Progress after the Royal Society conference?

[lee_merrill]

@Rumraket

@lee_merrill

Well, you trimmed my response, though I subsequently admitted that I misspoke. I meant that knock-out experiments are fine, not that selecting mutations to look for ahead of time is fine

Which is what you are doing when you search for two mutations which in combination renders a gene nonfunctional and where no other mutations can compensate, deliberately insert those two mutations, and then wait for those two and only those two to reverse.

But that is not my view, I would say the specific mutations would be anticipated to be the way function would be restored, but also any other mutations which restore function would be fine, too.

@Rumraket

Not a particularly interesting or informative experiment with respect to evolution in general. The only sort of scenario for which such an experiment can be informative would be one where you know that some adaptation could only have evolved by such a pathway, and where no other alternatives existed at the time.

But I think allowing other mutations is fine too, you will get an idea how likely it is to restore function, regardless of how this happens.

@Rumraket

@lee_merrill

But no one who holds to separate creation says that the different proteins were created by chance! “Even on our conservative test, the probability that chance could produce the observed levels of ancestral convergence for just one of the eight datasets of 51 proteins is ≈1×10−19 and combined over 8 datasets is ≈1×10^-132.” But that’s the first I’ve heard of that view, I expect nobody subscribes to that.

Then why would separate creation predict ancestral convergence, the exact result expected on evolution?

But there are more than just two alternatives, randomness (which I don’t think anyone subscribes to), evolution, and special, intentional creation for which there is evidence that argues against evolution. Such as the various explosions of life forms (Cambrian, Avalon, etc.), such as the problems with the tree of life (e.g. orphan genes), such as the concerns some biologists have now about the origin of phenotypic complexity, and so on.

@Rumraket

If two mutations are too much for 100 million years, how many species would need to be on the Ark if they are to have diverged that much from their common ancestors in less than 6000 years? Heck, even if you aren’t a YEC I think you need to think about how it possible so many species could show common descent with that degree of divergence if a mere two co-dependent mutations should represent a barrier to that. Could you be missing or misunderstanding something? Seriously consider that option.

You’ll not sure whether the Genesis flood was global, though, it might have been local, for example, a strong wind would not help in respiring a global flood.

But you need to address the problem of two mutations requiring about 100 million years for humans.

@Rumraket

We didn’t evolve from chimps, but from a common ancestor (from which chimps evolved too).

Yes. I should have said the common ancestor, but the problem persists, regardless.

@Rumraket

How many of the “functions” in either species required (in order to evolve) two individually deleterious mutations that only in combination became beneficial, and where there were no other possible alternative mutation-combinations that could have provided the same or an equally adaptive function? We don’t know of even a single example.

I’m not sure what you mean, but I don’t require certain mutations were required, and that no other possibilities were possible, for a given function.

@Rumraket

Have you heard of the neutral theory of molecular evolution and the rate of fixation of neutral mutations being equal to their rate of occurrence?

I have heard of the theory, but I don’t know what you mean by “rate of fixation of neutral mutations being equal to their rate of occurrence”.

@Rumraket

So really what that paper showed is that one mutation can frequently give new traits that are beneficial in environments the organism have yet to encounter.

I would agree that this paper doesn’t really address the scenario with two individually neutral or deleterious mutations, and shows nothing about any limitations to evolution.

Fair enough…