tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post7843705464307382106..comments2024-03-27T14:50:47.345-04:00Comments on <center>Sandwalk</center>: Motoo Kimura calculates a biochemical mutation rate in 1968Larry Moranhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05756598746605455848noreply@blogger.comBlogger93125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-47177020196355561692015-12-05T10:02:02.089-05:002015-12-05T10:02:02.089-05:00I see. About ST, if Tibetian does not group with S...<i>I see. About ST, if Tibetian does not group with Sino, any thought which one it may group with?</i><br /><br />Again, Sino-Tibetan studies are not my speciality, but the current consensus seems to be that the traditional Sinitic vs. Tibeto-Burman classification can't be correct. If Sino-Tibetan is a valid grouping in the first place, Tibeto-Burman is paraphyletic with respect to Sinitic (or, if Laurent Sagart is right, with respect to a larger clade consisting of Sinitic plus Austronesian, and containing Tai-Kadai as one of the branches of Austronesian).<br /><br />Tibeto-Burman is a huge group, with ca. 400 languages subgrouped into about 40 established "branches". Most of them are underresearched, so much fieldwork needs to be done before we gather enough evidence to sort out their family relationships.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-6368449047104101132015-12-05T09:24:07.779-05:002015-12-05T09:24:07.779-05:00Bacteria typically have 30% within species nucleot...Bacteria typically have 30% within species nucleotide diversity (difference per site). The new definition in the genome era for a bacteria species is that individuals within a species have less than 30% genome wide difference. If more than 30%, the two individual would present different species.gnomonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03362808932731126552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-77656998957467275542015-12-05T09:12:12.866-05:002015-12-05T09:12:12.866-05:00“Compared with lancelets, modern vertebrates retai...“Compared with lancelets, modern vertebrates retain, at least relatively, less protein diversity, fewer nucleotide polymorphisms, domain<br />combinations and conserved non-coding elements (CNE). Modern vertebrates also lost substantial transposable element (TE) diversity,”<br /><br />Taken from the abstract from a recent paper on whole genome sequencing analysis of primitive lancelet, which showed much greater SNP diversity that humans (4.5% vs 0.1%).<br /><br />http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/141219/ncomms6896/abs/ncomms6896.html#affil-authgnomonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03362808932731126552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-23202627930591813972015-12-05T08:08:28.697-05:002015-12-05T08:08:28.697-05:00I see. About ST, if Tibetian does not group with S...I see. About ST, if Tibetian does not group with Sino, any thought which one it may group with?gnomonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03362808932731126552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-6065988057292349272015-12-04T16:15:11.023-05:002015-12-04T16:15:11.023-05:00Re: "Pure" Dravidian.
First of all, Dra...Re: "Pure" Dravidian.<br /><br />First of all, Dravidian is not a language but a language family with about 30 members (and ca. 80 major dialects). All of them have absorbed some Indo-Aryan influence, but not to the same degree. You can see that if you concentrate on any particular part of the language system. For example, some Dravidian languages have retained the inherited Dravidian numerals; others have kept 1, 2, and 3, but replaced 4-10 with Indo-Aryan numerals; a few also have an Indo-Aryan word for 3. I'm not a spoecialist in Dravidian, but from what I have read, influence diffusing from the vernacular Indo-Aryan languages of the "Middle IA" period (the so-called Prakrits) affected mainly the "low caste" (popular, colloquial) varieties of the Dravidian languages. I suppose the most prestigious, Sanskrit-like varieties of Indo-Aryan had more impact on their "high" (formal, literary) styles.<br /><br />The known Dravidian languages probably diverged from a common ancestor less than three thousand years ago. Throughout their reconstructible history they have been in contact with Indo-Aryan, so quite naturally there has been a lot of reciprocal borrowing and grammatical influence.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-86622381848750610622015-12-04T08:12:18.132-05:002015-12-04T08:12:18.132-05:00But that is not justification for a priori invalid...<i>But that is not justification for a priori invalid and completely wild or anything goes kind of speculations or assumptions</i><br /><br />So why are you still writing?judmarchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03111006189037693272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-32854250717468607332015-12-03T23:48:23.665-05:002015-12-03T23:48:23.665-05:00Lynch as quoted by Moran:”Because it deals with ob...Lynch as quoted by Moran:”Because it deals with observations on historical outcomes, often in the face of incomplete information on intermediate steps (especially at the molecular level), the field of evolution attracts significantly more speculation than the average area of science.”<br /><br />But that is not justification for a priori invalid and completely wild or anything goes kind of speculations or assumptions that are widespread like weeds in the evolutionary science, as a priori valid ideas do not depend on real world experience and are independent of “historical outcomes” regardless whether one has or has not complete information about them. <br /><br />Real hard core science and mathematics (which happens do describe this world better than anything else) are all based on a priori valid speculations or axioms. <br />gnomonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03362808932731126552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-54760170482871114762015-12-03T23:42:31.124-05:002015-12-03T23:42:31.124-05:00Oops, I meant to say Lower caste. I guess the Drav...Oops, I meant to say Lower caste. I guess the Dravidian Upper caste would be more influenced by Indo-European than the Lower and the Tribal.gnomonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03362808932731126552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-79646627178288606642015-12-03T23:01:09.615-05:002015-12-03T23:01:09.615-05:00Piotr,
Which is the more authentic Dravidian langu...Piotr,<br />Which is the more authentic Dravidian language less influenced by Indo-European, Dravidian Tribal or Dravidian Upper caste? <br /><br />Regarding the inconsistency between language and genetics, just keep in mind the fact that the popgen theory has yet to make sense of the riddle of genetic diversity. <br />gnomonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03362808932731126552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-28649066292662457182015-12-03T10:37:21.334-05:002015-12-03T10:37:21.334-05:00I will make sure that he will regret for saying it...<i>I will make sure that he will regret for saying it and soon.</i><br /><br />Only if you have his email address.<br /><br />Look, you've got a one-note focus on an interesting unsolved problem in the population genetics subtopic of evolutionary theory: genetic diversity vs. population size. And you've got quotes from people, or citations to papers, calling attention to this as an interesting problem. They don't, however, go on to say this calls all of evolutionary theory or even population genetics into question. And they don't, on the basis of exactly no evidence or logic, go on to say this must necessarily mean the old BS about special creation must be true. Only you have done that. Have you ever thought there might be a reason you're alone in this, and that it might not be superiority of intellect?judmarchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03111006189037693272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-71697204082694653802015-12-03T10:31:57.996-05:002015-12-03T10:31:57.996-05:00Let's face it: Gnomon used a quote from Lewin ...Let's face it: Gnomon used a quote from Lewin in an attempt to support some kind of unspecified saltation, in which a new species is formed in one step from a single mutation in a single individual. That's quote-mining writ large.John Harshmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06705501480675917237noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-33584892192402477322015-12-03T09:52:36.226-05:002015-12-03T09:52:36.226-05:00What do you mean? There's some correlation bet...What do you mean? There's some <i>correlation</i> between biological and cultural inheritance. Most modern Irish people had mostly Celtic-speaking ancestors, and most of them have English (a Germanic language) as their mother tongue. The Indo-Aryan languages (derived from Indo-European) are the largest linguistic grouping in the Indian subcontinent, but their speakers have biologically more in common with their Dravidian or Austroasiatic-speaking neighbours that with Indo-European speaking Swedes, Italians or Russians. The same goes for other widely spoken families (whose spread has involved migration, intermarriage and language shifts).Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-86327058856335729692015-12-03T09:48:01.650-05:002015-12-03T09:48:01.650-05:00Michael Lynch is famous for saying and for having ...Michael Lynch is famous for saying and for having it highlighted in his website;"nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of population genetics." I will make sure that he will regret for saying it and soon. And given the riddle paper (Lefler et al 2012) I cited above, it is astonishing that he could be plain blind to so many riddles to which his beloved popgen theory is powerless.<br />gnomonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03362808932731126552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-60218106570353217552015-12-03T09:42:14.370-05:002015-12-03T09:42:14.370-05:00"This would be relevant if language were tran..."This would be relevant if language were transmitted biologically."<br /><br />It almost surely is based on a priori reasoning as well as modern experience, isn't it?gnomonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03362808932731126552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-43685872544402651132015-12-03T08:39:42.617-05:002015-12-03T08:39:42.617-05:00Shi Huang (gnomon) writes,
One can invite the who...Shi Huang (gnomon) writes,<br /><br /><i>One can invite the whole 6 billion people on Earth to quote mine a sentence from any evolutionary science expert to the effect that the evolutionary theory has no weakness whatsoever, and I promise that no one would be able to find one.</i><br /><br />Perhaps not. But here's a quote from Michael Lynch who has little use for people like you (my emphasis) ...<br /><br /><i>Because it deals with observations on historical outcomes, often in the face of incomplete information on intermediate steps (especially at the molecular level), the field of evolution attracts significantly more speculation than the average area of science. Nevertheless, the substantial body of well-tested theory established over the past century lays the groundwork for understanding the pathways that are open to evolutionary exploration in various population genetic contexts, providing guidance as to the likely reality of alternative evolutionary hypotheses. Because the nonadaptive forces of mutation, recombination, and random genetic drift are now readily estimated in multiple species using molecular data, <b>there is no longer any justification for rejecting the utility of population genetic theory based on its quantitative unreliability.</b></i><br /><br />Michael Lynch in <i>The origins of Genome Architecture</i> p. 389<br />Larry Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05756598746605455848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-70660853451185407692015-12-03T08:30:16.046-05:002015-12-03T08:30:16.046-05:00Against the ST grouping, Y chr D type is very comm...<i>Against the ST grouping, Y chr D type is very common in Tibetians but rare in Chinese, and D groups with E common in Africans and Middle East people and some Europeans.</i><br /><br />This would be relevant if language were transmitted biologically.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-81236143818685717902015-12-03T07:51:49.915-05:002015-12-03T07:51:49.915-05:00One can invite the whole 6 billion people on Earth...<i>One can invite the whole 6 billion people on Earth to quote mine a sentence from any evolutionary science expert to the effect that the evolutionary theory has no weakness whatsoever, and I promise that no one would be able to find one.</i><br /><br />I haven't seen all the evolutionary biology departments closing down their research labs, have you? Guess that means all the answers aren't known yet, and people are still disagreeing and questioning. That's the way science works, when the disagreement and questions are based on a curiosity about real answers, rather than an attempt to validate some crackpot notion in the face of all evidence and logic to the contrary.judmarchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03111006189037693272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-30661391591670474502015-12-03T07:48:06.759-05:002015-12-03T07:48:06.759-05:00Lewontin was far more outright as a young guy in 1...<i>Lewontin was far more outright as a young guy in 1974 when he wrote his famous book than he is now regarding his view on the the weakness of the popgen theory</i><br /><br />You mean back when he was one of the leading supporters and explicators of the nearly neutral theory you are now trying to quote-mine him as opposing?judmarchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03111006189037693272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-83374959726700712582015-12-03T07:38:40.251-05:002015-12-03T07:38:40.251-05:00Political correctness is poisoning everything, inc...<i>Political correctness is poisoning everything, including science.</i><br /><br />Your interpretation of Piotr's point is so invalid it spawned a non sequitur.<br />SRMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07299706694667706149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-12447736864392282892015-12-03T07:36:58.144-05:002015-12-03T07:36:58.144-05:00One can invite the whole 6 billion people on Earth...One can invite the whole 6 billion people on Earth to quote mine a sentence from any evolutionary science expert to the effect that the evolutionary theory has no weakness whatsoever, and I promise that no one would be able to find one.gnomonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03362808932731126552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-46333582315733757982015-12-03T07:22:47.553-05:002015-12-03T07:22:47.553-05:00Ed,
That was an autobiography not a novel. wishfu...Ed,<br /><br />That was an autobiography not a novel. wishful thinking? Besides, we have not heard any complaints from Bombieri. And common sense reading of these quotes is enough for anyone to understand their meanings even without context. Or else these authors would be too sloppy with their words and they are not.gnomonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03362808932731126552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-50030868861274260452015-12-03T07:15:08.700-05:002015-12-03T07:15:08.700-05:00Against the ST grouping, Y chr D type is very comm...Against the ST grouping, Y chr D type is very common in Tibetians but rare in Chinese, and D groups with E common in Africans and Middle East people and some Europeans.<br /><br /> gnomonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03362808932731126552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-62808788563392883742015-12-03T07:08:52.915-05:002015-12-03T07:08:52.915-05:00Lewontin was far more outright as a young guy in 1...Lewontin was far more outright as a young guy in 1974 when he wrote his famous book than he is now regarding his view on the the weakness of the popgen theory, even though the theory has changed little in the past several decades.gnomonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03362808932731126552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-34394588556485360472015-12-03T07:02:31.288-05:002015-12-03T07:02:31.288-05:00"which is not compatible with the author'..."which is not compatible with the author's position visible in the wider context"<br /><br />Political correctness is poisoning everything, including science.gnomonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03362808932731126552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-65898898750745923462015-12-03T06:59:23.522-05:002015-12-03T06:59:23.522-05:00That is very interesting to learn that ST grouping...That is very interesting to learn that ST grouping may not be as real as it was once thought and there may be a Chinese-Austronesian grouping. Thank you. Maybe Y and mtDNA analysis can help. Chinese Y chr O and European R shared a most recent common ancestor and so the sharing of some words, while not enough to be an independent evidence, is at least consistent with a common ancestor in language. If so, there is the next controversial topic of who gave rise to who. It seems that there are supporters and evidence on both sides, right?gnomonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03362808932731126552noreply@blogger.com