J.C.Sanford: Genetic Entropy & the Mystery of the Genome

Hey CTD thanks so much for this post!!
That doesnt even go up but the science continues...to...Somehow I missed Sanford and I am “all over” C/E in Ithaca. PRI and the Arts Center will be putting on the a play version of “Inherit the Wind” next month.Of course I do understand what Sanford is saying, but one must put it into some temporal perspective (He was a prof while I was a student but I did not know him then either). Cornell has an Ag quad that is topographically distinct but contemporary with the Human Ecology school yet different again, from the Arts and Engineering Quads while there-at the difference of North Campus and West cuts across what for Bertrand Russell is %the% difference (different once again from Harvard's retrospective) of psychology and physics (except possible at a "turnning point"). Thus differences of opinions are made on slight alterations of walking grades(all very confusing to those who don’t appreciate the difference of Devonian and Cretaceous fossils!!)In the Amazon review was

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shows in Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome that the "Primary Axiom" is false. The Primary Axiom is the foundational evolutionary premise - that life is merely the result of mutations and natural selection. In addition to showing compelling theoretical evidence that whole genomes can not evolve upward

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Well, in 1988 after returning from Africa, I proposed a change to Euclids axioms in regard to bilateral symmetry but presented it not to botanists but instead to the most mathematically adept mathematician (Simon Levin now at Princeton)then biologically on campus. He felt that that was too “philosophical”. So even if one “thinks” that Sandford really ”has’ something with his term “primary axiom” I would doubt it. The whole process of scaling between creationist and evolutionist views is simply one of degrees of doubt. Making it into a strict difference subject to logic actually requires one to establish axioms themselves. I have done so herehttp://axiompanbiog.com/aboutus.aspxAs for “entropy” and the genome, well, this is more a matter of analysis than it was of some synthetic a priori, so unless he has actually been able to present a concept, there-where only a percept is I see little that would enable me to guess that he could have made harmonious Gould’s and Gladyshev’s hierarchies out of some set of particulars. To get a universal as Gladsyehv had done requires that mathematically inclined people like Levin try to think of language beyond Carnap. My posting on EVC has shown me this is not being done. Chomsky is intellectually in the way and Gould simply thought of Chimp-Human breeding in that’s stead. What is at issue is the difference of classes and propositions.Mine are here:
http://axiompanbiog.com/legals.aspxIt is great that you found *this*. It will give me an angle to laugh at the man rather than the science when I go to watch “Inherit the Wind” across the street from where I am posting this.Edited by Brad McFall, : bad grammer

If Sanford should succeed in merely disproving the "Primary Axiom", I should be satisfied to call his effort a success. In Appendix 5, Dr. Sanford considers the objection that evolution can get by without it.He only devotes one page to this, and he may not have fully considered history. It may be that the "theory can evolve". One should consider the host of innovations that other "sciences" have embraced before one dismisses the Darwinists' capacity to speculate.I, myself think they're more likely to remain mute on the science of which he speaks. You know, lead by example: ignore it, and hope their followers do so as well. The opinion of others may differ from my own.

You quote the Primary Axiom as: This of course is simply a strawman creation which is typical of the Christian Cult of Ignorance Palm the Pea Ploy.He states it that way merely because he wishes to promote the Christian Cult of Ignorance Mantra of Enlightened Entitlement; that humans are some special critter and so must be the direct creation of some God they created.By promoting their parody of creator they create a God that is incompetent and a fool, something far smaller than the God that must have created the process of Evolution, and thus a God that Sanford and the Biblical Christian Cult of Ignorance can comfortably control.It is also a strawman because it creates a false impression of either the variety or magnitude of the two processes mentioned. By tossing in the term "merely" he presents a false and, since he claims to actually be a scientist, lying presentation of what those in the field of studying Evolution actually say.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Well, I have not read the book but I would like to.I go to Church with many former and current profs from Cornell from chemical engineering, natural resources, history and physics for example and know some rather personally. There is a biology teacher as an elder here who studies photosynthesis.Will Provine spends a lot of class time, I understand, discussing the relation of asthetic appeal and hypothesis testing so I would guess that whatever it was that Sanford tried to encompass in that page of "disproof" could at best be the claim that asthetic appeals *may* be used where Will probably still would insist on statistical dissection of the data. There is no doubt that a lot of ecological resarch goes on at Cornell without attempting to involve specific evolutionary questions. When he says that "evolution" may be able to go on without it he may simply be referring to a large part of the research being done in the department of Evolution, Ecology and Systematics goes on without dealing with specifics that say Provine would insist are required. The biologist at my Church simply has a thing for Oxygen and plant photosynthesis and keeps the evolutionary thought out of his work and independent of his worshiping, I would guess from what he said about ID last year at a Church function.It is certainly true that when it comes to trying to discuss NS+mutation as a whole this is really only discussed as "philosophy" and not practical biology as I indicated in my first post in this thread. Indeed a lot of work at Cornell is NOT about evolution as a whole but at specific functions and adaptations and sociobiologically slanted thoughts. Tom Einser had written in the 70s that biologists can not really get at the changes very well and there was little mathematical support for the work when I was there. I suspect things are different at Harvard from what I hear from Will.It may certainly be the case that Sandord "got by without" it, but it is strange that when I tried to buy into it, I was told to pass by because I simply rejected the best biophilosophy around, namely a version of James' Harvardian post-behaviorist influence psychologically. On this I may have some filliation with Sanford's turn from academic difference but I will have to read his work. Nontheless social and psychological causality that may overvalue images for the particulars would not be what I would have in the perception that decides if translation in space and form-making can get by without NS+mutation. I do agree that the biology of Harvardian Mayr and Gould and Wilson should be struck out but I do not seem to have a fast enough ball to send them to a different ball park as of yet.But you are probably correct about evos being "mute" on it. Hearing what DS Wilson said on Darwin Day showed me that sociobiology is at war with organcism to such a degree that any external barrier to thier own walls of discussion will not be recognized simply for the same difference that seperates a pictoral language like Chinese from mine of say, English and only error will be in this place of possible encroachement.Edited by Brad McFall, : No reason given.

Just a quibble, but this isn't an axiom at all. It is a conclusion that follows from the axioms of the theory of evolution, and these axioms are based on scientific observations.And even then, this conclusion that humans are the product of evolution has been confirmed by scientific observations.

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

Um, on what basis do you "tend to agree"? Has the scientific work that you have done confirmed this conclusion? Or are you just saying, "this book confirms the mythological beliefs that I choose to maintain?"

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

My guess is that Sanford probably is just using the word "axiom" as some sort of pure abstract simple and not something that is subject to predication, a kind of particular used in conversation with emphasis on the word "primary" but not possessing the actual mathmatical meaning you are intimately more familiar with.I had explictly attempted to use "Hilbert's programme" in biology and relate incidence axioms themselves to biology.I think he simply must mean that NS+mutation is where all discussion of evolution he disagrees with starts, hence primary and thus for purposes of reference to the practical business of biology, axiomatic or devoid of reference to particulars but not universal.Edited by Brad McFall, : of

Yes, of course, and he does not, at any point, say that all mutations are beneficial. This is why you cannot quote him saying any such thing. This is something you made up in your head. It has no connection to the real world. You made that up. No, that is not what he says. This is something you made up in your head. This is why you can't quote him saying any such thing. You're not going to take my word for what my opinions are?What are you going to do?Oh yeah, you're a creationist, you're going to fantasise and lie to me about my opinions without any reference to what I actually say. So, you admit that your claim was "not realistic".And instead of producing a claim which is accurate, you merely whine out an insulting innuendo that if you did, I wouldn't accept it.But implying falsehoods about my hypothetical opinions in the case that you did something you're not able do do is not a substitute for doing it.First, you should come up with a real argument against evolution which is based on facts, rather than numbers which you just made up in your head. If I then rejected your argument, then your contempt for me would be justified.---Now, my turn to ask a question. Why can't you think of any argument against us "evolutionists" without indulging in ludicrous and pathetic fantasies about us? Why can't you argue with real evolutionists, rather than the imaginary evolutionists who live in your head?Could it be because you're ... wrong?---It was you, wasn't it, who invented bizarre libels about Louis Theroux as a substitute for doing the impossible and defending Fred Phelps?I'm starting to see a pattern here.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

No, I do not, which is, of course, why I never said any such thing, and why you had to make that up in your head.I do, however, interpret the phrase "omnipotence of natural selection" as meaning "omnipotence of natural selection". Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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he applied the concept of signal-to-noise ratios (from information theory) to show that the selection pressures are too weak for natural selection to transmit useful information into the genome.

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Respected Cornell geneticist rejects Darwinism in his recent book – Uncommon Descent
There *is* a disagreement among panbiogeographers as to whether "trait information" has to be recieved as being "transmitted" between generations. It appears from this quote that Sanford used "information entropy" rather than Gladyshev entropy and thus he would have given the omnipotence of NS a leg up it might not deserve.So...
if when he said,

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I became convinced that the Axiom could be shown to be wrong to any reasonable and open-minded individual. This realization was exhilarating, but again - frightening. I realized that I had a moral obligation to openly challenge this most sacred of cows.

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I can only balk abit since there-in was a kind of entropy that was probably how he showed it.I can agree with

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Although I had achieved considerable success and notoriety within my own particular specialty (applied genetics), it would mean I would have to be stepping out of the safety of my own little niche. I would have to begin to explore some very big things, including aspects of theoretical genetics which I had always accepted by faith alone. I felt compelled to do all this - but I must confess I fully expected to simply hit a brick wall. To my own amazement, I gradually realized that the seemingly “great and unassailable fortress” which has been built up around the primary axiom is really a house of cards. The Primary Axiom is actually an extremely vulnerable theory - in fact it is essentially indefensible. Its apparent invincibility derives mostly from bluster, smoke, and mirrors. A large part of what keeps the Axiom standing is an almost mystical faith, which the true-believers have in the omnipotence of natural selection. Furthermore, I began to see that this deep-seated faith in natural selection was typically coupled with a degree of ideological commitment - which can only be described as religious. I started to realize (again with trepidation) that I might be offending a lot of people’s religion!

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except the "house" of cards only applies within the academic walls and not to what we can get to on the internet.but in that case I start from a larger perspective of logic than even Russell wanted to do and cut out the necessarily extant academic accordian that permits EITHER a us or british word to rule the day.

Okay, I am having real trouble following your mental processes.You say that Crow's model supports Sanford. Then you say that Crow has solved, or 'solved', the problem. Then you say that Crow's model is unrealistic.It seems like you're trying to say that an unrealistic model which doesn't support Sanford supports Sanford.That can't be what you're trying to say.So what are you trying to say?You tell me that "evolutionists" have got the same result as Sanford, you cite Crow as an example, and then you dismiss what Crow has actually written as being "unrealistic".What is going on here? What?If you haven't read Crow's selection model, what makes you think that it isn't "solving the problem already"?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Hi, Brad.I think that Sanford is engaging in rhetorical tricks, using the phrase "primary axiom" to imply that evolutionists have a predetermined conclusion that they must then try to prove.

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

And of course evolution does "get by" without taking Sanford's nutty straw man as an "axiom".If you will quote me just one "evolutionist" who genuinely claims that this is the primary axiom of evolutionary theory then I shall apologise to Sanford and to you.Until then, I say that since his training must have taught him what the theory of evolution actually says, he is either lying or insane. Or both. It's hard to tell with fundies.---I'll ask again. Why is it that you, why is it that he, why is it that every creationist is incapable of arguing with what competent biologists actually claim?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I suppose I wasn't as clear as I could've been. According to the book, Dr. Crow found that fitness is decreasing. He then proposed (or applied) a model of selection to 'remedy' this finding. I don't have direct knowledge of the particulars. Dr. Sanford devotes a chapter to discussion of this selection model.Then I said I was wondering why the problem should even exist if the selection model is comparable to what is naturally taking place. In other words, if there is actually a solution in place, why isn't it working? So if I say that man is not merely the product of random mutations plus natural selection, you & the rest would not disagree? Fine. Consider it said.

I can't say which type of entropy is to be preferred. But it would be typical of Dr. Sanford to give NS (and thereby the Primary Axiom) every reasonable advantage. It's the only way to make it sporting, and it was still a mismatch if you ask me.Edit:
Saw your other post. You seem to have quite the perspective!Edited by CTD, : No reason given.