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Author Topic:   Random mutations shot down on this site.
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 76 of 84 (383469)
02-08-2007 12:12 PM
Reply to: Message 74 by Percy
02-08-2007 11:41 AM


Re: Resuming the discussion
I'm pretty sure Perry would categorise all of those intermediate changes as 'fatal' mutations, even though you have done the first thing he said was impossible.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 74 by Percy, posted 02-08-2007 11:41 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 77 by Percy, posted 02-08-2007 12:21 PM Wounded King has not replied
 Message 83 by pink sasquatch, posted 02-08-2007 1:32 PM Wounded King has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 77 of 84 (383472)
02-08-2007 12:21 PM
Reply to: Message 76 by Wounded King
02-08-2007 12:12 PM


Re: Resuming the discussion
Wounded King writes:
I'm pretty sure Perry would categorise all of those intermediate changes as 'fatal' mutations, even though you have done the first thing he said was impossible.
I agree, but I thought it important to go beyond just claiming "Selection is missing" by showing how selection can be so easily included. Adding a requirement to the selection mechanism that all surviving offspring be real words is extremely simple conceptually, assuming a spell-check routine. But requiring that all offspring be legal words means there could be many target words to which no evolutionary path is possible if word lengths can't change, so my program would have to be modified slightly to accommodate the possibility of addition/subtraction of letters.
I hope we don't spend any more time on that webpage, even though it's the topic of this thread. It's so bad in places it isn't even wrong. Untangling his confused thinking for an audience unfamiliar with the topic would be a considerable challenge.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by Wounded King, posted 02-08-2007 12:12 PM Wounded King has not replied

  
DigDug Master
Junior Member (Idle past 6257 days)
Posts: 5
Joined: 02-04-2007


Message 78 of 84 (383481)
02-08-2007 12:43 PM


Re: Resuming the discussion
Thankyou everyone for so clearly explaining this websites faulty reasoning...
If anyone had bothered to run the generator you would see there is a natural selection element. Ironicly, even though it seems nobody agrees with the site, you would all rather bicker amongst each other then seriusly attempt to reason and explain why it's inaccurate. I'm an open minded person, why not dignify the subject with some clear answers.

Replies to this message:
 Message 80 by Wounded King, posted 02-08-2007 1:07 PM DigDug Master has not replied
 Message 82 by Percy, posted 02-08-2007 1:32 PM DigDug Master has not replied

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


Message 79 of 84 (383488)
02-08-2007 12:58 PM
Reply to: Message 75 by Fosdick
02-08-2007 12:02 PM


Re: "Speciation" and "The Standards of Scholarship"
One interest of mine has been the differentiation between selective and non-selective causes of evolution. I think people often assume that mutation/selection is the only way evolution happens, so I moved to point out to DigDug that there are other means.
So in fact you decided that your own particular hobby-horse nit was worth picking even though it was substantially off topic? I called it a strawman because you say 'This is an interesting departure from the POV that microevolution is entirely an adaptive affair cause by natural selection.' as if that was the common point of view of evolutionary biologists which was recently challenged when a lot of people have been accepting the importance of selection-neutral factors in evolution since the early 80's, i.e. subsequent to Kimura's publication.
would you agree that cladists view speciation as a requiment for evolution?
No, I don't think I would. They may well view it as an inevitable outcome given the correct confluence of factors such as population size, geographic isolation, etc... but I don't think I'd say that speciation was a requirement for evolution in cladistics.
I might say however that it is the most important thing in evolution from a cladistic point of view, and especially in reconstructing a hierarchical history of evolution. I certainly think the concept of speciation is a vital one for any sensible discussion of the evolution of life on earth but I don't necessarily see it as 'a requiment for evolution'.
My point here is that "speciation" is a bit ambiguous
Not ambiguous enough to encompass all changes between two species over millenia I would suggest.
So, without chewing up my ankles too badly, please tell me how that is 'dragging down the standards of scholarship'
It isn't but continually dodging a criticism, one you then subsequently accepted from another poster but kept on arguing with me, and thinking that just saying 'I think your wrong' is some sort of rebuttal are not a serious form of debate.
I had already given my reasons why I didn't consider the Smith & Eyre-Walker paper to support your statement, with reference to the text, and you never addressed them but instead accused me of 'ankle-biting' and told me how wrong I was without actually showing any single thing to support your contention, that is dragging down the standard of scholarship on the site when you repeatedly fail to back up your position with evidence but just make snide comments.
TTFN,
WK
Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 75 by Fosdick, posted 02-08-2007 12:02 PM Fosdick has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 81 by Fosdick, posted 02-08-2007 1:31 PM Wounded King has replied

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


Message 80 of 84 (383495)
02-08-2007 1:07 PM
Reply to: Message 78 by DigDug Master
02-08-2007 12:43 PM


Re: Resuming the discussion
If anyone had bothered to run the generator you would see there is a natural selection element.
A button marked 'Revert to selected text' isn't really an element of natural selection.
If you think Perry's system adequately models natural selection then why? You saw his argument about Click-ads? Where did he go with it? Nowhere. He brought it up but didn't apply it. What he would need to do is run 50 mutated adds and then take say the top 1% and mutate them. Instead he just drops a pile of mutations on them and acts surprised that most of the results are gobbledigook.
So where is there any actual element of something equivalent to natural selection actually applied in Perry's example rather than just mentioned in passing?
See also Message 72.
TTFN,
WK
Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by DigDug Master, posted 02-08-2007 12:43 PM DigDug Master has not replied

  
Fosdick 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5499 days)
Posts: 1793
From: Upper Slobovia
Joined: 12-11-2006


Message 81 of 84 (383508)
02-08-2007 1:31 PM
Reply to: Message 79 by Wounded King
02-08-2007 12:58 PM


Re: "Speciation" and "The Standards of Scholarship"
One interest of mine has been the differentiation between selective and non-selective causes of evolution. I think people often assume that mutation/selection is the only way evolution happens, so I moved to point out to DigDug that there are other means.
WK replied:
So in fact you decided that your own particular hobby-horse nit was worth picking even though it was substantially off topic?
That is YOUR opinion, WK. And your opinion does not set the 'standards of scholarship.' "Hobby-horse nit"”that's just more ankle-biting.
I certainly think the concept of speciation is a vital one for any sensible discussion of the evolution of life on earth...
Wonderful! Now you're coming along nicely.
...but I don't necessarily see it as 'a requiment for evolution'.
Well, maybe it's not a "requirement," but a "measure" of evolution instead. Go ahead and bite my ankle if you need to, but I'm still a bit ambiguous about it.
”HM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 79 by Wounded King, posted 02-08-2007 12:58 PM Wounded King has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 84 by Wounded King, posted 02-08-2007 2:50 PM Fosdick has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 82 of 84 (383509)
02-08-2007 1:32 PM
Reply to: Message 78 by DigDug Master
02-08-2007 12:43 PM


Re: Resuming the discussion
DigDug Master writes:
If anyone had bothered to run the generator you would see there is a natural selection element.
You're right! There's a "Select" button which saves away the current state of the text so that you can easily back up to an earlier stage by clicking on the adjacent "Revert To Selected Text" button. This is "manual selection", not "natural selection", and it's there so that you can repeatedly mutate-revert-mutate-revert-etc until you get a mutation you like. This manual approach is unlikely to make much progress because you're playing with a tiny population of one organism (one sentence), and the organism can have only a single offspring. You really need a computer programming carrying out the steps automatically so that you can have multiple organisms each of which can have multiple offspring (think of a school of fish, for example, where there can be hundreds of fish, and each year each male/female pair produce hundreds of fertilized eggs) to get any meaningful results, see my Message 74.
Ironicly, even though it seems nobody agrees with the site, you would all rather bicker amongst each other then seriusly attempt to reason and explain why it's inaccurate. I'm an open minded person, why not dignify the subject with some clear answers.
Sorry, I thought we were being clear. Do you have any specific questions?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by DigDug Master, posted 02-08-2007 12:43 PM DigDug Master has not replied

  
pink sasquatch
Member (Idle past 6022 days)
Posts: 1567
Joined: 06-10-2004


Message 83 of 84 (383510)
02-08-2007 1:32 PM
Reply to: Message 76 by Wounded King
02-08-2007 12:12 PM


a non-fatal path
WK writes:
I'm pretty sure Perry would categorise all of those intermediate changes as 'fatal' mutations, even though you have done the first thing he said was impossible.
Probably, but his description is also misleading and problematic regarding how mutations could occur, and he provides an example that intentionally produces non-sense words at every step:
Perry writes:
Let's try it, one mutation at a time:
Brown > Brorn > Brorb > BrorW > qrorW > qKorW > qKoJW > qKoyW > qFoyW > qjoyW > qjTyW
After 10 mutations we didn't have a single letter remaining.
Our only hope is some kind of "punctuated equilibrium" where big jumps happen all at once. What's the chances of evolving Brown > Black in one step?
I didn't quite do it in 10 mutations, but I did manage to "mutate" brown > black using standard words at each step, and using only single nucleotide changes (including indels) and a single inversion:
1. brown
2. drown
3. drawn
4. draw
5. ward
6. word
7. work
8. cork
9. cock
10. clock
11. block
12. black
This took me all of a minute or so. I wonder why Perry would neglect to include such an easy and obvious example?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by Wounded King, posted 02-08-2007 12:12 PM Wounded King has not replied

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


Message 84 of 84 (383545)
02-08-2007 2:50 PM
Reply to: Message 81 by Fosdick
02-08-2007 1:31 PM


Re: "Speciation" and "The Standards of Scholarship"
That is YOUR opinion, WK. And your opinion does not set the 'standards of scholarship.'
But since that wasn't what I was addressing when I lamented your 'standards of scholarship' it hardly matters. Are you saying that 'I don't think so' is all that is needed to contest a substantive rebuttal of a claim in a worthwhile debate?
Also technically my opinion does substantially affect the 'standards of scholarship', on this site at least, and that goes even more for Percy.
Wonderful! Now you're coming along nicely.
I wish I could say the same.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 81 by Fosdick, posted 02-08-2007 1:31 PM Fosdick has not replied

  
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