Mokele

Incorrect. There are no "higher" or "lower" animals. Large brains occur more often in endotherms such as mammals and birds, but these groups a trivially important compared to much more successful groups such as beetles. Mokele

Then why did you post this view on a *science* forum?

Not quite; what I'm saying is that analysis has failed to reveal anything. That may man we just aren't looking in the right way, but it might just mean there's nothing there to see. For instance, we see lots of convergences, but why would those be evidence of anything more than similar selective pressures. Numerous geometric similaries would be more likely due to the constraints of the laws of geometry itself and how things work than any goal-directed process. Mokele

Once again, the same bullshit overruns *everything* and prevents any useful discussion. Troll banned. Thread closed.

Great minds think alike - that's precisely the same suggestion I made at one point. It'd probably be a good idea, and I mostly fluctuate between it an just getting rid of all ID/creationism depending on how annoyed I am with ID at any given time. Mokele

My GF does, and I've discussed this with her before. ID in particular and Biblical literalism in general don't have a theological leg to stand on. Coongratulations on totally missing the point. ID, in the sense it is used in the US, is *NOT* about there being a god. It's creationism. You know, the "evolution doesn't happen, earth is 6000 years old" bullshit. ID is just a watered-down version that claims to be science. *That* is the problem. It's religion posing as science, and has *nothing* to show for itself, including a total lack of empirical data. The existence of god isn't the issue, it's a religious idea attacking science without any empirical basis, and trying to use politics to overcome their total lack of facts. Because they see evolution and the idea that man was not specially created from dust as somehow contrary to the bible. Back in the 1920's, they actually banned evolution from the classroom because facts threatened their ideas. The courts threw that out, and they went for "equal time", which the courts threw out as well. Now they have ID, which is a flimsy attempt to circumvent the prior rulings, and will be struck down as well, very shortly. It all stems from their desire to stick their fingers in their ears about facts, and to insist their mis-informed and dishonest propaganda is true. Because it violates the definition of science (a leading proponent of ID recent admitted that the only definition of science wide enough to include ID also includes *astrology*), because it will confuse student on what is and is not science and the scientific method, and, most of all, because there isn't a single solitary scrap of evidence anywhere in nature to support it, and plenty to refute it. Basically, they want the Flat Earth Theory taught in classroom as valid. ID is litterally on exactly the same level of intelectual validity. Mokele

That forum is for legitimate philosophy/religion. ID is both bad science *and* bad theology. Furthermore, consistency is second to keeping the board running smoothly. If, for instance, abortion debates began cropping up all over, and interfering with the purpose of the board, we would have the option of disallowing those even though there's a politics section. Yes. Silence is agreement by proxy. Bullshit like ID cannot be left unrefuted, or it gains the false appearance of legitimacy and acceptance. To allow errors to stand without correction is intellectually dishonest. The options are to either knock them down (waste time refuting the garbage) or just kneecap them so they never stand to begin with, thereby solving the problem in the most time-efficient manner. Peer-review journals do not publish every crappy paper someone writes, with instructions to just ignore it if you don't like it, or at least the good ones don't, and that's *why* they're good ones: quality control. Just like any journal can reject a paper for being utter crap, we can reject a topic for the same reason and with the same motives (maintaining a quality discussion environment for *worthy* discussions). Short version: Ignoring factual errors is intellectual laziness. They must either be corrected, or otherwise dealt with, to ensure that such errors are not mistaken for facts. Mokele

I'd actually recommend "Why Sex Matters" by Low, which discusses an interesting model system for this: a snail, cabable of reproducing asexually and sexually. Some populations use one method, some the other. The strongest correlation is with parasite load: lots of parasites means lots of sex. Of course, the question isn't fully resolved yet, but I think that's a pretty good bit of evidence. Well, it's the whole analogy thing. You can get a *rough* analogy, but you can't really completely map the properties of a consciously-guided system onto an unguided system. Except the walk isn't totally stochastic; it's constrained by various genetic, biological, and embryological factors. That's why no animal has wheels; wheels are great, but are biologically and embryologically imposible for an animal to produce. Mokele

I've suggested it before. Because I got sick of it. It says that our patience is not unlimited, and that we will not allow an otherwise useful board to be polluted by pointless discussion of a disproven theology. While there is the concept of ID's "right to be heard", that only applies at the begining. It's been heard. It's been refuted. It's been heard again. Over and over and over again, in spite of the fact that it *never* brings up anything new and ignores prior refutations. To analogize: If I disagree with you, it's openminded of you to listen to and consider what I have to say, and to debate it with me. But what if I just keep harping on, recycling the same arguements, no matter how thoroughly you crush my ideas? What if I just will not let the debate die, and continuously bother you about it? That's when you punch me in the face and leave me unconscious in a gutter somewhere. We're not at the "giving ID a fair hearing" point. We're at the "sick of hearing the same old bullshit" point, and IMHO, it's time to leave ID in the gutter with a nasty headwound and, out of spite, no pants. You cannot extend the "give a fair hearing" ideal infinitely, because people will rampantly abuse it (reference: every ID/creationism thread on this board ever) and will drag down the whole quality of the board. Besides, there are *other* places people can go, such as talk.origins, which are specifically dedicated to this. It's less censorship and more a cry of "Enough, already!" I agree it looks bad to end the discussion of a subject, but it does more than look bad when a supposedly scientific forum is inundated with this BS to the point that what time could be spent on productive discussions is entirely wasted. I'm open to suggestions, but quite frankly, I'm ready to give ID the metaphorical punch in the face and get on with *real* topics. Mokele

You need serious psychological help, and I'm not just being a bastard here, I mean it. Anorexia is a *disease*, and one that can kill you (and will, if left untreated). Don't buy this "lifestyle" and "perfection" bullshit. Remember Terry Schaivo? The woman in a persistent vegatitive state? You know how she got that way? Heart failure due to potassium imbalance, which was due to *anorexia*. This isn't something that will just kill you slowly; it can litterally make you just drop dead in your tracks one day. And if you let it develop, it will haunt you for the rest of your life. I know what I'm talking about; my GF used to be anorexic (long before we met), and it *still* causes her problems now and then, and *still* sabotages her now-healthy body image at bad times. This is not a game, and not a fashion statement. It's a disease. Mokele

Even in the broadest perspective, teleology fails, because organisms and higher taxa persistently adapt to short-term immediate conditions and for short-term benefit. Consider mass extinctions. If evolution were teleological, wouldn't species "strive towards" states that would allow them to survive such events? Yet time and again, having survived an extinction, they radiate into the niches which were emptied. Also, remember that taxa above species are fictions of the human mind; we create "families" and "orders" for our benefit, to assist us, and these terms have no inherent biological or evolutionary reality beyond the overall similarity of the species within them. How is that in any way different from the more rational alternative of "the sister taxa of this plant never got to exploit this niche my simple chance (and because one of their own had already filled it), and their comparatively more secure future is simply because the dice fell against their cousin." There's no way to distinguish the two, and as such it's just philosophy (aka BS). Mokele

No, only before selection. What? This makes no sense. If you're talking about considering only the gene frequencies of one family, then it's pointless unless it's an inbred system because they have nobody else to mate with. In a *population* consisting of many, many individuals of many families (which is where these analyses are actually useful), there is no reason to presuppose that heterozygotes will avoid other heterozygotes because there are plenty of all genotypes from all families. It seems as if you're defining this is a very weird, and not very useful or realistic, way. They use it to increase homozygosity for faster selection. Whether it's selection for or again a trait doesn't matter, the point still stands. Mokele

Ok, to quickly summarize: You have two populations. Both are under selection, in which there is a lethal recessive allele. In one population, inbreeding occurs. Now, if both populations are of a fixed size, then the inbred population will have more homozygotes of both types (this is actually the definition and how we quantify inbreeding), even though the gene frequency is the same. Because fewer of the recessive lethals are hidden in heterozygotes, more animals die and more copies are removed from the gene pool. Thus th selective pressure on the inbred population is higher. Let's use an example. Both populations have 100 individuals, and 50-50 gene frequencies (which means 200 total genes, 100 of each). The outbred population will have 25 dom homozygotes, 50 heterozygotes, and 25 recessive homozygotes. Those last ones, 25 animals with 50 genes, die. So now you're left with 150 total genes, 100 of the dominant, and 50 of the recessive, which means you've gone from a gen frequency of .5 to .6666 in one generation, a change of .16666. Now, consider a mildly inbred population, which would have 35 dominant homozygotes, 30 heterozygotes, and 35 recessive homozygotes. Note that the initial gene frequency is still 50-50, and that there are 100 animals, 200 genes, and 100 of each allele. Now, those 35 recessive homozygotes die. This leaves us with 130 genes, 100 dominant and only 30 recessive, a new gene frequency of about .77, meaning the change was .27, over half-again as big of a change as with the outbred population. Basically, inbreeding exposes more genes to selection, and therefore allows more rapid loss of the undesirable trait (at the expense of the rest of the genome). That's why it's the #1 choice to top unethical breeders of every species! Mokele

Well, a few things: First, complexity isn't favored, or even really a 'goal', but merely yet another tool. Look at bacteria. They can survie in the most hostile environments on earth, evolve at incredibly rapid rates, reproduce like crazy, and exploit practically any habitat on the planet (and several elsewhere possibly, as the survival of bacteria inadvertently launched along with various space probes over the years indicates). As a second example, look at many parasites. these animals often arose from complex, sophisticated ancestors, but have lost their complexity, trading it for sheer reproductive output. Many are little more than sacks of gonads, despite fairly close relationships to more complex ancestors. Complexity allows more options, and may be beneficial in certain situations, but the same can be said for a tail. Complexity should be viewed as an adaptation, used in appropriate environments by some organisms, but certainly not the end-all, be-all. As for sex, most data indicates that not only does it not improve the evolutionary rate or sucess of lineages, but that in animals it evolved to impove genetic mixing and recombination to fight parasites. Sex-equivalents, like conjugation in bacteria, are best explained in terms of selfish-gene theory. For behaviors, you seem to imply that all members of a community (or at last a substantial fraction) must employ it before it becoms selectively favored, but again, this is not always the case. If just one animals receives a mutation that improves it's hunting efficiency, that will be selected for, regardless of it' current frequency. Now, frequency-dependent selection can occur in some systems, possibly including behavior, but this does not necessarily hold true for most systems, nor prove anything teleological. However, humans are where I feel it truly breaks down, because you consider meta-information, which can be consciously controlled and modified in the face of the environment, in contrast to genetic information, whose modification does not appear to be selective (there was a recent idea about 'adaptive mutation' in a bacteria, but this has been shown to be false). As for the tendency for life to produce sentient species, just look at the evolutionary history of the planet. We see from the fossil record you can get a sentient species from something that looks very much like a rat in only 65 million years (possibly less if mammals 'dawdled' which they seem to have done throughout the Paleocene and Eocene), so why didn't sentient dinosaurs evolve, since they had 180 million years to do so? Or sentient octopi/squid, since cephalopods have been around for about 500 million years? This is the problem with post-hoc analysis; I can just as easily point to naked mole rats and say that evolution exists to produce eusocial species. The concept of the singularity as an inevitability depends solely upon human conscious will towards it, somthing that is *not* guaranteed (see the Luddites and the Amish for notable counterexamples) and fundamentally different from gene-based evolution. If I want a machine to do a task, I can make one deliberately, but there is no evidence that beneficial mutations are more likely in environments in which they would be useful or are needed. You cannot analogize a chemical process to a conscious one. Evolution dismisses teleological arguements for numerous reasons, including: 1) unless they are predictive, they serve no purpose, and simply saying 'this was meant to be' does not give any predictive information 2) there is no known mechanism by which organisms can bias mutation towards particular locations or paticular outcomes. 3) mutation is a fundamentally random chemical process, which has been shown by the accumulation of mutations in genes or regions not under selection. 4) existing systems display evidence to exactly the opposite. Take, for instance, a large fruit in Australia which no longer can disperse without the extinct megafauna. If there was any teleology in nature we either would expect that organisms would not wind up in such situations at all, or that when in such situations, they would quickly develop just the right mutation to get out of it. Given that this has not happened yet and the declining numbers of the plant make it unlike to, this constitutes strong evidence against teleology in nature. So it's not just a knee-jerk rejection based on ID and Lamarckism, but rather because teleological evolution doesn't fit the data we see, the data actually strongly indicates the contrary, and known mechanisms would not produce it (and we are reasonably sure that these known mechanisms are the predominant ones). Mokele

But if they're not breeding within the family, it's not an inbred system, is it?

You mean a team of half-rate hacks who're re-iterating the same tired arguements about probability which I guarantee are wrong in precisely the same way as all other ones have been, namely because they lack proper understanding of the system. Oh, look, I just found his CV. He has *no* degrees in science, only applied math and philosophy of science (AKA "those who can, do, those who cannot, philosophize about it"). Ergo he has *NO* credibility on the subject, and insufficient knowledge. Oh, and lookie! The "institute" responsible for this and headed by this individual was shut down by a *BAPTIST* university. On top of that, probability proves *nothing*. It's extremely improbable that any given person will win the loterry, but people do win it. That'd be all well and good, if there were any legitimate truth supporting this "design" bullshit. As I'm currently noting in bascule's thread, teleological arguements come in two and only two flavors: those which are untestable and useless, and those which are flatly contradicted by the existing body of data. And we'll do that when ID generates some scienific, empirical results. Note that they hav failed to do so in twenty years, in spite of all the endlss yapping about how great their idea is. As I noted elsewhere, penis-enlargement pills have more scientific merit than ID. Mokele

I had to do both, and I need to do the general *again* sometime before I apply for PhD position, because my other scores are already just over 5 years old (long story). Welcome to the "$400 and 9 hours of my life which I'll never get back" show!

It sounded reasonable, but contained nothing but the same old falacies we're refuted time and again. Nothing in that article could not be satisfactorily refuted with a moment's use of the 'search' button or a simple knowledge of logical fallacies. Not to mention a basic knowledge of biology. It contained nothing productive, and was purely intended to stir up shit on a topic which has been *thorughly* debunked. In all honesty, I felt it to be little more than trolling. Nothing productive would have come of it (because nothing productive *ever* comes of that debate), so basically, I'm just saving everyone the trouble and boredom of yet another useless debate on an intellectually and emprically bankrupt position. Mokele

Because the alleles assort independently, you just "layer it" (or whatever the actual math term is). In essence, to find the probability of, say AABbCC, you say there's a 1/4th probability os AA, a 1/2 probability of Bb, and a 1/4th probability of CC, so the total probability is 1/32. Repeat ad nauseam. Of course, it can get lots more complicated, with linkage disequilibrium (where alleles *don't* assort independently), but that's a whole different mess. Mokele

The GRE general is computer-based, but not online. You still have to go to a test center and take it there. The GRE subject tests, however, are still paper/pencil.

Ditto what Demosthenes said: I spent $70 to take the AP bio test, and it got me out of 3 quarters (fall, winter, spring, rather than semesters) of intro to bio, which would have cost a total of $3600.

More useless drivel from people who can't see the logical fallacy they're committing. Locked. Edit: I've reviewed this thread in response to the objections raised by it's locking. I not only stand by my prior assessment of "useless drivel", but add the adjectives "worthless" and "propagandistic" to the mix. The tone is better than usual for IDiot essays, but the content is non-existent; boils down to "We promise we're a real science, in spite of a total lack of empirical evidence to support us, copious evidence against us whic we dishonestly refuse to acknowledge, and an utter refusal to actually *earn* the respect we ask for with *real* results." Their *sole* claim to any sort of intelectual validity is "mathematical detection of teleological nature", which is impossible and which is based on a single paper published by noted IDiot Dembski (which was promptly shown to be so utterly full of crap as to be usable only as one particular kind of paper, notably that used in the smallest room in the house). This thread will be deleted in 3 days. Frankly, I should delete it now, but I'm feeling nice.

No, because the smaller the recessive gene frequency in a non-inbred population, the less homozygotes there are, meaning that the genes are "hiding". In contrast, inbreeding leads to homozygosity, so the genes become "exposed" to selection. In any population, the recessive lethal mutations will sometimes be "hidden" from selection in heterozygotes. But in inbred populations, there is an unusually small number of heterozygotes and an unusually large number of both homozygotes for a given gene frequency. Because there are more homozygotes, more individuals carrying the lethal allele die, and less of these alleles are hidden in heterozygote form. This means the frequency of the damaging allele will decrease faster, on account of a greater proportion of those who carry it dying each generation. Mokele

Sisyphus' and my calculations were for selection, not inbreeding. If you *combine* the two, you technically *could* get a faster response at one locus. Think of it in two steps: 1) inbreeding increases the proportion of homozygotes and decreases the proportion of heterozygotes 2) selection removes those recessive homozygotes. Becuase recessive homozygoes constitute an unusually large proportion of an inbred population relative to an outbred one, more total individuals will die, meaning stronger selection on the inbred population. Also, because the inbred population suffers from a defecit of heterozygotes, the recessive lethal allele cannot "hide" in heterozygotes as effectively as during selection on an outbred population. Of course, while that locus is all neat, the rest of the organism's genome is in such horrible shape that it migth start playing banjo at any minute. Mokele

Well, first, the answer I gave doesn't address inbreeding, only selection. The effects of inbreeding are actually very different. There's 5 main factors that influence the gene pool: 1) mutation - adding new genes, good or bad 2) migration - animals leave or enter, taking or bringing in new genes 3) selection - what we just modeled - differential survival or reproduction based on genotype 4) genetic drift - a sort of "random sampling error" caused by small populations 5) inbreeding - mating with close relatives. Sisyphus, we actually got the same answer, it's just expressed differently. I gave the value of p, the total proportion of N alleles in the gene pool, while you gave the value of each of the phenotypes at the first generation. You can convert p to your values by the following method: p is 2/3, and because there's only one other allele (whose frequency is usually called q), p+q=1, and therefore q = 1/3. Now, imagine we just put all the gamates of this population into a big bag, mix well, and pic two at random. The probability of picking two N gamates is p (proportion of N in the gene pool) squared, or 4/9 (what you got). We can get heterozygotes two ways: p then q or q then p, so the probability is 2*p*q, or 4/9 (again, same answer). And recessive homozygotes work like dominants, but this time it's q square, or 1/9th. So we actually got the same answers, just that you figured it out yourself and I used the standard population genetics equations and terms, so it looked different. ----- As for inbreeding, that's actually a lot more complicated. The actual effects of inbreeding are that a population will have a disproportionate number of homozygotes (which is why inbred lines of flies or mice are used in lab studies, since they have next to no genetic variation). And selection *can* reduce the number of damaging recessives, thus the frequency in the population, but it runs into a bottleneck: genetic load, as Haldane called it. The principle of genetic load is simple: Stuff isn't just happening at one locus, and in reality, selection, inbreeding, etc affect *all* loci at once. This has lots of effects. First, in a finite population you cannot possibly play out every combination every generation, so traits wind up linked together regardless of selection simply by being on the same animal. Second, selection acts on the animal. If every bad gene only causes a 2% drop in survival rate, you can only realistically have selection on 50 genes. Take your typical inbred animal. It'll be homozygous for bad traits, but homozygous for good ones too, and this will be random with respect to selective properties of the genes. So does the animal live or die? Well, it's got traits going both ways, so it often more or less balances out (though many traits are best in heterozygous form, and thus the net fitness of inbred animals is lower than non-inbred ones). As the inbreeding continues, you have less and less heteozygotes, and, while the net fitness of the population declines, it's more or less the same (just as crappy) for most individuals, thus there's only very limited selection going on. Sure, couple A is more likely to have a kid that's homozygous for damaging mutation X, but couple B is just as likely to have a kid that's homozygous for damaging mutation Y. So basically, under controlled breeding and for animals with one locus (which don't exist), your friend is right, inbreeding lets you flush that trait out faster. However, because inbreeding affects *all* loci, including those you *aren't* flushing out, it'll cause *greater* prevalence of those bad traits. So basically, your friend's misconception is based on the typical way we treat traits separately, without remembering they're part of a whole genome that functions as a unit. Once you take that more realistic approach, you find that any benefits of inbreeding regarding one trait are massively outweighted by the damage done to all other traits in the genome. Mokele