Journal club time: paper by Sanford et al: The Waiting Time Problem in a Model Hominin Population. I’ve pasted the abstract below.
Have at it guys 🙂
Background
Functional information is normally communicated using specific, context-dependent strings of symbolic characters. This is true within the human realm (texts and computer programs), and also within the biological realm (nucleic acids and proteins). In biology, strings of nucleotides encode much of the information within living cells. How do such information-bearing nucleotide strings arise and become established?
Methods
This paper uses comprehensive numerical simulation to understand what types of nucleotide strings can realistically be established via the mutation/selection process, given a reasonable timeframe. The program Mendel’s Accountant realistically simulates the mutation/selection process, and was modified so that a starting string of nucleotides could be specified, and a corresponding target string of nucleotides could be specified. We simulated a classic pre-human hominin population of at least 10,000 individuals, with a generation time of 20 years, and with very strong selection (50 % selective elimination). Random point mutations were generated within the starting string. Whenever an instance of the target string arose, all individuals carrying the target string were assigned a specified reproductive advantage. When natural selection had successfully amplified an instance of the target string to the point of fixation, the experiment was halted, and the waiting time statistics were tabulated. Using this methodology we tested the effect of mutation rate, string length, fitness benefit, and population size on waiting time to fixation.
Results
Biologically realistic numerical simulations revealed that a population of this type required inordinately long waiting times to establish even the shortest nucleotide strings. To establish a string of two nucleotides required on average 84 million years. To establish a string of five nucleotides required on average 2 billion years. We found that waiting times were reduced by higher mutation rates, stronger fitness benefits, and larger population sizes. However, even using the most generous feasible parameters settings, the waiting time required to establish any specific nucleotide string within this type of population was consistently prohibitive.
Conclusion
We show that the waiting time problem is a significant constraint on the macroevolution of the classic hominin population. Routine establishment of specific beneficial strings of two or more nucleotides becomes very problematic.
Let’s also remember that, since at least 2006, CSI has been defined by William Dembski as by definition a level of specified information that cannot be achieved by ordinary evolutionary mechanisms such as natural selection. Thus we aren’t supposed to use the observation of CSI to conclude that natural selection could not have produced a particular adaptation.
Instead we have to first conclude that natural selection (and other evolutionary forces) could not have achieved that adaptation. Then and only then can we conclude that there is CSI present.
Durston et al. are measuring specified information, but no matter how large the amount of it, they cannot be said to be seeing CSI unless they can rule out natural processes as being the cause.
This has been extensively discussed here and at Panda’s Thumb. See, for example, posts here, here, here and here.
Let’s also remember that Neil Rickert has not offered any support for his claims.
Neil, did you ever define what you mean by control? No?
I’ll bite, Mung. What is happening that is not chemistry?
Did you ever answer my question about me being in control of my own genome? No? So what’s your problem?
Control. Control is not chemistry.
Joe, Where do you get your information? CSI exists regardless of how it was formed. The definition of CSI does not say anything about how it arose.
Natural selection cannot produce CSI. But that is because it is impotent. No one would even know how to test the claim that NS can produce CSI. Also NS requires biological reproduction and biological reproduction requires CSI AND it is also irreducibly complex.
So yes we can see CSI without eliminating NS as CSI exists regardless of how it arose.
But it’s nice to see ID’s concepts continuously mangled on the pages of TSZ.
Are you in control of your breathing? How do you know?
The evidence says there was a designer, Elizabeth, And your position has no explanation for the evidence. You don’t even have a model whereas directed evolution is modeled by evolutionary and genetic algorithms. No one knows how to model undirected evolution.
BTW IC has always been defined as I said- always. Read “Darwin’s Black Box” and Behe’s responses to evos.
ATP synthase is an example of biological design, as is the genetic code. Undirected evolution cannot produce either of those. Undirected evolution can’t even be modeled as producing them. No one even knows what a testable hypotheis for undirected evolution would be.
And yes, Dr Behe agrees- just email him and ask.
Patrick, You don’t get to say as you don’t have any clue as to what ID claims. FSC is the same thing as CSI. That is just a fact.
The publisher explained that, Patrick. How do you explain your ignorance?
Read “Darwin’s Black Box”. It is al in that book and that book says it is all about the evolutionary pathway that is required to produce it. Again, your ignorance is not a refutation.
It is not anyone’s claim that “evolution can create simple-IC and not Complex IC. ID is not anti-evolution. IC has been defined and your ignorance is not a refutation.
Did someone hear a noise?
Patrick,
Patrick, you are one of the worst offenders here. If you argue in good faith then there isn’t any good faith here. You embody all that is wrong with evolutionists and humanity.
If you ever posted something of substance I would be shocked…
Yes, it was the squeaking of the OM mouse.
No, it was just the pipes. These old houses…
Yes, evos make quite the noise when exposed…
Elizabeth,
Umm, Elizabeth, Darwin’s whole point was design without a designer. That means it is the evos making the claim that there is no designer. And yes ID says there had to have been at least one.
The genetic code is not just chemistry.
Which definition are you referring to, Joe? Because Dembski’s definition defines Chi, which many take as a definition of CSI, as:
-log2(phi * p(T|H), where
“H, here, is the relevant chance hypothesis that takes into account Darwinian and other material mechanisms”.
if the probablity of the CSI-exhibiting pattern being formed by “Darwinian and other material mechanisms” is high, then CSI will be low, by that definition. In other words, how a thing is formed is part of what you need to know in order to calculate whether the thing has CSI.
There is a difference between saying “A could have fallen off the cliff” and “A was not pushed off the cliff”.
“Evos” are saying “A could have fallen”. IDists are saying “A was definitely pushed”.
By Behe’s definitions, EQU, in AVIDA, is IC.
Not according to Darwin’s Black Box.
Wrong. Evos are saying “definitely fell and was not pushed”
The definition of CSI is in “No Free Lunch” and it does not say anything about how it arose.
You are confusing his paper on “Specification” with CSI.
And when Behe’s IC criteria is met EQU does not arise-
OK, so observation of CSI allows one to conclude that its presence could not have arisen by natural evolutionary processes, right?
That was Dembski’s argument in No Free Lunch. I certainly don’t blame you for agreeing with it. (Over at Uncommon Descent, Barry Arrington and Denyse O’Leary make the same argument). But that argument was based on Dembski’s Law of Conservation of Complex Specified Information (LCCSI) which was supposed to establish that if you didn’t have CSI then no natural evolutionary process can cause it to arise.
Unfortunately for your argument that law has collapsed. It turns out that to use it to rule out natural processes, one needs to make sure that the specification is the same before and after those processes act. Dembski did not do that. When one ensures that the specification remains the same before and after, one immediately sees that there are many cases where the LCCSI does not hold at all. It is not possible to use the LCCSI to rule out natural selection as the cause of CSI.
As you note, Dembski’s argument in Specification: The Pattern That Signifies Intelligence is different. It involves a quantity called specificity, that differs from the Specified Information in Dembski’s 2001 argument. It adds a term for the probability that natural processes produce the pattern observed. There has been a lot of discussion about this here and at Panda’s Thumb. Conclusion: the new argument does not allow us to conclude that Dembski’s “specified complexity” exists unless we have already established by some other argument that natural processes could produce the pattern.
I’d be happy to discuss the details here with you. You seem to be under the impression that Dembski’s 2001 argument rules out the production of CSI by natural selection. You are wrong about that. But if you can persuade me that you are right, that Dembski’s 2001 argument does the job, then I need to know that because it would mean that my entire academic field (and my entire academic career) have collapsed. So I hope you will discuss the details with me here.
Joe, You have proven that you don’t even understand the concept. And you can’t model undirected processes producing CSI. Natural selection is impotent and requires CSI before it is even in play.
We can conclude that intelligence produced CSI because there isn’t any other known mechanism that can.
CSI and SC exist regardless of what caused them. It is just that the only known cause is via an intelligent agency.
So you don’t want to actually back up your argument by explaining why the LCCSI works to rule out the role of natural selection?
Too bad. I was hoping someone would actually defend that use of the LCCSI.
Yes, it does. As I explained.
Behe’s criteria are:
Breaks if any one part is removed
Can only be reached via a large number of unselected steps.
EQU meets both of these, yet evolves.
Why don’t YOU just ante up and demonstrate that undirected processes can produce what ID calls CSI? The whole problem is that you can’t even derive a P(T|H)
Too bad. I was hoping some evo would at least try to support the claims of their position.
In that case, give the definition from “No Free Lunch”.
Oh my, way to ignore what Behe actually said. Lenski said that EQU doesn’t evolve if there aren’t any selectable steps.
The question is, what part is not chemistry.
Wow, You are supposed to be prepared. If you don’t understand what ID says then perhaps you should stop railing against it.
What part is chemistry? The translation part isn’t.
I do understand it. But I’m thinking that perhaps you do not. How do you think that Dembski defines CSI in No Free Lunch?
But Behe said that a pathway is IC if there are large number of necessary unselected steps, not that it is IC if there are no selected steps.
Perhaps you could quote where Behe said that a thing was only IC if there were no unselected steps?
Because if he did, that’s very interesting, because Darwin’s entire point was that selected steps were the reason things could adaptively evolve!
So if you are right, then Behe agrees with Darwin!
The evidence says that you do not understand it, Elizabeth.
CSI is defined as at least 500 bits of specified information. Specified information is just Shannon information with meaning/ functionality. Kolmogorov went over the complexity part.
Yes Behe agrees with Darwin, somewhat. Again Behe goes over this in “Darwin’s Black Box”- With IC the thing doesn’t work until all the parts are together, properly configured. That means there isn’t any motility from a partly constructed flagellum.
Page 39 of “Darwin’s Black Box” tells us it is all about the evolutionary pathway as there aren’t any selectable steps to producing something that is IC.
“An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly (that is, by continuously improving the initial function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight successive modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition non-functional” DBB page 39
So ronery……
“Even if a system is IC (and thus could not have been produced directly), however, one can not definitively rule out the possibility of an indirect, circuitous, route. As the complexity of an interacting system increases, though, the likelihood of an indirect route drops precipitously.” DBB page 40
And another substantive post hits TSZ. This is the level we expect from evos. Thank you for not disappointing.
Precisely.
And EQU doesn’t need to do that. it doesn’t need “slight successive modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition non-functional” yet still evolves.
That’s because it turned out Behe was wrong. There are a great many necessarily non-functional precursors to EQU. It is, therefore, IC.
In the Edge, and subsequent comments, Behe Argues that what blocks evolution is detrimental steps. He notes that malaria appears to have jumped past a detrimental mutation.
I don’t know that he says so specifically, but he implies that a compensating mutation must occur at the same time, a double mutation. He then goes on to argue that if two double mutations are required at the same time, this cannot happen in the lifetime of the universe.
I think his mathematics is correct. At least Larry Moran seems to think the math is okay. What seems to be wrong is the biology.
First of all, no one else seems to agree that simultaneous mutations are required. They do not agree with his example. Specifically, Malaria seems capable of acquiring double drug immunity in just a few years. This would, in Behe’s universe, require a triple mutation, one of which is detrimental by itself. What seems to be biologically wrong is Behe’s assertion that all three must occur simultaneously.
He seems to have made the same incorrect assumption with regard to AIDS.
Several things are interesting about Behe. One is that he accepts common descent. He also assumes that most evolution proceeds pretty much as mainstream biologists think it does. He has to work pretty hard to find apparent roadblocks. For example, he does not have anything to say about chromosome fusion.
It seems a bit odd that he sees evidence of an interfering designer in the evolution of pathogens. But I guess the attributes and motives of the Designer are a matter of taste.