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Author Topic:   Anyone interested in taking on Syamsu in a "Great Debate"?
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 46 of 60 (168690)
12-15-2004 6:53 PM
Reply to: Message 36 by Syamsu
12-15-2004 11:18 AM


Don't get me started on your lightning strikes again. We spent the best part of thread discussing how that "research" only showed that NS was a stochastic rather than a deterministic process, something that very few evolutionary biologists would find anything controversial about at all.
Why not just re-read the "Natural selection is wrong" thread.
TTFN,
WK
This message has been edited by Wounded King, 12-15-2004 06:54 PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 36 by Syamsu, posted 12-15-2004 11:18 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 47 by Wounded King, posted 12-15-2004 7:04 PM Wounded King has not replied
 Message 50 by Syamsu, posted 12-16-2004 2:07 AM Wounded King has replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 47 of 60 (168695)
12-15-2004 7:04 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by Wounded King
12-15-2004 6:53 PM


In fact looking back over that thread you seem to have just given up rather abruptly for no readily apparent reason.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by Wounded King, posted 12-15-2004 6:53 PM Wounded King has not replied

Nighttrain
Member (Idle past 3994 days)
Posts: 1512
From: brisbane,australia
Joined: 06-08-2004


Message 48 of 60 (168779)
12-16-2004 1:12 AM


Hey,Mo, did you really take part in a 300 post thread without reading the book? Sounds a tad like that famous Exodus video.

Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 49 of 60 (168790)
12-16-2004 1:41 AM
Reply to: Message 42 by mikehager
12-15-2004 12:48 PM


Re: Fear and confidence
I will to think that you have no formal name for the point where the chance of the appearance of something changes. That seems the most likely explanation for you not giving any. You see I already told you what I meant with decision beforehand, so there is no sly unclarity which you speak of.
The dictionary definitions say nothing much, they are like decision = judgement = determination, they just give much synonymous words without telling you very precisely what a decision is.
What do you call the point where the chance of you debating me changed? Your decision right? You use the word in the same way as I set out, but you are not even aware of it.
If I would be a cheat, you could surely show that in debate, and in the context of this evolutionist crowd who would love to make me out as a cheat, you would surely win. It would make it so much easier for you to win, if I were a cheat, so it makes no sense. It still seems to me the more likely explanation is you don't want to enter a debate you're not sure of winning.
But never mind now, I don't want to enter into a great debate with you either anymore.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 42 by mikehager, posted 12-15-2004 12:48 PM mikehager has not replied

Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 50 of 60 (168796)
12-16-2004 2:07 AM
Reply to: Message 46 by Wounded King
12-15-2004 6:53 PM


Oh after Dawkins has propounded that NS is "the antithesis of chance" "the opposite of chance" etc. , he would surely not have any problem acknowledging that NS is stochastic?
I think you are confusing people. You are saying the same thing I am, about the paper of Ariew and Mathen. The fault is that it is stochastic rather then deterministic. They don't much go into why Darwinists made that mistake, and IMO it is prejudice towards cause and effect.
I see that now you contrast stochastic with deterministic, where I think before you said stochastic could still be deterministic. That stochastic was only a way to handle large datasets, but could still be deterministic. I guess this contrasting just shows that the way stochastic could be deterministic is a philosophcal point, and not a practical point, much.
But a stochastic element in NS is not shown. It's not neccesarily the case that the outcome in NS may be different for same startingpoints. It is just that NS also applies when the environment is stochastic, and when it is deterministic.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by Wounded King, posted 12-15-2004 6:53 PM Wounded King has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 51 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 12-16-2004 3:11 AM Syamsu has replied
 Message 58 by Wounded King, posted 12-16-2004 9:18 AM Syamsu has not replied

Parsimonious_Razor
Inactive Member


Message 51 of 60 (168799)
12-16-2004 3:11 AM
Reply to: Message 50 by Syamsu
12-16-2004 2:07 AM


Do you know what stochastic processes look like really? Just because something is stochastic doesn't mean it’s random. Systems can lie in the ordered regime, complex regime, chaotic regime, and in various borderland spaces.
I just finished modeling a stochastic system used for cell types. It’s a model of gene expression with varying degrees of noise involved. The system "gravitates" towards an attractor point but is pertabated back and forth by various noise.
Let me give this to you visually, these are occupancy graphs. About 100,000 times steps of where the system is at any given point.
This is with a very low amount of noise, the point near the center of the blob is where the system would go if there was no noise. The fluctuations around that point range in the 0.0001 range on a system that has values that can fluctuate from 0-3. That is a VERY tiny fluctuation. Basically this is deterministic, we know where the system is at any given time step even though it is stochastic.
Here is a few more with increasing noise values:
You can see the system becomes a little more stable, but 990,000 its is basically with in the stable state.
This is an example of the system with a LARGE amount of noise:
While the fluctuations here are too much to declare it stable any longer there is still very convincing attraction to a stable point.
So before you decide that something being stochastic makes it random you have to look at some important features. Most basically:
How sensitive is the system to noise? How much noise is there in the system?
Natural selection is not that sensitive to noise. Random day to day fluctuations do not pertabate the system around randomly. Selection for optimal reproduction plods ahead through a lot of noise. That doesn’t mean there isn't some noise but not enough to perturb it. If conditions change so the noise increases considerably (such as small populations) then the power of natural selection decreases and the system becomes more unstable.
Actually the variance we see in organisms in a fitness landscape fits stochastic process very well. The reason there is continuous variance in any trait is because of these stochastic processes. Variation with in a species would disappear with out them. But that does not mean that the whole system doesn’t move towards an optimal state and then stay around that optimal state. Very much like the graphs above show.

Science Blog: Attention Required! | Cloudflare

This message is a reply to:
 Message 50 by Syamsu, posted 12-16-2004 2:07 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 52 by Syamsu, posted 12-16-2004 4:58 AM Parsimonious_Razor has replied
 Message 53 by Wounded King, posted 12-16-2004 5:07 AM Parsimonious_Razor has not replied

Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 52 of 60 (168815)
12-16-2004 4:58 AM
Reply to: Message 51 by Parsimonious_Razor
12-16-2004 3:11 AM


I believe your explanation of natural selection is inconsistent with the new formulation of natural selection proposed. You seem to be excluding "noise" as an operational factor within natural selection. So you say that when the noise increases the power of natural selection decreases. But when a lightningstrike kills a goodeyed organism, and the badeyed organisms lives on to reproduce, it is no more or less powerful natural selection, then when the goodeyed organism reproduced, and the badeyed organism didn't reproduce.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 51 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 12-16-2004 3:11 AM Parsimonious_Razor has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 54 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 12-16-2004 5:17 AM Syamsu has replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 53 of 60 (168816)
12-16-2004 5:07 AM
Reply to: Message 51 by Parsimonious_Razor
12-16-2004 3:11 AM


That was an excellent illustration of the point, very clear. Syamsu seems to systematically conflate any technical term with any associated term no matter how innappropriate the context.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 51 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 12-16-2004 3:11 AM Parsimonious_Razor has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 55 by Syamsu, posted 12-16-2004 5:30 AM Wounded King has replied

Parsimonious_Razor
Inactive Member


Message 54 of 60 (168819)
12-16-2004 5:17 AM
Reply to: Message 52 by Syamsu
12-16-2004 4:58 AM


Let me try this again, a population of organisms exist with a basic survival probability (we will use survival rather than reproduction for simplicity) lets say P(S). Let’s say every organism is the same phenotype so probability of survival is only dependent on the environment. In a totally deterministic system every organism would either survive or die. So P(S)=1 or P(S)=0 and any organism X=P(S). But the environment is not deterministic it is stochastic so lets say the probability of survival for a given organism is X=P(S)-R (lets have P(S)=1 and R any random fluctuations in the environment). R is a stochastic effect. If R is small then the total probability of all the organisms tends towards P(S). If R is large then the system is chaotic. Now let’s change so that there are two new phenotypes one of which decreases survival the other which increases survival.
In this case the less fit phenotype might be described as Z=(P(S)-R)*0.5. The fitter phenotype as Y=(P(S)-R)*2. So X is now half as likely to survive as the original population and Y is twice as likely to survive. So does having R (a stochastic element) in the system destroy the idea that Y should out survive Z and X and that X should out survive Z? Well that depends on how large R is doesn't it? If R is really small then it has no effect if R is HUGE then nothing holds.
So do you see now how the size of the noise has to be defined? And that’s just one side of the equation, the sensitivity to noise also has to be addressed but that’s a lot more complicated.
You HAVE to define the size of R. So how large do you think R is in the natural environment on average?
If R is not large than natural selection will select phenotypes of comparative advantage.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 52 by Syamsu, posted 12-16-2004 4:58 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 56 by Syamsu, posted 12-16-2004 5:51 AM Parsimonious_Razor has not replied

Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 55 of 60 (168824)
12-16-2004 5:30 AM
Reply to: Message 53 by Wounded King
12-16-2004 5:07 AM


So what's the appropiate technical term for a change in the chance of the appearance of something?
Event? chance? point zero? Outcome? Outcome realisation? determination? chance-determiniation? cause? origin?
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 53 by Wounded King, posted 12-16-2004 5:07 AM Wounded King has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 57 by Wounded King, posted 12-16-2004 7:34 AM Syamsu has replied

Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 56 of 60 (168825)
12-16-2004 5:51 AM
Reply to: Message 54 by Parsimonious_Razor
12-16-2004 5:17 AM


You can measure the noise, but the operation of it should be included in natural selection, according to the new definition proposed.
It's predictable that an organism having an advantage will likely not reproduce, when all organisms in the population are unlikely to reproduce. And since the advantaged typically starts out in small numbers, we should predict that a large share of advantageous mutations gets lost. Many of the more complex traits irretrievably lost, because the complex mutations are unlikely to reoccur.
So it being predictable in many cases that the fittest don't survive, survival of the fittest is false. So I don't agree with putting up optimal fitness as the expected result of selection.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 54 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 12-16-2004 5:17 AM Parsimonious_Razor has not replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 57 of 60 (168842)
12-16-2004 7:34 AM
Reply to: Message 55 by Syamsu
12-16-2004 5:30 AM


It might very well depend what sort of thing you are talking about. A change in the probability would probably be a more technical phrasing than 'chance'.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 55 by Syamsu, posted 12-16-2004 5:30 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 59 by Syamsu, posted 12-16-2004 9:31 AM Wounded King has not replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 58 of 60 (168863)
12-16-2004 9:18 AM
Reply to: Message 50 by Syamsu
12-16-2004 2:07 AM


Actually Syamsu I think you will find that Dawkins said that "living complexity" was "the antithesis of chance", not natural selection. He did then argue that this suggests that 'Darwinism' is not a theory of chance. I don't think for a second that Dawkins
The problem here is that chance and choice are not the same thing.
They don't much go into why Darwinists made that mistake
Because 'Darwinists' as a group don't. The people they suggest do fall into this trap are the extreme adaptationists who try to seek an adaptationary basis for almost any trait.
I guess this contrasting just shows that the way stochastic could be deterministic is a philosophcal point, and not a practical point, much.
It is emminently practical, if it wasn't then a statistical approach to thermodynamics or quantum mechanics would not yield the valuable results they have.
The problem is that all you can suggest as far as determinism goes is that the population should move towards stable peaks in the fitness environment, you can't predict the exact peak they will arrive at, unless perhaps you have a highly restrictive experimental system.
It's not neccesarily the case that the outcome in NS may be different for same startingpoints.
Its certainly not necessarily the case that the results of similar identical pressures acting on initially identical populations will lead to completely different outcomes, but it depends a lot on what you are studying. You could easily get two populations which both ended up with increases in their average height but arrived at that result by two distinct pathways, i.e. one had an upregulation of growth hormone during development and the other had changes in the genes governing bone development leading to extension of the long bones of the leg.
There are certainly many different ways in which a particular gene may be mutated leading to the same outcome. Would you consider each different mutation producing a non-functional gene to be a different outcome even though the phenotypes would all be similar.
For one example from the literature there are several distinct mutations identified which allow resistance to be re-gained in E. coli populations with a non functional mutant beta-lactamase.
A natural polymorphism in beta-lactamase is a global suppressor.
Huang W, Palzkill T.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1997 Aug 5;94(16):8801-6.
A M182T substitution was discovered as a second-site suppressor of a missense mutation in TEM-1 -lactamase. The combination of the M182T substitution with other substitutions in the enzyme indicates the M182T substitution is a global suppressor of missense mutations in -lactamase. The M182T substitution also is found in natural variants of TEM-1 -lactamase with altered substrate specificity that have evolved in response to antibiotic therapy. The M182T substitution may have been selected in natural isolates as a suppressor of folding or stability defects resulting from mutations associated with drug resistance. This pathway of protein evolution may occur in other targets of antimicrobial drugs such as the HIV protease.
How can you say that there is no stochastic element in NS when the entire point of the Mathen paper was that there are stochastic elements affecting NS.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 50 by Syamsu, posted 12-16-2004 2:07 AM Syamsu has not replied

Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 59 of 60 (168864)
12-16-2004 9:31 AM
Reply to: Message 57 by Wounded King
12-16-2004 7:34 AM


So what is the technical definition for a change in probability?
There is some point where something can turn out one way or another, at a later point this is no longer true. In between is the " ".
You better come up with a name unless people will think that for this whole area of reality, science has no clue.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by Wounded King, posted 12-16-2004 7:34 AM Wounded King has not replied

AdminJar
Inactive Member


Message 60 of 60 (168870)
12-16-2004 9:51 AM


This is turning into a typical Syamsu excursion
Wandering all over the place.
Closing it down.
If anyone wishes to hold a Great Debate with Syamsu then propose a Topic with a focused OP and some agreed on set of procedures.
Closing this down.

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