670,616,629 mph: It's not just a good idea, it's the law!

A major conclusion of the work is that for some organisms, possibly including humans, continued evolution will not translate into ever-increasing fitness. Moreover, a population may accrue mutations at a constant rate -- a pattern long considered the hallmark of "neutral" or non-Darwinian evolution -- even when the mutations experience Darwinian selection....

In some theoretically conceivable landscapes, fitness levels are expected to increase exponentially forever because of an inexhaustible supply of beneficial mutations. But in more realistic landscapes the rate of adaptive substitutions (mutations that improve an organism's fitness) eventually lose steam, resulting in sub-linear fitness growth. In some of these landscapes, the fitness eventually levels out and the organism ceases to adapt, even though mutations may continue to accrue.

It is the great irony of modern evolutionary genetics that the spirit of explanation has moved more and more towards optimal adaptation, while the technical developments of population genetics of the past 30 years have been increasingly to show the efficacy of non adaptive forces in evolution. ~ Richard Lewontin

Real arms races are run by highly intelligent, bespectacled engineers in glass offices thoughtfully designing shiny weapons on modern computers. But there's no thinking in the mud and cold of nature's trenches. At best, weapons thrown together amidst the explosions and confusion of smoky battlefields are tiny variations on old ones, held together by chewing gum. If they don't work, then something else is thrown at the enemy, including the kitchen sink -- there's nothing "progressive" about that. At its usual worst, trench warfare is fought by attrition. If the enemy can be stopped or slowed by burning your own bridges and bombing your own radio towers and oil refineries, then away they go. Darwinian trench warfare does not lead to progress -- it leads back to the Stone Age. ~ Michael Behe

Evolutionism is the tinfoil hat atheists wear to keep God out of their brainwaves.

Nice find, subby!

/Bevets is here already? Without a summons?

This is what fundies like Bevets like to point out as "controversy in the scientific community about evolution". It's like watching two people debate Newton's and Einstein's theories of gravitation and concluding that they're debating whether or not things fall when you drop them.

This is not surprising, but it's nice to see people working on quantifiable models.

Bevets: a word to the wise (or, in your case, the willfully ignorant): quoting Behe is not a good way to support an argument of any kind.

jspenguin: This is what fundies like Bevets like to point out as "controversy in the scientific community about evolution". It's like watching two people debate Newton's and Einstein's theories of gravitation and concluding that they're debating whether or not things fall when you drop them.

THIS

Bevets: Evolutionism is the tinfoil hat atheists wear to keep God out of their brainwaves.

I love the idea creationist think that God is omnipotent but could not have created evolution.

jspenguin: This is what fundies like Bevets like to point out as "controversy in the scientific community about evolution". It's like watching two people debate Newton's and Einstein's theories of gravitation and concluding that they're debating whether or not things fall when you drop them.

It's more like people debating over the free parking handout in monopoly. Bevets thinks he is playing backgammon.

This has the potential to be very interesting. Time to read the article.

No big surprise for anyone who works with computational genomes.

And BTW, mutation is not the driving force either... Sorry.

I hate those species that just sit there evolving at 5 under the speed limit in the left hand lane.

Interesting as the fossil record shows something completely different. Long periods of time, where stable genetics happen then short extinctions with fast evolution.

PirateKing:

I hate those species that just sit there evolving at 5 under the speed limit in the left hand lane.

With their left turn signal on?

Thisbymaster: Interesting as the fossil record shows something completely different. Long periods of time, where stable genetics happen then short extinctions with fast evolution.

This paper, if I am reading it correctly, does not argue against that. Rather it shows the rate of evolution during that "stable" period and the constraints that keep evolution from developing exponentially more "fit" species as time passes.

Of course it has a "speed limit". The output of the sun puts an energetic limit on the whole system. That's obvious.

Thisbymaster: Interesting as the fossil record shows something completely different. Long periods of time, where stable genetics happen then short extinctions with fast evolution.

The fossil record shows absolutely nothing about 'stable genetics'. Morphology and 'genetics' are not the same thing.

As for 'short extinctions' and 'fast evolution'... the fossil record is remarkably diverse, extensive and detailed. There is no evidence that only a single mode or rate of evolutionary change can be applied throughout all of Earth's history.

Bevets

I was going to list the evolutionary concepts that you clearly don't understand, but I see that you've already highlighted them for us.

And those quotes don't address what you've highlighted either. Lewontin constantly questioned the role of adaptation in the evolutionary process, not adaptation itself. He questioned that adaptation was optimal when an organism also influenced the environment and not just the other way around. At least that's what I got out of it. I haven't read much of his work, but I've clearly read more than you.

And again, you post Behe... Behe was referring to humans and interactions with parasites. I believe it was Dawkins who likened some interaction as an "arms race." So to counter this argument, Behe takes Dawkins' metaphor, likens it to a homo-sapiens' "arms race" with one another, point's out how it's not "progressive" (which means different things between evolution and human warfare) and calls the argument flawed. He constructs a strawman, blows it over and declares himself the victor. And clueless morons like you regurgitate it.

maxheck: PirateKing:

I hate those species that just sit there evolving at 5 under the speed limit in the left hand lane.

With their left turn signal on?

They haven't evolved turn signals yet. It's actually a modified flipper.

"This process is slow, normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward."

Bossk'sSegway: Bevets: Evolutionism is the tinfoil hat atheists wear to keep God out of their brainwaves.

I love the idea creationist think that God is omnipotent but could not have created evolution.

Or that even though humans were obviously created with flaws and in need of improvement, that nothing else could have been and thus there was no need for evolution.

I'm not here to lob stones, as I also believe in God as the creator, but I do think that the all-powerful that created the laws of physics, chemistry, and the lot would be fully able to use them. Time need not have any meaning for any creature considered eternal, so the 4.5B year life of the earth can be completely in line with the idea of a creator.

What is amazing though is that this particular concept is one that has been chosen for such contention. If you get past the religious objections, the effects that evolution play in anyone's life are infinitesimally small. Understanding it has considerable value in the study of biology, medicine, and genetics, but how does rejecting it actually enhance one's faith? There is no inherent amorality in accepting that life stems from common sources. Even if you believe that God pulled an incredible hocus-pocus act 6000 years ago in creating humans, he still used the same organic materials to form us, and based our design on those of every other creature (in a general sense) and higher mammals (in very specific ways).

Unfortunately, the concept has been sold as a "test of faith," just like dinosaur fossils and carbon dating.

It's too bad when you die, Bevets, you won't have consciousness enough to know that you're not going to Heaven, Hell, or even Euro Disney. I'd like to see that happen.

So, E.Coli turn it to 11 when reproducing?

Its an Open Access article BTW, for anyone interested: The dynamics of adaptation on correlated fitness landscapes

The Shoveller: The fossil record shows absolutely nothing about 'stable genetics'. Morphology and 'genetics' are not the same thing.

Exactly. I'm thinking he was mostly getting at Punctuated Equlibrium, which is of course an observed trend in many lineages over the fossil record, but morphological appearance and underlying genomics are two related but distinct beasts as you point out. All of the work being done in evolutionary genomics today points to them being, evolutionarily speaking, incredibly fluid and dynamic. There is probably little to no "stasis" when it comes to genomes even if overall morphology may look that way. And of course when dealing with morphology we are only looking at a subset of life on earth and only one piece of a much bigger picture. There is a hell of a lot of evolution that can occur, even in multicellular animals, that is important but non morphological when it comes to phenotype.

also, this somehow seems apropos: