Moderator: Moderators
From what I know about the nature of DNA, genetics and Mendels laws of genetics (namely that are inherent species limitations imposed by the genetic makeup of all living things) the account about Adam and Eve, ie two humans parenting the human race, seems to me to be the most plausible explanation of our origins.
Clarification on this one, please? Not entirely sure what you mean. You say to use integers, but then say they can only be between 50 and 51...so no integers?This set can be integers or decimal numbers, however the kicker is that every single number in this original set has to be between 50 and 51 in value.
Don't statements like that tend to induce cognitive dissonance by posing a threat to deeply held beliefs? It would not surprise me to see your challenge dismissed in one way or another.I've stated before that by the end of this, you will affirm all the individual conclusions that support the theory of evolution. And we'll do this with brute force logic.
Moderator CommentTSGracchus wrote: It seems that your understanding of biology is severely lacking and you seriously underestimate your ignorance. That can, with some little effort, be rectified.
Math may have changed since I studied it but counting shouldn’t have. In my day, you couldn’t get 1000 ‘unique’ numbers to the hundred decimal place between 50 and 51. - “50.00, 50.01, 50.02. . . . 50.98, 50.99, 51.00�Neatras wrote:Test #1:
- A set of 1,000 unique numbers is made.
- This set can be[strike] integers or decimal numbers[/strike] any number, however the kicker is that every single number in this original set has to be between 50 and 51 in value. Example: 50, 50.5, 50.05, 50.27 (We'll keep it at 2 significant figures, thanks Riku.) Duplicates are allowed.(Emphasis added)
The test's question is this:
Is it possible, after many iterations of this experiment, for a value of 100 to eventually be allowed into the pool?
Sorry about the wait. That's definitely the right answer. No mechanism existed that prevented the unlikely event of a 100 entering the pool of numbers. For the rest of our viewers, let's discuss why that is.
Other than by an a priori of ToE and genetic drift, how do you know that Mr or Mrs Modern Bunny breeding range, genetically, is any different to their long past ancestor? On the other hand, one can two species from the same Family which cannot successfully breed. For example, the Equidae family, you can cross breed a horse with a zebra but the offspring, if not sterile will be of extremely poor fertility. This doesn’t need ‘40 million years’ of separation, only the loss of information in both lines from the original kind as opposed to a gain in information.Neatras wrote:Sorry about the wait. That's definitely the right answer. No mechanism existed that prevented the unlikely event of a 100 entering the pool of numbers. For the rest of our viewers, let's discuss why that is.
It's true that the range of numbers was strictly limited to 1 unit. This meant that no matter what, if we took the original set and introduced 100 to that set of 50-51, we would discard it.
But with each passing generation, we altered the status of the data set.
In generation 2, the members of the set that are eliminated no longer affect the set's constraints.
This leads to conclusion 1:
No matter what you may claim, the genomic compatibility members of a population share is entirely judged by present conditions. Not past, not future. Still small, no matter what your personal opinion on the matter might be, a bunny (though it's more accurate to call it a lagomorph) that existed some 40 million years ago, even if it shares phenotypic similarities to a modern bunny for the sake of this discussion, exerts no influence on what that modern bunny can breed with. The constraints on the bunny's reproductive capabilities are always determined by its immediate, present population.
In an instant, we have effectively demolished any flimsy idea in your head that there is some kind of "template" that restricts how animals can breed based on past members of a population.
When the data set is changed by the passage of time, the range also changes. Due to the characteristics of numbers on a number line, the major factor of change is that whenever the least or greatest numbers die, that immediately alters the minimum and maximum possible values. If the lowest number, 50, were to be discarded, and the next lowest number was 50.3, that would mean the maximum would be raised to 51.3. In spite of all numbers in the data set still maintaining a high level of homogeneity (in this example due to having a very small and tight range on an otherwise infinite number line), it was still possible for new members of a population to exist that can fit into a data set of all current members, but would not be able to coexist with the numbers that have been discarded. Present supersedes past.
The problem that I see, so far, with your concocted ‘test’, is the ratio of advantageous to deleterious mutations being a greater ‘barrier’ than merely ‘the environment’. It seems that you are implying at least a 50/50 ratio where, in fact, the number of advantageous mutations is an extremely small fraction as compared to the deleterious and/or neutral mutations. Whilst the deleterious mutation may not immediately affect the population, accumulation of such has severe consequences on the population’s health. Population geneticists still have a problem understanding why such genetic entropy hasn’t eliminated such populations. For example, Eyre-Walker & Keightley, in their article in Nature state, “It has been estimated that there are as many as 100 new mutations in the genome of each individual human. If even a small fraction of these mutations are deleterious and removed by selection, it is difficult to explain how human populations could have survived.� (link). Also, in Kondrashov’s paper, “Contamination of the genome by very slightly deleterious mutations: why have we not died 100 times over?, it is clear that the effect of the genetic load of deleterious mutations far outweighs that of beneficial mutations. While Kondrashov suggests some possible explanation, they are hypothetical and the majority of population geneticists agree that genetic loading is a real stumbling block.It's about time we discuss why populations of organisms maintain homogeneity; because this is an effective survival strategy for most species (especially social species like humans). This is because intermingling of genomic variety consequentially leads to alterations to the genome on a molecular level. If a member of a species does not have genetic compatibility with the population it is born into, it cannot reproduce, and so dies; with it die its unique genetic makeup, meaning it can no longer affect the future generation. This is something you will accept as incontrovertibly true simply because it doesn't affect your creationist leanings. You will intuitively believe this negates evolutionary theory because new organisms cannot come into being if they are radically different.
But evolutionary theory already explains this; gradual change, continued homogeneity with the population, in a concept that is remarkably well-documented called genetic drift, in which an entire population's "range" shifts along a variety of variables. As this change happens on a gradual scale, the population maintains reproductive capability with the entire set. As members of the population die off, their unique genetic makeup that previously would prevent outliers from passing on their genes in the population cease to function.
The reproduction of all sexual life is not purely a "lock-and-key" format that creationists would insist is necessary. It is much more accurate to biology to adopt a "genetic range" view, wherein members of the population can have a high degree of genetic diversity and still are able to reproduce, because their working components still match up well enough to perform the act of fertilization and meiosis. This is why humans who were geographically isolated from each other for thousands of years can still breed with genetically distinct humans; we are close enough within the range to still tolerate reproductive success of the breeding pair. It also explains why we cannot breed with other species; their genetic "range" is far and away separate from what range we have. I've run into countless creationists that have absolutely no idea what any of this means, so it's obvious that biology education is sorely lacking in these debates.
After this initial barrier, the only remaining constraint on what organisms are allowed to develop and pass on their unique genes is the environment. But we'll get to that. What's important is that I have gone to great lengths to dispel any ignorance about how and why populations maintain homogeneity. I also pointed out that drift is unconstrained by past members. Which is plainly obvious, but unintuitive to those who think the universe is just a measly 6,000 years old, and all humans that have ever lived have some kind of god-programmed genetic template that we're not allowed to alter on any level. Simplistic, unrealistic, and pitiful that folks with this view attempt to dictate to us how they think biology works without any understanding of
Though I can see where your ‘test’ is leading and I can agree with your expected outcomes, as I said earlier, it is a far cry from the real-world complex network of traits where fitness is enormously multi-dimensional, nor goal oriented, as in selecting to reach ‘100’ or ‘0’.Now then, let's continue the test.
Test #2
We'll be borrowing our number line and data set from the last test. While the answer to the previous question was that a "100" can, theoretically, enter the data set successfully (due to population's genetic drift), there is almost no possibility of that ever occurring under the current set of rules.
Now I'll impose a new rule, and we'll start the "experiment" over, from the 50-51 range of 1,000 individual number values:
During the process of removing 10 members of the population from the data set, at least 70% of those numbers removed must be numbers below the mean value of the set.
The question for this test is simple:
Given this new constraint, what should we expect the population of numbers to do, if we could describe a behavior for it?
A. The maximum and minimum values for the population will, with high probability, gradually decrease.
B. The maximum and minimum values for the population will, with high probability, gradually increase.
C. The maximum and minimum values for the population will, with high probability, stay the same.
D. None of these.
Well, modern evidence goes to suggest that lagomorpha evolved in the way I described, so it's more likely than not. You still haven't proposed a mechanism that would constrict a species to maintaining reproductive ability with all of its members, past and future, while I simply have to propose that mutations and genetic drift achieve the desired result. But if you're so desperate to find some way of pinning me down, how about this?Still small wrote:
Other than by an a priori of ToE and genetic drift, how do you know that Mr or Mrs Modern Bunny breeding range, genetically, is any different to their long past ancestor?
Yep, there it is, this and genetic entropy go to show you argue in bad faith. You don't understand the biology, you understand the bullet points other creationist apologists fed you that "destroys" the theory of evolution. You probably have no idea about neo-functionalization, endogenous retroviruses, and I bet you roll your eyes whenever ring species are mentioned; because they don't support your view, you inherently attribute less credibility to them. But we're actually discussing biology today, not your fantasy version of it that presupposes a 6,000 year old first organism that somehow has a degrading genetic clock that proposes... what, that we'll all be extinct due to error catastrophe in 10,000 years? 20,000? 100,000? You can't come up with a number because it isn't happening. This loss of information you're so proud of doesn't appear in nature. All you can do is insist it happens because... because... Well, that's what your creationist beliefs demand. That evolution cannot occur, and therefore the only way variation can come about is through a majority of deleterious mutations.Still small wrote: On the other hand, one can two species from the same Family which cannot successfully breed. For example, the Equidae family, you can cross breed a horse with a zebra but the offspring, if not sterile will be of extremely poor fertility. This doesn’t need ‘40 million years’ of separation, only the loss of information in both lines from the original kind as opposed to a gain in information.
Well yeah, I didn't apply any selection pressure until the new test.Still small wrote: Your over simplified example of numerical increases and decreases maybe somewhat misleading. In a one-dimensional system, any change can only be either up or down without regard for being advantageous or disadvantageous, as opposed to improving a real-world complex network of traits where fitness is enormously multi-dimensional.
You couched your criticism in grouping two items together, deleterious and/or neutral. The neutral mutations make up a vast number of the mutations as far as current evidence shows, and do not impact fitness. They could target structural genes, or functional but non-coding genes, or simply non-functional genes. But they have no bearing on this discussion of genetic entropy. But you still grouped it in with deleterious because you wanted to use a rhetorical tactic that makes the reader think that the ratio is more skewed than it really is, between advantageous and disadvantageous.Still small wrote: The problem that I see, so far, with your concocted ‘test’, is the ratio of advantageous to deleterious mutations being a greater ‘barrier’ than merely ‘the environment’. It seems that you are implying at least a 50/50 ratio where, in fact, the number of advantageous mutations is an extremely small fraction as compared to the deleterious and/or neutral mutations.
Genetic entropy is a bunk argument. Worthless, and completely unjustified. It comes from a poor understanding of genetics, where you assume more than you study.Still small wrote: Whilst the deleterious mutation may not immediately affect the population, accumulation of such has severe consequences on the population’s health. Population geneticists still have a problem understanding why such genetic entropy hasn’t eliminated such populations. For example, Eyre-Walker & Keightley, in their article in Nature state, “It has been estimated that there are as many as 100 new mutations in the genome of each individual human. If even a small fraction of these mutations are deleterious and removed by selection, it is difficult to explain how human populations could have survived.� (link). Also, in Kondrashov’s paper, “Contamination of the genome by very slightly deleterious mutations: why have we not died 100 times over?, it is clear that the effect of the genetic load of deleterious mutations far outweighs that of beneficial mutations. While Kondrashov suggests some possible explanation, they are hypothetical and the majority of population geneticists agree that genetic loading is a real stumbling block.
