tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post82395696368796569..comments2024-03-27T14:50:47.345-04:00Comments on <center>Sandwalk</center>: Breaking news: Creationist Vincent Torley lies and moves goalpostsLarry Moranhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05756598746605455848noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-34403719466903278402014-04-03T11:28:30.318-04:002014-04-03T11:28:30.318-04:00Dung is one of the dumber IDiots, and that is real...Dung is one of the dumber IDiots, and that is really saying something, but he really thinks he's sharp. With his wit and a butter knife, he could cut butter.Diogeneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15551943619872944637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-35975817803491801162014-04-03T11:04:21.317-04:002014-04-03T11:04:21.317-04:00Re John Harshman
I am afraid that you and I are j...Re John Harshman<br /><br />I am afraid that you and I are just going to have to agree to disagree on this subject, hopefully not disagreeably.colnago80https://www.blogger.com/profile/02640567775340860582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-32904816815335616582014-04-03T10:08:41.864-04:002014-04-03T10:08:41.864-04:00Larry: BTW, don't read the comments under Torl...Larry: <i>BTW, don't read the comments under Torley's post. It can be very depressing</i>. <br /><br />It can be quite amusing too. The following could be part of a Monty Python sketch:<br /><br />---<br /><br />15<br />Mung April 2, 2014 at 6:22 pm<br />RodW:<br /><br /><i>1. Are there good reasons to think that there have been muutations/genes that have been positively selected in the human lineage or is this just evolutionists making stuff up?</i><br /><br />No.<br /><br />---<br /><br />16<br />MungApril 2, 2014 at 6:23 pm<br />RodW:<br /><br /><i>1. Are there good reasons to think that there have been muutations/genes that have been positively selected in the human lineage or is this just evolutionists making stuff up?</i><br /><br />I mean Yes.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-23576065672244899772014-04-03T07:58:24.393-04:002014-04-03T07:58:24.393-04:00Mind: The "update" is in the beginning o...Mind: The "update" is in the beginning of the text, not at the end.Corneelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02884855837357720225noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-48784486495229318262014-04-03T07:20:46.575-04:002014-04-03T07:20:46.575-04:00The last paragraph of the "Update":
http...The last paragraph of the "Update":<br />http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/can-the-neutral-theory-of-evolution-explain-what-makes-us-human/Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-86610049431117872312014-04-03T07:16:07.417-04:002014-04-03T07:16:07.417-04:00Where does he say that? I can't find it.Where does he say that? I can't find it.Larry Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05756598746605455848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-59878912573105054492014-04-03T04:15:08.809-04:002014-04-03T04:15:08.809-04:00Yes, I too believe this is the case. Here is how V...Yes, I too believe this is the case. Here is how Vincent Torley puts it himself in his update:<br /><i>What I do think is that they, like most human beings, are prone to ideological bias against viewpoints which they find profoundly uncongenial, and that in attempting to discredit these viewpoints, they are liable to be swayed by emotion rather than reason.</i><br />...except that he was talking about evolutionary biologists rather than self-reflecting.Corneelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02884855837357720225noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-74923274015682535722014-04-02T21:26:19.529-04:002014-04-02T21:26:19.529-04:00colnago80. I reiterate: it isn't Larry's d...colnago80. I reiterate: it isn't Larry's degree or any claims to keep up with the literature that tell us Larry knows the subject; it's what he says, which demonstrates that he knows. It isn't Torley's lack of a degree or anything about the literature (has he even said whether he does or doesn't read it?) that tell us he doesn't know; it's what he says, which demonstrates his ignorant. These supposed credentials you mentioned are irrelevant. Credentials are nothing; actions are everything.John Harshmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06705501480675917237noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-75064411928712745542014-04-02T21:21:04.961-04:002014-04-02T21:21:04.961-04:00...neutral or slightly deleterious, i.e. nearly ne......neutral or slightly deleterious, i.e. nearly neutral.John Harshmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06705501480675917237noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-18645089395764424992014-04-02T20:21:19.248-04:002014-04-02T20:21:19.248-04:00I wonder why neither Torley nor any of his fellow ...I wonder why neither Torley nor any of his fellow IDiots have been discomfitted by the fact that they are now arguing in favour of Darwinism.Faizal Alihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00937075798809265805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-62699150136565169002014-04-02T20:19:38.021-04:002014-04-02T20:19:38.021-04:00Now, Torley has displayed copious ignorance of bio...<i>Now, Torley has displayed copious ignorance of biology. That's the point. How he gained all that ignorance is irrelevant.</i><br /><br />I'd always understood philosophy to be the discipline that best understood logic and how to form a rational argument. In which case. Torley has shown he is incompetent in his own field. Faizal Alihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00937075798809265805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-70835455579785240892014-04-02T19:11:10.650-04:002014-04-02T19:11:10.650-04:00Diogenes,
Don't hide.... this is not going to...Diogenes,<br /><br />Don't hide.... this is not going to change your "religion".. You lost....<br />Your shitty science is just as good as garbage... You , liked LM have spent your life trying to find a way around the obvious.... Larry doesn't give a shit about that, but you might unofficially of course...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-76668203055871861652014-04-02T18:47:14.091-04:002014-04-02T18:47:14.091-04:00Oh no, Stephen Meyer of the DiscoTute makes someth...Oh no, Stephen Meyer of the DiscoTute makes something like $92K per year IIRC. Some of them are quite well paid. People like Casey Luskin and David Klinghoffer would have no other jobs if not for their cushy, secure jobs at the DiscoTute, with travel expenses to fly around the country and lobby far right-wing politicians. Maybe they started out believing it, but when it's been your career for several years, you've got no other options for paying the rent.Diogeneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15551943619872944637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-44927550305855514752014-04-02T18:14:58.691-04:002014-04-02T18:14:58.691-04:00Thanks to the three of you for your replies. The ...Thanks to the three of you for your replies. The estimates were 30, 40, and 46 million mutations, with Dr. Moran suggesting 2 million indels. If we take EvoAnth's ~600 million bases would make the average indel size 300 bases? While keeping in mind the unknowns Dr. Moran mentioned above.<br /><br />Taking "a few thousand in each lineage" compared to ~30-46 million total, that would mean about one out of ten thousand mutations fixed during primate evolution are adaptive, and the rest are neutral or deleterious?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-15570353302275591872014-04-02T17:41:31.562-04:002014-04-02T17:41:31.562-04:00Upton Sinclair wrote: "It is difficult to get...Upton Sinclair wrote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Substitute "belief system" for "salary" and you have Intelligent Design Creationists.Leshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07981632411780795196noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-35311878365866839002014-04-02T17:25:46.935-04:002014-04-02T17:25:46.935-04:00Diogenes: at the time of the MathGrrl thread, most...Diogenes: at the time of the MathGrrl thread, most everyone thought that Dembski's assertion was that the observation of CSI was how one decided that natural processes could not produce an adaptation.<br /><br />So it seemed very relevant to find out whether natural processes could increase SI, and ultimately make it into CSI. ID-ists usually tried to show that this couldn't happen, and they argued that Dembski's Law of Conservation of Complex Specified Information prevented it from happening.<br /><br />But since then, Demsbki has clarified that this was not his argument. Instead, to declare the presence of CSI, <i>you first had to show that natural processes could not have brought about that amount of SI</i>. In other words, you first had to rule out natural processes, and then and only then could you declare that CSI was present.<br /><br />So, it turns out, the presence of CSI does not rule out natural processes, it is just a label you slap on after you have, by some other means, ruled them out. On short, the presence of CSI adds nothing of interest to the argument. And showing that CSI cannot be brought about by natural forces is trivial -- it's defined as that way. So we can basically forget about CSI as an important quantity for a Design Inference.Joe Felsensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359126552631140000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-27851150606012391352014-04-02T17:01:18.756-04:002014-04-02T17:01:18.756-04:00I can show up but as Larry knows the empirical dat...I can show up but as Larry knows the empirical data better than I, I'll leave it to him. Most of the differences between human and chimp genomes would represent neutral mutations, either point mutations or insertions/deletions. There will be about 30 million of these. As for selected changes (mostly advantageous but some accidentally-fixed deleterious changes too) they must be many fewer, but there isn't an easy method to assess how many there are.<br /><br />Let's put the whole discussion in perpective -- it is not about whether Larry or us commenters can completely account for human evolution. No one knows enough to claim to do that. Rather, it is about assessing creationist and ID-ist claims that there is some valid argument that shows that human evolution by the natural forces of evolution (including mutation, genetic drift and natural selection) is impossible.Joe Felsensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359126552631140000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-84773324943340335672014-04-02T16:52:55.301-04:002014-04-02T16:52:55.301-04:00Torley is one of the smarter IDers. That's dam...Torley is one of the smarter IDers. That's damning with faint praise, it's true. <br /><br />In the infamous MathGrrl thread at Uncommon Descent, where <a href="http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/on-the-non-evolution-of-irreducible-complexity-how-arthur-hunt-fails-to-refute-behe/comment-page-6/#comment-373760" rel="nofollow">MathGrrl asked the IDiots how to compute the change in Dembski's "Complex Specified Information" for the simplest conceivable genetic changes</a>, Torley was the only one with the balls to actually do a computation. His math was all f*&@ed up (he thought genes were about 100,000 bps long) but at least he <a href="http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/on-the-non-evolution-of-irreducible-complexity-how-arthur-hunt-fails-to-refute-behe/comment-page-6/#comment-373760" rel="nofollow">immediately computed that gene duplication vastly <i>increases</i> Dembski's "Complex Specified Information."</a> <br /><br />At least <a href="http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/on-the-non-evolution-of-irreducible-complexity-how-arthur-hunt-fails-to-refute-behe/comment-page-6/#comment-373760" rel="nofollow">Torley, for a brief moment, conceded that natural processes can increase Dembski's CSI.</a> Which would normally mean that ID is <b>dead dead dead</b>.<br /><br />Then he took it back, naturally. A few days later Torley wrote another post where he basically invoked the usual ID circular-logic fraud-- <a href="http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/why-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-csi-scanner-or-reasonable-and-unreasonable-demands-relating-to-complex-specified-information/" rel="nofollow">since gene duplication is a natural process that increases Dembski's CSI, and that's the answer they don't want, therefore <i>Dembski's CSI just shouldn't be computed for gene duplication events.</i></a> It's like you're doing a double blind test on a pill that's said to cure cancer. Uh-oh, you find the same number of patients who took your pill got cancer as the control group. That's easy to fix-- just say the pill doesn't work on people who will later get cancer. Problem solved! Torley's take-it-back post is entitled, and I kid you not, <b>"Why there’s no such thing as a CSI Scanner."</b> Uh-- we know why, Vince. Every time you give us a real equation for CSI, we can show by simple f&%$ing math that natural processes increase it enormously. So you damn well better not give us an equation, you ID frauds.<br /><br />Torley is also unusual among IDiots in that, in the MathGrrl thread, <a href="http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/on-the-calculation-of-csi/comment-page-7/#comment-375062" rel="nofollow">he admitted that Dembski's CSI is based on a "probability" calculation in which the "probability" is never the actual probability of the evolutionary path under consideration, but is instead the fake probability of a totally unrelated process-- the random scrambling of all parts</a>-- which I call the <b>tornado probability</b>. Dembski himself almost never admits that his CSI calculation for all natural processes is based always on tornado probability and never on the probability of real evolutionary pathways (Richard Wein got him to admit it once, sort of, but mostly Dembski obfuscates and BS's, which is one of the reasons why none of the IDiots know how to compute CSI. <i>Dembski doesn't want them to know how.</i>)<br /><br />The other IDiots, though they brag and boast they are smarter than the world's scientists, can't do long division. Multiplication troubles almost all of them. <br /><br />Look at their reaction to Larry's ultra-simplified math. Larry tried to dumb neutral evolution down to simple <i>multiplication</i> and IDiots like Sal Cordova can't understand the math. Of <i>multiplication.</i> Multi-f%^&ing-cation. It isn't even frikkin calculus. How the hell <i>should</i> we communicate with these people? Hand puppets? But every UDite think he's Galileo.Diogeneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15551943619872944637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-527986442109969652014-04-02T16:35:48.344-04:002014-04-02T16:35:48.344-04:00Re John Harshman
Let me expand on my comment to f...Re John Harshman<br /><br />Let me expand on my comment to further explain what I meant to say. Prof Moran has specialized in evolutionary biology and keeps up with the literature in the subject. Further, based on his education, background, and interests, he is fully capable of understanding the literature on the subject. He does this for a living. Not so Torley. Similarly, Sean Carroll has the necessary background in cosmology and astrophysics which he does for a living. Not so Craig.<br /><br />By the way, it is no sin that many biologists don't know much about evolutionary biology. Before he was inveigled by his students into debating Henry Morris, Ken Miller admitted that he didn't really know much about the subject either. As someone whose PhD is in elementary particle physics, I don't know much about solid state physics. Most physical chemists don't know much about organic chemistry. It's not required to do their jobs. colnago80https://www.blogger.com/profile/02640567775340860582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-44159628742269035712014-04-02T16:25:47.523-04:002014-04-02T16:25:47.523-04:00Torley said:
"In conclusion: there appear t...Torley said: <br /><br />"In conclusion: there appear to have been at least four changes in the development of the human brain over the last few million years, which can only be described as beneficial. In addition, the most recent of these changes emerged and fixed itself within the human population far more quickly than allowed for by the neutral theory of evolution."<br /><br />I've sworn off going to the UD site but II'm wondering if Torley said what the "at least four changes" were/are, and especially "the most recent of these changes"?<br /><br />As far as "can only be described as beneficial" is concerned, that's highly debatable, especially when considering changes that enabled humans to conjure up gods, spirits, angels, demons, heaven/hell, astrology, palm reading, 'holy' books, and all the other woo that pervades most of our species and societies. <br /><br />One of the things that comes to my mind when I see or hear religious people pushing their god(s) is: Why do they need to speak for an allegedly powerful, supernatural being? Why can't the so-called 'God' speak for itself? Why does the 'God' need sales people, especially if the 'God' is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent? And if they're speaking for the same 'God', and they're basing their beliefs on the same 'holy' book, why don't those religious people believe and say exactly the same things? After all, 'God's word' should be exactly the same to every human, and especially to everyone who believes in and worships that so-called 'God'. <br /> The whole truthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07219999357041824471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-9614990357195278952014-04-02T16:22:29.197-04:002014-04-02T16:22:29.197-04:00Joecoder7, I think Joe Felsenstein could answer yo...Joecoder7, I think Joe Felsenstein could answer your question as well as Larry, if he shows up.Diogeneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15551943619872944637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-79717419108070018222014-04-02T16:21:34.651-04:002014-04-02T16:21:34.651-04:00joecorder asks,
To skip to the chase, how many mu...joecorder asks,<br /><br /><i>To skip to the chase, how many mutations total do you think separate humans and chimps, and what type of mutations were they? Dr. Moran, I would like your perspective here too if you have time.</i><br /><br />See: <a href="http://sandwalk.blogspot.ca/2012/01/whats-difference-between-human-and.html" rel="nofollow">What's the Difference Between a Human and Chimpanzee?</a><br /><br />Updated numbers suggest 44 million point mutations and something like 2 million insertions/deletions for a grand total of 46 million mutations.<br /><br />We don't know how many of those were beneficial (adaptive) leading to ways in which modern chimps are better adapted than the common ancestor. (Same for humans.) My guess would be only a few thousand in each lineage.<br /><br />You have to keep in mind that the human genome sequence only covers about 2.9 billion base pairs out of a total length of 3.2 billion [<a href="http://sandwalk.blogspot.ca/2012/02/how-much-of-our-genome-is-sequenced.html" rel="nofollow">How Much of Our Genome Is Sequenced?</a>]. There are over 350 gaps in the sequence that can't be filled in because they consist mostly of repetitive sequences. <br /><br />Even less of the chimpanzee genome is contained in contiguous, well-annotated scaffolds. We're working with what we've got. You have to be skeptical of some of the SNP results and especially of the indels. <br /><br />Nevertheless, it's remarkable that the differences between the human and chimp genome agree so nicely with what we expect from our understanding of evolution.<br /><br />I don't know if they agree with Intelligent Design Creationism because none of the IDiots have described their explanation of the data. They spend most of their time questioning the data, which suggests that they find it very troubling. <br /><br />I think they're a little bit worried about a designer who would spend so much time making neutral mutations in junk DNA. Such a designer doesn't seem very intelligent. Larry Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05756598746605455848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-83258365165577636422014-04-02T16:21:30.185-04:002014-04-02T16:21:30.185-04:00Torley claims to have been studying evolution sinc...Torley claims to have been studying evolution since he was 11. That's only two years ago! Give the guy a break.<br /><br />Billhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04921039513056888571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-66584180665938706142014-04-02T16:20:00.938-04:002014-04-02T16:20:00.938-04:00Am I missing anything here?
Probably. It may be t...<i>Am I missing anything here?</i><br /><br />Probably. It may be that the average indel size has been very poorly estimated in my source, or it may have been talking about some other population of indels. If we take the estimate you have, then we account for only 24Mb of the difference by chimp-lineage deletions in aligned sequences.<br /><br /><i>As for insertions, wouldn't a 1kb insertion come from existing sequences and then be align-able?</i><br /><br />Maybe. Depends on what you mean by "alignable". An alu insertion could certainly be aligned to other alu insertions in different parts of the genome. But is that what alignment means here? And any newly inserted retroviruses would not come from within the genome.<br /><br />I think there are about 40 million mutations, total. There are some that haven't been counted, but I think they make up a very small proportion of that total. Those would be huge indels, inversions, other chromosomal rearrangements, new retroviral insertions, and perhaps something else I'm not thinking of. But I think there could be a few thousand of those at most. Point mutations and indels account for the ovewhelming majority of events.<br /><br />John Harshmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06705501480675917237noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-66563364369590961182014-04-02T15:16:50.180-04:002014-04-02T15:16:50.180-04:00Sorry, that should be 5 billion, not 500 million. ...Sorry, that should be 5 billion, not 500 million. It obviously can't be 5 billion so I'm wondering where the numbers are off.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com