be confirmed to an order of '120 standard deviations':
Standard deviation Excerpt: Particle physics uses a standard of "5 sigma" for the declaration of a discovery.[3] At five-sigma there is only one chance in nearly two million that a random fluctuation would yield the result. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation#Particle_physics SSDD: a 22 sigma event is consistent with the physics of fair coins? - June 23, 2013 Excerpt: So 500 coins heads is (500-250)/11 = 22 standard deviations (22 sigma) from expectation! These numbers are so extreme, it’s probably inappropriate to even use the normal distribution’s approximation of the binomial distribution, and hence “22 sigma” just becomes a figure of speech in this extreme case… https://uncommondescent.com/mathematics/ssdd-a-22-sigma-event-is-consistent-with-the-physics-of-fair-coins/
Thus I can have much confidence that our model(s) are correct for Quantum Mechanics (and General Relativity). In fact, an experiment was recently performed in Quantum Mechanics showing that Quantum Theory will never be exceeded in predictive power by a future theory with the only assumption being that measurement (conscious observation) parameters can be chosen independently (free choice, free will, assumption) of the other parameters of the theory
Can quantum theory be improved? - July 23, 2012 Excerpt: However, in the new paper, the physicists have experimentally demonstrated that there cannot exist any alternative theory that increases the predictive probability of quantum theory by more than 0.165, with the only assumption being that measurement (conscious observation) parameters can be chosen independently (free choice, free will, assumption) of the other parameters of the theory.,,, ,, the experimental results provide the tightest constraints yet on alternatives to quantum theory. The findings imply that quantum theory is close to optimal in terms of its predictive power, even when the predictions are completely random. http://phys.org/news/2012-07-quantum-theory.html
Now this is completely unheard of in science as far as I know. i.e. That a mathematical description of reality would advance to the point that one can actually perform a experiment showing that your current theory will not be exceeded in predictive power by another future theory is simply unprecedented in science! And please note that free will and consciousness are both axiomatic to Quantum Theory in the experiment. But 'unguided' evolution, as it is taught in schools, which clearly excludes mind as a starting axiom in its theory, has nothing of the sort that one can hang his hat on. Berlinski puts the situation with unguided evolution like this,,,
“On the other hand, I disagree that Darwin’s theory is as `solid as any explanation in science.; Disagree? I regard the claim as preposterous. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to thirteen or so decimal places; so, too, general relativity. A leaf trembling in the wrong way would suffice to shatter either theory. What can Darwinian theory offer in comparison?” (Berlinski, D., “A Scientific Scandal?: David Berlinski & Critics,” Commentary, July 8, 2003)
And indeed, if one looks for ANY empirical evidence for the unguided processes of evolution producing complexity, one finds that the evidence, instead of building complexity, points in the opposite direction. i.e. the evidence points to the fact that unguided processes are far more likely to degrade preexisting complexity rather than ever building it up! For instance, Dr. Behe surveyed 4 decades of lab work here:
“The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain – Michael Behe – December 2010 Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain. http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/
Thus, to quote Feynman:
The Scientific Method - Richard Feynman - video Quote: 'If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is… If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL6-x0modwY
Thus arlin, you can accuse me of not understanding science all you want, but the plain fact of the matter is that science, i.e. our experimental evidence, tells us that unguided evolution is wrong! Supplemental note on Leggett's inequality,, In the following article, Physics Professor Richard Conn Henry is quite blunt as to what quantum mechanics, specifically Leggett's Inequality, reveals to us about the 'primary cause' of our 3D reality:
Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger by Richard Conn Henry - Physics Professor - John Hopkins University Excerpt: Why do people cling with such ferocity to belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality, then ultimately (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the "illusion" of material reality (which has, in fact, despite the materialists, been known to be the case, since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism (solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist). (Dr. Henry's referenced experiment and paper - “An experimental test of non-local realism” by S. Gröblacher et. al., Nature 446, 871, April 2007 - “To be or not to be local” by Alain Aspect, Nature 446, 866, April 2007 (Leggett's Inequality: Verified, as of 2011, to 120 standard deviations) http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/aspect.html
bornagain77_{September 11, 2014
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arlin- Instead of telling us what your position isn't, perhaps you should tell us what it is. IDists are OK with complex protein machinery evolving by design. ID just argues against purely materialistic processes , ie no thought nor plan involved (think accumulations of culled genetic accidents).Joe_{September 11, 2014
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bornagain77, you have made it abundantly clear that you demand a kind of certainty that science does not provide. You'll have to continue playing at science without me. Enjoy your game.arlin_{September 11, 2014
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and arlin, fell free to provide empirical evidence of your, I assume, unintelligent, but non-Darwinian, process producing just one molecular machine so as to sooth the doubts of those of us who think you are full of hot air...bornagain77_{September 10, 2014
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as to: "I have never defended,,, the doctrine of random mutation," and then ",,, I have published several papers on the topic of mutation as a cause of direction in evolution." so were they guided mutations in your unsubstantiated scenario??bornagain77_{September 10, 2014
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bornagain77, I think you are mistaking me for someone else. I have never defended "Darwinism", "neo-Darwinism", the Modern Synthesis, the doctrine of random mutation, or the creativity claim that makes selection problematic. My work generally undermines all of those views. For instance, I have published several papers on the topic of mutation as a cause of direction in evolution. I am guessing from the extreme length and scattership quality of your comments above that this discussion will never come to a focus, and is therefore futile.arlin_{September 10, 2014
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Dr. MacIntosh's induction that information, transcendent of matter and energy, must be constraining life to be so far out of thermodynamic equilibrium has been borne out empirically. It is now found that Quantum entanglement/information 'holds' DNA (and proteins) together:
Quantum entanglement between the electron clouds of nucleic acids in DNA – Elisabeth Rieper, Janet Anders and Vlatko Vedral – February 2011 http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1006/1006.4053v2.pdf
etc.. etc.. In fact, matter and energy are now both shown to ultimately reduce to ‘quantum information’. In fact an entire human can now, theoretically, be reduced to quantum information and teleported to another location in the universe:
Quantum Teleportation Of A Human? – video https://vimeo.com/75163272
Thus not only is Information not reducible to a 3-Dimensional energy-matter basis, as is presupposed in Darwinism, but in actuality energy and matter both reduce to a information basis as is presupposed in Christian Theism: of related interest:
Why the Quantum? It from Bit? A Participatory Universe? Excerpt: In conclusion, it may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows. Thence the question why nature appears quantized is simply a consequence of the fact that information itself is quantized by necessity. It might even be fair to observe that the concept that information is fundamental is very old knowledge of humanity, witness for example the beginning of gospel according to John: “In the beginning was the Word.” Anton Zeilinger – a leading expert in quantum teleportation:
Verse and Music:
John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. Redeemed – Big Daddy Weave http://myktis.com/songs/redeemed/
bornagain77_{September 10, 2014
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Here are a few more notes on this insurmountable ‘princess and the pea’ problem for natural selection:
Evolution vs. Genetic Entropy - Andy McIntosh - (Kimura's distribution) - video https://vimeo.com/91162565 The GS Principle (The Genetic Selection Principle) – Abel – 2009 Excerpt: The GS Principle, sometimes called “The 2nd Law of Biology,” states that selection must occur at the molecular/genetic level, not just at the fittest phenotypic/organismic level, to produce and explain life.,,, Natural selection cannot operate at the genetic level. http://www.bioscience.org/2009/v14/af/3426/fulltext.htm The next evolutionary synthesis: Jonathan BL Bard (2011) Excerpt: We now know that there are at least 50 possible functions that DNA sequences can fulfill [8], that the networks for traits require many proteins and that they allow for considerable redundancy [9]. The reality is that the evolutionary synthesis says nothing about any of this; for all its claim of being grounded in DNA and mutation, it is actually a theory based on phenotypic traits. This is not to say that the evolutionary synthesis is wrong, but that it is inadequate – it is really only half a theory! http://www.biosignaling.com/content/pdf/1478-811X-9-30.pdf
Moreover, as if that were not devastating enough as to undermining any credibility Natural Selection might have had as to having the causal adequacy to explain the highly integrated levels of overlapping functional information found in organisms, dimensionally speaking, Natural Selection is now known to not even be on the right playing field in the first place:
The predominance of quarter-power (4-D) scaling in biology Excerpt: Many fundamental characteristics of organisms scale with body size as power laws of the form: Y = Yo M^b, where Y is some characteristic such as metabolic rate, stride length or life span, Yo is a normalization constant, M is body mass and b is the allometric scaling exponent. A longstanding puzzle in biology is why the exponent b is usually some simple multiple of 1/4 (4-Dimensional scaling) rather than a multiple of 1/3, as would be expected from Euclidean (3-Dimensional) scaling. http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~drewa/pubs/savage_v_2004_f18_257.pdf “Although living things occupy a three-dimensional space, their internal physiology and anatomy operate as if they were four-dimensional. Quarter-power scaling laws are perhaps as universal and as uniquely biological as the biochemical pathways of metabolism, the structure and function of the genetic code and the process of natural selection.,,, The conclusion here is inescapable, that the driving force for these invariant scaling laws cannot have been natural selection.” Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, What Darwin Got Wrong (London: Profile Books, 2010), p. 78-79
Here is, what a Darwinist termed, a ‘horrendously complex’ metabolic pathway (which operates as if it were ’4-Dimensional):
ExPASy - Biochemical Pathways - interactive schematic http://web.expasy.org/cgi-bin/pathways/show_thumbnails.pl
And remember, Darwinian evolution has yet to demonstrate to origination of a single gene/protein of those ‘horrendously complex’ metabolic pathways.
"Charles Darwin said (paraphrase), 'If anyone could find anything that could not be had through a number of slight, successive, modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.' Well that condition has been met time and time again. Basically every gene, every protein fold. There is nothing of significance that we can show that can be had in a gradualist way. It's a mirage. None of it happens that way. - Doug Axe PhD. - Nothing In Molecular Biology Is Gradual - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5347797/
The reason why a ‘higher dimensional’ 4-Dimensional structure, such as a ‘horrendously complex metabolic pathway, would be, for all intents and purposes, completely invisible to a 3-Dimensional process, such as Natural Selection, is best illustrated by ‘flatland’:
Flatland – 3D to 4D shift – Dr. Quantum – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWyTxCsIXE4
I personally hold that the reason why internal physiology and anatomy operate as if they were four-dimensional instead of three dimensional is because of exactly what Darwinian evolution has consistently failed to explain the origination of. i.e. functional information. ‘Higher dimensional’ information, which is bursting at the seams in life, simply cannot be reduced to any 3-dimensional energy-matter basis:
John Lennox – Is There Evidence of Something Beyond Nature? (Semiotic Information) – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6rd4HEdffw “One of the things I do in my classes, to get this idea across to students, is I hold up two computer disks. One is loaded with software, and the other one is blank. And I ask them, ‘what is the difference in mass between these two computer disks, as a result of the difference in the information content that they posses’? And of course the answer is, ‘Zero! None! There is no difference as a result of the information. And that’s because information is a mass-less quantity. Now, if information is not a material entity, then how can any materialistic explanation account for its origin? How can any material cause explain it’s origin? And this is the real and fundamental problem that the presence of information in biology has posed. It creates a fundamental challenge to the materialistic, evolutionary scenarios because information is a different kind of entity that matter and energy cannot produce. In the nineteenth century we thought that there were two fundamental entities in science; matter, and energy. At the beginning of the twenty first century, we now recognize that there’s a third fundamental entity; and its ‘information’. It’s not reducible to matter. It’s not reducible to energy. But it’s still a very important thing that is real; we buy it, we sell it, we send it down wires. Now, what do we make of the fact, that information is present at the very root of all biological function? In biology, we have matter, we have energy, but we also have this third, very important entity; information. I think the biology of the information age, poses a fundamental challenge to any materialistic approach to the origin of life.” -Dr. Stephen C. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of science from Cambridge University for a dissertation on the history of origin-of-life biology and the methodology of the historical sciences. Information and entropy – top-down or bottom-up development in living systems? Excerpt: This paper highlights the distinctive and non-material nature of information and its relationship with matter, energy and natural forces. It is proposed in conclusion that it is the non-material information (transcendent to the matter and energy) that is actually itself constraining the local thermodynamics to be in ordered disequilibrium and with specified raised free energy levels necessary for the molecular and cellular machinery to operate. A.C. McINTOSH - Dr Andy C. McIntosh is the Professor of Thermodynamics Combustion Theory at the University of Leeds. (the highest teaching/research rank in U.K. university hierarchy) Information and Thermodynamics in Living Systems - Andy C. McIntosh - May 2013 Excerpt: The third view then that we have proposed in this paper is the top down approach. In this paradigm, the information is non-material and constrains the local thermodynamics to be in a non-equilibrium state of raised free energy. It is the information which is the active ingredient, and the matter and energy are passive to the laws of thermodynamics within the system. As a consequence of this approach, we have developed in this paper some suggested principles of information exchange which have some parallels with the laws of thermodynamics which undergird this approach.,,, http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789814508728_0008
bornagain77_{September 10, 2014
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Another reason why Darwinian evolution is more realistically thought of as a pseudo-science rather than a proper physical science is that the two foundational pillars of Darwinian evolution, Random Mutation/Variation and Natural Selection, are both now shown to be severely compromised as to having the causal adequacy that Darwinists have presupposed for them.
The Edge of Evolution: Why Darwin's Mechanism Is Self-Limiting - Michael Behe - July 18, 2014 (Part 3 of 3) Excerpt: As science probes ever deeper into the molecular details of life,, grave obstacles to undirected evolution have become manifest. Relatively recent, terrific research using the powerful techniques available to modern biology shows three general, separate barriers to a Darwinian (or, for that matter, to any undirected) evolutionary mechanism. (1. random mutation, 2. natural selection, 3. irreducible complexity),,, It's important to notice that these three roadblocks are substantially independent of each other. Sequestration of a system to its current function by natural selection is a different problem from the damage done by adaptive-yet-degradative random mutations, both of which are conceptually distinct from the need for multiple, unselected steps to reach some adaptive states. A result of their independence is that they will work synergistically. Undirected evolutionary change faces multiple overpowering restraints.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/07/the_edge_of_evo087971.html
In regards to random mutation in particular, although Darwinian evolution appeals to ‘unguided’ random mutations/variations to DNA as the main creative source for all evolutionary novelty, there are now known to be extensive layers of error correction in the cell to protect against any unguided “random” changes happening to DNA in the first place:
The Evolutionary Dynamics of Digital and Nucleotide Codes: A Mutation Protection Perspective – February 2011 Excerpt: “Unbounded random change of nucleotide codes through the accumulation of irreparable, advantageous, code-expanding, inheritable mutations at the level of individual nucleotides, as proposed by evolutionary theory, requires the mutation protection at the level of the individual nucleotides and at the higher levels of the code to be switched off or at least to dysfunction. Dysfunctioning mutation protection, however, is the origin of cancer and hereditary diseases, which reduce the capacity to live and to reproduce. Our mutation protection perspective of the evolutionary dynamics of digital and nucleotide codes thus reveals the presence of a paradox in evolutionary theory between the necessity and the disadvantage of dysfunctioning mutation protection. This mutation protection paradox, which is closely related with the paradox between evolvability and mutational robustness, needs further investigation.” http://benthamscience.com/open/toevolj/articles/V005/1TOEVOLJ.pdf
Moreover, for the vast majority of times that changes do happen to DNA, they are now known to be ‘directed changes’ by sophisticated molecular machines, not unguided ‘random changes’ from a cosmic ray, chemical imbalance, or some such entropy driven event as that:
How life changes itself: the Read-Write (RW) genome. – 2013 Excerpt: Research dating back to the 1930s has shown that genetic change is the result of cell-mediated processes, not simply accidents or damage to the DNA. This cell-active view of genome change applies to all scales of DNA sequence variation, from point mutations to large-scale genome rearrangements and whole genome duplications (WGDs). This conceptual change to active cell inscriptions controlling RW genome functions has profound implications for all areas of the life sciences. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23876611 Shapiro on Random Mutation: “What I ask others interested in evolution to give up is the notion of random accidental mutation.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-a-shapiro/jerry-coyne-fails-to-unde_b_1411144.html
What should be needless to say, having ‘cell-mediated processes’ direct changes to DNA is in direct contradiction to the ‘undirected randomness’ which is held to be foundational to neo-Darwinian thought. Moreover, Natural Selection, that other great pillar upon which Darwinian evolution rests, has also been undermined as having the causal adequacy that neo-Darwinists have attributed to it. First off, to the extent that Natural Selection does do anything, Natural Selection is found to be a eliminative force not a generative force:
"Natural selection does not act on anything, nor does it select (for or against), force, maximize, create, modify, shape, operate, drive, favor, maintain, push, or adjust. Natural selection does nothing…. Having natural selection select is nifty because it excuses the necessity of talking about the actual causation of natural selection. Such talk was excusable for Charles Darwin, but inexcusable for evolutionists now. Creationists have discovered our empty “natural selection” language, and the “actions” of natural selection make huge, vulnerable targets." The Origin of Theoretical Population Genetics, 2001 (pp. 199-200) William Provine - Professor of Evolutionary Biology - Cornell University "...but Natural Selection reduces genetic information and we know this from all the Genetic Population studies that we have..." Maciej Marian Giertych - Population Geneticist - member of the European Parliament - EXPELLED - Natural Selection And Genetic Mutations - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z5-15wk1Zk From a Frog to a Prince - video (17:00 minute mark Natural Selection Reduces Genetic Information) - No Beneficial Mutations - Gitt - Spetner - Denton - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClleN8ysimg&feature=player_detailpage#t=1031 "A Dutch zoologist, J.J. Duyvene de Wit, clearly demonstrated that the process of speciation (such as the appearance of many varieties of dogs and cats) is inevitably bound up with genetic depletion as a result of natural selection. When this scientifically established fact is applied to the question of whether man could have evolved from ape-like animals,'.. the transformist concept of progressive evolution is pierced in its very vitals.' The reason for this, J.J. Duyvene de Wit went on to explain, is that the whole process of evolution from animal to man " ' . . would have to run against the gradient of genetic depletion. That is to say, . . man )should possess] a smaller gene-potential than his animal ancestors! [I] Here, the impressive absurdity becomes clear in which the transformist doctrine [the theory of evolution] entangles itself when, in flat contradiction to the factual scientific evidence, it dogmatically asserts that man has evolved from the animal kingdom!" —Op. cit., pp. 129-130. [Italics his; quotations from *J.J. Duyvene de Wit, A New Critique of the Transformist Principle in Evolutionary Biology (1965), p. 56,57.] http://www.godrules.net/evolutioncruncher/2evlch15.htm "We found an enormous amount of diversity within and between the African populations, and we found much less diversity in non-African populations," Tishkoff told attendees today (Jan. 22) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Anaheim. "Only a small subset of the diversity in Africa is found in Europe and the Middle East, and an even narrower set is found in American Indians." Tishkoff; Andrew Clark, Penn State; Kenneth Kidd, Yale University; Giovanni Destro-Bisol, University "La Sapienza," Rome, and Himla Soodyall and Trefor Jenkins, WITS University, South Africa, looked at three locations on DNA samples from 13 to 18 populations in Africa and 30 to 45 populations in the remainder of the world.-
As well, Natural Selection is grossly inadequate to do the work required of it because of what is termed ‘the princess and the pea’ paradox. The devastating ‘princess and the pea’ paradox is clearly elucidated by Dr. John Sanford, at the 8:14 minute mark, of this following video,,,
Genetic Entropy – Dr. John Sanford – Evolution vs. Reality – video http://vimeo.com/35088933
Dr. Sanford points out, in the preceding video, that Natural Selection acts at the coarse level of the entire organism (phenotype) and yet the vast majority of mutations have effects that are only ‘slightly detrimental’, and have no noticeable effect on phenotypes, and are thus far below the power of Natural Selection to remove from genomes before they spread throughout the population.
“Selection Threshold Severely Constrains Capture of Beneficial Mutations” - John Sanford - September 6, 2013 Excerpt of concluding comments: Our findings raise a very interesting theoretical problem — in a large genome, how do the millions of low-impact (yet functional) nucleotides arise? It is universally agreed that selection works very well for high-impact mutations. However, unless some new and as yet undiscovered process is operating in nature, there should be selection breakdown for the great majority of mutations that have small impact on fitness.,,, We show that selection breakdown is not just a simple function of population size, but is seriously impacted by other factors, especially selection interference. We are convinced that our formulation and methodology (i.e., genetic accounting) provide the most biologically-realistic analysis of selection breakdown to date. http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789814508728_0011
bornagain77_{September 10, 2014
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arlin, since you took the time to honestly lay out the reason why you felt your particular offshoot of Darwinian thinking is 'scientific', I think it is proper that I return the courtesy and take the time to show you why Darwinism, and all its theoretical offshoots, do not even qualify as a proper science in the first place, but are more realistically classified as pseudo-sciences.
1. No Rigid Mathematical Basis 2. No Demonstrated Empirical Basis 3. Random Mutation and Natural Selection Are Both Grossly Inadequate as ‘creative engines’ 4. Information is not reducible to a material basis
What the vast majority of Darwinists fail to realize (or ever honestly admit to) is that Darwinian evolution is not even a 'real' physical science in any proper sense but that Darwinian evolution is more realistically thought of as a pseudo-science. Even Jerry Coyne himself, the self-appointed Grand Inquisitor of Darwinian evolution, admits that Darwinian evolution lacks the rigor of a proper physical science:
“In science’s pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology than to physics. For evolutionary biology is a historical science, laden with history’s inevitable imponderables. We evolutionary biologists cannot generate a Cretaceous Park to observe exactly what killed the dinosaurs; and, unlike “harder” scientists, we usually cannot resolve issues with a simple experiment, such as adding tube A to tube B and noting the color of the mixture.” - Jerry A. Coyne – Of Vice and Men, The New Republic April 3, 2000 p.27 - professor of Darwinian evolution at the University of Chicago
The main reason why Darwinian evolution is more properly thought of as a pseudo-science instead of a proper science is because Darwinian evolution has no rigid mathematical basis, like other overarching physical theories of science do. A rigid mathematical basis in order to potentially falsify it (in fact math, in so far as math can be applied to Darwinian claims, constantly shows us that Darwinian evolution is astronomically unlikely),,
“On the other hand, I disagree that Darwin’s theory is as `solid as any explanation in science.; Disagree? I regard the claim as preposterous. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to thirteen or so decimal places; so, too, general relativity. A leaf trembling in the wrong way would suffice to shatter either theory. What can Darwinian theory offer in comparison?” (Berlinski, D., “A Scientific Scandal?: David Berlinski & Critics,” Commentary, July 8, 2003) WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? Evolution is True - Roger Highfield - January 2014 Excerpt:,,, Whatever the case, those universal truths—'laws'—that physicists and chemists all rely upon appear relatively absent from biology. Little seems to have changed from a decade ago when the late and great John Maynard Smith wrote a chapter on evolutionary game theory for a book on the most powerful equations of science: his contribution did not include a single equation. http://www.edge.org/response-detail/25468 Active Information in Metabiology – Winston Ewert, William A. Dembski, Robert J. Marks II – 2013 Except page 9: Chaitin states [3], “For many years I have thought that it is a mathematical scandal that we do not have proof that Darwinian evolution works.” In fact, mathematics has consistently demonstrated that undirected Darwinian evolution does not work. http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2013.4/BIO-C.2013.4 HISTORY OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY – WISTAR DESTROYS EVOLUTION Excerpt: A number of mathematicians, familiar with the biological problems, spoke at that 1966 Wistar Institute,, For example, Murray Eden showed that it would be impossible for even a single ordered pair of genes to be produced by DNA mutations in the bacteria, E. coli,—with 5 billion years in which to produce it! His estimate was based on 5 trillion tons of the bacteria covering the planet to a depth of nearly an inch during that 5 billion years. He then explained that,, E. coli contain(s) over a trillion (10^12) bits of data. That is the number 10 followed by 12 zeros. *Eden then showed the mathematical impossibility of protein forming by chance. http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/Encyclopedia/20hist12.htm Darwin's Doubt - Chapter 12 - Complex Adaptations and the Neo-Darwinian Math - Dr. Paul Giem - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFY7oKc34qs&list=SPHDSWJBW3DNUaMy2xdaup5ROw3u0_mK8t&index=7 See also Mendel's Accountant and Haldane's Ratchet: John Sanford, Walter Remine
Another primary reason why Darwinian evolution is more realistically thought of as a pseudo-science rather than a proper physical science is that Darwinian evolution does not have a demonstrated empirical basis to support its claims (in fact empirical evidence also consistently shows us that Darwinian evolution is astronomically unlikely),,
The Fate of Darwinism: Evolution After the Modern Synthesis - David J. Depew and Bruce H. Weber - 2011 Excerpt: We trace the history of the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, and of genetic Darwinism generally, with a view to showing why, even in its current versions, it can no longer serve as a general framework for evolutionary theory. The main reason is empirical. Genetical Darwinism cannot accommodate the role of development (and of genes in development) in many evolutionary processes.,,, http://www.springerlink.com/content/845x02v03g3t7002/ “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain – Michael Behe – December 2010 Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain. http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/ Where’s the substantiating evidence for neo-Darwinism? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q-PBeQELzT4pkgxB2ZOxGxwv6ynOixfzqzsFlCJ9jrw/edit Waiting Longer for Two Mutations – Michael J. Behe Excerpt: Citing malaria literature sources (White 2004) I had noted that the de novo appearance of chloroquine resistance in Plasmodium falciparum was an event of probability of 1 in 10^20. I then wrote that ‘for humans to achieve a mutation like this by chance, we would have to wait 100 million times 10 million years’ (1 quadrillion years)(Behe 2007) (because that is the extrapolated time that it would take to produce 10^20 humans). Durrett and Schmidt (2008, p. 1507) retort that my number ‘is 5 million times larger than the calculation we have just given’ using their model (which nonetheless “using their model” gives a prohibitively long waiting time of 216 million years). Their criticism compares apples to oranges. My figure of 10^20 is an empirical statistic from the literature; it is not, as their calculation is, a theoretical estimate from a population genetics model. per Discovery Don’t Mess With ID (Overview of Behe’s ‘Edge of Evolution’ and Durrett and Schmidt’s paper at the 20:00 minute mark) – Paul Giem – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JeYJ29-I7o An Open Letter to Kenneth Miller and PZ Myers - Michael Behe July 21, 2014 Dear Professors Miller and Myers, Talk is cheap. Let's see your numbers. In your recent post on and earlier reviews of my book The Edge of Evolution you toss out a lot of words, but no calculations. You downplay FRS Nicholas White's straightforward estimate that -- considering the number of cells per malaria patient (a trillion), times the number of ill people over the years (billions), divided by the number of independent events (fewer than ten) -- the development of chloroquine-resistance in malaria is an event of probability about 1 in 10^20 malaria-cell replications. Okay, if you don't like that, what's your estimate? Let's see your numbers.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/07/show_me_the_num088041.html
bornagain77_{September 10, 2014
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In what way is a duplicated gene part of neutral evolution?Joe_{September 10, 2014
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arlin, it is you, and other Darwinists, who have a severely mistaken view of evidence (and science). There simply is no empirical evidence whatsoever that unguided processes can produce even trivial level of the unfathomed integrated functional complexity being found in life. 'Statistics' simply will not cut it for the extraordinary claim that Darwinists are making.bornagain77_{September 10, 2014
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bornagain77, I'm not sure whether your comments are meant to be taken seriously. The idea of CNE has been around for a few years, and it has not received very much attention, other than the DDC case. It isn't like there are hordes of scientists struggle to find proof of CNE. Most haven't heard of it. In the specific case of the DDC model, there are hordes of scientists applying this idea, some of them critical of it, and a few of them sympathetic to it. So, if you are trying to apply the words "forever searching for proof" to the concept of CNE, this is a mis-characterization. Also, you seem to have only a black-and-white view of evidence. In science, we often look for support for a theory by analyzing many cases at once. Evidence appears in the form of statistical patterns that match predictions of the theory. There is certainly evidence for the DDC model in the sense, i.e., it is no longer merely "unsubstantiated conjecture", but it often takes many years in science to explore alternatives and come to a clear view. We can find evidence for a theory in this way, in patterns of data, without ever being able to prove that the theory applies in a particular case. To provide a more familiar example of this point-- it has never been proven that a specific person has gotten lung cancer because of smoking. Such tumors arise in non-smokers. Even in a smoker, the tumor could have arisen for other reasons. However, only a foolish person, or a tobacco industry advocate, would dismiss the idea that smoking causes cancer on the grounds that it has never been proven in a specific case. Ultimately, the answer to your question-- whether we need to say anything more about an idea that has been around for a few years, but has not been proved in any specific case-- is that, in science, there is much more to say. We can ask whether the idea is plausible (for CNE, the answer is yes), we can ask what kinds of evidence are supportive (for the DDC model, you can look at the literature to see what is there), we can explore alternatives, and so on. But that's a job for scientists who want to learn about the world and can tolerate uncertainty. Your job, I suspect, is to search for certainties that science does not provide.arlin_{September 10, 2014
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arlin as to: 'but it hasn’t been proved in any particular case' does anything more really need to be said about a theory that is forever searching for proof that it MIGHT be plausible? I certainly have no use for such unsubstantiated conjecture!bornagain77_{September 9, 2014
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bornagain77, you gave a quotation from Behe about constructive neutral evolution: " I don’t mean to be unkind, but I think that the idea seems reasonable only to the extent that it is vague and undeveloped; when examined critically it quickly loses plausibility. The first thing to note about the paper is that it contains absolutely no calculations to support the feasibility of the model. This is inexcusable. " I think Behe should worry less about being unkind and more about saying something stupid due to not actually reading the literature. I wrote the original paper on constructive neutral evolution, and it includes a clear theoretical model, along with simulations (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/PL00006540). One of the CNE models is a neutral model of subfunctionalization for duplicate genes, formally identical to the "DDC" model of Alan Force and colleagues (Genetics, 1999. 151: p. 1531-45). There have been several thousand citations to the early papers describing this kind of model, most to Force, Lynch, et al. Interestingly, a paper that just came out in Cell shows sub-functionalization of an endosymbiont genome suggestive of CNE (see http://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(14)01037-X). CNE continues to be a fruitful idea, and it is clearly plausible in the sense that it can be modeled theoretically without introducing any clearly mistaken assumptions, but it hasn't been proved in any particular case. I think the main benefit of the idea is that it helps people to think. That is, to make an analogy with music, there are some pieces that you play just to sharpen your skills, not necessarily for performance. Forcing oneself to consider how something complex could have arisen by a neutral process following the CNE scheme is a useful exercise for scientists committed to mechanistic thinking, and it is an antidote to the teleological way of thinking that often arises from adaptationism. BTW, the Lynch mentioned above is the same Michael Lynch who also wrote a paper about complex adaptations (adaptations requiring multiple mutations), including development of formal mathematical theory (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3299285/). If Behe is interested in the evolution of complex stuff or the development of evolutionary theory, he might do well to study the relevant literature before forming strong opinions.arlin_{September 9, 2014
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wd400:
Neutral theory, a population genetic theory, explains almost all the differences between human and chimp genomes.
And when it can explain all of the differences between chimps and humans it will have something interesting. When it can explain what makes an organism what it is, ie what determines what type of organism will develop, it will be worth listening to.
If you disagree that the individual mutation rate is equal to the population substituion rate under neutrality you are wrong.
The individual mutation rate is very, very small. And tracking neutral mutations through a population has to be close to impossible which means what you say cannot be verified.Joe_{September 8, 2014
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wd400@39, Thanks for the link to the Felsenstein paper. I noticed the hat tip to the title of Ohno's famous paper. I'm only partway through it and I'm going to think about it. From a systems perspective, variety provides stability, but according to Felsenstein, competition limits variety. Interesting. -QQuerius_{September 6, 2014
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The quote from Axel should have been: "When it comes from a Creationist, it is factual.." See, now you know why I laughed.Acartia_bogart_{September 6, 2014
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Axel: "When it comes from a Creationist, .." It is nice to know that even with the deaths of Robin Williams and Joan Rivers, there are still people in the world who can make us laugh. Thank you for that. You truly have s gift.Acartia_bogart_{September 6, 2014
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'When it comes from an anti-creationist it is bad behaviour. But when it comes from a creationist it is wit.' No, Humph, you miss the point entirely. See, even now your 'take' is superficial. When it comes from a Creationist, it is factual. Any inference of wit would be subjective. It was not my intention. Scathing? I hope so. Witty? Not a lot to laugh about, faced with incorrigible unreason.Axel_{September 6, 2014
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In particular, I enjoyed the following from the Felsenstein paper:
We have now identified the evolutionary force responsible for favoring speciation-natural selection-and the force opposing it-recombination.
Mung_{September 6, 2014
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Q:
Originally, it was you who brought up population genetics in 7, and 7 comes before 22, as AB will most likely be able to eventually confirm.
Unless asked to confirm it statistically, in which case he may have problems.Mung_{September 6, 2014
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wd400, In post #7 you wrote
Remember the time reader after reader here failed to understand even the most basic finding of a fist (sic) year course of population genetics?
Originally, it was you who brought up population genetics in 7, and 7 comes before 22, as AB will most likely be able to eventually confirm. I still don't understand why you're asking Jerry for a definition of "separate populations" when he says that the concept is vague and provided you with an example. If you disagree, then back up your objection with evidence or concede the point. -QQuerius_{September 6, 2014
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By the way, Joe Felsenstein, who wrote one of the classic papers on the barriers to speciation, sometimes comments here. Here's the paper for those that are interested (pdf): http://www2.hawaii.edu/~khayes/Journal_Club/fall2007/Felsenstein_1981_Evol.pdfwd400_{September 6, 2014
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Might point is that pop. gen. tells us speciation is hard, which means "the potential for separate populations" was enormous during human evolution. I've really no idea what you're point is. If you want to restate it clearly then please do so...wd400_{September 6, 2014
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From this thread: "Yes, I’m afraid WD writes here with all the vapid self-assurance of a tabloid columnist." When it comes from an anti-creationist it is bad behaviour. But when it comes from a creationist it is wit.Acartia_bogart_{September 6, 2014
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I am enjoying watching WD400 wipe the floor with you from the sidelines.
Interesting behavior. From another thread
I have maintained for years that the most fascinating part of the ID debate is the behavior of the participants. ID adherents hone their arguments as the anti-ID exhibit irrational adolescent behavior. Sometimes the ID proponents let this behavior get under their skins.
jerry_{September 6, 2014
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Right. So, in 22 you were talking about speciation, we know from pop. gen. that it takes only an average on migrant per generation to prevent allopatric speciation from occuring, so you were wrong when you talking about the ease with which speciation occurs.
What does this have to do with the evolution argument? Are you saying that their is no mobility or separation or that it is rare? Then how did chimps and humans diverge from the so called common ancestor? Are you saying there was only one separation and it was absolute? Humans ended up fairly mobile. They got to Australia and northern Europe. Was mobility a late development? If it was early then we would expect several separate population in Africa and beyond. Or do you think otherwise? Secondly, there is no evidence that any meaningful speciation ever occurred. It is just speculation and there is no evidence for the transition of one population into a separate species by any process know to man. Did it happen, probably but no one knows how. Present the evidence if you have it.
For some reason, by the time you get to 28 you know think this term is “nebulous”
Nebulous in terms of the evolution debate not in what it means. I always used the term in the same way. You must know this, so why try to distort what is being said. Is your only recourse to try to make someone look bad?
but in 32 we are back to a concrete meaning.
The meaning never changed. Nor have the implications. There is no evidence that new species with novel substantive difference arose through normal genetic processes let alone that any new species arose which could not interbreed for genetic reasons with a previous population from which it descended.jerry_{September 6, 2014
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