Wholly Natrualistic Alternative To Neo-Darwinism?

[Dinwar]

As ALL biologists, mainstreamers and non-mainstreamers AGREE WITH MY POINT ABOUT CYTOCHROME C'S REPRESENTING A MAINSTREAM MECHANISM COUNTER EXAMPLE,

So....You're saying that Cytocrhome C isn't passed down from generation to generation?

Or are you saying it pops up completely randomely?

Natural selection is primarily a culling force. We typically think of organisms being "selected for", but to my mind at least that's not an accurate way to think of it (at least, not most of the time). Basically, anything that doesn't kill you is selected for. Natural selection most often works by removing unfit or less fit organisms.

You can demonstrate this yourself using the Hardy/Weinburg Equation, 100 red marbles, and 100 blue marbles. Put the marbles in a sack and draw 20 pairs. Remove each blue/blue pari. Take the ratio of red marbles to blue marbles, and make that the ratio of red to blue in the new 200 marble population. Repeat ad nauseum. You'll soon find that while you did nothing to the red marbles at all, they rapidly come to dominate the population, perhaps even reaching fixation. 100% and 0% selection are very extreme, but the same thing happens if, say, only 50% of the blue/blue die out and 10% of the red/red and red/blue die out. It gets a tad more complex with traits like malarial resistance, where pp, pq, and qq all have different selection pressures, but what you'll find is that the selection pressure is always (in these examples) negative--it always kills off things. (The exception to this would be any mutations that increase firtility, such as increasing the number of eggs released by a female or something.)

What that means is that if Cytochrome C mutations don't harm the organism in question, and they don't have a dramatic affect on fertility, pretty much anything can happen genetics-wise and it won't make a difference. What this means is that random mutations will tend to dominate.

Nothing I've said is new, nothing I've said was new once the whole modern synthesis happened. This is standard. Like I said, it's a somewhat novel application of the theory, and one that I certainly wouldn't have thought of without being prompted, but that's the reason we look at data in science. It's interesting, it's useful, but it's not revolutionary.

The conflict it is deeper really, much much much more profound. It is a conflict between that tradition, belief, world view that says we were made, on purpose with loving care, and the newer scientific tradition that says when it comes to people being made, the element of loving care is pure poppycock.

I don't see this as particularly profound. "Loving care" is an aspect of organisms with a certain level of intelligence--without organisms, and without that level of intelligence, the concepts have no meaning. Does pond scum exhibit "loving care"?

Furthermore, until you prove that there's a god of some sort, you can't speculate on the reason we were made. "Reason" implies intelligence--and you can't speculate on what an intelligence is thinking without first demonstrating that the intelligence exists.

Finally, evolution doesn't ignore the concept of loving care. Reciprochal altruism and parent care are both well-known and pretty well understood aspects of evolutionoary theory. It's just that we apply those concepts to things that we can actually demonstrate exist, not to things which have no evidence whatever.

 

[Dinwar]

It is not natural selection in ANY sense.

So it's genetic drift. Meh. No big deal.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

How can something which in no way contradicts a theory be a counter example?

 

[Wowbagger]

Many, perhaps the majority, of people with significant heritable illnesses would perish without the sanctuary of the modern hospital and the Holy Forces within. Am I the "holy spirit"???????????

Hospitals do not use "holy forces". They use humans.

Care for those with heritable illnesses is a shift in selection factors, not an example of some mysterious "holy" force.

Specifically, it's a shift in social attitudes that allows them to survive, in part because they can still be useful to society. But, even if they are not, they demonstrate compassion, which is recognized as a good trait by society.

It is a counter example.........Cytochrome c blew everyone's mind big time when it was "discovered". It is not natural selection in ANY sense. "Neutral Selection" is Motoo Kimura's ad hoc expression referencing it. It is biologic system informational change without natural selection as a feature of that change. It is very much a counter example, an excellent one. I have dozens and dozens more by the way.

YOU wanted to know what mechanism can cause a common ancestor to evolve into both a bird and a human. You accept that some changes in the genome are adaptive, which means the accepted mechanism has an opportunity to work.

How does demonstrating a neutral change challenge that mechanism?!



If you could prove that the existence of a neutral change causes ALL changes to suddenly become neutral, THAT would be an astonishing claim. If true, it would forever change how we view the mechanisms of evolution.

BUT, having SOME changes be neutral, and others not, does NOT make the mechanisms inadequate.

What part of this are you not understanding?!

 

[Wowbagger]

My car has several gear modes: "Drive", "Neutral", and "Reverse" (among others). If I put it into drive, it goes forward. If I put it into reverse, it moves backwards. If I put it in neutral, the engine is running, but the car is not moving in any direction (unless it's pushed by outside forces).

You're telling me that the existence of the "neutral" gear in my car is proof that car engines are inadequte to move cars forwards. A car engine should not be capable of driving me from New York to San Francisco.

 

[Patrick1000]

You are viewing it through the eyes of a conditioned 21st century biologist.....

So it's genetic drift. Meh. No big deal.

You are viewing it through the eyes of a modern 21st century biologist.....

Imagine this were 1960.

AND there are many other examples of things that do not fit and that are not accounted for by drift. This is ONE example of many where the conventional mechanism paradigm is inadequate to account for the simple facts. As such, the paradigm is wrong, as are all paradigms proven to be over time. Meh.... Nothing new here.

 

[Dinwar]

Imagine this were 1960.

No. And it's wildly inapprorpiate to do so. You presented Cytochrome C as a challange to the modern interpretation of evolution. I'm presenting what the modern interpretation of the event is. The 1960s understanding of evolution is no longer the scientific standard, and demanding I apply an outdated standard to a problem while you pretend that problem attacks the modern view is the very definition of a straw man argument.

AND there are many other examples of things that do not fit and that are not accounted for by drift.

No, not really. Genetic drift is random changes in the frequency of allels in the population. Any trait that's neither selected against, nor impacts fertility, will be predominantly controlled by genetic drift. This includes the genetic code itself. If there IS selection, things get a bit trickier (as it's the whole organism that's selected for or against, not just one gene).

As such, the paradigm is wrong, as are all paradigms proven to be over time.

Ah. You're a nihlist. Not overly surprising, but it's nice to have you openly admit it.

 

[Wowbagger]

Imagine this were 1960.

Imagine this was 2011.

Genetic drift is well understood as a factor in the accepted mechanism of evolutionary change.

Now what?

Is your argument really solely dependant on how we thought about things in the 1960's?! Really?! Is that were you have to take us?!

 

[Patrick1000]

I am not a nihilist

No. And it's wildly inapprorpiate to do so. You presented Cytochrome C as a challange to the modern interpretation of evolution. I'm presenting what the modern interpretation of the event is. The 1960s understanding of evolution is no longer the scientific standard, and demanding I apply an outdated standard to a problem while you pretend that problem attacks the modern view is the very definition of a straw man argument.

No, not really. Genetic drift is random changes in the frequency of allels in the population. Any trait that's neither selected against, nor impacts fertility, will be predominantly controlled by genetic drift. This includes the genetic code itself. If there IS selection, things get a bit trickier (as it's the whole organism that's selected for or against, not just one gene).

Ah. You're a nihlist. Not overly surprising, but it's nice to have you openly admit it.

I am not a nihilist... there is nothing wrong with Darwinism in the same sense there is nothing wrong with Newton.

I believe you are unrealistic Dinwar. What accounts for your over the top expectations for these scientific models?

Darwin can be correct in many senses.

AND you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, nor throw the developing bird out with the 19th Century "insights" that turned out to be off target in some respects. The bird still developed.

 

[Sideroxylon]

You are viewing it through the eyes of a modern 21st century biologist.....

Imagine this were 1960.

AND there are many other examples of things that do not fit and that are not accounted for by drift. This is ONE example of many where the conventional mechanism paradigm is inadequate to account for the simple facts. As such, the paradigm is wrong, as are all paradigms proven to be over time. Meh.... Nothing new here.

Where do you find the gall to talk authoritatively on subjects like this while dismissing the driving paradigm in biology? I could accept this if you were doing more than making bald assertions like "the conventional mechanism paradigm is inadequate to account for the simple facts". Go on, explain why your assertion is true. You won't though because you cannot. Like every other claim you have made, you have no argument to make. You are all smoke and no barbeque.

 

[Patrick1000]

Again Sideroxylon, the burden of proof lies with the Darwinists here....

Where do you find the gall to talk authoritatively on subjects like this while dismissing the driving paradigm in biology? I could accept this if you were doing more than making bald assertions like "the conventional mechanism paradigm is inadequate to account for the simple facts". Go on, explain why your assertion is true. You won't though because you cannot. Like every other claim you have made, you have no argument to make. You are all smoke and no barbeque.

Again Sideroxylon, the burden of proof lies with the Darwinists here...Theirs is the claim that mutation/meiosis/crossing over/fertilization/loss/doubling/transposition guided by selection pressure turned a reptile into a bird. I am just a guy reading books here. The neo-Darwinist modern synthesis guys made the claim. I read about it. Now I want them to make good on it.

We have yet to see any evidence for that whatsoever. There is pretty good evidence that reptiles may have developed into birds. But how that happened remains very much a mystery.

You are free to present evidence here. Go ahead and do so if you have such faith in your model.

I never made a claim about anything except that there was no proof for the mechanism of evolution as conventionally presented. And, at least as far as evidence presented so far here in this thread goes, it would seem I am correct. There is no such evidence. There is no reason at all to believe anyone knows how a bird was formed from a reptile.

 

[Sideroxylon]

Again Sideroxylon, the burden of proof lies with the Darwinists here...Theirs is the claim that mutation/meiosis/crossing over/fertilization/loss/doubling/transposition guided by selection pressure turned a reptile into a bird. I am just a guy reading books here. The neo-Darwinist modern synthesis guys made the claim. I read about it. Now I want them to make good on it.

We have yet to see any evidence for that whatsoever. There is pretty good evidence that reptiles may have developed into birds. But how that happened remains very much a mystery.

You are free to present evidence here. Go ahead and do so if you have such faith in your model.

I never made a claim about anything except that there was no proof for the mechanism of evolution as conventionally presented. And, at least as far as evidence presented so far here in this thread goes, it would seem I am correct. There is no such evidence. There is no reason at all to believe anyone knows how a bird was formed from a reptile.

You keep ignoring the evidence. You have yet to address the evidence I have supplied that selection working on random mutations can lead to novel complexity in evolutionary computation models. The only reply I have seen from you on that is a lazy, unelaborated and unsupported claim that they involve "cheating".

ETA: Nice dodge on the call out to back up your own claims.

 

[Dinwar]

believe you are unrealistic Dinwar. What accounts for your over the top expectations for these scientific models?

I don't have over-the-top expectations for scientific models. I simply understand the modern perspective of what these models can do. Which you've stated is a bad thing--you want me to limit myself to the 1960s explanation of what these models can do.

Again Sideroxylon, the burden of proof lies with the Darwinists here...Theirs is the claim that mutation/meiosis/crossing over/fertilization/loss/doubling/transposition guided by selection pressure turned a reptile into a bird. I am just a guy reading books here. The neo-Darwinist modern synthesis guys made the claim. I read about it. Now I want them to make good on it.

And we have. Jack Horner is doing EXACTLY THIS. Yet you continue to refuse to accept that evidence.

Why exactly is that? Why are you afraid of an honest examination of the evidence?

We have yet to see any evidence for that whatsoever.

This is a lie. It was a lie when you first said it, and it continues to be a lie now. Many here have presented you the evidence. Your refusal to accept that does not contstitute a failure on our part.

There is no such evidence. There is no reason at all to believe anyone knows how a bird was formed from a reptile.

Except, you know, the experimental evidence which shows precisely which genes were affaceted in which ways to make a bird out of a Jurassic reptile. You know, precisely what you say doesn't exist and what I've been referencing (in the manner traditional to internet forums, which may not be MLA or APA but it's certainly widely accepted) for what, ten pages now? Twelve?

 

[Dancing David]

Biologists, mainstreamers, as well as those others critical of the conventionally presented mainstream paradigm, believe "selection is not a factor" in the case of cytochrome c. They suggest this to be the case as the molecule, the genotype, changes with the regularity of a clock's ticking.

Who what and where, any in the last 5 years?

HMMMMMMMMM?

1968 is not today.

 

[Dancing David]

That's silly........of course metaphors are not appeals to emotion.

Let's say we are Indians and our friend is the fastest runner among us. He darts off into the woods and I turn to you and say, "That man is a deer", implying he is very swift.

Metaphors are ways of communicating, and very effective they can be. They may or may not convey, or make appeals to emotion. My metaphor there, the one about our Indian friend made no such appeal.

I don't think that is exactly germane to the discussion, so shifting goals posts does not excuse your poor arguments. You do use metaphor as an appeal to emotion in this thread.

 

[Dancing David]

Examples of "Neutral Selection"......... are ones in which selection pressures do not seem to play a role, not a major one anyway, in the genome's change.

You are not understanding the point of the biologists here. By the way, it is a mainstreamer point, not one of mine.

Give me a citation on cytochrome c in the last ten year will you?

If it is mainstream then demonstrate who said what where.

 

[Dancing David]

Imagine this were 1960.

.

Oh, that is the truth right there, you whole argument is about your imagination!

 

[Patrick1000]

The point is that was one of the first major "experiments" that "contradicted".......

Oh, that is the truth right there, you whole argument is about your imagination!

The point is that was one of the first major "repeatable experiments" that "contradicted" the conventional molecular mechanism in its earliest form.

Here we have in 1960 or so, a pattern that would continue until this day. When one does look at the molecular evidence, whether that evidence was found in 1960 or 11/09/2011, that evidence undermines and very much does not support the conventional molecular level evolutionary model.

I emphasized 1960 to encourage Dinwar to imagine everyone's surprise. Recall it was only in 1953 that the "discovery" of DNA was made. Prior to that, there was no molecular model for evolution's mechanism per se.

Everyone expected beginning in the late 50s that a convincing molecular mechanism could be demonstrated/confirmed. Yet, the opposite proved to be the case. Molecular biologic evidence very much did not and does not support a mechanism of many mutations guided by selection pressure.

So this was a big surprise to all, the cytochrome c findings, and that is why I emphasized it.

Keep in mind, evolution's contemporary mechanism as conventionally presented is a hypothesis that arose from the IMAGINATIONS of late 20th century biologists. It is very reasonable what they proposed. The problem is, there is no evidence to support that such is the case, and indeed, the molecular evidence, such as in the case with the cytochrome c example, suggests very much otherwise.

 

[Dinwar]

Here we have in 1960 or so, a pattern that would continue until this day. When one does look at the molecular evidence, whether that evidence was found in 1960 or 11/09/2011, that evidence undermines and very much does not support the conventional molecular level evolutionary model.

What part does it contradict? How is the explanation provided by the standard scientific view fail to adequately explain mollecular clocks?

I emphasized 1960 to encourage Dinwar to imagine everyone's surprise. Recall it was only in 1953 that the "discovery" of DNA was made. Prior to that, there was no molecular model for evolution's mechanism per se.

And my point is that we've advanced beyond 1960, and what was surprising then has become commonplace.

Keep in mind, evolution's contemporary mechanism as conventionally presented is a hypothesis that arose from the IMAGINATIONS of late 20th century biologists. It is very reasonable what they proposed. The problem is, there is no evidence to support that such is the case, and indeed, the molecular evidence, such as in the case with the cytochrome c example, suggests very much otherwise.

So please explain why Jack Horner is able to turn off/turn on genes and give bird embryos non-avian dinosaur traits. By your logic, such should be impossible.

 

[Wowbagger]

Here we have in 1960 or so, a pattern that would continue until this day. When one does look at the molecular evidence, whether that evidence was found in 1960 or 11/09/2011, that evidence undermines and very much does not support the conventional molecular level evolutionary model.

Here's a simplified characterization of the argument you are making:

MAINSTREAM 1960's SCIENTIST: I strongly suspect that all changes in genes must either be beneficial or detrimental. I do not foresee how neutral changes can occur. Those with beneficial changes survive better than those with detrimental ones. Sometimes, those benefits allow the species to live in newly discovered niches.

RENEGADE SCIENTIST: Ah, but look at the genes that code for Cytochrome C! This is clearly an example of genetic drift, or neutral changes in genes! Your "foresight" has failed, in that regard!

MAINSTREAM 1960's SCIENTIST: Whoa! I guess I stand corrected on that issue. But, this has no impact on the general mechanism of evolution, right? Not all changes are neutral. So: Those with beneficial changes survive better than those with detrimental ones. Sometimes, those benefits allow the species to live in newly discovered niches... right?

RENEGADE SCIENTIST: Yes, that's correct. Still fascinating, though, isn't it?!

MAINSTREAM 1960's SCIENTIST: Yes, and potentially useful as a molecular clock, too!

50 year later....

PATRICK1000: Cytochrome C contradicted the mainstream mechanism of evolution!!