[continued from previous message]   
      
   >>> 6. Trade-offs and constraint: why perfection is impossible   
   >>>   
   >>> Many traits are antagonistically coupled:   
   >>>   
   >>> Bone density vs. weight   
   >>>   
   >>> Immune sensitivity vs. autoimmunity   
   >>>   
   >>> Metabolic rate vs. longevity   
   >>>   
   >>> Formally:   
   >>>   
   >>> Fitness gradients for different traits often point in different   
   >>> directions   
   >>>   
   >>> The result is movement toward constraint surfaces, not maxima   
   >>>   
   >>> This leads to:   
   >>>   
   >>> Pareto fronts, not optima   
   >>>   
   >>> Stabilising selection around workable compromises   
   >>>   
   >>> So when you observe “thousands of traits conserved”, what you are   
   >>> seeing is:   
   >>>   
   >>> populations remaining inside a feasible region of phenotype space.   
   >>>   
   >>> 7. Why selection doesn’t “collapse under dimensionality”   
   >>>   
   >>> Putting it together:   
   >>>   
   >>> Selection avoids a combinatorial explosion because:   
   >>>   
   >>> Most dimensions are neutral or nearly neutral   
   >>>   
   >>> Purifying selection removes large disruptions efficiently   
   >>>   
   >>> Pleiotropy couples traits, reducing effective dimensionality   
   >>>   
   >>> Selection acts on organisms, not traits   
   >>>   
   >>> Drift absorbs small-effect noise   
   >>>   
   >>> Stabilising selection maintains systems near viable equilibria   
   >>>   
   >>> This is why mammals can persist with:   
   >>>   
   >>> Highly conserved core systems (development, metabolism, cell biology)   
   >>>   
   >>> Slowly drifting peripheral traits   
   >>>   
   >>> Occasional adaptive shifts when environments change   
   >>>   
   >>> 8. A useful analogy (non-hand-wavy)   
   >>>   
   >>> Think of a modern aircraft:   
   >>>   
   >>> Thousands of parameters   
   >>>   
   >>> Most cannot change without catastrophic failure   
   >>>   
   >>> Some can vary within tolerances   
   >>>   
   >>> Rare redesigns improve performance under new constraints   
   >>>   
   >>> Natural selection is not “designing” the aircraft from scratch each   
   >>> generation; it is:   
   >>>   
   >>> Rejecting planes that crash   
   >>>   
   >>> Allowing minor tolerated deviations   
   >>>   
   >>> Occasionally locking in improvements when conditions demand it   
   >>>   
   >>> 9. Where this intersects ID-style intuitions (briefly, since you   
   >>> follow the literature)   
   >>>   
   >>> The intuition that “too many traits must be coordinated” is not   
   >>> wrong, but the resolution is:   
   >>>   
   >>> Coordination is largely inherited, not newly created   
   >>>   
   >>> Selection is primarily conservative, not creative   
   >>>   
   >>> Evolution is maintenance with occasional modification, not constant   
   >>> innovation   
   >>>   
   >>> This is precisely why:   
   >>>   
   >>> Evolution is slow   
   >>>   
   >>> Major innovations are rare   
   >>>   
   >>> Lineages show long periods of stasis punctuated by change   
   >>>   
   >>> Summary   
   >>>   
   >>> Thousands of traits do not need to be optimised simultaneously.   
   >>> They are:   
   >>>   
   >>> Mostly conserved by purifying selection   
   >>>   
   >>> Buffered by developmental and genetic architecture   
   >>>   
   >>> Allowed to drift within tolerances   
   >>>   
   >>> Occasionally modified when local fitness gradients align   
   >>>   
   >>> Population genetics handles this cleanly once you stop thinking in   
   >>> terms of independent trait optimisation and start thinking in terms   
   >>> of high- dimensional, constrained, organism-level selection.   
   >>>   
   >>> If you want, next we can:   
   >>>   
   >>> Walk through a toy population-genetic model with many traits   
   >>>   
   >>> Discuss genetic load and Haldane’s dilemma in this context   
   >>>   
   >>> Or connect this explicitly to Evo-Devo constraints in mammals   
   >>>   
   >>   
   >> What did you learn from this?   
   >>   
   >> ID is still a bait and switch scam because selection was never what   
   >> you thought that it was.  How do you think that Behe's three neutral   
   >> mutations as evidence for design works?  He has to put a time limit   
   >> because when you deal with reality you find out things like mice and   
   >> humans have been evolving as different lineages for around 80 million   
   >> years.  Most of their proteins may be around 20% different, so for an   
   >> average protein of 300 amino acids there are around 60 neutral   
   >> mutations that have occurred between mice and humans at this time.   
   >> These proteins still do the same things in both mice and humans.  We   
   >> can take human proteins and put them into mice and they work.  If some   
   >> mutation occurs that changes the function of that gene a lot of those   
   >> neutral mutations may be involved in the new function.  They might not   
   >> have changed the gene function enough to be selected for or against,   
   >> but they could combine with other mutations to do something different.   
   >>   
   >> Behe needs his time limit because of the way that protein genes   
   >> evolve. Your new information is forming all the time, and is how new   
   >> traits evolve and are selected for or against.   
   >>   
   >> Everything has to work with what is already working.  Whales lost a   
   >> lot of genes because they didn't need them anymore, or they did things   
   >> that were counter productive in the new environment that the whales   
   >> were existing in.   
   >>   
   >> Ron Okimoto   
   >>   
   >   
   > Calling this a “bait and switch” presupposes that ID once relied on an   
   > incorrect understanding of selection and later changed its claims. That   
   > is historically false.   
      
   I wrote that selection was never what you thought that it was.   
      
   The ID scam started running the bait and switch scam with the   
   understanding that they did not have what they claimed to have.  They   
   understood that they had nothing to teach that was equivalent science to   
   what they wanted to deny.  In that regard the only excuse that they   
   might have is that they misunderstood what they were making claims about.   
      
   The ID perps did not have to have an incorrect understanding of   
   selection in order to be lying about having any ID science worth   
   teaching.  There is nothing historically false about what I wrote about   
   the bait and switch ID scam.  The ID perps made the claim that they had   
   the ID science to teach in the public schools, but when it came time to   
   put up or shut up, they started running the bait and switch scam that   
   they are still running to this day.   
      
   >   
   > ID does not deny natural selection, nor has it.   
      
   The whole point about the ID scam's prevarications about Darwinism is to   
   deny that natural selection can be one of the explanations for the   
   diversity of life that exists on this planet.  They understood from the   
   very beginning that natural selection was only one of the factors   
   accounting for the evolution of life on earth, but they chose to focus   
   their efforts in trying to deny that it could account for what they were   
   claiming was intelligent design.  Behe had to acknowledge that genetic   
   drift could also be a major factor in order to make his stupid waiting   
   time nonsense that he could never find examples of 3 neutral mutations   
   needing to have occurred under his time limits.  He already understood   
   that biological evolution could occur by 2 neutral mutations because   
   there were already examples of that occurring.  His only claim was that   
   3 would be such a low probability event that it was impossible, but even   
   that is just wrong.  If something does happen it doesn't matter how   
   improbable it is, it still would have happened.   
      
   >   
   > Behe explicitly accepts mutation, selection, genetic drift, and as I've   
   > previously noted, common descent. His argument concerns the creative   
   > limits of these mechanisms, not their existence.   
      
   As I have acknowledged his understanding is the reason for his junk to   
   be nonsense.  He knows that his claims are not scientific and do not   
   support the ID scam because he only has the claims, and he doesn't have   
   any proof that 3 neutral mutations ever had to occur within his time   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)