lpetrich

Walter ReMine Has Responded!

He claims that inferred hierarchies do not imply shared ancestors.

He comments:

It's like requesting an ancestor for rats and rabbits, and someone answers, "vertebrate." "Vertebrate" isn't a species (so cannot possibly be an ancestor) - so doesn't actually exist within the dataset (rat and rabbit), instead it's a construct created by classification. The biomolecular methods operate similarly.

Which is a gross misunderstanding. The common ancestor of Oryctolagus cuniculus (domestic rabbit) and Rattus norvegicus (domestic rat) was neither species.

He continues:

Real ancestors and lineages are systematically absent over large-scales, and biomolecular methods never identify them.

Except that there are some good fossil sequences. ReMine continues by discussion of the "molecular clock" -- a quasi-orthogenetic constant rate of molecular evolution. He says:

Evolutionists use fossil-ages to "calibrate" the molecular clock - thereby guaranteeing a "match" between the two.

Actually, all one needs is more than one fossil calibration point. And rate constancy can also be tested by checking if all the examples have the same amount of molecular evolution from their shared ancestor to within substitution statistics. If the calculated number of substitutions for all of them is N, then the individual numbers ought to vary by around sqrt(N).

ReMine faults biologists for omitting genes that do not evolve at a constant rate, but that's a necessity -- and such genes can be identified with the help of inferred rate variations.

Haldane's Dilemma is a non sequitur. Selection can happen on several features at the same time; HD seems to assume purely sequential evolution. Also, some sizable fraction of the substitutions are neutral, and thus unaffected by HD.

ReMine then continues to claim that we can verify recent evolution but not long-ago evolution; his argument is apparently that we were not around to watch it.

He brings up transposition, but he fails to realize that transposition of genes can be identified as a result of the family-tree discordances that they cause. And he even claims that transposition is a bigger possible threat to creationism / "Message Theory" than hierarchy would be!

Not surprisingly, ReMine had done a lot of work in a quote mine. And he never really explains what his "Message Theory" is.

I must conclude that ReMine does not really know what he's talking about.

Happy Wonderer

Very funny. Maybe a way to approach it is that his counter argument is similar to making the argument that:
hw

Quetzal

That was it? That was ReMine's long-awaited, oft-delayed Final Say?

"Pathetic" doesn't even begin to describe it. Here was ReMine's one great chance to show everybody up and get an uncensored and un-rebutted last word in, and he flubbs it. Maybe the cretinists will soon come up with someone new to be their great champion, 'cause ReMine's armor is badly dented.

pangloss

Writes the electrical engineer creationist ReMine:

"2. Evolutionists use fossil-ages to "calibrate" the molecular clock - thereby guaranteeing a "match" between the two."

This is a blatant misrepresentation and a sad attempt at disinformation.

Here is how fossil calibration points are REALLY used:

An "agreed" upon fossil date is used to set a starting (calibration) point. FROM that point, the divergence dates of other species are calculated using molecular data.

These divergence dates often are congruent with dates inferred via other methods, such as other fossils (see Mol Phylogenet Evol 1999 Nov;13(2):348-59 Molecular phylogeny of Old World monkeys (Cercopithecidae) as inferred from gamma-globin DNA sequences. Page SL, Chiu Ch, Goodman M.

or

Mol Phylogenet Evol 2001 Jan;18(1):14-25
Catarrhine phylogeny: noncoding DNA evidence for a diphyletic origin of the mangabeys and for a human-chimpanzee clade. Page SL, Goodman M.).

ReMine is implying, as desperate cretins are wont to do, that there is some foul play afoot.

What is really afoot is ReMine's blatant dishonesty and ignorance.

I suggest that Walter ReMine, creationist electrical engineer, actually learn a LITTLE about what he prattles on about. The more he carries on, the bigger an ass he makes of himself.