Richard Dawkins says eugenics works because he assumes we are just like animals

_{News
February 17, 2020

Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design

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But we should oppose it on moral grounds, he hastens to add:

In a bizarre Twitter post on Sunday, Dawkins said that the practice of eugenics – an offshoot of social Darwinism – has a scientific logic that would actually work if implemented, arguing that people should oppose it strictly on moral grounds.
“It’s one thing to deplore eugenics on ideological, political, moral grounds. It’s quite another to conclude that it wouldn’t work in practice,” tweeted Dawkins. “Of course it would. It works for cows, horses, pigs, dogs & roses. Why on earth wouldn’t it work for humans? Facts ignore ideology.”
Paul Bols, “Famed Atheist Richard Dawkins Bizarrely Defends Eugenics: ‘Works For Cows, Horses, Pigs,’ But ‘Fight It On Moral Grounds’” at DailyWire

At one fell swoop, Dawkins exposes another frequent weakness of naturalist atheism: direct conflict with facts. Eugenics does not work for humans. Unlike animals, we make personal choices, which could be based on reason and free will or on the apparent lack thereof. And those choices confound the ambitions of others.

Put simply: Beagles beget beagles; that is all beagles can do. So if you want a beagle, you need only go to the source.

By contrast, not only do few geniuses pass on their gifts to any extent but wise and prudent parents often have foolish and imprudent children. Much great literature has featured such “fall of the house of” themes.

Do Dawkins’s remarks have anything to do with Darwin Day (February 12) or Evolution Weekend (grinding onward, with the sheer dullness one would associated with dying liberal churches)?

See also: Darwin Reader: Darwin’s racism

How Jonathan Wells is celebrating Darwin Day. Wells: A biologist wrote years ago that we should celebrate Darwin’s birthday instead, because Lincoln only freed some slaves while Darwin freed our minds. [eek!]

Everyone is bugging us to do something for Darwin Day (today). How about a brief reflection: Darwin is the village atheist’s answer to serious thinking about origins.

and

Evolution Weekend downplays Darwin, morphs into climate concern, muffles racism issue. Remember, anyone can be a racist if all he must say is: My ancestors were gods, yours were gobs of clay. Absent evidence, he might prevail by force of arms and entrench his view. Darwinism led to racial theories with the trappings of science. That matters and it has never been dealt with honestly because dealing with it honestly endangers the basic ideas of Darwinism.

Comments

mimus:
You still don’t know what the term means.
I am very comforted by the fat that you could never make that case, loser.ET_{February 18, 2020
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Materialist priest in action:
"The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies". Stephen Hawking
Words of wisdom and encouragement. Did not Hitler say jews were 'scum'?Truthfreedom_{February 18, 2020
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ba77 - I'm not dodging the issues, I'm explaining them. For the purposes of what Dawkins was discussing, we don't need to look at the effects of each gene: population genetics feeds into evolutionary quantitative genetics, and we find that we don't need to know what every gene is doing, only their average effects. So quantitative genetics (not population genetics) is the tools to use.Bob O'H_{February 18, 2020
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@Bob O'H:
OK, so you’re contradicting yourself. You’ve just explained “how things work”, and now you’re saying that that’s not how things work. A bit more consistency might be helpful.
Some reading comprehension would be helpful. According to materialism, that is how things work. Understanding how a philosophical view works and supporting it are different things, boy. Logic is a POWERFUL tool that will save you the trouble of embarrassing yourself. Bob O'H, you are a liar. You say you are not a materialist, but you are one. Your doctrine dehumanizes people. If it ruffles your feathers, it is your problem. You despise your own doctrine. How ironic :)Truthfreedom_{February 18, 2020
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Yes, we do agree, materialism is a dehumanizing and repulsive doctrine.
No, I don>'t agree with that.
No, I am not a materialist. But lots of materialists do not understand what they are really supporting. I believe people are human beings, not “meat-robots” (coyne) or “bags of chemicals” (crick) or “scum” (hawkins).
OK, so you're contradicting yourself. You've just explained "how things work", and now you're saying that that's not how things work. A bit more consistency might be helpful.Bob O'H_{February 18, 2020
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@54 Bob O'H Yes, we do agree, materialism is a dehumanizing and repulsive doctrine. No, I am not a materialist. But lots of materialists do not understand what they are really supporting. I believe people are human beings, not "meat-robots" (coyne) or "bags of chemicals" (crick) or "scum" (hawkins).Truthfreedom_{February 18, 2020
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Truthfreedom - OK, so you're an amoral materialist. I'm not, so I think I can disregard your ideas, which are, frankly, repugnant.Bob O'H_{February 18, 2020
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Bob O'H, you are characteristically dodging the main issue once again. You state,
This argument is simply wrong, and the fact that additive genetic variance is useful (and used!) is why. The reason it’s wrong is the same reason statistical physics works. We don’t need to know the position of every molecule in a gas to be able to predict its behaviour: we can average over them.
Yet Bard never claimed that it was not useful or that it was not used. Bard claimed,,,
the mathematics of population genetics, while qualitatively analyzable, requires too many unknown parameters to make quantitatively testable predictions
In other words, Bard is not arguing that population genetics is NOT useful and admits that it is qualitatively analyzable. i.e. That certain genes are associated with certain behaviors. (i.e. Bard is agreeing with you here Bob!). What Bard is arguing is that population genetics "requires too many unknown parameters to make quantitatively testable predictions",,, i.e. Bard is arguing that population genetics, as far as Darwinian evolution itself is concerned, is of extremely limited utility in making 'quantitatively testable predictions'.
Quantitative biology is an umbrella term encompassing the use of mathematical, statistical or computational techniques to study life and living organisms. The central theme and goal of quantitative biology is the creation of predictive models based on fundamental principles governing living systems.
To further clear this misunderstanding up between you and Bard, in his conclusion Bard more explicitly airs his grievance with population genetics as such, "There is a great deal for systems biology to do in order to produce a full explanation of how genotypes generate phenotypes and so provide the basis for a full 21st century model of evolution"
"As of now, we have no good theory of how to read networks, how to model them mathematically or how one network meshes with another; worse, we have no obvious experimental lines of investigation for studying these areas. There is a great deal for systems biology to do in order to produce a full explanation of how genotypes generate phenotypes and so provide the basis for a full 21st century model of evolution. As T.S. Eliot almost said: “Between the phenotype and the genotype falls the shadow”.
That Bard finds it impossible, via population genetics, "to produce a full explanation of how genotypes generate phenotypes" is not a minor concern for Darwinists. That claim, i.e. "genotypes generate phenotypes", is indeed one of the, if not THE, primary claim of Darwinists. Indeed Darwinists hold it as a primary presupposition that random, unguided, mutations to DNA are the primary means by which all the diversity of life on earth, in all its unfathomable complexity, arose. And yet there are principled reasons to doubt this primary claim from Darwinists, i.e. "genotypes generate phenotypes". For instance, "Contrary to all expectations, many DNA sequences involved in embryo development are remarkably similar across the vast spectrum of organismic complexity, from a millimeter-long worm to ourselves.7 There is, in short, nothing in the genomes of fly and man to explain why the fly should have six legs, a pair of wings, and a dot-sized brain and we should have two arms, two legs, and a mind capable of comprehending that overarching history of our universe. So we have moved in the very recent past from supposing we might know the principles of genetic inheritance to recognizing we have no realistic conception of what they might be. As Phillip Gell, professor of genetics at the University of Birmingham, observed, “This gap in our knowledge is not merely unbridged, but in principle unbridgeable and our ignorance will remain ineluctable."
Between Sapientia and Scientia — Michael Aeschliman’s Profound Interpretation James Le Fanu - September 9, 2019 Excerpt: The ability to spell out the full sequence of genes should reveal, it was reasonable to assume, the distinctive genetic instructions that determine the diverse forms of the millions of species, so readily distinguishable one from the other. Biologists were thus understandably disconcerted to discover precisely the reverse to be the case. Contrary to all expectations, many DNA sequences involved in embryo development are remarkably similar across the vast spectrum of organismic complexity, from a millimeter-long worm to ourselves.7 There is, in short, nothing in the genomes of fly and man to explain why the fly should have six legs, a pair of wings, and a dot-sized brain and we should have two arms, two legs, and a mind capable of comprehending that overarching history of our universe. So we have moved in the very recent past from supposing we might know the principles of genetic inheritance to recognizing we have no realistic conception of what they might be. As Phillip Gell, professor of genetics at the University of Birmingham, observed, “This gap in our knowledge is not merely unbridged, but in principle unbridgeable and our ignorance will remain ineluctable.”8 https://evolutionnews.org/2019/09/between-sapientia-and-scientia-michael-aeschlimans-profound-interpretation/
As if that was not devastating enough for Darwinists, directly contrary to Darwinian presuppositions, it is now also known that it is the organism controlling the DNA, not the DNA controlling the organism, As Dr. Jonathan Wells states in the following article , “I now know as an embryologist,,,Tissues and cells, as they differentiate, modify their DNA to suit their needs. It's the organism controlling the DNA, not the DNA controlling the organism.”
Ask an Embryologist: Genomic Mosaicism - Jonathan Wells - February 23, 2015 Excerpt: humans have a "few thousand" different cell types. Here is my simple question: Does the DNA sequence in one cell type differ from the sequence in another cell type in the same person?,,, The simple answer is: We now know that there is considerable variation in DNA sequences among tissues, and even among cells in the same tissue. It's called genomic mosaicism. In the early days of developmental genetics, some people thought that parts of the embryo became different from each other because they acquired different pieces of the DNA from the fertilized egg. That theory was abandoned,,, ,,,(then) "genomic equivalence" -- the idea that all the cells of an organism (with a few exceptions, such as cells of the immune system) contain the same DNA -- became the accepted view. I taught genomic equivalence for many years. A few years ago, however, everything changed. With the development of more sophisticated techniques and the sampling of more tissues and cells, it became clear that genetic mosaicism is common. I now know as an embryologist,,,Tissues and cells, as they differentiate, modify their DNA to suit their needs. It's the organism controlling the DNA, not the DNA controlling the organism. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/02/ask_an_embryolo093851.html
Here is a particularly crystal clear example of an "organism controlling the DNA, not the DNA controlling the organism."
Duality in the human genome - Nov. 28, 2014 Excerpt: The results show that most genes can occur in many different forms within a population: On average, about 250 different forms of each gene exist. The researchers found around four million different gene forms just in the 400 or so genomes they analysed. This figure is certain to increase as more human genomes are examined. More than 85 percent of all genes have no predominant form which occurs in more than half of all individuals. This enormous diversity means that over half of all genes in an individual, around 9,000 of 17,500, occur uniquely in that one person - and are therefore individual in the truest sense of the word. The gene, as we imagined it, exists only in exceptional cases. "We need to fundamentally rethink the view of genes that every schoolchild has learned since Gregor Mendel's time.,,, According to the researchers, mutations of genes are not randomly distributed between the parental chromosomes. They found that 60 percent of mutations affect the same chromosome set and 40 percent both sets. Scientists refer to these as cis and trans mutations, respectively. Evidently, an organism must have more cis mutations, where the second gene form remains intact. "It's amazing how precisely the 60:40 ratio is maintained. It occurs in the genome of every individual – almost like a magic formula," says Hoehe. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-11-duality-human-genome.html
As should be needless to say, an organism controlling its DNA is completely inexplicable for Darwinists who hold that it is the DNA that is dictating the behavior of the organism. As James Shapiro notes, "This conceptual change to active cell inscriptions controlling RW (Read/Write) genome functions has profound implications for all areas of the life sciences."
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
To state that finding an organism to be controlling its DNA is having "profound implications for all areas of the life sciences", as draatic as that statement is, is still an understatement for Shapiro to have made. These findings flat out falsify the reductive materialistic presuppositions of Darwinists As I've stated many times before, such findings as these, if Darwinian evolution were a normal science instead of basically being an unfalsifiable religion for atheists, should count as yet another direct experimental falsification of Darwinian claims. To repeat, Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, are not even on the correct theoretical foundation in order to properly understand biology in the first place:
Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology – Part II – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSig2CsjKbg
bornagain77_{February 18, 2020
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@51 Bob O'H
Just to make it clear – I have no such plan, and would oppose such a plan. And I find it offensive that anyone would seriously suggest that I would have a plan like this.
And? As if you had any merit. Let me explain you how things work: a bunch of neurons computed some entering information and gave an output. Then they created an illusory "person" (Bob O'H) that got informed about the 'output'. But there is not any real person making a moral choice here. Bob O'H is an illusory spectator who believes he is making a moral choice. That is what materialism entails. Truthfreedom_{February 18, 2020
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ba77 @ 13 -
So much for Sev’s, E.G.’s, Bob’s, Dawkins’ and Hitler’s plan to evolve a master race via eugenics and selective breeding.
Just to make it clear - I have no such plan, and would oppose such a plan. And I find it offensive that anyone would seriously suggest that I would have a plan like this.Bob O'H_{February 18, 2020
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AaronS1978 @ 17 - thanks for those links, but the first doesn't mention myopia, and the second is the one I provided that show a small correlation, but not a major gene linked to both traits. Do you have any evidence that "myopia is directly connected to a gene that involves high levels of intelligence"? Or had you mis-remembered something you had heard (not uncommon, to be fair).Bob O'H_{February 18, 2020
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It was just a matter of time before eugenics started to come back into style. It's really quite simple. Eugenicists, if they ever get their way, will result in less genetic material. Less genetic material will result in future generations having more genetic diseases. Genetically, we are all mutts and those with less of a mutt in them tend to have greater chances of genetic diseases.BobRyan_{February 18, 2020
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bA77 -
Mimus, So what? The definition that you yourself provided,,,,
Genetic variance is the is ~ the total variation in genes that contrbute to variation in some trait. Additive genetic variance is the protion of total genetic variance that is additive (that is the effects of two different genes can just be added up, withoug invoking complex interactions and the like).
That definition that you yourself provided is basically useless as a scientific tool. Here’s why (to repeat), “If more than about three genes (nature unspecified) underpin a phenotype, the mathematics of population genetics, while qualitatively analyzable, requires too many unknown parameters to make quantitatively testable predictions [6]. The inadequacy of this approach is demonstrated by illustrations of the molecular pathways that generates traits [7]: the network underpinning something as simple as growth may have forty or fifty participating proteins whose production involves perhaps twice as many DNA sequences, if one includes enhancers, splice variants etc. Theoretical genetics simply cannot handle this level of complexity, let alone analyse the effects of mutation..”
This argument is simply wrong, and the fact that additive genetic variance is useful (and used!) is why. The reason it's wrong is the same reason statistical physics works. We don't need to know the position of every molecule in a gas to be able to predict its behaviour: we can average over them. Similarly with genes, we don't need to know all of their individual effects, we can average over them. This is what additive genetic variance does, and it turns out that it works well: even when there is dominance and epistasis, most of the variation is usually additive. What is needed is polymorphism at the genes, i.e. there should be alleles which have differing effects on the phenotype. And these shouldn't have such a weird architecture that there's no additive genetic variance.Bob O'H_{February 18, 2020
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@46 Mike1962:
Whether or not it’s “ethical” or “moral” to apply that to humans is another matter. Two different subjects. The next questions is: Where do you get your “ethics” and “morals”?
Well, according to our evolutionist friends, 'natural' processes gave rise to 'morality'. Yes, 'nature' has 'created' brains that go against the same 'nature' that has 'created' them! Of course our evolutionist friends find nothing curious about this. Thinking is hard. 'Nature' is a professional joker. It 'creates' brains with X type of behaviors and their antithesis. Thanks to 'blind' processes, a 'natural brain' can understand that what 'nature' has imbued it with is 'wrong'! We can 'rebel' against 'nature' using 'natural tools'! ('morals').Truthfreedom_{February 18, 2020
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Of course eugenics (selective breeding) works. Does anyone disagree with that? Whether or not it's "ethical" or "moral" to apply that to humans is another matter. Two different subjects. The next questions is: Where do you get your "ethics" and "morals"?mike1962_{February 17, 2020
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Barry, How about "Bob (and weave)"? Can we get rid of that needless insult too? And how about ET? Do I even have to list his many transgressions?MatSpirit_{February 17, 2020
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I was amazed at these comments. Eugenics as applied to humans meant sterilisation of the ‘unfit’ - ‘ breeding them out’ All this talk of plasticity is beside the point. Refer to Margaret Sanger, Buck v Bell, for the milder though still inhuman forms of eugenics.Belfast_{February 17, 2020
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Ed George and MatSprit, refrain from referring to BA77 in such a patently offensive fashion. Only warning.Barry Arrington_{February 17, 2020
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Mimus, So what? The definition that you yourself provided,,,,
Genetic variance is the is ~ the total variation in genes that contrbute to variation in some trait. Additive genetic variance is the protion of total genetic variance that is additive (that is the effects of two different genes can just be added up, withoug invoking complex interactions and the like).
That definition that you yourself provided is basically useless as a scientific tool. Here's why (to repeat), "If more than about three genes (nature unspecified) underpin a phenotype, the mathematics of population genetics, while qualitatively analyzable, requires too many unknown parameters to make quantitatively testable predictions [6]. The inadequacy of this approach is demonstrated by illustrations of the molecular pathways that generates traits [7]: the network underpinning something as simple as growth may have forty or fifty participating proteins whose production involves perhaps twice as many DNA sequences, if one includes enhancers, splice variants etc. Theoretical genetics simply cannot handle this level of complexity, let alone analyse the effects of mutation.."
The next evolutionary synthesis: from Lamarck and Darwin to genomic variation and systems biology – Bard – 2011 Excerpt: If more than about three genes (nature unspecified) underpin a phenotype, the mathematics of population genetics, while qualitatively analyzable, requires too many unknown parameters to make quantitatively testable predictions [6]. The inadequacy of this approach is demonstrated by illustrations of the molecular pathways that generates traits [7]: the network underpinning something as simple as growth may have forty or fifty participating proteins whose production involves perhaps twice as many DNA sequences, if one includes enhancers, splice variants etc. Theoretical genetics simply cannot handle this level of complexity, let alone analyse the effects of mutation.. http://www.biosignaling.com/content/pdf/1478-811X-9-30.pdf
In fact it is now known that far more than three genes underpin a phenotype, The following paper states that phenotypic "traits are the work of thousands of genetic variants,"
What If (Almost) Every Gene Affects (Almost) Everything? – JUN 16, 2017 Excerpt: If you told a modern geneticist that a complex trait—whether a physical characteristic like height or weight, or the risk of a disease like cancer or schizophrenia—was the work of just 15 genes, they’d probably laugh. It’s now thought that such traits are the work of thousands of genetic variants, working in concert. The vast majority of them have only tiny effects, but together, they can dramatically shape our bodies and our health. They’re weak individually, but powerful en masse. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/its-like-all-connected-man/530532/
In fact, for some traits, “multiple” loci could mean more than 100,000."
Theory Suggests That All Genes Affect Every Complex Trait – June 20, 2018 Excerpt: Mutations of a single gene are behind sickle cell anemia, for instance, and mutations in another are behind cystic fibrosis. But unfortunately for those who like things simple, these conditions are the exceptions. The roots of many traits, from how tall you are to your susceptibility to schizophrenia, are far more tangled. In fact, they may be so complex that almost the entire genome may be involved in some way,,, One very early genetic mapping study in 1999 suggested that “a large number of loci (perhaps > than 15)” might contribute to autism risk, recalled Jonathan Pritchard, now a geneticist at Stanford University. “That’s a lot!” he remembered thinking when the paper came out. Over the years, however, what scientists might consider “a lot” in this context has quietly inflated. Last June, Pritchard and his Stanford colleagues Evan Boyle and Yang Li (now at the University of Chicago) published a paper about this in Cell that immediately sparked controversy, although it also had many people nodding in cautious agreement. The authors described what they called the “omnigenic” model of complex traits. Drawing on GWAS analyses of three diseases, they concluded that in the cell types that are relevant to a disease, it appears that not 15, not 100, but essentially all genes contribute to the condition. The authors suggested that for some traits, “multiple” loci could mean more than 100,000. https://www.quantamagazine.org/omnigenic-model-suggests-that-all-genes-affect-every-complex-trait-20180620/
In short, Darwinists don't really even have a firm clue how phenotypic traits are actually generated. They 'guess' that phenotypic "traits are the work of thousands of genetic variants," But they are not even really sure if that captures all that is involved in generating a phenotypic trait. As they stated, it could be that "essentially all genes contribute to the condition". And again, "Theoretical genetics simply cannot handle this level of complexity, let alone analyse the effects of mutation.."
The next evolutionary synthesis: from Lamarck and Darwin to genomic variation and systems biology – Bard – 2011 Excerpt: If more than about three genes (nature unspecified) underpin a phenotype, the mathematics of population genetics, while qualitatively analyzable, requires too many unknown parameters to make quantitatively testable predictions [6]. The inadequacy of this approach is demonstrated by illustrations of the molecular pathways that generates traits [7]: the network underpinning something as simple as growth may have forty or fifty participating proteins whose production involves perhaps twice as many DNA sequences, if one includes enhancers, splice variants etc. Theoretical genetics simply cannot handle this level of complexity, let alone analyse the effects of mutation..,,, Excerpt of conclusion: . As of now, we have no good theory of how to read networks, how to model them mathematically or how one network meshes with another; worse, we have no obvious experimental lines of investigation for studying these areas. There is a great deal for systems biology to do in order to produce a full explanation of how genotypes generate phenotypes and so provide the basis for a full 21st century model of evolution. As T.S. Eliot almost said: “Between the phenotype and the genotype falls the shadow”. http://www.biosignaling.com/content/pdf/1478-811X-9-30.pdf
This insurmountable difficulty for Darwinists in explaining exactly how phenotypic traits are generated should not be all that surprising, The 'biological form' of any given organism simply is not reducible to mutations to DNA, nor is 'biological form' reducible to any other material particulars in molecular biology that Darwinists may wish to invoke:
Darwinism vs Biological Form - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyNzNPgjM4w
Moreover, the failure of the reductive materialism of Darwinian evolution to be able to explain the basic form of any particular organism occurs at a very low level. Much lower than DNA itself. In the following article entitled 'Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics', which studied the derivation of macroscopic properties from a complete microscopic description, the researchers remark that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, The researchers further commented that their findings challenge the reductionists' point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description."
Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics - December 9, 2015 Excerpt: A mathematical problem underlying fundamental questions in particle and quantum physics is provably unsolvable,,, It is the first major problem in physics for which such a fundamental limitation could be proven. The findings are important because they show that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, "We knew about the possibility of problems that are undecidable in principle since the works of Turing and Gödel in the 1930s," added Co-author Professor Michael Wolf from Technical University of Munich. "So far, however, this only concerned the very abstract corners of theoretical computer science and mathematical logic. No one had seriously contemplated this as a possibility right in the heart of theoretical physics before. But our results change this picture. From a more philosophical perspective, they also challenge the reductionists' point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description." http://phys.org/news/2015-12-quantum-physics-problem-unsolvable-godel.html
Like I mentioned previously, Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, are not even on the correct theoretical foundation in order to properly understand biology in the first place:
Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology – Part II – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSig2CsjKbg
bornagain77_{February 17, 2020
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Mimus
OK, I take it back. You still don’t know what the term means.
:) :) :)Ed George_{February 17, 2020
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Wrong again. The term only goes hand-in-hand with Dawkins’ “cumulative selection”. And I have known about that since he first wrote about it.
OK, I take it back. You still don't know what the term means.Mimus_{February 17, 2020
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BS77:"Dr. John Sanford has now falsified Fisher’s theorem" And THAT is why we call you BS77.MatSpirit_{February 17, 2020
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Minus, "additive genetic variance" is useless to you as to providing you any actual empirical evidence that Darwinian evolution is remotely feasible. You know, actual empirical evidence of like, say, one species of bacteria changing into another species of bacteria?
Scant search for the Maker - Alan H. Linton - April 20, 2001 Excerpt: But where is the experimental evidence? None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of 20 to 30 minutes, and populations achieved after 18 hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another, in spite of the fact that populations have been exposed to potent chemical and physical mutagens and that, uniquely, bacteria possess extrachromosomal, transmissible plasmids. Since there is no evidence for species changes between the simplest forms of unicellular life, it is not surprising that there is no evidence for evolution from prokaryotic to eukaryotic cells, let alone throughout the whole array of higher multicellular organisms. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/scant-search-for-the-maker/159282.article Alan H. Linton is emeritus professor of bacteriology, University of Bristol.
Or say, empirical evidence of one protein changing into another protein,
Right of Reply: Our Response to Jerry Coyne - September 29, 2019 by Günter Bechly, Brian Miller and David Berlinski Excerpt: Indeed, Harvard mathematical biologist Martin Nowak has shown that random searches in sequence space that start from known functional sequences are no more likely to enter regions in sequence space with new protein folds than searches that start from random sequences. The reason for this is clear: random searches are overwhelmingly more likely to go off into a non-folding, non-functional abyss than they are to find a novel protein fold. Why? Because such novel folds are so extraordinarily rare in sequence space. Moreover, as Meyer explained in Darwin’s Doubt, as mutations accumulate in functional sequences, they will inevitably destroy function long before they stumble across a new protein fold. Again, this follows from the extreme rarity (as well as the isolation) of protein folds in sequence space. Recent work by Weizmann Institute protein scientist Dan Tawfik has reinforced this conclusion. Tawfik’s work shows that as mutations to functional protein sequences accumulate, the folds of those proteins become progressively more thermodynamically and structurally unstable. Typically, 15 or fewer mutations will completely destroy the stability of known protein folds of average size. Yet, generating (or finding) a new protein fold requires far more amino acid sequence changes than that. Finally, calculations based on Tawfik’s work confirm and extend the applicability of Axe’s original measure of the rarity of protein folds. These calculations confirm that the measure of rarity that Axe determined for the protein he studied is actually representative of the rarity for large classes of other globular proteins. Not surprisingly, Dan Tawfik has described the origination of a truly novel protein or fold as “something like close to a miracle.” Tawfik is on Coyne’s side: He is mainstream. https://quillette.com/2019/09/29/right-of-reply-our-response-to-jerry-coyne/
Without such empirical evidence to confirm that Darwinian evolution is even remotely feasible you simply are not even dealing with reality in the first place but are, in fact, in the realm of imaginary just-so story telling, no matter what terms. (i.e. additive genetic variance), you happen to throw into your 'just-so stories'.
“... another common misuse of evolutionary ideas: namely, the idea that some trait must have evolved merely because we can imagine a scenario under which possession of that trait would have been advantageous to fitness... Such forays into evolutionary explanation amount ultimately to storytelling... it is not enough to construct a story about how the trait might have evolved in response to a given selection pressure; rather, one must provide some sort of evidence that it really did so evolve. This is a very tall order.…” — Austin L. Hughes, The Folly of Scientism - The New Atlantis, Fall 2012 Sociobiology: The Art of Story Telling – Stephen Jay Gould – 1978 – New Scientist Excerpt: Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers “Just So stories”. When evolutionists study individual adaptations, when they try to explain form and behaviour by reconstructing history and assessing current utility, they also tell just so stories – and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance. https://books.google.com/books?id=tRj7EyRFVqYC&pg=PA530
bornagain77_{February 17, 2020
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"Ed George":
What is interesting is that those who are taking you to task over additive genetic variance are those who support ID. This in spite of the fact that it doesn’t make any claim one way or the other about ID.
You clearly have reading comprehension issues. Additive genetic variance doesn't make any sense in a blind watchmaker scenario. It only makes sense in an ID scenario.ET_{February 17, 2020
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mimus:
You didn’t know what the term meant until a few minutes ago!
Wrong again. The term only goes hand-in-hand with Dawkins' "cumulative selection". And I have known about that since he first wrote about it.ET_{February 17, 2020
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Mimus
I mean, how could you. You didn’t know what the term meant until a few minutes ago!
What is interesting is that those who are taking you to task over additive genetic variance are those who support ID. This in spite of the fact that it doesn’t make any claim one way or the other about ID.Ed George_{February 17, 2020
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LoL! No one takes exception to additive genetic variance.
I mean, how could you. You didn't know what the term meant until a few minutes ago!Mimus_{February 17, 2020
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LoL! No one takes exception to additive genetic variance. We take exception to that fact people think that unguided, blind, mindless and purposeless processes could do it. However it is something we would expect if organisms evolved by means of intelligent design:
He [the Designer] indeed seems to have “carefully crafted” information in His species giving them the ability to respond to environmental stimuli to alter their own genome to adapt to new environments. He then evidently let them wander where they will with the ability to adapt.- Dr. Lee Spetner “the Evolution Revolution” p 108
ET_{February 17, 2020
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as to "There is good reason to think most genetic variance in complex traits is additive" Yet there is ZERO empirical evidence that mutations will 'add up' to produce a new complex functions and/or 'traits'.
Michael Behe - Observed (1 in 10^20) Edge of Evolution - video - Lecture delivered in April 2015 at Colorado School of Mines 25:56 minute quote - "This is not an argument anymore that Darwinism cannot make complex functional systems; it is an observation that it does not." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9svV8wNUqvA "The immediate, most important implication is that complexes with more than two different binding sites-ones that require three or more proteins-are beyond the edge of evolution, past what is biologically reasonable to expect Darwinian evolution to have accomplished in all of life in all of the billion-year history of the world. The reasoning is straightforward. The odds of getting two independent things right are the multiple of the odds of getting each right by itself. So, other things being equal, the likelihood of developing two binding sites in a protein complex would be the square of the probability for getting one: a double CCC, 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40. There have likely been fewer than 10^40 cells in the world in the last 4 billion years, so the odds are against a single event of this variety in the history of life. It is biologically unreasonable." - Michael Behe - The Edge of Evolution - page 146 Kenneth Miller Steps on Darwin's Achilles Heel - Michael Behe - January 17, 2015 Excerpt: Enter Achilles and his heel. It turns out that the odds are much better for atovaquone resistance because only one particular malaria mutation is required for resistance. The odds are astronomical for chloroquine because a minimum of two particular malaria mutations are required for resistance. Just one mutation won't do it. For Darwinism, that is the troublesome significance of Summers et al.: "The findings presented here reveal that the minimum requirement for (low) CQ transport activity ... is two mutations." Darwinism is hounded relentlessly by an unshakeable limitation: if it has to skip even a single tiny step -- that is, if an evolutionary pathway includes a deleterious or even neutral mutation -- then the probability of finding the pathway by random mutation decreases exponentially. If even a few more unselected mutations are needed, the likelihood rapidly fades away.,,, So what should we conclude from all this? Miller grants for purposes of discussion that the likelihood of developing a new protein binding site is 1 in 10^20. Now, suppose that, in order to acquire some new, useful property, not just one but two new protein-binding sites had to develop. In that case the odds would be the multiple of the two separate events -- about 1 in 10^40, which is somewhat more than the number of cells that have existed on earth in the history of life. That seems like a reasonable place to set the likely limit to Darwinism, to draw the edge of evolution. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/01/kenneth_miller_1092771.html And please note "Nothing–neither point mutation, deletion, insertion, gene duplication, transposition, genome duplication, self-organization nor any other process yet undiscovered–was of much use.” Michael Behe, The Edge of Evolution, pg. 162 More from Ann Gauger on why humans didn’t happen the way Darwin said - July 9, 2012 Excerpt: Each of these new features probably required multiple mutations. Getting a feature that requires six neutral mutations is the limit of what bacteria can produce. For primates (e.g., monkeys, apes and humans) the limit is much more severe. Because of much smaller effective population sizes (an estimated ten thousand for humans instead of a billion for bacteria) and longer generation times (fifteen to twenty years per generation for humans vs. a thousand generations per year for bacteria), it would take a very long time for even a single beneficial mutation to appear and become fixed in a human population. You don’t have to take my word for it. In 2007, Durrett and Schmidt estimated in the journal Genetics that for a single mutation to occur in a nucleotide-binding site and be fixed in a primate lineage would require a waiting time of six million years. The same authors later estimated it would take 216 million years for the binding site to acquire two mutations, if the first mutation was neutral in its effect. Facing Facts But six million years is the entire time allotted for the transition from our last common ancestor with chimps to us according to the standard evolutionary timescale. Two hundred and sixteen million years takes us back to the Triassic, when the very first mammals appeared. One or two mutations simply aren’t sufficient to produce the necessary changes— sixteen anatomical features—in the time available. At most, a new binding site might affect the regulation of one or two genes. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/more-from-ann-gauger-on-why-humans-didnt-happen-the-way-darwin-said/
In short, despite all their bluff and bluster, Darwinists simply have no empirical warrant for their grandiose claims that all life arose via Darwinian processes..bornagain77_{February 17, 2020
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I gave you an opportunity to retract. I have now flagged it up to admin..
Fair enough. His/her action will be very informative on the true nature of this site. If he/she bans both of us for referring to others with an ad hominem (“BS” in my case and “Bob and weave” in yours) then neither of us could argue that we weren’t being treated fairly. However, if he/she bans only one of us then he/she would be shown to be a hypocrite. I have faith that the moderator will do the right thing.Ed George_{February 17, 2020
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