More Evidence of Evolution - Geomyidae and Geomydoecus

For reasons known only to himself, Hoot Mon is raising off-topic objections. This would seem to indicate that he doesn't have a basis for objecting, but he doesn't like the paper's conclusions, so he's objecting anyway with whatever comes to mind. Plus I'm wondering if there's a history between you two, because the animosity seems a little strong for a first or second encounter. Anyway, the problem with these off-topic objections is that they invite reply because they're either wrong or misleading.Perhaps it would work just to answer that if he'd like to discuss these other topics that he should propose a new thread, then drop it.--Percy

This isn't the first time he's injected nonsense into an otherwise interesting thread, no. Maybe I was harsh but I have a fairly limited tolerance for people who produce nonsense and then act like I'm the one with the problem for not being able to see the Emperor's new clothes.HM's response to correction is to spew ad hominem attacks and accuse his opponents of ankle-biting. His most recent assertion that "genes deterministically adopt strategies" is just more of his opaque word-salad approach to debate.

Well, I'm not a credible biologist . However, I DO understand that selection must, by definition, operate at the level of the individual organism. After all, it's the organism that reproduces (or not). Evolution, on the other hand, operates at the level of a population. I would have thought that would be obvious (and no, this is REALLY not the thread to get into the pros and cons of group selection theory).

Ah, so now the problem with English seems to have disappeared. No such calculations have been made. Nowhere in the paper does it refer to mutation. It's been explained to you what was being referred to by the word "chance". How was the explanation insufficient?Your objections to the material are not based on an understanding of it. Why is this a problem you refuse to correct? Hardly relevant. Random mutations do occur; this has been proven in thousands of experiments and is not something that can be denied. Random mutation is not the source of speciaction events. Speciation occurs in response to environment and population structure. I don't know what "nomogenesis" is, but it's been explained to you how this research disproves creationism and lends support to evolution. It cannot be reconciled with intelligent design or with any kind of directed evolution, as has been explained. What about that explanation was insufficient? If you're not prepared to address rebuttals to your position then I think it's necessary to rethink your participation in this thread.

Yes, perhaps a new thread is more appropriate, because “group selection” and “individual selection” need to be differentiated from “gene selection” and “kin selection.” It must be confusing to MartinV and his ilk that Darwinian biologists can’t agree on exactly what natural selection is and where it occurs. And, unless you invoke the selfish-gene theory, the same quandaries can be raised about evolution itself.By definition, natural selection is the possible consequence of uneven reproductive success of individuals in a population. But this does not mean that natural selection necessarily operates on the individual or its population, even though the results may occasionally point in that direction. Looking closer, as did G. C. Williams, Wm. Hamilton, R. Dawkins, et al., the actual site of natural selection can often be seen at the level of genes and their alleles (i.e., genetic evidence of strategic altruism for kin survival). “Group selection” and “species selection” (i.e., 'for the good of the group or the species') are no longer regarded as credible by most biologists, although some still claim them to be true. Furthermore, natural selection is not the only cause of evolution (as I have already taken pains to point out). Non-selective agencies like genetic drift, gene flow, and preferential mating may also cause evolution to occur.I know crashfrog will be bent out of shape because we’re not taking about his mice and lice and parallel convergences. So maybe another thread is needed to discuss the question ”What exactly is natural selection and precisely where does it occur?’”HM

Yep. My admin alter ego is already yammering at me for posting the last bit off topic. I don't have huge amounts of time, but if you'd care to start a new topic and define the parameters of the discussion as you've framed them here, I'll be happy to join in.

This is one of Martin's pet arguments (and is one of the bases for Davison's, erm, strange views). Nomogenesis is a theory of directed evolution that was first (or most loudly) propounded by Lev Berg in the 1920's in a book of the same name. It is basically a form of biological determinism (sort of "clockwork evolution" - a very mechanistic viewpoint) derived from 19th Century views of orthogenesis - which in turn was more or less the last gasp of the midieval escala naturae. The basic idea is that nature (writ large) is driving toward a set goal or purpose, and that evolution continues toward perfection driven by a set of obscure natural "laws". I don't think Berg had any supernatural component, however.

Preferential mating is, by definition, selective.Is it really necessary for you to be confusing people in this thread with your science gaffes? And I have yet to see the relevance of these remarks to the topic.

Let us first reconsider confusing "rebuttals" you have given to my question yet. There are only 2-3 responses that tried to explain what exactly p=0,01 means. I see - you would better like get rid of me. So he recommend me to see "reconciliation analysis (Page, 1990) in TreeMap (Page,1995)." Something darwinists on EvC are obviously well acquainted with judging by your behaviour.And One would say that finding a lice on gophers would mean that such a lice would be adapted by darwinistic cospecation with probability 99%. Yet there remain probability 1% that given lice is adapted by "chance alone". Treatment of cancer consists of many processess most of which are maybe unknown. So we can use term "by chance", because there are patients who are not treated and somehow healed anyway. There is not such situation considering evolution. Here are all subjected to mutation and natural selection (according darwinism). And evolution of coespeciation of lice consists also only in darwinistic dyade "random mutation and natural selection". Nothing else. It means that probability that mice of gopher originated out off allmighty process "random mutation and natural selection" is 1%. It means that "natural selection" and "random mutation" play no role of history of such a lice. It would mean that such a lice which originated by "chance only" do not mutate and is not subjected to natural selection. It is exactly what follows from the disease example.

1. Preferential mating is a non-selective agency of evolution; it is not the same thing as natural selection.2. I've proposed a new topic 'What exactly is natural selection and precisely where does it occur?' So, I won't be bothering you and your mice and your lice and their parallel convergences anymore.”HM

That was a reference from the authors telling you exactly where in the full paper you can get the information necessary to check their methods and do the calculations yourself. It is an invitation to join Clayton, Bush and Johnson in doing science.The point is that all the facts are layed out in the open for you to see. That you are unwilling or unable to do so is a sound conviction of your arguments all by itself. You expect us to spoon feed you information in an easily digestible, bland paste.I know Percy thinks we should explain statistics to you, but I'll respectfully disagree. I think it is an imposition on the time of others who are here to talk about the topic. You can go Google "Statistics" all on your own...you don't need us to do it for you. If you are unable or unwilling to understand the referenced abstract then I suggest you be quiet and try to learn something. In case you believe that advice is something thought up by Evil Darwinists I'll give you something else to chew on:

quote:

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Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.

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Proverbs 17:28

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Martin, if you had a legitimate question I would try to help you answer it. The thrust of the topic has been explained very ably in this thread; researchers see what they regard as a significant co-evolutionary relationship between some hosts and their parasites. I think this is an amazingly nifty thing. Somebody thought "Hey if this evolution thing is all it's cracked up to be, then there should be a relationship between isolated species and their dedicated preditors". They figured out how to test for it, then went and ran the tests...this is really good stuff and I just wish I understood more of it than I do...but the parts I do understand are pretty darn good. Go read the abstract, or you can go where I first read it: The Loom; (after first reading about it at Panda's Thumb) it's an easier read that hits the highlights: Question of the Day: How Do You Get Crabs From A Gorilla?

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When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.
- Henry Morris, Head of Institute for Creation Research

Well, that's 2-3 things for you to respond to, then. Every thread is allotted 300 posts, total. What I'd like is to reduce the number of such posts that are wasted on nonsense. My wife does phylogenetic analysis with many of the same tools, so yes, I'm fairly aquainted with them. Nonetheless remarking on how we're familiar with the science and you're not doesn't, to my mind, constitute a meaningful rebuttal. In fact it doesn't speak well to the veracity of your position. I can't make heads or tails of what you're trying to say here, and it certainly bears absolutely no relationship to anything anybody's been trying to tell you. You've completely misunderstood what Percy is trying to tell you. Absolutely false. The figure in the paper means that, if you were to compare the phylogenies of two species chosen completely at random, there's a less than 1% chance that their histories would converge in this manner. It has nothing to do with mutation, which, again, is not even a word that appears in the paper.

Crash,
Is this a good enough place to engage you with some conversation?
ICDESIGN

Hi ICDESIGN,Welcome to the EvC forums. This is only an appropriate place to engage in conversation with Crashfrog if you intend to discuss the co-evolution of pocket-gophers and pubic lice. Otherwise you should propose a new topic for discussion in the [forum=-25] forum.TTFN,AWEdited by AdminWounded, : Bad Grammar

What the admin said.