Poll: Does the Theory of Evolution have practical applications?

[Speedwell]

I can't help it if this is the reason the ToE is so important to atheists. If atheists want to claim that the ToE is important because it is true, then let them explain how the Kishony and Lenski evolutionary experiments work using the ToE. Why does it take a billion replications or more for each evolutionary adaptive step in these evolutionary experiments?

Because they were looking for a specific mutation at a specific locus, not just an "evolutionary adaptive step."

 

[Alan Kleinman]

I know how evolution works, and I've seen myself how therapod dinosaurs, specifically those of the dromaeosauridae family, could have evolved into modern day birds through the similar if not identical layout of certain parts of their skeletons. It's not just one single line of evidence for evolution of prehistoric fish into modern mammals, it is multiple.
What you claim as irrational, I see incredulity on your part. Someone said it before on here (can't remember who) that even if the odds are 1,000,000,000 to 1, it only takes the change happening the once to get the necessary mutations going.

What you are not seeing is that these 1,000,000,000 to 1 events have to happen over and over. So, in Kishony's experiment, his 1st colony grows to a billion and a member of that colony gets a beneficial mutation which gives the first adaptive allele which allows that member to be the founder of a new colony in the lowest drug concentration region. When that new variant replicates another billion times, you get a second beneficial mutation on a member that already has the first beneficial mutation and another new adaptive allele. That member can migrate into the next higher drug concentration region, start a new colony and the beat goes on.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

What you are not seeing is that these 1,000,000,000 to 1 events have to happen over and over. So, in Kishony's experiment, his 1st colony grows to a billion and a member of that colony gets a beneficial mutation which gives the first adaptive allele which allows that member to be the founder of a new colony in the lowest drug concentration region. When that new variant replicates another billion times, you get a second beneficial mutation on a member that already has the first beneficial mutation and another new adaptive allele. That member can migrate into the next higher drug concentration region, start a new colony and the beat goes on.

Yes, they have to happen again and again, but the mutation only has to appear once and be passed down to future generations and that mutation is then set in the DNA. That's it done. The mutation only has to happen once.

 

[Alan Kleinman]

Because they were looking for a specific mutation at a specific locus, not just an "evolutionary adaptive step."

That specific mutation that occurs at the specific locus is what gives improved fitness and is the evolutionary adaptive step. And the frequency of that occurring depends on the mutation rate and the number of replications of that particular variant.

 

[pitabread]

I can't help it if this is the reason the ToE is so important to atheists.

If you're talking about desire to avoid accountability re: divine providence, that has absolutely nothing to do with the ToE. I've found this is just projection on the part of creationists.

If you want to find out why atheists believe what they believe, the best thing to do is just ask them.

If atheists want to claim that the ToE is important because it is true, then let them explain how the Kishony and Lenski evolutionary experiments work using the ToE. Why does it take a billion replications or more for each evolutionary adaptive step in these evolutionary experiments?

This might surprise you, but matters of science is not an atheism vs theism thing.

 

[Alan Kleinman]

Yes, they have to happen again and again, but the mutation only has to appear once and be passed down to future generations and that mutation is then set in the DNA. That's it done. The mutation only has to happen once.

Sure, for a single adaptive evolutionary step. Then that new variant has to be able to replicate a billion times to have a reasonable probability of taking another single adaptive evolutionary step (and that's under the best of circumstances). The numbers only get worse if the population has to evolve to multiple selection pressures simultaneously.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Sure, for a single adaptive evolutionary step. Then that new variant has to be able to replicate a billion times to have a reasonable probability of taking another single adaptive evolutionary step (and that's under the best of circumstances). The numbers only get worse if the population has to evolve to multiple selection pressures simultaneously.

I know that big numbers make everything sound near enough impossible. But the mutation only has to happen once, each time, for it to be passed down. It might not happen right away, but it will happen.

Again, just because you can't see it being possible does not mean that it isn't possible.

 

[Alan Kleinman]

If you're talking about desire to avoid accountability re: divine providence, that has absolutely nothing to do with the ToE. I've found this is just projection on the part of creationists.

If you want to find out why atheists believe what they believe, the best thing to do is just ask them.

Feel free to tell us what atheists believe. I hope this is better than what atheists have explained to us about the Kishony and Lenski experiments, and the evolution of drug resistance.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Feel free to tell us what atheists believe. I hope this is better than what atheists have explained to us about the Kishony and Lenski experiments, and the evolution of drug resistance.

You've not really shown us a Christian explaining the experiments, or even why there needs to be an atheist/Christian divide on the experiments and the evolution of drug resistance.

 

[Speedwell]

The only probability that matters to evolution is the probability that a mutation will change the morphology of a creature in any way that will make it marginally more likely to survive and reproduce. That probability is actually favorable. If you are looking for a specific change then the odds, of course, will be much longer. If you are looking back over a specific change which required a series of specific mutations, the odds are so long as to make it seem impossible. But evolution doesn't do specific changes, so it works.

 

[Alan Kleinman]

I know that big numbers make everything sound near enough impossible. But the mutation only has to happen once, each time, for it to be passed down. It might not happen right away, but it will happen.

Again, just because you can't see it being possible does not mean that it isn't possible.

So the ToE is true because anything is possible? I think I'll stick with the physics and math thing.

 

[pitabread]

Feel free to tell us what atheists believe.

Not being an atheist, I wouldn't even try. Ask them.

 

[Alan Kleinman]

You've not really shown us a Christian explaining the experiments, or even why there needs to be an atheist/Christian divide on the experiments and the evolution of drug resistance.

You won't read my papers, I can't help that. And some people just won't accept the mathematical facts of life.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

So the ToE is true because anything is possible? I think I'll stick with the physics and math thing.

@Speedwell just said it rather well:

If you are looking for a specific change then the odds, of course, will be much longer. If you are looking back over a specific change which required a series of specific mutations, the odds are so long as to make it seem impossible. But evolution doesn't do specific changes, so it works.

You are looking at everything through a post hoc lense, so of course the odds are going to look outrageous. But, as I have said, the mutation only needs to happen once in the evolution of a mutation for the mutation to stick.
Everything only has to happen once for it work.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

You won't read my papers, I can't help that. And some people just won't accept the mathematical facts of life.

So you think that your papers are a Christian perspective on the Lenski and Kishony experiments?

 

[pitabread]

You need to explain why when doing the calculation of a random process that it matters when that random process occurs.

Because if you're doing a probability calculation on a post-hoc event, the probability is largely meaningless given the event has already occurred.

Doubly so if you're talking about things like the evolutionary origins of mammals or birds or whatever. There is simply no way to have all the information for all potential variables to even prepare such a probability calculation and no way to to know the probability space of potential outcomes.

Thus any claims that probabilities somehow rule out the evolutionary origins of mammals, birds, etc, is just nonsensical.

It's just a gross misuse and misunderstanding of the whole point of probabilities.

 

[Speedwell]

So the ToE is true because anything is possible? I think I'll stick with the physics and math thing.

No, the ToE is true because while the odds against any specific favorable evolutionary outcome are long (which is what you appear to be attempting to show us) the odds of some kind of favorable outcome are much more promising.

 

[Alan Kleinman]

@Speedwell just said it rather well:


You are looking at everything through a post hoc lense, so of course the odds are going to look outrageous. But, as I have said, the mutation only needs to happen once in the evolution of a mutation for the mutation to stick.
Everything only has to happen once for it work.

So you think that probabilities change whether the calculation is done before or after the random experiment occurs? Why don't you show us how that math works?

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

So you think that probabilities change whether the calculation is done before or after the random experiment occurs? Why don't you show us how that math works?

Did you even read what I or Speedwell wrote?

 

[Alan Kleinman]

Because if you're doing a probability calculation on a post-hoc event, the probability is largely meaningless given the event has already occurred.

Doubly so if you're talking about things like the evolutionary origins of mammals or birds or whatever. There is simply no way to have all the information for all potential variables to even prepare such a probability calculation and no way to to know the probability space of potential outcomes.

Thus any claims that probabilities somehow rule out the evolutionary origins of mammals, birds, etc, is just nonsensical.

It's just a gross misuse and misunderstanding of the whole point of probabilities.

You are confusing an outcome and a probability.