Enough Time for Evolution?

[Shermana]

Please debate the contents itself of the following peer reviewed paper, on whether the critique on Wilf and Ewens "There's plenty of Time for Evolution" has valid points or if it is misrepresenting them.

Ewert

Abstract

Wilf and Ewens argue in a recent paper that there is plenty of time for evolution to occur. They base this claim on a mathematical model in which beneficial mutations accumulate simultaneously and independently, thus allowing changes that require a large number of mutations to evolve over comparatively short time periods. Because changes evolve independently and in parallel rather than sequentially, their model scales logarithmically rather than exponentially. This approach does not accurately reflect biological evolution, however, for two main reasons. First, within their model are implicit information sources, including the equivalent of a highly informed oracle that prophesies when a mutation is “correct,” thus accelerating the search by the evolu- tionary process. Natural selection, in contrast, does not have access to information about future benefits of a particular muta- tion, or where in the global fitness landscape a particular mutation is relative to a particular target. It can only assess mutations based on their current effect on fitness in the local fitness landscape. Thus the presence of this oracle makes their model radically different from a real biological search through fitness space. Wilf and Ewens also make unrealistic biological assumptions that, in effect, simplify the search. They assume no epistasis between beneficial mutations, no linkage between loci, and an unreal- istic population size and base mutation rate, thus increasing the pool of beneficial mutations to be searched. They neglect the effects of genetic drift on the probability of fixation and the negative effects of simultaneously accumulating deleterious muta- tions. Finally, in their model they represent each genetic locus as a single letter. By doing so, they ignore the enormous sequence complexity of actual genetic loci (typically hundreds or thousands of nucleotides long), and vastly oversimplify the search for functional variants. In similar fashion, they assume that each evolutionary “advance” requires a change to just one locus, despite the clear evidence that most biological functions are the product of multiple gene products working together. Ignoring these biological realities infuses considerable active information into their model and eases the model’s evolutionary process.

Ewert

Please keep all responses on topic and focused on the contents itself of the peer-reviewed paper or you will be kindly reminded to stick to the subject, thank you. If you are only interested in attacking the source without addressing the actual contents of the paper, feel free to demonstrate that you don't want to discuss the paper on another thread.

Example, if you disagree with: (Page 5, top)

As seen in Figure*3 (a plot of Equation 10), this equation
shows a very rapid decline in active information per query as
the amount of independence is decreased. This demonstrates
that even a small amount of dependency between the mutations
causes a very sharp decline in the information extracted and
thus a large increase in the time required to reach the desired
phrase.
The Wilf and Ewens model suggests that it will take approximately 390 rounds of guessing to find 20,000 beneficial
mutations. However, even the smallest level of dependence,
with word lengths W=2, rapidly increases the time required, and
that time increases exponentially as the word length increases.

please explain your specific reasons.

 

[mycorrhiza]

Could you provide us with the paper they're criticizing? Just so we know that they aren't misrepresenting it. It's easier to review the content in this one in the light of the other.

(And I know you didn't want me to mention the source, but why say that it's peer-reviewed, since it's published in a small creationist journal?)

EDIT: I'm a few pages in now, and so far I must say that they're relying too much on the Wheel of Fortune metaphor, and it seems like they're misinterpreting what it meant in the original paper. Since I haven't read the original, I don't know if that is correct, though. The original paper might have been as bad as this one is so far.

EDIT2: Top of page four, right column, is an example of where they're not getting it. The likening to a sentence of the English language is just a metaphor. I doubt that the original paper states that it works like it in real life. They're misrepresenting evolution here. It's quite obvious that fitness only applies to organisms living at the time, and not to hypothetical future organisms, but the metaphor is probably used to describe a perfect adaptation to the environment. The organisms don't need to be aware of the changes to adapt towards this, and reality is much more complex than the original metaphor. There isn't a goal, but many possible ways to better adapt to the environment.

EDIT3: Page six, middle of right column. I hope that they're misrepresenting the original paper here, because otherwise the original paper must be written by people with very little grasp of evolution. Not all beneficial mutations lead towards more advanced organisms in terms of complexity. It can be just as advantageous to become less complex. Loss of information and gain of information are both valid in evolution and we have observed both being beneficial in experiments with organisms with very short lifespans.

Overall, the paper was riddled with misunderstandings (unless the original paper is equally bad or worse). They ignored reality in favour of being able to criticize the original paper, since we have observed beneficial mutations changing the fitness of an organism. They also never specified how much time would be needed for evolution and how much time it had, which is important seeing as we're dealing with creationists, some of which believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old. To me, over 3 billion years seems like enough time seeing as we have directly observed many changes and even full speciation.

If you provide the original paper, I will give this a second read and see if my opinion on it changes in the light of the original paper.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

What ever this particular paper might portray.. it is self evident that there was enough time for Evolution to get us to the present point.

The game of looking backwards to a starting point will always present unhelpful mathematical and statistical problems. The statistics and probability that some thing could happen always seem to be at odds, when faced with the fact that it has happened.

Any problems that this might present to researchers, is in their lack of knowledge and techniques in following multiple genetic trails.

 

[rusra02]

What ever this particular paper might portray.. it is self evident that there was enough time for Evolution to get us to the present point.

The game of looking backwards to a starting point will always present unhelpful mathematical and statistical problems. The statistics and probability that some thing could happen always seem to be at odds, when faced with the fact that it has happened.

Any problems that this might present to researchers, is in their lack of knowledge and techniques in following multiple genetic trails.

Are you arguing that the fact we are here proves there was sufficient time for us to evolve? Is that really your argument? Or am I misunderstanding your post?
The problem that there is insufficient time for evolution to occur is proof that it did not, in fact, occur, IMO. Rather, humans are the product of a surpassingly intelligent Being, a grand Creator.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Please debate the contents itself of the following peer reviewed paper, ...

Please reference the peer reviews.

 

[johnhanks]

Please debate the contents itself of the following peer reviewed paper, on whether the critique on Wilf and Ewens "There's plenty of Time for Evolution" has valid points or if it is misrepresenting them.

Ewert

Like mycorrhiza, I'd like to see the original Wilf and Ewens paper to know exactly what is being criticised: only the abstract is available online. I'd also echo his point about Ewert and co. criticising the metaphor rather than the process.

Ewert and co. make great play of biological factors they claim Wilf and Ewens ignore (epistasis, pleiotropy, etc) without once demonstrating that incorporating these factors into the model would make the difference they wish to see - i.e. making the evolutionary process impossibly slow. On the subject of omitted biology, I note Ewert & co make no mention of homeotic mutations, but are hung up on changes in protein-encoding genes. (Nor do Wilf and Ewens refer to homeobox genes in their abstract, but changes in such genes would have a powerful effect on the rate of evolution.)

Although the title of Wilf and Ewens’s paper indicates that they believe they have solved a potential problem with the pace of evolution, they nowhere state an actual amount of time that their model would require. (p.2)

Indeed; and neither do Ewert & co show that their claimed omissions would make that time impossibly long. What they do is show a nice line in conflation:

Because of genetic drift, beneficial mutations are often lost before they can become established in the population. In fact, the probability of fixation for a beneficial mutation is roughly equal to 2sNe / N, where Ne is the
effective population size, N the census population size, and s is the selection coefficient for that mutation [16]. For humans this translates to a probability of fixation for a strongly beneficial mutation of ≤ 0.01 [5]. Consequently a beneficial mutation may have to arise a hundred times or more in a human population before it becomes established and goes on to fixation

The bolding is mine: you will note that the authors are presenting a human-specific calculation as though its outcome applies to all organisms.

The essence of Ewert's argument seems to be that the mathematical model used by Wilf and Ewens is over-simplified. (Perhaps it would be better to say more simplified than it might be, since any mathematical model is by definition a simplification of nature.) I am not enough of a mathematician to judge the rightness of this claim, but would point out that even if (a substantial if) the criticisms are justified, what they have achieved is showing a model supporting the sufficient-time idea to be sub-optimal. Despite the optimistic title given to the thread, that is not the same as demonstrating insufficient time. (If Alice publishes arguments for Shakespeare really being the author of Hamlet, and Bob points out flaws in her arguments, Bob has not thereby demonstrated that someone else wrote the play.)

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

And, again, ...

Please debate the contents itself of the following peer reviewed paper, ...

Please reference the peer reviews.

Clearly the thread would benefit from learning Shermana's evaluation of these reviews.

 

[tumbleweed41]

Please debate the contents itself of the following peer reviewed paper, on whether the critique on Wilf and Ewens "There's plenty of Time for Evolution" has valid points or if it is misrepresenting them.

Ewert



Ewert

Please keep all responses on topic and focused on the contents itself of the peer-reviewed paper or you will be kindly reminded to stick to the subject, thank you. If you are only interested in attacking the source without addressing the actual contents of the paper, feel free to demonstrate that you don't want to discuss the paper on another thread.

Example, if you disagree with: (Page 5, top)

please explain your specific reasons.

First some clarification.

• The article in question is a critical review, not a scientific paper.
• The article was published in 'BIO-Complexity', an open access web journal by the Biologic Institute, whose stated goal is "to be the leading forum for testing the scientific merit of the claim that intelligent design (ID) is a credible explanation for life."
• BIO-Complexity has yet to provide the critique's, comments or peer reviews of this critical review.
• More than half of the credited authors of this critical review are on the editorial board of BIO-Complexity.

I only point this out because the claims of "peer review" and "scientific paper" seem to be inaccurate at best.
Perhaps Demski et al, should submit their critical review to the Proceedings of the National Acadamy of Sciences of the United States, the original publisher of Wilf and Ewens scientific paper for a true peer review rather than hiding behind the skirts of a faux "scientific journal" whose stated purpose is to advance the idea of ID (read Creationism).

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I only point this out because the claims of "peer review" and "scientific paper" seem to be inaccurate at best.

OMG!

 

[tumbleweed41]

For those wishing to read Wilf and Ewens original peer reviewed scientific paper. (PDF)

There

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Are you arguing that the fact we are here proves there was sufficient time for us to evolve? Is that really your argument? Or am I misunderstanding your post?
The problem that there is insufficient time for evolution to occur is proof that it did not, in fact, occur, IMO. Rather, humans are the product of a surpassingly intelligent Being, a grand Creator.

That is indeed what I am saying.
I have no problem with Creation. Only with what was created.

It did not include ready made flora and fauna or even our world ...These all came much later.

Creation was the start of a process.

It did not start with a myth.

 

[LuisDantas]

The problem that there is insufficient time for evolution to occur is proof that it did not, in fact, occur, IMO. Rather, humans are the product of a surpassingly intelligent Being, a grand Creator.

Saying that there is insufficient time for evolution to occur is much like saying that there isn't such a thing as gravity. You may sincerely believe in it, but it has been demonstrated as wrong all the same.

Was there a Creator? Who knows. Maybe there was.

There is however no good reason to pretend that we have not learned about such things as Evolution, Electromagnetism and Gravity.

Are we expected to make such a pretense and them pray for divine intervention to guide us when we need to do work related to physics or biology? That does not seem to be sound even by strictly religious criteria IMO.

 

[Ouroboros]

Like mycorrhiza, I'd like to see the original Wilf and Ewens paper to know exactly what is being criticised: only the abstract is available online. I'd also echo his point about Ewert and co. criticising the metaphor rather than the process.

I think this one might the whole report: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1010.5178.pdf

Besides that, let's say the critique of Wilf and Ewens is accurate, that doesn't mean that automatically the negative position is true. W&E might have screwed up their computations and their procedures in the programming, they might have missed key components and such, still, after all that, the evidence for evolution--that it happened and is happening--is overwhelming from physical and observable things, and doesn't need a computer program to prove. There are computer programs that do work, using genetic algorithms, which means the principle works. So again, the negative isn't proved by pointing out flaws in one experiment that was set out to prove the positive. If my proof for Santa Claus failed because my test was flawed, it doesn't prove Santa Clause for or against, it only shows that my test was flawed.

Obviously the process for evolution is extremely complicated when it comes to the genetic code. No one should deny that. There are many different aspects that needs to be accounted for. But in the end, that evolution happened can be studied and understood without a computer software calculating the probability of time.

Perhaps in the end we would discover that a divine intervention of evolution, mutation and selection being driven by a "life force" beyond our physical world, sure... but still, that force used evolution, because evolution happened.

 

[McBell]

First some clarification.

• The article in question is a critical review, not a scientific paper.
• The article was published in 'BIO-Complexity', an open access web journal by the Biologic Institute, whose stated goal is "to be the leading forum for testing the scientific merit of the claim that intelligent design (ID) is a credible explanation for life."
• BIO-Complexity has yet to provide the critique's, comments or peer reviews of this critical review.
• More than half of the credited authors of this critical review are on the editorial board of BIO-Complexity.

I only point this out because the claims of "peer review" and "scientific paper" seem to be inaccurate at best.
Perhaps Demski et al, should submit their critical review to the Proceedings of the National Acadamy of Sciences of the United States, the original publisher of Wilf and Ewens scientific paper for a true peer review rather than hiding behind the skirts of a faux "scientific journal" whose stated purpose is to advance the idea of ID (read Creationism).

Now I understand why he completely ignored my proposed condition for his suggested new subforum...

 

[McBell]

Please debate the contents itself of the following peer reviewed paper, on whether the critique on Wilf and Ewens "There's plenty of Time for Evolution" has valid points or if it is misrepresenting them.

Ewert



Ewert

Please keep all responses on topic and focused on the contents itself of the peer-reviewed paper or you will be kindly reminded to stick to the subject, thank you. If you are only interested in attacking the source without addressing the actual contents of the paper, feel free to demonstrate that you don't want to discuss the paper on another thread.

Example, if you disagree with: (Page 5, top)

please explain your specific reasons.

Seems to me the whole paper is a complete waste of time based upon their own stated purpose.

Let us assume they are 100% correct and there was not enough time for evolution to have brought life to the "stage" it is currently in.
It in no way, shape, or form shows creation to be anything more than wishful thinking.

 

[tumbleweed41]

As for the BIO-Complexity critique of 'There's Plenty of Time for Evolution', the most glaring flaw is that Demski et al. ignore the fact that selection can , and does, act on multiple alleles at the same time. Genes do not exist in isolation. Dawkins has presented this before, and Herbert Wilf and Warren Ewens have shown the math.
Demski et al.'s figures rely on the misconception of a single change per generation, with multiple generations required to "fix" a change.

 

[savagewind]

I have a gambling wheel and a ball. The ball is power because without power nothing can happen. All the slots on the wheel picture randomness. Sometimes the ball falls into a slot that causes a reaction. Sometimes the reaction creates something that becomes selected but many more times the reaction causes nothing essential. Spin it a thousand times and you get one essential reaction and I believe that is being generous.

How many spins will it take to create just one simple organism? The ball must fall in a reaction slot before the previous reaction becomes useless, isn't that so? The reactions that are essential must more or less be coordinated. How can something random be coordinated also?

 

[tumbleweed41]

I have a gambling wheel and a ball. The ball is power because without power nothing can happen. All the slots on the wheel picture randomness. Sometimes the ball falls into a slot that causes a reaction. Sometimes the reaction creates something that becomes selected but many more times the reaction causes nothing essential. Spin it a thousand times and you get one essential reaction and I believe that is being generous.

How many spins will it take to create just one simple organism? The ball must fall in a reaction slot before the previous reaction becomes useless, isn't that so? The reactions that are essential must more or less be coordinated. How can something random be coordinated also?

As I said...

As for the BIO-Complexity critique of 'There's Plenty of Time for Evolution', the most glaring flaw is that Demski et al. ignore the fact that selection can , and does, act on multiple alleles at the same time. Genes do not exist in isolation. Dawkins has presented this before, and Herbert Wilf and Warren Ewens have shown the math.
Demski et al.'s figures rely on the misconception of a single change per generation, with multiple generations required to "fix" a change.

Your analogy needs more balls.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Your analogy needs more balls.

As a matter of fact ...

... never mind.​

 

[Shermana]

While I appreciate the pointing out that it's more of a Review than a Peer-Review paper, I'm looking forward to seeing some actual criticism of the contents.