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

Says the creationist who is rubbish without his script. OK, actually you're also rubbish even with your script.

Kleinman:

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It's the constant environment that allows a few adaptive alleles to amplify (increase in frequencies for the mathematically incompetent).

Taq:

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Why wouldn't adaptive alleles amplify in a changing environment?
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You also assume that no mutation will be beneficial in more than one environment, which is false.

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You aren't thinking about this very clearly. Changing environments changes the reproductive fitness of members in that environment. An adaptive allele in one environment may very well be neutral or detrimental in a different environment. That's why Lenski's experiment initially had drug-resistant variants in his populations but they were selected out because there were no drugs in the environment. And why don't you give examples of mutations that are beneficial in more than a single environment? Or is all that you can do is speculate?

Kleinman:

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You are a whiner and you are stupid. Why do you lie when you claim to have done the mathematics of descent with modification? You are not only stupid, but you are also a liar.

Taq:

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Perfect example of what people do when the evidence is stacked against them.

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Is that the best you can come up with? You are stupid and you lie, that's all you can do unless you want to add in speculate.

Taq:

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If all you can do is call people stupid then you have no argument.

Kleinman:

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You are a whiner and you are stupid. Why do you lie when you claim to have done the mathematics of descent with modification? You are not only stupid, but you are also a liar.

dwise1:

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Says the creationist who is rubbish without his script.

dwise1:

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OK, actually you're also rubbish even with your script.

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I can do descent with modification for the Kishony and Lenski experiments. And what can dwise1 do? Nothing. He can't explain why it takes a billion replications for each adaptive mutation in the Kishony and Lenski experiments. Not so wise for dwise1.

It may very well be beneficial in a different environment. Mutations that confer increased intelligence would be beneficial in humans since it could increase the efficiency of tool use in many different environments. Insults are for those who can't deal with the evidence.

Biologists and other smart people.

Apparently, you can't do "descent with modification" in the Lederberg experiment.Joshua and Esther Lederberg published a hallmark paper in 1951 titled, "Replica Plating and Indirect Selection of Bacterial Mutants", which can be found here:REPLICA PLATING AND INDIRECT SELECTION OF BACTERIAL MUTANTS - PMCLuria and Delbruck went on to explain the processes that undergirded the Lederberg's results which later won Luria and Delbruck a Nobel Prize.There is one interesting observation in the Lederberg paper:"The culutre is fully sensitive to the phage T-1, as well as to streptomycin, and like most E. coli strains gives rise to resistant mutants at rates of approximately 10E-7 and 10E-10 per division, respectively."In this example we saw a beneficial mutation rate of 1 in 10 million and 1 in 10 billion to two different selection pressures using the same strain of E. coli.Kleinman is telling us that one beneficial adaptation every billion divisions is some universal constant, or something of the like. It is so universal that it can even be applied to human evolution. However, in another experiment using E. coli we see beneficial mutation rates that are quite different than what Kleinman claims.If Kleinman's math can't even apply universally to evolution in E. coli, what hope does it have of applying to any other species?

Kleinman:

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You aren't thinking about this very clearly. Changing environments changes the reproductive fitness of members in that environment. An adaptive allele in one environment may very well be neutral or detrimental in a different environment.

Taq:

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It may very well be beneficial in a different environment.

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So you speculate. I give you real examples where this doesn't happen in the Lenski experiment or PaulK's example of the sickle cell trait. Why doesn't Desai do this experiment, showing that different alleles are adaptive in different environments?

Kleinman:

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And why don't you give examples of mutations that are beneficial in more than a single environment?

Taq:

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Mutations that confer increased intelligence would be beneficial in humans since it could increase the efficiency of tool use in many different environments.

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Again you speculate, why couldn't chimps have the same mutations?

Kleinman:

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Is that the best you can come up with? You are stupid and you lie, that's all you can do unless you want to add in speculate.

Taq:

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Insults are for those who can't deal with the evidence.

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When are you going to deal with evidence, all I've seen is your speculations. I'm the only one dealing with the evidence, the Kishony and Lenski experiments. You lie about the fact that you have done descent with modification for either of these experiments.

Kleinman:

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I can do descent with modification for the Kishony and Lenski experiments.

Taq:

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Apparently, you can't do "descent with modification" in the Lederberg experiment.

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Here's your big chance, do the mathematics of the Lederberg experiment and prove me wrong.

Since Kleinman seems to like his probabilities, let's see how that works out for endogenous retroviruses (ERV's).Retroviruses insert themselves into the host genome as part of their normal lifecycle. These insertions can become hereditary if they occur in a germline cell (i.e. sperm or egg). These are called endogenous retroviruses. Claiming that these are not from retroviral insertions is like claiming that a fingerprint on a doorknob at a crime scene isn't evidence because it could have been put there by God, or that it's just "part of the doorknob" and doesn't mean anything. We can observe retroviruses creating insertions both in the lab and in the wild, so the cause isn't under question.The human genome paper found ~200,000 of these hereditary retroviral insertions. The chimp genome paper found about the same amount. Interestingly, only ~300 of the chimp ERV's were not at the same base in the human genome, and only ~100 of the human ERV's were not at the same base in the chimp genome paper. This means that nearly all of the ERV's in each genome are at the same base in each species.We can observe that retroviral insertion is largely random. There is some preference for different genomic features, but these features are made up of many, many bases. For example:

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For HIV the frequency of integration in transcription units ranged from 75% to 80%, while the frequency for MLV was 61% and for ASLV was 57%. For comparison, about 45% of the human genome is composed of transcription units (using the Acembly gene definition).
Retroviral DNA Integration: ASLV, HIV, and MLV Show Distinct Target Site Preferences - PMC

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While HIV prefers transcription units, the number of bases that HIV prefers is still in the billions.So for our figures, let's go on the conservative side. Let's say that retroviruses have about 500 million bases that they prefer. What are the chances that two retroviruses will insert at the same base in independent events? That would be 1 in 500 million.What about 200,000 insertions? That would be 1 in 500 million to the 200,000th power. That's a big number.Therefore, the best explanation for the observation of 99+% of ERV's occurring at the same base in the genomes of two species is that the insertion happened once in a common ancestor. This is the very same mechanism that produces shared ERV's between humans.

My whole point is that you can't have a set equation for the beneficial mutation rate in E. coli, contrary to your claims. There is no equation that can predict the beneficial mutation rate. The best we can do is calculate the mutation rate.

Taq:

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Since Kleinman seems to like his probabilities, let's see how that works out for endogenous retroviruses (ERV's).

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Why should I do all the math? It's your turn, you do the math (if you can). You certainly can't do the math for the Lederberg experiment.

I did the math. From the previous post:So for our figures, let's go on the conservative side. Let's say that retroviruses have about 500 million bases that they prefer. What are the chances that two retroviruses will insert at the same base in independent events? That would be 1 in 500 million.
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What about 200,000 insertions? That would be 1 in 500 million to the 200,000th power. That's a big number.
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Therefore, the best explanation for the observation of 99+% of ERV's occurring at the same base in the genomes of two species is that the insertion happened once in a common ancestor. This is the very same mechanism that produces shared ERV's between humans.

Kleinman:

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Here's your big chance, do the mathematics of the Lederberg experiment and prove me wrong.

Taq:

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My whole point is that you can't have a set equation for the beneficial mutation rate in E. coli, contrary to your claims. There is no equation that can predict the beneficial mutation rate. The best we can do is calculate the mutation rate.

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So do the mathematics and prove me wrong. Don't just babble on like the idiot you are.

The observations prove you wrong. The rate of beneficial mutations differred by a factor of 1,000 in two different environments when using genetically identical E. coli.

Kleinman:

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It's your turn, you do the math (if you can).

Taq:

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I did the math. From the previous post:
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So for our figures, let's go on the conservative side. Let's say that retroviruses have about 500 million bases that they prefer. What are the chances that two retroviruses will insert at the same base in independent events? That would be 1 in 500 million.
​
What about 200,000 insertions? That would be 1 in 500 million to the 200,000th power. That's a big number.
​
Therefore, the best explanation for the observation of 99+% of ERV's occurring at the same base in the genomes of two species is that the insertion happened once in a common ancestor. This is the very same mechanism that produces shared ERV's between humans.

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Go ahead and cherry-pick your data, I'm sure it will impress the mathematically incompetent like Tany.