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Author Topic:   Extent of Mutational Capability
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 151 of 279 (793532)
11-01-2016 10:02 AM
Reply to: Message 148 by CRR
11-01-2016 3:51 AM


Seriously? This is basic stuff.
And yet apparently you can't do it.

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 Message 148 by CRR, posted 11-01-2016 3:51 AM CRR has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 152 of 279 (793533)
11-01-2016 10:10 AM


What Is CRR's Argument?
It looks like CRR's argument, if he produced it, would involve playing Texas Sharpshooter with neutral mutations fixed by drift as the retrospectively declared targets, but he's not being very clear about it.

  
Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


Message 153 of 279 (793536)
11-01-2016 10:20 AM
Reply to: Message 143 by NoNukes
10-31-2016 1:13 PM


Because his zombie god Jesu told him so.

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.

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Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


Message 154 of 279 (793537)
11-01-2016 10:22 AM
Reply to: Message 148 by CRR
11-01-2016 3:51 AM


You still haven't presented the math? I stopped following this thread a while ago and you still haven't presented the math?
Do you have the math? Do you understand the math?

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.

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 Message 148 by CRR, posted 11-01-2016 3:51 AM CRR has not replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


(1)
Message 155 of 279 (793541)
11-01-2016 10:57 AM
Reply to: Message 145 by CRR
10-31-2016 9:15 PM


CRR writes:
The Wright brothers intelligently designed the Kitty Hawk. An intelligent design team designed the A380.
A daddy airplane and a mommy airplane do not get together and make baby airplanes. It is this difference between life and airplanes that makes the analogy meaningless.

This message is a reply to:
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 156 of 279 (793543)
11-01-2016 11:22 AM
Reply to: Message 148 by CRR
11-01-2016 3:51 AM


Let's see your math.
Seriously? This is basic stuff. It's why Lenski is using bacteria and not elephants for his experiment.
Yes, show your maths, because you have made a mistake. Or this is your chance to show you haven't ...
Again I refer you to the old improbable probability problem for examples of common creationist probability calculation errors.
Or we can take another approach:
This is a generation evolution cycle:
This is a two-step feedback response system that is repeated in each generation, like walking on first one foot and then the next. It repeats every generation.
Based on evidence observed this occurs in virtually every breeding population in every generation, and we can thus say with high confidence that at least one new mutation survives in at least one individual from one generation to the next. For the purpose of maths we can say that this has a probability of >0.99, so we can use 0.99 and be conservative.
The probability of another new mutation surviving in the following population is also, conservatively speaking, 0.99
The probability of both occurring is not 0.98, because they are separate instances and one does not depend on the other. This is like flipping a coin, each flip has an 0.5 probability of being heads (or tails) and every subsequent flip has the same probability because it does not rely on the results of the first flip.
Now we can do a calculation of, say 10 flips of the coin, where each flip has a 50-50 chance, and then calculate the probability of precisely that pattern being reproduced, but that is irrelevant to the probability of the actual pattern having happened in the first place is 1.0 -- because it happened.
Similarly the probability of all existing life forms having the genetic makeup they have is 1.0 ... they all happened.
It's the difference between the probability that you will win the lottery and the probability that someone will win the lottery.
Enjoy

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)

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Replies to this message:
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 157 of 279 (793544)
11-01-2016 11:32 AM
Reply to: Message 139 by Percy
10-30-2016 9:33 AM


Re: A couple of quick points
God, it's been years since I researched this. Take a look at my opening post in the thread Percy's Alife Project and then at Message 53. This thread reflects ideas I picked up from studying other genetic simulation programs. ...
In any event, these are a small subset of the number of computer programs, and likely were not considered by CRR in his post.
They become a teaching moment when we can say "but look at this program designed to mimic evolution and see the results" but I don't think we are there yet.
Enjoy

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)

This message is a reply to:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 158 of 279 (793554)
11-01-2016 11:08 PM
Reply to: Message 150 by PaulK
11-01-2016 5:52 AM


Sorry, PaulK. I'm using your board as a springboard to address Greg.
Greg, I hope that you have not wandered off and that your intentions are still honest. That you are honestly seeking the truth about creation/evolution.
Oh look, a Creationist is quote-mining. Let's look at the context:
Quote-mining is a major creationist cottage industry. It involves digging through all kinds of scientific sources, including science popularizations (eg, the primary sources for the creationist leap-second claim (my own page on that claim), that less than a million years ago the earth would have been spinning impossibly fast, were quite literally Popular Science and Reader's Digest), in order to find passages to misquote in order to make it appear that scientists actually agree with creationist claims. Of course, any writings by a well-known scientist are prime targets for this treatment. Even without changing a single word in the fragment they quote.
So, you may ask how, if they do not change the actual wording, that would constitute misquoting. Here is an example that you should understand; the following quote is a hypothetical argument I'm just now making up against the existence of God:
quote:
Did you know that even the Bible says that God does not exist? that's true! Right there in the Bible it says, and I quote: "There is no God." That is straight out of the King James Bible, word for word!
And if you open up your KJV Bible to Psalm 14:1, you will indeed see those exact same words. Yet I misquoted that verse. Can you see how and why it is a misquote? A deliberately deceptive misquote? It is because I had lifted it out of context. Here it is within its context:
quote:
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.
The author was not saying what he himself thought or believed, but rather presenting what he imagines the opposing side would say. Ironically, a number of creationist misquotes involve quoting what their author thought the opposing side would say.
Lying through quote-mining is achieved by several techniques. Lifting out of context is one. Sometimes they will hide the context in ellipses (...). I tracked down one misquote which hide several pages in that ellipsis, such that that "one sentence" was spliced together from sentence halves pages apart and talking about different things.
Another technique is to quote the source using scientific terminology and then applying everyday meanings to that quote. Their "scientific quotes" "refuting" the existence of transitional forms make heavy use of that one.
Another technique is to misrepresent what evolution is or entails or says and then quote scientists explicitly disproving that misrepresentation. For example, both you and CRR brought up the mistaken idea about evolution that evolution would require a cat to evolve into a dog (even though a cat would consider that to be a case of de-evolving), so you could then misrepresent any actual biologist stating honestly and truthfully that that is impossible as that biologist speaking against evolution.
The bottom line for approaching any creationist quotation is to go to original source and see what it actually says. For example, one very effective debate strategy against Dr. Duane Gish was to present two transparencies side-by-side on the overhead projector (this was circa 1980). On one side was Gish quoting sources in his books. On the other side was what those sources had actually written. The audience, consisting mostly of creationists, was appalled at Gish's dishonesty.
talkorigins is a newsgroup, an early Internet precursor to Web forums. They created a website to act as an archive site for the newsgroup postings and it grew from there with many articles having been added. The TalkOrigins Archive is a very excellent source of information when investigating creationist claims and the "creation/evolution controversy".
On that site is the Quote Mine Project. I've not read it yet, but it looks like it has a lot of information.

{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)
Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.
(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles)
Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.
("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)
It is a well-known fact that reality has a definite liberal bias.
Steven Colbert on NPR

This message is a reply to:
 Message 150 by PaulK, posted 11-01-2016 5:52 AM PaulK has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(3)
Message 159 of 279 (793555)
11-02-2016 12:03 AM
Reply to: Message 156 by RAZD
11-01-2016 11:22 AM


This is a two-step feedback response system that is repeated in each generation, like walking on first one foot and then the next. It repeats every generation.
Based on evidence observed this occurs in virtually every breeding population in every generation, and we can thus say with high confidence that at least one new mutation survives in at least one individual from one generation to the next. For the purpose of maths we can say that this has a probability of >0.99, so we can use 0.99 and be conservative.
The probability of another new mutation surviving in the following population is also, conservatively speaking, 0.99
The probability of both occurring is not 0.98, because they are separate instances and one does not depend on the other. This is like flipping a coin, each flip has an 0.5 probability of being heads (or tails) and every subsequent flip has the same probability because it does not rely on the results of the first flip.
Good enough start, but I'm afraid it slipped away from you.
Close to three decades ago, I was so skeptical of Dawkins' WEASEL program in his "The Blind Watchmaker" that I wrote my own implementation of it. When it outperformed even his program (mine was in compiled Pascal, whereas his was in interpreted BASIC), I still could not believe it so I analyzed the actual probabilities. Both my program and my analysis of it are at http://cre-ev.dwise1.net/monkey.html. In all that time, the only criticism of my analysis was that my count of iterations was off by one -- ie, an insignificant minor error which does not affect the outcome.
Basically, the probability of approaching the target was very small, but the probability of every single iteration failing was vanishingly small, so arriving at the target in extremely short time became inevitable.
Most probability exercises involve a particular series of independent events all happening in a particular sequence. For example, to get a particular sequence of 100 fair coin tosses (ie, P=0.5, not weighted for tails since the heads side is heavier) the probability is p100 or 7.89-31, AKA very improbable. To express it algebraically:
P = P0 P0 P1 ... Pn
= pn
But that's not what we are talking about. We are talking about a population and about the probability of at least one of them succeeding. What we want to know is the probability of at least one member of the population succeeding. We do not want:
P = PA AND PB AND ... AND Pn
What we do want is:
P = PA OR PB OR ... OR Pn
For that, I borrowed from Boolean Algrebra's de Morgan's Theorem:
C = A AND B is equivalent to NOT(C) = NOT(A) OR NOT(B)
Hence, given Q = 1-P -- i.e., the probability of P being false:
P = PA OR PB OR ... OR Pn
becomes
Q = QA AND QB AND ... AND Qn
So to calculate the probability of failure if all failure probabilities are the same, we get:
Q = = qn
From which we can calculate P = 1 - Q
So, let's assume the probability of a beneficial mutation occurring in an individual as being 1/1000 or 0.001. Let's furthermore assume a population size of 1000.
So, q = 1-0.001 = 0.999
Q = q1000 = 0.367695
P = 1-Q = 0.6323
Pretty good odds, don't you think?
Now let's assume a larger population size, like 10,000, which in the wild shouldn't be too unreasonable:
Q = q10 000 = 4.517-5
P = 1-Q = 0.99995483
Approaching dead certainty, wouldn't you agree? And that's ignoring the fact that you could skip several generations without success. We're actually calculating the probability for success in successive generations, which is much less likely.
Of course, my MONKEY, like Dawkins' WEASEL, does not simulate evolution, but rather it compares two different kinds of selection: single-step selection and cumulative selection. The target is the alphabet in alphabetical order. Single-step selection involves trying to put the alphabet together randomly in one attempt and, when that fails, start all over from scratch. I calculated that in order to have one in a million chance of success, you have to run the program on a supercomputer (performing 1,000,000 attempts per second, hence running 1000 or 10000 times faster than the fastest PC) for many several times the 14-billion-year ago of the universe. Yet both MONKEY and WEASEL succeed within seconds (or within a half-hour in the case of the original WEASEL), every time without fail. By using cumulative selection, which is based on evolution. Single-step selection is based on creation out of nothing, creation ex nihilo.
Even though single-step selection has absolutely nothing to do with how evolution works, creationists continually try to saddle us with that loser of theirs.

{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)
Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.
(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles)
Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.
("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)
It is a well-known fact that reality has a definite liberal bias.
Steven Colbert on NPR

This message is a reply to:
 Message 156 by RAZD, posted 11-01-2016 11:22 AM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
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Pressie
Member
Posts: 2103
From: Pretoria, SA
Joined: 06-18-2010


Message 160 of 279 (793567)
11-02-2016 8:16 AM
Reply to: Message 155 by Taq
11-01-2016 10:57 AM


Taq writes:
A daddy airplane and a mommy airplane do not get together and make baby airplanes. It is this difference between life and airplanes that makes the analogy meaningless.
Apparantly some huge adult airplanes did bump into each other at Tenerive some time ago. Both those planes were intoxicated by fog.
They never produced babies, though. They both just got burnt and hundreds of people lost their lives. Blame the Wright Brothers for that! The Wright brothers were bad, bad, bad for inventing planes... therefore plane travel is false and huge planes can't fly....
Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.
Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 155 by Taq, posted 11-01-2016 10:57 AM Taq has not replied

  
Gregory Rogers
Junior Member (Idle past 2660 days)
Posts: 7
From: South Africa
Joined: 10-15-2016


Message 161 of 279 (793568)
11-02-2016 8:26 AM


Good day,
I would like at this juncture to say a big thank you to all for the untiring and fascinating posts above.
Thank you Taq, for the ‘Hominidae’ chart (message 89). I found it fascinating, and no doubt the focus of future study.
Hi Dwise, concerning your Message 48 — yes, I had heard this about creationism and its origin, but interesting to have it filled out like that. Ditto your comment on quote mining.
I am quite surprised by the interesting and unexpected directions this forum takes — (perhaps reminiscent of the inventiveness of genetic mutations themselves?). There have been times I have thought the thread was dying a natural death, and intended to close it (if it is up to me to do that), but then a new post opens up a whole new angle. I note to my chagrin just how complex this issue is — there is indeed a great deal to digest.
If I could refer to Message 140 of Dr Adequate: I found the pictures of transitional forms intriguing and very helpful.
If I could centre in on one of them: the whale example. The evolutionary position here is, I believe, that the whale-ancestor was a land mammal which adapted to sea life and ultimately became the whale of today. The vestigial limb is cited as proof of this.
I would like to ‘unpack’ this a bit: the ID and Creationist response here is to say that the limb is not vestigial, but has a natural function, serving as an attachment point for muscles that both male and female cetaceans need to reproduce.
The best way to test this is, I would say, to examine the limb itself: looking at bone structure, basic design, etc., what are the evidences as to its background: are there clear indications, parallels, of limbs of a land-mammal; alternatively, is there clear evidence that it has, and has only ever had, the sole function of an attachment point for reproductive organs.
A further angle would be to compare other sea creatures to see if they have a comparable external mechanism.
Would appreciate all input.
Regards,
Greg

Replies to this message:
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 Message 165 by Dr Adequate, posted 11-02-2016 2:31 PM Gregory Rogers has not replied
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Pressie
Member
Posts: 2103
From: Pretoria, SA
Joined: 06-18-2010


(1)
Message 162 of 279 (793570)
11-02-2016 8:39 AM
Reply to: Message 161 by Gregory Rogers
11-02-2016 8:26 AM


Gregory Rogers writes:
The vestigial limb is cited as proof of this.
Wow, wow wow. This is crazy. Do you define 'vestigial' as it has always been used in science or the creationist strawman of it?
Then the word "proof". That's not science.
You know that creationists make up their own meaning of words and then pretend that their meaning is used in science?
Maybe you should start reading some science instead of creationist non-science propaganda?
Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 161 by Gregory Rogers, posted 11-02-2016 8:26 AM Gregory Rogers has not replied

  
Pressie
Member
Posts: 2103
From: Pretoria, SA
Joined: 06-18-2010


Message 163 of 279 (793574)
11-02-2016 9:20 AM
Reply to: Message 161 by Gregory Rogers
11-02-2016 8:26 AM


This one is just as funny.
Gregory Rogers writes:
The best way to test this is, I would say, to examine the limb itself
Ah, great. When are you off to dig out the bones you, yourself found? Publish your findings in some relevant scientific journal, etc? Are you going off? Please provide us with the info, we all are very, very interested.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 161 by Gregory Rogers, posted 11-02-2016 8:26 AM Gregory Rogers has not replied

  
AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 164 of 279 (793593)
11-02-2016 1:39 PM
Reply to: Message 161 by Gregory Rogers
11-02-2016 8:26 AM


I would like to ‘unpack’ this a bit: the ID and Creationist response here is to say that the limb is not vestigial, but has a natural function, serving as an attachment point for muscles that both male and female cetaceans need to reproduce.
The best way to test this is, I would say, to examine the limb itself ...
This is exactly what generations of biologists have already done. The conclusion of these trained experts is as stated. The ancestors of the whale used to be land dwelling mammals. The hip bones still in the whale of today are vestigial to that ancestry.
Who could possible be right: thousands of highly trained and experienced experts over multiple generations vs a few creation-believing religious zealots with no training or expertise in the subject? The motivation to find the most likely reality of a situation vs the motivation to shore-up an errant religious pre-conclusion?
Hmmm ... tricky.
Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.
Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 161 by Gregory Rogers, posted 11-02-2016 8:26 AM Gregory Rogers has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 165 of 279 (793602)
11-02-2016 2:31 PM
Reply to: Message 161 by Gregory Rogers
11-02-2016 8:26 AM


If I could centre in on one of them: the whale example. The evolutionary position here is, I believe, that the whale-ancestor was a land mammal which adapted to sea life and ultimately became the whale of today. The vestigial limb is cited as proof of this.
I would like to ‘unpack’ this a bit: the ID and Creationist response here is to say that the limb is not vestigial, but has a natural function, serving as an attachment point for muscles that both male and female cetaceans need to reproduce.
Well, as you point out, we can compare with other sea creatures. Sharks get by fine without vestigial hips and thighs. Sp if God wanted to make a sea creature that could reproduce, he didn't have to do so in such a way as to supply evidence for evolution.
We can also look back in the fossil record, and see how earlier whales had vestigial legs that were external and had weensy little toes on the ends of them. These were not necessary for the attachment of reproductive muscles. Here's the foot of a Basilosaurus.
Here's a look at Dorudon:
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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