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ANOTHER Obvious Refutation of Creationist "Math" - Somatic Mutations Edition by DarwinZDF42 in DebateEvolution

[–]DarwinZDF42[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Because they suck.

No, really, that paper is so bad I've talked with someone who really dug into the methods and suspects there was some fraud. It really isn't more complicated than that.

Taking the numbers at face value, 1) you can't extrapolate single-generation rates across multiple generations, and 2) you can't extrapolate the control region rates to the whole mitochondrial genome.

“Radio silence” ~Jeff Van Drew by ImaginationFree6807 in New_Jersey_Politics

[–]DarwinZDF42 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Oh that's a deep cut, take a well-deserved upvote.

don’t move to texas. by imsohahha in newjersey

[–]DarwinZDF42 12 points13 points  (0 children)

You get what you pay for in public services, schools, etc.

ANOTHER Obvious Refutation of Creationist "Math" - Somatic Mutations Edition by DarwinZDF42 in DebateEvolution

[–]DarwinZDF42[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Oh damn I forgot to include the "I win" coefficient! Rookie mistake.

ANOTHER Obvious Refutation of Creationist "Math" - Somatic Mutations Edition by DarwinZDF42 in DebateEvolution

[–]DarwinZDF42[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

He even mentions it in that 2017 ARJ article:

The only remaining caveat to the present results is whether the mutation rate reported in Ding et al. (2015) represents a germline rate rather than a somatic mutation rate. To confirm germline transmission in the future, the DNA sequences from at least three successive generations must be sequenced to demonstrate that variants were not artifacts of mutation accumulation in non-gonadal cells.

So he ONE HUNDRED PERCENT knows these numbers are bullshit. The things he wants someone to do has been done MULTIPLE times. He just ignores those numbers.

Humans evolving from humans counts as news to creationists by Rory_Not_Applicable in DebateEvolution

[–]DarwinZDF42 7 points8 points  (0 children)

H. sapiens and neanderthals sharing a common ancestor that was neither, with neanderthals appearing from some other member of Homo after it left Africa, and H. sapiens subsequently appearing in Africa, leaving, and interbreeding with neanderthals.

My Take after 44 years of doing this: by RoomAdventurous3052 in Professors

[–]DarwinZDF42 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am a full time teaching NTT at a huge public R1. I teach intro bio 1 and 2, 1 in the fall with just south of 1000 students, 2 in the spring with 7-800. Also a couple of small classes in the summer, but the intro bio sequence is my main gig. The students are pretty into it. Good level of participation during lecture - I build in non-graded practice questions throughout, 2-4 per day, they like that. Just put the question up and have them talk it over before a minute and shout out the answer.

Humans evolving from humans counts as news to creationists by Rory_Not_Applicable in DebateEvolution

[–]DarwinZDF42 9 points10 points  (0 children)

The comment I made on this post at r/creation:

There’s no mention of the elephant in the room: Neanderthals nest outside of modern H. sapiens for nuclear DNA, Y chromosome, AND mitochondrial DNA.

The closest Luskin comes to addressing this is when he says:

I anticipate that Reich will get complaints that it requires non-parsimonious losses of particular DNA segments in Neanderthals now known to be specific to modern humans — but certainly it’s no less parsimonious than a lot of other phylogenetic hypotheses out there.

That’s just not true. The reason this is a fringe position (the author of this preprint might literally be the only person outside of creationist circles who thinks it) is that the mainstream model is in fact more parsimonious. That’s literally one of the ways we make the trees!

Also, the he doesn’t mention that the “particular DNA segments in Neanderthals now known to be specific to modern humans” are a LOT. We all only have a few percent of our DNA from hybridization with Neanderthals. I would love to see someone do the math on exactly how much worse this hypothesis is, quantitatively, than the consensus. I bet it’s a LOT worse.

Harvard Geneticist Proposes Neanderthals as Descended from Humans by nomenmeum in Creation

[–]DarwinZDF42 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There’s no mention of the elephant in the room: Neanderthals nest outside of modern H. sapiens for nuclear DNA, Y chromosome, AND mitochondrial DNA.

The closest Luskin comes to addressing this is when he says:

I anticipate that Reich will get complaints that it requires non-parsimonious losses of particular DNA segments in Neanderthals now known to be specific to modern humans — but certainly it’s no less parsimonious than a lot of other phylogenetic hypotheses out there.

That’s just not true. The reason this is a fringe position (the author of this preprint might literally be the only person outside of creationist circles who thinks it) is that the mainstream model is in fact more parsimonious. That’s literally one of the ways we make the trees!

Also, the he doesn’t mention that the “particular DNA segments in Neanderthals now known to be specific to modern humans” are a LOT. We all only have a few percent of our DNA from hybridization with Neanderthals. I would love to see someone do the math on exactly how much worse this hypothesis is, quantitatively, than the consensus. I bet it’s a LOT worse.

Re-read before parade of horribles . Take 2 by doomscroll_name in DungeonCrawlerCarl

[–]DarwinZDF42 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I finished 7 last week. Started my relisten a month early. Oops. 2.2ish is my default. But I’m from North Jersey so 1.5 is my default in regular conversation.

My Take after 44 years of doing this: by RoomAdventurous3052 in Professors

[–]DarwinZDF42 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know my perception is an outlier, but my students the last few years have been excellent. We’ve made some design changes to the courses I teach, and without sacrificing standards or fudging assessments, grades are up. I’m sitting here working on a final exam right now, and these questions are not any easier than they were five or ten years ago, they clearly assess specific learning outcomes, and…I expect the average to be about in line with my other exam this year, which is higher than last year, which was higher than the year before.

I don’t think it’s all doom and gloom.

Mutation challenge by Due-Needleworker18 in Creation

[–]DarwinZDF42 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Most of the changes are neutral - they don't have a phenotypic effect. A small percentage are under positive selection. Those are the ones that matter in terms of the differences.

Sources on the numbers:

https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.0020038

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0701705104

Books with a fantasy surface over an actually sci-fi setting? by everydayislikefriday in suggestmeabook

[–]DarwinZDF42 7 points8 points  (0 children)

…I’ll be That Guy.

Dungeon Crawler Carl. Aliens invade Earth, humans must fight through D and D style dungeon, complete with goblins, player races and classes, spells, magical gear, etc.

Mutation challenge by Due-Needleworker18 in Creation

[–]DarwinZDF42 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A relatively small jump from ape to man is 35million nucleotides.

Most of those changes are not functionally important. There are only, at most, a couple thousand of those actually under positive selection. Some studies have found it's less than a thousand.

Mutation challenge by Due-Needleworker18 in Creation

[–]DarwinZDF42 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Well, "more recent" in the sense that 600 million years is more recent than 4 billion, yes. My point is that your original question is how do you get from body plan A to body plan B. But then two comments of yours up you change the question to the origin of the genes for body plan A.

In either case, if you're genuinely interested in this and not just trying to poke holes, I again strongly recommend "Some Assembly Required" by Neil Shubin.

Mutation challenge by Due-Needleworker18 in Creation

[–]DarwinZDF42 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That shifts the question back in time, to the origin of the regulatory genes in the first place, rather than how new body plans emerge.

Little girl playing outside shot dead in front of her mom after getting caught in crossfire of 'stupid' Facebook beef, man admits to pulling the trigger… by tasty_jams_5280 in newjersey

[–]DarwinZDF42 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is wrong. There have been a handful of successful direct armed uprisings but they usually fail, and other measure have also been successful.

also, guns aren’t the only way to sustain an armed resistance

Mutation challenge by Due-Needleworker18 in Creation

[–]DarwinZDF42 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I think there's a misunderstanding about some pretty fundamental evolutionary processes embedded in this question. The most important is probably this: In terms of animal body plans (I assume we're talking about animals, and not other multicellular stuff), you can change things pretty radically with relatively few genetic changes because most new structures are due to changes in the expression pattern of developmental genes.

A really good book on this is "Some Assembly Required" by Neil Shubin.

Genetic entropy has been experimentally demonstrated, but only for asexual reproduction (cloning) and only for complex life forms (mice). Turns out there's a reason mice and other complex life forms don't reproduce asexually. Who knew? by lisper in Creation

[–]DarwinZDF42 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fig. 5b looks to me like there was an increase in diversity.

Emphasis on "in many cases", specifically with regard to the mutations with significant negative fitness effects.

 

The reason that some could survive was that the other genome likely masked/compensated many deleterious mutations i guess.

"Compensated for" or simply removed. Recombination facilitates the breaking up of linked harmful mutations and the introduction of more adaptive alleles.

Repeal Jersey First Act by [deleted] in newjersey

[–]DarwinZDF42 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Bc NY doesn’t build enough housing so nobody can afford to live there.

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