# "I'm treating the mutation rate as a substitution rate" - Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson

**URL:** <https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/im-treating-the-mutation-rate-as-a-substitution-rate-dr-nathaniel-jeanson/15141>\
**Category:** Conversation\
**Tags:** Science, Comments\
**Created:** [June 3, 2022, 4:35pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/im-treating-the-mutation-rate-as-a-substitution-rate-dr-nathaniel-jeanson/15141 "2022-06-03T16:35:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 197

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**Author:** ![T\_aquaticus](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/t_aquaticus/32/1249_2.png) [@T\_aquaticus](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/T_aquaticus)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2022, 7:44pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/im-treating-the-mutation-rate-as-a-substitution-rate-dr-nathaniel-jeanson/15141/197 "2022-07-05T19:44:59Z")

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> [@colewd](#):
>
> Your item 3 is a bald assertion that is most likely false. A “nested hierarchy” is a vague claim and most of us non “true believers” see this.

Good thing I buy irony meters in bulk.

You make a vague claim about the 3rd item being a bald assertion, and then pretend as if a nested hierarchy is vague.

What is vague about a nested hierarchy? It is a very, very specific distribution of characteristics. There is nothing vague about it.

> [@colewd](#):
>
> When you label a claim mistaken it is an argument that you have the authority to label it. This is a logical fallacy of argument from authority.

We can add “argument from authority” to the lists of concepts you don’t understand.

> [@colewd](#):
>
> You repeat and assert that your non detailed evidence is enough to support your claims.

What is non detailed about a nested hierarchy?

> [@colewd](#):
>
> There has been plenty of discussion here where you make a bald assertion that standard evolutionary mechanisms can explain the pattern yet you have no mathematical model that supports your claims of how new genes are formed or lost by selected or neutral random change which results in the Howe Venn pattern…

Here you go:

> [@From Panda's Thumb: The Evolution of T-URF13: Does Irreducible Complexity Count or Not?](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/from-pandas-thumb-the-evolution-of-t-urf13-does-irreducible-complexity-count-or-not/15172/1):
>
> Notable mentions of @Art and @NLENTS. Also relevant to an ongoing discussion in another thread. The Discovery Institute, principal advocate of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement in the US, attempts to invalidate scientific results demonstrating that so-called irreducibly complex (IC) biological traits can evolve naturally. According to the ID protagonist Michael Behe (1996), a system is by definition irreducibly complex if it consists of several specifically interacting components which together produce a function such that the removal of any single component leads to the failure of this function. Most biochemical systems are irreducibly complex in that sense. Since they cannot be less complex without losing their function, unguided natural processes based on random mutations and selection cannot build them up gradually, according to Behe. Instead, multiple coordinated mutations would be required simultaneously .

> [@colewd](#):
>
> You guys repeat **Texas Sharp shooter** without showing that this analogy applies.

1. You point to an an adaptation that requires 2 or more muations.
2. You calculate the probability of those specific mutations accumulating over time.
3. You cite the high improbability of those specific mutations accumulating over time as evidence against evolution.

That is the Sharpshooter fallacy because it paints a bulls eye around the adaptation that did occur. What the probability ignores is all of the possible mutations that could have occurred that would also have resulted in a beneficial adaptation.

What is so hard to understand?

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