One of the many fundamental errors of nominalism is to confuse labels with logic of being substance. To clarify the matter, let us ponder: As was noted in the ongoing defending thread: KF, 839: As a start point for rethinking, please, show us a nine sided hexagon. (What, you can’t, isn’t the term hexagon just a word we can apply as we please, rewriting the dictionary at will, there is no such thing as a nature so there is no difference. So, on such radical nominalism, there is no difference between truth and error, truthfulness and willful deceit, justice and injustice, male and female, knowledge and myth, indoctrination and education, acquitting the innocent and knowingly condemning such, sound policing and Read More ›

In today’s Nature, we find this article: “Synonymous mutations in representative yeast genes are mostly strongly non-neutral.” They investigated what effect “synonymous, nonsynonymous and nonsense” mutations involving “21 endogenous genes” would have on yeast. The fitness levels of synonymous and nonsynonymous fell in equal (though not ‘identical’) measure–around 75%. I don’t have access to the article itself, only the abstract. The abstract begins thusly: Synonymous mutations in protein-coding genes do not alter protein sequences and are thus generally presumed to be neutral or nearly neutral[1,2,3,4,5] 1 through 5 are citations. Who are they: Kimura, King and Jukes, Nei and Kumar, Li and Dan Graur. The heavyweights of neutral theory. The abstract ends: The strong non-neutrality of most synonymous mutations, if Read More ›

Takehome: Curiously, we humans often invent things by design for a purpose and yet, when we find the same things in nature, some conclude that there is no design or purpose in nature…