What is Salty's 'semi-meiotic hypothesis'

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Davison:

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Scott, you are largely correct

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Thank you for negating the usual mantra about everyone not understanding or not reading your essays.

I certainly don't agree with everything Berg postulated. Nevertheless, I cannot understand how chance can produce anything. I will be happy to abandon a creator and all that that implies as soon as that becomes necessary.. In the meantime it gives me pleasure to believe as I do. Forgive me for my weaknesses. salty

I find Dawkin's The Blind Watchmaker computer models very helpful in this regard. He shows how a random character generator, operated on by a selection pressure, can produce parts (and even the whole) of Hamlet in very few generations.Most creationists argue that creation (of any complex artifact, not just life) by chance has a very low probability. But the possibility is nonetheless there. You seem to argue that the probability of anything being made by chance - the 747 in the tornado, etc. - is not only low, it's zero. This is an assertation that you should probably support as it is an unusual claim.

Crashfrog. Do you actually give any credence to Dawkins? I am convinced he is a charlatan. As for the probability of chance doing anything in this world, I don't think it is zero, I think it is more like negative infinity. salty

This is just stupid. Probability can't be negative. Probability can only be a ratio between 1 and 0. Learn some math, dude! Phenominal ignorance of the basic tools of science don't make your position look any better.At any rate, if you ascribe no creative power to chance, how do you explain genetic programming, where computers regularly create superior electronic circuits through a process of random mutation and selection? The evidence is pretty clear that things CAN be created from chance. After all, what's so magic about creating?

Dude, I taught quantitative biology for 30 years so don't get flip with me as I don't appreciate it. I was only trying to make a point. I don't believe that natural selection had (past tense) anything to do with evolution except to get rid of the defectives. The forces that have produced new life forms have always been mysteries. I agree with Henry Fairfield Osborn and others who saw no role for chance in evolution. The position taken by Dawkins is precisely what one is forced to accept when a role for purpose is denied. It is insane to deny intelligent design. It is everywhere in the living world. Darwinism then and now is nothing more than attempt to control the way man views his place in the universe. It is atheism versus theism pure and simple. I belong to the latter camp. Sorry but that is the way I see it. salty

Woah, hey, settle down. I'm not the one saying things like "negative infinity". Maybe we could reduce the flippancy on both sides of the issue, perhaps?Anyway, if natural selection is reducing the defectives, as you put it, what is left? That that is adequate or better. Obviously, random mutation can make an organism worse. That's not disputed. What you have to prove is why random mutations can't make something better, even by the tiniest bit. It seems to be to be natural that if it can get worse, it can get better. Please prove why this isn't so.

I won't give natural selection any credit for anything. Most animals are killed because they happen to be in the wrong place at the right time. Natural selection is a meaningless concept at best. It explains nothing. salty

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I won't give natural selection any credit for anything. Most animals are killed because they happen to be in the wrong place at the right time. Natural selection is a meaningless concept at best. It explains nothing.

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Would you acknolwedge the point, "most animals are killed because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and lack the means to survive"?Or similarly, "Meanwhile, other animals may survive the same deadly situations, because they have traits that allow them to do so"?------------------
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Dan Carroll

A couple of extra points that seme to be important.Firstly chromosomal rearrangement is proposed to be the mechanism to produce macroevolution. Mutations to Hox genes have been demonstrated to produce macromutations - but chromosmal rearrangement has not. So there is no real evidence for this hypothesis.The use of chromosomal rearrangements adds to a known problem of "hopeful monsters" - where does the "monster" find a mate. To solve this it is proposed that all ancestral species reproduced asexually. Needless to say there is no real evidence for this.The additional problem of "hopeful monsters" - that slow refinement works more reliable than large jumps in "phenotype space" is answered by proposing directed evolution. For which there is no real evidence.On this basis alone the semi-meiotic hypothesis seesm to be a very unpromising piece of speculation, far inferior to the theory that it is supposed to replace.

Maybe you can explain what, in your view, is wrong with this:No organism has perfect DNA. You can always find places where a change would be for the better. If we consider only single-base-pair mutations, then a random mutation has the possibility, however slight, of occurring in a place where it would improve the organism.Most mutations will be neutral to negative, and natural selection will proportionally weed out the more negative mutations. The small number of positive mutations will be selected for and will increase in proportional representation in the population.This process continues for generation after generation, gradually improving the organism's adaptation to the environment, and allowing it to respond to changes in the environment.--Percy

Percy, that is fine to the extent it may occur, but it will never lead to a new species. The fact is that for humans at least we are defintely accumulating deleterious mutations due to the effect of modern medicine. I still feel that sexual reproduction is not very effective in getting rid of deleterious mutations. That is especially true for large organisms that leave relatively few progeny and accordingly offer little opportunity for selection to eliminate only the defectives. Large organisms have been particularly vulnerable to extinction. Many living fossils are small and produce huge numbers of progeny thereby insuring that some of them will be genetically fit. The oyster is a good example. I don't expect much agreement on this either. salty

Your statements indicate you have not considered the semi-meiotic hypothesis in detail. The female genome is capable of producing both sexes in many organisms including some vertebrates. I refer you to the work of Nace and others with frogs which I discuss in the Manifesto. I cannot imagine any hypothesis for evolution which is more lacking in demonstrable substance than Darwinian gradualism. To me it is obvious that evolution has somehow been guided toward man as the ultimate product as Robert Broom has suggested. salty

Despite your false claim that I have "obviously" not read your writings you have no substantive rebuttal.Obviously you need to rely on personal attacks rather than deal with the facts.

Sexual reproduction is not thought to get rid of deleterious mutations, that is the role put forward for natural selection. In a permissive enough environment with low selective pressure, which you have pointed out modern medicine provides to some extent, deleterious mutations are free to accumulate.[This message has been edited by Wounded King, 04-23-2003]