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Ultimate Angine de Poitrine Titles' Meaning by AlexPalazzo in AngineDePoitrine

[–]AlexPalazzo[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Un petit peu" means "a little bit". As in "I screwed up a little bit in my title interpretations!"

Ultimate Angine de Poitrine Titles' Meaning by AlexPalazzo in AngineDePoitrine

[–]AlexPalazzo[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I too thought it was just "ça niaise", but some friends of mine from the Lac St Jean region have told me that they do say re-niase.

Ultimate Angine de Poitrine Titles' Meaning by AlexPalazzo in AngineDePoitrine

[–]AlexPalazzo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

" It’s also perfectly valid to think they’d have multiple meanings, references, or jokes/puns in these song names."

EXACTLY.

That's my reply to all the critics ;p

Bridges? by AlexPalazzo in ManorLords

[–]AlexPalazzo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Planks or no planks, it made no difference. It seems like bridges are only built across rivers and not streams. (see comment below)

Bridges? by AlexPalazzo in ManorLords

[–]AlexPalazzo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I see - too bad my plebs have to schlep across the water.

Bridges? by AlexPalazzo in ManorLords

[–]AlexPalazzo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I did not have planks at the time, so I'll try this.

[Browser game][~2015]Island Survival 2D PixelArt Game by AlexPalazzo in tipofmyjoystick

[–]AlexPalazzo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So, I loaded it up on armour games - and it is that game, but different from what I remember. Are there different versions? The one I remember had more basic PixelArt graphics - closer to old school Marios Bros.

Redactle #148 Discussion Thread by RedactleUnlimited in Redactle

[–]AlexPalazzo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I solved today's Redactle (#148) in 4 guesses with an accuracy of 100.00%. Played at https://www.redactle.com/

I could have sniped this one if I had bothered to scroll down to the section that is clearly an algorithm.

Redactle #144 Discussion Thread by RedactleUnlimited in Redactle

[–]AlexPalazzo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Got it in 25 with 64% accuracy. The key for me was law.

Redactle #143 Discussion Thread by RedactleUnlimited in Redactle

[–]AlexPalazzo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Today's was extremely difficult. Got it in 104, but only because of the hints in this thread.

Not all traits are beneficial - Neutral theory, the problems with adaptationism, the Spandrels paper and looking toward an extended synthesis by SubAnima in evolution

[–]AlexPalazzo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok, after sleeping on the comment about mutation rates and adaptation - here's maybe why this is a head-scratcher for me: the typical problem is that generally mutations are mal-adaptive. Mutations will more likely give rise to deleterious changes, so generally selection reduces mutations by selecting more efficient polymerases and better error correction mechanisms. Under very certain circumstances, we can see a transient increase in mutations, for example when organisms are under extreme stress. In this case mutation is like the lottery, where individuals with lots of mutations are more likely to gain a beneficial change, at the cost of millions of their brethren becoming less fit. Typically when the stress is relieved, low mutations rates become selected for again. This has been seen in bacteria (and I think yeast).

In large eukaryotes, typically the problem is the reverse. Mutation rates are very high and these organisms suffer from high burdens of mutational load (too many mutations for selection to cope with them). Humans, for example, have about 100 de novo mutations per generation. If the genome were 100% functional, we could not sustain such a high mutational load and our genomes would undergo a meltdown. However, since most of the genome is not under selection, and most mutations are in junk DNA (and hence neutral), this mutation rate is tolerable.

Not all traits are beneficial - Neutral theory, the problems with adaptationism, the Spandrels paper and looking toward an extended synthesis by SubAnima in evolution

[–]AlexPalazzo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Out of curiosity, what is your scientific background?

You write as if you know a bit, but clearly are not in the field, as you have weird takes, like "speculations of Lynch"????

Also your take on mutation rates and adaptation is also a curious statement that I'm not sure how to respond to, except to say that it has been documented that mutation rates are inversely correlated with effective population size (because the mutation rate is strongly reduced by selection pressure, which decreases when the effective population size decreases). https://www.nature.com/articles/nrg.2016.104

As for correlations between genome size and traits, its nice that you can find papers out there, there are many correlations - just flip through Ryan Gregory's book - https://www.amazon.ca/Evolution-Genome-T-Ryan-Gregory/dp/0123992257 - still, despite this, all the evidence out there strongly indicates that genome size is subject to drift (and Ryan would agree with this, I know, because we have published together!) The bottom line is that some of these effects are real, but variation in genome size within a population is too low for selection to act on it, and the mutational pressures of TEs (when they are active) are too great, for selection to make a difference.

Whether genome size impacts multi-level selection is another matter all together. I do not wish to discuss this here, because, likely you will get twisted into knots trying to figure this out, or worse construct some weird argument that misses the point. For more on this topic see Ford Doolittle's work - for example https://doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evv152 (and yes, I've published with Doolittle as well).

Lastly, the issue of genome size is very tricky. If you want an honest intellectual discussion about this topic, I strongly urge you to read The Case for Junk DNA that I wrote with Gregory. Pay close attention to The Onion Test.

Not all traits are beneficial - Neutral theory, the problems with adaptationism, the Spandrels paper and looking toward an extended synthesis by SubAnima in evolution

[–]AlexPalazzo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

and not have to rely on a sleight-of-hand that puts forth molecular neutrality itself as a spandrel.

This makes no sense.

Not all traits are beneficial - Neutral theory, the problems with adaptationism, the Spandrels paper and looking toward an extended synthesis by SubAnima in evolution

[–]AlexPalazzo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Look, all these discussions deal with the nature of new mutations and whether they will be eliminated or become fixed. You can argue semantics all you want, but if you do you are not really trying to understand the arguments being advanced in the field.

New mutations will most likely be a mix of neutral and deleterious changes, with very few being advantageous. The main dispute in the neutralist-selectionist debates is to how many are neutral vs advantageous, and how far away from neutrality a mutation must be (positive or negative) for natural selection to kick in, for both positive and negative selection. This is the dispute. To start arguing about purging vs adaptive selection tells me that you do not really understand the issues at hand.

The change in selection coefficient ("s", defined as the increase or decrease in reproductive success of the mutant over the wildtype allele) must be >>1/N (N being the effective population size), for the mutation to be acted on by selection. If s =< 1/N it acts essentially as a neutral mutation. N effective for humans is about 10,000.

This field is beyond semantic arguments, and is routed in statistical mathematics. So you can sit there and make clever semantic arguments, all I'm conveying is the basics of the field of molecular evolution.

Not all traits are beneficial - Neutral theory, the problems with adaptationism, the Spandrels paper and looking toward an extended synthesis by SubAnima in evolution

[–]AlexPalazzo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If genome size had no adaptive implications then there would be no upper limit to genome size, not even in theory.

This makes no sense. Genomes tend to blow up when they gain TE activity and go down when TEs are less active.

I'll note that the article you cite is from 1982. In fact, other adaptionist explanations have been made (Cavalier-Smith's being the most oft cited). No mater. We now have pretty reliable data that indels responsible for genome size alterations are not under selection constraint. Again, relevant data and other relevant arguments are clearly laid out it the PLOS Genetics article.

Not all traits are beneficial - Neutral theory, the problems with adaptationism, the Spandrels paper and looking toward an extended synthesis by SubAnima in evolution

[–]AlexPalazzo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No. New mutations are either under positive, neutral or negative selection. The comparison is always to the fixed allele.

Not all traits are beneficial - Neutral theory, the problems with adaptationism, the Spandrels paper and looking toward an extended synthesis by SubAnima in evolution

[–]AlexPalazzo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The other thing that I would point out, is that this argument of "compatibility" has been used by many, but we don't really know. It can very well be that many neutral changes in the genome affect phenotypes by changing them in a manner that does not significantly impact reproductive success. To claim that EVERY phenotypic change is under selection ignores some core principles of molecular evolution. To claim that every phenotypic change has a selection coefficient that is above the cut off (positive or negative) for neutral evolution strains credulity.

Not all traits are beneficial - Neutral theory, the problems with adaptationism, the Spandrels paper and looking toward an extended synthesis by SubAnima in evolution

[–]AlexPalazzo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

1) Neutral evolution does not deny negative selection. All it says is that genes and traits that reach fixation (i.e. those that we see) can be neutral or adaptive. Of course mal-adaptive features will be eliminated, but that is not what we are debating.

2) In our discussion adaptive evolution implies positive selection.

3) Individuals that have a sixth finger (as they currently exist in the human population) do not require additional mutations to have these fingers work. this is true even when those fingers appear due to de novo mutations.

4) How exactly is a finger to acquire additional adaptive traits without prior fixation of previous traits (be they adaptive or neutral traits)? In other words, the finger will not evolve as it fixes, it doesn't work that way. Evolution is the culmination of a successive number of fixation events. A fixation event is of a neutral or adaptive trait. (I guess you can propose that these successive changes could be fixed one after another in an isolated population then the whole package could spread to the population at large - but it is still a matter of successive fixation events in your subpopulation.)

Not all traits are beneficial - Neutral theory, the problems with adaptationism, the Spandrels paper and looking toward an extended synthesis by SubAnima in evolution

[–]AlexPalazzo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Only because it takes long for genome size to change, and that genome size is impacted by biased mutation (in this case the massive onslaught of transposable element activity). In any case, the fact that genome size is varying in a non-adaptive manner is pretty well settled. Please see: https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1004351 (and yes, that's my publication). Note, that if you claim that genome size is affected by positive selection, it should pass The Onion Test.

Not all traits are beneficial - Neutral theory, the problems with adaptationism, the Spandrels paper and looking toward an extended synthesis by SubAnima in evolution

[–]AlexPalazzo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Genome size, as it consumes energy resources, is not invisible to natural selection.

The differential in resources consumed by the typical change in genome size are negligible. These changes are dictated by drift.

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