Coffee! Neuroscience: Do you really need a refrigerator when you have this?

_{Denyse O'Leary

November 16, 2009

Neuroscience}

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I found this chilling:

Abstract:
This paper questions criminal law’s strong presumption of free will. Part I assesses the ways in which environment, nurture, and society influence human action. Part II briefly surveys studies from the fields of genetics and neuroscience which call into question strong assumptions of free will and suggest explanations for propensities toward criminal activity. Part III discusses other “causes” of criminal activity including addiction, economic deprivation, gender, and culture. In light of Parts I through III, Part IV assesses criminal responsibility and the legitimacy of punishment. Part V considers the the possibility of determining propensity from criminal activity based on assessing causal factors and their effects on certain people. In this context, the concept of dangerous individuals and possible justifications for preventative detention of such individuals in order to protect society is assessed. The concluding section suggests that the law should take a broader view of factors that could have determinant effects on agents’ actions.

The part that bugs me is “possible justifications for preventative detention”.

That’s what always happens when free will is denied. Somehow or other, the idea gets started that we can detect in advance who will commit a crime. Then you needn’t do anything to get arrested and put away. Someone just needs to have a theory about you.

But no one can truly predict the future in any kind of detail.

What about the Fort Hood massacre, you ask? Well, according to a number of reports, that guy had been advertising his grievances for some months. You sure wouldn’t need a brain scan or materialist theories about free will to figure out that he wasn’t happy in the Army and should just have been discharged – which is what he wanted. You’d just need to listen to what he actually said.

Also just up at my neuroscience blog, The Mindful Hack:

Neuroskepticism: A breath of fresh air, and maybe more legal safety too

Materialism and popular culture: The human brain as a machine?

Spiritual Brain: Polish translation rights bought

Curiosity and the dead cat

Comments

Mung @65, Hmmm, I suppose redundancy does indeed have its benefits, even if not immediately seen at the surface level.PaulN_{November 17, 2009
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Nakashima, I've been fairly clear about where I feel the limitations for evolution reside on an experimentally verified basis. Why you're conflating my position with that of a TE I do not know. As I said, the details of the changes observed in mutational experiments are ultimately counter-productive to what the researcher seeks to prove. Accumulating broken genes that provide unrealistically situational benefits does not correctly extrapolate to cell-to-man evolution, or even provide a sufficient engine for common ancestry. I don't believe God guides whatever macro-evolution that is theorized to take place, but rather that all of the information required for the dissemination of inherited variability for every kind of organism being created from the get go, without the need for theoretical Darwinian scenarios. Mendelian Genetics does enough to verify this (including those observations once asserted upon finches in the Galapagos and peppered moths), in addition to quantifying the terminal edge of mutational change that Behe articulates quite well.PaulN_{November 17, 2009
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Nakashima @52 What is intelligent about giving a nocturnal animal a non-working gene for color vision? What is intelligent about including a spare tire that does nothing but add unneeded weight to a vehicle? What is intelligent about include a 5-1/4" floppy drive bay in modern computer towers?Mung_{November 17, 2009
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No actually Nak, to be TE the same violation of GE would have to occur over a parent genome as is required for materialistic evolution, yet the argument between materialists and TE'ist would be over in short order, since materialism is left without any coherent foundation in reality, with the complete refutation of the hidden variable argument i.e. materialism is a non-starter in the first place as far as what is known about reality is concerned.bornagain77_{November 17, 2009
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Mr PaulN, Welcome to the world of TE and Alfred Russel Wallace. I think Francis Collins and Simon Conway Morris have saved a spot for you!Nakashima_{November 17, 2009
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Allen @11
I therefore find it quite interesting that Drs. Behe and Dembski reject a priori the hypothesis that there is a “natural complexifying force” (as proposed, for example, by Stuart Kaufman and Simon Conway Morris) that could produce such complex, novel variations.
Probably has something to do with the belief that a thing cannot be it's own cause. Even if there were a "natural complexifying force," at most that would explain complexity. However, what is at issue is not complexity, but rather specified complexity. Why does the "natural complexifying force" produce functional things, rather than just complex but non-functional things?Mung_{November 17, 2009
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Nakashima @59,
OK, what is intelligent about giving a nocturnal creature color vision?
Forgive me once again, I assumed the premise that the creature wasn't always nocturnal was understood, hence the loss of color vision being related to genetic deterioration.
This is a just-so story with a half twist, wedge of lime and salt on the rim.
That wouldn't by any means make it untrue. Besides, I'm sure it wouldn't take you long to find genetic errors that attributed to color-blindness, and how such errors could become fixed into a population seeing as it would have to do with quality of life as opposed to life-or-death. Also if you don't think Darwinian explanations are chock-full of just-so stories then you'd be kidding yourself.
You’re also starting down the slippery slope of invoking naturalistic explanations in something that was meant to be an alternative to naturalistic explanations
Well from the premise that a highly intelligent being created nature in all of its self-sustaining and orderly glory in the first place, it follows that some observations will inevitably have natural causes, such as the effect of gravity on falling objects, or the effect of genetic deterioration on the genome of various organisms. Having a transcendent explanation to natural reality does not rule out natural explanations in totality, but measuring the order that is observable in the universe does provide for a strong standpoint in which to evaluate the nature and the limits of natural causation, and also the disparity between those forces of unguided nature and forces of calculated intelligence.
...which we’ve agreed can answer these questions pretty well, thank you.
I've only agreed that nature is better at explaining increasing chaos rather than increasing complex-specified order. Is that what you're projecting we're agreeing on?PaulN_{November 17, 2009
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Thanks for those articles BA, very good stuff pertaining to the current points of contention.PaulN_{November 17, 2009
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Mr PaulN, Perhaps the creature was originally intended to have color vision, and has since lost this capability to genetic deterioration. OK, what is intelligent about giving a nocturnal creature color vision? This is a just-so story with a half twist, wedge of lime and salt on the rim. You're also starting down the slippery slope of invoking naturalistic explanations in something that was meant to be an alternative to naturalistic explanations, which we've agreed can answer these questions pretty well, thank you.Nakashima_{November 17, 2009
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Allen,
Once again, my comments have not emerged from moderation, despite my having posted them over six hours ago. How can anyone expect me to make timely responses to comments if I make them in a timely fashion, only to have them linger in moderation for a half a day or more?
Please stop whining about your comments being in moderation for hours, this is what you have to deal with when you get moderated. I do not live to watch the moderation box for every time you might post something 24 hours a day. I'm serious about this.Clive Hayden_{November 17, 2009
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Dave asks this question ( of course he asks this following question so as to avoid my demand for evidence that violates the principle of Genetic Entropy of parent genome); "Could you point out DNA or RNA transcript repair mechanisms which correct mutations such as amino acid substitutions?" Well dave this is turning out to be several levels thick as well: RNA: Protein Regulators Are Themselves Regulated “What was formerly conceived of as a direct, straightforward pathway is gradually turning out to be a dense network of regulatory mechanisms: genes are not simply translated into proteins via mRNA (messenger RNA). MicroRNAs control the translation of mRNAs (messenger RNAs) into proteins, and proteins in turn regulate the microRNAs at various levels.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090910084147.htm The cell has elaborate ways to safeguard its genetic library by repairing DNA, but now scientists are finding the same enzymes can also repair RNA. RNA methylation damage can be repaired by the same AlkB enzyme that repairs DNA. This is surprising because RNA and proteins were considered more expendable than DNA. (Creation-Evolution Headlines - Feb. 2003) Proteins have also been shown to have a "Cruise Control" mechanism, which works to "self-correct" the integrity of the protein structure from any random mutations imposed on them. Proteins with cruise control provide new perspective: "A mathematical analysis of the experiments showed that the proteins themselves acted to correct any imbalance imposed on them through artificial mutations and restored the chain to working order." http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S22/60/95O56/ Cruise Control?,, The equations of calculus involved in achieving even a simple process control loop, such as a dynamic cruise control loop, are very complex. This fact gives us clear evidence that far more functional information resides in individual proteins than meets the eye. In fact it seems readily apparent to me that highly advanced algorithmic information must reside in each individual amino acid used in a protein in order to achieve such control. For a sample of the equations that must be dealt with, to "engineer" even a simple process control loop, for a single protein, please see this following site: PID controller A proportional–integral–derivative controller (PID controller) is a generic control loop feedback mechanism (controller) widely used in industrial control systems. A PID controller attempts to correct the error between a measured process variable and a desired setpoint by calculating and then outputting a corrective action that can adjust the process accordingly and rapidly, to keep the error minimal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller It is in realizing the staggering level of engineering that must be dealt with to achieve "cruise control", for each individual protein, that it becomes apparent even Axe's 1 in 10^77 estimate for finding specific functional proteins within sequence space, may be far to generous. The Ribosome: Perfectionist Protein-maker Trashes Errors Excerpt: The enzyme machine that translates a cell's DNA code into the proteins of life is nothing if not an editorial perfectionist...the ribosome exerts far tighter quality control than anyone ever suspected over its precious protein products... To their further surprise, the ribosome lets go of error-laden proteins 10,000 times faster than it would normally release error-free proteins, a rate of destruction that Green says is "shocking" and reveals just how much of a stickler the ribosome is about high-fidelity protein synthesis. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090107134529.htm this stunning level of interwoven complexity, which we have barely begun to elucidate, and which prevents any change in foundational structure of the organism in the first place (i.e. very bad news for evolution Dave)bornagain77_{November 17, 2009
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Also Dave @48,
DNA repeoir mechanisms merely take care of physical damage to the molecule, such as thymine dimers, breakage, etc. They do not correct other kinds of mutations that might affect the amino acid sequences of proteins.
You're right, the RNA embedded within ribosomes is responsible for eliminating errors in protein transcripts, while this may not technically be considered a repair mechanism (as it behaves more like a code compiler), it still utilizes stored information for what is "correct" in amino acid chains and selects for only that unless the ability to carry out this error-checking behavior becomes corrupted.PaulN_{November 17, 2009
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Once again, my comments have not emerged from moderation, despite my having posted them over six hours ago. How can anyone expect me to make timely responses to comments if I make them in a timely fashion, only to have them linger in moderation for a half a day or more? If your response is that I must be moderated to prevent me from making ad hominem arguments, why are bornagain77 (re: the opening paragraph of https://uncommondescent.com/neuroscience/coffee-neuroscience-do-you-really-need-a-refrigerator-when-you-have-this/#comment-340166 ) and frost122585 (re: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/is-a-modern-myth-of-the-metals-the-answer/#comment-339602 )exempt from this same standard? I'm not asking for special treatment, I'm only asking for some modicum of fairness. What, precisely, are the moderators here afraid of, that critics of ID are moderated to the point of near irrelevancy, but ID supporters are allowed to use ad hominem arguments, insults, personal attacks, and ridicule with impunity?Allen_MacNeill_{November 17, 2009
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Dave,
Can you pelase explain to me how a mutation that results in a change that increases fitness (i.e., is selected for), can be deleterious in the same sense as one that results in decreased fitness (i.e. selected against)?
Forgive me, I just assumed it was understood that the fitness-increasing mutations I referred to were not deleterious in the same sense as one that results in them being selected against. Such is the example of the broken genetic switch that was selected for in Lenski's E. Coli experiment. The mutation that allowed the bacteria to digest citrate involved a broken gene becoming fixed into the population. If you were to break more and more genes in order to gain necessary survival benefits, it would inevitably lead to an entirely broken genome, a.k.a. error catastrophe. This is the case where phenotypic selection is made at the cost of genotypic integrity. Nakashima,
But your description of “intelligently coded” intrigues me. What is intelligent about giving a nocturnal animal a non-working gene for color vision?
Perhaps the creature was originally intended to have color vision, and has since lost this capability to genetic deterioration.PaulN_{November 17, 2009
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Mark Frank (#19, 21) Thank you for your posts. You are quite right when you point out that Batthyany "is not arguing there is evidence for free will, just that current evidence against it is misplaced." However, that is enough for my purposes. Free will is on the table again. It is a scientifically tenable position. I see that you are a Dennett fan. You might like to have a look at Dennett Denied: A Critique of Dennett's Evolutionary Account of Intentionality by Professor Angus Menuge. It's a very fair-minded critique. Menuge describes the sophisticated naturalistic account of intentionality which Dennett has developed, according to which our intentionality is derived from that of our genes, which have been shaped by the winnowing process of natural selection. In his essay, Professor Menuge identifies four problems with Dennett's account, and then presents positive grounds for saying that intentionality is a real but non-naturalistic quality, which is best explained by positing an Intelligent Designer of nature. You find fault with Libet, Soon, Batthany, and O’Hanlon, on the grounds that "[a]ll them seem to assume that free will and conscious causation are incompatible with determinism." Good for them, I say. For me, the knockdown argument against determinism was best formulated by G. E. M Anscombe in her Inaugural Lecture as Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge University in 1971, entitled "Causality and Determination":
Ever since Kant it has been a familiar claim among philosophers, that one can believe in both physical determinism and 'ethical' freedom. The reconciliations have always seemed to me to be either so much gobbledegook, or to make the alleged freedom of action quite unreal. My actions are mostly physical movements; if these physical movements are physically predetermined by processes which I do not control, then my freedom is perfectly illusory. The truth of physical indeterminism is then indispensable if we are to make anything of the claim to freedom. But certainly it is insufficient. The physically undetermined is not thereby 'free'. For freedom at least involves the power of acting according to an idea, and no such thing is ascribed to whatever is the subject (what would be the relevant subject?) of unpredetermination in indeterministic physics. (p.26)
I rest my case. I was surprised to read your statement (#21) that Bob Doyle is a materialist. That was news to me - but now I can see you are right. Looking at his Information Philosopher site, it seems he has added quite a bit since I last looked at his Web page (for instance, see here for an older version). Looking at the latest expanded version of his Cogito Model, I have to say that I mis-interpreted his views, and I'm rather annoyed with myself for having done that. That was careless of me. I think my misunderstanding arose partly because Doyle's position was in some ways very close to my own, partly because he used terminology that I would endorse myself (albeit in a different sense, as I will show below), and partly because he made a point of disavowing determinism, upholding indeterminism, championing Aristotle, admiring Aquinas and upholding libertarian free will (as I do). Still, he's no Aristotelian, and certainly no Thomist. Indeed, he isn't even a bona fide indeterminist. There are passages on Doyle's current Web site (see for instance paragraphs 3 and 4 of his page on Libertarianism ) where he appears to suggest that our character and our values determine our actions. This is of course absurd: if I could never act out of character, then I could not be said to have a character. I would be a machine. Mischievously, in his Web page on Libertarianism , Doyle conflates the incoherent view that "an agent's decisions are not connected in any way with character and other personal properties" (which is surely absurd) with the entirely distinct view that "one's actions are not determined by anything prior to a decision, including one's character and values, and one's feelings and desires" (emphases mine). Now, I have no problem with the idea that my bodily actions are determined by my will, which is guided by my reason. However, character, values, feelings and desires are not what makes an action free - especially as Doyle has made clear in his Cogito Model that he envisages all these as being ultimately determined by non-rational, physicalistic causes:
Macro Mind is a macroscopic structure so large that quantum effects are negligible. It is the critical apparatus that makes decisions based on our character and values. Information about our character and values is probably stored in the same noise-susceptible neural circuits of our brain... The Macro Mind has very likely evolved to add enough redundancy, perhaps even error detection and correction, to reduce the noise to levels required for an adequate determinism. The Macro Mind corresponds to natural selection by highly determined organisms.
There is a more radical problem with Doyle's model, which I now recognize, as he has spelt out his views more fully: he acknowledges the reality of downward causation, but because he is a materialist, he fails to give a proper account of downward causation. He seems to construe it in terms of different levels of organization in the brain: Macro Mind ("a macroscopic structure so large that quantum effects are negligible.... the critical apparatus that makes decisions based on our character and values") and Micro Mind ("a random generator of frequently outlandish and absurd possibilities") - the latter being susceptible to random quantum fluctuations, from which the former makes a rational selection. Doyle goes on to say:
Our decisions are then in principle predictable, given knowledge of all our past actions and given the randomly generated possibilities in the instant before decision. However, only we know the contents of our minds, and they exist only within our minds. Thus we can feel fully responsible for our choices, morally and legally.
Hmmm. Having read that, I am inclined to agree with you that Doyle is a sort of compatibilist, even though he himself denies this, as you correctly point out. All right. So how do I envisage freedom? I'd like to go back to a remark by Karl Popper, in his address entitled, Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind, delivered at Darwin College, Cambridge, November 8, 1977. Let me say at the outset that I disagree with much of what Popper says. However, I think he articulated a profound insight when he said:
A choice process may be a selection process, and the selection may be from some repertoire of random events, without being random in its turn. This seems to me to offer a promising solution to one of our most vexing problems, and one by downward causation.
Let's get back to the problem of downward causation. How does it take place? The eminent neurophysiologist and Nobel prizer winner, Sir John Eccles, openly advocated a "ghost in the machine" model in his book Facing Reality, 1970 (pp. 118-129). He envisaged that the "ghost" operates on neurones that are momentarily poised close to a threshold level of excitability. That's not how I picture it. Reasoning and choosing are indeed immaterial processes: they are actions that involve abstract, formal concepts. (By the way, computers don't perform formal operations; they are simply man-made material devices that are designed to mimic these operations. A computer is no more capable of addition than a cash register, an abacus or a Rube Goldberg machine.) Reasoning is an immaterial activity. This means that reasoning doesn't happen anywhere - certainly not in some spooky soul hovering 10 centimeters above my head. It has no location. Ditto for choice. However, choices have to be somehow realized on a physical level, otherwise they would have no impact on the world. The soul doesn't push neurons, as Eccles appears to think; instead, it selects from one of a large number of quantum possibilities thrown up at some micro level of the brain (Doyle's micro mind). This doesn't violate quantum randomness, because a selection can be non-random at the macro level but random at the micro level. 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 The above two rows were created by a random number generator. Now suppose I impose the macro requirement: keep the columns whose sum equals 1, and discard the rest. I now have: 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 Each row is still random, but I have imposed a non-random macro-level constraint. That's how my will works when I make a choice. For me, a human being is not two things - a soul and a body - but one being, capable of two radically different kinds of acts - material acts (which other animals are also capable of) and formal, immaterial actions, such as acts of choice and deliberation. In practical situations, immaterial acts of choice are realized as a selection from one of a large number of randomly generated possible pathways. This selection may indeed reflect the agent's character, values and desires (as Doyle proposes) - but then again, it may not. We can and do act out of character, and we sometimes act irrationally. Our free will is not bound to act according to reason, and sometimes we act contrary to it (akrasia being a case in point). So as you can see, I agree with a lot of what Doyle has to say, with this difference: I do not see our minds as having been formed by the process of natural selection. As thinking is an immaterial activity, any physicalistic account of its origin is impossible in principle.vjtorley_{November 17, 2009
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Mr PaulN, No, it certainly is not the only explanation, just as fossils can be explained by natural actions or the actions of the FSM. But your description of "intelligently coded" intrigues me. What is intelligent about giving a nocturnal animal a non-working gene for color vision?Nakashima_{November 17, 2009
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Nakashima,
It generates an explanation of why that DNA is located in that place and time on the planet.
I'll give you that it does provide an explanation for that particular phenomena, but not the only explanation of that particular phenomena. You say that the DNA was a result of necessary conformity to an environment, we say that it was more likely that DNA was intelligently coded with the initial conditions of the environment in mind.PaulN_{November 17, 2009
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Paul, another thing. I don't understand this sentence:
Within the claim of GE is that all or most mutations are deleterious in nature, even those that provide saltational changes that can be selected for or against
Can you pelase explain to me how a mutation that results in a change that increases fitness (i.e., is selected for), can be deleterious in the same sense as one that results in decreased fitness (i.e. selected against)?Dave Wisker_{November 17, 2009
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Hi PualN, Within the claim of GE is that all or most mutations are deleterious in nature, even those that provide saltational changes that can be selected for or against. Embedded within eukaryotic single and mult-cellular organisms are repair mechanisms that can easily be attributed to the stasis claim that you’re trying to support. Could you point out DNA or RNA transcript repair mechanisms which correct mutations such as amino acid substitutions? DNA repeoir mechanisms merely take care of physical damage to the molecule, such as thymine dimers, breakage, etc. They do not correct other kinds of mutations that might affect the amino acid sequences of proteins. Other error-correction mechanisms handle transcript splicing problems, premature stop-codons, and the like, but they do not repair the kinds of mutations that affect protein activity levels, for example. So I fail to see the significance that these repair mechanisms have to your point.Dave Wisker_{November 17, 2009
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Mr PaulN, With all due respect, but would you not hold Darwin’s Theory of Evolution (initial caps) to the same standard? I would indeed. ToE has been challenged and forced to recreate itself during its history - the Modern Synthesis is an example. ToE does not explain the trajectory of a species such as humanity that uses significant non-heritable pathways to survival - individual learning and cultural transmission. It has other edge cases as well, OOL, prions, tranmissable cancer cells etc. But for most of the biomass of the planet that we currently know about, that uses DNA and cells, ToE works. It generates an explanation of why that DNA is located in that place and time on the planet.Nakashima_{November 17, 2009
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I'm sorry Dave, but in light of what I have outlined, I still have yet to see how your example falsifies the primary points of contention within GE. Within the claim of GE is that all or most mutations are deleterious in nature, even those that provide saltational changes that can be selected for or against. Embedded within eukaryotic single and mult-cellular organisms are repair mechanisms that can easily be attributed to the stasis claim that you're trying to support. Now repair mechanisms in and of themselves require that information pertaining to a "correct" state must be stored and called upon when repairs are needed. For this reason I cannot see how the basic claim of stasis supports your position without first a Darwinian explanation for these repair systems. Storing information for the "correct" state, as well as the instructions to execute each specific repair situationally isn't such an easy hurdle for stochastic processes when you realize the multi-dimensional specificity recently discovered to be embedded within DNA structure. It's important to note that without the specificity for carrying out such repairs, the cell could just as easily break itself while attempting to fix whatever needs fixing. It's also important to note that without such repair mechanisms in the first place, Sanford's claims of GE would be observed to a spectacular extent, which also begs the question of how organisms were able to evolve successfully before these mechanisms existed, of course assuming that Darwinian processes are even capable of producing them in the first place.PaulN_{November 17, 2009
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Dave you are making up your own rules. The primary precept of GE is that the functional information cannot increase above that which is originally created in the genome by God i.e. the genome is optimal. This is the line I am seeking for you to violate with empirics. Do not confuse Genetic Entropy with physical Entropy as you are clearly trying to do. What is funny Dave, is that here you are trying desperately to sell me on this jerry rigged test to save Darwinism, when in fact if Darwinism were true you should have literally flooded me with example after example after example,,, But what do I get,,, an experiment that had to purposely suppress the genome of a "primitive" organism, just so in order the recover a level of data that was already present before in the kind. Think about Dave you are the one claiming that bacteria can turn into all the diversity of life we see around us,, but here you are stymied by a paltry requirement for 140 Functional bits of information. You should seriously consider becoming a used car salesman if this is what your students are buying from you!!!bornagain77_{November 17, 2009
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born, Your approach reminds me of Qaddafi in the Gulf of Sidra, drawing his infamous 'line of death". GE states that populations with heavy deleterious mutational loads can only suffer fitness decline. That has now been falsified. Not only that, the fitness in several lines recovered fully as compared to the ancestral line. Your demanding a fitness increase above the ancestral line is an irrelevant distraction. GE doesn't require that the fitness level must increase over and above the ancestral line. That's just you stepping back, finding yourself in a corner, and desperately looking for irrelevancies with which to draw yet another line to cross.Dave Wisker_{November 17, 2009
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Basically what I'm saying is that there are more observations that need to be made, and more questions that need to be answered before one can conclude that such experiments falsify the primary claims yet to be contended in GE.PaulN_{November 17, 2009
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Dave, please show an increase above original parent kind of 140 functional bits to falsify Genetic Entropy. If you have to falsify Genetic Entropy by artificially imposing mutations on the parent kind and then recovering what was already present before, you have clearly just demonstrated a higher level of algorithmic information that is inherent in the genome which quickly performed "data recovery", which only further solidifies the case for ID. You know this of course, because you can't be that dense, but I feel you cannot bear the thought that you are completely and utterly wrong in what you have been taught all these years. Or maybe it is worse than what I feel, and you truly do believe you are rigorous in your science, if so then there is nothing for me to do to correct you.bornagain77_{November 17, 2009
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Yes, but are you guys willing to recognize the challenges that long-term stasis provide for Darwinian claims as well? The one flaw I see in both examples provided is that there is nothing that purposely drives toward or demonstrates a possible mutational threshold, that once crossed, results in error catastrophe. For what it's worth, there is such an observable threshold in most organisms as far as mutational tolerance that is not reached in these experiments. If they were to continue going on for longer, how many new/novel features would mutations be able to provide without breaking it? Such mutations would not only have to provide new features, but also increase the mutational tolerance capacity of the population. What needs to be explained is how can stasis, or even minute leaps in fitness after 40,000 generations eventually add up to something completely novel without breaking said mutational threshold. In the case of the Lenski experiment, it was a genetic switch that actually malfunctioned in order for the experiment to succeed. This brings up yet another question, is it even possible for an accumulation of new features to develop without consequently fixing imminent catastrophe into a population. If the experiment in question succeeded by breaking a switch, how many more broken genetic switches could the population handle?PaulN_{November 17, 2009
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But you see Dave, the original created kind of C elegans had even higher mean fitness. Prove me wrong. Besides, the experiment was intelligently designed. jitsak_{November 17, 2009
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Mr Nakashima,
To reiterate slightly, Genetic Entropy can be invalidated as a claim about all population trajectories by demonstrating mediocrity, just avoiding deterioration. Even Lenski’s 40,000 generations of bacteria probably do that.
So does this, for the eukaryote C. elegans: Estes S & Lynch M (2003). Rapid Fitness Recovery in Mutationally Degraded Lines of Caenorhabditis elegans. Evolution 57(5): 1022-1023 Lines of this nematode were given enormous mutational loads, and the populations tested for fitness over time. From the abstract:
prolonged genetic bottlenecks via beneficial or compensatory mutation accumulation has not previously been tested. To address this question, long-term mutation-accumulation lines of the nematode Caerlorhabditis elegans previously propagated as single individuals each generation, were maintained in large population sizes under competitive conditions. Fitness assays of these lines and comparison to parallel mutation-accumulation lines and the ancestral control show that.while the process of fitness restoration was incomplete for some lines. full recovery of mean fitness was achieved in fewer than 80 generations.
Dave Wisker_{November 17, 2009
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Nakashima,
The issue is not to falsify Genetic Entropy, it is to find its place in a description of reality – does it describe an inevitability for all life or does it describe what can happen to small populations of bacteria.
With all due respect, but would you not hold Darwin's Theory of Evolution (initial caps) to the same standard? It seems that when GE goes beyond the line of empirical observation and into theoretical extrapolation you see a problem with it. Yet when DToE breaks the same threshold you're willing to cut it some slack within the conveniently shaped crevices found in your philosophical predisposition. The main difference being that at least the extrapolation from GE is drawn from a trend that is empirically observed in reality through experimentation, whereas the extrapolation for DToE is counter-intuitive to such data.PaulN_{November 17, 2009
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Mr PaulN, To reiterate slightly, Genetic Entropy can be invalidated as a claim about all population trajectories by demonstrating mediocrity, just avoiding deterioration. Even Lenski's 40,000 generations of bacteria probably do that.Nakashima_{November 17, 2009
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