Evolution vs Creationism

BlueIceDragon · Mar 5, 2008

sfs said:
What are you talking about? What biological things are getting worse? Other than the mass extinction currently being caused by humans, that is.

Um.... let's see. The fact that genetic diversity is actually being reduced as breeding occurs might be a significant factor. The fact that information is continually being lost from generation to generation - information that cannot be returned to the species?! Things are biologically speaking, getting worse.

All 'natural selection' methods where you try to match a particular selection function demand this. It is trivial to show this using a genetic programming analogy even if it is a gross simplification.

Molal · Mar 5, 2008

BlueIceDragon said:
That's an interesting requirement to make a creationist incumbant to 'prove' evolution is wrong since creationism was the default position until evolution was accepted to be 'common theory' which didn't occur till all the promotion done by Darwin and particularly his associates...

I would have thought the burden of proof would fall on the evolutionist since his is the more recent 'challenger' theory.

I disgree - the evidence for evolution is overwhelming. Indeed, a review of the posts yields links to evidence, while no evidence has been forth coming for creationism.

The burden of evidence is definitely on creationism.

So, what data suggests evolution is wrong. What peer reviewed, published research has been conducted to refute evolution?

sfs · Mar 5, 2008

mark kennedy said:
Then why did you guys not predict that the Indels would dwarf the single nucleotide substitutions that would have been required for us to have evolved from apes?

Mark, do you think the answer is going to change from the last six times you asked this question? We didn't predict the amount of human/chimpanzee difference caused by insertions and deletions (indels) because we didn't know enough about how commonly they occur. Later, after we started to sequence the chimpanzee genome, the evidence began to accumulate that indels, sometimes including large ones, happen pretty often, but that was a little late for making predictions about chimps. In fact, the prediction goes the other way: based on the large amount of indel sequence that differs between humans and chimps, we can predict that there must be a large amount of indel sequence that differs between individual humans. And it turns out there is. Researchers are still quantifying how much there is, so it's premature to make the kind of quantitative comparison I did in that post, but so far everything looks consistent.

Meanwhile, I will note that you did not respond to my challenge to explain the data in my post. All you did was change the subject.

Maybe you would like to offer an explanation for the indels you neglected to mention in your brief discussion of the single nucleotide substitutions.

Sure. Here's the explanation: sometimes mutations occur that are insertions or deletions of sections of DNA. This kind of mutation occurs about one-seventh as often as substitution of a single base.

I'll tell you what Steve, you have always been square with me so I'll lay my cards on the table. Pay particular attention to tables three and four and understand that these estimates are based on 1.33% divergence. Then ask yourself a fundamental question how do you factor in the deleterious mutation rate when the overall rate jumps to 5%.

At least a dozen people have tried to explain this to you, on two different forums, so you are unlikely to understand it when I explain it yet again, but I will do it anyway. The deleterious mutation rate caused by single-nucleotide substitutions is estimated to be something like one to three deleterious mutations per human birth (probably closer to 1 than to 3, in reality). Adding in the deleterious mutations caused by insertions and deletions increases that number by about 20%, so that the range is 1.2 to 3.6 per birth. As you will recall, indel mutations occur about 1/7th as often as substitutions, but they are somewhat more likely to be deleterious, so I rounded the increase in deleterious mutation up to 1/5th of that caused by substitutions.

Given the large uncertainties in the number in the first place, I can't see why you get excited about an extra 20% or so.

sfs · Mar 5, 2008

BlueIceDragon said:
Um.... let's see. The fact that genetic diversity is actually being reduced as breeding occurs might be a significant factor.

Well, it would be if it were a fact. Genetic diversity in humans is increasing rapidly. The amount of genetic diversity in other organisms depends on whether their population sizes have changed. What decrease in diversity are you talking about?

The fact that information is continually being lost from generation to generation - information that cannot be returned to the species?!

Also not a fact. What is this "information" you're talking about? How do I measure it? What I know about are different sequences of DNA. Variation in DNA sequence is constantly being introduced by new mutations.

Things are biologically speaking, getting worse.

This is certainly news to me, and I'm a biologist.

All 'natural selection' methods where you try to match a particular selection function demand this. It is trivial to show this using a genetic programming analogy even if it is a gross simplification.

It's trivial to show that natural selection always leads to things getting worse? That's certainly wrong. If that isn't what you mean, than I can't guess what it might be. Natural selection always reduces diversity? That's not true either, but it is true that selection often reduces diversity. I'm really having a tough time discerning your argument here.

sfs · Mar 5, 2008

mark kennedy said:
I would be fascinated to see how he explains this:

With more than 100 members, CERV 1/PTERV1 is one of the most abundant families of endogenous retroviruses in the chimpanzee genome. (Genome Biol. 2006). They can be found in African great apes but not in humans. What is more the ERV virus is nearly extinct in the human genome with only a couple that actually work.

That's easy. Chimpanzees and gorillas (or their immediate ancestors) were both infected with viruses in this family, but humans weren't, or not often enough for any inherited viral insertions to take place. Viruses often cross species lines -- HIV did so just a few decades ago, and it's a retrovirus, the kind that produces ERVs, so it could easily leave traces in the genomes of both humans and chimpanzees, for example.

What would be surprising would be if gorillas and chimpanzees shared lots of identical insertions of viruses in the PTERV family at the identical positions in the genome, without many of them also being shared by humans. Similarly, it would very surprising if humans and chimpanzees shared identical insertions of HIV-like viruses, since the two species were infected long after they split. Viral insertions are the events that are of interest in tracing genetic relationships between species: seeing the traces of a single event in the genes of two species shows that the event occurred in their common ancestor. Seeing that two species were infected with similar viruses, on the other hand, shows nothing of much interest.

BlueIceDragon · Mar 5, 2008

sfs said:
It's trivial to show that natural selection always leads to things getting worse? That's certainly wrong. If that isn't what you mean, than I can't guess what it might be. Natural selection always reduces diversity? That's not true either, but it is true that selection often reduces diversity. I'm really having a tough time discerning your argument here.

This is really hard for me to explain without resorting to pictures since it is in pictures that it the easiest to explain.

Still, again I shall use the genetic programming example since it is the easiest to talk about and, in this case, it does directly translate to biology.

Let's take a population of "Super Frogs". Now these super frogs have the potential with all the information in them (characteristics: colour, shape, size, etc) to specialise to be any "kind" of frog. Kind of like the "common ancestor of frogs".

Draw a circle to represent this population. Call it A.
Draw another circle with a dotted line encompassing all of A. We'll call it A'

This outer circle, A', is the potential reach of A from the current population of A. That is, it defines the reach of the possible population with mutations, breeding etc.

Now, logically, as these super frogs reproduce etc, the population becomes specialised to area. Some frogs only survive if they are large, others if they are small, others again if they are green, others if they swim fast. Whatever the reason, different features of the population A are 'bred out' due to being unfit.

Draw these four circles within the A circle - again extend by drawing dotted lines around them.

It is completely normal, and indeed expected, that the area covered by A and A' significantly outweighs the area covered by the small specialised populations. The combinatory possibilities have been reduced. Multiply this by a large number of generations and you have an instant problem. Diversification is supposedly increased - you have a large number of different types of frogs - but in actual fact genetic potential has been lost.

The whole design of genetic programming was built around this logical principle. Otherwise "natural selection" would be a complete waste of time and we certainly would not be able to solve software problems with it.

This IS happening with every population round the world. We are getting greater "specialisation", but at the cost of lower information potential. Kinda like kinetic versus potential energy.

Why do you think mongrels have less disease problems than particular breeds? It is purely because the information loss is not the same. There is less likelihood that the information necessary to combat disease X has been bred out of them.

Molal · Mar 5, 2008

BlueIceDragon said:
This is really hard for me to explain without resorting to pictures since it is in pictures that it the easiest to explain.

Still, again I shall use the genetic programming example since it is the easiest to talk about and, in this case, it does directly translate to biology.

Let's take a population of "Super Frogs". Now these super frogs have the potential with all the information in them (characteristics: colour, shape, size, etc) to specialise to be any "kind" of frog. Kind of like the "common ancestor of frogs".

Draw a circle to represent this population. Call it A.
Draw another circle with a dotted line encompassing all of A. We'll call it A'

This outer circle, A', is the potential reach of A from the current population of A. That is, it defines the reach of the possible population with mutations, breeding etc.

Now, logically, as these super frogs reproduce etc, the population becomes specialised to area. Some frogs only survive if they are large, others if they are small, others again if they are green, others if they swim fast. Whatever the reason, different features of the population A are 'bred out' due to being unfit.

Draw these four circles within the A circle - again extend by drawing dotted lines around them.

It is completely normal, and indeed expected, that the area covered by A and A' significantly outweighs the area covered by the small specialised populations. The combinatory possibilities have been reduced. Multiply this by a large number of generations and you have an instant problem. Diversification is supposedly increased - you have a large number of different types of frogs - but in actual fact genetic potential has been lost.

The whole design of genetic programming was built around this logical principle. Otherwise "natural selection" would be a complete waste of time and we certainly would not be able to solve software problems with it.

This IS happening with every population round the world. We are getting greater "specialisation", but at the cost of lower information potential. Kinda like kinetic versus potential energy.

Why do you think mongrels have less disease problems than particular breeds? It is purely because the information loss is not the same. There is less likelihood that the information necessary to combat disease X has been bred out of them.

Can you provide any peer reviewed published data to support your assertion?

BlueIceDragon · Mar 5, 2008

Molal said:
Can you provide any peer reviewed published data to support your assertion?

Does one need to provide peer review to prove 1+1=2?

This is logical statistical theory and is inherent to analysis.

If it wasn't, separating a total population into different sub populations in order to explain (ie: reduce variation) in the "unexplainable" component of the total would make no sense whatsoever.

Mallon · Mar 5, 2008

BlueIceDragon said:
Let's take a population of "Super Frogs". Now these super frogs have the potential with all the information in them (characteristics: colour, shape, size, etc) to specialise to be any "kind" of frog. Kind of like the "common ancestor of frogs".

Speaking of frog evolution, keep an eye out for a new transitional frog fossil coming out in Nature in the coming weeks. Really exciting stuff.

Molal · Mar 5, 2008

BlueIceDragon said:
Does one need to provide peer review to prove 1+1=2?

This is logical statistical theory and is inherent to analysis.

If it wasn't, separating a total population into different sub populations in order to explain (ie: reduce variation) in the "unexplainable" component of the total would make no sense whatsoever.

That's the problem, you exhibit a fundamental misunderstanding of the theory of evolution, hence my request for peer reviewed published data.

So, if you provide the citation, I'll get the publication.

shernren · Mar 5, 2008

BlueIceDragon said:
Does one need to provide peer review to prove 1+1=2?

Depends what space you're working in - in Z/2Z, 1 + 1 = 0. [/mathgeek pedant]

NathanCGreen · Mar 5, 2008

Molal said:
the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.

What!? LOL!
That's really funny in a way...
I was recently reading an issue of New Scientist and they always use speculation, not facts, when dealing with their hypothesis. They claimed evolution of trout in one instance as being 'helped' by man... but guess what? Their 'proof' was a simple resizing (shortening in this case) of the fish due to tightened water space restrictions. Pah! They don't cease to amaze me with their stupidity (or at least with their belief that people can be so gullible).

And you're still harping on about this evolution fairytale as being true? I think you belong in the 19th century or something, along with the rest of your buddies...

Wake up, mate.

BlueIceDragon · Mar 5, 2008

Molal said:
That's the problem, you exhibit a fundamental misunderstanding of the theory of evolution, hence my request for peer reviewed published data.

So, if you provide the citation, I'll get the publication.

A fundamental flaw huh?

My understanding of evolution was that it is a hypothesis of how the variety of species we observe today came into existance through breeding (cross-fertilisation) and mutations from higher ancestors. The hypothesis is that through the mixing of the genetic information new combinations are produced. These new combinations / species are then tested against the environment which acts as a 'suppressor' of bad combinations but allows the 'good combinations' to continue to reproduce.

If evolution somehow changed it's definition over the last 1000 years please do enlighten me.

It's A hypothesis of how the species came into existance, but it fails spectacularly:
a) to explain how the information in the DNA came into being in the first place
b) how the interpretor of the DNA came into being (if you look at this closely, you observe a circular argument because you need the interpretor to reproduce DNA yet you need information in the DNA to build the interpretor... go figure).
c) So many things need to evolve at the same time to be useful. For example, the complexity of the human body in regard to male plus female and the all the interactions which need to occur in exactly the right order for reproduction to happen simply would not happen by chance.

I don't really care if you want to say that because we see a jumbo jet you decide that a tornado swept through a junkyard and put it together rather than observing design in the nature of the jumbo jet and concluding someone (or something) built it.

Evolution is the most inefficient way of designing something known to man. This is because it is NOT a method of design, but rather a method of enabling adaptation. Adaptation is NOT evolution.

BlueIceDragon · Mar 5, 2008

You know... it's amazing that we manage to use language to communicate at all. I mean, in theory, we'd all use random combinations of letters and sounds and put them in random order until we ended up with something that managed to communicate something.

Perhaps that's how language was developed?

I can just see the 'cavemen' sitting in caves rubbing their armpits saying something like:
"Beep-boop-blip-blooop-grunt-umph-umph."
and
"grrrrrr-blip-blooop-eeeep-umph-umph."

Many times until they figured out how to say something to each other.

*rolls eyes*

BlueIceDragon · Mar 5, 2008

Another thing.

Let's take basic statistical resampling.

Take any distribution, for the sake of argument we'll take a normal distribution with some mean (1000) and a sampling standard deviation (500). This is our 'super frog' distribution. Mu_1 for example.

Now, take a number of samples from this distribution. This represents our 'populations' which correspond to the different varieties of super frogs. The green ones, the red ones, the one eyed ones, etc, etc. These correspond to our varieties which we resample from since these are the ones that are more likely to breed together. Before/as we breed we cull some of the worse frog specimens.

We end up with a population Mu_2 which consists of our next generation of frogs (NB they're still frogs). Mu_2 will by definition, because of the nature of resampling (culling, breeding etc), have less variation than the original Mu_1 sample.

This follows from statistical theory.

If you don't believe me, grab a statistician and ask them to produce some samples for you based on the resampling method I described above.

I'll prove it to you once I'm back at home with my statistical software. I refuse to use microsoft Excel (the only remotely useful package I have available at the moment) to prove anything statistical on principle.

Molal · Mar 5, 2008

NathanCGreen said:
What!? LOL!
That's really funny in a way...
I was recently reading an issue of New Scientist and they always use speculation, not facts, when dealing with their hypothesis. They claimed evolution of trout in one instance as being 'helped' by man... but guess what? Their 'proof' was a simple resizing (shortening in this case) of the fish due to tightened water space restrictions. Pah! They don't cease to amaze me with their stupidity (or at least with their belief that people can be so gullible).

And you're still harping on about this evolution fairytale as being true? I think you belong in the 19th century or something, along with the rest of your buddies...

Wake up, mate.

I receive NS every week - which issue was the article in? I'll check it out and pull their references.

But, you must remember NS is not a journal, it is a science magazine - it uses layman nomenclature to report new evidence, as such, it will never accurately portray scientific endeavour.

Molal · Mar 5, 2008

BlueIceDragon said:
A fundamental flaw huh?

My understanding of evolution was that it is a hypothesis of how the variety of species we observe today came into existance through breeding (cross-fertilisation) and mutations from higher ancestors. The hypothesis is that through the mixing of the genetic information new combinations are produced. These new combinations / species are then tested against the environment which acts as a 'suppressor' of bad combinations but allows the 'good combinations' to continue to reproduce.

If evolution somehow changed it's definition over the last 1000 years please do enlighten me.

It's A hypothesis of how the species came into existance, but it fails spectacularly:
a) to explain how the information in the DNA came into being in the first place
b) how the interpretor of the DNA came into being (if you look at this closely, you observe a circular argument because you need the interpretor to reproduce DNA yet you need information in the DNA to build the interpretor... go figure).
c) So many things need to evolve at the same time to be useful. For example, the complexity of the human body in regard to male plus female and the all the interactions which need to occur in exactly the right order for reproduction to happen simply would not happen by chance.

I don't really care if you want to say that because we see a jumbo jet you decide that a tornado swept through a junkyard and put it together rather than observing design in the nature of the jumbo jet and concluding someone (or something) built it.

Evolution is the most inefficient way of designing something known to man. This is because it is NOT a method of design, but rather a method of enabling adaptation. Adaptation is NOT evolution.

So, no citation for your assertion?

If you think you are right, then back it up.

Molal · Mar 5, 2008

Ok guys, it seems that this will just degrade into a mud slinging match.

We can agree to disagree; however, we are christians and we both know that through Christ, we attain eternity in heaven.

BlueIceDragon · Mar 5, 2008

Regarding dinosaurs:
http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/833

more important, take this quote:
"The feasibility of the idea that some dinosaurs may still be alive has a little more support, although at this time we would have to say it is not conclusive.

The fact, however, is that creationists are in a better position than evolutionists on these matters. Whether you consider the DNA aspect or the fresh dinosaur bones aspect, the evolutionary idea of millions of years does not look credible."

This isn't even the original paper I was looking for. I'm going to find it somewhere...

For a discussion on information see:
http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/5279

BlueIceDragon · Mar 5, 2008

Ok guys, it seems that this will just degrade into a mud slinging match.

We can agree to disagree; however, we are christians and we both know that through Christ, we attain eternity in heaven.

I agree with that at least.

I'll bow out of this... I shouldn't have tried to argue anything when I don't have access to all the journals etc I need to be able to cite.

Out of interest... what peer reviewed journals would you accept?

Evolution vs Creationism

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