Evolution: the Facts.

[randman]

Other genomes will be selected for increased complexity and will acquire new traits over time as you say.

If we are talking about all life, again it's tough to make a prediction. In general I would think the diversity would increase, but it would depend on the time frame being looked at. In periods where life is flourishing I would expect more genes to be added over time, in periods of mass extinctions the genetic diversity might be decreasing.

Talking about comparing the earliest organisms, say the last common ancestor of plants and animals or LCA of animals with how evolution is thought to proceed under NeoDarwinism.

"The proponents of the synthetic theory maintain that all evolution is due to the accumulation of small genetic changes, guided by natural selection, and that transspecific evolution is nothing but an extrapolation and magnification of the events that take place within populations and species." (Mayr 1963)

I think the quote above expresses the general ND narrative, namely "a slow accumulation of small genetic changes, guided by natural selection." A number of years back, I ran across the concept put forward by front loaders or those like Pierre Grasse that believed NeoDarwinian methods cannot explain macroevolution. Their prediction, at least some of them, was that the LCA would be genetically more complex and that evolution does not proceed through a slow accumulation of genes.

Of course, this was a somewhat radical proposition and flew in the face of the idea that genes accrue slowly via NeoDarwinian means. However, recent studies amazingly proved the front loaders right in their predictions and standard evo wrong.

Here is a comment by the author of one of those studies. Note: he is not abandoning Neodarwinism but does recognize his findings turn over some common preconceptions by evolutionists.

However, Professor David Miller says its genetic complexity challenges the notion that life started out simple then evolved to become more sophisticated.

"There's this intrinsic tendency to think about a slow accumulation of complexity and a slow accumulation of genes which have allowed an increased morphological complexity in higher animals and what the coral genomes tell us is that that's completely wrong and that most genes were invented very early in animal evolution," he said.

http://www.jcu.edu.au/cgc/MillerHP.html

His isn't the only work showing this. Of course, evos will now likely insist either the LCA evolved all this genetic complexity, even genes for human nerve function in corals for example, slowly over time via NeoDarwinian methods while still being a very primitive organism in it's cellular organization, and then we saw a "massive loss of genes for some lineages", etc,....or that the LCA was actually very complex morphologically.

Of course, we can test neither of those claims.

What we do know is this a failure of one side, standard evolutionism, in it's predictions and a successful prediction of another, the front loaders. Both adhere to common descent, and of course an alternative is still special creation, but would like to limit the scope of this discussion a bit (to these specific predictions under the assumption of common descent) or we might just spin our wheels in too broad of a topic.

 

[ThunderChunky]

Randman, you are throwing a lot out there without actually responding to what I wrote. If you want me to respond to something. Then post it upfront. I do not appreciate you wasting my time by having me craft a reply to you that you will just ignore. I hope you actually address the points that I make below and do not just post something else for me to reply to.

Talking about comparing the earliest organisms, say the last common ancestor of plants and animals or LCA of animals with how evolution is thought to proceed under NeoDarwinism.

The LCA of plants and animals would be single celled eukaryotic organism that lacks chloroplasts. The LCA of animals would be a multicellular eukaryotic organism.

I think the quote above expresses the general ND narrative, namely "a slow accumulation of small genetic changes, guided by natural selection." A number of years back, I ran across the concept put forward by front loaders or those like Pierre Grasse that believed NeoDarwinian methods cannot explain macroevolution. Their prediction, at least some of them, was that the LCA would be genetically more complex and that evolution does not proceed through a slow accumulation of genes.

I do not know the context of that quote. But if they think gene loss is not another mechanism for evolution they are flat out wrong. Genes can be lost as well as gained. It all depends on the selective pressure. The genetic mechanisms of gene loss have been known for some time. Observing gene loss in nature would not be a surprise on it's own.

Of course, this was a somewhat radical proposition and flew in the face of the idea that genes accrue slowly via NeoDarwinian means. However, recent studies amazingly proved the front loaders right in their predictions and standard evo wrong.

I am not too familiar with the predictions of the front loaders. Did they predict that the genes in the LCA of animals would be functional then or would they be waiting to be turned on at a later time?

Here is a comment by the author of one of those studies. Note: he is not abandoning Neodarwinism but does recognize his findings turn over some common preconceptions by evolutionists.



http://www.jcu.edu.au/cgc/MillerHP.html

Do you have the reference for that quote, I would like to read it in context. It doesn't make sense as is, because I do not know what genes he is referring to.

His isn't the only work showing this. Of course, evos will now likely insist either the LCA evolved all this genetic complexity, even genes for human nerve function in corals for example, slowly over time via NeoDarwinian methods while still being a very primitive organism in it's cellular organization, and then we saw a "massive loss of genes for some lineages", etc,....or that the LCA was actually very complex morphologically.

Yes, LCA would have the genes that are found in both humans and coral. The function of the genes could very well be different, but they would have a function.

Of course, we can test neither of those claims.

Evolution would predict that if a protein was conserved in both coral and humans that it would have some function in both organisms. It does not have to have the same function in the coral as it does in the human, but it should do something.

What we need is a full genome sequence of many groups of animals. This is the best way to get an idea of what the LCA of animals would be like genetically. Without that information we can only make rough guesses.

What we do know is this a failure of one side, standard evolutionism, in it's predictions and a successful prediction of another, the front loaders. Both adhere to common descent, and of course an alternative is still special creation, but would like to limit the scope of this discussion a bit (to these specific predictions under the assumption of common descent) or we might just spin our wheels in too broad of a topic.

It appears that the 'failure' was due to extrapolating from too few data points. As I mentioned before, evolution can select for gene loss as well as gene gain. Seeing one or the other is not a surprise. It would be a surprise if the nerve gene in coral that you are referring to doesn't actually do anything in that organism, but I will bet you that it does.

 

[Dinwar]

"The proponents of the synthetic theory maintain that all evolution is due to the accumulation of small genetic changes,

randman is arguing that the gradual accumulation of genetic changes means the gradual accumulation of genes, and therefore evolution predicts that organisms will become increasingly complex, and therefore complex structures in living invertebrates (which are somehow simpler in some never-defined metric) disproves evolution. This is all nonsense. The first error randman is committing is equivocating between genetic changes and genes. The second is that the theory of evolution says nothing to that effect--in fact, we often see decreases in complexity in evolutionary history (check out horse feet for a perfect example of a well-documented loss of morphological complexity through time). The third is that there's no necessity for invertebrates to be simpler than us--this is a holdover from the Chain of Being, a concept constructed in the Middle Ages to formalize Catholic doctrine about Creation. From a scientific perspective all living things have the same amount of evolutionary history, as the evidence suggests that we all share a common ancestor. Also, there's no real way to DEFINE complexity the way randman is attempting to define it.

I do not know the context of that quote.

It's called "pulling it out of his back side". It was demonstrated in the other thread where randman is making these allegations that the quote is at least a misquote of the text, and most likely a complete fabrication. In fact, Grasse was shown by a direct quote from one of his books to be a supporter of evolutionary theory. Perhaps one who's ideas were disproven, but that doesn't mean he's not a supporter.

Here is a comment by the author of one of those studies. Note: he is not abandoning Neodarwinism but does recognize his findings turn over some common preconceptions by evolutionists.

For the record, the paper is about a somewhat curious homology in the genetic code of corals and humans. The authors found that genes associated with the nervous system and eyes in humans were in corals, who in their adult phase posses neural nets and no eyes. The authors also found that coral larva DO have eyes. Their conclusion was that this gene was shared by the last common ancestor of both corals and humans. randman basically ignores all of that, preferring to declare that evolution is falling because an unexpected homology was found. Oh, and he redefines evolution to be NeoDarwinism, which he further redefines to mean "the slow gradual accumulation of genes", ignoring basically every quote he's posted which states that the proper idea is the gradual accumulation of genetic changes.

But don't tell him any of that, or he'll put you on ignore.

As for the failure.....there was none. The authors found a curious homology, which they neatly explained. They went on to warn OTHER RESEARCHERS about the danger of premature assumptions--something that any researcher into evolution needs to be aware of and has been admonished about repeatedly (read, nearly constantly) their entire professional life. randman cannot tell the difference between "Hey, we need to be careful when we say things like _____" and "Our entire theoretical structure is wrong".

 

[randman]

First, I am glad to respond to any statements. Just was trying to deal with one thing at a time. If you would just remind me of what you want me to address, I'll gladly jump into it unless it's something I don't know much about and I'll tell you that if that's the case.

Did they predict that the genes in the LCA of animals would be functional then or would they be waiting to be turned on at a later time?

That's a very good question. Some clearly argue for repressed genes and others seem to to talk more about regulation and reorganization.

Do you have the reference for that quote, I would like to read it in context. It doesn't make sense as is, because I do not know what genes he is referring to.

He is referring to his research. This is one paper.

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(03)00872-8

Yes, LCA would have the genes that are found in both humans and coral.

Why? Why wouldn't they evolve later as genetic changes are added and survive via adaption of species in conjunction with natural selection?

Evolution would predict that if a protein was conserved in both coral and humans that it would have some function in both organisms. It does not have to have the same function in the coral as it does in the human, but it should do something.

What if we discover it's not involved with a function? Of course, people thought junk DNA had no function but that's been recently shown not to be the case. Incidentally, that undermines the claims that we can track phylogeny by seeing common errors in junk DNA. Prior evo claims were since junk DNA was non-functional, if we saw a similar mutation, it was good evidence for establishing a lineage. I think one time I debated for quite some time Cyto-chrome C or something like that running a program to show cladistics. Much of the evo argument there is thrown out the window if junk DNA is functional.

As I mentioned before, evolution can select for gene loss as well as gene gain. Seeing one or the other is not a surprise. It would be a surprise if the nerve gene in coral that you are referring to doesn't actually do anything in that organism, but I will bet you that it does.

I think it's a surprise and certainly it's been mentioned as such to see such a primitive organism with such genetic complexity and the same for the claims of the LCA having to be so complex now.

I'll look at your other post and see where I didn't respond.

 

[randman]

That is one of the points I would like to discuss. There are many genetic mechanisms that actually increase the genetic variability of a population. Natural selection can act to either increase or decrease variability depending on what is and is not being selected. In general, a population will be stronger if it has more genetic variability, but it can lose variability if certain genes are selected against or if the population shrinks.

But isn't the general idea now that evolution proceeds through a subgroup splitting off via sexual or geographic isolation (or maybe something else?) and so the beginning of the process is a shrinking of the population? So that's a loss of "genes" right there and a big one.

I know of no studies comparing mutational rates with assessments of how many genes are lost during the initial process of isolation. Seems this is such a basic claim of evos there'd be something in the literature backing it up, but haven't found any.

Maybe you know of one?

 

[randman]

Dinwar, no, I am not arguing evolution cannot proceed through loss of genes but am arguing the general pattern of ND is that novel genes emerge with corresponding traits that remain through natural selection; hence the comment of Dr Miller in saying how his study overturns that concept.

In fact, Grasse was shown by a direct quote from one of his books to be a supporter of evolutionary theory.

Np, he called "evolution" (NeoDarwinism) "a myth." That's not a lie. Nor have you or anyone refuted that. He believes in common descent, however. So does Michael Behe. Is he an evolutionist as well?

You can spin this until you are blue in the face but what I wrote is exactly true. Grasse believed "any objective" person would admit evolution is driven by "internal changes", not the small genetic changes of ND, not the process of natural selection and NeoDarwinism.

Not sure it's worth reading the rest of your post. Either you are just ignorant and refuse to see he called "evolution a myth", or you choose to make stuff up.

If you disagree, please explain what he meant when he called "evolution a myth" and suggested many evos are involved in fraud.

 

[six7s]

You claimed that the evidence convergent evolution demonstrates today is actually not evidence in favor of evolution by natural selection, but that you alone had figured out that it is actually a trick of logic and if we'd only think about it we'd see it was evidence against evolution.

...


This should set off an alarm for any objective listener.

Nominated

 

[randman]

Nominated

Ok, but the post he made was a lie. Never said I thought up the idea on my own, etc, etc,....ANYONE with a basic knowledge of the debate would know the argument. He had never heard of it because he's not very knowledgeable of basic criticisms of darwinism.

 

[ThunderChunky]

That's a very good question. Some clearly argue for repressed genes and others seem to to talk more about regulation and reorganization.

What does front loading predict? Will the genes serve a function? The cnidarian sequences referenced in the paper below are from ESTs (expressed sequence tags) that means all these genes are expressed in the cnidarian (they make a protein coding mRNA). This genetic information is being utilized by the organism.

He is referring to his research. This is one paper.

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(03)00872-8

Well, I cannot respond to his quote unless I see it in full context. The paper is interesting, it will be important to get the full genome sequence of that cnidarian. The paper illustrates that making conclusions about the evolution of animals based off only a few non-vertebrate genomes can be prone to error. It doesn't shake the foundation of evolutionary theory. The previous predictions on vertebrate specific genes were based off what was not seen in the fly and worm genomes--it was not based on general a prediction of evolutionary theory. If we only look at those two non-vertebrate genomes and see genes missing, it is reasonable to conclude that the genes are new for vertebrates, it's either that or that the genes were lost in the two non-vertebrate lineages. Now that we have sequences from a more divergent organism, and see those genes present, we have to conclude that they were there in the LCA and lost in the fly and worm.

Why? Why wouldn't they evolve later as genetic changes are added and survive via adaption of species in conjunction with natural selection?

If the genes are found in cnidarians and humans there are two possibilities: 1) that LCA had those genes or 2) that they evolved independently (or option three some sort of horizontal gene transfer which is very rare in animals). Option one is the most probable by a long shot.

What if we discover it's not involved with a function? Of course, people thought junk DNA had no function but that's been recently shown not to be the case. Incidentally, that undermines the claims that we can track phylogeny by seeing common errors in junk DNA. Prior evo claims were since junk DNA was non-functional, if we saw a similar mutation, it was good evidence for establishing a lineage. I think one time I debated for quite some time Cyto-chrome C or something like that running a program to show cladistics. Much of the evo argument there is thrown out the window if junk DNA is functional.

The ESTs are coding for proteins. Life doesnt generally make proteins without a function, and life would not conserve the sequence of those proteins over hundreds of millions of years if they didn't help the organism. Junk DNA is another topic. It does not code for proteins, but it does serve some functions. I will leave that for now unless you have something specific you want to discuss about junk DNA and how it relates to the big picture of evolution.

I think it's a surprise and certainly it's been mentioned as such to see such a primitive organism with such genetic complexity and the same for the claims of the LCA having to be so complex now.

The cnidarian did not somehow become more complex just because we sequenced some of its ESTs. LCA perhaps, does become more genetically complex than previously thought, but those previous thoughts were based on just a few data points, not the core of evolutionary theory.

But isn't the general idea now that evolution proceeds through a subgroup splitting off via sexual or geographic isolation (or maybe something else?) and so the beginning of the process is a shrinking of the population? So that's a loss of "genes" right there and a big one.

That does not have to happen, but does speed things up and leads to speciation. When it happens though, you would lose genetic diversity but not the genes themselves. You still have each of the genes, but less variations of them. If the population remains whole (no splitting off) new gene variations can appear and thus increases the genetic diversity. This can also occur after the splitting, thus contributing to more differences between the split populations.

I know of no studies comparing mutational rates with assessments of how many genes are lost during the initial process of isolation. Seems this is such a basic claim of evos there'd be something in the literature backing it up, but haven't found any.

Maybe you know of one?

I don't know any specific studies, but people have studied the founders effect. It would certainly depend on how many organisms are in the founding population and what their initial diversity it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founder_effect

 

[Halfcentaur]

Ok, but the post he made was a lie. Never said I thought up the idea on my own, etc, etc,....ANYONE with a basic knowledge of the debate would know the argument. He had never heard of it because he's not very knowledgeable of basic criticisms of darwinism.

It's not a lie, if anything it's ignorance. I've spent many hours listening and interacting with creationists and that particular issue is not one I've ever heard posited. It's really beside the point, you still have a number of uniquely formed arguments you're positing here, with a number of unique conclusions based around highlighting arguments people have had against the inner workings of evolution. You take these arguments and then spin them in your own way in unique positions, when most of the arguments you've cited so far were made by people who do not even deny evolution, they only disagree on the finer mechanics of it.

You've just once again seized on one detail you feel you can defend while ignoring the other correlations and what these correlations imply.

And I never claimed you announced a privileged and unique stance, it's something implied by your arguments. It's another issue of correlation, something you seem blind sided by. You've claimed you have a unique stance on a number of things, from how young the Earth is exactly to what a God is. You're not exactly this or that, as you've said before.

If you're actually arguing for a specific theory or specific school of theology, what is it? Because you seem to have your own personal brand of any number of views, while dismissing a well known and agreed upon scientific institution as a conspiracy at worst, and a dogmatic delusion at best. You claim people who disagree with you are obfuscating your points, and you claim you are ridiculed and lied about as well. This is denialism.


If you are arguing for a specific body of thought or theory, and not a maverick with your own views, what is it? It's not a matter of you announcing you're one man against the world, your own worlds are what imply this.
Don't brand me a liar for supposing your own words mistakenly suggest something about you.

I like to look at the data and see what it does and does not say. I think people can make a decent argument for a number of models except ironically the one generally accepted, which absolutely flies in the face of all the facts and data we have.

Front-loading predicted what might be called super-genomes. That impressed me they were so bold and correct in their predictions and NeoDarwinism failed so miserably. But there are other areas of data.

Maybe common descent and evolution never happened in the first place. Common descent is a given assumption in most of these studies.

I could elaborate. Guess I would be considered an Intelligent Design theorist as far as my ideas, but it gets kind of complicated. I think the whole field whether evolutionist, front loading evolutionist (non-Darwinist), young earth creationist, old earth creationist, IDers, etc,....are still generally locked into a materialist perspective on reality outdated by modern physics.

But the NeoDarwinists are the worst in that regard.

But that would be a physics thread, and yes, I do have some ideas on how reality including life is generated.

Here you are, claiming a self informed position, not exactly this, not exactly that.

 

[randman]

Thunderchunky, great response and what I am looking for. Sounds like you may have actually read the paper. Will respond in depth with either an edit or a new thread.

 

[Dinwar]

Dinwar, no, I am not arguing evolution cannot proceed through loss of genes but am arguing the general pattern of ND is that novel genes emerge with corresponding traits that remain through natural selection; hence the comment of Dr Miller in saying how his study overturns that concept.

Sure, if you re-define evolution in a way that no serious researcher uses, you can make any argument you want. I've seen a guy on this forum attempt to argue that for evolution to be true we needed to explain the Big Bang. If you want to discuss what the ACTUALL theory is, the paper you cited does nothing but contribute yet another curious datapoint.

Np, he called "evolution" (NeoDarwinism) "a myth." That's not a lie. Nor have you or anyone refuted that. He believes in common descent, however. So does Michael Behe. Is he an evolutionist as well?

It was shown in your other thread that the statement in question is false. Address it there. And as for Behe, if you believe he beleives in common decent I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

You can spin this until you are blue in the face but what I wrote is exactly true. Grasse believed "any objective" person would admit evolution is driven by "internal changes", not the small genetic changes of ND, not the process of natural selection and NeoDarwinism.

Because you are re-defining evolution in a way that no serious researcher uses, you must exclude yourself from the category of objective person. Your continuous fabrications and cherry-picking, clearly documented in the other thread, also exclude you.

As for the rest, what is an internal change but a genetic change?

Not sure it's worth reading the rest of your post. Either you are just ignorant and refuse to see he called "evolution a myth", or you choose to make stuff up.

Get real. I've studied evolution in depth. In fact, I make my living in such a field (paleontology). There is NO legitimate evidence against the theory, in my professional opinion. And nothing you've presented even comes close--often by the author's own admission! (This was cited in the other thread I keep mentioning, though randman refused to read those posts or that portion of the [SINGLE] paper in question.) And your penchant for ignoring people who disagree with you, and refusing to read their posts, does not do your side credit.

If you disagree, please explain what he meant when he called "evolution a myth" and suggested many evos are involved in fraud.

N. If you want to accuse me and my peers of fraud (an accusation that YOU HAVE NOT BACKED UP with quotes from the author in question, despite repeated requests) it is YOUR burden to prove it. Frankly, this is a libelous statement unless you can back it up--either on your part, or on the guy you're misquoting's part.

Either back it up, or agree that the guy had no basis, or appogize. Or don't, and show clearly that you have no interest in honest scientific debate.

ETA: Obviously you have not read the references I linked you to yet. If you had, we would not be having such a discussion. Why is it that we are required to read and respond to your references, randman, but you are under no such obligation when we post references?

 

[randman]

The previous predictions on vertebrate specific genes were based off what was not seen in the fly and worm genomes--it was not based on general a prediction of evolutionary theory.

I think this is wrong and will explain why. Though the paper does emphasize the loss of genes in the lineages leading to flies and worms, they still also mention one reason for their surprise based on the relative simplicity of the organization of the cellular structure of the coral. Since they would be aware that evolution can happen via loss of genes, the findings would not be that surprising. One reason I included the quote from the author is to help illustrate that acknowledgement of the "intrinsic" beliefs of evolutionists thinking greater genetic complexity emerges with greater morphological complexity.

A review of the history of evolutionary thought might be helpful. One reason Darwin's idea caught on is it appealed to prevailing beliefs of the day such as progress, racism and a desire for a simple mechanical explanation of things. The idea of progressive evolution "upward" was long a staple but in more recent years, that has been deemphasized to say evolution does not have a direction per se.

Nevertheless, the general patten of increasing complexity remains. Evolution does not predict a human being, for example, at the root of the phylogenetic tree, but a very simple organism. Why is that? Because life is thought to have begun with something simple and evolved into greater complexity through evolution splitting off new species and so forth. The mechanism for this is that genetic changes would be selected for and so genetic complexity (origin of new genes for greater function) would emerge with greater morphological complexity. That's really the prediction of the mechanism and at the heart of Darwinism, that we see simpler organisms at the beginning of life, and they adapted via mutation, etc,...being selected for through natural selection acing on a population.

In fact, evos back in the 90s used to explicitly say NeoDarwinism predicted simpler organisms would have simpler genomes and actually went on quite a bit on sites such as Infidels about that.

So whereas NeoDarwinism makes room for evolution via loss of genes, it would be surprising to see it occur from the LCA through a "massive loss" of genes because the LCA was thought to be not that genetically complex. It's important to realize that the concept of genetic complexity emerging through morphological complexity predates any of the molecular studies and genome mapping, but is an idea going back to the very beginning. It had been modified some but is actually being turned over completely now.

Keep in mind there other studies not just this one paper. So if the LCA is now thought to be incredibly complex genetically, that begs the question of how much of a driver environmental pressures are to the origin of novel genes and to evolution itself. Maybe Pierre Grasse and others were right to deride NeoDarwinism so much and insist evolution was internally driven. The picture emerging is very different than what the NeoDarwinian narrative suggested it should be.

Life doesnt generally make proteins without a function, and life would not conserve the sequence of those proteins over hundreds of millions of years if they didn't help the organism.

Maybe so. I am not sure that's necessarily proven but I think your point here is that since these genes have function there, they must have evolved through NeoDarwinian means. One problem is we don't know how the first genes got there in the first place. I am sure in the future evos will argue that between the original common ancestor and LCA, that all this genetic evolution took place producing a very genetically complex LCA, and then we see where it ran backwards so to speak (I use that term just in reference to the old concept of increasing complexity). In other words, a massive build-up of types of genes following a decrease in available types of genes. Already, some researchers are saying the precursors to plants and animals had available to them more types of genes than are available to plants and animals today.

But this is still a big departure from what evos envisioned, and we have no evidence of how the first genome came about. Who is to say it came about through neodarwinism? If the further back our studies will allow an estimation, we see greater complexity genetically, why do we assume even further back there is somewhere at some time genetic simplicity?

I don't know any specific studies, but people have studied the founders effect. It would certainly depend on how many organisms are in the founding population and what their initial diversity it.

The founder effect isn't really a study comparing the 2, but it is interesting in how it's been applied to the cheetah which, as I understand it, is a population of genetic twins, and as such, is likely not be able to evolve further. It's an illustration of what I mean when referring to microevolution as a dead end, evolution in the wrong direction. Greater morphological complexity evolved but genetic diversity decreased.

 

[randman]

It was shown in your other thread that the statement in question is false. Address it there. And as for Behe, if you believe he beleives in common decent I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell yo

Nope the other thread did not show Pierre Grasse was a NeoDarwinist but the exact opposite and I see no reason not to take Behe at his word.

 

[randman]

Get real. I've studied evolution in depth. In fact, I make my living in such a field (paleontology).

Dinwar, then how is you are unfamiliar with theories like front loading, Pierre Grasse's rejection of NeoDarwinism, Goldschmidt's rejection of ND based on his inability to replicate it and so advancing saltation, etc, etc,.....You seem completely unaware of the history and development of evolutionary thought and criticisms of it.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Thunderchunky, great response and what I am looking for. Sounds like you may have actually read the paper. Will respond in depth with either an edit or a new thread.

Why not direct him or her to the thread in which it's already being discussed? I'm not really sure this message board needs three separate threads in which you discuss the same paper.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

In fact, evos back in the 90s used to explicitly say NeoDarwinism predicted simpler organisms would have simpler genomes and actually went on quite a bit on sites such as Infidels about that.

You've made this claim before, then refused to back it up when asked to. Nevertheless, I'll ask you again to cite some evidence for it.

 

[randman]

So far thunderchunky is the only evo poster here I'd found worth discussing the issue with. He appeared at least to read the paper and understand most of the reasoning of it, though there is this one point we disagree so far on. The rest went about chiding me for silly stuff they were wrong on like insisting the mammaliar ear did not emerge through convergent evolution (as far as evos are concerned) or that Pierre Grasse did not call "evolution" (meaning NeoDarwinism) a myth and a whole host of just plain factually mistaken concepts that's not really worth the time though I keep getting sucked in there.

It'd hard to discuss an idea with a group that ignorant of the history and concepts of the debate, especially when they don't want to learn.

You've even got people that say they are working scientists in the field who had never heard of front loading, never heard of Grasse's or Goldschmidt's objections and many others, seemed perplexed with the idea of a genome, insisted placentals evolved from marsupials, etc, etc,...and yet insist I am the ignorant one!

 

[randman]

You've made this claim before, then refused to back it up when asked to. Nevertheless, I'll ask you again to cite some evidence for it.

How do you back up what was said in forums like this when they no longer exist? Any way, I need to learn my lesson and avoid talking with people not interested in discussion.

Have a nice day!

 

[randman]

f you want to accuse me and my peers of fraud (an accusation that YOU HAVE NOT BACKED UP with quotes from the author in question, despite repeated requests) it is YOUR burden to prove it.

Did I accuse you of deceit? Seems like you guys are the ones always saying creationists are dishonest and have publicly accused me of that. Should we litigate that or something?

I am already paying lawyers quite a bit since my business requires litigation to be initiated by us under certain circumstances.

I just pointed out Pierre Grasse accused evos of deceit (evos being a reference to NeoDarwinian evos). Your beef is with him.