Rebuttal To Creationists - "Since We Can't Directly Observe Evolution..."

Kleinman:

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Do you think that natural selection (what Darwin calls the struggle for existence or what I like to call competition between different variants in a population (and what are these variants competing for?)) and descent with modification (adaptation) are the same physical processes?

AZPaul3:

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Oh, you mean reproductive differential.
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Let's test your knowledge. How do you think the fittest are determined? What is the one overriding factor that controls all of population genetics and, thus, all of evolution?
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And then how do your concerns with thermodynamics disrupt this set of processes?

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Relative fitness must be measured for each particular population in a given environment. It depends on the selection condition(s) the population is subject to.Biological competition "disrupt" (slows) adaptation. This is a consequence of the first law of thermodynamics.

Bzzzt! Wrong.Ok, as I suspected you do not know what evolution is. You have your misconceptions of Darwin but no understanding of the actual product. Bullshit!How can you do these things when you have no idea what evolution is?You have shown your misunderstandings of fitness, reproductive differential, population dynamics, one of the true drivers of evolution.I shudder to think what your views on the genetics side are.

And what is the ONE, the ONLY, metric to measure this fitness? No it doesn't. Learn the subject!There is only the ONE condition to assess. This means nothing.

Aw, shucks, Professor Kleinman, you're just so smart. It sounds so simple when you explain it. Darwin's two physical processes are biological competition and descent with modification. Natural selection just acts on biological competition. Amazing! Well thank goodness for that! For a while there you had me believing I had physics all mixed up, too. There's math? Golly whiz, no one told me there was math. Are they competing for lebensraum?--Percy

Kleinman:

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Relative fitness must be measured for each particular popula ...

AZPaul3:

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Bzzzt! Wrong.
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Ok, as I suspected you do not know what evolution is. You have your misconceptions of Darwin but no understanding of the actual product.

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Oh really??? You can predict the relative fitness of different variants in any environment? Show us how to predict the relative fitness of the different variants in the Lenski Long Term Evolution Experiment. You won't.

Kleinman:

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I can explain the physics and math of Darwinian evolution and correlate ...

AZPaul3:

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Bullshit!

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I wrote a short paper for laymen like you, no math.
The Physics of Darwinian Evolution

You left something out of that quotation. IOW, you lifted it out of context, typical creationist act.That is from Darwin's section, "Divergence of Character", in which he explains his ideas of how new species arise. Part of his explanation through analogies (he was not a mathematician -- the mathematical analysis of evolution came with population genetics in neo-Darwinism having had to wait for genetics), included the little matter of extinction, which follows sixteen long paragraphs of exposition (the part you left out embolded):

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But during the process of modification, represented in the diagram, another of our principles, namely that of extinction, will have played an important part. As in each fully stocked country natural selection necessarily acts by the selected form having some advantage in the struggle for life over other forms, there will be a constant tendency in the improved descendants of any one species to supplant and exterminate in each stage of descent their predecessors and their original parent. For it should be remembered that the competition will generally be most severe between those forms which are most nearly related to each other in habits, constitution, and structure. Hence all the intermediate forms between the earlier and later states, that is between the less and more improved state of a species, as well as the original parent-species itself, will generally tend to become extinct. So it probably will be with many whole collateral lines of descent, which will be conquered by later and improved lines of descent. If, however, the modified offspring of a species get into some distinct country, or become quickly adapted to some quite new station, in which child and parent do not come into competition, both may continue to exist.

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Just one small part of Darwin's entire exposition, yet you presented only that ... once you had carefully scrubbed what Darwin was talking about.But if you had an actual point that you were trying to make with that lifted-out-of-context quote, then you could have stated it. But you didn't, did you, Littleman? You never do. Gee, if you actually had something to say, one would think that you would say it. If you actually had a point to make, then one would think that you would make it. Yet you never do, do you, Littleman?Almost as if you're just trying to bullshit us. Which is so tiringly typical of creationists. 
PS:OBTW, you keep talking about "the physics of Darwinian evolution". Yet you never reveal just what the hell you're talking about?Obviously you are just trying to jerk us around. Which is tiringly typical of creationists.

Kleinman:

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Now, start with the concept of biological competition. What are the different populations competing for? Once you figure this out, the math for this process becomes obvious.

Percy:

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There's math? Golly whiz, no one told me there was math. Are they competing for lebensraum?

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What fun is physics without math? Think about what the meaning of the carrying capacity of an environment means.

No one mentioned 'predict'. Don't try this crap with me. I am super specific in language and context. I suggest you be the same.The issue is assessing fitness in a population, not predicting it.Can you answer the question? What is the ONE, the ONLY, metric to measure this fitness?Hint: It is a measure among generations and across (can you guess how many) generations minimum? This is an academic discipline so, of course, there is a consensus on this definition. Yeah, the same ego-based bs you posted the last time you were here. Rejected.

dwise1:

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You left something out of that quotation. IOW, you lifted it out of context, typical creationist act.
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Almost as if you're just trying to bullshit us. Which is so tiringly typical of creationists.

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How does competition with some variants going extinct affect "Divergence of Character"?I'm not trying to bullshit you. I'm trying to explain to you the physics of Darwinian evolution. Since you are so impatient, just read this:
The Physics of Darwinian Evolution

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Biological competition "disrupt" (slows) adaptation. This is a consequence of the first law of thermodynamics.

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How do you achieve adaption in the absence of competition?

Kleinman:

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I wrote a short paper for laymen like you, no math.

AZPaul3:

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Yeah, the same ego-based bs you posted the last time you were here. Rejected.

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Distribution of fixed beneficial mutations and the rate of adaptation in asexual populations
Why did the Lenski team say the following:

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When large asexual populations adapt, competition between simultaneously segregating mutations slows the rate of adaptation and restricts the set of mutations that eventually fix. This phenomenon of interference arises from competition between mutations of different strengths as well as competition between mutations that arise on different fitness backgrounds.

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If you understood the physics of Darwinian evolution, the answer is obvious, but you don't.

Don't care.Why should anyone answer any of your concerns on evolution when, as you have shown in this thread, you have no idea what evolution is.Math and physics and Lenski the hell out of the thing all you want.You don't understand the subject. You don't know evolution. Your analysis, no matter how mathematically brilliant, is going to be wrong.{abe}FYI. I know the Lenski E. coli experiments. We went round and round on this last time you were pushing your ego here at EvC. You lost.

Kleinman:

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Biological competition "disrupt" (slows) adaptation. This is a consequence of the first law of thermodynamics.

PaulK:

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How do you achieve adaption in the absence of competition?

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Diversification in populations is simply a matter of replication. That's because replication gives the chance for mutations to occur. A good experimental example of rapid adaptation in the presence of minimal competition (no fixation occurring) is the Kishony Mega-Plate experiment. The carrying capacity in this experiment allows for large enough populations to give a reasonable probability of an adaptive mutation occurring on one of its members. Lenski's small carrying capacity environment forces competition with fixation being necessary for the next adaptive mutation to occur. It takes energy to replicate and if you force different variants to compete for a limited amount of energy, this will limit the population size of the most fit variant. This slows the diversification (adaptation) of all variants in the given environment. Most or all of the less fit variants end up going extinct.

Kleinman:

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Why did the Lenski team say the following:

AZPaul3:

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Don't care.

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You should if you want to understand how biological evolution works. After all, this process causes the evolution of drug-resistant microbes and failed cancer treatments.

Ah, the classic creationist mistake/deception of misrepresenting evolution as being only one part of the entire process: either it's only natural selection or it's only mutation. Wrong! All you have proven is that you do not know what you are talking about, which again is tiringly typical of creationists.Adaptation is an iterative process (I'm a retired software engineer, so I know something from iterative processes), which simplified goes something like:

1. (jumping into an ongoing loop) Start where you have a population which is adapted sufficiently to its environment. Observe that there is some genetic and phenotypic diversity within the population centered about a hypothetical optimum though with an acceptable degree of deviation from that optimum.
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2. That starting generation then reproduces resulting in a new generation of offspring who are very similar to, though still different from, their parents. This increases diversity through a number of different factors, including recombination and mutations.
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   This step also includes the non-viable genotypes which never are born/hatched/sprouted but rather spontaneously abort (I keep hearing the figure of about 50% -- that is also why you plant a few seeds in each hole in your garden). Those spontaneous abortions play no further role in this iterative loop and hence their non-adaptive traits are eliminated from the gene pool.
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3. The new generation survives and matures ... some of them. This is part of where their fitness comes into play, though it is almost literally a crap shoot (a freak accident could take out the most hyper-fit individual, so the surviving population does so statistically with greater fitness being a contributing factor).
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4. The surviving mature individuals enter the mating game and reproduce. This is where sexual selection comes into play.
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   This is also where various reproductive strategies; eg, produce mass quantities of eggs in the hope that a few survive, produce a few eggs and be around to nurture them, etc.
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5. Loop back to Step 1.

Please note that the closer an individual is to the optimal mean for its population in their environment (it may help to visualize this as a bell curve with the optimal mean in the center) then the more fit it is.Now consider a change in the environment where that optimal mean is no longer in the center, but rather off to one side (or even beyond the curve in the most extreme cases). In those cases, the fringe individuals closest to that new optimal mean will be the ones most fit for the new environment and will have their genes represented more in the next generations. That is adaptation.So here's a question for you, Littleman. All that expresses change to changing environments. For that matter, many common definitions of "evolution" involve change, but not stasis. But what about statis? How does evolution explain stasis, the absence of change? I know the answer, but do you? I've even already given you the answer. Really? How?