N.Wells
Posts: 1836
Joined: Oct. 2005
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| Quote (GaryGaulin @ July 13 2014,14:11) | | Quote (N.Wells @ July 11 2014,11:51) | | No one is denying that epigenetic effects can happen. However, solid data shows that the Galapagos finches are not an instance of smaller-beaked birds producing larger-beaked offspring through epigenetic tweaks to development during droughts, but are a phenomenon consisting of smaller-beaked birds dying and/or not reproducing successfully during droughts. In contrast, in lush times, birds with larger beaks do not produce offspring with smaller beaks, but smaller birds (which have lower fuel needs) are able to raise more offspring than larger birds, so smaller beaks become more predominant, and the mean beak size of the population falls. |
Explaining later discovered information does not excuse a theory from not being able to predict sensory information from when developing in the nest and parents diet being in the circuit regulating beak design. You are thus stuck reciting textbook information from Genetic Theory that really only took Darwinian Theory by surprise.
The Darwinian model led to assuming haphazard random mutation to the code was causing the change, while the model I long used predicted that what is now known as epigenetics was not yet discovered. The theory you glorify ended up needed rethinking, while the theory I explain again proved to be well thought out by having correctly predicted something else. |
1) | Quote | | Explaining later discovered information does not excuse a theory from not being able to predict sensory information from when developing in the nest and parents diet being in the circuit regulating beak design. |
Try rephrasing that in English.
2) | Quote | | You are thus stuck reciting textbook information from Genetic Theory that really only took Darwinian Theory by surprise. |
I'm not sure what you mean by Genetic Theory and Darwinian Theory in this context, or for that matter "textbook information". Yes, Darwin knew nothing about genes (so crudely speaking, he anticipated that all evolution was going to be epigenetic :) ). However, the Modern Theory of Evolution incorporates genetics, so it is not exactly surprised by genetics. The MET does not prohibit epigenetic effects, but it does anticipate that they will be minor.
In the case of Darwin's finches, natural selection theory explains change by preferential selection of some phenotypes relative to other phenotypes by differential reproduction, possibly including differential survival. Peter Grant's team documented and measured both selective forces and changes, and showed that natural selection was even more forceful and effective than anticipated. So this is technically an excellent example of predictions fulfilled.
3) | Quote | | The Darwinian model led to assuming haphazard random mutation to the code was causing the change, while the model I long used predicted that what is now known as epigenetics was not yet discovered. |
You have entangled several stupidities here, plus undecipherable grammar at the end of the sentence (your model predicts that epigenetics was not yet discovered?). Again, Darwin didn't know about genes, so "Darwinian theory", strictly speaking, doesn't assume haphazard mutations. However, and more significantly, modern evolutionary theory (which does deal make statements and predictions about haphazard mutations) does not require that changes to finch beak size be explained by new mutations, as it is perfectly happy with recombining alleles and changing their proportions in the population.
Secondly on this point, your model (still not a theory) does not make any useful and specific predictions about epigenetics. Whatever you manage to pull out of it is going to be like finding a prediction in Nostramus's writings, i.e. relying on wishful re-interpretations of ambiguous ramblings.
Thirdly, what you are doing here, once again, is trying to shift goalposts because you are wrong. You asserted (albeit in mangled English) that the famous changes in finch beak size are due to epigenetic controls. Epigenetic controls can affect beak size, but do not dominate in the case of the Galapagos finches, because the changes show high heritability and do not occur across the population due to environmental changes, but because environmental changes kill off certain phenotypes, or let certain phenotypes reproduce more than others. So you are trying to shift from your specific assertions to a nebulous claim.
4) | Quote | | while the theory I explain again proved to be well thought out |
Don't ever let anyone accuse you of not being funny. Your verbiage does not constitute a theory, does not explain anything, and shows all manner of evidence of not being 'well thought out' in any recognizable sense of the phrase. If it was well thought out, you wouldn't exclude composing a symphony, thinking up a theory, and planning your life from being intelligence in action. You also wouldn't insist on four criteria and then turn around and admit that some aren't relevant at important levels. Nor would you wildly overgeneralize from a computer model of foraging by an insect that does not involve reproduction, genes, multiple generations, the emergence of intelligence, and so on and so forth.
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