Yoda and the Arc of the Covenant

[jhodgeiii]

Originally posted by Zakath

The time-honored Creationist W.A.G. in which they arbitrarily assign probabilities to a variety of alleged intermediate steps and then calculating the cumulative probability.

Why not just explain things the same way as my best friend (who happens to be a staunch atheist)? He says fully developed faculties just popped into existence via punctuated equilibrium. No intermediate steps. When I tell him the chances of such happening must be near impossible, he replies, "Well, we're here so it must have happened that way."

Sounds like a perverse version of "goddidit." :chuckle:

 

[Zakath]

Originally posted by jhodgeiii

Why not just explain things the same way as my best friend (who happens to be a staunch atheist)? He says fully developed faculties just popped into existence via punctuated equilibrium. No intermediate steps. When I tell him the chances of such happening must be near impossible, he replies, "Well, we're here so it must have happened that way."

How do you calculate the chances of such an event?

Sounds like a perverse version of "goddidit." :chuckle:

It's hardly perverse, unless you're peeved that he stole a march on the theists, using their own logic... :think:

 

[Stratnerd]

> happened that way

this he surely doesn't know! tell him Stratnerd said so!

punctuated equilibrium is about the pace of evolution not necessarily the extent... meaning you can have a number of successive small changes sweeping through the population but the probability of each step getting preserved in the record is almost nill so if you happen to get the end points or near the end points it looks like a single jump. that is not to say that PE doesn't take into account large phenotypic jumps - it would just make it look "jumpier". The only way to separate these models, I think, is to either have a complete fossil record (good luck) or to do the experiment I mentioned with a simulated genome. It's probably been done but I suspect the technology to look at isolated cases of simulated mutations and phenotypes is just getting started.

as for the creationists... I don't understand how they assign probs? Out of a hat?

 

[Zakath]

Every explanation I've seen amounts to a "WAG".

 

[jhodgeiii]

Originally posted by Zakath

Every explanation I've seen amounts to a "WAG".

What's a "WAG?"

 

[Zakath]

An acronym which the censor software won't let me post here in its entirety...

The first word is "Wild"

The second word is "***ed", one of the ancestors of a mule

The third word is "Guess"



There's a scientific version, called a "SWAG".

 

[jhodgeiii]

Originally posted by Zakath

There's a scientific version, called a "SWAG".

Thanks for the, umm, definition...haha

So what's the real distinction between a WAG and a SWAG? Both can be valid hypotheses.

 

[Zakath]

Originally posted by jhodgeiii

Thanks for the, umm, definition...haha

So what's the real distinction between a WAG and a SWAG? Both can be valid hypotheses.

The term is usually used tongue-in-cheek to describe a hypothesis one thinks is unfounded in data or empircal fact.

Differentiating between the two is more art than science. Usually it's dependent on who's doing the guessing.

If there's some math or science behind the guess, then it is rated as a SWAG. If it's just a wild unsupported hypothesis thrown out, then it's more of a WAG.

Most scientists, for example, make SWAGs while non-scientists are allegedly making WAGs.

 

[jhodgeiii]

Originally posted by Zakath

If there's some math or science behind the guess, then it is rated as a SWAG. If it's just a wild unsupported hypothesis thrown out, then it's more of a WAG.

So what is the science behind the punctuated equilibrium "WAG?" Any layman who already subscribes to evolution could have come up with that using a little imagination.

Gee, how scientific! :shocked:

 

[Zakath]

Originally posted by jhodgeiii

So what is the science behind the punctuated equilibrium "WAG?" Any layman who already subscribes to evolution could have come up with that using a little imagination.

Gee, how scientific!

Don't know much about it. Ask Stratnerd.

I have heard that it is very frequently misunderstood...

 

[Stratnerd]

So what is the science behind the punctuated equilibrium "WAG?" Any layman who already subscribes to evolution could have come up with that using a little imagination

PE is was a hypothesis meant to explain patterns in the fossil record. You test it with relatively complete fossil records. In some cases there are relatively complete fossil records - molluscs mostly.

Gould builds that case, and I think he's right, that the fossil record shows both gradualism and PE but PE appears to be a more general phenomenon (more cases). To me it is just a matter of degrees and not either/or since one just says "slow" and the other "fast" and neither preclude a "medium"

 

[Stratnerd]

There's also the part of PE that rapid evolution occurs in smaller isolated populations that sweep through when conditions for it are right. Small populations are even less likely to get fossilized.

I think of this aspect when I think of an ice age... if we were to get one now polar bears would replace black and brown bears. The species here today have been around for 10's of thousands of years all over North America so the chances of finding fossils is much increased over polar bears which are restricted to a much smaller area (though widespread they tend to stick to the land/water interface to get seals). So if weather patterns changed suddenly to where N. America was covered in snow the polar bears would come down and if it stayed that way long enough there's a chance that polar bears would end up as a fossil.

Now, a future paleontologists working in Idaho would find your typical brown/black bear morphology then poof a polar bear morphology showing up out of nowhere.

I think the major misconception about PE is the extent of evolution that is supposed to occur like the friend that supposed eyes evolved in a step. I've seen the same mischaracterization out of the creationists (surprise suprise) when they have birds popping out of lizard eggs.

 

[jhodgeiii]

Originally posted by Stratnerd

I've seen the same mischaracterization out of the creationists (surprise suprise) when they have birds popping out of lizard eggs.

Yes, I've seen those illustrations. Ironically, this mischaracterization is not restricted to just creationists, but evolutionists as well. See an earlier post of mine regarding my atheist buddy.

There's also the part of PE that rapid evolution occurs in smaller isolated populations that sweep through when conditions for it are right.

I have heard this before, but where is the hard evidence to support this? This is tantamount to saying that positive mutations occur more often in isolated populations. *sigh* This sounds like yet another WAG (that Zakath would call a SWAG just because a scientist guessed it). :nono: :down:

Or do you have the evidence?

 

[Stratnerd]

this mischaracterization is not restricted to just creationists, but evolutionists as well. See an earlier post of mine regarding my atheist buddy.

ignorance is never a good thing... set him straight.

This is tantamount to saying that positive mutations occur more often in isolated populations.

no, not at all! why would you even present like I said that?

 

[jhodgeiii]

Originally posted by Stratnerd

no, not at all! why would you even present like I said that?

Because that's what is implied by what you wrote using simple deductive reasoning.

I'm open for correction, though.

 

[Stratnerd]

Because that's what is implied by what you wrote using simple deductive reasoning.

I said "There's also the part of PE that rapid evolution occurs in smaller isolated populations that sweep through when conditions for it are right."

from this you said "This is tantamount to saying that positive mutations occur more often in isolated populations".

sorry one does not follow from the other. 1 mutation in 1,000,000 occurs at a frequency of 0.000001 but this same mutation in a population of a 1000 is already at a frequency of 0.001. The rate of occurrence is constant in both populations so it may take longer to show up in the smaller population but that was a given and it was something I thought was understood - my bad.