|
Author
|
Topic: Potential falsifications of the theory of evolution
|
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 314 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: 07-20-2006
|
Re: In a sense deterministic?
Well, see there you go. You asked if these mechanisms demonstate the appearance of determinism and of non-random actions, and both Dr. A and Percy are here to tell you that, no they are not deterministic, ok? They have found out because they have looked! If you are going to keep fussing with what scientific studies are showing, or use your own knowledge of the written word to make conclusions, you are going to get yourself all messed up. I mean, what does a guy like Shapiro know, compared to the turbo-charged cutting edge mind of a guy like Dr.A? He has just told you that it can't be deterministic, because he has looked! That guy knows a lot of shit about everything, just ask him. Haven't you ever performed the ritualistic masochism of reading an entire one of his posts? Bondage, rope burned ass-whopping never looked so appealing. I really think you should get past the fact that people like Percy and Dr. A have explicitly stated that they need a good strategy to convince all the fence sitters on their site of the validity of evolution, that their side is the right one. Put that completely out of your mind, and simply except that when THEY interrupt data to mean it is random, its random! What more do you need to know. I know what your thinking, that perhaps there is much more information about biological systems that we have not even begun to understand, and that just because we see some evidence (ok, sure LOTS of evidence) of organisms performing amazing feats of constructed adaptive means-in the end you can rest assured that when Dr. A, and Percy and Mobilogirl tell you that its just a mirage, and that its really just your ignorant creationist tendencies fooling you, that YOU are the unelightened one, not them. Stop reading the information for what it says! Accept that they are there to lead you to the promised land of unguided, TOTALLY random (except when its not random, but nevermind, its relative) chaotic lucky lifeless molecules, which just got into a spiral of accidental motion. Alla alla akbalaka...just believe, and you will be free! Natural selection is omnipotent-we don't need no fucking proof!!! The title of this forum is "Biological Evolution", not "Hysterical Creationism".
|
molbiogirl
Member (Idle past 2671 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: 06-06-2007
|
|
Message 767 of 968 (603715)
02-07-2011 10:41 AM
|
Reply to: Message 760 by shadow71
02-06-2011 5:10 PM
|
|
McClintock
Do you accept McCllintocks findings and if so are these random mutations? Yes. They are random. Percy did a walk thru. Do you want me to elaborate? DNA repair is yet another mechanism that Shapiro lumps into his category NGE. It is a process. The outcome is random. Each and every mechanism Shapiro calls NGE is random. DNA release and competence for DNA uptake? Random. Prophage excision? Random. Horizontal transfer of intgrated conjugative elements (ICE)? Random. Mutator polymerase? Random. CTnDOT excision and conjugal transfer? Random. T-DNA transfer to plant cell? Random. Stress-induced IS elements? Random. Must I list them all?
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 760 by shadow71, posted 02-06-2011 5:10 PM | | shadow71 has seen this message but not replied |
|
Percy
Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: 12-23-2000 Member Rating: 4.9
|
|
|
Message 768 of 968 (603718)
02-07-2011 11:09 AM
|
Reply to: Message 760 by shadow71
02-06-2011 5:10 PM
|
|
Re: In a sense deterministic?
Thought I'd add one more thing. Don't know if this helps, but the processes that Shapiro calls non-random are also non-deterministic. Were you perhaps thinking that anything non-random must be deterministic? That non-random and deterministic are synonyms? If you *were* thinking that non-random and deterministic and the same thing, then trying to understand how they are actually very different might help. The way Shapiro misuses the term non-random doesn't make this an easy exercise. --Percy
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 760 by shadow71, posted 02-06-2011 5:10 PM | | shadow71 has replied |
|
Taq
Member Posts: 10085 Joined: 03-06-2009 Member Rating: 5.6
|
Re: In a sense deterministic?
You asked if these mechanisms demonstate the appearance of determinism and of non-random actions, and both Dr. A and Percy are here to tell you that, no they are not deterministic, ok? When you talk about random and deterministic with relation to the actions of cells you need to be specific. Is the SOS response a deterministic action of the cell in response to adverse environmental conditions? Yes. Are the mutations produced by the SOS response random with respect to fitness? Yes. You also seem to ignore my questions related to the lottery analogy. I think it would really help if you could answer them. First, do you believe that the lottery is random? If yes, how do you explain the non-random nature of the time for the lottery drawings? The drawings occur every Wednesday and Saturday night. That is a non-random distribution. Also, how can the lottery be random if the results are clumped within a specific range of numbers (e.g. 1-50)? A random drawing should produce any number from 0 to infinity, right? So the range of numbers that the lottery produces are not random either. Is the lottery non-random because the machine that picks the ping pong balls has levers and such that are deterministic? So why is the lottery considered to be random? Mutations are the same. The timing of mutations is non-random, such as with the SOS response. The DNA range of the mutations is also non-random in that certain genomic features are more likely to accumulate mutations than others just as the ping pong ball in the lottery results is more likely to have a 10 on it than a 112. However, these mutations are random with respect to fitness just like the lottery is random with respect to the tickets. Does this help you understand why we consider mutations to be random? Do you understand that the process that produces transposon mutagenesis does not know which mutations will produce positive adaptations in a given environment? Do you understand that the SOS response does not know which mutations will allow them to overcome the environmental stress? Edited by Taq, : No reason given.
|
Taq
Member Posts: 10085 Joined: 03-06-2009 Member Rating: 5.6
|
|
|
Message 770 of 968 (603723)
02-07-2011 11:41 AM
|
Reply to: Message 745 by shadow71
02-04-2011 5:18 PM
|
|
Re: Defining random mutation again
I guess this is where I am getting confused. This paper talks of Non-Random Distribution of TEs, where the TEs non-randomly occur in what appears to be selected sites.
If the mutations occur in a non-random manner, are they random with respect to fitness? For the sake of argument, let's assume that 100% of TE insertions occur in the exons of a coding gene. If we assume that there are 20,000 genes (a low estimate) with 5 exons each (also on the low side) that is 100,000 exons that the TE can insert into. Let's also assume that each exon is 1,000 base pairs long (also on the low side). Now there are 1 million possible insertion sites for each and every TE insertion, and this number is from calculations that are on the extreme low side of things. Will everyone of these insertions result in a beneficial mutation? No way. Will some of these insertions be maladaptive? Very, very likely. More importantly, do the mechanisms that produce TE insertions know which mutations will produce beneficial mutations and which will not? Absolutely not. Therefore, TE insertions are random with respect to fitness. The mechanisms that produce these mutations are blind as to the effect of the mutation on fitness. See my lottery example above for a better understanding of how a process can have both non-random and random features. Edited by Taq, : No reason given.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 745 by shadow71, posted 02-04-2011 5:18 PM | | shadow71 has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 799 by shadow71, posted 02-08-2011 1:39 PM | | Taq has not replied |
|
Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3660 days) Posts: 983 From: China Joined: 11-14-2009
|
What evidence do you have to prove that DNA repair outcomes are all random? Can you prove that during DNA repair functions always result in purely random outcomes? Do you know that all of these processes you listed are understood well enough for you to conclude that they all result in random outcomes-which are just as likely to be bad as good? And if the outcomes of these mechanisms are just as likely to be deleterious as beneficial, doesn't that actually mean that statistically they should overwhelming favor deleterious over beneficial, since a random response, with no known outcome surely couldn't be lucky enough to get the few possible good outcomes. It would be like selecting a number in advance, then pulling out a number from a large drum of all possible numbers-the odds will always be against you that you will choose the one number that was pre selected. So for every right one, you would get 50, or 100, or 1000 wrong ones depending on how many numbers there are to choose from. So, unless all of these mechanisms are completely understood, can you possibly state definitively that they really are random as you say? This sounds much more like you simply saying they are, rather than scientific evidence. I don't believe any of the mechanisms you listed are completely understood, so that seems a pretty far out conclusion. And again, if results really are random, bad results will always favor good ones. Is that what the numbers are showing, bad always favoring good? If not we have a problem.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 767 by molbiogirl, posted 02-07-2011 10:41 AM | | molbiogirl has not replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 772 by Taq, posted 02-07-2011 11:46 AM | | Bolder-dash has not replied |
|
Taq
Member Posts: 10085 Joined: 03-06-2009 Member Rating: 5.6
|
What evidence do you have to prove that DNA repair outcomes are all random? Again, you need to be careful when using the word "random". You need to specify what random is related to. We know that mutations are random with respect to fitness because the processes which produce these mutations are blind to the effects these mutations will have on fitness. DNA breakage does not occur just at the sites that would be beneficial to the organism if mutated. DNA breakage occurs throughout the genome, even at sites that would be detrimental to the fitness of the organism if mutated. TE insertions occur throughout the genome, even at sites that are detrimental to the fitness of the organism. These genetic engineering systems are not able to deduce which mutations will be beneficial to the organism and then produce those and only those mutations.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 771 by Bolder-dash, posted 02-07-2011 11:41 AM | | Bolder-dash has not replied |
|
Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3660 days) Posts: 983 From: China Joined: 11-14-2009
(1)
| |
| |
| |
|
|
Message 773 of 968 (603728)
02-07-2011 11:58 AM
|
Reply to: Message 769 by Taq
02-07-2011 11:32 AM
|
|
Re: In a sense deterministic?
You have already used your lottery analogy to try to define random a hundred times, and frankly I don't find it very convincing at all. Random is not a relativistic term in most applications of the word. It is a yes or no, black or white determination, with limitations. Something can be completely random, but still confined to a narrow scope. A coin toss is random, except that there is only a choice of two, heads or tails. It doesn't become any less random, just because there is not a third option, like a foot or a fourth option like a nose, or any infinite number of options. randomness is not determined by infinite possibilities. When people use the term random, it is understood to mean that the results can not be predicted, and that they are not determined ahead of time- one outcome is just as likely as another. So even though you keep going back to your limitations on what a lottery can produce, I don't think it has any bearing on the term random. There is no determinism to how a lottery number is drawn, no exact definitions of where the balls shall be placed, no specifications to the speed at which the balls are turned, no preciseness to the time a ball is drawn, no consistency to the manner in which they rotate, etc..Thus lacking the preciseness needed for an organized outcome, the outcome becomes random. If lotteries weren't random, governments wouldn't allow them. Governments do allow them. Nobody argues that lotteries are somewhat relatively random. Nobody tries to determine what they are random relative to. They are random. If you ever heard people discussing the lottery in terms of its deterministic nature, I think you are dealing with unusual people or clairvoyants.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 769 by Taq, posted 02-07-2011 11:32 AM | | Taq has replied |
|
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1497 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: 03-20-2003
|
Re: In a sense deterministic?
Random is not a relativistic term in most applications of the word. It is a yes or no, black or white determination, with limitations. Uh, no, actually, in almost every application "random" is a quantitative (what you improperly call "relativistic") term describing the "randomness" of distributions and outcomes. For instance, when you open a new pack of cards, they're in numerical and suit order, with the jokers on top (this aids quality control by inspectors at the card printing factory.) It's estimated that it takes seven cuts and shuffles to truly randomize the deck before you use it (in Vegas they use a machine to cut and shuffle many more times than that.) Therefore, it's reasonable to suspect that a new deck of cards shuffled only twice is less random than one shuffled the full seven times. And what do we mean by "less random"? We mean that the deck of cards contains elements of predictable order - that there will be regions of the deck where we can predict subsequent sequence from the initial order. That predictability is a measure of entropy, the more predictable the order of the deck is, the less entropy it contains as a sequence. The least predictable sequence is the most shuffled, most random deck of cards. And now we can quantify "randomness" as a measure of entropy, proving that it isn't at all a "black and white" quality.
If you ever heard people discussing the lottery in terms of its deterministic nature, I think you are dealing with unusual people or clairvoyants. It's amazing how nearly every time you open your mouth, you're wrong:
quote:
Cracking the Scratch Lottery Code ...Srivastava realized that the same logic could be applied to the lottery. The apparent randomness of the scratch ticket was just a facade, a mathematical lie. And this meant that the lottery system might actually be solvable, just like those mining samples. At the time, I had no intention of cracking the tickets, he says. He was just curious about the algorithm that produced the numbers. Walking back from the gas station with the chips and coffee he’d bought with his winnings, he turned the problem over in his mind. By the time he reached the office, he was confident that he knew how the software might work, how it could precisely control the number of winners while still appearing random. It wasn’t that hard, Srivastava says. I do the same kind of math all day long.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/01/ff_lottery/
|
Taq
Member Posts: 10085 Joined: 03-06-2009 Member Rating: 5.6
|
Re: In a sense deterministic?
You have already used your lottery analogy to try to define random a hundred times, and frankly I don't find it very convincing at all. Random is not a relativistic term in most applications of the word. Yes, it is. Your unwillingness to accept this fact is why you can not understand why mutations are random with respect to fitness. We could use craps if you like. With craps we have a weighted distribution of numbers. 7 is by far the most common result with 2 and 12 occuring less often (see here for the non-random distribution of craps results). Therefore, craps is non-random with respect to the distribution of results in the same way that TE's are non-random with respect to genomic distribution. However, craps is still random with respect to the bets laid on the table. The chances of rolling the point in craps is not increased by having a bet placed in favor of rolling the point. The dice are blind to the bets on the table in the same way that mutational processes are blind with respect to fitness.
Something can be completely random, but still confined to a narrow scope. So the fact that TE's preferrentially insert into exons does not make them non-random?
When people use the term random, it is understood to mean that the results can not be predicted, and that they are not determined ahead of time- one outcome is just as likely as another. Just like no one can predict which exon a TE will insert into beforehand.
So even though you keep going back to your limitations on what a lottery can produce, I don't think it has any bearing on the term random. Then why do you point to the limitations of TE's as an indication that they are non-random?
There is no determinism to how a lottery number is drawn, no exact definitions of where the balls shall be placed, no specifications to the speed at which the balls are turned, no preciseness to the time a ball is drawn, no consistency to the manner in which they rotate, etc..Thus lacking the preciseness needed for an organized outcome, the outcome becomes random. The exact same can be said about the process of mutagenesis. Or I could use your argument and claim that just because no one has found a deterministic process in the lottery machine does not mean that it doesn't exist.
If you ever heard people discussing the lottery in terms of its deterministic nature, I think you are dealing with unusual people or clairvoyants. And I would say the same of people who claim that mutations are non-random with respect to fitness.
|
Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3660 days) Posts: 983 From: China Joined: 11-14-2009
|
|
|
Message 776 of 968 (603733)
02-07-2011 12:30 PM
|
Reply to: Message 774 by crashfrog
02-07-2011 12:19 PM
|
|
Re: In a sense deterministic?
How random is a lottery that chooses numbers from a cage of balls? 30% random? 60% random? Your example of the guy breaking the code of scratch tickets is a very stupid one. THAT is most definitely a deterministic system. Its designed that way! They don't make the possibility that every card can be a winning one, you dipshit. They control how many winning ones there are and how many losing ones. If not they might be forced to pay out more than they take in-that is only a desired outcome is someone as clueless as you is in charge. And yes, next time you attempt to post an insulting reply, I am going to give it back to you ten times, you simplistic twit.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 774 by crashfrog, posted 02-07-2011 12:19 PM | | crashfrog has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 780 by Taq, posted 02-07-2011 12:40 PM | | Bolder-dash has not replied | | | Message 781 by crashfrog, posted 02-07-2011 12:43 PM | | Bolder-dash has not replied |
|
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 314 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: 07-20-2006
|
Re: In a sense deterministic?
When people use the term random, it is understood to mean that the results can not be predicted, and that they are not determined ahead of time- one outcome is just as likely as another. No. When people use the word random, they do not always mean equiprobable. For example, if I say that the sum of two dice is random, I do not mean that all the numbers from 2 to 12 are equiprobable. To take another example, when I say that mutations are random I do not mean that transitions and transversions are equiprobable.
|
Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3660 days) Posts: 983 From: China Joined: 11-14-2009
|
|
|
Message 778 of 968 (603736)
02-07-2011 12:35 PM
|
Reply to: Message 774 by crashfrog
02-07-2011 12:19 PM
|
|
Re: In a sense deterministic?
There was actually a clue in the article that you linked:
But that’s not possible, since the lottery corporation needs to control the number of winning tickets. The game can’t be truly random. Instead, it has to generate the illusion of randomness while actually being carefully determined. Maybe you should have read the article you were using to attempt to prove your point FIRST, before you posted something that disproves your point so obviously you frikkin moron. You can read right?
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 774 by crashfrog, posted 02-07-2011 12:19 PM | | crashfrog has not replied |
|
Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3660 days) Posts: 983 From: China Joined: 11-14-2009
|
Re: In a sense deterministic?
You just used the word random, without saying what it was random relative to? How can that be? I thought random required a relative object? A comparison. Did you leave something out of your use of the word? But yes, I agree, the word random doesn't always mean that all outcomes are equiprobable, and I guess that is why I wouldn't say that. There indeed are times when one result is more probable than another. Thus the standard to measure whether or not something is random, is to determine if the selection process is controlled or not. Hmm, determinism seems to be such a useful word when considering randomness. Edited by Bolder-dash, : No reason given.
|
Taq
Member Posts: 10085 Joined: 03-06-2009 Member Rating: 5.6
|
Re: In a sense deterministic?
How random is a lottery that chooses numbers from a cage of balls? 30% random? 60% random? According to Shapiro, the lottery is non-random because it occurs every Wednesday and Saturday night.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 776 by Bolder-dash, posted 02-07-2011 12:30 PM | | Bolder-dash has not replied |
|
™ Version 4.2