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Author | Topic: Fred Williams' Mutation Rate Article Obsolete | |||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Here's a transcription of a small part of a recent appearance by Fred Williams at radio station WGOD in Hallelujah, CO.
Host: So you're saying you've proven that evolution is impossible. Fred: That's right. I've written a detailed evolution simulation program that includes all the important parameters. Host: What do you mean? Fred: Well, evolutionists claim that evolution happens through random chance mutations, and that organisms are selected based upon the favorability of their traits. My program includes random mutation of traits so as to modify their degree of favorability or unfavorability, and then select them for reproduction on that basis. Host: And what did you discover? Fred: The program wouldn't even compile! Host: You don't say! Fred: That's right. The concept of evolution is so false and baseless that programs simulating it can't even compile. Host: So this is a pretty severe blow for advocates of evolution. Fred: Absolutely! Evolution is a fairytale. --Percy
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Rei Member (Idle past 7044 days) Posts: 1546 From: Iowa City, IA Joined: |
That's hilarious
------------------"Illuminant light, illuminate me."
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Mammuthus Member (Idle past 6506 days) Posts: 3085 From: Munich, Germany Joined: |
I would find it more amusing if it did not so perfectly capture the essence of what poor old Fred considers logic.
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Fred Williams Member (Idle past 4887 days) Posts: 310 From: Broomfield Joined: |
Hey Percy, uh, methinks you jumped the gun. In a prior post in this thread I wrote:
Against my better judgment, I am going to post a partial piece of a program endeavor I began that will be a much more rigorous and accurate simulation of population genetics. I have deleted some of the routines, and some of it I haven’t written yet. (msg 15) The purpose of posting the program was to give an idea of a more rigorous approach to population genetics. It proposes actual recombination, impact of genetic deaths on reproduction costs, etc. It will be some time before I find available time to finish the program. If someone here has the time to complete it, go for it! (note however that I have joint ownership rights since I laid out the design and completed many of the initial tasks; I would also want to review the work). Anyway, I'm glad you got to run with this nugget for a while at my expense. If it makes you happy to keep linting a program I said was not yet complete, feel free! (PS. My responses will continue to be delayed by as much as a week due to time constraints at work)
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Fred Williams writes: Anyway, I'm glad you got to run with this nugget for a while at my expense. If it makes you happy to keep linting a program I said was not yet complete, feel free! Gee, thanks! In these down economic times, offers like this are really appreciated.
The purpose of posting the program was to give an idea of a more rigorous approach to population genetics. That's nice, Fred, but the programs by me and Rei were just fine for the intended purpose. Because we completed and ran our programs, we have actual results that demonstrate the claims we've been making. So far all you've got is incomplete software and a lot of hot air about the wonderful rigour of your approach. --Percy [This message has been edited by Percipient, 10-30-2003]
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
quote:No, Fred, I didn't like the argument because it didn't address the issue at hand. quote:You have confused two different things. Females in sexually reproducing species have to produce twice as many offspring to replace themselves as they would if they were reproducing asexually. The represents a large cost in resources, and is the "cost of sex" that needs explaining. The same cost does not apply to chromosomes, however. Each offspring has only a 50% chance of carrying a particular allele, but there are twice as many offspring per female in sexually reproducing species. As a result, in a constant-sized asexual population, the mean number of descendents that each chromosome leaves is 1.0; in a constant-sized sexually reproducing population, the mean number of descendents that each chromosome leaves is also 1.0. In an asexual population, the number of descendent chromosomes is Poisson distributed; in a sexually reproducing population, the number of descendents is also Poisson distributed. In both cases, positive selection changes the mean number of descendents from 1.0 to 1+s, where s is the selection coefficient. In other words, your argument is wrong. Sexual reproduction does not impose a 50% barrier to the spread of beneficial alleles. Care to try again?
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
quote:Please be clear here: are you saying that Haldane did not use a model based on beneficial mutations compensating for a degrading environment?
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
quote:Snort. Left your argument in your other suit, I guess, huh? I posted an explanation of my algorithm, and a pointer to the code. The algorithm uses pure multiplicative selection, with no truncation anywhere (as long as the truncation flag is turned off, of course). (There is actually a small bug in the code I posted, by the way. Since the bug acts to increase the number of deleterious mutations at equilibrium, it's not likely to make you happy. Points to anyone who can find it.)
quote:Earth to Fred: your premise is wrong. You do not have to have 2e-N offspring to maintain equilibrium. That's why I'm going through this exercise, remember? To demonstrate that your calculation is incorrect. I did the simulation, posted the algorithm and the results, and successfully demonstrated that you're wrong. At this point arguing that the simulation must be wrong because it disagrees with your conclusion is pretty sad. Since you asked so politely, I'll post the plot for 100 deleterious mutations:
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
I wrote about Haldane's model:
quote:Fred's response: quote: So I got Haldane's paper. It turns out his model is for mutations that compensate for a degraded environment, where the degradation can be either sudden or gradual. I.e. my recollection was pretty much accurate, and Fred's response was irrelevant. So he still has to demonstrate that Haldane's model bears any resemblence to the actual (or supposed) history of human evolution.
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wehappyfew Inactive Member |
I've asked Fred this question many times over on the old CreationWeb, without any answers:
Why does this...
quote:... use the words "clearly impossible"??? In the context of analysing the effect of deleterious mutations, the word "offspring" doesn't have to mean a full-term, live birth after nine months. If a major, fatal mutation happens in the genome of a newly fertilized egg, that egg is most likely to die immediately, stop dividing, or otherwise fail to develop. A miscarriage or non-implantation results. The mother's ovaries spit out another egg next month, and we try again. How many times could this happen in the lifetime of a reproducing female? If an average female has 10 years of fecundity, with 13 menstrual cycles per year, that's 130 potential embryos per female. If half of the 10 years is taken up by carrying babies to full term, that's 65 embryos and a maximum of about 6 babies per female. That's plenty more than Fred says we need. Remember, we just need these "offspring" to express their fatal mutations and get out of the way. No need to carry an embryo for nine months if a mutation has wrecked something vital like its cellular respiration pathways. Why is this a problem at all, even assuming a very high value for U?
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derwood Member (Idle past 1907 days) Posts: 1457 Joined: |
Fred:
quote: Some things never change... I was recently emailed about a new exchange on Fred's guestbook [ 404 Not Found
] in which an old post of mine was brought up. Fred makes some, shall we say, interesting claims in his response:
quote: I argued against Fred's '1 in 32' gibberish on different grounds, but 'dude' brings up something else - Fred was actually wrong on the basic math. Yup - the guy who boasts of his superior math skills got a basic probability estimate wrong. THEN tries to lie about it![The thread in question: http://EvC Forum: Are mutations enough to explain natural selection?] Not only did he NOT correct it "immediately", he NEVER corrected it! Not to mention that he seems to be considering only a single organism producing a single offspring. Interesting how one that is so 'right' about everything has to resort to this sort of distortion to 'prove' his points...
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coffee_addict Member (Idle past 508 days) Posts: 3645 From: Indianapolis, IN Joined: |
What program? The Laminator
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Fred may have deleted it from his website, but naturally we here at EvC Forum did not want to rely on Fred to maintain this link, so there is a copy here at EvC Forum. Before examining it, read Message 30. His program consisted of a main module and a header file. Here are links to the EvC Forum archive copies:
--Percy
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coffee_addict Member (Idle past 508 days) Posts: 3645 From: Indianapolis, IN Joined: |
Couldn't compile it.
The Laminator
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Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
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