Creationists: Explain your understanding of microevolution and macroevolution

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

That number of 1 billion replications for each adaptive step is for the ideal case of adaptation to a single selection pressure at a time. If the population is to adapt to just two selection pressures at a time, the number of replications when the mutation rate is 1e-9 goes to a trillion replications for each adaptive step. If a population must adapt to 3 selection pressures at a time, the number of replications for each adaptive step goes to about 1e15 replications. This is why 3 drug combination therapy works for the treatment of HIV. It takes massive population sizes for these variants to have a reasonable probability of appearing. Certainly, human population sizes have not achieved the levels necessary to do any significant adaptive evolution to multiple simultaneous selection pressures.

I'm going to repeat my comment because that above, I see nothing with regards to what I wrote. Again:
So why isn't that (microevolution to macroevolution) possible? If we take every species that has existed, including those that have gone extinct, as being actual real world examples of macroevolutionary changes in organisms, than that means, ipso facto, that macroevolution is correct and factual.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Well, that explains why 99% of all species have gone extinct. That's doesn't mean that the remaining 1% of reptiles and fish evolve into birds and mammals. But if you think you can get an unregulated and uncontrolled experiment to demonstrate that adaptive evolution works more effectively than in a controlled and regulated environment, post the experimental evidence. Perhaps if Lenski put his bacteria under varying thermal and osmotic stress as well as starvation pressure they will evolve more quickly than just their adaptation to starvation?

The experiments you have focused on are exceedingly artificial. In at least one of them a specific, single mutation is needed to overcome the selection pressure.

General selection pressure and selection advantage don't seem to work that way. If we go back to the microevolution examples I gave earlier regarding humans the selection pressure are much more complex that those you are portraying.

The sickle-cell trait is a single mutation that is beneficial (for one copy) as protection against malaria, but lethal with two copies. If it arises in a place without malaria it is neutral in low concentrations, but cannot become fixed due to it 2-copy lethality. If it occurs in a place with malaria, it provides benefit to those with one copy and this propagates the dispersal until the concentration in the population becomes high enough that the negative consequences (pre-reproductive death) on 2-copy individuals keep it from getting higher. This brings a benefit to the population through malaria resistance, but not to all individuals.

With lactase persistence there are several single mutations that can trigger the ability to digest raw milk past infancy. If they occur in non-herding populations, these are at best neutral populations. (Presuming the cost of producing enzymes to digest something you don't ingest is quite low and non-selective, but there could be a small negative selection pressure.) If the same mutation occurs in a herding population, they may adapt culturally the consumption of non-human milk as a foodstuff and provide the population with an advantage over other human groups. This is the "invention" of a new lifestyle (dairying) on top of an existing one (herding) that give advantage, but there isn't necessarily a "dairying selection pressure".

 

[Alan Kleinman]

Okay, going forward: no more Lenski. No more Kishony. I am just sick and tired of seeing your personal Don Quixote-esque vendetta against them. It's getting annoying that every second post, you name drop them.

But yes, I agree with that statement.

I'm not against the Kishony and Lenski microevolutionary adaptation experiments. In fact, they are excellent examples of the physics and mathematics of biological evolution. And my publication of microevolution to a single selection pressure predicted the behavior of the Kishony experiment before he performed the experiment. In no way am I against these experiments. So, you are going to have to forgive me but I'm still going to use these experiments to put the physical theory into real context.

So we have:
1. It takes energy to replicate
2. The carrying capacity of the environment specifies the amount of energy available for replication. The Lenski experiment provides enough energy in the form of glucose to get a population of 500,000,000 daily.
3. The different variants in the environment use that energy for survival and replication. Some variants are more effective users of that energy and other variants are less effective users of that energy. In the Lenski experiment, the more fit (effective users) variant increases in frequency, the less fit variants decrease in frequency.
Agree, disagree, confusion?

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

I'm not against the Kishony and Lenski microevolutionary adaptation experiments. In fact, they are excellent examples of the physics and mathematics of biological evolution. And my publication of microevolution to a single selection pressure predicted the behavior of the Kishony experiment before he performed the experiment. In no way am I against these experiments. So, you are going to have to forgive me but I'm still going to use these experiments to put the physical theory into real context.

So we have:
1. It takes energy to replicate
2. The carrying capacity of the environment specifies the amount of energy available for replication. The Lenski experiment provides enough energy in the form of glucose to get a population of 500,000,000 daily.
3. The different variants in the environment use that energy for survival and replication. Some variants are more effective users of that energy and other variants are less effective users of that energy. In the Lenski experiment, the more fit (effective users) variant increases in frequency, the less fit variants decrease in frequency.
Agree, disagree, confusion?

An annoyed 'fine' to the first bit and a simple 'fine' to the second bit.

 

[Alan Kleinman]

I'm going to repeat my comment because that above, I see nothing with regards to what I wrote. Again:
So why isn't that (microevolution to macroevolution) possible? If we take every species that has existed, including those that have gone extinct, as being actual real world examples of macroevolutionary changes in organisms, than that means, ipso facto, that macroevolution is correct and factual.

It's the multiplication rule of probabilities that limits microevolution. Even in a single selection pressure environment, it takes vast numbers of replications to accumulate just a small number of adaptive mutations. For example, in the Lenski experiment, over 30 years, his lineages accumulated about 100 adaptive mutations. That's 500,000,000 replications/day * 365days * 30 years. The numbers only get exponentially worse if adaption must occur to two or more simultaneous selection pressures. You are unwilling or unable to comprehend what it takes for adaptive DNA evolution to work.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

It's the multiplication rule of probabilities that limits microevolution. Even in a single selection pressure environment, it takes vast numbers of replications to accumulate just a small number of adaptive mutations. For example, in the Lenski experiment, over 30 years, his lineages accumulated about 100 adaptive mutations. That's 500,000,000 replications/day * 365days * 30 years. The numbers only get exponentially worse if adaption must occur to two or more simultaneous selection pressures. You are unwilling or unable to comprehend what it takes for adaptive DNA evolution to work.

But that's not answering what I'm talking about. As I said, if every animal that existed is an example of macroevolution; of a change at the species level to create a new species of animal from existing animals, then ipso facto, macroevolution has happened.
How do you explain the extreme biodiversity of life both historically extinct and contemporarily extant with just microevolution?

 

[Alan Kleinman]

An annoyed 'fine' to the first bit and a simple 'fine' to the second bit.

So we have:
1. It takes energy to replicate
2. The carrying capacity of the environment specifies the amount of energy available for replication. The Lenski experiment provides enough energy in the form of glucose to get a population of 500,000,000 daily.
3. The different variants in the environment use that energy for survival and replication. Some variants are more effective users of that energy and other variants are less effective users of that energy. In the Lenski experiment, the more fit (effective users) variant increases in frequency, the less fit variants decrease in frequency.

OK
4. Ultimately in that competition for that limited amount of energy, the more fit variant drives the less fit variants to extinction and the more fit variant is "fixed" in the population. For example, with the Lenski experiment, his population at that point consists of 500,000,000 equally fit variants and the less fit variants are driven to extinction, gone.
Agree, disagree, confused?

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

OK
4. Ultimately in that competition for that limited amount of energy, the more fit variant drives the less fit variants to extinction and the more fit variant is "fixed" in the population. For example, with the Lenski experiment, his population at that point consists of 500,000,000 equally fit variants and the less fit variants are driven to extinction, gone.
Agree, disagree, confused?

That's the basic tenant of natural selection at its core, yes.

 

[pitabread]

The numbers only get exponentially worse if adaption must occur to two or more simultaneous selection pressures.

What are the consequences of this for real-world scenarios like selective breeding in livestock? Or in scenarios like human evolution and adaption to different climates while simultaneously facing things like pathogens and other selective pressures?

Have you ever tried applying this model to any real-world scenarios?

 

[SelfSim]

So we have:
1. It takes energy to replicate
2. The carrying capacity of the environment specifies the amount of energy available for replication. The Lenski experiment provides enough energy in the form of glucose to get a population of 500,000,000 daily.
3. The different variants in the environment use that energy for survival and replication. Some variants are more effective users of that energy and other variants are less effective users of that energy. In the Lenski experiment, the more fit (effective users) variant increases in frequency, the less fit variants decrease in frequency.
OK
4. Ultimately in that competition for that limited amount of energy, the more fit variant drives the less fit variants to extinction and the more fit variant is "fixed" in the population. For example, with the Lenski experiment, his population at that point consists of 500,000,000 equally fit variants and the less fit variants are driven to extinction, gone.

The replication mechanism is error prone. This can introduce duplications. Polyploidy (for eg) is considered a major influencer in the evolution of gymnosperm species variation.

Is this taken into account in any of your models?

 

[Alan Kleinman]

But that's not answering what I'm talking about. As I said, if every animal that existed is an example of macroevolution; of a change at the species level to create a new species of animal from existing animals, then ipso facto, macroevolution has happened.
How do you explain the extreme biodiversity of life both historically extinct and contemporarily extant with just microevolution?

You may have been trained to say that but that doesn't make it so. If a reptile genome is to be transformed into a bird genome with all the genetic differences, it requires the accumulation of a set of mutations. Mutations that would produce feathers, cardiovascular, respiratory, excretory, neurological, musculoskeletal transformations... all the phenotypic features of birds. What are the selection conditions that could do this, where do the populations exist that could provide this kind of genetic divergence? Make an attempt to understand how microevolution actually works and see whether your conclusion makes any kind of mathematically logical sense.

 

[SelfSim]

You may have been trained to say that but that doesn't make it so. If a reptile genome is to be transformed into a bird genome with all the genetic differences, it requires the accumulation of a set of mutations. Mutations that would produce feathers, cardiovascular, respiratory, excretory, neurological, musculoskeletal transformations... all the phenotypic features of birds. What are the selection conditions that could do this, where do the populations exist that could provide this kind of genetic divergence? Make an attempt to understand how microevolution actually works and see whether your conclusion makes any kind of mathematically logical sense.

The singular focus on mutations being the sole cause of species evolution, appears to have heavily influenced your model.
I mean, you do recognise yours as being just a toy model, no?

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

You may have been trained to say that but that doesn't make it so. If a reptile genome is to be transformed into a bird genome with all the genetic differences, it requires the accumulation of a set of mutations. Mutations that would produce feathers, cardiovascular, respiratory, excretory, neurological, musculoskeletal transformations... all the phenotypic features of birds. What are the selection conditions that could do this, where do the populations exist that could provide this kind of genetic divergence? Make an attempt to understand how microevolution actually works and see whether your conclusion makes any kind of mathematically logical sense.

I've not been trained to say anything, and I find that sort of language quite insulting.
It's a logical inference that loads of small steps can lead to one big step. It's take a thousand metres to make a kilometre, so it takes (just to stick to the analogy) a thousand microevolutionary steps to add up to a single macroevolutionary step.
And you aren't even saying I'm wrong: if each species, extinct and extant, that exists has come about through macroevolutionary changes, then ipso facto macroevolution must be factual. Because how can you explain all the massive biodiversity that has existed and does exist on Earth with just microevolution alone?

 

[Alan Kleinman]

What are the consequences of this for real-world scenarios like selective breeding in livestock? Or in scenarios like human evolution and adaption to different climates while simultaneously facing things like pathogens and other selective pressures?

Recombination without error does not create new alleles. You can get an offspring with two different beneficial alleles, one from each parent but that does not change the mathematics for the creation of new adaptive alleles by DNA evolution.

If recombination is occurring at random such as with HIV or pollination, the probability of getting a descendant in a recombination event with 2 beneficial alleles depends on the frequency of those alleles in the gene pool. Resistance alleles in the HIV gene pool don't reach high enough frequency to defeat 3 drug therapy.

Have you ever tried applying this model to any real-world scenarios?

There are many empirical examples of combination herbicides, pesticides, insecticides, rodenticides that demonstrate the math I've presented. If you have a "real-world" measured example that contradicts this math, present it but identify the selection pressure(s) and adaptive mutations.

 

[Alan Kleinman]

The singular focus on mutations being the sole cause of species evolution, appears to have heavily influenced your model.
I mean, you do recognise yours as being just a toy model, no?

Feel free to post an experiment or empirical example that contradicts this model, but you need to identify the selection condition(s) and adaptive mutations.

 

[pitabread]

Recombination without error does not create new alleles. You can get an offspring with two different beneficial alleles, one from each parent but that does not change the mathematics for the creation of new adaptive alleles by DNA evolution.

If recombination is occurring at random such as with HIV or pollination, the probability of getting a descendant in a recombination event with 2 beneficial alleles depends on the frequency of those alleles in the gene pool. Resistance alleles in the HIV gene pool don't reach high enough frequency to defeat 3 drug therapy.

None of this addresses my post. I was asking about selection pressures on multiple traits, specifically if the case of human population evolution or selective breeding.

For example, when human populations were adapting to different climates, why wouldn't introduction of a selective pressure from a pathogen cause extinction? Why have human populations adapted under these circumstances?

Can you address this? Yes or no?

There are many empirical examples of combination herbicides, pesticides, insecticides, rodenticides that demonstrate the math I've presented. If you have a "real-world" measured example that contradicts this math, present it but identify the selection pressure(s) and adaptive mutations.

I've noticed that all of your examples focuses specifically on scenarios whereby the selective pressure is designed to eliminate a population.

Instead, I was asking you about scenarios whereby there are selective pressures for multiple traits within a population; e.g. selective breeding or human population evolution.

You don't seem to have an answer for this.

 

[Alan Kleinman]

I've not been trained to say anything, and I find that sort of language quite insulting.
It's a logical inference that loads of small steps can lead to one big step. It's take a thousand metres to make a kilometre, so it takes (just to stick to the analogy) a thousand microevolutionary steps to add up to a single macroevolutionary step.
And you aren't even saying I'm wrong: if each species, extinct and extant, that exists has come about through macroevolutionary changes, then ipso facto macroevolution must be factual. Because how can you explain all the massive biodiversity that has existed and does exist on Earth with just microevolution alone?

What you are having difficulty grasping is that when the adaptive steps are random, you just can't add them up. It's like saying you won 10 lotteries. In order to do that you have to buy lots of tickets to each lottery to have a reasonable chance of that occurring.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

What you are having difficulty grasping is that when the adaptive steps are random, you just can't add them up. It's like saying you won 10 lotteries. In order to do that you have to buy lots of tickets to each lottery to have a reasonable chance of that occurring.

I'm not having difficulty grasping anything. You are having difficult in acknowledging this simple comment: if each species, extinct and extant, that exists has come about through macroevolutionary changes, then ipso facto macroevolution must be factual.
You also haven't answered my question at the end of: Because how can you explain all the massive biodiversity that has existed and does exist on Earth with just microevolution alone? How do you explain it with just microevolution?

 

[Alan Kleinman]

None of this addresses my post. I was asking about multiple selective pressures.

You keep claiming this is a problem, but you haven't actually addressed it as such.

If you apply multiple selection pressures to populations, the empirical evidence shows that they usually go extinct. Even if the remaining population doesn't go extinct, it doesn't mean they have adapted or even improved fitness.

I've noticed that all of your examples focuses specifically on scenarios whereby the selective pressure is designed to eliminate a population.

Is that so? Are the Kishony and Lenski populations eliminated?

I've got some chores to do, I'll get back later.

 

[pitabread]

If you apply multiple selection pressures to populations, the empirical evidence shows that they usually go extinct. Even if the remaining population doesn't go extinct, it doesn't mean they have adapted or even improved fitness.

Yet this is not what is observed in human evolution and the adaption to multiple selection pressures like different climates, pathogens, diet, etc.

Is that so? Are the Kishony and Lenski populations eliminated?

The Kishony and Lenski experiments are highly contrived scenarios that don't specifically mimic real-world evolution (insofar as real-world environments, selection pressures, etc.).

This is why I'm more interested in scenarios in real-world environments.

I think human evolution would be a primate candidate. If you really think your model is an accurate description of real-world evolution, try applying it to what we know about human evolution. Perhaps do some modeling to see what would happen to human populations as they migrated around the world? In your model, would human populations be able to adapt to different climates while under various selection pressures?