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Author Topic:   More Evidence of Evolution - Geomyidae and Geomydoecus
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 16 of 96 (388988)
03-09-2007 3:47 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by MartinV
03-09-2007 2:31 PM


Re: contradicting the source
MartinV writes:
It's only proof for darwinists.
It's not proof at all, even for Darwinists. It's only additional evidence for a theory already in possession of a wealth of evidence. What distinguishes this evidence from much other evidence is the clarity of support it provides for co-evolution.
I see explanation that two unrelated organisms speciate in the same way via undirected random mutation picked up by natural selection as utterly ridiculous and as darwinistic fancy.
I think we were already well aware of your opinion, but this doesn't address the topic of this thread. The paper describes research identifying a number of cospeciation events between gophers and their resident lice. This means that the gophers and lice often experienced speciation events at roughly the same time, according to the paper with a probability of less than 1% that it was due to chance.
Why don't you take a look at the paper, it's pretty straightforward:
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by MartinV, posted 03-09-2007 2:31 PM MartinV has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 19 by MartinV, posted 03-09-2007 4:28 PM Percy has replied

  
MartinV 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5828 days)
Posts: 502
From: Slovakia, Bratislava
Joined: 08-28-2006


Message 17 of 96 (388990)
03-09-2007 4:04 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by Chiroptera
03-09-2007 3:05 PM


Re: You are confused!
quote:
The assertion that two completely unrelated organisms would be "programmed" to speciate in the same way, at the same position in time and space, is ridiculous
As you see it was Crashfog who used teminus-technicus "to speciate", not me. I only made paste-copy. So direct your linguistic attention to him and explain him basics of your common evolutionary concepts.
I am looking forward on "Is evolution finnished" to your darwinistic explanation why are swans white.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by Chiroptera, posted 03-09-2007 3:05 PM Chiroptera has replied

Replies to this message:
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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 18 of 96 (388991)
03-09-2007 4:19 PM
Reply to: Message 17 by MartinV
03-09-2007 4:04 PM


Re: You are confused!
I'm willing to accept, for the moment, that you actually are someone for whom English is a second language, and not simply a John Davison sockpuppet effecting "language difficulties" as a diversion.
Nonetheless, none of us are going to be able to respond to your objections - if you have any beyond personal incredulity - until you're able to phrase them in a way we can understand. I've tried to respond to your objections as I understood them, but clearly I failed, since you have not replied to them.
Ah! My wife is fairly fluent in Russian. If that's a language you're more familiar in than English, perhaps you could state your objections in Russian and I'll have my wife attempt to translate? Not to imply that I don't know that there's a difference between Slovak and Russian, of course.

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MartinV 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5828 days)
Posts: 502
From: Slovakia, Bratislava
Joined: 08-28-2006


Message 19 of 96 (388993)
03-09-2007 4:28 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by Percy
03-09-2007 3:47 PM


Re: contradicting the source
This means that the gophers and lice often experienced speciation events at roughly the same time, according to the paper with a probability of less than 1% that it was due to chance.
Ok - this is quotation from your pdf article having 9 pages but almost 4MB!
quote:
This amount of cospeciation is more than expected by chance
alone (P < 0.01; reconciliation analysis, as implemented
in TreeMap 1; Page, 1995). These comparisons indicate
that cospeciation between gophers and lice is extensive.
So it indicates that cospeciation governed by darwinistic random mutation is not random. It means that cospeciation governed by randomness is not governed by chance. Or better - cospeciation caused by random mutation and natural selection is more probable as caused by pure chance.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by Percy, posted 03-09-2007 3:47 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 20 by Percy, posted 03-09-2007 5:32 PM MartinV has replied
 Message 53 by Fosdick, posted 03-10-2007 8:55 PM MartinV has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 20 of 96 (388997)
03-09-2007 5:32 PM
Reply to: Message 19 by MartinV
03-09-2007 4:28 PM


Re: contradicting the source
MartinV writes:
So it indicates that cospeciation governed by darwinistic random mutation is not random. It means that cospeciation governed by randomness is not governed by chance. Or better - cospeciation caused by random mutation and natural selection is more probable as caused by pure chance.
I can't be sure what you're actually saying, so let me just explain a little about random mutation and natural selection.
Mutations are largely random. Where and when they occur and what affect they'll have on the organism can't be predicted. Some types of mutations are more likely than others, and some DNA locations are more likely to experience mutations than others, but to a first approximation mutations can be considered random.
In a population of organisms such as lice, natural selection decides which lice survive to reproduce and which do not. Natural selection is not a random process. The "natural" part of natural selection refers to the natural environment. A random mutation makes the organism either better able to compete in the environment, or it makes it less able, or it has no effect either way. It is the natural environment imposing its will upon the organism that allows it either to survive and reproduce or to die and have its genes die with it. This is selection in the wild, which is natural (as opposed to breeding), hence the term natural selection.
Random mutation is one of the engines of variability (allele remixing is another) upon which natural selection operates. The mutations create a wide range of characteristics among a population of organisms, and natural selection decides which ones have offspring that comprise the next generation.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by MartinV, posted 03-09-2007 4:28 PM MartinV has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 22 by MartinV, posted 03-09-2007 6:00 PM Percy has replied

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 21 of 96 (388999)
03-09-2007 5:56 PM
Reply to: Message 17 by MartinV
03-09-2007 4:04 PM


Re: You are confused!
Ah, I see.
In context, I can understand what crashfrog was saying when he wrote that.
Meanwhile, your reasoning (and your East European affectation) is so confusing it is hard to tell what you are talking about.
Anyway, my apologies. I do see that you are riffing off of crashfrog. I still doubt that you either understand what he was saying, or even what you are talking about.
Warning! In this thread white swans are red herrings. Do not continue to discuss them!
quote:
I am looking forward on "Is evolution finnished" to your darwinistic explanation why are swans white.
I'll give it to you here. White swans are probably better able to produce surviving progeny than swans that aren't white.
Now, if you'd like, you can give some evidence of this supposed "spirit force" that is supposed to be causing (or was causing) evolution. "I don't understand natural selection" is not evidence, by the way.
Edited by AdminNosy, : topic warning

Actually, if their god makes better pancakes, I'm totally switching sides. -- Charley the Australopithecine

This message is a reply to:
 Message 17 by MartinV, posted 03-09-2007 4:04 PM MartinV has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by MartinV, posted 03-09-2007 6:08 PM Chiroptera has replied

  
MartinV 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5828 days)
Posts: 502
From: Slovakia, Bratislava
Joined: 08-28-2006


Message 22 of 96 (389000)
03-09-2007 6:00 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by Percy
03-09-2007 5:32 PM


Re: contradicting the source
Instead of explaining basics of darwinism you should better explain the sentence from the article:
quote:
This amount of cospeciation is more than expected by chance
alone.

What have authors of the article on their mind?
Something like cospeciation caused by "random mutation" is better explanation as cospeciation caused by "chance mutation"?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by Percy, posted 03-09-2007 5:32 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by Wepwawet, posted 03-09-2007 6:28 PM MartinV has replied
 Message 27 by Percy, posted 03-09-2007 7:08 PM MartinV has replied

  
MartinV 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5828 days)
Posts: 502
From: Slovakia, Bratislava
Joined: 08-28-2006


Message 23 of 96 (389001)
03-09-2007 6:08 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by Chiroptera
03-09-2007 5:56 PM


Re: You are confused!
In context, I can understand what crashfrog was saying when he wrote that.
Crashfrog and you are trying to divert discussion. You should explain sentence from the article discussed:
quote:
This amount of cospeciation is more than expected by chance alone.
One of darwinistic pillars is random mutation. You should explain how random mutation and natural selection is more succesfull in cospeciation as "chance alone". Punktum.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by Chiroptera, posted 03-09-2007 5:56 PM Chiroptera has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 24 by Chiroptera, posted 03-09-2007 6:24 PM MartinV has not replied

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 24 of 96 (389004)
03-09-2007 6:24 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by MartinV
03-09-2007 6:08 PM


Re: You are confused!
What is the problem with the article crashfrog brought up? This is exactly evidence of random mutations.
As the gophers evolved into different species, the lice that are associated with the different populations no longer interact; you now have isolated populations of lice that do not interbreed. The mutations that arise in one population will be different than the mutations that occur in a different population because the mutations are random. Therefore, you will see the different population of lice evolve differently.
The paper crashfrog is citing is evidence in favor of random mutations being important in the process of evolution.
Of course, you are free to babble incoherently about crocodiles and sharks in the environment posing some kind of problem for the lice adapting to life on new species of gopher, but I assure you that there is no problem here for Darwinian theory.

Actually, if their god makes better pancakes, I'm totally switching sides. -- Charley the Australopithecine

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 Message 23 by MartinV, posted 03-09-2007 6:08 PM MartinV has not replied

  
Wepwawet
Member (Idle past 6108 days)
Posts: 85
From: Texas
Joined: 04-05-2006


Message 25 of 96 (389005)
03-09-2007 6:28 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by MartinV
03-09-2007 6:00 PM


Re: contradicting the source
Instead of explaining basics of darwinism you should better explain the sentence from the article:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This amount of cospeciation is more than expected by chance
alone.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What have authors of the article on their mind?
Something like cospeciation caused by "random mutation" is better explanation as cospeciation caused by "chance mutation"?
You know, you could actually quote the entire sentence instead of just a fragment and insert your own punctuation...here's the whole thing (quoted from your previous post, so don't try to tell us it was an accident):
This amount of cospeciation is more than expected by chance
alone (P < 0.01; reconciliation analysis, as implemented
in TreeMap 1; Page, 1995).
That little part inside the parentheses is important, it tells you exactly what the authors have in mind. The P < 0.01 tells you what the correlation coefficient is of the data and the rest of the sentence explains the method used so that you can do the calculations yourself if you like and it shows you the page where the calculation is made so you can check their math. I can't teach statistics to you (I'm just going on memory from class several years ago), but I assume that they have them in Eastern Europe, although you won't find modern statistical methods in the Bible. By the way, it's not a P, it's the Greek letter Rho; the P only approximates the actual character.

When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.
- Henry Morris, Head of Institute for Creation Research

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by MartinV, posted 03-09-2007 6:00 PM MartinV has replied

Replies to this message:
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MartinV 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5828 days)
Posts: 502
From: Slovakia, Bratislava
Joined: 08-28-2006


Message 26 of 96 (389006)
03-09-2007 7:05 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by Wepwawet
03-09-2007 6:28 PM


Re: contradicting the source
One would say that cospeciation in the case discussed was somehow directed and has nothing to do with chance. Yet considering darwinistic "random mutation" as source of this "selected" cospeciation is of interest. And if there is math in the West that gives better results with "random mutation" as with "pure chance" I will sleep well tonight.

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 27 of 96 (389007)
03-09-2007 7:08 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by MartinV
03-09-2007 6:00 PM


Re: contradicting the source
The explanations offered by others are correct. In the sentence you quoted, the "chance alone" portion refers to the statistical probability that their findings are due to chance. It doesn't refer to mutations or to natural selection. Mutations are, to a first approximation, random. Natural selection is non-random because it is imposed by the environment in which the organism resides.
Discussions about creation/evolution often focus on the evidence for evolution, and Crashfrog highlighted this particular paper because he believed the evidence it offered was particularly compelling. Evolution predicts that changing environments create pressures upon organism by making their lives more challenging. A changing environment destroys the stable relationships organisms have with their environment and with other species. Any random mutations that happen to provide an advantage in the new environment will be seized upon and rewarded by natural selection by allowing those organisms to produce more offspring more often.
This particular research is significant because the DNA histories (phylogenies) of mole and lice have changed in concert. When mole DNA experienced a significant event, so did lice DNA. This would be very unlikely if selection of random mutations were itself random. It strongly suggests (P < .01) that whenever the mole changed, the lice changed, and vice versa, in a cause and effect manner. The mole provides the environment for the lice, and any changes in mole morphology (shape and structure) were accompanied by changes in lice morphology. In the aggregate lice populations also had their effects on moles and provided pressure for change upon mole populations.
But not only is this evidence for evolution, since it is precisely what evolution would predict, it is also evidence against both design and divine creation. No designer or god would include in DNA the signposts of evolutionary changes that never actually happened.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by MartinV, posted 03-09-2007 6:00 PM MartinV has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by MartinV, posted 03-10-2007 2:07 AM Percy has replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 28 of 96 (389008)
03-09-2007 8:00 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by crashfrog
03-09-2007 2:47 PM


Re: contradicting the source
With the clade differences as wide as lice and underground mice the differences of the taxanomic species and the neontologic species, no matter the time, may be more easily interchanged in thought than if one was speaking of bird that cleans the teeth of a predator without being eaten instead.

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MartinV 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5828 days)
Posts: 502
From: Slovakia, Bratislava
Joined: 08-28-2006


Message 29 of 96 (389012)
03-10-2007 2:07 AM
Reply to: Message 27 by Percy
03-09-2007 7:08 PM


Re: contradicting the source
When mole DNA experienced a significant event, so did lice DNA. This would be very unlikely if selection of random mutations were itself random. It strongly suggests (P < .01) that whenever the mole changed, the lice changed, and vice versa, in a cause and effect manner.
This is the first respond to the question after a flux of arrogant posts.
The "if selection of random mutations were itself random" is the first answer to the question.
But in such case we should take into consideration all possible mutations that weren't picked up by selection. It would mean that ratio of all possible mutations to the mutation preferred by selection is 100:1. Such a ratio is very unusual. Let us consider that to a cospeciation led 10 mutations of gene with 100 nucleotides. (Give another example if you like). I see there almost infinite possibilites of mutation. From this almost infinite all possible mutations (1 mutation of nucleotide in given sequence, two mutation or 10 mutations but on different places etc...) only one was picked by natural selection. All others should be detrimental while weren't picked.
In the case of of ratio 100:1 between "random mutation picked by natural selection" and "pure chance" or "random mutation only" I dare say that evolution is directed. It means that one of 100 random mutation in gene lead to cospeciation. Such ratio is very high. Such ratio doesn't support "random mutation selected by NS" but directed evolution (orthogenesis) instead. Such great ratio suggest somehow directed mutation in the given genes.
But not only is this evidence for evolution, since it is precisely what evolution would predict, it is also evidence against both design and divine creation. No designer or god would include in DNA the signposts of evolutionary changes that never actually happened.
Yet if probability that random mutation wouldn't lead to cospeciation is only 0,01 (by "pure chance") than the article support directed evolution - orthogenesis very. Such theory of orthogenesis is something I agree with.
It would mean - supposing your explanation and my reasoning are correct - that given article dispute darwinistic explanation instead of confirming it:
it strongly suggests (P < .01) that whenever the mole changed, the lice changed, and vice versa, in a cause and effect manner.
Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.

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Replies to this message:
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 Message 32 by crashfrog, posted 03-10-2007 9:44 AM MartinV has replied
 Message 33 by Percy, posted 03-10-2007 10:01 AM MartinV has not replied

  
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 30 of 96 (389016)
03-10-2007 3:50 AM
Reply to: Message 29 by MartinV
03-10-2007 2:07 AM


Re: contradicting the source
From this almost infinite all possible mutations (1 mutation of nucleotide in given sequence, two mutation or 10 mutations but on different places etc...) only one was picked by natural selection. All others should be detrimental while weren't picked.
This is a baseless assumption. Just because only 1 particular beneficial mutation ocurred and was subsequently selected doesn't mean that that was the only mutation in the whole available genetic phase space which could be beneficial and it certainly doesn't mean that all others would be detrimental.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
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