Enough Time for Evolution?

[Alceste]

What ever this particular paper might portray.. it is self evident that there was enough time for Evolution to get us to the present point.

The game of looking backwards to a starting point will always present unhelpful mathematical and statistical problems. The statistics and probability that some thing could happen always seem to be at odds, when faced with the fact that it has happened.

Any problems that this might present to researchers, is in their lack of knowledge and techniques in following multiple genetic trails.

Exactly. The probability that something that has happened could happen is always 100%.

Also, this is obviously not a scientific or peer reviewed paper. It's just a critique of a paper that hasn't been provided. I don't see the point of discussing it. Even if they're right, what are they right about? That somebody else used a flawed mathematical model to assess the probability of evolution occurring in hundreds of millions of years? So what? If the paper they're critiquing is flawed (although there's no way to know that without reading it), it can simply be discarded and the tens of thousands of other studies that make up our evidence for evolution won't even notice it's gone.

 

[Oz-Man]

Please keep all responses limited to the actual specifics of the Review being presented, as requested by the OP, otherwise you are free to express your concerns about the source or generalities that don't discuss them in another thread, as stated in the OP. Thank you for your cooperation.

My response is limited to the actual specifics; you lost this debate with the opening statement. You claimed that the paper is peer-reviewed in order to supply it with momentum that it never had. It was proven to you that the paper is not peer-reviewed; therefore it is not a relevant critique of the original peer-reviewed paper and it has already been refuted by scientists with better understanding than us. * Edit *

 

[Alceste]

For those wishing to read Wilf and Ewens original peer reviewed scientific paper. (PDF)

There

Thanks. To me, the wordy bits between the mathy bits are completely fine. Their logic is sound. As far as the mathy bits are concerned, I have no idea. Wish I did, but my math education was very basic.

 

[Shermana]

My response is limited to the actual specifics; you lost this debate with the opening statement. You claimed that the paper is peer-reviewed in order to supply it with momentum that it never had. It was proven to you that the paper is not peer-reviewed; therefore it is not a relevant critique of the original peer-reviewed paper and it has already been refuted by scientists with better understanding than us. You are an intellectually dishonest person that attempts to twist information to make your arguments more credible; the perfect stereotypical creationist.

I see, so you feel that because the Review doesnt' count as "Peer-Reviewed", that I'm intellectually dishonest and that you have won the debate on that grounds alone. What a nice way to admit that you have no idea where to begin on the actual specifics of the contents. The projection and display of hypocrisy is appreciated.

I don't see how calling it "peer reviewed" amounts to "Twisting information" though. I don't see why "momentum" is necessary to even request people to critique the contents. This has to be one of the most desperate attempts at dodging the subject yet.

The excuses don't cease do they.

Can we get anyone who actually has the competence to critique the actual critique who isn't looking for a cheap dodge out and an attempt to go straight for the source, as requested? I'm getting tired of the thread pollution here.

 

[Alceste]

Haha Yes, there are many more balls. What are the chances balls fall together at the same time on the wheel right next to each other? Oh! All balls and no slots around the wheel. All balls, one slot. Got it!

No, the balls all have their own slot. Jeez, this analogy is awkward. Let's stay in the casino but play some dice instead of roulette. Let's say you've got a huge cup of dice. You want to roll all sixes. The OP paper is arguing that you have to keep gathering up all the dice and rolling them all over and over again to get all sixes. The original paper the OP is criticizing is saying you get to keep some of the sixes you roll each time and just re-roll the dice that didn't deliver.

Using the former model, you'll possibly never get all sixes. Using the latter model, you'll get all sixes in no time.

Evolution operates the second way, not the first. Beneficial adaptations are retained, and they don't occur one at a time.

 

[Sunstone]

Exactly. The probability that something that has happened could happen is always 100%.

Also, this is obviously not a scientific or peer reviewed paper. It's just a critique of a paper that hasn't been provided. I don't see the point of discussing it. Even if they're right, what are they right about? That somebody else used a flawed mathematical model to assess the probability of evolution occurring in hundreds of millions of years? So what? If the paper they're critiquing is flawed (although there's no way to know that without reading it), it can simply be discarded and the tens of thousands of other studies that make up our evidence for evolution won't even notice it's gone.

^This.

 

[LuisDantas]

I see, so you feel that because the Review doesnt' count as "Peer-Reviewed",

Peer-Reviewed has a very specific meaning, which implies adequate knowledge from the contesters.

That was not the case of the article offered by the OP.

 

[Shermana]

Peer-Reviewed has a very specific meaning, which implies adequate knowledge from the contesters.

That was not the case of the article offered by the OP.

Regardless of the meaning of "peer review", how about actually discussing the contents in a manner that specifically critiques the issues with specific counter-evidence instead of trying to harp on the source as a distraction?

Is it too much to ask people to actually give a solid critique?

 

[Alceste]

Regardless of the meaning of "peer review", how about actually discussing the contents in a manner that specifically critiques the issues with specific counter-evidence instead of trying to harp on the source as a distraction?

Is it too much to ask people to actually give a solid critique?

But why? Why bother reading and critiquing lengthy papers about math from non-mathematicians? The original article by mathematicians was short and sweet, and I couldn't see anything wrong with it. The excerpt you provided of the creationist response you want us to discuss seems to have missed the point of the paper they're critiquing. Specifically, that evolution does not occur one adaptation at a time. If the writers of the creationist article don't know that, they don't know enough about evolution to bother reading their opinion on the subject.

 

[Shermana]

But why? Why bother reading and critiquing lengthy papers about math from non-mathematicians? The original article by mathematicians was short and sweet, and I couldn't see anything wrong with it. The except you provided of the creationist response you want us to discuss seems to have missed the point of the paper they're critiquing. Specifically, that evolution does not occur one adaptation at a time. If the writers of the creationist opinion piece don't know that, they don't know enough about evolution to bother reading their opinion on the subject.

Why bother posting on this OP if you're not going to actually discuss the actual issues?

Please everyone, keep your thread pollution on another thread if you wish to comment about this subject without actually addressing the subject, thank you.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

No, the balls all have their own slot. Jeez, this analogy is awkward. Let's stay in the casino but play some dice instead of roulette. Let's say you've got a huge cup of dice. You want to roll all sixes. The OP paper is arguing that you have to keep gathering up all the dice and rolling them all over and over again to get all sixes. The original paper the OP is criticizing is saying you get to keep some of the sixes you roll each time and just re-roll the dice that didn't deliver.

Using the former model, you'll possibly never get all sixes. Using the latter model, you'll get all sixes in no time.

Evolution operates the second way, not the first. Beneficial adaptations are retained, and they don't occur one at a time.

I've always had a strong interest in the mechanism of evolution, as well as modeling it and utilizing it. I've written programs utlizing evolutionary algorithms for both predictive modeling and problem solving. The point of all this is that the first thing that struck me is how much more quickly the evolutionary algorithms would reach solutions than I could have ever anticipated. The number of generations it would take to reach an ideal solution, or multiple solutions was very low, even when I would set the "mutation rate" to a low rate.

I get that it can be counter-intuitive to people how quickly adaptations can arise and spread in a population (even for people who actually have a grasp on mathematics and probability), but peoples' intuition when it comes to the mathematical progression of complex interactions within a group of distinct, reproducing entities often fails.

Further problems come in when people base their pre-formed conclusion off of this intuitive failure and then attempt to rationalize it by misapplying mathematical or logical methods, or being unable or unwilling to define a large enough scope to accurately approach the problem using their chosen methods.

 

[Shermana]

The except you provided of the creationist response you want us to discuss seems to have missed the point of the paper they're critiquing

How have we established this? They were going after the Probability issue, I don't see any direct proof that they avoided the issue or misrepresented it.

But I see a lot of proof of misrepresenting what the Review says here.

 

[Alceste]

Why bother posting on this OP if you're not going to actually discuss the actual issues?

Please everyone, keep your thread pollution on another thread if you wish to comment about this subject without actually addressing the subject, thank you.

I did discuss it. I gave you a specific reason the critique is garbage and the original article is sound: evolution does not occur one adaptation at a time.

Care to respond to that? Or did you perhaps get so bogged down in the big words and science-y looking details that you failed to grasp the basic premise of either article?

 

[Shermana]

I did discuss it. I gave you a specific reason the critique is garbage and the original article is sound: evolution does not occur one adaptation at a time.

Care to respond to that? Or did you perhaps get so bogged down in the big words and science-y looking details that you failed to grasp the basic premise of either article?

Yes, evolution does not occur at one adaptation at a time, and the fact that you think that's all this paper is focused on represents that you yourself are the one bogged down in the science-y looking details because that's not even the issue at stake regarding the changes in the Loci and alleles. Do the misrepresentations never cease? Can you even grasp the basic premise of the specific issues involved? Apparently no one has yet.

Really, please stop embarassing yourself.

Seriously, to all future posters, if you think it's as simple as writing it off with such a simple concept, you're obviously not qualified to post here in a way the OP asks for.

 

[Alceste]

I've always had a strong interest in the mechanism of evolution, as well as modeling it and utilizing it. I've written programs utlizing evolutionary algorithms for both predictive modeling and problem solving. The point of all this is that the first thing that struck me is how much more quickly the evolutionary algorithms would reach solutions than I could have ever anticipated. The number of generations it would take to reach an ideal solution, or multiple solutions was very low, even when I would set the "mutation rate" to a low rate.

I get that it can be counter-intuitive to people how quickly adaptations can arise and spread in a population (even for people who actually have a grasp on mathematics and probability), but peoples' intuition when it comes to the mathematical progression of complex interactions within a group of distinct, reproducing entities often fails.

Further problems come in when people base their pre-formed conclusion off of this intuitive failure and then attempt to rationalize it by misapplying mathematical or logical methods, or being unable or unwilling to define a large enough scope to accurately approach the problem using their chosen methods.

That's sexy. :flirt:

This is my point. Any programmer can come up with a model that demonstrates how quickly evolution operates. If there's something wrong with one specific model, you've still got thousands of others to contend with. Besides which, they're just models anyway. They're not proposing any kind of natural law about the actual speed of evolution, so it doesn't matter if they're flawed.

Creationists, when they try to sound clever, always insist that the rate of change or the amount of change is limited. In this case, only one new trait at a time can occur. But why? What mechanism are they proposing to limit adaptations to one at a time? Also, how can that even work when one gene affects multiple traits? The limits are introduced for the sole purpose of trying to believe evolution is impossible, and there is no mechanism apart from wishful thinking.

/rant

 

[Alceste]

How have we established this? They were going after the Probability issue, I don't see any direct proof that they avoided the issue or misrepresented it.

But I see a lot of proof of misrepresenting what the Review says here.

Once again, the writers of your paper seem to believe that adaptations occur one at a time. They're wrong. It's that simple. I don't know why you want it to be complicated.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Once again, the writers of your paper seem to believe that adaptations occur one at a time. They're wrong. It's that simple. I don't know why you want it to be complicated.

I'm unconvinced that the OP even has a grasp of either the critique or the original paper, and was counting on pulling off a "gotcha" by tossing out some claptrap he thought looked too sciency and complicated for people to understand. I'm not sure whether his original attempt to pass off the critique as "peer-reviewed" was dishonest, or just an oversight from ignorance.

 

[Shermana]

Once again, the writers of your paper seem to believe that adaptations occur one at a time. They're wrong. It's that simple. I don't know why you want it to be complicated.

Apparently everyone who's going down this misrepresentation route doesn't seem to get what they're saying. The changes occur more than just one loci at a time, they require a fairly coordinated effort.

What's simple is how people are attempting to brush it off using the most simple of misrepresentations. Try actually reading what it says.

 

[Alceste]

I'm unconvinced that the OP even has a grasp of either the critique or the original paper, and was counting on pulling off a "gotcha" by tossing out some claptrap he thought looked too sciency and complicated for people to understand. I'm not sure whether his original attempt to pass off the critique as "peer-reviewed" was dishonest, or just an oversight from ignorance.

As usual, the actual science paper is a lot more lucid and readable than the creationist "critique". I couldn't even see the source for their two criticisms in the original article. The first one especially, that claims the model used an omniscient oracle to determine which mutations were beneficial. (It didn't.) The second criticism - the one shermana bolded and coloured for us, is complete gobblety-gook. It makes no sense to me whatsoever, so I didn't even try to identify which part of the original study it was addressing.

Funnily enough, nothing in the original study was beyond my understanding but the math. I've never been able to make heads or tails of what creationist pseudo-science is trying to say. It looks like complete gibberish to me. Do you think they do that on purpose? Like, maybe they're hoping real science comes off as gibberish too, so they can make creationism sound scientific by perpetually obfuscating their meaning behind absurdly complicated language.

 

[Alceste]

Apparently everyone who's going down this misrepresentation route doesn't seem to get what they're saying. The changes occur more than just one loci at a time, they require a fairly coordinated effort.

What's simple is how people are attempting to brush it off using the most simple of misrepresentations. Try actually reading what it says.

I did. Try reading what I'm saying. Like the writers of your OP, I have zero relevant credentials. Why give their words more weight than mine?

Did you read the article they're attempting to review? You should.