Science journalist confronts evolutionary theorist with hard questions at his book talk

_{Denyse O'Leary

June 4, 2019

Books of interest, Darwinism, Intelligent Design}

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Suzan Mazur, author of Darwin Overthrown: Hello Mechanobiology, decided to attend a World Science Festival talk in New York by David Sloan Wilson, featuring his new book, This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution, but left after 35 minutes.

She asked him some awkward questions. So things didn’t go quite as he must have hoped:

Suzan Mazur: Excuse me, what do you mean by selection?
David Wilson: Selection? Natural selection.
Suzan Mazur: Natural selection has been debunked by the scientific community. David, you know that. You know that. Why are you lying to the public?
You know that. Look at Eugene Koonin. Look at Jerry Fodor. Look at Richard Lewontin.
Moderator: Let’s let him answer the question.
Suzan Mazur: He needs to seriously define what he means by natural selection.
Moderator: We’re not ready for the question yet.
Suzan Mazur: The whole thing [talk] doesn’t work if he doesn’t define it. More.
Suzan Mazur, “Part 3 — World Science Festival Feeds Public Bogus Science: The DS Wilson Sermon” at Oscillations

Yes, in one phrase, Mazur, author of Darwin Overthrown: Hello Mechanobiology, captures the problem: “he doesn’t define it.” Much Darwinism today survives on the fumes of “evolution” in general.

She certainly thinks evolution happened; it’s a substantial part of her body of work, to judge from her books on the subject. But what are the drivers of what happened?

Everyone agrees that things change over time. The world is not now as it once was. But how do we explain that?

David Sloan Wilson is an exponent of a group or kin selection, an effort to mend the problems of fully Darwinian natural selection by providing a naturalistic explanation for altruism.

But there is a curious story there: Top Darwinian E. O. Wilson espoused and then abandoned group selection, in a remarkable turn of events:

But then [E. O.] Wilson dramatically abandoned kin selection in 2010 in a Nature paper, “The evolution of eusociality,” co-authored with mathematicians. He argued that strict Darwinism (natural selection) “provides an exact framework for interpreting empirical observations,” dispensing with the other theories he had promoted for decades. Over 140 leading biologists signed a letter to Nature, attacking the 2010 paper. Some called his new, strictly Darwin model “unscholarly,” “transparently wrong,” and “misguided.”
What? All this is said of a Darwin-only model?
New atheist evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne has also weighed in, saying that Wilson et al. are “wrong–dead wrong.” Curiously, he admitted, “The “textbook” explanation, based on a higher relatedness of workers to their sisters than to their own potential offspring, no longer seems feasible. … But we’ve known all this for years!”
If so, he and fellow evolutionary biologists have been very economical with their accounts of the failures.
How else to account for the — to most people, incomprehensible — uproar?
Evolutionary psychologist David Sloan Wilson, defending E. O. Wilson, scolded, “This degree of illiteracy about foundational issues is an embarrassment for the field of evolutionary biology.” Denyse O’Leary, “Could we all get together and evolve as a group?” at Evolution News and Science Today:

At the time (2012, but it was still brewing), neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga tried to mend matters by declaring everyone right, raising the question in the minds of many others, “But right about what?”

And that’s what made Mazur think she was wasting a “rare day in June.”

Hey, sometimes, in some place, somewhere, in imaginary time, it gets even better… (News’s all-time fave YouTube clip)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRcMsqCbzWk

See also: Suzan Mazur: World Science Festival is purveying an out-of-date Darwinism She notes: “The problem with Wilson’s perspective is that Darwin’s theory of natural selection has been discredited. Biology is no longer the descriptive science it once was.” (Part I)

and

Suzan Mazur: World Science Foundation’s Evening on Mars “marred,” so to speak, by a second-rate panel She also reveals that a two-page survey was handed out, asking a number of none-o’-yer-business questions on behalf of “Audience Research & Analysis, an organization that helps government agencies and cultural agencies to “move forward with decision research.” (Part II)

Comments

Good to see you also, UBP. I miss the great conversations here and friends in the ID community. I've been so busy over the last six months I haven't had a chance to visit UD. I'm teaching high school now. You'll be happy to know that I use yours and KF's and many contributors' ideas here in my own lesson plans with students, giving them solid information against the materialist propaganda war that they face in the world today. So, thank you for all of your great work!Silver Asiatic_{June 12, 2019
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Good to see you SA.Upright BiPed_{June 7, 2019
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Susan Mazur
Nevertheless, Wilson wants to lead the charge to get governments to adopt Darwinian natural selection as official policy, as our cultural base, and establish a one-world view. However, that has been precisely the problem, Darwinian government.
She has a fascinating view of it -- that the push is for Darwinism as our cultural base, and a one-world approach. I think that's right, although I'm not sure if she's referring to Marxism, but that would be one application of Darwinism. At the same time, she attacks Sloan for being somewhat accepting of the value of religion, even though he's an atheist. It's definitely a culture-war. Our culture is already dominated by science and technology, so Darwinists seek to merely be the philosophical structure behind it.Silver Asiatic_{June 7, 2019
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PavelU That paper is utterly pseudoscientific. It contains nonsense.jawa_{June 6, 2019
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Through our actions, we are isolating ourselves. Our study shows the future evolutionary trajectory of our loneliness. With the loss of our close relatives, we lose not only unique biodiversity that is essential to maintain ecosystem functions and the Earth climate but also a sense of our own fragility, our connection with the environment, reinforcing our delusions of success. Our actions blur the question of what makes us distinct, what makes us “humans.” Extinctions will leave us without a mirror to contextualize our biology. They accentuate the misconception that we are unique and then, ironically lead us to fulfill it. Mammal extinctions and the increasing isolation of humans on the tree of life Sandrine Pavoine, Michael B. Bonsall, [...], and Shelly MasiPavelU_{June 6, 2019
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Microevolutionary example of Darwin Devolves? Odontogenic ameloblast-associated (ODAM) is inactivated in toothless/enamelless placental mammals and toothed whales Mark S. Springer, Christopher A. Emerling, [...], and Frédéric Delsuc the only essential functions of ODAM that are maintained by natural selection are related to tooth development and/or the maintenance of a healthy junctional epithelium that attaches to the enamel surface of teeth. the only essential functions of ODAM that are maintained by natural selection are related to tooth development and the maintenance of a healthy junctional epithelium where the gingivae are in contact with the tooth enamel.OLV_{June 6, 2019
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Skeletal determinants of tail length are different between macaque species groups Hikaru Wakamori and Yuzuru Hamada Tail length variation among species groups are caused by different mechanisms what kinds of mechanisms work to change the tail length? Future research is needed to reveal what exactly determines species group uniqueness, focusing on molecular and developmental mechanisms.OLV_{June 6, 2019
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Natural selection has never been shown to be the designer mimic Darwin envisioned. So that would be a problem for those who promote NS.ET_{June 5, 2019
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Seversky makes this blatantly false claim:
This from a neurosurgeon whose career is based on a materialistic/naturalistic model of the brain.
Give me a break. There is no 'materialistic/naturalistic model of the brain'. PERIOD! Materialism/naturalism cannot even explain where a single neuron came from, much less can it tell us where our 'beyond belief' brain came from:
"Complexity Brake" Defies Evolution - August 8, 2012 Excerpt: Consider a neuronal synapse -- the presynaptic terminal has an estimated 1000 distinct proteins. Fully analyzing their possible interactions would take about 2000 years. Or consider the task of fully characterizing the visual cortex of the mouse -- about 2 million neurons. Under the extreme assumption that the neurons in these systems can all interact with each other, analyzing the various combinations will take about 10 million years..., even though it is assumed that the underlying technology speeds up by an order of magnitude each year. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/complexity_brak062961.html Human Brains Have Always Been Unique – June 22, 2017 Excerpt: 'To truly understand how the brain maintains our human intellect, we would need to know about the state of all 86 billion neurons and their 100 trillion interconnections, as well as the varying strengths with which they are connected, and the state of more than 1,000 proteins that exist at each connection point.' - Mark Maslin https://crev.info/2017/06/human-brains-always-unique/ Human brain has more switches than all computers on Earth - November 2010 Excerpt: They found that the brain's complexity is beyond anything they'd imagined, almost to the point of being beyond belief, says Stephen Smith, a professor of molecular and cellular physiology and senior author of the paper describing the study: ...One synapse, by itself, is more like a microprocessor--with both memory-storage and information-processing elements--than a mere on/off switch. In fact, one synapse may contain on the order of 1,000 molecular-scale switches. A single human brain has more switches than all the computers and routers and Internet connections on Earth. http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20023112-247.html Brain is 10 times more active than previously measured, UCLA researchers find - Dan Gordon | March 9, 2017 Excerpt:,, UCLA team discovered that dendrites are not just passive conduits.,,, Because the dendrites are nearly 100 times larger in volume than the neuronal centers, Mehta said, the large number of dendritic spikes taking place could mean that the brain has more than 100 times the computational capacity than was previously thought. http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-research-upend-long-held-belief-about-how-neurons-communicate "The brain is not a supercomputer in which the neurons are transistors; rather it is as if each individual neuron is itself a computer, and the brain a vast community of microscopic computers. But even this model is probably too simplistic since the neuron processes data flexibly and on disparate levels, and is therefore far superior to any digital system. If I am right, the human brain may be a trillion times more capable than we imagine, and “artificial intelligence” a grandiose misnomer." Brian Ford research biologist – 2009 - The Secret Power of a Single Cell
Seversky then goes on to 'define naturalism'. And yet the very first words in Seversky's chosen definition of naturalism states,
"The term “naturalism” has no very precise meaning in contemporary philosophy."
And yet that was precisely Dr. Egnor's point, to define naturalism 'clearly and logically', not ambiguously as Seversky has chosen to do, is to refute it
Naturalism and Self-Refutation – Michael Egnor – January 31, 2018 Excerpt: The strength of Clark’s defense of naturalism is that it is an attempt to present naturalism’s tenets clearly and logically. That is its weakness as well, because it exposes naturalism to scrutiny, and naturalism cannot withstand even minimal scrutiny. Even to define naturalism is to refute it. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/01/naturalism-and-self-refutation/
Seversky then goes on to try to defend natural selection and Darwinism in general. Seversky's purported defense of natural selection and Darwinism in general is weak, superficial, and pathetic. Much less did he present any actual scientific evidence for his position. Thus, I'll let my empirically backed critiques in posts 3 & 4 of natural selection and Darwinism in general stand on their own merits.bornagain77_{June 5, 2019
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Note to commenters: Mazur is probably one of the first science journalists to try confronting the sponge wall of nonsense that protects the Darwinian cult in discussing evolution. Techniques get refined with practice and it is a rich field for nonsense exposure. Hope more join. About "lying." I struggle with the concept myself. How am I to describe the words of people whose nonsense is seldom challenged by peers (except in political saw-offs where the most powerful nonsense wins)? It would be difficult for them to see that their claims bear little relationship to reality. That's more the domain of people who survive by making sense, not by spouting approved nonsense. Obviously, there is such a thing as lying. For example: John tells the clerk at the rehab center that he does not have a bottle of whiskey hidden among his sports magazines. But it turns out that he does. And the clerk had seen him buy it at the liquor store just before he checked in. Either John is lying or he is dangerously out of touch with reality. But when Darwinians have been celebrated for "this view of life" for so long, without serious cultural pushback, it's a judgment call, in the view of some of us, whether they are lying or just exhibiting the usual characteristics of people who have always been able to evade serious questioning. For that reason, we try not to use the term much here. But don't ever mistake that for a defense of the nonsense. It's more like - to use law terms - we don't have enough evidence to convict.News_{June 5, 2019
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In post 9 BB is offended by the notion that he is a non-person:
Ah. The classic BA77 argument against an atheist. Claim that they are meatbots so they can’t have real thoughts. It was lame the first thousand times you used it. Now it is just pathetic. If you ever have a real argument, let me know.
It is not me that 'you' should be offended at for suggesting that 'you' really do not exist as a real person, it is your own reductive materialistic Darwinian worldview that you should rightly be offended at. Indeed it is one of the primary reasons that you should completely reject your atheistic Darwinian worldview altogether. It certainly is not an argument that is original to me that you do not exist as a real person but is in fact a conclusion that follows from the premises of your own atheistic materialism. BB, If you are going to be offended at anything, be rightly offended at the true source of such insanity and reject your own atheistic materialism that denies that you really exist as a real person.
"that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.” Francis Crick - "The Astonishing Hypothesis" 1994 “We have so much confidence in our materialist assumptions (which are assumptions, not facts) that something like free will is denied in principle. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but I don’t really know that. Either way, it doesn’t matter because if free will and consciousness are just an illusion, they are the most seamless illusions ever created. Film maker James Cameron wishes he had special effects that good.” Matthew D. Lieberman – neuroscientist – materialist – UCLA professor “I’m not arguing that consciousness is a reality beyond science or beyond the brain or that it floats free of the brain at death. I’m not making any spooky claims about its metaphysics. What I am saying, however, is that the self is an illusion. The sense of being an ego, an I, a thinker of thoughts in addition to the thoughts. An experiencer in addition to the experience. The sense that we all have of riding around inside our heads as a kind of a passenger in the vehicle of the body. That’s where most people start when they think about any of these questions. Most people don’t feel identical to their bodies. They feel like they have bodies. They feel like they’re inside the body. And most people feel like they’re inside their heads. Now that sense of being a subject, a locus of consciousness inside the head is an illusion. It makes no neuro-anatomical sense.” Sam Harris: The Self is an Illusion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fajfkO_X0l0 "There is no self in, around, or as part of anyone’s body. There can’t be. So there really isn’t any enduring self that ever could wake up morning after morning worrying about why it should bother getting out of bed. The self is just another illusion, like the illusion that thought is about stuff or that we carry around plans and purposes that give meaning to what our body does. Every morning’s introspectively fantasized self is a new one, remarkably similar to the one that consciousness ceased fantasizing when we fell sleep sometime the night before. Whatever purpose yesterday’s self thought it contrived to set the alarm last night, today’s newly fictionalized self is not identical to yesterday’s. It’s on its own, having to deal with the whole problem of why to bother getting out of bed all over again. (…) So, the fiction of the enduring self is almost certainly a side effect of a highly effective way of keeping the human body out of harm’s way. It is a by-product of whatever selected for bodies—human and nonhuman—to take pains now that make things better for themselves later. - A.Rosenberg, The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, ch.10 "Science provides clear-cut answers to all of the questions on the list: there is no free will, there is no mind distinct from the brain, there is no soul, no self, no person that supposedly inhabits your body, that endures over its life span, and that might even outlast it." Alex Rosenberg - The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions – pg. 147 Darwin's Robots: When Evolutionary Materialists Admit that Their Own Worldview Fails - Nancy Pearcey - April 23, 2015 Excerpt: In What Science Offers the Humanities, Edward Slingerland, identifies himself as an unabashed materialist and reductionist. Slingerland argues that Darwinian materialism leads logically to the conclusion that humans are robots -- that our sense of having a will or self or consciousness is an illusion. Yet, he admits, it is an illusion we find impossible to shake. No one "can help acting like and at some level really feeling that he or she is free." We are "constitutionally incapable of experiencing ourselves and other conspecifics [humans] as robots." One section in his book is even titled "We Are Robots Designed Not to Believe That We Are Robots.",,, When I teach these concepts in the classroom, an example my students find especially poignant is Flesh and Machines by Rodney Brooks, professor emeritus at MIT. Brooks writes that a human being is nothing but a machine -- a "big bag of skin full of biomolecules" interacting by the laws of physics and chemistry. In ordinary life, of course, it is difficult to actually see people that way. But, he says, "When I look at my children, I can, when I force myself, ... see that they are machines." Is that how he treats them, though? Of course not: "That is not how I treat them.... I interact with them on an entirely different level. They have my unconditional love, the furthest one might be able to get from rational analysis." Certainly if what counts as "rational" is a materialist worldview in which humans are machines, then loving your children is irrational. It has no basis within Brooks's worldview. It sticks out of his box. How does he reconcile such a heart-wrenching cognitive dissonance? He doesn't. Brooks ends by saying, "I maintain two sets of inconsistent beliefs." He has given up on any attempt to reconcile his theory with his experience. He has abandoned all hope for a unified, logically consistent worldview. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/04/when_evolutiona095451.html The Consciousness Deniers – Galen Strawson – March 13, 2018 Excerpt: What is the silliest claim ever made? The competition is fierce, but I think the answer is easy. Some people have denied the existence of consciousness: conscious experience, the subjective character of experience, the “what-it-is-like” of experience.,,, Who are the Deniers?,,, Few have been fully explicit in their denial, but among those who have been, we find Brian Farrell, Paul Feyerabend, Richard Rorty, and the generally admirable Daniel Dennett.,,, http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/03/13/the-consciousness-deniers/ “(Daniel) Dennett concludes, ‘nobody is conscious … we are all zombies’.” J.W. SCHOOLER & C.A. SCHREIBER – Experience, Meta-consciousness, and the Paradox of Introspection – 2004 https://www.scribd.com/document/183053947/Experience-Meta-consciousness-and-the-Paradox-of-Introspection The Brain: The Mystery of Consciousness By STEVEN PINKER - Monday, Jan. 29, 2007 Part II THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL Another startling conclusion from the science of consciousness is that the intuitive feeling we have that there's an executive "I" that sits in a control room of our brain, scanning the screens of the senses and pushing the buttons of the muscles, is an illusion. http://www.academia.edu/2794859/The_Brain_The_Mystery_of_Consciousness At the 23:33 minute mark of the following video, Richard Dawkins agrees with materialistic philosophers who say that: "consciousness is an illusion" A few minutes later Rowan Williams asks Dawkins ”If consciousness is an illusion…what isn’t?”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWN4cfh1Fac&t=22m57s Atheistic Materialism – Does Richard Dawkins Exist? – video 37:51 minute mark Quote: "It turns out that if every part of you, down to sub-atomic parts, are still what they were when they weren't in you, in other words every ion,,, every single atom that was in the universe,, that has now become part of your living body, is still what is was originally. It hasn't undergone what metaphysicians call a 'substantial change'. So you aren't Richard Dawkins. You are just carbon and neon and sulfur and oxygen and all these individual atoms still. You can spout a philosophy that says scientific materialism, but there aren't any scientific materialists to pronounce it.,,, That's why I think they find it kind of embarrassing to talk that way. Nobody wants to stand up there and say, "You know, I'm not really here". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVCnzq2yTCg&t=37m51s Ross Douthat Is On Another Erroneous Rampage Against Secularism – Jerry Coyne – December 26, 2013 Excerpt: “many (but not all) of us accept the notion that our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” Jerry Coyne – Professor of Evolutionary Biology – Atheist https://newrepublic.com/article/116047/ross-douthat-wrong-about-secularism-and-ethics The Confidence of Jerry Coyne - Ross Douthat - January 6, 2014 Excerpt: But then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession (by Coyne) that yes, okay, it’s quite possible given materialist premises that “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” At which point the entire edifice suddenly looks terribly wobbly — because who, exactly, is doing all of this forging and shaping and purpose-creating if Jerry Coyne, as I understand him (and I assume he understands himself) quite possibly does not actually exist at all? The theme of his argument is the crucial importance of human agency under eliminative materialism, but if under materialist premises the actual agent is quite possibly a fiction, then who exactly is this I who “reads” and “learns” and “teaches,” and why in the universe’s name should my illusory self believe Coyne’s bold proclamation that his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” and worthy of devotion and pursuit? (Let alone that they’re morally significant: But more on that below.) Prometheus cannot be at once unbound and unreal; the human will cannot be simultaneously triumphant and imaginary. http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-confidence-of-jerry-coyne/?_r=0
bornagain77_{June 5, 2019
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Bornagain77 @ 3
,,, As Dr Michael Egnor noted about naturalism in general, “Even to define naturalism is to refute it.“, so to the same can be said about natural selection, “Even to define natural selection is to refute it.“
This from a neurosurgeon whose career is based on a materialistic/naturalistic model of the brain. I seriously doubt that when he entered a patient's brain he lowered a "blast visor" and relied on The Force to guide his hands. Something of a double standard or what? As for defining "naturalism", I think the opening paragraphs of the entry in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy puts it rather well:
The term “naturalism” has no very precise meaning in contemporary philosophy. Its current usage derives from debates in America in the first half of the last century. The self-proclaimed “naturalists” from that period included John Dewey, Ernest Nagel, Sidney Hook and Roy Wood Sellars. These philosophers aimed to ally philosophy more closely with science. They urged that reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing “supernatural”, and that the scientific method should be used to investigate all areas of reality, including the “human spirit” (Krikorian 1944; Kim 2003). So understood, “naturalism” is not a particularly informative term as applied to contemporary philosophers. The great majority of contemporary philosophers would happily accept naturalism as just characterized—that is, they would both reject “supernatural” entities, and allow that science is a possible route (if not necessarily the only one) to important truths about the “human spirit”. Even so, this entry will not aim to pin down any more informative definition of “naturalism”. It would be fruitless to try to adjudicate some official way of understanding the term. Different contemporary philosophers interpret “naturalism” differently. This disagreement about usage is no accident. For better or worse, “naturalism” is widely viewed as a positive term in philosophical circles—few active philosophers nowadays are happy to announce themselves as “non-naturalists”.[1] This inevitably leads to a divergence in understanding the requirements of “naturalism”. Those philosophers with relatively weak naturalist commitments are inclined to understand “naturalism” in a unrestrictive way, in order not to disqualify themselves as “naturalists”, while those who uphold stronger naturalist doctrines are happy to set the bar for “naturalism” higher.[2] Rather than getting bogged down in an essentially definitional issue, this entry will adopt a different strategy. It will outline a range of philosophical commitments of a generally naturalist stamp, and comment on their philosophical cogency. The primary focus will be on whether these commitments should be upheld, rather than on whether they are definitive of “naturalism”. The important thing is to articulate and assess the reasoning that has led philosophers in a generally naturalist direction, not to stipulate how far you need to travel along this path before you can count yourself as a paid-up “naturalist”. As indicated by the above characterization of the mid-twentieth-century American movement, naturalism can be separated into an ontological and a methodological component. The ontological component is concerned with the contents of reality, asserting that reality has no place for “supernatural” or other “spooky” kinds of entity. By contrast, the methodological component is concerned with ways of investigating reality, and claims some kind of general authority for the scientific method
So Egnor's smug little aphorism “Even to define naturalism is to refute it“ sounds smart but doesn't mean much when you actually look at it.
If evolution by natural selection were actually the truth about how all life came to be on Earth then the only life that should be around should be extremely small organisms with the highest replication rate, and with the most ‘mutational firepower’, since only they, since they greatly outclass multi-cellular organism in terms of ‘reproductive success’ and ‘mutational firepower’, would be fittest to survive in the dog eat dog world where blind pitiless evolution ruled and only the fittest are allowed to survive.
Where to start? First, yet again, evolution by natural selection is not an explanation for the origins of life itself. Broadly, it is about life diversified and spread after it had appeared. Second, natural selection is now regarded as but one of a number of processes that explain the diversity of living things. Third, a high rate of reproduction is not necessarily the same as a high rate of mutation. Fourth, a high rate of mutation, given that many more mutations are harmful then beneficial, is more likely to be disadvantageous. See the Wikipedia entry on "Error catastrophe" as a starting-point. And in a rapidly mutating genome, beneficial mutations that do emerge could be disabled by subsequent changes before they become visible to natural selection. Fifth, the rapid rates of reproduction and mutation in single-celled organisms might only be advantageous if they are in direct competition with multicellular organisms for certain environmental resources. Sixth, although we have evolved sophisticated immune systems, we know full well that rapidly-mutating viruses and bacteria can outflank them on occasion such as the Spanish 'flu pandemic of 1918. This is not new or surprising.Seversky_{June 4, 2019
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I wouldn’t call this “debunking” but it’s very critical, coming from these folks:
The vast majority of people believe that there are only two alternative ways to explain the origins of biological diversity. The commonly accepted alternative is Neo-Darwinism, which is clearly naturalistic science but ignores much contemporary molecular evidence and invokes a set of unsupported assumptions about the accidental nature of hereditary variation. Neo-Darwinism ignores important rapid evolutionary processes such as symbiogenesis, horizontal DNA transfer, action of mobile DNA and epigenetic modifications. Moreover, some Neo-Darwinists have elevated Natural Selection into a unique creative force that solves all the difficult evolutionary problems without a real empirical basis. Many scientists today see the need for a deeper and more complete exploration of all aspects of the evolutionary process. We intend to make it clear that the website and scientists listed on the web site do not support or subscribe to any proposals that resort to inscrutable divine forces or supernatural intervention, whether they are called Creationism, Intelligent Design, or anything else.
https://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com/OLV_{June 4, 2019
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PLOS Genetics Asks: “What Is a Mutation?” https://evolutionnews.org/2019/05/plos-genetics-asks-what-is-a-mutation/ Game of Thrones: As Darwinism Dissolves, Top Evolutionists Scramble for a Successor https://evolutionnews.org/2019/05/game-of-thrones-as-darwinism-dissolves-top-evolutionists-scramble-for-a-successor/OLV_{June 4, 2019
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AaronS1978, I agree. The only one who came off looking bad was Mazur.Brother Brian_{June 4, 2019
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BA77
BB, and who exactly is this “me” that was convinced?
Ah. The classic BA77 argument against an atheist. Claim that they are meatbots so they can’t have real thoughts. It was lame the first thousand times you used it. Now it is just pathetic. If you ever have a real argument, let me know.Brother Brian_{June 4, 2019
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I really don’t like how she addressed David Sloan Wilson And I very much dislike David Sloan Wilson But her calling out natural selection is being debunked by the scientific community could not of been more far off base Maybe Darwinian evolution viva natural selection only has been debunked, hence why there needs to be a re-think on standard synthesis But she did not handle herself well in addressing him He might not of been able to respond because of how she jumped on him and he was kind of dumb struck And the thing is I was kind a hoping she’d kick his ass BA77 “Personally, I can’t see how anyone would willingly follow a made up and imaginary religion, i.e. Darwinism, that the main practitioners have to repeatedly lie to protect.” It’s infinite explanatory power I can literally explain anything and everything and as Richard Dawkins stated very clearly, the theory allows him to be intellectually fulfilled. Possibly because of how it can explain every mystery whether it’s right or wrong. It’s one of the main things complained about with evolutionary psychology, you come up with an explanation and even though there’s no real proof behind it, it’s mostly conjecture, as long as it makes sense it will be excepted. In many cases they are people that just absolutely find belief in God to be utterly ridiculous and offensive and go to great lengths not to believe in God they refuse to acknowledge any kind of design or intelligence including our own intelligence in nature because any hint admits that the side that believed in God was right And it’s continuously got worse and not because of scientific findings but because of the fact that it is easier to transmit their message globally through multiple media outlets There were many very great scientist that were religious which their contributions have made possible for all of these other atheist scientists up today to continue their workAaronS1978_{June 4, 2019
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Suzan Mazur: Natural selection has been debunked by the scientific community. David, you know that. You know that. Why are you lying to the public?
Objection! Testifying to facts not yet in evidence and badgering the witness! Bog-standard tactics for a plain anti-Darwinian propagandist, of course.Seversky_{June 4, 2019
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BB, and who exactly is this "me" that was convinced? Personhood cannot be grounded within your atheistic materialistic worldview! i.e. There is no person nickednamed BB to convince if your worldview were actually true. Tell you what BB, get a worldview that can allow you to be a real person in the first place, and then we can discuss whether or not Darwinism even qualifies as a scientific theory or not.
What Does It Mean to Say That Science & Religion Conflict? - M. Anthony Mills - April 16, 2018 Excerpt: Barr rightly observes that scientific atheists often unwittingly assume not just metaphysical naturalism but an even more controversial philosophical position: reductive materialism, which says all that exists is or is reducible to the material constituents postulated by our most fundamental physical theories. As Barr points out, this implies not only that God does not exist — because God is not material — but that you do not exist. For you are not a material constituent postulated by any of our most fundamental physical theories; at best, you are an aggregate of those constituents, arranged in a particular way. Not just you, but tables, chairs, countries, countrymen, symphonies, jokes, legal contracts, moral judgments, and acts of courage or cowardice — all of these must be fully explicable in terms of those more fundamental, material constituents. In fact, more problematic for the materialist than the non-existence of persons is the existence of mathematics. Why? Although a committed materialist might be perfectly willing to accept that you do not really exist, he will have a harder time accepting that numbers do not exist. The trouble is that numbers — along with other mathematical entities such as classes, sets, and functions — are indispensable for modern science. And yet — here’s the rub — these “abstract objects” are not material. Thus, one cannot take science as the only sure guide to reality and at the same time discount disbelief in all immaterial realities. https://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2018/04/16/what_does_it_mean_to_say_that_science_and_religion_conflict.html
bornagain77_{June 4, 2019
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BA77
As to... and Moreover...
Yup. That convinced me.Brother Brian_{June 4, 2019
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Moreover, with what is termed 'the waiting time problem', the mathematics of population genetics itself has now also falsified natural selection as the purported 'designer substitute' that Darwinists falsely imagine it to be:
The waiting time problem in a model hominin population – 2015 Sep 17 John Sanford, Wesley Brewer, Franzine Smith, and John Baumgardner Excerpt: The program Mendel’s Accountant realistically simulates the mutation/selection process,,, Given optimal settings, what is the longest nucleotide string that can arise within a reasonable waiting time within a hominin population of 10,000? Arguably, the waiting time for the fixation of a “string-of-one” is by itself problematic (Table 2). Waiting a minimum of 1.5 million years (realistically, much longer), for a single point mutation is not timely adaptation in the face of any type of pressing evolutionary challenge. This is especially problematic when we consider that it is estimated that it only took six million years for the chimp and human genomes to diverge by over 5 % [1]. This represents at least 75 million nucleotide changes in the human lineage, many of which must encode new information. While fixing one point mutation is problematic, our simulations show that the fixation of two co-dependent mutations is extremely problematic – requiring at least 84 million years (Table 2). This is ten-fold longer than the estimated time required for ape-to-man evolution. In this light, we suggest that a string of two specific mutations is a reasonable upper limit, in terms of the longest string length that is likely to evolve within a hominin population (at least in a way that is either timely or meaningful). Certainly the creation and fixation of a string of three (requiring at least 380 million years) would be extremely untimely (and trivial in effect), in terms of the evolution of modern man. It is widely thought that a larger population size can eliminate the waiting time problem. If that were true, then the waiting time problem would only be meaningful within small populations. While our simulations show that larger populations do help reduce waiting time, we see that the benefit of larger population size produces rapidly diminishing returns (Table 4 and Fig. 4). When we increase the hominin population from 10,000 to 1 million (our current upper limit for these types of experiments), the waiting time for creating a string of five is only reduced from two billion to 482 million years. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4573302/ “Darwinism provided an explanation for the appearance of design, and argued that there is no Designer — or, if you will, the designer is natural selection. If that’s out of the way — if that (natural selection) just does not explain the evidence — then the flip side of that is, well, things appear designed because they are designed.” Richard Sternberg – Living Waters documentary Whale Evolution vs. Population Genetics – Richard Sternberg and Paul Nelson – (excerpt from Living Waters video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0csd3M4bc0Q
And when looking at Natural Selection from the physical perspective of what is actually going on, that is to say when looking at Natural Selection with empirical evidence, then it is very easy to see exactly why Natural Selection is grossly inadequate as the supposed ‘Designer substitute’ that Darwinists have falsely imagined it to be.
The abject failure of Natural Selection on two levels of physical reality – video (2016) (princess and the pea paradox & quarter power scaling) https://youtu.be/ISu-09yq2Gc
Thus, as Dr Michael Egnor noted about naturalism in general, "Even to define naturalism is to refute it.", so to the same can be said about natural selection, "Even to define natural selection is to refute it.". Of course Darwinists, for the most part as the OP made clear, refuse to accept falsification of natural selection, but this is par for the course for Darwinists. Besides natural selection itself, Darwinian evolution in general has been falsified by numerous lines of evidence, and yet Darwinists pretend as if none of the falsifying empirical evidence matters. As Jonathan Wells noted, Darwinian evolution, at least how Darwinists treat it, is a "Zombie Science" that refuses to die from falsifying evidence. Here are a few falsifications of Darwinian evolution that Darwinists simply refuse to ever accept as falsifications of their theory:
Darwin’s theory holds mutations to the genome to be random. The vast majority of mutations to the genome are not random but are found to be ‘directed’. Darwin’s theory holds that Natural Selection is the ‘designer substitute’ that produces the ‘appearance’ and/or illusion of design. Natural Selection, especially for multicellular organisms, is found to grossly inadequate as the ‘designer substitute. Darwin’s theory holds that mutations to DNA will eventually change the basic biological form of any given species into a new form of a brand new species. Yet, biological form is found to be irreducible to mutations to DNA, nor is biological form reducible to any other material particulars in biology one may wish to invoke. Darwin’s theory holds there to be an extremely beneficial and flexible mutation rate for DNA which was ultimately responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. The mutation rate to DNA is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever. Charles Darwin himself held that the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Yet, from the Cambrian Explosion onward, the fossil record is consistently characterized by sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record(disparity), then rapid diversity within that group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. Moreover, Fossils are found in the “wrong place” all the time (either too early, or too late). Darwin’s theory, due to the randomness postulate, holds that patterns will not repeat themselves in supposedly widely divergent species. Yet thousands of instances of what is ironically called ‘convergent evolution’, on both the morphological and genetic level, falsifies the Darwinian belief that patterns will not repeat themselves in widely divergent species. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Yet as Doug Axe pointed out, “Basically every gene and every new protein fold, there is nothing of significance that we can show that can be had in that gradualistic way. It’s all a mirage. None of it happens that way.” Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.” Yet as Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig pointed out, “in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as the modern versions of it.” Charles Darwin himself stated that, ““The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God.”. Yet ‘our conscious selves’ are certainly not explainable by ‘chance’ (nor is consciousness explainable by any possible reductive materialistic explanation in general), i.e. ‘the hard problem of consciousness’. Besides the mathematics of probability consistently showing that Darwinian evolution is impossible, the mathematics of population genetics itself has now shown Darwinian evolution to be impossible. Moreover, ‘immaterial’ mathematics itself, which undergirds all of science, engineering and technology, is held by most mathematicians to exist in some timeless, unchanging, immaterial, Platonic realm. Yet, the reductive materialism that Darwinian theory is based upon denies the existence of the immaterial realm that mathematics exists in. i.e. Darwinian evolution actually denies the objective reality of the one thing, i.e. mathematics, that it most needs in order to be considered scientific in the first place! Donald Hoffman has, via population genetics, shown that if Darwin’s materialistic theory were true then all our observations of reality would be illusory. Yet the scientific method itself is based on reliable observation. Moreover, Quantum Mechanics itself has now shown that conscious observation must come before material reality, i.e. falsification of ‘realism’ proves that our conscious observations are reliable!. The reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian thought holds that immaterial information is merely ’emergent’ from a material basis. Yet immaterial Information, via experimental realization of the “Maxwell’s Demon” thought experiment, is now found to be its own distinctive physical entity that, although it can interact in a ‘top down’ manner with matter and energy, is separate from matter and energy. Darwinists hold that Darwin’s theory is true. Yet ‘Truth’ itself is an abstract property of an immaterial mind that is irreducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution. i.e. Assuming reductive materialism and/or Naturalism as the starting philosophical position of science actually precludes ‘the truth’ from ever being reached by science! Darwinist’s, due to their underlying naturalistic philosophy, insist that teleology (i.e. goal directed purpose) does not exist. Yet it is impossible for Biologists to do biological research without constantly invoking words that directly imply teleology. i.e. The very words that Biologists themselves use when they are doing their research falsifies Darwinian evolution.
Darwinism, at least how Darwinists treat their theory, is certainly not a falsifiable science by any reasonable measure, but is much more properly classified as a pseudo-scientific religion for atheists. Personally, I can't see how anyone would willingly follow a made up and imaginary religion, i.e. Darwinism, that the main practitioners have to repeatedly lie to protect. I would certainly demand that my religion stand up to scrutiny, and to be true before I believed it wholeheartedly and I certainly would not tolerate having to lie to protect my religion from falsification. That is exactly why I am a thoroughly convinced Christian instead of some other religion. My 'religion', if it is proper to call a personal relationship with God that, has certainly stood up to scrutiny and I certainly do not have to lie to protect it. Verse
2 Peter 1:16 For we did not follow cleverly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.
bornagain77_{June 4, 2019
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As to:
Suzan Mazur: He needs to seriously define what he means by natural selection.
As Dr Michael Egnor noted about naturalism in general,,,
Naturalism and Self-Refutation – Michael Egnor – January 31, 2018 Excerpt: For Clark, thoughts merely appear out of matter, which has no properties, by the laws of physics, for generating thought. For Clark to assert that naturalistic matter as described by physics gives rise to the mind, without immateriality of any sort, is merely to assert magic. Furthermore, the very framework of Clark’s argument — logic — is neither material nor natural. Logic, after all, doesn’t exist “in the space-time continuum” and isn’t described by physics. What is the location of modus ponens? How much does Gödel’s incompleteness theorem weigh? What is the physics of non-contradiction? How many millimeters long is Clark’s argument for naturalism? Ironically the very logic that Clark employs to argue for naturalism is outside of any naturalistic frame. The strength of Clark’s defense of naturalism is that it is an attempt to present naturalism’s tenets clearly and logically. That is its weakness as well, because it exposes naturalism to scrutiny, and naturalism cannot withstand even minimal scrutiny. Even to define naturalism is to refute it. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/01/naturalism-and-self-refutation/
,,, As Dr Michael Egnor noted about naturalism in general, "Even to define naturalism is to refute it.", so to the same can be said about natural selection, "Even to define natural selection is to refute it.". If evolution by natural selection were actually the truth about how all life came to be on Earth then the only life that should be around should be extremely small organisms with the highest replication rate, and with the most 'mutational firepower', since only they, since they greatly outclass multi-cellular organism in terms of ‘reproductive success’ and 'mutational firepower', would be fittest to survive in the dog eat dog world where blind pitiless evolution ruled and only the fittest are allowed to survive. The logic of this is nicely summed up here in this Richard Dawkins' video:
Richard Dawkins interview with a 'Darwinian' physician goes off track - video Excerpt: "I am amazed, Richard, that what we call metazoans, multi-celled organisms, have actually been able to evolve, and the reason [for amazement] is that bacteria and viruses replicate so quickly -- a few hours sometimes, they can reproduce themselves -- that they can evolve very, very quickly. And we're stuck with twenty years at least between generations. How is it that we resist infection when they can evolve so quickly to find ways around our defenses?" http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/video_to_dawkin062031.html
Charles Darwin himself stated that, “every single organic being around us may be said to be striving to the utmost to increase in numbers;"
“every single organic being around us may be said to be striving to the utmost to increase in numbers;" - Charles Darwin - Origin of Species - pg. 66
Darwin also stated,
“One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.” – Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
The logic of natural selection is nicely captured in the following graph:
The Logic of Natural Selection - graph http://recticulatedgiraffe.weebly.com/uploads/4/0/6/2/40627097/1189735.jpg?308
As you can see, any other function besides successful reproduction, such as much slower sexual reproduction, sight, hearing, thinking, altruistic behavior, etc.., would be highly superfluous to the primary criteria of successful reproduction, and should, on a Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ view, be discarded, and/or 'eaten', by bacteria, as so much excess baggage since it obviously slows down successful reproduction. In fact, Darwin himself offered the following as a falsification criteria of his theory, "Natural selection cannot possibly produce any modification in any one species exclusively for the good of another species"… and even stated that “If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.”
"Natural selection cannot possibly produce any modification in any one species exclusively for the good of another species; though throughout nature one species incessantly takes advantage of, and profits by, the structure of another. But natural selection can and does often produce structures for the direct injury of other species, as we see in the fang of the adder, and in the ovipositor of the ichneumon, by which its eggs are deposited in the living bodies of other insects. If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection." - Charles Darwin - Origin of Species http://darwin-online.org.uk/Variorum/1866/1866-241-c-1859.html
And that falsification criteria has been met. As Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig points out in the following article, "in the case of the galls, in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as the modern versions of it."
Plant Galls and Evolution How More than Twelve Thousand1 Ugly Facts are Slaying a Beautiful Hypothesis: Darwinism2 Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig – 7 September 2017 Excerpt: in the case of the galls, in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as the modern versions of it. The galls are not ‘useful to the possessor’, the plants. There is no space for these phenomena in the world of “the selfish gene” (Dawkins). Moreover, the same conclusion appears to be true for thousands of angiosperm species producing deceptive flowers (in contrast to gall formations, now for the exclusive good of the plant species) – a topic which should be carefully treated in another paper. http://www.weloennig.de/PlantGalls.pdf
Moreover, contrary to the central 'survival of the fittest' assumption behind the natural selection of Darwinian evolution, instead of eating us, time after time we find micro-organisms helping each other in ways that have nothing to with their own ‘survival of the fittest'’ concerns. The following researchers said they were ‘banging our heads against the wall' by the contradictory findings to Darwinian 'survival of the fittest' thinking that they had found:
Doubting Darwin: Algae Findings Surprise Scientists – April 28, 2014 Excerpt: One of Charles Darwin’s hypotheses posits that closely related species will compete for food and other resources more strongly with one another than with distant relatives, because they occupy similar ecological niches. Most biologists long have accepted this to be true. Thus, three researchers were more than a little shaken to find that their experiments on fresh water green algae failed to support Darwin’s theory — at least in one case. “It was completely unexpected,” says Bradley Cardinale, associate professor in the University of Michigan’s school of natural resources & environment. “When we saw the results, we said ‘this can’t be.”‘ We sat there banging our heads against the wall. Darwin’s hypothesis has been with us for so long, how can it not be right?” The researchers ,,,— were so uncomfortable with their results that they spent the next several months trying to disprove their own work. But the research held up.,,, The scientists did not set out to disprove Darwin, but, in fact, to learn more about the genetic and ecological uniqueness of fresh water green algae so they could provide conservationists with useful data for decision-making. “We went into it assuming Darwin to be right, and expecting to come up with some real numbers for conservationists,” Cardinale says. “When we started coming up with numbers that showed he wasn’t right, we were completely baffled.”,,, Darwin “was obsessed with competition,” Cardinale says. “He assumed the whole world was composed of species competing with each other, but we found that one-third of the species of algae we studied actually like each other. They don’t grow as well unless you put them with another species. It may be that nature has a heck of a lot more mutualisms than we ever expected. “,,, Maybe Darwin’s presumption that the world may be dominated by competition is wrong.” http://www.livescience.com/45205-data-dont-back-up-darwin-in-algae-study-nsf-bts.html
Moreover, instead of eating us, time after time we find micro-organisms helping us in ways that have nothing to with their own ‘survival of the fittest’ concerns. As the following noted with a bit of surprise, "I am,, convinced that the number of beneficial microbes, even very necessary microbes, is much, much greater than the number of pathogens.”
We are living in a bacterial world, and it’s impacting us more than previously thought – February 15, 2013 Excerpt: We often associate bacteria with disease-causing “germs” or pathogens, and bacteria are responsible for many diseases, such as tuberculosis, bubonic plague, and MRSA infections. But bacteria do many good things, too, and the recent research underlines the fact that animal life would not be the same without them.,,, I am,, convinced that the number of beneficial microbes, even very necessary microbes, is much, much greater than the number of pathogens.” – per physorg
Moreover, the falsification of this ‘survival of the fittest’, i.e. ‘selfish’, thinking of natural selection occurs at the molecular level too. Specifically, genes are now known to be anything but ‘selfish’ as Richard Dawkins had falsely claimed. In fact, instead of being ‘selfish genes’, as Dawkins falsely envisioned, they should now be termed extremely ‘cooperative genes’.
Gene Pleiotropy Roadblocks Evolution by Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D. – Dec. 8, 2016 Excerpt: Before the advent of modern molecular biology, scientists defined a gene as a single unit of inheritance. If a gene was found to influence multiple externally visible traits, it was said to be pleiotropic—a term first used in 1910.2 During this early period of genetic discovery, pleiotropy was considered to be quite rare because scientists assumed most genes only possessed a single function—a simplistic idea that remained popular throughout most of the 20th century. However, as our understanding of genetics grew through DNA science, it became clear that genes operate in complex interconnected networks. Furthermore, individual genes produce multiple variants of end products with different effects through a variety of intricate mechanisms.2,3 Taken together, these discoveries show that pleiotropy is a common feature of nearly every gene.,,, The pleiotropy evolution problem is widely known among secular geneticists, but rarely discussed in the popular media. In this new research report, the authors state, “Many studies have provided evidence for the ability of pleiotropy to constrain gene evolution.”,,, “Our study provided supportive evidence that pleiotropy constraints the evolution of transcription factors (Tfs).”,,, The authors state, “We showed that highly pleiotropic genes are more likely to be associated with a disease phenotype.”,,, http://www.icr.org/article/9747 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/ 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/
bornagain77_{June 4, 2019
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Calling someone a liar isn’t exactly a tough question. It is just extremely rude.Brother Brian_{June 4, 2019
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Not a big fan of David Sloan Wilson, but this is much less a journalisit with hard questions as a crackpot talking nonsense. Natural selection has not been 'debunked' by scientists, not even Koonin or Lewinton. I don't doubt Mazur believes her own rubbish, but it's not informed my what evolutionary biology actually is rather than her own interpretations of very fringey ideas.Mimus_{June 4, 2019
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