Darwin Unhinged: The Bugs in Evolution

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

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.

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.

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!

@Paul Go on - read it and tell us what is wrong with it!

David

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.

No one is suggesting that it's only due to neutral mutations.

As far as changes being useful for a land-based animal, consider Pakicetus. And consider the hippo.

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!

You're making it sound like it's all one or the other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_th....22_debate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_cetaceans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakicetus

~~ Paul

No one is suggesting that it's only due to neutral mutations.

Well shouldn't we consider first, if neutral mutations - which happen in a purely random way - can do anything significant, and if so how. I mean, the only thing that used to make Darwin's theory viable, was the assumption that each step in a chain of mutations could be independently beneficial. There doesn't seem much point in adding random (unselected) mutations because although some will happen, they hit a brick wall of combinatorial explosion.

David