Creationists: Explain your understanding of microevolution and macroevolution

[tas8831]

They do? Why don't you post the curricula from a few university biology departments that show that biologists take the same math, chemistry, and physics courses as do engineering and physics majors?

Why don't you show the curricula of engineering programs that have requirements in biology?

Do mechanical engineering majors take classes in biology?
Do they have to take organic chemistry? Biochemistry? Genetics?
Just checked the U of C (Boulder) chem engineering curriculum - a 3 credit survey course on biology. Wow.

Do engineering curricula have a class on unwarranted arrogance and the Dunning-Kruger effect?

Never mind - I do not intend to follow up with a creationist Dunning-Krugerite.

 

[tas8831]

I don't expect a macroevolutionist zealot to be convinced by anything.

We don't expect a creationist zealot to be convinced of anything.
Especially one that can't be bothered to show the experiments for the existence of his special deity's powers.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Why don't you show the curricula of engineering programs that have requirements in biology?

Do mechanical engineering majors take classes in biology?
Do they have to take organic chemistry? Biochemistry? Genetics?
Just checked the U of C (Boulder) chem engineering curriculum - a 3 credit survey course on biology. Wow.

Do engineering curricula have a class on unwarranted arrogance and the Dunning-Kruger effect?

Never mind - I do not intend to follow up with a creationist Dunning-Krugerite.

Hmm, it was aeons ago when I went to college. I cannot remember biology being required for a geology degree. There were requirements for physics and chemistry. The chemistry may have had to have been a majors level class. I don't think the physics was, but why take if if you are not going to do it right was always my motto. I am sure that if I had gone the paleontology route that biology at a a majors level would have been a requirement as well.

 

[Frank Robert]

I don't expect a macroevolutionist zealot to be convinced by anything.

Thanks for the compliment. As a macroevolution zealot I am in good company with millions of present and past scientists, including many Nobel Prize recipients.

If you want to be convinced by stories written about observations rather than verifying stories by experimental testing, no be it.

Please inform us who are accepting your stories after numerous attempts on multiple forums over many years.

Good luck with your discussion over at PS about finding experimental evidence of a replicator that can adapt to 3 selection conditions at only two genetic loci.

On good advice, I have decided not to to be part of providing another platform for your self-promotion. You can do that yourself. Knock yourself out.

 

[Alan Kleinman]

Yes, I do.

His verbal explanation works quite well. With a 1e-9 probability of individual occurrences you need ~1e9 trials for it to occur ~1 time. It covers the basics of the probability math quite well. It doesn't state that you need 1e9 new bacteria to get the needed mutation.

Sure, Kishony's verbal explanation works just fine. I've used that explanation many times to explain the process to the non-scientist. OK, so you now agree my math fits the data for the Kishony experiment. And I had this simple mathematical model published before Kishony performed his experiment so not only does the model fit the data, it predicted the behavior of his experiment. Phred, if you are still following this thread, finally, there's Hans' answer to your question, the model does fit the data.

IIRC, you showed that for this probability, 1e9 trials give a P~0.6 of at least one occurrence as the possible outcomes include 0 occurrences, 1 occurrence, and more than 1 occurrence of the mutation. The math is fairly simple and it is just the same as the kind of expressions explored in junior high math classes on probability of the type "If I roll a 6-sided die 6 times, what is the probability that at least one 6 will be rolled", though numerical precision issues come to play with a 1e-9 probability and ~1e9 trials.

The "at least one rule" is a very straightforward rule to apply, I learned that rule in elementary school. Applying this math to the Lenski experiment is done in the same way except you have to take into account the frequencies of the different variants as his populations grow and are bottlenecked and fixation must occur for there to be a reasonable probability that adaptive evolution can occur. Still, when the most fit variant in that population reaches a number of replications of 1e9, the probability of an adaptive mutation occurring for a beneficial mutation rate of 1e-9 will be 0.6.

The math gets a little more complicated when considering adaptive evolutionary processes with 2 or more simultaneous selection conditions but if you read that paper I linked you to in the last post, you will find that derivation very easy to follow. Why don't you try to give us a verbal description of how the adaptive evolutionary process works when a population must adapt to 2 more selection conditions simultaneously?

 

[Alan Kleinman]

Experiments are not limited to the laboratory. Those observations technically are "experiments". Again, an understanding of the scientific method would help immensely here.

Observations are experiments? Whatever

 

[Alan Kleinman]

Why don't you show the curricula of engineering programs that have requirements in biology?

I have to agree, fossil tea-leaf reading is not required to be an engineer.

Do mechanical engineering majors take classes in biology?
Do they have to take organic chemistry? Biochemistry? Genetics?
Just checked the U of C (Boulder) chem engineering curriculum - a 3 credit survey course on biology. Wow.

If you want to try to do the thermodynamics of a biological system, organic chemistry, biochemistry, and in particular genetics and evolutionary processes, you need to do studies in these areas. And in fact, I've taken courses in all of these subjects. The problem is if your genetics instructor doesn't understand thermodynamics, they won't be able to explain the thermodynamics of evolutionary adaptation. I posted a link to a video of Joe Felsenstein, one of the top geneticists in the world and he was showing his attempts at trying to find an explanation. Biologists simply don't have the training and experience to do physics. Of course, if you know of any biologist that can explain the thermodynamics of adaptive DNA evolution, let us know who that person is.

Do engineering curricula have a class on unwarranted arrogance and the Dunning-Kruger effect?

Never mind - I do not intend to follow up with a creationist Dunning-Krugerite.

If you think either my math or physics is wrong, show where. Even Hans now admits that the trivially easy math that I've presented fits the data from the Kishony experiment. Didn't they teach you that math in your biology curriculum?

 

[Hans Blaster]

Sure, Kishony's verbal explanation works just fine. I've used that explanation many times to explain the process to the non-scientist. OK, so you now agree my math fits the data for the Kishony experiment. And I had this simple mathematical model published before Kishony performed his experiment so not only does the model fit the data, it predicted the behavior of his experiment. Phred, if you are still following this thread, finally, there's Hans' answer to your question, the model does fit the data.

I still don't know that *your* math fits the data, because we haven't seen the data that it should fit. (I'm not sure that your stuff could be properly called a model either.)

What you have is an estimation of the probability that the growth will proceed into the second (drugged) region given the accumulated number of new cells generated in the experiments. But for only one instance of the experiment, it either happens or doesn't. Your probability calculation could be compared to many instances of the Kishony experiment, but you haven't done that. (I don't even know how many times the experiment was run as you haven't said.)

 

[Ophiolite]

I still don't know that *your* math fits the data, because we haven't seen the data that it should fit. (I'm not sure that your stuff could be properly called a model either.)

What you have is an estimation of the probability that the growth will proceed into the second (drugged) region given the accumulated number of new cells generated in the experiments. But for only one instance of the experiment, it either happens or doesn't. Your probability calculation could be compared to many instances of the Kishony experiment, but you haven't done that. (I don't even know how many times the experiment was run as you haven't said.)

I think the problem here Hans, is that you are approaching the issue logically, objectively and systematically. Perhaps you should try to inject some subjective angles to it, expressed by aerbic language, emotive outbursts, insults, repetition of fatuous questions and many absolute, though unsupported statements. Do you think that might work?

 

[Alan Kleinman]

We don't expect a creationist zealot to be convinced of anything.
Especially one that can[t be bothered to show the experiments for the existence of his special deity's powers.

Where have I pushed for Creationism to be taught as science? Only someone that is poorly trained in the mathematical and physical sciences would think that macroevolution is a real thing.

 

[Alan Kleinman]

Thanks for the compliment. As a macroevolution zealot I am in good company with millions of present and past scientists, including many Nobel Prize recipients.

Something like this happened in the past, it is called the flat-earth.

Please inform us who are accepting your stories after numerous attempts on multiple forums over many years.

Again, you can start with the peer reviewers of my papers.

On good advice, I have decided not to to be part of providing another platform for your self-promotion. You can do that yourself. Knock yourself out.

Chicken!

 

[Hans Blaster]

I think the problem here Hans, is that you are approaching the issue logically, objectively and systematically. Perhaps you should try to inject some subjective angles to it, expressed by aerbic language, emotive outbursts, insults, repetition of fatuous questions and many absolute, though unsupported statements. Do you think that might work?

I could talk about how in my long post from this morning, he didn't quote the part where I noted the weak nature of his impact on the scientific community. His "thousands of reads" are in fact 1600, or so, which is roughly the number I had for 2020 alone on the site that I use for monitoring my work. And his 7 or so external citations (needed google scholar to find them) is what I call a bad month. I'm not sure why you would write papers that are so uncited.

[Sorry, I used facts, but they were of hidden sourcing, so your only assurance they are correct is trust.]

 

[Frank Robert]

Something like this happened in the past, it is called the flat-earth.

Wake me when you have enough straws.

Again, you can start with the peer reviewers of my papers.

Congratulations. Do those handful of reviewers agree with your fable that macroevolution is just a story?

Chicken!

Nothing is stopping you from making the claim at PS that you met Miller's challenge. This could be a great opportunity for you, or not. I wish you would but my guess is that you will not.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Something like this happened in the past, it is called the flat-earth.

You're equating macroevolution with the flat Earth? Really?

The flat Earth hasn't been an intellectually viable position in over 2000 years. If only the authors of you holy book had paid more attention to Western philosophy (or written an update after a couple hundred years) instead of Eastern mythology it would have the traces of that long discredited position embedded in it.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Observations are experiments? Whatever

I see that you had to strawman again. Observations of fossils can be experiments. An inability to understand this tells us that you do not understand the scientific method.

 

[Subduction Zone]

View attachment 303514
Wake me when you have enough straws.


Congratulations. Do those handful of reviewers agree with your fable that macroevolution is just a story?

Nothing is stopping you from making the claim at PS that you met Miller's challenge. This could be a great opportunity for you, or not. I wish you would but my guess is that you will not.

He needs those straws. How else can one constantly make strawman arguments?

 

[Alan Kleinman]

I still don't know that *your* math fits the data, because we haven't seen the data that it should fit. (I'm not sure that your stuff could be properly called a model either.)

That's true, Kishony doesn't actually show how he measures his colony size. On the other hand, Lenski does measure these values and this model fits that data. And sure this is a mathematical model, it shows the mathematical relationship of the probability of at least one adaptive mutation (a success), the beneficial mutation rate (the probability of success in a single trial), and the total number of trials (replications).

What you have is an estimation of the probability that the growth will proceed into the second (drugged) region given the accumulated number of new cells generated in the experiments. But for only one instance of the experiment, it either happens or doesn't. Your probability calculation could be compared to many instances of the Kishony experiment, but you haven't done that. (I don't even know how many times the experiment was run as you haven't said.)

Kishony gets the same results in his experiment regardless of which drug he uses. So we know he has performed his experiment more than once. But let's look at his published results:
Spatiotemporal microbial evolution on antibiotic landscapes
I don't see a specific number of times that they performed the experiment but there are 4 movies linked in his paper and they did extensive studies to determine what the drug concentration level would have to be set in order for the experiment to work. But if you are going to hang your hat on this argument, you had better be prepared to get another hat.

You also need to be aware that each experiment contains numerous instances of the application of this math. This video of the experiment superimposes the phylogenetic tree of the lineages:
The Evolution of Bacteria on a “Mega-Plate” Petri Dish (Kishony Lab)
Each node on the phylogenetic tree represents a new subpopulation of variants. Each of those new variants forms a new colony. When that colony reaches a sufficient size (about 1 billion) a new variant appears with the next adaptive mutation. Have you actually considered what happens to the genetic sequences of the different descendants as the population grows? When the colony size reaches 1/(mutation rate) population size, you will have on average one member of that population with a mutation at every site in the genome.

 

[Alan Kleinman]

I could talk about how in my long post from this morning, he didn't quote the part where I noted the weak nature of his impact on the scientific community. His "thousands of reads" are in fact 1600, or so, which is roughly the number I had for 2020 alone on the site that I use for monitoring my work. And his 7 or so external citations (needed google scholar to find them) is what I call a bad month. I'm not sure why you would write papers that are so uncited.

[Sorry, I used facts, but they were of hidden sourcing, so your only assurance they are correct is trust.]

Be patient Hans, even you can learn how to apply this math to DNA adaptive evolution. We almost have you understanding the "at least one rule" mathematics for the Kishony experiment. Did you know there is another way to model the Kishony experiment mathematically? It's a random walk process called a Markov Process. Ah, forget it, we better stick with the jr high school level math for now.

 

[Alan Kleinman]

Congratulations. Do those handful of reviewers agree with your fable that macroevolution is just a story?

Ask them.

Nothing is stopping you from making the claim at PS that you met Miller's challenge. This could be a great opportunity for you, or not. I wish you would but my guess is that you will not.

You asked me the question, I gave you the answer. If you don't have the chops to check it out, just keep on believing that bacteria can evolve into humans.

 

[Alan Kleinman]

You're equating macroevolution with the flat Earth? Really?

Oh boy Hans, are you going to present experimental evidence of macroevolution? Perhaps you should try and figure out how microevolution works first.

The flat Earth hasn't been an intellectually viable position in over 2000 years. If only the authors of you holy book had paid more attention to Western philosophy (or written an update after a couple hundred years) instead of Eastern mythology it would have the traces of that long discredited position embedded in it.

I really hope it doesn't take 2000 years to figure out that macroevolution doesn't exist. I gave Frank a number to check out where microevolution ends and macroevolution starts but he doesn't have the chops to check it out.