Re: mottainai

Kevin Wayne Williams wrote:
> Curt Fischer wrote:
>
>>Paul Blay wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Nobody heard of selective quoting?
>>>
>>>"Curt Fischer" wrote ...
>>>*massive snip*
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>No one has made any sort of verifiably correct prediction related to
>>>>evolution in higher eukaryotes yet, to my knowledge.
>>>
>>>
>>>http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
>>>
>>>"This article is specifically intended for those who are scientifically
>>>minded
>>>but, for one reason or another, have come to believe that
>>>macroevolutionary theory explains little, makes few or no *testable
>>>predictions*, is unfalsifiable, or has not been scientifically
>>>demonstrated."
>>>
>>>This not being my area of expertise I shall merely post link & quote and
>>>then
>>>leave the rest to you two.
>>
>>
>>Your link was very, very good. I am much better informed for having
>>read through (some of) it. I am now convinced that the theory of
>>macroevolution has made countless quantitative predictions and emerged
>>unscathed every time.
>>
>>The predictions are all abstract and statistical in nature, which is one
>>reason why they may be inaccessible to some laypeople.
>
>
> A lot of it is that word "predict", which people seem to want to use
> only for future events. For example, evolution predicts that there will
> be a strong correlation between an ancestry tree derived from gene
> sequence similarities and one derived from the examination of the fossil
> record. Both in the past, but still a valid prediction.
>
> My favorite prediction: if Gish et al. are right, and types were
> specially created, evolution only causes variations within types, and
> most speciation has occurred since the flood, then there will be a
> strong correlation between the genetic diversity of a species and its
> status in the Hebrew dietary code, as Noah took the unclean two by two,
> and the clean seven by seven. I don't know of anyone that has invested
> the funds to test this prediction.
>
> There are a few
>
>>assumptions and models inherent in the use of the statistical
>>techniques. These are for the most part unanimously accepted in the
>>scientific community, but have not, as far as I know, been conclusively
>>demonstrated.
>>
>>1. The assumption that sequence determines function but that function
>>does not determine sequence has not, to my knowledge, been tested over a
>>wide range of biochemical functions to a high degree of statistical
>>significance. Such a test may be difficult or infeasible because of the
>>impracticality of searching more than a tiny fraction of the available
>>sequence space.
>>(http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#independent_consilience)
>
> I'm a little lost on this objection. Could you describe a mechanism
> whereby function could determine sequence?

I didn't mean "determine" in a mechanistic sense but in a statistical
sense. For example, considere cytochrome c. It is 325 amino acids
long. There are about 10^429 possible amino acid sequences of this
length. Let's refer to these 10^429 or so possible sequences as the
"sequence space" of cytochrome c.

The evolutionary hypothesis is that all cytochrome c's are related in
sequence (or equivalently are close to each other in sequence space)
because they came from a common ancestor. The assumption is that there
are many other possible functional implementations of cytochrome c in
sequence space, with sequences unrelated to known cytochrome c's, but
that they were never encountered during evolution's random (and highly
inefficient) search of this huge set of possibilities.

People have not, to my knowledge, artificially constructed a functional
cytochrome c protein dissimilar in sequence to all known cytochrome c's.
The problem is identifying the subset of the 10^429 sequences that have
cytochrome c function and comparing it to the subset of sequences that
are related to known cytochrome c's. The former subset should be much
bigger than the latter. Otherwise, the strong relationship between
sequence-based phylogenies and phenotype-based phylogenies is not
supportive of evolution. The problem is that 99.99999999999999999% or
more of the sequences will not be in either subset, but there is no
good, unbiased way to search through the 10^429 possibilities
experimentally to enumerate either subset.

People identified functional variants of certain genes (e.g.the enzyme
triose phosphate isomerase) that are sequentially unrelated to all known
ones (but not for the above example of cytochrome c). They certainly
haven't done it in general for a wide variety of genes. Because the
search is too hard, i.e. impossible. Everyone believes the assumption
is true, but is hasn't been capital-R Rigorously capital-V Verified.

--
Curt Fischer




>>2. The distinction between objective and subjective hierarchical
>>classifications is not well enough defined.
>>(http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#nested_hierarchy)
>>
>>By and large, though, this is site is lucid, exhaustive, and mostly
>>accurate. I completely reverse my former opinion.
>
>
> For simply interesting reading, I recommend Richard Dawkins' books. If
> you can only find time for one, "The Selfish Gene" is the one to get,
> but "Climbing Mount Improbable" and "The Blind Watchmaker" are well
> worth reading.
>
>>Incidentally, technical objection #2 above might even be on-topic to
>>this newsgroup.
>>
>>The site says:
>>
>>
>>
>>>In contrast, human languages, which have common ancestors and are
>>>derived by descent with modification, generally can be classified
>>>in objective nested hierarchies (Pei 1949; Ringe 1999). Nobody
>>>would reasonably argue that Spanish should be categorized with
>>>German instead of with Portugese.
>>
>>
>>If language classification were so objective I wonder why people seem to
>>get in arguments about it all the time? Maybe this would be a good time
>>for "adapt" to pipe in.
>
>
> Do people get in arguments about it all the time? My (reasonably
> educated layperson) impression is that the relationships between most
> languages are generally accepted by all linguists, and the arguments are
> about some of the relationships between languages that split very early,
> and a few of the extremely isolated languages, such as Japanese.
> Certainly, no one argues much about the relationship between Spanish and
> Portuguese, or English/German/Dutch/Afrikaans.
>
> My personal theory these days is that Dutch is simply a severe throat
> infection that got mistaken for a dialect of German about 500 years ago.
> I have not found widespread academic support for this belief yet, but I
> am working on it.
>
> KWW
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The Theory of Evolution is a mathematically irrational belief system
    ... cytochrome c is the same protein ... in humans, flies, and yeast, even though its sequence differs. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Of Mice and Straw Men
    ... But you claim that it evolved from a random sequence by a random ... evolution will never make it off this island to any other at the same ... Functions like lactase, nylonase, cytochrome c, and other such ... The neutral gaps ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: The Relationship of Gaps to Thresholds
    ... That is NOT what your math says. ... really meant by his ratio is NOT cytochrome c sequences to total ... from some random sequence until some keystone sequence is reached. ... function-based selection kick in. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Most valuable poster
    ... The 'number of fairly specified aa residues' is a bogus, ... affinity for cytochrome c1, ... that the protein that lacks this function is necessarily useless. ... it is clear that the % of a protein's aa sequence that is ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: mottainai
    ... but still a valid prediction. ... The assumption that sequence determines function but that function ... I'm a little lost on this objection. ... languages are generally accepted by all linguists, ...
    (sci.lang.japan)