Darwin in the Genome

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I am not the evasive one.

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Peter,It has taken TEN pages on the IC & Cambrian explosion thread to get you to agree a prediction of "transitional form" from the ToE. Why would that be, if not for your evasion? The question required a single, simple answer, that could easily have been given in your very next post. You are as slippery as an eel, & it's nothing to be proud of.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

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Even your best evidence of common descent is not free from NRM (as I will point out later), and thus not compelling.

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But it seems that you are the only one that sees this 'NRM', so I am not concerned about it i n the least.

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It should be obvious that you cannot convince me with such data.

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It was obvious long ago that you already have your mythology in place and have no intention of budging one micrometer, evidence be damned. This is demonstrated in your tendency to claim evidence against your position is really evidence for it, as you have done on several occasions.

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If you are going to claim common descent you have to exclude all other possibilities (that is the scientific method), since 'evolution-from-microbe-to-man' is an extraordinary claim. And as you know extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

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As youi are the only one that seems to see 'alternative possibilities', again, I am not that concerned with what you think about anything.As for extraordinary evidence - got any for creatons?Or MPG, for that matter?

Dear Mark,You were the one that wanted to set up definitions and it is known that it always takes a long time. Usually debates involving two (opposing) parties are about definitions. I thought I told you that in a previous mail.best wishes,
Peter

Hi Percy,You, Page and PaulK will have all your responses soon, but since you have chosen for a massive (instead of a substantial) counter attack of your outdated views on life, it will take a bit of my time to address all your mails. First, I will finish off with Page's best example of common descent: the alignment in primates. And that requires a bit of attention. I hope you understand. Thanks in advance.best wishes,
Peter

PB,I just hope your treatment of Scott's phylogeny is consistent with oobservation in general.....Mark

What general observations do you mean?

All we're asking is that you address the issues. My message contained nothing complex and nothing that calls for a "massive counter attack." To summarize:

• Dr. Caporale disagrees with you. Repeatedly claiming her as a supporter cannot make it true, and only makes you seem immune to common sense and logic, which naturally hurts your cause.
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• NRM is already part of evolutionary biology.
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• The evolutionists here all accept the same theory of evolution. We do not each of us have our own "personal 'evo vision'", to use your words.

Our "outdated views on life", as you call them, are just mainstream evolutionary biology accepted by thousands of professional scientists in this field around the world. The consensus of the many is how science neutralizes the biases of individuals, and consensus is something you lack. In order to develop that consensus you need to develop arguments that attract rather than repel followers, and for that you need evidence tied together with logical arguments that are consistent with the real world. Mere posturing, like calling existing views "outdated" and evolutionism a non-sequitur, combined with made up things like MPG, GUToB, morphogenetic fields and creaton waves, and an elusive debating style, do not lend an impression of cohesion and rationality, prime requirements for developing a consensus.--Percy[Correct spelling. --Percy][This message has been edited by Admin, 03-05-2003]

Hi Percy:All we're asking is that you address the issues. My message contained nothing complex and nothing that calls for a "massive counter attack." To summarize:1) Dr. Caporale disagrees with you. Repeatedly claiming her as a supporter cannot make it true, and only makes you seem immune to common sense and logic, which naturally hurts your cause.PB: I already explained this in a previous letter.2) NRM is already part of evolutionary biology.PB: No, it is not.3) The evolutionists here all accept the same theory of evolution. We do not each of us have our own "personal 'evo vision'", to use your words.PB: And that is 'random mutation and selection'?And concerning addressing issues. I also know a couple of unadressed issues. To start: What to think of the avoidance to address my remark that Darwin made an unwarrented extrapolation? Nobody did respond to that. In fact he did. I demonstrated the evidence and I introduced a new theory. What else do you need?Best wishes,
Peter

A rational, logical explanation? I recall no such message. Please provide a link. In Message 164 I stated that you can find NRMs described in standard textbooks, and as evidence I provided this excerpt from the textbook Evolution by Monroe W. Strickberger: So you are clearly wrong to say that NRM is not part of evolutionary biology.Nobody's avoiding any issues with you, Peter. It's just that you introduce new issues before old ones have been completed, you make completing issues very difficult with frustrating and evasive answers like, "No, it is not" (see above quote from you), and you spread discussion of your theory across multiple threads instead of focusing it on a single thread as board administration has requested.--Percy

Hi Percy,NRM are not part of ToE. You must mix them up with hotspot mutations.
Dr caporale already told me that there would be a lot of objection. For obvious reasons I pointed out several times. And I notice, she's right.best wishes,
Peter

Peter, it does you no favors to continue to cite Dr. Caporale to support your arguments. No one is buying it, you're only fooling yourself. We can read Dr. Caporale's own words in her posts in this thread, and we can read her book - she does not support your views. I don't know why you keep repeating this obvious fallacy, but it hurts your credibility no end.As does your ignorance about NRM. Hotspots are one type of NRM, which is very much part of ToE. For example, this description of NRM comes from the slides for a presentation for the Biology 320 course at the University of Evansville (http://faculty.evansville.edu/...tic%20Variation/tsld015.htm): Here's a link to an article in the Cancer Journal that appeared way back in 1995 and talks about a type of non-random mutation: NRM is most definitely already part of evolutionary biology. If you're thinking of some new type of NRM then you'll have to describe for us what the difference is. Is it that your type of NRM is caused by morphogenetic fields and creaton waves?--Percy

Dear Percy,And now you are going to provide the link to a statement or reference where evolution theory or figure heads of evolution theory have accepted NRM in evolutionary theory as used by me and Dr Caporale. Maybe you could quote Kimura, Futuyma, Dawkins or some other prominent person of the field. That would increase evolutinism's credibility a lot.That is is mentioned in scientific literature doesn't mean it has been integrated in evolution theory. (You mix up a lot, nowadays. How come?)So, here you have an excellent chance to provide evidence for your claims.best wishes,
Peter

In many of my recent messages I have pointed out that Dr. Caporale does not agree with you, that she has said as much, that no one believes this claim, and that it is hurting your credibility. Your response each time is to simply once again repeat the claim. Peter, this is what people mean when they describe your debating style as evasive. A forthright answer would describe how you came to such a conclusion in light of all the evidence to the contrary.A forthright style would also address why the mentions I provided do not indicate that NRM is part of evolutionary theory. I've provided a textbook citation and links to places on the web that support this assertion. There are researchers working in this area, like Dr. Caporale, who is part of the mainstream understanding of evolution and who is on record here as stating that NRM fits within a Darwinian framework, and Susan Rosenberg of the State University of New York, who publishes papers about non-random and adaptive mutation: The book From Genes To Cells by Bolsover, Hyams, Jones, Shephard and White has a section in the chapter on mutations called Mutation Is Not Random that describes NRM as genetic mechanisms that are able to cause mutations at specific points in the genome.Your response so far to this type of information is in essence an empty unsupported "No, you're wrong." Hoping that you'll address the issues this time...--Percy

It is interesting that Peter continually ignores my point that his hate-figure Richard Dawkins wrote on the subject in _The Blind Watchmaker_ published in 1986"The first respect in which mutations are non-random is this. Mutatiosn are cuased by definite physical events; they don't just spontaneously happen. They are induced by so-called 'mutagens' (dangerous because they often start cancers): X-Rays, cosmic rays, radioactive substances, various chemicals, and even genes called 'mutator genes'""Second, not all genes in any species are equally likely to mutate. Every locus on the chromosome has its own mutation rate...Some parts of the chromosome are so-called 'hot-spots' with a high turnover of genes, a locally very high mutation rate""Third at each locus on the chromosomes, whether it is a hot spot or not, mutations in certain directions can be more likely than mutations in the reverse direction"

Borger's (and to be fair, many if not all creationists share this ignorance based sentiment) notion that NRM is anti-evolutionary stems form the typical misdefinition applied by non-scientists (which makes it all the more odd that Borger would fall into this trap).This has been addressed ad nauseum on this board alone, and if I recall correctly, it has been explained repeatedly to Borger, you simply refuses to accept his error.In real science, 'non-random' means, as Percy recently addressed, 'non-random' as in, for example, the tendency of mutations to occur at certain loci due to, for example, physicochemical properties of particular sequences - 'hot spots' as they are generally known, and have been for some time.'Non-random' to the creationist means that there was some sort of intervention or 'direction' in these mutations.To make matters more confusing, Cairnsian mutation, the formerly called "directed" or also "non-random" or even "adaptive mutation", originally appeared to, indeed, be mutations that were directed to specific loci at certain times, certainly a non-Darwinian phenomenon.Additional experimentation and analyses - some done by Cairns himself - demonstrated conclusively that these mutations were not directed at all, rather were the chance results of genome wide stress induced hypermutation.By chance - that is, randomly - some clones acquired mutations in genes that allowed them to metabolize the medium.One of the problems with this NRM/MPG schtick is that in order for this mechanism to be 'real', it stands to reason that ALL individuals possessing the same genes should, in fact, exhibit identical substitutions at identical sites in the same circumstances, which, of course, they do not.Borger can claim "Oh look, that is NRM... and so is that... and so is that...", but it means nothing because he has no way of establishing that his criteria have merit. Indeed, the last time he addressed on the alignments I presented (could have been the same one), he not only misidentified some sites, but his criteria for what he claimed showed NRM seemed totally rbitrary and frequently contradictory.Then, of course, there was the "so non-random it appears random" 'explanation.That reminded me of the creationist positon on criteria for establishing what a 'kind' is - hybridization. If two species can produce a viable hybrid, they would be of the same kind... Of course, if they can't, it does not mean that they are not of the same kind...