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Author | Topic: Potential falsifications of the theory of evolution | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
nwr Member Posts: 6409 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
AlphaOmegakid writes:
Accepted scientific theories are never falsified. They are sometimes abandoned in favor of a better theory, but not because they have been falsified.The falsification of neo-Darwinian TOE will be a scientific process. If you wonder why falsification is still used, it is because falsificationism is itself unfalsifiable. People still find it useful, though there is a lot of hedging of statements about falsifying. Simply put, falsificationism won't be abandoned until a better alternative becomes readily available and widely accepted.
AlphaOmegakid writes:
Yawn!His paper here claims falsification: http://logosresearchassociates.org/...Mendels-Accountant.pdf The paper claims to have a theoretical refutation of neo-Darwinism. Biologists are regularly seeing empirical data that they find to be supportive of neo-Darwinism. Which do you think will win the day - the theoretical analysis, or the actual empirical data? The paper is based on a simulation, which claims to show that neo-Darwinism doesn't work. Yet, if I examine the literature of machine learning, I can find many simulations that are described as using the genetic algorithm (GA), and there is plenty of empirical evidence that GA works. If it works with GA programming, but doesn't work with the program "Mendel's Accountant", then maybe Mendel's Accountant is just a dud program. Jesus was a liberal hippie
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nwr Member Posts: 6409 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
I'll start by thanking you for an unusually clear exposition of the ID position that you are promoting. That's a lot better than the muddy thinking that often shows up in posts supporting ID.
AlphaOmegakid writes:
Let me summarize what I see you to be describing as the ID position:Now natural selection works at the phenotype with individual organisms. As phenotypes gain these slightly deleterious mutations, there is a selective pressure against these mutations, but basically all of the organisms have them, so they cant' be differentiated at the organism level. They are like noise in the population. Therefore, they don't get selected out on average. So the next generation has more mutations which many more are nearly neutral. The worst offenders are selected out, but on average the population carries the mutations. Also don't forget that many mutations are recessive, so they don't show up in the phenotye. The population will also carry the recessive negative alleles, because NS can't see them. A kind starts out as the result of a design. It starts out matching some sort of ideal conceived by the designer. But, over time, there are deleterious mutations that build up. Thus the kind deteriorates over time. Here's the summary of how I see it, and I presume this to be close to the evolutionist view: There is no need for a species to be optimal. Suboptimal is just fine, provided only that it produces enough offspring so that the population remains approximately stable in size. So the accumulation of what you consider to be slightly deleterious mutations is not actually a problem. There is no ideal that the genetics of the species could match. Rather, it's a pragmatic process of doing well enough for the population to persist. Reality can be a harsh place. A food source can disappear. A new predator can show up. With these changes, your ideal kind might be unable to survive. So it dies out. However, the evolutionists species has picked up all of these slightly deleterious mutations, which we see as genetic variation within the population. Some of these variants, while slightly less capable in the previous environment, may find themselves far better able to cope with the new environment (after the loss of a food source and the appearance of a new predator). So what you see as deleterious mutations, and what I see as genetic variety within the population, can actually serve the species well and help it survive the harsh conditions. In short: Designed things deteriorate over time, and are fragile (can fail under conditions different from those for which they were designed. Evolved things do not deteriorate, but pick up useful variation. They are robust in that they are able to use that variation to adapt to conditions different from those in which they originally evolved. Those are two vastly different ways of looking at the same kind of evidence. I'll suggest that the evolution way of looking at the evidence better fits what we see.
AlphaOmegakid writes:
What you see as deleterious mutations that the population needs to remove if it can afford the cost, I instead see as beneficial genetic variation that the population needs to hoard to the extent that it can afford to hoard it. What you see as "genetic entropy" and as a problem, I see as genetic variation and as an asset.Now, natural selection can remove these mutations from the population if the population can afford the cost of section. In organisms with large genomes, low fecundity, and long generation times (most large mammals), they cannot afford the cost of selction without severe inbreeding depression. So the population continues to exist under reduced selective pressures and the mutations just add up over time. The adding up problem is what "genetic entropy" is. Jesus was a liberal hippie
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nwr Member Posts: 6409 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
Granny Magda writes: competition for resources (with humanity) AlphaOmegakid writes:
No, we are losing.Yes, and we are winning! Slowly, but surely, we are destroying our own habitat. Jesus was a liberal hippie
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nwr Member Posts: 6409 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/Shapiro2009.AnnNYAcadSciMS.RevisitingCentral%20Dogma.pdf (For the life of me I can't get that link to work. Just google it to find the .pdf. Try this link Note to Percy: Your software is broken. The encoded[url]http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/Shapiro2009.AnnNYAcadSciMS.RevisitingCentral%20Dogma.pdf[/url] is being changed internally to the equivalent of [url]http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/...isitingCentral%20Dogma.pdf[/url] However, if I just enter the full url without the url tagshttp://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/...sitingCentral%20Dogma.pdf it looks as if that would work. Jesus was a liberal hippie
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nwr Member Posts: 6409 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
Thanks. It seems good in my tests (I previewed, but didn't post).
Jesus was a liberal hippie
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nwr Member Posts: 6409 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
shadow71 writes: This quote is taken from the same cite. James Shapiro
Shapiro appears to be misusing "non-random" (though that's not a big problem, since he explains what he means). He seems to actually mean "not uniformly distributed." At least in usage within probability theory, random does not imply uniformly distributed.The changes occur non-randomly in the sense that they follow certain predilections (e.g. some mobile elements insert near the start sites of transcription, others prefer to insert in protein coding sequences). Jesus was a liberal hippie
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nwr Member Posts: 6409 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
Taq writes: Why can't the intelligence within the cell come about through natural means such as evolution? Bolder-dash writes:
What would be extraordinary about it?Well as I said, theoretically it could. But that would be quite extraordinary, so ... The only examples of intelligence that we see are natural. Our attempts to create intelligence (as in Artificial Intelligence) have not been a spectacular success. Jesus was a liberal hippie
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