Annoying creationists

[quixotecoyote]

kleinman:

Recombination (without error) and natural selection is clearly a mechanism for change, and a rapid mechanism for change at that.

Can you please explain how this is possible? I do not know of any mechanism which would allow this to happen.

 

[kleinman]

Annoying Creationists

Paul, as moderator, would you please clarify the purpose of this thread. Did you set this forum up so that kleinman would have a single locale within which you and he could continue to argue about ev, or were you hoping to brainstorm about methods of refining Dr. Schneider's model or both or something else or what?

What’s your problem, do you want to censor me?

Recombination (without error) and natural selection is clearly a mechanism for change, and a rapid mechanism for change at that.

Can you please explain how this is possible? I do not know of any mechanism which would allow this to happen.

Here are two obvious examples. Darwin observed that there were striking differences in the sizes and shapes of finch beaks and took this as evidence of macroevolution. What Darwin was seeing was the rapid variation you can obtain by sexual recombination and natural selection. In addition, this was an example of punctuated equilibrium that Gould postulated. Dog breeding is another example of recombination and (not so) natural selection. Striking differences between different dog breeds can be obtained by this process quite rapidly. However, it only takes a few generations for these striking characteristics to disappear when breeding is not closely controlled. These are examples of microevolutionary process.

In contrast to the very rapid changes in shapes and sizes of the creatures possible by recombination without error and natural selection, the ev computer model shows that random point mutations and natural selection is a profoundly slow process for evolving binding sites when realistic parameters are used in the model. The process of random point mutations and natural selection is far to slow a process to explain macroevolution.

 

[quixotecoyote]

Here are two obvious examples. Darwin observed that there were striking differences in the sizes and shapes of finch beaks and took this as evidence of macroevolution. What Darwin was seeing was the rapid variation you can obtain by sexual recombination and natural selection. In addition, this was an example of punctuated equilibrium that Gould postulated. Dog breeding is another example of recombination and (not so) natural selection. Striking differences between different dog breeds can be obtained by this process quite rapidly. However, it only takes a few generations for these striking characteristics to disappear when breeding is not closely controlled. These are examples of microevolutionary process.

Ahh. Now I understand what you are saying. However, orginally there had to be a finch with a bigger beak in order to be able to sexually recombine the genes in order to spead the trait. This just moves the mutation back a step.

In contrast to the very rapid changes in shapes and sizes of the creatures possible by recombination without error and natural selection, the ev computer model shows that random point mutations and natural selection is a profoundly slow process for evolving binding sites when realistic parameters are used in the model. The process of random point mutations and natural selection is far to slow a process to explain macroevolution.

I have been casually following this thread, and I don't understand the revelance of point mutation alone being profoundly slow. It's been awhile since my college bio, but weren't there 3 or 4 other types of mutation in addition to the sexual recomination you referened earlier? Would this just show that your model would have to model more variables to be complete?

 

[kleinman]

Annoying Creationists

Here are two obvious examples. Darwin observed that there were striking differences in the sizes and shapes of finch beaks and took this as evidence of macroevolution. What Darwin was seeing was the rapid variation you can obtain by sexual recombination and natural selection. In addition, this was an example of punctuated equilibrium that Gould postulated. Dog breeding is another example of recombination and (not so) natural selection. Striking differences between different dog breeds can be obtained by this process quite rapidly. However, it only takes a few generations for these striking characteristics to disappear when breeding is not closely controlled. These are examples of microevolutionary process.

Ahh. Now I understand what you are saying. However, orginally there had to be a finch with a bigger beak in order to be able to sexually recombine the genes in order to spead the trait. This just moves the mutation back a step.

And that is the point of this discussion. Ev is a computer model of how binding sites could have evolved by random point mutations and natural selection and this is a profoundly slow process. Random point mutations and natural selection could not have evolved the bigger beak as shown by the profoundly slow convergence of ev, so what mechanism could have evolved the gene(s) for the bigger beak or for any beak at all?

In contrast to the very rapid changes in shapes and sizes of the creatures possible by recombination without error and natural selection, the ev computer model shows that random point mutations and natural selection is a profoundly slow process for evolving binding sites when realistic parameters are used in the model. The process of random point mutations and natural selection is far to slow a process to explain macroevolution.

I have been casually following this thread, and I don't understand the revelance of point mutation alone being profoundly slow. It's been awhile since my college bio, but weren't there 3 or 4 other types of mutation in addition to the sexual recomination you referened earlier? Would this just show that your model would have to model more variables to be complete?

It is my contention that random point mutation and natural selection is the cornerstone to the theory of evolution. Without this mechanism, you have no way to transform the genetic sequences generated by other forms of genetic errors to new useful genes.

 

[articulett]

Were those stutter errors or deletion errors?

Tandem repeats.

(...get thyself a clue.)

 

[articulett]

kleinman:

Can you please explain how this is possible? I do not know of any mechanism which would allow this to happen.

I think, by recombination he's referring to sex. And can you get varying phenotypic changes depending on how these genes come together. Yes. For example--if dad donates a Y--the recombinant is a boy. If Dad donates an X--the recombinant is a girl. If there are additive alleles (such as in hair and eye color--height--etc.) then yes...you can have things unlike mom and dad (say inbetween). Or a recominant might have 2 recessive genes and be an albino...or have some other recessive trait. Now, he could be referring to "crossing over" which happens before two gametes form a zygote...but I don't think he's anywhere near that. Recombinantion is just different ways the genes can sort themselves.

So that's my best guess of what he's saying--of course genomes can also have DNA inserted via vectors, but I think he's still on chapter one of "Life and How it Came to Be." Of course, I could be absolutely wrong, and he may be far more brilliant than the rest of us...but I suspect that is probably only true in his head.

 

[quixotecoyote]

articulett:

You missed post #1343 where I figured that out. (A crime worthy of stoning in some jurisdictions, I might add )

kleinman:

It is my contention that random point mutation and natural selection is the cornerstone to the theory of evolution. Without this mechanism, you have no way to transform the genetic sequences generated by other forms of genetic errors to new useful genes.

Which theory of evolution are you referring to? The one I learned had gene duplication as a larger contributor than point mutations.

 

[kleinman]

Annoying Creationists

It is my contention that random point mutation and natural selection is the cornerstone to the theory of evolution. Without this mechanism, you have no way to transform the genetic sequences generated by other forms of genetic errors to new useful genes.

Which theory of evolution are you referring to? The one I learned had gene duplication as a larger effect.

I’m referring to the mushy soft theory of evolution that has no mathematical foundation, only a series of speculations and unscientific extrapolations.

So when they taught you that gene duplication has a larger effect, how do you transform these duplicated genes to new genes?

 

[quixotecoyote]

I’m referring to the mushy soft theory of evolution that has no mathematical foundation, only a series of speculations and unscientific extrapolations.

Ahh ok. We're talking about different theories. I'm sure the one you're talking about is indeed fatally flawed. As I'm not familiar with that one at all, I'm afraid there's nothing more I can contribute to this conversation.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

So that’s the fantasy world your theory resides in. You should pay more attention to the way ev converges. As ev gets closer and closer to the perfect creature, the rate of convergence becomes slower and slower. Those nonrandom portions of the newly lengthen genome due to the recombination errors still have to be transformed into new functional genes, unless you are proposing that those new nonrandom portions are already the new functional genes. In addition, this still doesn’t solve your problem of the de novo evolution of genes.

Indeed, but you have absolutely no idea how long it might take for a copy of a gene to evolve a new function. Certainly not from Ev, which appears to be the entire basis of your anti-evolutionism.

If you want a jump start on interspecies gene transfers, I can think of several possibilities. You can have interspecies gene transfers by viruses and phages to a host. You may also be able to have an interspecies gene transfer by some form of phagocytosis of genetic material that is somehow incorporated into the host cell. Another possible mechanism for interspecies gene transfer would be for nonhomologous life forms having successful recombination.

And another possibility is that, long ago, genes freely floated about in some medium that housed many different protospecies.

Recombination (without error) and natural selection is clearly a mechanism for change, and a rapid mechanism for change at that.

What I said was that if there were no mechanisms for change at all, then evolution would not occur.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Paul, as moderator, would you please clarify the purpose of this thread. Did you set this forum up so that kleinman would have a single locale within which you and he could continue to argue about ev, or were you hoping to brainstorm about methods of refining Dr. Schneider's model or both or something else or what?

I started this thread to complain about annoying creationists. It has taken on a life of its own, which has certainly been educational for me.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

It is my contention that random point mutation and natural selection is the cornerstone to the theory of evolution. Without this mechanism, you have no way to transform the genetic sequences generated by other forms of genetic errors to new useful genes.

So you must be counting all the following as "point mutations": single base changes; multiple base changes; insertions; deletions; stutters; inversions; translocations.

The problem is, Ev only models one of those, and only beginning with a random genome.

~~ Paul

 

[kleinman]

Annoying Creationists

I’m referring to the mushy soft theory of evolution that has no mathematical foundation, only a series of speculations and unscientific extrapolations.

Ahh ok. We're talking about different theories. I'm sure the one you're talking about is indeed fatally flawed. As I'm not familiar with that one at all, I'm afraid there's nothing more I can contribute to this conversation.

There is no other theory of evolution than the mushy soft theory we have been discussing on this thread.

I guess when you learned that gene duplication has a larger effect; you never thought to ask your instructor how these duplicated genes were transformed to new genes.

So that’s the fantasy world your theory resides in. You should pay more attention to the way ev converges. As ev gets closer and closer to the perfect creature, the rate of convergence becomes slower and slower. Those nonrandom portions of the newly lengthen genome due to the recombination errors still have to be transformed into new functional genes, unless you are proposing that those new nonrandom portions are already the new functional genes. In addition, this still doesn’t solve your problem of the de novo evolution of genes.

Indeed, but you have absolutely no idea how long it might take for a copy of a gene to evolve a new function. Certainly not from Ev, which appears to be the entire basis of your anti-evolutionism.

Certainly I have an idea how long it would take to evolve a copy of a gene to a new function. Ev gives us that idea. Your so far un-retracted extrapolation of 65,000,000 generations to evolve 8 binding sites with a width of 10 bases, mutation rate of 10^-6 on a 100k genome and a population of a million give us an idea where the goal posts are. That is the evolution of 80 loci in 65,000,000 generations. So all you have to do is come up with some selection process that would take that duplicated gene to a new functioning gene such that every helpful mutation is selected for in the process. Make your model and prove me wrong and prove your theory right. The mathematics is even less hopeful for evolving the original gene de novo.

If you want a jump start on interspecies gene transfers, I can think of several possibilities. You can have interspecies gene transfers by viruses and phages to a host. You may also be able to have an interspecies gene transfer by some form of phagocytosis of genetic material that is somehow incorporated into the host cell. Another possible mechanism for interspecies gene transfer would be for nonhomologous life forms having successful recombination.

And another possibility is that, long ago, genes freely floated about in some medium that housed many different protospecies.

Joobz has not told us how ribose formed long ago and you already have this primordial soup of genes floating around mixing and matching under some unknown selection process.

Is this what you think Dr Schneider was talking about when he mentioned interspecies gene transfers in his paper on ev?

Recombination (without error) and natural selection is clearly a mechanism for change, and a rapid mechanism for change at that.

What I said was that if there were no mechanisms for change at all, then evolution would not occur.

Ok.

It is my contention that random point mutation and natural selection is the cornerstone to the theory of evolution. Without this mechanism, you have no way to transform the genetic sequences generated by other forms of genetic errors to new useful genes.

So you must be counting all the following as "point mutations": single base changes; multiple base changes; insertions; deletions; stutters; inversions; translocations.

The problem is, Ev only models one of those, and only beginning with a random genome.

Again, ev does not model the evolution of a random genome, ev models the evolution of binding sites on a portion of a random genome, the rest of the genome remains random. Are you going to write an updated version of ev and include these other mechanisms to make your case since random point mutations and natural selection does not support your theory?

Hey all of you, have a safe and happy new year.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Again, ev does not model the evolution of a random genome, ev models the evolution of binding sites on a portion of a random genome, the rest of the genome remains random. Are you going to write an updated version of ev and include these other mechanisms to make your case since random point mutations and natural selection does not support your theory?

Ah, so you're not including those other mutations as point mutations. Therefore your strange idea that just single-point substitutions are the cornerstone of evolution has no basis in reality. No one else thinks that. You do have your own personal mushy soft theory of evolution. I was calling it KTPMNS, but perhaps I'll call it KOPMSTE.

~~ Paul

 

[articulett]

articulett:

You missed post #1343 where I figured that out. (A crime worthy of stoning in some jurisdictions, I might add )

kleinman:

Which theory of evolution are you referring to? The one I learned had gene duplication as a larger contributor than point mutations.

I don't think that quote was actually made by me--I never make that sort of emoticon.

 

[quixotecoyote]

I wasn't quoting you, I was responding to you. Sorry, I still have a tendency to use post conventions from other forums. I have to get in the habit of just putting the posters name in the quote box rather than addressing them before typing.

 

[kleinman]

Annoying Creationists

Again, ev does not model the evolution of a random genome, ev models the evolution of binding sites on a portion of a random genome, the rest of the genome remains random. Are you going to write an updated version of ev and include these other mechanisms to make your case since random point mutations and natural selection does not support your theory?

Ah, so you're not including those other mutations as point mutations. Therefore your strange idea that just single-point substitutions are the cornerstone of evolution has no basis in reality. No one else thinks that. You do have your own personal mushy soft theory of evolution. I was calling it KTPMNS, but perhaps I'll call it KOPMSTE.

When I’ve looked up mutation rates, I don’t recall whether they include all the forms of mutations you are talking about. What I can tell you is that no matter what the form of mutation, you will still be subject to the 4^G search space effect. In addition, you have no selection mechanism that would select for a gene de novo no matter what your mechanism of mutation is. Your theory is still mushy soft with no mathematical basis.

When you think about your primordial soup do you hum, mmm, mmm, good, mmm, mmm, good, evolution soup is mmm, mmm, good?

 

[articulett]

I wasn't quoting you, I was responding to you. Sorry, I still have a tendency to use post conventions from other forums. I have to get in the habit of just putting the posters name in the quote box rather than addressing them before typing.

I re-read--and you're right--I should have finished reading before posting. You win. Don't stone me.

On the other hand, I now know how to make one of these:

 

[articulett]

I started this thread to complain about annoying creationists. It has taken on a life of its own, which has certainly been educational for me.

~~ Paul

If you post it,--
they will come.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

In addition, you have no selection mechanism that would select for a gene de novo no matter what your mechanism of mutation is.

If by "gene" you mean "DNA-encoded gene found in modern life," then I suspect you are right. If you mean anything even vaguely resembling the concept of a gene, then you're just being funny.

~~ Paul