THE END OF EVOLUTION?

I'd tend to think that what Lucy is thinking of as the intersect is the existence of the concept of Shannon entropy, since s/he explicitly links the thermodynamic information argument to Shannon.Informational approaches certainly can be applied to thermodynamics, as in the field of Maximum entropy thermodynamics, but this doesn't mean that the 2LoT or even an informational equivalent in any way contradict any changes in information in a given genome, or local reductions in informational entropy in a given genome.TTFN,WK

This is nothing in Shannon's formulation of information theory to support this. The only information theory related definitions of information which rely on intelligent agency that I am familiar with are those proposed by creationists such as Werner Gitt.Are you actually interested in discussing information theory or only in making unsupported assertions about information and how information theory can intersect with evolutionary biology?So far you have singularly failed to show any problems for evolution coming from either information theory or thermodynamics.TTFN,WK

This is pretty much completely wrong. Mutations have different 'meanings' in as much as they are highly context sensitive. A mutation which is beneficial in on environment can be neutral or detrimental in another environment. Most mutations, of whatever kind, are of small effect and many small deleterious mutations can be accommodated without severely harming an organism. In the case of large scale deleterious/detrimental mutations the result frequently is death, that is part of the process of natural selection and one reason why a beneficial mutation tends to increase in frequency in a population and deleterious mutations tend to decrease. Just to clarify, by increase in frequency I mean the mutation is present in more organisms in subsequent generations, I am not talking about rates of actual de novo mutation. That is essentially exactly the argument Lucy hs been making without any support or evidence, do you have some actual coherent reasoning and evidence or just the same faith based argument?TTFN,WK

You checked the taxonomy? What does that even mean? did you read all the latest research papers on greenish warblers? Did you go out and perform lots of interfertility experiments?Without knowing what the taxonomy you checked was based on why should anyone consider it more definitive than the most current research on the Greenish warblers?Do you understand that 'different species' has several different meanings depending on the species concept one uses?TTFN,WK

I think a lot of your questions about ring species were addressed by Percy in Message 164. Since the warblers are in the process of speciation as a ring species there are many sub-species within Phylloscopus trochiloides. As to whether they can't interbreed at the overlapping 'ends' of the ring, this is a hard thing to explore experimentally, I don't think there have been any attempts to test this with the warblers. This is where the different definitions of species come into play as for many biologists reproductive isolation is the important point in defining distinct species, not genetic incompatibility/lack of interfertility.In terms of human evolution, I don't think there is any reason to accept at least 2 of your premises, specifically C and D, I'm also unconvinced that B is necessarily true. But even if they were all true there would be no reason to presume that those conditions must lead to speciation. Indeed one of your points, a large population, will tend to act against speciation, especially when there is a large capacity for travel and gene flow between geographically distant populations.You also seem to assume that humans are the be all and end all of everything. Even if there were no further evolution of humans that wouldn't be the end of evolution in other animals. There is plenty of evidence that humans are still evolving though, just not speciating as Coyote pointed out.TTFN,WK

Wow, well your inane repetition really won me round. Your argument seems to consist of simply ignoring the actual research that has been performed and sticking slavishly to the fact that all of the greenish warblers are not distinctly classified as separate species in some Linnean cladistic system. That isn't what this is. There are a massive number of diverse organisms and populations on the planet. It is an ongoing process for scientists in any number of disciplines, old fashioned taxonomy, molecular genetics, behavioural ecologists and others to try and understand the complex relationships between different organisms. To think that one can simply lump all familiar looking birds into one species and leave it at that suggests that you would have been quite happy if taxonomy had finished after Linnaeus' first draft. It isn't arguing the details, it is continuing to actively research and find out new things or just to settle and give up because what we have is good enough for government work.I mean we know where babies come from right? So who needs the entire field of developmental biology? Your whole argument seems totally antithetical to science.TTFN,WK

But you absolutely cannot, apparently, articulate why that should be. At least not in any way that actually reflects a knowledge of thermodynamics. You are just making a bare assertion, not an argument. In what way does the 2nd law of thermodynamics prohibit an evolutionary origin for the cell? 'Oooh! Cells are complex!' is not an argument based on thermodynamics. As others have pointed out, you and Lucy are both making a very specific claim that the 2LOT makes evolution by random mutation and natural selection producing cells or DNA or some other complex organismal system impossible. Yet neither of you can give any reason actually connected to thermodynamics why this should be the case.The evidence I would suggest is that we clearly have a biological 'structured information system', as you call it, and there is absolutely no evidence for any supernatural mechanisms or intervention in any of the natural history we can observe either currently or in the geographical record.On the other hand we have a large number of natural biological mechanisms which generate biologic/genetic diversity as well as a framework for how the environment can act on such diversity to favour genetic changes with a greater capacity for reproduction.In informational terms random mutation is a statistical process like a Markov chain or Monte Carlo model. The way complex informational structures can arise from such a process is by the interaction of the evironment as a source of information. This is the informational equivalent of the counterargument to the traditional 2LOT argument, in that case people who have a clue what they are talking about understand that the sun produces a huge input of energy into the earth which allows local decreases in entropy without breaking the 2LOT. Similarly complex biological systems can arise due to the input of information from the environment via selection acting on random mutation.What counterargument do you have to this model? In sexual organisms it is usually the case that even in the absence of de novo mutation offspring will be different due to the mixture of their parents' genetic complement. That doesn't affect the fact that we have vast amounts of data showing the existence and prevalence of de novo mutations in organisms of all types. About as believable as you suddenly grasping some basic biology. This isn't mutational rate based on a 5o year lifespan. This is the number of de novo mutations between one generation to the next. A new born baby will already have this complement of mutations.Strangely enough your strawman 'theory of mutations' is indeed unbelievable. This question doesn't seem to make any biological sense, but I'd suggest given your general level of understanding that the answer is probably yes it is unreasonable. Not every base pair in the human genome is the result of a beneficial mutation. This statment makes no sense, it just shows that you don't understand the 'evolution sense' of the term. Your suggestion sounds like nothing more than airy speculation. Do you have any actual reason why a 'data change' or in a biological context a genetic mutation cannot lead to a 'function change'. You also seem to be using the word function in a highly idiosyncratic sense.TTFN,WKEdited by Wounded King, : No reason given.

Why do so many arguing against evolution seem not only to not understand evolution but also to not understand simple arguments, or even plain English.Maybe you just quoted the wrong sentence but what you wrote seems to have absolutely nothing to do with what Dr. Jones said beyond their both discussing Homo sapiens. Dr. Jones' very important point is that even allowing that it would be easier to find evidence of a more recent closely related species of Homo due to it being more recent that unless there were distinct morphological differences from modern Homo we would be unaware of the distinction. We can't tell if there are any other 'cryptic' Homo species in the fossil record because we have no criteria for where to direct the necessary tests which would be required to establish that they represented a distinct species. It may not even be possible to establish this, look at the trouble people have even agreeing on whether H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis or as they are sometimes called H. sapiens sapiens and H. sapiens neanderthalensis.As to our discussion in Message 208, you seem to have trouble keeping straight the difference between people and warblers.Have to say I was fascinated to see you list immunization as one of the stronger environmental stresses acting on modern humans, it really helps to point out just how divorced your understanding of the world is from reality. Sure, contracting polio is much less of a stress on the human body than the polio vaccine, I am wholly convinced by your reasoning and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.TTFN,WK