Charles Darwin and the "Tree of Life"

[geauxtohell]

I will when I get the chance present the arguement that mutations is not the mechanism to macro-evolution. Macro-evolution and micro-evolution are independent of each other. One actually takes place while the other does not. Your side in their opinions is going way beyond the adaptations that is observed.

Macroevolution and microevolution are "different" only to people who are desperate to try and come up with some sort of intelligent-sounding argument against evolution. For people who have actually formally studied evolution, it's a lame semantics argument that is too asinine to argue. As I said before, it's like saying you believe in a penny but not a quarter.

Again, all this is aside the point. You are entitled to believe whatever you want. You aren't entitled to call it a valid scientific point.

So, feel free to propose a scientifically valid alternative to evolution and argue it until your heart is content. However, you should know that the scientific method refuses to entertain supernatural powers as an explanation for anything.

 

[Ropey]

G-d Known and Trusted with Belief = Science Known and Tested with Neutrality

A rose by any other name.

I agree that they are inclusive.

Just as a magnetic bar has a positive pole, a negative pole, and a point of nullity.

Nullity can be considered the equivalence of operation in stasis. Potential positive, potential negative along with their nexus of nullity.

Hmm... 3 into 1? I love mathematics.

One is quantified with mathematics, the other with faith. Both can be argued. Just not to each other as they quantify differently.

Christian Faith says they exclusive. Science says there is only one so how can there be anything to exclude.

That's why it is so enjoyable for me to sit and discuss with the learned men. Of any faith, or science...

I will when I get the chance present the arguement that mutations is not the mechanism to macro-evolution. Macro-evolution and micro-evolution are independent of each other. One actually takes place while the other does not. Your side in their opinions is going way beyond the adaptations that is observed.

Macroevolution and microevolution are "different" only to people who are desperate to try and come up with some sort of intelligent-sounding argument against evolution. For people who have actually formally studied evolution, it's a lame semantics argument that is too asinine to argue. As I said before, it's like saying you believe in a penny but not a quarter.

Again, all this is aside the point. You are entitled to believe whatever you want. You aren't entitled to call it a valid scientific point.

So, feel free to propose a scientifically valid alternative to evolution and argue it until your heart is content. However, you should know that the scientific method refuses to entertain supernatural powers as an explanation for anything.

 

[SmarterThanHick]

G-d Known and Trusted with Belief = Science Known and Tested with Neutrality

A rose by any other name.

I agree that they are inclusive.

Just as a magnetic bar has a positive pole, a negative pole, and a point of nullity.

Nullity can be considered the equivalence of operation in stasis. Potential positive, potential negative along with their nexus of nullity.

Hmm... 3 into 1? I love mathematics.

One is quantified with mathematics, the other with faith. Both can be argued. Just not to each other as they quantify differently.

Christian Faith says they exclusive. Science says there is only one so how can there be anything to exclude.

That's why it is so enjoyable for me to sit and discuss with the learned men. Of any faith, or science...

Sense: that makes none.

 

[Ropey]

I just found it interesting that:

1. The Scientific communities explanations yield three extension, and proofs of those extensions.
2. The Christian communities explanations yield one extension, demands faith to extend it.

Turn that around and here's the irony.

1. The Christian community believes in the father, son and holy spirit. All three powers of one.
2. The Scientific commuinity believes in one proposal, and proofs of that proposal. There can be only one...

And I found and still find it interesting. Possibly no one else did. What it tells me is that they are simply different aspects of the same power and extension.

And I like that elegance...

 

[SmarterThanHick]

Ah, that makes a bit more sense.

I think your comparison is far reaching and incompatible. Yes, when limited to talking of things like magnetism that has three "states", the number happens to correspond with a specific religion. But that number of three is neither inherent to science nor defining of a comparison. An apple and a car can both be red but that doesn't mean one can draw any further similarities, let alone irony.

Regarding science holding one proposal: that's how answering questions work. There's only one right answer, and a lot of unsupported answers. Doesn't matter how you look at it, there is only one correct answer for 2+2. You can manipulate it and say the answer is "10-6" but inherently the way you get to the answer still uses the exact same "rules". So science looks for the right answer to a given problem. And while many ideas may be presented, generally one has a better understanding and predictive value than all the others.

 

[Ropey]

It's simply an extension from the mundane to the unexplained and more questions...

Simply a mental exercise and likely not the correct place to post it...

Ah, that makes a bit more sense.

I think your comparison is far reaching and incompatible. Yes, when limited to talking of things like magnetism that has three "states", the number happens to correspond with a specific religion. But that number of three is neither inherent to science nor defining of a comparison. An apple and a car can both be red but that doesn't mean one can draw any further similarities, let alone irony.

Regarding science holding one proposal: that's how answering questions work. There's only one right answer, and a lot of unsupported answers. Doesn't matter how you look at it, there is only one correct answer for 2+2. You can manipulate it and say the answer is "10-6" but inherently the way you get to the answer still uses the exact same "rules". So science looks for the right answer to a given problem. And while many ideas may be presented, generally one has a better understanding and predictive value than all the others.

 

[Youwerecreated]

Yes, it's easy to define a made up term. Nonetheless, what you and even some scientists foolishly refer to as macroevolution utilizes the exact same mechanism of "microevolution": new mutation producing changes in an organism. Now you already know this is proven fact, as bacteria gain antibiotic resistance. So given that fact, why is it that you think mutation cannot occur in larger organisms like fruit flies or humans?

Oh, right. That's a question about your own beliefs again: those things you try so hard to avoid.

Made up terms yes,but both terms were made up by evolutionists. They are two totally different processes . One is clearly seen and is not in dispute. The other however is why we are having this discussion. I never said mutations do not occur in animals and humans. What I believe is they do not produce new information that allows the process of macroevolution. There is nine conditions that have to happen for mutations to be the cause of macroevolution . With these nine conditions having to take place you will see the high probability that mutations cannot be the cause of macroevolution. When I get back home I will present the full argument or hopefully I can find an article that explains it very clearly. Sorry I have not been able to respond u am out of town on business and have not had enough time to respond.

 

[Youwerecreated]

I will when I get the chance present the arguement that mutations is not the mechanism to macro-evolution. Macro-evolution and micro-evolution are independent of each other. One actually takes place while the other does not. Your side in their opinions is going way beyond the adaptations that is observed.

Macroevolution and microevolution are "different" only to people who are desperate to try and come up with some sort of intelligent-sounding argument against evolution. For people who have actually formally studied evolution, it's a lame semantics argument that is too asinine to argue. As I said before, it's like saying you believe in a penny but not a quarter.

Again, all this is aside the point. You are entitled to believe whatever you want. You aren't entitled to call it a valid scientific point.

So, feel free to propose a scientifically valid alternative to evolution and argue it until your heart is content. However, you should know that the scientific method refuses to entertain supernatural powers as an explanation for anything.

There is nothing magical about the argument that will be presented. This argument is supported by the facts. The dilemma I brought up earlier adds further support to this argument. Talk to you guys soon.

 

[geauxtohell]

There is nothing magical about the argument that will be presented. This argument is supported by the facts. The dilemma I brought up earlier adds further support to this argument. Talk to you guys soon.

I have to laugh when you creationists tell me about your brilliant argument that "will be presented".

I laugh because I know it's bullshit. Your argument, in the end, is going to center on your own personal religious beliefs. There is nothing wrong with that per se, with this major exception: you religious beliefs are not scientific.

I will eagerly await your "facts". I doubt it will be anything I haven't seen a thousand times before already and have deemed as "too stupid to reply too".

It must be tough for you now that Kent Hovind is a felon, huh?

 

[SmarterThanHick]

Made up terms yes,but both terms were made up by evolutionists. They are two totally different processes . One is clearly seen and is not in dispute.

Well, no not really. The only difference between the two is that religious zealots don't like acknowledging one but can't possibly refute the other. There is fundamentally no biological difference between micro and macroevolution. Both stem from new information coming from mutations. Simpler organisms, being simpler and with smaller genomes, need fewer such mutations to produce a noticeable effect, while organisms with larger genomes need more mutations on average to produce a noticeable effect. The biology for mutation is exactly the same between the two.

I agree with GTH in that I look forward to yet another likely copied and pasted response from someone else's unpublished work you don't actually understand to see what coerced reasoning a creationist has to say that mutations in bacteria are believable but mutations in humans somehow aren't.

I never said mutations do not occur in animals and humans. What I believe is they do not produce new information that allows the process of macroevolution.

Mutations are new information, by the very nature of the change in information. So you agree that mutations occur in humans, and yet you don't seem to understand how that is new information, just as you can't explain the new fruit fly genes I presented, or dwarf mutations.

I look forward to the copying and pasting when you get back from your school vacation.

 

[Youwerecreated]

There is nothing magical about the argument that will be presented. This argument is supported by the facts. The dilemma I brought up earlier adds further support to this argument. Talk to you guys soon.

I have to laugh when you creationists tell me about your brilliant argument that "will be presented".

I laugh because I know it's bullshit. Your argument, in the end, is going to center on your own personal religious beliefs. There is nothing wrong with that per se, with this major exception: you religious beliefs are not scientific.

I will eagerly await your "facts". I doubt it will be anything I haven't seen a thousand times before already and have deemed as "too stupid to reply too".

It must be tough for you now that Kent Hovind is a felon, huh?

Kent don't know the guy would he be like the evolutionist that tried to pass part of a jaw bone of a pig as a primate ? This has nothing to do with my religious beliefs and these nine conditions come from a fellow evolutionist which will make it tougher for you to argue against. To be fair I will give you the nine conditions and I will explain later.1. Natural environment 2. No structural change 3. Net effect must be directional 4. High mutation rate 5. Large population 6. Selective neutrality of polygenes 7. Little hybridzation 8. Necessity of high penetrance 9. High heritability. Now if you fully understand these conditions you know where I'm going with this and the problems these conditions present for your theory.

 

[geauxtohell]

Kent don't know the guy would he be like the evolutionist that tried to pass part of a jaw bone of a pig as a primate ? This has nothing to do with my religious beliefs and these nine conditions come from a fellow evolutionist which will make it tougher for you to argue against. To be fair I will give you the nine conditions and I will explain later.1. Natural environment 2. No structural change 3. Net effect must be directional 4. High mutation rate 5. Large population 6. Selective neutrality of polygenes 7. Little hybridzation 8. Necessity of high penetrance 9. High heritability. Now if you fully understand these conditions you know where I'm going with this and the problems these conditions present for your theory.

Another funny thing about your creationists. You are always so quick to point out the errors/hoaxes that have been made (in this case: Piltdown Man. What's next, Haeckles wood carvings?) and yet you never point out that it was other scientists that exposed these matters and corrected them.

As science is a man made construct to explain the natural world, it is prone to all the foibles and flaws of mankind, just as the law is. That doesn't invalidate the entire field. "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater". And even if you want to get hung up on issues like Piltdown Man, you would have no idea that it was a hoax if some other person in the profession hadn't of pointed it out to you. Of course, you guys don't have to be burdened with the details as everytime you run into a dead end, you can play the "God did it" card. As I said before, it's fine for your own personal beliefs. However, it's the anti-thesis of the scientific method.

Also funny: your insistence that evolution is a religion and that those of us who accept it are all like-minded cultists. Unless your friend is a respected and published authority in the field, I have no idea who he is, nor do I care about his "nine points" though it will be interesting to see you try to tell me why I should care.

If you don't know who Hovind is, I won't introduce him into the issue now. He's basically comic relief.

 

[SmarterThanHick]

We can go into what you think each of those mean when you finally copy and paste someone else's unpublished work, but high mutation rate is not a necessity for evolution. Any mutation rate can do it, but clearly slower rates take more time.

The other thing you need to realize as you continually make STILL UNSUPPORTED claims of "well this one evolutionist said this" is that no one person in science determines our knowledge base. Individual opinions are of no value in science, unlike religion. One scientist believing something does not make it true. This is why I continually come back to the credentials behind scientific publication. It takes experts in the field to scrutinize the conclusions drawn from reproducible evidence before it is published. If the research is not reproducible, the conclusions are invalid. If the research is reproducible but the conclusion is not supported by the data, it is still invalid. Therefore we have a built in method of finding hoaxes, where religion does not.

Keep that in mind when we scrutinize your opinions, and the points you make. We provide support based on these principles, and readily shoot you down when you construct sentences with "this one guy with a PhD in theology said this about evolution on his blog."

 

[Youwerecreated]

We can go into what you think each of those mean when you finally copy and paste someone else's unpublished work, but high mutation rate is not a necessity for evolution. Any mutation rate can do it, but clearly slower rates take more time.

The other thing you need to realize as you continually make STILL UNSUPPORTED claims of "well this one evolutionist said this" is that no one person in science determines our knowledge base. Individual opinions are of no value in science, unlike religion. One scientist believing something does not make it true. This is why I continually come back to the credentials behind scientific publication. It takes experts in the field to scrutinize the conclusions drawn from reproducible evidence before it is published. If the research is not reproducible, the conclusions are invalid. If the research is reproducible but the conclusion is not supported by the data, it is still invalid. Therefore we have a built in method of finding hoaxes, where religion does not.

Keep that in mind when we scrutinize your opinions, and the points you make. We provide support based on these principles, and readily shoot you down when you construct sentences with "this one guy with a PhD in theology said this about evolution on his blog."

These nine conditions come from one who believes in evolution that shoots down the idea that mutations being the engine that drives macroevolution. This guy is a geneticist ,I believe he is qualified to educate the ignorant.

 

[Youwerecreated]

You guys are already judging something before seeing the explanation,yeah you guys are really concerned with being right.

 

[Youwerecreated]

We can go into what you think each of those mean when you finally copy and paste someone else's unpublished work, but high mutation rate is not a necessity for evolution. Any mutation rate can do it, but clearly slower rates take more time.

The other thing you need to realize as you continually make STILL UNSUPPORTED claims of "well this one evolutionist said this" is that no one person in science determines our knowledge base. Individual opinions are of no value in science, unlike religion. One scientist believing something does not make it true. This is why I continually come back to the credentials behind scientific publication. It takes experts in the field to scrutinize the conclusions drawn from reproducible evidence before it is published. If the research is not reproducible, the conclusions are invalid. If the research is reproducible but the conclusion is not supported by the data, it is still invalid. Therefore we have a built in method of finding hoaxes, where religion does not.

Keep that in mind when we scrutinize your opinions, and the points you make. We provide support based on these principles, and readily shoot you down when you construct sentences with "this one guy with a PhD in theology said this about evolution on his blog."

This explanation is not the one i was looking for but this article will do. High mutation rate well lets see.

Mutation Fixation: A Dead End for Macro-evolution
by E. Calvin Beisner, M.A.
Most arguments against the possibility of mutation as a mechanism for evolution revolve around two premises: that mutations are almost always harmful, and that the idea of their improving rather than harming organisms is contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which tells us that matter and energy naturally tend toward greater randomness rather than greater order and complexity. These are two sides of the same coin, actually, the latter arguing from principle and the former from empirical observation.

Rarely, though, do arguments against mutation as the mechanism for evolution consider at once the many conditions that must be met if mutation is to bring about macro-evolutionary change (that is, change from one basic kind of life to another). Yet examining the probabilities of these conditions all being met together provides excellent evidence against evolution and in favor of creation.

NINE CONDITIONS FOR MUTATION FIXATION
Fortunately, geneticist R.H. Byles has made the job easy for us by discussing nine important conditions in an article on the subject. 1

1. Natural Environment

Byles's first condition is: "Natural selection must be inconsequential at the locus or loci under investigation." This is because natural selection tends to work against fixation of mutations--in other words, it tends to prevent their becoming a permanent part of the gene pool of a population. Natural selection keeps things stable rather than helping them to change. B. Clarke points out that even so-called advantageous mutations are harmful in that, because of increased competition, they can reduce population size, making their fixation nearly impossible. He adds that they will almost certainly lead to extinction of the mutant gene or organism, and possibly even the entire population. 2

The effect of Byles's first condition is that the environment must be selectively neutral, or else the mutant gene will never be retained in the population, preventing even slight change. But according to J.T. Giesel, most locations are almost certainly not selectively neutral. 3 Thus, in the vast majority of cases, Byles's first condition will not be met.

2. No Structural Change

Byles's second condition is: "There must be no pleiotropic effect involved with the locus or loci, or, if such effect exists, all the phenotypic structures involved must be selectively neutral." This means that there either must be no changes in physical structure involved, or they must be selectively neutral. If none are involved, then of course evolution does not occur. But if only those occur that are selectively neutral, then they are of no advantage to the mutant and survival of the fittest does not affect it or its non-mutant relatives; again, no evolution.

Not only would mutations that met this condition appear to contribute little or nothing to evolution, but also they would appear never to happen--or nearly never, anyway. G. Ledyard Stebbins tells us that within the gene there is no such thing as an inactive site at which a mutation will not affect the adaptive properties of the gene. 4 "Every character of an organism is affected by all genes," writes Ernst Mayr, "and every gene affects all characters. It is this interaction that accounts for the closely knit functional integration of the genotype as a whole." 5

In other words, there may well be no such thing as a mutation having no structural change in the organism. Yet Byles says that a requirement for the fixation of a mutation is that it have none, or that the effect it has must be selectively neutral. Neither case appears ever to happen, and even if the latter did, it would not lead to macro-evolution since it would leave the mutant no more "fit" than any of its relatives. Indeed it would probably be less "fit" because of the tendency of natural selection to weed out rather than preserve mutations in a gene pool.

3. Net Effect Must be Unidirectional

Byles's third condition is: ". . . the mutational event must be recurrent and, furthermore, the rate of back mutation must be so small as to be irrelevant." Byles himself admits, though, that even recurrent mutations are almost never retained in the population: ". . . non-recurrent mutations have a very low probability of remaining in the genepool at all . . . the odds against a recurrent mutation being retained in the gene pool for any significant number of generations are very high." And even "most recurrent mutations have been observed to retain the potential for back mutation." It seems that neither part of his third condition will be fulfilled; yet Byles makes it clear in his article that all the conditions must be fulfilled in order for mutations to be fixed in a population.

4. High Mutation Rate

Byles's fourth condition is: "The mutation rate at the relevant locus or loci must be very large." Yet Francisco Ayala says, "It is probably fair to estimate the frequency of a majority of mutations in higher organisms between one in ten thousand and one in a million per gene per generation." 6

Byles himself comments on Lerner's estimate of one hundred mutations per one million gametes (one in ten thousand). "Obviously, a mutation rate this small, even given a complete absence of back mutation (which appears never to occur), would result in a very small change in a given gene pool, even given large numbers of generations. This has long been considered one of the major stumbling blocks to the [Probably Mutation Effect] . . . In order for the P.M.E. to be effective, very high mutation rates are clearly necessary."

So it appears that this condition, too, is likely never met in nature.

5. Large Population

Byles's fifth condition is that the population involved must be large. He stipulates this because small populations can easily be destroyed by a mutation. And, as population size decreases, the probability that a mutation will be eliminated increases.

Dobzhansky, Hecht, and Steers, however, postulate that a small population with much inbreeding is important: ". . . the ideal conditions for rapid evolution . . . are provided by a species which is divided into a number of small local sub-populations that are nearly but not completely isolated and small enough so that a moderate degree of inbreeding takes place. . . . The division of a species into two or more subspecies is of course dependent on complete isolation being achieved in some way." 7

It seems that evolutionists themselves have realized a great problem but are unable to deal with it. In a small population, a mutation will almost certainly be eliminated. Yet a small population is needed for evolution to occur. Here indeed is an impasse. But the problem gets worse.

Byles adds (in contradiction of Dobzhansky, Hecht, and Steere), "If the investigator is dealing with a population which is undergoing contact with genetically dissimilar neighbors, the effect of the mutation is inevitably so minor as to be undetectable. Therefore, to argue that mutation is the cause of change in the population's genetic structure, one must also of necessity argue that this population is not undergoing a process of hybridization." In other words, if the population is large, the effect of the mutation is almost nil. Even when Byles's condition is met, then, the effects of the mutations are almost zero on the entire population. And, furthermore, while Dobzhansky, Hecht, and Steere say some interbreeding between dissimilar populations is necessary, Byles says it is death to evolutionary change.

6. Selective Neutrality of Polygenes

Byles's sixth condition is: "Polygenes are not relevant to this argument, unless the entire anatomical complex is itself selectively neutral." This means that for organisms of many genes, the mutation cannot be fixed unless the whole anatomical structure of the organism is selectively neutral relative to the gene which mutates. That this does not occur was shown in our discussion of the second condition.

7. Little Hybridization

Byles's seventh condition is: "There must be little or no hybridizing admixture." This of course is to avoid making the mutation itself insignificant. But if the effect is actually significant, then this contradicts his second condition, which was that the mutation must cause no significant structural change (see under point 2 above). Furthermore, the only way in which to have no hybridizing admixture is to have a small population that is isolated from others of the same kind. This contradicts his fifth condition. If the population is small, the probability of a mutant gene's being eliminated rises steeply.

This seventh condition, if fulfilled, makes evolution impossible because the mutation would not be retained due to the necessarily small population. But if unfulfilled, it leaves evolution impossible due to the insignificance of the effect of the mutation.

8. Necessity of High Penetrance

Byles's eighth condition is: "The genetic structures involved must have high 'penetrance.'" Put simply, this means that the genes must be highly susceptible to mutation. It thus means almost the same as Condition Four.

Yet it occasions another problem. As soon as the structure becomes highly susceptible to mutation, it must also become highly susceptible to back mutation. But his third condition states that the rate of back mutation must be irrelevant. Again there is contradiction: fulfill Condition Eight and you can't fulfill Condition Three. Fulfill Condition Three and you can't fulfill Condition Eight. Yet Byles says that all of the conditions must be fulfilled for mutation fixation to occur; and without mutation fixation there is no macro-evolution.

9. High Heritability

Byles's ninth condition is: "The phenotype must have high heritability." This condition is almost never met for mutational phenotypes. Byles himself told us that the probability of retaining even a recurring mutation is "very low."

TALLYING THE SCORE
It appears that the probability of meeting any one of these conditions in nature is extremely low, if not non-existent. Recall now that the fifth and seventh conditions effectively cancel each other out, as do the third and eighth, and we are forced to the conclusion that it is impossible to meet all the conditions. Mutation cannot be the mechanism for macro-evolution.

REFERENCES
1 R.H. Byles, "Limiting Conditions for the Operation of the Probable Mutation Effect" Social Biology, 19 (March, 1972):29-34. All citations from Byles in this article are from this source.
2 B. Clarke, "Mutation and Population Size," Heredity, 31 (Dec. 1973):367-79.
3 J.T. Giesel, "Maintenance of Genetic Variability in Natural Populations; Alternative Implications of the Charlesworth-Giesel Hypothesis," American Naturalist, 106 (May, 1972): 412-14, p. 412.
4 G. Ledyard Stebbins, "Building Bridges Between Evolutionary Disciplines" Taxon 23(I) (Feb. 1974):11-20, p. 14.
5 Ernst Mayr, Populations, Species and Evolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970), p. 103.
6 Francisco J. Ayala, "Teleological Explanations in Evolutionary Biology," Philosophy of Science, 37 (March, 1970), p. 3. Cited in Henry M. Morris, ed., Scientific Creationism (San Diego, Calif.: Creation-Life, 1974), p. 55.
7 Theodosius Dobzhansky, et al., Evolutionary Biology, vol. 2 (N.Y.: Appleton-Century-Croft, 1968), p. 259.

Mutation Fixation: A Dead End for Macro-evolution

 

[Youwerecreated]

Haldane's dilemma that neither of you addressed. To be fair this is the attempt at explaining away the dilemma for evolutionist.

What is Haldane's Dilemma?

Haldane claimed that in a fixed population (a population that is neither growing nor shrinking in the number of its member animals) of relatively slowly reproducing mammals, no more than 1 gene could be fixed per 300 generations due to the cost of substitution. Haldane assumed that the deaths caused by the newly disadvantageous gene's lower fitness (possibly due to a change in environment) would be over and above the "background" death rate - the naturally occurring deaths due to all reasons other than the lowered fitness of the gene. Haldane estimated that the substitution cost (for a diploid) would require the deaths of 30 times the population size for a single gene fixation from a very rare mutation to homozygous for the entire population. Since he claimed that the intensity of selection rarely exceeded 10%, Haldane believed a cost of 30 times the population size for the substitution would require 300 generations (30 / 0.1) to fix a single gene.

Haldane seemed satisfied that this rate of substitution was sufficient to explain theorized substitution rates at the time (see pg. 521 of "The Cost..."), but other scientists felt this rate was too low. The first mention of the term "Haldane's Dilemma" appears to come from paleontologist Leigh Van Valen in his 1963 paper "Haldane's Dilemma, Evolutionary Rates, and Heterosis" (Van Valen, 1963). Van Valen saw the dilemma as the observation that "for most organisms, rapid turnover in a few genes precludes rapid turnover in the others." Haldane's dilemma has come to mean this limit upon the rate of evolution.


What is the Substitution Cost?

Very simply, the substitution cost (or cost of natural selection) as defined by Haldane is the number of deaths (normalized to the population size) required for a substitution to occur. Thus, when Haldane states that a substitution cost of 30 is typical for a substitution for a diploid organism, he is saying that such a substitution would require the deaths of 30 times the population size. Therefore, if the population size was 100,000, 30 * 100,000 or 3 million deaths would be required for the substitution to occur. I have assembled a series of quotes from Haldane from "The Cost of Natural Selection" to document this definition. The fact that the substitution cost represents the number of deaths required for the substitution to occur should also be apparent from the derivations for the cost that are linked below.

A (Somewhat) Non-Technical Description of the Substitution Cost


What Does ReMine Say About Haldane's Dilemma?

ReMine claims that Haldane's Dilemma shows that not "enough" genes could have substituted in the human species since the last common ancestor with other apes. I shall illustrate each of these by quotes from ReMine "The Biotic Message" and from the thread "Haldane's Cost of Natural Selection" in sci.bio.evolution.

From page 209 of "The Biotic Message":
With these clarifications, let us return to the example. Take an ape-like creature from 10 million years ago, substitute a maximum of 500,000 selectively significant nucleotides and would you have a poet philosopher? How much information can be packed into 500,000 nucleotides? It is roughly one-hundredth of one percent of the nucleotide sites in each human ovum.

Is this enough to account for the significantly improved skull, jaws,teeth, feet, upright posture, abstract thought, and appreciation of music, to name just a few? If you find it doubtful, then you are beginning to understand why this is important. It sets a limit on the number of traits that can be substituted by differential survival in the available time.


This quote is taken from ReMine's post to the usenet discussion group sci.bio.evolution on 01/28/1998, Message-ID: <[email protected]>. Here he lays out his claim that Haldane's Dilemma allows only 1,667 substitutions to occur in the last ten million years of evolution leading to the human lineage. ReMine's quote follows:

As an example my book focuses on human evolution from its presumed ancestor (whatever it might be) from, say, ten million years ago. That is twice as old as the alleged split between gorilla, chimpanzee, and man. My book cites evolutionists such as Dawkins, Stebbins, Kimura and Ohta for an estimate of the effective generation time during that era -- twenty years. That makes for 500,000 generations. Then apply the Haldane limit of one substitution per 300 generations, and apply the evolutionary model exactly as taught in the textbooks. The result: In ten million years the population could substitute no more than 1,667 beneficial nucleotides. That is not remotely enough to explain human evolution.

ReMine also implies that Haldane's Dilemma is a problem for the genetic differences seen between humans and chimpanzees in this statement attributed to ReMine on a page maintained by creationist Ted Holden:


Imagine a population of 100,000 of those organisms quietly evolving their way to humanity. For easy visualization, I'll have you imagine a scenario that favors rapid evolution. Imagine evolution happens like this. Every generation, one male and one female receive a beneficial mutation so advantageous that the 999,998 others die off immediately, and the population is then replenished in one generation by the surviving couple. Imagine evolution happens like this, generation after generation, for ten million years. How many beneficial mutations could be substituted at this crashing pace? One per generation -- or 500,000 nucleotides. That's 0.014 percent of the genome. (That is a minuscule fraction of the 2 to 3 percent that separates us from chimpanzees).
I have read "The Biotic Message", and I am aware that ReMine does not stress the issue of the "2 to 3 percent" difference that separates humans and chimps in that book. However, unless Holden has incorrectly attributed the passage above to ReMine, ReMine does try to make an issue of those differences. Furthermore, this form of the argument is often seen on the Internet and also was printed in the creationist publication Creation Ex Nihlio 19(1):21-22, Dec. 1996-Feb. 1997.- see Does the DNA similarity between chimps and humans prove a common ancestry?. In item 6 of the essay, Batten refers to the 120 million differences between humans and chimps (because he used a difference of 4%). In footnote 7 of the article, Batten specifically refers to "The Biotic Message" and its treatment of Haldane's Dilemma as evidence that the number of differences seen between humans and chimps is impossible to explain. So even though ReMine does not stress this issue in "The Biotic Message", because creationists are in fact using the argument that a "2 to 3 percent" genetic difference between chimps and humans is a problem for evolution because of Haldane's Dilemma, it is very important that these arguments are addressed. One important thing ignored by these claims of ReMine and other creationists is the simple fact that neutral substitutions do not add to Haldane's substitution cost and are not part of Haldane's Dilemma.

You can read the rest of the explanation for Haldane's dilemma here.

Haldane's Dilemma

Now here is the problem for that explanation.

Answering Evolutionist Attempts to Dismiss "Haldane's Dilemma"

Fred Williams
October 2000

[Author's note: see update at end of article]

Introduction
In 1993 Walter ReMine&#8217;s book "The Biotic Message"1 hit the street, bringing with it several devastating arguments against evolution that are still clamoring through the halls and smoke rooms of the evolutionary faithful. One of these arguments is based on a paper by J. B. S Haldane in 19572 that showed the reproductive capacity of vertebrates was way too low to pay the costs needed to account for large-scale evolution. This problem is referred to as &#8220;Haldane&#8217;s Dilemma&#8221; (go here for an online discussion of the problem by Walter ReMine).


Refuting Robert Williams
So far I have only encountered one attack against Haldane&#8217;s Dilemma that offers any kind of sophistication, one posted on the internet by Robert Williams. It regularly shows up early in search engines when searching on &#8220;Haldane&#8217;s Dilemma&#8221;, so evolutionists often cite it or copy from it.

There are many, many problems with Robert Williams&#8217; article. When I first read it, I became very suspicious that he had never read ReMine's book since ReMine deals with most of Williams&#8217; arguments in his book. I contacted Mr. ReMine, and he confirmed that Williams eventually admitted on the newsgroup sci.bio.evolution to not having read the book. On several occasions I attempted to contact Williams about this, but he did not reply. It is very unfortunate that Williams refuses to do the right thing and properly review ReMine&#8217;s book before posting a rebuttal.

Nevertheless, since so many evolutionists refer to Williams' tenuous paper, I thought I would address its arguments. Robert Williams&#8217; comments appear in italic green.

ReMine neglects the fact that humans did not evolve from chimpanzees, rather humans and chimps evolved from a common ancestor. Therefor we have actually had two different branches each evolving independently, thus allowing for twice as many gene substitutions (3300 vs. 1700) as ReMine has allowed, even if all of the above is true.

His insinuation that ReMine believes humans evolved from chimpanzees is completely unsubstantiated (this was the first sign he had not read ReMine's book). This is a very common ploy of evolutionists, to claim that creationists don&#8217;t understand that evolutionary theory posits common decent from a shared ancestor. Regardless, this does not double the amount of substitutions that can occur from point A (man/ape ancestor) to point B (man), and this is the context of ReMine&#8217;s (and Haldane&#8217;s) argument.

ReMine assumes that all the differences between the human and chimp genomes are due to selection.

Remine makes no such assumption in his book.

This can't possibly be the case because many of the differences are known to occur at the 3rd triplet of gene codons and thus usually do not change the amino acid coded and can't affect fitness. Furthermore, since 95% of the genome is not transcribed (although that does not mean it is all non-functional ), most point mutations will not affect fitness. This reduces the number of selected substitutions by 5 x 2/3 % or from 4.8 x 107 substitutions to 1.6 x 106. Please remember that changes in the genome due to drift and other "random" processes do not add to the cost of substitution. I should add that Haldane's Dilemma has been viewed by scientists as possible evidence for the importance of Neutral Evolution as proposed by Kimura in 1967.

At this point I was very certain Williams had not read ReMine&#8217;s book, since ReMine has an entire chapter dedicated to Neutral Evolution and its inability to solve Haldane&#8217;s Dilemma. If Williams had read ReMines&#8217; book, or even just thought about the problem logically, he would have discovered that neutral substitutions also must be substituted in! If a neutral trait (or substitution) becomes fixed, all alternative alleles at the same locus must still be removed.

In fact, neutral mutations incur a greater cost, since they will have a greater propensity to drift back and forth in frequency since they have no selective value. Every time the frequency goes down, it negates any previous payment made by reproductive excess to get it to that frequency; when it drifts back up, a new payment via excess reproduction is needed, hence net cost is increased. According to ReMine, Haldane showed that cost is minimized only when fixation moves steadily upward3.

ReMine neglects the fact that there are only 23 pairs of human chromosomes. Thus, when there are any favorable genes on the same chromosome, their substitution cost would only have to be paid one time for the chromosome as a whole, not one time for each favorable gene. This alone could falsify ReMine's whole argument if many genes are approaching fixation on a few chromosomes.

Again, ReMine's book correctly addresses this. If Williams had read it he would have been reminded of Mendelian genetics, recombination and crossover, and that humans reproduce sexually, not asexually. Diploid offspring do not inherit completely intact chromosomes from their parents. Does Williams submit that Haldane, a distinguished evolutionist, also &#8220;neglected the fact that there are only 23 pairs of human chromosomes&#8221;?

ReMine ignores the possibility of gene hitchhiking - the concept that even though some mutations are neutral, they will be carried to fixation because they are physically close to a gene that is beneficial.

ReMine does not ignore this possibility, he discusses it in the book Williams pretended to read4. ReMine also cites Haldane as addressing this possibility and that Haldane also dismissed it as very negligible5.

For linkage to pay the cost of two for the price of one, the following must occur:

a) The neutral mutation must occur about the same time as the beneficial mutation it is linked to. If it occurs say 50% into the fixation cycle of the beneficial mutation, it can&#8217;t just magically appear on all the other chromosomes in the population. It has to begin its own payment cycle when it first appears. All those without the mutation, which would be the entire population plus all descendants without the mutation, must eventually be removed.

b) the two would have to remain very tightly coupled through at least half the fixation process to give the neutral mutation an even chance to reach fixation6.

c) gene hitchhiking is very rarely found in sexually reproducing populations7.

I hope it is now quite apparent why linkage effects have negligible impact on cost evaluations.

Finally, ReMine ignores the fact that due to non-point mutations (deletions and insertions due to non-equal crossing over), a single mutation can affect many more than one DNA base pair. In fact, what has to be by far and away the most common mutation is the change in DNA due to the alignment mismatch mutations in mini-satellites. These mutations can affect some multiple of between 5 and 15 base pairs and have been observed in as many as 1 in 6 human sperm!

This is a completely bogus argument for several reasons. First, the must common mutations are point mutations (base pair substitutions)8. Second, even when multiple mutations occur, the harmful ones will incur an immediate reproductive cost, and any remaining neutral or &#8220;beneficial&#8221; ones must still pay their own cost if they are to reach fixation!!! Also, it appears Williams again forgot that humans reproduce sexually, not asexually. If multiple mutations occur, they will be divided among the offspring, and only so many of these will reproduce on to the next generation. Hence only a handful will remain, only to face the same shredding machine the next generation. Because sex continually scrambles genes every generation, population geneticist Ronald Fisher (1930) estimated that a &#8220;beneficial&#8221; mutation will have at best only a 1 in 50 chance of ever reaching fixation in a population 9.

Haldane assumed that the cost of substitution had to be paid on top of the "natural" death rate! In other words, it didn't matter that 90% of a mammal's offspring died without reproducing - any death that resulted from the substitution of one gene for another had to be additional death that the animal would not "normally" have suffered. This is known as hard selection and we can now easily see why Haldane only allowed an excess fertility of 10% to go towards the cost of substitution. However, most Biologists today consider all or some selection to occur as soft selection. In this scenario, the cost of substitution is "paid" in the natural death rate of the animal. That is, a disproportionate number of the individuals that die without reproducing in any generation are the ones that have lower fitness due to their genes. The Biologist Bruce Wallace has been the champion of soft selection, and you can learn more about this topic in his book "Fifty Years of Genetic Load - An Odyssey".

Let me bring in another Williams to refute Williams! Highly regarded evolutionist George C. Williams wrote the following regarding Wallace and soft selection:

&#8220;...the problem [of Haldane's dilemma] was never solved, by Wallace [soft selection] or anyone else. It merely faded away, because people got interested in other things. They must have assumed that the true resolution lay somewhere in the welter of suggestions made by one or more of the distinguished population geneticists who had participated in the discussion." 10

As we can see, Robert Williams&#8217; last effort to soften the blow of Haldane&#8217;s Dilemma is disputed by an evolutionist of considerably more standing.


Conclusion
Despite various attempts by evolutionists over the last 40 years to soften the impact of Haldane&#8217;s Dilemma, it still remains an enormous problem for their theory. It is worth noting that Haldane's analysis even used very favorable assumptions for the evolutionary theory, such as assuming the mutations are dominant (recessive mutations pay an exponentially higher cost). Regardless, the numbers do not bode well for the evolutionists, and is very likely why the problem stays buried in back-room discussions and does not see the light of day in evolutionary textbooks.

Current molecular data is making matters even worse for the evolutionist faithful, because it makes the problem easier to see for the layman. I document this in my article Monkey-Man Hypothesis Thwarted by Mutation Rates. This article stands on its own and does not rely on the validity of Haldane&#8217;s calculations. Using a conservative estimate of mutation rates based on current studies, it shows that the ape/human line would have required at least 40 offspring per mating pair just to maintain equilibrium! This forcefully argues that the Monkey-Man shared ancestor hypothesis is simply implausible.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update: Several months after I wrote this, Robert Williams to his credit removed most of the arguments I addressed above from his web page! (he keeps a copy of the original here). His first line of defense in his latest installment is his claim that 1667 beneficial substitutions may be enough to account for human evolution from our alleged simian ancestor! As far as I'm concerned this is a complete capitulation of the issue! Remember that this is not just a problem for human evolution, but for mammalian evolution in general.

Robert also still defends gene hitchhiking as a cost reducer, and gives an example of it occurring in nature. I have not had a chance to confirm his example, but it doesn't really matter. It is still a rare phenomenon, as Futuyma points out in his Evolutionary Biology testbook7. A blind squirrel, well, you know the story.

Finally, Robert mentions that Haldane did address the issue of "multiple simultaneous substitutions". Haldane did indeed, but Robert's citation from Haldane's paper is completely inaccurate. In the paragraph Robert referred to, Haldane is not addressing the impact on cost of "multiple simultaneous substitutions". Where Haldane does address this is the 4th paragraph on page 522, where he explains "[for three mutants]...since the cost of selection is proportional to the negative logarithm of the initial frequency, the mean cost...would be the same as that of selection for the three mutants in series..."




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1. Walter ReMine, The Biotic Message, 1993, St Paul Science

2. JBS Haldane, The Cost of Natural Selection, Journal of Genetics 55, pp 511-524 (1957)

3. ReMine, The Biotic Message, p 500

4. Ibid. pp 245, 503

5. Haldane, 1957, p 522

6. Douglas J. Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, 1998, p 300

7. Ibid. p 245 (gene hitchhiking is technically referred to as linkage disequilibrium)

8. Personal correspondence with Professor James Crow

9. Futuyma, p 298

10. George C. Williams, Natural Selection: Domains, Levels, and Challenges, 1992, p 143-148

Answering Evolutionist Attempts to Dismiss "Haldane's Dilemma"

Haldane's dilemma still a problem for evolutionists.

 

[geauxtohell]

Haldane's dilemma that neither of you addressed. To be fair this is the attempt at explaining away the dilemma for evolutionist.

Shocking. "Haldane's Dilemma".

Haldane's paper was published in 1957, and Haldane himself said, "I am quite aware that my conclusions will probably need drastic revision" (Haldane 1957, 523). It is irresponsible not to consider the revision that has occurred in the forty years since his paper was published.

CB121: Haldane's Dilemma

Here's your revision:

http://www.sekj.org/PDF/anz40-free/anz40-185.pdf

(I'll spare you a copy and paste job like you have done).

 

[Gadawg73]

There is always a community college somewhere with open enrollment that teaches Biology 101.
Out of the tens of thousands of colleges, universities and schools of higher learning there are 2 or 3 that do not teach evolution as fact.
Intelligent design was shot down as a fraud by a conservative Bush appointed Republican Federal jidge in the Dover case. The witnessesand school Board members there lied in open court and were almost charged with perjury.

 

[Youwerecreated]

There is always a community college somewhere with open enrollment that teaches Biology 101.
Out of the tens of thousands of colleges, universities and schools of higher learning there are 2 or 3 that do not teach evolution as fact.
Intelligent design was shot down as a fraud by a conservative Bush appointed Republican Federal jidge in the Dover case. The witnessesand school Board members there lied in open court and were almost charged with perjury.

Really,impressive post.