Wholly Natrualistic Alternative To Neo-Darwinism?

[Dinwar]

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

Paleontologist: Hey, we can use that.....

 

[Reality Check]

Neutral Selection was Motoo Kimura's ad hoc explanation.....for the then very very very surprising phenomenon of regular genotypic change without phenotypic impact or environmental pressure responsiveness.

Neutral Selection was Motoo Kimura's scientific explanation for the then very surprising phenomenon of regular genotypic change without phenotypic impact or environmental pressure responsiveness.
This happens to have a proper name so you should use it: neutral theory of molecular evolution.

most would say was not evolution all,

You would be wrong then, anyone who knows about evolution knows that
neutral theory of molecular evolution:

Neutral theory does not contradict natural selection, nor does it deny that selection occurs. Hughes writes: "Evolutionary biologists typically distinguish two main types of natural selection: purifying selection, which acts to eliminate deleterious mutations; and positive (Darwinian) selection, which favors advantageous mutations. Positive selection can, in turn, be further subdivided into directional selection, which tends toward fixation of an advantageous allele, and balancing selection, which maintains a polymorphism. The neutral theory of molecular evolution predicts that purifying selection is ubiquitous, but that both forms of positive selection are rare, whereas not denying the importance of positive selection in the origin of adaptations."[3] In another essay, Hughes writes: "Purifying selection is the norm in the evolution of protein coding genes. Positive selection is a relative rarity — but of great interest, precisely because it represents a departure from the norm."[4]

It is an additional mechanism for evolution.

You also seem to be astounded by the fact that science responds to new discoveries ("surprises"). This is rather silly of you since it makes you look like the creationists who are so obsessed by their dogma that they cannot grasp that fact that science progresses.

 

[Wowbagger]

It might be worth pointing out that "beneficial" is judged in hindsight. A change could start off looking very neutral, but if it introduces some benefit in the long run, it would end up looking "beneficial" instead of "neutral", in the long run.

It is an additional mechanism for evolution.

The neutral theory of molecular evolution is still a component of the larger mechanism of natural selection. It is not a completely new or different mechanism. It certainly doesn't contradict the any of the previously known mechanisms.

 

[Sideroxylon]

It might be worth pointing out that "beneficial" is judged in hindsight. A change could start off looking very neutral, but if it introduces some benefit in the long run, it would end up looking "beneficial" instead of "neutral", in the long run.

And when added to a subsequent perhaps also independently neutral change, could we could see a fitness benefit arise?

 

[Wowbagger]

And when added to a subsequent perhaps also independently neutral change, could we could see a fitness benefit arise?

Why not?

Such a thing certainly wouldn't contradict anything about the accepted mechanisms. It's just another pathway such benefits could take.


Even if, in theory, a change remains entirely neutral for the whole length of a lineage, that doesn't impact the general mechanism of evoluton, either. As long as not all changes are like that.

Could you imagine a world in which every genetic change was entirely "neutral", and yet evolution by natural selection would still seem to take place? It's a logical contradiction, of course. But, ignoring that: If such a discovery was made, it might be indicative of some other wildly different mechanism, perhaps an ID of some sort. Though, that's not the idea Patrick is pushing, so this point is moot.

 

[Dancing David]

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.

Um, something is missing, like this alleged evidence from today that does not support the alleged conventional model.

Where is it, your imagination?

Strawman and lack of evidence.

 

[cyborg]

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

Ok, so it was a surprise.

Now it is not a surprise; things that occur that don't affect selection are going to be distributed randomly in a population.

What's the problem here? What else am I supposed to conclude here?

 

[Dancing David]

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!!

Don't forget the setting

atrick1000 is in his metaphorical hot air ballon:

 

[marplots]

Summary so far

Here is 2.
You can add zero to that and you'll still have 2.
You can add 3 to that and then add a negative 3 and you still have 2.

There is something seriously wrong with addition! We need a new mechanism to explain this. The Theory of Addition is flawed.

 

[Mojo]

Imagine this were 1960.

I guess that would eliminate all the evidence that has turned up over the last half century, and the last 50 years of development of the theory.

 

[Patrick1000]

Supply some of it......

I guess that would eliminate all the evidence that has turned up over the last half century, and the last 50 years of development of the theory.

Supply some of it......

What is some of the evidence? Can you give us one teensy weensy peensy piece? Just one.

I must say I am finding myself rather underwhelmed. Hearing about these mountains of evidence from posters such as yourself Mojo, and then not being supplied with a single shred of said evidence, not being supplied by you or anyone else with a single small concrete supporting example that reasonable endorses the claim bird from reptile by way of mutation/meiosis/crossing over/transposing/loss/doubling/fertilizing with environmental pressure guiding the changes, "rejecting" those that don't work and "accepting" those that do.

 

[Prometheus]

It seems to me that Patrick1000 is trolling in a very interesting way: He's actually arguing in favor of (albeit cryptically) the Modern Synthesis, but his target audience is a hypothetical circa 1960's-era high school biology teacher. He actually is a misunderstood genius, in his own special way.

 

[Krikkiter]

It seems to me that Patrick1000 is trolling in a very interesting way: He's actually arguing in favor of (albeit cryptically) the Modern Synthesis, but his target audience is a hypothetical circa 1960's-era high school biology teacher. He actually is a misunderstood genius, in his own special way.

He may impress a high school biology teacher but any English teacher would be very disappointed with sentences like this:

Hearing about these mountains of evidence from posters such as yourself Mojo, and then not being supplied with a single shred of said evidence, not being supplied by you or anyone else with a single small concrete supporting example that reasonable endorses the claim bird from reptile by way of mutation/meiosis/crossing over/transposing/loss/doubling/fertilizing with environmental pressure guiding the changes, "rejecting" those that don't work and "accepting" those that do.

 

[Sideroxylon]

Supply some of it......

What is some of the evidence? Can you give us one teensy weensy peensy piece? Just one.

I must say I am finding myself rather underwhelmed. Hearing about these mountains of evidence from posters such as yourself Mojo, and then not being supplied with a single shred of said evidence, not being supplied by you or anyone else with a single small concrete supporting example that reasonable endorses the claim bird from reptile by way of mutation/meiosis/crossing over/transposing/loss/doubling/fertilizing with environmental pressure guiding the changes, "rejecting" those that don't work and "accepting" those that do.

Lie.

 

[EHocking]

What are you saying is called "Natural Selection"?...

This,

...my argument is that we DO!!!! know ... something other than mutation/meiosis/crossing over/fertilization/loss/doubling /transpposition occurring in the context of changing environmental/selection pressures does the trick

The "something" is natural selection.

...I am not understanding your point.

And I am saying that you are disengenously "misunderstanding" this point in order to build your strawman.

As has been demonstrated in the intervening posts.

 

[Dinwar]

What is some of the evidence? Can you give us one teensy weensy peensy piece? Just one.

Jack Horner is currently working on figuring out precisely which genes did what to go from "dinosaur" to "bird". I believe I've mentioned this before.

I must say I am finding myself rather underwhelmed. Hearing about these mountains of evidence from posters such as yourself Mojo, and then not being supplied with a single shred of said evidence, not being supplied by you or anyone else with a single small concrete supporting example that reasonable endorses the claim bird from reptile by way of mutation/meiosis/crossing over/transposing/loss/doubling/fertilizing with environmental pressure guiding the changes, "rejecting" those that don't work and "accepting" those that do.

I've provided it over a dozen times. This was a lie the first time you said it, and it remains a lie now.

There's also Nylonase, a new bacteria species that arose thanks to specific mutations that were selected for in a subpopulation of bacteria. There are also lizard species that are new. And if you really, really want to poke around at this (which, by the way, is the equivalent of watching cars zoom down the freeway while speculating that there's no way an internal combustion engine could move itself, let alone any vehicle) you could always do some genetic testing on circle or ring species. Considering those are species in the process of speciation, it's be a perfect test for the modern understanding of evolution (not for your idea, since a vacuous and intentionally un-defined idea is by definition untestable, but it'll let you know how wrong you are).

By the way, YOU are proposing that some undefined, unknown, and completely undetected mechanism is at work--YOU get to do the leg-work here (you want to play Einstein, remember that he made observations, did calculations, etc.; capturing salamanders and running DNA tests is the biological equivalent, and until you actually do the work you don't get to claim to be a scientist at all, let alone a great one).

 

[Dinwar]

In case anyone's interested, here's a book by Jack Horner on the whole "how to build a dinosaur out of a bird" thing. Just in case anyone doesn't like the talk I linked to previously, and doesn't want to Google it.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

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.

Wikipedia disagrees with you.^WP
"In 1927 Nikolai Koltsov proposed that inherited traits would be inherited via a "giant hereditary molecule" which would be made up of "two mirror strands that would replicate in a semi-conservative fashion using each strand as a template".[145] In 1928, Frederick Griffith discovered that traits of the "smooth" form of the Pneumococcus could be transferred to the "rough" form of the same bacteria by mixing killed "smooth" bacteria with the live "rough" form.[146] This system provided the first clear suggestion that DNA carries genetic information—the Avery–MacLeod–McCarty experiment—when Oswald Avery, along with coworkers Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarty, identified DNA as the transforming principle in 1943.[147] DNA's role in heredity was confirmed in 1952, when Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase in the Hershey–Chase experiment showed that DNA is the genetic material of the T2 phage.[148]

In 1953, James D. Watson and Francis Crick suggested what is now accepted as the first correct double-helix model of DNA structure"

 

[Jack by the hedge]

...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.

Splendid. Have you read this one:

In case anyone's interested, here's a book by Jack Horner on the whole "how to build a dinosaur out of a bird" thing. Just in case anyone doesn't like the talk I linked to previously, and doesn't want to Google it.

 

[Dinwar]

Prior to that there was speculation that the genetic molecule was a protien. In fact, this idea is not entirely wrong--prions, which are known to follow a type of evolution (meaning traits are selected for or against over time in populations of the disease-causing material), clearly show that protiens are fully capable of acting as genetic material. It's just not what Earth-like life typically uses (Peter Ward discusses this in detail in his book "Life, But Not As We Know It", which also provides a great deal of evidence for the modern understanding of the theory of evolution, with admitadly emphasis on stuff you see in the fossil record [Ward is a paleontologist, after all--I was introduced to his work when I referenced it for multiple reports I was writing]).