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Topic: John A. Davison: The Case for Instant Evolution
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Rex Kerr
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posted 13. May 2004 02:07
Ron, thanks for the well-reasoned post. I've been meaning to make the exact point that you made about phyla initially looking like separate species (in a standard evolutionary model). It's something that is typically not understood or misunderstood by critics of standard Darwinian evolution.
Also, I was interested to hear that turkeys can reproduce parthenogenically! I hadn't heard of that before. Are there any other avians known to reproduce that way, that you know of? I tried looking on PubMed, but most of the references were in the 1960s and 1970s and didn't even have electronic abstracts (just a title).
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nosivad
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posted 13. May 2004 06:57
The parthenogenetic Turkey that Ron mentioned is a living example of the semi-meiotic process. I explained it in the Manifesto which was discussed at great length on brainstorms some time ago. All parthenogenetically produced turkeys are male because the female is the heterogametic sex (ZW) in birds. Following the first meiotic division the egg is either ZZ or WW depending on which dyad was eliminated into the first polar body. WW is lethal, ZZ is male. This is a beautiful demonstration of the instantaneous production of a chromosome homozygote from a heterozygous source, one of the cornerstones of the semi-meiotic hypothesis. There is nothing in Ron's long post that in any way relates to the validity of either the semi-meiotic or the prescribed evolutionary hypotheses. Indeed, the parthenogenetic turkey has provided a living example. It also provides a formal proof that the female genome is capable of producing both sexes, thereby circumventing the old argument of "where will Goldschmidt's hopeful monster find its mate". The same capacity has been demonstrated in frogs, as I also explained in the Manifesto. It is probably a universal feature. Another living example of semi-meiosis is offered by certain members of the flagellate genus Spirotrichosoma as studied by L.R. Cleveland which I also presented in the Manifesto.
"You can lead a man to the literature but you cannot make him comprehend it".
John A. Davison
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Serge Patlavskiy
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posted 13. May 2004 12:34
Some remarks concerning John Davison's paper "THE CASE FOR INSTANT EVOLUTION"
[John Davison] writes:
We have no idea how life originated or even how many times it originated. There is no evidence for an organic soup, and the more we learn about the molecular and structural complexity of even the simplest life forms, the less likely it seems that life could have arisen by chance.
[S.P.] Yes, the life did not arise by chance, but there was no "creator" either. There is another possibility.
[John Davison] In the case of ontogeny, that information is obviously present at the onset of development. I recently (Davison 2000) suggested that the information for evolution might also be present from very early in the evolutionary process.
[S.P.] As for me, there is no "information for evolution" since there is/was no evolution as such.
[John Davison] Where did the information for phylogeny and ontogeny come from?
[S.P.] I answer: this question cannot be answered in case we use our everyday subjective experience and commonsensical approach as the theoretical base of the process of cognition. Such approach is good on the stage of piling up the data, but is not appropriate when we try to construct a theory of complex phenomena and processes. So, we have first to construct some specific theoretical tools which will help us in explaining the Nature's mysteries. The tool, proposed in [1], [2] is called the (the method of IIS). The method implies that we must look at the world not as on the mere collection of material (physical) objects, but as the complex systems. According to the Postulate, any integrated information system describes by three systemic characteristics and one state characteristic. Also, some natural Law exists that governs the development of such systems (see [1], [2]). The first systemic characteristic of the IIS{object} is informational, no matter the object is animated or "dead". So, in a way, we may state that "information for phylogeny and ontogeny" comes exactly from that source.
[John Davison] One cannot escape the conclusion that something or someone had to put that information in place.
[S.P.] It is not a correct suggestion (see remarks above).
[John Davison] It would seem that Homo sapiens is a likely candidate, since there is no evidence of his presence prior to about 100,000 years ago.
[S.P.] We may talk about Homo sapience as existing species within a period of, at least, three millions of years.
REFERENCES
[1] "Elaboration of the New Paradigm of Interdisciplinary Investigations", Journal of Conscientiology (ISSN 1520-4049), Volume 1, Number 4, pp. 305-36, 1999 http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00003571/ or at http://geocities.com/serge_patlavskiy/ First target article, full illustrated version, Msword formatted.
[2] "The Key Ingredients of a Specific Interdisciplinary Approach to Consciousness" at http://geocities.com/serge_patlavskiy/ Second target article, full illustrated version, Msword formatted.
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nosivad
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posted 13. May 2004 16:54
Serge
You are not the only one that was upset by my statement that "someone or something hsd to put it there" The referees at Rivista were so incensed that they refused to publish my conclusion, which should please the Darwinians no end. I worked out the compromise with the Editor that the paper could be published without the conclusion. Nevertheless, I stick to my statement because I feel that the entity which produced the information for both phylogeny and ontogeny is the very same entity that produced the laws of mathematics, chemistry and physics. None of this can possibly have involved either chance or the mind of man. Just as Mendeleef discovered the preexistent Periodic Table of the Elements and Newton discovered the preexistent Laws of Motion, so now we are in a position to discover the laws that have so obviously determined the ascending, self-limiting series of living forms that we describe with the word - evolution. All that science ever was or ever can be is the discovery of what is there and how it got to be there. Darwin and Wallace discovered absolutely nothing, which Wallace, much to his credit, finally realized, a realization the Darwinians conveniently overlook, just as they overlook Julian Huxley's revelation that evolution is apparently finished. Why Darwinism persists mystifies me.
"The book of Nature is written with mathematical symbols." Galileo
He should have substituted was for is.
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Ron Okimoto
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posted 13. May 2004 20:37
Novisad wrote:
quote:
The parthenogenetic Turkey that Ron mentioned is a living example of the semi-meiotic process. I explained it in the Manifesto which was discussed at great length on brainstorms some time ago. All parthenogenetically produced turkeys are male because the female is the heterogametic sex (ZW) in birds. Following the first meiotic division the egg is either ZZ or WW depending on which dyad was eliminated into the first polar body. WW is lethal, ZZ is male. This is a beautiful demonstration of the instantaneous production of a chromosome homozygote from a heterozygous source, one of the cornerstones of the semi-meiotic hypothesis. There is nothing in Ron's long post that in any way relates to the validity of either the semi-meiotic or the prescribed evolutionary hypotheses. Indeed, the parthenogenetic turkey has provided a living example. It also provides a formal proof that the female genome is capable of producing both sexes, thereby circumventing the old argument of "where will Goldschmidt's hopeful monster find its mate". The same capacity has been demonstrated in frogs, as I also explained in the Manifesto. It is probably a universal feature. Another living example of semi-meiosis is offered by certain members of the flagellate genus Spirotrichosoma as studied by L.R. Cleveland which I also presented in the Manifesto.
"You can lead a man to the literature but you cannot make him comprehend it".
John A. Davison
I'd be embarrassed by the use of your last quote. The female turkey does not produce both sexes. You clearly point this out in your citation of the data. If there is anyone that can’t seem to comprehend the literature it would be you. As I pointed out viable males are produced in this fashion. This is due to the heterogametic sex chromosomes. Unlike humans, in birds females are the heterogametic sex (ZW), while in humans the heterogametic sex is the male (XY). Your semi-meiotic stuff would be more applicable to species that do not use chromosomal means of sex determination. For most mammals like humans your semi-meiotic thingy wouldn't work. You would be forced to use the tried and true mechanism of crossing and segregation to produce males with your chromosomal changes. For turkeys they are forced to use crossing to produce females for this line. You have to hope for the rare chromosomal mutation and the rare successful parthenogenetic event to produce homozygotes of one sex. I don't see how this is any better than the production of homozygotes of both sexes from the single cross of two heterozygotes. You should do the math and determine if the probability of parthenogenetic reproduction of one sex and subsequent crossing is more likely than the mating of two heterozygotes in a population. For simple inversions about 1/4 of the progeny from two heterozygotes will be homozygous. There will be a reduction in viable gametes due to recombination within the inverted region, but it can't reduce the viable gametes by more than half. Between humans an apes there are only 10 identified inversions and one chromosome fusion event.
There are a few species that do not use sex chromosomes and if you want to invoke your mechanism there, fine. It doesn't work for primates or turkeys does it? It could work for turtles and alligators. There was one mammal that I read about somewhere that didn’t have sex chromosomes. You also ignore that even though one sex could be produced in this fashion it is rare probably because there are so many recessive lethals in any population. The mechanism of parthenogenetic reproduction has no connection with chromosomal rearrangements. It occurs at random in unfertilized eggs. You have to consider the probability of a successful event compared to normal crossing of carriers. For the chromosome fusion event there would be a 1/36 chance of generating a homozygote by crossing two carriers. Once you have a homozygote the probability of generating a homozygote by crossing to a carrier goes up to 1/6. You have to estimate the probability of a successful parthenogenetic event. Lets just say that all female carriers would have a 50% chance of a meiotic screw up in unfertilized eggs. This is probably much too high. Even the turkey line that has been selected to increase the rate doesn’t approach 50%. You have to deal with recessive lethals or lethal equivalents in the genome. Humans have a relatively low genetic load (possibly due to the bottleneck and recent inbreeding) of only 2.5. Chickens and quail have genetic loads of around 6-8 and the highest that I have seen measured is some wood rat with a genetic load of 15. The 2.5 number just translates to lethal equivalents. This just means that you have the equivalent of 5 recessive lethal alleles in your genome. There isn’t really just five, but the equivalent of 5. There are a lot more that are around 10% lethal than fully lethal. The birds would have 12-16 and the rat would have 30. The chance that when you double all the chromosomes that you just happen to pick the ones without the equivalent of one recessive lethal is, for humans would be 2^5 or 1/32, for birds it would be 1/4096, so this isn’t a trivial matter. Tack on the 50% and you get 1/64 for the smaller genetic load. Where is the semi-meiotic advantage? There definitely isn’t one for the inversions.
These are the things that you have to consider, but you obviously do not.
I don’t mean this to be funny, but every time you refer to your notions as your manifesto it just conjures up negative thoughts of guys like the Uni bomber and other cranks. This is reinforced by your posting style. I realize that things like the Bill of Rights can be considered to be a manifesto, but the term has gotten smeared by your immediate predecessors. I’d recommend calling it your thesis or something less associated with fanatics and cranks.
Refering to your other response to my posts, Broom isn't considered a deep evolutionary thinker as far as I know, you probably think most other things that Julian Huxley has said is a crock since he was a prominent humanist, and I have never seen Grasse mentioned in a positive light by anyone except creationists in my time in molecular evolution. People mention that he had some decent ideas, but only creationists seem to mention the stuff that you agree with. So your three refs seem to be three strikes. Scientist say all kinds of stupid things. Crick is a good one that creationist like to quote too. It doesn't mean much. They aren't remembered in science for their off the wall quotes, but for their actual accomplishments. Creationists should realize that, but they never seem to get the idea. Did Grasse ever get anywhere with his notion? Why bring it up if he never got anywhere with it?
[Novisad wrote: added in edit]
[ 13. May 2004, 20:39: Message edited by: Ron Okimoto ]
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Moderator
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posted 14. May 2004 02:08
Ron,
This is a tone warning. If you don't find a way to keep to the science and substantial comments (which you have made some of), and cut the sarcasm and ridicule from your posts, they will be deleted and you may end up banned. You are not allowed to spill your vitriol here after being banned at ARN.
Clean up your act or you will not be allowed to post further.
Moderator
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nosivad
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posted 14. May 2004 05:56
Ron
The one thing that you refuse to consider, that renders everything you have said meaningless, is the overwhelming evidence that evolution beyond the variety is no longer occurring. The Darwinians, of whom you seem to be an example, refuse to consider the possibility that evolution, like ontogeny and growth, is a self-limiting, self-terminating process. Never having witnessed the origin of a species, let alone a genus or order, they project with supreme confidence that evolution is going on all around them based on what they now observe. That is exactly the mistake that Darwin and Wallace made. What we see today is not evolution in action, but rather the products of a past evolution. Your attack on the competence of scientists of the calibre of Pierre Grasse and Julian Huxley is the best evidence imaginable of the insecurity of the Darwinian position. At least you mentioned their names. They have been in oblivion long enough.
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Ron Okimoto
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posted 14. May 2004 08:42
Moderator 1 wrote: quote:
Ron,
This is a tone warning. If you don't find a way to keep to the science and substantial comments (which you have made some of), and cut the sarcasm and ridicule from your posts, they will be deleted and you may end up banned. You are not allowed to spill your vitriol here after being banned at ARN.
Clean up your act or you will not be allowed to post further.
This is getting ridiculous. Point out the exact passage(s) that you find objectionable, and I won't do it again.
I'd also like to clear up some confusion. Are you Novisad or do you just post alot of his stuff? I gather that Novisad is Davison.
The way I view it it looks like Davison routinely violates the rules that are posted, but you single me out for what? Just point out what I did wrong. Do you want me to list the rule violation I see most often from Novisad? You can't miss it, it seems to be in a large fraction of his posts.
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Ron Okimoto
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posted 14. May 2004 08:56
Novisad wrote: quote:
Ron
The one thing that you refuse to consider, that renders everything you have said meaningless, is the overwhelming evidence that evolution beyond the variety is no longer occurring. The Darwinians, of whom you seem to be an example, refuse to consider the possibility that evolution, like ontogeny and growth, is a self-limiting, self-terminating process. Never having witnessed the origin of a species, let alone a genus or order, they project with supreme confidence that evolution is going on all around them based on what they now observe. That is exactly the mistake that Darwin and Wallace made. What we see today is not evolution in action, but rather the products of a past evolution.
You keep claiming this, but you can't put forward any good evidence that you could be correct. We observe populations evolving. You claim this isn't enough, but you can't put forward a single piece of evidence that these processes were not working in the past, just as they are observed to occur today. What did the first species look like that evolved from the common ancestor to say arthropods and cordates? It probably looked pretty much like its parent species didn't it? You probably couldn't have even figured out if it was going to be a cordate or an arthropod. The differences that we observe between existing species can be explained by the mechanisms of mutation and population changes that we observe happening today. Name one that can't.
You keep repeating what is turning into your mantra, but you are the one that doesn't seem to have any evidence backing you up. We see chromosomal mutations happening. We see them segregating in existing populations. We observe all the different types of mutations that we have found as differences between species. Wonder of wonders we find that there is a continuum of such differences and that we can tell which species are more closely related to each other by analysis of their genes. There is no evidence that such changes have stopped occurring or that species have stopped changing. Name one type of mutation that we find between any two species that isn't still occurring in nature. Since you can't do that. How can you claim that evolution has stopped?
quote:
Your attack on the competence of scientists of the calibre of Pierre Grasse and Julian Huxley is the best evidence imaginable of the insecurity of the Darwinian position. At least you mentioned their names. They have been in oblivion long enough.
It wasn't an attack it was a statement of fact. Everyone says stupid things sometime in their lives. If that is all they had done that is all they would be remembered for. None of these guys are remembered for the stupid things that they said.
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nosivad
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posted 14. May 2004 11:08
Ron
You claim you see populations evolving. That is impossible. Only the individual is capable of evolution. Populations are what result when a new life form emerges and reproduces and as far as I am able to see that is not occurring. I hardly feel an obligation to prove something that isn't happening. The burden of proof is now, as it always has been, on those who have proposed an hypothesis, which to this day has never been demonstrated to account for change beyond the level of variety. The simple truth is that you, like other Darwinians, don't like what Grasse, Goldschmidt, Broom, Berg, Bateson, Schindewolf and God knows how many others, including myself, have always maintained, namely that the Darwinian model is a failure. There is only one conceivable reason to continue to support such a pathetic situation and it has nothing whatsoever to do with science. Quite the contrary it has served to inhibit real science. It is so obvious that I don't even have to identify it so I won't. Engle already did that.
Incidentally, which of Grasse's many "notions" are you referring to. He made many very significant contributions.
[ 14. May 2004, 11:13: Message edited by: nosivad ]
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Pim van Meurs
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posted 14. May 2004 12:20
Nosivad: The simple truth is that you, like other Darwinians, don't like what Grasse, Goldschmidt, Broom, Berg, Bateson, Schindewolf and God knows how many others, including myself, have always maintained, namely that the Darwinian model is a failure.
Interesting how Nosivad seems to be privy to the innermost thoughts and motives of the people on this board but perhaps it may have occured to him that the real issue is that despite these claims it has been shown that the Darwinian model is anything but a failure. Thus perhaps Darwinians do not 'like' what Nosivad and others have to say on this topic because it remains a mantra rather than a supported argument.
I accept that Nosivad rejects Darwinism but that is a far cry from having scientific arguments why Darwinism is wrong.
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution The Scientific Case for Common Descent provides some intriguing evidence to support the theory and fact of common descent.
observed instances of speciation are discussed here and here
It is when faced with these facts and data combined with (Darwinian) evolutionary theory that we have a powerful explanation of these data.
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Ron Okimoto
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posted 14. May 2004 14:15
Nosivad wrote: quote:
Ron
You claim you see populations evolving. That is impossible. Only the individual is capable of evolution. Populations
are what result when a new life form emerges and reproduces and as far as I am able to see that is not
occurring. I hardly feel an obligation to prove something that isn't happening. The burden of proof is now, as it
always has been, on those who have proposed an hypothesis, which to this day has never been demonstrated
to account for change beyond the level of variety. The simple truth is that you, like other Darwinians, don't like
what Grasse, Goldschmidt, Broom, Berg, Bateson, Schindewolf and God knows how many others, including myself,
have always maintained, namely that the Darwinian model is a failure. There is only one conceivable reason to
continue to support such a pathetic situation and it has nothing whatsoever to do with science. Quite the
contrary it has served to inhibit real science. It is so obvious that I don't even have to identify it so I won't. Engle
already did that.
That populations are currently evolving is not a claim it is documented fact. Multiple studies have been conducted on wild populations documenting the changes in allele frequencies. Unfortunately for you, this is evolution. You can try and define away the facts, but it doesn't change them. The changes that we obeserve between species are in no way different from any of the mutations or changes that we observe occuring within existing populations today. How do you know that I'm a Darwinian? Darwinian seems to be anything that you don't agree with. That is pretty useless. It doesn't matter what I am it is what the fact are. You can interpret them any way that you want to, but you can't deny them. Are populations changing? Are the types of changes the same as we observe as differences between existing species? Yes and Yes, so how can you contend that evolution has stopped? If your answer to either question is no, just give one counter example. One difference between closely related species that cannot be explained by known mechanisms.
This isn't just a minor correction of your understanding of evolution, but you have an over simplified view of biological evolution. It is true that new variation occurs in individuals, but individuals rarely give rise to new species. In any sexually reproducing species it takes at least two individuals, and it doesn't occur over night. Just think about it. What if a Goldschmidt type of change happened in a group of apes. The major candidate for this would be the hip deformation that resulted in our upright stance. This could have been a single mutation with major effects. How long would it have taken and how many generations before a new species resulted that was fixed for this new mutation? Evolution doesn't happen in the individual, does it? How long would it have taken to accumulate all the modifiers that produced the modern human hip based on this first macro mutation? Your notion of evolution is faulty. Goldschmidt knew better.
quote:
Incidentally, which of Grasse's many "notions" are you referring to. He made many very significant contributions.
That is the problem. Grasse is known for absolutely nothing of importance to my field of interest. I only get the rare glimpse of his existence from passages like yours that he was known for something or other, but it is never spelled out or the importance of it is never made clear. To be frank, about the only guys that you see quoting Grasse are creationists. This is far from an accolade in my book. I took evolutionary biology in the mid 80s and never heard of him. Present one thing that he is well known for and you can be different from all the rest. I'm not claiming that he isn't known for something, but what exactly is it? Is it at all significant to support your claims?
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nosivad
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posted 16. May 2004 07:14
Ron
There is much that is outside your field of interest.
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Ron Okimoto
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posted 16. May 2004 10:31
Nosivad wrote: quote:
Ron
There is much that is outside your field of interest.
This is sad. Just put up one thing that Grasse is known for. I know of nothing of significance and I'd stack my knowledge of evolutionary biology up against yours any day. He may be known for something in France, but he really isn't known for anything that I know of. Has a single poster at ISCID ever posted what Grasse is supposed to be known for in evolutionary biology? Once it is posted it will likely be some "so what?" type of thing or we would have seen it by now.
Avoidance of the issues is why your project will never get funded. If you can't address the problems with it, there is no reason that someone else will do it for you. Your idea doesn't work. It is as simple as that. If you think that you can make it work get someone to submit a grant and see what the comments are. If you can't deal with the problems it will never get funded. You can't deal with the comments and suggestions by ignoring them. What about all of my comments? You haven't countered a single one.
You have to put your idea up against others for evaluation in science. Since you don't want to do that, why keep complaining about being ignored and not getting funding? You usually can't get funding unless you apply for it. Reality is as simple as that.
You even have the option of having the benefactors of places like the Discovery Institute funding the project. They have to be made aware that such a possibility exists, and you should probably have some type of research plan to show them to justify the funding. Anything has to be better than just funding the current quote mining projects that support ID. It is obvious to me that you have no competition for ID research grants. Do you know of any other proposed ID research projects?
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nosivad
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posted 16. May 2004 12:00
Grasse is known for so many things I wouldn't even be able to begin to enumerate them. One of the reasons I continue to participate in forums such as this one is to provide proof positive for future students of evolution that Darwinists are constitutionally unable to abandon their failed hypothesis in the face of an ever increasing body of evidence that renders it unacceptable. I have made my predictions. I now wait for the Darwinians to provide theirs, if they can. If you don't think I have put my ideas up for evaluation you have read none of my published papers. I have explained this before. I, like my predecessors who provided the basis for my work, simply do not exist. In Engle's appropriate term, we have been "nobodyized" by the evolutionary (Darwinian) establishment.
[ 16. May 2004, 12:05: Message edited by: nosivad ]
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