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Author Topic:   WTF is wrong with people
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


(1)
Message 256 of 457 (708215)
10-07-2013 9:18 AM
Reply to: Message 253 by Faith
10-07-2013 5:28 AM


Re: How about revisiting the lizards for a bit?
Faith writes:
I believe it may have been PaulK who made that equation somewhere back there, when he was so astonished at the idea that evolution or phenotypic diversity requires a reduction in genetic diversity.
Now you're misstating your own claim. Your claim is not that "phenotypic diversity requires a reduction in genetic diversity." Your claim is that new phenotypic types only emerge after a reduction in genetic diversity
I've said it both ways many times.
Faith, they don't mean the same thing. If you've said it both ways many times then you've been expressing two different and mutually exclusive views. If you're this confused about your own views, how do you expect to understand anything else about evolution?
Incredibly lengthy and detailed denials of error and confusion that only contain more error and confusion are not helping your cause. And they're not worth responding to because instead of clearing up the mistakes they only bring more, and more detailed, denials.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 253 by Faith, posted 10-07-2013 5:28 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 257 by PaulK, posted 10-07-2013 9:51 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 270 by Faith, posted 10-07-2013 6:19 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
PaulK
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Posts: 17815
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.1


(2)
Message 257 of 457 (708216)
10-07-2013 9:51 AM
Reply to: Message 256 by Percy
10-07-2013 9:18 AM


Re: How about revisiting the lizards for a bit?
I think that this is Faith demonstrating that there is something wrong with her again.
If decreasing genetic diversity increased phenotypic diversity the most phenotypically diverse population would be genetically identical. It's so obviously absurd if you think about it that it's hard to see how any sensible person could suggest it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 256 by Percy, posted 10-07-2013 9:18 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 258 of 457 (708223)
10-07-2013 10:48 AM
Reply to: Message 257 by PaulK
10-07-2013 9:51 AM


Re: How about revisiting the lizards for a bit?
If decreasing genetic diversity increased phenotypic diversity the most phenotypically diverse population would be genetically identical.
I think Faith avoids this conclusion by introducing a super genome that could be contained within a few organisms without affecting their phenotypes. She thinks that nowadays new animals are created by doling out pieces of the originally variety to different populations.
Mutation don't affect this because they just don't. Mutations only create filth and trash.
Next step put fingers in ears and sing hymns loudly during any and all rebutals.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 259 of 457 (708226)
10-07-2013 11:22 AM


Information for Faith
One of the good questions Faith raised was whether the evolutionary change experienced by the lizards transported to Pod Mrcaru island was genetically or environmentally driven. This National Geographic article (Lizards Rapidly Evolve After Introduction to Island) from 2008 asks the same question:
National Geographic writes:
What could be debated, however, is how those changes are interpretedwhether or not they had a genetic basis and not a "plastic response to the environment," said Hendry, who was not associated with the study.
Clearly the scientists think it was environment:
The new habitat once had its own healthy population of lizards, which were less aggressive than the new implants, Irschick said.
The new species wiped out the indigenous lizard populations, although how it happened is unknown, he said.
The transplanted lizards adapted to their new environment in ways that expedited their evolution physically, Irschick explained.
Pod Mrcaru, for example, had an abundance of plants for the primarily insect-eating lizards to munch on. Physically, however, the lizards were not built to digest a vegetarian diet.
But just as clearly they haven't proved it.
--Percy

Replies to this message:
 Message 261 by Tangle, posted 10-07-2013 12:51 PM Percy has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 274 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(4)
Message 260 of 457 (708235)
10-07-2013 12:41 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by frako
09-27-2013 11:18 AM


Explaining evolution or global warming or germ theory seems simple as the concepts are simple to grasp. Yet some people just dont seem to be able to grasp such simple concepts. [...] Now can someone explain to me how this and worse can be still going on in the 21 century.
As Faith demonstrates, it's easy to be wrong about the big picture if you're also wrong about all the details.

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Tangle
Member
Posts: 9486
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.6


Message 261 of 457 (708236)
10-07-2013 12:51 PM
Reply to: Message 259 by Percy
10-07-2013 11:22 AM


Re: Information for Faith
Percy writes:
But just as clearly they haven't proved it.
I also don't think that it's proven that mutations caused the changes.
When we looked at this in some detail in the thread below, we couldn't quite nail it - and an alternative and plausible explanation for the changes is gene plasticity.
EvC Forum: How novel features evolve #2
We got further with the mice, but fell at the final hurdle of pinning down all the actual genes involved that had mutated. It seems that it's extremely difficult to do - bacteria are much easier that large, multicellular animals.
This makes no difference to Faith's weird claims of course, but it does feel unsatisfactory from our side of the fence.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 259 by Percy, posted 10-07-2013 11:22 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 262 by Percy, posted 10-07-2013 1:46 PM Tangle has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 262 of 457 (708238)
10-07-2013 1:46 PM
Reply to: Message 261 by Tangle
10-07-2013 12:51 PM


Re: Information for Faith
Tangle writes:
I also don't think that it's proven that mutations caused the changes.
Given the short time period, wouldn't a significant role for mutations be unexpected?
When we looked at this in some detail in the thread below, we couldn't quite nail it - and an alternative and plausible explanation for the changes is gene plasticity.
Right, and the National Geographic article seemed to indicate that the scientists were leaning the same way. Gene plasticity measures a genome's responsiveness to environmental changes. Faith is correct when she guesses that the individual lizards chosen for the founder population will have an influence on what happens during subsequent adaptation to the different environment of the new island, but her dismissal of the role of environment and natural selection is just bizarre.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Typo.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 261 by Tangle, posted 10-07-2013 12:51 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 263 by Tangle, posted 10-07-2013 2:48 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 264 by Faith, posted 10-07-2013 4:41 PM Percy has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9486
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.6


Message 263 of 457 (708246)
10-07-2013 2:48 PM
Reply to: Message 262 by Percy
10-07-2013 1:46 PM


Re: Information for Faith
Given the short time period, wouldn't a significant role for mutations be unexpected?
Exactly. In fact, I'd say it would be very suspicious if we DID find such large changes to the digestive tract so quickly. A change from a carnivorous diet to vegetarian is not trivial.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1434 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 264 of 457 (708254)
10-07-2013 4:41 PM
Reply to: Message 262 by Percy
10-07-2013 1:46 PM


Environment-driven evolution
Right, and the National Geographic article seemed to indicate that the scientists were leaning the same way. Gene plasticity measures a genome's responsiveness to environmental changes. Faith is correct when she guesses that the individual lizards chosen for the founder population will have an influence on what happens during subsequent adaptation to the different environment of the new island, but her dismissal of the role of environment and natural selection is just bizarre.
Thanks for the acknowledgment that sometimes I get something right.
1) "Gene plasticity" sounds something like a throwback to Lamarckianism the way you define it. The only way a gene could "respond" to environmental change is by having alleles in the population (mutant or not, ok?) that bring out traits that are useful in that environment, which we would then expect to be selected. But unless it's a drastic sort of selection in which all the maladapted individuals simply die off leaving those with the helpful alleles, that is going to take a lot of time, many generations, so the environmental pressure can't be too severe.
2) I don't recall that the Dawkins video said anything about the environment being appreciably different and therefore the cause of the changes in the lizard, it merely focused on the changes to the lizard that made them capable of eating vegetation. Which makes me wonder if those who wrote the Nat Geog article were perhaps just assuming it. Also, perhaps I misremember the video in many different ways despite listening more than once but I also don't recall that there were already lizards on the new island, I had the impression that there definitely weren't.
Darwin's finches that developed a number of new populations with different capacities to eat different sorts of foods due to different beak design, were all in the same environment, all on the same island, were they not? So there's no reason to think the food itself drove the changes. Seems to me it happened this way: Somehow different populations of them got reproductively isolated from one another and through inbreeding of their particular allele frequencies developed their different beak styles characteristic of each isolated population, which caused them to gravitate to the sorts of foods their beaks were best adapted to. Some beaks being best for catching and eating insects that's what that population did; some being suited to crunching hard nuts that's what those did, and so on.
3) If the environment is pretty much the same as on the first island, and I had no reason to think it wasn't, you are still going to get changes in the lizards because of the small number* of individuals that were transported to the new island. AGAIN this is because of their new allele frequencies which are naturally going to bring out new traits which will become characteristic of the new population over some number of generations of inbreeding. In this case the new traits happened to favor eating vegetation so the later generations ate vegetation. As I mentioned in an earlier post, if another ten lizards had been taken out of the same first population and put on yet another island with the same basic sorts of lizard food you could expect the development of a completely different new set of traits because that subset of lizards would have its own new allele frequencies to play out. The result would be a lizard with new characteristics that may or may not be particularly adapted to the environment in some special way. It might be or it might just be an interesting new variation.
I don't deny the role of environment and natural selection in ALL cases, I just think that in MOST cases it isn't what is bringing about the phenotypic (trait) changes in a new population because all that takes is the new allele frequencies. And again, nothing was said on the video to imply an appreciably changed environment. Also, as I said, it would take much longer, probably much much longer than the 37 years in this case.
------------
* ANY population split will produce a new population with new traits due to new allele frequencies, it doesn't have to be a small population, it's just that in that case the differences will show up sooner as the new frequencies won't take as long to work their way through the entire population and reduced genetic diversity will also more clearly characterize that smaller population. If the two populations are roughly equal then both should show changes from changed allele frequencies but over a much longer period of time.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 262 by Percy, posted 10-07-2013 1:46 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 267 by Percy, posted 10-07-2013 5:31 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1434 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 265 of 457 (708259)
10-07-2013 5:09 PM
Reply to: Message 242 by Percy
10-06-2013 6:33 AM


Re: How about revisiting the lizards for a bit?
Every member of a population is a mutant. There's never a point in time when it can be declared, "This is the genome of species X," and any deviation from that genome is a mutant, because species are constantly evolving.
They are constantly VARYING because of the built-in genetic variability or diversity in the genome of each Species. But to impute all the genetic material to mutation is simply a matter of belief based on the ToE, something you have to believe because you can't prove it. If on the other hand all the genetic material was built in at the Creation THAT is what we'd be seeing behind all the variations in all the different Species, and the mutations that occur wouldn't be expected to contribute anything useful to that.
Given how much life must have changed since its fuzzy beginnings, every allele of every gene in every cell everywhere had its beginning as a mutation.
Again, according to the ToE, a matter of belief required by the ToE. If on the other hand it was all originally built in to the genome of each Species there would still have been great changes because of the originally very great genetic diversity, but changes only in each Species. And since this is ALL we see today there is evidence for this view that you don't have for yours.
What you're describing sounds more like the pool of variation in any genome upon which species can draw, and which was the point of Frako's Dawkins video.
Yes, that's what it's all about, and there is no reason except faith in the ToE to go on to postulate that this pool was originally developed by mutation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 242 by Percy, posted 10-06-2013 6:33 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1434 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 266 of 457 (708260)
10-07-2013 5:15 PM
Reply to: Message 246 by NoNukes
10-06-2013 9:16 AM


Re: How about revisiting the lizards for a bit?
Unlike what Percy says, you have claimed that new phenotypes arise when you get a change in allele frequencies. I have just had a discussion with Percy that teases his disagreement with that proposition.
I didn't intend to be imputing to Percy my own view of these things, I merely used his phrase, which I probably should have left alone if he meant something else by it than I took him to mean.
For example you say in Message 181:
In all these cases you are going to get reduced genetic diversity AND the formation of new phenotypes because of the new allele/gene frequencies,
And at Message 235
And again, you don't NEED mutations to get a new "species" because the new allele frequencies are quite sufficient to accomplish that.
And this
The B is an allele and the b is another allele, both for eye color which is the gene or location on the chromosome. This is the basic idea I have in mind in everything I'm saying. There is no reason to suppose any of it arises by mutation but if it occasionally does the pairings still get expressed in the same way.
Yes, I agree with everything I said there.

This message is a reply to:
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Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 267 of 457 (708262)
10-07-2013 5:31 PM
Reply to: Message 264 by Faith
10-07-2013 4:41 PM


Re: Environment-driven evolution
Faith writes:
1) "Gene plasticity" sounds something like a throwback to Lamarckianism the way you define it.
Gene plasticity is not related to Lamarckism, and I did not define it that way. You can think of it as term closely related to genetic diversity. The greater the pool of variability (genetic diversity) within a genome upon which selection can operate, the greater the gene plasticity.
The only way a gene could "respond" to environmental change is by having alleles in the population (mutant or not, ok?) that bring out traits that are useful in that environment, which we would then expect to be selected. But unless it's a drastic sort of selection in which all the maladapted individuals simply die off leaving those with the helpful alleles, that is going to take a lot of time, many generations, so the environmental pressure can't be too severe.
The best adapted individuals in the founder population contributed the most offspring to the next generation. The best adapted individuals in the next generation contributed the most offspring to the next generation. And so forth for many, many reproductive cycles, since these lizards lay many clutches of eggs every spring. This is from Podarcis siculus siculus - Southern Italian Wall Lizard:
"Females that have bred before lay up to 5 clutches of 2 - 12 eggs (typically 5 or 6) every 12 or so days."
Your next point:
2) I don't recall that the Dawkins video said anything about the environment being appreciably different...
He didn't, but a quick web search brings to light the article Lizards Undergo Rapid Evolution After Introduction To A New Home from 2008:
"According to Irschick, lizards on the barren island of Pod Kopiste were well-suited to catching mobile prey, feasting mainly on insects. Life on Pod Mrcaru, where they had never lived before, offered them an abundant supply of plant foods, including the leaves and stems from native shrubs."
Darwin's finches that developed a number of new populations with different capacities to eat different sorts of foods due to different beak design, were all in the same environment, all on the same island, were they not?
This will have to be the last item I comment on since I have to get going. You should consider looking up things like this before typing. It would have taken all of a minute at Wikipedia to refresh your memory that the Galapagos are a set of islands and that the birds are different from one island to the next. Recent detailed studies of these birds have revealed that they vary not only from island to island, but also year to year depending upon food and water availability.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 264 by Faith, posted 10-07-2013 4:41 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 269 by Faith, posted 10-07-2013 5:41 PM Percy has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1434 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 268 of 457 (708263)
10-07-2013 5:33 PM
Reply to: Message 244 by NoNukes
10-06-2013 8:07 AM


Re: How about revisiting the lizards for a bit?
What I am suggesting is that a comparison of the new species to the old species will show that individuals from the new species are identical to the mutants from the old species.
1. Do you mean a comparison by DNA analysis or what?
2. How would you recognize which individual in the old "species" was a mutant? Especially considering that ALL were originally mutants by ToE reckoning. So what do you mean, RECENT mutants or what? And how would you recognize THOSE out of the whole pool of supposed mutants? You say "THE" mutants as if these would be particularly recognizable. How so?
3. And why would these particular mutants be expected to show up in the new population which originated from presumably randomly chosen individuals?
The appearance will be something like Faith describes, but in reality all of the variation comes from mutation.
Not sure what "appearance" you are referring to that would be something like I've described.
If ALL variation comes from mutation you still have to explain which particular mutants you are expecting to show up in the new population and why as I've said above.
Perhaps you mean only that obviously they DID show up, by chance of course. Then what if NONE of the selected lizards was a mutant of this peculiar sort you have in mind? Are you saying you would not expect a new "species" to develop from them? I would of course, but I wouldn't call it a new species, just a new variety expectable from new allele frequencies, which is typical microevolution.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 244 by NoNukes, posted 10-06-2013 8:07 AM NoNukes has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1434 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 269 of 457 (708264)
10-07-2013 5:41 PM
Reply to: Message 267 by Percy
10-07-2013 5:31 PM


Re: Environment-driven evolution
MORE vegetation isn't going to drive a change in the lizards' ability UNLESS you have something Lamarckian in mind, which of course you don't. A dearth of insects might, but there's no hint that that was the case.
Glad to find out that the lizards reproduce so abundantly and frequently. That of course makes the development of their shared characteristics much more rapid and predictable just from their new allele frequencies.
Sorry about the finches. So what we have then with the finches is the same kind of geographic isolation as developed the new lizards with the big heads. May I assume that the range of food for finches was not appreciably different from island to island or am I required to believe that the nut crunching beaks evolved because of more nuts on that particular island? There is NO reason to assume this has to be the case. Nuts, berries, insects, whatever, could all be present on all the islands in sufficient quantity for any one of the new finches to thrive.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 267 by Percy, posted 10-07-2013 5:31 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 289 by Percy, posted 10-08-2013 3:54 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1434 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 270 of 457 (708266)
10-07-2013 6:19 PM
Reply to: Message 256 by Percy
10-07-2013 9:18 AM


Less genetic diversity, more phenotypes
Faith writes:
I believe it may have been PaulK who made that equation somewhere back there, when he was so astonished at the idea that evolution or phenotypic diversity requires a reduction in genetic diversity.
Now you're misstating your own claim. Your claim is not that "phenotypic diversity requires a reduction in genetic diversity." Your claim is that new phenotypic types only emerge after a reduction in genetic diversity
I've said it both ways many times.
Faith, they don't mean the same thing. If you've said it both ways many times then you've been expressing two different and mutually exclusive views.
Sometimes I get the changes in allele frequencies mixed up with the reduction in genetic diversity. While I believe it should be demonstrable that there is always a trend to reduced genetic diversity in any population split, what brings about the new phenotypes is the change in allele frequencies. So while I don't quite agree that I'm expressing two different and mutually exclusive views, I will say that I'm jumping too far ahead in the argument when I make that claim.
A population split doesn't always create reduced genetic diversity (although it certainly doesn't create an increase, that's for sure), but it does always create new allele frequencies, and that's what brings about new traits in the new population that over generations of inbreeding develop into a characteristic new trait picture for the whole population, that is, a new variety, race, "species," the wild version of a breed.
Reduced genetic diversity comes about from the founding of a new population on a small number of individuals, which is a very common way new varieties form, and in that case it's fair to say that the new phenotypes that develop in the new population REQUIRE that reduced genetic diversity, because competing alleles are greatly reduced or even eliminated.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 256 by Percy, posted 10-07-2013 9:18 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
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