Re: Nei's "new mutation theory" resurrects William Bateson

JE:-
I agree that many discovered and as yet undiscovered NON RANDOM processes
can produce mutations. I separate non random and therefore selected
factors
which can control mutation from just the random processes which create
mutation. My suggestion is to critically divide mutation rates into
random
and non random. My assumption is that a random base rate of mutation
remains
an absolute necessity. Quite clearly, nature employed a random base rate
to
provide the raw material for evolution. It is not at all surprising that
the
rate of evolution remains 100%% limited by such a non selected base rate.
If
no random base rate of mutation existed then evolution by natural
selection
would not have been possible unless a non random base rate was created by
selection. My point: evolution was and remains 100% controlled by
selection but not at all controlled by the random base rate of mutation
to
which it can be correlated.

Please take a look at something like Box 4 on p. 627 of
Baer, C. F., M. M. Miyamoto, and D. R. Denver. 2007. Mutation rate
variation in multicellular eukaryotes: causes and consequences. Nat
Rev Genet 8:619-631.
This explains how, in the "new mutations" view that (because it works
so well) tends to dominate the thinking of molecular evolutionists,
the rate of evolution is understood to be a product of two factors, a
rate of origin uN, and a probability of fixation, p. This view may be
applied, not just to neutral evolution, but to adaptive changes (eqn.
7, p. 627).

JE;-
Mathematics is not a science. Mistaking good mathematics for good science is
repeated ab nauseum within polycentric Neo Darwinian argument. Initially, as
far as the subject as to exactly how mutation can validly be incorporated
into evolutionary theory, science only concerns itself with two basic
issues: mutation as a RANDOM PROCESS and mutation NOT as just a RANDOM
PROCESS. It should be self evident that a rate of origin uN, and a
probability of fixation, p that is _not provided by just a proposed random
process_ can only be provided by Darwinian natural selection_ because this
represents the only NON random evolutionary process that we know of. To
refute this, please provide a different NON random process to Darwinian
natural selection which is not subject to it.

I refer reader's to the following correspondence available at the nature
site for free if you join:-

Nature Reviews Genetics 8, (November 2007) | doi:10.1038/nrg2158-c1
Mutation rate variation in eukaryotes: evolutionary implications of
site-specific mechanisms
D. G. King & Y. Kashi

Kashi writes:
"Following historical precedent, Baer et al.1 consistently refer to "the
mutation rate" as if a single value could adequately summarize the complex
outcome of many diverse mutational mechanisms. However, such a simplistic
statistic should no longer be tolerated, at least not without precise
qualification such as "average rate of nucleotide substitutions within
protein-coding sequences. Even then, somatic mutability of antibody genes
demonstrates that localized hypermutation can be exploited by adaptive
evolution2. Site-specific sources of germline mutation are also familiar, as
evidenced by the prolific variation that is produced by simple sequence
repeats (SSRs; microsatellites and minisatellites)3.

Any single,RANDOM base rate of mutation was and remains non selectable (the
rate not the product) because it is provided by just a proposed random
process. If "such a simplistic statistic should no longer be tolerated"
then ways and means by which the non random process of selection can alter
mutation rates above and below any proposed random base rate has to be
proposed and tested to refutation.

Typically, Kashi discussion continues his discussion _without ever
separating a proposed non selectable random base rate of mutation from
entirely selectable non random rates of mutation_:

"Traditionally, theoretical discussion also assumes that recombination in
diploid organisms must eventually separate 'mutator alleles' from resulting
mutations, thereby preventing mutators from 'hitch-hiking' on selection for
beneficial mutants1. However, recombination cannot unlink site-specific
mutational mechanisms, such as those based on SSRs, from the mutations that
they generate. Hence, selection for any beneficial mutation at a mutable
site must also, indirectly, favour the site's intrinsic mutability."

Kashi concludes with just bog standard Darwinian reasoning:
"The best evidence for positive selection of sites with high mutation rates
comes from the SSR-based contingency genes of haploid microorganisms10. In
eukaryotes, the reported abundances, genomic distributions, phylogenetic
conservation and patterns of variation for SSRs are also strongly suggestive
of positive selection4, 6, 7. The utility of SSR mutability for adaptive
evolution has already been implicated in several cases, including skeletal
evolution of domestic dogs5, temperature compensation of the Drosophila
melanogaster circadian clock11, 12, 13 and social behaviour of voles14,
among others7. Whether such mutable sites somehow prevail in spite of their
high mutability (as conventional theory requires), or whether indirect
selection for their high mutability is the reason for their prevalence8, 9,
remains to be established. In either case, the special characteristics of
site-specific mutational mechanisms deserve attention in any future
consideration of mutation rate evolution."

This view contrasts with the MS view in which there is
only one "principle" or "category of explanation", in which natural
selection is the "ultimate source of explanation" and is understood to
"control" or "govern" evolution.

JE:-
IOW just the one, same, refutable frame of reference exists as the most
critical part of any theory. In this case it is the Darwinian frame because
this presents the only empirically falsifiable frame that we have. The
problem is Neo Darwinians have not identified it because they embrace self
contradictory polcentricity. I propose that the Darwinian monocentric frame
minimally consists of (as does any valid single frame) two parts which
represent the one, same non reversible nested set. In this case this is a
Darwinian single unit of selection (the adult fertile organism) nested
within Total Darwinian Fitness (TDF) as my proposed Darwinian fitness
maximand where what is heritable within each monocentric Darwinian unit of
selection can only limits what TDF can select. IOW, TDF 100% controls what
is selected while just a proposed random base rate of mutation 100% limits
what can be selected. A proposed random base rate of mutation provides just
non selectable rates of heritable VARIATION and not a rate of "evolution".
Unless a random base rate of heritable variation pre existed life, no life
could have evolved on Earth.

That is, recognizing two fundamental factors is different from
recognizing only one. 2 is not 1.

JE;-
BOTH you and Neo Darwinian's you dispute have failed to recognise that both
of these must be incorporated within the one, same falsifiable frame of
refernce to make any scientific sense otherwise they will only make
mathematical sense. Both yourself and the Neo Darwinian's that you dispute
are attempting to get away with deploying a pre Galilean epistemology.

Edser tries, and fails, to resuscitate his quaint 19th-century
Darwinian view by saying that one of these two factors "100% controls"
evolution and the other "100 % limits" evolution, with the implication
that this somehow returns us to the one-factor view.

JE:-
"Quaint" mathematics cannot substitute for hard (empirically falsifiable)
science. Here is the empirically falsifiable basis to what I claim: TDF
represents the ONLY way to halt all Darwinian Evolution by Natural
Selection. Only by artificially maintaining the TDF of each fitness
independent selectee to remain exactly the same within the one, same
experimental natural population for as long as it can stand it can Darwinian
evolution be halted entirely for a time. Only via this proposed experiment
can the non random process of Darwinian evolution be _empirically separated_
from just the random base rate of mutation which can only provide heritable
variation and NOT "evolution". Polycentric Neo Darwinism continues against
all reason, NOT to separate "heritable variation" from "evolution" reducing
evolutionary theory to just a non falsifiable belief (please refer to many
discussions on this topic involving Dr Moran). It is this uncorrected
epistemological error which provides the source of most of this ongoing
confusion. Put as simply as possible: a proposed random process which is not
critically incorporated into a non random process within the one, same
falsifiable theory is not a scientific theory of anything.

snip just emotionally based invective<

Attempts to elevate
selection to the status of a special force uniquely governing
evolution must fail because, in fact, selection is not uniquely
governing evolution.

JE:-
Then what does? Just nothing at all?

Either answer the question or provide reader's with an apology.

Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

edser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

.

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