Respected Cornell geneticist rejects Darwinism in his recent book

This book sounds very exciting. It makes me wonder though, why respected academics need to wait until they retire before “coming out” against the doctrine of the sufficiency of natural agency.

Has John Sanford published his findings in a peer reviewed journal?

Sanford has published a lot of work in genetics in peer reviewed journals. However, in this case we can rest assured they won’t even consider publishing it because it bucks the party line. Do you have any real criticisms of the book or is that the best you got? -ds

In retrospect, I realize that I have wasted so much of my life arguing about things that don’t really matter.

Exactly!!!

The age of the Earth and common descent are parlor games. Entertaining and interesting but nothing to take so seriously that one should upon it base a system of values or replace another system of values.

For the record, Sanford doesn’t accept an old earth or common descent. See http://www.talkorigins.org/faq.....html#p1803

For the record, can you explain how this is relevant to Sanford’s knowledge of genetics or are you just playing the guilt by association card because you have nothing else? Do you have any actual criticism of the book? -ds

DaveScot:

thats exactly right. I read Sanford’s book. What he is saying is that the mutations aren’t a normal bell curve but heavily skewed toward deliterious mutations. BUT, they are not skewed toward really disasterous mutations, and most (over 98%) are actually slightly deliterious, and therefore would not get selected out. Therefore, they just hang around the genome building up until - Extinction! He also made the statement (and I can’t verify the truthfulness of it) that in all the years of plant genetics he has NEVER really seen any mutation that added information or improved the state of the organism. He mentioned that things like hairless dogs and other viruses actually reduced the information. He likened it to a broken car alarm - it makes people who hate the blarring noise happier, but it doesn’t make for a stronger car

I really hope this thread gets longer because I liked the book, but don’t have the background to verify if all the information was sound. I would learn alot from the discussion.

Seems like a great read!

Unfortunately, the cover of this book is almost indistinguishable from that of a “UFO: Expose the Truth” type book.

Thanks Sal I’ve just ordered the book through Amazon. My impression is that our PT friends aren’t quite aware of the book nor of who JS is. Please read some “kind” stuff taken from:

http://www.pandasthumb.org/arc.....e_clo.html

K.

–
Send in the clowns
Nick Matzke posted Entry 939 on April 5, 2005 10:46 PM.
Trackback URL: http://degas.fdisk.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/937

In the I am not making this stuff up category, the ID crowd is planning on sending a battalion of pseudoscientists to Kansas this May for the upcoming ID Kangaroo Court. On the front page of the Intelligent Design Network’s “we’re not promoting ID” website, we find:
…..
John Sanford, PhD Geneticist, Associate Professor Cornell University Date of
anticipated testimony: May 6
–

Comment #23553

Posted by RPM on April 6, 2005 01:30 PM (e)

Here’s what I could find regarding the some of the witnesses to be brought in to testify. I limited my discussion to the “biologists” with PhD’s as people way out of their field and with less than “expert” qualifacations hardly warrant mentioning.
…
John Sanford, PhD Geneticist, Associate Professor Cornell University Date of anticipated testimony: May 6

I graduated with a Bachelors in Genetics from Cornell, so I was extremely interested to find out who John Sanford was. I thought, no way he was really in the Molecular Biology and Genetics department, and I didn’t remember him from my undergrad days. For those of you unfamiliar with the field, Cornell is a leader in evolutionary genetics. It turns out Sanford is at the agricultural research station in Geneva, NY (about an hours drive from the main campus in Ithaca). He’s in the Dept. of Horticultural Sciences, and he describes his research as “at the interface between molecular genetics and plant breeding, for the purpose of crop improvement.” I’m not sure what to make of him.

Modern Darwinism is built on what I will be calling “The Primary Axiom”. The Primary Axiom is that man is merely the product of random mutations plus natural selection.

funny, I wrote the following sentence last week:

Evolutionary science, as it is currently taught, is predicated on the axiom that life arose independently of the intervention of any intelligent entity, and it proceeds from there to attempt to explain the origin of observed biological effects as being a result of purely natural processes.

Is this what you call “evolutionary convergence”?

As for the UFO, I thought the same thing. Most of the graphics look like they came from a clip art collection But, they really are there to illustrate his points. The UFO on the cover relates to his premise that if we have an instruction manual for an airplane, if over years we have slightly deliterious mis-spellings (that don’t cause the entire plane production facility to collapse into pieces), will those mis-spellings eventually transform the instruction manual from one that can produce a plane to producing a spaceship. Again, I don’t have the proper background to assess the soundness of the argument. So, I would really welcome some of the more intellectually honest anti-ID folks to provide a good critique of the book (I think great_ape has been fairly even handed on this blog).

I liked the Cornell alum’s assessment that was posted earlier: I haven’t heard of JS, so thererfore he must not be important. Yeah, and the gene gun is nothing more than a water pistol

When a PhD-type agrees with NDE then the PT crowd trumpets his credentials and labels him a “real scientist”. When they don’t agree with NDE then they are labeled as “pseudo scientists” or worse.

The No True Scotsman rides again!

Lurker: “The No True Scotsman rides again!”

I was unaware of this expression, but discovered that it is by Anthony Flew!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

This book is now on my reading list.

The Primary Axiom is transparently false on the face of it. Take even a trivial computer program composed of a few lines of source code and do the math. The combinatorics generated by random tinkering with the source quickly swamp any conceivable probabilistic resources. Random modification of the code will produce gibberish until the universe undergoes heat death.

Life runs on a computer program of such vast sophistication, complexity, and functional integration that the Primary Axiom is a laughable proposition. As DaveScot pointed out in another thread, it might have seemed reasonable in 19th-century Victorian times when it was thought that the universe was infinitely old and that the cell was no more complicated than a blob of Jell-O, and that it could easily arise by spontaneous generation in nature.

But that was then and this is now. The Primary Axiom is dead, but not yet buried, at least in academia. They have propped up the cadaver in a rocking chair, just like Norman Bates’ mom. But take a look at her face and you’ll see that she’s a rotting corpse. The taxidermy is wearing off.

#16 I completely agree, but unfortunately it is as easy to realize that ND is deadly wrong (not by darwinists, obviously…) as it is extremely difficult to give it the KO punch. If you consider that the trivial work by Lenski, Pennock etc. has been trumpeted as a final proof that M+S is able to generate complex information … !

#14 Sal, I will read carefully the book as soon as I will receive it (package dispatching to Europe is quite slow).

K.

Wow, this is the fastest growing thread I’ve seen on this site!

I personally was most intrigued with the following statement:

he applied the concept of signal-to-noise ratios (from information theory) to show that the selection pressures are too weak for natural selection to transmit useful information into the genome.

I had a major discussion with my brother just last summer about signal to noise ratio. Dispite he being an electrical engineer, I was not able to communicate the signal to noise equation to him. This equation is very valid. I think I need this book, and need to give my brother a copy of it.

I am a bit concerned at the suggestion that John Stanford is a young earther. Trying to climb this mountain too is a lot. Its like trying to fight a war on two fronts, especially when one of those fronts is surely a loosing cause. The evidence for an old earth is not the “house of cards” that NDE is. I actually believe that NDE went along for the ride as the old earth and common descent became established.

>I had a major discussion with my brother just last summer about signal to
> noise ratio. Dispite he being an electrical engineer, I was not able to
> communicate the signal to noise equation to him. This equation is very
> valid. I think I need this book, and need to give my brother a copy of it.

> What do you mean exactly by “signal to noise equation”?
> I am a bit concerned at the suggestion that John Stanford is a young
> earther. Trying to climb this mountain too is a lot. Its like trying to
> fight a war on two fronts, especially when one of those fronts is surely a loosing cause. The evidence for an old earth is not the “house
> of cards” that NDE is.

What’s the problem? As a catholic I’ve no problem with old earth and I maintain that it’s right. But the real front is against NDE

K.

“If the Primary Axiom is wrong, then there is a surprising and very practical consequence. When subjected only to natural forces, the human genome must irrevocably degenerate over time. Such a sober realization should have more than just intellectual or historical significance. It should rightfully cause us to personally reconsider where we should rationally be placing our hope for the future.” –John Sanford

I would very much like to read this book, but I fear the electronic evidence of its purchase would place me on the top secret government “people to not let in the bunker when the asteroid strikes” list. So I generally refrain from making such purchases. I once bought an “edible wild plants” book once from Amazon and have since received advertisements that would suggest I’ve been placed on the “probable right-wing militia member” list. Then again, I’m posting here, so perhaps it’s too late for me already. In any case, I would like to examine the work in detail b/c I would very much be interested to know how Sanford deals mathematically with 1) the ability of recombination to alleviate some of the “deleterious burden” of these mutations over time and 2) epigenetic interactions among these “slightly deleterious”, supposedly un-purifiable negative mutations.. W. Rice’s lab has shown empirically [see, for example, Science. 2001 Oct 19;294(5542):533-4.], and others theoretically, that recombination in sexual organisms alleviates some of the burden by “freeing” quality genomic segments from being dragged down to extinction along with deleterious alleles. The question here, of course is: “Is it enough in a given situation?” The devil, as they say, is in the details. And the details here are so complex that I’d like to know how he deals with them because, last our checked, theorists were still struggling to work out the full ramifications of recombination on popgen. Maybe, out of moral compulsion, he’ll ultimately publish the whole thing freely onine for the enlightenment of all. Then again, maybe I could just buy it with cash from a bookstore so it couldn’t be traced.

Must do some $work now, but here’s something for folks to ponder. Although any given slightly deleterious mutation may have too small an effect to be purified, any given individual whose genome–essentially a chimera of what’s available from in the population–collectively had many fewer such mutations would overall fair better reproductively. *Particularly* if those deleterious mutations acted epistatically. Repetition of such reproductive success would ultimately– depending on the *specific* numbers involved (recombination frequency and distances, population size, mutation rate, distribution of mutation effects,etc.)–reduce the frequencies of these slightly deleterious mutations (un-purifiable on their own) and could serve to hold off genetic doomsday. Details, details, details, and some of these details we’ve little chance of knowing. Population genetics, when applied to real flesh and blood organisms, is terribly difficult. We do, however, have a masterful knowledge of how multi-colored beans behave in jars.

C’mon apeman. Here I’m trying to say to Darwin got something right and you question it!

It is most difficult always to remember that the increase of every living being is constantly being checked by unperceived injurious agencies; and that these same unperceived agencies are amply sufficient to cause rarity, and finally extinction.

The unperceived agency is random mutation. Which of course is no longer unperceived. Darwin got something right! I’ve been saying for a long time Darwin was also probably right about Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characters being the primary source of adaptive change. That shoe is dropping as we speak. The next shoe to drop should be the notion that the amount of change that can be produced in any given species is bounded internally and is generally constrained to scale and cosmetics. To quickly know what kind of limits I mean by scale and cosmetics look at the range of variation in dogs. There’s no difference between a dachshund, a chihuahua, and a wolfhound that isn’t simply a matter of relative feature size and cosmetics. Those are the limits of allelomorphism. Now you might ask what is then responsible for the big creative changes that include novel cell types, tissue types, organs, and body plans. Those were all front loaded and their expression is under developmental control - the phylogenetic stem cell! Nothing in macroevolution makes sense except in the light of phylogenetic stem cells. -ds

In comment 4, tribune 7 wrote,

“[Sanford wrote,] ‘In retrospect, I realize that I have wasted so much of my life arguing about things that don’t really matter.’[/Sanford quote]

Exactly!!!

The age of the Earth and common descent are parlor games. Entertaining and interesting but nothing to take so seriously that one should upon it base a system of values or replace another system of values.

So I wrote, “For the record, Sanford doesn’t accept an old earth or common descent. See http://www.talkorigins.org/faq.....tml#p1803,“

and then DaveScot wrote, “For the record, can you explain how this is relevant to Sanford’s knowledge of genetics or are you just playing the guilt by association card because you have nothing else? Do you have any actual criticism of the book? -ds”

Dave, I was responding to tribune7’s comment, and I started “for the record.” I wasn’t discussing, much less criticizing, the book - I was just responding to tribune7.

I haven’t read the book, but I did listen to Sanford when he spoke at the Kansas BOE Science Hearings in May, 2005. I do think that one’s opinion about the age of the earth and common descent is going to be relevant to whatever ideas one has about the role of genetics in evolution. If one believes in a young earth and special creation, as Sanford does, then the phenomena one is trying to account for are very different than those addressed by the old earth common-descentist, even if the old earth common-descentist is an IDist, such as Behe or Dembski or DaveScot.

Note well that I am aware that one can criticize, as I gather Sanford has done, evolutionary theory as an issue separate from offering an alternative model, and I am not offering any comments here on Sanford’s work because I am only vaguely familiar with it based on his presentation in Kansas.

But given that at some point criticizing a theory and offering an alternative have to intersect, the fact that Sanford is a young-earth special creationist might at that point be relevant.

Your comment was in the moderation queue when I responded to it and since you didn’t specifically address tribune I had no way of knowing you were responding to him. Nonetheless, in this comment you confirm that I was right about you playing the guilt by association card. Sanford appears to be accounting for empirical evidence as far as I can tell. You’re Christian, Jack. Should I consider your opinions about everything else biased by you needing to justify your belief in some sort of immaterial immortal soul that gets a passkey into heaven by declaring your faith in a man that claimed to be the son of God? Maybe you should display the same courtesy for Sanford that I do for you and not try to discredit him by aspersions to belief in miracles and supernatural beings. Gil got you pegged alright. Any port in a storm. Shame on you. -ds

So we shouldn’t trust Sanford at all because he isn’t sure about the age of the earth?

I’m no YEC, but that kind of reasoning leads to disasterous conseqeunces.

Should we reject Godel’s results because he thought people were trying to poison his food and thus starved himself to death?

Dave –

First, thanks for letting me on the post list! I am very honored!

Second, I agree wholeheartedly with your comments about natural limits of variation, but I wanted to add something else. I think that we are going to find that there is a lot _more_ non-morphological variation that goes on from generation-to-generation than morphological variation. Perhaps much of this is wrapped up in development, but I also think that some of it will be found to be passed on in genetics. That is, while we remain morphologically stable, perhaps our biochemistry adapts to changing conditions (obviously limitted by internal semantic constraints).

In fact, I think that we will find something else in biological change — that the way in which different organisms change depends greatly on the need within the environment as a whole — that organisms are designed to create ecosystems. By sensing other plants and animals in the area, they have specific adaptations for different conditions, which attribute to the environment as a whole. You may even be able to go as far as using data on variation to hypothesize the purpose behind different organisms, though I think the reverse might be more fruitful for those who dared to go there:

http://baraminology.blogspot.c.....e-and.html

Shades of Lynn Margulis… Follow the Gaia links if you aren’t aware of it already. -ds

ds,

I wasn’t trying to be contrary so much as bring attention to some key forces at work which would oppose genetic deterioration and *possibly* avert extinction. When there are conflicting forces at play, the ultimate outcome is clearly dependent on the relative strength of each. While Darwin is commendable for understanding that imperceptible damage does occur, he had no idea the ultimate magnitude nor the ability of organisms/populations to counterbalance them via various means. For that matter, neither do we at this stage. So I think it’s a very important topic for us to be discussing, but ultimately a definitive answer can’t be drawn IMO b/c pertinent data and theory is still lacking (particularly in regards to the influence of recombination). It is incumbent upon evolutionists to make a strong case–preferably sooner rather than later– that under a robust range of conditions genetic doom is avoidable from a mutation/popgen perspective. This is another hole in the current evolutionary framework in my opinion and one of the most critical ones. Currently this hole shows a incompleteness in evolutionary theory, but it can *not* be considered an evidentiary contradiction to the theory until all the relevant forces and magnitudes are properly accounted for. If this should prove impossible, then it can never be presented as counterfactual argument against evolution/darwinism. At the same time, its unresolved status will remain a crucial structural weakness in the inductive case for evolution/darwinism.

So how do you explain the extinction of 99.9% of all species that ever lived and the average lifespan of families being about 10 million years? I’m all ears. -ds

For the record, can you explain how this is relevant to Sanford’s knowledge of genetics…

Did anyone else read the cross-examination? How much of it questioned Sanford on any aspect of his scientific specialty? Too bad it wasn’t a court in which Sanford could claim the question to be outside his area of expertise and the examiner could be required to show relevance.

But let me think some abobuth Sanford’s thesis that these mutations accumulate and cause extinction. What is his evidence for the conclusion that extinction is the effect of the accumulation of these mutations? Certainly, on a young-earth view, there has not been time enough. On a young-earth view, extinctions are the result of the flood. And on a young-earth view, evolution absolutely had to occur in order to account for present numbers of species! YEC is incoherent.

John Sanford said, “When subjected only to natural forces, the human genome must irrevocably degenerate over time.”

In the natural world, natural selection will eliminate the most harmful deleterious mutations. However, humans are often protected from the full consequences of some very harmful mutations, and people with some bad mutations often survive long enough to reproduce. But even among humans, there is a limit to how harmful a deleterious mutation can be and still allow the person to survive long enough to reproduce.

Most random mutations are not deleterious enough to be under significant selection pressure. Google the “nearly neutral theory of evolution”. -ds

bFast: “I am a bit concerned at the suggestion that John Stanford is a young earther.”

Let me clarify my view on the effects of Sanford being a young earther. We are all entitled to a little error. In fact I very much dislike people who don’t respect their own ability to err. However, I have seen a lot of evidence that “young earth” is in error. If Sanford has a brilliant work, but muddies it with a significant error like young earth, then his brilliant work is likely to become the proverbial baby thrown out with the bath water.

Dave, I don’t see at all where I have implied any guilt to Sanford, by association or otherwise. My point is that if one has doubts about evolutionary theory, and especially if one ever wants to offer alternative explanations to be considered, it surely makes a difference whether one thinks that the earth is old or young, and whether common descent is true or not. If one accepts an old earth, one has a long sequence of organisms to explain, (99.9% of which are extinct, as you point out), but if one accepts a young earth and the creation of all kind of organisms at the same time, then what one has to explain is different.

This is not an accusatory statement, I don’t think, but rather more or less a statement of fact: whatever alternative to evolutionary theory one might have, the context of the age of the earth and the truth or not of common descent is essential background for ones ideas.

Unless his work includes statements reflecting these things it’s irrelevant. Ideas are judged by their merits not by the people who hold them. You just couldn’t resist dragging Sanford’s religious beliefs into his book which as far as you or I know contains no religious concepts whatsoever and is entirely based upon good scientific method and empirical data. Just for the record, you’re a YEC bigot. -ds

Jack Krebs said,
“I do think that one’s opinion about the age of the earth and common descent is going to be relevant to whatever ideas one has about the role of genetics in evolution.”

Please elucidate for the simple minded(me) specifics. Why does it matter and please point to actual issues that would stop Dr. Sanford from creating sound scientific research.

Once you’ve done this, we can review his accomplishments again in light of your observations.

“If one believes in a young earth and special creation, as Sanford does, then the phenomena one is trying to account for are very different than those addressed by the old earth common-descentist, even if the old earth common-descentist is an IDist, such as Behe or Dembski or DaveScot.”

Again, please clarify specifics in regards to genetics or genetic modification, genetic research and how Dr. Sanford cannot or could not progress as well as any scientist by any other stripe. Maybe you do not fully understand young earth views in relation to genetic research. Maybe none of us do?

I know I don’t fully understand them.

I humbly cannot think of any practical application of your logic that would prohibit Dr. Sanford from excellent research.

Maybe it would be good to make a list of facts why someone who is a young earth creationist cannot do genetic research as excellent as someone who is an old earth evolutionist.

I’ll start the list…

1) Most YECs believes rocks are younger than 7000 years(just making up an age boundary), therefore YECs would never discover magnesium or iron in the human body or blood cells.
2) Most YECs believe humans have been on earth 6000 years, or in the case of Judaism, 5766, in that case, approximaly 3761 years BC, the earth was created. Therefore, YECs would never discover cellular apoptosis.
3) YECs believe the earth was made in 6 days and the Creator, God rested on the 7th.

Every old earth evolutionist knows ATP was created on the 8th day therefore young earthers would never find, understand, or research ATP, plus there’s no way God could create a giraffe, let alone an amoeba in 6 days.

Jack as per posts 5 and 21 — I realize that I have wasted so much of my life arguing about things that don’t really matter.’[/Sanford quote] . . .“For the record, Sanford doesn’t accept an old earth or common descent.

And I take his point as being they don’t really matter and aren’t worth arguing about unless they start being used in a metaphysical context.

It’s true that slightly deleterious mutations can easily accumulate in populations, and even mildly deleterious mutations if the population size is small (Kimura: if Ns

ds, 99% of my comment is missing.

That’s the way I found it. -ds

My last comment didn’t get through for the most part, but I was trying to say: Muller’s Ratchet says asexual species are doomed because of accumululation of bad mutations. Sex (recombination) can get rid of bad mutations (as great_ape said). In addition to recombination, sex allows sexual selection: females may prefer to mate with males that show evidence of not having too many bad mutations. This also lowers the genetic load of bad mutations. Whether all this is enough in practice, who knows? A big problem is that early life had no sex (well, so it is claimed anyway), so how did they avoid extinction? Possible answer: massive horizontal transfer of genetic information. Anyhow, to claim confidently that RM+NS automatically leads to degeneration is premature. Verbal arguments like that are just not very convincing when not backed up with mathematical models.

Feel free to offer a better explanation for why 99.9% of all species that ever lived are extinct. -ds

If one accepts an old earth, one has a long sequence of organisms to explain, (99.9% of which are extinct, as you point out), but if one accepts a young earth and the creation of all kind of organisms at the same time, then what one has to explain is different.

Jack,

Don’t mean to pile on. Feel free to ignore this and not respond if you so choose. I’ll understand. Are you saying that the number of extinct species one has to explain depends upon whether one holds to a YEC or old earth view? Why?

“So how do you explain the extinction of 99.9% of all species that ever lived and the average lifespan of families being about 10 million years? I’m all ears.” -ds

Of course I’ll have to give it the old college try… A *large* fraction of that >99% extinction rate is accounted for by a handful of cataclysmic global-level events a discrete timepoints. One in particular took out nearly everything alive up to that time. I can dig up the numbers and eras if you’d like. These are “environmental” (external) catastrophies and they account for a big chunk of extinctions. These events, like the infant mortality rate in humans, weigh significantly in calculating the average persistance of all families during across time. As for the remaining component of extinctions, populations can–in the rosiest of scenarios–max out at the population size supported by their niche. They can never “fix” like an allele can in an abstract population. At the other end of the scale there is N=0. Caput. Irreversible. Once you hit that absorbtion boundary, it’s over for a given lineage. Populations, from generation to generation, go on a more or less random walk contingent on environmental conditions, genetic conditions, etc. You can always fall from the top in terms of population size, but you can never recover from N=0. So yes, the playing field is skewed in favor of extinction. Part of the downward nudges do come from accumulated genetic mutations that haven’t been purified and consequently impact effective population size. It’s a nudge, and in some cases it may be the last nail in the coffin for a lineage, particularly since the effect grows worse in smaller populations. But the argument being put forth here, as I see it, is that it is an inevitable death-sentence and, as a consequence, is damning evidence against darwinian evolution. It is that last proposition I take issue with as it remains conjecture at this point. In my understanding of the scientific method you do not discard theories b/c conjectures (even plausible ones) are understood to be counterfactual. Something more rigorous is generally required.

Lets extend Lurkers recognition of “The No True Scotsman rides again!” application while awaiting for significant rebuttal to genetic research being prohibited by young earth philosophy.

No True Scientist is a Young Earther
No True Scientist believes in a Creator
No True Scientist believes in Design
No True Scientist believes the world was created in 6 days
No True Scientist believes a bladder can be created in 40 days
No True Scientist believes an appendix is useful
No True Scientist believes a diamond can be made in 5 days

No True Scientist believes you can speed up a process

“Do you have any real criticisms of the book or is that the best you got?”

Aight! I put on my robe and wizard hat.

The theory that the genome accumulates defects is nothing new. To say that this implies that variation and speciation cannot occur in the meantime is a non sequitur.

This is analogous to the heat death of the universe. Sure, the universe is winding down, but there’s plenty that we can do before then.

He implied that? I think you mistakenly inferred that. Perhaps you should admit up front that you didn’t read the book. Do you make a habit of criticizing things you’ve never seen or did you make an exception for Sanford’s book? -ds

“Incorrect. Only a small fraction of extinctions are attributable to mass extinctions. The background rate of two to five taxonomic families every million years accounts for the vast majority of extinctions.” –ds

Alright, so maybe I won’t be so quick to venture into paleontological speculations next time. Once I stopped to think for a moment, your numbers make much more sense. And once I then stubbornly looked up a review article on the matter–just to be certain, you know–your numbers are in the same ballpark. I had impressive figures like “95 percent of life eliminated at point X” stuck prominently in my brain from some distant lecture, but hadn’t properly considered the ongoing diversification/extinction rates over time. I stand corrected. I still contend that the latter part of my argument stands. (so let’s just pretend I placed most of the emphasis on this part.) External events (weather,etc.) factor heavily in the random walk of population sizes and distributions. Those sizes and geographic distributions affect extinction risk. Genetic deterioration certainly factors into the risk of extinction, but there is no compelling evidence to indicate it is an unavoidable death sentence.

If a species is weakened by accumulation of slightly deleterious mutations then doesn’t it make sense that it won’t be able to adapt and/or tolerate stresses like changing weather patterns, predation, etcetera as well it would otherwise? Something is certainly an unavoidable death sentence and 999 dead species of every 1000 that ever lived lie buried in mute testimony of that death sentence. We’re just trying to figure out what it is. I think Darwin got it right - there is an unperceived injurious agency constantly at work. The unperceived agency’s name is random mutation. Is creative evolution still happening today? How long ago did the last new genus appear? How long ago did the last new mammal species appear? -ds

This sounds like a good book to get and read. Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Sal. For years the Darwinists response to anyone who questions how small scale adaptations can accumulate to large scale evolutionary changes is to ask “what’s the barrier to genetic change?” Implied in the question, of course, is that since no one can identify any such barrier to genetic change, then clearly none exists (forgetting thier own maxim that “absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence!”). I wonder if Sanford’s book and the problems he discusses represent that just such a barrier exists and here it is!

Any thoughts?

Hi Guys,
Here comes a question from Ignorance:
I always assumed that the signal to noise ratio had been shown to be in favour of demonstrating that deleterious mutations were not so frequent that information was lost more than gained-if information was lost more than gained -how could small changes moprphological or otherwise ever lead to anything at all ?
Sorry if this question leaves you slack jawed weak kneed and doubly incontinent but I had to ask .
cheers,
Wormherder

how could small changes moprphological or otherwise ever lead to anything at all ?

That’s the whole point. They didn’t. Something else did. The only answer that makes any sense to me is a front-loaded evolution. Life on earth began from a seed which was programmed to diversify in a more or less fixed sequence just like a fertilized egg cell is programmed to diversify in a fixed sequence into all the different cell types, tissue types, and organs that make up the adult form. -ds

Re #41: I wasn’t criticizing Sanford’s book, since I haven’t read it. I was criticizing the general tendency (predating Sanford’s book) to simply claim that RM+NS inevitably leads to deterioration and inevitable extinction without backing that up with a model. What Kimura curve are you talking about? I’m looking at my Crow and Kimura (1970) right now. Is it in there?

I have to agree with great_ape that fluctuating population dynamics of finite populations almost guarantees that a species will go extinct sooner of later. That seems to be a sufficient explantion. Whether it is necessary, I don’t know. I could well imagine that many extinctions are caused by one species outcompeting the other (a form of NS). Species are usually well adapted to local conditions (including other species), but when new species arrive from far away, the invasive species can cause massive extinction. Look what happened in Lake Victoria when a new predator was introduced. Bye bye cichlids. There are many more examples. I have no idea how important this has been in the history of life, but it might have been quite significant. These two factors together (i.e. random population dynamics and competition) might well account for 99% of species having gone extinct.

You admit you have no idea if your claims of extinction mechanisms are important in past extinctions or not but you’re still going to discount what’s at least an equally valid proposal for extinctions - deterioration of the genome through nearly neutral evolution. You appear to have an irrational bias in your thinking. Please explain. -ds

No, I’m not discounting the possible role of nearly neutral evolution. I just haven’t seen a convincing model that shows it could be important. Some people here seem to suggest that Sanford has done this, but I haven’t seen any details of his arguments/models.
It might be nice to make a model including both the random effects of fluctuating population sizes (due to environmental and demographic stochasticity) AND the accumulation of (slightly) deleterious mutations, and then see which process (if any) dominates the extinction probabilities. One would also like to have two versions: with and without sex. It is known (Muller’s Ratchet) that asexual populations might actually go extinct due to accumulation of mutations. Models support this logic and there is some experimental and observational evidence as well I think. Since sex (or horizontal transfer) is so common, I believe this should be taken into account in the argument.

A great number of past extinctions were marine organisms. The marine environment is quite stable. That tends to rule out the weather as a cause. Muller’s Ratchet is questionable due to horizontal gene transfer but it might indeed be why asexually reproducing organisms tend to have limited genome sizes and high fecundity, each of which mediates the speed by which nearly neutral mutations can accumulate. One should also keep in mind that high fecundity and small genome size pretty much guarantees a large number of perfect genomic copies in the next generation. In any case, I don’t believe these are included in the number of species that ever existed as organisms with obligatory asexual reproduction don’t tend to fossilize and the background extinction rate is established from the fossil record. -ds

Is there a suggestion that marine organisms have higher extinction rates than non-marine organisms? Perhaps they fossilize easier (exoskeletons in particular). The marine environment is perhaps not that stable. Right now we’re seeing coral reefs dying on a global scale due to small temperature increases (or so they say), and there have been strong temperature fluctuations in the past.

Scordova: what’s with the Kimura distribution?

It’s true that the ocean environment does change but it is undeniably far more stable than land. It takes a very long time for the ocean to change while the air can change almost instantly. There’s no difference in extinction rates land vs. ocean as far as I know but if changing environment were a factor it seems reasonable that we’d see a higher rate of background extinction on land. -ds

Salvador, you’re bringing politics into this? The statement by an ex KKK? Maybe I do not understand your purpose? But Bird is hardly trustworthy to make such a statement without first looking in the mirror at his own naked body. His “noise” is to leave 50 million oppressed people to tyrants and darkness. Frankly, this is worse than Krebs attack on Dr. Sanford’s scientific abilities being limited by his religious views.

None are free until all are free. Isaiah 61. A true signal.

Sorry! Bad link! I fixed it, i re-linked “emperor has no clothes” to the wikipedia article rather that Senator Bird’s essay. Bird’s essay was the first that popped up in google, and I presumed it was only about Hans Christian Anderson’s story. Thanks for pointing out my error! –Sal