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Author Topic:   Rebuttal To Creationists - "Since We Can't Directly Observe Evolution..."
Kleinman
Member (Idle past 335 days)
Posts: 2142
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2016


Message 158 of 2926 (898258)
09-21-2022 3:26 PM
Reply to: Message 157 by ringo
09-21-2022 3:08 PM


Re: Video not available
Kleinman:
I like teaching biologists the physics and mathematics of biological evolution.
ringo:
But you're not doing that. You're just challenging us to explain it.

OK, why does combination therapy work for treating HIV when the virus can very rapidly evolve resistance to single-drug therapy? If you have trouble with that challenge, you can read the mathematical explanation here:
The mathematics of random mutation and natural selection for multiple simultaneous selection pressures and the evolution of antimicrobial drug resistance
If you have trouble with the math, it is simply that HIV is no better at winning 3 lotteries than you are. You would have to buy about 1e15 tickets to win those 3 lotteries.
Kleinman:
... fossil tea-leaf reading courses.
ringo:
Y'see, that's where you lose all of your credibility, with silly creationist slogans like that.

Oh boy, ringo is going to explain the Kishony and Lenski experiments by reading fossil tea-leaves.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 157 by ringo, posted 09-21-2022 3:08 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 159 by ringo, posted 09-21-2022 3:34 PM Kleinman has replied

  
Kleinman
Member (Idle past 335 days)
Posts: 2142
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2016


Message 160 of 2926 (898263)
09-21-2022 4:13 PM
Reply to: Message 159 by ringo
09-21-2022 3:34 PM


Re: Video not available
Kleinman:
OK, why does combination therapy work for treating HIV when the virus can very rapidly evolve resistance to single-drug therapy?
ringo:
There you go again, asking when you should be telling.

OK, I'll tell you, but you have to promise that what happens on EVC Forum stays on EVC Forum.
Kleinman:
If you have trouble with that challenge....
ringo:
I have trouble with a teacher who demands that I teach HIM. If you wanna teach, teach.

OK, the first thing I want to teach you is life is demanding.
Kleinman:
Oh boy, ringo is going to explain the Kishony and Lenski experiments by reading fossil tea-leaves.
ringo:
So all you have is repetition of the same childish slogans.

Haven't you heard about teaching by repetition? And I'll explain to you why fossil tea-leaf reading is a pseudoscience like phrenology, astrology, or perpetual motion machines. Adaptive evolution requires hundreds of millions or billions of replications for each mutational adaptation step. We know that from the Kishony and Lenski experiments. Therefore, for a reptile population to evolve into a bird population would create vast numbers of transitional forms. To get an idea of how vast that population would have to be, if it only required 200,000 mutations for such a genetic transformation, it would require about 200,000 billion replications. You should have transitional forms coming out of your ears.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 159 by ringo, posted 09-21-2022 3:34 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 161 by ringo, posted 09-21-2022 4:29 PM Kleinman has replied

  
Kleinman
Member (Idle past 335 days)
Posts: 2142
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2016


Message 162 of 2926 (898271)
09-21-2022 5:12 PM
Reply to: Message 161 by ringo
09-21-2022 4:29 PM


Re: Video not available
Kleinman:
To get an idea of how vast that population would have to be, if it only required 200,000 mutations for such a genetic transformation, it would require about 200,000 billion replications. You should have transitional forms coming out of your ears.
ringo:
And by the way, we only really need one transitional fossil to show that there was a transition.

I saw that one you got from China.
Do you want to learn introductory probability theory? That's all you need to understand DNA evolution. I can teach you that.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 161 by ringo, posted 09-21-2022 4:29 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 167 by ringo, posted 09-21-2022 9:57 PM Kleinman has replied

  
Kleinman
Member (Idle past 335 days)
Posts: 2142
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2016


Message 164 of 2926 (898277)
09-21-2022 6:20 PM
Reply to: Message 163 by Taq
09-21-2022 6:11 PM


Re: Apples and oranges
Kleinman:
Not at all, but use whatever reference you want and give us the correct mathematical explanation for the Kishony and Lenski experiments.
Taq:
What does the Kishony and Lenski experiments have to do with the evolution of an arboreal ape into the the human species we see today?

DNA evolution is DNA evolution.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 163 by Taq, posted 09-21-2022 6:11 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 165 by Taq, posted 09-21-2022 6:40 PM Kleinman has replied

  
Kleinman
Member (Idle past 335 days)
Posts: 2142
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2016


Message 166 of 2926 (898281)
09-21-2022 7:20 PM
Reply to: Message 165 by Taq
09-21-2022 6:40 PM


Re: Apples and oranges
Kleinman:
DNA evolution is DNA evolution.
Taq:
So how does the evolution of DNA in the Kishony and Lenski experiments apply to DNA evolution in human evolution?

The accumulation of mutations works the exact same way in haploid, diploid, or polyploid genomes. They all do this by a Markov process random walk. For diploid (or polyploid) sexual replicators, it complicates the math a little because you have two (or more) sets of chromosomes being replicated and recombination occurring. But recombination without error cannot create new alleles.
When you start with the assumption that humans and chimpanzees arose from a common ancestor, you somehow have to account for the reproductive fitness differences between the two replicators. The problem for those that believe this is that you have very few replications to do this accounting problem. In all of history, there have been about 100 billion humans on earth and 99% have lived in the last 10,000 years. Every replication gives two sets of chromosome replications. That means you have only about two billion replications to work with. If you assume a mutation rate of 1e-9, you have only on average about 2 mutations at every site in the genome somewhere in that one billion population. You simply don't have sufficient population size to get a lineage that accumulates more than a small number of adaptive mutations. Under the best of circumstances, Kishony's experiment takes 5 billion replications of a lineage to accumulate 5 adaptive mutations. That one billion who lived before 10,000 years ago aren't even in a single lineage. The multiplication rule of probabilities kills the notion of universal common descent.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 165 by Taq, posted 09-21-2022 6:40 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 178 by Taq, posted 09-22-2022 11:44 AM Kleinman has replied

  
Kleinman
Member (Idle past 335 days)
Posts: 2142
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2016


Message 169 of 2926 (898294)
09-21-2022 10:30 PM
Reply to: Message 167 by ringo
09-21-2022 9:57 PM


Re: Video not available
Kleinman:
Do you want to learn introductory probability theory?
ringo:
Not from a guy who calculates that, "There aren't enough transitional fossils," and then forgets to consider the rate of fossilization. That's creationust thinking at its best (pretty bad).

Did I write what you put in quotes? If so, point to which message. What I said was you should have vast numbers of transitional fossils because each adaptational transitional mutation requires about a billion replications. And if you don't want to learn probability theory from me (and I wish you would make up your mind, first you want me to teach you and now you don't), YouTube has some good, easy-to-follow lectures on the subject from Khan Academy or Dr. Leonard. When you do that, you will find that my math is correct. Sorry to burst your bubble but you are not related to chimpanzees. But you will learn how anti-microbial drug resistance evolves and why cancer treatments fail.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 167 by ringo, posted 09-21-2022 9:57 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 170 by ringo, posted 09-21-2022 10:45 PM Kleinman has replied

  
Kleinman
Member (Idle past 335 days)
Posts: 2142
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2016


Message 172 of 2926 (898307)
09-22-2022 8:19 AM
Reply to: Message 170 by ringo
09-21-2022 10:45 PM


Re: Video not available
Kleinman:
Did I write what you put in quotes?
ringo:
So, you think there ARE enough transitional fossils?

Only those that don't understand that it takes huge populations for each transitional adaptation mutation will argue that there ARE enough transitional fossils. Since you don't want to learn how to do the math of DNA adaptational evolution, try to understand that the Kishony and Lenski biological evolutionary experiments demonstrate that it requires a billion replications for each SINGLE transitional adaptational mutation. And that is in just a single lineage. Every lineage on a different evolutionary trajectory requires a billion replications for each transitional adaptational step.
Kleinman:
What I said was you should have vast numbers of transitional fossils....
ringo:
And I replied that we do. You're saying that we "should" have a lot suggests that you think we don't have enough.

But you don't seem to be considering the fact that fossilization is very rare.

Try to understand the proportions. How many T Rex existed? How many T Rex fossils exist today? Then tell us how many transitional fossils you have that demonstrate reptiles evolving into birds or fish evolving into mammals. Then put that into the context that it takes a billion replications for each of the lineages for each single mutational transitional step. This is a physical and mathematical fact of life that you are refusing to try and understand or accept. If you and others like PaulK want to argue that a series of microevolutionary changes add up to a macroevolutionary change, you also need to learn to add up the population size needed to make such an evolutionary transition. 100 microevolutionary changes will take 100 billion replications, 1000 microevolutionary changes will take 1000 billion replications, and this is just for each lineage on its own particular evolutionary trajectory.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 170 by ringo, posted 09-21-2022 10:45 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 179 by ringo, posted 09-22-2022 12:00 PM Kleinman has not replied

  
Kleinman
Member (Idle past 335 days)
Posts: 2142
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2016


Message 174 of 2926 (898309)
09-22-2022 9:36 AM
Reply to: Message 173 by Percy
09-22-2022 9:06 AM


Re: Video not available
Percy:
You have to admire his ability to stick to his schtick of not saying much specific while telling people that if they had any intelligence they'd figure it out for themselves. He ignores and can't detect mockery, so I'll abandon that approach.
You will have to forgive me if I have difficulty distinguishing mockery from a serious argument when carrying on a discussion with people that think that blizzards turn lizards into buzzards with gizzards.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 173 by Percy, posted 09-22-2022 9:06 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 180 by dwise1, posted 09-22-2022 12:02 PM Kleinman has not replied
 Message 270 by Percy, posted 09-28-2022 10:29 AM Kleinman has not replied

  
Kleinman
Member (Idle past 335 days)
Posts: 2142
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2016


Message 177 of 2926 (898312)
09-22-2022 10:56 AM
Reply to: Message 175 by Percy
09-22-2022 10:10 AM


Re: Video not available
Percy:
Well what are you waiting for? Let's bring on the math and have some fun, Professor Kleinman.
Kleinman:
OK, let's start with the math of competition. Haldane's model in his "cost of natural selection" paper is a good starting point. You can find that paper here:
JSTOR: Access Check
Percy:
Where's the math? All you did was provide a link to a paper. According to the Forum Guidelines:

Bare links with no supporting discussion should be avoided. Make the argument in your own words and use links as supporting references.

So if you want to make your points with math then you need to present the math, not just provide a link.


Fair enough, I'll walk you through all the math. Start with the link above to Haldane's Cost of Natural Selection Paper.
Haldane starts his analysis with the following equations (unnumbered). (Please pardon my formatting).
In the nth generation the different variants occur in frequencies:
pnA, qna, where pn +qn = 1 and "A" and "a" are different alleles. "A" variants are more fit than the "a" variants.
It should be clear to you that Haldane's frequency equation is at least a conservation of number equation. In other words, an increase in the frequency (and number) of the "A" variants will cause a decrease in the frequency (and number) of the "a" variants. Why is it a conservation of energy equation?
I'll go further into your post once you consider this first point.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 175 by Percy, posted 09-22-2022 10:10 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 182 by Percy, posted 09-22-2022 12:24 PM Kleinman has replied

  
Kleinman
Member (Idle past 335 days)
Posts: 2142
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2016


Message 181 of 2926 (898324)
09-22-2022 12:20 PM
Reply to: Message 178 by Taq
09-22-2022 11:44 AM


Re: Apples and oranges
Kleinman:
When you start with the assumption that humans and chimpanzees arose from a common ancestor, you somehow have to account for the reproductive fitness differences between the two replicators. The problem for those that believe this is that you have very few replications to do this accounting problem.
Taq:
I'm not seeing any population genetics models that demonstrates this. All I am seeing is you referring to big numbers and waving your hands.

For the number of humans that have ever lived and the number alive today can be found here:
How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth?
The estimated number of humans before 8000 BC is about 1.2 billion, the number people alive in 2019 was about 7.6 billion and the number of chimpanzees alive can be found here:
Chimpanzee - Wikipedia
quote:
The chimpanzee is listed on the IUCN Red List as an endangered species. Between 170,000 and 300,000 individuals are estimated across its range.
You don't have a model for this but you have more than enough data. If humans and chimpanzees arose from a common ancestor, what adaptive mutations enabled humans to achieve a population of over 7 billion while chimpanzees have only achieved a population of 300,000?
Kleinman:
If you assume a mutation rate of 1e-9, you have only on average about 2 mutations at every site in the genome somewhere in that one billion population. You simply don't have sufficient population size to get a lineage that accumulates more than a small number of adaptive mutations.
Taq:
Let's use a mutation rate of 50 mutations per person in each generation. In a steady population of just 100,000 people that is 5 million mutations per person. With a generation time of 25 years that would be 200,000 generations over 5 million years. This results in 1 trillion mutations over the last 5 million years. We only need about 20 million mutations to produce the differences we see between humans and chimps. Where is the problem?

The problem is that you are doing a simple-minded neutral evolution calculation. Adaptive mutations must be accumulated on lineages. And it should be clear to you that humans have a reproductive advantage over chimps simply by the population numbers.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 178 by Taq, posted 09-22-2022 11:44 AM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 183 by Taq, posted 09-22-2022 1:00 PM Kleinman has replied
 Message 187 by AZPaul3, posted 09-22-2022 2:48 PM Kleinman has replied

  
Kleinman
Member (Idle past 335 days)
Posts: 2142
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2016


Message 184 of 2926 (898334)
09-22-2022 2:02 PM
Reply to: Message 182 by Percy
09-22-2022 12:24 PM


Re: Video not available
Kleinman:
"A" and "a" are different alleles. "A" variants are more fit than the "a" variants.
It should be clear to you that Haldane's frequency equation is at least a conservation of number equation.
Percy:
Yes, total frequency of both A and a will always be 1.

And as pnA -> 1, qna -> 0. When pnA = 1, fixation (or as Haldane calls it, substitution) has occurred. This is the fundamental equation of biological evolutionary competition. The more fit variants increase in frequency and the less fit variants decrease in frequency when a population is engaged in biological evolutionary competition. The rest of Haldane's paper uses that fundamental equation to compute the number of deaths of less fit variants in that biological evolutionary competition. Those variant going extinct are no longer candidates for adaptive mutations, they are dead. What is important is how many replications the more fit variant are able to do during and after they win the competition because that determines the probability of some member in that subpopulation getting an adaptive mutation.
Kleinman:
Why is it a conservation of energy equation?
Percy:
You're claiming it, you explain it. First provide the specific equation from Haldane's paper that you're referring to, then convert it into units of Joules.

I already have but I'll do it again. It is based on the first law of thermodynamics. It takes energy to replicate, the most efficient user of that energy for survival and reproduction will increase in frequency in the population while the less efficient user of that energy will decrease in frequency in any biological evolutionary competition. This is clearly demonstrated in the Lenski experiment where he energy limits his population. And don't be silly, frequency is dimensionless. It is the total available energy that limits the total population size. If you want to do an energy calculation, you need to know the amount of energy necessary for each replication and the carrying capacity (total amount of usable energy in the environment) and you can compute the population size the environment can support.
This frequency equation that Haldane uses is applicable to the Lenski experiment to do the mathematics of biological evolutionary competition and compute the generations to fixation but what happens if you try to apply it to the Kishony experiment? The answer to that is it is not applicable because Kishony's experiment has much greater carrying capacity and significant biological competition is not occurring. Therefore no fixation is occurring.
Kishony starts his experiment with bacteria (CFU-colony forming units) that are drug-sensitive. That single drug-sensitive bacterium starting that colony has a frequency of qna = 1 and pnA = 0. The colony grows and qna remains at 1 and pnA remains at 0 until some lucky member gets an adaptive mutation. On average, for a mutation rate of 1e-9, that takes about a billion replications so qna will be (1-1e-9) and pnA will be 1e-9. That is nowhere near fixation. Adaptation does not require fixation and adaptation will be slowed by biological competition as demonstrated by the contrast between the Kishony and Lenski experiments.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 182 by Percy, posted 09-22-2022 12:24 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 269 by Percy, posted 09-28-2022 10:17 AM Kleinman has replied

  
Kleinman
Member (Idle past 335 days)
Posts: 2142
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2016


Message 185 of 2926 (898336)
09-22-2022 2:13 PM
Reply to: Message 183 by Taq
09-22-2022 1:00 PM


Re: Apples and oranges
Kleinman:
The problem is that you are doing a simple-minded neutral evolution calculation.
Taq:
No, I'm not. I am calculating the number of mutations that would have occurred in the human lineage with with a steady population of just 100,000 humans. That number is 1 trillion. We would only need to keep 1 out of every 50,000 mutations that did occur over that time period in order to get the 20 million mutations we see now. Why is this a problem?

You are doing a neutral evolution calculation. But you can explain to us how 1 out of every 50,000 mutations are kept and which ones humans have kept to give the reproductive advantage over chimps. And tell us what selective advantage each of these 1 out of every 50,000 mutations give and why chimps did get these mutations.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 183 by Taq, posted 09-22-2022 1:00 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 186 by Taq, posted 09-22-2022 2:29 PM Kleinman has replied

  
Kleinman
Member (Idle past 335 days)
Posts: 2142
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2016


Message 188 of 2926 (898342)
09-22-2022 3:25 PM
Reply to: Message 186 by Taq
09-22-2022 2:29 PM


Re: Apples and oranges
Kleinman:
You are doing a neutral evolution calculation.
Taq:
Did you not read my post?

The mutation rate is 50 mutations per person per generation. In a population of 100,000 that would be 5 million mutations per generation across the population. Do you agree with this or not?

So you claim that in the first generation that humans appeared the population size was 100,000?
Kleinman:
But you can explain to us how 1 out of every 50,000 mutations are kept and which ones humans have kept to give the reproductive advantage over chimps.
Taq:
Have you heard of natural selection, neutral drift, and vertical inheritance?

Do you agree that the physical differences between chimps and humans are due to the DNA sequence differences between our genomes? Yes or no?

So you can't explain how 1 out of every 50,000 mutations are kept and which ones give humans a reproductive advantage over chimps. Chimps have a population of 300,000 today, 3 times greater than your hypothetical example. They should have 15 million mutations per generation. Their reproductive fitness should be increasing 3 times faster because they are getting 3 times more beneficial mutations according to your math. How about 7 billion humans today? According to your math, there are 70,000 times more beneficial mutations occurring in the human population today. Does every newborn child in the world get all those beneficial mutations by vertical inheritance?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 186 by Taq, posted 09-22-2022 2:29 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 190 by Taq, posted 09-22-2022 3:42 PM Kleinman has replied

  
Kleinman
Member (Idle past 335 days)
Posts: 2142
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2016


Message 189 of 2926 (898344)
09-22-2022 3:34 PM
Reply to: Message 187 by AZPaul3
09-22-2022 2:48 PM


Re: Apples and oranges
Kleinman:
And it should be clear to you that humans have a reproductive advantage over chimps simply by the population numbers.
AZPaul3:
Why compare human population to chip? They are totally separate organisms inhabiting totally separate niches, subject to different evolutionary stresses. The genotypes, phenotypes, and environments are all different between the two. Humans evolved the capacity to walk upright and travel over vast distances where the chimp did not. We also got smart. Chimp evolution did not do that.

You believe that humans and chimps arose from a common ancestor. What mutations allow humans to live and reproduce in all these niches that chimps don't? What mutations did humans get that allow humans to walk upright but chimps didn't get these mutations? What mutations gave us greater intelligence that chimps didn't get? How did all these adaptive mutations accumulate in a lineage of humans but didn't occur and accumulate in a lineage of chimps?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 187 by AZPaul3, posted 09-22-2022 2:48 PM AZPaul3 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 191 by AZPaul3, posted 09-22-2022 3:44 PM Kleinman has replied

  
Kleinman
Member (Idle past 335 days)
Posts: 2142
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2016


Message 192 of 2926 (898348)
09-22-2022 3:55 PM
Reply to: Message 190 by Taq
09-22-2022 3:42 PM


Re: Apples and oranges
Kleinman:
So you can't explain how 1 out of every 50,000 mutations are kept and which ones give humans a reproductive advantage over chimps.
Taq:
The explanation is the same explanation as that found in the Kishony and Lenski experiments. It is a combination of selection, drift, and vertical inheritance.

Well, it's about time. You finally agree that it takes a billion replications for each adaptive mutation in a lineage. I knew you would finally get it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 190 by Taq, posted 09-22-2022 3:42 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 195 by Taq, posted 09-22-2022 4:10 PM Kleinman has not replied

  
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