molecular genetic proof against random mutation (1)

Borger has proven himself unable to address topics pertaining to evolution presented in a separate thread on this board, but he did insist on bringing his genetic bagage with him into that thread despite repeated requests to stay on topic, all of which he has ignored.Now I am here to address the topics he inappropriately raised in the other thread. Since his "scientific work" has been more than adequately called into question by those far more qualified than I, my intention is not to address those topics, but to address other issues in which fault can be found. I plan to grant Borger curtesies he certainly does not deserve and was not willing to grant me in the other thread, to whit: stay on topic and keep the subject range narrow.Whether he will be able to do this and actually respond directly to challenges in his own thread remains to be seen. There was certainly no evidence whatsoever of this shown in the other thread.Here are a few observations and challenges to open with.Comments on Borger's opening message:
Borger seems to indicate that he is a big fan of Lee Spetner, who is not a biologist or a geneticist, but a physicist, but Spetner's work is flawed:
http://home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/kortho36.htmBorger fails to define what he means by "NDT". I assume this means "Neo-Darwinian Theory" but it is sloppy to not specify what your acronyms mean, especially in a brand new thread. This sloppiness casts a shadow on the rest of his material. Since he did not define what this acronym meant in the other thread, perhaps I will have more success in getting him to actually define it in his own thread.Borger inexplicably writes: "Now, let us have an objective look at the data shown in the figure; one that is unbiased by the assumption that the two species of Drosophila have evolved from a common ancestor."Thus he seems to be claiming objectivity, yet his own position is that evolution is falsified! Since his express purpose of posting material is to refute evolution, how can he even begin to claim objectivity? He talks of a view that is "unbiased by the assumption that the two species of Drosophila have evolved from a common ancestor", yet isn't he biased in precisely the opposite direction? This would seem to be hypocritical at best.Challenges to Borger:
1. Define NDT.2. Borger's "evidence" regarding the 1G5 gene in Drosophila has been called into question in several responses, so I need not deal with that. What I want to know is where, in any of this thread, Borger explicitly details how it is that this line of "evidence" refutes evolution. I see no evidence of his claim that "...it violates randomness and thus falsifies NDT", so I would like to see this explicitly detailed, or see a reference to where he has previously explicitly detailed this.3. Borger claims that: "If a theory can be falsified it is not a good theory..."
On the contrary - if a theory can be falsified, it is an excellent theory, because it allows a means to check it by experimentation. If Borger is, in this sentence, claiming that evolution actually *has* been falsified, then this brings us back to challenge #14. Borger also writes (immediately after the above quote): "...and should be replaced by something else that more accurately describes what we see, even if it has to include design. Only atheists will object to that."I would like an explanation from Borger as to why an atheist would object to evidence of intelligent design (ID), even if Borger's definition of ID is "God did it!" Does he equate the theory of Evolution with atheism, and if so, what is the logic behind this assumption?5. Following from 4, Borger needs to provide detailed support for his claims regarding ID. If he believes that ID is responsible for life on Earth that he ought to outline a scenario as to how it happened, because if he cannot, all that he is doing is providing what he considers to be negative evidence against evolution (and from what I have read in this thread, it isn't even good evidence). Even if this held up, it would not make a positive case for ID. What is Borger's positive case for ID? How did ID come about?So here we have five challenges to Borger. Let's see if he can answer any of them. I will not move on from these until and unless he adequately addresses all of them.Budikka

Thank you for finally defining NDT. I was assuming that's what you meant, but I could find no explicit definition in this thread. Judging by other threads, explicit definitions do not appear to be your strong point.Since you have now defined NDT in terms of "random mutations" I now have to ask you exactly what you mean by "random mutation" - what is your definition of random in this context?Borger: "You are among the deniers."Deniers of what? I am simply asking you to set down some solid information as a starting point. In the absence of that information I am not in a position to deny or accept anything you say.Borger: "Whatever the mechanism behind the mutations in the Ig5 gene in Drosophila, it defies NDT since they are non randomly introduced in a neutral evolving gene."And your evidence of this is where? Either detail it here or refer me to the message(s) in this thread where you have detailed it. I don't think your case is very strong based simply on this one quote (above), since you seem to be saying that you have no idea what the mechanism is, but you *know* it defies NDT! I don't see that you can possibly be in a position to make such a statement, especially in light of the criticism your claims have received in this thread.You have not published anything in refereed science papers to establish your case, nor can you point to anyone else who has done so and demonstrated how it calls NDT into question. Nor have you made a case for how this one claim (even if it were true) manages to overthrow NDT in the light of the overwhelming multi-disciplinary evidence that scientists have built up over the last 140 years supportive of NDT.All you appear to be doing is leaping to a conclusion based on your personal interpretation of a paper which was not designed to demonstrate the claims you are making. Have you raised this issue with the people who published that paper? If so, what did they say?Borger: "Of course, evolutionism is not equal to atheism. However, in popular media it is often used synonymously: evolutionism equals atheism."I disagree. In creationism, it is all too frequently used synonymously. I do not believe that it is so used in the popular media. Do you have examples to support this claim?Borger: "You introduced "God did it", although you may be --and likely are-- right."I introduced nothing. The previous post was my very first contribution to this thread. You are the one who raised the issue of atheism ("Only atheists will object to that"), which has no place in a science thread. For the record, I do not believe that any god ever did anything.Borger: "As pointed out in several letters (for instance to Mark24) genetic redundancies are compelling evidence for ID. A major part of the genes in any genome are maintained without selective constraints. I provided scientific evidence for that observation. It once more overturns NDT."Once again you fail to provide specific references. Can you give me a URL or a message number where I can find this, or am I going to have to search through every Mark24 message? Was this in this thread? Was it recently, or more towards the start of the thread? Where is your evidence for this claim: "A major part of the genes in any genome are maintained without selective constraints."Borger: "I already explained these concepts in detail on this site, and why they are evolutionism killers."Then you shouldn't have any difficulty, once again, providing references. I have noted repeatedly in interactions with you that you reference almost nothing. At the very least, whenever you refer to something like this, you need to specify the thread and message number or give a URL, or indicate if it was recently or earlier in the thread. If you cannot do this, I can only assume you have no reference to offer.Budikka

You referred me to
http://home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/kortho36a.htm
(although I am curious as to why you did not refer further to Korthof's response), but I am not impressed by Spetner's response. He seems to have dug himself some contradictory holes.For example, at one point, early in his response, he claims "Evolution A, on the other hand, is a phenomenon that may or may not have occurred. You assume it has; I am agnostic on the matter." ("Evolution A" is defined as "the descent of all life from a putative single primitive source"), but at the end of his response he says, "I am a creationist: I believe life was created by a higher intelligence."So is he agnostic, or is he creationist? These two are not necessarily mutally exclusive, despite creationist claims to the contrary, but unless Spetner qualifies these claims, it is difficult to know exactly what he is espousing. Is he claiming, as young Earth creationists (YECs) do, that God created everything just 6,000 years ago, or is he claiming that God created the basics 13 or 14 billion years ago and left everything since then to develop on its own?The first position is untenable, and the second meaningless.Worse than this, Spetner says "My objective here was to point out that because of the great difference between Evolution A and Evolution B, one cannot justifiably use the observation of the latter to confirm the former." ("Evolution B" is defined as "any kind of change of a population")I have several problems with this. First, Spetner is muddying the waters here, as all creationists do by failing to give evolution its due.As far as I am aware, evolution means nothing more than a change in allele frequency of a population. Spetner's "Evolution B" vaguely matches this, and he does distinguish between this and what he calls "Evolution A", but really his definitions do nothing more than equivocate around the meaning of macro-evolution vs. micro-evolution. None of this creationist "dancing around the issue" helps anything.What bothers me most about the Spetner quote above, however, is that he is claiming that there is a "great difference" between these two (Evolution B and Evolution A, or micro- and macro-evolution, and that the first cannot explain the second, yet I have never seen any creationist offer any evidence whatsoever that there is any difference between the two.This brings us right slam-bang back into the definitions of "kind" and the definition of a mechanism that prevents one "kind" changing into another "kind", which is being pursued (if I can optimistically label it so) in another thread. No creationist has ever, to my knowledge, effectively answered those questions, so for Spetner to suggest there is a difference without articulating what it is, is disingenuous.In short, nothing that you have offered with your genetic claims, unless you can explain it in a lot more and a lot better detail does anything to defeat NDT.Budikka

Borger: "See the 1g5 gene."I have no idea what you mean by that. You want me to actually look at an IG5 gene?Borger: "My letter #52 in the "molecular genetic evidence against random mutations-thread"."Your "letter #52" was written by SLPx, not by you. I don't believe SLPx supports your position, and message #52 actually refutes a point you made! You are going to have to do better than to reference a message written by someone who opposes your point and claim the message supports you!BTW, the message title is "molecular genetic proof against random mutation", not "molecular genetic evidence against random mutations". Your sloppiness does not induce in me a real urge to take your word for anything.Borger: "Message 1-32 in the "mol gen ev ag rand mut thread" constitutes the complete falsification and overturn of NDT."I am on a cable connection tonight but the response time is appallingly slow. However, I skimmed many of these messages, and most of them are not from you, but are rebuttals from other people of points you are trying to make, so, contrary to your claim above, messages 1-32 do not falsify and overturn NDT - not even close.You still do not explain how this one tiny piece of your evidence, even if correct (and it certainly looks like it is not), overthrows the whole of NDT, which does not rest on this one tiny matter. If it did rest entirely on this, and you were precisely correct in your claims, then you may have an argument to make, but since neither of these cases holds, then neither does your argument!Borger's support for his claim that the media equates evolution with atheism: "Turn on a television, turn up a paper, magazine, etc. Wait and see."I am sorry, but even in the worst debate this argument would suck. You are going to have to do considerably better than this or admit you cannot support even the simplest of the points you try to make. I have already told you I disagree, and the reason is that I do follow the media, and I do not see anything like the equation between evolution and atheism that you claim exists. In other words *support your claim* or withdraw it.Borger: "You mentioned "God did it" in your previous letter. I didn't."In response to this I requote the exact wording of my original quote which you failed to even begin to answer: "The previous post was my very first contribution to this thread. You are the one who raised the issue of atheism ("Only atheists will object to that"), which has no place in a science thread."Now, again, who is it who is equating atheism with evolution? Again, where is your evidence for this? Are you ever actually going to answer my challenges anywhere in any of these boards, or is this going to be a never-ending merry-go-round in which you offer nothing, argue nothing, establish nothing and achieve nothing? Once again, for the learning-impaired, *you* are the one who raised the ahtiesm issue *in this thread* before I ever came on board. I am *still* awaiting your explanation.Once again Borger compeltely fails to cite a reference: "The concept of genetic redundancies has been discussed with refernces (sic) in my thread: "scientific end of evolutionism". It is the death blow to evolutionism."In your fairytale world, maybe it is, but unfortunately for you, the rest of us live in the real world. Now are you going to offer a URL, or *at the very least* a message number (that is, a message number of a message *you* have written, not a message number that was written by someone refuting you), so that when the lines speed up, I can go read this?Borger: "since you are the new one here, I recommend to read al my posts (400 or so). All relevant literature is referred to. To name a few:"Dream on. I have better things to do with my time than run around after your blather. Now if you cannot give good references to the arguments *you* have made (not to other people's hard work that you have appropriated and misinterpreted and adopted to your own strange needs) you are not worth my time.You list:
1) Bouche, N. and Bouchez, D. Arabidopsis gene knockout: phenotypes wanted. Current Opinions in Plant Biology 2001, Volume 4: p111-117.
2) North, K.N. et al. A common non-sense mutation results in a-actinin 3 deficiency in the general population: Evidence for genetic redundancy in humans. Nature Genet 1999, Volume 21: p353-354.
3) Zhang, P. The cell cycle and development: redundant roles of cell cycle regulators. Current Opinions Cell Biololgy 1999, Volume 11: 655-662.
4) Tautz, D. A genetic uncertainty problem. Trends in Genetics; 2000, Volume 16: p475-477.
5) Winzeler, E.A. et al. Functional characterization of the S. cerevisiae genome by gene deletion and parallel analysis. Science 1999, Volume 285: p901-906.
6) Kolisnychenko, V, et al. Engineering a reduced Escherichia coli Genome. Genome Research 2002, 12: 640-647.
7) Or do a pubmed (NCBI homepage) search on 'genetic redundancy'. It will give you 871 hits.Now which of the above state (as their purpose) the overthrow of NDT, and which of them, in their conclusions, actually state that the research the paper discusses (including the 871 hits) actually overthrows NDT?Or is that just your opinion? If it is your opinion, then please support it **or refer me to your own posted material** which demonstrates that such conclusions are valid.When you can make an argument do, please, let me know. Otherwise, don't waste my time and more importantly, don't waste the time of hard-working scientists who have better things to do with *their* time than babysit you.BTW, I am still waiting on you answering my question as to whether you contacted the authors of the IG5 paper you are so excited about, and asked them what they think of the conclusions you have drawn from it. I would have thought if you were serious about your claims, they would have been the first people you would have contacted. Am I to understand that you have raised none of these issues with them? If not, why not? If so, what did they say?To sum up, you have not given me straight answers to anything I have asked of you except to define NDT. You have not answered my follow-up question to your definition of NDT, concerning defining random (mutations). You have offered no references **to your material in on these boards** that explains your dramatic conclusions. In short, you have done precisely in this thread what you did in the other thread in which we clashed - nothing.I am not at all impressed.Budikka