tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post3326236181139309057..comments2024-01-23T02:32:28.567-08:00Comments on Darwin's God: Response to Comments: Does Natural Selection Help?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-5857166312862180122011-06-24T09:52:51.140-07:002011-06-24T09:52:51.140-07:00From the original post: We now know, no thanks to ...From the original post: <b>We now know, no thanks to evolution, that biological variation very much is not random with respect to need.</b><br /><br />I thought the creationist line was that Mutations Are Nearly Always Harmful. But you didn't merely say that mutation is sometimes nonrandom but that it basically <i>always</i> is. So which is it?<br /><br />Also, "No thanks to evolution" suggests that the relevant observations were made from a non-evolutionary frame of mind, perhaps by creation scientists — not merely that they contradict prior assumptions. Do you have evidence for this?Lenoxushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10809085020841868387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-49509836706015493982011-06-24T05:07:31.151-07:002011-06-24T05:07:31.151-07:00Steve said:Finch beaks dont get larger, by um a co...<i><b>Steve said:</b>Finch beaks dont get larger, by um a coin toss. Cecal valves in lizards don't come about by um a coin toss.<br /><br />The day you admit design and intelligence in nature is the day you breakout into the real world; the day you affirm your own capabilities as embedded in that same nature finch beaks and cecal valves exist.<br /><br />Hope to see you there. Soon.<br /></i><br /><br />What I was discussing was Cornelius Hunter's embrace of the creationist use of the monkeys-on-typewriters analogy. It is a deeply misleading analogy that conveniently leaves out natural selection. Cornelius was trying to impress people with how improbable the sequence of events involved in evolution was. I was pointing out that just tossing coins you can get extremely improbable outcomes -- and do it every time.<br /><br />"Steve" seems to have missed the whole point. <br /><br />As to whether I should "admit design and intelligence in nature" -- well, I have spent a lot of effort reading William Dembski's arguments that there is evidence for design. They really aren't arguments for design, they are arguments that there is evidence <i>against</i> natural selection being able to explain adaptation. In my article on Dembski's arguments (which Steve can find by using "Dembski Felsenstein" in a search engine) I pointed out a major logical flaw in Dembski's argument -- that he changes the specification in midstream, when one needs to keep it the same.<br /><br />Perhaps "Steve" will tell us why I was wrong in that central point, as "Steve" thinks he has a good understanding of all this.Joe Felsensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359126552631140000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-76178665095554414532011-06-16T08:15:33.171-07:002011-06-16T08:15:33.171-07:00Neal Tedford said...
UH evolutionary biologis...<i>Neal Tedford said...<br /><br /> UH evolutionary biologist Timothy Cooper having worked five years on this project was quoted in ScienceDaily:<br /><br /> "These results point us toward expecting to see the rate of a population's fitness declining over time even with the continual addition of new beneficial mutations," he said. "As we sometimes see in sports, a group of individual stars doesn't necessarily make a great team."</i><br /><br />This is absolutely hilarious! The IDiots over at UncommonlyDense picked up this story and ran with it, with dozens of them making the same stupid claim as Tedford:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/recent-papers-confirm-that-genetic-entropy-decreases-fitness/" rel="nofollow">Recent papers confirm that genetic entropy decreases fitness</a><br /><br />The few pro-science folks at UD tried to correct them but were hooted down, called stupid, evidence-deniers, etc. One of them emailed the author of the paper, Tim Cooper, who responded directly at UD<br /><br /><b>Tim Cooper, post#189: "I want to respond to the specific point raised in the initial post that our work supports a view that the fitness of the population that we studied will decline over time.<br /><br />It doesn’t.<br /><br />Our work describes evidence that the rate of fitness *increase* will decline over time. That is, the rate of fitness improvement slows, but does not become negative.<br /><br />For anyone interested, a link to the actual article is now live on my lab website: web.mac.com/tim_f_cooper/Cooper_lab/Publications.html"</b><br /><br />Of course not one of the IDiots has offered an apology or retraction. All that has happened is Denise O'Dreary has posted a dozen new topics to push the embarrassment to the back pages.Ghostriderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04686873801972423841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-45978969669209682822011-06-15T03:57:58.805-07:002011-06-15T03:57:58.805-07:00Steve says:"Finch beaks dont get larger, by u...Steve says:<i>"Finch beaks dont get larger, by um a coin toss. Cecal valves in lizards don't come about by um a coin toss.<br /><br />The day you admit design and intelligence in nature is the day you breakout into the real world</i>"<br /><br />I assume this is a poe. Well, I hope it is anyway.Paul McBridehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09953009288824698018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-4611718035899688322011-06-14T20:15:35.608-07:002011-06-14T20:15:35.608-07:00So Joe likens life to gambling. Wa, biology is a ...So Joe likens life to gambling. Wa, biology is a cinch.<br /><br />Er, who are u kidding, Joe? Your years of professional experience is having a negative effect on your logical abilities.<br /><br />Finch beaks dont get larger, by um a coin toss. Cecal valves in lizards don't come about by um a coin toss.<br /><br />The day you admit design and intelligence in nature is the day you breakout into the real world; the day you affirm your own capabilities as embedded in that same nature finch beaks and cecal valves exist.<br /><br />Hope to see you there. Soon.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Joe: "Just take a coin and toss it 100 times. The resulting sequence of Heads and Tails has a probability of only 1 part in the 100th power of 2. Which is about 1 part in 10-to-the-30th. Wow, that is really improbable. Yet you can do it every time! I guess that shows that people who toss coins are making unreasonable"Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15246115342112568778noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-2478990815111759312011-06-12T21:53:29.321-07:002011-06-12T21:53:29.321-07:00Paul said...
Interesting. CH never turns up f...<i>Paul said...<br /><br /> Interesting. CH never turns up for a discussion in the comments of his own blog anymore.</i><br /><br />Cornelius has been just mailing it in for almost half a year now. There are only so many ways to type the same BS, and he's done it so much even he doesn't have the stomach for it anymore.<br /><br /><i>Just maybe - a frank discussion with Joe Felsenstein (who was downgraded from an 'evolution' in one post, to a mere 'evolutionist' in another) is an intimidating prospect.</i><br /><br />There are any number of technically competent posters here who can expose Cornelius' disingenuous claims and hypocrisy. He knows it too, which is why he refuses to engage any of them. It takes much less effort (and spine) to toss rocks from the sidelines and run than to get in the game.Ghostriderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04686873801972423841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-1302312276775970032011-06-12T21:10:19.176-07:002011-06-12T21:10:19.176-07:00Interesting. CH never turns up for a discussion in...Interesting. CH never turns up for a discussion in the comments of his own blog anymore.<br /><br />Just maybe - a frank discussion with Joe Felsenstein (who was downgraded from an 'evolution' in one post, to a mere 'evolutionist' in another) is an intimidating prospect.Paul McBridehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09953009288824698018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-67863913663062886212011-06-11T07:22:35.578-07:002011-06-11T07:22:35.578-07:00I just reread my comment and see I just misattribu...I just reread my comment and see I just misattributed to CH the thought that the creationist debaters are "inaccurate". I apologize for this blatant misquotation. CH was describing only <i>evolutionists</i> as lacking accuracy. He did not actually say that the creationist debaters are inaccurate. He said as little as possible about them. Even though they are much, much worse than inaccurate ...<br /><br />My original complaint was about CH embracing the analogy of evolution to monkeys with typewriters. Was he wrong? Reading the responses by CH one can see he is admitting he was wrong. <i>Very</i> quietly.Joe Felsensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359126552631140000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-41936342516463612802011-06-11T07:12:33.338-07:002011-06-11T07:12:33.338-07:00Sorry, I was busy grading courses and missed this ...Sorry, I was busy grading courses and missed this thread. CH, finally responding to "an evolutionist" (actually to me, who he has anonymized)<br /><br /><i><b>CH:</b>For example, an evolutionist recently asked this question:<br /><br /><b>me:</b>Let’s have CH clarify: when creationist debaters try to convince people that modern evolutionary theory is a theory of adaptation by pure random mutation, are they misleading their audiences? Is that a problem for CH?<br /><br /><b>CH:</b>The professor’s concern is that these creationists do not tell their audiences about natural selection and its role in evolutionary theory. Sure, if we want to describe evolution we need to include natural selection. But in that case we need to describe it accurately. We need to explain its limitations. And we need to explain evolution’s unlikely assumptions about the nature of biology and life. If evolutionists are concerned about self-serving, scientifically faulty descriptions of their theory, then perhaps they should look closer to home.<br /></i><br /><br />OK, so CH finally, just barely, admits that creationist debaters who describe evolution as a process of random mutation, and fail to inform their audiences of natural selection's role, are "inaccurate". <b>They are more than inaccurate, they are either massively ignorant or deliberately misleading their audiences.</b><br /><br />The rest of CH's post is a lot of verbiage about how unlikely the particular sequence of mutations in evolution is. Yup. True. But I can show you how to -- regularly and repeatably -- get a sequence of events that is extremely improbable. Every time. Just take a coin and toss it 100 times. The resulting sequence of Heads and Tails has a probability of only 1 part in the 100th power of 2. Which is about 1 part in 10-to-the-30th. Wow, that is really improbable. Yet you can do it every time! I guess that shows that people who toss coins are making unreasonable assumptions ...Joe Felsensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359126552631140000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-25603983546474316072011-06-10T20:03:38.067-07:002011-06-10T20:03:38.067-07:00"Oh yeah? Then why are there still monkeys?&q..."Oh yeah? Then why are there still monkeys?"Venture Freehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17667967894208257738noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-9725503930671004152011-06-10T14:57:53.476-07:002011-06-10T14:57:53.476-07:00Derick: "What scientist has ever said or impl...Derick: "<i>What scientist has ever said or implied that there aren't limits to adaptation? </i>"<br /><br />In the past, while no one would have actually said the phrase 'There are no limitations to adaptation', there were those whose research approach implied that was the case.<br /><br />Around the 1950s, there was a trend for many evolutionary biologists to emphasise selection ahead of all else, which meant that they applied the selection as a mechansism which could 'solve' all issues in biology(this was noted by Gould as a 'hardening' of the modern synthesis, which had previously been quite pluralistic). <br /><br />But - by the 1970s, however, these ideas were increasingly questioned. Most famously, these ideas were critiqued and ridiculed in equal measure by <a href="http://bacteria.fciencias.unam.mx/Evolucion/Gouldlewontin.pdf" rel="nofollow">Gould and Lewontin (1979)</a>.<br /><br />The 30 years in particular since this landmark paper have seen a substantial shift in the way that biologists approach selection and apparent adaptation.<br /><br />But before this, at the genetic level, the limits of selection were already becoming well understood, and had been since the late 1960s. So molecular biologists had a good 10 year+ start - relevant if we are going to talk here about mutation and fitness peaks.<br /><br />I find it amusing that these creationist types (Neal, Nat), take a few extracts from a literature they are largely ignorant of, and then propose grave problems for evolutionary theory.Paul McBridehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09953009288824698018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-41909591368390853342011-06-10T14:43:10.375-07:002011-06-10T14:43:10.375-07:00Tedford the Idiot said...
natschuster said, &...<i>Tedford the Idiot said...<br /><br /> natschuster said, "But it means that it can only go so far up one fitness peak. If an adaptation requires more mutations then that then it won't happen."<br /><br /> Right, like our side has been saying since the beginning, there are limits to adaption and fitness. As this study has pointed out, it's a process of diminishing returns for those happy mutations. Evolutionists here need to think through the implications rather than engage in empty rhetoric.</i><br /><br />It's a process of diminishing returns <b>in a constant non-changing environment</b> you brain dead idiot, a situation you don't find in the outside real world. The adaptive feedback loop of evolution drives the population to the 'good enough' level, not the 'perfect' level. <br /><br />How many dozens of times do you need that explained to you before it penetrates your fat head?Ghostriderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04686873801972423841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-52925592444044390702011-06-10T13:56:42.592-07:002011-06-10T13:56:42.592-07:00Neal: "Right, like our side has been saying s...Neal: "Right, like our side has been saying since the beginning, there are limits to adaption and fitness."<br /><br />Your stupidity is staggering. What scientist has ever said or implied that there aren't limits to adaptation?Derick Childresshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04957020457782757629noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-17494869900265619382011-06-10T13:52:21.019-07:002011-06-10T13:52:21.019-07:00Neal, did you ever find the names of those theolog...Neal, did you ever find the names of those theologians who had an old-earth interpretation of Genesis prior to 1659?Derick Childresshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04957020457782757629noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-43862151142222897232011-06-10T13:50:27.550-07:002011-06-10T13:50:27.550-07:00natschuster: "But it means that it can only g...natschuster: "But it means that it can only go so far up one fitness peak. If an adaptation requires more mutations then that then it won't happen."<br /><br />Without googling it, define 'fitness peak' in your own words.Derick Childresshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04957020457782757629noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-83451441755947770602011-06-10T13:24:27.222-07:002011-06-10T13:24:27.222-07:00natschuster said, "But it means that it can o...natschuster said, "But it means that it can only go so far up one fitness peak. If an adaptation requires more mutations then that then it won't happen."<br /><br />Right, like our side has been saying since the beginning, there are limits to adaption and fitness. As this study has pointed out, it's a process of diminishing returns for those happy mutations. Evolutionists here need to think through the implications rather than engage in empty rhetoric.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-57407447128397773252011-06-10T11:31:11.865-07:002011-06-10T11:31:11.865-07:00But it means that it can only go so far up one fit...But it means that it can only go so far up one fitness peak. If an adaptation requires more mutations then that then it won't happen.natschusterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13127240463824366637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-6627968533017571342011-06-10T11:24:39.197-07:002011-06-10T11:24:39.197-07:00natschuster: "If the rate of increase in fitn...natschuster: <i>"If the rate of increase in fitness slows with increasing mutations, won't it eventually stop? That means that increasing fitness, and evolution will stop."</i><br /><br />Good. Gosh. Increasing fitness slows when the organism gets near the top of the fitness peak. But the fitness peak moves when the environment changes. Not so in a lab experiment like this one. The environment is intentionally kept constant to be able to study other variables. <br /><br />You are intentionally ignorant. You have no excuse for this. I was a young earth creationist 3 years ago. I didn't even know what a fitness peak was. But guess what? Turns out they hide this kind of information in 'books'. You're responding to written words here, so obviously you're literate on some level. Read. Research. Do others the courtesy of at least having a rudimentary understanding of something before you criticize it.Derick Childresshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04957020457782757629noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-24563477591338857592011-06-10T09:39:57.688-07:002011-06-10T09:39:57.688-07:00If the rate of increase in fitness slows with incr...If the rate of increase in fitness slows with increasing mutations, won't it eventually stop? That means that increasing fitness, and evolution will stop.natschusterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13127240463824366637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-11596792292919723292011-06-09T18:45:01.361-07:002011-06-09T18:45:01.361-07:00CH:"Sure, if we want to describe evolution we...CH:<i>"Sure, if we want to describe evolution we need to include natural selection. But in that case we need to describe it accurately. We need to explain its limitations.</i>"<br /><br />The ignorance continues. I guess it is easier to attack a caricature than the science itself. The only victims are accuracy and fairness.<br /><br />One has to wonder: is Cornelius really unaware of a robust literature spanning at least 40 years on the limitations of natural selection? <br /><br />Or the 100 years of literature discussing the interaction between selection and mutation, showing the centrality of mutation as a driver of evolution? How about the increasing evidence for a role of rare, large-effect mutations, rather than selection, as a source of evolutionary novelty? What about constructive neutral evolution?Paul McBridehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09953009288824698018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-84029061825640018152011-06-09T14:17:30.638-07:002011-06-09T14:17:30.638-07:00LOL! I've seen some dirt-stupid Creationists ...LOL! I've seen some dirt-stupid Creationists in my day but Tedford really takes the prize.Ghostriderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04686873801972423841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-10360632930198305312011-06-09T14:08:33.056-07:002011-06-09T14:08:33.056-07:00Tedford, it's the rate (the fitness increase) ...Tedford, it's the <i>rate</i> (the fitness increase) that's declining, not fitness itself. Fitness is still increasing. Are you really that dense?troyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05136662027396943138noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-56349855332768333672011-06-09T13:36:05.726-07:002011-06-09T13:36:05.726-07:00UH evolutionary biologist Timothy Cooper having wo...UH evolutionary biologist Timothy Cooper having worked five years on this project was quoted in ScienceDaily:<br /> <br />"These results point us toward expecting to see the rate of a population's fitness declining over time even with the continual addition of new beneficial mutations," he said. "As we sometimes see in sports, a group of individual stars doesn't necessarily make a great team."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-59988156268484778192011-06-09T12:26:02.410-07:002011-06-09T12:26:02.410-07:00Derick Childress said...
troy: "Tedford,...<i>Derick Childress said...<br /><br /> troy: "Tedford, do you really think the readers of this blog are too stupid to notice your dishonesty?"<br /><br /> I bet Neal himself is. He's not being dishonest; he's just that inept.</i><br /><br />That is a viable hypothesis. Casey Luskin, the equally inept DI's attack gerbil, had a write up about the papers yesterday at <i>Evolution Snooze and Spews</i> where he made the identical stupid mistake and claimed the papers show overall fitness decreasing.<br /><br />Tedford may just be a brain-dead parrot regurgitating mindlessly the DI propaganda he read.<br /><br />Is that it Tedford? You're just the idiot messenger?Ghostriderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04686873801972423841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-7570028166521262632011-06-09T12:24:36.156-07:002011-06-09T12:24:36.156-07:00Derick:
I bet Neal himself is. He's not being...Derick:<br /><br /><i>I bet Neal himself is. He's not being dishonest; he's just that inept. </i><br /><br />Well, even if Neal is too stupid and/or ignorant to understand the results of the study - and I agree that it's quite likely that he is - it's still dishonest to jump to his conclusion. Having been corrected numerous times by people with far more expertise, Neal should know by now - even if he is quite stupid - that his initial understanding of a scientific study is quite likely to be incorrect.troyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05136662027396943138noreply@blogger.com