Absolute Fitness in Theoretical Evolutionary Genetics

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Joe Felsenstein, like other population geneticists, holds a special place in the Creation/Evolution controversy because his works are regarded highly by many creationists who are familiar with genetics. This is a thread for all of us (myself included) to try to learn and understand one of the key concepts in his book Theoretical Evolutionary Genetics, namely absolute fitness. He has generously made his book available on his website (a book of this calibre could sell for hundreds of dollars).
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Evodice Part 1: Fitness

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Hi everyone!

A while ago over at AtBC I had the notion of using dice to try and show how fitness and luck combine during the selection process. I (with the Help of Wes Elsberry) thought that using dice might be a good way to explore this and other concepts such as mutation, sexual selection etc.

So.. here we go.

Imagine a die. It has 6 sides. Let’s call these [A,B,C,D,E,F]. In the dice we all know and love each side has a number associated with it, let’s write that as [1,2,3,4,5,6]. So far so good? – so the “B” face is 2. The “E” face is 5.

Now let’s imagine the life of dice is gladiatorial and to “win” a die must roll higher than another competing die on a single trial of one on one dice combat. If he (I think of them like little people, I can’t write “it” any more) rolls a high number, his odds are better, so fitness clearly scales with numbers. So for our normal die, We’ll call him Norm, his fitness (total) is 1+2+3+4+5+6=21 and his average fitness is 21/6 sides = 3.5. Let’s imagine the Lord of the Dice is a nerdy dungeonmaster called KeithS. He hasn’t decided what happens if two dice roll “The dreaded tie” yet. Maybe dice purgatory? I just really wanted KeithS in this.

Now there’s no reason why a dice has to be [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Norm is, but let’s compare him to the other challengers:

Norm [1,2,3,4,5,6]
Uptight BiPolar [1,1,1,6,6,6]
Low SD [3,3,3,4,4,4]
IDist [1,1,4,5,5,5]

They all have the same average fitness (3.5) as I described above. How do you think they fair in head to head match ups? I’ll reveal the answers via the power of EXHAUSTIVE ENUMERATION in a while. If no one cares then You’ll never know and KeithS wins. No-one wants that!

Let’s Roll!

What is Islamophobia, and are the New Atheists guilty of it?

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On the ‘Problem of Evil revisited’ thread, Kantian Naturalist says:

And I’ve become increasingly disgusted by the Islamophobia of “the New Atheists” — especially the odious Bill Maher, who has become their spokesperson in the US media. I think that people who rightly reject the fascist tendencies of contemporary Abrahamic religiosity (whether in the guise of Marco Rubio, Benjamin Netanyahu, or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi) are rarely aware of how fascistic their own atheism sounds.

Patrick responds:

I don’t watch Maher regularly, but I often enjoy him when I do. What has he said that demonstrates Islamophobia? (And what does Islamophobia mean? Being phobic of the jihadists seems sensible to me.)

 

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Simple Minded and Weak Hearted, Immoral Scientists – how common?

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Are scientists, engineers and technologists (over-represented on this site) relatively easy prey for terrorist exploitation? Has the ‘engineering mindset’ dehumanised vast swathes of people with an obedient, unquestioning, uncritical ‘scientistic’ worldview? If so, how can we make a change and “‘humanise’ the teaching of scientific and technical subjects”?

“to question authority, whether scientific, political, religious or scientific.”

Oh, yeah, that’s known as the ‘scientific’ self-importance stutter, audible and visible across a range of professions in today’s society! 😉

“[I]n Isis-controlled territory, university courses in archaeology, fine art, law, philosophy, political science and sports have been eliminated, along with drama and the reading of novels.”

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/03/scientists-easy-prey-jihadis-terrorists-engineering-mindset?CMP=share_btn_fb

Those Weasely IDCists!

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A couple recent comments here at TSZ by Patrick caught my eye.

First was the claim that arguments for the existence of God had been refuted.

I don’t agree that heaping a bunch of poor and refuted arguments together results in a strong argument.

here

Second was the claim that IDCists do not understand cumulative selection and Dawkins’ Weasel program.

The first time I think I was expecting more confusion on Ewert’s part about the power of cumulative selection (most IDCists still don’t understand Dawkin’s Weasel).

here

In this OP I’d like to concentrate on the second of these claims.

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Pastor Hates Jesus after Reading Coyne’s Book

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Bruce Gerencser was a pastor for 27 years until he started reading books with non-Christian viewpoints. One of the 5 most influential books in his conversion to atheism was Jerry Coyne’s book, Why Evolution is True. Bruce’s kids are no longer evangelicals and left the faith that he once taught them. He openly says he hates Jesus now.

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The Problem of Evil revisited…

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The late Mennonite theologian, John Howard Yoder (to be sure a fallen man himself), crtitiqued theodicy with the following questions. I’d like to hear from both the theists and atheists on this site what their responses are to his questions:

a) Where do you get the criteria by which you evaluate God? Why are the criteria you use the right ones?

b) Why [do] you think you are qualified for the business of accrediting God/s?

c) If you think you are qualified for that business, how does the adjudication proceed? [W]hat are the lexical rules?

Intelligent Design is NOT Anti-Evolution

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Intelligent Design is NOT Anti-Evolution

In order to have a discussion about whether or not Intelligent Design is anti-evolution or not we must first define “evolution”. Fortunately there are resources available that do just that.

Defining “evolution”:

Finally, during the evolutionary synthesis, a consensus emerged: “Evolution is the change in properties of populations of organisms over time”- Ernst Mayr page 8 of “What Evolution Is”

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On Darwin’s and modern evolutionists challenge to deny small steps created all biology.

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Darwin in a well known challenge in his book defied anyone showing that anything in biology could not be explained as to its origin by small steps from start to finish. Modern evolutionists also insist , however complex, that all biological entities at any point can be seen as coming from small changes in populations and from there in lineages from start to finish for anything.

It always bothered me that this line of reasoning was so important to darwins claim.

It was up to creationists to prove why accumulating small changes could not turn fish could not become fishermen or bugs into buffaloes . WHY NOT ? Darwin asked and ever since. however extreme the claim mat seem to so many.

I say lets turn the argument around on them. The line of reasoning works against them as follows.

I will use two improbable, impossible9did I say impossible) lineages of a finale creatures evolutionary origin.

ONE. to start you have a fish, then a fish breathing on land with crab legs, then it has horse legs, then its got a t-rex head, then its a ground bird with flippers, then a primate monkey, then a rabbit type creature with horns and crab legs, then a bird again, then a mouse. All this happening in about 200 million years of evolution.

TWO. you start with a fish, then a duck like creature, then a fish with flippers, then a land breathing reptile creature with a trunk, then a cat like creature with long giraffe legsm then a primate, then a shrew, then a primate again and finally a bird. 200 million years start to finish.

This is impossible by any common sense, intelligence, of any human being. never mind the intermediates. this sequence of these two creatures evolving this way from start to finish is self evident nonsense.

For evolutionists THEN explain why not BY small steps could these lineages not happen?? Why not, if small populations could be selected on to account for our real biology glory, could not my examples  easily, equally, be accounted for bu evolutions mechanism.

if evolution can explain anything we have then why not anything we can imagine??

iF you say no. then the absurdity of bugs becoming buffaloes and fish becoming fishermen makes the creationist point solid and Darwins reply worthless.

 

Moderation at TSZ, part 2

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The first post in this series can be found here:

Moderation at TSZ, part 1

In part 2, I had planned to discuss why I think the rules aren’t having the desired effects. I still plan to do that. However, in gathering my thoughts, it occurred to me that no one (to my knowledge) has ever made explicit the rationale behind the Guanoing of comments. I think the topic is worthy of an OP of its own.

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Accidents that Breed.

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This is all Darwinian evolution really says in the end.

In the topic of morality, Allan, Neil, Lizzie and others use the same old con of claiming that morality is not accidents, its….and then they just trail off into a non-answer.  I find this a very frustrating and telling habit of the materialist.

There is no “other” thing there.  Unless you want to include an intelligence, or a destiny into the theory (which destroys the theory of materialism) you aren’t left with another aspect to why things are.  You have accidents, that somehow formed a durable combination.  Its such a dishonest aspect of materialism that when its not convenient they don’t want to admit this part.  But in not admitting it, they struggle with saying anything to counter it.  They can use words like emergence, or nature did it, but that’s meaningless.  The materialist theory is that it is simply accidents that breed well.

Every time a materialist tries to claim there is more to it than that, when they need to have a stronger arguing basis, don’t be fooled by the dodge.  That is all they have.  Accidents.  Sorry, to force them to accept their own reality.

Rule edits

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I made some minor edits to the rule page. The “Address the post not the poster” rule now reads:

Address the content of the post, not the perceived failings of the poster. [purple text added 28th November 2015]

  • This means that accusing others of ignorance or stupidity is off topic
  • As is implying that other posters are mentally ill or demented.

And for guidance I also added text from an excellent post by Reciprocating Bill:

Participation at this site entails obligations similar to those that attend playing a game. While there is no objective moral obligation to answer questions, the site has aims, rules and informal stakeholders, just as football has same. When violations of those aims and rules are perceived and/or the enforcement of same is seen as arbitrary or inconsistent, differences and conflicts arise. No resort to objective morality, yet perfectly comprehensible and appropriate opprobrium.

 

Doubt comes for the Archbishop

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Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, raised eyebrows several days ago by admitting that the Paris attacks had caused him to doubt God’s presence:

Interviewer:

Do you ever doubt?

Welby:

Oh, gosh, yes. Yes!

Interviewer:

Does something like this happening ever put a chink in your armour?

Welby:

Saturday morning I was out, and as I was walking I was praying and saying “God, why is this happening? Where are you in all this?” and then engaging and talking to God. Yes, I doubt.

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