Where did the laws of nature come from?

[stevevw]

Now you're trying to convince yourself that the people who explained these papers to you in the first place are denying what the papers are saying? I'll add a citation needed to this claim as well. They're really starting to stack up.

They would stack up if you wanted a citation for something that is not needed. All you have to do is go back through the early posts. But then if you are implying that people are agreeing with the papers then thats another thing and I wont argue with that.

This has been explained to you multiple times. The authors feel that the role of various factors driving evolution are understated in current thinking. Nothing do you with natural selection being negligible

Then why after also explaining multiple times does it say that natural selection is negligible when it comes to evolving gene networks, gene architecture, development pathways, and cellular networks. That must apply at least to certain situations as you have agreed already. Those certain situations you are talking about are how all multicultural life came about and in populations where gene complexity increases which is basically all populations.

Non adaptive forces like genetic drift work against natural selection. The mechanisms they are talking about are how creatures/organisms gain the complex networks which build body parts and systems. They cannot exist without the gene architecture in the first place. One paper in particular states that natural selection is a hindrance for building gene networks.

It would be a bit more convincing that this supported your claims about natural selection if it mentioned selection being negligible. For some reason it doesn't.

Are you kidding , I have posted that many times. IE,

many aspects of genomic, cellular, and developmental evolution can only be understood by invoking a negligible level of adaptive involvement, (natural selection) emphasis added

You continue to confuse complexity as a thing in itself with the success of complex life.

And you keep confusing natural selection with the success of complex life. The point is that complexity is the building blocks for that complex or multi-celled life. Doesn't the paper question natural selections ability for being able to evolve all complex life in the first place and the further evolution of complex life in population genetics which basically covers a lot of how life evolves. If natural selection was unable to evolve complex life to begin with which would entail building complex genetic networks and structures to establish that life then that is a big part missing out of evolution in what many say natural selection was capable and responsible for.

If natural selection is also insufficient and negligible for further evolution of complex gene structures in populations which is basically what evolution claims creates new features. IE evolution works in populations and not individuals. So if natural selection is being questioned for the increased complexity of the very gene architecture that builds new body parts/features in those populations then isn't that a fair slice of the process of evolution and how life evolves.

Remember that all multi-celled life is already complex so the paper is saying that natural selection will actually be a set back to that finely tuned complexity because it allows the introduction of unstable deleterious mutations and the possibility of undermining those well defined and optimal structures. So if there is any role for natural selection it is after complex life has formed those specific structures and then it may refine things further by working at the edges as changes to those already well defined structures will be detrimental to survival.

This fits in with other tests that have shown that mutations are mostly negative and many so called new info or function is actually a loss of what was already good and well defined. It supports what Lynch said in his paper about multi-celled life having more deleterious mutations, and extinction events from already being subject to natural selection. We have seen this with how life is accumulating more negative mutations.

This also works in well with events like the Cambrian explosion which show a vast amount of complex life with many different varieties that stem from many different branches for what evolution claims fits the tree of life. How does that level of complex life come about virtually out of nowhere not just from one branch but form many branches without any trace for where they come from. It points more towards a high level of complexity being available and didn't need to evolve gradually through adaptations.

It also fits better for explaining things like convergent evolution. The current theory has to rely on extraordinary coincidence to explain how many creatures are showing similar features across distantly related life. Non adaptive processes explains that all life develops along biased paths and are not subject to adaptive forces which rely on many possibilities which make it near impossible to keep repeating the same thing in a blind process.

There are cases of distantly related creatures having similarities right down to their genetic info that occupied different environments which contradicts evolution. Darwin's theory has to keep coming up with special reasons why these things happen and revert them back to special cases or unimportant consequences of evolution. Now we are seeing these things are the actual causes of how life evolves and develops. The evidence for non adaptive forces fits what is being discovered not just in specific areas but across the board.

 

[KCfromNC]

What do you mean by citation, this was something said by posters.

Then you'll have no problem showing us that is actually the case.

 

[KCfromNC]

They would stack up if you wanted a citation for something that is not needed. All you have to do is go back through the early posts.

If you can't be bothered to back up what you're saying I'm certainly not going to waste my time on it.

Then why after also explaining multiple times does it say that natural selection is negligible when it comes to evolving gene networks, gene architecture, development pathways, and cellular networks.

This has already been explained to you multiple times. If you're interested, "All you have to do is go back through the early posts."

many aspects of genomic, cellular, and developmental evolution can only be understood by invoking a negligible level of adaptive involvement, (natural selection) emphasis added

For some reason it doesn't list "how life changes and develops" as one of the areas where natural selection is negligible. Don't forget, that's the claim that you're trying to support here.

And you keep confusing natural selection with the success of complex life.

Please quote where I've done this.

Snipped a bunch of stuff which doesn't have anything to do with the claim that natural selection is negligible in how life changes and develops. These are all wonderful hypotheticals, but the fact is you're trying to support that claim using papers which say things like natural selection is one of the major forces driving evolution. You're going to have to do better than that if you want to convince anyone you've found a fatal flaw in neo-Darwinism.

 

[RealityCheck01]

Nothing in the last week or so except persisting with not understanding your sources, stevevw, and even what looks like a lie with "First off its not my claim, the papers say that natural selection is negligible." because you have never cited any source that states that.

For example what you quote mined from Lynch's paper was an explicit statement that natural selection has a substantial role: Second, all four major forces play a substantial role in genomic evolution.

8 August 2016 stevevw: Do you understand that quote mining is definitely misleading and close to lying, e.g. removing "all four major forces play a substantial role in genomic evolution" from what you quoted from Lynch?
11 August 2016 stevevw: Seems that you are happy to quote mine (lie about) that section in Lynch's paper by cutting the first sentence.
11 August 2016 stevevw: Cite and quote the many statements where where Lynch explicitly writes natural selection is "minor or insufficient".

19 July 2016 stevevw: Three citations that do not state "Natural selection (adaptive forces) are negligible and/or minimal..." !
19 July 2016 stevevw: Can you give the scientific evidence "showing that most of the ability for life to change is coming from non adaptive influences such as HGT or in development"?
21 July 2016 stevevw: The hint of cherry picking sources to suit your case even when they do not support you.
21 July 2016 stevevw: Like "not a giant" does not mean "is a dwarf".
28 July 2016 stevevw: The record of the "negligible and/or minimal" assertion.
29 July 2016 stevevw: "many aspects of genomic, cellular, and developmental evolution" is not all or even most of evolution !
29 July 2016 stevevw: Quote mining to hide the context of a quote is bad scholarship. Lynch states that "all four major forces play a substantial role in genomic evolution".
29 July 2016 stevevw: Cutting references from a quote is not good scholarship.
5 August 2016 stevevw: A Lynch citation to a quote starting "all four major forces play a substantial role in genomic evolution" explicitly debunks a "minor role or not much role at all" claim.

 

[RealityCheck01]

Evidence Of Design In Bird Feathers And Avian Respiration
http://www.witpress.com/elibrary/dne-volumes/4/2/399

A bit late but that is a "creationist" source because it has been shown that intelligent design is mostly a disguised creationism, stevevw.

Educators, philosophers, and the scientific community have demonstrated that ID is a religious argument, a form of creationism which lacks empirical support and offers no testable or tenable hypotheses.[4][5][6]

But then Klinghoffer isn't the only one.

So what do we have so far, we have a paper written by a Young-Earth Creationist, published by an apparently non-scientific press of which he is on the editorial board. Toss in his already existing anti-evolution bias and his only book publication and my conclusions are significantly different than luskin's. I certainly don't think this measures up in any way to a valid peer-reviewed scientific paper. Do you?

 

[RealityCheck01]

Much of the testing done with proteins shows that there is little evidence that mutations can create new functional sequences which would be a common occurrence if evolution were true.

23 August 2016 stevevw: Supply your sources (e.g. textbooks) that state that "there is little evidence that mutations can create new functional sequences".

This sounds like an argument from ignorance because I know of new functional sequences that mutations have created just from casual reading, e.g. nylon-eating bacteria, blood clotting cascade; long term e-coli experiment.

Or maybe you do not know that this is a common creationist claim: CB101.2. Mutations do not produce new features. (a 2003 list of a half dozen new functional sequences).

 

[RealityCheck01]

Some of our greatest discoveries have come because someone challenged a long held theory with something that proved it wrong. IE Einstein and Newton.

That is not quite right, stevevw.
Newton basically wrote new theories of gravity (using Kepler's and new observations), mechanics (including Galileo's experiments) and optics (largely his own observations). He largely explained things that had no existing scientific theory.

Newtonian gravitation was challenged maybe before Einstein was born in 1879. The perihelion precession of Mercury was observed in 1859. Modifications to Newtonian gravitation were worker on between 1870 and 1900. General relativity does not strictly show that Newtonian gravitation is wrong - it is that Newtonian gravitation is an approximation to GR.

Some of the greatest debacles have come because someone "challenged" a long held theory with something that was obviously flawed and totally incapable of actually challenging the theory. That is intelligent design.

 

[RealityCheck01]

back then ID was beginning now it has many papers and scientists.

That is wrong, stevevw. The situation in the real world is that ID has practically died. There are some old papers - the DI claims a total of 90 peer-reviewed scientific papers ever published in 2015 (PDF) but that seems a lie since the next sentence is about a conference presentation! The actual list confirms that this is a lie - the 90 "papers" include conference presentations, books, a encyclopedia, computer journals and their in-house journal. They also consider works that do not argue for ID which they are honest about, e.g. one about the problem of integer factorization!

There are few qualified scientists working in ID and they are not currently publishing in peer reviewed journals. Compare this to the tens of thousands or more of working biologists producing thousands of papers a year.

 

[RealityCheck01]

Its similar to Newtons observations about gravity and then years later Einstein was able to look inside the processes of space and time to see all the other factors that influenced what was called gravity to form a new theory of relativity. So in that sense he overturned Newtons theory.

That is not what general relativity is and not what a revised modern synthesis of evolution would be, stevevw. This is a basic part of how science works - any new theory must first explain everything that a theory is it replacing explains. Thus new theories are generally extensions of old theories.
General relativity is a scientific theory that reduces to Newtonian gravitation in the appropriate limit.
A revised modern synthesis of evolution will reduce to the existing modern synthesis of evolution in the appropriate limit.

 

[stevevw]

If you can't be bothered to back up what you're saying I'm certainly not going to waste my time on it.

Ah if we are using support for what we say as a criteria for verifying what is said then I think I would have the upper hand on that one. I must have backed up what I have said with support 10 times to your 1.

This has already been explained to you multiple times. If you're interested, "All you have to do is go back through the early posts."

yeah thats right it only applies to certain situations like the many and numerous aspects of gene, cellular and transcriptional networks as well as developmental pathways are concern. Oh and that applies to how all multi-celled life came about and how complexity increases in all populations. That doesn't leave much and it sure seems like more than a small part of evolution.

For some reason it doesn't list "how life changes and develops" as one of the areas where natural selection is negligible. Don't forget, that's the claim that you're trying to support here.

First off change is a pretty broad statement so what are you applying to that. It could mean anything and can still apply to what I was referring to which was about populations gaining increased complexity in their gene networks to change anyway. That is a big part of the process of change for life. Secondly as Ive pointed out before the statemnet about natural selection being negligible does mention that its negligible when it comes to development. Something you keep leaving out. IE

many aspects of genomic, cellular, and developmental evolution can only be understood by invoking a negligible level of adaptive involvement, (natural selection) emphasis added

Please quote where I've done this.

So you didn't say that the papers were only referring to natural selections inability to evolve complexity in life.

Snipped a bunch of stuff which doesn't have anything to do with the claim that natural selection is negligible in how life changes and develops. These are all wonderful hypotheticals, but the fact is you're trying to support that claim using papers which say things like natural selection is one of the major forces driving evolution. You're going to have to do better than that if you want to convince anyone you've found a fatal flaw in neo-Darwinism.

No your going to have to explain what the paper is exactly referring to about natural selection being one of four major forces in evolution. Its major role might be to refine life after it has been developed which doesn't make it as creative as supporters of evolution make out. That is my point all along. I dont deny natural selection has a role I just dispute what the role is.

As I have posted before the same papers are saying that many supporter s of evolution look at everything in adaptive terms. They claim that natural selection is responsible for just about everything in evolution including what the paper is disputing about complex life. So what ever the paper is referring to its not the evolution of complex life in how it came about and how it increases in complexity in populations. In fact the paper clearly says natural selection is a set back for evolving increased complexity because it introduces unstable situations which undermine that complexity.

And as I have stated before I also find it hypocritical that you want to single out a small selection, in fact one small sentence that states this and use that out of context against the rest of the paper which clearly explains that natural selection is insufficient and has inability when it comes to evolving complexity life. You accuse me of mine quoting and taking things out of context yet I supply several sections of the paper to show a consistent theme for what I say. Then you do the same thing if not more obvious and think this is all OK. That just supports my claim that there's one rule for supporters of evolution and another for anyone who disgrees.

 

[VirOptimus]

-snip-

And as I have stated before I also find it hypocritical that you want to single out a small selection, in fact one small sentence that states this and use that out of context against the rest of the paper which clearly explains that natural selection is insufficient and has inability when it comes to evolving complexity life. You accuse me of mine quoting and taking things out of context yet I supply several sections of the paper to show a consistent theme for what I say. Then you do the same thing if not more obvious and think this is all OK. That just supports my claim that there's one rule for supporters of evolution and another for anyone who disgrees.

But the paper states no such thing. Its you who misrepresent/misunderstand it.

Write to the author, or better yet, check out what else he has written on natural selection.

You really really dont understand what you are talking about, you are in way over your head and until you get a better scientific understanding you will be fooled by ID and other non-scientific nonsense.

 

[KCfromNC]

Ah if we are using support for what we say as a criteria for verifying what is said then I think I would have the upper hand on that one. I must have backed up what I have said with support 10 times to your 1.

I don't have to dig up sources when the ones you post directly contradict you.

Anyway, any luck finding support for the claim I asked about?

First off change is a pretty broad statement so what are you applying to that.It could mean anything and can still apply to what I was referring to which was about populations gaining increased complexity in their gene networks to change anyway.

Weird that you didn't explain how your claim was specifically about gene networks when you first wrote it. Then it was about showing how Darwin's theory was incorrect. Strange that gene networks and whatever only came up after people here pointed out to you that even your source said that natural selection was important to evolution.

That is a big part of the process of change for life. Secondly as Ive pointed out before the statemnet about natural selection being negligible does mention that its negligible when it comes to development. Something you keep leaving out.

I do? Like here for example "Snipped a bunch of stuff which doesn't have anything to do with the claim that natural selection is negligible in how life changes and develops."

Yeah, I'm at fault because I'm addressing what you actually wrote. How rude of me not to play along with all of the attempts to distract from it.

So you didn't say that the papers were only referring to natural selections inability to evolve complexity in life.

No luck actually find examples of me saying what you said I did? Strange how often that seems to happen.

No your going to have to explain what the paper is exactly referring to about natural selection being one of four major forces in evolution.

Which words do you not understand? Have you reached out to the author yet to see if they agree that "Darwin's theory of evolution has little influence on how life changes"?

Its major role might be to refine life after it has been developed which doesn't make it as creative as supporters of evolution make out. That is my point all along. I dont deny natural selection has a role I just dispute what the role is.

Natural selection (adaptive forces) are negligible and/or minimal when it comes to how life can change and develop. Therefore Darwin's theory of evolution has little influence on how life changes and has been over estimated.

Seems like you're all over the place here. It refines life but has negligible effects on how life can change and develop, all at the same time? Perhaps it is time to take a break and figure out what it is you're actually trying to accomplish with all of this wishy-washiness.

As I have posted before the same papers are saying that many supporter s of evolution look at everything in adaptive terms.

That's nice. It has nothing to do with your claims, of course, but at least you're reading things.

And as I have stated before I also find it hypocritical that you want to single out a small selection, in fact one small sentence that states this

Or maybe not. As I mentioned before, the paper discusses the importance of selection in more than one place. It's weird - you reply to things I've never written and don't even know what's in your own sources. Do you really think people are going to find that persuasive?

 

[stevevw]

But the paper states no such thing. Its you who misrepresent/misunderstand it

OK then here is a section from Lynches paper. Can you tell me what this is referring to.

Jacob (46) argues that “it is natural selection that gives direction to changes, orients chance, and slowly, progressively produces more complex structures, new organs, and new species.” The vast majority of biologists almost certainly agree with such statements. But where is the direct supportive evidence for the assumption that complexity is rooted in adaptive processes? No existing observations support such a claim, and given the massive global dominance of unicellular species over multicellular eukaryotes, both in terms of species richness and numbers of individuals, if there is an advantage of organismal complexity, one can only marvel at the inability of natural selection to promote it. Multicellular species experience reduced population sizes, reduced recombination rates, and increased deleterious mutation rates, all of which diminish the efficiency of selection (13).
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/suppl_1/8597.full

Lynch is using Jacobs comments about the capabilities that some biologists claim about natural selection. That being that Natural selection gradually produces more complex structures as well as new organs and species. Clearly he is speaking about the evolution of organs such as hearts, livers, eyes ect. In mentioning new species he is talking about the evolution new features that make different types of creatures from existing ones. These things are the basics of what most people understand for evolution. He goes onto say that the majority of biologists would agree with this.

But then Lynch states where is the evidence for this assumption. He states there is no evidence for natural selection evolving those things so its clear he is questioning natural selection (adaptive forces) for things like evolving new organs and species which involve complex structures. He uses the example of reduced population sizes and combination rates and the increased deleterious mutation rates all of which diminish natural selection. He compares multicellular life with unicellular life and states that if natural selection is suppose to be good at increasing the complexity of life then what we see in that increased complexity is problems that are introduced compared to single celled life. So he states one can only marvel at the inability of natural selection to evolve this increased complexity. This is his theme throughout the paper.

This supports what he has said in his paper about natural selection actually promoting the opposite of stable complex structures. So how is this not supporting what I said. You can disagree with Lynch but I cant see how you can deny that Lynch isn't questioning the ability and role of natural selection.

Thus, contrary to popular belief, natural selection may not only be an insufficient mechanism for the origin of genetic modularity, but population-genetic environments that maximize the efficiency of natural selection may actually promote the opposite situation, alleles under unified transcriptional control.
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/suppl_1/8597.full

Write to the author, or better yet, check out what else he has written on natural selection

Lynch does have other papers on this topic as he is one of the leading scientists who is looking into non adaptive forces in evolution. Here is another example which supports the above paper. There are also other scientists who support this as well.

The evolution of genetic networks by non-adaptive processes
Although numerous investigators assume that the global features of genetic networks are moulded by natural selection, there has been no formal demonstration of the adaptive origin of any genetic network. This Analysis shows that many of the qualitative features of known transcriptional networks can arise readily through the non-adaptive processes of genetic drift, mutation and recombination, raising questions about whether natural selection is necessary or even sufficient for the origin of many aspects of gene-network topologies. The widespread reliance on computational procedures that are devoid of population-genetic details to generate hypotheses for the evolution of network configurations seems to be unjustified.
http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v8/n10/abs/nrg2192.html

You really really dont understand what you are talking about, you are in way over your head and until you get a better scientific understanding you will be fooled by ID and other non-scientific nonsense.

Then you will need to explain to me how these papers differ from what I have been saying.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... Clearly he is speaking about the evolution of organs such as hearts, livers, eyes ect.

Wait, where does he say this?

 

[stevevw]

Wait, where does he say this?

So when he was talking about organs what did you think he meant. What are organs.
Organs
a part of an organism which is typically self-contained and has a specific vital function.
"the internal organs"
synonyms: part of the body, body part, biological structure
"the internal organs"

I think the heart, liver and eyes qualify as organs. Lets just say organs then and that he was referring to at least some of those organs. Why is it you can elaborate on what is said and use some deductive reasoning. You insist on it being said word for word and not stepping outside those parameters. That is not how we learn or get to understand what someone is talking about. The topic is biology, the subject matter is organs and a heart is an organ. Thats a logical argument

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

So when he was talking about organs what did you think he meant. What are organs.
Organs
a part of an organism which is typically self-contained and has a specific vital function.
"the internal organs"
synonyms: part of the body, body part, biological structure
"the internal organs"

I think the heart, liver and eyes qualify as organs. Lets just say organs then and that he was referring to at least some of those organs. Why is it you can elaborate on what is said and use some deductive reasoning. You insist on it being said word for word and not stepping outside those parameters. That is not how we learn or get to understand what someone is talking about. The topic is biology, the subject matter is organs and a heart is an organ. Thats a logical argument

Steve, with respect, I didn't ask for your opinion or definitions of the word, I asked "where does he say this?" I would like to see the context because I don't recall him mentioning, 'hearts, livers, eyes'. That's all.

 

[stevevw]

Steve, with respect, I didn't ask for your opinion or definitions of the word, I asked "where does he say this?" I would like to see the context because I don't recall him mentioning, 'hearts, livers, eyes'. That's all.

So what do you think he means by organs. Have you read the paper. It doesn't really matter if you want to be so pedantic. Lynch is speaking about organs and organs are part of what evolution claims it evolves through natural selection. This is something Lynch is questioning.

 

[stevevw]

I don't have to dig up sources when the ones you post directly contradict you.

Anyway, any luck finding support for the claim I asked about?

I have only had the chance to briefly go through pages of old posts but here is a couple I found.

Oncedeceived said: #1356
He said:
No one said it doesn't occur. Its a matter of how much it occurs and what it is acting on.
KCfromNC said
Yes. The problem here is that he's unable to find references which back up his idea of how much it occurs.
#1342
RealityCheck01 said An imaginary "non adaptive mechanism" cannot explain anything.

Weird that you didn't explain how your claim was specifically about gene networks when you first wrote it. Then it was about showing how Darwin's theory was incorrect. Strange that gene networks and whatever only came up after people here pointed out to you that even your source said that natural selection was important to evolution.

I would have thought that the mechanisms that work in populations to evolve new gene and cellular networks, developmental pathways, organs and species was about how life changes and develops.

I do? Like here for example "Snipped a bunch of stuff which doesn't have anything to do with the claim that natural selection is negligible in how life changes and develops."
Yeah, I'm at fault because I'm addressing what you actually wrote. How rude of me not to play along with all of the attempts to distract from it.

Your the one who is taking things down this path of specifics. I made a general statemnet and then I specified what it meant with the support of the paper. But I also made many other statements about natural selections role which you choose to ignore and seem to be preoccupied by this one. You say the paper is talking about specific aspects of natural selection. I am saying Lynch is speaking more generally. As I stated in the above reply how life changes and develops has a lot to do with how gene networks, organs and species come about and that is what Lynch states that he is questioning natural selection being able to produce.

No luck actually find examples of me saying what you said I did? Strange how often that seems to happen.

The fact is I was shot down at first and now after many pages of persistence there is some agreement that the papers do question natural selection. Its just a case of what some say its about. But the fact its questioning it goes against what many have said about natural selection being all powerful to evolve everything. The issue is when I make these claims you ask for support and forget that I already gave that in previous posts. You are either ignoring it or missing it.

Which words do you not understand? Have you reached out to the author yet to see if they agree that "Darwin's theory of evolution has little influence on how life changes"?

If the author is questioning natural selections role and ability in how life evolves then isn't that questioning the theory itself. Doesn't the other papers clearly say as I have already posted previously that they are challenging the theory and asking for a rethink and revision of it. Doesn't Lynch state where is the evidence for some of the main mechanisms of how the theory works which many who support the theory assumes happens such as the section below states. I would have thought thats black and white. As posted in the above post Lynch uses Jacobs views which represent most biologists which is talking about how evolution produces new species among the other things he mentions like organs and gene networks. Isn't producing something like species and organs a big part of evolution.

Jacob (46) argues that “it is natural selection that gives direction to changes, orients chance, and slowly, progressively produces more complex structures, new organs, and new species.” The vast majority of biologists almost certainly agree with such statements. But where is the direct supportive evidence for the assumption that complexity is rooted in adaptive processes?

Seems like you're all over the place here. It refines life but has negligible effects on how life can change and develop, all at the same time? Perhaps it is time to take a break and figure out what it is you're actually trying to accomplish with all of this wishy-washiness.

No the complex networks and structures that make organisms, their body parts, organs, and species is from non adaptive forces and thats the big part of how life comes about. This includes the increased complexity of life in populations. So non adaptive forces are producing the eye for example. Natural selection is only affecting the eye color. Even that role in many situations is a questionable role because some say that these small changes such as antibiotic resistance may be a loss of genetic ability and not a gain. What natural selection may end up selecting or not selection is important as well. That is why Lynch is stating that natural selection may introduce situations where it undermines the stability and finite structures for complex life.

That's nice. It has nothing to do with your claims, of course, but at least you're reading things.

Why not, if many people are looking at everything in adaptive terms and assuming that this is the way everything evolves without the verifiable evidence then isn't this a major contradiction in how science works. Isn't this based on faith. It brings into question one of the main mechanisms of evolution which means that there are other mechanisms instead and then supplies evidence for some of those other mechanisms.

Or maybe not. As I mentioned before, the paper discusses the importance of selection in more than one place. It's weird - you reply to things I've never written and don't even know what's in your own sources. Do you really think people are going to find that persuasive?

You are the one who cant remember things. You have consistently referred to one sentence to support you claim and now you want to say there are other sections which say the same. The entire paper clearly questions natural selections over and over again and all you want to see is that one sentence.

 

[VirOptimus]

OK then here is a section from Lynches paper. Can you tell me what this is referring to.

Jacob (46) argues that “it is natural selection that gives direction to changes, orients chance, and slowly, progressively produces more complex structures, new organs, and new species.” The vast majority of biologists almost certainly agree with such statements. But where is the direct supportive evidence for the assumption that complexity is rooted in adaptive processes? No existing observations support such a claim, and given the massive global dominance of unicellular species over multicellular eukaryotes, both in terms of species richness and numbers of individuals, if there is an advantage of organismal complexity, one can only marvel at the inability of natural selection to promote it. Multicellular species experience reduced population sizes, reduced recombination rates, and increased deleterious mutation rates, all of which diminish the efficiency of selection (13).
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/suppl_1/8597.full

Lynch is using Jacobs comments about the capabilities that some biologists claim about natural selection. That being that Natural selection gradually produces more complex structures as well as new organs and species. Clearly he is speaking about the evolution of organs such as hearts, livers, eyes ect. In mentioning new species he is talking about the evolution new features that make different types of creatures from existing ones. These things are the basics of what most people understand for evolution. He goes onto say that the majority of biologists would agree with this.

But then Lynch states where is the evidence for this assumption. He states there is no evidence for natural selection evolving those things so its clear he is questioning natural selection (adaptive forces) for things like evolving new organs and species which involve complex structures. He uses the example of reduced population sizes and combination rates and the increased deleterious mutation rates all of which diminish natural selection. He compares multicellular life with unicellular life and states that if natural selection is suppose to be good at increasing the complexity of life then what we see in that increased complexity is problems that are introduced compared to single celled life. So he states one can only marvel at the inability of natural selection to evolve this increased complexity. This is his theme throughout the paper.

This supports what he has said in his paper about natural selection actually promoting the opposite of stable complex structures. So how is this not supporting what I said. You can disagree with Lynch but I cant see how you can deny that Lynch isn't questioning the ability and role of natural selection.

Thus, contrary to popular belief, natural selection may not only be an insufficient mechanism for the origin of genetic modularity, but population-genetic environments that maximize the efficiency of natural selection may actually promote the opposite situation, alleles under unified transcriptional control.
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/suppl_1/8597.full

Lynch does have other papers on this topic as he is one of the leading scientists who is looking into non adaptive forces in evolution. Here is another example which supports the above paper. There are also other scientists who support this as well.

The evolution of genetic networks by non-adaptive processes
Although numerous investigators assume that the global features of genetic networks are moulded by natural selection, there has been no formal demonstration of the adaptive origin of any genetic network. This Analysis shows that many of the qualitative features of known transcriptional networks can arise readily through the non-adaptive processes of genetic drift, mutation and recombination, raising questions about whether natural selection is necessary or even sufficient for the origin of many aspects of gene-network topologies. The widespread reliance on computational procedures that are devoid of population-genetic details to generate hypotheses for the evolution of network configurations seems to be unjustified.
http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v8/n10/abs/nrg2192.html

Then you will need to explain to me how these papers differ from what I have been saying.

No, the papers do not question natural selection.

You are both misunderstanding them and misrepresenting them on a fundamental level.

Do you know what a adaptive force is in regards to evolution? What an non-adaptive force is? What a stochastic process mean?

What the articles are about is how (some) complexity can be explained with non-adaptive forces and that complexity can arise with the help of non-adaptive forces. Not that natural selection is insignificant, no, the article even stresses that natural selection is fundamental.

Seriously, you are in the wrong. And you are in a field that you clearly dont understand.

 

[KCfromNC]

I have only had the chance to briefly go through pages of old posts but here is a couple I found.

Oncedeceived said: #1356
He said:
No one said it doesn't occur. Its a matter of how much it occurs and what it is acting on.
KCfromNC said
Yes. The problem here is that he's unable to find references which back up his idea of how much it occurs.
#1342
RealityCheck01 said An imaginary "non adaptive mechanism" cannot explain anything.

How in the world do any of these have anything to do with people denying that forces other than natural selection might increase complexity in organisms?

I would have thought that the mechanisms that work in populations to evolve new gene and cellular networks, developmental pathways, organs and species was about how life changes and develops.

They are some of they way in which life changes and develops. Now all you have to do is show that selection doesn't influence any of the other possible ways life can change and develop and your claim that natural selection is negligible will have some support.

You say the paper is talking about specific aspects of natural selection. I am saying Lynch is speaking more generally.

Yep. His general statement was that natural selection was listed first among four major forces driving evolution. That makes it very strange you think that his paper is somehow support for your idea that "Darwin's theory of evolution has little influence on how life changes".

The fact is I was shot down at first and now after many pages of persistence there is some agreement that the papers do question natural selection.

Still can't find any quotes of people saying what you remember them saying, I see.

So non adaptive forces are producing the eye for example. Natural selection is only affecting the eye color.

Citation needed. Weird that non-selective forces would produce vision that's sensitive to exactly the wavelengths of light that show up in various creatures' environment.

Even that role in many situations is a questionable role because some say that these small changes such as antibiotic resistance may be a loss of genetic ability and not a gain.

If it is a loss or a gain still sounds like an example of selection not being negligible in how life changes.

What natural selection may end up selecting or not selection is important as well.

If natural selection is negligible as you claim, then no, it isn't important at all. That's kinda what the word negligible means. Again, you're all over the place here. What is your point, exactly?

Why not, if many people are looking at everything in adaptive terms and assuming that this is the way everything evolves without the verifiable evidence then isn't this a major contradiction in how science works. Isn't this based on faith.

It might be. Too bad for your claims it is a hypothetical which has nothing to do with reality. Try again.

You are the one who cant remember things.

Such as?

You have consistently referred to one sentence to support you claim and now you want to say there are other sections which say the same.

It's a bit more than me wanting it. It is the fact that it does make the claim in several places - and you didn't even read enough of the paper to know. Don't worry, though. No one would would think that you're just quote-mining from an article you haven't read or anything like that.