Poll: Does the Theory of Evolution have practical applications?

Estrid said:

Ha. Imagine the creationist meeting a reception line of 2 million years
of ancestors! After the first 6000 years' worth he looks at the rest
of the line and , says what? I know ye not, get thee hence?

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Imagine a biologist that understands the physics and mathematics of evolution. After learning that the first beneficial mutation to improved fitness requires a billion replications to only a single selection pressure that it takes a trillion replications for the two beneficial mutations to improved fitness for two simultaneous selection pressures and says what?. I know ye not, get thee hence? Biologists need to learn something about the multiplication rule of probabilities and how it affects biological evolution.

Alan Kleinman said:

There is no vaccine for HIV, HIV is treated with antiviral medications. And I'm not trying to fight with you. I'm trying to find out what the ToE explains to you about evolution and biology. driewerf in post #17 brought up the Kishony experiment. There is another good experiment, the Lenski long-term evolution experiment. How does the ToE explain these experiments? Do these experiments support the ToE or do they demonstrate a fatal flaw in the theory? I'm in the tiny minority that thinks the Theory of Evolution does NOT have practical applications and from a scientific point of view, actually slows the advancement of the medical field and agriculture.

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Good. I don't want to fight either.
But are you not speaking against ToE being
valid?
I got the feeling you are not very familiar with what it is.
Good if you do though.
Are you referring to like a million generations of
bacteria still being bacteria?

No I don't think that oft cited thing as in any way
falsifies evolution.
I wasn't very good at micro, I wasn't interested, so
don't ask me about micro.

Let's try a different tack. A house rat is a generalist
(Are you familiar with that descriptor) as opposed to say,
a bat.
A rat has a basic body plan, much like many
fossil creatures identified as ancestral to say,
both cats and dogs, or to all primates.

A million, 30 million generations of selective
pressure on rats, you should be able to get
just about anything. South America used to
have an amazing variety of big rodents.

I dont see any resson to be concerned about
meat and taters practical applications for ToE

A new theory with similarly wide unifying
application to a different field is plate trctonics.
What was random data now fits a most
revealing pattern.

I don't know of a practical application though .
Does it matter?

Ophiolite said:

In reverse order:

• The simplest way of putting it is that the duplication of DNA is not a perfect process. When an imperfection occurs that is a mutation.
• The ToE does not lead to the identification of mutations it places those mutations in context, alerts researchers to their possibility and to their effects, in general, and thus suggests possible solutions.

How do you think such progress as we have seen would have occurred without cognisance of the ToE?

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Ok, mutations occur on duplication. Are these random events?

Alan Kleinman said:

Imagine a biologist that understands the physics and mathematics of evolution. After learning that the first beneficial mutation to improved fitness requires a billion replications to only a single selection pressure that it takes a trillion replications for the two beneficial mutations to improved fitness for two simultaneous selection pressures and says what?. I know ye not, get thee hence? Biologists need to learn something about the multiplication rule of probabilities and how it affects biological evolution.

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And yet we have the most remarkable varieties of
the cabbage plant. And no attempt to find a fatal flaw
in ToE has had any success, while the data supporting it
has continued to grow for 150 years.

Are you presenting that you understand evolution better than
any scientist, and further that " evolutionists" are either
ignorant or dishonest, maybe both?

Estrid said:

Good. I don't want to fight either.
But are you not speaking against ToE being
valid?
I got the feeling you are not very familiar with what it is.
Good if you do though.
Are you referring to like a million generations of
bacteria still being bacteria?

No I don't think that oft cited thing as in any way
falsifies evolution.
I wasn't very good at micro, I wasn't interested, so
don't ask me about micro.

Let's try a different tack. A house rat is a generalist
(Are you familiar with that descriptor) as opposed to say,
a bat.
A rat has a basic body plan, much like many
fossil creatures identified as ancestral to say,
both cats and dogs, or to all primates.

A million, 30 million generations of selective
pressure on rats, you should be able to get
just about anything. South America used to
have an amazing variety of big rodents.

I dont see any resson to be concerned about
meat and taters practical applications for ToE

A new theory with similarly wide unifying
application to a different field is plate trctonics.
What was random data now fits a most
revealing pattern.

I don't know of a practical application though .
Does it matter?

Click to expand...

What I'm doing is showing you how evolution works. The ToE does not do that. Unlike many Creationists, I think that Darwinian evolution is qualitatively correct. What Darwin failed to do is quantitate his theory correctly. I suspect you don't know what the fundamental principles of Darwinian evolution are and how to apply the laws of physics to those fundamental principles.

Alan Kleinman said:

What I'm doing is showing you how evolution works. The ToE does not do that. Unlike many Creationists, I think that Darwinian evolution is qualitatively correct. What Darwin failed to do is quantitate his theory correctly. I suspect you don't know what the fundamental principles of Darwinian evolution are and how to apply the laws of physics to those fundamental principles.

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You are?
Ok, I will listen to your explanation.
Go ahead.

Estrid said:

And yet we have the most remarkable varieties of
the cabbage plant. And no attempt to find a fatal flaw
in ToE has had any success, while the data supporting it
has continued to grow for 150 years.

Are you presenting that you understand evolution better than
any scientist, and further that " evolutionists" are either
ignorant or dishonest, maybe both?

Click to expand...

You are now calling me ignorant or dishonest, maybe both? You are the one who can't explain the simplest evolutionary experiment. When are you going to explain to us the evolution of drug-resistance using your theory of evolution? When you are able to do that, you might start seeing the fatal flaw in the ToE.

Alan Kleinman said:

Ok, mutations occur on duplication. Are these random events?

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A proper and comprehensive answer to this question is beyond my pay grade. Thus you may view my response as improper and incomplete.

The consensus view certainly appears to be that mutations are non-random, but there are some contrary indications. For example Martincorena et al in Evidence of non-random mutation rates suggests an evolutionary risk management strategy Nature note that "Upon comparing 34 Escherichia coli genomes, we observe that the neutral mutation rate varies by more than an order of magnitude across 2,659 genes, with mutational hot and cold spots spanning several kilobases. Importantly, the variation is not random: we detect a lower rate in highly expressed genes and in those undergoing stronger purifying selection. Our observations suggest that the mutation rate has been evolutionarily optimized to reduce the risk of deleterious mutations. Current knowledge of factors influencing the mutation rate—including transcription-coupled repair and context-dependent mutagenesis—do not explain these observations, indicating that additional mechanisms must be involved."

Please note that even this exception is not eliminating randomness of the change, but the chance that any change might occur to a specific gene.

Estrid said:

You are?
Ok, I will listen to your explanation.
Go ahead.

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Let's start with something Darwin wrote in his "On the Origin of Species".

Darwin wrote said:

For it should be remembered that the competition will generally be most severe between those forms which are most nearly related to each other in habits, constitution, and structure. Hence all the intermediate forms between the earlier and later states, that is between the less and more improved state of a species, as well as the original parent-species itself, will generally tend to become extinct. So it probably will be with many whole collateral lines of descent, which will be conquered by later and improved lines of descent. If, however, the modified offspring of a species get into some distinct country, or become quickly adapted to some quite new station, in which child and parent do not come into competition, both may continue to exist.

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What two evolutionary processes are Darwin describing here and what laws of physics apply to these two processes?

Ophiolite said:

A proper and comprehensive answer to this question is beyond my pay grade. Thus you may view my response as improper and incomplete.

The consensus view certainly appears to be that mutations are non-random, but there are some contrary indications. For example Martincorena et al in Evidence of non-random mutation rates suggests an evolutionary risk management strategy Nature note that "Upon comparing 34 Escherichia coli genomes, we observe that the neutral mutation rate varies by more than an order of magnitude across 2,659 genes, with mutational hot and cold spots spanning several kilobases. Importantly, the variation is not random: we detect a lower rate in highly expressed genes and in those undergoing stronger purifying selection. Our observations suggest that the mutation rate has been evolutionarily optimized to reduce the risk of deleterious mutations. Current knowledge of factors influencing the mutation rate—including transcription-coupled repair and context-dependent mutagenesis—do not explain these observations, indicating that additional mechanisms must be involved."

Please note that even this exception is not eliminating randomness of the change, but the chance that any change might occur to a specific gene.

Click to expand...

What is your definition of "random"? And does changing the frequency of occurrence of mutations make them non-random?

Alan Kleinman said:

What is your definition of "random"? And does changing the frequency of occurrence of mutations make them non-random?

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Since you asked the original question, what is your definition of random? Once I know that then I'll rephrase my response, if necessary to, address that definition.

Alan Kleinman said:

You are now calling me ignorant or dishonest, maybe both? You are the one who can't explain the simplest evolutionary experiment. When are you going to explain to us the evolution of drug-resistance using your theory of evolution? When you are able to do that, you might start seeing the fatal flaw in the ToE.

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It is regrettable that you'd think I said that
about you. It is nowhere stated nor implied.
Also, I am not shy, if its what I think, I won't
insinuate, I do plain talk and nobody need
ask what i mean.

I did though ask a simple question about what you
think, are the biologists ignorant or dishonest.
You've not replied.
It does appear you're saying you have identified
the fatal flaw in evolution, that the biologists
ignore or don't understand it so it seemed
reasonable to ask if it what I asked, seeking clarification.

I think you are making a rather expensive claim, it being
the key to disproving the ToE. Is that the case?

It goes beyond mere Nobel level as a discovery, so
details are of interest.

As for ToE ( its not "my " theory)and the germs I stated
already four (4) times now it us fivre,
that I don't think ToE has much
if anything to the imminity question.

Alan Kleinman said:

Let's start with something Darwin wrote in his "On the Origin of Species".

What two evolutionary processes are Darwin describing here and what laws of physics apply to these two processes?

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This is your thesis, please just explain it.

Ophiolite said:

Since you asked the original question, what is your definition of random? Once I know that then I'll rephrase my response, if necessary to, address that definition.

Click to expand...

There are many good definitions available on the internet, here's the definition(s) given by Merriam-Webster:
Merriam-Webster definition of random
But let's use a simple example to demonstrate the concept of a random trial (also called a random experiment). Tossing a coin gives two possible outcomes (three if you want to include the possibility of landing on an edge). When you toss that coin, you can get either a head or a tail but you cannot predict which will occur on any given toss. In a similar manner, the random trial for a mutation is replication. You cannot predict whether a mutation will or will not occur at any particular site for any replication.

Alan Kleinman said:

There are many good definitions available on the internet, here's the definition(s) given by Merriam-Webster:
Merriam-Webster definition of random
But let's use a simple example to demonstrate the concept of a random trial (also called a random experiment). Tossing a coin gives two possible outcomes (three if you want to include the possibility of landing on an edge). When you toss that coin, you can get either a head or a tail but you cannot predict which will occur on any given toss. In a similar manner, the random trial for a mutation is replication. You cannot predict whether a mutation will or will not occur at any particular site for any replication.

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Some are much more common than others

Estrid said:

It is regrettable that you'd think I said that
about you. It is nowhere stated nor implied.
Also, I am not shy, if its what I think, I won't
insinuate, I do plain talk and nobody need
ask what i mean.

I did though ask a simple question about what you
think, are the biologists ignorant or dishonest.
You've not replied.
It does appear you're saying you have identified
the fatal flaw in evolution, that the biologists
ignore or don't understand it so it seemed
reasonable to ask if it what I asked, seeking clarification.

I think you are making a rather expensive claim, it being
the key to disproving the ToE. Is that the case?

It goes beyond mere Nobel level as a discovery, so
details are of interest.

As for ToE ( its not "my " theory)and the germs I stated
already four (4) times now it us fivre,
that I don't think ToE has much
if anything to the imminity question.

Click to expand...

What I think is that biologists have failed to correctly describe the physics and mathematics of evolution. For the most part, (mainline) biologists have failed to apply the correct physical laws and mathematical principles to describe evolutionary processes. Whether it is due to bias, confusion, ignorance, or a combination of these factors I don't know. If these researchers did understand the physics and mathematics of evolution, they would long ago given the correct scientific description of the Kishony Mega-Plate and the Lenski long-term evolutionary experiment.

Alan Kleinman said:

What I think is that biologists have failed to correctly describe the physics and mathematics of evolution. For the most part, (mainline) biologists have failed to apply the correct physical laws and mathematical principles to describe evolutionary processes. Whether it is due to bias, confusion, ignorance, or a combination of these factors I don't know. If these researchers did understand the physics and mathematics of evolution, they would long ago given the correct scientific description of the Kishony Mega-Plate and the Lenski long-term evolutionary experiment.

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Go ahead and demonstrate.

Estrid said:

This is your thesis, please just explain it.

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So you missed what Darwin was saying. He's describing two evolutionary processes. The first is competition (which Darwin also calls the "struggle for existence") and the other is adaptation (an improved fitness to replicate in some environment). Two different laws of physics apply to each of these distinct processes, what are they?

Estrid said:

Some are much more common than others

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Does that mean that you can predict when they will occur on any particular replication?

Alan Kleinman said:

So you missed what Darwin was saying. He's describing two evolutionary processes. The first is competition (which Darwin also calls the "struggle for existence") and the other is adaptation (an improved fitness to replicate in some environment). Two different laws of physics apply to each of these distinct processes, what are they?

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False conclusion. I understand just fine
what he said.
If you have something to say about physics,
as applied to competition and natural selection,
go ahead.