the self replicating watch argument

xianghua · Jan 8, 2018

FrumiousBandersnatch said:
Here you go - A Pessimistic Estimate for the Evolution of an Eye.

Given some rather pessimistic assumptions (detailed in the paper), they calculate 362,993 generations, where the morphological (structural) change per generation is 0.005% (given a heritability of 0.5, a low selection intensity of 0.01, and a low coefficient of variation of 0.01).

Given a pessimistic generation length of 1 year, by this model it would take less than 364,000 years to evolve a camera eye from an eye-patch (e.g. an eye spot) - not even assuming parallel development of features.

As has been mentioned, the number of mutations per se is not readily calculable for such complex biological systems due to the number of possible paths, the influence of population size, mutation rates, variability, heritability, selection pressure, etc.

1) your link is broken but i think that i already seen this paper before.
2) they start with a functional eye and go from there. so they dont answer the question how the first eye evolved.
3) they only assume its possible to move from a simple eye to a more complex one. they dont prove it.
4) they ignore the irreducible complexity problem. for instance: they add a lense in one step. but in reality a lense is very complex structure and you cant get it just by a single mutation.

(image from Lens – anatomy and physiology)

xianghua · Jan 8, 2018

Kylie said:
Evolution doesn't create new parts from nothing. it takes what is there and modifies them.

the hearing system is a new system that can detect and process a sound wave. so the hearing system has several new parts. of course they didnt evolved from nothing (a straw man) but they has many new traits.

Ophiolite · Jan 8, 2018

xianghua said:
the hearing system is a new system that can detect and process a sound wave. so the hearing system has several new parts. of course they didnt evolved from nothing (a straw man) but they has many new traits.

That's why we call it evolution!

xianghua · Jan 8, 2018

PsychoSarah said:
Thus, this makes not only for strong evidence that a complex biological system can evolve stepwise, but it's an example that can be replicated. E. coli Long-term Experimental Evolution Project Site

actually all the genes to digest citrate are already present in the genome of the bacteria. as you can see in the image below, all we need is to move the citT gene near to the rnk promoter, so now the bacteria can digest citrate when oxygen is present:

so no- there is no evidence for evolution of a complex system here. as we can expect under the design model.

(image from E. coli long-term evolution experiment - Wikipedia)

FrumiousBandersnatch · Jan 8, 2018

Ophiolite said:
Remember that the more important audience for these points is not, generally, the person you are replying to, but the lurker who reads both arguments. One hopes - and I have this confirmed by conversations on other forums - that some, with open minds, are thereby made familiar with the power of the scientific method and the overwhelming support for evolutionary theory.

Yes, and it's also worth remembering that other contributors may find the information useful - I've learned a lot from links and explanations posted here - even from anti-science and/or creationist contributors (though in a different way).

FrumiousBandersnatch · Jan 8, 2018

xianghua said:
not according to wiki definition:

Olfaction - Wikipedia

"olfactory is a chemoreception that forms the sense of smell"

How does that contradict what I said? Chemoreception is how cells detect chemicals in their environment; a sense of smell is, broadly, the capacity for chemoreception.

Incidentally, when you put text in quotes under a hypertext link, it's expected that the text in quotes comes from that link. Your quoted text is ungrammatical gibberish that doesn't appear at that link.

Copy & paste is a good way to avoid misquotes.

Kylie · Jan 8, 2018

xianghua said:
the hearing system is a new system that can detect and process a sound wave. so the hearing system has several new parts. of course they didnt evolved from nothing (a straw man) but they has many new traits.

Except that we have fairly good examples of how ears evolved...

Evolution of mammalian auditory ossicles - Wikipedia

You really must do your research.

FrumiousBandersnatch · Jan 8, 2018

xianghua said:
1) your link is broken but i think that i already seen this paper before.

Sorry about that, I've fixed now, and here it is: A Pessimistic Estimate of the Time Required for an Eye to Evolve.

2) they start with a functional eye and go from there. so they dont answer the question how the first eye evolved.

No; the question they're answering is how long a camera-like eye takes to evolve (even irreducible complexity advocates can see that an eye spot isn't irreducibly complex). As I said in the post, they start with an eye spot or patch (Stage 1 here). See Light & the Evolution of Vision for more details and references.

3) they only assume its possible to move from a simple eye to a more complex one. they dont prove it.

They describe the proposed (commonly accepted most likely) route from eye spot to camera-like eye (p.54); there's nothing there that can't be done by successive modification with selective advantage at each stage - all the significant stages can be seen in contemporary creatures. Very little can be 'proved' about past events; all that is necessary is to show that a plausible description or explanation is possible.

4) they ignore the irreducible complexity problem. for instance: they add a lense in one step. but in reality a lense is very complex structure and you cant get it just by a single mutation.

There is no irreducible complexity problem for the eye, as has been shown many times; for example, Evolution of the Simple Camera Eye. No, they don't add a lens in one step (as can be seen in Figure 2 in the paper); I told you earlier they used a morphological (structural) change-per-generation of 0.005%. Also, a lens doesn't have to be complex. If you'd read the paper properly, you'd see the lens they propose.

xianghua · Jan 9, 2018

Kylie said:
Except that we have fairly good examples of how ears evolved...

Evolution of mammalian auditory ossicles - Wikipedia

You really must do your research.

incorrect. the same problem with the eye example i will discuss below.

xianghua · Jan 9, 2018

FrumiousBandersnatch said:
No; the question they're answering is how long a camera-like eye takes to evolve (even irreducible complexity advocates can see that an eye spot isn't irreducibly complex).

eyespot is a very complex system. even your own link mention this:

"The problem here is that even as far back as the prokaryotes the complex seven transmembrane domain arrangement of opsin molecules seems to prevail without simpler photoreceptors existing concurrently. Darwin’s original puzzle over ocular evolution seems still to be with us but now at a molecular level"

FrumiousBandersnatch said:
No, they don't add a lens in one step

yes they are, in stage 6 a minimal lens appeared at once:

"In stages 6-8 a graded-index lens appears by a local increase in refractive index."

the problem is that the lens structure contain many proteins:

The membrane proteome of the mouse lens fiber cell. - PubMed - NCBI

Biological glass: structural determinants of eye lens transparency

do you have any evidence for a simple lens? i dont think so.

so bottom line:

1) they cant show how the first eye evolved in the first place.
2) they cant show how a simple eye can become more complex.

PsychoSarah · Jan 9, 2018

xianghua said:
actually all the genes to digest citrate are already present in the genome of the bacteria. as you can see in the image below, all we need is to move the citT gene near to the rnk promoter, so now the bacteria can digest citrate when oxygen is present:

so no- there is no evidence for evolution of a complex system here. as we can expect under the design model.

(image from E. coli long-term evolution experiment - Wikipedia)

Why, if you are going to treat Wikipedia as a reliable source, gosh darn it, you better read it.

"This led the researchers to conclude that there had been at least two potentiating mutations involved in Cit+ evolution."

As well as:
"Movement of this rnk-citT module into the genome of a potentiated Cit− clone was shown to be sufficient to produce a Cit+ phenotype. However, the initial Cit+ phenotype conferred by the duplication was very weak, and only granted a ~1% fitness benefit. The researchers found that the number of copies of the rnk-citT module had to be increased to strengthen the Cit+ trait sufficiently to permit the bacteria to grow well on the citrate. Further mutations after the Cit+ bacteria became dominant in the population continued to accumulate improved growth on citrate.

The researchers concluded that the evolution of the Cit+ trait occurred in three distinct phases in which mutations accumulated that increased the rate of mutation to Cit+, the trait itself appeared in a weak form, and, finally, the trait was improved by later mutations."

That is, simply having a copy of the gene in a different location than typical was not enough to make these bacteria thrive on citrate. Multiple mutations contributed to this.

xianghua · Jan 9, 2018

PsychoSarah said:
That is, simply having a copy of the gene in a different location than typical was not enough to make these bacteria thrive on citrate. Multiple mutations contributed to this.

sure. why not? we just need one mutation to move it to the new location (near the rnk promoter)and one more mutation to reactivate or improve it. no new complex structue or function. just existing part that turn on in a new place in the genome.

FrumiousBandersnatch · Jan 9, 2018

xianghua said:
... in stage 6 a minimal lens appeared at once:

"In stages 6-8 a graded-index lens appears by a local increase in refractive index."

Those are simply development stages, like the stages we use to describe human development, e.g. neonate, baby, toddler, child, youth, young adult, adult, etc. The development is a continuum, there is no jump between stages.

the problem is that the lens structure contain many proteins:

The membrane proteome of the mouse lens fiber cell. - PubMed - NCBI

Biological glass: structural determinants of eye lens transparency

do you have any evidence for a simple lens? i dont think so.

You can't compare the results of a billion years of evolution with the earliest lenses. All they needed was a gradual increase in refractive index. Most eventually came to use crystallins, but sourced in many different ways. See Inside the Eye.

National Geographic said:
... Take lenses. Almost all of them are made from proteins called crystallins, which improve their owners’ vision by focusing light onto underlying photoreceptors. But unlike opsins, with their single dynasty, crystallins are unified by name only. Yours are unrelated to those of a squid or a fly. Different animal groups have independently evolved their own brand of crystallins by co-opting proteins that had very different jobs, unrelated to vision: Some broke down alcohol; others dealt with stress. But all were stable, easy to pack, and capable of bending light—perfect for making lenses.

The weirdest lenses in nature don’t have crystallins at all. They belong to chitons—a group of marine mollusks that look like ovals adorned with armored plates. These plates are dotted with hundreds of small stage-three eyes, each with its own lens. The lenses are made of a mineral called aragonite, which the chitons assemble from calcium and carbonate molecules in seawater.

xianghua · Jan 9, 2018

FrumiousBandersnatch said:
The development is a continuum, there is no jump between stages.

no. as i said: you cant just add a lens by a single mutation. as you cant add a lens to a camera by a single step. you will need at least several matches changes to make it work.

FrumiousBandersnatch · Jan 9, 2018

xianghua said:
no. as i said: you cant just add a lens by a single mutation. as you cant add a lens to a camera by a single step. you will need at least several matches changes to make it work.

That's right; it doesn't happen in one big step, it takes a lot of small steps - many mutations over many generations (remember, roughly 364,000 generations for the whole eye).

xianghua · Jan 9, 2018

FrumiousBandersnatch said:
That's right; it doesn't happen in one big step, it takes a lot of small steps - many mutations over many generations (remember, roughly 364,000 generations for the whole eye).

but you need a big step in many steps, since it cant be functional otherwise.

Speedwell · Jan 9, 2018

xianghua said:
but you need a big step in many steps, since it cant be functional otherwise.

The parallel evolution of related systems is not a problem--as has been explained to you numerous times.

Kylie · Jan 9, 2018

xianghua said:
but you need a big step in many steps, since it cant be functional otherwise.

Citation required.

FrumiousBandersnatch · Jan 10, 2018

xianghua said:
but you need a big step in many steps, since it cant be functional otherwise.

No; taking the lens as an example, an eye pit without a lens is functional - it can determine the direction of light pretty well, but only the direction. But if the top layer becomes marginally more refractive, the eye becomes slightly better - the incident light is partially focused, so what was just light & dark becomes blurred shapes. The more the refractive index of the upper layers increases, the more sharp the focus on the light-sensitive base, and the better the eye becomes.

However, if the refractive index increases in the whole eye or just the lower part of the eye, the focus is not as good as when it only increases in the upper eye, so those variants aren't as successful.

When the first primitive eyes were developing (e.g. in the well-lit shallow waters of the pre-Cambrian coastal shelves), a slightly better eye would be a huge advantage to a prey animal in avoiding predators and a huge advantage to a predator seeking prey, so there would be very strong selective pressures for better eyes, causing an '~~arms~~ eyes race' to develop between predator and prey populations.

xianghua · Jan 10, 2018

FrumiousBandersnatch said:
But if the top layer becomes marginally more refractive, the eye becomes slightly better

sure. but can you show how many mutations need to make this first change?

the self replicating watch argument

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Recalcitrant Procrastinating Ape

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Defeater of Illogic

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Chaotic Neutral

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Defeater of Illogic

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Similar threads

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency