Is the chocolate donut you select less fit than the surviving plain donut? Is phenotype (camouflage) playing a role in this scenario?
More difficult or impossible? The question remains: can you ever measure “fitness” independent of survival? Growth rate measured in the paper cited is survival and nothing else. Same goes for metabolic flux.
I would like to see where agreement breaks down, so please answer Y/N the following (add comments at the end if you must):
Organisms do no possess an intrinsic fitness independent of the environment.
There is no direct and exclusive link between survivability and phenotype (and genotype).
Natural Selection is described as “the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype”.
Propositions 2. and 3. are mutually exclusive.
Survival can be measured (estimated for very large populations)
Genotype can be measured for individual and can be estimated for populations
Complete phenotype cannot be measured or estimated for individual or population. Corollary: phenotype is a purely theoretical concept.
Fitness, defined as anything other than survival, cannot be measured or estimated for individual or population. Corollary: fitness is just survival by another name.
The 2016 Nobel Prize Winners for Chemistry, Sauvage, Stoddart, and Feringa, earned this prize for developing over a 33 year period, a few very simplistic molecular machines. They are “very simplistic” in comparison to the molecular machines built for us within our new cells every day. What this shows is that even with mankind’s vast accumulation of scientific knowledge and sophisticated equipment we do not have anywhere near enough intelligence to build even one live molecular machine for our cells. Therefore, why would we expect a process like evolution, having no intelligence at all, to be able to assemble cell parts from atoms. This evidence shows that super-intelligence is required, not just for the design but also for the careful assembly of the right numbers of the right atoms to build each cell part. Not that micro-evolution does not exist but that even mutant cells require the assembly of atoms. There is a new science developing in this field called Atomic Biology.
Well then, what do you think of disorders like Megalencephaly , a growth disorder of the brain where it becomes too large? There are plenty of disorders like this, where the right numbers of atoms are not assembled. Heck, cancer is uncontrolled growth. Look at leukemia, where too many white blood cells are produced, and they grow faster than they should and don’t stop growing when they should. That sure isn’t the right number of anything.
[quote=“NonlinOrg, post:144, topic:36621”]
Is the chocolate donut you select less fit than the surviving plain donut? Is phenotype (camouflage) playing a role in this scenario?[/quote]
I don’t understand the analogy. Donuts don’t reproduce. Neither do they have a mechanism for inheritance of traits. Perhaps you misread. The “as above” reference in my reply is with regard to your earlier statement which I also quoted in my response. You’d written:
What this tells you, is there’s no such thing as “fitness”, and in fact they selected certain organisms by determining the growth conditions.
Does that clear things up?
As others have also noted, fitness is not ‘just survival by another name’. For the sake of the discussion let’s use the term “reproductive success”, which is clearer. There are multiple factors which affect whether an organism will reproduce and how many progeny it will have. Some factors are determined by phenotypes and genetics in relation to the environment (e.g. able to more fully utilize a food source, for example by having a more active catabolic enzyme) while many others aren’t, e.g. lightning strikes or other random events. The combination of factors affects whether an organism will succeed in reproducing and, at a large scale, whether a species survives.
Fitness is the propensity to reproduce related to traits of the organism independent of random factors. It has statistical or stochastic measures. Reproductive success is thus a combination of fitness and random factors. In similarity with epidemiology, the relative contributions or strengths of the various factors can sometimes be peeled apart statistically. That can allow researchers to determine, for example, that xx% of the reproductive success could be accounted by a particular genetic makeup, yy% to another and zz% to random or undetermined influences. The fitness of a particular genetic makeup could then be calculated after accounting for the other factors.
In practice it can be very difficult to determined relative fitness numbers. Others in the thread have noted that as well. Success in determining relative fitness depends on the noise in the system under observation and the relative differences in fitness, i.e. whether a signal can be statistically separated from the noise.
The chemostat experiment I linked to is a case where the signal for relative fitness is clearly discernible above the noise. Thanks to reproducible conditions and a large population of very similar individuals (the power of having big numbers in statistics), the researchers could quite easily separate out the random factors and measure the relative fitness numbers for the various alleles in this environment. The derivations of their math is shown in the paper plus a couple earlier papers they referenced. Overall, the “noise floor” in this experiment was so low that the relatively small differences in fitness produced by the tested mutations could be calculated.
4 Likes
T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
148
We accept that evolution is responsible for the biodiversity we see because that is what the evidence shows us. Evidence trumps incredulity every time.[quote=“TomRogers, post:145, topic:36621”]
This evidence shows that super-intelligence is required, not just for the design but also for the careful assembly of the right numbers of the right atoms to build each cell part. Not that micro-evolution does not exist but that even mutant cells require the assembly of atoms.
[/quote]
Where in the process of DNA replication, RNA transcription, protein translation, and protein folding is there an intelligence involved? From what I can see, all of these things occur spontaneously and without an intelligence involved.
TomRogers you write
"They are “very simplistic” in comparison to the molecular machines built for us within our new cells every day."
I am curious. What quantitative measurements did you make before coming to this conclusion?
“What this shows is that even with mankind’s vast accumulation of scientific knowledge and sophisticated equipment we do not have anywhere near enough intelligence to build even one live molecular machine for our cells.”
My dear Tom, I hope you realize that the molecular machines within our cells are not alive themselves. We scientists take them out to study them in vitro every day!
“Therefore, why would we expect a process like evolution, having no intelligence at all, to be able to assemble cell parts from atoms.”
We do not expect it, we hypothesize it and the hypothesis makes many correct predictions about how those machines, including molecular motors, work.
“This evidence shows that super-intelligence is required, not just for the design but also for the careful assembly of the right numbers of the right atoms to build each cell part. Not that micro-evolution does not exist but that even mutant cells require the assembly of atoms”
I do not see that you have looked at this mechanistically. Evolutionary theory makes many true mechanistic predictions about how biological machines work. Do you have a design hypothesis that makes any mechanistic predictions?
Saying it’s very complex doesn’t work, because evolution is predicted by iteration to produce very complex things.
T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
150
Another interesting research project was the construction of an artificial bacterium.
We humans constructed a new genome, and it worked. The only thing stopping us from creating even larger genomes for more complex organisms is money and resources.
gbrooks9
(George Brooks, TE (E.volutionary T.heist OR P.rovidentialist))
151
I think your point here is really geared towards Atheists … not to a bunch of Christian enthusiasts who - - as a given - - think God is responsible for all of Creation! … including the application of Evolutionary principles!
T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
152
These positions get all jumbled up because of how Intelligent Design arguments work. ID/Creationists argue that features like the bacterial flagellum have to come about through intelligent design because they can not come about through natural processes. This doesn’t mix well with the idea that evolution is the same as all other natural processes, and that God created and sustains nature. I think the best middle ground is in saying that evolution is no different than any other natural process and leave the metaphysical questions for another discussion.
1 Like
gbrooks9
(George Brooks, TE (E.volutionary T.heist OR P.rovidentialist))
153
JCV-syn3.0 is a new, 473 genes, organism developed by genetic manipulations as part of the Minimal Genome Project. JCV-syn3.0 is less complex than the 525 genes Mycoplasma genitalium – the least complex natural organism known.
Contrary to some inflated claims to “synthetic life” and “created life”, the team has not created life out of non-living components (abiogenesis). The experiment is just a very sophisticated version of breeding – a process that humans have used for thousands of years to develop useful organisms.
At this time, researchers cannot understand the role of 149 of the 473 genes that seem “non-essential” yet without which the organism is not viable. The understanding of life is closer, but still far, far away.
It’s disappointing that you choose to write this long monologue that doesn’t answer anything, instead of replying to the simple questions asked that would have helped diagnose the disagreement.
T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
157
They started with base nucleotides and synthetically built the genome.
"In 2010, the team had a breakthrough: They reconstructed the genome of a different species of Mycoplasma synthetically, outside the bacteria. Then they removed a bacteria’s genome and replaced it with the synthetic one. "
I wish you were joking. Unfortunately, you have here made my whole point in this thread. For, you here are equating (a) my free access to claims as to what the empirical facts are with (b) my own direct-hand witness of those facts!
There is no credibility to this equation. I have implied this in many of my prior posts!
Many of the important body plan genes are widely shared among disparate animal phyla. To evolutionists, that means these genes must have existed within some ancient common ancestor of all these groups. But these body plans are quite different from each other, as different as vertebrates, starfish, jellyfish, and insects. Therefore the common ancestor must have existed much earlier than the first appearance of these groups—much earlier than the Cambrian Explosion. In other words, these widely important body plan genes must have originated back at a time when there were microorganisms and relatively little else with a body. How could genes originating in microorganisms or proto-jellyfish, say, be essential in widely diverse body plans today? It is awkward to claim natural selection originally created these genes to control diverse body plans: (1) because that common ancestor (whatever it was) didn’t have much of a body; (2) because natural selection cannot create something for a future use; and (3) it is unlikely these genes, at their original inception, just happened to be well-suited to a future use for creating such diverse body plans.
I’m not saying it precludes evolutionary explanations of the existence of widely different animals and widely different levels of complexity and adaptability. But neither does the author say that. He’s just saying that the debate is by no means as clear-cut, in the favor of goo-to-you-through-the-zoo explanation, as you evos keep claiming it is.
gbrooks9
(George Brooks, TE (E.volutionary T.heist OR P.rovidentialist))
160
I suspect I did provide answers. Furthermore, my reply got 4 likes so it’s likely a few others enjoyed the answers. The subject of evolutionary fitness has a long and deep literature. The people who’ve studied it and tried to work with fitness measures generally have a good grasp on the issues and shortcomings. Explaining part of the problem in terms of what other people can understand is my goal. But obviously, there are other resources that can go into even greater detail if people want to research the topic.
Sorry for being blunt but I think you should know: I just don’t believe you want to learn. I cited a specific, easy to understand experiment in which fitness was readily determined. It didn’t appear to register. And my opinion is not just based on this single topic, but from many of the interactions I’ve witnessed. The “return on investment” for interactively engaging you is simply too low. So please understand, I’m not responding for your benefit. It’s for reasonable people.
3 Likes
gbrooks9
(George Brooks, TE (E.volutionary T.heist OR P.rovidentialist))
162
