Amaleq13

Fine. The error truly belongs to Sanford so you are only guilty of blindly accepting it and refusing to consider the possibility he is wrong. Given that the guy used to be an atheist, I would think you might be somewhat more suspicious of his reasoning. :angel:

Dave Hawkins

Amaleq ... May I ask something? Are you a geneticist? If not ... What is your area of specialty?

deadman_932

Dave: may I ask something? Why don't you back your assertion on Crow by doing what you are supposed to do and contacting him? This is your job, since it is your claim. You've been given the e-mail.

Dave Hawkins

Amaleq wrote this ... yet he cannot see what this implies. It implies that we have a larger load of deleterious mutations. Yes, the load is even larger because of medical technology, but it is larger even without the technology. Why do I say that? Because Crow says that if the medical technology goes away, then our increased load puts us in worse shape. Maybe we should start a John Sanford book thread at some point and go through all the papers he writes about, many of which imply the same thing. In the mean time, I will contact Crow and see what he says.

Dave Hawkins

Yes. I understand this. I'm not sure what made you think I do not. Crow and Kondrashov's work shows that non-lethal, slightly deleterious mutations are accumulating in populations. And selection is not adequate to remove them prior to extinction of the species. Sanford shows this quite definitively in his book.

ericmurphy

Why, Dave? Why can you not understand where this "larger load of deleterious mutations" comes from? It's not complicated, but I'll explain it to you anyway:

Because in the past the possessors of these deleterious mutations would never have survived to reproduce.

Why is this so hard for you to grasp, Dave? Seriously; I saw this as a problem as a pre-teen. Why do you think this is a problem for evolutionary theory? It's not. It's a consequence of the way evolution works. Remove or interfere with natural selection (which is what medical technology is doing), and deleterious mutations pile up. This why ignoring the effect of natural selection kills all of your arguments about evolutionary theory.

And why is that, Dave? Because the mutations are already there. They would not have been there were it not for medical technology. What Crow is saying, had you the wit to apprehend it, is that if we were somehow to lose our medical technology, we would be worse off because of the deleterious mutations that technology has allowed to pile up!

It's fascinating that you don't get this, Dave. It's not that you're not smart enough to get it. It's deliberate opacity of mind that prevents you from seeing it. You don't want to see it; that's the only conceivable explanation.

Why don't you see if Crow agrees with you that Neanderthals had superior DNA and were less "fallen" than modern humans? What do you imagine his answer will be?

ericmurphy

Of the human species, Dave. Not all species. That's what they're talking about. But guess what? Almost all species eventually go extinct. This is an observation. Why do you think this presents a problem for evolutionary theory?

And Dave, here's a clue: extinction is a consequence of natural selection. You know that some things (including entire species) are selected against, don't you?

Occam's Aftershave

That's right Dave, we have more *total* deleterious mutations now that our ancient ancestors because *their* deleterious mutations KILLED THEM while our advanced medical technology lets us LIVE AND REPRODUCE so they accumulated.

NOWHERE does Crow say or imply that Dave. THAT's the part you are making up. At least a dozen people have corrected you on this - why do you keep repeating that deliberate falsehood?
That's right too Dave. If some cosmic debacle took away all our advanced medical technology, the deleterious mutations would start KILLING US AGAIN until the total in our bodies returned back a lower percentage in equilibrium with the selection pressures.
You do that Dave, but please tell us ahead of time questions will you ask him so we can keep you from your habit of 'wordsmithing'.

Dave Hawkins

Ok ... So we disagree on Crow. What do you do with Kondrashov? His question ... Why have we not died 100X over?

ck1

Dave, this is not one of those situations in which you (and Sanford) have your opinion and the rest of us have our opinion and we agree to disagree.

You are wrong. Period. There is no equivalence.

Do you remember that other word Voxrat uses a lot?