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Author Topic:   WTF is wrong with people
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 229 of 457 (708114)
10-04-2013 10:15 PM
Reply to: Message 222 by vimesey
10-04-2013 5:26 PM


Re: More or less a summary perhaps
Speaking as one of the 10 from 1966, I'd like to reassure my fellow rationalists that I am doing all I can to propagate the benefit.
Or as my buddy Randy would say. I've got your benefit --- right here!

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 222 by vimesey, posted 10-04-2013 5:26 PM vimesey has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 231 of 457 (708122)
10-05-2013 7:37 AM
Reply to: Message 220 by Faith
10-04-2013 3:34 PM


Re: More or less a summary perhaps
Change in allele frequencies refers to POPULATIONS. And it used to be a major definition of EVOLUTION.
You are completely correct. What you state is in fact the current definition of evolution.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 220 by Faith, posted 10-04-2013 3:34 PM Faith has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(2)
Message 232 of 457 (708123)
10-05-2013 7:51 AM
Reply to: Message 223 by Faith
10-04-2013 7:35 PM


Re: Now a real summary: evolution is dead but evolutionists don't know it
As usual everybody wants to add in mutations as if that would change this basic picture, but of course it wouldn't.
Here is a place where you could advance your argument without even providing evidence. Just explain in detail why mutations don't change the picture without making yet another assertion. Because so far your answers when asked about this haven't been helpful. Or viable.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 223 by Faith, posted 10-04-2013 7:35 PM Faith has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 238 of 457 (708153)
10-05-2013 7:27 PM
Reply to: Message 237 by Percy
10-05-2013 5:47 PM


Re: How about revisiting the lizards for a bit?
And you *do* need mutations to produce a new species, because otherwise the daughter population has merely a subset of the alleles as the parent population, and DNA analysis would quickly reveal that they're the same species.
I don't think this is true. You do need mutations of course, but mutations are not timely. At any given time, there may be small numbers of mutants in the population. If the circumstances are that the mutants have no benefit over the main population in producing offspring, we get drift.
At some point in the future, circumstances may change so that those mutations provide an advantage, and over time nearly all of the population or some isolated subset of the population will possess that mutation and others. However that does not make them any less diverse than any other members of the species prior to isolation. And of course mutation will continue to form in both species. Not only that, but there can continue to be some cross breeding between populations. Isolation need not be perfect in order for speciation to occur.
At times we talk about evolution as if it happens as soon as beneficial mutation shows up. But the time of the creation of a mutation may be well distinct from the time the animals with that mutation actually have a survival benefit that allows selection to act.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 237 by Percy, posted 10-05-2013 5:47 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 242 by Percy, posted 10-06-2013 6:33 AM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 240 of 457 (708162)
10-06-2013 12:01 AM
Reply to: Message 239 by Faith
10-05-2013 11:33 PM


Re: How about revisiting the lizards for a bit?
Allele remixing only occurs when you get a population split.
What do you mean when you say allele remixing?
So that you don't feel like I am setting you up, I'll tell you upfront that I think you believe that 'allele remixing' is a description of Mendelian genetics, and I maintain that 1) evolution has nothing to do with that and 2) you are not really describing Mendelian genetics accurately.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 239 by Faith, posted 10-05-2013 11:33 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 241 by Faith, posted 10-06-2013 12:03 AM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 243 of 457 (708175)
10-06-2013 8:05 AM
Reply to: Message 242 by Percy
10-06-2013 6:33 AM


Re: How about revisiting the lizards for a bit?
Rats. Another dupe
Edited by NoNukes, : Removed

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 242 by Percy, posted 10-06-2013 6:33 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 244 of 457 (708176)
10-06-2013 8:07 AM
Reply to: Message 242 by Percy
10-06-2013 6:33 AM


Re: How about revisiting the lizards for a bit?
Every member of a population is a mutant. There's never a point in time when it can be declared, "This is the genome of species X," and any deviation from that genome is a mutant,
Yes, that is true. What I meant was mutants having the a mutation that gives individuals an advantage when conditions change such that the a movement toward speciation begins.
What I am suggesting is that a comparison of the new species to the old species will show that individuals from the new species are identical to the mutants from the old species. The appearance will be something like Faith describes, but in reality all of the variation comes from mutation.
every allele of every gene in every cell everywhere had its beginning as a mutation.
Yes of course. That's pretty much required by common descent.
What you're describing sounds more like the pool of variation in any genome upon which species can draw, and which was the point of Frako's Dawkins video.
Didn't watch it.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 242 by Percy, posted 10-06-2013 6:33 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 268 by Faith, posted 10-07-2013 5:33 PM NoNukes has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 246 of 457 (708178)
10-06-2013 9:16 AM
Reply to: Message 241 by Faith
10-06-2013 12:03 AM


Re: How about revisiting the lizards for a bit?
I was using Percy's phrase and I assumed he meant what happens when you get a change in allele frequencies, which you get when you have a population split.
I don't attribute population genetics to Mendel.
Unlike what Percy says, you have claimed that new phenotypes arise when you get a change in allele frequencies. I have just had a discussion with Percy that teases his disagreement with that proposition.
For example you say in Message 181:
In all these cases you are going to get reduced genetic diversity AND the formation of new phenotypes because of the new allele/gene frequencies,
And at Message 235
And again, you don't NEED mutations to get a new "species" because the new allele frequencies are quite sufficient to accomplish that.
And this The B is an allele and the b is another allele, both for eye color which is the gene or location on the chromosome. This is the basic idea I have in mind in everything I'm saying. There is no reason to suppose any of it arises by mutation but if it occasionally does the pairings still get expressed in the same way.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 241 by Faith, posted 10-06-2013 12:03 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 266 by Faith, posted 10-07-2013 5:15 PM NoNukes has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 258 of 457 (708223)
10-07-2013 10:48 AM
Reply to: Message 257 by PaulK
10-07-2013 9:51 AM


Re: How about revisiting the lizards for a bit?
If decreasing genetic diversity increased phenotypic diversity the most phenotypically diverse population would be genetically identical.
I think Faith avoids this conclusion by introducing a super genome that could be contained within a few organisms without affecting their phenotypes. She thinks that nowadays new animals are created by doling out pieces of the originally variety to different populations.
Mutation don't affect this because they just don't. Mutations only create filth and trash.
Next step put fingers in ears and sing hymns loudly during any and all rebutals.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 257 by PaulK, posted 10-07-2013 9:51 AM PaulK has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 322 of 457 (708448)
10-10-2013 8:55 AM
Reply to: Message 321 by Percy
10-10-2013 8:37 AM


Re: Environment-driven evolution
agree with you that Faith's rejection of selection seems unnecessary for maintaining her creationist viewpoints.
Is this an error? I don't see her position as rejecting selection. She seems instead to reject mutation and drift as a means of propagating diversity.
She does not appear to even know what selection is. Selection is simply our name for the natural process whereby the slowest gazelle gets eaten first and the weakest puppy gets no milk. Is that really something anyone denies?
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 321 by Percy, posted 10-10-2013 8:37 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 324 by Percy, posted 10-10-2013 9:39 AM NoNukes has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 360 of 457 (708588)
10-11-2013 9:15 AM
Reply to: Message 353 by Percy
10-11-2013 7:19 AM


Re: Environment-driven evolution
I think selection must be included. Its effect is far greater and more immediate than drift.
I think understating the role of drift is to commit an error. Drift explains the ready pool of variation within a population. If in fact, things were arranged so that an immediate mutation was required to deal with selection pressure, I don't believe evolution would be successful.
There are some confused statements regarding evolution present in this discussion, some of which center around this point. It is at least possible that Faith is confused by some of them, although I think the truth has been stated correctly often enough that a more capable person would have understood at least where the disagreement lies.
The truth is that some aspects of the evolution of species are a bit like breeding collies. Nature selection, except in the rarest circumstances, works on already available variation. The difference is that natural selection can only selects for fitness traits while breeders select for all traits of any interest to the breeder. Evolution also includes an element of chance. Sometimes the slow gazelle does get away. Breeding however involves no such probability. The badly spotted collie is immediately separated out.
It is the nature of the selection along with the continuing role of mutation and drift that leads to a completely different end result for breeding collies and evolution. If a collie puppy with kitten ears turns up through a mutation, the breeder discards that puppy from the gene pool, but evolution forces don't do any such thing. In short "blurring" is solely a breeding phenomenon. It is not a problem for actual evolution, and you don't have to be the sharpest knife in the drawer to get that.
Breeding is essentially a dead end because that's what humans ensure happens by culling. But evolution is not the same kind of dead end. And if Faith wants to show that ordinary mutation rates cannot replenish a species after a population split, I expect to see math backed denials. Show me the math. Even some back of the envelop calculations have got to be more convincing than the mere denials from someone who knows diddly squat.
Edited by NoNukes, : Add chance/probability

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 353 by Percy, posted 10-11-2013 7:19 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 361 by Percy, posted 10-11-2013 9:39 AM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 362 of 457 (708613)
10-11-2013 12:22 PM
Reply to: Message 361 by Percy
10-11-2013 9:39 AM


Re: Environment-driven evolution
I suspect you're calling breeding a dead end because it doesn't produce new species, but that's not a limitation of artificial selection.
I may have been unclear about that. A breed is not necessarily a dead end, but the process of breeding as practiced by say collie breeders is indeed a dead end. The process is designed to create a specific phenotype and to reject the breeder's idea of unacceptable diversity. A mutation that generates more powerful legs on a collie would get kicked out ot the gene pool by breeders even if such a thing would produce a survival advantage out in the wild.
Obviously we can stop the culling process and allow divergent breeds to exist, and I did not mean to say anything about that. And of course, we might imagine a human breeder that is actually practicing eugenics. Not talking about that either. And neither is Faith.
My view of breeding and evolution is that they differ only in the selection pressures.
Yes, but that turns out to make a huge difference and is what drives some people to be quite vehement about the distinction. Faith seems to take this vehemence as indication that people don't understand her position. (I won't be mentioning Faith anymore in this thread as I find doing so tests my restraint).
Other than being more specific about some things that are different, I don't think I've said anything that disagrees with your stated view. There are some common things to say about breeding and evolution, but in this discussion the distinctions are quite important.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 361 by Percy, posted 10-11-2013 9:39 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 363 by PaulK, posted 10-11-2013 12:38 PM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied
 Message 377 by Percy, posted 10-12-2013 7:55 AM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 382 of 457 (708690)
10-12-2013 11:56 AM
Reply to: Message 377 by Percy
10-12-2013 7:55 AM


Re: Environment-driven evolution
Both approaches produce greater adaptation to the criteria, which is all that's important.
No Percy, that is not all that is important for this discussion. The selection criterion for natural selection is simply the competitive survival to reproduce successful offspring. Period. Unlike the case for breeding, no specific trait is necessarily advantageous in isolation from any other trait. A gazelle can escape lions by being faster, or having great senses, or by being able to predict where and when lions are going o show up, or by being just smart enough to hang around gazelles that have sensory advantages in escaping lions.
Also, breeding requires enforced isolation while natural selection does not.
And accordingly the population dynamics are completely different under those completely different selection criteria. Breeding might well lead to a loss of diversity while natural selection does not require any such thing.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 377 by Percy, posted 10-12-2013 7:55 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 383 by Faith, posted 10-12-2013 2:25 PM NoNukes has not replied
 Message 388 by Percy, posted 10-13-2013 8:53 AM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 389 of 457 (708728)
10-13-2013 10:40 AM
Reply to: Message 388 by Percy
10-13-2013 8:53 AM


Re: Environment-driven evolution
NoNukes writes:
No Percy, that is not all that is important for this discussion.
Does it make my position more clear if I add that when I think of "breeding" I don't think of just actual breeders of pets and cattle?
If you can convince me that Faith is talking about the type of breeding that increases diversity, then yes we can ignore the "important for this discussion qualifier" I added to my remarks. I've already acknowledged your position. That's why the only thing I took issue was your claim to have covered everything of importance.
I'm not arguing that there aren't distinctions, simply that they aren't relevant to this discussion, and in fact may be confusing the discussion.
Well you are wrong. The distinctions are relevant. I don't doubt that the discussion has produced confusion, but some of that confusion is years in the making.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 388 by Percy, posted 10-13-2013 8:53 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 395 of 457 (708816)
10-14-2013 10:25 PM
Reply to: Message 394 by Faith
10-14-2013 8:23 PM


Re: Contribution of Drift
ound myself pondering genetic drift. I've had only a vague idea about drift...
Sigh.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 394 by Faith, posted 10-14-2013 8:23 PM Faith has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 396 by Coyote, posted 10-14-2013 11:14 PM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

  
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