The End of Evolution By Means of Natural Selection

You don't follow arguments very well do you?I am asking how do you know what to judge a 'normal' allele much less genome from. I am not talking about the process (DNA replication). I am talking about the source. If you don't know what the source DNA is supposed to look like, how do you know if preceding genetic changes (mutations) in the genome are 'normal' or 'abnormal'? Yes when referring to the process of replicating DNA code from generation to generation. Not when referring to the code itself. Which no one is denying. What you are leaving out is the evolutionary process of natural selection which weeds out these deficiencies and weakness and strengthens the population that are more fit and able to survive. Get off your hobby horse and calm down. If you can't talk intelligently without calling people liars than you need to find another venue to vent.It is a fact that mutations occur is it not? Is it also a fact that these mutations cause variation whether they are harmful or beneficial to the organism and population involved is it not?
If not please explain why.

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One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

In order to head off another meltdown I'm temporarily removing your posting privileges in this forum, the Biological Evolution forum. This will allow you to focus your energies on the Reduction of Alleles by Natural Selection (Faith and ZenMonkey Only) thread.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Are you saying that there is no mutational changes at all in the genome from generation to generation? Does the sequenced genome not differ from the original source genome?Also there are differences with genomes of individual humans. Are you saying that all our genomes are 100% identical? If so how does DNA fingerprinting work?In other words, what are you using to determine the baseline source for 'normal' alleles/genomes for humans or any other organism? You are obtuse. What is a 'normal' trait? You are arguing in circles. Is mongoloid eyes normal? Kinky hair? Red hair? Dark skin? Light skin? Short? Tall? Fat? Skinny? etc, etc, ad infinitim. You are misconstruing the term here. A process such as DNA replication is expected not to function perfectly 100% of the time. In other words that is the norm not the other way around. That is a whole other ball of wax that I don't think we are prepared to tackle here. If it makes you feel better, counsel strike my last statement.I won't comment on the rest since it is basless ranting and raving.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

According to you any deviation from a specific DNA sequence will cause disease or non-beneficial oddities. Therefore, if two species share the same gene then the DNA sequence of that gene should be identical.If the mutation hypothesis is correct then there should be deviations of genes between species, and this deviation should correlate with evolutionary distance. Furthermore, some of these deviations should be responsible for the adaptations seen in each species, and should therefore be beneficial.Which do you think is true?

Yes, of course, everybody going to a university is completely idiotic and doesn't know the slightest thing about logic. It all makes sense now.

Hi Faith, I started out with a much longer reply, but in the interest of brevity I've cut it back to essentials. Curiously, I get the feeling that I understand your hypothesis perhaps better than you do, but because you seem to waffle back and forth in different replies, it is difficult to hold you to your own position. Yet when I make that observation, ...... and the logical conclusion that alleles must reduce in one direction or another as you go around a ring species, ......completely in accordance with your hypothesis, ...... but that the hybrid zones show a problem for this, ...... because they show the existence of alleles in each side population not shared with the other ...... rather than a continual stepping down in the number of alleles ...... as you claimed occurs in ring species ...... therefore contrary to your claim that :alleles no longer possessed by one population in the series can be found in the former populations" ...... all I get is denial from you, name calling and statements like Except that I have understood. What you have said throughout this thread is that ... except where it isn't.And then you want to ignore those points, or change the argument to exclude them from the situations you consider subject to your hypothesis. Please do. I, for one, will be very interested in how you explain 5 varieties with 4 hybrid zones (that each have more alleles than their neighbors), in accordance with your hypothesis that So make your diagram for the Greenish Warblers and we'll see how true to your own hypothesis you are. Perhaps you do not understand my argument: not once does the pattern seen in the Greenish Warblers match your assertion. Make your diagram.Enjoy.

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hi Wounded King, We also have a number of instances where certain humans have immunity to certain diseases, and like the bacteria experiments of anti-biotics, these would show the existence of beneficial mutations.Enjoy.

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I have read all the way through both of the Biology threads that Faith has been posting in. My level of frustration has been increasing the further this goes on.She is just making shit up. Not once has she posted any evidence to back up this drivel. Not once has she posted a single reference.Quite a while back RAZD posted (message 240) a very detailed explanation why her her scenario cannot explain what we actually see in ring species and she just blew him off. It is clear she did not understand it. Faith is clearly not here to learn anything. She whines that we just don't understand what she is saying. The crap she says just is not that complicated. It is just wrong and not supported by a single scientific study in the history of science.She accuses scientists, biologists, evolutionary biologists, science itself of lies and fraud.....repeatedly.Several dozen participants have put a lot of thought and effort into responses to her, trying to correct the glaring errors and made up shit that she spews and her response is just more made up crap.She is exactly the same agent of chaos on this forum that she was 5 years ago and she has not learned a thing or changed one iota since then.Faith is a TROLL and a damn good one! She suckered all of us into wasting our time reading her drivel and responding.

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What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty PythonYou can't build a Time Machine without Weird Optics -- S. Valley

"Nullifies"? Is that the same as "changes"?

But this doesn't escape Faith's last thursdayist trap. Unless we have actual genetic evidence of the de novo origin of such alleles she simply dismisses them as having always been extant since the original ancestral population was created.So while the sort of examples you speak of can certainly show differential fitness between different alleles either generally or in different environments,through population genetic stidues of traits such as Sickle Cell, HbC, HIV resistant CCR5 variants etc.., they don't help us with Faith since she simply denies that they originate from mutations (or in the case of sickle cell almost certainly claims that it is not truly beneficial).TTFN,WK

Looks like everyone is bringing their old hobby horses out for a run around the park.Again as you did 4 years ago in Faith's thread on beneficial mutations, Message 208, you bemoan the use of the term beneficial but singularly fail to suggest any usable alternative.Of course a mutation is a change, but those changes have different effects. You seem to have decided to impoverish scientific discussion by not allowing us to use a simple term to describe a particular mutation conferring a reproductive benefit within a certain environment.And of course evolutionists don't say that all evolution is change without implied direction, otherwise we wouldn't have adaptive evolution, presumably another term you object to since of course the organism is only adapted to its current environment.What is the case is that the directions are only implied by the interaction of the genotype with the environment and are therefore highly diverse and labile. The actual mutations are certainly not directional with respect to fitness, but mutation is only one element in the changing population genetics that reveal the constraints that the environment imposes.And no matter how you moan about teleological language you seem to have nothing to replace it with. Anyone with half a brain can tell the difference between terms with teleological overtones which have been co-opted for a technical purpose and actually believing in a teleological process behind evolution and I'm still opposed to butchering commonuly understood scientific technical terms to cater to those lacking half a brain. Should we also be lobbying particle physicists to stop using the terms strange and charm to describe quarks?We shouldn't be censoring and bowdlerising science to appeal to the uneducated who aren't prepared to become educated. Do you really think that if we started using a different term Faith wont still be just as willfully ignorant another 5 years from now?TTFN,WK

Hi RAZD,About ring species, call them A through E, Faith is arguing that both parent and daughter species can lose alleles. So if A has allele 1 and B doesn't, while B has allele 2 and A doesn't, that only means that A has lost allele 2 and B has lost allele 1. Since speciation is caused by allele reduction, if both subpopulations are losing alleles, but different ones, then speciation is only hastened. I don't think anyone has yet produced any evidence that would differentiate between Faith's view and ours concerning speciation in complex organisms like birds and lizards. I know you've been working hard at it, but length and detail isn't always effective rebuttal.I don't agree with Tanypteryx that Faith is a troll because I don't think she's doing this on purpose, but the effect is the same. Maybe I'm alone in this, but I see Faith's zaniness as more extreme this time around. For example, the refusals to consider evidence and valid arguments seem more blatant, and when she states that responses have only made her more certain that beneficial mutations play no role while never explaining any reasoning process that others could follow is especially crazy, as if she believes if she says something then it must be true, a sort of God complex.As others have argued in the past, many produce their best work when responding to Faith, and I do believe that board moderation and a more web-savvy membership is better up to the task this time around. I hope membership has a positive view of the way Smooth Operator's somewhat similar troll-like style was gradually limited to a single thread, because similar approaches will be taken going forward when deemed necessary.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

... I guess.

This was not a technical scientific discussion. This thread is a discussion with and for the general public.

So presumably I shouldn't use terms like DNA, transcription, allele, mutation, protein or gene? I mean most of the general public probably wouldn't understand what those terms actually mean would they?We are still in the 'Biological Evolution' forum right? They didn't suddenly tack '...for dummies' on to the end when I wasn't looking? I didn't realise that we had to target the lowest common intellectual denominator in these discussions, I'll try and limit the syllable length in future posts.Its nice of you to confirm that you really are hoping to dumb down the science in preference to having people make any effort to understand what they are discussing.TTFN,WK