Re: Is bipedalism neutral? (was Re: Claims Of Abuse)

From: John Edser (edser_at_tpg.com.au)
Date: 10/29/04

  • Next message: Peter F: "Two opposite cognitive attitudes." 
    Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 15:43:48 +0000 (UTC)

    phillip smith <deletethis-phills@ihug.co.nz> wrote:-

    > > BOH:-
    > > Your point that several genetic architectures is one I had not thought
    > > about, but is a good one. It just makes hte maths moer complex (as you
    > > have to sum over all of the routes to bipedalism).

    > PS:-
    > What do you mean by sum over all the routes to bipedalism. I'm no
    > mathematician.

    JE:-
    It means that Dr O'Hara has deleted all genetic
    epistasis and pleiotropism within his super
    simplified models so he now expects that
    his alternative (additive) genetic "routes to bipedalism"
    to remain _independent_ of each other including
    routes that are only caused by random processes.
    This is why he argues that evolution can be caused
    by just a random process such as genetic drift
    acting alone, i.e. without any non random process
    such as selection. His arguments are super reductive
    (as are all population genetics arguments) to
    such an extent that reductionism is being utterly
    misused to produce invalid (irrefutable) _synthetic_
    propositions within the science of biology. This reduces
    evolutionary theory to just the status of a non testable
    belief on a par with nonsensical "creation science".

    Evolutionary theory is a _synthesis_ and not just an
    analysis. Synthesis requires all model simplifications
    to be referred back to the theory from which the
    model was derived, i.e. a model cannot validly remain
    independent of the theory from which is was derived
    by simplification and compete against it! Would
    Dr O'Hara please provide at least one refutable theory
    from which his simplified models must have been derived.

    Regards,

    John Edser
    Independent Researcher

    PO Box 266
    Church Pt
    NSW 2105
    Australia

    edser@tpg.com.au

  • Next message: Peter F: "Two opposite cognitive attitudes."