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Author Topic:   WTF is wrong with people
PaulK
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Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


(3)
Message 166 of 457 (707973)
10-03-2013 1:55 AM
Reply to: Message 161 by Faith
10-03-2013 12:04 AM


Re: Back on topic
quote:
The diversity argument you find so irrational seems to me to be the soul of simplicity and obviousness, not necessarily easily grasped due to evolutionist assumptions but nevertheless simple enough if one makes an effort to see it within the creationist paradigm, and aids to understanding it are available from a basic knowledge of how breeding works and what conservationists do. It is indeed frustrating not to be able to get something so simple across. To my mind this is a frustrating but interesting case of paradigm clash.
Of course the paradigm clash here is not about understanding (except in the broader sense that the creationist paradigm favours dogma over understanding).
The problem is that your argument has a serious hole in it, and has from the start. It is necessary for your argument that any increases in diversity are insufficient to raise a new species to the level of diversity found in modern species. But you've found no argument for that except the one that it somehow interferes with the formation of "species" - but you cannot offer any reason why.
Saying that your argument isn't understood just because we see the obvious problem - a problem that has devilled all the forms of your argument so you can hardly be unaware of it - is not a sensible response.
Now in the creationist paradigm arguments are judged by conclusions. not quality. Obviously creationists will tend to be deceived by your argument because they won't bother to understand it. Lies and slander against evolution and evolutionists are plusses as well so obviously creationists will be very willing to accept your argument.
And indeed we see that creationists obviously DO accept bad arguments like "the population argument" or the argument that evolution contradicts the second law of thermodynamics. Arguments which do not stand up to examination. Occasionally a more critical creationist will make an attempt at intellectual honesty, For instance Answers in Genesis once produced a list of arguments which they felt weren't good enough to use - and they were blasted by Kent Hovind for doing so. Glen Morton ran into similar problems pointing out problems in Flood Geology. And Kurt Wise's assessment of transitional fossils seems to have fallen through the cracks, too.
My generous assessment of the creationist paradigm is that it is based on prejudice and a disregard for the truth. Something you've quite adequately demonstrated in this thread.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 161 by Faith, posted 10-03-2013 12:04 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 173 by Faith, posted 10-03-2013 11:19 AM PaulK has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 167 of 457 (707978)
10-03-2013 8:38 AM
Reply to: Message 158 by Faith
10-02-2013 10:06 PM


Re: Back on topic
Faith writes:
No genetic analysis has ever revealed any such thing, therefore you're wrong.
No genetic analysis has ever revealed new allele frequencies in a daughter population? How odd.
I said nothing about allele frequencies.
What I said was that if your claim were true that what scientists believe are descendant species are actually just reduced genetic diversity as compared to the parent populations, then the descendant species would possess only a subset of alleles of the parent species, and they would have no alleles unique to themselves.
But no genetic analysis has ever revealed any such thing, therefore you're wrong.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 158 by Faith, posted 10-02-2013 10:06 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 170 by Faith, posted 10-03-2013 10:33 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 168 of 457 (707979)
10-03-2013 8:54 AM
Reply to: Message 160 by NoNukes
10-02-2013 11:26 PM


Re: Back on topic
NoNukes writes:
I think what she means is that she is only interested in speciation that produces new kinds.
I think we all agree with Faith that breeding can produce substantial differences from the parent species, that they're still the same species, and that this *can* happen under natural conditions. But Faith is also claiming that what scientists think are identifiable examples of real speciation is actually just that same process at work. The evidence we have rules out that possibility.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 169 of 457 (707981)
10-03-2013 9:39 AM
Reply to: Message 168 by Percy
10-03-2013 8:54 AM


We are all the same kind
Well, if we look at reality what we find is that we are all just variations of the same kind; humans are just a recent variation of all the different Homo kind which are just variations of Primates which in turn are just variations of the Chordata kind which is really just a variation of the Animalia kind.
And she is kinda right. There is more genetic diversity within the Animalia kind than in the Primate kind and more diversity in the Primate kind than in the Homo kind and more diversity within the Homo kind than within the Homo sapiens sapiens kind.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 170 of 457 (707984)
10-03-2013 10:33 AM
Reply to: Message 167 by Percy
10-03-2013 8:38 AM


Re: Back on topic
I should have said: It would be odd if no genetic analysis found differing allele frequencies in a daughter population because that is what I'm talking about. You don't need alleles absolutely unique to the daughter population that do not exist in the mother population in order to get a new breed or "species," what you do often have is alleles that weren't expressed in the mother population that are now expressed in the daughter population, while alleles that WERE expressed in the mother population are not expressed in the daughter population and may even have dropped out altogether if the daughter population was made up of a small number of individuals, such as the ten lizards out of the thousands or possible millions in Frako's example. THIS is standard variation or microevolution and it can play out an enormous number of phenotypes from nothing but the built-in genetic diversity until it has reduced down a particular line of variation to the point that this can no longer happen.
I can't imagine what genetic analysis you'd be talking about, considering that what I'm describing is so common.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 167 by Percy, posted 10-03-2013 8:38 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 179 by Tangle, posted 10-03-2013 11:48 AM Faith has replied
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 171 of 457 (707985)
10-03-2013 10:46 AM
Reply to: Message 168 by Percy
10-03-2013 8:54 AM


Re: Back on topic
I think we all agree with Faith that breeding can produce substantial differences from the parent species, that they're still the same species, and that this *can* happen under natural conditions. But Faith is also claiming that what scientists think are identifiable examples of real speciation is actually just that same process at work. The evidence we have rules out that possibility.
What evidence? There is absolutely nothing about the "identifiable examples of real speciation" that is different from the examples of breeding or any other way races and breeds and varieties form either in nature or through domestic breeding; the only differentiator is the inability to interbreed with other members of the same Species.
It's an artificial distinction the scientists are making, but the circumstances are the same. A smaller population splits off from a larger, is reproductively isolated from the larger, inbreeds for some number of generations, producing an identifiably new trait picture for the new population, and reaches the point where it no longer can interbreed with the population from which it diverged. Simply because of that loss of ability to interbreed it is defined as "real speciation" but this loss is most likely simply the result of the change in the underlying genetic picture caused by the inbreeding of a small number of individuals. That's all it would take to create sufficient genetic incompatibility with the former population to prevent interbreeding. And it seems to me this same situation must occur with domestic breeds from time to time as well.
It's all the same processes acting on the same kind of genetic givens and the inability to interbreed after many generations of inbreeding is an artificial differentiator between the populations making one a "species" and another a mere breed or variety. Yes, of course I'm arguing with science directly here so of course you're going to object.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 168 by Percy, posted 10-03-2013 8:54 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
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NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 172 of 457 (707989)
10-03-2013 11:08 AM
Reply to: Message 170 by Faith
10-03-2013 10:33 AM


Re: Back on topic
what you do often have is alleles that weren't expressed in the mother population that are now expressed in the daughter population,
Despite the fact that you badly want, and perhaps need the above to be true, the above would be something to demonstrate rather than to just assert. Are you able to do that knowing that doing so would help support your case?
Certainly what you are describing is not Mendellian genetics.
It is certainly possible that an unexpressed gene can become expressed, but that possible explanation is ruled out in every single case where we can actually identify the new or unique gene associated with the new and unique trait. And if I recall correctly, Dr. Adequate provide a number of cat and dog examples of exactly that the last time we discussed this. You in turn provided nothing.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 170 by Faith, posted 10-03-2013 10:33 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 174 by Faith, posted 10-03-2013 11:21 AM NoNukes has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 173 of 457 (707991)
10-03-2013 11:19 AM
Reply to: Message 166 by PaulK
10-03-2013 1:55 AM


Re: Back on topic
The problem is that your argument has a serious hole in it, and has from the start. It is necessary for your argument that any increases in diversity are insufficient to raise a new species to the level of diversity found in modern species.
This is a misstatement... "insufficient to raise a new species to the level of diversity found in modern species?" I'm not sure I even know what you are talking about. If you are using the term "new species" to refer to new varieties or breeds or microevolution, as I am, then their "level of diversity" IS the level of diversity found in "modern species."
But you've found no argument for that except the one that it somehow interferes with the formation of "species" - but you cannot offer any reason why.
No, that is not a hole in my argument, it is simply hard to get it said what is really going on. If a reduction in genetic diversity is necessary to the creation of new varieties or breeds, which it is, and if the creation of new varieties or breeds or "species" is the very stuff of evolution, which it is, then an increase in genetic diversity is obviously of no value whatever, AND all you are doing is increasing and decreasing to no purpose. An increase in diversity through mutation MIGHT become the genetic basis for a new trait, IF it actually occurs which is questionable, but even if it did, for that trait to become part of a new "species" it has to be selected, become part of a population that is reproductively isolated from the rest, and that's where we get a REDUCTION in genetic diversity. As the new traits are selected and become the basis of the trait picture or phenotype of the new population you are getting a reduction in genetic diversity. You got a new trait but then it got selected it and we end up with reduced genetic diversity anyway. Adding genetic diversity is never going to get you past the necessity for reducing it to create a new "species." And I realize that this too no doubt doesn't say it much more clearly yet.
You are likely to object to the part where I say that the creation of new varieties or breeds or "species" is the very stuff of evolution, so I have to go on to point out that much of the argument here revolves around the evolutionist assertion that microevolution just smoothly transitions into macroevolution, meeting with no hindrances, but if reducing genetic diversity is necessary to microevolution, which it is, then there is one big fat hindrance right there.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 166 by PaulK, posted 10-03-2013 1:55 AM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 174 of 457 (707992)
10-03-2013 11:21 AM
Reply to: Message 172 by NoNukes
10-03-2013 11:08 AM


Re: Back on topic
ALLELES, not "genes." Back later.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 172 by NoNukes, posted 10-03-2013 11:08 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 183 by ramoss, posted 10-03-2013 2:51 PM Faith has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 175 of 457 (707994)
10-03-2013 11:26 AM
Reply to: Message 169 by jar
10-03-2013 9:39 AM


Re: We are all the same kind
And she is kinda right. There is more genetic diversity within the Animalia kind than in the Primate kind and more diversity in the Primate kind than in the Homo kind and more diversity within the Homo kind than within the Homo sapiens sapiens kind.
Kinda right except that there is no animal kind. What she is actually claiming is that humans would have to be less diverse than whatever were their immediate predecessors, rather than to every possible animal that ever existed.
And her reasoning is that since wiener dogfs are less diverse than wolves she must be on the right track. By the way, I wonder what part of the genome those scrunchy wiener hind legs were hiding in since they could not possibly be mutations, right?
Her conclusion is just asinine and does not comport with the facts.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 169 by jar, posted 10-03-2013 9:39 AM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 176 of 457 (707996)
10-03-2013 11:28 AM
Reply to: Message 175 by NoNukes
10-03-2013 11:26 AM


Re: We are all the same kind
But her posts are so much fun.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 175 by NoNukes, posted 10-03-2013 11:26 AM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 177 of 457 (707998)
10-03-2013 11:34 AM
Reply to: Message 174 by Faith
10-03-2013 11:21 AM


Re: Back on topic
ALLELES, not "genes." Back later.
The distinction scarcely matters here. Please return with support for your statement or don't bother.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
Richard P. Feynman
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 174 by Faith, posted 10-03-2013 11:21 AM Faith has not replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 178 of 457 (707999)
10-03-2013 11:40 AM
Reply to: Message 173 by Faith
10-03-2013 11:19 AM


Re: Back on topic
If a reduction in genetic diversity is necessary to the creation of new varieties or breeds, which it is,
No, it isn't. The addition of genetic diversity can also create new varieties.
but if reducing genetic diversity is necessary to microevolution, which it is, then there is one big fat hindrance right there.
Eppur si muove
Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

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Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(1)
Message 179 of 457 (708002)
10-03-2013 11:48 AM
Reply to: Message 170 by Faith
10-03-2013 10:33 AM


Re: Back on topic
All this is Faith, is what we Brits call 'a statement of the bleedin' obvious.'
If 2 organisms split off from a population, become isolated but continue to breed it's bleedin' obvious that the genomes of those two will have less diversity than the genomes of the original population.
No-one disagrees because we know that that creates a genetic bottleneck and it's one reason we know that Noah's flood did not happen 6,000 years ago - because that genetic bottleneck does not exist.
The point you are missing is that whilst those two individuals contain less genetic diversity than the population they came from, all other things being equal, they will have the same amount of genetic diversity as any other two individuals in the population.
The individuals have not lost diversity - they just don't have access to a larger genetic pool anymore.
If they survive, they will recover genetic diversity through mutation and carry on in their own way finding a best fit to their new environment. But this will take thousands of years, maybe hundreds of thousands - if they survive (and the likelihood is that they won't.)
The second part of your story is simply the hoary old tale of a super genome where every organism on the planet contains enough genetic variety to form into any species.
That's a assertion which should be possible to prove, so please point to the peer reviewed science that proves it.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 170 by Faith, posted 10-03-2013 10:33 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 181 by Faith, posted 10-03-2013 1:19 PM Tangle has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


(1)
Message 180 of 457 (708006)
10-03-2013 12:16 PM
Reply to: Message 173 by Faith
10-03-2013 11:19 AM


Re: Back on topic
quote:
This is a misstatement... "insufficient to raise a new species to the level of diversity found in modern species?" I'm not sure I even know what you are talking about. If you are using the term "new species" to refer to new varieties or breeds or microevolution, as I am, then their "level of diversity" IS the level of diversity found in "modern species."
It doesn't seem to be a misstatement. If the diversity of species is - in the long run - fixed at the current level then there is no inevitable decline in diversity.
quote:
No, that is not a hole in my argument, it is simply hard to get it said what is really going on.
It certainly is a hole in your argument - and if it were simply a matter of explaining it you wouldn't be offering a completely new argument here,
quote:
If a reduction in genetic diversity is necessary to the creation of new varieties or breeds, which it is, and if the creation of new varieties or breeds or "species" is the very stuff of evolution, which it is, then an increase in genetic diversity is obviously of no value whatever, AND all you are doing is increasing and decreasing to no purpose.
There's a lot to disagree with there. But the fatal flaw is that is doesn't matter if it is "of value" or not. What matters is whether it HAPPENS to a degree sufficient to prevent the inevitable decline you propose in your argument. And, as I pointed out above this has no relation to your assertion that new variations would somehow interfere with speciation! which you used before.
quote:
An increase in diversity through mutation MIGHT become the genetic basis for a new trait, IF it actually occurs which is questionable, but even if it did, for that trait to become part of a new "species" it has to be selected, become part of a population that is reproductively isolated from the rest, and that's where we get a REDUCTION in genetic diversity
But that reduction is a reduction from the full diversity found in the parent species at the time of the split. This is why gains in diversity are a problem for you - the mere fact of their existence, combined with what we know of the timescales strongly suggests that genetic diversity is,overall, in a state of dynamic equilibrium, oscillating about a mean rather than inevitable declining.
quote:
Adding genetic diversity is never going to get you past the necessity for reducing it to create a new "species." And I realize that this too no doubt doesn't say it much more clearly yet.
As I said above it's a matter of looking at the bigger picture to consider the overall trend in diversity. Just looking at speciation will mislead you badly because you are ignoring so much.
quote:
You are likely to object to the part where I say that the creation of new varieties or breeds or "species" is the very stuff of evolution, so I have to go on to point out that much of the argument here revolves around the evolutionist assertion that microevolution just smoothly transitions into macroevolution, meeting with no hindrances, but if reducing genetic diversity is necessary to microevolution, which it is, then there is one big fat hindrance right there.
Of course the appearance and spread of new alleles is also microevolution. And it is essential to the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, for instance. If such a common example of microevolution depends on the appearance of new variations, obviously your idea that they "have no value" is wrong from the perspective of evolution.
Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 173 by Faith, posted 10-03-2013 11:19 AM Faith has not replied

  
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