I think that you are greatly overestimating the naïveté of the scientists who comment here.
But that doesn’t limit their use of those talking points everywhere else. They (the points) are zombies.
You’re saying that the millions of current species could be statistical aberrations? But if GE were a real thing, the tail of the distribution couldn’t possibly be that large.
This assumes that they think we need to preserve species. But since the End Times are coming soon, there’s no need.
I had no intention of impugning the skepticism of any of the scientists who comment here, least of all yourself. I apologize if I gave you any offence. My intention was only to highlight the difference in style between what I do and what you all do on the day to day, and to hopefully advocate for the position that I have some small contribution to bring to the table.
I only wanted to reciprocate, and share a little of the skillset that I focus my attention on. You might already know all of the things I know. Maybe you are better at it than I am. You certainly know more of the science. I only wanted to share some of the technique I know and employ as a lawyer for forcing people to come to grips with your great ideas. As you implied, I can’t be everywhere, and these talking points live on, so my thought was that if I shared some of what I know, the community might benefit.
Again, I apologize for the offence.
I don’t see that “GE is a real thing” and “GE always/almost always happens” are equivalent, but kindly note that I’m not advocating for either.
No, I’m not making that assumption. They could still point out the alleged folly of outbreeding (if they truly believe that GE is a real thing) without advocating against it politically.
No offense taken.
Trust me, I get it. It just seems that you are overestimating its efficacy. After all, lawyering and courtroom drama don’t appear to have had much on the Big Election Lie (which bursts with parallels with IDcreationism and other pseudoscience, particularly wrt falsehoods about the actual evidence), but I remain hopeful that they will.
I appreciate your contribution, probably not, and almost certainly not, respectively. 
I just happen to have a deep understanding of the silliness of many of IDcreationism’s greatest hits during my wide-ranging experience in biology.
Again, none taken.
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If it were a real thing, I don’t see how any species could avoid it, and I’m just saying your reason it could be a real thing is not valid. That is, the survival of the biota is an argument against it.
I don’t see how the survival of some species means that it couldn’t have happened to some extinct species.
Once again, kindly note that I’m not advocating for either. You seem to have missed that.
Speaking of advocating for silly ideas, did you ever figure out why the review that you reached around Larry Moran to cite too support the rarity of alternative splicing was not merely worthless, but grossly misleading?
If it happens it isn’t a rare phenomenon. It should happen to most populations.
Never thought you were.
No. Is it a secret, or would you be willing to explain?
Thank you both for the comments, I’m going to try to draw a conclusion.
One one hand Genetic Entropy doesn’t have the details and definition that would allow a connection to 2LoT. On the other hand the intent of GE is exactly the 2LoT argument. I think we could argue the intent fails for the same reasons - that input of energy and information can overcome entropy - but that requires accepting the premise of a real connection to entropy.
Until such time as Sanford defines what he really means, I think it’s better not to treat GE and 2LoT as the same thing, because arguing from a false premise is always a bad idea. We should keep pressing Sanford for definitions of exactly what it does mean, and keep the 2LoT argument in mind.
I’d say that the model is in fact fairly clear. It’s proposing nearly-neutral evolution leading to a cumulative high genetic load. There’s no need to bring entropy into it at all.
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I like to describe GE as a generalized case of mutational meltdown.
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Historically, most populations are extinct. That was my point.
I did explain, but you obviously lacked interest in learning how wrong you and Moran are.
From the spectacularly lame paper:
Their use of “debate” is an indication of the poor quality of the paper. Here’s what they did:
To generate a starting set of papers to curate, we queried PubMed on August 2017 using the term “alternative splicing”.
Simple, obvious question: has everyone who has produced “primary studies which provide evidence for the function of splice isoforms” used the term “alternative splicing” in the title or abstract?
Decades ago?
Even today?
I watched your video - like how you waited until the 5 minute warning to hit him with the cancer example, not leaving him any chance to mount a defense. 
We have different styles of argument, intended for different purposes, and that’s OK. I can see where your approach is useful for attacking an entrenched false premise from someone like Hovind.
My responses to “We have never observed a creature reproduce another creature not of it’s own kind,” would be “Of course not - that’s sort of immediate change is not a prediction of evolution, and would actually contradict evolution.” What evolution actually predicts is Common Descent, and there are multiple independent lines of evidence supporting the prediction of Common Descent.
I’ve learned (the hard way) it is better to avoid arguments building on a false premise, and turn the discussion back to the actual evidence. Pulling the “science rug” out from beneath YEC claims and turning the discussion to apologetics has become my favored approach. If you catch can catch them in Omphalos then they must defend both their science and their apologetics, and they cannot (a “fork”).
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Hi Dan,
Thanks so much for watching the video, and for the feedback! Waiting until the last 5 minutes was actually not something I did on purpose, Hovind was just very evasive the whole time. I actually had to cut a bunch of questions I was going to ask. Also, I did give him 3 weeks and then a second debate to mount a response, but that did not go well for him either. I don’t think it’s quite as much fun to watch as the first one, but it’s still pretty good.
What I do definitely is a different style, and you are right, it is useful for certain purposes. Kent Hovind is a good example of where that kind of approach is necessary, so that’s why I chose to debate him, despite the obvious downsides of doing so. Still, you will see from time to time, other situations where this sort of approach is necessary, and I just wanted to spread some awareness and assist in the fight against anti-science thinking in my own way. I can’t let you scientists have all the fun!
As I said to John Mercer, I am not pretending that I have all of the answers. The science community is full of very smart people who are excellent at making points.
Cheers!
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True, but not relevant to the case. Given the assumptions of the model, everything should be extinct. There’s no provision for reset at speciation.
Could you cite a better review that estimates the proportion of functional isoforms?
Yes. Sanford’s original GE idea seemed to basically just extend the range at which mutational meltdown happens into even very large population sizes. The idea was selection was powerless to remove mutations of small effect, that effectively it was always swamped by drift for realistic population sizes, and so fitness would be predicted to inevitably and unavoidably decline until mean reproductive rate would drop below that require to retain population size and then we’d see quick collapse into extinction.
When this was falsified in various experiments (including the LTEE), he eventually changed the definition of GE to no longer be about loss of fitness (though various apologists like @PDPrice will still deceptively appeal to Kimura’s curve, which is about fitness, and stuff like that), but instead to be about some sort of unquantifiable loss of functions/information idea more along the lines of Behe’s “first rule of adaptive evolution”(devolution), and then combined it with the completely ad-hoc excuse that maaaybe also GE doesn’t happen to “simple lifeforms” (by which he apparently means bacteria and possibly viruses(?)).
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Why should I, when you aren’t even willing to answer the bolded questions above?
To be helpful? You seem to be taking this as a fight. I’m just asking for information.
No, you are doing anything but. You (and Moran) made an unsupported claim based on not bothering to read the relevant literature. At least Moran cherry-picked that ridiculous paper; you were much lazier and relied on hearsay.
Do YOU have any evidentiary support for YOUR assertion? If not, why not learn something before pretending to know more than two people on this board who have worked in the field?
Simple, obvious question: has everyone who has produced “primary studies which provide evidence for the function of splice isoforms” used the term “alternative splicing” in the title or abstract?
Decades ago?
Even today?
It seems like an insulting question designed only for combat. Try to remember that this is Peaceful Science. I’ve been relying on Larry Moran for information. You could take it up with him at Sandwalk if you like. But would it really be a lot of trouble to cite something for me and anyone else who’s reading?
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