Did Darwin get anything correct and what did Darwin get wrong?

[klw]

that’s not answering my question.
It’s a simple question…

[amkleinman (Alan Kleinman)]

@klw

you are familiar with mechanisms of evolution…?

Are you saying that the reproductive fitness of humans increased with respect to chimpanzees because of evolution? How would you know? Ecologists don’t compare the reproductive fitness of different species.

[rsewell (RON SEWELL)]

@Dale

@amkleinman

Maybe he can correct T_aquaticus’s strange idea that when an event happens, its probability goes to 1.

That’s exactly what it does. You are mistakenly thinking about the probability of the next event.

Indeed. And conversely, where is the logic that someone who won the lottery probably did not win the lottery?

[klw]

No, I am saying the population size of humans has grown over time. This is not the same as comparing species “fitnesses”. I’m not going to repeat the same points over and over because it is clear you need to put in some of your own time to brush up on basic concepts in population ecology first.

And you still didn’t answer my question about whether you have taken university classes in ecology? I think the crickets here speak volumes

[amkleinman (Alan Kleinman)]

@klw

that’s not answering my question.
It’s a simple question…

We already know that it is against the laws of ecology to compare the reproductive fitness of different species. What else do I need to know about ecology? You can fill me in.

[rsewell (RON SEWELL)]

@amkleinman

We already know that it is against the laws of ecology to compare the reproductive fitness of different species.

You brought it up. There is nothing about chimpanzee and human population and differential reproduction that is in the least problematic for common descent.

@amkleinman

What gives humans the capability to survive and replicate in these wider ecological niches that chimpanzees don’t have?

[klw]

I will if you pay the tuition and enroll in one of my classes.
In the meantime, there are plenty of textbooks publicly available to start with.

[amkleinman (Alan Kleinman)]

@klw

No, I am saying the population size of humans has grown over time. This is not the same as comparing species “fitnesses”. I’m not going to repeat the same points over and over because it is clear you need to put in some of your own time to brush up on basic concepts in population ecology first.

And you still didn’t answer my question about whether you have taken university classes in ecology? I think the crickets here speak volumes

So, you think that an increase in the size of a population over time has nothing to do with reproductive fitness? Let’s use the Wikipedia link that you used earlier:
Fitness_Biology

The absolute fitness (W) of a genotype is defined as the proportional change in the abundance of that genotype over one generation attributable to selection. For example, if n(t) is the abundance of a genotype in generation t in an infinitely large population (so that there is no genetic drift), and neglecting the change in genotype abundances due to mutations, then[4]

n(t+1)=Wn(t)

An absolute fitness larger than 1 indicates growth in that genotype’s abundance; an absolute fitness smaller than 1 indicates decline.

Do chimpanzees have the same value of W as humans? Perhaps at n(t=0), humans had a much greater population than chimpanzees?

[klw]

Above, you selectively edited out the part of the Wikepedia definition about the relative growth rates of competing genotypes/phenotypes being in the SAME GENE POOL!

I will no longer respond to your questions in this thread, as (with much repetition) it is apparent you are not asking questions in good faith, in a posture of learning.

best to you!

[GJDS]

I am reading a review available at the Templeton organization’s web site:

Extended Evolutionary Synthesis
A review of the latest scientific research
By Lynn Chiu
Department of Evolutionary Biology
University of Vienna.

I have not completed my reading, but nonetheless I am puzzled by the combative tone I note in exchanges (by biologists from what I can tell) regarding this approach.

If this is an effort to improve Darwinian theory, then my impression is that it is a very big improvement. During my student days, I was uncomfortable with the dogmatic stance may evolutionist took, and I guess that impression is re-enforced when I read these exchanges. For what it is worth, my impression has been that Darwin provided semantic (or description) concept of biology, and a great deal more is required before whatever version of evolution begins to look like a robust, mathematically scrutinized theory of the physical and biological sciences.

I hasten to add that the field addressed by Darwinism is probably the most complicated and opaque one, so it is understandable that progress is required.

[glipsnort (Steve Schaffner)]

@GJDS

I have not completed my reading, but nonetheless I am puzzled by the combative tone I note in exchanges (by biologists from what I can tell) regarding this approach.

I’ll see if I can help.

@GJDS

If this is an effort to improve Darwinian theory

If by ‘this’ you mean the EES, it’s not an effort to improve Darwinian theory. The individual research programs that make up EES are efforts to improve evolutionary theory (which is very different than the original Darwinian theory), some of which are very important. EES is a public relations attempt to promote those efforts. Both EES and the opposition to it are largely about jockeying for resources and prestige within the broader field of evolutionary biology, which is precisely the sort of thing that academics are most likely to get testy with one another about.

[T_aquaticus]

@amkleinman

Are you claiming that humans have a much greater reproductive fitness over chimpanzees because humans have a phage and chimpanzees don’t? Or are you claiming that chimpanzees don’t do sexual reproduction and humans do and therefore humans have much greater reproductive fitness?

Where did I ever say such a thing? You have gone off the deep end.

[T_aquaticus]

@GJDS

I have not completed my reading, but nonetheless I am puzzled by the combative tone I note in exchanges (by biologists from what I can tell) regarding this approach.

Carl Zimmer has a good write up on an EES meeting, and he covers some of the larger issues and discussion points that are happening within biology about the topic.

In the article, Douglas Futuyma echoes what a lot of biologists are thinking:

“I think I’m expected to represent the Jurassic view of evolution,” said Douglas Futuyma when he got up to the podium. Futuyma is a soft-spoken biologist at Stony Brook University in New York and the author of a leading textbook on evolution. In other words, he was the target of many complaints during the meeting that textbooks paid little heed to things like epigenetics and plasticity. In effect, Futuyma had been invited to tell his colleagues why those concepts were ignored.

“We must recognize that the core principles of the Modern Synthesis are strong and well-supported,” Futuyma declared. Not only that, he added, but the kinds of biology being discussed at the Royal Society weren’t actually all that new. The architects of the Modern Synthesis were already talking about them over 50 years ago. And there’s been a lot of research guided by the Modern Synthesis to make sense of them.

Take plasticity. The genetic variations in an animal or a plant govern the range of forms into which organism can develop. Mutations can alter that range. And mathematical models of natural selection show how it can favor some kinds of plasticity over others.

If the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis was so superfluous, then why was it gaining enough attention to warrant a meeting at the Royal Society? Futuyma suggested that its appeal was emotional rather than scientific. It made life an active force rather than the passive vehicle of mutations.

“I think what we find emotionally or aesthetically more appealing is not the basis for science,” Futuyma said.

Still, he went out of his way to say that the kind of research described at the meeting could lead to some interesting insights about evolution. But those insights would only arise with some hard work that leads to hard data. “There have been enough essays and position papers,” he said.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/scientists-seek-to-update-evolution-20161122/

[T_aquaticus]

@amkleinman

What gave humans these capabilities that chimpanzees and the progenitor didn’t or don’t have?

Mutations. At this point in the thread, how do you not know this?

[amkleinman (Alan Kleinman)]

@T_aquaticus

@amkleinman

What gave humans these capabilities that chimpanzees and the progenitor didn’t or don’t have?

Mutations. At this point in the thread, how do you not know this?

So they are adaptive mutations? Do they have a probability 1 of occurring?

[T_aquaticus]

@amkleinman

So they are adaptive mutations? Do they have a probability 1 of occurring?

Once they occur the probability of them occurring is 1 in 1, because it happened.

If I draw 5 cards out of a deck the probability of getting those specific 5 cards is 1 in 2.6 million. This is true for every single 5 card hand I draw. How is it possible for such improbable outcomes to happen every single time?

[Mervin_Bitikofer]

@amkleinman

Do they have a probability 1 of occurring?

You’re still repeating questions that have already been well-answered, Alan. It might be helpful if you gave some indication of understanding this basic probability concept yourself. You seem to be wanting to only consider all probabilities as if they were as yet unspecified things in the future - even if they are already part of the known and observed past. You are wanting us to say that the probability of getting a HHTH in a series of four coin-flips is 1/16 - which it is, if I specifiy that exact sequence in advance of it actually happening, but you seem unwilling to acknowledge that after I’ve seen it happen (or fail to happen), that probability can now be considered as having resolved to 0 (it didn’t happen) or 1 (it did). Instead, you’re wanting to insist that it’s still some sort of tiny chance of having happened (which is you painting a target around an already-existing bullet hole). Can you understand why your argument thus cannot carry the load you’re wanting it to?

[amkleinman (Alan Kleinman)]

@amkleinman

Do they have a probability 1 of occurring?

@T_aquaticus

Once they occur the probability of them occurring is 1 in 1, because it happened.

If I draw 5 cards out of a deck the probability of getting those specific 5 cards is 1 in 2.6 million. This is true for every single 5 card hand I draw. How is it possible for such improbable outcomes to happen every single time?

So, you claim that all the adaptive mutations have already happened, so their probabilities are 1. Is this how you do conditional probability calculation?

[amkleinman (Alan Kleinman)]

@amkleinman

Do they have a probability 1 of occurring?

@T_aquaticus

Once they occur the probability of them occurring is 1 in 1, because it happened.

If I draw 5 cards out of a deck the probability of getting those specific 5 cards is 1 in 2.6 million. This is true for every single 5 card hand I draw. How is it possible for such improbable outcomes to happen every single time?

So, you claim that all the adaptive mutations have already happened, so their probabilities are 1. Is this how you do conditional probability calculation?

@amkleinman

Do they have a probability 1 of occurring?

@Mervin_Bitkofer

You’re still repeating questions that have already been well-answered, Alan. It might be helpful if you gave some indication of understanding this basic probability concept yourself. You seem to be wanting to only consider all probabilities as if they were as yet unspecified things in the future - even if they are already part of the known and observed past. You are wanting us to say that the probability of getting a HHTH in a series of four coin-flips is 1/16 - which it is, if I specifiy that exact sequence in advance of it actually happening, but you seem unwilling to acknowledge that after I’ve seen it happen (or fail to happen), that probability can now be considered as having resolved to 0 (it didn’t happen) or 1 (it did). Instead, you’re wanting to insist that it’s still some sort of tiny chance of having happened (which is you painting a target around an already-existing bullet hole). Can you understand why your argument thus cannot carry the load you’re wanting it to?

Even moderators don’t know how to do conditional probabilities. Adaptive (selective) mutations are particular mutations and the probability of any two particular mutations must be computed using conditional probabilities. Wikipedia shows how conditional probabilities are calculated.
Conditional Probability

In probability theory, conditional probability is a measure of the probability of an event occurring, given that another event (by assumption, presumption, assertion or evidence) has already occurred.[1] This particular method relies on event B occurring with some sort of relationship with another event A. In this event, the event B can be analyzed by a conditional probability with respect to A.

Do you get it? The first event has already occurred and then you compute the conditional probability of the second event occurring with respect to the first event occurring. No matter how many times you or T_aquaticus repeat it, the first event does not have a probability of 1. You have to compute the probability of both events occurring jointly. You and T_aquaticus are repeating the wrong information and repeating the wrong information does not make it right. You do not understand the basic principles of probability theory or T_aquaticus.