Some things I just don't think most of you understand...

[Loudmouth]

You want proof for punctuated evolution? It is up to people like Gould, Eldredge and others to present the evidence or proof for their theory. Are you rejecting the theory of punctuated evolution? If so then what model are you using?

You do realize that Punctuated Equilibrium is completely consistent with the theory of evolution, right? PE is fueled by the mechanisms of mutation, selection, and speciation just as the theory has stated since the 1940's when the Modern Synthesis came together. Even Darwin described PE in "The Origin of Species":

"Only a small portion of the world has been geologically explored. Only organic beings of certain classes can be preserved in a fossil condition, at least in any great number. Widely ranging species vary most, and varieties are often at first local, -- both causes rendering the discovery of intermediate links less likely. Local varieties will not spread into other and distant regions until they are considerably modified and improved; and when they do spread, if discovered in a geological formation, they will appear as if suddenly created there, and will be simply classed as new species." [Charles Darwin, Origin of Species 1st Edition 1859, p.439]

That is Punctuated Equilibrium. Eldredge and Gould just fleshed out the idea with current understandings of modes of speciation and population genetics.

 

[Loudmouth]

There is a lot of truth mixed in with a lot of error. Evolution does not have any practical application so there is no pressure to keep them honest.

PLoS Comput Biol. 2005 Oct;1(5):e45. Epub 2005 Oct 7.

Protein molecular function prediction by Bayesian phylogenomics.

Engelhardt BE1, Jordan MI, Muratore KE, Brenner SE.

We present a statistical graphical model to infer specific molecular function for unannotated protein sequences using homology. Based on phylogenomic principles, SIFTER (Statistical Inference of Function Through Evolutionary Relationships) accurately predicts molecular function for members of a protein family given a reconciled phylogeny and available function annotations, even when the data are sparse or noisy. Our method produced specific and consistent molecular function predictions across 100 Pfam families in comparison to the Gene Ontology annotation database, BLAST, GOtcha, and Orthostrapper. We performed a more detailed exploration of functional predictions on the adenosine-5'-monophosphate/adenosine deaminase family and the lactate/malate dehydrogenase family, in the former case comparing the predictions against a gold standard set of published functional characterizations. Given function annotations for 3% of the proteins in the deaminase family, SIFTER achieves 96% accuracy in predicting molecular function for experimentally characterized proteins as reported in the literature. The accuracy of SIFTER on this dataset is a significant improvement over other currently available methods such as BLAST (75%), GeneQuiz (64%), GOtcha (89%), and Orthostrapper (11%). We also experimentally characterized the adenosine deaminase from Plasmodium falciparum, confirming SIFTER's prediction. The results illustrate the predictive power of exploiting a statistical model of function evolution in phylogenomic problems. A software implementation of SIFTER is available from the authors.

Will you admit that you are wrong?

 

[Loudmouth]

Your evidence is nonsense. You have presented not one speck of valid evidence that mutations can bring about positive evolutionary changes.

Are you going to address the evidence that I presented?

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Yes.

The is exactly what eventually happens if the survival advantage is selected for.

Yah right, we have how many billions of people on the planet, and you expect me to belief that Bob's descendants are going to become the sole population? He or his descendants won't even make a dent in it over 10 million years. But, since the entire population came from two individuals, we expect to see those shared similarities amongst all of their descendants today - and dissimilarities as new dominant and recessive traits are introduced in family lines when genes are combined during mating. So unless you are going to accept HGT as a mechanism, then only if the population is two, or an incredibly small number, will the same genes be passed down.

***

Of course you do. It agrees with what you believe. I wouldn't expect you to do otherwise. Others, though, choose to have the evidence inform their worldview.
So cut the crap, cut the pseudo-science (which is making you sound like a bull***t cannon, flinging verbal diarrhea around) and have the guts to stand up and just say that you believe on 'faith'. (Which, as you're a christian, is the one word I've not seen you use.)

As evolutionist are famous for. You need to cut the pseudo-science - such as finches that have been interbreeding and producing fertile offspring since they arrived on the islands undergoing speciation and are separate species.

So do you got the guts to defend that false claim, or are you just gonna ask us to take it on faith????

 

[joshua 1 9]

If wikipedia says it's true...

Wiki complys with the gold plated standard of peer review. As you point out that may not be a standard for truth, but it is a standard for what is accepted by general agreement.

 

[bhsmte]

Are you going to address the evidence that I presented?

Doesn't look like it.

 

[Loudmouth]

Yah right, we have how many billions of people on the planet, and you expect me to belief that Bob's descendants are going to become the sole population? He or his descendants won't even make a dent in it over 10 million years.

Population genetics says otherwise. It is no different than the lottery where everyone has a very poor chance at winning, yet people win the lottery all of the time.

But, since the entire population came from two individuals, we expect to see those shared similarities amongst all of their descendants today - and dissimilarities as new dominant and recessive traits are introduced in family lines when genes are combined during mating. So unless you are going to accept HGT as a mechanism, then only if the population is two, or an incredibly small number, will the same genes be passed down.

We would expect the same results from a steady population of humans.

The odds of any allele reaching fixation is 1/2n, where n is the population size.

"For a diploid population of size N and neutral mutation rate

, the initial frequency of a novel mutation is simply 1/(2N), and the number of new mutations per generation is

. Since the fixation rate is the rate of novel neutral mutation multiplied by their probability of fixation, the overall fixation rate is

. Thus, the rate of fixation for a mutation not subject to selection is simply the rate of introduction of such mutations."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixation_(population_genetics)

 

[joshua 1 9]

Are you going to address the evidence that I presented?

What evidence, what post are you referring to? I come on here and there are often 10 or 12 posts people are wanting me to respond to.

 

[joshua 1 9]

stand up and just say that you believe on 'faith'.

There is human faith, often called positive thinking or the power of suggestion. Then there is God's Faith working in us. If you do not know God then I would expect all you know is the power of suggestion and what people are able to do apart from God.

 

[joshua 1 9]

Again, the majority of Christians, agree with the theory of evolution and what it states about how life evolved.

That is good if the majority feel there is no conflict between religion and science. Young people have enough to deal with now a days without having to worry about a supposed conflict that does not exist. My son is going to spend half the day at the high school and the other half at the college. So I am sure we have an interesting year ahead of us.

 

[joshua 1 9]

staff edit

I remember when I was out on the hiking jogging trails. So many people had earphones stuck in their ear. I presume to listen to music. Yet I could hear all the music of nature. The birds sing, the wind blows, the river flows. I could not understand why they did not hear the music in nature. Perhaps it was just noise to them.

 

[Loudmouth]

What evidence, what post are you referring to? I come on here and there are often 10 or 12 posts people are wanting me to respond to.

Post 108. The first thing you need to address is the emergence of antibiotic resistance in the plate replica paper written by the Lederbergs. In that experiment, they start with a single bacterium that is antibiotic susceptible. Later, only 1 in several million or billion bacteria from that single ancestor is resistant. I also gave you a paper that outlined the specific DNA mutations that give rise to streptomycin resistance, the type of resistance that the Lederberg's studied.

 

[joshua 1 9]

No practical application to the theory of evolution?

Why don't you ask the professionals who work in medical science and the Phd biologists, how they use the theory in their everyday work.

That is exactly what I am talking about. There is no practical application when it comes to diet and heart disease or any other disease really that I am aware of.

By all means enlighten me. What does the theory of evolution contribute to the discussion of what is the best diet or treatment for diabetes, cancer, heart disease or another other contribution you feel that the theory makes.

Let me give you an example. A good friend of mine was doing research on fetal lung development. I asked him what Darwin's theory contributed to his March of Dimes research and he said nothing. He did not even believe in the theory and though it was nonsense that people make much ado out of nothing. But his Phd was in Anthropology so maybe it would be different if he was a Biologist. Like most people he wanted to avoid the controversy and stay out of the discussion because it was pretty much a waste of time as far as he was concerned.

 

[joshua 1 9]

address is the emergence of antibiotic resistance

My mom was a bacteriologist so I was just going by what she taught me when I was growing up. Of course that was a long long time ago so things may have changed sense back then. When I was in High School "The Double Helix" had just been written and DNA was a rather new discovery. The Biology books back then talked a lot about Mendel's work.

 

[Loudmouth]

That is exactly what I am talking about. There is no practical application when it comes to diet and heart disease or any other disease really that I am aware of.

So you have an argument from ignorance, then?

By all means enlighten me. What does the theory of evolution contribute to the discussion of what is the best diet or treatment for diabetes, cancer, heart disease or another other contribution you feel that the theory makes.

"The Citation of “Evolution in Action” as Science's 2005 Breakthrough of the Year confirms that evolution is the vibrant foundation for all biology. Its contributions to understanding infectious disease and genetics are widely recognized, but its full potential for use in medicine has yet to be realized. Some insights have immediate clinical applications, but most are fundamental, as is the case in other basic sciences. Simply put, training in evolutionary thinking can help both biomedical researchers and clinicians ask useful questions that they might not otherwise pose."
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/311/5764/1071.short

Yet another paper lists tons of different tests based on evolution that can be used to find potential disease markers:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/311/5764/1071.short

This is also tied in with the work sfs has done, looking at signatures of recent selection within the human genome. With so many different genomes being sequenced at such a fast rate, evolution is the tool of the future in biomedical research.

Let me give you an example. A good friend of mine was doing research on fetal lung development. I asked him what Darwin's theory contributed to his March of Dimes research and he said nothing. He did not even believe in the theory and though it was nonsense that people make much ado out of nothing. But his Phd was in Anthropology so maybe it would be different if he was a Biologist. Like most people he wanted to avoid the controversy and stay out of the discussion because it was pretty much a waste of time as far as he was concerned.

99.9% of biologists disagree.

 

[joshua 1 9]

credibility

So you have an argument from ignorance, then?

Then I am sure it is no loss to you if I ignore your questions.

 

[The Cadet]

Yah right, we have how many billions of people on the planet, and you expect me to belief that Bob's descendants are going to become the sole population?

Steve, who also lives around the same time, will also become the progenitor of all of humanity. So will Alex, also part of the same generation as Steve and Bob. And James, and Peter, and Ezra, and all sorts of other people. This is what you're missing - while there is just one most recent human common ancestor, there are a very large number of universal human common ancestors. It's not that one pair is the sole ancestor of every human alive so much that the family tree is incestuous to the point where a great many pairs necessarily must have been directly ancestral to every human alive today. Indeed, for the people living something like 5,000 years ago, they necessarily belong to at least one of these three groups:
A) The direct ancestor of every human alive today
B) The direct ancestor of no human alive today
C) A member of an extremely isolated group

Did you read the Genealogy paper I cited earlier? Or the other genealogy paper I cited? Or anything about Genealogy? It seems a little silly at this point to continue to reply with incredulity to well-established science.

I remember when I was out on the hiking jogging trails. So many people had earphones stuck in their ear. I presume to listen to music. Yet I could hear all the music of nature. The birds sing, the wind blows, the river flows. I could not understand why they did not hear the music in nature. Perhaps it was just noise to them.

It's harder to use that music to ignore the pains in your leg. "Painkiller" by Judas Priest, on the other hand, makes you feel awesome.

 

[Gene2memE]

It's harder to use that music to ignore the pains in your leg. "Painkiller" by Judas Priest, on the other hand, makes you feel awesome.

As an amateur triathlete, I find podcasts to be the best thing. That way I can exercise my brain and my body at the same time. Its win-win!

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Steve, who also lives around the same time, will also become the progenitor of all of humanity. So will Alex, also part of the same generation as Steve and Bob. And James, and Peter, and Ezra, and all sorts of other people.

No, Bob's genes will never become part of Alex's genes, unless Alex's descendant's mate with Bob's descendant's. Your scenario works only when there are less than a population of 50 or so. Once the population increases beyond this - any mutation that occurs in one lineage will NEVER become set in the population.

This is what you're missing - while there is just one most recent human common ancestor, there are a very large number of universal human common ancestors. It's not that one pair is the sole ancestor of every human alive so much that the family tree is incestuous to the point where a great many pairs necessarily must have been directly ancestral to every human alive today. Indeed, for the people living something like 5,000 years ago, they necessarily belong to at least one of these three groups:
A) The direct ancestor of every human alive today
B) The direct ancestor of no human alive today
C) A member of an extremely isolated group

This is what you are missing - that there can be no large numbers of universal ancestors. If the population is large - Bob's genes will never become part of the general population. Bob's descendants will never mate with the entire population to spread his genes to them, if the population starts with greater than 50 individuals.

Indeed, for people living 5,000 years ago there is no sense discussing it since they became extinct during the flood and the population started from 8 individuals - which is why all humans share a common genetic lineage (beyond that of Adam and Eve) - the only differences are the variations possible within the genome for each distinct group as they began to migrate and became isolated.

You know - all Asians remain Asian - despite the variations within that breed. All Africans remain African - despite the variations within that breed. Only when Asian mates with African does a new breed come into existence. There is no purpose at all to speculate anything different - since we have never observed anything different. The empirical evidence shows you that all is in stasis until breed mates with breed and produces that variation. This is what is wrong with your entire classification system of the fossil record. You list every fossil found that is slightly different as a separate species - despite the empirical evidence that variations within a species are merely different breeds. There is no other observations of the natural world that fit any other interpretation.

These are NOT separate species, they are different breeds of the same species:

And as actual study of bone growth in fossils also showed you they classified babies and adults of the same species incorrectly.

You are basing all of your assumptions on the incorrect classification of the fossil record - including incorrectly classifying human ancestors.


Have you even bothered to study the science of bone growth? Has any paleontologist except Jack Horner actually cut apart those precious bones to study them? No, you just continue with the same beliefs already falsified because you don't want to consider the truth, that 80% of the fossil record has been incorrectly classified all in their rush to get their names in the books as the discoverer of a new species.

And we have yet to apply the observational fact of breeds within a species - raising that number from 80% to 98%. This is also why you run from discussing those Finches - because you know I am right. That they rushed to get their names in the books as the discoverer of a new species and in an attempt to prove speciation. When the direct empirical evidence should tell you they are all merely different breeds of the same species. Interbreeding and producing fertile offspring since the moment they arrived on the islands. Speciation never occurred - just what we observe empirically in the natural world - breed mating with breed producing new breeds within the species.

 

[joshua 1 9]

You know - all Asians remain Asian - despite the variations within that breed.

What is an Asian? 90% of China belongs to the Hans family so they are pretty consistent, but many of the others from Asia are mostly a mixture.