Question for KSC

ksc writes:

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You might as well said what ar the odds of hitting the lottery? We all know it's not very good, but people hit it. Now what are the odds of a person hitting it again in their life time? Almost if not zilch. Now lets go to 3 then 4 major lottery wins in a single life time by the same person choosing the correct numbers. Now the odds are to the point that you just might as well say, no way. Impossible.

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The analogy is good, but incorrectly argued. The purchasers of lottery tickets represent the individual members of a population. While the odds of any individual winning the lottery are tiny, there *is* a winner who then gets to pass his positive mutation on to the next generation. This mutation spreads quickly through the population since it is positively selected for, and in a few generations there can be another lottery which will result in another member of the population receiving a positive mutation.You're also forgetting that each individual can own many lottery tickets, which is analogous to many possible positive mutations.Your rejection of evolution appears based on a false estimate of the odds.--Percy

Message deleted by ksc

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[This message has been edited by ksc, 05-12-2002]

ksc writes:

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I can "sort-of" understand whatyou are saying, but a closer analogy would be that the winners offspring would also win the lottery and so on and so on. Once again the odds drop off real quick and evolution loses.

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No, it would be less like real evolution to consider only the winners offspring winning the next lottery. Positive mutations spread quickly through populations, so in a few generations large portions of the population are winners. With positive mutations the money isn't spent but is instead shared and multiplied more and more widely with each generation.You must also consider other factors, such as that the mutation lottery has been going on since the beginning of life, and all organisms have large mutation banks on which to draw. Neutral mutations may lie dormant for eons awaiting additional mutations with which they can combine for a positive outcome.--Percy

[Hack deleted. --Percy][This message has been edited by ksc, 05-12-2002]

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[This message has been edited by Percipient, 05-13-2002]

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Originally posted by ksc:
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Originally posted by SLPx:

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How would there have been variation in a 'gene pool' contributed to by only a single male and female?

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KSC:
I can see differances in my own kids and they were produced by a single male and female. I've seen litters of dogs that have produced offspring inwhich heavy traits from each parent was expressed in different dogs. To be honest, I think you ought to think about your last question.

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I thought about it before I wrote it, but it seems that you did not think about it at all before you responded. It is YOUR belief that some mythological 'cat-kind' present on the ark produced - in only a few thousand years - all of the extant felids. I seriously doubt that the 'variation' you see in your kids is even remotely like the variation that is ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED in the creation model. Unless, of course, you think that your great-great grandchildren will be members of a distinct species. I am not talking about different breeds of dogs, either. I am talking about getting ocelots, cerval cats, jaguarundis, lions, cheetahs, lynxes, cougars, house cats, etc. from some original 'kind' of cat. You say that the original cat kind had all of this variation 'built in'. And your evidence appears to be 'variations' in your children and differential expression of traits in dog litters.
Noted.

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SLP:
What were the genetic mechanisms that dictated which phenotype would be expressed?

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KSC:
Why would this be a hinderance?

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Hinderance? What are you talking about? I asked for your proposed mechanisms that would, for example, repress all of the alleles responsible for the traits seen in, say, a ceval cat in this original kind. Your 'answer' is a total non-sequitur.

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SLPx:

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No, it is not true that I believe that the 'whale flipper' came about without mutations. However, you are still hung up on two key issues:
1. The number of mutations
You insist that some large number of mutations were required; that these mutations had to happen "over and over again" and "be directed to" the "DNA strand" that deals with flipper/limb morphology.

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KSC:
Absolutely. Or are you now claiming a mutation to the echo-location system will produce change to the flippers?

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This is your standard comeback, and it is as nonsensical now as it was when you first used it years ago on CARM and elsewhere. What is your hang-up with echolocation? The fact of the matter is, mutations that affect limb morphology could very well affect other systems. Indeed, some genetic defects in fact are manifested in what appear to be completely unrelated ways. Am I making any sort of statemtn about the "DNA strand" that controls limb morphology and echo-location apparatus? No. But I do understand that development is not dictated by Karl Crawfords odd take on such things.

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SLP:
Of course, you completely ignore your repeated claim that the mutation must happen "over and over again". What does that mean. What is your evidence?

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KSC:
The mutations must be pinpointed to the area under change and they must occur over and over again. This is a no brainer.

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Whyt over and over again? And what does 'pinpointed' mean? If it such a no-brainer, surely you must have lots of evidence suportive of your position. It is a no-brainer that what you are proposing is in fact the opposite of what evolution indicates - you are proposing that some proto-whale (or some 'designer') wanted flippers and somehow directed specific mutations to occur. You are quite wrong. And THAT is a no brainer.

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SLPx:
Ignoring for now the obvious dearth of information you possess regardiong developmental genetics, I have provided a documented example of single point mutations producing relatively large scale phenotypic limb changes. You ignore this.

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KSC:
No you haven't. All you did was produce a larger or smaller phenotypic limb change. The structure remained the same. I think labeling that as a relatively large scale is incorredct. In the case you provided the leg was still a leg. Just a different size.

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have you ever seen the bone structure of an achondroplastic limb? By the way, ALL of the structures in the limb are altered by that single point mutation. All of those structures that you cut and pasted from some anatomy book and claiming that each one required a 'pinpointed mutation' to change - all are changed by that one mutation. I thus refuted your repeated claim regarding some huge number of 'pinpointed mutations' being required to alter limb morphology.
By the way - a flipper is just a limb with 'webbed' digits and altered proportions. But you knew that... Also by the way, there is quite a bit of information in the literature regarding the fin-limb transition:Chiu CH, Nonaka D, Xue L, Amemiya CT, Wagner GP.
Evolution of Hoxa-11 in lineages phylogenetically positioned along the fin-limb transition.
Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2000 Nov;17(2):305-16.Kondo T, Herault Y, Zakany J, Duboule D.
Genetic control of murine limb morphogenesis: relationships with human syndromes and evolutionary relevance.
Mol Cell Endocrinol. 1998 May 25;140(1-2):3-8. Review.Sordino P, van der Hoeven F, Duboule D. Related Articles
Hox gene expression in teleost fins and the origin of vertebrate digits.
Nature. 1995 Jun 22;375(6533):678-81.

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SLP:

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2. You are still using what I call the reverse cart-before-the-horse fallacy. You are looking at the extant 'whale', taking evolutionary hypotheses of its descent, and wondering how evolution could have accounted for the specific mutations that have occurred. You do not/cannot/will not see the fallacy in that.

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Allow me to demonstrate using an analogy.

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Karl Crawford exists. Yet his parents were two of several billion humans that could have mated. Each of them have genomes on the order of 3.2 billion nucloetides. What are the chances that their specific sequence of nucleotides existed? that their specific haploid genomes merged to form the zygote with a unique diploid genome that produced Karl? The mutations that produced Karl had to have happened over and ove again in the lineaqges leading to him, in the correct order. It is impossible for this to have happened. Therefore, Karl could not possibly be the result of the mating of his parents.

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KSC:
Your really out there. The example you just presented is not evolution nor has anything to do with evolution.

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It was an analogy, Karl. It was noit meant to be an explicit treatise on evolution. Of course, it amply demonstrates that what you say has little to do with evolution, as I emulated your logic.

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KSC:
Now, if you want to talk about chances, what are the chances of two other ancestors producing a linage that creates a person that is exactly like the other? In this case the answer is ZERO.

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Your point?

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You might as well said what ar the odds of hitting the lottery? We all know it's not very good, but people hit it. Now what are the odds of a person hitting it again in their life time? Almost if not zilch. Now lets go to 3 then 4 major lottery wins in a single life time by the same person choosing the correct numbers. Now the odds are to the point that you just might as well say, now way. Impossible. This example is more like evolution with the need to repeat mutations in the DNA strand(s) responsible for the changing of a leg to flipper or the developement of echo-location. It is quite obvious that evolution fails.

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There you go again with your repeated (but wholly unsupported) assertions. You STILL don't get it. Changing developmental genes or genes that influence morphology can alter phenotype WITHOUT being 'directed at the DNA stand'. You still have not answered my earlier question - what do you mean by "DNA strand"? The only thing that is obvious is that you are relying on your shallow grasp of the science to prop up your belief.

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SLP:
Therefore, sexual reproduction does not occur.

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KSC:
You'll excuse me if I don't respond to that ignorance

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That 'ignorance' follows directly from your logic re: repeated mutations in the 'DNA strand' being so unlikely that evolution fails. Just following your lead.

ksc writes:

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Nope, once again you are incorrect. It has to be the winners offspring that hit the lotteryy or else the mutations could not build upon them selves.

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As I said, the next winner needs to be in the linage of the first to mimic the T.O.E.

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Karl, you're contradicting yourself here. First you say it has to be the winner's offspring, then you say it only has to be a descendent, which is precisely what *I* said. Though you quoted what I said, you either didn't read it or didn't understand it. How else would a positive mutation spread through a population if not through descendents?

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Now to make things more interesting, the lottery ticket must also be purchased from the same state. That is if in our analogy each state represents the coding for seperate changes to different body parts or systems. For example, a mutation in the echo-location system (a ticket purchased in Texas) will not effect the leg to flipper transition.(a ticket purchased in New York)

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This is the fallacy of post facto reasoning again. If it is your requirement is that those in the line of descent eventually win the Oklahoma state lottery 100 times, then that is not as likely as the actual situation for evolution. But it's always unlikely when you preordain the outcome. It's the same reasoning presented by SLP about the unlikelihood of producing Karl, which you also didn't appear to understand.When the outcome is not preordained, when the only goal is to produce a better adapted organism no matter through what combination of state lotteries and no matter in what state the eventual descendent ends up in, then the likelihood is much greater.Here's another example of the same kind of false reasoning that you're engaging in. What are the odds that you will have a son, and that your son will have a son, and that your son's son will have a son, and so forth forward for 1000 generations? Pretty tiny, right?Well, guess what. Every male on this earth is the product of thousands of generations of sons producing sons.Why is the first scenario unlikely while the second is inevitable? It's the fallacy of post facto reasoning again. When you preordain the outcome, namely that it is you and only you that must have a son, and then it must be that son and only that son that must have a son, and so forth for a thousand generations, then it's very unlikely. But when all you care about is that at least some in each generation produce sons for a thousand generations then it isn't unlikely at all.

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I find it rather ironic how you present large mutation banks associated with organisms that will produce change......unless it is a living fossil. You gotta love the T.O.E.

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This is a content-free argument from personal skepticism. Why not address what was said?--Percy