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Author | Topic: A test for claimed knowledge of how macroevolution occurs | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22940 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
There are a number of threads in the Geology and the Great Flood forum where the formation of the Grand Canyon and the age of coral reefs can be discussed. A few suggestions:
--Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22940 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
I really wish you wouldn't make yourself the topic of discussion, but if you insist on making false claims about yourself then others will be forced to correct you.
How can I be expected to take seriously the constant refrain about how I don't understand this, that or the other when nobody ever even gives an example of what that means? It is the rare message from you that doesn't contain multiple factual errors, and people have corrected you many, many times. You have no excuse for understanding biology and geology as poorly today as when you joined nearly 18 years ago.
You don't, JonF doesn't, but it's said all the time. Everyone has provided a multitude of examples over many years of what you don't understand, often providing the factual basis.
If an example IS ever given then I can answer it, because it never really amounts to much and doesn't threaten anything I've been arguing though that's of course what the accusation implies. Mostly it amounts to saying my argument is wrong because it contradicts the establishment argument, really no more than that. So I just shrug off these endless empty accusations. You are as delusional about the quality of your views as you are about the degree of your scientific understanding. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22940 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 6.9
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Faith writes: Percy writes: Faith writes: Continue until the latest daughter populations run out of genetic variability. Unless the experimenters place the mice in environments that subject them to substantial selection pressures, or if the mice populations are small, reductions in genetic diversity would be unexpected. The more individuals the better. But do your own lab experiment, you obviously haven't a clue to mine. Predict all you want based on your erroneous ToE beliefs, I intend to prove that you'll get genetic decrease with this method. No selection pressures needed, and of course I want to start with as large a population as can be managed in a laboratory, and after its numbers increase quite a bit just letting them breed for a while, then I want to remove a smallish number of individuals to start the experiment proper. I know what I'm doing although it's very clear you don't. You said, "Continue until the latest daughter populations run out of genetic variability," and that's what I was responding to. What are you imagining is going to cause daughter populations to run out of genetic variability? Here's your experiment boiled down to bullet points and filling in some ambiguities that you can correct if I have it wrong:
Please correct the above until I have it right, then answer the question of what is going to cause the daughter populations to "run out of genetic variability." You're probably thinking that at each division into four daughter populations that some alleles wouldn't make it, and you would be correct for rare alleles in the original population. It would not cause the daughter populations to "run out of genetic variability."
Certainly, we aim for the greatest genetic diversity we can get, that's all, the best we can do given the limitations of the lab setting. We might have to wait through some number of breeding generations to get a homogeneous appearance before the experiment proper can even begin. But I know you haven't a clue what I'm talking about so I guess I can't expect you to raise money to finance my project. The term "homogeneous appearance" is ambiguous. It sounds like you mean something like genetically uniform, which would be synonymous with a reduction in genetic diversity, but this is unlikely to occur even after many generations of breeding unless some kind of strong selection pressure is applied, like selecting for specific coat color, head shape, tail length, ear size and shape, etc. In the absence of strong selection pressures by the breeder the mouse population will remain about as genetically diverse as when they started. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22940 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
Faith writes: It's the same processes, the same mechanisms, the same genetics that produce both breeds and species. Even though you use the word "breeds," I don't think you're talking about breeding but about races and subspecies.Yes, the same processes govern the creation of races, subspecies and species, but species implies a reproductive barrier with other species. Most species in the wild are probably able to breed with other populations but just don't. This is ambiguous. If you're saying that species in the wild can breed with other populations of the same species, this is undoubtedly true. If you're saying that species in the wild can breed with other populations of related species, this can be true, though the offspring can experience abnormalities or infertility depending upon the degree of relatedness. If you're saying that species in the wild can breed with populations of many other species in the wild then this is undoubtedly false. Explaining in a bit more detail, it is not uncommon for species to be able to breed with other closely related species. Because they're closely related, tigers can interbreed with lions, leopards and panthers, zebras with horses and donkeys, camels with llamas, etc. But species cannot breed with other unrelated species, not in the wild and not in the lab. For instance, while tigers can breed with lions, leopards and panthers, they cannot breed with cheetahs, bobcats, housecats, zebras, gazelles, rabbits, gophers, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, lemmings, turtles, frogs, birds and fish.
A physical inability to interbreed is an artificial dividing line. I understand what you're trying to say, so let me say it another way: In the wild some species that are genetically able to interbreed simply do not, or at least only rarely. The reason could be physical, behavioral, geographical, or some combination.
I had a reason for posting the pigeons. I am interested in the question of how the same trait is increased by being selected over generations. I assume it is the same gene or genes that underlie the trait. Or course it's a gene or genes controlling the trait. When the breeder selects mating pairs based upon a certain trait, on a genetic level he's selecting or deselecting (both are possible) alleles of that gene(s) related to that trait. In other word, he's causing allele frequencies that favor that trait.
The exaggerated size of the lizards' head and jaw on Pod Mrcaru suggests the same kind of genetic situation. If you mean allele frequencies favored these changes then yes, you are correct. But as Rapid large-scale evolutionary divergence in morphology and performance associated with exploitation of a different dietary resource tells us, "Genetic mitochondrial DNA analyses indicate that the lizards currently on Pod Mraru are indeed P. sicula and are genetically indistinguishable from lizards from the source population." That is, the genetic changes were very minor.
I really don't care about being precise about the meaning of "homogeneity." Nobody's insisting on razor sharp precision. We just want to know what in the world you mean. Your insistence on words and phrases that are vague and ambiguous is what convinces people that you don't know what you're talking about and, as you just said yourself, that you don't really care. If that's really true then you're probably the only one here who doesn't care whether they're right or wrong or understand the discussion or are making themselves understood. It is apparent that locked away in your imagination is that a population becomes more "homogeneous" over time, that the alleles become distributed more and more evenly in the population, and that the individuals become more and more similar. There is absolutely no evidence of this in population genetics.
I was interested in THAT question for a similar reason: what is it genetically that allows for the overall appearance of homogeneity when there is high genetic diversity in the population? The "appearance of homogeneity" is just something else from your imagination. You're analogous to the cop on the beat who says about blacks that they all look alike to him. You look at a population of pigeons and think how alike they all are, but they're really not alike at all. Look at how different all these pigeons are:
We have a bird feeder, and even just glancing at them casually you can see the many differences between individual nuthatches, goldfinches, woodpeckers, wood doves and so forth.
In the scenario I lay out for how a new population becomes a species... But who could know what you mean by this because you've made up your own definition of species where a new species is actually still the same species, they just choose not to interbreed. But the real world definition of species is a population that can interbreed. If two populations are still capable of interbreeding (without abnormalities or infertility) then they are, by definition, the same species. As populations become more and more distant genetically then interbreeding gradually becomes less and less likely to produce viable offspring. At what point does one declare two populations to be different species? When viable offspring are produced less than 80% of the time? 50% of the time? 10% of the time? This isn't a question that science has attempted to answer yet, at least not that I'm aware of. Of course, it would be a judgement call anyway.
I see it through stages from some set of individuals that leave the parent population looking just like all the others in that population -- another case of appearance of homogeneity with unknown levels of genetic diversity, and again no I'm not interested in getting precise about it, it's not relevant to anything I'm saying. Again, we don't need razor sharp precision, but we do need to know how you're defining your terms. You should stop using the term "homogeneous" because there is no agreement on what you mean by it. I think what you're trying to say is that when a subpopulation first splits off from the main population that it has the same level of genetic diversity as the parent population. This is true as a first approximation, but in general a subpopulation can't help but have at least slightly less genetic diversity than the parent population. Or if a population splits roughly in half then each half will likely have slightly less genetic diversity then the original population.
You have a mistaken idea of the amount of variation in a parent population. Look at how different all these wildebeest are with regard to size, build, coat, stripes, horns, facial coloration, eyes, nose, etc.:
I once drove through a bison herd in South Dakota. The difference in appearance between all the bison was striking, not to mention the difference in temperament. Some would challenge the van, blocking the road and facing us down. Others quickly scampered off to the side as we got closer. Some got out of the way but took their own sweet time.
Since this new population will have a new set of gene frequencies I'm expecting them to produce a new look in the new population over some number of generations of breeding only within the population. But you just said the "founding population...looks like the parent population." If it has a new set of allele frequencies, how could it also look just like the parent population? Can you clear this up?
Unless selection pressures are different they'll very closely resemble the parent population.
Again, unless selection pressures are different they'll very closely resemble the parent population, and especially if there's still gene flow with the parent population.
Again, that individuals of a population become more and more similar across the generations is just something from your imagination. There's no evidence for it. Without strong selection pressures genetic diversity would be maintained.
Yes I'm imagining how this would play out in my model. But the lab experiment I've described is for the purpose of proving it. Given the huge number of biology experiments that have been conducted and all the research into population genetics, what you describe could not have escaped notice if it were what really happens.
I expect my opponents to describe their own completely different scenario with the mutations and the ecological selection pressure and so on, and even be adamant that it's the correct scenario based on the ToE, but I strongly object to telling me I'm wrong because I don't share that scenario. No, if that's going to be the attitude, sorry, YOU are wrong. It isn't necessary to run your experiment to know that you are wrong. Nothing you said aligns with what we already know to be true about the genetic diversity of populations. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22940 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
Hi Faith,
I continue to encourage you to avoid commenting on yourself, because it makes it acceptable to respond about you.
Faith writes: I think I'm saying perfectly innocent true things... A discussion style that includes ignoring many facts, many arguments, and very often entire messages, that includes refusing to examine much evidence, that instigates through constant misrepresentation, that picks and chooses who deserves replies, is not how someone "saying perfectly innocent true things" operates. It is much more the style of someone dishonest and afraid of the truth.
As of now until further notice I will not be responding to anything you write. You drew DWise1's ill-considered response in Message 712 by accusing him of not providing examples in Message 710. You've been provided examples, explanation and evidence of your errors by many, many people time and time again, including DWise1, and pretending that's never been done invites that kind of the response. Please stop making claims of what a wonderful person you are because you are not the topic, and you are so obviously an example of the opposite that it can't help but draw responses. This thread has a topic and it's the Flood, not you. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22940 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
NosyNed writes: However, I do see that, IMO, no one is trying to go slowly enough through her errors. I've been tempted to do that a number of times already in this thread, and then I think back to all the detailed and carefully laid out responses that have been completely ignored over the years, as in no reply to the message whatsoever, or briefly dismissed as speculation or interpretation or supposition. RAZD has attempted it in this thread, and here's how it has gone with his messages that were responses to Faith:
A few of Faith's responses are lengthy, and that might lead one to think she's actually engaging in discussion, but if you actually read them she is dismissing the response and redescribing from scratch her views without modification. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22940 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
These diversions into discussing you are fine because EvC has always permitted diversions as long as they don't threaten to take over a thread, but I continue to advise that you stop making claims about yourself because people are allowed to respond to those claims. If you cease participating in this side discussion then it will die out, and as long as you're careful not to introduce yourself as a topic again that should be the end of it.
Faith writes: As a result I don't pay any attention at all to anybody else's point of view except now and then to identify a concept I know I'm going to have to deal with eventually. But it's true I don't pay attention to anybody's posts any more and the longer they are the less I can put my mind to them. You're confessing that this behavior is deliberate, that it isn't just the way your mind works but that you're doing it on purpose. That's reprehensible, despicable, and unChristian.
I absolutely cannot even read Percy's posts any more, they are nothing but complaints about me. Why do you constantly say things that aren't true and that can be proven not true? For instance, most of my posts to you in this thread have been about topic:
Summarizing, 16 out of my 26 messages posted to you were about the topic. Of those 26 messages, you responded to only 8, and most of them were either very brief (a sentence or two) or ignored what I said and simply restated your own beliefs. Obviously your claim that I post nothing but complaints about you is false. Making false claims is something you do constantly, even about yourself. My 10 off-topic messages were replies to your messages where you made false claims about yourself.
All true, yes, but as long as my creationist view is treated like trash,... In post after post over many years people have examined your arguments and provided detailed feedback. Your response has been to spit in their faces by ignoring or dismissing their responses.
I'm getting barraged by hundreds of topics, all without even a nod of slight approval to anything I've said. If someone claimed the Earth is flat, how much of a "nod of slight approval" do you think they deserve? Many of your errors are just as severe. Giving any indication of approval at all would be crazy.
I suppose that doesn't suffice to justify my ignoring others but I can't do anything else. What do you think the normal human response is to having their significant efforts ignored or dismissed?
Now this post was an attempt to be clear and honest,... Yes, you have been clear and honest, about being well aware that you're treating people like shit. People do not normally react well to being treated so poorly, with the result that you are the cause of the very treatment you complain so much about.
...but I've written such posts many times in the past and they just get trashed too. Critical analysis of your arguments and ideas is not in any way the same as trashing something.
So there's maybe no way to say anything at all, and I need to go elsewhere to work on my creationist views. If the creation view is correct then the evidence will say so. What we've seen from you during your entire period of participation is severe deficits in comprehension of even the most basic scientific concepts, in essence displaying a profound ignorance of how the world works. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22940 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
Faith writes: And by the way, this started with my saying that although everybody tells me I'm ignorant of all kinds of things I need to know my impression is that nobody ever really explains what they have in mind. This is yet another grossly false claim. People have explained and explained and explained, and all you've done is dismissed it, claimed it's all assumptions and suppositions, characterized it as too complicated, said you never talk from some perspective even though you do, said the image was too white, said someone was too rude, said they weren't thinking, said it was crazy, ignored it completely, or any of dozens of ways you have for not giving any consideration to what someone just went to a lot of trouble to carefully explain. This thread alone has many detailed and thoughtful explanations. You still haven't provided a decent reply to HereBeDragon's Message 583.
Although there have no doubt been explanations, it remains true in my mind that I don't know what you are talking about. I think I speak for everyone here that we stand ready to explain in as much detail as necessary and to answer as many questions as you have. Most have been doing that all along. Some, given your history, see futility in this and give occasional voice to this feeling, but mostly not.
There are endless complaints about how I treat everybody else's stuff as trash, but I'm not supposed to notice that it's done to me. Providing detailed feedback about any problems in your arguments and ideas is not trashing them. If you see problems or mistakes in the feedback then you respond about them. It's called discussion. What you don't do is ignore and dismiss responses while telling people that they're not thinking.
Please note that you and PK in this recent exchange have gone on and on excoriating me for my ignorance without once even giving a single example of that ignorance. Good God, practically every thread you've participated in contains tons of examples of your ignorance. In this thread alone, and providing just a few examples, you've displayed an ignorance of the definition of species, of how speciation works (you don't have to agree it happens, just understand how it is presumed to work), of whether breeding produces new species, of the genetic indistinguishability of the Pod Kopite and Pod Mraru lizards, of how only mutations could produce alleles beyond four in number for unclean animals from the ark, of the lack of any genetic bottleneck 4500 years ago, and of how genetic markers inform our understanding of life's history of descent.
I'm pretty sure all you mean by my ignorance is my refusal to accept the tenets of the ToE and the Old Earth. Do you think there's more to it? While I'm sure we all have successful persuasion as the ideal goal, I think most of us would be happy if we were able to place you on a path of improving your understanding of what evolution and geology actually say, and how the world really works. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22940 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
Faith writes: I want to answer this but for the moment will only say that I gather my "ignorance" is embodied in having a view of things you disagree with,... Your ignorance isn't made apparent by anyone's disagreement with you. It is apparent in the many things you do not know or understand, indeed, that you refuse to know or understand, and in the many things you think you know that are unsupported by any facts, indeed are often contradicted by the facts.
I say the strata are straight and flat and you tell me I'm ignorant of phenomena... But you *are* ignorant of phenomena. For just a few geological examples, you're ignorant of the fact that floods do not sort lifeforms by their degree of difference from modern forms, that sediments fall out of suspension heaviest/densest first, and that the Grand Canyon region is not a record of everything that happened geologically around the world. If you feel the need to respond about any of these examples you should reply over at the Did the Flood really happen? thread. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22940 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
Faith writes: I don't thlnk it's true that I "don't learn" and need to learn more, as I just said to PK, all it ends up meaning is that I'm not accepting the establishment point of view. Rejecting a viewpoint is one thing, not understanding it is another. You reject the scientific understanding on many things without first understanding it.
I do learn all the time when I see that I need to take something into account that I've been missing. When will you stop making claims about yourself that everyone knows are not true. I've been witness to all your years of participation here, and while you've learned more than nothing, it is little more. Many things you think you've learned you've learned incorrectly, like Walther's Law.
But of course what I learn is something I think buttresses my own point of view, and that is not learning according to the majority denizens of EvC. For the umpteenth time, EvC does not promote ideas and perspectives unique to itself. It is a mainstream science site. For the most part those on the side of science are promoting the mainstream views of science.
Even if I went back to school and got degrees in biology and geology, what I end up arguing at EvC would brand me as ignorant. Presuming that you graduated with an understanding of biology and geology, the quality of your discussion here would improve dramatically and you would change many of your ideas. If you somehow kept the same ideas you have now then you would be in conflict with the facts, but since you would no longer be ignorant you would know that already.
I have books on population genetics, plus Genetics for Dummies, and five books on Geology, two of them about the Grand Canyon from the creationist point of view but the rest standard stuff. I've read most of all of them and continue to go back to them from time to time. Your posts here give no indication of an understanding of population genetics or geology, plus I doubt your truthfulness since book pages are generally mostly white, which you constantly complain you cannot abide and frequently use as an excuse for not viewing images. I don't even understand how you enter messages here since the message box is white. --Percy
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