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Author | Topic: Random mutations shot down on this site. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Wounded King Member Posts: 4149 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Joined: |
I'll address this and you can consider it a reply to your post to me as well.
I originally brought this us to explain to DigDug Master that mutations fixed by natural selection is not the only way that evolution happens. Why have you completely failed to address is the point that was contentious in what you said and which was actually being objected to, claiming that the Smith & Eyre-walker paper showed a role for genetic drift in speciation, i.e. Message 29. While you may have only wanted to show something no one would argue with, that allele frequencies can be changed by factors other than natural selection, you framed it in the context of speciation and claimed support within that context from a paper which simply does not offer it.
To me, this is a credible attempt to differentiate, as casual factors attending microevolution, the actions of natural selection from those of drift. Others may disagree for their own reasons, but I don't think anybody knows for sure or for certain how to measure or model a clear distinction between evolutionary causes. Smith and Erye-Walker make a fair shot at it, I think. This is wholly disingenuous. No one disagrees with Smith and Eyre-walker's paper, what we disagree with is your contention that it says something about the contributions of selection and drift towards speciation, a word you fail to mention once in this reply despite having bandied it about freely. Did you think that if you didn't say speciation this time we would forget about your other posts?
And, btw, why haven't YOU posted some relevant literature to defend your position on drift v. selection? Eh? That isn't how it works. You make a contentious claim about what the paper meant and I asked you to substantiate it, the relevant literature to support my position is the same paper because what we are disagreeing on is what that paper says. You say it says something about drift causing speciation and I say that it doesn't except in as much as it estimates a time of divergence for the two species. TTFN, WK
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Hi Hoot Mon,
Let's compare what you claimed way back in Message 15:
Hoot Mon writes: Two British evolutionary biologists, Nick Smith & Adam Eyre-Walker (Adaptive protein evolution in Drosophila, Nature, 2002) have studied adaptive protein evolution in two fruit-fly species D. melanogaster and D. yakuba. They determined that the two species separated about 6 million years ago, and that 45% of the separation could be attributed to natural selection. The remaining 55% of the protein differences were determined to be selection-neutral, and these difference were attributed to genetic drift. And here's what you just said in your most recent reply in Message 59:
Hoot Mon writes: To me, this is a credible attempt to differentiate, as casual factors attending microevolution, the actions of natural selection from those of drift. If I'm interpreting this correctly, you're portraying yourself as never having misconsrued anything in the paper, and you won't do it again. --Percy
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Fosdick  Suspended Member (Idle past 5529 days) Posts: 1793 From: Upper Slobovia Joined: |
Did you think that if you didn't say speciation this time we would forget about your other posts?
But you obviously didn't read my Message 43, in which I made clear to Quetzal my mistaken conflation of speciation with microevolution. You're just ankle biting again.
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Hoot Mon writes: But you obviously didn't read my Message 43, in which I made clear to Quetzal my mistaken conflation of speciation with microevolution. You're just ankle biting again. If he's ankle biting then so am I, but I'm not and he's not. What you're offering in your last couple posts is just straightforward dissembling. First, just look at your claim about conceding to Quetzal in Message 43. Your very next message, Message 44, is to Wounded King telling him he's wrong and to go bother getting the article, with no substantiation and as if you hadn't read a thing he'd posted where it was eminently clear he had the article already in hand. Second, you wrote a whole post, Message 59, that was mere revisionist history, arguing as if it were Wounded King who had misinterpreted the article. The qualities of arrogance and chutzpah are not pretty and certainly not worthy of anyone capable of tackling the complex topics we address here at EvC Forum. I suggest just focusing on dispassionately discussing the issues and letting the readers of these threads make up their own minds. --Percy
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Wounded King Member Posts: 4149 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Joined: |
Yes I did miss it, maybe thats because in the very next message which was a reply to me you said exactly the same thing again.
...They don't say that speciation has a single thing to do with drift... I think you are wrong. I tend to reply to messages to me before messages to other people, and I will often go to a reply to me first of the new posts I look at in a thread and address it. Did you forget that you were wrong between one post and the other? If you knew you were wrong about the speciation thing why didn't you just direct me to your reply to Quetzal earlier? And similarly when Percy asked you to support that contention why not just direct him to your reply to Quetzal instead of justifying a position no one had any problem with? TTFN, WK Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.
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Fosdick  Suspended Member (Idle past 5529 days) Posts: 1793 From: Upper Slobovia Joined: |
Percy wrote:
I agree, you're ankle biting, too. All you say above is bluster with no substance. Talk about "arrogance and chutzpah"... If he's ankle biting then so am I, but I'm not and he's not. What you're offering in your last couple posts is just straightforward dissembling. First, just look at your claim about conceding to Quetzal in Message 43. Your very next message, Message 44, is to Wounded King telling him he's wrong and to go bother getting the article, with no substantiation and as if you hadn't read a thing he'd posted where it was eminently clear he had the article already in hand. Second, you wrote a whole post, Message 59, that was mere revisionist history, arguing as if it were Wounded King who had misinterpreted the article. The qualities of arrogance and chutzpah are not pretty and certainly not worthy of anyone capable of tackling the complex topics we address here at EvC Forum. I suggest just focusing on dispassionately discussing the issues and letting the readers of these threads make up their own minds. ”Hoot Mon
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Hi Hoot Mon,
So now that the point you raised concerning that paper in Message 15 has been addressed, do you have any further points to raise concerning the characterization of RandomMutation.com is for sale | HugeDomains provided by the many respondents to Message 1? --Percy
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Doddy Member (Idle past 5938 days) Posts: 563 From: Brisbane, Australia Joined: |
Percy writes: I don't know where you got the idea that my comments had somehow shifted focus from your concrete example of trees in a forest to the other discussion concerning idealized models, but no such shift ever occurred. To clarify, I was comparing a real world example of the most random mating I could see (pollen on the wind), to the idealized random mating, in order to show that non-random mating can occur without selection and vice versa. So, when you took up argument with my definition of random mating, I assumed you were talking about the idealised definition that I used. "Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer
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Fosdick  Suspended Member (Idle past 5529 days) Posts: 1793 From: Upper Slobovia Joined: |
Percy wrote:
Yes, Percey, I went there, but I haven't run the generator yet because I was disappointed by this claim:
So now that the point you raised concerning that paper in Message 15 has been addressed, do you have any further points to raise concerning the characterization of RandomMutation.com is for sale | HugeDomains provided by the many respondents to Message 1? quote:I disagree that mutation and selection account for all evolutionary events. Even if they include Dawkins' quote I felt that the roles of random genetic drift, gene flow, and non-random mating were also important to consider. (I do agree, however, that natural selection can act on the results of other evolutionary causes that are not selective.) So, instead of running the generator, I commented on the eroneous statement, as I saw it. (Bad idea!) But I will soon go back and run the generator. btw: I happen to have Dawkins' "Blind Watchmaker" computer program for modeling how certain phenotypes may evolve through breeding different anatomical configurations. It's fun to play with. Have you see it? ”Hoot Mon
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Fosdick  Suspended Member (Idle past 5529 days) Posts: 1793 From: Upper Slobovia Joined: |
WK wrote:
Get over it. Meanwhile, I'll try being ashamed of myself. I tend to reply to messages to me before messages to other people, and I will often go to a reply to me first of the new posts I look at in a thread and address it. Did you forget that you were wrong between one post and the other? If you knew you were wrong about the speciation thing why didn't you just direct me to your reply to Quetzal earlier? And similarly when Percy asked you to support that contention why not just direct him to your reply to Quetzal instead of justifying a position no one had any problem with? ”Hoot Mon
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Hawks Member (Idle past 6175 days) Posts: 41 Joined: |
quote:Yes, I should have written "Divergence between two populations does not necessarily lead to speciation...".
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Wounded King Member Posts: 4149 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Joined: |
You don't need to run the generator. If you actually bothered to read the page you would have seen that what Taz said early on, and you bizzarely criticised while throwing some ad homs at other people, is right and that Perry's version of evolution is a huge strawman.
For a start he chooses a system which rather than 4 discrete states has ~65 possible states, and then acts as if calculations on probability using this set are in any way relevant. He also has a whole section on adding natural selection, but he never does! Not a single one of his examples shows any sign of selection whatsoever, he just keeps mutating the originals with no selection. Not to mention the fact that his proposed form of selection would only generate better click-ads and almost certainly wouldn't be selective for the phrase he nominates as his target. So if you had read the site and seen that in fact he is putting up nothing but a strawman why would you need to run the generator? I'm sure it does what he says it does but that has absoloutely no bearing on the validity of random mutation and natural selection as forces driving evolution. The whole page is so bad that to upbraid him for failing to properly emphasise other factors such as drift, now that my friend is ankle biting. TTFN, WK Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.
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Doddy Member (Idle past 5938 days) Posts: 563 From: Brisbane, Australia Joined: |
Wounded King writes: Not to mention the fact that his proposed form of selection would only generate better click-ads and almost certainly wouldn't be selective for the phrase he nominates as his target. Yes, he'd get "sex, hot babes, free porn" as his message with that form of selection! "Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Hoot Mon writes: Yes, Percey, I went there, but I haven't run the generator yet because I was disappointed by this claim... Why would you want to run the generator? Without any selection mechanism it isn't emulating evolution, so what would be the point of running it? To the evolutionists here the missing selection component reveals the How to Do Your Own Darwinian Evolution Experiments with the Random Mutation Generator webpage to be both wrong and naive. Look at the section nearly halfway down that has the heading There's an Even Bigger Problem. He says:
Let's say you want the word Brown to evolve into the word Black. Shouldn't be too hard, should it? Only four letters need to change after all. But even if you could get the mutations to concentrate just on those four letters, you'd still get a mis-spelled word, which natural selection would eliminate before it ever evolved into the correct spelling. Let's try it, one mutation at a time: Brown > Brorn > Brorb > BrorW > qrorW > qKorW > qKoJW > qKoyW > qFoyW > qjoyW > qjTyW Notice that selection is missing. Without any selection mechanism to cull "mutations" that advance away from the goal instead of toward it, of course the goal is never reached. In essence the webpage's author is claiming to have developed a genetic algorithm program using words as the organisms. But genetic algorithms must have both mutation *and* selection. His program has no selection mechanism and so is not an implementation of a genetic algorithm, and so has no correspondence to actual evolution. A simple selection mechanism for evolving Brown to Black would be to add all the letter differences to provide a single number. Those offspring (there must be multiple offspring in genetic algorithms, another problem with the author's approach) that have the smallest total differences from Black are selected to produce to the next generation. Notice that this is a very weak selection algorithm. I think I can write such a program in about five minutes, so let me give it a try... Okay, here's the program output:
Brown to Black Genetic Algorithm Program with extremely weak selection writes: nclx65% perl ga.plGeneration 1: Brown Generation 2: Bhown Browg Bwown Bxown BrFwn Generation 3: Bhogn Bxoin BwoYn Bkown BroTg Generation 4: Bhfgn Bhodn Boogn Bnoin Bhohn Generation 5: Bhfdn Bmfgn Bhfgs Bhocn Bhfgu Generation 6: Bhfdn Bhfgk Bhfdf Bifgn BhYdn Generation 7: Bhagk Bhddn Bhcdf Bhfdh Bifgl Generation 8: Boagk Bhddk Biagl Bmcdf Bhagi Generation 9: Biddk Biafl Boagl Bhddk Bmcdg Generation 10: Bhbdk Bmcdi Bhddk Biddi Boagm Generation 11: Bhbck Bmcdl Bhbbk Brbdk Biddm Generation 12: Bhack Bhbbk Bibdm Bmcdo Biddm Generation 13: Bkbbk Fhack Brbbk Bidcm Biddj Generation 14: Bkbbk Bkbbm Brbbk Bidcm Ciddj Generation 15: Bkabk Ckbbk Bkbbm Bpbbk Jkbbk Generation 16: Dkbbk Bgabk Bpbbk Bkabf Ckbbh Generation 17: Bpbbk Bpbak Bkadf Ckbbh Dpbbk Generation 18: Dnbbk Bpbbj Bpbbj Bmadf Dpbbk Generation 19: Bmadh Bmadn Dobbk Bpbdj Bpbbl Generation 20: Blbbl Bmadh Dkbbk Bjadn Bmadq Generation 21: Blbbl Bmadm Bmach Ckbbk Bldbl Generation 22: Bmadj Blach Ckbdk Ckbbm Cibbk Generation 23: Blach Blcch Bibbk Bqadj Cpbbk Generation 24: Blacm Blach Blacf Blcch Bgbbk Generation 25: Bkach Blcci Blace Bpach Blaim Generation 26: Bkcci Bkcci Bkaeh Boach Blccg Generation 27: Boacl Dkaeh Bfcci Bdach Bccci Generation 28: Boacm Bjach Boacg Dkaei Dkaeh Generation 29: Bmacg Bjacg Bjcch Dkaeh Dkaeh Generation 30: Bmacg Bmacf Dmacg Bmacq Bmacr Generation 31: Dmacg Dmabg Dmccg Bmaar Bmaar Generation 32: Bmabg Dmabm Dmacg Diacg Fmacg Generation 33: Bmabg Cmacg Fmabm Dnacg Bmdbg Generation 34: Bmacg Cmabg Cmacp Bmdbn Bhabg Generation 35: Bmabg Bhabm Cmaeg Bhabh Ciabg Generation 36: Bhabm Ckaeg Bhabh Cmbeg Ciabg Generation 37: Bhabk Ciabk Bhabm Bhabo Bhaah Generation 38: Cjabk Biabm Bhabj Bjaah Beabk Generation 39: Ckabk Cjabk Biabk Bqabk Ahabj Generation 40: Clabk Boabk Aiabk Biaek Fkabk Generation 41: Alabk Bkabk Clbbk Boabk Aiadk Generation 42: Aladk Amabk Alaak Boabk Boadk Generation 43: Alaal Alafk Biadk Anaak Amabn Generation 44: Alaak Alafk Alaah Anaaj Amabn Generation 45: Amaaj Anabj Aiaak Aldak Agaak Generation 46: Anaej Aiaak Aldek Aoaak Aldal Generation 47: Alaak Aldal Algek Aieak AlZek Generation 48: Aleak Cldal Algbk Algek AlZek Generation 49: Claal Alcbk Albek Alcek Cldak Generation 50: Alcck Claal Albfk Dlcek Alcbh Generation 51: Alcck Dlaek Dlcck Albfh Alcce Generation 52: Aldck Dlahk Albfm Dlccg Dlchk Generation 53: Albcm Ajdck Clbfm Dlccn AlZck Generation 54: Aldcm Ajdck Clafm Blbfm Djdck Generation 55: Agdck Ajdfk Claff Djfck Dpdck Generation 56: Amdck Ajdbk Ajffk Cnaff Drdck Generation 57: Ajdck Ajcbk Gmdck Amhck Imdck Generation 58: Ejdck Ajebk Gmdck Cmhck Gndck Generation 59: Gldck Ajebi Gndck AjYbk Cmhch Generation 60: Cmbch Endck Endck Gldbk Fndck Generation 61: Andck Cibch Fmdck Gmbch Fndcl Generation 62: Ajdck Andck Bndcl Cibcm Andak Generation 63: Andck Aodck Andcl Anddk Bodcl Generation 64: Boacl Bkdcl Andck Apdck Bodbl Generation 65: Boack Boacl Bkdcl Aidck Cpdck Generation 66: Coack Bkdck Bkdcl Boacg Bfacl Generation 67: Aoack Bkdbk Bndck Bkdcl Bndcl Generation 68: Bkdak Dkdcl Bkdch Aeack Bhdbk Generation 69: Bkdbk Dkddl Ekdcl Ceack Bkdan Generation 70: Ekacl Dkdcl Bkdbh Ekdcl Bkdbo Generation 71: Ekacl Dkdcl Epacl Eeacl Bkdgh Generation 72: Akacl Emacl Ekagl Ekecl Egacl Generation 73: Amacl Akacp Epacl Ekafl Egacl Generation 74: Akacm Bgacl Amacd Akaap Enafl Generation 75: Akabm Akacf Bracl Enael Akfcm Generation 76: Bracl Anacf Braci Enael Enaem Generation 77: Bnaci Bracl Dnael Enaek Brbcl Generation 78: Bmaci Emaek Fnaek Dhael Dncel Generation 79: Bnaek Fnadk Doael Emdek Hmaek Generation 80: Bnaek Biaek Bmdek Fnadk Fnadk Generation 81: Biaak Bhaek Bmdel Bnaik Eiaek Generation 82: Biaak Biaek Bhaak Bmdbl Bmdel Generation 83: Bjaak Bmdcl Biaai Btaak Bmdil Generation 84: Bmccl Bmdcj Bjagk Bpaak Ejaak Generation 85: Bjack Blccl Elaak Bjagk Bpaak Success! Here's the final generation: Generation 86: Black Blbcl Bjack Bjaak Bqack If I improve the selection algorithm to be stronger, such as a simple count of the number of correct letters, then it takes fewer generations:
Brown to Black Genetic Algorithm Program with extremely strong selection writes: nclx65% perl ga.plGeneration 1: Brown Generation 2: Bxown BroKn Brywn Bgown Brhwn Generation 3: Bxown BxoBn BVown BxowJ BxRwn Generation 4: BTown BxowY Bxoun BxoWn Bxosn Generation 5: BToNn BToww BTowD BTojn BTokn Generation 6: BToIn BTozn BUoNn BRoNn BNoNn Generation 7: BTogn BToIK BTojn BOoIn BaoIn Generation 8: BTogk Byogn BTogb BMogn BTogm Generation 9: BVogk BTXgk BTolk Blogn BMocn Generation 10: Blogk BPogk BVosk Bdogk BVokk Generation 11: BloSk Blolk BlNgk Blojk BloWk Generation 12: Block BlGSk BloJk Blouk BloIk Generation 13: BlVck plock BloMk Xlock Bloek Success! Here's the final generation: Generation 14: Black Block BlLck BlEck BlVWk Here's the program, it's in perl:
Program Code writes: #! /dv/tools/bin/perl use strict; my $originalWord = "Brown"; my $targetWord = "Black"; my $numOffspring = 10; my $numSelectedOffspring = 5; my $maxGenerations = 100; if (length($originalWord) != length($targetWord)) { print ("Length of orginal word ($originalWord) and target\n" . "word ($targetWord) are not the same, this program\n" . "can not yet handle different word lengths.\n"); exit; } my $wordLength = length($originalWord); my $letters = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" . "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"; my @Letters = split(//, $letters); my $numLetters = @Letters; my @ThisGeneration = ($originalWord); PrintGeneration(1, @ThisGeneration); for (my $gen=2; $gen<=$maxGenerations; $gen++) { my (@NextGeneration, @SelectedNextGeneration); foreach my $word(@ThisGeneration) { for (my $i=0; $i<$numOffspring; $i++) { my $offspring = $word; substr($offspring, int(rand($wordLength)), 1) = $Letters[int(rand($numLetters))]; push(@NextGeneration, [Evaluate2($offspring), $offspring]); } } @NextGeneration = sort {($a)->[0] <=> ($b)->[0]} @NextGeneration; for (my $i=0; $i<$numSelectedOffspring; $i++) { push(@SelectedNextGeneration, $NextGeneration[$i]->[1]); } @ThisGeneration = @SelectedNextGeneration; if (Success(@ThisGeneration)) { print "\nSuccess! Here's the final generation:\n\n"; PrintGeneration($gen, @ThisGeneration); last; } else { PrintGeneration($gen, @ThisGeneration); } } exit(0); ################################################## sub PrintGeneration { my ($gen, @Generation) = @_; print "Generation $gen: " . (join " ", @Generation) . "\n"; } # Uses count of number of correct letters, higher is better sub Evaluate1 { my ($word) = @_; my $sum = 0; for (my $i=0; $i < $wordLength; $i++) { if (substr($word, $i, 1) eq substr($targetWord, $i, 1)) { $sum++; } } return $sum; } # Uses summation of differences of letter ordinals, # lower is better sub Evaluate2 { my ($word) = @_; my $sum = 0; for (my $i=0; $i < $wordLength; $i++) { my $diff = ord(substr($word, $i, 1)) - ord(substr($targetWord, $i, 1)); if ($diff < 0) { $diff = -$diff; } $sum += $diff; } return $sum; } sub Success { foreach my $word(@_) { if ($word eq $targetWord) { return 1; } } return 0; } --Percy
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Fosdick  Suspended Member (Idle past 5529 days) Posts: 1793 From: Upper Slobovia Joined: |
WK wrote:
You're right; the "generator" site is pretty bad. Besides, Noam Chomsky has already shown the disconnect between biological evolution and the evolution of language, namely the presence or absence of syntax. You don't need to run the generator. If you actually bothered to read the page you would have seen that what Taz said early on, and you bizzarely criticised while throwing some ad homs at other people, is right and that Perry's version of evolution is a huge strawman.For a start he chooses a system which rather than 4 discrete states has ~65 possible states, and then acts as if calculations on probability using this set are in any way relevant. He also has a whole section on adding natural selection, but he never does! Not a single one of his examples shows any sign of selection whatsoever, he just keeps mutating the originals with no selection. Not to mention the fact that his proposed form of selection would only generate better click-ads and almost certainly wouldn't be selective for the phrase he nominates as his target. So if you had read the site and seen that in fact he is putting up nothing but a strawman why would you need to run the generator? I'm sure it does what he says it does but that has absoloutely no bearing on the validity of random mutation and natural selection as forces driving evolution. The whole page is so bad that to upbraid him for failing to properly emphasise other factors such as drift, now that my friend is ankle biting. More to the point, let me take further pains to explain myself. In his opening post, DigDug Master wrote:
quote: One interest of mine has been the differentiation between selective and non-selective causes of evolution. I think people often assume that mutation/selection is the only way evolution happens, so I moved to point out to DigDug that there are other means. If this is somehow 'dragging down the standards of scholarship' then...well, then that's your opinion. Nuff said about that, and I'll be putting on my high boots again to protect my ankles. On this issue of "speciation" (re: Message 43), would you agree that cladists view speciation as a requiment for evolution? Or do you see it differently? The term may have multiple meanings. For example, Steven Stanley, in his Macroevolution/Patterns and Processes (1979, pp. 12-13), says this:
quote: My point here is that "speciation" is a bit ambiguous, and that I admitted the same to Quetzal. So, without chewing up my ankles too badly, please tell me how that is 'dragging down the standards of scholarship'. ”Hoot Mon
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