A Dialogue with Nathaniel Jeanson?

[John_Harshman]

@David_MacMillan

“but remember fish aren’t on the Ark”

But if they weren’t, how would they survive the Fludde? If it’s salt water, all the freshwater fish die; if it’s fresh water, all the saltwater fish die. Not to mention the immense sediment load in the water, which should prevent any fish from eating or breathing. Let’s not forget all the fish killed in the Fludde, as shown by fossils.

[David_MacMillan]

More ad hoc hypotheses like “maybe fish back then could survive in both salt and fresh water and they’ve just lost the ability since then”

[John_Harshman]

I do wonder if all the ancestral fish kinds were themselves massively heterozygous and diversified into the fish species we see today. I wonder if there would be any discernible difference in the genetics of the kinds not on the ark and those on the ark. For that matter, would there be any difference between the clean kinds (7 pairs) and the unclean ones (one pair)? Finally, I wonder if even the creationists take this nonsense seriously.

[David_MacMillan]

Taking this nonsense seriously is what got me out, so…

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

Yeah it’s funny how that works. It’s all designed only to survive cursory inspection, but please don’t look too close.

[Roy (30-year veteran)]

@John_Harshman

I do wonder if all the ancestral fish kinds were themselves massively heterozygous and diversified into the fish species we see today. I wonder if there would be any discernible difference in the genetics of the kinds not on the ark and those on the ark. For that matter, would there be any difference between the clean kinds (7 pairs) and the unclean ones (one pair)? Finally, I wonder if even the creationists take this nonsense seriously.

Don’t forget you only need two fish to survive from each kind/family to give rise to all the diversity we see today.

[Roy (30-year veteran)]

@John_Harshman

This raises all sorts of questions. How does this supposed existing variation get sorted so neatly into separate species? How does such great genetic divergence arise from sorting and recombination? How does reproductive isolation arise within these original populations? How, incidentally, do changes in chromosome number arise through recombination?

Those were among my thoughts too (well, except the last, I’d forgotten that chromosome numbers differed among horses).

If all equids started with two animals, how did their coat genes get so thoroughly sorted so quickly that there are no recessive non-stripes genes in zebras and no recessive stripe genes in donkeys?

[AllenWitmerMiller (Retired Professor & Minister.)]

@Roy

Don’t forget you only need two fish to survive from each kind/family to give rise to all the diversity we see today.

Also, the term “kind” can be defined as widely or narrowly as fits one’s present purpose. Thus, even all bacteria are a single “kind.” (That has produced the popular slogan, “But that’s not evolution. It’s still a bacteria.”)

[John_Harshman]

@Toni_Torppa

Why do you professors (Duff and Swamidass) rely so much on student review of Jeanson’s book when this student himself seems to admit that he is not an expert on the subject?

Naked credentialism. When I was a grad student it was explained to me that the student is the world’s foremost expert on whatever his thesis subject is and probably knows the literature better than any professor. Anyway, I’m a phylogeneticist and I found nothing wrong in his post.

[AllenWitmerMiller (Retired Professor & Minister.)]

@John_Harshman

the student is the world’s foremost expert on whatever his thesis subject is

And that appears to apply not just in the sciences but the humanities as well. Of course, considering what a doctoral student has to do produce a dissertation, we should expect this. I would say that the Internet and electronic publications have made this maxim even more obvious. The relevant literature usually becomes known to the grad student much more rapidly than in my day.