I once offered nonlin.org the ‘fridge-o-matic’ challenge. The idea was to give me a number from 1 to 9 (a shelf in my fridge/freezer), and a lateral location Left, Middle or Right, and a depth locator Front, Middle, Back. That gives 81 sectors. I go to the named sector and fumble for the nearest organism (he’d have to trust me not to cheat). If it’s a stew or pizza I’d need more info. Then I’d need a chromosome number in that organism, and a gene number on the chromosome. We could shortcut the back’n’forth by giving numbers 1-50 and 1-10,000 which I’d then normalise to the actual counts.
Armed with this target of a random gene in a random organism in my fridge, I’d go to a public database and (if it’s in) run a BLAST on the gene to find the sequence alignments, arranged by closeness of match. I offered high confidence that this would recover a reasonable approximation of the Linneaean hierarchy – closest matches in species, then genus, then Family etc. This, I feel, nicely fits with the hypothesis of Common Descent of taxonomic ranks.
Now, the Linnaean hierarchy was based on morphology. He did not have the technology to ‘see’ genes directly. So we’d have to wonder why I could stick my random thumb in and pull out a Linnaean plum pretty much every time, on genes invisible to him.
Nonlin declined to play (he is, frankly, no fun at all). “It’s expected”, he said. “Like organisms will have like genes”. But for that to be a relevant objection, every single genetic difference between every single species pair must be involved in every morphological distinction between them. That requires quite a lot of heavy lifting from a gene. Its job might be to … I dunno, ligate a strand break in DNA let’s say. But it’s also got to do it in a squid way, and a dandelion way, and a yeast way that feeds through to morphology for every gene. We’re always being told how brittly unchangeable genes are, yet we seem to have a huge range of latitude in genes that are notionally pinned in place both by primary function and by multiple morphological roles across species.
I bring this up now for two reasons related to nonlin’s ‘Sexual selection’ thread.
1) If every difference between every gene really were morphologically significant, there’d be a constant stream of mutants not possessed of the vital characteristics that render the sexes mutually attractive to each other but not to members of other species.
2) Sexual dimorphism is a particularly striking morphological difference, which, on the ‘genes=morphology’ view, would require similar genetic differences between the sexes to those observed between like species. But most genes, even those involved in sexual differences, reside on the autosomes, which pass through both genders of offspring.
The answer, of course, is that genetic differences on the broad scale are not the key to morphological difference. Those differences are under the control of relatively few genes, and a lot of regulation (itself genetic in origin). This is as true between species as it is within (don’t fight me on this; it’s an established fact!).
Anyway, anyone fancy taking the Fridge-o-matic for a spin?
How do you disprove Jesus loves you?
I’m off to cut some bread into two pieces that contain 95% and 5% of the original loaf respectively. Then, I’m going to cut a loaf such that one portion is 1900% bigger than the other. Oh hang on, I already did. 🤔
Oh wait. Maybe it is just a big misunderstanding after all. Are you now saying introns are not “junk”?!
Because if you claim they aren’t, then nothing needs explaining, or at least not to the same level. And if you claim they are, then you got the wrong analogy again (I told you logic is NOT your forte). That is because the baker didn’t sell you a loaf. He gave you one while he charged you for 20. Adding insult to injury, he also chopped your loaf and mixed it with rubbish (rat meat for instance) so now you have to sort it out yourself. No, not the occasional rat morsel from your bread, but the bread pieces from rat meat. Is that bad according to your “theory”? I don’t know. How big of a sucker are you?
No, it’s not you. It’s me… and my extended tolerance for extreme ignorance…
Is that a scientific theory?
Phrenology. Furthermore, your “model” explains nothing. Further-furthermore, there was and is a model that worked. And works just fine, thank you. Hence “nothing at all” is blatantly false.
Look man, do you ever have something half-intelligent to say? If not, I’ll have to let you go.
100%? 0%? You might say I’m an extremist. And you’d be right given all that yelling about your naked emperor. So just for fun, let’s do mid-range this time and see if it fares any better:
3. “Likely” = 50%
P1} If evolution, then “the sun doesn’t care tomorrow”
P2} If not evolution, then “the sun still doesn’t care tomorrow”
P3} The sun rose
C} therefore “what evolution”???
Haha!
Yes, but your credibility is shot. We’ll proceed once you write with your own little hand: “this OP (the-fridge-o-matic-challenge) was a bad, indefensible idea”.
We’ll proceed once you clear step 1 above.
We just discussed your action plan.
Feel free.
Oh dear, etc.
Nonlin.org,
No. I’m saying recasting the proportions as 1900% changes nothing. I think you may be overstretching the analogy a tad.
This OP (the fridge-o-matic-challenge) was a bad, indefensible idea. There you go.
OK, done. Go. Introns, transition/transversion bias and the correlation of metabolic genes and intergenic sequence with morphology.
OK sir, all done sir, the floor is yours.
As far as I can tell, having looked at your website and your writings here, you think that jesus dun it. Is that not the case?
And no, that’s not a scientific theory.
And what observed data did that ‘explain’?
While it is true that that was dropped in favour of nothing at all, let’s compare what that explains and what evolution explains and contrast the two, see if we can spot any differences.
Why are you so afraid to name that previous model then? Until you do we can’t even begin to test the truth of that statement
If the previous model worked ‘just fine’ then why did we abandon it?
Can you name something that the previous model explains that evolution cannot?
I’m not the one afraid to put a name to what you are proposing to replace evolution with.
What was the previous model that was erroneously replaced by evolution?
narrator: It was special creation aka Jesus loves you, all along.
Is it finally time for the alternative to evolution that explains everything it also explains and more besides? I can’t wait!
Out of interest, what does your previous ‘model’ have to say about how covid is changing and becoming more transmissible? Is it only targeting people that have pissed off Jesus, perhaps?
If your model works ‘just fine’ I look forwards to the explanation of why covid exists at all, given nothing can evolve or start existing without the designer’s direct input and intent.
Moved a post to guano. Questioning mental capabilities of other members is against the rules.
Me:
Nonlin:
OK, so what are those explanations?
I know what the evolutionary explanation is for life’s diversity. We learn more every day. I don’t know what your explanation is, other then that you merely claim that it exists!
And if it’s the same explanation for all of those things you mention then what is that explanation? And if it applies to all of those things, well, you know what they say about the utility of an explanation? It’s proportional to the number of things it explains.
So something that explains everything, as your explanation seems to, in reality is of no utility at all.
Do you intentend to replace the textbooks for evolutionary biology with the same ‘explanation’ as you want to use in physics for the origin of the universe? Seems to me you simply need to print a single book and change the cover.
Hey, would the bible be any use there at all? It’s copyright free!
If the FACT of design can be explained I’d expect that explanation to include, you know, some details about the designer and the how why when of it.
Apparently we’re supposed to divine what the shape of nonlins designer is by the hole he’s cutting in evolutionary biology by proving it’s incorrect piece by piece.
Apparently that designer is a constantly changing mish mash jelly like form that darts about from gap to gap ignoring difficult questions by simply labelling them stupid!
Any question, no matter how stupid can potentially have a useful answer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_such_thing_as_a_stupid_question
Nonlin contradicts many notable figures with his stance on stupid questions. No doubt they, as everyone else is, is wrong and probably so. Or just so stupid nonlin can’t bring himself to bother to address them. heh
In this case also a danger for irony-meters.
OMagain,
You’re asking a guy who thinks that the moon and a virus are indistinguishable from each other.
Please! I can think of at least one test, the fact that a virus can’t be made out of cheese! So if it’s made out cheese != virus
Alan Fox,
You yourself have said here that some people might feel that is a compliment. Saying something is beyond someone’s intellect has been allowed here IN TONS, and suddenly you are clutching your pearls over that. Joker.
But surely you would agree that werewolves and witches are clearly infected by the moon!
Sadly, didn’t happen. I asked about the Design account of transition/transversion bias and introns. Nothing. Nada. What a surprise. Because of course ‘in science’, according to nonlin, I have to actively reject evolution before we consider any alternative (why me? When did I become the person on whose shoulders this burden rested? Spokesman for a zygote-to-zygote interval, that’s me). Bayes be damned.
It’s a very convenient way to avoid challenge, because the repentance has to be sincere. So here’s me putting on my sincere face: 😐
Fuck me!
Haha. Well, what did you expect?
This is false. I never said that. Just that, in this case, it’s easy to reject “evolution” as demonstrably false.
Exactly what I got, of course.
I know you don’t have a clue about the subject, nor any idea how “Design Theory” might address the data. It seems remarkably useless, indeed.
Yeah, you actually did. You concocted some bizarre condition in which I had to recant – “We’ll proceed once you write with your own little hand: “this OP (the-fridge-o-matic-challenge) was a bad, indefensible idea”.
So now is this opportunity to ‘proceed’. So proceed, already. Don’t tell me you have no explanation? That would be quite the shocker.