ID and public education

To use an analogy, you don’t try to win a baseball game by changing the rules. Trying to get rid of methodical naturalism was a loser from the start. It seems that they would have had much more success if they embraced the theological and philosophical aspects of Intelligent Design from the start instead of attempting a Quixotic assault on the very foundations of science itself.

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They still could, if they were willing to drop their political activities and focus on the ideas. But, in that case, where would their funding come from? Lots of conservative Christians are willing to give money to fight the teaching of evolution in public schools. How many will give money to promote a philosophy of Intelligent Design? I’m guessing not many, so don’t expect to see much change in DI’s overall strategy. The fight over school science curricula is their cash cow. At least, that’s my guess.

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If you depend on donations, you have to stir the pot, sell the controversy. You see that in all walks of life, unfortunately.

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Sadly, I agree. I guess you keep paying Don Quixote to tilt at windmills if you also think the windmills are giants.

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There is no argument anywhere of mutations happening randomly, or no argument that cells have repair mechanism for correcting mutations. It kind of twists the mind and strains credulity btw that because of random degenerative mutations, random mutations created a mind bogglingly complex system for correcting other random mutations with said system managing NOT to attack their own creative (sorry, have to use that word) random mutations. But you guys are going to believe what you want no matter what regardless of this weakness in logic in the RM/NS principle applied to these repair systems. And I, if a teacher, could be fired from a public school classroom for putting this in front of students.

The problem is that nowhere have I seen the proof that all mutations must be random. I just isn’t anywhere I can find.

Since the Lenski papers are all for purchase, I went and read synopses and Wikipedia seems to have a pretty good one, although I don’t always rely on them. They have excellent mathematical articles and I contributed to the one on Laplace transforms. Since I have read about Lenski over the years, also Barry Hall and J. Cairnes since the '80’s when Cairnes coined the term ‘directed mutation’ which I think has been supplanted in the literature by ‘adaptive mutations’ which are ASSUMED to be random.

Ok so going to quote from the wiki article: "bacteria in each population are thought to have generated hundreds of millions of mutations over the first 20,000 generations, Lenski has estimated that within this time frame, only 10 to 20 beneficial mutations achieved fixation in each population, with fewer than 100 total point mutations (including neutral mutations) reaching fixation in each population.[7] …Over the course of the experiment, the populations have evolved to specialize on the glucose resource on which they grow.

Again it would be great, if someone could prove the advent of those beneficial mutations was strictly a stochastic phenomenon. But I don’t see it. Further of interest: “Two distinct variants, S and L, were identified in the population designated Ara-2 at 18,000 generations based on their formation of small and large colonies, respectively. … Phylogenetic analysis of clones of the two types isolated from different generations demonstrated that the S and L types belonged to distinct, co-existing lineages in the population, and might be undergoing incipient speciation.” Link: E. coli long-term evolution experiment - Wikipedia

OK one more link from Barry Hall where he references Cairnes, another researcher challenging the “model” (let’s just call it the null hypothesis model of random mutagenesis) Quote: "Studies of adaptive
mutagenesis began in 1988 when Cairns (Cairns, Overbaugh & Miller, 1988) published a controversial
paper challenging the conventional views that all mutations occur without respect to adaptive benefit. … There are almost as many names for the ‘adaptive mutation’ phenomenon as there are workers
in the field. Cairns originally called them ‘directed mutations’, and others have variously called them
‘Cairnsian mutations’, ‘selection-induced mutations’ ". Link: Adaptive mutagenesis: a process that generates almost exclusively beneficial mutations | SpringerLink

OK so it seems as if the phenomenon referenced has over the years been squashed. And it should be apparent to high school students why this might be if they were told about it, and told that the proof of the exclusivity of random mutations might be beyond science. And so again I could be fired for teaching it. Together with the non-proven, assumed model of the exclusively random mutation based as it is on a null hypothesis, students might get the idea that at the heart of Darwinian theory is a hypothesis. Which is a drastic situation for a theory and a fireable situation for the teacher. Even if the teacher had never heard of Intelligent Design. And somebody on here wants to bring up nuclear reactors as an analogous scenario.

It’s a matter of evidence, not belief. There is a great article here on Biologos that discusses the evidence for random mutations. You should give it a read:

https://biologos.org/blogs/guest/testing-common-ancestry-its-all-about-the-mutations

“I just can’t believe that happened” is never a good argument. In fact, it is considered to be a logical fallacy. The more you study science the more you will find that reality doesn’t really care what we will or won’t believe.

The two classic experiments that established the randomness of mutations were done by Luria, Delbruck, and the Lederbergs. Luria and Delbruck used the fluctuation assay to demonstrate random mutations while the Lederbergs used a plate replica experiment to demonstrate random mutations. A google search should find all the information you need.

The basic question they asked in those experiments is if beneficial mutations occurred because the organism needed them. To test this concept they allowed bacteria to multiply and mutate, and then they challenged them. Due to the design of their experiments they were able to determine that the beneficial mutations that allowed them to survive in the new environment occurred in the previous environment where those mutations were not beneficial. Instead, those mutations were just ticking away in the background without being influenced by the environment. This is what established mutations as being random with respect to fitness.

In that example, the bacteria increased their random mutation rates which is why they saw more adapted colonies than they expected. To use an analogy, the lottery is still random even if poor people buy more tickets than rich people.

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No not odd at all. You are quibbling when the scenario is strictly a backdrop for a discussion (content deleted by Moderator)…OK I could play the following quibbling scenario.: An extremely talented 9th grade student has two parents who are statisticians and who are Darwin skeptics. They instructed their daughter in the null hypothesis dependency of the doctrine of random mutations. Parents are tired of the indoctrination in the schools and formulated the interesting question for the daughter in order to test the teacher’s understanding

OK so you asked every biology teacher in the country if this has happened?

Discovery’s education policy is for public school science curricula. Have they delved into advising colleges how to teach science now? FYI, biology is taught in 9th grade in Texas and most other states

Yes by extensively publicizing the cancellation of the course at Ball State taught by physicist Eric Hedin which had a reading list that ran afoul of the guardians of thought at the college. Who were incited by radical censor Jerry Coyne. The prof’s tenure chance was considered threatened, and the DI by extensive coverage, got members of the Indiana state legislature involved, and career destruction via Darwinian evolution cult-hood was averted. link As Eric Hedin Earns Tenure, It’s Time to Set the Record Straight — Again | Evolution News

Sorry, I didn’t realize that you’d shown a sincere desire to discuss anything

See this is what happens when people have their philosophical commitment buttons pushed. They get personal. And they attempt insult. And by such behavior let the cat out of the bag: we are discussing something akin to a personal religion that upsets them when challenged. So much for the science huh?

@groovimus There are several available here
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C44&q=lenski+evolution&oq=Lenski

Enjoy.

When people try to replace actual science with stories of trumped up persecution it tells us a lot. Why don’t you discuss the actual science and we will see if it stands up to scrutiny?

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T_aquaticus It’s a matter of evidence, not belief.

OK well then let’s get really specific. You came back with that in reply to my wondering how in heck could a mind boggling system for correcting random mutations, could itself have been built up over an agonizingly complicated pathway of random mutations that somehow skip over it’s own mutagenetic random mutations.

You believe it is possible based on evidence or you wouldn’t have said it. I would like to see that evidence please. Extrapolation doesn’t count for me. Where is it shown that the mutations generating that system were themselves random

What I am saying is that mutations are random with respect to fitness. I am not talking about the origin of a specific pathway for DNA repair. I am talking about the relationship between the mutations that do happen and what the organism needs in a specific environment. We OBSERVE that mutations happening in living populations are random with respect to fitness, as far as statistics are concerned.

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Were I to attempt to explain “random mutations” to an intelligent, inquisitive person, I would say something like the following. Mutations are changes to DNA. We have a pretty good understanding of the physical, biochemical basis for the changes that occur. Most of these are random processes in the scientific sense, that is, they are processes with multiple possible outcomes that we can only specify by a probability distribution. None of those processes have any mechanism for distinguishing mutations that will be advantageous to the organism from those that will be deleterious. Our working model, therefore, is that mutations occur without regard to whether they are beneficial or deleterious; that’s what we mean by “random” when it comes to mutations.

That model turns out to be consistent with all of the evidence we’ve gotten from observing mutations. Both good and bad mutations occur, and both occur at rates consistent with the physical processes underlying them. There is no evidence either of beneficial mutations occurring preferentially, or of any mechanism by which that could be accomplished.

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I didn’t insult you or get personal, but I will bounce you out of here in a New York minute if you want to continue down this road.

In the meantime, I’ll talk to some folks with manners.

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Gosh. Looky there. A world-class scientist just started off by making sure the student understood the terms “mutation” and “random”. Well done, sir. You are now qualified to teach 9th grade … :wink:

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It’s a rather straightforward explanation. They started with genetically identical bacteria. Therefore, if there was a genetic mechanism by which these bacteria could mutate a specific base in their genome in response to a specific environmental cue then they would have all done it right away. They didn’t. It took YEARS and thousands of generations before just one of them acquired the beneficial mutation. That’s what we would expect from a stochastic process.

Mutants and Mutations!

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Additionally, of the 12 parallel evolution paths, the e coli changed in 3 different ways, in the most numerous case the bacteria optimized their glucose uptake speed at the expense of making an acetate waste product, in the second the e coli split into effectively 2 symbiotic subspecies one of which optimized glucose uptake and the other acetate uptake, in the last single case the bacteria optimized for glucose uptake and then acquire the ability to metabolize citrate which was in the solution to supply minerals. This reinforces @T_aquaticus’ point that random mutation rather than a latent ability of the cell caused the change. A second reinforcement is that the last change required two mutations one of which occurred but had no effect until the second happened.

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AP Biology is apparently for high school seniors. Since I took general science in 9th grade, biology in 10th grade, chemistry in 11th grade, and this course description states a prerequisite of chemistry, it is safe to say we are not talking freshmen here, nor teachers without biology credentials of some kind: Classes / Homework - Reseda Charter High School

Your problem there is that The College Board writes the curriculum for the class and administers the test for college credit. Neither Discovery nor local politicians can change that fact. Barking up the wrong tree.

I said that observations are consistent with random mutations, including the observation of ongoing mutagenesis in living populations. The pattern of differences between species is also consistent with random mutations, as shown by @glipsnort wonderful essay here on BioLogos:

https://biologos.org/blogs/guest/testing-common-ancestry-its-all-about-the-mutations

Transitions outnumber transversions, and CpG mutations outnumber all other types of mutations. This is what we see in ongoing mutations in the human population. This is also what we see when we compare genomes between divergent species. This is the evidence that the differences between species is due to random mutations.

Also, the reason for the bias towards transitions and CpG mutations comes down to basic chemistry. It doesn’t have anything to do with transition or CpG mutations being more beneficial. That is why mutations are considered to be random with respect to fitness because the benefice of any specific mutation does not affect how often it occurs.