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Author
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Topic: John A. Davison: Is Evolution Finished?
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Scott
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Member # 1222
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posted 25. March 2004 19:10
nosivad,
I have read your postings with interest. As a layperson, it's difficult to participate in what is primarily a technical discussion. Thanks for your participation here.
regards
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nosivad
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posted 26. March 2004 04:49
Scott Thank you. Let me assure you that, in the area of organic evolution, everyone is a lay person. There are no experts in a field in which not a single natural macroevolutionary event has ever been observed.
"We seek and offer ourselves to be gulled".
"Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know".
Montaigne
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nosivad
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posted 26. March 2004 16:46
Pim Since when have I ever questioned common descent? As for my physiological criteria for known mechanisms of speciation, I stick to my guns. Besides, I am sure Scott is quite able to judge for himself and there is no need for you to intervene in what was clearly an exchange between Scott and myself. I disapprove of your intervention. You have already firmly established you neoDarwinian affiliations.
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Pim van Meurs
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posted 26. March 2004 22:20
Hi Nosivad, I provided some relevant links to your claim that "not a single natural macroevolutionary event has ever been observed". I responded by providing some of the uptodate knowledge in this area. Since this is a public forum in which you have chosen to present your arguments I am surprised that you now disapprove of my 'intervention'.
Let the facts speak for themselves I'd say.
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nosivad
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posted 27. March 2004 01:08
I have defended my arguments not only here but at great length earlier in the Manifesto thread. My claims have been very specific. They are that obligatory sexual reproduction has not been demonstrated as a macroevolutionary device, either in nature or in the laboratory. More specifically, selection of the most intensive sort not only does not result in speciation, but results in a profound loss of fitness. I especially resent the continued attempts by you and others to paint me as some sort of antievolutioniost simply because I, as so many others before me, have questioned an hypothesis which in my studied opinion is a complete failure. When you, like so many others, continue to promote Darwinism you ignore an enormous body of evidence to the contrary, incontravertible evidence presented by many of my predecessors far more knowledgeable than either you or I. The blind adherence to such a failed hypothesis is, in my opinion, a scandal. It is pure naked ideology, an ideology which will never accept purpose and design. You and others are not just attacking me by any means. You are in a state of profound denial of some of the most devastaing literature on any subject in the history of science. Your only excuse is that it is not up to date. Not only has nothing new in any way bolstered Darwinism, it has further exposed its total failure and more and more supports the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis. Frankly, I am getting tired of dealing with it all, which would seem to be your primary objective.
"Science commits suicide when she adopts a creed"
Thomas Henry Huxley
"Meine Zeit wird schon kommen!"
Gregor Mendel
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Scott
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posted 27. March 2004 03:07
nosivad,
Having read your posts here, and having visited your web site, you do not come across to me as an antievolutionist. It seems to me that you accept that evolution has occurred in the past. The question being put forth seems to be to what extent will it continue in the future.
I also do not at all get the sense that you are asserting that NO future evolution can take place. In fact, it seems that you may actually be able to set forth some predictions (if you have not already done so) about which species may continue to evolve and which in all likelihood will not. Am I right?
regards
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Rex Kerr
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Member # 632
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posted 27. March 2004 05:03
nosviad, you have not replied to charlie d.'s last round of criticisms of your alternative theory, as far as I can see.
Specifically, how is it possible for, say, chimps and humans to share more than one pair of alleles of the same gene via a semi-meiotic hypothesis?
If you have such a dim view of Darwinism, why not expend more effort developing your own theory into a credible alternative (or discovering that it is flawed so you can discard it and develop another), and less effort on describing the many irredeemable flaws of Darwinism and Darwinists?
[ 27. March 2004, 05:03: Message edited by: Rex Kerr ]
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Mann
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Member # 1226
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posted 27. March 2004 06:54
nosivad: "The blind adherence to such a failed hypothesis is, in my opinion, a scandal. It is pure naked ideology, an ideology which will never accept purpose and design."
The arrogance with which you dismiss decades of hard work by serious scientists is appalling. With such an attitude towards your colleagues, e.g. Mayr and Gould, it is perhaps not surprising that their eagerness to appraise your theories was hampered.
However, I did not post merely to criticize your tone. I am sincerely curious about what you meant when you wrote:
"I am joining with Leo Berg by concluding that chance had very little to do with either ontogeny or phylogeny. What we are beginning to discover through molecular biology fully supports the prescribed view of the living world and the Anthropic Principle in general."
Would you elaborate on precisely what we are beginning to discover through molecular biology which can substantiate your theory? You did not address this question in detail in the paper provided in your original post. I regret that I have not read any of your other papers, but perhaps you would care to explain your viewpoint from a molecular angle even so? Other members of ISCID surely will not mind.
Thank you.
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nosivad
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posted 27. March 2004 08:01
I presented my views on prescribed phylogenetic information in my paper "Ontogeny, Phylogeny and the Origin of Biological Information" in 2000. An online version is available at my home page, In the present paper I once again suggested that chromosome reorganization does not involve the introduction of information from the environment. It is obvious that, if the environment, including natural selection, was not involved, the information was already there and needed only to be derepressed as is so obviously the case in ontogeny. As for molecular biology supporting my Prescribed Hypothesis, let me quote from the Acropora paper by Kortschak et al in Current Biology 13 2190-2195 2003 -
"Gene loss has thus been much more extensive in the model invertebrate lineages than previously assumed and, as a consequence, some genes thought to be vertebrate inventions must have been present in the common metazoon ancestor. The complexity of the Acropora genome is paradoxical, given that this organism contains apparently few tissue types and the simplest extant nervous system consisting of a morphological homogeneous nerve net".
Thus, not only has evolution not necessarily involved the aquisition of new genes, it apparently involved the loss of genetic potential. You can't lose something that wasn't there! In that sense evolution paralleled (past tense of course) the events of ontogeny which also involve the progressive loss of developmental potential.
If anyone thinks I have been unduly critical of the leading spokespersons of Darwinism, Gould, Mayr and Dawkins for example, they should read Pierre Grasse's book. He makes me look like Caspar Milquetoast. Incidentally, Gould in his opus magnus makes no mention of Grasse, probably the greatest French zoologist of his generation just as his Russian counterpart, Leo Berg, was of his. To understand what is wrong with Darwinism all one has to do is read the great works of those devastating critics the Darwinians have deliberately ignored. I am just a latter day example except of course on forums such as these, the mostly anonymous contributions of which will never see a library shelf. I am still waiting for a single published critique, pro or con, of my several papers. I am sure that Pim or charlie d or someone else can offer a perfectly reasonable explanation for why I, like Bateson, Schindewolf, Grasse, Petrunkevitch, Goldschmidt, Berg, Broom, Punnett and the many others who realized the complete failure of the Darwinian invention, continue to be totally ignored. Let me answer for them. We simply are not up to date. To this I respond - nonsense! The Darwinians are clutching at straws, now as in the past.
By the way, I notice that I seem to be the only person willing to defend his hypothesis. Dembski and Behe introduce threads and then disappear from the intellectual scene. Why I wonder? Maybe they realize that there is no point in arguing with ideologues. I reached that conclusion long ago. Why do I waste my time? It must be just as William Wright so elegantly documented in his book with the self explanatory title - "Born That Way".
[ 27. March 2004, 11:30: Message edited by: nosivad ]
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charlie d.
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posted 27. March 2004 13:53
quote:
nosivad:
By the way, I notice that I seem to be the only person willing to defend his hypothesis. Dembski and Behe introduce threads and then disappear from the intellectual scene.
Far from me to defend Dembski and Behe, but I entirely fail to see how you actually defended your hypothesis. You essentially have been avoiding any substantial question posed to you in this thread, and repeated the same generalized accusations, claims from authority and outdated concepts over and over. If that's all it takes to "defend your hypothesis" to you, I bet Dembski and Behe would be pretty good at it as well. They probably know better.
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nosivad
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posted 27. March 2004 15:39
My hypotheses, both the Semi-meiotic Hypothesis and the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis do not require defense as they are both derived directly from the facts as revealed from cytogenetics, developmental biology, paleontology, sex determination, taxonomy, comparative anatomy and physiology and now, most recently, molecular biology. It is neoDarwinism that cannot be defended as it was founded on a myth for which there has never been a scintilla of experimental or observational support. The simple fact is that sexual reproduction and natural selection, the twin cornerstones of Darwinism never had anything whatsoever to do with the emergence of new life forms. Their sole role was and continues to be to bring progressive evolution to a complete standstill. In short, they are antievolutionary. Incidentally, I am through responding to questions which either I have already answered or my sources answered long ago. Darwinism must be completely abandoned as a meaningful instrument of organic change. It is the most failed hypothesis in the history of science. Phlogiston and the Ether pale by comparison.
"It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for believing it to be true" Bertrand Russell
A perfect characterization of the Darwinian model.
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Rex Kerr
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posted 27. March 2004 23:57
The semi-meiotic hypothesis generates new species from a single individual. Vertebrates are diploid, meaning that a single individual has two copies of each gene (one from the mother and one from the father). A vertebrate that reproduces via semi-meiosis to generate a new species can therefore pass on at most two alleles (two variant forms of the same gene).
(Note that these are also called "polymorphisms" since there are many forms of the one gene.)
Here is a "classic" paper that is relevant by Fan et al., Hum. Imm. 26:107 (89) PubMed citation link:
quote:
All three ChLA-DRB genes were found to be more closely related to certain HLA-DRB alleles than unrelated HLA-DRB alleles are to each other. Since available evidence does not support the convergent evolution of MHC alleles, this result is consistent with the idea that closely related ChLA-DRB and HLA-DRB alleles are derived from common ancestral alleles, the existence of which predates the divergence of human and chimpanzee lineages.
So, we have a problem. Three alleles made it through from a common ancestor, but there is only room for two in the semi-meiotic hypothesis.
A fluke? Not likely. From Bergstrom et al., Imm. Rev. 167:351 (99):
quote:
The evolutionary relationships among the MHC class II DRB4, DRB5 and DRB6 loci as well as the allelic lineages and alleles of the DRB1 locus were studied based on intron 1 and intron 2 sequences from humans, chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), bonobo (Pan paniscus) and gorilla (Gorilla gorilla). The phylogenetic trees for these sequences indicate that most of the DRB1 allelic lineages predate the separation of the hominoid species studied, consistent with previous analysis of the coding sequences of these lineages.
Maybe this is something weird with humans? Maybe not. Blankenburg et al., Tissue Antigens 62:267 (2003):
quote:
The lion-tailed macaque (Macaca silenus) is an endangered species. Research into the genetics of this species is important as a basis for coordinated breeding programs of captive populations. Therefore, we sought to analyze the Mhc class II DRB genes of this species because of it is highly polymorphic in genetically heterogeneous populations of most species. Ten individuals from seven families were evaluated. Nine DRB second exon sequences belonging to eight allelic lineages were identified. These lineages are also present in the best-studied macaque species: the rhesus (Macaca mulatta).
Okay, maybe it is something weird about MHC/immune system genes? Think again. From Kliman & Hey, Genetics 133:375-87 (93):
quote:
A 1.9-kilobase region of the period locus was sequenced in six individuals of Drosophila melanogaster and from six individuals of each of three sibling species: Drosophila simulans, Drosophila sechellia and Drosophila mauritiana . . . D. mauritiana supports a large number of polymorphisms, many of which are shared with D. simulans, and so appears to have begun and persisted as a large population.
In conclusion there are many (well-documented) cases where far more than two alleles are shared between species.
The semi-meiotic hypothesis predicts that this cannot happen. nosviad's statements about it agreeing with the data are simply hyperbole.
This is hardly the only problematic area, but it is a very clear one. If nosviad has any thoughts about the failure of his theory to comport with the data, now would be an appropriate time to share them.
[ 27. March 2004, 23:59: Message edited by: Rex Kerr ]
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nosivad
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posted 28. March 2004 06:40
Rex Kerr The semi-meiotic hypothesis predicts nothing of the kind. Semi-meiotic and sexual reproduction could very well occur side by side. As for sharing alleles, ye Gods we are all virtually identical at the allele locus anyway. Also I have never maintained that every polymorphism resulted in speciation. In short, I have no idea what you are talking about. The semi-meiotic hypothesis has yet to be critically tested. Until it has been and demonstrated to be without merit, it remains a perfectly viable form of diploid reproduction with all the necessary features required for the generation, in a single cytological event, of a new and discrete species. I happen to believe, in contrast with some, that evolution can be an experimental science. The Darwinians stopped testing their hypothesis long ago and for very good reasons. Let's test the semi-meiotic hypothesis for a change. One thing is for sure. It won't occur in the laboratory of a devout Darwinian gradualist. They know it won't work.
It is obvious from your post that you are unfamiliar with section V-3 from my Manifesto entitled "The evidence from cytogenetics." I recommend it, especially M.J.D. White's evaluation of the role of sexual reproduction in chromosome restructuring. Nothing recent in any way alters what he presented. In no uncertain terms he surmised that the many chromosome rearrangements that characterized evolution in the genus Drosophila were not produced sexually. You also seem unaware that semi-meiosis, for certain alleles at least, can generate more genetic heterozygosity than the 50% limit for sexual reproduction. For documentation I refer you to IV-6 "Semi-meiosis and genetic variability" of the Manifesto. Also documented there, with respect to the generation of genetic diversity generally, the first meiotic division produces virtually an infinite number of genetic variants due simply to the combined effects of crossing over and the independent separation of chromosome dyads during Meiosis I. Thus Meiosis I is an effective device for generating not only new chromosome homozygotes (species) but also ensuring that no two of them will be genetically the same.
[ 28. March 2004, 08:22: Message edited by: nosivad ]
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Mann
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posted 28. March 2004 08:03
To go back to novisad's reply:
"Thus, not only has evolution not necessarily involved the aquisition of new genes, it apparently involved the loss of genetic potential. You can't lose something that wasn't there!"
The paper by Kortschak deals with the question of common ancestry, and the large differences in the genome between vertebrates and invertebrate model organisms such as Drosophila (I am just explaining this to the other members). Let me see if I understand you correctly: You interpret the paper as saying that there has been no aquisition of new genes during evolution, and therefore gene loss in different species has no meaning. Hence the inconsistency of the paper, and of darwinian teory.
Let me present a slightly different reading: Kortschak concludes that the invertebrate model organisms are poor choises for studies of molecular evolution, as these species undergo rapid genomic changes, partly as a result of their rapid reproduction. They present a species (Acropora, a coral) that is more suitable for comparison and more likely to reflect the true origin of vertebrate development. I could not find any suggestion in the paper that there have been no aquisition or development of new genes. However they do suggest that the common ancestor show a greater homology with vertebrate genomes than was previously thought. The discussion about gene loss refers to the rapid evolution away from the supposed ancestor in D. melanogaster and C. Elegans.
It seems to me that Kortschak et al. manage to demonstrate a plausible explanation for "the absence of intermediates both in contemporary and fossil species" (quote from novisad's paper): The evolutionary thread does not follow from the favourite model invertebrates, we have been looking for intermediates in the wrong places. The paper is therefore consistent with itself and with darwinism.
Why is it nonsense to say that Bateson, Schindewolf, Grasse and Goldschmidt are not up to date? They are deceased (assuming you mean Richard and not Tijs Goldschmidt). With the advent of molecular biology we have methods of investigation they could not access. In the honor of our scientific fathers and grandfathers, our new tools should of course be used without predjudice.
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