Absurdity of evolution

[EarthScienceguy]

How is evolution even possible in light of the following?

1. Haldane's Dilemma

The cost of substitution Cs is 30 and it is paid off in installments (Ps)of 0.1 each generation. At that rate, it takes (Cs/Ps) 300 generations to pay the cost of substituting one gene. Haldane's conclusion was over the long term the average rate of gene substitution is no better than one gene every 300 generations. (Crow and Kimura, 1970 p 244-252; Crow 1968 p 168-173; Ewens 1979 p 252-256; Merrell 1981 p 187-193)

In a human-like population with a nominal generation time of 20 years 10 000 000/(20x300) = 1667nucleotides could have been changed. That is 0.000047% of the human genome. For 1% of the human genome to be changed in this fashion would take 210,000,000,000 years.

Haldane's dilemma ended the idea of selection causing evolution.

How is there time for evolution?
How can there be evolution without selection?

2. Kimura's Neutral theory of evolution

Kimura is credited with coming up with the solution to Haldane's dilemma. He suggests that neutral mutations is the way that most of the genome was changed.

Error catastrophe is when harmful mutations accumulate too fast and genetic deterioration becomes unavoidable. The standard genetic model the one model taught in every evolutionary textbook -predicts that error catastrophe occurs when the mutation rate gets much above one harmful mutation per progeny. (that is 0.5 harmful mutations per gamete per generation) At that rate, each progeny typically has one more harmful mutation than its parents. Above this threshold, the species would rapidly accumulate harmful mutations from generation to generation.

Kimura estimates that amino-acid altering mutations are roughly ten times more likely to be definitely harmful than neutral. (kimura 1983, p 199; King and Jukes 1969 p 795) That would indicate that the expressed neutral mutations cannot be more common than 0.05 per gamete per generation.

The neutral theory predicts that the neutral substitution rate is equal to the neutral mutation rate per gamete. (Kimura 1983 p 46-48) Therefore, expressed neutral mutations are substituted no faster than 0.05 per generation. In ten million years, a human-like population could substitute no more than 25000 expressed neutral mutations. That amounts to 0.00007% of the genome. So that means if 1% of the human genome were to change it would 14,000,000,000 it is closer to the age of the universe.

How would evolution have time to occur?

3. Punctuated Equilibria

Punctuated Equilibria was developed in response to seeing cladogenesis in the fossil record and not anagenesis. Punctuated equilibria has three central postulates.

Postulate 1: Most evolution occurs in short, rapid bursts (called punctuation events) followed by stasis. This produces a large morphological gap.

Postulate 2: Most evolution occurs at speciation (in other words, punctuation events are closely tied to speciation)

Postulate 3: Speciation has no inherent directionality. A daughter species tends to originate in a random, non-adaptive direction from the parent species.

Punctuated equilibria destroy the idea of discernable phylogeny in the fossil record. Punctuationists declare that evolution is a labyrinthine bush, not an identifiable tree.

How can evolution be true if phylogeny is not discernable in the fossil record?

Remine, Walter The biotic message

[Difflugia]

That's the look I give a cocktail wiener.

[bluegreenearth]

This is the reason why Christians spearheaded the scientific revolution. Francis Bacon, Newton, Galileo, Boyle, Mendal just to name a few. The reformation reintroduced the idea of questioning everyone's teaching by comparing what they were teaching to the Bible.

Besides, there are "experts" that agree with me that evolution is impossible. What trumps your experts over my experts? Because of the number of experts, science is not based on popularity but on the ability of a hypothesis to explain what is observed in nature. In this case, evolution cannot explain what is observed in nature, particularly in this case the mathematics.

I agree that it is absolutely necessary to always question and challenge falsifiable hypotheses because it is always possible that disconfirming evidence could be discovered to disprove them. However, there are justifiable reasons the consensus of experts agree to tentatively accept particular hypotheses in the mean time. One of the primary reasons for agreement by the consensus is the fact that some proposed hypotheses were falsifiable and testable but could not be disproved by the experiments which were designed to determine if they were false. Another primary reason is the fact that some proposed falsifiable hypotheses made novel testable predictions which were subsequently demonstrated to be precise and accurate. Where debate remains, the consensus of experts may tentatively lean in the direction of a hypothesis which is currently best supported by the available evidence, but the entire community remains open to the possibility that this explanation may yet be falsified by future evidence or replaced by a better supported hypothesis. Of course, there will always be outliers within the community where a few experts advocate for fringe hypotheses as alternative explanations where the debate remains open. However, it is important to recognize that a fringe hypothesis is not supported by the consensus of experts precisely because it is less supported by the available evidence than the hypothesis which has been tentatively accepted as the more reasonable explanation.

Again, in science, nothing is ever proven true because all proposed hypotheses must be falsifiable. Otherwise, it would be impossible to rule-out a hypothesis if no quantity or quality of evidence could ever disprove it. Therefore, when a falsifiable hypothesis consistently passes all the tests designed to determine if it is false, it is tentatively accepted as the most reasonable explanation but is never considered proven true because it could potentially be falsified by the discovery of disconfirming evidence in the future. So, if you are inclined to dismiss the Theory of Evolution because it fails to conclusively explain every last observation in nature, then you must equally dismiss every scientific theory because none of them have been proven true and are all incomplete works in progress despite surviving every attempt to falsify them thus far. Furthermore, if the Theory of Evolution were to ever become falsified, this wouldn't leave creationism as the most reasonable explanation because it would still have to satisfy the same criteria as any other tentatively accepted theory in science including the requirement that it be falsifiable and make novel testable predictions.

By all means, keep challenging falsifiable hypotheses and theories because that is exactly what the consensus of experts are doing every day when they conduct their professional and peer-reviewed research, but also embrace some intellectual humility in the process because you aren't one of those experts in the field and could very easily be misled by pseudo-intellectual propaganda designed to feed on your confirmation bias. After all, unlike the scientific method, apologetics is not deliberately designed to mitigate for confirmation bias by requiring its practitioners to try and disprove their own claims but is explicitly intended to reinforce an emotional investment in a prescribed belief.

I know. I get it. I get where you are coming from. I REALLY get it. There was also a time in my past life when I harbored and nursed a confident and passionate belief in creationism. The possibility that God, and not just any god but MY one TRUE personal Lord and Savior, is the designer and builder of a fit-for-purpose world was not only a compelling idea for me but intoxicating. My addiction to that intoxicating ideology had me craving and eagerly consuming any and every apologetic argument I could get my hands on that would supply me with what I perceived as irrefutable confirmation of Biblical creation. Of course, being surrounded by an entire community of like-minded peers and authority figures who regularly reinforced that belief helped to ensure that my propensity to think critically and skeptically was always directed at opposing perspectives rather than the perspective they were pushing on me.

Little did I realize nor would I have cared at the time that my confidence in the belief was artificial. My confidence was artificial because the concept of Biblical creationism was and remains unfalsifiable and, therefore, cannot be justifiably inferred as true by any quantity or quality of evidence currently available to us. Because the concept of Biblical creationism cannot be justifiably inferred, any confidence in the truth of that belief has to be artificial. This would not have bothered me when I was a creationist because my artificial confidence in the belief was functioning as a powerful surrogate for the genuine confidence I should've had in myself instead. I needed to have confidence in Biblical creationism because my identity had become inextricably incorporated into it such that a loss of confidence in the belief would have effectively equated to a loss of confidence in myself.

So, I completely empathize with your perspective and understand your passionate desire to have your objections to the Theory of Evolution well-received by the scientific community. I know you've invested a great deal of your own identity and emotional baggage in the idea of Biblical creationism. Yes, I recognize that you need Biblical creationism to be true. Unfortunately, the approach you are taking here isn't in accordance with the criteria and standards of the professional scientific community. If you want your objections taken seriously, you'll need to swap-out the pseudo-intellectual apologetic methods for the scientific method and actually do the science to make your case.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #19]

What is the explanation for the rapid change of animals as we selectively breed them? These do not look like regular cats.

1. You are selectively breeding them. Selective breeding is not evolution. Because the driving force of evolution is the duplication of genes and genomes. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2364042 ... 0organisms.
https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/23/5/887/1058364

If there isn't enough time for changes to occur, how do these big changes occur within 100 years? These modern versions of breeds are not old. In fact, below, the Oriental Shorthair, did not exist in the extreme form until after 1950.

There are still cats.

[Difflugia]

1. You are selectively breeding them. Selective breeding is not evolution. Because the driving force of evolution is the duplication of genes and genomes. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2364042 ... 0organisms.
https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/23/5/887/1058364

Selective breeding doesn't somehow eliminate or obviate gene duplication, so I'm not sure what your argument is. I suspect that you've misunderstood at least one of the concepts in your statement there, but it's hard to figure out from just what you've written.

There are still cats.

Is this a version of "if people evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?"

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #20]

Whatever you mean by "random bush" must be wrong because Punctuated Equilibrium doesn't affect the ability to infer descent.

Are you denying that evolution is not a tree but a bush?

https://www.theguardian.com/science/200 ... r=31198abd
https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2015/0 ... 439932833/

Gould the one who created punctuated equilibrium is the one who first proposed that it is not a tree of life but a bush.

[Difflugia]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #20]

Whatever you mean by "random bush" must be wrong because Punctuated Equilibrium doesn't affect the ability to infer descent.

Are you denying that evolution is not a tree but a bush?

I'm denying that we can't infer phylogeny. Since I don't know why you think we can't, I don't know what part you're wrong about.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #0]

Selective breeding doesn't somehow eliminate or obviate gene duplication, so I'm not sure what your argument is. I suspect that you've misunderstood at least one of the concepts in your statement there, but it's hard to figure out from just what you've written.

Is there gene duplication in those Kitty cats? Evolution is all about changing gene and genomes into something new. What type of gene-altering mutation are you saying occurred here, a base substitution, a deletion, or an insertion?

It is your belief that gene-altering mutations can cause the diversity of life is that separates evolutionism from creation.

[Difflugia]

Is there gene duplication in those Kitty cats? Evolution is all about changing gene and genomes into something new. What type of gene-altering mutation are you saying occurred here, a base substitution, a deletion, or an insertion?

Except maybe as a statistical argument, I'm not saying any specific kind of mutation has or hasn't occurred. You, however, have asserted that a specific kind didn't occur and specifically because it involves artificial selection, but haven't justified why that's true or even why those concepts are connected.

It is your belief that gene-altering mutations can cause the diversity of life is that separates evolutionism from creation.

Yes.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to bluegreenearth in post #22]

So, I completely empathize with your perspective and understand your passionate desire to have your objections to the Theory of Evolution well-received by the scientific community. I know you've invested a great deal of your own identity and emotional baggage in the idea of Biblical creationism. Yes, I recognize that you need Biblical creationism to be true. Unfortunately, the approach you are taking here isn't in accordance with the criteria and standards of the professional scientific community. If you want your objections taken seriously, you'll need to swap-out the pseudo-intellectual apologetic methods for the scientific method and actually do the science to make your case.

The above arguments in the OP are from the established scientific community. I am sorry that people are having trouble coming to terms with the fact that evolution is not possible. It might help if you exchange your emotional pleads for actual facts, like did in the OP.

[bluegreenearth]

The above arguments in the OP are from the established scientific community. I am sorry that people are having trouble coming to terms with the fact that evolution is not possible. It might help if you exchange your emotional pleads for actual facts, like did in the OP.

Yes, but your objections to those arguments are not established within the scientific community. With all the debating that occurs among the qualified experts in the field of evolutionary biology, I'm unaware of any peer-reviewed research and debates about whether there was enough time for evolution to have occurred. Such objections only appear to reside within the creationist (i.e. intelligent design) community. If there were credible scientific evidence to suggest that there was not enough time for evolution to have occurred, I would expect the experts in relevant scientific disciplines to be considering, investigating, and debating such an objection. To my knowledge, this is not occurring. For you to discover if your objections are legitimate, you must dedicate sufficient time and effort towards conducting the necessary research at an accredited university or at your public library reading peer-reviewed journal articles and text books rather than asking your interlocutors to disprove them in an online debate forum.

Seriously, if not the Dunning-Kruger effect, what else could explain the lack of intellectual humility and almost arrogant confidence implied by your poorly informed objections to the Theory of Evolution which is rigorously and routinely tested by the experts in the field? I am not asking this question rhetorically as an ad hominem attack either. I am genuinely perplexed by the attitude you appear to be exhibiting in this regard, and I would like to understand it better. I'm both puzzled and concerned because you seem to realize that you lack the prerequisite knowledge and capabilities in the field of Evolutionary Biology, yet you express a disproportionate amount of confidence in your objections to the explanations provided by the experts in the field who have the necessary prerequisite knowledge and capabilities. Please explain to me how you are justifying your confidence in those objections given your lack of qualifications and capabilities in the field of Evolutionary Biology?