I apologize for not getting right to the point. I can’t. Everybody’s premises are wrong, and it requires work to set them right.
I think the young people enjoy it when I “get down” verbally, don’t you? Which is why pop-culture references are never amiss. So let me ask you: seen Wargames?
There’s a scene at the end where a computer named Joshua is about to destroy the world by launching the USA’s nukes, but it can’t until it has figured out the “launch code”, which happens to be “JPE 1704 TKS”. Dabney Coleman announces the computer “is sending random numbers to the silos”. Some woman said the computer’s guessing will “hit the launch code in 5.3 minutes.”
A screen is shown flashing a sequence of 10 letters and numbers, the two spaces being ignored. Suddenly, the “4” position stops moving and glows “4”. The good-evil doctor who built the computer says the computer has figured out the 4 and when it gets the rest, Doomsday. Drama occurs as the hero tries tricking the computer into playing a game. As that happens, more and more digits are fixed.
The movies ends with the computer getting the code and launching The Science into the air, killing everybody.
Forget that and let me ask you, and pay strict attention, what is the probability of guessing a launch code “randomly”? Stick with me on this. It matters to “evolution”.
If you have taken my Class, and assimilated everything I have taught you, you know the answer instantly. If you have not taken the Class, or not assimilated its lessons, you will begin to calculate. As a neo-Darwinian would. Which is why they make so many mistakes.
The answer is: there is no probability.
Nothing has a probability. I told you that was the One Central Lesson of the entire Class, and that if you learned it, you have learned most of what you need to know.
Probability is a measure, sometimes quantitative, of how certain a proposition is, given evidence that is assumed true. Probability is in your mind, and not in the world. Your intellect is not material, and neither is probability.
So if I ask you what is the probability of guessing a launch code, the launch code becomes the proposition. But what is the evidence? The possibility of the launch code being a number? An integer number? Who says? How do you know? Are you making this stuff up?
If it is an integer, then the probability is 0, since there an infinity of integers. What if it’s an alpha-numeric number? Still 0, since there just as many countably infinite alpha-numeric as numeric numbers.
What if we restrict it to ten digits? Then we are getting somewhere. Harder to do, though, and maybe impossible, because there is no single alphabet. How do you it’s only ten digits, and how do you know it’s only Latin upper case letters? Who told you? I said “launch code”, I didn’t say Joshua’s code. Could be any code.
If we do know it’s ten digits, plus our English upper-case alphabet, then the probability of guessing correctly is 1 in $36^{10} \approx 3.66 \times 10^{15}$. If Joshua could guess every number in this set, and do this in 5.3 minutes, it would run at a speed of about $1.15 \times 10^{13}$ numbers a second. This is possible given computers these days.
Computer launch codes do not work like in the movie anyway. They are not like tumbler locks, where it is possible in some locks to get one digit at a time until you get them all. Computer codes are all-or-nothing. You either get all ten digits right at once, or it doesn’t work. And you have to know it’s ten, and you have to know the set of possible digits. Nine won’t do it, and anyway you won’t know if you have nine right. Or any number right. It’s right or wrong for every possible combination, and that’s it.
Now some time ago people asked me to look at Vox Day’s critiques of neo-Darwinian “random” mutations. I finally had time. I agree with his conclusion, that evolution by accumulation of small “random” mutations is absurd, but I’m not wholly with him on all of his argument.
The fixation rate in a population genetics context refers to the frequency at which a particular mutation becomes present in every individual of a population, effectively replacing all other versions of that gene. Let’s break down the concept of fixation rate using a simplified example…
Step 2: Determine Fixation Probability
For a beneficial mutation, the fixation probability can be higher than that of a neutral mutation. If we assume this mutation offers a slight survival advantage, let’s denote the selection coefficient by ?s, where ?s is small, say 0.01 (1%).
The fixation probability (P) for beneficial mutations can be approximated using the formula:
Let me ask you this: what is an (any) organism’s fixation probability?
Then let me ask you this: what is an (any) organism’s fixation rate?
Your answers should and must be: there isn’t one, and there isn’t one. Nothing has a probability, and nothing has a rate.
What you can do is go back and measure, in this or that species, how fast a certain mutation spreads in individuals from a sample of the population. Its “progress” can be tracked, the scare quotes to remind us most mutations are not beneficial. That average measure may be said to be its observed-rate: one word, not two. That’s the change you saw in your sample.
Listen: the observed-rate does not cause the spread. No organism has a rate of mutation that can be a cause.
Mutations are passed on, sexually or asexually, the causes of which vary and are conditional on the environment and other circumstances, and this variation is at the individual, not species level. You know this already, but saying species have rates is a mistake. Mutation spread has causes and conditions, which may be modeled by rates.
The model is not Reality. To think so is to commit the Deadly Sin of Reification.
It is the same with probability. That equation Day has, or anybody has, is a model of our thoughts, it is a model of how the uncertainty in a thing changes with correlates of causes, here N for “population size”, and s for “selection advantage”. That latter term also does not exist. It is itself a model, put into another model, the probability. That probability is a model of a model.
It does not mean it is not a useful model. But, as I never tire reminding you, all models only say what they are told to say. These do, too. Which means you can’t back cause out of them. Correlates of causes, and the conditions which allow the causes to be exercised, are put into models.
This means the models used by neo-Darwinian “randomists”, and models used by Day, have only limited appeal, as crude predictions after assuming causes of speciation. They are not proof of cause.
The real reason neo-Darwinian randomists are wrong is because they are bluffing. Remember what random means: unpredictable, or unknown cause. You cannot simultaneously claim to know the causes of evolution while claiming those causes are unknown! If you really want to hear them bluff, ask them to explain biogenesis. The Big Muscles Fallacy is in wide use: this is when an intelligent person says “Because I, even I, cannot think of another reason, my reason must be correct.”
It is known how some (very few) mutations are caused, and these can be tracked, sometimes. That small mutations build up and “suddenly” a new species emerges after a long time accumulating single mutations is, however, an unconfirmed guess. Incomplete, too, since there is no direct objective measure which says “After N genes change, the progeny is a new species”. And we don’t even know how all genes work together (as we’ll see in a moment) to create an organism. Worst of all, the slow accumulation guess does accord with Reality, in which new species appear, or seem to appear, almost at once.
The reductionist mindset—reductionism in science was at first fruitful but is becoming a mind-block—of randomists is wrong. Their direction of cause is backwards. They envision tinker toys (genes) being put together in various configurations, with genes themselves tinkering the toys. None of this is coherent, as Day (and many others like David Stove, David Berlinski, Stephen Meyer, and so and on) point out.
Genes don’t act, organisms do. This is becoming more obvious, hence epigenetics, that which is above reductionist tinker toy control. There are only a handful of genes that can be said to be specifically and uniquely for something. We learned this recently in “Limitations Of Biological Determinism: Ideas In Our Reenchantment & Rectification” (blog/Substack). Genes are part of an organism like hydrogen and oxygen are part of water. Which is to say, they are no longer in water; their combination is water. They do not act as single atoms, doing their thing and interacting; they become something new, their individual characters vanish, though extracting them and using them as models may have certain uses. When oxygen and hydrogen join only water remains. The oxygen or hydrogen do not, and cannot, cause the water to act. As Gibbs said (and amplified so beautifully by Jaynes) “The whole is simpler than the sum of its parts.”
It is the same with genes. This is the lesson Denis Noble has been trying to teach people, most recently in his book Dance to the Tune of Life. Which we will review shortly and in depth (he uses the water example to great effect). But for those who want some fun, here he is schooling his old pupil, Ricard Dawkins, who holds with reductionist “selfish genes”.
Change must occur more like how the computer acted in War Games. If “JPE 1704 TKS” is the destination (a new species, say), then metaphorically it can get the “4” right first. Then another of the other digits, and so on, sometimes more than one digit at a time. In a simple model to explain the difference, we saw above that guessing 10-digits code to try to unlock the launching of a new species, there were about $3.66 \times 10^{15}$ possibilities. A large number. But in our model, only a maximum of 36 guesses need to be tried for the first digit, and the same for all ten digits, meaning there are at most only 360 possibilities. This is ten trillion times easier!
I don’t mean this literally, but as a sort of comic guide: it is only a weak analogy. Because if it were that easy to get new species, we’d see them being created all the time. We do not, and, as far as I know, have never. No, something much deeper and more interesting is happening than “random” change.
Scientists would be more open to these ideas if they didn’t start hyperventilating every time somebody criticized evolutionary theory on the hersterical fear that Christianity will sneak back into science. Well I got news for you, pal, it never left (blog).
Subscribe or donate to support this site and its wholly independent host using credit card click here. Or use the paid subscription at Substack. Cash App: \$WilliamMBriggs. For Zelle, use my email: matt@wmbriggs.com, and please include yours so I know who to thank.
Excellent post, sir!
I almost understood bits of it. I really need to take The Class!
JerryR
October 23, 2024,
It’s one lie after the other trying to explain evolution.
Darwin’s process works a little within a species. So it’s not entirely useless. Forming a different species is a completely different process for which there are no actual examples. It requires the appearance of new proteins not just the modification of current ones.
No one has ever provided an example of new proteins arising by the small accumulation of mutations let alone a new protein that works in concert with the existing proteins to form a new functional unit. There would be a Nobel awaiting. There’s lots of duplication and other massive additions but no examples of new functionality.
If it did there would be forensic trail of failed sequences in similar species to show how the successful protein arose. None have ever made it through the research process so are there any?
So let’s suppose that random mutations do occur over time and could result in new or improved species. Each mutation requires a reproductive event to occur or propagate. Therefore the rate of mutations occurring must be a function of the rate of reproduction and the population.
So how many cockroaches exist on this planet or have ever existed, trillions, gazillions? And how much faster than humans do they reproduce? The rate of mutation must also be gazillions of times faster than humans. So why haven’t cockroaches become our galactic overloads by now?
Incitadus
October 23, 2024,
Yea in the 1800’s they realized something was wrong with Darwinian evolution in regard to homo sapiens
with a near doubling of the brain volume of Homo Erectus in a scant 40 to 400 thousand years, (take your pick
this number has moved around a lot). They even had a term for it ‘the missing link’. Concurrent with the double
brained Cro-Magnons double brained Neanderthals appeared and mysteriously disappeared from the hominid
creature feature now accompanied by lurid tales of modern human genocide or assimilation by interbreeding; none
of which can be proven but as You Tube click bait are invaluable. It’s kind of like the birds evolved from dinosaurs fallacy
du jour evolutionists now gush over.
The real fly in the ointment is Neanderthal himself so similar to modern humans yet so different. He’s appears and disappears
aside Cro-Magnon almost like an experimental model that didn’t quite work out, physically strong but perhaps too primitive to
be manipulated and controlled.
1 – here’s what I wrote in a comment to the blog entry you mention – still valid, and if you want a guess as to how darwinian evolution works see the the note mentioned there – winface.com/node/12 :
—
July 31, 2024, 12:10 pm
1 – whew! (And here I thought the Wilson in Home Improvement was a little over the top ….)
2 – I believe the there is a fundamental error underlying all this: the notion that Darwinian evolution and/or determinism deny God. This is not true: determinism (and so evolution) is about describing the working out of first cause(s) – not about the first causes themselves. A few years ago the Claremont people published an essay by Dr. Gelernter called “Giving up Darwin” that I understood as badly thought through – so i wrote a response (which they ignored, of course) positing a completely deterministic view of evolution and refuting everything he said. You may want to take a look: winface.com/node/12 .
3 – I also think the idea of “free will” is mis-understood as something like uncaused choices. In reality all choices depend on prior events and the free part is therefore an illusion representing a lack of information – see telearb.net/node/14 . i.e. we can model a process generating a singular event (choice) as having many possible outcomes because we don’t know which one happens, but if we had perfect information our model would only show the outcome that actually happens.
4 – re the homogene.. I know people who work in the field and believe that there is no such thing; holding, instead, that “genetic” sexual confusion is the result of a chemically induced process error during gestation (literally bug exudate (microbiome) induced) that women could easily be vaccinated against. Sadly, they’d spend their careers working at McDonald’s if the admin knew..
—
2 – re: Dawkins vs Noble. As in duh! of course Lamarck never went away – it’s just the ability to express in the population, not the expression itself that is perpetuated. i.e. the blacksmith’s son can have skinny arms; but anyone (including this kid) in the pop from which the blacksmith is drawn can grow muscled arms. Further re cell vs dna sociobiology: maybe embrace the healing power of neither?
cdquarles
October 23, 2024,
An organism’s fixation probability? Define it, please. Its probability, zero of course. List, please, in the order of mass, *all* of the chemical compounds found in a specific embodied life form. (Know that He that Is designed the chemical elements to have the properties they have so that embodied life was made, and thus, has mechanisms built in to allow growth and development while dealing with the messiness of wet chemistry.) Yes, mutations happen. Most of them have no effect on the organism that the mutation(s) occur. A few might be beneficial. A few might be detrimental. That’s where beneficial and detrimental only apply to a specified point in time. In the past, what’s detrimental now may have been beneficial. In the future, what’s beneficial now may be detrimental. An organism can’t know this. The chemistry that its body runs on even more can’t know this. The error detection and correction mechanisms strive to keep things as they are, for they are currently “known good”. Still, genetic sequences that have been seen in the past may be useful in the future, so there are mechanisms to preserve them as much as possible and no information gets lost.
Biological evolution is a tautology that is bounded; and it can’t start itself from nothing. What we see is the result of being fruitful and multiplying, also known as survivor bias.
Johnno
October 23, 2024,
Any and all mutational “evolution” is downward. At best, sideways. It is a lowering of standards. A race to a more diversified bottom. An origin tale for losers. A chance to win nothing. But it helps provide atheists a rationale to enjoy sin, and any day now the process will turn off that gene that releases the guilty feeling chemicals that get in the way of that pleasure. That or the new pill from Big Pharma or the coming of the digitized post-human where the AI model of themselves is free to roam about doing whatever it was told to do, until the electricity goes out. Maybe they can spend that time calculating probabilities, and we can turn that into Bitcoin.
IWishIMetMarcusAurelius
October 23, 2024,
Impressive, but wrong premises. How about to start with gaining a good knowledge of molecular genetics? I see, not doable, a basic textbook is almost 1000 pages.
Genes don’t act … yes, indeed. How about hereditary disorders, like cystic fibrosis and hundreds others, or cancer where some well known genes are mutated into “oncogenes” and “suppressors” are disabled?
Genomes of several Neanderthal individual were sequenced. Go find SNP (find out in a genetics textbook what SNP means) differences in comparison with modern humans and prove there could not have been a common ancestor. Oh, there is a little trouble here, genomes of current humans are a bit different form each other, on some 100 000 sites (nucleotides) or many more, so which to choose for the study? Well, it is no big obstacle for a decent mathematician, right?
I wonder why is it that evolution triggers religious fanatics and arrogant narcissist so much. Why not radioactivity for example, which proves the Earth older than 6000 years, invalidating a brilliant calculation by a respected (by some) scholar?
A
Briggs
October 23, 2024,
Iwish,
You can also read Noble’s book, which is only about 300 pages. And see the link you missed but I provided when I say there are a handful of genes specifically for something.
One clue you are wrong is that you become so sarcastic over something so interesting.
Hagfish Bagpipe
October 23, 2024,
I always enjoy these philosophical posers, Briggs. Gets the ol’ noodle going (such as it is). I wouldn’t think about these things… not so much, anyway, what having wood to chop and water to carry, and what not, were it not for your scintillating, obsessive, provocative, humorous, witty, didactic eggheadery — constantly banging on the nail. An admiral… I mean, admirable constancy. You are an admiral on your Great Lakes yacht… what was the name… right, the Certitude. Fine craft. Flies* the Jolly Roger. Carry on, Admiral Sir.
*Had to look up the difference between “flys” and “flies”.
IWishIMetMarcusAurelius
October 23, 2024,
Briggs,
What exactly am I wrong with?
In the link you provide I read that Noble’s book ” … will show there are no genes for anything”. This statement is at odds with reality, therefore everything that is derived in that book from that is wrong. There is no point in reading that book.
Every protein coding gene and gene coding for regulatory or structural RNAs is essential for the bearer’s organism survival. Product of every gene has a specific unique function. Some, very few, defects and errors are tolerated, they are called hereditary or genetic disorders. In fact, things are much more complicated – meaningful genes are only 2% of the genomic DNA. Useless to go to any more details here. Sarcasm aside, will you take the Neanderthal vs. modern man genome challenge?
I am greatly disappointed you took part in this scam. You deny and ignore facts gathered by molecular genetics and make conclusions from your reduced wrong model.
I consider Dawkins “vulgar Darwinian”. He is not a geneticist, never worked in a lab, his conclusions are speculative. In fact, there are some truly selfish genes, called transposones. They are detrimental, but can be beneficial, at least in theory.
Hagfish Bagpipe
October 23, 2024,
Well Briggs, people are greatly disappointed in you. You deny, you ignore. Probably you use matchlite charcoal in your barbecue, you fiend. Perhaps even there are stains on your yachting whites. We have standards here on the internet, Briggs. They are impossibly high. Do try harder, ol’ chap. Thanks in advance.
would you please be less cryptic? Can’t get how the solar system is connected to words.
I understand you have a new gravitation theory and a cosmology without novas. Congratulations. Unable to comment further, physics is not my subject.
PhilH
October 24, 2024,
This statement is perhaps the most clarifying aha statement I’ve ever read:
“Genes are part of an organism like hydrogen and oxygen are part of water. Which is to say, they are no longer in water; their combination is water.”
What if there are no such things as genes? They have never been proven to exist, let alone control heritability. The double helix structure came to wats-his-name in an LSD-inspired dream, and all images are little Rorschach mini blobs. (Close your left eye, squint hard, and see it now. That’s a gene, by gosh).
Incitadus
October 24, 2024,
I wish I could read a 1000 page book…
“I wonder why is it that evolution triggers religious fanatics and arrogant narcissist so much.”
-Whatever they accuse others of that’s what they are-
“Genomes of several Neanderthal individual were sequenced. Go find SNP (find out in a genetics textbook what SNP means) differences in comparison with modern humans and prove there could not have been a common ancestor. ”
-Strawman argument it undoubtedly was Homo Erectus but with a doubling of brain volume in the blink of
an eyewash there goes that theory of evolution-
“meaningful genes are only 2% of the genomic DNA”
-Dumbest certitude yet out of our current crop of self anointed x-spurts-
Jess
October 24, 2024,
To me, evolutionary theory is something to be considered, but without the knowledge of all species from the past, a direct link of all to present species, a clear understanding of all factors involved with mutations, and a better understanding of what makes the universe work, it will always remain a theory. A theory that’s just as plausible is that all species are placed by an alien race, or future humans, that create different species, place them on Earth, and continue their research. After all, theoretically, time, and space, can be manipulated. Any species that accomplishes the manipulation could exist and we’d never know they were around.
Phil R
October 24, 2024,
So why haven’t cockroaches become our galactic overloads by now?
They have, you just don’t know it. That’s how far advanced they are, kind of like the mice in HGTTG.
Excellent post, sir!
I almost understood bits of it. I really need to take The Class!
It’s one lie after the other trying to explain evolution.
Darwin’s process works a little within a species. So it’s not entirely useless. Forming a different species is a completely different process for which there are no actual examples. It requires the appearance of new proteins not just the modification of current ones.
No one has ever provided an example of new proteins arising by the small accumulation of mutations let alone a new protein that works in concert with the existing proteins to form a new functional unit. There would be a Nobel awaiting. There’s lots of duplication and other massive additions but no examples of new functionality.
If it did there would be forensic trail of failed sequences in similar species to show how the successful protein arose. None have ever made it through the research process so are there any?
Pingback: VVEDNESDAY MID-DAY EDITION | BIG PULPIT
Help me understand something.
So let’s suppose that random mutations do occur over time and could result in new or improved species. Each mutation requires a reproductive event to occur or propagate. Therefore the rate of mutations occurring must be a function of the rate of reproduction and the population.
So how many cockroaches exist on this planet or have ever existed, trillions, gazillions? And how much faster than humans do they reproduce? The rate of mutation must also be gazillions of times faster than humans. So why haven’t cockroaches become our galactic overloads by now?
Yea in the 1800’s they realized something was wrong with Darwinian evolution in regard to homo sapiens
with a near doubling of the brain volume of Homo Erectus in a scant 40 to 400 thousand years, (take your pick
this number has moved around a lot). They even had a term for it ‘the missing link’. Concurrent with the double
brained Cro-Magnons double brained Neanderthals appeared and mysteriously disappeared from the hominid
creature feature now accompanied by lurid tales of modern human genocide or assimilation by interbreeding; none
of which can be proven but as You Tube click bait are invaluable. It’s kind of like the birds evolved from dinosaurs fallacy
du jour evolutionists now gush over.
The real fly in the ointment is Neanderthal himself so similar to modern humans yet so different. He’s appears and disappears
aside Cro-Magnon almost like an experimental model that didn’t quite work out, physically strong but perhaps too primitive to
be manipulated and controlled.
Umm..
1 – here’s what I wrote in a comment to the blog entry you mention – still valid, and if you want a guess as to how darwinian evolution works see the the note mentioned there – winface.com/node/12 :
—
July 31, 2024, 12:10 pm
1 – whew! (And here I thought the Wilson in Home Improvement was a little over the top ….)
2 – I believe the there is a fundamental error underlying all this: the notion that Darwinian evolution and/or determinism deny God. This is not true: determinism (and so evolution) is about describing the working out of first cause(s) – not about the first causes themselves. A few years ago the Claremont people published an essay by Dr. Gelernter called “Giving up Darwin” that I understood as badly thought through – so i wrote a response (which they ignored, of course) positing a completely deterministic view of evolution and refuting everything he said. You may want to take a look: winface.com/node/12 .
3 – I also think the idea of “free will” is mis-understood as something like uncaused choices. In reality all choices depend on prior events and the free part is therefore an illusion representing a lack of information – see telearb.net/node/14 . i.e. we can model a process generating a singular event (choice) as having many possible outcomes because we don’t know which one happens, but if we had perfect information our model would only show the outcome that actually happens.
4 – re the homogene.. I know people who work in the field and believe that there is no such thing; holding, instead, that “genetic” sexual confusion is the result of a chemically induced process error during gestation (literally bug exudate (microbiome) induced) that women could easily be vaccinated against. Sadly, they’d spend their careers working at McDonald’s if the admin knew..
—
2 – re: Dawkins vs Noble. As in duh! of course Lamarck never went away – it’s just the ability to express in the population, not the expression itself that is perpetuated. i.e. the blacksmith’s son can have skinny arms; but anyone (including this kid) in the pop from which the blacksmith is drawn can grow muscled arms. Further re cell vs dna sociobiology: maybe embrace the healing power of neither?
An organism’s fixation probability? Define it, please. Its probability, zero of course. List, please, in the order of mass, *all* of the chemical compounds found in a specific embodied life form. (Know that He that Is designed the chemical elements to have the properties they have so that embodied life was made, and thus, has mechanisms built in to allow growth and development while dealing with the messiness of wet chemistry.) Yes, mutations happen. Most of them have no effect on the organism that the mutation(s) occur. A few might be beneficial. A few might be detrimental. That’s where beneficial and detrimental only apply to a specified point in time. In the past, what’s detrimental now may have been beneficial. In the future, what’s beneficial now may be detrimental. An organism can’t know this. The chemistry that its body runs on even more can’t know this. The error detection and correction mechanisms strive to keep things as they are, for they are currently “known good”. Still, genetic sequences that have been seen in the past may be useful in the future, so there are mechanisms to preserve them as much as possible and no information gets lost.
Biological evolution is a tautology that is bounded; and it can’t start itself from nothing. What we see is the result of being fruitful and multiplying, also known as survivor bias.
Any and all mutational “evolution” is downward. At best, sideways. It is a lowering of standards. A race to a more diversified bottom. An origin tale for losers. A chance to win nothing. But it helps provide atheists a rationale to enjoy sin, and any day now the process will turn off that gene that releases the guilty feeling chemicals that get in the way of that pleasure. That or the new pill from Big Pharma or the coming of the digitized post-human where the AI model of themselves is free to roam about doing whatever it was told to do, until the electricity goes out. Maybe they can spend that time calculating probabilities, and we can turn that into Bitcoin.
Impressive, but wrong premises. How about to start with gaining a good knowledge of molecular genetics? I see, not doable, a basic textbook is almost 1000 pages.
Genes don’t act … yes, indeed. How about hereditary disorders, like cystic fibrosis and hundreds others, or cancer where some well known genes are mutated into “oncogenes” and “suppressors” are disabled?
Genomes of several Neanderthal individual were sequenced. Go find SNP (find out in a genetics textbook what SNP means) differences in comparison with modern humans and prove there could not have been a common ancestor. Oh, there is a little trouble here, genomes of current humans are a bit different form each other, on some 100 000 sites (nucleotides) or many more, so which to choose for the study? Well, it is no big obstacle for a decent mathematician, right?
I wonder why is it that evolution triggers religious fanatics and arrogant narcissist so much. Why not radioactivity for example, which proves the Earth older than 6000 years, invalidating a brilliant calculation by a respected (by some) scholar?
Iwish,
You can also read Noble’s book, which is only about 300 pages. And see the link you missed but I provided when I say there are a handful of genes specifically for something.
One clue you are wrong is that you become so sarcastic over something so interesting.
I always enjoy these philosophical posers, Briggs. Gets the ol’ noodle going (such as it is). I wouldn’t think about these things… not so much, anyway, what having wood to chop and water to carry, and what not, were it not for your scintillating, obsessive, provocative, humorous, witty, didactic eggheadery — constantly banging on the nail. An admiral… I mean, admirable constancy. You are an admiral on your Great Lakes yacht… what was the name… right, the Certitude. Fine craft. Flies* the Jolly Roger. Carry on, Admiral Sir.
*Had to look up the difference between “flys” and “flies”.
Briggs,
What exactly am I wrong with?
In the link you provide I read that Noble’s book ” … will show there are no genes for anything”. This statement is at odds with reality, therefore everything that is derived in that book from that is wrong. There is no point in reading that book.
Every protein coding gene and gene coding for regulatory or structural RNAs is essential for the bearer’s organism survival. Product of every gene has a specific unique function. Some, very few, defects and errors are tolerated, they are called hereditary or genetic disorders. In fact, things are much more complicated – meaningful genes are only 2% of the genomic DNA. Useless to go to any more details here. Sarcasm aside, will you take the Neanderthal vs. modern man genome challenge?
I am greatly disappointed you took part in this scam. You deny and ignore facts gathered by molecular genetics and make conclusions from your reduced wrong model.
I consider Dawkins “vulgar Darwinian”. He is not a geneticist, never worked in a lab, his conclusions are speculative. In fact, there are some truly selfish genes, called transposones. They are detrimental, but can be beneficial, at least in theory.
Well Briggs, people are greatly disappointed in you. You deny, you ignore. Probably you use matchlite charcoal in your barbecue, you fiend. Perhaps even there are stains on your yachting whites. We have standards here on the internet, Briggs. They are impossibly high. Do try harder, ol’ chap. Thanks in advance.
Iwish, you appear to believe the dating (of our solar system) because the words are printed? However, no 2 particles of the debris of [unique event] supernova can meet again and form protoplanetary disk, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_Nebula#/media/File:Crab_Nebula.jpg
Chaeremon,
would you please be less cryptic? Can’t get how the solar system is connected to words.
I understand you have a new gravitation theory and a cosmology without novas. Congratulations. Unable to comment further, physics is not my subject.
This statement is perhaps the most clarifying aha statement I’ve ever read:
“Genes are part of an organism like hydrogen and oxygen are part of water. Which is to say, they are no longer in water; their combination is water.”
What if there are no such things as genes? They have never been proven to exist, let alone control heritability. The double helix structure came to wats-his-name in an LSD-inspired dream, and all images are little Rorschach mini blobs. (Close your left eye, squint hard, and see it now. That’s a gene, by gosh).
I wish I could read a 1000 page book…
“I wonder why is it that evolution triggers religious fanatics and arrogant narcissist so much.”
-Whatever they accuse others of that’s what they are-
“Genomes of several Neanderthal individual were sequenced. Go find SNP (find out in a genetics textbook what SNP means) differences in comparison with modern humans and prove there could not have been a common ancestor. ”
-Strawman argument it undoubtedly was Homo Erectus but with a doubling of brain volume in the blink of
an eyewash there goes that theory of evolution-
“meaningful genes are only 2% of the genomic DNA”
-Dumbest certitude yet out of our current crop of self anointed x-spurts-
To me, evolutionary theory is something to be considered, but without the knowledge of all species from the past, a direct link of all to present species, a clear understanding of all factors involved with mutations, and a better understanding of what makes the universe work, it will always remain a theory. A theory that’s just as plausible is that all species are placed by an alien race, or future humans, that create different species, place them on Earth, and continue their research. After all, theoretically, time, and space, can be manipulated. Any species that accomplishes the manipulation could exist and we’d never know they were around.
So why haven’t cockroaches become our galactic overloads by now?
They have, you just don’t know it. That’s how far advanced they are, kind of like the mice in HGTTG.