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Author | Topic: Wright et al. on the Process of Mutation | |||||||||||||||||||
Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
You might want to look at your phrase "fitness of offspring". As offspring are, by definition "fit" simply by being there, then "fitness" is not a quality "of" offspring. If, instead, you argue that success of reproduction of the offspring makes them fit, then i) success of reproduction doesn't necessarily incur advantage to the species, and ii) clearly, if the offspring do not reproduce then the parents reproductive success cannot be regarded as "fitness" or success. The best option I think is to drop the word "fitness". If you don't understand the concept of fitness, that is no reason why biologists should abandon it; that's a sign that you should try harder to understand it. What is it about this concept that is giving you trouble?
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Not familiar with this. Please provide references for this. I think he's trying to be wrong about the Law of Mass Action.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
That mechanism would appear to be a Natural Law of Dynamic Equilibrium. According to this Natural Law, the reactions that take us from DNA to RNA to protein goes both ways. All of the conditions for the reverse reaction occur in the cytoplasm. PROTEIN CODES DNA! Since the process of transcription and translation does not destroy DNA, reversing it would not create it even if this reversal actually happened.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Whilst DNA is not changed in aligning animo acids into proteins, it is eventually broken down into individual molecules. And the reverse of this would not be a protein producing DNA coding for that protein from its constituent bases. Just a bunch of bases chaining together to make DNA.
I am considering the reverse of the reaction that we usually consider. No.
The bonding of an animo acid to an RNA triplet is independent of whether the amino acid and the triplet are 'free' or a part of a chain. The bonding of an amino acid to an RNA triplet does not in fact happen. You seem to think that translation is like transcription. It is not. Moreover, since translation does not destroy RNA, reversing the process would not create any.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
I'm not sure that this is the right place to express general incomprehension of the theory of evolution. The thread has an actual topic, you know, and it is not "Things Bolder-dash still doesn't understand".
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
It is an entirely appropriate question to ask that it be explained what the theory of the 'modern synthesis" is, since it is this which is being used to the claim that "that living organisms actively reorganize their genomes..and can sense danger and respond accordingly." is simply another aspect of the modern synthesis. If one is saying this is an aspect of the modern synthesis, they need to show what is and what isn't the modern synthesis, if it is anything at all, other than a plea to admit that we don't understand what is going on and why. Of course, I can certainly understand why you would object to such a question-as it puts those on your side in an uncomfortable position for having to explain something-but claiming it is off topic is not a very good defense-although it is a popular one for you to try to use here, I fully realize. Its is sort of like Dr.A's get out of jail free card..."Hey hey, wait, that is OFF TOPIC, we don't have to answer that!" Can't you even come up with some new tricks A? Obviously my ability to identify faults in your posts is restricted to the extremely limited number of faults that you have so far learned to commit. If you ever come up with a new way to make a fool of yourself, I shall point that out too.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Do you agree that this specificity is not compatable with Neo-Darwinism as it was expressed up until the 1960s? If you mean to say that we didn't know in the 1960s about something that we only discovered after the 1960s, then this is perfectly correct.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
No, what I am asking is, is this specificity compatable with the Modern synthesis? But what the fuck do you mean by that? According to what some people mean by "the Modern Synthesis", possibly yes. According to what some other people mean by "the Modern Synthesis", possibly no. And this is before we even get in to what you mean by "compatible". In effect, you aren't really asking questions about biology, you're asking questions about the terminology used to describe developments in the history of biology. It's like asking: "Is the top quark part of the Standard Model?" Who the fuck cares?
Doesn't this specificity lead to the conclusion that it cannot be completely random and does lead to beneficial changes in the bacteria? If, by "completely random" you mean you mean "equiprobable" then no, mutation isn't "completely random" and biologists have been explaining that fact to you and everyone else in the world over and over and over again for decade after decade after decade since before I was born. If by "completely random" you mean something else, then please stop committing the fucking fallacy of equivocation because it is getting rather boring after the thousandth time you do it. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Which, at the risk of annoying you, brings us back to the position of our old mate Kimura. Really? Glad you could join us.
Although much progress has been made in biology since Darwin's time, his theory of natural selection still remains as the only scientifically acceptable theory to explain why organisms are so well adapted to their environments. (Kimura, The neutral theory of molecular evolution, Chapter 6) We cherish Darwin for we owe to him our enlightened view of the nature of living things, including ourselves; our civilization would be pitifully immature without the intellectual revolution led by Darwin. (Kimura, The neutral theory of molecular evolution, Chapter 1) So if you've really come round to "the position of our old mate Kimura", let me be the very first to congratulate you.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
But surely the conditions bringing about selection are random. Heat, cold, wet, dry, plentiful food, little food, intense competition, little competition, intense predation, little predation- the list is endless. For example, in the Arctic Circle, the snow is sometimes hot and sometimes cold, sometimes black and sometimes white. So why are polar bears all white and well-insulated? Clearly natural selection has nothing to do with it, so it must be the will of God. Or rather the whim of God, since he could just as well have made them black and naked, and that would have fitted them just as well or badly to their ever-changing environment.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
The neutral theory asserts that the great majority of evolutionary changes at the molecular level, as revealed by comparative studies of protein and DNA sequences, are caused not by Darwinian selection but by random drive of selectively neutral or nearly neutral mutants. The theory does not deny the role of natural selection in determining the course of adaptive evolution, but it assumes that only a minute fraction of DNA changes in evolution are adapative in nature, while the great majority of phenotypically silent molecular substitutions exert no significant influence on survival and reproduction and drift randomly throught he species--Kimura, (not sure on the specific source for this since I am pulling it from a Google Books preview of a secondary source). It's the first paragraph of the Introduction to The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution. I guess when Kaichos Man was studying up on Kimura's ideas, he didn't get quite that far through the book. Indeed, he must not have gotten all the way through the Preface, where he'd have read: "[Darwin's] theory of evolution by natural selection has been the great unifying principle of biology." Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
That's right. The same guy who you and the Good Doctor think is on your side, but Dobzhansky was under no such illusion. The following from a BBC transcript- I can source it if you like:
Dobzhansky: It took a century to show that [objections to Darwinism] are devoid of foundation. But now Dr. Kimura and his followers claim evolution to be due to changes which are neither useful nor harmful to their possessors. They are simply neutral and are established merely by chance. If that were so, evolution would have hardly any meaning, and would not be going anywhere in particular. All that we knowall that we observe both in nature and in the laboratoryseems, I believe, to contradict this contention. This is not simply a quibble among specialists. To a man looking for the meaning of his existence, evolution by natural selection makes sense. Perhaps on another thread we can discuss who understood better what Kimura's opinions were --- Dozhansky or Kimura. I shall, of course, be arguing that it was Kimura, because I am not stark raving mad. You, meanwhile, are free to pick which authority you agree with. Will you side with Dobzhansky, who wrote that: "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution", or will you side with Kimura, who wrote that: "Our civilization would be pitifully immature without the intellectual revolution led by Darwin"?
Interesting little Freudian slip in that last sentence. "Looking for meaning"? I thought the central tenet of evolution is that there is no purpose, and therefore no meaning. Whereas I associate the doctrine that evolution would render existence meaningless with the bunch of religious crackpots who actually promulgate it. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Then kindly explain how a random, directionless and purposeless process can give rise to a "meaningful" existence. For example, by producing human beings, who have a meaningful existence. Are you perhaps trying to commit the Genetic Fallacy? You're not very good at it. But this is all off-topic, perhaps you could get back to being wrong about the subject actually under discussion. If you want to be wrong about what is required for a meaningful existence, you could be wrong about that over on Bluejay's thread about The Meaning Of "Meaning" ... Edited to add, no, you can't, it's closed. Still, I'm sure you can find or at least start some thread in which your latest delusion is more appropriate than this one.
We're waiting. The phrase "we're waiting" is more usually used when someone has given you occasion to wait. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
DP.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 306 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
all you have shown is that Kimura believed chance was important in the generation of the genetic variation that we see in populations. You haven't shown that he thought it had anything to do with selection. There was a brief moment there when I thought you'd written something true, but then I realized that you must be quoting Wounded King.
Kimura's concession that selection evolves the phenotype was a logical non-sequiture designed to placate anxious neo-Darwinists. He knew it made no sense. But it kept them off his back. So, let's get this straight. You wish to resolve the massive discrepancies between what on the one hand you wish to pretend that Kimura meant, and what on the other hand Kimura clearly, distinctly, and repeatedly said ... by accusing Kimura of being a deliberate and calculating liar? This is low even for you. But if that's what you want to do, then another question arises. Having traduced his reputation and his veracity in this way, are you sure that you still want to hold him up as the voice of authority? "The notorious liar Motoo Kimura once said ..." would not be an introductory clause that would lend much weight to what followed after. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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