Re: Request
- From: Zoe <muze10@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 21:41:57 GMT
On Wed, 27 Jul 2005 23:54:26 -0500, "Steven J."
<sjt1957NOSPAM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>"Zoe" <muze10@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
>news:io8ge1da66g48bj0bapfdd2jr7u8faqd27@xxxxxxxxxx
>> On Mon, 25 Jul 2005 01:33:57 -0500, "Steven J."
>> <sjt1957NOSPAM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>-- [snip]
>>
>> the problem is not with the number of assumptions. It is with the
>> fact that parsimony is applied to a situation in which numbers are
>> irrelevant. Random mutations have no order governing them. They can
>> happen often or little or not at all, according to sheer dumb luck, as
>> you put it. So to try to apply a principle of order and "how it
>> should be" to random activity would be useless, I think.
>>
>Zoe, if your statements above were true, why would there be -- how *could*
>there be -- such a thing as a "mutation rate?" For that matter, how could
>there be "hot spots" on chromosomes where mutations are more likely than at
>other loci? "Random," with respect to mutations, does not mean that the
>mutations occur for no reason, or that all mutations are equally likely, or
>that there is no possibility of saying how likely a mutation is to occur.
>It means simply that the causes of the mutations, and the causes that make
>some traits beneficial and others harmful, are not related to one another.
>
>For that matter, again, if random events had no order governing them, then
>probability as a field of mathematics could not exist. Your position as
>stated above is pure obstinant folly.
probability and statistics does not explain how a cardboard box is put
together. Neither does it explain how a certain number of chromosomes
are consistently found in any particular life form. It merely
predicts the chances of a single, discrete action occurring. These
threads have had to do with how systems are put together.
So now, are you saying that random events are credited with pulling
together a digestive system or a circulatory system or a cardboard
box? Or are you taking a fully-formed reproductive system and
applying your evolutionary theory of mutations to it? I am really
interested in the construction of the system, not in the mutations
that can happen to the construction.
>>
>-- [snip]
>>
>> if sequence similarity between genes were truly 99.75%, then
>> morphologically, we would be 99.75% similar to chimps. Reality is, we
>> are not 99.75% similar to chimps in our outward appearance. Outward
>> appearance is a result of those same genes that are considered to be
>> almost identical to chimps.
>>
>There is no one-to-one mapping between genotype and phenotype.
I didn't mean genotype and phenotype here, but a one-to-one mapping
between genes and morophology. A specific gene will always produce
the same specific protein or proteins, and if there is another gene
that is identical to it, that identical gene will also produce the
same results. So if the claim is that gene similarity was 99.75%
between chimps and humans, you would expect to find 99.75% similar
morphology.
> A tiny
>alteration in a gene can have an immense effect on how the organism
>develops, or, conversely, very large changes in multiple genes can have no
>effect at all.
references, please, for the claim that large changes in multiple genes
can have no effect at all.
> It has been known for a long time (since well before the
>discovery of genes) that tiny changes in developmental rates (e.g. how long
>a particular structure continues to grow) can produce immense differences in
>how an organism looks -- and tiny changes in development rates can result
>from tiny changes in genes. OTOH, as noted, large sections of many proteins
>(and hence the genes that code for them) can be replaced with completely
>different sequences without affecting function.
references, please?
> Consider how many genetic
>disorders are the result of changing one amino acid in one protein (the
>result of changing one nucleotide in one gene). Equally drastic effects
>that are not disorders can be produced by equally small changes.
examples of these equally drastic effects that are not disorders?
>>
>>> Note that the authors distinguish between "adaptive
>>>evolution" ("beneficial mutations") and, presumably, evolution that isn't
>>>adaptive. If I'm reading this right, about 83% of the genes show *some*
>>>difference (perhaps only one or two nucleotides altered), and about 3% of
>>>genes show differences that resulted from beneficial mutations spreading
>>>through natural selection, and the rest show differences that are inferred
>>>to have arisen through neutral mutations that drifted to fixation. Of
>>>course, this summary does not enable me to determine how they decided
>>>which
>>>changes were adaptive and which were not.
>>
>> is there even a way to determine if a change is adaptive versus a
>> result of some rare "beneficial" mutation?
>>
>"Beneficial" mutations are by definition "adaptive," since both "beneficial"
>and "adaption" are diagnosed because they enhance the organism's chances of
>surviving and reproducing in a particular environment. Not all adaptive
>change is the result of mutations: it may be that the "fitter" or better
>adapted alleles are already present in the population, and simply become
>more common due to natural selection. "Adaptive" evolution simply means
>that alleles that are more beneficial become more common, whether those
>alleles arise from new mutations or have been present since the parent
>population first evolved.
so how do you determine whether an adaptation is inherent or a result
of beneficial mutations? You haven't answered that yet.
>-- [snip]
>>
>>>Again, the point is not that the sequence similarity is smaller than
>>>previous estimates had made it, much less that the evidence for
>>>human-chimp
>>>common ancestry is weaker than had previously been thought. Rather, the
>>>point is that 1% sequence difference doesn't mean that only 1% of genes
>>>are
>>>different (in principle, one could make a 1% difference in 100% of the
>>>genes, or that the differences produce only a 1% difference in phenotype.
>>>There's an analogy offered by some creationist sites: the sentences "All
>>>competent biologists accept common descent" and "Not all competent
>>>biologists accept common descent" have very high sequence similarity, but
>>>opposite meanings. But the analogy works better for evolutionists:
>>>obviously, one of those sentences is a modified copy of the other, and
>>>they
>>>show how minor modifications can at once reveal common ancestry and
>>>produce
>>>large changes.
>>
>> in what way does the fact that you have two sentences, one starting
>> with "Not all...." and the other starting with "All..." mean common
>> ancestry in your analogy? And why does one sentence necessarily have
>> to be a modified copy of the other? The one sentence quite obviously
>> comes from a completely different source than the other. One from
>> creationists, the other from evolutionists.
>>
>Actually, in the original example, both sentences came from a creationist;
>when I retyped the sentences, both came from someone who accepted evolution.
>But the point is that any reasonable person (must present company be
>excluded?)
you're excluding yourself, Steven? :-)
> would infer that one of those two sentences was the original, and
>the other was derived by either adding or removing the initial "not."
I did not assume that one of the two sentences was an original. In
the creationist worldview, one sentence could be original to them. In
the evolutionist worldview, the other sentence could be original to
them. They are simply original statements of belief, neither copying
the other.
>-- [snip]
>>
>> a nested hierarchy would only be strong evidence if there are no other
>> nested hierarchies that form in the real world. To ignore the fact
>> that there are other nested hierarchies in the real world that are not
>> a result of common descent, and then claim that this one particular
>> nested hierarchy must be the result of common descent, is to impose an
>> undue burden upon the one evolutionary hierarchy.
>>
>Strictly speaking, one can arrange any set of entities in a nested
>hierarchy.
which is what has been done for the biological world. Humans have
arranged biological life forms into hierarchies.
> Anyone who's ever written an outline for a paper, or tried to
>sort books in a library, has arranged ideas or objects in a nested
>hierarchy. Note, though, that for many sets of objects, there are multiple
>equally valid hierarchical arrangements of the objects. A book on, e.g.
>_The History of the Spread of the Great Plague_ might be filed under
>"History," or "Epidemiology," or "Diseases." One can arrange automobiles in
>many different nested hierarchies: arrange them by manufacturer (e.g. GM
>cars, and within that category Dodges, Cadillacs, Chevrolets, etc.), or by
>type of vehicle (e.g. sedans, and under sedans GM sedans, Ford sedans,
>etc.), or by various other schemes. One can always get a nested hierarchy,
>but the hierarchy one gets depends on the traits one selects to compare.
and the traits selected for biology is morphology and genetics, right?
Biology can also be classified into other hierarchies, using other
traits as standards, such as habits, location, size, mental abilities,
and so on.
All that hierarchies demonstrate is the ability of humans to
categorize and compare.
>What makes biology interesting is that one can pick many different sets of
>traits to compare, and get the *same* nested hierarchy.
as long as you are consistently categorizing the same items, whether
books or cars or life forms, you will always get nested hierarchies
for whatever traits are chosen to be used as a categorizing tool. For
any category chosen, you WILL get the same nested hierarchy because
you are dealing with the same category of things.
> The most-cited
>example is the hierarchy formed by comparison of anatomical features and
>that formed by comparing genes and proteins (the "twin nested hierarchy),
don't stop at "twin nested". You can get triple nested, too, or
quadruple nested. The ability to categorize in a hierarchical manner
doesn't demonstrate much, other than the ability to compare, since
anything else can be formed into several nested hierarchies, also.
>but one can see the same thing just be comparing, say, anatomical features.
>All organisms with one bone in the lower jaw and three in the middle ear
>also have mammary glands, and none have feathers. There's no obvious
>reason, assuming separate origins, for that feature -- why not bats with
>feathers, or penguins with mammary glands? *Consistent* nested hierarchies
>do not arise through known methods of design -- human engineers cross-copy
>components into very different designs (e.g. CD players installed in both GM
>sedans and Ford trucks). Nature does not: pterosaurs and bats, although
>both used furry membranous wings, use different ways of modifying forelimbs
>to produce those wings.
are you saying that similarity, wherever observed, must always be
evidence of common roots and never evidence of cross-copying? On what
basis do you decide that certain similarities cannot be the result of
cross copying and other similarities are the result of cross-copying?
I hope the basis isn't that: "There is no mind higher than ours,
therefore anything that has no human creator must be self created from
a common root."
>> For the evolutionary understanding of nested hierarchy, see:
>>
>> http://www.lobue.com/enterprise_evolution/knowledge_hierarchy.html
>>
>This is astonishing. You may just have found the worst explanation of what
>evolutionists mean by "nested hierarchy" on the entire World Wide Web (this
>is not to say that the explanation is useless for other purposes). I would
>suggest, rather,
>
>http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/CDhierarchy.html
>http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/CDhierarchy.html
same link
>http://www.isss.org/hierarchy.htm
these links say, just in detail, what my link says in brief. I
understand that nested hierarchies can be developed for just about
anything, and that includes biological life forms.
>> by the above evolutionary admission, there are other nested
>> hierarchies besides the biological hierarchies.
>>
>> Nested hierarchy is just another term for levels of organization. You
>> find levels of organization in many other fields besides biology.
>> None of these other fields draw the conclusion that, therefore, common
>> source or ancestry is indicated.
>>
>Actually, a "nested" hierarchy has not merely levels of organization, but
>the lower levels form parts of the higher levels, as, e.g. "primates" are
>part of the "mammals," which are part of the "vertebrates."
agreed, if these are the classification standards chosen.
>> Take, for instance, the following hierarchy for all humans.
>>
>> Using geographical boundaries. North America: USA: Florida: Seminole
>> County: Orlando: 100 East Street: Human: John Doe.
>>
>John Doe is not a geographical feature; he is not part of East Street, or
>part of the geography of Seminole County. Note, furthermore, that [a] if
>John Doe moves to California, he ceases to be part of Seminole County in any
>sense, and [b] John Doe can, as you note below, be classified as part of a
>quite different nested hierarchy. Again, you are ignoring the salient and
>compelling nature of the consistent nested hierarchies in biology.
I expect any nested hierarchy to be consistent as long as the
categorization is consistently of the same group.
>> Using ecological boundaries. Biome: Community: Population: Human:
>> John Doe.
>>
>> Lo, we have a twin-nested hierarchy.
>>
>No, you have two quite different nested hierarchies containing the same
>entity.
okay, so I'm not the greatest classifier, but it doesn't mean
twin-nested hierarchies cannot be drawn up for just about any set of
things.
> Again, one can construct nested hierarchies for any set of objects
>or ideas, but the distinctive feature of life is that it falls into pretty
>much the same hierarchy no matter what traits one seeks to compare.
actually, this is not a distinctive feature of life. It is a feature
of any group of things one chooses to categorize hierarchically.
snip what has already been answered>
>>>No, neutral drift consists of sheer dumb luck, which is a very different
>>>matter from natural selection. Evolutionary theory encompasses both,
>>>although evolutionists argue among themselves as to which explains more
>>>genetic change over time (hardly anyone disputes that natural selection
>>>explains *adaptive* change, but not all change is adaptive). Note that
>>>sheer dumb luck is quite predictable, which is why Las Vegas casinos
>>>manage
>>>to stay in business, and quite scientific, which is why probability and
>>>statistics exist as branches of mathematics.
>>
>> probability and statistics has nothing to do with organization and
>> building and creating. It just says what are the chances of something
>> happening. Once the thing happens, probability and statistics can
>> only say what are the chances that such a thing can happen again. You
>> don't use probability and statistics to build something in an orderly
>> and methodical manner.
>>
>Some orderly systems do, in fact, arise from purely stochastic processes,
>but that is not my point.
>>
>> Explain to me how you build a digestive system via the mechanism of
>> blind, sheer dumb luck. Or make it easier. Explain how you would
>> build a cardboard box via the mechanism of sheer dumb luck.
>>
>I have distinguished between adaptive evolution (which I attribute to
>natural selection of mutations), and nonadaptive evolution, which I have
>attributed largely to genetic drift ("dumb luck"). Digestive systems are
>adaptions. Please try harder to understand the arguments directed at you.
please, Steven, dearest, try harder to understand my question, which
is, again:
Explain to me how you build a digestive system via the mechanism of
blind, sheer dumb luck. Or make it easier. Explain how you would
build a cardboard box via the mechanism of sheer dumb luck.
snip>
>When you are prepared to think about the arguments presented to you, we can
>continue.
I've thought about the arguments, find them unpersuasive, so I shall
indeed continue on....to Creation Theory-6. :-)
.
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