Can someone please help me with this post. I think they are tying to baffle me with bullshit!

Questions to all those in favor of the evolution theory and those who consider themselves "well educated" when it comes to this subject:

When considering Kimura’s curve (by Motoo Kimura: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motoo_Kimura), please tell us how evolution (meaning the creation of new genetic information for the species to evolve) is possible when comparing the mutation frequency between positive (near neutral mutations) and negative mutations and also take into account the “no-selection box”? It really is simple math. And remember that Kimura’s curve is based upon a minimal estimate of noise (only that attributable to gamete sampling). In reality the “no-selection box” is much larger.

Also, do not make the mistake of thinking that natural variation is the same as evolution between species. All the information required for natural variation is already there in the DNA, this is not the case with evolution between species. This requires that new information is created AND added to the DNA. Example:

100101001 -> 100100011 (this could either be natural variation or mutation)
100101001 -> 10010200140040607001 (requires you to add more/NEW information)

And in reality DNA information is even much more complicated than this example (it is coded in 3 different levels)...

If you do not agree, please show us how the existing genome of a species can be mutated and selected into new useful DNA information.
Please provide us with empirical examples.

These are just two out of many scientific and legit questions regarding the evolution theory. I am looking forward to your reply.

Science: Theory -> Scientific research and empirical facts -> Facts

It´s not clear what curve this refers to (Kimura published quite a few curves in his various papers).
But let´s go with this one (using Kimura):

The Top shows the rate at which mutations with particular selection coefficients (s) occur in primates. The thick vertical line indicates the 0 position.
The middle shows the probability of fixation for mutant alleles given s and the human population size, based on Kimuras famous formula for allelic selection (p=(1-e-2s)/(1-e-4Ns).
The lowest graph shows the rate at which mutations with particular selection coefficients get fixed in humans based on the above.
It´s rather obvious that while most mutations that occur have s<0, most mutations that get fixed have s>0. What´s the problem?

Why do these apologists (or whatever) do this sort of thing?
They appear to have a basic-to-fair grasp of the mechanics of genetics, or basic but combined with a strong but pushy vocabulary; they then approach someone and attack with these 'bedazzling bullets' in some smug attempt to stun the opponent silent, catch them off-guard and/or mock someone (preferably atheist) who may not know the area too well but is likely anti-creationist.
Does my nut in.

Would a retort, "do you actually understand what you have just said?", fair well, one wonders?

And what the heck do they mean by, three levels of coding? Codons? Expression..?

susu.exp wrote:It´s not clear what curve this refers to (Kimura published quite a few curves in his various papers).
But let´s go with this one (using Kimura):

The Top shows the rate at which mutations with particular selection coefficients (s) occur in primates. The thick vertical line indicates the 0 position.
The middle shows the probability of fixation for mutant alleles given s and the human population size, based on Kimuras famous formula for allelic selection (p=(1-e-2s)/(1-e-4Ns).
The lowest graph shows the rate at which mutations with particular selection coefficients get fixed in humans based on the above.
It´s rather obvious that while most mutations that occur have s<0, most mutations that get fixed have s>0. What´s the problem?

Thanks susu I understand the concept, but this is the problem:

please tell us how evolution (meaning the creation of new genetic information for the species to evolve) is possible when comparing the mutation frequency between positive (near neutral mutations) and negative mutations

I think the poster is trying to use the curve (s) to disprove evolution ie: He is saying since the curve is true evolution isn't...

Ironclad wrote:Why do these apologists (or whatever) do this sort of thing?
They appear to have a basic-to-fair grasp of the mechanics of genetics, or basic but combined with a strong but pushy vocabulary; they then approach someone and attack with these 'bedazzling bullets' in some smug attempt to stun the opponent silent, catch them off-guard and/or mock someone (preferably atheist) who may not know the area too well but is likely anti-creationist.
Does my nut in.

Would a retort, "do you actually understand what you have just said?", fair well, one wonders?

And what the heck do they mean by, three levels of coding? Codons? Expression..?

Yes Ironclad, I must admit it kind of smacks of some kind of fuckwittery, especially this:

please show us how the existing genome of a species can be mutated and selected into new useful DNA information.

I know mutations occur but whose to say if they are "useful" or not? A very subjective question that I doubt has any empirical support?

And new information is required to be added to the DNA? Is this even logical?

Lol, I think if I said that he would come right back with do YOU understand what I just said? Guess I could just say no but I have an overwhelming desire to nail this guy

No, actually, he's saying gene duplications, deletions, substitutions and insertions can't occur.

Also, do not make the mistake of thinking that natural variation is the same as evolution between species. All the information required for natural variation is already there in the DNA, this is not the case with evolution between species. This requires that new information is created AND added to the DNA. Example:

100101001 -> 100100011 (this could either be natural variation or mutation)
100101001 -> 10010200140040607001 (requires you to add more/NEW information)

And in reality DNA information is even much more complicated than this example (it is coded in 3 different levels)...

If you do not agree, please show us how the existing genome of a species can be mutated and selected into new useful DNA information.

Given his example, he's claiming nucleotides can't be added to a genome. It's quite silly really. Any insertion with phenytypic effect would do.

Rumraket wrote:No, actually, he's saying gene duplications, deletions, substitutions and insertions can't occur.

Also, do not make the mistake of thinking that natural variation is the same as evolution between species. All the information required for natural variation is already there in the DNA, this is not the case with evolution between species. This requires that new information is created AND added to the DNA. Example:

100101001 -> 100100011 (this could either be natural variation or mutation)
100101001 -> 10010200140040607001 (requires you to add more/NEW information)

And in reality DNA information is even much more complicated than this example (it is coded in 3 different levels)...

If you do not agree, please show us how the existing genome of a species can be mutated and selected into new useful DNA information.

Given his example, he's claiming nucleotides can't be added to a genome. It's quite silly really. Any insertion with phenytypic effect would do.

The idea that such a thing must happen for speciation to occur is also nonsense. Reproductive isolation is the determinant of that and basically leads to differences in what "natural variation" shapes the new species that are formed as a consequence thereof.

GenesForLife wrote:The idea that such a thing must happen for speciation to occur is also nonsense. Reproductive isolation is the determinant of that and basically leads to differences in what "natural variation" shapes the new species that are formed as a consequence thereof.

Reproductive isolation is not necessarily a requirement for speciation. While it is true that species are collections of populations through which gene flow is possible, reproductive isolation (at least in the spatial sense) may only occur after the death of the last individual that is interferile with a members of the ancestral population.

Now he's talking "primary axioms". He'll trot Sanford out in a minute, I'm sure...

mjpam wrote:

GenesForLife wrote:The idea that such a thing must happen for speciation to occur is also nonsense. Reproductive isolation is the determinant of that and basically leads to differences in what "natural variation" shapes the new species that are formed as a consequence thereof.

Reproductive isolation is not necessarily a requirement for speciation. While it is true that species are collections of populations through which gene flow is possible, reproductive isolation (at least in the spatial sense) may only occur after the death of the last individual that is interferile with a members of the ancestral population.

yes, and it is at that point that the two formerly interfertile populations are considered different species, isn't it?

GenesForLife wrote:yes, and it is at that point that the two formerly interfertile populations are considered different species, isn't it?

Yeah, but I was trying to elaborate on the fact that reproductive isolation (in the spatial sense) does not necessarily precede speciation. I wasn't correcting you; I was embellishing your point.

Here is his latest offering with replys to some of mine (I have put mine in quote boxes). UnfortunateIy I don't think his bell curves copy & pasted. I will see when I post this.

I told him he would trot out Sanford's drivel next and so he did. Must make me psychic!

He raves on but what stands out to me most is his claim that natural selection has no effect at the genetic level. I am sure I could start by saying this is outright rot. To simple me the individual IS it's genetics

Is his post worth refuting piece by piece or would simply telling him "therefore god" is not an explanation?
............................................................................................................................

I'm back! As promised!

dreamweaver:
This theory takes in molecular evolution, ie the evolution of genes. I fail to see why acceptance of the great geneticist Kimura’s theory disproves evolution, even though it was considered controversial at the time. It is probably a good idea to explain it’s principles to our readers before YOU explain to ME why it does not explain evolution...

To explain this further I will use some graphs completed by Dr, J.C. Sanford. He explains the implications (the widely ignored parts) of Kimura’s works really well in his book “Genetic Entropy”.



This is the naive view of mutations, a “bell-shaped” distribution with half of the mutations being deleterious (left) and the other half showing positive effects on fitness (right).
With this kind of distribution it would be easy to imagine natural-selection removing bad mutations and fixing good mutations, resulting in an evolutionary progress. However, we know this is a false picture.



Today population geneticists know that essentially all mutations are deleterious, and that mutations having positive effect on fitness are so rare as to be excluded from such distribution diagram. This creates major problems for evolutionary theory. But this picture is still too optimistic.



Today population geneticists know that mutations are strongly skewed towards neutral. Just like in an instruction manual, a few misspellings will be lethal but most will be nearly harmless. This diagram is adapted from a figure by Kimura (1979). Kimura is famous for showing that most mutations are nearly neutral, and therefore are not subject to selection. Kimura’s “no-selection zone” is shown by the box. But this figure is still not complete.



To complete the figure we really must where the beneficial mutations would occur, as they are critical to evolutionary theory. Their distribution would be a reverse image of Kimura’s curve, but reduced in range and scale, by a factor of somewhere between ten thousand to one million. Because of the scale of this diagram, I cannot draw this part of the mutation distribution small enough, so a relatively large triangle is shown instead. Even with beneficial mutations greatly exaggerated, it becomes obvious that essentially all beneficial mutations will fall within Kimura’s “no-selection zone”. This completed picture, which is correct, makes progressive evolution on the genomic level virtually impossible.



The “no-selection box” in the previously pictures are based upon a minimal estimate of noise (only that attributed to gamete sampling). This is the classic near-neutral model, but this view fails to recognize all source of noise. So Kimura’s classic no-selection box is too small. We need to first expand our no-selection box because of poor heritability, which arise from the imperfect correlation between genotype and phenotype (more than 99% of phenotypic variations can be non-heritable). We need to first expand our no-selection box further in order to account for the imperfect correlation between phenotype superiority and reproductive success that arise from random aspects of reproduction. These are the primary sources of noise. When we consider all sources of noise, we realize that the real “no-selection box” is large, and that it cannot be dismissed by simply invoking large population sizes.

(Genetic Entropy. 29-32, 104)

This clearly shows that our genes are actually declining, not evolving!

It is estimated that the deleterious-to-beneficial ratio is 1 million to 1 (Gerrish and Lenski, 1998). Therefore we cannot make the curve (in the graph) to the right small enough… Only this speaks volumes!

What is really interesting here is that essentially all beneficial mutations (to the extent they actually happen (1 million to 1)) must be un-selectable. No wonder Kimura preferred not to represent the distribution of the favorable mutations!

Still, today these implications of Kimura’s research and “findings” are widely ignored; we can’t just take one part of his research and ignore the part that does not support the evolution theory. That is not science. That is some kind of belief system that does not accept any findings not in favor of its own believes (namely, the almighty natural selection).
The BIG problem for the evolutionist is that natural selection only occurs on the individual level, Mother Nature simply can’t select on the genetic level, which is imperative for the whole theory! If one does not understand this it is time to go back and study what the primary axiom (natural selection – mutations - time) really is….

Dreamweaver:
The neutral theory (not the “near” neutral theory) describes neutral mutation. A mutation that is not subject to natural selection, either positive or negative. For example ‘pseudogenes’ are ones that once did something useful but have been put aside and are never transcribed or translated. As far as the organism is concerned they have little effect and therefore might as well not exist, but it doesn’t mean they are useless. It means that the mutated form of the gene , which may or may not be vital to survival, is no different to the unmutated form. I am lost as to why you would bring this up as, from a creationist point of view, the presence of neutral genes can pose quite a problem since they need to make up a convincing reason as to why an intelligent creator would create them at all.

Quite the contrary, what I am referring to is positive, near neutral mutations within the “non-selection box” (read above), which does pose quite a big problem for the evolutionist, for obvious reasons.. No ability to select (on the genetic level), No evolution. The problem for the evolutionist is that they are all within the “non-selection box”.

dreamweaver:
“A gene that does absolutely nothing and gives every appearance of being a superannuated version of a gene that used to do something- unless God was deliberately setting out to fool us (Dawkins, 2009, p. 332). The stunning fact is, the larger part (95%) of the human genome may as well not be there.

False. What you are referring to is “junk DNA” and actual research findings continually expand the size of the fuctional genom, while the presumed junk DNA keeps shrinking. In just a few years, many geneticists have shifted from belieiving that less than 3% of the total genome is functional to believing that more than 30% os functional, and that fraction is still growing.

And as you are referring to Dawkins.. The question of “the origin of the genetic information" is so hard to answerer (for the evolutionist) that even a well know Darwinist such as Richard Dawkins is speculating that the genetic information might have come to earth from a another planet, planted here by aliens. This, of course does not answer the question "where did the genetic information of the aliens come from?"

Watch this interview with Dawkins:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoncJBrrdQ8

dreamweaver:
And many of the remaining 5% of the genes are read and not used, even ones that are vital to survival. You are right when you say the “no selection box is larger”.

But, “The mutant version of the gene has exactly the same effect as the unmutated version! (Dawkins, 2009, p.333) So we move into territory where the mutations themselves are described as being neutral as opposed to the genes themselves.

Reasons? The mutant code is a “degenerate” code meaning some codes are exact replacements of each other. It therefore has nil consequences on the organism and is NOT a mutation natural selection would recognise. A minor number of mutations are not neutral and they are SELECTED, POSITIVELY or NEGATIVELY, during evolution. Natural selection “sees” these and they are the ones that give the elegant illusion of design. Selection favours good mutations and gets rid of “bad” ones while the neutral ones accumulate.

Again, the BIG problem for the evolutionist is that natural selection only occurs on the individual level, Mother Nature simply cannot do any selection on the genetic level, which is imperative for the whole theory!

Unfortunately people have an extremely naive perspective towards natural selection. It is as if natural selection is something “magical”. Natural selection is not a magical wand but is a very real phenomenon, it has very real capabilities and very real limitations. It is not all-powerful.

Here I am going to quote Dr. Sanford:

“Natural selection has a fundamental problem. It involves the enormous chasm that exists between genotypic change (a molecular mutation) and phenotypic selection (on the level of the whole organism). There needs to be selection for billions of almost infinitely subtle and complex genetic differences on the molecular level. But this can only be done by controlling reproduction on the level of the whole organism. When Mother Nature selects for or against an individual within a population, she has to accept or reject a complete set of 6 billion nucleotides-all at once! It’s either take the whole book or have nothing of it. In fact Mother Nature never sees the individual nucleotides. She sees the whole organism. She never has the luxury of seeing, or selecting for, any particular nucleotide. We start to see what a great leap of faith is required to believe that by selecting or rejecting a whole organism, Mother Nature can precisely control the fate of billions of individual misspellings within the assembly manual (the genome)”. – “Genetic Entropy, 47”.

Do you understand the implications of this?

dreamweaver:
Enter FIXATION. New mutations have a low frequency in the gene pool but after say a million years of favoured selection its frequency may have moved up to 100%. This mutation has then “gone to fixation”. It is the norm. It can also move to fixation by chance. Fixation for neutral mutations in the vastness of geological time can occur at a predictable rate. Now enter the MOLECULAR CLOCK. Fixation and the molecular clock work together because the fixed genes are the ones geneticists look at, by comparing them, to try to estimate how long ago their ancestors split off. So, fixed genes are those that characterise a SPECIES.

The molecular clock characterises genes as having an expected turnover rate- The rate new mutations go to fixation by random chance. IE: haemoglobin genes have times to fixation in the millions of years. A Geiger counter measures radioactivity. It does not tick regularly, like a watch, but at random bursting stutters, and THAT is how mutations/fixations would sound on the massively long geological timescale if we could hear them. This is your “noise”.

All the information required for natural variation is already there in the DNA, this is not the case with evolution between species

dreamweaver: No, because the very theory you presented refutes this. The variations lead to fixation which leads to speciation.

False, read above.

This requires that new information is created AND added to the DNA.

dreamweaver: The “new information” comes from mutations, either neutral positive or negative. They are not “added” and do not allow a gap for “therefore God”.

This shows you do not have a basic understanding regarding DNA. Please tell me, you do understand that it requires new DNA information for a species to evolve, right? Example: A “fish” to evolve into a “lizard” with legs etc. Mother Nature can’t just take the genetic information of a fish, mutate it, give it some time and let natural selection do its thing. Again, this does not create the new, useful genetic information required to create legs etc for the lizard.

This example is not perfect but it does illustrate a real problem for the Darwinist:

100101001 -> 100100011 (this could either be natural variation or mutation)
100101001 -> 10010200140040607001 (requires you to add more/NEW useful information (eg. legs))

More “functions”, better fitness, evolving species -> More information in the DNA. Basic example: The construction manual of a “coaster car” and a car. We couldn’t just take the construction manual of the coaster car, mix the letters of the manual (mutations) and let someone who can’t read decide what copy to keep (selection on the genetic level) and after 100 million years we would have the construction manual of a car. Yet, this (and even worse) is what the evolution theory teaches us!

Compare the DNA of a fish and a lizard. Somewhere along the line information must be added, the DNA most expand for the species to evolve. Mutations does not add new useful information to the DNA, it only distorts it.

Please refer to the information above.

And in reality DNA information is even much more complicated than this example (it is coded in 3 different levels)

dreamweaver: Are you talking codons here? “coded in 3 different levels”?

No, I am not talking about codons here. This just shows your views are quite obsolete. Please research poly-functional DNA.

If you do not agree, please show us how the existing genome of a species can be mutated and selected into new useful DNA information.

dreamweaver: I think I’ve covered this. Easy. Normal mutation, chance and natural selection however the term useful is subjective and really relies on the environment of the said individual at the time of mutation. Keep in mind that 99% of mutations do not appear as external attributes ie: longer/shorter legs (as Kimura says, most are neutral).

Of course it doesn’t! That is why selection on the genetic level is so imperative for the evolution theory. Please refer to the information above.


Please provide us with empirical examples.

dreamweaver: Do you want empirical examples of the methods used to detect said mutations? Evolutionary/molecular biologist stuff? Here is one: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ridl ... kimura.pdf Let me know if it fits the bill. I can find no where in this paper that discredits evolution. To me it only enhances it.

Again, please refer to the information above.

This is the naive view of mutations, a “bell-shaped” distribution with half of the mutations being deleterious (left) and the other half showing positive effects on fitness (right).

I´ll start nitpicking right here. The correct distribution is also bell-shaped, though it´s mean is negative (that also implies symetry and thus, see below). But the key error here - and a huge one at that - is confusing beneficial (s>0) with "having positive effects on fitness". There´s a key difference in that in one case we are recording a correlation (individuals with the allele have a higher mean fitness than non-carriers), in the other we are discussing causality. There´s another error closely related to this and it permeates Sanfords work and that is that the fixation of an allele with s<0 would lead to a decrease of the populations mean fitness. That´s not true (nor is the reverse, the fixation of a beneficial allele won´t neccessarily lead to an increase in the mean fitness of the population). In the long run the mean fitness of any population is 1. It´s never far from 1 for any extended period of time and the idea that you could track the mean fitness of a population by looking at what value of s the alleles that go to fixation have is simply false. It´s a common error because making it seems obviously right. But in this case the obviously right happens to be wrong.

Today population geneticists know that essentially all mutations are deleterious, and that mutations having positive effect on fitness are so rare as to be excluded from such distribution diagram. This creates major problems for evolutionary theory. But this picture is still too optimistic.

Bollocks. While such mutations are rare, they are relevant - and that´s something you can get from Kimura almost at a glance. The rate of fixation for mutations depends on the populations size and the selection coefficient and for a reasonably sized population rates differ by a few orders of magnitude. Of the 700 billion novel mutations in the current generation of humans less than 100 will be fixed. And most of them will have s>0. To stop this from being possible less than 1 in 7 billion mutations has to be beneficial (even Sanford doesn´t go that far) and with the known probability distribution it´s not an issue.

Today population geneticists know that mutations are strongly skewed towards neutral.

Nope. The distribution is a normal one, which means it has a skewness of 0.

Just like in an instruction manual, a few misspellings will be lethal but most will be nearly harmless. This diagram is adapted from a figure by Kimura (1979). Kimura is famous for showing that most mutations are nearly neutral, and therefore are not subject to selection. Kimura’s “no-selection zone” is shown by the box. But this figure is still not complete.

Wrong again. Near neutrality does not mean "not subject to selection", but "not subject to selection strong enough for us to identify it for a single gene". We can identify positive selection as a statistical effect on a lot of genes, in the same way that we may not detect bias in a coin from 10 tosses, but from 1000 tosses.

The “no-selection box” in the previously pictures are based upon a minimal estimate of noise (only that attributed to gamete sampling). This is the classic near-neutral model, but this view fails to recognize all source of noise. So Kimura’s classic no-selection box is too small. We need to first expand our no-selection box because of poor heritability, which arise from the imperfect correlation between genotype and phenotype (more than 99% of phenotypic variations can be non-heritable). We need to first expand our no-selection box further in order to account for the imperfect correlation between phenotype superiority and reproductive success that arise from random aspects of reproduction. These are the primary sources of noise. When we consider all sources of noise, we realize that the real “no-selection box” is large, and that it cannot be dismissed by simply invoking large population sizes.

Argh! All the stuff he adds here is covered by population resampling, which is what Kimura models. It´s a case of trying to account for a source of "noise" (and that´s put in parantheses because it´s an essential part of the process - a "noiseless" evolution simply doesn´t work) several times.

It is estimated that the deleterious-to-beneficial ratio is 1 million to 1 (Gerrish and Lenski, 1998). Therefore we cannot make the curve (in the graph) to the right small enough… Only this speaks volumes!

What is really interesting here is that essentially all beneficial mutations (to the extent they actually happen (1 million to 1)) must be un-selectable. No wonder Kimura preferred not to represent the distribution of the favorable mutations!

1 million to 1 means we´ve got 700 million novel beneficial mutations in the current human population. That´s quite a lot. Since only a few of these will eventually get fixed (and some non-beneficial ones will as well) we can note a key point of Kimura: Being beneficial isn´t everything. There´s a fair amount of luck involved as well. But that´s something Darwin noted as well - if not as mathematically precise as Kimura.

Still, today these implications of Kimura’s research and “findings” are widely ignored; we can’t just take one part of his research and ignore the part that does not support the evolution theory. That is not science. That is some kind of belief system that does not accept any findings not in favor of its own believes (namely, the almighty natural selection).

Well, arguably there is a point here and that is that a lot of popular treatments of evolution aren´t that good. If you read Dawkins books you come out with the impression that a beneficial mutation will always spread through the population (the trick here is assuming infinite population sizes, where that´s correct. And since for any s that´s not 0 |Ns|>>1 if N is infinite near neutrality doesn´t happen there). So it´s a fatal blow to a particular popular science version of evolution, but as noted above that wasn´t Darwins view (favourable variants had a higher chance of survival), it wasn´t the view of the modern synthesis (which made this point in a more formal way) and it isn´t the view of Kimura (who expanded the synthesis) or of any population geneticist.

Dreamweaver:
The neutral theory (not the “near” neutral theory) describes neutral mutation. A mutation that is not subject to natural selection, either positive or negative. For example ‘pseudogenes’ are ones that once did something useful but have been put aside and are never transcribed or translated. As far as the organism is concerned they have little effect and therefore might as well not exist, but it doesn’t mean they are useless. It means that the mutated form of the gene , which may or may not be vital to survival, is no different to the unmutated form. I am lost as to why you would bring this up as, from a creationist point of view, the presence of neutral genes can pose quite a problem since they need to make up a convincing reason as to why an intelligent creator would create them at all.

Near neutrality is a modified version of neutral theory. Basically it tackles the issue that we can measure s precisely, there´s always an error. So for a particular allele we might find that s is close to 0, but it could be slightly positive or slightly negative. "Near neutral" describes the range where we can´t rule out with a certain confidence that s=0. Generally that´s where 2Ns<1.

Quite the contrary, what I am referring to is positive, near neutral mutations within the “non-selection box” (read above), which does pose quite a big problem for the evolutionist, for obvious reasons.. No ability to select (on the genetic level), No evolution. The problem for the evolutionist is that they are all within the “non-selection box”.

Actually we´ve got cases where we can empirically show positive selection that´s outside of the near neutral range.

Sanford wrote:Natural selection has a fundamental problem. It involves the enormous chasm that exists between genotypic change (a molecular mutation) and phenotypic selection (on the level of the whole organism). There needs to be selection for billions of almost infinitely subtle and complex genetic differences on the molecular level. But this can only be done by controlling reproduction on the level of the whole organism. When Mother Nature selects for or against an individual within a population, she has to accept or reject a complete set of 6 billion nucleotides-all at once!

Selection is a statistical effect on genes. Individuals have offspring numbers that are random variables. These random variables have an expected value, which we call the individuals fitness (or in the case of sexualy reproducing organisms it´s twice their fitness). The organisms that carry that allele have a mean fitness and so do those that don´t. s is the base e logarithm of the former divided by the later. I.e. the selection coefficient records the effects of genes being in the individuals it´s in on the genes, not vice versa.

Sanford wrote:It’s either take the whole book or have nothing of it. In fact Mother Nature never sees the individual nucleotides. She sees the whole organism. She never has the luxury of seeing, or selecting for, any particular nucleotide. We start to see what a great leap of faith is required to believe that by selecting or rejecting a whole organism, Mother Nature can precisely control the fate of billions of individual misspellings within the assembly manual (the genome)”. – “Genetic Entropy, 47”.

Individual nucleotides however see the whole of the organisms (note the plural) they are in. And that´s what population genetics deals with.

Edited: Removed paragraph that I didn´t quote, since I didn´t write out my reply either and a later section deals with it.

Susu, it seems you forgot to put this piece of his in quotes:

The BIG problem for the evolutionist is that natural selection only occurs on the individual level, Mother Nature simply can’t select on the genetic level, which is imperative for the whole theory! If one does not understand this it is time to go back and study what the primary axiom (natural selection – mutations - time) really is….

You are right. I´ve removed the section, since the reply to this is basically the one given to the first Sanford quote.

Thanks for your help guys. I put together a huge post in reply to him, basically tearing down all of Sanford's claims with studies that show Sanford is wrong, plus critical reviews of Sanford's work.

Here is his reply. What do you do with these guys? The stupid astounds me, yet he claims we are the ones who are stupid (with ad hom for emphasis) and cling to a "belief system". Makes my skin crawl. I haven't replied to this post as yet but not sure it would make any difference if I did...

I have seen this many times before; it is like you are being stupid on purpose (or you just don’t get it). Now, I don’t think you are trying to be stupid here so I’ll go with the second one.

I have two quotes as a response to your post (for now):

“Natural selection has a fundamental problem. It involves the enormous chasm that exists between genotypic change (a molecular mutation) and phenotypic selection (on the level of the whole organism). There needs to be selection for billions of almost infinitely subtle and complex genetic differences on the molecular level. But this can only be done by controlling reproduction on the level of the whole organism. When Mother Nature selects for or against an individual within a population, she has to accept or reject a complete set of 6 billion nucleotides-all at once! It’s either take the whole book or have nothing of it. In fact Mother Nature never sees the individual nucleotides. She sees the whole organism. She never has the luxury of seeing, or selecting for, any particular nucleotide. We start to see what a great leap of faith is required to believe that by selecting or rejecting a whole organism, Mother Nature can precisely control the fate of billions of individual misspellings within the assembly manual (the genome)”

If you don’t understand the implications of this and that this is how REAL natural selection works (not the made up, fairytale natural selection) I don’t think I can help you. It is so basic and so LOCICAL and CAN'T be ignored. And the “non-selection box” does not exist? Come on! Any more lies you want to share on this forum?

Well, you could provide me with a graph that does represent the reality (your reality) in a correct way when it comes to the deleterious-to-beneficial ratio and “non-selection” box.

I wrote:
"We can’t just take one part of his research and ignore the part that does not support the evolution theory. That is not science. That is some kind of belief system that does not accept any findings not in favor of its own believes (namely, the almighty natural selection)."

It is exactly what you are doing in your post. You ignore everything I wrote in my last post and call it lies, even though it is NOT.

And please answer me: Where did the INFORMATION come from? You do agree that DNA is the most complicated “instruction manual” in the universe? Even Richard Dawkins gets that...

And why do you want to start talking about God? I have not even mentioned him in my post up until now! I am talking about the evolution theory; what you believe to be a proven fact, even though it is far from it! Btw, your question about God shows you don’t even know what the biblical definition of God is.

You, however must show me empirical facts and examples of how information can create itself (from scratch), if you can’t, then you are simply BELIEVING/ASSUMING it happened and that is not science.

And duplication of DNA is NOT proof of evolution (please refer to my last post), are you serious?? Duplication, distortion, scrambling existing information is proof of forward evolution?? Please don’t insult my intellect any further.

Real evolution would require an increase in genetic complexity, not just a shift in gene frequency.

You wrote:
“but a small fraction will be beneficial”.

Here you are (once again) ASUMING (part of your belief system). Now, please provide me with ONE example.

I could go on, and on, and on… It is okay that you believe what you believe, but don’t tell me that it is science, because it simply is not! It is a religious belief system and that is proven over and over again… Anyone who doesn’t understands that are either ignorant (of the facts) or simply incapable of using their own brain (critical thinking).

But I really think the problem here is that you simply can’t/don’t want to see that many of your arguments require huge leaps of FAITH. A common mistake made by the evolutionist, so you are not alone at all...

And I am not alone either. Some quotes for you:

"Evolution is a fairy tale for grownups. The theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless" - Professor Louis Bounoure

"I myself am conviced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it has been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has." - Malcom Muggeridge

"Scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con-men, and the story they are telling maybe the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution we do not have one iota of facts." - Dr. T. N. Tahmisian

dreamweaver wrote:Can someone please help me with this post. I think they are tying to baffle me with bullshit!

Questions to all those in favor of the evolution theory and those who consider themselves "well educated" when it comes to this subject:

When considering Kimura’s curve (by Motoo Kimura: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motoo_Kimura), please tell us how evolution (meaning the creation of new genetic information for the species to evolve) is possible when comparing the mutation frequency between positive (near neutral mutations) and negative mutations and also take into account the “no-selection box”? It really is simple math.

If it's really simple maths, have they considered that that means it does NOT model reality in any thing resembling accuracy? And no amount of mathematics, hypothesizing, philosophy, or pulling crap out of their arses trumps actual facts from reality. We know evolution happens, therefore their maths are wrong or their attempt to reconcile reality with their unconnected maths is wrong (I'd be going with option B).

dreamweaver wrote:

strangemonkey wrote:
Science: Theory -> Scientific research and empirical facts -> Facts

^ And there's a clue!

Don't let this guy bully you into submission.

Some guy wrote:
“Natural selection has a fundamental problem. It involves the enormous chasm that exists between genotypic change (a molecular mutation) and phenotypic selection (on the level of the whole organism).

I don't get it. How is there an "enormous chasm" between them? The genotype is hereditary information, and the phenotype
is the properties of an organism, right? The phenotype is greatly influenced by the genotype; where's the enormous chasm?

Some guy wrote:There needs to be selection for billions of almost infinitely subtle and complex genetic differences on the molecular level. But this can only be done by controlling reproduction on the level of the whole organism.

Yeah, so? How is this a "fundamental problem" for natural selection?

Some guy wrote:When Mother Nature selects for or against an individual within a population, she has to accept or reject a complete set of 6 billion nucleotides-all at once! It’s either take the whole book or have nothing of it. In fact Mother Nature never sees the individual nucleotides. She sees the whole organism. She never has the luxury of seeing, or selecting for, any particular nucleotide.

He seems to say that it's the fitness of the phenotype that determines the evolution of the genotype. I still don't see how this is a "fundamental problem" for natural selection. If a genotype causes a phenotype that has trouble surviving, then it seems like that genotype is less likely to be around in later generations. Seems like basic natural selection, to me.

Some guy wrote:We start to see what a great leap of faith is required to believe that by selecting or rejecting a whole organism, Mother Nature can precisely control the fate of billions of individual misspellings within the assembly manual (the genome)”

I don't see how any leap of faith is necessary.

Some guy wrote:If you don’t understand the implications of this and that this is how REAL natural selection works (not the made up, fairytale natural selection) I don’t think I can help you. It is so basic and so LOCICAL and CAN'T be ignored. And the “non-selection box” does not exist? Come on! Any more lies you want to share on this forum?

I don't understand it, either. I guess I'm not LOCICAL enough. What's a non-selection box?

Happy New Year, by the way.

Shagz wrote: What's a non-selection box?

I did wonder at that. It does infer a program user interface where you can turn off selection pressures in some sort of simulation. Which would, of course, result in no evolution.

Lol, Shagz. I was going to pick up on his "LOCICAL" in my next reply too. I'm trying not to submit but the bastard is relentless. The "non-selection box" is something Sanford came up with to describe those genes that exist in the individual but are never selected for, apparently.

His name on the other site is Jono. I have to battle it out with him there as there are many following our 'duel', as one called it (and they are mostly theists), or I would ask him to take it up here. I so appreciate everyones help.

He is using Sanford almost exclusively from what I can make out. I have pointed out to him that if Sanford felt he was so right he would have submitted his theory for peer review by now and collected his Nobel prize but evidently Sanford hasn't... Jono didn't reply to that one.

I pointed out to him that in order for the genes to be selected the whole individual containing said genes has to be selected, as Sahgz and susu have both said, (and that it only makes sense and to take off his god goggles).

His claim that I brought god into it is false as his favourite quotee (Sanford) is a creationist and he jumped in when we were arguing over the usual "but we must have been created. Everything looks so designed..". I have not pinned down his actual interpretation of the biblical god he is referring to (and I will tell him there are 100's) but I feel this would now be appropriate?

I also think that if I just say something along the lines of:

"OK, all the evolutionary scientists are wrong. Instead of picking apart their work with the help of charlatans like Sanford, why don't YOU tell ME how you think it all goes down? You must have an alternative theory and apparently yours doesn't contain god (at least the biblical god) even though it is apparent your hero's does? Do you deny you are a creationist"

Jono wrote: Well, you could provide me with a graph that does represent the reality (your reality) in a correct way when it comes to the deleterious-to-beneficial ratio and “non-selection” box.

susu, would the curve you posted fulfil this request?

Does anyone want me to post what I last said to him? It's very long... Or if you want this is a link to the 'dual' (I am Heartsong there) http://www.michaelsarmyoflove.com/forum/index.php?topic=15.0

It is actually a sister forum to a Michael Jackson site (I'm sorry, I'm a fan, lol). It was opened because I (out of all the members at the MJ site) took umbrage at the constant references to god and religion with regard to MJ and started a thread for those who lacked belief in gods. Of course all the usual "I didn't come from a monkey", "I didn't come from a rock" rubbish ensued which then caused the site admin to open a sister site to discuss religion. So most of the start of our 'battle' is on the previous forum but my long post, to which he replied with the above, is there. He has not acquiesced to any of it (his latest comments I posted here were generated from it).

Maybe a few people from here could weigh in there? I could sure use the help! I think he needs slamming Cali style. His smug tone really makes me want to serve it to him but I only have basic understanding of genetics/DNA in relation to evolution and I don't want to get trapped. I find I have to research everything he says just to get unravel his claims. He is certainly looking for any chance to toast me...

And Happy New Year to all!