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

Kleinman:

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At least my model correctly explains the Kishony and Lenski experiments and why combination therapy works for the treatment of HIV.

Tanypteryx:

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No, that's at most.

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See nwr, Tanypteryx now agrees with Taq that my model is correct for asexual replicators. Taq knows that the model also works for asexual replicators, Tanypteryx is slow at learning this mathematical fact of life.

Tanypteryx:

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OK, I'm finished. You error has been pointed out multiple times now, but you continue to repeat it. In the end though your argument boils down to, "reptiles evolve into birds and fish evolve into mammals."

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I missed where you started. And I don't believe that silly notion that "reptiles evolve into birds and fish evolve into mammals." That's a claim made by biologists that don't understand the physics and mathematics of biological evolution.

Tanypteryx:

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Biological science will continue to discover how life works but I don't expect that I will read about you revolutionizing our understanding of the process of biological evolution. It's too bad that you will not be able to help solve the crisis of the Sixth Extinction that threatens all life on our planet.

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I'll let you worry about the Sixth Extinction, my job is to deal with antimicrobial-resistant infections and failed cancer treatments. Too bad that biologists don't help to solve that problem. And don't blame me for your Sixth Extinction, I live off-grid, do you?Do any other members of the C- team want to debate the physics and mathematics of biological evolution? Or is this forum going the way of the Sixth Extinction?

Tanypteryx:

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You sure are an expert at twisting other people's words and your desperation for approval from the "C team" says a lot.

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Oh boy! Tanypteryx is going to give his physical and mathematical explanation of why it takes a billion replications for each adaptive step in the Kishony and Lenski experiments.And it's not the "C Team" it is the "C- Team" because that's the grade that biologists get when they barely pass their survey of physics and survey of mathematics courses and give a big sigh of relief and say, "thank god for social promotion and I'm glad I'll never have to see this stuff again!".

Kleinman:

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See nwr, Tanypteryx now agrees with Taq that my model is correct for asexual replicators.

nwr:

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Neither Taq nor Tanypteryx agrees with you about that.

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Says the mathematician that doesn't do the mathematics of biological evolution. Are you ready to give the correct physics and mathematics of the Kishony and Lenski experiments? So far, Tanypteryx and Taq have failed. Or is your math degree in "Survey of Mathematics"? Tell us nwr, why do you want to believe that you are related to chimpanzees? It can't be because you understand the physics and mathematics of evolution.

Tanypteryx:

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Naw, that's "thank god I'm an atheist!"

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So, why are you so worried about some "Sixth Extinction" (sounds like societies' latest anxiety disorder to me, Chicken Little)? Won't random mutation and natural selection work things out?

Kleinman:

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Won't random mutation and natural selection work things out?

AZPaul3:

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Yes, of course. But not to humanities benefit. Our species cannot adapt faster than we are trashing our crib.
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But, you being a religionist with your bag of dysfunctional math books can't comprehend that anymore than you could basic genetics.

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AZPaul3, our all-knowing and wise savior. Perhaps you will come down off your throne and explain the physics and mathematics of the Kishony and Lenski experiments?

Kleinman:

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Perhaps you will come down off your throne and explain the physics and mathematics of the Kishony and Lenski experiments?

Tanypteryx:

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You seem desperate for the answer. You should be able to figure it out, it's only freshman level math.

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It's high school-level math and physics, dear Tany. Well, perhaps not at your high school. I think that the Sixth Extinction is hitting the EvC forum and it is caused by the global fuming of atheists. The combination selection pressures of math and physics, nothing can survive that kind of stringent selection.

ringo:

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What does "Department of Medicine, USA" mean?

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You will have to ask the publisher. When they inquired what kind of work I did, I told them "Primary Care Physician". I'm glad to see that you pay attention to details. Let's see if you can do that as well on the math. I doubt it based on your previous performance.

Kleinman:

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Let's see if you can do that as well on the math.

ringo:

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Your math has been done to death. I'm more interested in your disdain for science and your unwillingness to discuss it.

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What science could ringo want to talk about, fossil tea-leaf reading? We are certainly not going to get an explanation of the physics and mathematics of the Kishony and Lenski experiments from ringo. Aren't any of the other C- team out there going to give it a shot? Or are we going to see the Sixth Extinction set in on the EvC forum?

Kleinman:

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Perhaps you will come down off your throne and explain the physics and mathematics of the Kishony and Lenski experiments?

AZPaul3:

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The Crown thinks not.

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That figures, the crown thinks not. Any other on the C- team want to give it shot explaining the physics and mathematics of the Kishony and Lenski experiments? The Sixth Extinction descends upon the EvC forum. Nothing left but some fossils with soft tissue.

Kleinman:

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Nothing left but some fossils with soft tissue.

AZPaul3:

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-30-

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AZPaul3, no one is interested in the score you got on your last math test.

AZPaul3:

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Have you ever thought of giving up with this nonsense for a bit and contributing to other discussions? I'd be interested in what your twisted logic comes up with. Lots of math opportunities for you to mis-model.

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Tell us all about your training and experience doing mathematical modeling.

AZPaul3:

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I'd be interested in what your twisted logic comes up with.

Tanypteryx:

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For a guy who claims not to know what a Gish Gallop is he sure uses a lot of the same arguments, with his own twists, and even the exact same phrases as most the other creationists.

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We got Taq's twisted logic on the fixation of multiple adaptive alleles simultaneously and saw how far it got him in explaining the reproductive fitness advantage that humans have over chimps. Tany, when are we going to see your twisted logic on the subject? All you have to do is explain the physics and mathematics of DNA adaptive evolution, biological competition, and random recombination. I hope that doesn't overwhelm you.

Tanypteryx:

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It's like they shot their wad a decade and more ago and none of them has been able to come up with new material.

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It just goes to show you how difficult it is to explain physics and mathematics to laymen and biologists.

Tanypteryx:

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Meanwhile on our side, I love the molecular work that's being done on insects the last couple years. Whole genome sequencing and gobs of grad students entering the field is starting to give us an unprecedented view of insect phylogeny, and lots of new studies of Odonates, too!

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I wonder if any of your students will be able to explain why combination pesticides suppress the evolution of pesticide-resistant insects. First, the teacher needs to learn that. Did you know that insects are complex, multicellular, sexual replicators?

Kleinman:

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What science could ringo want to talk about, fossil tea-leaf reading?

ringo:

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Yes. You've mentioned it several times in a perjorative sense but you seem to be afraid to discuss it.

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I've talked about fossil tea-leaf reading. The Lenski and Kishony experiments demonstrate that each adaptive evolutionary step (adaptive mutation) requires about 1/(mutation rate) replications. For a mutation rate of 1e-9, that's about a billion replications for each adaptive step. You should be drowning in transitional fossils. And if you are interested in the mathematical reason for this, it is the multiplication rule of probabilities.

Kleinman:

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Did you know that insects are complex, multicellular, sexual replicators?

Tanypteryx:

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Wow, really? Thanks for letting me know!

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You are welcome, I'm here to help clear up your confusion.

Tanypteryx:

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Too bad you are not as knowledgeable about evolution. You're still begging for the C team to explain high school freshman math to you and you can't even get anyone other than yourself to cite your papers. You should probably stick to counting bacteria.

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Pay attention, it is the C"-" team. The grade you get when you barely pass your survey of mathematics and survey of physics courses. And if you want to learn how adaptive evolution works, you had better learn how to count whether you are talking about bacteria or any other kind of bug. Taq has now learned how to do that accounting and he bugged out.

Kleinman:

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You should be drowning in transitional fossils.

ringo:

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You have neglected to consider the rate of fossilization. I mentioned that a long time ago. Compared to the vast number of organisms that have lived, the number that have been preserved is vanishingly small.

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How many T Rex has ever lived and how many fossil specimens exist of T Rex? Then consider that each adaptive step (mutation) in a lineage requires 1/(mutation rate) replication, for a mutation rate of 1e-9, that's a billion replications.Consider this thought experiment. You have a population of reptiles. In that population, a lineage starts the evolutionary process into a bird specie. Initially, that reptile doesn't produce any feathers but some member gets a mutation that would transform a scale into a feather. That subset of the population with that first mutation has to replicate about 1/(mutation rate) times before there is a reasonable probability that a new variant will have a second adaptive mutation to produce feathers. For a mutation rate of 1e-9, that's another billion replications. That lineage must do 2 billion replications for the first two adaptive mutations to occur on some member of that lineage. That process must go on for each adaptive mutation in the coding genes and the portion of the genome that controls the expression of those coding genes to cause the correct differentiation of the stem cell to form these feathers in the correct position at the correct time. Toss in recombination in this process if you want but it will still take hundreds of billions if not multiple trillions of replications to do a few hundred or thousand adaptive evolutionary steps. And you want to argue that none of these vast number of transitional variants exist in the fossil record.

ringo:

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I also mentioned that, strictly speaking, ALL fossils are transitional, not just the obvious ones like archaeopteryx.

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You are confusing the concept of diversity with a transition. The idea that humans and chimps can transition from a common ancestor in a billion replications each to two new species does not make mathematical sense. A billion replications are barely enough for a population to diversify slightly. Otherwise, the over 7 billion people on earth today could form multiple different species just in our generation. In reality, there is only diversification. Populations diversify, and transitions occur on lineages. You should study the Markov model I wrote for the Kishony experiment and perhaps this would make better sense to you. And fossils are a snapshot of the dead, you don't know whether they had offspring or not.

ringo:

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And I also mentioned that even ONE transitional fossil would be sufficient to demonstrate that there was a transition.

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There are dozens of T Rex fossils, an apex predator that couldn't have existed in large numbers, yet one fossil of some strange extinct life form out of the multiple billions of replications for adaptive evolution to operate is enough to convince you that a reptile lineage can evolve into birds? Save that argument for naive schoolchildren and biologists that haven't studied introductory probability theory.

ringo:

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So your calculations about mutation rates are not really relevant to the supposed scarcity of fossils. Even IF your calculations are correct, you still lose.

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ringo, you still aren't getting the significance of these calculations and the results of the Kishony and Lenski experiments that substantiate these calculations. Adaptive evolutionary transitions are a very slow process even when under ideal conditions of a single selection pressure acting at a time. When you have events that occur at the frequency of the mutation rate (such as adaptive mutations), it is going to take a lot of random trials to give a reasonable probability of one of those adaptive events occurring. And the random trial for adaptive evolution is a replication. It doesn't matter whether you are talking about bacteria evolving to an antibiotic selection pressure or starvation selection conditions, or reptiles adapting to some selection condition, or humans and chimps adapting to their environmental conditions. This is a mathematical fact of DNA adaptive evolution. You must interpret the fossil record in the context of these mathematical facts, otherwise, you are just storytelling.

Kleinman:

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How many T Rex has ever lived and how many fossil specimens exist of T Rex?

ringo:

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Quite a few and not very many.

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Wikipedia lists 19 specimen.
Specimens of Tyrannosaurus - Wikipedia
UC Berkeley list the number at fewer than 100 and total number of about 2.5 billion
How many T. rexes were there? Billions. | Berkeley News
With that population size, under ideal conditions, you might get 2-3 adaptive evolutionary steps. That averages to 1 transitional fossil for every 25 million replications or about 40 transitional fossils for each adaptional mutation.

Kleinman:

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Then consider that each adaptive step (mutation) in a lineage requires 1/(mutation rate) replication, for a mutation rate of 1e-9, that's a billion replications.

ringo:

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The number of adaptive steps is irrelevant. Do you think every T. Rex fossil ever found is at the same stage of adaptation?

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A population of 2.5 billion will only give slight diversification, and very little adaptation. Try doing the math.

Kleinman:

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a bird specie

ringo:

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"Species" is already singular. Removing the "s" doesn't make it more singular.

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I stand corrected, I twarn't a anglish mager in kollige.

ringo:

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I also mentioned that, strictly speaking, ALL fossils are transitional, not just the obvious ones like archaeopteryx.

Kleinman:

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You are confusing the concept of diversity with a transition.

ringo:

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Not at all. The mutations in the individuals produce diversity among their offspring but we're looking at many, many generations here. Every diverse form may be a transitional on the way to a new species.

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You still don't get how slow the diversification process is. Most DNA is replicated with high fidelity, with only about 1 error in every 100 million or billion base replications. And when you talk about a lineage accumulating a set of adaptive mutations, the rest of the population in a different clade does not contribute to the probability of the next adaptive mutation occurring on a member of that lineage. Of course, if you want to include recombination as Taq did, you have another mathematical problem to address. That's why Taq couldn't give a rational explanation of how humans have greater reproductive fitness than chimps to achieve the greater population size. It takes orders of magnitude larger populations than available to either humans or chimps for adaptive DNA evolution to work properly. You aren't thinking systematically about this.

Kleinman:

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And fossils are a snapshot of the dead, you don't know whether they had offspring or not.

ringo:

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If no archaeopteryx ever had offspring, it is still a transition between dinosaurs and birds. Even if that particular line died out, there could be other transitions that didn't fossilize. In other words, we KNOW that species transition into other species, even if we don't have fossils for every transition.

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You can't even explain the Kishony and Lenski experiments correctly. Yet you know that species transition into other species based on a single fossil of an extinct creature. You believe this because you want to believe this. This isn't science. Try learning how adaptive evolution works. The math isn't that hard and then the Kishony and Lenski experiments will make sense to you. It's basic biological competition and descent with modification.

Kleinman:

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... one fossil of some strange extinct life form out of the multiple billions of replications for adaptive evolution to operate is enough to convince you that a reptile lineage can evolve into birds?

ringo:

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Of course. How many pigs do you need to convince you that pigs exist?

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That's a silly analogy. I'm not denying that you don't have a fossil of a strange extinct creature. It's your claim that the creature is a transition step between a reptile and a bird. You might as well say that pigs are transitioning into birds. All you need are the right selection conditions and enough time. You make such immature claims about evolution yet you refuse to recognize what the Kishony and Lenski experiments are demonstrating about DNA evolution.

Kleinman:

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Save that argument for naive schoolchildren and biologists that haven't studied introductory probability theory.

ringo:

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I will gladly agree with the biologists on that one. (Did you really think that denigrating biologists would help your argument?)

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Stop whining and learn introductory probability theory. That's the area of math that is used to describe DNA evolution and random recombination (Mendelian genetics as well). Biologists have no excuse for failing to correctly describe the evolution of antimicrobial drug resistance and why cancer treatments fail. And if biologists are going to use statistical methods to do inferential phylogenetics, they need to learn that they have to do their sampling in a random manner.

Kleinman:

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ringo, you still aren't getting the significance of these calculations and the results of the Kishony and Lenski experiments that substantiate these calculations.

ringo:

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If Kishony and Lenski replicate their experiments with archaeopteryx and T. Rex, the significance of your calculations will be demonstrated.

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There is plenty of empirical data on the behavior of DNA adaptive evolution with complex, multicellular, sexually reproducing organisms out there if you want to see it and it all shows that you are wrong. You have no excuse for not learning how adaptive DNA evolution works other than it doesn't fit your worldview. Why is it so important to you to think that you are related to chimpanzees?

Kleinman:

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You must interpret the fossil record in the context of these mathematical facts....

ringo:

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You have it backwards. You calculate the number of transitionals that there "should" be and try to warp reality to fit your idea. Science looks at reality and adjusts the theory to fit the facts.

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ringo, the Kishony, and Lenski experiments are real, measurable, and repeatable. I don't have to warp the numbers that Kishony and Lenski report. In fact, the math I presented predicted the behavior of the Kishony experiment before it was performed. Why is universal common descent so important to you?