Are YOUR views 'mainstream
science'? I dare say the obvious answer is no, especially in light of the fact that
you seem to be ignoring evidence contrary to your 7+ year old thesis - evidence that I
presented in my last post above.
Is it 'mainstream science'
that declares more than 500,000 'changes' are required to get a 'sapien from a simian'?
THAT is fringe 'science'
plain and clear, for you have been asked probably dozens of times to present some
supporting documentation for this claim, I have yet to see you do so (and no, I will not
read your book and no, I do not expect you to write your book on the internet)1.
This is a discussion
board. If you have no intention of answering legitimate inquiries, or repeatedly
deferring to your book, please just say so from the get-go so that nobody will waste their
time trying to have a discussion.
Yet it would be so easy to communicate. Leading evolutionists would need publish in the
lay pop-science magazines, "We believe the origin of all mankind's adaptations from
around ten million years ago, can be adequately
explained through the natural substitution of no more than 1667 beneficial nucleotides
(plus some number of neutral mutations)." They
have gotten nowhere near such a public position. At
the very least, until they do, it's a problem. The
disparity between Haldane's limitation and
the evolutionists' public position is a problem.
Since 25- 30,000 beneficial
mutations could have been fixed in the time period in question, according to new LABORATOY
EXPERIMENTATION and GENETIC ANALYSIS, there is no need for anyone to write any such thing
in any journal of any type.
Of course, perhaps it is
because the evolutionists have the integrity to realize that we simply do not know how
many mutations - beneficial or otherwise - it would have taken, and since we do not know
what the ancestor was - what adaptations IT had - to make any claims regarding the number
'needed' to explain human evolution from an ape-like ancestor is simple sophism.
By the way - how many
fixed beneficial mutations were required to provide humans with an appreciation for music? You seem to imply that you know.
The public can readily understand this problem,
and we ought communicate it to them -- rather than brush it aside (as evolutionists "Robert" and "Huxter" attempt
to do).
On the contrary, I doubt the
public understands much of anything regarding this issue.
If they are 'awed' by your numbers, it is most likely because they, like
you, have a hard time accepting that humans are not all that different from the other
apes, and so believe - without ANY evidence whatsoever - that some huge number of
mutations were required. This
information is not available in any mainstream science journal.
Therefore, to claim
otherwise is merely an expression of fringe science.
And there is no need to use
quotation marks around mine and Robert's names. We
are not here to sell books or peddle ideologies. Anyone
that matters knows who we are. There is a
reason that many people like to retain a modicum of anonymity on the internet, especially
in such a charged arena as this, as evidenced by a former OCW poster - John Paul - who,
after finding out my name, posted my home address on the Baptist Board in a clear attempt
at intimidation.
So you will forgive me,
Walter, if I do not advertise my name left and right.
Later that day, the “moderators” had
their way:
Posted: Jan. 15 2002,07:25
Since 25-30,000 beneficial mutations could have been
fixed in the time period in question, according to new LABORATORY EXPERIMENTATION and
GENETIC ANALYSIS, there is no need for anyone to write any such thing in any journal of
any type.
(edited
by both moderators)
That
was all that remained.
The
following post was made on Jan. 14 by me:
===============================================================
Scott L. Page (alias Huxter) writes:
According to Walter ReMine, the maximum number of fixed beneficial nucleotide
substitutions that can accrue in 10 million years is 1667 in humans and presumably the
other great apes, ...
That should not read "According to Walter ReMine ..." Rather, it should
read, "According to the arguments of evolutionary geneticist, J.B.S. Haldane
..." The key result (1667 beneficial substitutions) arises from Haldane's work,
in an exceedingly direct manner, involving a single step of multiplication.
Haldane's published figure (one beneficial substitution per 300 generations),
multiplied by 500,000 generations, equals 1667 beneficial substitutions. That credit
belongs to Haldane, not me.
No,
it should read exactly as I wrote it. Haldane did not ever make the claim regarding
1667 fixed beneficial mutations, that is entirely you (unless, of course, you can provide
a citation?). To Haldane’s credit, he realized that his work would – by
his own words – probably need “drastic revision.” Recent evidence
shows that he was correct.
My contribution was to revive this classic evolutionary problem, which had been confused,
obscured, and prematurely cast aside in the early 1970s.
For this
‘problem’ to have been “confused, obscured, and prematurely cast
aside” clearly indicates a conspiracy. Your repeated claims that you are being
misrepresented when this simple, direct implication is pointed out is absurd.
Furthermore, to claim that you made any contribution at all is simple hyperbole, for I can
find nothing in the literature indicative that you did so.
I clarify the problem, de-bunk the various proposed solutions, and show it was never
actually solved.
That you
‘debunk’ various solutions is your opinion, and your opinion alone. Since
it is now clear that Haldane was in error, and that therefore there never was any dilemma
(Sir Fred Hoyle also declared Haldane’s dilemma to be “an illusion”, a
claim that you were unhappy with, despite heaping accolades on the rest of his last book
[ref. Your amazon.com review]), your clarifications, etc. are moot.
Haldane's
result -- a limit of 1667 beneficial substitutions -- serves to remind us that the problem
is alive, and serious. If you were surprised by that figure (as virtually everyone
is), then it documents another of my points: Evolutionists did not convey the problem to
the public. That oversight is inexcusable, considering its obvious importance: By
Haldane's reasoning, human evolution (from some presumed ape-chimp-like ancestor from ten
million years ago) is limited nominally to 1667 beneficial nucleotide substitutions.
(See my book for details.)
Again, it was not
Haldane’s result, it is your extrapolation of Haldane’s 1957 paper’s
tentative conclusion. I was not surprised by that number - that is a
misrepresentation. I was surprised that someone could actually sell a book claiming
that it is.
And I did not realize that this board is now going to be used as free advertising for your
book.
Again, the problem is neither alive as such nor serious, as Haldane’s original
calculations were premised on unrealistic conditions, no actual genetic data, and, most
importantly, are no longer an issue. You fail to see the difference between a
population genetics problem (that is, a mathematical model issue), and a
‘problem’ for evolution as such. Add to this the fact that the basis for
your supposed problem – as has been pointed out by others – is essentially your
personal disbelief, and your thesis is entirely worthless.
Yours is a positive claim – 1667 fixed beneficial mutations is too few to account for
human evolution from an ape-like ancestor. Having read many, many of your posts to
various discussion groups, it is all too easy to see that you have ZERO supporting
evidence for this claim. If you did, it should have been easy enough for you to
silence the nay-sayers – that have asked you dozens of times (including myself on
several occasions, including in the email exchange between myself and ‘Karen’,
who happens to use your email address and use verbatim quotes from you without attribution2)
– by simply providing a few citations from the literature.
Instead
, you use your flowery prose about “500,000 changes” being too few to make a
“sapien out of a simian.”
Cute, but devoid of substance.
Repeated inquiries are met, if at all, with either accusations of “posturing” or
thinly veiled advertisements for your book. Hardly the activity of someone that pretends
to have made ‘contributions’ to science.
In my
effort to get evolutionists to take this problem seriously, I always cast it as above --
as the limited number of beneficial substitutions available for explaining the evolution
of, say, humans, from their distant ancestor of ten million years ago. For various
reasons, that puts the problem in its clearest and severest form. However, some
internet evolutionists now attempt to minimize the problem by misrepresenting it as the
raw genetic difference between modern lifeforms (such as between modern chimps and modern
man). Scott L. Page does that by arguing that modern chimps and modern bonobos have
too many genetic differences to be explained by the Haldane limit within a short timespan.
He is mistaken.
You could much
more easily have gotten scientists to take you seriously had you actually written up and
presented a manuscript to an appropriate scientific journal, rather than self-publish a
‘science by quote’ evolution-bashing tome.
Then…
You are clearly misrepresenting me, as I am not mistaken at all, and you ,too, have failed
to understand why I made the post in the first place3. I produced a
similar post on this forum some time ago, and I did so to point out the deceptive nature
and erroneous claims of various internet creationists, such as Don Batten and Fred
Williams, who, on their web sites/articles/internet posts on the topic, conflated all
estimated nucleotide substitutions (on the order, at the time, of 120 million) and the
fixed beneficial mutation maximum as presented by you.
For example, Williams writes:
Re: That Wasn't the Point
Saturday, 17-Feb-01 10:46:22
63.227.41.134 writes:
“I did notice one error I made in a recent post I need to correct. I said .5%
difference would be 60 mil, forgetting that the 120 mil was based on 3% and not 1%
difference. It would be actually 20 million. I think you can see it doesn’t mater
that much, that’s quite a bit more than 1667!”
in this thread:
http://www.insidetheweb.com/message....2393175 (which
is probably defunct)
And Batten, here:
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c018.html
says essentially the same thing, and even provides a reference to YOUR book.
It was entertaining to see the internet creationists attack my post while being wholly
unable to see that I was simply using their own claims against them, that is, using the
creationists OWN WORDS and carrying their claims to their logical [sic] conclusions!
Isn’t that something?
Now, I am curious, Mr.ReMine – have you corrected Mr.Williams and Dr.Batten in their
erroneous use of your claims?
And, for the umpteenth time, if you cannot describe the ancestor, nor produce
documentation regarding how many adaptive mutations are required to ‘cause’
certain traits, then you really have no argument – serious or otherwise.
In addition, again, I am not mistaken in my use of modern chimps and modern bonobos to
illustrate my point.
It is a simple matter of deducing the number of substitutions separating the two extant
species in terms of the time since their estimated divergence. This
gives us numbers to work with based on real data. It also gives a time frame.
It also points out how the typical creationist erroneously presents molecular
phylogenetics to suit their needs. Shall I need to expand on this, I can easily do
so.
Let
me again emphasize the key point. Haldane's Dilemma puts a limit on the rate of
beneficial substitution. It places no limit whatever on the rate of non-beneficial
substitution -- substitutions that are harmful, neutral, or inert (i.e. unexpressed).
These changes are abundant in nature, and extremely rapid. For example, x-ray a population
and watch the "genetic diversity" rapidly increase. In these ways, "genetic
diversity" can arise extremely rapidly, and that does not lessen the problem of
Haldane's Dilemma. They are largely separate issues.
Yes, they are.
It is a shame that so many internet (and otherwise?) creationists so frequently
conflate such disparate ideas – for what I think is clear are obvious reasons - and
are never corrected by their own.
Of course, how, EXACTLY, would one identify a beneficial substitution given only
nucleotide sequence data, fixed or otherwise?
Since you are convinced that a maximum of 1667 could have been fixed in 10 million years,
it stands to reason that you know of ways that these can be identified, for if there is no
way to do so, there is no foundation for making any claims regarding numbers.
There
is no problem explaining "rapid diversification", so long as it is
non-beneficial in nature.
And you thus
present yet another flaw in your thesis, for there is no reason to assume that ALL of the
fixed substitutions that act to distinguish us (or any other extant species) from
either extant relative species or our unidentified ancestor must be beneficial.
Perhaps then you can explain the ‘rapid diversification’ inherent in the Flood
model? (and please do not attempt to dodge the issue by claiming that you did not mention
anything about the bible in your book – this is a DISCUSSION board, not a ‘lets
only discuss things in Walter’s book’ board.)
This is a legitimate inquiry, and one that you have previously stated, in so many words,
is no problem for ‘creationist genetics.’ This is probably a topic for a
new thread, and I will start one if necessary.
DISCLAIMER:
ATTENTION ANY AND ALL READERS:
Please note that replies, if any, that rest upon admonishing participants to read certain
books are not replies at all. This is a DISCUSSION BOARD, not an advertisement
board. If one comes here and decides to participate, then those people should be
willing and prepared to discuss topics that THEY choose to respond to.
I submit that referring solely to various books is no reply at all, and indicative of an
inability to provide a reasoned response.
Disclaimer 2:
I will be very busy over the next several days and may not be able to respond.
Please do not interpret my absence incorrectly or misrepresent it.
--------------
Scott L. Page, PhD.
===============================================================
On
Jan.16, “Moderator 3” got a hold of it. Here
is what remained:
Sir Fred Hoyle also declared Haldane's dilemma to be
"an illusion"
Edited by Moderator 3 on Jan. 16 2002,02:12
Two
multi-page posts reduced to one sentence each. Single
sentences that were not, of course, responded to.
Now,
what I had written was certainly none too charitable to ReMine’s position, but the
posts do not contain ad hominem attacks, false claims, etc., nor were they
“redundant” (one of the many criteria arbitrarily applied by the OCW
“moderators” 3 and 4).
It
is obvious that there was some personality protection going on, most likely being done by
the personality himself (ReMine) or his intellectual sycophant (Williams).
In
conclusion, it becomes more and more obvious that certain creationist personalities are
more interested in personal aggrandizement, ideology protection, and the censoring of
opposing (and damaging) viewpoints than in actually trying to “explain” or
discuss anything, certainly in scientific terms. It
is true that Internet Discussion Boards are not clearinghouses for cutting edge scientific
discussions, however, if one is going to attempt to engage in such a discussion, as ReMine
did, one should be prepared to address the issues one brings up or responds to. When one is then given the power of moderation in
such a discussion, or one’s “intellectual” sycophants have such power, what
results is documented above.
1
I have since read his book in its entirety, and he does not, in fact, present one single
piece of evidence that it would take more than “500,000 changes” to make a
“sapien from a simian.”
2
I plan to write up that interesting exchange at some point.
I was explicitly not given permission to use
Karen’s/ReMine’s emails in such a write up, so I will have to paraphrase them. They were unable to provide the requested evidence
in that series of exchanges, either, and as is ReMine’s most cherished tactic, I was
simply accused of “misrepresenting” him and “posturing.”
3
I had posted my application of “Haldane’s dilemma” to the question of
the relationship between common chimpanzees and bonobos and concluded that they could not
be related via descent, according to the constraints imposed by ReMine and those that hawk
his argument. That did not sit too well with
the creationist crowd, as it would necessitate a much larger number of “kinds”
on the ark, or, unprecedented mutation rates and post-flood hyperspeciation.
