(2017-09-20, 04:59 PM)DaveB Wrote: [ -> ]Because without selection at most steps, it you get a huge combinatorial explosion. If each step can go K ways, and there are N of them, you get K^N possible outcomes. So take K=4 and N=30, you get 1152921504606846976 outcomes - most of which will be nonsense. Darwin himself could have answered your question!
Why do you say that most will be nonsense? Neutral theory proposes that most variation is neutral.
Quote:I mean, yes there may well be neutral genetic drift, but the only thing that gives it any reasonable chance of drifting into something useful, is Natural Selection (or, of course an ID based theory).
I might agree that ultimately some selection is required to come up with something useful. However, you said:
... each step has to somehow be beneficial.
I don't think each step has to be beneficial.
Quote:Also, who is talking about neutral changes? Suppose you want to envisage the changes that supposedly transformed a land based mammal into a whale. Most of the changes would be far more likely to be deleterious until all had happened.
You keep saying this, but neutral theory suggests otherwise.
Quote:I mean what use would a pair of gills be until the creature could live in the water - they would probably be liable to dry out and become infected.
Whales don't have gills.
~~ Paul
(2017-09-20, 04:59 PM)DaveB Wrote: [ -> ]Because without selection at most steps, it you get a huge combinatorial explosion. If each step can go K ways, and there are N of them, you get K^N possible outcomes. So take K=4 and N=30, you get 1152921504606846976 outcomes - most of which will be nonsense. Darwin himself could have answered your question!
I mean, yes there may well be neutral genetic drift, but the only thing that gives it any reasonable chance of drifting into something useful, is Natural Selection (or, of course an ID based theory).
Also, who is talking about neutral changes? Suppose you want to envisage the changes that supposedly transformed a land based mammal into a whale. Most of the changes would be far more likely to be deleterious until all had happened. I mean what use would a pair of gills be until the creature could live in the water - they would probably be liable to dry out and become infected. Besides, any change of that sort would probably make an animal sexually unattractive to its peers - would you form a relationship with a woman who had webbed feet and gills 
David
Concerning the whale adaptations:
From an article by Jonathan Wells at
http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/sal...a-tale.php:
Quote:If we wanted to turn a land mammal into a whale, these are just a few of the many changes we would have to implement. Could the changes have happened accidentally, without design?....
How did the features needed for a fully aquatic lifestyle originate?
How would the hind limbs of a sea lion turn into a fluke (which is very different)?
How would a male’s testicles become simultaneously internalized and surrounded by countercurrent heat exchange systems? The streamlined bodies of male cetaceans lack external testicles. Instead, the testicles are inside the body. In most mammals (even sea lions) the testicles are outside the body, because sperm production normally requires a temperature several degrees below normal body temperature. In cetaceans, the testicles are cooled below body temperature by countercurrent heat exchangers. Veins carry cool blood from the dorsal fin and flukes to the testicles, where it flows through a network of veins that pass between arteries carrying warm blood in the opposite direction. The arterial blood is thereby cooled before it reaches the testicles.
Internalization of the testicle could not have preceded the countercurrent heat exchange system, or the male cetacean would have been sterile. Yet there is no adaptive advantage to having a countercurrent heat exchange system around the testicle unless it is inside the body.
How would a female develop specialized nursing organs to inject milk forcibly into her calf? Indeed, why would any of these changes occur? Sea lions are already well adapted to their amphibious lives.
An intelligence could have planned to make fully aquatic mammals and designed these features to actualize the plan. But Darwinian theory says no design is allowed, and that leaves us with little more than a fairy tale about how natural selection could turn swimming bears into whales.
Then there are the sonar-like echolocation system combining many different systems, neural, cochlear, etc., the deep diving adaptations to prevent collapse of the lungs, it goes on and on. All of these body system redesigns had to be developed and implemented roughly simultaneously in order for the animal to remain viable and survive into the next generation.
(2017-09-21, 07:24 PM)Brian Wrote: [ -> ]I think this thread might be badly named as it seems that, according to Stephen Meyer, Darwin was one of the only ones who accepted that there was a major bug in evolution theory, namely the Cambrian explosion.
The subject title was taken from the title of the article quoted in the first post. I was posting a link.
(2017-09-19, 06:40 AM)Pssst Wrote: Is ET\s manipulation of human genetics 'natural' or not?Brian Wrote: [ -> ] What??? 
All of this yak about natural, Darwinian, Design-based evolution never addresses the Anunnaki manipulation of the homonoid species which evolved into Homo Sapien (of today). As an aside, the homonoids that the Anus did not alter became Sasquatch.
If you were to have this conversation with, say, a Zeta Reticulum, they would remind you of the Anus work and of their own genetic manipulations using human DNA which has produced hybrid races e.g. Sassani people.
They consider these manipulations just as natural as plain ole evolution over time and without any intervention from what we call 'outside agencies'.
I've stumbled across a couple of articles about the problems Monsanto is having with round up resistant weeds. Since they introduced geneticlly modified crops that were also glyphosphate resistant.
Makes me wonder if this might be an example of morphogenetic resonance? In any cace I find the "weeds" ability to find a workaround fascinating.
(2017-09-21, 06:24 PM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: [ -> ]Why do you say that most will be nonsense? Neutral theory proposes that most variation is neutral.
I might agree that ultimately some selection is required to come up with something useful. However, you said:
~~ Paul
Neutral theory seems to be a desperate attempt to hand waive over a huge combinatorial explosion. It really doesn't make sense, and perhaps the most obvious place to see that is with macro evolution.
No - whales don't have gills (sorry for the goof), but they do have large changes to their respiration, locomotion, etc to cope with life at sea. Now neutral theory suggests these might happen by chance, but quite apart from the incredibly low probability of that happening, the changes would not be of use to a land based animal - in fact they would be detrimental. In particular, even small changes would probably make a creature less sexually attractive.
See Nbtruthman's links to a detailed account of the changes needed to create a whale (above).
For years naive opponents would say that Darwin's theory was like saying that things would assemble themselves by chance. The put-down was always that natural selection solved the combinatorial explosion by favouring steps that were individually useful. Now 'neutral theory' seems to be pretending the stepwise gain isn't necessary!
David
(2017-09-22, 11:24 AM)Brian Wrote: [ -> ]https://www.newscientist.com/article/2146455-a-third-of-uk-adults-question-evolution-does-that-matter/
Unexpectedly, 44 per cent felt that evolutionary processes cannot explain the existence of human consciousness. It might be tempting to assume that this is just a reflection of the number of religious believers. However, while faith does appear to amplify individual doubts about evolutionary explanations, it is not the only factor at work. We saw similar trends across all respondents – religious, spiritual and non-religious.
Nearly one in five self-identifying atheists agreed that “evolutionary processes cannot explain the existence of human consciousness”.
Of course it cannot, consciousness cannot be severed from existence, an attribute of existence.
If we can accept that "some other" is currently attempting to manipulate humankind (via Vallee's control mechanism or something akin to that), and we accept that this quite likely has been going on through recorded history; how much more of a leap is it to suggest this might also have "guided" our evolution through subtle means from the get-go?
I don't believe in the Annunaki or the Zeta Reticuleans per se any more than Adam & Eve, but I'm guessing that somewhere in all these seemingly ludicrous stories hides a small nugget of truth - if only in the metaphor.
(2017-09-22, 05:31 PM)Ricochet Wrote: [ -> ]If we can accept that "some other" is currently attempting to manipulate humankind (via Vallee's control mechanism or something akin to that), and we accept that this quite likely has been going on through recorded history; how much more of a leap is it to suggest this might also have "guided" our evolution through subtle means from the get-go?
I don't believe in the Annunaki or the Zeta Reticuleans per se any more than Adam & Eve, but I'm guessing that somewhere in all these seemingly ludicrous stories hides a small nugget of truth - if only in the metaphor.
Believe as you wish but these are the stories that come from the extraterrestrials themselves.
(2017-08-19, 10:21 PM)Kamarling Wrote: [ -> ]Darwin Unhinged: The Bugs in Evolution
I happened across this blog while searching for something else. It is quite long and I haven't even finished reading it yet but I felt it might be of interest to others here. So far, I have found myself nodding and smiling as I read it and, whatever your views on evolution, Neo-Darwinism or ID, there are some pretty quotable passages in there, IMHO. Here's one from the top of the page:
That is an amazingly good article. It covers such a wide swath of ideas - including the sociological aspects of science at the start. He isn't even a scientist (at least he says he isn't) but he seemed to hit one nail after another - right on the head!
Go on - read it and tell us what is wrong with it!
David