Evolution of the Eye

Firstly, do you want me to choose between thwart/aid or yes/no? I'm assuming thwart/aid. From that assumption, I would choose neither thwart nor aid as a generalization. Thwart means to completely stop or repel, as in the king thwarted the army's attempt to take the castle. This is why I asked you to cite an example where convergence made phylogenies IMPOSSIBLE to construct. However, I will throw you a bone and say that convergence can make some phylogenies MORE DIFFICULT to construct, but not IMPOSSIBLE. Show me the strawman. Seriously. If I made a logical error, show it to me. The strawman I saw on your part was as follows: Convergence makes phylogenies impossible to construct therefore ToE is falsified. If this is not what you are arguing let me know.So, my question to you: Does convergence support, not support, or a falsification of ToE? If none of these choices are satisfactory how would you describe the relationship between convergence and ToE?btw-I'll be gone this weekend, be back on Monday.

Fred, Fred, Fred. Notice how you didn't respond to my tearing apart of your post. I can understand why, though, since all you can manage is argument from personal increduility. And, if you had read it, you'd realize how silly you look when you claim that their model is not accounting for genetic deaths - that's included in the population genetics equation that leads to about one in 200 successful mutations fixating in the popuation. If they weren't taking into account genetic deaths, it would only take 1829 generations.Enough slander, address the issue!

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each step is represented by less than 1 substitution

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What? You're saying that the change of an entire allele would need to cause more than a 1% change, or that things would need to happen in parallel? No, you've got to be kidding! That could never happen! Are you aware that a 2 BP mutation in the human on the SRY gene has led to an XY person being completely female? We're not talking about 2 alleles - we're talking *2 BP*. Of course, that was just an occurance which led to the deactivation of the gene, not the creation of a new one, but the point is clear - an allele can make a *huge* difference.You are correct, however, that the steps do not have to be in order. Of course, that helps Nilsson and Pelger's case, instead of hurting it. Congratulations!------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

Yes, they must incur a cost in reproduction ... but genetic deaths need not and almost certainly don't incur a cost in eye acuity, therefore they can be ignored (as long as the mutation rate required for the eye acuity mutations is significantly smaller than a reasonable overall mutation rate). Yes, it's simply amazing that you could come to such a conclusion. The number of substitutions per 1% increment is one or more. Although I'm not a geneticist, IMHO Haldane's one per 300 generations is not relevant here; that's not a number that applies to all situations. And the derivation of the 1 per 300 number requires several assumptions that are not established or even universally accepted. Some even claim that Haldane's Dilemma does not apply to beneficial mutations. You appear to be claiming that there is a step pre-labeled "1" and a step pre-labeled "2" and so on. There is no such pre-labeling (which sounds similar to the fallacy of assuming a direction for evolution). S1 is by definition the first step, and is whichever step occurred first, and consists of some step that is possible from the starting conditions. S2 is by definition whichever step occurred second, and consists of some step that is possible given that S1 has occured. And so on. It might or might not be possible to achieve the same end with the same steps in a different order; we can't assess that without knowing more about the steps (such as what initial conditions each requires), which would require a significantly different and more detailed model. Given your track record in this thread, which is all I have by which to judge you, you aren't knowledgable enough to have a valid opinion on the subject.I note that you aren't discussing the "no simulation" link that you posted earlier with such glee ... have you re-evaluated that?

Maybe he is kidding ... he just posted a link to his "evolution of flight" page in another thread, and that's got to be parody of creationists.Anyhow, it appears that he's heard of Haldane's Dilemma, and thinks that it takes 300 generations to fix one mutation in all circumstances. If you take that as revealed Word, then the number of generations divided by 300 is the number of mutations, and is less that the number of changes. He doesn't consider the possibility that his division by 300 is the error ...I'm not sure if the 1 in 300 comes from Haldane or ReMine's botched interperpretation of Haldane ... do you happen to know?

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Anyhow, it appears that he's heard of Haldane's Dilemma, and thinks that it takes 300 generations to fix one mutation in all circumstances. If you take that as revealed Word, then the number of generations divided by 300 is the number of mutations, and is less that the number of changes. He doesn't consider the possibility that his division by 300 is the error ...

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I have noticed this tendency is all creationists that try to use Haldane's 1957 model. Perhaps Williams can provide some examples of actual populations in which the size remains constant generation to generation, all members have offspring no sooner than age 20, etc.
It is interesting that you mentioned ReMine - I recently saw some posts about him on another board and I did some background reading. In particular, I read his forays on the sci.bio.evolution and talk.origins newsgroups in 1997 - 2000. It was tedious reading, let me assure you. ReMine appeared to believe that writing something over and over with font tricks made his claims correct. He also seemed to believe that insulting professional geneticists made his claims carry more weight. He would frequently indicate that Haldane's dilemma had been 'garbled' and confused by evolutionists, and imply that only he understood it, and when that sentiment was paraphrased, he would indignantly claim that he was being 'misrepresented.' It was clear that ReMine was outclassed and outgunned in each discussion, but he never once budged, insisting that it was everyone else that was wrong (accompanied by the mantra-like claims of being misrepresented and such).So, why anyone would put stock into his claims is beyond me...

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I'm not sure if the 1 in 300 comes from Haldane or ReMine's botched interperpretation of Haldane ... do you happen to know?

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From my readings of those old exchanges, it appears that it is from ReMine's strict application of Haldane's model. It is a shame for ReMine that Haldane's model does not seem to apply in many situations.

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Fred, just because you think that they should have taken an entirely different apporach neither invalditate the paper nor make it a fraud.

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I know this may come as a complete shock to you, but wrong approaches often yield wrong results. Their conclusion that the eye can evolve in 300K years is a fraud because their approach is grotesquely illusionary. Their argument is no more compelling than the argument flat-earthers use, its just the illusion is packaged a little nicer.

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Seriously. If I made a logical error, show it to me. The strawman I saw on your part was as follows: Convergence makes phylogenies impossible to construct therefore ToE is falsified. If this is not what you are arguing let me know.

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I never said convergence makes phylogenies *impossible* to construct, nor have I ever stated they falsify evolution. I said convergence thwarts efforts to construct phylogenies. Thwart can also mean baffle. That is exactly what convergence does, and is a major stumbling block to phylogeny construction. Do you at least agree with the last sentence, that convergence offers a major stumbling block to phylogeny construction?Convergence doesn’t falsify evolution because evolution accommodates convergence. Evolution accommodates everything! This is what we expect to see from bogus theories. It is no better than a low-grade hypothesis.* Evolution presumed/predicted phylogeny — severely clouded by over-abundance of convergence in nature
* Evolution presumed/predicted simple to complex — WRONG
* Evolution presumed/predicted common ancestors — MISSING IN ACTION
* Evolution presumed/predicted accumulation of genetic information — MISSING IN ACTION
* Evolution predicted inheritance of traits (Lamarckism) — WRONG (though some evos still cling to it)
* Evolution presumed/predicted no out-of-place fossils — WRONG (though evolutionists deny them and make excuses for them, ie overthrusts, abundance of C-14 in coal and natural gas due to contamination or other decay, etc)
* Evolution is a fairytale — RIGHT!

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Try to answer with a simple yes or no, then you can explain your answer. Does convergence thwart, or aid, in attempts to construct phylogenies? Yes or No.

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There is a problem with the question, which is, I suppose, why Loudmouth did not answer it the way you had hoped.
As morphological convergences are typically superficial, sufficiently in-depth examination precludes any 'thwarting' or confounding of phylogeny. If that were the case, then it seems that whales would be considered fish, or placental wolves confused with marsupial wolves. That is not the case.In the case of molecular convergence, sufficiently large or varied datasets can overcome any potential 'thwarting'. There are few cases that I know of in which molecular convergence confounds phylogenetic hypotheses. In such cases, larger datasets diminish the anomalies. Homoplastic or possibly convergent molecular sequences are typically small - on the order of a few hundred bases. It should come as no surprise, considring the size of the typical genome, that such a small sample size would not necessarily reflect the 'true' or otherwise well-supported phylogentic hypothesis. Creationists and Intelligent Designists make much of these occasional anomalies, but are reluctant to mention the larger successes of the field. For example, I recently read a creationist commenting on how a cytochrome b analysis placed whales with primates. This was presented as damaging not to the field of molecular phylogenetics, but to evolution as a whole! Of course, the creationists did not mention that studies of the entire mitochondrial genome produce phylogenies that are congruent with 'traditional' hypotheses. Larger dataset smooths out the anomalies.So, a more accurate or applicable question might have been:Does convergence falsify hypotheses of descent?This is a yes/no question, the answer to which is "no."A follow up question:Does convergence aid in analyzing hypotheses of descent?This can be a yes/no question, and I would say no. However, a'no' answer to this question is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not convergence falsifies or otherwise spells trouble for evolution in general.FOLLOW UP:

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Thwart can also mean baffle. That is exactly what convergence does, and is a major stumbling block to phylogeny construction. Do you at least agree with the last sentence, that convergence offers a major stumbling block to phylogeny construction?

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No, that is not what convergence does. Actual professional, trained scientists know how to handle such data. It is only 'baffling' to those who believe that a superficial overview is a sufficient investigation technique.
No, I also do not agree with the last sentence. It is not a'major' stumbling block at all. A preponderance of data supercedes the occasional anomaly.[This message has been edited by vik, 09-26-2003]

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Yes, they must incur a cost in reproduction ... but genetic deaths need not and almost certainly don't incur a cost in eye acuity, therefore they can be ignored (as long as the mutation rate required for the eye acuity mutations is significantly smaller than a reasonable overall mutation rate).

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Genetic deaths ignored? Aren’t these authors trying to show how *fast* an eye can evolve? Do genetic deaths impact the rate at which new beneficial substitutions can fixate in populations? Sure, just use intense selection and kill off the entire population in one swoop, save the new mutant! YES, of course genetic deaths matter. To deny this is to deny reality. You are playing right in to the illusion of the paper. It is a fraud, through and through.I absolutely guarantee you that serious geneticists like evolutionist James Crow would chalk this nonsense off to cold-fusioneque science.

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Although I'm not a geneticist, IMHO Haldane's one per 300 generations is not relevant here; that's not a number that applies to all situations.

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It is a best-case number for the beneficial substitution rate. It includes favorable assumptions such as mutant is always dominant, and ignores the negative impact of quantitative traits (both incur greater cost of fixation).

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It might or might not be possible to achieve the same end with the same steps in a different order; we can't assess that without knowing more about the steps (such as what initial conditions each requires), which would require a significantly different and more detailed model.

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You are missing the point. What if a certain, specific step S had to occur before S+1? The model assumes the steps can happen in any order, yet another huge stretch but not as severe a leap as their total avoidance of the genetic death/substitution cost problem.

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That is exactly what convergence does, and is a major stumbling block to phylogeny construction. Do you at least agree with the last sentence, that convergence offers a major stumbling block to phylogeny construction?

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If Loudmouth knows anything about the subject, they won't. The difficulty in constructing phylogenies in modern times exists almost completely at the genus and species level. Thanks to evolution, creatures that converge keep obvious traces that they are unrelated; in modern times, genetics have confirmed this. For example, the tazmanian wolf and the dingo have converged on the same niche. Because of this, they look more similar in appearence than, say, a wolf looks to a hyena (and they're in the same genus). However, evolution predicts that, since the divergence of placentals from marsupials occurred long ago, they'll have quite different genetics despite the mostly similar appearence. Genetics confirms this, of course.In modern times, the difficulty at the species level is largely due to interbreeding, and the genus and occasionally family levels have the difficulty of defining what makes a distinct enough trait to warrant being a separate species (or genus). In very fews cases is there actually any question about how closely related they are.BTW, now that your slander about the Nilsson/Pelger paper has been shot down, are you prepared to offer more to the discussion of the paper than personal incredulity? Such as a rebuttal to your false statements about the paper? If not, we might as well just close the thread.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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I'm not sure if the 1 in 300 comes from Haldane or ReMine's botched interperpretation of Haldane ... do you happen to know?

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From my readings of those old exchanges, it appears that it is from ReMine's strict application of Haldane's model.

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You need to read more. Haldane, 1957, pg 521

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Vik: [convergence] is not a'major' stumbling block at all.

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Perhaps the biggest single problem facing the evolutionist in the determination of phylogenies ... is to distinguish resemblances due to homologous characters from those due to convergent ones. (Cain, 1982, p 1)

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The major stumbling block ... is convergent evolution: if a similar characteristic evolved independently in two groups, they may be mistakenly classified as relatives. Usually, however, convergent evolution can be spotted because it gives rise to contradictory evolutionary trees. (Futuyma, 1983, p 54-55)

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[T]he fossil record shows that resemblance alone is not an accurate measure of closeness of relationship. (Ayala and Valentine, 1978, p 232)

(via Biotic Message, Remine, 1991, pg 261)

Good, we can start at the same point then. Good, lets start again with baffle instead of thwart.
I do not agree that convergence offers a major stumbling block. As in previous posts, convergence is usually superficial and many times only pertains to one function, not overall morphology. For instance, both vampire bats and leeches use an anti-coagulent to keep a hosts blood flowing. I would claim that scientists have no problem classifying these two animals far from each other in a phylo tree. I agree with previous posts that the largest problem would be at the genus/species/subspecies level. I can't think an example where convergence poses a large problem at the family or order level. Maybe you can suggest one example. Evolution doesn't accomodate mammalian fossils in Cambrian rock, flowering plants before the first gymnosperm, reptillian fossils before the first fish fossil, etc. What does the creationist model predict of the fossil record? From what I can tell it requires all of the above to be possible and or true. It would require that fossils should not be positioned the way they are if creation "theory" is true. False, already discussed. Simple to complex: As a generalization, true, specifically in all cases, false. Evolution is change due to random mutation and natural selection. How does the previous sentence predict simple to complex in every case? It doesn't. Read around this site a little. Horse evolution, aquatic mammal evolution, archeopteryx, just to name a few. God producing organisms: Missing In Action. We have species produced in the lab and nature and zero that have popped out of thin air. Again, read around. I know you will rant till you're blue in the face about the nylC gene (nylong digestion) but this simple reading frame mutation refutes what you just stated, even if you want to argue that information can not increase. Also, we have talked about hemC as well. Gene duplications also come to mind. STRAWMAN. Evolution did not predict acquired inheritance in a Larmarckian sense, just inheritance. Mendel correctly observed the phenomena which was non-Lamarckian. Mendel only helped solidify ToE by defining the framework of inheritance. Sorry, nice try. And by the way, no evo's today cling to Lamarckian inheritance. Name me one. Fossils discussed above. If the fossil record is so "out-of-place" why aren't the supposed numerous fossils plastered on every creationist site? As for radiometric dating, why aren't there any nuclides with a half-life under 50 million years that aren't an intermediate of longer decays or produced by readily measured processes (C14 from nitrogen in the upper atmosphere)? Did God have a special preference for nuclides with long half lives? Believe what you want to believe, it's a free country. Just don't expect to get any respect from the scientific community until you have EVIDENCE that refutes evolution or EVIDENCE that supports creation. In fact, evo's are nice enough to offer evidence in support of evolution. Why don't creationists offer evidence that supports creation outside of the realm of refuting evolution? It would be a step in the right direction.[This message has been edited by Loudmouth, 09-26-2003]

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* Evolution presumed/predicted simple to complex — WRONG

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Flash: Fred Williams beats up another strawman on EvC.Fred, the only people I see saying this on this board are creationists. Simple to complex is a 'simplistic' argument that needs to be put out of its misery. You look foolish making it.

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* Evolution presumed/predicted common ancestors — MISSING IN ACTION

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Ah, Fred... Denying any transitionals! What a novelty. Well, I have to say that I'm convinced.

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* Evolution predicted inheritance of traits (Lamarckism) — WRONG (though some evos still cling to it)

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Yeah, you're right. Traits are not inherited. And I hear evos supporting Lamarckism all the time. Perhaps you could recall an example for us.

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* Evolution presumed/predicted no out-of-place fossils — WRONG (though evolutionists deny them and make excuses for them, ie overthrusts, abundance of C-14 in coal and natural gas due to contamination or other decay, etc)

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Well, can you refute any of these explanations, or are just going to make vague assertions that experts in their field are wrong?

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* Evolution is a fairytale — RIGHT!

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Evolution, defined by Fred, a fairytale. Riiiight!

Fred, when are you going to give up on the out of context quotes? How many times do I need to waste my time digging up the source material to shoot you down on this one? This time, you're going Gish on me, using several at once so that I don't have time to handle them all.Pick one so that I can put you back in your place by adding the context to it.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."