Re: Challenge for Darwinists - Protein Synthesis


Wall Of Sleep wrote:
Richard Forrest wrote:
Wall Of Sleep wrote:

allanm wrote:

Wall Of Sleep wrote:


allanm wrote:

Wall Of Sleep wrote:


<snip>

Statistically, all variation in an initially varying population will be
eliminated (in the absence of mutation) in (4 * population size)
generations.

So looked at either way - the origin of a sequence or the fate of
variants in a derived population - the existence and persistence of
variation proves the historic reality of ongoing mutation.



It would seem to me that the forces of nature are working against random
mutation at every turn then. I'm still totally unconvinced that this
vehicle can be the driving force behind the millions of unique
biological systems we see today.


<snip>

I'm afraid you've missed my point then. What I described is not a
preservative force but part of the inexorable force for *change*. You
assume that mutants will *always* be eliminated. But they have (at
least) the same chance as every other allele of becoming the 'norm'
as variants are lost.

Consider this:

A population of just 4 individuals. A single diploid gene. Lets label
each gene individually, one from each parent:

Aa
Bb
Cc
Dd

If each different gene were a different variant, we would, by the
inexorable loss of variation I described, end up with all A, or all a,
or all B...... etc etc. Each ancestral gene has an exactly equal chance
of becoming the 'norm', and the other 7 will go. The existence of
variants is thus evidence of the historic action of mutation in
*opposition* to the tendency to homogenize.

Lets then take a theoretical future homogeneous population resulting
from this effect - all A, say.

A neutral mutation arises , A*. It too has an exactly equal chance of
becoming the 'norm' further down the line. So 1 in 8 random neutral
mutations will become 'fixed' - the population becomes all A*.

Then from that position, 1 in 8 times, a further mutation, A**, becomes
fixed..... How does a population manage to stay the same against this
backdrop of mutation and elimination of 'competing' variation?

And this is without any natural selection. Stick that in the picture
and we have a means by which a mutational change can buck the stats. It
no longer has to make do with an equal chance. Selection can work both
ways, of course. Good ideas get a bunk up. But equally, bad ones get
their chance knocked below equality - a preservative force, against
change but also against deterioration. (And, this slightly ups the
chances for the other variants that are 'better').

Multiply this argument up over the whole genome, factor in the
continual variation of the fitness 'landscape' due to external
factors, and you may (I hope) see that the combination of mutation,
statistical factors and selection renders stasis highly unlikely. Or at
the least, get some flavour why people who work in this field don't
seem to share your misgivings.


The problem with this scenario is that it doesn't work! Dog breeders
have been using artificial selection for hundreds of years now and have
never come up with anything that can be called a new species.



Try getting a Great Dane and a Chiwawah to breed.


Are you suggesting they are different species?



The most intense experiments were done with Drosophila and nothing
viable came of their efforts - certainly nothing that resembled a new
species. After thousands and thousands of generations, with intense
mutation inducers, all they came up with were - Drosophila.


Except where they have, of course.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/101/33/12232



"We suggest that duplicated genes that have yet to evolve a stable
function at the time of speciation may be candidates for "speciation
genes," which is broadly defined as genes that contribute to
differential adaptation between species."

Notice the "may be". I see no real substance here.






"In the best-known organisms, like Drosophila, innumerable mutants are
known. If we were able to combine a thousand or more of such mutants in
a single individual, this still would have no resemblance whatsoever to
any type known as a [new] species in nature." Richard B. Goldschmidt,
"Evolution, As Viewed by One Geneticist," American Scientist, January
1952, p. 94.


Wow! A reference from 54 years ago!
Of course, no work has been done in the field of genetics since then.
Or has it?


"Most mutants which arise in any organism are more or less
disadvantageous to their possessors. The classical mutants obtained in
Drosophila usually show deterioration, breakdown, or disappearance of
some organs. Mutants are known which diminish the quantity or destroy
the pigment in the eyes, and in the body reduce the wings, eyes,
bristles, legs. Many mutants are, in fact lethal to their possessors.
Mutants which equal the normal fly in vigor are a minority, and mutants
that would make a major improvement of the normal organization in the
normal environments are unknown." Theodosius Dobzhansky, Evolution,
Genetics, and Man (1955), p. 105.


Getting closer. This is only 51 years old. Hell, I was born by then!

Evidently they weren't aware of the paper published in 2004 which
showed them wrong.
How silly of them.

Mind you, perhaps it's this other 2004 paper they didn't know about:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15304653&dopt=Citation


Same as above paper?


Or this 2001 paper:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/98/23/13195


"Substantial genetic differentiation, as great as among species, exists
between populations of Drosophila melanogaster inhabiting opposite
slopes of a small canyon. Previous work has shown that prezygotic sexual
isolation and numerous differences in stress-related phenotypes have
evolved between D. melanogaster populations in "Evolution Canyon,"
Israel, in which slopes 100-400 m apart differ dramatically in aridity,
solar radiation, and associated vegetation. Because the canyon's width
is well within flies' dispersal capabilities, we examined genetic
changes associated with local adaptation and incipient speciation in the
absence of geographical isolation. Here we report remarkable genetic
differentiation of microsatellites and divergence in the regulatory
region of hsp70Ba which encodes the major inducible heat shock protein
of Drosophila, in the two populations. Additionally, an analysis of
microsatellites suggests a limited exchange of migrants and lack of
recent population bottlenecks. We hypothesize that adaptation to the
contrasting microclimates overwhelms gene flow and is responsible for
the genetic and phenotypic divergence between the populations."

I noticed no mention of any attempts to breed the two "species" to see
if their resultant offspring would be fertile. Which brings me to this:
what definition of "species" are they using? Is it the broad definition
of "differences", or is it the classic definition of "able to produce
fertile offspring"?


Or this 1993 paper:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0014-3820(199304)47%3A2%3C432%3AFSIDPA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L


Could not access this one.


Or even this 1982 paper:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0014-3820(198201)36%3A1%3C132%3AMEFISI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1


Or this one either.


Or this 1995 paper:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/92/7/2519


"It is generally believed that Drosophila melanogaster has no closely
related species with which it can produce the viable and fertile hybrids
that are essential for the genetic analysis of speciation. Following the
recent report of molecular differentiation between a Zimbabwe, Africa,
population and two United States populations, we provide evidence that
strong sexual isolation exists between the D. melanogaster population in
Zimbabwe and populations of other continents. In the presence of males
of their own kind, females from most isofemale lines of Zimbabwe would
not mate with males from elsewhere; the reciprocal mating is also
significantly reduced, but to a lesser degree. The genes for sexual
behaviors are apparently polymorphic in Zimbabwe and postmating
reproductive isolation between this and other populations has not yet
evolved. Whole chromosome substitutions indicate significant genetic
contributions to male mating success by both major autosomes, whereas
the X chromosome effect is too weak to measure. In addition, the
relative mating success between hybrid and pure line males supports the
interpretation of strong female choice. These observations suggest that
we are seeing the early stages of speciation in this group and that it
is driven by sexual selection. The genetic and molecular tractability of
D. melanogaster offers great promise for the detailed analysis of this
apparent case of incipient speciation."

Note "would not mate" is not "can not mate" or more importantly "cannot
produce fertile offspring" - hence the conclusion that this might be
"the early stages of speciation", rather than real speciation. These
are real desperate attempts to find speciation IMO.


Or this 2001 paper:
http://www.mamb.ru/lib/lib_ru/scienc11.pdf

"The power of sexual selection to drive changes in mate recognition
traits gives it the potential to be a potent force in speciation. Much
of the evidence to support this possibility comes from comparative
studies that examine differences in the number of species between clades
that apparently differ in the intensity of sexual selection.We argue
that more detailed studies are needed, examining extinction rates and
other sources of variation in species richness. Typically,
investigations of extant natural populations have been too indirect to
convincingly conclude speciation by sexual selection. Recent empirical
work, however, is beginning to take a more direct approach and rule
out confounding variables."

Still no real speciation - only "the potential to be a potent force in
speciation". Not the same thing. Again, grasping at straws IMO.



Or this 1980 paper:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0014-3820(198007)34%3A4%3C730%3AAMGIOS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J


I cannot access any of these "jstor" links.


Or this 2002 paper:
http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/19/4/472


"The divergence of Drosophila pseudoobscura from its close relatives, D.
persimilis and D. pseudoobscura bogotana, was examined using the pattern
of DNA sequence variation in a common set of 50 inbred lines at 11 loci
from diverse locations in the genome. Drosophila pseudoobscura and D.
persimilis show a marked excess of low-frequency variation across loci,
consistent with a model of recent population expansion in both species.
The different loci vary considerably, both in polymorphism levels and in
the levels of polymorphisms that are shared by different species pairs.
A major question we address is whether these patterns of shared
variation are best explained by gene flow or by persistence since common
ancestry. A new test of gene flow, based on patterns of linkage
disequilibrium, is developed. The results from these, and other tests,
support a model in which D. pseudoobscura and D. persimilis have
exchanged genes at some loci. However, the pattern of variation suggests
that most gene flow, although occurring after speciation began, was not
recent. There is less evidence of gene flow between D. pseudoobscura and
D. p. bogotana. The results are compared with recent work on the genomic
locations of genes that contribute to reproductive isolation between D.
pseudoobscura and D. persimilis. We show that there is a good
correspondence between the genomic regions associated with reproductive
isolation and the regions that show little or no evidence of gene flow."

This is an attempt to guess at past events and not an empirical test of
speciation.


Or this 1993 paper:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0014-3820%28199312%2947%3A6%3C1637%3ALEOSWH%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T&size=LARGE


Again...

Or this 2004 paper:
http://evol.allenpress.com/evolonline/?request=get-abstract&issn=0014-3820&volume=058&issue=08&page=1856



"Recent studies suggest that chromosomal rearrangements play a
significant role in speciation by preventing recombination and
maintaining species persistence despite interspecies gene flow. Factors
conferring adaptation or reproductive isolation are maintained in
rearranged regions in the face of hybridization, while such factors are
eliminated from collinear regions. As a direct test of this
rearrangement model, we evaluated the genetic basis of hybrid male
sterility in a sympatric species pair, Drosophila pseudoobscura
pseudoobscura and D. persimilis, and an allopatric species pair, D.
pseudoobscura bogotana and D. persimilis. Our results are consistent
with the proposed model: virtually all of the sterility factors in the
former pair are associated with three inverted regions, whereas
sterility factors are present in the collinear regions in the latter
pair. These findings indicate recombination and selection may have
eliminated sterility factors outside the inverted regions between D. p.
pseudoobscura and D. persimilis, suggesting chromosomal rearrangements
may facilitate species persistence despite hybridization."

What does this mean: "by preventing recombination and maintaining
species persistence despite interspecies gene flow"?
How is "interspecies gene flow" possible?


Gee! How stupid of them not to know what was going happen in the next
half-century of genetic research!

Silly scientists!


I see nothing in the above papers that contradicts the findings of these
"old" scientists. You may read more into the newer findings than I do
however.



"The clear-cut mutants of Drosophila, with which so much of the
classical research in genetics were done, are almost without exception
inferior to wild-type flies in viability, fertility,
longevity."-*Theodosius Dobzhansky, Heredity and the Nature of Man
(1964), p. 126.



Getting closer: this one is only 42 years old.


"Out of 400 mutations that have been provided by Drosophila
melanogaster, there is not one that can be called a new species. It does
not seem, therefore, that the central problem of evolution can be solved
by mutations."-*Maurice Caullery, Genetics and Heredity (1964), p. 119.



Still 42 years old


"The decisive step in evolution, the first step toward macroevolution,
the step from one species to another, requires another evolutionary
method than that of sheer accumulation of micromutations. "
-- Richard B. Goldschmidt
GOLDSCHMIDT, R.B. (1940) The Material Basis of Evolution. Yale
University Press, New Haven.




Oh dear! You've slipped: this is 65 years old.


"We have long been seeking a different kind of evolutionary process and
have now found one; namely, the change within the pattern of the
chromosomes. ... The neo-Darwinian theory of the geneticists is no
longer tenable. "
-- Richard B. Goldschmidt
GOLDSCHMIDT, R.B. (1940) The Material Basis of Evolution. Yale
University Press, New Haven.


As is this one

--
"Are we to believe that mere chance can accomplish that which has proven
quite impossible for the enlightened scientist to achieve? I regard
that notion as absurd!" John A. Davison, Ph.D. - AN EVOLUTIONARY
MANIFESTO: A NEW HYPOTHESIS FOR ORGANIC CHANGE
http://www.uvm.edu/~jdavison/davison-manifesto.html


Well bully for John A. Davison.
What a pity that this is simply an argument from incredulity.

Such an argument has no place in science.

Creationism couldn't exist without such arguments.


Have you read his manifesto? If not, then read first and make
derogatory comments afterward please.


--
"Are we to believe that mere chance can accomplish that which has proven
quite impossible for the enlightened scientist to achieve? I regard
that notion as absurd!" John A. Davison, Ph.D. - AN EVOLUTIONARY
MANIFESTO: A NEW HYPOTHESIS FOR ORGANIC CHANGE
http://www.uvm.edu/~jdavison/davison-manifesto.html


Mind you, I'm quite happy to read (parts at least) of his manifesto and
make derogatory comments on it.

"Darwinism has prevailed entirely for negative reasons since
alternative hypotheses have proven to be inadequate."

More to the point, "Darwinism" (by which I presume that the author
means modern evoltionary theory, which is in essence a natural
selection operating on genetic diversity) has been strongly supported
by observation and experiment.

Perhaps the fact that alternative hypotheses have proven to be
inadequate tells us something?

" Chief among
these is Lamarckism or the genetic transmission of characters acquired
during the life of the individual. Such transmissions have never been
demonstrated at least in higher forms. Accordingly, in the absence of
experimental verification, Lamarckism cannot be given serious
consideration."

Quite so. There has however been considerable experimental verification
for "Darwinism" (and I use the term in the way I defined it above).

"A second alternative view is Creationism."

Well, no it isn't. "Creationism" is a rather lose term attached to a
wide range of religious beliefs, none of which have ever presented any
scientifically sound hypothesis. It is not an "alternative view", it is
a religious conviction with no place in science.

" Here caution must be
observed. While it is true that the existence of a Creator, while
a logical necessity,"

Not according to many. The acceptance of the existence of a creator is
a matter of faith.

" has never been rigorously proved and perhaps
never can be,"

There's no "perhaps" about it. The existence of a creator (by which the
author means God in this context) cannot be proved.

" it is also true that neither has been the spontaneous
generation of life. "

Note the misdirection here: The subject under discussion is evolution,
and now we switch to abiogenesis. This is called "bait and switch",
and is a trick used by many con-men.

" Pasteur's flasks, on display at the Sorbonne and
open to the air, remain sterile to this day"

Which is entirely irrelevant to the scientific investigation of
abiogenesis or evolutionary theory, of course.

" and there is no evidence
whatsoever from the geological record to support the celebrated
"organic soup" hypothesis for spontaneous generation."

One wonders what evidence one might expect to find in the geological
record for an event which ocurred in fragile organic molecules three
and a half billion years ago.

On the other hand, laboratory experiments have demonstrated many of the
stages which might have led to the origination of living organisms.


"Perhaps the most compelling feature for the Darwinists resides in
their persistent conviction that all of evolution is the result of
blind chance."

Natural selection is not "blind chance". Davidson is using the
technique commonly used by creationists and other con-men of
misrepresention.


"In so doing, the Darwinists refuse to consider that
evolution might be subject to laws and precise mathematical
relationships such as those that govern virtually every aspect of
the inanimate world."

"Darwinists" do nothing of the sort. Evolutionary scientist have been
the leaders in some fields of mathematics such as statistics.

This is an example of the technique used by creationist and other
con-men called "lying".


"Obvious examples are Galileo's Law of Falling
Bodies, Newton's Laws of Motion and Einstein's equation of energy and
mass."

Which are all no more than approximations of what happens in the real
world.

"One must be prepared to realize that there may be comparable
laws at work in the living world."

Evolutionary scientists have tried to formulate such "laws". However,
evolution deals with biological systems of enormously greater
complexity than the simple systems for which Newton's Laws of motion
make predictions.

It's worth noting that Newton's Laws cannot make predictions about the
behaviour of the interaction of three bodies due to gravity.

This is a technique used by creationists and othe con-men of
over-simplification of complex arguments in the pretence that they
support their case.



"Furthermore, blind chance demands
that life should have arisen and should still be arising on countless
other planets in the vast cosmos, yet there is no evidence that life
exists now, or has ever existed anywhere, except on this planet."


Which is hardly surprising, bearing in mind that the techniques we have
used to explore the possibility of the existence of life on other
planets would be hard-pressed to discover life on earth.

Am I to presume that if we discover living organisms elsewhere in the
solar system, the author will withdraw this argument and admit that
evolutionary theory is sound?

"With all our advanced technology, we still have not been able to
produce even the simplest organic system which could even remotely
be described as being alive."


Not true. There have been plenty of experiments which have produced
systems which can be "remotely" described as "alive", from chemical
methods such as recombitant DNA to algorythms running on computers.

This is another example of a technique used by creationists and other
con-men called "lying".

"Are we to believe that mere chance can
accomplish that which has proven quite impossible for the enlightened
scientist to achieve?"

This is called a "rhetorical question", and contains something used
extensively by creationists and other con-men called
"misrepresentation". It is also an example of a technique used by
creationists and other con-men called "arguments from incredulity".

"I regard that notion as absurd!"

I should add that I do as well. This notion does not represent the
views of any scientist working in the field.


" I quote Albert
Einstein on the matter of chance: "I shall never believe that God
plays dice with the world."""

This is called an appeal to authority. It is worth noting that
1) Scientific theories of abiogenesis and evolution are not based on
the notion that living organisms and the diversity they now show came
about by "mere chance".
2) Einstein may not have liked the ideas put forward by quantum
theorists, but the fact is that those ideas have proved to be the most
acurate theory for predicting the behaviour of any system in any branch
of science.
3) Einstein was talking about quantum theory, not biology.

"If Einstein's physical world does not operate through chance, would
one really expect the living world to do so? I, as others before me,
do not think so."

The author is still misrepresenting evolutionary science. An apeal to
incredulity based on a false presentation of the views of others is a
technique used by creationist rather more frequently than other
con-men.

"The Darwinists' stubborn refusal to consider any possible role for
laws, order and purpose is what primarily accounts for their failure
to present a rational mechanism for evolutionary change."

Evolutionary scientists have presented an extremely robust, testable
mechanism for evolutionary change which has been observed in nature and
reproduced in the laboratory.

This is another example of a technique used by creationists and other
con-man called "lying".


"Technically,
Darwinism is not even a theory."

Actually "Darwinism" is a word used nowadays mainly by creationists in
a derogartory sense. The theory Darwin presented is that of evolution
by natural selection. That theory has proved to be one of the most
robust in any field of science for a century and and a half.

"It is only a hypothesis which, to
this day, remains totally devoid of experimental and descriptive
verification."

Another outright lie.

"Theories, sensu strictu, are hypotheses which,
having been tested, have been found valid."

No, they are not. Theories are usually the result of testing many
hypotheses, and provide a sound and coherent model of the behaviour of
the systems to which they apply.

" For example, Einstein's
Special Theory of Relativity remained a hypothesis until it had been
verified. Only then did it become a theory."

The theory of evolution by natural selection has also been extensively
verified by observation and experiment.


This is a common technique used by creationists called "ignoring the
evidence". It is hard to tell if they do this because they are ignorant
or because they are lying.


To be frank, I can't be bothered to carry on reading this diatribe
which is such a mishmash of distortion, misrepresenation and outright
falsehoods that anyone with even a modicum of scientific education
should be able to recognise it as such.


RF

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Question: How to recognize mutations
    ... >>variation from most of its pals in its population. ... >>we can tell that this variation is the result of mutation and not ... >>or could it have been recombination of existing alleles? ... > processes that affect gene expression such as methylation. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Question: How to recognize mutations
    ... variation from most of its pals in its population. ... If a tranposon disrupts a gene, or changes the regularatory control of a gene, then that's a mutation. ... Even intragenic recombination would be a mutation if it resulted in a new allele. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Blue-eyed Humans Have A Single, Common Ancestor
    ... Variation in the colour of the eyes from brown to green can all be ... the eye colour of blue-eyed individuals in countries as diverse as ... implicated the OCA2 gene as being responsible for eye colour. ... It has to be the same exact mutation and a lack ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Challenge for Darwinists - Protein Synthesis
    ... Normal variation is the range of different alleles present in the gene ... The source of this normal variation is mutation, ... If there were no mutation there would be no variation in the gene pool, ... process of sexual reproduction. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Challenge for Darwinists - Protein Synthesis
    ... Normal variation is the range of different alleles present in the gene ... The source of this normal variation is mutation, ... If there were no mutation there would be no variation in the gene pool, ... the variants must first exist. ...
    (talk.origins)