Exposing the evolution theory. Part 2

So NS keeps a successful variant. Why?

NS has no choice. It isn’t a thinking being with free will. It is process that will take place.

The mutation process is quite random involving copy error, error correction attempts that glitch, whole gene/gene segment duplication, viral insertion, cosmic ray interference at one loci, all anywhere along the entire length of the genome without regard for what molecules are affected or what proteins or protein producing processes, are affected or how.

A lot of the resultant mutations do nothing. A lot of them aren’t so good. Some, though, make it easier to live, love and propagate. Those are the ones that lead to the reproductive differential that is Natural Selection by definition.

We would have to assume whatever you are constituting is a "variant" improves fitness. But NS cannot act on anything until the variant appears. So what is the probability of a variant appearing? NS cannot affect that probability. Which leads to....

Which leads to nowhere since your premise failed.

PaulK is right (no surprise there).

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No, evolution is more like a hill-climbing search. I.e. it perturbs a parameter and moves to that value if it is higher, then it perturbs again and so on. A random search simply chooses completely random points until it hits the target with no feedback at all.

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The parameter being perturbed is the reproductive differential. And the hill being climbed is environmental fitness as determined by increases in reproduction.

The mutation process is quite random involving copy error, error correction attempts that glitch, whole gene/gene segment duplication, viral insertion, cosmic ray interference at one loci, all anywhere along the entire length of the genome without regard for what molecules are affected or what proteins or protein producing processes, are affected or how. A lot of the resultant mutations do nothing. A lot of them aren’t so good. Some, though, make it easier to live, love and propagate. Those are the ones that lead to the reproductive differential that is Natural Selection by definition.]

You and PaulK are both making unsupported assertions. I understand this is what the ToE requires but it is nothing but an assumption that has zero evidence for it. In fact it is impossible that life could exist and evolve along the complicated paths the ToE requires by such a random means with such a low probability of coming up with the right ingredients at the right time. But that doesn't stop you guys. It can't be proved or disproved so you just go on believing it. There is no religion based on such an unlikely set of facts.

Since improvement in fitness is success (and performing a useful function or doing it better will often improve fitness) natural selection will automatically tend to keep successful variants.

success = improved fitness. We're saying the same thing.

And the probability of variants in sequence appearing is the probability of a mutation occurring which I am sure you can look up.

Ya, so what. Mutations happen. NS in a search cannot affect the rate, location, or type of mutation that occurs. It can only just view the mutation and do something AFTER a beneficial mutation occurs (assuming there is a beneficial mutation to be had - not a at a local peak or flat plateau).

And depending on the landscape, the rate of mutation can limit what NS can do.

After all you imagine a random search rather than a hill-climbing search for evolution but still searching for the same things.

If not, you tell me what a random search is looking for. It has to have a target, all searches do.

A random search simply picks points in search space at random

....and then does what? I think you misunderstand what a random search is. It is not just picking some random point and moving there. That is a random move. That is NOT a search! A random search has a target like any search does.

And what a random search is searching for in our context is "fitness" also. Same as your hill-climbing search. So what does a random search do when it finds fitness, it moves to that point and starts exploring, at random, again.

A hill climbing search explores points around the a location in search space until it finds a “higher” point, whereupon it moves to that point and starts exploring around there.

How does it "explore"? It looks in a random manner around it, just like in a random search.

Random search is same as your hill-climbing search.

So I gave an explanation of a hill climbing algorithm that is clearly distinct from random search

Ya, and it's incorrect because you are not characterizing a random search properly.

To put it simply mutation varies the sequence of a gene - that is perturbing a parameter.

Mutating = perturbing. It's all random. So logically you must mean then that hill climbing is randomly changing the gene, which equates to a random search.

The search process is more than that,

You cannot justify that. NS cannot affect the 'perturbation in any way. It has no influence. It can only move after it has evaluated a random change to see whether it is a successful hit or not.

A random search does the same thing.

In a random search the next sequence tried could be anything. Mutations do NOT completely randomise the genome at every generation. But that is what you would need for it to be a random search.

No! That is not what a random search is. What you just said is like morphing the landscape, then picking a random direction and moving that way. But in search, the landscape is static. The point you are starting form is the current state of things. A different point in the landscape is a different state of things, like a change to nucleotide(s) (mutation). A random search will look at a random point other than where it is, see whether it fits the search criteria, and either move or not move based on that criteria.

The random search does not use feedback in any way to help it choose the next point. A hill-climbing search does, as I have explained.

Same difference. Random Search

Nor does it dent the confidence in evolution explaining a great deal of what is observed in biology. Evolution has always required some initial state which it cannot explain - and the earliest life has left so little evidence that any explanations involving it will tend to be highly speculative at best. So really the point doesn’t change a thing.

I do agree that Darwinian processes can explain some things in biology. But it cannot explain everything. Things categorized as microevolution - sure. But for the origins of life and macroevolution, which includes new proteins and body plans, IC structures, and all the new information that is required for them - Darwinism is not up to the task.

And at least that is starting to be acknowledged by some the scientific community.

...with such a low probability of coming up with the right ingredients at the right time.

right ingredients ... right time ... right thing.

No, Dear Lady, not the "right" thing just ... a thing.

Whether it did anything useful or not was yet to be determined.

Yeah well no such random process could have produced what we see around us, and certainly couldn't have produced us. That is obvious to me and really should be to you too but I guess you are too enamored of the theory to see past it. It's such a nice point that evolution doesn't have a purpose but randomness could not have produced the coherent systems you impute to it, and all you can do is say that nevertheless it did and that is that for you, hang the impossibility of it.

AZPaul3 writes: NS has no choice. It isn’t a thinking being with free will. It is process that will take place.

Yes, in general I agree with you in this section. But we've been talking in terms of search. In a search, other points around a starting point are considered against a 'target' criteria. In the search context we are considering, NS has to evaluate a point presented to it. And what point(s) are presented to NS for evaluation is determined by the mutation process that you described. NS 'evaluates' the point based on the target criteria, which we have been generally referring to as "improved fitness" (or a "successful variant" that you quoted me on). NS then 'selects" the first target hit as presented to it. This evaluation and selection roughly equates to what you referred to later as "the "reproductive differential".

A lot of the resultant mutations do nothing. A lot of them aren’t so good. Some, though, make it easier to live, love and propagate. Those are the ones that lead to the reproductive differential that is Natural Selection by definition.

But it is important to understand generally the ratio of deleterious to neutral to beneficial mutations. By far, the majority seem to be deleterious. And it seems that beneficial is extremely rare. This fits with our intuition on things. When making random changes to a working system, it is much easier to break or blunt things than to improve them.

The malaria resistance case is an good example. When a selective pressure was put on the malaria parasite, it showed a beneficial result (resistance) at a rate of 10^20. That number is based on empirical results, not probabilities of mutating the proteins. But when it was identified that at minimum, 2 specific point mutations (and possibly a third neutral one) were needed to confer some resistance, matching up the combinatorial options of the mutations with the 10^20 figure is not unreasonable. But in essence, what occurred was a breaking of a regulatory piece in the protein that allowed the protein to survive.

When you then take the population of the malaria parasite in the relevant time and compare that to populations and time for eukaryote life forms (especially vertebrates), you run into resource limits that suggest similar beneficial mutation options would not be likely.

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And depending on the landscape, the rate of mutation can limit what NS can do.

Which is kind of odd since NS doesn't actually do anything. It is a measure of difference in reproductive rates.

And at least that is starting to be acknowledged by some the scientific community.

Yes, I am familiar with this source and while some of the non-biologists had some interesting off-center proposals, as far as acknowledging your brand of nonsense ... no ... not even close. You did look at it first before you posted, yes?

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You do so love being so wrong.

But, that's ok.

NS has to evaluate a point presented to it. And what point(s) are presented to NS for evaluation is determined by the mutation process that you described. NS 'evaluates' the point based on the target criteria, which we have been generally referring to as "improved fitness" (or a "successful variant" that you quoted me on). NS then 'selects" the first target hit as presented to it. This evaluation and selection roughly equates to what you referred to later as "the "reproductive differential".

What a convoluted way to say NS has to deal with what it gets, doesn't get to choose what it is, or what to do with it. NS evaluates nothing.

Except there is a political agenda in your words with this personification of a math assignment.

But it is important to understand generally the ratio of deleterious to neutral to beneficial mutations.

Do you think the process cares when there are dozens if not hundreds of mutations in each individual in a population of hundreds of millions in each generation for hundreds or thousands of generations? Not a whit.

And keep your convoluted misunderstandings of staggering probability numbers away. We've been there. They don't work either.

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Ya, so what. Mutations happen. NS in a search cannot affect the rate, location, or type of mutation that occurs. It can only just view the mutation and do something AFTER a beneficial mutation occurs (assuming there is a beneficial mutation to be had - not a at a local peak or flat plateau)

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As I said before, the mutations are just the perturbations, it’s the overall movement through sequence space that matters, and Natural Selection is a major factor there.

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If not, you tell me what a random search is looking for. It has to have a target, all searches do.

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Evolution does not have a target as such. There is no end state, other than extinction - which evolution works against.

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How does it "explore"? It looks in a random manner around it, just like in a random search.
Random search is same as your hill-climbing search.

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The descriptions are very similar, although that just means that random search isn’t so bad. At least that version of random search.

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No! That is not what a random search is. What you just said is like morphing the landscape, then picking a random direction and moving that way.

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I’m certainly not talking about morphing anything I’d consider the landscape. Evolution works on the whole genome, so selecting a random point in the space would be selecting a random point for the whole genome.

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I do agree that Darwinian processes can explain some things in biology. But it cannot explain everything. Things categorized as microevolution - sure. But for the origins of life and macroevolution, which includes new proteins and body plans, IC structures, and all the new information that is required for them - Darwinism is not up to the task.

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It certainly manages new proteins and IC structures. I see no reason why it can’t manage body plans. Granted the theory could do with improvements, such as integrating better with developmental biology, but there doesn’t seem to be any reason to abandon it, rather than augmenting it, for anything in its scope.

AZPaul3 writes: WookieeB writes: And depending on the landscape, the rate of mutation can limit what NS can do. Which is kind of odd since NS doesn't actually do anything. It is a measure of difference in reproductive rates.

Context!? Guess you don't know what that is. And your further comments suggest you have no concept of what 'search' is.

OK, then.....
Depending on the landscape, the rate of mutation can limit what differences in the reproductive rate can be.

By the way, if Natural Selection cannot do anything, why is the word "Selection" used at all?

Yes, I am familiar with this source and while some of the non-biologists had some interesting off-center proposals, as far as acknowledging your brand of nonsense ... no ... not even close. You did look at it first before you posted, yes?

Never said they acknowledged ID. Doesn't matter. What does matter is that they are questioning Darwinian processes. Why? Cause all the numbers and experiments and data show that it cannot do the big things it is claimed that it does.

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As I said before, the mutations are just the perturbations, it’s the overall movement through sequence space that matters, and Natural Selection is a major factor there.

No objection here. Random search behaves exactly the same. The real number possibilities is where the question comes in. If NS only allows moves up, what happens if no up perturbation is presented to it?

Evolution does not have a target as such. There is no end state, other than extinction - which evolution works against.

Don't try to change the frame of reference on me. We've been couching this subject in the terms of 'Search'. In a search, there is ALWAYS a target.

The descriptions are very similar, although that just means that random search isn’t so bad. At least that version of random search.

So...then your hill-climb is the same as a random search. You haven't distinguished a difference.

In a random search the next sequence tried could be anything. Mutations do NOT completely randomise the genome at every generation. But that is what you would need for it to be a random search. .... I’m certainly not talking about morphing anything I’d consider the landscape. Evolution works on the whole genome, so selecting a random point in the space would be selecting a random point for the whole genome.

Those are your statements. If you are suggesting that a random search randomizes the entire genome, you are incorrect.

A random search just looks in a random direction from the current position. The closest point around it's current position corresponds to the simplest of changes, or a single point mutation. So that is no different than your 'evolution' search.

It certainly manages new proteins and IC structures. I see no reason why it can’t manage body plans

Interesting phrase - manage. What does that mean?
As for creating those things, evolution cannot account for them.
As for body plans, since it hasn't really been identified where the information for them resides, you cannot infer why evolution WOULD be able to manage them.

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No objection here. Random search behaves exactly the same. The real number possibilities is where the question comes in. If NS only allows moves up, what happens if no up perturbation is presented to it?

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When that happens - and it does - there’s no movement.

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Don't try to change the frame of reference on me. We've been couching this subject in the terms of 'Search'. In a search, there is ALWAYS a target.

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We’re only talking about search insofar as it relates to evolution. And evolution doesn’t have a target. If you want to talk about aspects of search that are irrelevant to evolution then you are trying to change the subject.

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So...then your hill-climb is the same as a random search. You haven't distinguished a difference.

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And “random search” - in that sense - isn’t very random and should be quite effective.

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Those are your statements. If you are suggesting that a random search randomizes the entire genome, you are incorrect.

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A purely random search would. And would be ineffective because it has to search large parts of sequence space and can’t even capitalise on near-misses.

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Interesting phrase - manage. What does that mean?

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It should be obvious. Evolution produced examples of those things.

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As for creating those things, evolution cannot account for them.

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I’ve yet to see a good reason to think that if can’t.

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As for body plans, since it hasn't really been identified where the information for them resides, you cannot infer why evolution WOULD be able to manage them.

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More importantly you cannot infer that it can’t.

your further comments suggest you have no concept of what 'search' is.

Your context is that “search” denotes a target to be achieved. Biology doesn’t do that. Your context is just a clumsy attempt to ascribe attributes to NS that do not exist so you can argue against them. It is a strawman.

Depending on the landscape, the rate of mutation can limit what differences in the reproductive rate can be.

No. Only the mutation space can. The number of mutations (rate over time) means little to nothing. On this planet that mutation space involves every molecule and every combination of molecules within a genome (which is every gene sequence available to a population, not an individual). If 100 mutations per individual produces 2 within a population that slightly increase fertility this is the same as 5 mutations per individual producing the same 2 over the same population over the same time. While a higher mutation rate can, and often does, present the processes with more opportunities, since a mutation is random as to both its production and its effect, until it operates within an environment and that effect becomes known, there is no way to constrict reproduction rate by mutation rate.

The quality, if you will, not the quantity of mutation determines the change in reproduction rate.

By the way, if Natural Selection cannot do anything, why is the word "Selection" used at all?

First, because we are an intelligent species with abstract thought processes. We see NS as “selecting” useful mutations when in fact all it does is keep the tally sheet of fecundity/fertility specific within a population that results from a mutation’s mixing (phenotype) with a specific environmental niche.

Second, we do this just to watch creationists scramble around in a rabbit hole.

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What does matter is that they are questioning Darwinian processes.

You didn't read any of the submissions. Either that or your understanding of what they discussed is very poor.

"Darwinian processes" went by way of the DoDo long ago. Darwin is not the be-all/end-all of everything evolution. His concept that this all came from copy changes matched against baby-making is still in the main, just amended, expanded, and in the most excruciating of details.

A lot has been added to the original "Darwinian" concept in the last 150+ years, but the core process remains, Descent with modification. The submissions in your cited resource are more of the same. Proposed additions, added details to known processes, and more. Nothing even close to challenging the deeper paradigm.

Don't talk Darwin. Talk evolution. The latter is much more robust. Read and understand Ernst Mayr, Stephen J Gould, Lynn Margulis ...

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