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Author Topic:   How long does it take to evolve?
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 3 of 221 (769684)
09-23-2015 11:27 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Lamden
09-23-2015 10:34 PM


Hello and welcome. That's an interesting question. The answer, I'm afraid, is not going to be that simple. The figure you have from Wikipedia is, I presume, the rate of single nucleotide substitutions. But there's lots of other ways the genome can change, and these have to be taken into account. For example, about 21% of the human genome consists of long interspersed nuclear elements. Single nucleotide substitution isn't and can't be responsible for these: Wikipedia says:
LINE elements propagate by a so-called target primed reverse transcription mechanism. This mechanism was first described for the R2 element from Bombyx mori: A specific nick on one of the DNA strands at the target site is generated by the endonuclease encoded by the R2 element. Thus, a 3'OH group is freed for the R2 reverse transcriptase to prime reverse transcription of the LINE RNA transcript. Following the reverse transcription the target strand is cleaved and the thus created cDNA integrated.
So, at what rate does that mechanism produce copies? I don't know. I don't know if anyone knows. But stuff like that would have to be considered in order to answer your question: it would make no sense to treat LINEs as though they were produced by a series of single nucleotide substitutions when we know for a fact that they're not. Then we should consider SINEs. And gene duplication ...
So, there's no easy answer.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 6 of 221 (769689)
09-24-2015 12:49 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by nwr
09-24-2015 12:37 AM


Re: 22 million
Yes, but that's not starting with the simplest organism, is it?

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 14 of 221 (769753)
09-24-2015 2:46 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by Lamden
09-24-2015 11:11 AM


Re: Thanks to all of you for reading my question
I do, however, believe, that an inability to provide any estimate whatsoever as to the likelihood or possibility of evolution occurring is a strike against the theory. Perhaps not a fatal blow, but a serious shortfall .
You did not ask about "the likelihood or possibility of evolution occurring". You asked how long it would take to get from a simple organism to humans.
You are now lying to us about the topic of your own thread, which you started, which we can all read, in what is only your second post ever on this forum. Are you trying to set some sort of a record?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by Lamden, posted 09-24-2015 11:11 AM Lamden has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 16 by Lamden, posted 09-24-2015 3:17 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 22 of 221 (769766)
09-24-2015 4:23 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by Lamden
09-24-2015 3:17 PM


Re: Thanks to all of you for reading my question
I am interested in honest dialogue.
Apparently not.
You asked what seemed like an honest question --- how long would it take?
Then, having got some answers to that question, you started pretending that we were talking about a different question --- what's the probability that it would happen?
You know that these are two different questions.
If you are interested in honest dialogue, then please engage in it.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 120 of 221 (770591)
10-08-2015 1:16 PM
Reply to: Message 115 by Lamden
10-08-2015 9:51 AM


Re: Let's Get This Discussion Started!
Everything living is a result of the DNA coding. If a human cell contains 6 ft of microscopic DNA coding, let us take an arbitrary guess at how much DNA would be needed to program for a simple light receptor- let's say 1/10 of a mm. (pick your own guess) That would be far, far, more organization than the word "monkey" right there. And less likely to happen than it is to have any word formed by shaking up a bunch of letters and pulling them one by one.
Well, this may interest you. It's a good place to start.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 146 of 221 (770655)
10-11-2015 4:00 PM
Reply to: Message 144 by Faith
10-11-2015 2:19 PM


Re: The usual fantastical made-up nonsense
Just wondering, are ANY of these creatures considered to be in the evolutionary line to human beings?
No, and no-one said that they were. What they said was that they disprove Landen's claim that "the light receptor is still 100% useless without a brain capable of deciphering the light in to "message"", since these are organisms without brains that use light receptors.
SInce you don't say, I would guess they are not, that their visual capacities developed entirely separately, and in fact even uniquely in just a few organisms out of what, thousands or more? within their own genetic families.
Of course, there are some people who think their visual capacities were magicked into existence by God, but I gotta say your idea sounds much more plausible. I think I'll call it ... evolution.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 166 of 221 (770691)
10-12-2015 8:56 PM
Reply to: Message 160 by Lamden
10-12-2015 2:38 PM


Re: Ok, let's dig a little deeper
No matter how slight the improvement is, is that not an astounding chain of events?
Well, lots of things are true and astounding. The fact that the world is round. Quantum mechanics. The existence of giraffes. But is there an actual argument? If this is meant to be it:
Even the most miniscule, subtle improvement would require a huge degree of organization.
... then I confess I can't make head nor tail of it. Could you expand on it a little? Normally what is needed for a minuscule subtle improvement is actually a minuscule subtle change.
Similarly, The wonders of the eye as we know it seems to good to have overgone such a handicapped development process.
"Seems". Again, you don't so much have an argument as a feeling of incredulity.
But the interesting thing is that eyes do appear to exhibit the fingerprints of just such a "handicapped design process". For example, there is the famous case of the blind spot in the vertebrate eye. We can see how the eye can be improved, but it can't be improved by making it incrementally better, only by going right back to the drawing board and starting over, which evolution can't do. What we have here, then, is a point in favor of evolution, not against it.
An analogy was made to a centipede multiplying its feet through mutations. Without any intention to be disrespectful, it seems amateurish to simplify so drastically . So much is required for something like that to happen, I am not so sure it makes it any easier to understand.
I don't follow you. "So much" needs to happen for what? The duplication of a segment? I don't think so.
Even if there is a beneficial mutation somewhere somehow, they are so rare that by the time it happened, the beneficial species would be outnumbered a trillion to one. By the time the effects of its beneficial mutation started to increase its population, the other trillion cousins , at all far flung parts of the world, would have multiplied to 1 trillion times ( insert some big number), and have their own representation of beneficial mutations. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Life as we know it ought to be far more diverse than it is today.
Well, this is a classic creationist trope: the non-quantitative quantitative argument. How did you measure how much diversity there is in life today? You didn't. How did you calculate how much diversity there would be if life had been evolving for the last 3 billion years or so? You didn't. You really didn't. No-one could. And yet your argument depends on claiming that the first number you didn't calculate is smaller than the second number you didn't calculate.
That's not much of an argument, is it? But if you think it is, then let me have a go. "If creationists were right, there'd be way more fish than there are." Does that convince you? No?
Over the weekend, I have discovered a blurb from none other than Thomas Nagel himself decrying the portrayal of Darwinism as gospel. Had I known about it earlier, I certainly would have drawn from such a celebrated name.
Never mind his name, what's his argument? Is it any good? (Lots of people say no.) Has a philosopher telling scientists what can and can't be true ever been any good?
(The only book of Nagel's I've read was on epistemology, and it was awful.)
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 178 of 221 (770752)
10-13-2015 3:52 PM
Reply to: Message 170 by Lamden
10-13-2015 12:21 PM


Re: Ok, let's dig a little deeper
But biology is all good and fine. The points I am interested in are the conclusions we make from biology.
Then why ... why this thread? Which is all about whether biology is good and fine, and not at all about drawing conclusions from biology.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 170 by Lamden, posted 10-13-2015 12:21 PM Lamden has replied

Replies to this message:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 182 of 221 (770775)
10-13-2015 9:13 PM
Reply to: Message 181 by Faith
10-13-2015 8:35 PM


Re: science is the pursuit of knowledge
There are other threads where it would be on-topic for you to be wrong about this.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 185 of 221 (770781)
10-13-2015 11:22 PM
Reply to: Message 183 by MrHambre
10-13-2015 10:04 PM


Re: Eunuchs in the Whorehouse
Well, apparently Nagel is wrong about biology. Dismissing him seems like a pretty good idea. Unless you can identify an argument he's made on this topic that's any good.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 192 of 221 (770806)
10-14-2015 10:44 AM
Reply to: Message 190 by MrHambre
10-14-2015 8:57 AM


Re: Eunuchs in the Whorehouse
Nobody here even knows what Nagel supposedly said.
This is why I asked you if any of his arguments on this topic were any good.
If you don't know what his arguments are, but are sticking up for him just because he's an "intellectual", then I find that pretentious and shallow.
If you do know, but don't think his arguments are any good, then that might explain why you didn't answer me, but it makes it puzzling that you should stick up for him.
And if do you know, and his arguments are good, then please do tell us what they are.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 199 of 221 (770840)
10-14-2015 4:07 PM
Reply to: Message 194 by Lamden
10-14-2015 2:47 PM


Re: Eunuchs in the Whorehouse
I believe the defenders of intelligent design deserve our gratitude for challenging a scientific world view that owes some of the passion displayed by its adherents precisely to the fact that it is thought to liberate us from religion. That world view is ripe for displacement....
But, you see, this is not an argument. It's just Nagel patting himself on the back for how he's going to rid the world of those pesky Darwinians ... any moment now.
Those who have seriously criticized these arguments have certainly shown that there are ways to resist the design conclusion; but the general force of the negative part of the intelligent design positionskepticism about the likelihood of the orthodox reductive view, given the available evidencedoes not appear to me to have been destroyed in these exchanges. At least, the question should be regarded as open. To anyone interested in the basis of this judgment, I can only recommend a careful reading of some of the leading advocates on both sides of the issuewith special attention to what has been established by the critics of intelligent design. Whatever one may think about the possibility of a designer, the prevailing doctrinethat the appearance of life from dead matter and its evolution through accidental mutation and natural selection to its present forms has involved nothing but the operation of physical lawcannot be regarded as unassailable. It is an assumption governing the scientific project rather than a well-confirmed scientific hypothesis.
But this is not an argument. It's just him saying that in his opinion there are good arguments.
My skepticism is not based on religious belief, or on a belief in any definite alternative. It is just a belief that the available scientific evidence, in spite of the consensus of scientific opinion, does not in this matter rationally require us to subordinate the incredulity of common sense. That is especially true with regard to the origin of life.
If there's a hint of what his argument might be, it's in the phrase "the incredulity of common sense". Or to put it another way, he doesn't know much about science, but he has a prejudice about it and that's got to count for something, right?

This message is a reply to:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 206 of 221 (770904)
10-15-2015 12:41 PM
Reply to: Message 204 by Percy
10-15-2015 7:51 AM


Re: Eunuchs in the Whorehouse
Just looked up Richard Lewontin at Wikipedia, and he's opposed to genetic determinism, which is "the mechanism by which genes, along with environmental conditions, determine morphological and behavioral phenotypes."
Am I reading that right? Does this actually say that Lewontin rejects the genetic foundation of how creatures' bodies look and work?
No, not really.
Consider. On the one hand, no-one claims that a behavior such as speaking Japanese is genetic. It's cultural. If I'd been raised by a Japanese family, I'd speak perfect Japanese.
On the other hand, no-one claims that a behavior such as spinning spiderwebs and then hanging out in them waiting for flies to eat is cultural. That's genetic.
The conflict is over to what extent human behavior is cultural or genetic. Now when Lewontin says he's against "genetic determinism", he's straw-manning to a certain extent, because his opponents do in fact acknowledge that a lot of human behavior is due to culture (like speaking Japanese) and indeed also Lewontin knows that we don't spin spiderwebs because of our genes. But it's not completely out of line, because his opponents do in fact ascribe more human behavior to genetics --- to what they might describe as human nature --- than Lewontin would. They are not really "genetic determinists", but they would ascribe more aspects of human behavior to genetics than he would.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(3)
Message 211 of 221 (770940)
10-16-2015 8:46 AM
Reply to: Message 208 by MrHambre
10-16-2015 6:16 AM


Re: The Limits of Skepticism
And my question still stands: is there any conceivable critique of modern science that we would find acceptable?
Well, a minimum requirement would be that someone should tell me what it is.
It seems like we're just really adept at handwaving away any critique of modern science on the grounds that the person delivering it must be ignorant ...
Au contraire. I have asked repeatedly if you or Lamden can tell me what his critique is, and have been told in return that since he's a philosopher and an "intellectual" his critique must be worth taking seriously. What I have not been told is what it is. No-one has handwaved it away, we haven't seen it yet. But we've been asked to admire it sight unseen on the grounds that the person delivering it must not be ignorant.
I'll ask you again: can you tell me what his "critique" is, or can you just tell me that he's an intellectual? Only his credentials interest me less than his ideas.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 218 of 221 (771009)
10-16-2015 9:20 PM
Reply to: Message 212 by MrHambre
10-16-2015 1:24 PM


Re: The Limits of Skepticism
There just seems to be a siege mentality where people would rather not acknowledge problems with scientific inquiry.
Actually there's a "mentality" where people ask you what these problems are and you won't tell us.
I think Nagel and Lewontin succeeded in at least producing food for thought.
If you think that Nagel has succeeded in "producing food for thought", do you know what it is he actually said? Or are you just supposing that he must have made some good point, though you don't know what it is, because he's an "intellectual"?
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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