(split) Atheism and acceptance of science

When I rebut a response based on my credentials I will. Meanwhile I am happy to be a cook in a charity kitchen, who barely speaks English and has a high school education

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Meanwhile, do we have a list of the credentials of the members who are challenging me anywhere?

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I agree, but when they devise a method of determining gene fitness independently of the organism, that will be relevant.

That was Dub's quote, I was rebutting it. Its wrongfully attributed to me.

 

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I am saying that you have adopted a creationist approach to the matter of "fitness" of a gene in its environment.

No such claims are visible here, the discussion is of evidence.

Several approaches to estimating the survival probability advantages of various characteristics of genes across various clades have been tried out on computer models, etc.

But one simple response is to note that organisms often die, often at the agency of their genetic expression, in the course of reproducing and disseminating their genes.

And I already invited you to ponder symbiosis, parasitism, etc. Throw in metamorphosis while you are at it.

I was replying to SAM. He's SAM's choice of foil, and he will do fine to illustrate her fundamental misconceptions of the theory he popularizes.

I agree with SAM that those credentials are irrelevant, and pestering her about them is a form of trolling.

 

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I'm a nutritionist.

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Pretty well, unless none of them are evolutionists.

Sam, it's a meaningless question. It's like asking for a coefficient of free-fall acceleration in a place without gravity.

You want to think that the unit of selection is the organism. This is not logically or mathematically possible. The organism - the individual - does not survive, so the organismal argument is a non-starter. The role of a single gene on fitness, or phenotypic value related to fitness, is estimated from multiple samples of individuals in such a way so as to exclude the background of individuals, or of environment. If you want to challenge the two latter points mathematically, please do so.

 

So what is the noncreationist approach to estimating fitness of a gene? I cannot locate a single experiment where one could claim that the results were independent of the organism. As someone with a background in clinical nutrition, I cannot comprehend how one can select only one strain of a single species and hold it representative for all. Shouldn't random sampling take a subset of all organisms in an ecosystem and determine the proportion of that gene relative to a baseline under natural conditions, in subsequent populations as a measure of fitness?

 

Again: your question does not make sense. At best, it comes down to a question of coding pedigreed relatedness or fitting non-target independent variables when estimating genetic effects, which everyone does anyway. It's standard form.

 

The assertion you were challenging was "[S.A.M.] does a lot more trolling than most posters here" and not "S.A.M. is the single worst troll tolerated here."

And I challenge the assertion that S.A.M. is not in a class with Baron Max. She does little other than troll, in my experience.

Her entire participation in this thread is one gigantic troll, for example.

 

This getting nowhere. A gene centered view does not mean that each individual gene operates in a vacuum. The fitness each gene it exerts is a collective effect of all the genes. The product of which is (together with environmental influence) the organism.
The question the gene centered view deals with why there are traits around that appear to be detrimental to the organism. Why, for instance do certain male spiders let them be used as food? Why do a large number of animals simply die after procreation? If fitness was defined as the ability of the organism to survive it would not make much sense at all.
Quite obviously these apparently detrimental traits survived, not because the enhanced the ability of the organism to survive, but rather because it enabled their own passing on to the next generation. On the molecular lever there are much more intriguing examples. Mobile genetic elements, for instance, are the embodiment of this. They are not much more than mechanism that ensure their own survival by spreading. Again, on the context of the organism it would not make much sense, as they do not necessarily increase the survival of their hosts.
And yes, there are a host of papers around that deal with fitness cost and estimation of alelles. The simplest is, of course, using genetically identical organisms and calculate survival rates in the presence of specific alleles. Outside laboratory settings mostly association studies (e.g. based on certain haplotypes). Just make a quick search on Pubmed.

 

For starters, you drop the mistaken assumption that the gene is supposed to be controlling things, giving orders, "causing", etc, in its environment.

Then you drop the assumption that the "organism" is the gene's environment, that its fitness is measured only against the needs of the organism. The evolutionary environment of a gene is the world.

Then you reconsider this:

Because you claimed just before that you couldn't find any proper studies, and there are thousands fitting that description - for example studies of resistance to various pesticides and herbicides and antibiotics among the target organisms.

 

It's off topic. I realize you may not have been one to head off on a tangent that not only is offtopic in the thread but also the forum, but nevertheless, that is what it is. You could handle what you present as a personal issue in PMs or in the Members forum.

 

Gentlemen, please.

I think what we're getting at her is a challenge or purported challenge to Neodarwinianism. My perspective is that it's been rising slowly to the forefront with Sam for a while: I recall some disgruntled posts earlier about it. It's possible that it's trolling - I have to admit I thought earlier that it was. Maybe it's not. Perhaps Sam can write in to explain why it's not disingenuous. It's true that you don't know her degrees for certain, but I have firm belief that she does indeed have them. For that matter, you don't know mine either.

 

Why that assumption? Is there any reason why there should not be detrimental traits in any population? Its not like there is any direction to natural selection. Isn't assigning cause retroactively a flawed premise?

So what? Why must it?

Could you link me to one of these?

I'm not sure what neodarwinism is because I am not thinking that far, what I am thinking is that this doesn't make sense and seems empirically flawed.

 

What I'm seeing is the standard theistic world based, religious objection to Darwinian theory, without the rank ignorance that has come to identify that approach. In a world of ghost-animated stuff - the living made of dead clay with the Deity supplying the living spirit - the objection is that a reductionist materialism has been elevated to a status it is unfit for.

The parallel with the Communist objection that enshrined Lysenko in the central sabotage role of Soviet biology is almost exact, awaiting only its Lysenko - that the objection was to the supposed elevation of competition and overpowering struggle, rather than the supposed elevation of soulless material, is all.

Both point to objectionable political or social features of the surroundings that claim support in waht is thereby revealed to be a dangerous, as well as wrongheaded, theory: Social Darwinism for the Communist bugbear, reductionist materialism for the Abrahamic.

 

Seems like you're off on your own tangent. You sound like one of those soapbox evangelicals. :roflmao:

 

It's not me going around in circles about the reductionist materialism of the "gene-centric" theory the atheists seem to worship. It isn't me claiming that Dawkins is saying "the gene did it" in parallel with a fundie saying "god did it".

What you are not thinking is that your notion of "this" is simply wrong. Basically in error.

 

Err, well how do you mean this? You know the definition and rough idea, and are casting some new metatheory in your mind, or that you just don't know the theory?

Weeell, it's really not. That's the thing. If you want to place organismal context into everything, then we can via process of reduction assume that no genetic or environmental change is of any note, because they all must take place in the magic box of the organism. "Starve me? You can't! I'm an independent organism, so no genetic or environmental change can take place without my wherewithal!" You have to appreciate independent genetic sampling with replication.

Well put. I have to agree prima or secunda facie that it kiiind of looks like this: Sam's been veering off the path for a while now and it Smells like Teen Theism. I don't know that this is so, but perhaps our veils will be lifted as lifts the dawn.

(Also, I admired the communist shot in the latter two paragraphs: you honour me with your attention, Sir.

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Though I'm hardly a "spirit over matter" shade of red. Maybe it's just the colour I lay over the lamp as I'm whoring?)

 

Add Religion, this forum and maybe one or two others and I can see where the blind spot would be...

Please, let's not inflate S.A.M.'s ego. There are plenty of theists who have to trouble thinking and talking about these topics. I've met many over the years. She has a personal dislike of Richard Dawkins, and so works to tear down anything associated with him. There is no concern for reason or logic, no good-faith considerations, and no possibility of progress. It's just your standard shot-gunning of tangentially related complaints, each discarded by the time it's posted and so impervious to criticism. Trolling.

 

Because natural selection does give a direction. It is the very definition of it. Seriously, this is about the most basic concept you will find in evolutionary theories. Again, what natural selection does is reducing the allele frequency of detrimental alleles. Thought example: there is a an allele that causes slowness in some prey animal (and does not give any other advantages). Selective pressure in form of predators would result in more of the slow prey dying than the fast ones. Eventually the slowness allele traits would be reduced in frequency, as given everything else remaining constant, those with the alleles have a harder reproducing.

The detrimental traits do not need necessarily vanish completely, however. There are number of additional mechanism that may result in the persistence of a low frequency of the given detrimental traits (depending on how strong their influence on fitness is, for instance) that I do not want to discuss more before the basis is clear. I should have made clear that I did not mean that there are no detrimental traits at all, but that e.g. in cases of certain spiders they actually occur in higher frequency than they should if the fitness of the organism is more important than passing on genes. This can then be easily explained from the viewpoint of the genes. As long as they get passed on effectively it does not matter that they may have apparent detrimental effect on the organism.
Taken the above example, if the slowness allele also results in increased fecundity, it may not only remain in the population, but may actually increase in frequency, if the increase of fitness can off-set the fitness cost of being slow. Eventually then, for example, the prey in question may become a slower but fast reproducing species.

The important point is that natural selection is one of the major factors why not all organisms have identical reproduction successes. Understanding of this is essential to understanding evolution and it is one of the central aspects of Darwin's theory that have survived until now.
And btw., historically neo-Darwinism is an old concept. It arose shortly after Darwin and essentially refuted the Lamarckian mode of inheritance.
But I assume that this discussion is bound to be fruitless as long as the basics are not clear (textbooks anyone?).