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Author Topic:   Page's misuse of Haldane's Dilemma
Fred Williams
Member (Idle past 4846 days)
Posts: 310
From: Broomfield
Joined: 12-17-2001


Message 1 of 57 (5513)
02-26-2002 2:03 AM


I have posted a refutation of Scott Page's latest claims on my web site:
http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/articles_debates/page_refutation_2.htm
I've been pretty busy, but I hope to find time to engage evolutionists here when I do find time. Sorry Mark that I haven't gotten back to you, I realize you have posted a few things that I just didn't have time to address.

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by mark24, posted 02-26-2002 4:01 AM Fred Williams has not replied
 Message 3 by Peter, posted 02-26-2002 10:32 AM Fred Williams has not replied
 Message 4 by joz, posted 02-26-2002 11:02 AM Fred Williams has not replied
 Message 20 by joz, posted 02-27-2002 3:54 PM Fred Williams has not replied

mark24
Member (Idle past 5185 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 2 of 57 (5516)
02-26-2002 4:01 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Fred Williams
02-26-2002 2:03 AM


quote:
Originally posted by Fred Williams:
I have posted a refutation of Scott Page's latest claims on my web site:
http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/articles_debates/page_refutation_2.htm
I've been pretty busy, but I hope to find time to engage evolutionists here when I do find time. Sorry Mark that I haven't gotten back to you, I realize you have posted a few things that I just didn't have time to address.

No problem Fred.
Mark
------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Fred Williams, posted 02-26-2002 2:03 AM Fred Williams has not replied

Peter
Member (Idle past 1469 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 3 of 57 (5541)
02-26-2002 10:32 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Fred Williams
02-26-2002 2:03 AM


I've asked this question elsewhere before, and not got much of
an answer, but you seem much more knowledgeable so I'll try you.
How do we know that there are few beneficial mutations, or that
deliterious ones outweigh beneficial ?
A 'bad' mutation will have an effect which limits the mutant in
some way, perhaps even killing them outright.
A 'good' mutation would, presumably, not impede the individual
and so go unnoticed.
How do we detect mutations and calculate the 'good':'bad'
ratio ?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Fred Williams, posted 02-26-2002 2:03 AM Fred Williams has not replied

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joz
Inactive Member


Message 4 of 57 (5543)
02-26-2002 11:02 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Fred Williams
02-26-2002 2:03 AM


Just a small entirely pedantic point given that you and not SLP based your argument on a use of Haldanes dillema SLP can`t have "misused" it....
Possibly you did but he didn`t even use it.....

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Fred Williams, posted 02-26-2002 2:03 AM Fred Williams has not replied

Replies to this message:
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toff
Inactive Member


Message 5 of 57 (5544)
02-26-2002 11:06 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by Peter
02-26-2002 10:32 AM


quote:
Originally posted by Peter:
How do we detect mutations and calculate the 'good':'bad'
ratio ?

We don't have to; it's simply inevitable that mutations are predominantly good, rather than bad. For an organism to have a mutation, it must be alive...which means it 'works'. Since mutations are random, and there are vastly more ways of 'breaking' something that works than there are of 'improving' it, there are vastly more bad mutations than there are good. And vastly more that are neither good nor bad. Imagine a complex engine. At random, you weld a piece of metal on to it somewhere. Now you turn on the engine. What are the odds that you 'broke' it, compared to that you 'improved' it?

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Replies to this message:
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derwood
Member (Idle past 1866 days)
Posts: 1457
Joined: 12-27-2001


Message 6 of 57 (5550)
02-26-2002 12:21 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by joz
02-26-2002 11:02 AM


Entirely true, Joz. Another poster once wrote of Williams continued and unfaltering insistence upon utilizing just a few tidbits of information (Haldane, and the Eyre-Walker papers) under any and all circumstances as "when all you have is a hammer, you try to make everything into a nail."
This is exactly true - all Williams has is a hammer. And he simply contiunues trying to turn everything into a nail, despite the fact that his hammer lost its head and the shaft is splintered.
Indeed, it is Williams and his soiurce for all information on this topic - ReMine - that in fat have been misusing Haldane's dilemma.
But, you go with what you know, I suppose.
Of course, it is far more informative to read my relaity based response to Williams first laughabvle attempts at 'refutation"
'Honest yet mistaken' [sic] Fred
I will be tearing down Williams pseudoscinetific gibberish in a day or two.
[This message has been edited by SLP, 02-26-2002]

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Replies to this message:
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Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


Message 7 of 57 (5558)
02-26-2002 2:41 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by derwood
02-26-2002 12:21 PM


I'd like to see the response couched in a measured tone, and presented from the point of view that William's opinions are honest but mistaken. Pretend you're writing a rebuttal letter to a journal.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by derwood, posted 02-26-2002 12:21 PM derwood has not replied

Fred Williams
Member (Idle past 4846 days)
Posts: 310
From: Broomfield
Joined: 12-17-2001


Message 8 of 57 (5583)
02-26-2002 5:22 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by derwood
02-26-2002 12:21 PM


Scott, I would specifically like to see you address the errors I listed in the summary that I've pasted below. Comments from others also welcome.
* Mistakenly claiming that Haldane based his substitution estimate on the observation of peppered moths (Haldane did the opposite, see Haldane 1957, p521)
* Implying that a large population is a bad assumption for evolution (Haldane did the opposite; see Haldane 1960, p351)
* Claiming that a wild-type allele can still persist in a population even after its mutant allele reaches 100% fixation in the same population!
* Because of his previous error, reaches the erroneous conclusion that a dominate allele does not need to be replaced, which implies it has no reproductive cost.
* Claiming that a beneficial mutation will spread through a population in a sexual species "as well" as it would in an asexual species, even given an environment free of deleterious mutations. I wonder if there is even one population geneticist in the world who would agree with him.
* Claims that Wu's study dos *not* assume human/simian ancestry in its determination of the substitution rate.
* Re-visits circular reasoning by asking why 620,000 substitutions from the Keightley study is not sufficient to account for simian/human shared ancestry, given the 500,000 he believes Remine set as a minimum. The problem is, the Keightley study also arrives at its numbers by first assuming simian/human shared ancestry. Thus, it is circular to use their numbers when contrasting against any arbitrary guestimate of mutations that would separate simian/man.
[This message has been edited by Fred Williams, 02-26-2002]

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Replies to this message:
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John Paul
Inactive Member


Message 9 of 57 (5588)
02-26-2002 6:12 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by toff
02-26-2002 11:06 AM


[b]
quote:
Originally posted by Peter:
How do we detect mutations and calculate the 'good':'bad'
ratio ?

quote:
Originally posted by toff:
We don't have to; it's simply inevitable that mutations are predominantly good, rather than bad.
John Paul:
Is that so? Peter it just happens that most mutations are either harmful or neutral. Very rare are the beneficial mutations. If Fred reads this maybe he can re-post the graph that shows this.
quote:
toff:
For an organism to have a mutation, it must be alive...which means it 'works'.
John Paul:
Sharp fella, this one.
quote:
toff:
Since mutations are random, and there are vastly more ways of 'breaking' something that works than there are of 'improving' it, there are vastly more bad mutations than there are good.
John Paul:
Oh the irony. Can anyone else see it?
If you are saying that copying errors, ie point mutations, are random, fine. But if you are calling mutations such as recombinations, duplications, insertions, deletions, tranposons, blah, blah, blah, random, just because we don't yet understand them, and especially since these types of mutations require special enzymes to do the trick, there would be no justification for that term.
quote:
toff:
And vastly more that are neither good nor bad.
John Paul:
ie neutral.
quote:
toff:
Imagine a complex engine. At random, you weld a piece of metal on to it somewhere. Now you turn on the engine. What are the odds that you 'broke' it, compared to that you 'improved' it?
John Paul:
Are you saying biological organisms are like engines? Recognizing the similarities between biochemical systems and machines is the first step to becoming an IDist!
Way to go toff!
------------------
John Paul
[This message has been edited by John Paul, 02-26-2002]

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Replies to this message:
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 Message 11 by Fred Williams, posted 02-26-2002 6:24 PM John Paul has replied

LudvanB
Inactive Member


Message 10 of 57 (5589)
02-26-2002 6:17 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by John Paul
02-26-2002 6:12 PM


I think that what they mean by most mutation being beneficial is that scientists believe that every part of our being is the result of a mutation of some kind. For instance,microbes,which according to scientists are our most distant ancestors,had no eyes per say. We developed eyes as we evolved...same thing for hands,feet,teeth and so on. Viewed in that light,we can conclude that most mutation were befeficial to us,since we're all here.

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Fred Williams
Member (Idle past 4846 days)
Posts: 310
From: Broomfield
Joined: 12-17-2001


Message 11 of 57 (5590)
02-26-2002 6:24 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by John Paul
02-26-2002 6:12 PM


quote:
JP: If Fred reads this maybe he can re-post the graph that shows this.
My pleasure. The graph is from Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology textbook, 1998.
Futuyma believes that "the great majority of mutations are deleterious or nearly neutral". Not neutral, nearly neutral (ie, slightly harmful). It is false to claim most mutations are purely neutral, especially as we uncover more and more examples of non-coding DNA that serves some function.

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Replies to this message:
 Message 12 by Mister Pamboli, posted 02-26-2002 6:55 PM Fred Williams has not replied
 Message 13 by John Paul, posted 02-26-2002 7:00 PM Fred Williams has not replied
 Message 14 by joz, posted 02-26-2002 7:03 PM Fred Williams has not replied

Mister Pamboli
Member (Idle past 7567 days)
Posts: 634
From: Washington, USA
Joined: 12-10-2001


Message 12 of 57 (5598)
02-26-2002 6:55 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Fred Williams
02-26-2002 6:24 PM


Interesting stuff. Largely irrelevant, I suspect, but interesting.
I'd be interested in how the graph was arrived at - criteria for defining benefit, how mutations were observed, in what species, that sort of thing.
How would it class say a mutation to greater body weight by the increased adiposity in a mammal? Detrimental - making escape from predators more difficult? Beneficial - better able to survive a harsh winter? Or beneficial today but detrimental tomorrow?
I'm skeptical about graphing a qualitative judgement.

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Replies to this message:
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John Paul
Inactive Member


Message 13 of 57 (5599)
02-26-2002 7:00 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Fred Williams
02-26-2002 6:24 PM


quote:
Originally posted by Fred Williams:
My pleasure. The graph is from Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology textbook, 1998.
Futuyma believes that "the great majority of mutations are deleterious or nearly neutral". Not neutral, nearly neutral (ie, slightly harmful). It is false to claim most mutations are purely neutral, especially as we uncover more and more examples of non-coding DNA that serves some function.

John Paul:
There you have it. Thank you Fred.
Also what is a beneficial mutation? All beneficial means is that it gives that organism a (slightly) better chance at survival than it would have without it. And seeing there is no way to predict what would be selected for at any point in time, 'beneficial' would be a relative term.
------------------
John Paul

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Fred Williams, posted 02-26-2002 6:24 PM Fred Williams has not replied

Replies to this message:
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joz
Inactive Member


Message 14 of 57 (5601)
02-26-2002 7:03 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Fred Williams
02-26-2002 6:24 PM


Note that the text on the graph explains that it is hypothetical and the real shape of the curve is unknown (hang on aren`t you the lot that want to be able to observe something before accepting it?). The text also implys that the distribution would be gaussian around some point between deletious and neutral (by inspection it is apparent that this mean would lie closer to neutral than deletious), however the distribution is skewed by an absolute lethality constricting the effect on fitness axis to the left....
What are you trying to use this to prove?
Because this all seems fairly standard stuff to me....
[This message has been edited by joz, 02-27-2002]

This message is a reply to:
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mark24
Member (Idle past 5185 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 15 of 57 (5605)
02-26-2002 7:19 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by John Paul
02-26-2002 7:00 PM


I actually don't have a problem with the graph. It shows a higher proportion of harmful mutations to beneficial, most are nearly neutral, slightly on the harmful side. As such these will be weeded out in the ns process. Go much further to the left, & potential monkey man simply isn't going to make it out of the uterus alive.
This leaves us with the mostly neutral mutations. And a negative mutation CAN be positive in other circumstances (& vice versa, of course).
What the graph DOESN'T show us, is where the beneficial line ends. The more it goes to the right the greater the benefit, & the greater the chance that mutation stands of being fixed in the population. All the while the negative ones are being removed.
Mark
------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.
[This message has been edited by mark24, 02-26-2002]

This message is a reply to:
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