Enough Time for Evolution?

[Curious George]

OK I read the article which ewert was reviewing. The math is fine, and they even acknowledge that the mathematical model is not precise but just used to demonstrate the manageability of the exponential numbers involved. Now, only having read quotes in this thread, it seems that ewert offers complexities not in the original model. I will look through there math but I do not see why such complexities will detract from the math. It seems to me that what you have posted is a person pointing out additional complexities that are not relevant to the argument since the original paper was only addressing change occurring in series vs. Parallel. If we look at an in series model compared to a parallel. Model the time needed is vastly increased. So the critique is irrelevant.

 

[Shermana]

Thank you for your input, Curious George.

Could you please elaborate in further detail how the "additional comlpexities" are irrelevant in relevance to the issue of changes occuring in series vs. Parallel?

 

[Monk Of Reason]

I haven't read the whole thread and I won't. Simply put the fossil record evidence is clear and trumps any isolated event with rough mathmatical calculations. That is generally agreed in the scientific community when this is brought up. So far the best recorded evidence of the time fram in which things evolve would in fact be the fossil record. Any mathmatical calculation based within one lifetime of a human being is subject to be wrong since it is impossible to take into account other forces. Has there been a solid link to the study yet?

 

[Shermana]

I haven't read the whole thread and I won't. Simply put the fossil record evidence is clear and trumps any isolated event with rough mathmatical calculations. That is generally agreed in the scientific community when this is brought up. So far the best recorded evidence of the time fram in which things evolve would in fact be the fossil record. Any mathmatical calculation based within one lifetime of a human being is subject to be wrong since it is impossible to take into account other forces. Has there been a solid link to the study yet?

Thank you Monk of Reason, please read the OP and notice that I asked specifically for all responses to be directly related to the contents of the Report. I'm not sure what other forces you're referring to that would be relevant to the issue of modern humans, by all means elaborate with examples and details.

Yes, there has been a solid link to the study on page 1, kindly provided by Tumbleweed. Here it is for the fresh new page.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/12/06/1016207107.full.pdf+html

I know it's asking for too much, but 16 pages in and we're still stuck with only 3 attempts to actually discuss the issues, and only 1 of them has been remotely close to a substantiated argument which doesn't totally misrepresent the claims, and I'm still waiting to see if that one is even substantiated.

Please everyone, keep your comments focused on the report itself and not on the concept of Evolution itself unless its directly related to the claims and arguments of the report, I don't want to have to keep reminding.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Thank you Monk of Reason, please read the OP and notice that I asked specifically for all responses to be directly related to the contents of the Report. I'm not sure what other forces you're referring to that would be relevant to the issue of modern humans, by all means elaborate with examples and details.

Yes, there has been a solid link to the study on page 1, kindly provided by Tumbleweed. Here it is for the fresh new page.

There

I know it's asking for too much, but 16 pages in and we're still stuck with only 3 attempts to actually discuss the issues, and only 1 of them has been remotely close to a substantiated argument which doesn't totally misrepresent the claims, and I'm still waiting to see if that one is even substantiated.

Please everyone, keep your comments focused on the report itself and not on the concept of Evolution itself unless its directly related to the claims and arguments of the report, I don't want to have to keep reminding.

Alright. I will say now that it is highly dishonest to disreguard 99.9% of evidence for evolution just to bring the battle to a single paper on a single issue that the critic, to my knowledge, has not substanciated the claim that it cannot occur but simply remarking on problems within the overal model that may or may not need to be edited. Thus is the reason we have peer review. I also bring up the point that no actual counter evidence seems to have been brought up.


Specifically on the timeframe problem discussed in the critique. Many genes that develop do require several genes at a time to function but that does not mean that they cannot function with the absence of a single gene. If they have 9 out of 10 of the genes it does not render the the genes functionless in many cases as this critique seems to assume. Genetics is not a linear process but rather one that is organic and changes only to suit the enviroment of the time.

For example when we talk about the evolution of the flight in birds we have several components that came together that all evolved independently. For example the wing motion of "flapping" came from when they had claws. Thus the joints developed in a way that could be tweaked easily for flight later in the evolutionary line. The actual development of the flight itself has 4 majorly contested theories that can be found here Bird flight - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia .

All of the adaptations were developed for a different reason than what they would eventually serve.

Another is Feathers. They are what make their flight mechanism work. However they were not their first or only evolutionary advantage.
Feather - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is nothing in biology that says that mulitple mutations cannot occur within a population within a given timeframe. Things may, can and do evolve with the help of multiple different mutations at the same time. Especially when we have drastic change that cuts down large portions of a population. In this way the evolutionary process is dipped into hyperdrive by compairson.

A good example of this is the jump from Staff infection to MRSA. Staff infections are serious but they are not in any way resistant to medication. Failure to totally eradicate diseases within the body with the propper use of medication has created a near crisis in our medical field. Why you ask? Because when you have an infection and you take antibodies to kill that infection and stop short what happens? The vast majority of the bacteria is killed but only the hardiest and most resistant of the bacteria remains. They reproduce over and over and this new population is far more resistant to the medication than the first batch.


Here is another story that seems to blow holes in the theory that the evolutionary time frame does not work.

Super-fast evolution - News 2010 - News & Events

 

[Alceste]

Just for fun, here are the thoughtful responses to the OP. These all happened in the first two pages alone -

EDIT: I'm a few pages in now, and so far I must say that they're relying too much on the Wheel of Fortune metaphor, and it seems like they're misinterpreting what it meant in the original paper. Since I haven't read the original, I don't know if that is correct, though. The original paper might have been as bad as this one is so far.

EDIT2: Top of page four, right column, is an example of where they're not getting it. The likening to a sentence of the English language is just a metaphor. I doubt that the original paper states that it works like it in real life. They're misrepresenting evolution here. It's quite obvious that fitness only applies to organisms living at the time, and not to hypothetical future organisms, but the metaphor is probably used to describe a perfect adaptation to the environment. The organisms don't need to be aware of the changes to adapt towards this, and reality is much more complex than the original metaphor. There isn't a goal, but many possible ways to better adapt to the environment.

EDIT3: Page six, middle of right column. I hope that they're misrepresenting the original paper here, because otherwise the original paper must be written by people with very little grasp of evolution. Not all beneficial mutations lead towards more advanced organisms in terms of complexity. It can be just as advantageous to become less complex. Loss of information and gain of information are both valid in evolution and we have observed both being beneficial in experiments with organisms with very short lifespans.

Overall, the paper was riddled with misunderstandings (unless the original paper is equally bad or worse). They ignored reality in favour of being able to criticize the original paper, since we have observed beneficial mutations changing the fitness of an organism. They also never specified how much time would be needed for evolution and how much time it had, which is important seeing as we're dealing with creationists, some of which believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old. To me, over 3 billion years seems like enough time seeing as we have directly observed many changes and even full speciation.

If you provide the original paper, I will give this a second read and see if my opinion on it changes in the light of the original paper.

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.

Like mycorrhiza, I'd like to see the original Wilf and Ewens paper to know exactly what is being criticised: only the abstract is available online. I'd also echo his point about Ewert and co. criticising the metaphor rather than the process.

Ewert and co. make great play of biological factors they claim Wilf and Ewens ignore (epistasis, pleiotropy, etc) without once demonstrating that incorporating these factors into the model would make the difference they wish to see - i.e. making the evolutionary process impossibly slow. On the subject of omitted biology, I note Ewert & co make no mention of homeotic mutations, but are hung up on changes in protein-encoding genes. (Nor do Wilf and Ewens refer to homeobox genes in their abstract, but changes in such genes would have a powerful effect on the rate of evolution.)

Indeed; and neither do Ewert & co show that their claimed omissions would make that time impossibly long. What they do is show a nice line in conflation:
The bolding is mine: you will note that the authors are presenting a human-specific calculation as though its outcome applies to all organisms.

The essence of Ewert's argument seems to be that the mathematical model used by Wilf and Ewens is over-simplified. (Perhaps it would be better to say more simplified than it might be, since any mathematical model is by definition a simplification of nature.) I am not enough of a mathematician to judge the rightness of this claim, but would point out that even if (a substantial if) the criticisms are justified, what they have achieved is showing a model supporting the sufficient-time idea to be sub-optimal. Despite the optimistic title given to the thread, that is not the same as demonstrating insufficient time. (If Alice publishes arguments for Shakespeare really being the author of Hamlet, and Bob points out flaws in her arguments, Bob has not thereby demonstrated that someone else wrote the play.)

Besides that, let's say the critique of Wilf and Ewens is accurate, that doesn't mean that automatically the negative position is true. W&E might have screwed up their computations and their procedures in the programming, they might have missed key components and such, still, after all that, the evidence for evolution--that it happened and is happening--is overwhelming from physical and observable things, and doesn't need a computer program to prove. There are computer programs that do work, using genetic algorithms, which means the principle works. So again, the negative isn't proved by pointing out flaws in one experiment that was set out to prove the positive. If my proof for Santa Claus failed because my test was flawed, it doesn't prove Santa Clause for or against, it only shows that my test was flawed.

Obviously the process for evolution is extremely complicated when it comes to the genetic code. No one should deny that. There are many different aspects that needs to be accounted for. But in the end, that evolution happened can be studied and understood without a computer software calculating the probability of time.

Perhaps in the end we would discover that a divine intervention of evolution, mutation and selection being driven by a "life force" beyond our physical world, sure... but still, that force used evolution, because evolution happened.

As for the BIO-Complexity critique of 'There's Plenty of Time for Evolution', the most glaring flaw is that Demski et al. ignore the fact that selection can , and does, act on multiple alleles at the same time. Genes do not exist in isolation. Dawkins has presented this before, and Herbert Wilf and Warren Ewens have shown the math.
Demski et al.'s figures rely on the misconception of a single change per generation, with multiple generations required to "fix" a change.

And here's Shermana's response to ALL OF THAT ^:

While I appreciate the pointing out that it's more of a Review than a Peer-Review paper, I'm looking forward to seeing some actual criticism of the contents.

Incredible.

 

[Shermana]

Just for fun, here are the thoughtful responses to the OP. These all happened in the first two pages alone -

Perhaps if you were able to actually understand what any of that says you'd be able to address where there's specific contentions to the data and discussion in the Review itself. I understand that response enough to know that there's nothing actually substantiated that discusses the data at hand.

Also, you didn't quote my other responses to that. So, once again, misrepresentation. I very much asked him about why he bolded humans there. In fact, there's several posts about that. In a bit of a rush I see.

And here's Shermana's response to ALL OF THAT ^:



Incredible.
:facepalm

Yep, that's my response to all that. Why don't you demonstrate that you actually understand how any of that somehow is a cohesive rebuttal. And do try to actually be careful to show the rest of my responses next time. Thanks. That would be the honest thing to do, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you were just in such a scramble that you didn't bother to look.

 

[Shermana]

Alright. I will say now that it is highly dishonest to disreguard 99.9% of evidence for evolution just to bring the battle to a single paper on a single issue that the critic, to my knowledge, has not substanciated the claim that it cannot occur but simply remarking on problems within the overal model that may or may not need to be edited. Thus is the reason we have peer review. I also bring up the point that no actual counter evidence seems to have been brought up.

It's dishonest to discuss the "99.9% of evidence for evolution" when the purpose of this thread is to discuss the Review itself. Nice try on a smear though. I appreciate you trying however to discuss the gist of the Review, even if you have not actually quoted or brought up anything specific from it.

Specifically on the timeframe problem discussed in the critique. Many genes that develop do require several genes at a time to function but that does not mean that they cannot function with the absence of a single gene.

Possibly so, but can you prove that the absence of a single critical gene will NOT limit or disable such function? Do you have any counter-evidence to this claim?

If they have 9 out of 10 of the genes it does not render the the genes functionless in many cases as this critique seems to assume. Genetics is not a linear process but rather one that is organic and changes only to suit the enviroment of the time.

Okay, besides asking for proof, I'm not sure you quite understand the concept here. We're talking about the coordination of an entire series of allele changes. Could a computer software work efficiently with a few critical bugs even if 99% of the program works fine (Assuming 99% works fine and got there on its own through coordinated developments)? I don't think so. Likewise, I'd like to see proof that anything less than 100% efficiency will work.

For example when we talk about the evolution of the flight in birds we have several components that came together that all evolved independently. For example the wing motion of "flapping" came from when they had claws. Thus the joints developed in a way that could be tweaked easily for flight later in the evolutionary line. The actual development of the flight itself has 4 majorly contested theories that can be found here Bird flight - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia .

That's not even close to being close. I don't think you quite understand what subject you're trying to discuss here. We're talking about the specific alleles that even allow the growth of claws, let alone broader constructs like flight.

All of the adaptations were developed for a different reason than what they would eventually serve.

And how coincidental for them to all develop the needed allele changes simultaneously for each little bit of adaptation, let alone the larger ones.

Another is Feathers. They are what make their flight mechanism work. However they were not their first or only evolutionary advantage.
Feather - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Okay, so do you understand the process of the formation of feathers other than the "Random mutation" aspect of it? Do you understand what's going on in the random mutaiton?

There is nothing in biology that says that mulitple mutations cannot occur within a population within a given timeframe. Things may, can and do evolve with the help of multiple different mutations at the same time. Especially when we have drastic change that cuts down large portions of a population. In this way the evolutionary process is dipped into hyperdrive by compairson.

I'd like to see proof that there can be such broad changes in the alleles all at once at such a broad rate. Granted, we can see minor changes such as in Epigenetics, but that's quite a bit different than growing claws and feathers. You want counter-evidence to the claim that it can happen, but where's the evidence it CAN happen? We haven't seen any proof for such structural changes. Burden of proof is again lost on those on the TOE side.

A good example of this is the jump from Staff infection to MRSA. Staff infections are serious but they are not in any way resistant to medication. Failure to totally eradicate diseases within the body with the propper use of medication has created a near crisis in our medical field. Why you ask? Because when you have an infection and you take antibodies to kill that infection and stop short what happens? The vast majority of the bacteria is killed but only the hardiest and most resistant of the bacteria remains. They reproduce over and over and this new population is far more resistant to the medication than the first batch.

Basically you're asking to believe that the development of feathers and claws are no different than the resistance of bacteria to antibodies. Okay. I'd love to see some proof that they're anywhere close to being comparable.

Here is another story that seems to blow holes in the theory that the evolutionary time frame does not work.

Super-fast evolution - News 2010 - News & Events

[/QUOTE]

I'll read that and get back to you.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

It's dishonest to discuss the "99.9% of evidence for evolution" when the purpose of this thread is to discuss the Review itself. Nice try on a smear though. I appreciate you trying however to discuss the gist of the Review, even if you have not actually quoted or brought up anything specific from it.

Two things.
1st. Yes it is dishonest to tell people they can't bring in counter evidence to disrupt the claim "speed limit of evolution" when all you actually want to do is discuss one critique of a single paper. Though I suppose it does good to get into the specific nitty gritty.

2nd. Are you asking me to write a full fledge scientific paper on the critique for a forum debate and I am barred from quoting outside sources on the matter?

Possibly so, but can you prove that the absence of a single critical gene will NOT limit or disable such function? Do you have any counter-evidence to this claim?

The evidence already stands in accordance to the fossil record. Do you want a specific example? I have already gave them and you don't want to accept them.

Okay, besides asking for proof, I'm not sure you quite understand the concept here. We're talking about the coordination of an entire series of allele changes. Could a computer software work efficiently with a few critical bugs even if 99% of the program works fine (Assuming 99% works fine and got there on its own through coordinated developments)? I don't think so. Likewise, I'd like to see proof that anything less than 100% efficiency will work.

I don't think you understand DNA and allels. I already showed you a very specific example of the wings and within my links they go into even further detail of how those specific functions were developed with slight changes in allels. I really don't see where you are getting lost.

That's not even close to being close. I don't think you quite understand what subject you're trying to discuss here. We're talking about the specific alleles that even allow the growth of claws, let alone broader constructs like flight.

That is exactly what you are asking for. I explained and outlined with links how flight was eventually formed by several differen allels that served diverse and different purposes that eventually congregated to create the concept of flight. It has happened three different times in the past, probably more. The first with insects, the second with birds and the most recent with Bats. All three evolved differently with different allels that produced different effects prior to the development of flight.

And how coincidental for them to all develop the needed allele changes simultaneously for each little bit of adaptation, let alone the larger ones.

They don't simply create them. They already have to exist for evolution to work. It also has to do with the process of natural selection where not all are killed but simply the weakest which then promotes the stronger genes and therefore allels to survive. They did not simply generate these allels. The vast majority of the time the species does not already posess the sufficent genetic material to survive and they die off. I have hears people say 99% of species are extinct. Its actually much closer to 99.99999% of species are extinct. We and all other species alive today are the product of sucessful allels. Our sucess and evolutionary results were not predetermined.

Okay, so do you understand the process of the formation of feathers other than the "Random mutation" aspect of it? Do you understand what's going on in the random mutaiton?

Do you mean the allels or the natural slection involved in weeding out the weaker genes? Or do you perhaps mean the process in which replications make errors that create allels in the first place ?

I'd like to see proof that there can be such broad changes in the alleles all at once at such a broad rate. Granted, we can see minor changes such as in Epigenetics, but that's quite a bit different than growing claws and feathers. You want counter-evidence to the claim that it can happen, but where's the evidence it CAN happen? We haven't seen any proof for such structural changes. Burden of proof is again lost on those on the TOE side.

Fossils, DNA and propper dating techniques.

Basically you're asking to believe that the development of feathers and claws are no different than the resistance of bacteria to antibodies. Okay. I'd love to see some proof that they're anywhere close to being comparable.

Evolution is evolution. The changes required to make structural changes and non-structural changes (which actually are structural changes but on the cellular level btw) are the same thing. Macro and micro evolution are not seperate types of evolution.

I'll read that and get back to you.

Alrighty.

 

[johnhanks]

Please everyone, keep your comments focused on the report itself and not on the concept of Evolution itself unless its directly related to the claims and arguments of the report, I don't want to have to keep reminding.

There have been numerous comments focused on the report, some (as you requested) addressing specific issues with the minutiae of the argument, others assessing what the report as a whole sets out to (and does or does not) achieve. All you have done in response to these criticisms is give us a regular page count coupled to a complaint that no-one is addressing the issues. This thread has done your credibility no favours.

 

[Me Myself]

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.

I perused the article, & believe it to be above the pay grade of 99.9% of RF members to address. The best we can do is review critiques by experts in the field, & judge limited areas of disagreement. But it would also be quite the task for us to round up useful peer review articles. I don't have high hopes for the kind of response you seek. (I expect that "poopy head" will figure often in our critiques.)
Note: I could probably find a mathematically complex argument that astrology is legit, & I wouldn't be able to debunk it either.

^Bot of those. Emphasis in Revoltingest`s one.

 

[dust1n]

That reply was not aimed at you directly, just to let you know, in fact, I'd like to congratulate you on your civility!

If anything you have inspired me to research further if in fact there's a noted, observable/provable confirmation bias that forbids people with the ID perspective from having their papers published just because of their conclusion and viewpoint, regardless of the study involved. I would say there is but proving it conclusively will take some looking into.

A critique on someone's methods in some form of biology could certainly be published, if it's any good, and doesn't rely on conclude on the unrelated notion of creationism.

 

[Curious George]

Thank you for your input, Curious George.

Could you please elaborate in further detail how the "additional comlpexities" are irrelevant in relevance to the issue of changes occuring in series vs. Parallel?

Absolutely. If you were discussing the time it takes to cook an someone said well if we add up how long each individual ingredient must cook. You could tell the person that there is enough time because we will cook ingredients simultaneously. Now if I came along and pointed out prep time and cooling time and transition time in between steps you would say "curious George " thank-you but that is not what I am talking about. I am simply talking about doing things simultaneously instead of one ingredient at a time. Granted cooking ingredients together might very well affect the cook time, but you had already acknowledged that and saying your point was to illustrate the difference between cooking one step at a time vs. Cooking ingredients together. Consequently, my points about other temporal considerations might be important just not relative to the point. However, I have not been able to read the critique yet. If the point of the critique was simply that the original paper was over ambitious in claiming there was plenty of time for evolution when by the paper's own admission many more factors need be incorporated in an perfect model, then it is a good critique-but it sounds like the critique offered mathematical counters to show the calculations were off. I am suspicious of this. The parts you copied are relevant only in discussing what aspects a complete accounting will need to include. To underscore the next step. No calculation should be involved in the addition of these factors unless those numbers. Are defined and explained by the author.

 

[rusra02]

Having no answer is preferable to having a wrong answer.

I am convinced the answer is right. It appears that it is not the answer you want. God will ultimately answer the question himself. (Ezekiel 38:23)

 

[LuisDantas]

I am convinced the answer is right. It appears that it is not the answer you want. God will ultimately answer the question himself. (Ezekiel 38:23)

What about the actual known, observable, falsifiable, demonstrable biological fact? Why exactly is it less important than your esthetical preference for a certain way of reading scripture?

 

[rusra02]

What about the actual known, observable, falsifiable, demonstrable biological fact? Why exactly is it less important than your esthetical preference for a certain way of reading scripture?

What fact?

 

[LuisDantas]

Never mind. Post #151 still stands.

 

[Ouroboros]

Another point to these articles--unless someone else already brought this up--the research paper was making the claim that there were "plenty of time" while the critique is "no, there's not plenty of time." That doesn't mean there's not sufficient enough time.

Example.

Bob has dentist appointment at 10 AM. It takes him 20 minutes to get there.

Case A: It's 8 AM. There's plenty of time.

Case B: It's 9 AM. There's still plenty of time.

Case C: It's 9:30 AM. There's enough time, but cutting it short.

Case D: It's 9:40 AM. There's still enough time, but he better get into the car right now.

Case E: It's 9:50 AM. Sorry. Too late. Can't make the drive there in time.

The research paper makes the claim of case A or B. The critique says, "no, it's not case A or B."

Not surprisingly some people take this to mean that E is the only option left, but that's not true.

There's still enough time for evolution to happen, but if the critique is correct, it's just not plenty of time. Still there's sufficient time, like in case C and D.

 

[Alceste]

I am convinced the answer is right. It appears that it is not the answer you want. God will ultimately answer the question himself. (Ezekiel 38:23)

I have higher standards for becoming convinced.

 

[McBell]

Ahem....

ain't gonna happen...