The ‘Darwinist Inquisition’ Starts Another Round

http://www.pfm.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=BreakPoint1&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=169

[orionblamblam]

> Looks like it applies to you.

No, not really. I hardly ever take personally the ravings of drooling loonies.

[inquest]

Why don't you post some of its context and find out? Or you could just go back and read it at #429.

[orionblamblam]

> Somebody needs a hug.

A lesson in the scientific method would be better for you than a hug.

[orionblamblam]

Did so. Didn't get any better the fourth time around.

[porkchops 4 mahound]

Now there's a deeply intellectual and rational "Scientific" approach.

I like you too.

Really.

[inquest]

The ones closest to wild dogs will be the most likely to survive and breed.

But their descendants will continue to revert, will they not?

There is nothing inconsistent with domestic animals being the result of both selective breeding and mutation.

I didn't say there was. What I was wondering was whether the changes that happen on a timescale necessary to introduce new breeds can realistically come about entirely through mutations, or if they necessarily come about mostly through other factors that might alter the genotype.

[porkchops 4 mahound]

See, then read post # 429, then try to read post # 485.

You seem, tense.

[orionblamblam]

> Now there's a deeply intellectual and rational "Scientific" approach.

Actually, it's the best way to go. I've worked in the space propulsion area for a decade, and have been approached many times by what can only be described as lunatics who have invented perpetual motion machines, warp drives, inertialess drives, etc. (my favorite was the nut who believed the old Convair B-36 - the one with six piston engines - was secretly capable of orbital flight). Any effort to explain basic physics to them is often met with spluttering rage.

You get to know the type, and you get to know what to do about them. It carries across the various scientific fields. So as with the UFO nuts and perpetual motion quacks, the best way to deal with the incredibly anti-science Creationism/ID crowd is to point and laugh, and not take their ravings personally.

[orionblamblam]

> You seem, tense.

[Wormwood]

LOL!

[inquest]

Well, others can do the same, and judge whether or not it's you who's making an appeal for ignorance by deliberately eliminating the context from the statement.

[inquest]

You seem, tense.

I noticed that too. He's feeling backed into a corner, so he's hoping he can divert his way out of it with cartoons.

[js1138]

What do you mean by mostly? Living thing things differ in their tolerance or variation and mutation. Some species are so tightly wound up that small variations are fatal. Dogs are very plastic, both in the amount of variation carried in recessive traits, and in their tolerance for mutation.

Domestic dogs are even more plastic because they don't have to feed themselves and have medical care. When the welfare system abandons them, most will die or fail to breed. The ones with the fewest handicapping traits will have the most offspring.

[inquest]

What do you mean by mostly?

I mean that mutations are only going to occur at a certain rate, even with animals that have a high tolerance for them. So that led me to think that maybe breeding relies mostly on some other means of altering the genotype in order to result in changes that take place on a timescale that's a little shorter than geological.

[porkchops 4 mahound]

Yes, I'm sure that you are a "Scientific" legend in your own mind.

What is so entertaining to me, is your simple child like belief, that you, (perhaps by dint of superior "Scientficness"?), KNOWS the TRUTH!
Which is engraved in solid rock, and NOT open to question or doubt.

So, "legend", how come standard manufacturing practices calls 3 sigma points from center, in either direction, from the center of a standard Gaussian distribution, "ALWAYS"?

How come "legend"? It's 68% of the area, that leaves 32% (thats 16% at either end of the distribution), that is not "ALWAYS".

But "Science" says "ALWAYS" is 68 out of 100.

Gee willikers Bat-boy, infinity is not modeled accurately with just integers.

You really are a most entertaining Darwinian fundamentalist.

[porkchops 4 mahound]

Comic books are what I'd expect from Darwinian fundamentalists.

[porkchops 4 mahound]

They get real rabid, real quick, when you dare question their religion.

Just like the execrable islamists.

All the while screaming, "accepted SCIENCE!", "SCIENCE I tells Ya!", "SCIENCE!!"

[js1138]

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1010/1010_01.asp

[Cephalalgia]

Evolutionists claim that this 'speciation' occurs over a long period of time. The physical reality is that this is a myth unsupported by the facts. The reality is that what they call 'speciation' must occur at some point between one set of 'parents' and their offspring. even they know this is a ridiculous suggestion, but they cannot explain how it could be otherwise other than to say it is a result of gradual changes. Of course, there is no evidence for it; but they believe it anyway.

I don't think they literally mean between a parent and a child. As I understand it, it works like this:

A population of a given animal lives in an area. They can interbreed because, of course, they share enough DNA, being members of the same species. They experience genetic mutations, but since these are so gradual their interbreeding causes them to be spread around, preventing speciation. This crossbreeding serves as a "control" of sorts.

Then a subset of that population migrates away. Population A (the guys who stayed put) and population B (the guys who left) are then isolated by something -- a glacier, a sea, whatever. Pop A and pop B continue to experience genetic mutations as before, but now they can't "average" out their mutations with each other because they're physically separated. Since the mutations are chaotic, they each experience different types of mutations in different patterns.

Eventually, the DNA of one or both of these populations mutates so much that they no longer share enough genetic material to crossbreed. At this point, even if they were brought back into each other's physical location (the glacier retreats), they won't be able to re-merge into a single species. They've lost their "control." They're now genetically free to spiral off into completely different beasts, depending on which niche of the food chain they end up inhabiting.

It basically works just like language.

[Cephalalgia]

In order for the universe to succumb to complete entropy, every particle needs to have a velocity (zero) and a position (equidistant from each other).

That sounds to me like a highly ordered state. Wouldn't that be zero entropy? Or am I misunderstanding you?

Sorry, you're right. I was thinking the "big whimper" would involve zero velocity, which would necessitate equidistant particles. If the particles were continuing to move away from each other, they wouldn't need to be equidistant.