b. July 15, 1928
d. December 30, 2012
“Thus, we regard as rather regrettable the conventional concatenation of Darwin’s name with evolution, because there are other modalities that must be entertained and which we regard as mandatory during the course of evolutionary time.”
“I have concerns about scientists thinking that they’re God when it comes to biology.”
“A future biology cannot be built within the conceptual superstructures of the past. The old superstructure has to be replaced by a new one before the holistic problems of biology can emerge as biology’s new mainstream.”
“I do not like people saying that atheism is based on science, because it’s not. It’s an alien invasion of science.”
- Carl Woese
Suzan Mazur: Why do you think NAI chose to give you and your team $ 8M, since you are known as a challenger of Darwinian dogma? Is NASA finally acknowledging the Darwin approach is wrong?
Carl Woese: I would hope so because that’s very clear from our NASA Astrobiology Institute grant application.
Suzan Mazur: You’ve described the “disconnect between Darwinists, who had taken over evolution, and microbiologists, who had no use for Darwinian natural selection.” Do you have anything to say about the recent decision of Huffington Post to block publication of microbiologist James Shapiro’s response to Darwinist Jerry Coyne following Coyne’s attack on Shapiro’s thinking about a reduced role for natural selection in evolution?
Carl Woese: I think that’s immoral. Science must be free to examine what it sees. If you’re going to say everyone must follow the Darwinian line, that’s not free science.
Carl Woese, evolution skeptic.
Wait, how does blind watchmaker evolution explain embryonic development?
Tell us how to test the claim that sexual reproduction, along with embryonic development arose via blind watchmaker evolution? Did it take more than two specified mutations? Or did any ole mutations do it? How can you tell?
Should he ask a lungfish?
colewd,
It solves absolutely nothing. If we are in a simulation, then nothing within it is improbable – everything is generated. The idea that the simulation needs something extra from the outside to deal with something inside makes no sense whatsoever.
colewd,
Complex structure – as motifs – already exist. That proteins are formed by these motifs is yesterday’s news. Anyway, this is different from your contention – you claimed, by implication from the numbers you squirt about, that everything (bar whatever percentage you can drag out of us) is pulled from random space. Clearly, if alpha helixes exist, (they do in their thousands) there is opportunity for their incorporation. You don’t have to get them from scratch every time there is one.
I too thought immediately “ask a fish”. And also “what the hell does this have to do with protein evolution?”.
How many new protein families are there in Animalia, Bill? Roughly.
One wonders why some bright spark in the biology community hasn’t turned this ‘search space’ argument into a paper, being how it’s so irrefutable and all. What on earth are they all pissing about at? Afraid they’ll get sacked by the Darwinist Konspiracy or something? For what? Honest scientific endeavour? Surely not.
I don’t know what “random space” means. I don’t think we can say that organisms evolve only because they sample “non-random space.” Whatever that means.
Are these concepts (random space and non random space) Bills? Because I think they are nonsense.
I thought they had, and concluded that bacteria have had more than enough time to search all possible points in that space. Does that ring a bell with you?
Mung,
That’s not Bill’s argument though. He appears to insist (possibly without knowing) that there is no redundancy – that you must use an alphabet of 20 (or 4).
Mung,
Nah, just me typing hastily. Assembling sequences randomly from the space is closer. If you use an n^v measure, implicitly you think that the sequence arises by random picks.
I wonder what Carl Woese would say. 😉
Mung,
He would agree wholeheartedly with me.
Of course!
😀
No.
Allan Miller,
The n^v measure does not imply anything about random or non random. It simply shows the magnitude of the organization problem.
Then there is the opportunity to reduce the problem through existing sequences etc.
We know that the our adaptive immune system can do a search through hypermutation and find new antibodies. The search space is, however, between 5 to 10 amino acids that are required to bind to the antibody.
OK so evolutionists cannot answer the following questions:
Wait, how does blind watchmaker evolution explain embryonic development?
Tell us how to test the claim that sexual reproduction, along with embryonic development arose via blind watchmaker evolution? Did it take more than two specified mutations?
Your answers must be supported by scientific evidence- show your work
So what is that “organization problem” and why is n^v a measure of its magnitude?
As I already told you, a single insertion event multiples the entire search space by a factor of 20. What does that mean for the organization problem?
FrankenJoe you’re in no position to demand answers from anyone when you’ve run from every question on your IDiot claims.
Assuming “design” was detected how would you go about finding the how, when, where, and by who the “design” was done?
Why haven’t any ID “researchers” even begun looking for those answers when they claimed “design” was detected over a decade ago?
By what mechanism did the “designer” physically manipulate matter to manufacture the desired results?
dazz,
n^v is the equation that defines the possible arrangements of a sequence. If you have a local phone number, which is a sequence of 7 digits in the US then there are 10^7 possible ways arrange this sequence.
If you want to organize your cell phones direct dial the only way you do this is to get the correct numbers from your friends.
If you and your friends had 2 digit numbers then you could organize it by making random calls and then identifying the friend and putting his number in direct dial. This is similar to the blind watchmaker process.
LOL! Still riding the “evolution has to search every possible sequence!” strawman pony.
Are you incapable of learning? Or just incapable of admitting when you are mistaken?
But a single correct one will give very weak binding, but binding over and above there being no correct one.
Two correct ones will bind even better, and will be retained by selection.
And so on for 3, 4, 5 etc.
Your mistake is to think only at randomly assembling the entire sequence of all 5, or 10 amino acids, by sheer luck, will be the only viable option.
1 or 2 amino acids binding to the antigen might not be enough to properly and reliably mark the foreign invader for phagocytosis, thus conferring effective immunity, but it’s still visible to selection. One out of every 100 invaders marked for phagocytosis, is better than NO invaders marked for phagocytosis. After a few iterations of selection for better binding, what emerges is that “perfect fit” of antibodies binding to the antigen.
There is no need to go through the entirety of the space and score an “all-at-once” for this to work. You keep not getting this. Try.
Oh! So that random calling is similar to the blind watchmaker process? I guess that’s the “organization problem” you were talking about.
Were you lying there then or just too dumb to notice?
Rumraket,
How did you make this assumption that I don’t realize that there is variation in binding strength depending on the sequence. We have discussed experiments repeatably that show this.
I stipulate this reduces the search space if advantage can be found through non optimized binding. This real discussion does it reduce it enough and can loose binding be a sufficient adaptive mechanism. The search is not reduced until advantage is found
dazz,
The process I described is only partly random. It starts with a random search and selects when success is achieved. Similar to the blind watchmaker. It is a trial and error process.
The process you described is this?
This is a fucking straw-man of evolution. How can you not see that? In that process you can’t put numbers in direct dial until you’ve found the correct number, and the process involves RANDOM CALLS. In evolution you would be able to detect when you’ve got a digit right, and you would only modify a few digits at a time.
Haven’t you checked out any of the threads about the weasel algo here at TSZ?
dazz,
Do you think that the Weasel really directly simulates RMNS?
You need to think about the claim you are making above and how you would support it.
You are claiming that adaptive advantage can be achieved on every single mutation that was closer to a functioning protein or regulatory gene and then fixed in the population.
What do you mean closer to a functioning protein? From what to what? From a non-functioning protein to a functioning one? Is that what you mean?
AGAIN- IDists have more important questions to answer pertaining to the design. We are not beholden to your agenda especially given that after over 150 years evolutionism is still bankrupt. Those questions have nothing to do with ID. And if your position could answer questions then ID would have been a non-starter.
OMagain,
Anything that will help the organism achieve adaptive advantage and allow fixation in the population.
It’s leaps and bounds better than your ridiculous telephone thing. Far from perfect but sufficient to highlight why your search space problem only exists in your head
The main thing here is that sequences ARE NOT RANDOMIZED IN THEIR ENTIRETY.
Second, there’s not a single winning sequence for each protein.
Do you understand that?
Weasel is an example of evolution by means of intelligent design- it is actively searching for a specified solution and artificially driven towards that end.
dazz,
All this is correct.
In my example you also have many friends that your search can find.
When a friend answers the phone you then do Dazz selection. As long as the sequence is short this blind watchmaker simulation works well.
The Weasel program requires that the end sequence is known.
If the sequence is known why don’t you just cut and paste it 🙂
No, it shows your confusion about evolutionary mechanisms. The size of genome space doesn’t matter because evolutionary mechanisms only explore in the neighborhood of a known working genome. It turns out that working genomes are well-connected. I suggest you read Arrival of the Fittest for more detail.
I don’t believe this is the first time any of this has been pointed out to you.
FML, are you comparing this with selection in the evolutionary sense? because It doesn’t get much dumber than that shit
Who the fuck cares? That’s NOT how evolution works, FFS
And we had threads (the “Math Fun series”) about different evolutionary algos with an infinite number of potential solutions, all unknown in advanced, with no best possible solution, and with an unlimited sequence length. That’s irrelevant to the topic at hand, again, the weasel is not a perfect evolutionary model
Patrick,
So if the neighborhood of a known working genome has a long sequence it then would matter?
I have read arrival of the fittest and think it is a interesting description of evolutionary adaptions but the N^S problem still remains unsolved for innovations.
Did you follow the content of the presentation at the Royal society meeting?
Patrick,
So you think your position is beyond argument?
What? Of course not! Because you would only change a few nucleotides here and there. How do you think your genome originated? In the neighborhood of your parents’ genomes, plus some 100 mutations in functional DNA
dazz,
Do you honestly think you understand how evolution works?
First you have to show you’ve understood it. So far it’s been an epic fail on your part
Ugh, certainly much better than you, which is not saying much, but still
dazz,
This has been a claim of the evolutionists for the last 50 years. Everyone that disagrees with the theory does not understand it.
dazz,
Who do you think understands how evolution works?
FrankenJoe chickens out again, runs from the questions he can’t answer. Typical YEC behavior.
Let’s try again.
Was your genome randomized? Does evolution work on the assumption that it was?
Pretty much everyone here understands it way better than you, with the possible exceptions of FrankenJoe and Phoodoo. You guys take willful ignorance to a new low every time you post.
Anyone is free to disagree with or criticize evolutionary theory but it needs to be informed criticism, not the stupid Flintstones version you keep demanding we defend.
colewd,
Wrong. It shows the magnitude of the random ‘organisation problem’. If a 30-residue alpha helix exists, and is copied, the resultant peptide sequence does not have a probability of 20^30. Only if the peptide were bolted together by 30 random picks from 20 acids would n^v be a relevant statistic.
And even then, invoking n^v demands that ONLY one functional sequence exist in the space – only then is the probability the reciprocal of n^v. But you need to know the true numerator, which will not be a constant throughout the space. You further seem immune to the chemical fact that at most sites, there is extensive redundancy. Most acids at most sites can be quite easily substituted. So your value of constant 20 for n is WAAAY off.
I’m not even sure what chemical or biological process you think can generate completely randomised chains that could land literally anywhere in n^v-dimensioned peptide space. The reality is that most protein sequence is generated by combining existing structures of length substantially greater than 1 residue. There is a reason no-one has published a formal paper advancing your argument – knowledgeable people can see how stupid it is, even if they might fail in their attempts to explain why. Perhaps the DI has a paper in preparation? Are they sufficiently dumb?
I don’t know how many times we can rehash this before one of us gets bored. Maybe that threshold has been reached.
Allan Miller,
There are dozens of papers over the last 20 years that deal with the N^V argument. We have exchanged them on this site. Do the names Art Hunt and Doug Axe come to mind.
Allan, this problem is real and I understand as an evolutionist you don’t like it but sweeping it under the carpet is only useful if your objective is spewing evolutionary propaganda.
Yes, you can reduce the problem by means you are suggesting but in the end the genome is a sequence with a sequence space of N^V.
Adapa,
I will try to get to a Jetsons version 🙂