The regulars here may recall John A. Davison, who died in 2012. He was notoriously persistent and repetitive, and rather clueless: he was the guy who started a blog with one article, never wrote another one, and just made new comments. He later announced that it was full, and so…he started a brand new blog, one article, and posted more comments to himself on it. It was rather sad.
Less well known is that he was actually a biologist, had a Ph.D. in zoology, and taught at the University of Vermont. He had a “scientific” theory, which was his, which he thought explained all that evolutionary change while refuting those silly scientists who believed that mutations occurred. No! Evolution was all due to chromosome rearrangements, which somehow are not mutations, and he also somehow ignored the existence of allelic differences between species:
In 1940 Richard B. Goldschmidt [1940] presented the evidence that it is the chromosome, not the gene that is the unit of evolutionary change. While this was not then accepted by the evolutionary establishment, recent karyological studies fully support his perspective. The primary demonstrable differences that distinguish us from our closest primate relatives are revealed in the structure of our chromosomes. They consist of several reorganizations of homologous chromosome segments in the form of translocations, pericentric and paracentric inversions and a single fusion which result in the human complement of 46 chromosomes while the Chimpanzee, Gorilla and Orang each have 48 (Yunis and Prakash [1982]). The important point is that there is no evidence that such transformations involved in any way the introduction of species specific information into the genome. This is further reinforced by the demonstration that we are nearly identical at the DNA level with our close relatives. The simplest explanation is that the information was present in a latent state and simply revealed or derepressed when the chromosome segments were placed in a new configuration (Davison [1993]).
Yet when you read what he had to say about it, what was striking was the complete failure to read and understand the scientific literature — he had come up with his scientific theory, by God, and he didn’t have to address it critically, ever. All he had to do was go on blogs and internet forums and write the same pretentious catchphrases over and over again. And that was the saddest thing of all, that a mind could become so calcified and bitter and obsessed.
So he died, but you knew another had to emerge, and he has come. I was asked to look at a string of comments left on a science article by a fellow going by the pseudonym JVK, and all the Davison traits were there. Pretentious phrasing. Repetition: if the audience didn’t get it the first time, just say the same thing again, twice. A kind of sneering anger that people don’t understand how smart he is. An obsession with one narrow idea, which is his, which explains all of evolution and proves that everyone else is wrong.
Behold James Vaughn Kohl.
Ecological adaptation occurs via the epigenetic effects of nutrients on alternative splicings of pre-mRNA which result in amino acid substitutions that differentiate all cell types of all individuals of all species. The control of the differences in cell types occurs via the metabolism of the nutrients to chemical signals that control the physiology of reproduction.
These facts do not refute evolution; they simply refute the ridiculous theory of mutation-initiated natural selection that most people here were taught to believe is the theory of evolution.
That theory is far too ridiculous to be anything but a joke in the context of biological-based increasing organismal complexity. But here, we have lots of jokers, don’t we? The proof of ecological variation that appears to refute the theory of evolution, which actually refutes itself, is that ecological adaptations occur too fast for mutations to compete with them as a source of anything but diseases and disorders.
Basically what he’s saying in the first couple of sentences is that the environment induces variations in gene expression that are responsible for the differentiation of the various cell types. This is partly true; environmental influences certainly do contribute to cells developing in different directions. However, there are many examples of patterns that resist environmental influences, or in which maternal factors shelter the embryo from the environment. Fertilized human eggs, for instance, acquire polarity information when they implant in the uterus, but are largely insulated from temperature and nutrient stress.
Then there are other things that are just too narrow. Is alternative splicing the only mechanism to create variants in cells? No, of course not. External signals cause changes in the phosphorylation state of proteins in the cytoplasm, for example, that can affect metabolic activity; no alternative splicing involved. Signals can also switch on and switch off specific genes, again, no alternative splicing needed.
Then there are bits that are just plain weird. He gives the impression that what we eat dictates what signals we can generate. Do you get Sonic Hedgehog in your diet? No. It’s a protein synthesized by your cells.
The primary patterning elements in multicellular organisms are produced by networks of interacting genes; major body plan features might be initiated by environmental or maternal signals (which then begin a series of gene-regulated processes that produce the details), but the environment is primarily going to be an important modulator. Need I point out as well that what Kohl has described is a limited subset of the processes in development and that no one in their right mind thinks that development somehow refutes the contribution of other sources of variation to evolution? It was Van Valen who said in 1973 that “Evolution is the control of development by ecology…” That’s pretty much the mainstream view, so there’s nothing novel in what Kohl wrote.
Further, what he writes is a particularly pretentious, obfuscatory way of saying what he means — he’s trying to obscure rather than explain.
But then, that’s what he does. He crashes into a thread full of lay people and then lords it over them with his abuse of jargon. And he does it over and over again, and you can see the responses: most of the other commenters are more or less stunned, they don’t know how to deal with all the specific buzzwords he throws at them, and they have these doubts…maybe he’s saying something I should know about. No, he’s not. He’s babbling in scientese.
And he just keeps hammering away with his pseudo-scientific pronouncements.
Nutrient stress and social stress force organisms to adapt via seemingly futile cycles of protein biosynthesis and degradation that either result in amino acid substitutions that stabilize organism-level thermoregulation or the organism dies. It does not mutate into another species, which is why that cannot be explained to a high school freshman.
The point of this article was to show people that high school freshman have already been taught to believe in a ridiculous theory of mutation-initiated natural selection. Thus, they think everything that happens to DNA must be a mutation and there is plenty of extant literature that supports that idea. All of it is wrong in the context of ecological adaptations.
Based on Darwin’s ‘conditions of life’ ecological adaptations are nutrient-dependent and pheromone-controlled. The adaptations can be viewed as amino acid substitutions.
96 of them differentiate our cell types from those of most recent extinct ancestor.
He’s also obsessed with human pheromones. He has written a book, The Scent of Eros, about the physiological responses to pheromones — speaking of murky, difficult, ephemeral phenomena, I think the human dependence on pheromones is probably real, but only one tiny part of our behavioral repertoire, and almost certainly not a major influence on development. Kohl also sells a line of beauty products: for example, Scent of Eros With Musk Fragrance – Pheromones For Men To Attract Women.
Maybe he thinks belligerent pomposity is the way to attract the attention of investors from Axe.
Paranoid crank.
:almost chokes on tea: Oh Cupcake, you aren’t a genius. You’re a con man, and a rather piss poor one at that.
Not just con man either.
James Kohl is a liar.
Hey David @465
I said:
and you responded:
We’re both mistaken. Me more-so. The third nucleotide is degenerate…while the first AND second, typically are not. Please explain how my use of the word triplet is in error though.
Myeck Waters:
Well, lies are a con man’s stock in trade, eh?
So if something is starved then it dies, therefore pheromones. I think I’m missing a step or two.
Ogvorbis @ 464:
I think any Igor employed by Herr Cabbage would find himself exiting out the back door, with a warning to the cook, much like Reacher Gilt’s Igor.
@James Kohl
As I thought, you didn’t do what I asked you to do. Again, I want you to read my post at 490 (use the “Previous” button if you need to), and tell me exactly which parts you agree with, exactly which parts you disagree with, and exactly which parts you’re unsure about. I brought up what I considered to be simple, indisputable facts which any biology lab in the world could verify in days. I want to know if you agree thus far. I cannot go on to my next set of questions until I get agreement from you on both the fact claims in that post, and agreement that I can use that terminology of random mutations about those fact claims. Note very clearly that I have not talking about natural selection at all, nor evolution at all. That’s step 2.
You are being purposefully evasive. What I am asking is a very simple thing to do. I have little hope that are you willing to do this, which is why I am going to label you as crank or snake-oil salesman. Prove me wrong my addressing my content and stating clearly which parts you agree with, and which parts you do not agree with.
cra
…a
…a
…a
…ank!!!!
*peeks in, sees nothing to add, goes away while monitoring the thread*
500, James Kohl
You my see it like that, but you are literally the only one here. Congratulations on being a ‘maverick’ and a ‘genius’ I guess…
EnlightenmentLiberal:
Let me answer in Kohl’s stead.
Blah blah nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled blah blah microbes to men blah blah blah quote-mined citation blah blah theorists blah blah my model which is mine which I made blah blah blah dodge weave distraction blah blah blah super genius blah blah serious scientists blah blah buy my snake oil.
Repeat as necessary, add in something completely out of left field every five comments or so to keep from boring the audience to death.
Funny how some folks, like JK, can’t distinguish between between pathological science, like Cold Fusion, or real science like Warm Blooded Dinosaurs. The difference isn’t the ideas, both of which went against standard theory, but rather the evidence to back up the ideas that followed. Cold Fusion couldn’t get the repeatable experiment, with heat equaling released neutrons, and is pathological.
Whereas, by examining bones, the evidence that certain dinosaurs showed evidence of bone growth like birds or mammals, and not reptiles, came conclusive.
JK, has no evidence. Therefore, like cold fusion, his claims are dismissed without evidence, or support by scientists.
@Rey Fox
Indeed. Even with my minimal education in the topics, I can tell it’s word salad. At least, I can tell that he’s not using the words according to their common usage in technical circles.
For those of you who refuse to stop your dumbass nonsense:
A Missing Genetic Link in Human Evolution
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-missing-genetic-link-in-human-evolution
“It’s possible that we are the way we are largely because of this mechanism that generates dramatic episodes of chromosomal structural change.”
From my blog:
PZ Myers recently mentioned what may be a similar hypothesis. Myers wrote: Evolution was all due to chromosome rearrangements, which somehow are not mutations, and he also somehow ignored the existence of allelic differences between species.
The link (see the start of this thread) is to the late John A. Davison’s blog post in the context of PZ Myers’ accusation that Davison was, like me, a “crank.”
@490
@508
I told you exactly what part I disagreed with and you have now changed what you asked me to do and are telling people I didn’t do it. You’re a unenlightened dumb ass who thinks in terms of being a liberal instead of in terms that ensure others that he or she is an anonymous dumb ass.
Gee, what part of your commentary on your alleged evidence fallaciously don’t thinks works against you? If it supports you, it needs no commentary, which immediately brings it into question with real scientists.
Compared to your dumbass without evidence which is obvious to any semi-literate of science? What part of you are a delusional egotistical fool without support don’t you understand?
#508 contains no third party evidence to support your bullshit OPINION. Until you realize your OPINION is dismissed automatically as fuckwittery, and you need third party support to back your claims, YOU LOSE LOSER.
No, you didn’t. Try again.
@James Kohl
I want you to answer each of the following question individually. You will quote the question, then you will write your answer. Your answers will preferably be simple answer like “yes” or “no”.
Does the genome – the DNA of an organism – sometimes change over time?
Is the definition of “mutation” in this context roughly “a change to the genome of an organism”?
Do mutations happen?
Does mutation happen as a result of certain kinds of radiation?
If yes, does radiation-mutation affect completely random parts of the genome, or does it affect specific parts? If it affects specific parts moreso than by pure chance, why and how?
If yes, does nutrients, pheromones, or environment affect this so that the mutation is more likely on one part of the genome than another? If yes, why and how?
The genome copy process that happens during replication of single celled creatures, does that occasionally produce inexact copies? That is, does the copy process sometimes create mutations in the genome?
If yes, do the copy-errors affect completely random parts of the genome, or do they affect specific parts? If it affects specific parts moreso than by pure chance, why and how?
If yes, does nutrients, pheromones, or environment affect this so that the mutation is more likely on one part of the genome than another? If yes, why and how?
Are these mutations inherited to their offspring, and their offspring’s offspring (if any), with a high likelihood?
In the Michigan State E. coli experiment, did one of the twelve lines have a mutation? This is the same question as – in one of the twelve lines, do the E. coli bacteria in the one line have a unique genome compared to the other 11 lines? I’m not asking cause. I’m not asking if it’s random. I’m asking if there was a change to the genome – a mutation.
Were there any nutritional differences between the 12 lines?
Were there any pheromone differences between the 12 lines?
Were there any other environmental differences between the 12 lines?
Could the mutation is a random mutation such as a copy-error mutation or radiation-mutation?
Is it likely that the mutation is a random mutation such as a copy-error mutation or radiation-mutation?
For the third time-
I’m just looking for one pathway that makes specific base sequence changes like your writing implies.
One thing about Kohl’s idea here. Even if he does manage to provide a mechanism, even if he does demonstrate that mechanism, one thing that he hasn’t managed to make clear is that, even if his whole idea is correct, why the whole thing wouldn’t still qualify as just another type of mutation, be fully subject to natural selection and all the other already known mechanisms of evolutionary change, and thus be simply folded into the larger evolutionary theory framework, without substantially changing the overall picture whatsoever.
How does the ability for organisms to even do alternative splicing arise, if not by random mutation and natural selection?
And I must say, one of the very first steps in demonstrating that a theory such as this has enough potential to be worth anyone spending time and resources taking it seriously is this:
“The principle of use and disuse enables ecological adaptions that are responsible for species diversity.”
Differentiate your statement for this one. Show why your statement is more inherently logical and worth taking seriously than this one. This is step one. Before this is done, there is nothing worth saying.
We have a Bingo…..
Pheromones are complex molecules. How did THEY arise, and the ability for organisms to respond to them, if not by random mutation and natural selection?
Yeah, chemorecptors aren’t hard wired into the genome….?????
I have noticed this often with many of these examples of evolutionary cranks. With a lot of them, there is the germ of an interesting idea behind the crankery. Something that implies or evokes and interesting mechanism that, if true, could be added to the larger evolutionary theory framework.
But for whatever reason, be it ego or whatever, the crank insists that his idea is an OVERTHROW of existing evolutionary theory. As if adding something notable to existing scientific knowledge is not enough for them. They want, they need, the glamour of being the great revolutionary. Without demonstrating that existing evolutionary theory even needs overthrow. Without showing how his idea would even BE an overthrow, even if true. In short, without actually showing that he even understands normal evolutionary theory and what it says and what it implies.
They go off the deep end, taking the small germ of what might be an interesting hypothesis, and blow it up into crazy-ville, like popcorn, extending it out into mythical dimensions where even angels ought to fear to tread. In the process they hurt the prospect that the more modest, mundane idea even gets considered. Any who wants to study that NOW will have to deal with being associated with the crankery if they are not careful. It’s sad really.
It’s hard to overthrow a theory, or even coherently argue for its overthrow, when one doesn’t actually understand what the theory one wants to overthrow is actually, really, saying….
that’s for damn sure.
@ 495
ChasCPeterson 12 January 2014 at 10:23 am (UTC -6)
So ended the nonsense of ChasCPeterson. Why hasn’t his assessment ended any of the other nonsense? Have others found something illogical about the need for null hypothesis testing before moving forward with a ridiculous theory of mutation-initiated natural selection?
Do others really believe that mutation-driven evolution can be compared in the context of nutrient-dependent “core duplicons” as the missing link in human evolution? Why was/is there a missing link if human evolution is mutation-driven? Are all the scientists mentioned in this article from Scientific American “cranks?”
A Missing Genetic Link in Human Evolution
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-missing-genetic-link-in-human-evolution
@521
Obviously, you are not. You want me to repeatedly tell you what that pathway is and then claim that I have not already shown that specific nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled base pair changes lead to the amino acid substitutions that differentiate cell types in individuals of all species.
…from microbes to man. You forgot a part.
@528
Do you think that any serious scientist needs to starve any organism to death to prove that the cause and effect releationships, which Ryszard Maleszka et al (2013) detailed, eliminate mutation-driven evolution from any further consideration whatsoever?
Epigenomics and the concept of degeneracy in biological systems
http://bfg.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/12/12/bfgp.elt050.abstract
What do you think will happen when I post this to the SICB Facebook page? Who do you think will still be advocating mutation-initiated natural selection?
I predict zero people will like it, and the admins will delete it as spam.
Still no explanation for how a “nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled base pair change” is somehow NOT a mutation….
@534
Still no explanation of how mutations could somehow cause evolution in organisms that starved to death, o no one else asked about null hypothesis testing in the context of Lenski’s experiments.
Evolution, but different: Adventures of a Darwin-doubting botanist
http://socialreader.com/me/content/1V2k4?chid=7189&utm_content=win20140112-2123&utm_medium=email&utm_source=toppicks&utm_campaign=cl20140112
Oh, look. Here’s another “crank.”
Excerpt: “he published four technical biology books totaling close to 6,000 pages—and when he wrote, he was often thinking about Charles Darwin. And when he thought about Darwin, he seethed. It was not about religion—Croizat was as complete an evolutionist as Darwin had been. However, in Croizat’s eyes, Darwin had gotten almost everything about evolution wrong. To begin with, Croizat believed that natural selection was a trivial part of evolution, not its main driving force.”
Darwin did not think that natural selection was the main driving force of evolution. He clearly stated that ‘conditions of life’ must be met before natural selection should even be considered.
“…variability is generally related to the conditions of life to which each species has been exposed during several successive generations.”
Arguably, the evolutionary theorists who participate here are among the least intelligent in the entire world. They either have not read anything Darwin wrote or ignored it, and decided to follow their biology teachers’ opinions into the ignorance of theory.
I continue to be amazed at how many ignorant theorists remain — and am happy to have found that most of them are here (and nowhere else). Thus, this PZ Myers blog is the “mother” of all nonsensical theorists’ blogs.
@James Kohl (#535)
Evolution happens at the level of the population, not the level of the individual organism. In other words, individuals do not evolve—whether they starve to death or live forever. The fact that death by starvation (among other things) is non-random drives evolution.
No, we are.
We want you to once present the detailed map of this comes about. Since you refuse or can’t, you admit with prima facie evidence you are nothing but a liar and bullshitter. Welcome to real science, where details matter.
Who gives a shit what you think about somebodies OPINION? Show us hard scientific evidence. Must be the latter doesn’t exist, since it is in non-existent supply.
Irrelevant total fuckwit. Books have the disadvantage of what is called vanity press, without any peer review by real scientists. Which means it is worthless, compared to the peer reviewed scientific literature, for advancing your inane and stupid argument.
Fuckwit, I’m not a theorist. I’m a practicing scientist, and have been for 35+ years. You don’t have a theory, model, or anything else. All you have is your EGO and STUPIDITY.
Didn’t you hear? Darwin is like, so yesterday. All the cool kids are into Dobzhansky.
Goddamn Kohl. Do you ever shut the fuck up?
One Crank to fool them all
One Crank to grind them
etc.
@541 Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
Do you have any friends in the asylum where you “practice” being a scientist? Did you self-commit or did someone need to “help” you?
@530
Name it. Name the pathway and name the enzymes. Either they do what you claim or they don’t. This sort of thing is not open to interpretation. You’ve been putting off naming this pathway for MONTHS. It’s absolutely ridiculous that you can’t answer such a simple question. Name the fucking enzymes.
@537
Is there a model for that? Is there a model organism that exemplifies it? Are you trying to tell people, for example, that the C elegans that do not randomly die of starvation become the P. pacificus with teeth via mutation-driven evolution?
Are you really that incredibly stupid? What took you so long to demonstrate your ignorance?
@546
They are not “fucking” enzymes. They are the enzymes that facilitate the metabolism of food to species-specific pheromones that control the physiology of reproduction.
What makes you think that the physiology of reproduction is controlled by “fucking” enzymes?
Are you able to separate physiology from the physical acts involved in reproduction? Have you read: Physiology is rocking the foundations of evolutionary biology
http://ep.physoc.org/content/early/2013/04/12/expphysiol.2012.071134.abstract
“As Beurton et al.(2008) comment, “it seems that a cell’s enzymes are capable of actively manipulating
DNA to do this or that. A genome consists largely of semi-stable genetic elements that may be
rearranged or even moved around in the genome thus modifying the information content of DNA.”
The central dogma of the 1950s, as a general principle of biology, has therefore been progressively
undermined until it has become useless as support for the Modern Synthesis (Werner 2005; Mattick
2007; Shapiro 2009) or indeed as an accurate description of what happens in cells. As Mattick (2012)
says, “the belief that the soma and germ line do not communicate is patently incorrect.”
What kind of idiot keeps asking the same question without offering an alternative explanation for the facts already presented? If I tell you more about enzymes, you’ll simply ask which ions are specifically involved, or which atoms, or quarks. Instead, just admit that you’re a dumb ass, and quit insulting my intelligence with questions about “fucking” enzymes.
@536 JK
If that is your view – I would wonder why you would spend so much time printing your word salad on this ‘mother of all nonsensical theorists blogs’ That would seem very odd to me.
Very simple: name the pathway you’ve allegedly detailed in your model. Enough beating around the bush. If it has a name, chances are it’s well documented elsewhere.
You can’t detail a model without knowing the working parts of that model. So far, you haven’t demonstrated that you know anything about said working parts.
Bored now.
It’s long past time for Snidely McCabbage to offer specific details of his model, or fuck off.
This is a PRIMA FACIE EXAMPLE OF YOUR DUPLICITY. Not one enzyme, much less the critical ones, are name. Your problem fuckwit is summarized by Carl Sagan: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. Your claim that your model supplants Modern Synthesis, requires an extraordinary level of experimental evidence. And yet, you CAN’T/WON’T supply any evidence working scientists consider even minimum. What an egoistical loser you are, as you WORD/OPINION isn’t and never will be scientific evidence of that level, Stop talking and start pointing loser. Until you provide uncommented evidence, just links to papers not written by you, you have nothing bug you r OPINION, which is dismissed as fuckwittery.
Now what? How many references do you want before Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls or some other fool comes back and says YOU HAVE NO EVIDENCE.
A Role for Single-Stranded Exonucleases in the Use of DNA as a Nutrient
http://jb.asm.org/content/191/11/3712.abstract
Does anyone here have any idea of how difficult it is for serious scientists to put up with your nonsense, name-calling, and foul-mouthed anonymous comments?
James Kohl
Have you, in your decades of name-calling, ever converted a “real scientist” to your view-point?
Ever?
@548
The enzymes that make specific base pair changes in the DNA also metabolize food to pheromones? What are their names?
Again, enzymes are very specific. Either they do what you say or they don’t. If you told me, for example, that ATP synthase uses the electromotive force in the mitochondria to catalyze the formation of ATP from ADP and phosphate, I couldn’t possibly deny it. There’s no way to spin something like that, so your “fears” in the last paragraph of 548 are absolutely baseless.
Your link in 553 has nothing to do with nutrients leading to alterations in genomic DNA sequence. All that says is the exonucleases are involved in catabolism, using outside DNA as an energy source.
When a serious scientist expresses that difficulty with us, please let us know.
Is he really that stupid @548?
Arrgh, I can’t help myself. I read the latest link on DNA as a nutrient. The test subject is several different mutant strains of genetically modified E. Coli. It measures how well various strains catabolize ssDNA.
The word mutant and mutation are used numerous times.
How can anyone with reading comprehension above primary grade level fail to notice this!? Not to mention that the E. Coli are eating DNA but their genomes remain unchanged. That detail would seem to be direct evidence against the pheromone model of evolution.
I fail to understand how MORE links that do not say what Kohl claims they say is persusive evidence of anything but how much he is willing to lie. Logic, how does it work?
@Kohl
I’m still waiting for you to answer my questions in post 520.
James Kohl (#547)
It sounds like you don’t even know what the word “evolution” itself means. You seem to be confusing it with “speciation” or something. Can you take a short break from trying to put words in my mouth to explain what you think the definition of “evolution” is?
What difference would it make if we were not anonymous? Would you come and have tea with us?
1. Evolution occurs to POPULATIONS, not organisms.
2. Mutations cause the evolution of POPULATIONS or organisms that DIDN’T starve to death. The populations of organisms that starved to death are, by definition, extinct.
and
3. The question itself is irrelevant to YOUR hypothesis. Even if the standard model of evolution through natural selection of random mutations is false, that doesn’t automatically make YOUR idea any more true or even likely to be true. Evidence (even if it existed) against the standard evolutionary picture is not evidence FOR your idea.
And, still no explanation for how ““nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled base pair change” is somehow NOT a mutation.
Because it totally IS a mutation. Environmentally induced change to DNA sequence IS THE DEFINITION OF MUTATION. A “nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled” process is an environmentally induced process. A “base pair change” is a CHANGE TO DNA SEQUENCE.
So the whole thing is a mutation, a mutation like any other mutation, a mutation just like all the other types of mutations. Even if you successfully demonstrated a mechanism that could produce this, even if you showed that it actually happened, IT IS STILL JUST A MUTATION, LIKE ANY OTHER MUTATION. It simply adds another source of mutations into the overall picture of evolution through natural selection of random mutations.
Enzymes are complex and specific things. How could such enzymes have arisen in the first place, if not by natural selection of random mutations?
The metabolism of food is a complex and specific process. How could such a thing have arisen in the first place, if not by natural selection of random mutations?
Species-specific pheromones are complex and specific things. How could they have arisen in the first place, if not by natural selection of random mutations?
The control of the physiology of reproduction is a complex and specific sequence. How could such a thing arise in the first place, if not by natural selection of random mutations?
We go back to Dawkins’ original critique of Larmackism, provided as an illustrative example for the popular audience in one of his early books (since Lamarckism had already been disproven long ago, this was an educational exercise). The principle of use and disuse, even if it really existed, is an ADAPTION in and of itself. Why should a body part used often become larger? That is an active process. Why should such an enlarged body part become hereditary? That too, if it existed, requires an active process. How could such active processes arise, if not by Darwinian processes of natural selection of random mutations? Even if Lamarckism could be true, its basic processes are ACTIVE, COMPLEX events that themselves require explanation. Lamarckism cannot produce Lamarckism’s own basic tenets.
So too it is with your idea. The basic processes you rest your entire hypothesis on are ACTIVE, COMPLEX, ORGANIZED processes in and of themselves. They themselves require explanation, and they cannot explain their own origin or existence.
That is the beauty of natural selection of random mutations as an explanatory mechanism. It isn’t circular. It does not require the existence of pre-existing active, organized, complexity. It doesn’t need to explain its own origin, because it is a spontaneous, SIMPLE, process that occurs automatically, inevitably, and unstoppably, the moment you get self-replication with imperfect heredity.
Your idea, even if true, is not and cannot be a replacement for natural selection of random mutations as an explanation for the diversity of species. It may, if shown to exist, be A mechanism for producing diversity, but it can never be THE mechanism. It can’t even get started until life is ALREADY highly complex and diverse.
Of course, Nerd, Chas, and several others posting here ARE serious scientists, professional scientists with extensive publication records….
Amphiox
But of course none of them are the Only Scientist In The Village of Cabbidge Town..
Maybe a different tack. I’m not sure we’re all on the same page here regarding the meanings of terms.
Mr. Kohl, would you please distinguish among the following terms/concepts?
Hypothesis
Null hypothesis
Model
Theory
It’s interesting to reflect that, for example, Copernicus and Kepler were extremely capable and had a full command of the Ptolemaic system of astronomy – thus they were able to find its flaws and go beyond it. But people like Kohl seem to think they can overthrow a successful theory without actually having any real grasp on it, or indeed knowing what any of the words they’re using actually mean.
Mr. Kohl.
1) First of all, stop whining about those of us who post anonymously. It has already been pointed out that there are many reasons people might have for doing so. Some of us may have been the victim of harassment (online or in meatspace) and do not want their harassers to find them. This is an atheits blog, and some posting here might not be out as atheists in meatspace, because they ive in a deeply religious community and fear the consequences. The same may go for some LGBTQ people. So by whining about the anonimity of some of the commenters, you are being an asshole.
In any case, what matters is what is being said, not who the people saying it are.
2) Secondly, it has been shown without a doubt that you have been misrepresenting the content of the sources which you have cited. Whether this is the result of a complete inability to read or dishonesty I cannot say for certain, but more and more I suspect the latter.
3) Like Chas, I’m going to ask you (again) to explain, in your own words, what a number of terms mean. Please keep your answers brief.
Evolution
Natural Selection
Mutation
Amino-acid substitution
James Kohl,
There’s this guy who often shows up at various universities. He’s always babbling on about how the moonlandings were faked. He has a model, which is his, too, which he claims tells us that in fact any form of space travel (or indeed aircraft breaking the sound barrier) is completely impossible (and thus, that NASA, ESA and a whole shitload of other people and organisations are all lying to us as part of some vast conspiracy). Guy even calls himself the ‘New Copernicus’. Now here’s the thing about this guy, Kohl: when he talks, he sounds like you. The flyers he hands out, are written in a way that is pretty much indistinguishable from the way your comments are written. That should give you pause for thought, if not about your ideas or your model, then at least about the way your going about communicating your ideas.
Your the who needs help Kohl. I know how to do science. What you do isn’t science. It is an idiot self-publishing bullshit and expecting to be taken seriously with an incomprehensible and unevidenced model. Grow up egotist, and admit you can be and are wrong. You aren’t a scientist if you can’t acknowledge the possibility you are wrong. Which you are.
@552
— Sagan
Margulis: “Symbiotic Planet: A New Look At Evolution” — Sagan’s ex-wife (Dorian’s mom)
An experimental test on the probability of extinction of new genetic variants
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/130913/ncomms3417/full/ncomms3417.html
“In 1927, J.B.S. Haldane reasoned that the probability of fixation of new beneficial alleles is twice their fitness effect. This result, later generalized by M. Kimura, has since become the cornerstone of modern population genetics. There is no experimental test of Haldane’s insight that new beneficial alleles are lost with high probability.”
—————————-
After 86 years there is still no experimental evidence that supports Haldane’s reasoning or anyone else’s reasoning who thinks that there actually is a “cornerstone of modern population genetics.” The entirety of the ridiculous theory was built on nonsense. So, when the idiots who accuse me of “quote-mining” come up with this: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” they exemplify more than 80 years of ongoing idiocy that can be compared to this:
Bacterial natural transformation by highly fragmented and damaged DNA
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/11/12/1315278110.abstract
Has anyone considered “mutational loss of biosynthetic genes as a potential source for generating metabolic diversity” ?
Kohl 2012: “Among different bacterial species existing in similar environments, DNA uptake (Palchevskiy & Finkel, 2009) appears to have epigenetically ‘fed’ interspecies methylation and speciation via conjugation (Fall et al., 2007; Finkel & Kolter, 2001; Friso & Choi, 2002). This indicates that reproduction began with an active nutrient uptake mechanism in heterospecifics and that the mechanism evolved to become symbiogenesis in the conspecifics of asexual organisms (Margulis, 1998).”
Kohl 2012: Human pheromones and food odors: epigenetic influences on the socioaffective nature of evolved behaviors http://www.socioaffectiveneuroscipsychol.net/index.php/snp/article/view/17338/20758
If you have never considered “mutational loss of biosynthetic genes as a potential source for generating metabolic diversity,” is the problem because you only considered mutational gain in the context of mutation-initiated natural selection for something, when no experimental evidence suggests that is possible? Do you really lack anything associated with what is called “critical thinking” ability?
Please answer anonymously so that no one else ever learns what an idiot you are?
I will say to Mr. Kohl what I say to every idiot who wants to shame people for posting anonymously:
OF COURSE slapping my real identity on what I write, so that random douchebags on the internets can judge me for it before I even write anything, is right on top of my list of priorities. Definitely.
About your supposed evidentiary text, I have this to notice:
Two contradictory statements right next to each other. That’s the sure sign of a common tactic of crankdom – trying to hijack the credibility of science even as they’re trying to convince everyone that science is wrong.
Mind you, I also noticed the piece is not about the evidence, but rather, it’s an opinion piece about papers published by another person about supposed evidence. Try giving us a primary source next time, jackass.
That’s just beyond stupid. One of evolution’s basic tenets is differential survival. By definition, it only happens to populations that survive.
From the same abstract you quote-mined.
Whatever this paper contains, it’s NOT evidence that modern synthesis is wrong. Mind you, you need evidence that your crankery is right to be taken seriously, or you’re on the same level of scientific rigour as a fucking creationist.
Again, how is this in any way a complete upturn of mutation and natural selection? Bacteria have been known to survive with damaged DNA and incorporate new genome into themselves since ever. They’re still subject to natural selection.
How about YOU provide the mechanism for complex multicellular beings to eat DNA and then incorporate new genome to every single cell in their body? Now that would be something interesting.
By the way, your attempt to pad your post by citing yourself is noted.
You folks are expecting shreds of honesty and integrity from a guy who runs a website selling Love Potion Number 9 to gullible people? What type of person would expect to be behind that: certainly not someone forthcoming with facts.
@568
Call it quote mining but I think you just compared atheists to LGBTQ people — as if it was the beliefs of LGBTQ people that caused them to fear the consequences — at the same time you called me an asshole (e.g., who wrote an award-winning book chapter in the Handbook of the Evolution of Human Sexuality).
I responded to PZ Myers attack because I thought this was a biology teacher’s blog. If it actually is an atheist’s blog, that would explain the ignorance and comments from all the dumb asses. Can anyone else confirm the fact that this is an atheist’s blog? If it is, that fact explains everything about what appears to be a pervasive belief in nonsense when I thought we were discussing biology. My bad?
@567
I used the honeybee model organism to link cause and effect across species from microbes to man. If you don’t understand what that means, most of the details can also be found here:
Epigenomics and the concept of degeneracy in biological systems
http://bfg.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/12/12/bfgp.elt050.abstract
You seem to infer that the authors of the article linked above don’t know what any of the words they’re using actually mean. Could the real problem be that you are a dumb ass?
vaiyt:
I think it is possible James Kohl *is* a creationist.
James Kohl:
Yo, shit for brains!
Pentatomid gave you two examples of why people choose to post anonymously online.
Reading comprehension: cranks like Kohl ain’t got it.
The number of cases where someone saw something in a model organism and thought it suggested something profound and generalizable to microbes to man, only for it turn out to be a quirk unique to the biology of that specific model organism and not generalizable at all, are too numerous to count.
And anyone who knows anything about social insects should realize that anything found in them remotely related in any way to pheromones bears extreme caution in generalization.
And Kohl still fails to address the fundamental logical problem with his idea as a replacement for natural selection of random mutations: what the theory is, is an explanation for diversity and organized complexity. Kohl’s model, even if true, depends on PRE-EXISTING diversity and organized complexity, of a very high degree, to even get started. So it cannot, even if completely true, be a replacement for natural selection of random mutation as an explanatory mechanism. At all.
In this manner it is no different from Intelligent Design.
Evidently you have a reading comprehension problem. That is Dr. PZ Myers, associate professor of biology. He’s not a high school teacher. We do discuss some biology, and PZ presents biology. By real scientists in the field.
He also shows cranks and kooks like yourself.
You still haven’t evidenced your ideas, as you keep quoting stuff from over fifty years ago like it meaningful in the age of genomics. Which Lenski used to show where and when the mutations occurred with his e-coli on their way to metabolizing citrate. You must provide as detailed explanation as he and his co-workers did. But you present nothing but your OPINION, which is dismissed as it should be, as that of a crank.
Early on his inane idea and distaste for random mutation/natural selction sounded like an IDiot idea. And the use of quotes as evidence by authority, quotemining like it isn’t lying and bullshitting, the lack of a detailed mechanism, and the lack of experimental evidence all pointed to an IDiot “theory”.
What. The. Fuck. Goddammit, you are dense. I mean really, that’s nothing like what I said. All I did was offer two possible reasons why people might post anonymously. Seriously, what kind of clown are you?
The reading comprehension Kohl has displayed here is so bad that I think it’s actually possible he honestly believes what he’s saying. He must spend his life in a cloud of sputtering indignation that nobody else agrees with him about what the words are saying.
The idea that alternative gene expression mediated by pheromones could result in phenotypic changes is interesting and not really that far out.
The idea that such could be heritable is more out there, but still not unreasonable as a hypothesis that could be tested.
The idea that such could produce actual genetic changes at the DNA level that are heritable and become a mechanism for evolutionary change is more out there, in the sense that mechanisms allowing for it have not been observed in multicellular life, to my knowledge. But it isn’t utterly implausible. Alternately spliced mRNA transcripts could get inserted into DNA by reverse transcriptases, and RT’s do exist. One could envision a mutation event where an mRNA gets spliced into DNA in this manner as a consequence of a retroviral infection or a jumping gene event. How you get the “new” gene a regulatory promoter so that it can be expressed without resorting to some mechanism of random however is hard to imagine (and the whole process is itself a variation of a duplication mutation anyways). So certainly an idea that cannot be accepted without strong mechanistic evidence in support, but as a proposed hypothesis, surely not beyond the pale.
The insistence that these sequences of mechanisms actually constitute an alternative to natural selection and random mutation as the main explanation for the evolution of diversity, complexity, and adaption* is pure crackpottery predicated and an utter failure in comprehending what natural selection and random mutations actually are and how they work.
* technically, NS/RM is an explanation for adaption, not a direct explanation for diversity or complexity, in the sense that while the development and spread of adaptions necessarily will produce diversity and complexity, there are multiple other mechanisms within evolutionary theory that also contribute to producing these two. A lot of the modern scientific debate in evolutionary theory revolves around how much each these various mechanisms contribute to the overall picture of evolutionary change.
By the way, Jamie, you can add the words “infer” and “imply” to the list of words that you should look up before you try to use them again – as with “exemplify”, you are using the words wrong.
Nothing in the epigenomics review you linked to in any way contradicts the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory. The review does not cite or refer to anything by you, so it was dishonest of you to imply ( <- correct usage) that it is somehow supportive of your "model". I would also draw your attention to these words from the review:
"Elements of a degenerate system are free to functionally diverge over evolutionary time without compromising the existing functional output. New random variants that are not immediately selectively advantageous can be maintained in degenerate systems, and through progressive accumulation of new variations interacting with plastic exploration of existing gene regulatory mechanisms new functional pathways and phenotypes can emerge. We have argued that these processes could be a driving force in the evolution of new forms of physiology and behaviour."
So the authors are specifically discussing how new phenotypic variations arise by the accumulation of random variants (i.e. mutations). This is the theory of evolution which we keep trying to claim is nonsense. Maybe you should stop citing sources that _contradict you_ when we ask for sources that _support you_. Can you not tell the difference?
Once again,
It’ll take you about 5 seconds to fill in that blank. No more excuses.
Double non-sequitur. The prejudice LGBTQ and atheists suffer in the public forum just by identifying themselves (that’s what they have in common that might lead people in both groups to want anonymity) is in no way analogous to us calling you an asshole for acting like an asshole. Your past awards have no bearing on whether you’re being an asshole now, or whether we should give you a free pass for being an asshole.
Knowing someone is an atheist is now enough to conclude they are ignorant and believe in nonsense? Thanks for demonstrating exactly pentatomid’s point, asshole.
No, but if you hum a few bars…
atheism = belief in nonsense?
This is an atheist’s blog. The writer is an atheist, who frequently blogs on atheist issues, and most of the commenters are also atheist.
Does this mean that we’re irredeemable sinners and you will go shout your buzzwords somewhere else now?
Every day is Non Sequitur Day for Mr. Kohl.
yes, he is a creationist
ChasCPeterson, I’m shocked, shocked, I tell you, to find out that Mr. Kohl is a creationist.
True comedy! Crank makes a hundred comments on Pharyngula and then asks if this is an atheist blog…
Learn to read, Jamie!
Ah. Distinct probability of being a polycrank. Has absolutely no concept of evolution (or evidence or reasoning or rebuttal or even clear presentation), so goofy he thinks there are magic sky faeries that poof! stuff into existence (and is probably also confusing evolution and its driving forces with abiogenesis), multiple and repeated reading comprehension failures, quote-mining, and so on… classic warning signs of a multikook.
A (very quick) scan of his blog didn’t find anything without a (imagined?) biological connection, I was rather hoping to find some physics crankery or mathematics crankery, or conspiracies like birtherism, AGW denialism, or so on. Some possible nutrition crankery, which makes me wonder about related woo-woo…
So the guy’s a fucking creationist. Surprise, surprise.
ChasCPeterson: Either you have the intellectual honesty to starve turtles to death…or you don’t.
*Intellectual Honesty Challenge Owl*
0,o
Your move.
Amphiox:
Well, yes, but you see, Chas won’t starve turtles to death, what with his not being a cruel fuckstick, so this negates his being a serious, professional scientist.
Biology Teacher says every time an animal starves to death an angel gets its wings, via nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled amino acid substitutions in species from microbes to man.
I’m just going to let this sit here. Herr Cabbage sayeth:
Yep.
Chas:
You will now need to attend an awards ceremony to be presented with one very shiny internets.
Groovy! I can be Real Scientist™ not by study and learning and publishing and starving, but by killing turtles? Neat-o… How many turtles does it take to earn some more degrees, get a few perferesships, a trophey harem, a few mansions, and the other benefits of being a Real Scientist™?
And most importantly, how many for a posse of grad turkeys to deal with the kooks and students and messy business of killing the turtles?
Should Galileo be forgot
I will soon bring him to mind
Not like these evol idiots
With their Darwin axe to grind.
Their Darwin axe to grind, I say
A Darwin axe to grind!
These evolution fools one day
Will learn my axe is fine.*
Wi’ apologies to Rab Burns so near tae his burthda.
* Where the axe is used as an analogy to simulate the initiation of pheromone-dependent flipping of alpha-meson protein emissions in noctural excursions to the helical pheromone receptor of the human nutrition-sensing organ, under the control of the newly-discovered Kohl’s Area, the region of the brain found to light up when considering whether a potential mutation is beneficial or deleterious, as noted in this piece of evidence which I
pickedscienced! from my nose this morning. It is my theory (which is mine, and which I made, and which is named after me) that this is, in fact, the waste chemicals from the pheromone flood which has built up in my bee-related VON organ while testing my superscientastic Sprays to Unleash Your Inner Tiger of Nutritional Pheromone-Regulated Epigenetic Improvement!@584
That explains why our 1996 review led others to use our mammalian model in the context of hormone-organized hormone-activated behavior in insects. Whether or not they were Creationists, they simply followed Dobzhansky’s Creationist evidence-based approach — as we did — by looking at all the levels of biologically based cause and effect that must be included in any explanation of cause and effect, so the explanation can be compared to the stupid idea of mutation-initiated natural selection.
But, let’s not discuss stupidity since this is a site for atheists who don’t understand anything about the basic principles of biology and levels of biological organization required to link sensory cause to effects on hormones that affect behavior. Let’s discuss the question of “Who’s the Creationist?” and see how many others, who are like Dobzhansky, participate here.
You’ve 1) read about him in your textbooks; 2) learned to believe in what you were taught were his beliefs, and 3) accepted without experimental evidence what you thought were established facts about mutation-driven evolution. Now you find that your beliefs are based on the beliefs of a “Creationist,” which means that you are idiots for not already knowing that, and you are dumb asses for not paying attention to what’s been learned, since 1973, based on Dobzhansky’s Creationist perspective.
Nothing in Biology Makes Any Sense Except in the Light of Evolution Full text opens here: http://img.signaly.cz/upload/1/0/9a462eb6be1ed7828f57a184cde3c0/Dobzhansky.pdf
Quote-mining, again: “The organic diversity becomes, however, reasonable and understandable if the Creator has created the living world not by caprice but by evolution propelled by natural selection. It is wrong to hold creation and evolution as mutually exclusive alternatives. I am a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God’s, or Nature’s, method of Creation.”
Ecological variation has since been implicated in adaptations that lead to species diversity sans mutations. Mutations, as most people know, perturb the cell functions required across the continuum of ecological, social, neurogenic, and socio-cognitive niche construction, which is exemplified in the increasing complexity of cell types from microbes to man.
Predicted response from the idiot: “Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls”
You have provided no evidence for that!
How old is the Earth?
When did life first appear on the Earth?
Meaningless word salad without evidence. Dismissed without evidence. Just like there is no evidence for your creator/imaginary deity.
I briefly (but seriously) considered creating a new account, and coming on this thread pretending to be a supporter of Kohl’s (in the name of science, you understand). My woeful ignorance of biology would have ensured that anything I said would have been nothing but nonsensical buzzword-salad, so it would have been interesting to see whether or not he believed me to really be his supporter.
Alas, that would be sockpuppeting, and thus, under PZs Draconian Anti-FREEZEPEACH rules, not allowed.
Because statistically, religious people are better educated in the sciences…
Yuhp.
Ecological variation has since been implicated in adaptations that lead to species diversity sans mutations.
I think cabbage-for-brains is trying to say “Different ecosystems have different species and/or a different proportions of species.” Can’t work out what the “sans mutations” refers to.
Mutations, as most people know, perturb the cell functions required across the continuum of ecological, social, neurogenic, and socio-cognitive niche construction, which is exemplified in the increasing complexity of cell types from microbes to man.
Oh great! If “most people know” then there must be LOTS of publications — peer-reviewed — clearly saying so (and, in fact, explaining WTF that
sentenceword-salad is trying to say). So, as reviewers / editors say: Citation needed.And here’s a hint: “Increasing complexity” is B*S*. Let’s start with some basics: How is “cell type complexity” measured? What is the metric? Tools / instruments? Methods? Citation needed.
@James Kohl!!!
Can you provide definitions for the following words? (Do not try to argue against the definitions. Just write what you think the words mean.)
1) hypothesis
2) null hypothesis
3) model
4) theory
5) evolution
6) natural selection
7) mutation
8) amino acid substitution
Also, can you answer John Doe’s question:
Can cabbagehead ever provide a link without going into quoting from it (which is irrelevant, the data and experimental is where the action is at)? I’m not going to accept an argument from authority, with JK as that authority, or him trying to use other peoples authority; that is a religious argument, not a scientific one. The argument must be from the experimental evidence showing JK’s model is right, which is accepted by and cited by the scientific community.
James Kohl, just in case there’s a drop of honesty in you, if you wish to discuss your model, please::
And
@584
@606
@584
If NS/RM is an explanation for adaptation, and adaptations are responsible for species diversity and complexity, why hasn’t anyone here simply EXPLAINED HOW the natural selection of random mutations results in adaptations and species diversity? Alternatively, why is there no experimental evidence that supports any aspect of the NS/RM theory?
http://www.the-scientist.com//?articles.view/articleNo/38841/title/Microbes-Expel-Swarms-of-Vesicles/
Microbes Expel Swarms of Vesicles
Scientists present the first evidence that marine cyanobacteria release vesicles—billions and billions of vesicles.
By Kerry Grens | January 10, 2014
Excerpt: “If you have an organism eking out a living in a really dilute environment, where nutrients are extremely low, why would it cast things off into the environment that would limit its own growth?”
—————————————–
In my model, the reason for this is that what’s cast off controls the physiology of reproduction and the ecological interactions of species from microbes to man. If someone will provide definitions of these terms in the context of mutation-driven evolution, I will be happy to explain how ecological variations result in adaptations sans mutations — although I may also simply cite my published works since I have already done that.
1) hypothesis
2) null hypothesis
3) model
4) theory
5) evolution
6) natural selection
7) mutation
8) amino acid substitution
It’s simple really. No one here has the guts to starve experimental animals.
James Kohl (#614)
We don’t want that explanation at this point. We want to know what you think the words you’re using mean. We want you to provide basic definitions. Like, if I were to ask for a definition for the word “socks,” you should reply with something like “close-fitting bags of thick, knitted cloth that are worn on the feet.” Do that for the following eight terms and then we can talk about other things.
1) hypothesis
2) null hypothesis
3) model
4) theory
5) evolution
6) natural selection
7) mutation
8) amino acid substitution
And, while you’re at it, quickly fill in the blank for John Doe’s sentence:
The spliceosome is to splicing, as __________ is to nutrient-dependent, pheromone-controlled, specifically directed base substitutions.
@616
Hivemind haha
Oh no! We’ve discovered new things that we can’t quite explain right now! Quick, let’s throw away all knowledge we already accumulated and shove God in the gaps!
Good. You have a fucking hypothesis. NOW GO FUCKING TEST IT. You don’t get to make up a story that sounds good in your head and then assume it’s true!
Keep lying and bullshitting, but genomics shows the interrelationships of all life, and make it easy to see the changes that occur during speciation. The whole picture only makes sense based on RM/NS, and Lenski’s experiment showed it in action. Combine that what some folks call microevolution a thousand times, and you have your macroevolution.
Your idea doesn’t even come into play, since the genome was sequenced, and they know the mutations that occurred, where, and when, and it all fits with RM/NS. Unlike your mess of an idea, where you can’t show how the genome is changed by your chemical signals, as you don’t have a mechanism that you have explained in full to the scientific community. And I’m not taking your word there is one.
And your inability to examine and understand the EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE is not my fault. It is yours and your ignorance of reality and how science works.
Anyone actually surprised JK is a theist and creationist? I mean, he quoted Casey Luskin favourably, as pointed out above; you have to be pretty idiotic to even believe one word of that, well, idiot.
James Kohl:
Can you provide definitions for the following words? (Do not try to argue against the definitions. Just write what you think the words mean.)
1) hypothesis
2) null hypothesis
3) model
4) theory
5) evolution
6) natural selection
7) mutation
8) amino acid substitution
And
The spliceosome is to splicing, as __________ is to nutrient-dependent, pheromone-controlled, specifically directed base substitutions.
Re: @613;
Are you really that daft, Kohl? The mechanism by which NS/RM produces adaption has been explained in vivid detail many times over. It has been observed in real time. Specific mutations and the adaptions they produce have observed, catalogued and documented. It has been inferred in the fossil record, seen plain as day in the human genome project, verified by countless experiments. It is COMMON KNOWLEDGE, searchable by the simplest google search. Are you so blatantly entitled that you think we are obligated to regurgitate for you the entire freaking history of modern biology? Are you so arrogant to think that you are qualified to challenge an established theory when you apparently need anonymous bloggers to explain to you what it is you’re even arguing about?
When a REAL scientists challenges an established hypothesis, he starts by LEARNING that hypothesis. He doesn’t need anyone to explain to him the evidence supporting that hypothesis. He knows it all himself. He can cite it all himself, and then he challenges it, point by minute point, and shows, point by minute point, where his own alternative produces either a better explanation, or explains an anomaly the established theory does not. And he can describe, point by minute point exactly how his alternative can be tested against the established theory, and where, point by minute point, his alternative predicts something DIFFERENT from the established theory, and thus how the experiment, once completed, can differentiate his theory from the established one.
Whereas you blather on about your ideas being an alternative to mutations when your entire mechanism, even if true, is definitionally just another variety of mutation itself, and cannot even come into existence in the first place without being itself produced by mutations.
Here is a much better article about the vesicles.
Scientists discover extracellular vesicles produced by ocean microbes
With a better quote than was provided by cabbage.
If cabbage was actually interested in science rather than being a polycrank, he might have even quoted what the scientists think is the evolutionary advantage to creation of vesicles.
As expected, James Kohl has a model which is his that is in direct opposition to observed reality.
Oh puleease. Your one published work did not support your theory. Don’t you have some phones to answer?
I did explain evolution to him using small words, but he just called it nonsense. I think the relevant aphorism is “I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.”
@623
When I mentioned that the mechanism of ecological adaptations is amino acid substitutions I was told that I had NO MECHANISM. Why don’t you dumb asses argue amongst yourselves about what a MECHANISM is, and how what you have OBSERVED enables mutation-driven evolution.
You can’t even be consistent amongst your own kind — except in your incessant attacks from every direction on anyone who refuses to believe in your nonsense. Either put your ridiculous ideas together into a cohesive explanation or quit arguing with people like me who have done that with biological facts.
unbelievable.
Please define the following eight words:
1) hypothesis
2) null hypothesis
3) model
4) theory
5) evolution
6) natural selection
7) mutation
8) amino acid substitution
And
The spliceosome is to splicing, as __________ is to nutrient-dependent, pheromone-controlled, specifically directed base substitutions.
Extra Credit:
English, motherfucker, do you speak it?
(yes) (no)
Rey:
He doesn’t seem to know what a dictionary is, or how to use one, so…
James Kohl (#626)
Everyone here already understands that a MECHANISM is what would fit in the blank of John Doe’s sentence: “The spliceosome is to splicing, as __________ is to nutrient-dependent, pheromone-controlled, specifically directed base substitutions.”
So why don’t you go ahead and fill in that blank?
Also, define these terms as you understand them:
1) hypothesis
2) null hypothesis
3) model
4) theory
5) evolution
6) natural selection
7) mutation
8) amino acid substitution
Oh dear, it seems like Mr Kohl is getting all ragey and has begun shouting random words.
How could someone who supposedly won awards in ethology take exception to, or argue against OBSERVATION?
The difference between the ever-more ridiculous theory of mutation-driven evolution and the longstanding hypothesis that the spliceosome shares a similar RNA-based catalytic core and conserved molecular mechanism in species from microbes to man, is that the hypothesis has since been substantiated with experimental evidence.
At the atomic level, the experimental evidence involves different metal ions that enable a nutrient-dependent RNA-based mechanism, which is sufficient to effect metal catalysis of pre-mRNA splicing, without the need for direct protein involvement. However, amino acid substitutions clearly play the same role they always play in the differentiation of cell types.
Now that everyone understands that fact in the context of biophysics and hydrogen-bond stability of protein folding, let’s look at it in the context of the 1996 review article I co-authored, where we wrote: “Small intranuclear proteins also participate in generating alternative splicing techniques of pre-mRNA and, by this mechanism, contribute to sexual differentiation in at least two species, Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans…” http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/1961to1999/1996-from-fertilization.html
In 1996, nutrient-dependent hydrogen-bond stability was linked to sexual differentiation and the pheromone-controlled physiology of reproduction. Did your biology teacher tell you that sex differences resulted from mutations? Did your biology teacher tell you anything about the evolution of sex differences?
I suspect that not even biology teachers are stupid enough to teach their students that males are mutant females or vice versa. But most biology teachers would still like you to believe that other differences are caused by mutation-initiated natural selection. And, admit it, you were too stupid to ask your teachers how mutations caused sex differences, weren’t you?
@631
Ask someone who believes in what Dobzhansky (1972) wrote (about everything).
“Reproductive isolation evidently can arise with little or no morphological differentiation.”
I take exception to anything that still involved the problem with bird-watching ethologists. They watched them morph into different species with different beaks and colors et al., and never asked: Do birds have a sense of smell? Same with the butterfly collectors who attributed species diversity to mutations and differential survival with no consideration for what has been known since 1959 about nutrient-dependent pheromone production in moths.
Finally. Thank you.
Unfortunately, precursor mRNA is not an enzyme and it is not capable of substituting DNA bases, which is what I asked you.
DNA is transcribed into mRNA, which is modified and translated into proteins. Nowhere in that sequence of events does mRNA go back and change the DNA base sequence.
With that in mind, where do genomic changes come from?
Once again the problem is that Jamey doesn’t understand the theory he thinks he’s criticising. Did you learn evolutionary theory from other creationists? That wasn’t wise.
We have physical mechanisms and detailed protein and nucleic structures for the whole process of DNA transcription and for its replication, so we know mechanisms by which mutations arise and are inherited, and we know how they affect protein sequence. We can observe differential reproductive success. The combination of heredity, variation, and differential reproductive success equals evolution by natural selection.
You, on the other hand, have buzzwords, very poor reading comprehension, and ignorance. Be ashamed.
I think the creationism is also showing up in this habit of spouting random quotes and shouting Dobzhanskyi, like Bible verses and prophets.
Most of them have poorly developed senses of smell. Any other questions for the bird watchers?
Why don’t you fuckwitted IDiot, actually show the mechanism, from the pheromone being sensed to the DNA substitution of the genome for replication by the next generation. Since you don’t know what words mean, I’m expecting nothing but blather, bombast, and abject ignorance pretending to an authority.
You are one stupid fuck if you think nobody asked that question. Another non-sequitur from an abject IDiot, who can’t explain what a mechanism is.
After explaining — at the atomic level — how the experimental evidence involves different metal ions that enable a nutrient-dependent RNA-based mechanism, which is sufficient to effect metal catalysis of pre-mRNA splicing, without the need for direct protein involvement, I think I may be done here.
It should have long ago been obvious why Creationism shows up in the context of what Dobzahansky wrote, and what others have written in books like “The Language of God” by Francis Collins, who is the current director of the National Institutes of Health — after leading the human genome project to its completion more than a decade ago.
That’s when serious scientists began focusing on epigenetics and amino acid substitutions. The fact that evolutionary theorists have ignored the role of amino acid substitutions in the differentiation of cell types attests to their decade’s-old ignorance. That ignorance runs rampant here, and probably always will.
Once ignorant people get an idea into their head, they never let facts interfere with their beliefs. That is especially true in the context of biological facts, as we have seen here and on the blogs of other atheists who may or may not teach biology. Hopefully, not too many other atheists teach their nonsense to students. There are already too many ignorant students who will continue to retard scientific progress with their belief in ridiculous theories.
Ain’t it the truth?
Agreed. Bye now!
I saw no mechanism, and I aced mechanism in advanced Organic. I saw you trying to pretend you made one, when you didn’t; you either show it here or it doesn’t exist. What a abject IDiot/creobot. Can’t ever, ever, admit you have nothing but mere OPINION?
Want to leave? Good riddance to an unscientific professional liar and bullshitter, without anything to back up their lies and bullshit.
Pot, kettle, black. Once your imaginary deity reared its head, evolution had to be refuted and supplant by any means, including lies, bullshit and attitude. But poor science with its empirical evidence and a million or so papers backing evolution, both directly and indirectly, ignore your lies and bullshit. Gee, who would have thunk? Your Nobel prize is only in your delusional imagination, next to your imaginary creator/IDiot/deity.
LOL, he has a model: beat around the bush until you get tired of whacking at the bush. The mechanism is just one more paper away; one extra reference (which he didn’t have time to cite before); it’s always so simple that you’re overlooking it & yet so complex that he can’t explain it except in the most general terms. It always operates at a different level than it does in your question.
@553 Kohl, did you honestly think that bacteria digesting ssDNA was proof of ANYTHING VAGUELY RELEVANT to your “method”?
@632 Yet another “review” paper by Kohl, thus completely absent any data of its own. How convenient. Yes my biology teacher pointed out that alternative splicing differentiated male & female…but made no reference to nutritional states, DNA modification, or pheromone nonsense being involved.
Damn, the theory would work if only the facts didn’t get in the way!
QFMFT
By serious scientists you mean yourself? Because you have, so far, failed to produce studies who actually agrees with your bullshit. And please, don’t drag epigenetics into this. The overwhelming majority of scientists in that line of research do not agree with your kookery about mutations and natural selection being bunk. Much less about Gawd magicking species into existence.
Surprise, surprise.
I did a Google scholar search of “james kohl”. Zero hits on citations…..
And so Kohl demonstrates yet again his ignorance of the basic principles of how science is done. His refusal to answer the questions concerning mechanism, and his fapwitted attempts to deflect the mechanism question back onto mutations is tellingly illustrative.
See, mutation driven evolution is observed fact. We have observed evolutionary change in real time. We have compared organisms before and after that evolutionary change, that we directly observed, and found that lo! The only diiference between ancestor and descendent are documented mutations. We then have even gone ahead and PRODUCED those mutations in the ancestral genotype, and lo! We observe the SAME evolutionary change replicated. Thus is basically Koch’s Postulates and it is diffinitive proof that mutations drive evolutionary change. To go “but what’s the mechanism” at this point has no bearing on the existence of the phenomenon itself – that is established fact no matter how it actually happens. Finding the mechanism is about filling in details, and has no bearing on the actual validity of the theoretical concept.
But when one is, like Kohl, attempting to propose a new mechanism for a process, without any evidence that the idea even exists in reality at all , describing a mechanism is a way of showing that the idea is actually plausible and testable, and therefore worth spending time and energy on investigating.
Kohl’s idea needs a mechanism to demonstrate a priori plausibility. Mutation driven evolution does not, because it’s a priori plausibility is already 100%. It is an observed FACT. The search for a mechanism is no longer about validity of the concept, which is already observed fact, but about understanding the observed fact in greater detail.
And of course, if Kohl wants to generalize his pheromone idea from microbes to man, he’s going to have to explain the toothed whale Claude, which as far as is known, has zero functional olfactory receptors and thus cannot respond to pheromones, at least in any way generalizable to other vertebrates, at all….
Nerd, that’s inaccurate. His 2001 review (w/ 3 coauthors) has been cited 73 times.
Please stop taunting him and maybe he’ll stay away.
@634
I wrote: The spliceosome is to splicing, as pre-mRNA is to nutrient-dependent, pheromone-controlled, specifically directed base substitutions.
You kept demanding that I fill in the blank; so I did. I also explained the process at the atomic level of intercellular thermodynamics, hydrogen bonding, and organism-level thermoregulation. Now you say you asked something else, and you ask:.
“Alternative splicing (AS) is a process that allows a single gene to produce multiple transcripts and, consequently, multiple proteins, by utilizing different splice sites in pre‐mRNA (Maniatis, 1991). Splicing is mediated by the spliceosome, a dynamic complex containing both RNA and proteins, which catalyzes intron excision and joining of exons. This process may be affected by numerous splicing factors (SFs), proteins that bind to specific binding motifs (SFBMs) on pre‐mRNA and affect spliceosome preferences for splicing sites (Black, 2003).”
Look at the dates on the references cited in that paragraph. Pretend you’re not an idiot if you wish, but don’t ask questions about decades-old information or anything else when you can’t recognize the answer once it is provided. And don’t ask more questions until you acknowledge your question was answered. Any of the foolish attempts made to “stump” me have failed, with your attempt being the most obvious because you insisted I fill in the blank.
damn it.
B’bye, Kohl.
James Kohl (#633)
What? That makes as much sense as saying tailor is to clothing as leather is to shoes. In other words none at all. Maybe in another year or ten you’ll get around to defining:
1) hypothesis
2) null hypothesis
3) model
4) theory
5) evolution
6) natural selection
7) mutation
8) amino acid substitution
@651
Why would you like someone whose review article had been cited 73 times to stay away, you idiot? Oh, sorry, I just answered my question. Only an idiot would want an expert to stay away.
From fertilization to adult sexual behavior (w/ 2 coauthors) has been cited 31 times. I mentioned before that one of the citations is from a paper that extended our mammalian model to invertebrates: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022191000001013
That paper was cited 27 times but it led to the establishment of my model as an explanation for how ecological variation results in species diversity in species from microbes to man via alternative splicings and amino acid substitutions.
You’re all fools if you think you can prevent accurate representations of biologically-based cause and effect from reaching others by continuing to deny the scientific truth and touting your ridiculous theories. Scientific progress is made via the integration of experimental evidence into models of cause and effect that eventually overcome the ignorance of theorists.
It doesn’t matter who you think is a “crank” or how many insults you throw out, or how many times you deny the evidence for my assertions here, or in published works. The bottom line is always the same. Idiots are always discovered and serious scientist leave them behind, whether or not the idiots are anonymous, which they typically are.
Apologies to anyone here who has cited my published works.
I could tell you a story about Claude the whale with no olfactory lobe, but his cousin Beulah the baleen whale is much more interesting. She has a well developed sense of smell to help locate krill.
@652
I asked you the same thing I’ve asked you many times before on Yahoo.
You said back in 326-
so don’t say you didn’t know exactly what I was asking for. I was not and have never questioned the mechanism for splicing. I have always and am continuing to ask you what makes base changes in the DNA.
530 also shows that you know exactly what I’m talking about, considering mRNA doesn’t have base pairs because it’s single stranded, but DNA does.
Splicing does not change GENOMIC information. Splicing is not performed on DNA. It is performed on mRNA. If you think splicing does ANYTHING to genomic DNA, you are severely mistaken.
It’s a real shame that. despite your painstakingly careful explanations, nobody here thinks your model makes any sense at all. No doubt it is because we here are biology teachers at best, atheists at worst. The beauty of your ingenious breakthrough model and experimentally verified mechanism of nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled control of reproduction via alternatively spliced pre-mRNA-catalyzed amino acid substitutions in species from microbes to man is like pearls before swine here among us foolish idiots. I have to reluctantly conclude that your time would be better spent among serious scientists instead. And so, I bid you a shame-faced adieu.
See ya. Don’t spend all the Nobel money in one place.
@650
http://pheromones.com/whale-specific-mutations-natural-genetic-engineering-revisited/
cites: Tracking niche variation over millennial timescales in sympatric killer whale lineages
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1768/20131481.abstract
First line: “Ecological variation is the raw material by which natural selection can drive evolutionary divergence [1–4].”
How can any of you continue to be so ignorant? You must be working harder at staying ignorant than anyone I have ever encountered. Give yourself a break from all that work. Learn something!
OK! Uncle! Bye!!
James Kohl (#659)
I’d like to learn how you define the following words:
1) hypothesis
2) null hypothesis
3) model
4) theory
5) evolution
6) natural selection
7) mutation
8) amino acid substitution
Hmm – looks like Baghdad Bob is alive and well and hawking Magical Pheromones on the ‘net.
You’d have to have yourself twisted into a Moebius strip to say something this silly :
ie, ‘IF REALITY contradicts Bellowing Lord Kohl, it is REALITY that is wrong !!!!!’
The reality-based community uses knowledge of amino acid substitutions (and other MUTATIONS) to determine relatedness in living things; molecular data SUPPORTS evolution. Has for almost 30 years.
Examination of REALITY shows that whales are closely related to hippos; how would your ‘model’ explain the data ? A hippo got a whiff of some Magical All Mighty Pheromones and transmuted into a whale one cell at a time (it would have to be one cell at a time by your ‘model’, since you don’t believe in the existence of mutations that have any useful effect) ?
Cell differentiation is due to what proteins are beings expressed, not single amino acid substitutions (unless they are to a key region of a key regulatory protein. But most sane and rational folk that UNDERSTAND real world biology already know that).
By your ‘logic’, exposing fat cells to your All Mighty Magical Pheromones should make them transmute directly into muscle cells.
Alternative splicing does not change genomic DNA.
It also does NOT generate new alleles – if a gene requires an arginine to cysteine change in the third exon, and the gene has 17 choices for exon 3, and NONE of them have the needed R-C change, no amount of alternative splicing will generate it.
Whereas a simple mutation the organism’s DNA could do it readily.
One advantage (amongst MANY) that reality-based evolution has over your ‘model’ is the fact that the changes are inherited – the mutations arise in the parent’s germline, and the offspring inherit them, meaning that all cells in their body have the change; your ‘model’ is essentially nothing more than warmed over neo-Larmarkian transmutation.
I’ve changed the morphology of Drosophila melangaster without generating a SINGLE amino acid substitution, NOR depriving them of nutrients or changing their nutrients, NOR exposing them to Howling Lord Kohl’s Magical All Mighty Pheromones. All it required was MUTATION – in this case, having some P elements drop into a regulatory region. How, exactly, would your ‘model’ explain those results ?
I’m almost afraid to think how doctors who follow your ‘model’ would treat an infection – just crank the patient’s body temperature up to 115 for half an hour and pump him full of Howling Lord Kohl’s Magical All Mighty Pheromones and hope for the best ?
@658 ChasCPeterson
I said it before, and I’ll repeat: This is where the ignorance is.
PZ Myers invited me to address it by calling me a crank. And now that I have addressed the ignorance, people want me to simply go away. That’s atheism for you. Anyone with established scientific facts is a “crank” who is advised to go away.
Atheists and biology teachers want nothing to do with biological facts. They prefer their ignorance.
But what can be accomplished in the face of such impenetrable ignorance? Time and time again you point out the inadequacy of the ridiculous theory of mutation-driven evolution and time and time again you patiently explain the superiority of your model of nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled control of reproduction via alternatively spliced pre-mRNA-catalyzed amino acid substitutions in species from microbes to man, yet it’s all been to no avail. Don’t you get weary?
I explained the molecular control of G-protein coupled receptor signalling at the atomic level, and Prof Weird (and anonymous) comes back at me with
http://jonlieffmd.com/blog/alternative-rna-splicing-in-evolution
“In fact, recent research shows that alternative splicing may be the critical source of evolutionary changes differentiating primates and humans from other creatures such as worms and flies with a similar number of genes.”
Note, however, in Prof Weird’s flies, mutation-driven evolution somehow triumphed, even though there is no such thing as mutation-driven evolution (except in his flies, of course).
Alternative splicing does not change genomic DNA, and it does not generate new alleles. Prof Weird was precisely correct. The link you give does not in any way counter what he said.
Your performance here has definitely confirmed that you are a crank.
Of course I do. But the thought of people like you teaching yet another generation to be equally ignorant is a driving force for my contributions here. Since you are now aware of the citations to my works and the extended results of our 1996 review, it is hard to imagine why you would rather I got tired of trying to educate idiots, all the while you contribute to another generation of educated idiots.
Do you ever get weary of teaching others to be as ignorant as you are?
And yet we fools still want to know how alternative splicing of and by pre-mRNA could possibly generate new alleles! Even though you already linked to some guy’s blog on the general subject! This all must be very frustrating for you. Perhaps you should cast your pearls elsewhere instead.
That study does not contradict either of those quoted statements. As for G protein cascades, they do not alter DNA sequence. I am aware that they can lead to up- and downregulation of transcription, but I know of no pathway by which they edit DNA.
http://bfg.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/12/12/bfgp.elt050.abstract
“A multi-level regulatory network consisting of such mechanisms as modular utilization of protein domains, alternative splicing and epigenomic modifications of DNA has been the driving force behind the wide radiation, rapid evolution and evolutionary success of eukaryotic organisms.”
PZ Myers wants cause and effect to be mutation-driven. That makes me the crank with experimental evidence that confirms, as does my performance here, that he should not be teaching anyone anything.
The keyword here JK is equally ignorant. Ignornt as you, who seems stuck back in the 1920’s, or PZ and Chas, who have taught from book written by working scientists who never heard of your inane and unscientific idea in the last five years? That is your problem. You are stuck in the past, arguing against a model that is at least thirty years out of date. Typical of creobots/IDiots, who seem to think Authority of Darwin and others beats yesterdays evidence. Darwin was wrong in may aspects, but his general idea was solid. And has been expanded upon and confirmed with conclusive experimental evidence even to this day, giving those million or so papers. Whereas you, have nothing but YOUR OPINION, and NO SUPPORTERS.
No, it confirms nothing being a quotmine by a proven liar and bullshitter. Whereas PZ teaches from recently published by working biologists, and surprise, your fuckwitted and unscientific theory is nowhere to be seen. Remove your own works, and your ego, there is nothing left to support your stupidity. As any real scientist and real skeptic knows.
JK, until you show here the detailed mechanism to go from nutrients/pheromones to DNA alteration, you are full of bullshit. No matter how much third party evidence you claim supports you. You must show your mechanism, which means each and every enzyme/protein for each and every transformation. Something you are totaly incapable of doing, being an uneducated creobot/IDiot.
@662
How was the mutation that you induced fixed in the genome so that it could somehow be naturally selected to appear in subsequent generation? If it was not, why would I try to explain it with my model of nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled adaptations?
Why do you think I would not be able to differentiate between induced mutations and amino acid substitutions that are obviously adaptations to ecological variation and obviously not due to mutations like the ones that are induced?
http://bfg.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/12/12/bfgp.elt050.abstract
He illustrated his concept of genotype buffering using the phenomenon of ‘phenocopying’, whereby the phenotypic effect of a mutation can also be created by non-genetic means. For example, in Drosophila, phenocopies for both pigmentation and behaviour of a mutation known as ‘yellow’ can be produced by a number of treatments, including pharmacological inhibitors of tyrosine hydroxylase or by growing larvae on silver nitrate [66,67].
Inhibiting enzymes or forced ingestion of silver nitrate will obviously show up somewhere as induced mutations seem to do in flies. That does not mean that if I splash myself with silver nitrate and turn my skin brown in patches that are exposed to the chemical, that I will father children with brown spots. Does it, you idiot?
Each time I think that people may begin to make sense, another idiot enters the picture of overall ignorance that is painted here. As they say, intelligence has its limits; ignorance does not.
@669
It seems you’re trying to tell me is that the epigenetic effects of olfactory/pheromonal input on G-Protein Coupled Receptors does not alter DNA via effects on hormone-organized and hormone-activated behavior. Is that a correct assessment of your statement above? I ask because — given the experimental evidence linked below — what you just said makes you sound like a dumb ass (again).
The hector G-Protein Coupled Receptor Is Required in a Subset of fruitless Neurons for Male Courtship Behavior http://dx.doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0028269
YOUR MODEL EXPLAINS NOTHING WITHOUT A DETAILED AND EXPERIMENTALLY EVIDENCED MECHANISM.
YOU EXPLAIN NOTHING WITHOUT YOUR DETAILED MECHANISM. STILL VAPORWARE.
THE ONLY PERSON NOT MAKING SENSE HERE IS YOU, AS YOU DON’T HAVE YOUR DETAILED AND EXPERIMENTALLY PROVEN MECHANISM.
COMPARED TO YOU QUOTEMINING AN MECHANISTICALLY DEPRIVED FUCKWITTED CREOBOT/IDIOT/NONSCIENTIST?
@675
You were asked to present a mechanism for making alterations to the genome (DNA sequence). You brought up G proteins, which do no such thing. That’s what I’m telling you. No more, no less. That link has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
The boded part. That’s the point. It’s also the part that’s not supported by the linked study, in which the flies with altered DNA are identified explicitly as…wait for it…mutant mutants with a mutation.
Seriously, man. Take your own counsel: you’re done here.
Plus you’re making Nerd yell, which is unpleasant for everyone.
Chas:
I don’t think it’s possible to shut Captain Cabbage down. Not unless he were to experiment on himself and starve, all in the name of science, natch.
There was a pingback in the recent comments a while ago, I expect all this is some sort of horrible fuel to the Cabbagemeister.
James Kohl (#674)
See, it’s nonsensical responses like this that are the reason I keep asking you for your definitions of words like “mutation” and “natural selection.” If you had the same understanding of those words as we do, you would not even ask this question.
It’s like we’re discussing the merits of socks, and you keep calling us idiots for saying anyone would considers socks an appropriate item to prevent one’s boots from chafing. However, if it turned out you defined socks as “spine-covered mammals of the order Erinaceomorpha” instead of “close-fitting bags of thick, knitted cloth that are worn on the feet,” then, however odd we found your definition, we might at least be able to agree with you that “spine-covered mammals of the order Erinaceomorpha” (or what we call “hedgehogs”) are not decent footwear in the least.
So, in order to get us all on the same page, you need to give your definitions (or ones you agree with) for these terms: hypothesis, null hypothesis, model, theory, evolution, natural selection, mutation, amino acid, and substitution. Also, you might as well define “genome” while you’re at it.
narwhals
It is perfectly clear in all of my published works (and comments here) that the difference between a mutation and a nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled amino acid substitution is:
1) Nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled amino acid substitutions stabilize seemingly futile cycles of protein biosynthesis and degradation.
2) Mutations perturb cycles of protein biosynthesis and degradation.
There is no reason to define terms when explanations of cause and effect use terms the way that they are commonly used in biology. What evolutionary theorists like to do is to redefine terms, and take them out of context to make them fit into the context of things like beneficial mutations, when there is no such thing.
No matter how many times you see people write about beneficial mutations, no experimental evidence suggests that mutations are fixed in the DNA of any organized genome in any species. Only an idiot would suggest that an induced mutation was evidence of mutation-driven evolution. That biological fact will not stop the nonsense here, however. All of you will just move on by insisting that mutations be redefined so that they can do what they don’t do.
Mutations do not cause adaptations; they cause diseases and disorders. The diseases and disorders caused by mutations are not naturally selected because the mutations are not fixed in populations of organisms that would enable what is reported in terms of population genetics. In the Agouti mouse, however, nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled amino acid substitutions differentiate the cell types that characterize the differences in morphology, including color. Similar effects are seen with diet-driven changes in methylation in other species.
Why does the level of ignorance seem to be increasing here with each new biological fact that I introduce? I think it’s because the biological facts force you to say “Oh my, I never thought of that,” and “now that I must think of it I feel like a dumb ass.” I can’t help you not feel like a dumb ass. You must learn something to stop feeling that way.
The next thing someone will try to tell us is that sickle cell is due to a mutation that is fixed in the population when malarial parasites are common. That same idiot would also try to tell us that the other 1180 amino acid substitutions that differentiate the cell types of individuals in ecologically variable environments are also due to mutations that are fixed in those populations. Then, when I insist that fixation of mutations in the DNA of organized genome is not physiologically possible, I’ll be told: Yes it is! Our statistical analysis showed it, after we saw the difference in color or body type or whatever with our own eyes — because you were taught to meaningfully interpret meaningless results.
James Kohl
You have failed.
Maybe you should go away.
Bless your heart.
@648
This has exceeded the mandated amount of irony per post.
Crank.
James Kohl:
How do your pheromone enhancement products work?
Where’s the evidence to support the claims of your pheromone enhancement product?
chigau:
A change, if I may:
James Kohl will eventually go to his grave convince that he’s right and the rest of the scientific biology community is wrong. He’ll spin ever more elaborate conspiracy theories to explain why his hypothesis is never accepted, ’tis the sad, lonely, and ultimately inevitable, way of the crank.
Tony!
or
blessyourmicrobestomanheart
—
We don’t need no stinking spaces!
James Kohl (#684)
Well, I guess the vast majority of us are confused about the common use of all those terms. Why don’t you humor us and explain what they mean to a serious scientist like yourself? What do you have to lose? You’re here trying to convince us your model is correct, but from our perspective, you’re talking about hedgehogs when you mean socks. If you can define the terms, at least then we’ll be informed enough to better interpret your meaning when you use them for explanations of cause and effect, etc.
Plus you are making Chas witty, which is making me chortle.
The Kohlkopf is still here pushing his sciency sounding theology? Desperate and wholly sad.
*grrrroooaaaannnnnn*
I can now identify some very specific cases where James does not know what the words mean:
(i) he thinks that “Mutations perturb cycles of protein biosynthesis and degradation.” This is simply false. That vast majority of mutations are neutral and perturb nothing (see e.g. Kimura). I think we have a case of the usual creationist idiocy which claims that mutations are only ever harmful, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, e.g. http://aac.asm.org/content/45/3/727.long
(ii) he thinks that amino acid substitutions stabilise cycles of etc. But amino acid substitutions (in the peptide sequence) are the consequence of nucleotide polymorphisms in the genome, i.e. – mutations! So he doesn’t know what an amino acid substitution is either.
(iii) he has asked the incredibly stupid and ignorant question “How was the mutation that you induced fixed in the genome so that it could somehow be naturally selected to appear in subsequent generation?” Mutations occur in the genome of an _individual_ – usually as a result of innaccurate DNA replication, as has been repeatedly explained – so they are either present or not. “Fixed” is completely the wrong word, because a “fixed mutation” is one which has entirely replaced the previous wild type – i.e. it means that all members of the breeding population now carry that same mutation – so “fixed” refers to the prevalence of a mutation in the _population_,not its appearance in the genome of _one individual_. I’ve noticed other creationists failing to grasp this point before. Amusingly, if a mutation is _fixed_ it means that the whole population is descended from a carrier of the mutation and all non-carriers have died – which is the _end result_ (sometimes) of natural selection, not its start as Jamie falsely implies. If a mutation is subject to natural selection, it cannot have been fixed in the population – because natural selection is about the differential reproductive success of individuals with and without the mutation! This is really one of the most boneheaded errors anyone could possibly make in trying to discuss genetics.
So, we’ve established that James does not know the meaning of the words he’s trying to use. No wonder none of his citations support his claims – he can’t understand them!
Sickle cell. From the text:
Evidence, not opinion. You lose loser.
Heh, just thought of a good analogy: asking how a mutation can be fixed so natural selection can work on it is like asking how something can hit the ground so that gravity can act on it.
@692
No, I’m here because an ignorant biology teacher with an atheist’s agenda called me a “crank.” Everyone knows that ignorant people like him cannot be convinced of anything. Their ignorance merely facilitates discussion of ridiculous theories, as we’ve seen here. I’m here so that there is a record of an incredible display of ignorance on PZ Myers’ blog. That’s why I have made it a point to thank him several times for letting this discussion continue.
My model, for comparison to the ignorance displayed here, shows that the conserved molecular mechanisms of nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled alternative splicings of pre-mRNA and amino acid substitutions differentiate cell types in species from microbes to man.
Ignorant people can now look at the latest experimental results on the “Genetics of single-cell protein abundance variation in large yeast populations” http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature12904.
Fools can see what happens when people study mRNA and gene expression http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140109101746.htm
Serious scientists link nutrient uptake to the pheromone-controlled physiology of all species via the microRNA/mRNA balance in articles like: “Signaling Crosstalk: Integrating Nutrient Availability and Sex” http://stke.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sigtrans;6/291/pe28
Ignorant fools can keep telling other ignorant fools that mutation-driven evolution occurs; that amino acid substitutions are mutations; and the ignorant fools use every mention of the word “mutation” to reassert their ridiculous ideas, which have never been supported with experimental evidence.
And, the most ignorant fool I have ever encountered can continue to say Kohl has no evidence to support his model. As always, however, the experimental evidence speaks for itself. There is never any need to try to convince anyone of anything. Either they’re 1) going to look at the experimental evidence, or 2) not. Everyone else seems to have selected option 2 and is determined to not look at the experimental evidence.
An experimental test on the probability of extinction of new genetic variants “In 1927, J.B.S. Haldane reasoned that the probability of fixation of new beneficial alleles is twice their fitness effect. This result, later generalized by M. Kimura, has since become the cornerstone of modern population genetics. There is no experimental test of Haldane’s insight…” http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/130913/ncomms3417/full/ncomms3417.html
Congratulations, James Kohl, you have just been awarded The Order of the Brassica, First Class.
Can you show some citations that support your assertion that mutations are always deleterious? And, before you claim you have not asserted this, I quote you:
So the mutation that runs in my family which makes it flat-out impossible for me, or my sister, or my father, no matter what we eat, to get out total cholesterol count over 70 is a disease or disorder?
@626 sawells has decided to rehash everything already told to others about mutation-driven evolution and make it appear that it occurs. The simple-minded twisting of concepts is all that’s required, which means no experimental evidence is required.
Mutation-driven evolution is a product of definitions.
Ecological adaptations result from nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled alternative splicings and amino acid substitutions that differentiate cell types in individuals of all species (from microbes to man).
That fact becomes clearer every day, no matter how hard evolutionary theorists try to muddy the waters with their ridiculous diatribes on what mutations do.
Genetics of single-cell protein abundance variation in large yeast populations
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature12904
Quoth the cabbagehead @#626
*falls on floor laughing*
You are a crank. Period, end of story.
That’s you. More keywords not meaning what you think they mean, since you are an egotistical ignorant, and unlearning crank.
Still no MECHANISM.
Reprise:
You are a crank/loon if……
You know you are the brightest one out there, but nobody appreciates your genius CHECK
If the idea you promote doesn’t have any real third party evidence CHECK
If you take criticism as personal insults instead of criticism of the idea CHECK
If asked what it would take to show your idea is wrong, you can’t/won’t supply an answer CHECK
You promote your idea by infesting and threadjacking other peoples blogs, and not by the normal scientific methods of publishing in scientific journals and talking about your ideas at professional meetings CHECK
You fail to consult with experts in the field, as they may refute your idea CHECK
You think your opinion of the evidence means anything to those you are selling your idea to CHECK
You think you must get the last word in for victory CHECK
You don’t address solid evidence against your idea with third party scientific evidence, just your opinion of the evidence CHECK
You avoid making any statements that you know can be refuted/falsified easily by people in the field CHECK
Ten out of ten. Topnotch crank.
@Ogvorbis
Now that’s a useful mutation!* Come on, evolution; catch up!
*Assuming, of course, that it has no other (negative) effects?
Nope, the experimental evidence is there. Whereas you have no experimental evidence. You have nothing but word salads meaning nothing. You can’t/won’t define your words. You can’t present real evidence that isn’t explained by Modern Synthesis and genomics. You have no MECHANISM. You have nothing but your arrogance and ignorance.
Baby Jesus is crying.
Quoth the cabbagehead @#674
Even I know this is nonsense. If it’s fixed, then no further natural selection need occurr. Fixed means it’s already the dominant expression of that gene within that population, right? The natural selection has already occurred, that’s how it got “fixed” in the first place.
He really doesn’t know what he’s talking about, does he? Huh.
@700
This is an example of how others twist what I’ve said: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BENEFICIAL MUTATION! They regurgitate it as MY assertion “mutations are always deleterious.”
If I were too ignorant to understand the difference between a mutation that perturbs protein folding and an amino acid substitution that stabilizes it, I might also make the mistake of claiming that some mutations are beneficial — and tell others that is how they are responsible for mutation-driven evolution while also being responsible for diseases and disorders. Fortunately, most people are not that stupid.
But we can rely on evolutionary theorists to attempt to bring most people down to their level of ignorance.
Gee, a million or so scientific papers what support RM/NS, compared to your arrogant creobot word. Guess who I’ll believe, those with honesty and integrity, or a delusional fool who believes in imaginary phantasms and that book of mythology/fiction is inerrant?
As they say, a no-brainer, and you lose JK.
I notice yet more torrents of bile but no actual response to his mistake over “fixed” – I predict he will never ever make any acknowledgement of his gross, basic, fundamental error.
Also, amusingly, he’s just put up a ref to a Nature Communications article and quoted the first three lines of the abstract as far as “there is no experimental test…”. I thought people might like to see the entire abstract so here it is:
In 1927, J.B.S. Haldane reasoned that the probability of fixation of new beneficial alleles is twice their fitness effect. This result, later generalized by M. Kimura, has since become the cornerstone of modern population genetics. There is no experimental test of Haldane’s insight that new beneficial alleles are lost with high probability. Here we demonstrate that extinction rates decrease with increasing initial numbers of beneficial alleles, as expected, by performing invasion experiments with inbred lines of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. We further show that the extinction rates of deleterious alleles are higher than those of beneficial alleles, also as expected. Interestingly, we also find that for these inbred lines, when at intermediate frequencies, the fate of invaders might not result in their ultimate fixation or loss but on their maintenance. Our study confirms the key results from classical population genetics and highlights that the nature of adaptation can be complex.
So, we have a nice paper reporting an experimental test of natural selection which confirms the key results from population genetics. Kohl, you fool, you’re citing papers that _refute you_ and claiming they _support you_! How is that even possible?
Just to clarify, “beneficial allele” would be a gene with a, wait for it… beneficial mutation!
Kohl, “mutation” means “change” – any change in the DNA sequence is a mutation. The illusion that mutations must be harmful is creationist stupidity, not science. No wonder you can’t read papers if you don’t even know what a mutation is!
RE: John A. Davison
PEE ZEE wrote: “Evolution was all due to chromosome rearrangements, which somehow are not mutations, and he also somehow ignored the existence of allelic differences between species…”
————————————–
“….we provide a rare illustration of how a chromosomal polymorphism has affected overt social behavior in a vertebrate.
“…we show that genetic differentiation between the morphs affects the transcription of a gene well known to be involved in social behavior. We then show that in a free-living population, the neural expression of this gene predicts both territorial and parental behavior. We hypothesize that this mechanism has played a causal role in the evolution of alternative life-history strategies.”
If Donna Maney and her co-authors participated here, would they be called “cranks” because they have shown with experimental evidence how chromosomal rearrangements affect social behavior — as suggested by Davison?
Estrogen receptor α polymorphism in a species with alternative behavioral phenotypes
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/01/08/1317165111.abstract
Do you think that anyone participating here is capable of evaluating experimental evidence and concluding that it does not support the ridiculous theory of mutation-driven evolution?
Is PeeZee really that big of a crank for criticizing Davison now that experimental evidence suggests that Davison was right?
Yup, he still can’t read and is unable to admit his terrible mistake over fixation.
Kohl in 699:
Since you fail to provide a MECHANISM for your alleged model, you haven’t done anything but make noise, and refute yourself when the full papers, not just the keywords, are looked at. No serious biologist doubts Modern Synthesis and genomics. You fail to refute them. You can’t. The evidence for MS and genomics is rock solid. Until you understand you can’t sell your fuckwitted idea by calling people names, you are nothing but a stupid loudmouthed crank. The evidence is in. You prove PZ right every time you post.
Quote mining: with my emphasis
“Thus, our study provides a rare glimpse of how a chromosomal polymorphism has affected the brain and social behavior in a vertebrate. Our results suggest that in this species, differentiation of ESR1 has played a causal role in the evolution of phenotypes with alternative life-history strategies.”
Estrogen receptor α polymorphism in a species with alternative behavioral phenotypes
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/01/08/1317165111.abstract
Anyone who has followed works from Donna Maney’s group will find overwhelming support for what John A. Davison said about the importance of chromosomal rearrangements in the context of nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled amino acid substitutions in all birds due to conserved molecular mechanisms.
Evolutionary theorists will not recognize the experimental evidence that supports what Davison said, and biology teachers like PZ Myers will probably continue to tell their students that Davison was a “crank.”
That makes me proud to be considered a “crank” like Davison as compared to being considered an ignorant fool, like Myers, who could not possibly intelligently discuss any aspect of chromosomal rearrangements associated with receptor-mediated behaviors.
From the PNAS paper Kohl just cited: “We report here that (i) the ESR1 promoter region contains fixed polymorphisms distinguishing the ZAL2m and ZAL2 alleles;”
That, Kohl, would be an example of a _genetic difference between two populations_, that is, here we have a specific mutation which is leading to speciation. Exactly what you claimed did not exist. Again, your cites refute your own position. Learn to read.
Now he’s channelling John A. Davison.
That’s like witchcraft, isn’t it?
All JK does is keyword search of the abstracts. I doubt if he has the ability to read and fully understand the papers he cites, and has no idea that it refutes his idiotology. He can’t even properly define the concepts the papers use.
@717
You forgot to mention that the specific mutation was a beneficial mutation that was naturally selected, which is how it led to speciation. And, you forgot to mention what caused the mutation to arise. Please get back to us on that.
So far as I know, the differentiation of estrogen receptors is nutrient-dependent and pheromone-controlled in all vertebrates. This links the differentiation of estrogen receptors to their de novo creation via the epigenetic effects of ecologically variable nutrient uptake.
That makes anyone who doesn’t understand the basic principles of biology and levels of biological organization required to link sensory cause to hormones, like estrogen, and their affects on behavior, like sex difference in behavior, appear to be an idiot, like sawells.
@719
I’ve discussed the works from Donna’s group with her and with her post-docs during the past several years when I attended presentations at SFN-Atlanta and two of the annual meeting of SFN (Washington DC and New Orleans).
Danielle Whittaker has since left Atlanta, but her most recent published work is here.
Bird odour predicts reproductive success
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347213003473
Please continue to deny that I have integrated experimental evidence of the molecular mechanisms of cause and effect, and continue to portray me as a “crank” like Davison. It’s the only way for others to learn who the real “cranks” are.
We need idiots like you, if for no other purpose (and, indeed, you probably have no other purpose in life). If not for people who exemplify ignorance like you do, others might not recognize ignorance when they see it — repeatedly, as they have seen you display it here.
Thanks to you and to PEE ZEE!
Thumper @704:
Well, when my sister let her cholersterol drop too low it did some damage to her connective tissue. So she eats more eggs now. About a dozen a week. Or more.
James Kohl @708:
If no mutations are ever beneficial, then they are _________.
Can you show some citations that support your assertion that mutations are
always deleterious?never beneficial?chigau @718:
Perhaps he has a DThaum in Post Mortem Communications?
James Kohl @717:
But you have told us that mutations are never beneficial.
So, the Humpty-Dumpty method of biology. Basically, what you need to know about Kohl is that words and concepts mean what they mean to him, and nobody else. Also, he believes that a magic man futzes with genomes. Through nutrient-dependent-pheromone-substitutions-that-aren’t-mutations-cos-I-say-so.
Also, from reading what he said about why he’s here, I wonder if he has a Google Alert set to “Kohl crank”. Must keep him busy.
Gee illiterate crank. Try here (transcription errors), here caused by low level radiation, and here (carbon 14 in DNA).
Now, shut the fuck up about mutations not happening. Unlike you, Modern Synthesis has EVIDENCE.
@
If no mutations are ever beneficial, then they are ABSOLUTELY NOT THE CAUSE OF EVOLUTION .
If they do not cause too much damage to intercellular signaling, protein biosynthesis, and protein degradation, mutations may accumulate as they often do, which is how they are linked to diseases and disorders. For example, if you continue to ingest too much glucose (e.g., in various forms) year after year you are more likely to end up with an obesity-related cancer via a change in cell type.
You are not likely to mutate into another species, however. Your morphology will still be more like the morphology of your conspecifics because of the conserved molecular mechanisms that have stabilized in vertebrates with the substitution of the achiral amino acid glycine in the GnRH molecule.
If you were a round-worm, however, a simple change in the species of bacteria that you ate might cause you to morph into another species with teeth via nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled alternative splicings and amino acid substitutions ( as occurs when ecological variations enable C. elegans to adapt and become P. pacificus).
Whether you are a human or some stupid worm (assuming you are not a stupid anonymous worm), however, you’re not going to morph into another species via the accumulation of mutations. That sort of thing only happens in the minds of evolutionary theorists who have limited nutrient-dependent neurogenic niche construction — similar to that of worms.
@725 Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
Now we’ve moved from the false claim that I said “mutations are always deleterious” to the false claim that I said something “…about mutations not happening.” Again, this ridiculous claim comes from the most foul-mouthed idiot I have ever encountered.
This is the type of uncontrolled dumb ass that frequently comments on blogs like this one. No matter how hard someone tries to keep the focus on science, the dumb asses keep coming back with their nonsense until the scientists leave. That’s why the rest of the ignorant fools here have been stuck with their ridiculous theories. Eventually, led by people like PZ Myers, ignorant theories supported by uncontrolled dumb asses are all you have left.
But you will morph into another species if you change your diet. Right. Total looney tunes.
I don’t know, this kook seems to have babbled repetitively enough. Time to close this thread? Is anybody still learning anything from engaging with the cabbage?
Time to close this thread?
Yes, please! Either that or make it so that all future Kohl posts are in piratese. He is so boring and repetitious.
At the moment he’s claiming that no mutations are ever beneficial but that he never said all mutations are deleterious. Given that he doesn’t actually know how words work, I don’t think there’s any benefit in letting him carry on babbling. In any case, we can all create a new post from him any time we want by copying and pasting three random paragraphs from his previous posts and adding an unrelated citation – so he can be replaced by a bot without any loss to humanity.
@726
So mutational genomic changes are never beneficial, but nutrient or pheromone induced ones are? You still haven’t told us what pathway makes those genomic changes. I’m not asking about epigenome changes, I’m asking about regular ol’ genome changes.
Kill the thread PZ. Despite his claims of doing science, he is too stupid with presuppositional creationism and inane blather to do real science. That has been extensively shown.
James Kohl (#699)
More like an incredible display of chickenshittedness on your part, James. See, if we keep asking you for definitions of the terms and you refuse to give them, then our ignorance is your fault. After all, our textbooks and other references all confirm that mutations are any change to the sequence of an organism’s DNA or that evolution happens to populations, not individuals. If you wish to scorn that as utter foolishness, you need to provide the true definitions.
But I think you want us to stay ignorant of your preferred meaning because the knowledge that you’re saying “hedgehogs” where we say “socks” would allow us to criticize your model in your own words. And you’re scared of that, James. Terrified. The only thing that keeps you safe in your sense of superiority is that we have to keep using “mutation” or “natural selection” the way we learned them rather than the way you use them. You keep pointing out some cycle of misinformation poisoning bioogy, but you do nothing about breaking that cycle because you’re a fraidy-cat who can only win a fight if his opponents’ arms are tied behind their backs.
Yet, all it would take to not be seen a pants-wetting coward is to give those definitions!
Well, damn. Teach me not to refresh before posting.
I was going to post about how he is very much like all the other religious folks who come by here, so if you close this thread, PZ, you’ll save me a lot of typing. He’s not listening, he’s not learning, and it is really sad to keep this going.
I have learned a lot, but not from Kohl. My compliments to the learned horde.
Mission Accomplished!
b’bye!
I have actually learned a lot of interesting things about various animals, epigenetics, miRNA, and the finer details of how mutations are selected and fixed within populations.
Much of that information came from links provided by JK, so I guess he is not completely useless.
I would be more inclined to believe he was honestly misinformed if he didn’t continually answer with sciency bafflegab, reworded quotes, and disdain for everyone who doesn’t see his “genius”.
Lying shill with religious delusions won’t be missed.
From Kohl, #672 :
The mutation was induced by P-element mutagenesis; in the GERMLINE OF THE FLIES, P elements mobilized and re-inserted themselves in new locations in the genome. Hence the mutation was fixed in the genome – it would have been pointless to do the experiment otherwise !
Given I was LOOKING FOR novel alleles of the asteroid gene, those that had it were selected (got to live and reproduce); all the others didn’t. There is no sane or rational reason to suspect that the variations induced by events like this would not be amenable to natural selection.
As all generations of flies in the cross were raised on EXACTLY THE SAME MEDIA, exposed to the same nutrients and there were no additions of Howling Lord Kohl’s All Mighty Pheromones. Hence, by your ‘model’, either NONE of the flies should have changed (since there were all exposed to the same conditions), or ALL of the flies should have changed (since they were all exposed to the same conditions).
Only 1 in about 5800 inherited the P-element induced MUTATION.
As P-elements integrate into the control region of genes and NOT the coding region, THERE WERE NO AMINO ACID SUBSTITUTIONS. Yet their morphology was changed – in complete and utter defiance of your malodorous ‘model’.
Because you are a posturing f*ckwit with no real understanding of any subject you’ve whined about.
But there are many, many, MANY mutant alleles of yellow produced by HERITABLE GENETIC MUTATIONS. Sane and rational folk that know real world biology can tell the difference.
That idea is much closer to your ‘model’ than acutal reality.
You’ve been bellowing for hundreds of posts now that exposure to your All Mighty Pheromones does exactly that, more or less.
Standard blowhard evasion # 11536323454236423543 :
You definitely demonstrate boundless ignorance.
BTW – whether a mutation is ‘beneficial’, ‘neutral’, or ‘deleterious’ is context dependent.
What may be a neutral in one environment may be beneficial in another.
Not all mutations affect proteins – tweaking regulatory regions can do quite a bit as well.
Not all changes to proteins are harmful – changing a valine to an alanine in a signal sequence has little effect (given that all that is neeed for a cleavable signal sequence is a sufficiently long string of hydrophobic amino acids – any of leucine, isoleucine, alanine, valine, or phenylalanine can do.).
From what fetid orifice did you pull the idea that all that is required for speciation is a single change of an amino acid in a single protein ?
Quoth the cabbagehead ‘#708
This is what’s known as a distinction without a difference.
Or do you accept that neutral mutations can occurr? In which case, if you accept that dleterious and neutral mutations can occurr, why can beneficial mutations not occurr?
@Ogvorbis #722
Sorry to hear that. Not permanent damage, I hope? So it would seem the benefit of that mutation would be culture-dependant. In a culture with a high-cholesterol diet such as the US I suppose it would be a net benefit. In a food-culture like Japan, probably not so much.
@PZ #728
I never did; he purposefully uses incomprehensible (to a layperson) jargon and refuses to define his terms because he thinks it makes him look smart. He is kind of funny though :)
Wow, I hope I’ll ever be able to catch up with this thread…
Uh, that just means he’s claiming all mutations are deleterious or neutral. No contradiction there.
Exactly: whether a mutation that has an effect in the first place is deleterious or beneficial depends on the environment. It’s so obvious, and yet Mr Kohl has never noticed.
PZ,
Yeah. Captain Cabbage has been babbling long enough now. He was funny to start with, but meh…
PZ
If you close this thread, Kohl will claim victory and probably turn up in some other thread.
I wonder how he feels about guns?
@ chigau
No problem, simply confine to Thunderdome. He can ride his hobbyhorse with a whole chorus of dancing tardigrades on unicycles.
Because you are a posturing f*ckwit with no real understanding of any subject you’ve whined about. – Prof Weird@738
I believe you have a deleterious mutation in your sentence! It surely should read:
;-)
@Kohl
I’m still waiting for you to answer my questions in post 520.
@PZ
I still want him to answer my questions in 520. They should be quite easily answerable, but he’s been dodging them for half the thread – or more. Moreover, these questions have in one form or another been present for the whole thread.
Of course, I doubt he will answer those questions, but I would like some way to leave open the opportunity for him to answer them publicly.
If “I had my way”, I’d just repeat those questions to him ad nauseum until he gave specific coherent simple answers to each one.
JK has not been banhammered, and the thread is still open. He could respond if he desired. But, as expected for a crank, he has declared victory, reported here.
@Nerd
PZ asked if he should close the thread. I was responding to that.
Neither phylogenomic nor palaeontological data support a Palaeogene origin of placental mammals.
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/10/1/20131003
Excerpt “The sudden appearance of placental fossils in the Palaeogene is consistent with an adaptive radiation of mammals assuming ecological niches left vacant by dinosaurs.”
My comment: The sudden appearance of anything in the fossil record is more consistent with nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled ecological adaptations via amino acid substitutions and chromosomal rearrangements than it is with the theory of mutation-driven evolution, which presumably takes place — if it ever does — over millions of years in which accumulated mutations cause one species to become another species.
Excerpt: “Concerned that the timescale of placental mammal evolution presented in O’Leary et al. [8] may become accepted uncritically [without experimental evidence by proponents of “evolution for dummies”], we highlight and remedy the serious shortcomings manifest in their study.”
Excerpt: “The ages of placental groups presented here, together with those from recent studies [2,3], favour an early Palaeogene (i.e. post K–Pg) scenario for the diversification of placental ordinal level crown groups [2,3]. However, they also establish the origin of Placentalia firmly within the Cretaceous, supporting Archibald and Deutchman’s [7] long fuse model and rejecting the explosive model of placental origination in the Palaeocene advocated by O’Leary et al. [8].”
My comment: First they ignored the ridiculous theory of mutation-driven evolution and attributed adaptations to ecological niche construction. This enabled them to correctly represent what is currently known about nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled ecological, social, neurogenic, and socio-cognitive niche construction, without consulting any atheistic biology teacher who still believes that mutation-initiated natural selection caused species divergence.
Obviously, this is how scientific progress will continue to be made. Eventually, given the number of reports that consistently refute the ridiculous theory, anyone who still teaches it will be recognized as the “crank” he is, and John A. Davison and James V. Kohl may be recognized for contributing the accurate representations of biologically-based cause and effect that supported the already established representations in “Physiology is rocking the foundations of evolutionary biology.” http://ep.physoc.org/content/early/2013/04/12/expphysiol.2012.071134.abstract
“Perhaps the elegant mathematics and the extraordinary reputation of the scientists involved blinded us to what now seems obvious: the organism should never have been relegated to the role of mere carrier of its genes.”
My comment: Therefore, anyone who still believes that mutated genes cause evolution, should probably start thinking about the obvious fact that ecological adaptations are nutrient-dependent and controlled by the metabolism of nutrients to the species-specific pheromones that control the physiology of reproduction in species from microbes to man.
Do you even know what the words mean. Any interpretation of the paper by you is immidately dismissed as fuckwittery. Your lying and ignorant bullshitting is legendary, which is why you are a crank.
Example of crankdom: Zero papers like this disprove RM/NS as the basic means of evolution. Anything else is a supplement for plasticity, like with Darwin’s Finches.
NO, they should start with the fact you are giving godbot/creobot testament to try to undermine Modern Synthesis. But, your “evidence” doesn’t hold water, and is invariable shown to be quotemining, a mendacious tactic used by godbots/creobots trying to argue from their non-existent authority, with the paper itself backing Modern Synthesis.
As it typical with those giving testament, you are unable to precisely define your terms, or show a detailed mechanism, to back up your fuckwitted presuppositions. All requests for clarification and documentation were ignored. But they are absolutely required for science. So what you do isn’t and never will be science. You Preach Your Gospel of lies and bullshit. But you don’t discuss science.
Modern Synthesis is absolutely untouched by your religious idea, your testament, and your lack of evidence. It is supported by a million or so scientific papers, none of which you refuted with evidence from the peer reviewed scientific journals.
You convinced nobody here you are anything but a crank PREACHING NONSENSE.
Bellowing Lord Kohl doth vomit :
‘Sudden appearance’ in this case being TENS OF MILLIONS OF YEARS.
Amino acid substitutions and chromosomal rearrangements are TYPES OF MUTATIONS.
We have decades of data showing that speciation does happen. So far, reality-based evolution explains it, while your fetid blubberings about magical pheromones explains nothing.
Adding words to another’s work to distort its meaning is dishonest.
But what else could be expected from a snake-oil salesman that has no real understanding of the subject he bellows at ?
Care to show WHERE they did that ? I read the paper – they did not reject evolution or natural selection which CAUSES and EXPLAINS those adaptations.
The Explosive Model was quick radiation of extant groups at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary; the Long Fuse Model is the groups had ancestors further back in time and diverged more at the K/T boundary.
Neither model is even close to your fetid mumblings.
LIAR !
There is not one mention of your verbal diarrhea anywhere in the paper.
You have a ridiculously bloated sense of your importance. There is more evidence for Magical Sky Pixies poofing life into existence than supporting your ‘model’ of pheromones directly altering DNA in preferred directions.
That development is complex because genes can interact with each other and the environment has been known for quite some time – AND IS NOT A THREAT TO EVOLUTION.
Never was.
For instance, the vein pattern in leaves is not genetically determined – there isn’t a genome big enough to directly specify the position of every single cell.
The pattern is formed by cell:cell interactions – which are mediated by proteins which are fully amenable to mutations of various sources. Your ‘model’ is just a flaccid attempt to make a source of selectable VARIATION the be-all and end-all of biological change using nothing more than misrepresentations, quote mines and cherry picking of other people’s hard work.
The reality-based community will stick with evidence-based evolution until something demonstrated to be better comes along.
And no, you have NOT done that.
You have not even come close.
Again, twit : whether a mutation is beneficial, neutral or deleterious is context dependent.
Context being the environs – what other proteins and other regulatory factors are present.
Adaptations and variations are ultimately due to mutations – how well a critter responds to cues from the outside world is mediated by proteins and other products of the genome. Which are susceptible to mutation-induced variation.
Show an example of a worm suddenly growing fur because it was exposed to your All Mighty Magical Pheromones and then somebody might listen to your prattle.
OMG, this thread is still alive?
Is this the new Undead Thread?
James Kohl, how do you like your cabbage?
Thanks, Tony the Queer and Prof Weird. I couldn’t resist posting the latest support for my model. And I knew I could count on you to respond with exactly the same nonsense that you’ve been providing. As for Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls, what an IDIOT! This blog wouldn’t be the same without each of you. Instead, intelligent participants might be here.
James Kohl:
You’re ever so welcome. I was trying to match my nonsense with your nonsense. Of course that’s an uphill battle on my part, but I do try.
So, how do you like your cabbage?
I know how you like your word salad.
Oh, and where the evidence to support the efficacy of the Pheromone product you sell? Not evidence for your pet ‘nutrient/pheromone’ theory, but evidence to support the claims that your Pheromone product can and will ‘enhance the appeal’ of those who use it. At 753 posts, you still haven’t supplied that.
It wasn’t support, and never will be.
Just as we could count on you providing nothing supporting your idea, being unable to read and understand a scientific paper ignorant presupposition loser.
Gee, high praise coming from a crank, unable to go off script and actually discuss the science, using the language and techniques of science, instead of random meanings and testament from delusional fools who believe in imaginary things and books of mythology/fiction. You lose loser. You preach. Until you can be wrong, you will never, ever, be a scientist.
Your definition of intelligent is the same as any preacher. Someone gullible enough to believe your bullshit. Your bullshit reeks of stupidity and ignorance. Further posts won’t change that fact delusional fool.
I wonder if striped sticks and spotted goats fit into the kohlslaw.
Kohl!
Hey!
I’m still waiting for you to answer my questions in post 520.
Only if the goats ate and/or smelled the sticks.
Rey Fox
I guess the aeffect would stronger than just looking at the sticks.
In the paper the JK keeps crowing on about, his affiliation as listed as Simtek in the section where people usally have their credentials and university affiliations listed.
The review paper which won an award for ethology calls him an independent researcher.
Tell us about Simtek, JK.
It’s been known for a very long time that placental mammals at the earliest in the lower Cretaceous, and that the radiation of placental mammals, was already well underway during the Mesozoic, took multiple tens of millions of years, and was not sudden whatsoever.
None of these findings, well known for a long period of time, in any way challenge the natural selection/random mutation model of evolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eomaia
Perhaps it is time to stop living in the past.
@761
There is no natural selection/random mutation model of evolution. There is only a ridiculous theory that was replaced by my model of nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled ecological adaptation and species divergence. Please pay attention. Dinosaurs did not mutate into birds. NOW HEAR THIS:
Zhiheng Li, Zhonghe Zhou, Min Wang, Julia A. Clarkem 2014. A new specimen of large-bodied basal entiornithine Bohaiornis from the early Cretaceous of China and the inference of feeding ecology in Mesozoic birds. Jour. Paleontology 88(1):99-108. ABSTRACT. A new specimen of Bohaiornis guoi from the Jiufotang Formation, comprising a nearly complete skeleton, sheds light on enantiornithine morphological variation and ecological specialization. The new specimen was collected from near Lamadong Village in Liaoning Province, which is the same area where the sub-adult holotype specimen was reported. It provides new information on the cranial and pectoral girdle anatomy of the species, e.g., broad nasal, strikingly robust acromion, medially curved acrocoracoid process. In contrast to the holotype, the newly referred specimen has small rounded stones in the thoracic region, that in other extinct taxa has been interpreted as direct evidence of diet. Direct evidence of diet is so far unknown in other Enantiornithes. Specifically the lack of “stomach stones” or gastroliths in enantiornithines, despite their excellent fossil record, has been proposed to be related to their insectivorous diet, as well as to their arboreal ecology. We hypothesize that cranial morphology, as well as the number and shape of the preserved stones in Bohaiornis, may be most consistent with a raptorial ecology previously unknown for Enantiornithes, and considered rare for Avialae. While rostrum shape has a strong relationship to feeding ecology in living birds, in basal avialan birds most diversity is in dental morphology, number, and distribution of the teeth.
Does anyone remember what happened with a nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled amino acid substitution in mice and a modern human population that ecologically adapted during the past ~30K years in what is now central China?
Prof. Weird claimed that
. I reported the effect on teeth, skin, hair and mammary tissue (didn’t I?). Maybe I forgot; or maybe no one noticed; or maybe everyone is still pretending to not have noticed because that biological fact made them feel like dumb asses.
Did you? You are a liar and bullshitter, incapable of reading a scientific paper. EVERYTHING YOU SAY IS BULLSHIT UNTIL YOU USE THIRD PARTY EVIDENCE, THAT WE, NOT YOU, CONSIDER OTHERWISE. And nothing you have presented back your fuckwitted presuppositional claims.
Perhaps it is time for you to mature as a scientist *SNICKER* and acknowledge the fact that you are wrong….
James Kohl:
No, you silly dressed up creationist fuckwit. It’s time for you to pony up some answers, rather than dodging, lying, or quoting yourself.
@756
I wonder what inspires comments like that from anonymous dumb asses when my expertise is on ecological adaptations via amino acid substitutions. Does anyone think that my model doesn’t apply to goats, goat hair, and spots on goats?
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/38654/title/Top-Genomes-of-2013/
Researchers sequenced DNA from the liver tissue of a female Yunnan black goat (Capra hircus), one of more than 1,000 goat breeds. They annotated more than 22,000 protein-coding and nearly 490 miRNA genes. The researchers also sequenced and compared the transcriptomes from two different types of hair follicles of an Inner Mongolia cashmere goat. They found 51 genes that were differentially expressed between the two follicles—one that makes typical goat hair and another, which is responsible for the production of soft cashmere fibers. Many of the genes that were differentially expressed coded for keratin or keratin-associated proteins, genetic understanding that could help scientists breed goats that produce softer and stronger cashmere in the future.
Gee fuckwitted idjit, if that was your “speciality” you would have hundreds of publications in the peer reviewed scientific literature on said subject. Google Scholar gives three publications by you, one a duplicate. Keep lying and bullshitting pretending authority, but those of us who are real scientists dismiss every claim you make, and look at the facts in the literature. AND YOU LOSE EACH AND EVERY TIME YOU DON’T CONTROL THE “EVIDENCE”. Which is why you are an ignorant presuppositional CRANK. That’s what the evidence says….
I think our resident troll-Kohl-trolls the net looking for discussions of pheromones (or his name):
http://mindhacks.com/2011/08/20/human-pheromones-wishful-thinking/
one commenter:
I get the feeling that this question, just like every question posed to Captain Crank (that’s you JK) went unanswered.
#767
How dare you make fun of my name!
For some hilarious “reviews” of James Kohl’s Pheromone product:
http://pherotruth.com/Thread-Scent-of-Eros-experiences-review
one more:
I’m loving the phrase “social lubricant”.
All explained by RM/NS and animal husbandry. NOTHING THERE BACKS YOUR FUCKWITTED CLAIMS. Welcome to science, where your word is toast until you can really back your claims with solid, not imagufactured (your method) EVIDENCE.
James Kohl:
You have no expertise.
James Kohl has no peers.
Who is capable of reviewing his Works?
Heeeey, I found out how pheromones work:
http://pherotruth.com/Thread-How-Pheromones-Work
I mean look at that explanation!
Still searching for evidence to support the claims of Scent of Eros, since James Kohl is a liar and bullshitter.
(oh, and that “explanation” is from James himself)
Oh, JAD. Except the response may not be very fast…..
James Kohl on peer review:
On homosexual pheromones (oh goody, he was thinking of me :) :
James Kohl, you really get around the net. I wonder when you’ll get tired of looking like a complete fool.
Being the superegotistical crank, he thinks *SNICKER* that he is being brilliant instead of mendacious and ignorant. We scientists and skeptics, who are on to his lack of “game”, know better…..
OMG
“homosexual pheromones”
What would happen if you used the wrong kind of Eros™ pheremones?‽!
What if they wore off in the middle of … you know?
I mentioned before that natural selection was being removed from “mutation-initiated natural selection” because no experimental evidence indicated that mutations could be “selected”.
“Others maintain that as random mutations arise, complexity emerges as a side effect, even without natural selection to help it along. Complexity, they say, is not purely the result of millions of years of fine-tuning through natural selection—the process that Richard Dawkins famously dubbed “the blind watchmaker.” To some extent, it just happens.” http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-surprising-origins-of-evolutionary-complexity&WT.mc_id=SA_CAT_EVO_20130722
See also: http://www.pnas.org/content/111/2/757.abstract (published yesterday)
“In this study, we introduce targeted sequencing data for studying recent human history with minimal confounding by natural selection.”
Why hasn’t anyone acknowledged the fact that natural selection has suddenly gone missing from their ridiculous theory of mutation-driven evolution? Did you all not get the memo?
Mutation-driven evolution is now a theory in which increasing organismal complexity “just happens.”
No wait, I’m beginning to understand. Your theory has become so incredibly ridiculous that even you can’t believe you were stupid enough to believe in it. But that means you must attack anyone who never did believe in your ridiculous theory.
Yes; Kohl’s the ignorant bad guy. Even with no fall back position, we’re still more intelligent than he is. At least we once believed in what everyone else believed in, and how can everyone be ignorant enough to believe in something that was never true? There must have been something true about mutation-initiated natural selection, even if no one knows what it was.
chigau:
Oh that’s easy.
You just cuddle, pull up any boring article by James Kohl, and go to sleep.
Well, I hope I’m not stepping on chigau’s toes here, but in this case what inspired it was your pseudo-Lamarckian evolutionary notion, excuse me, “model”, and how similar it is to a particular story from Genesis 30 about goat breeding via visual cues from the environment, i.e. the sticks they’re looking at while conceiving their young.
I guess I can’t expect everyone to be familiar with the reference, but it’s still pretty funny that you responded with a random citation about goat coat genetics which doesn’t really have anything to do with pheromones or nutrients.
You’re easy to mess with, you know that?
WRONG FUCKWIT. Mathematical model, showing the power of natural selection. Refute it from the peer reviewed scientific literature, or it stands as fact. YOUR OPINION IS DISMISSED BEFORE YOUR POST.
Rey Fox
Look how long it took him to catch the Kohl’s Law / coleslaw thing.
Yeah, about the dimest bulb on the block….
But Nerd, James Kohl doesn’t like the peer review process…
this is just sad now.
The guy is humorless, cannot read for comprehension, is blinded by the worst case of confirmation bias imaginable, cannot think in a logical flow, and is brick-wall uneducatable, while at the same time possessed of napoleonic delusions of granduer and a nasty siege mentality.
Plus he brings out the worst in Nerd.
No fun at all.
I’ve published a series of peer-reviewed papers, Tony the Queer. The problem is I never got the counseling that I would have needed if I had wanted to get along with academic fools.
“… has suggested that gifted students receive psychological coaching from well-trained teachers and from mentors outside the school system, to strengthen their ability to handle stress, cope with setbacks and criticism, take risks to achieve a goal, and compete or cooperate with others as needed. Such skills are often as important as brain power to achieve success. She has also proposed that the main goal of gifted education should be to produce not just experts but individuals who will make pathbreaking, field-altering discoveries and products that shake up the status quo.”
It’s too late for me. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/opinion/sunday/in-math-and-science-the-best-fend-for-themselves.html?_r=0
As others can see, pathbreaking, field-altering discoveries and products that shake up the status quo (http://www.freshpatents.com/-dt20110721ptan20110178009.php) merely offend the scientifically illiterate masses. Nevertheless, I wonder how so many of them found their way here. Is it because of the connection between ignorance and atheism?
I presume it hasn’t escaped anyone else’s notion that he repeatedly and presumably deliberately drops the last word off of Tony’s nym.
yes, I noticed.
I noticed after Chas made his first comment (thank you by the way).
So James, why don’t you use my full nym?
Why not refer to me as Tony (which is my real name, so you can’t whine about “anonymous”), as most other commenters do?
Why do you cut my nym off at queer?
Or for that matter, why do you omit the “Fucking”.
Your homophobia is not as subtle as you’d like it to be.
Kohl, your link to PNAS in 780 says the opposite of what you think. Which is standard for you.
Kohl, you need to apologize sincerely and comprehensively for your mis-use of Tony’s nym. PZ will shut you down, and you will not be able to pretend it was from jealousy of your great wisdom.
====
Kohl is running with the creationist assumption that a mutation is always a bad thing. I once read a comparison to firing a machine gun at a statue, in one creobook, and that is about his understanding. Of course, the origin of the word “mutate” ha the meaning of “change”, but to creationists, change is also a very bad thing. Kohl is not going to change, no matter what anybody here writes.
He is also being religious in thinking that natural selection must be a demon or entity or consciousness that is making deliberate choices with a goal in mind. It’s just shit that happens, and in a superstitious world, that’s not allowed.
He keeps using the same few phrases and words over and over. I say that is a sign that he doesn’t really know what he is talking about, because he can’t talk about the topic while using different words that convey the same meaning. He has a few catchphrases that he parrots, and that’s all he can do.
He seems to think that words have power, that Darwin’s words have power over us, even though wrong, and that if he can churn up the right words, we’ll start following him, instead. Which is a most religious view.
As for the few people that seem to agree with him—not the people he misquotes—in real life, well, there are a few around, and there are folks that we simply don’t want to be rude to. Kohl has been way rude here, despite his occasional thanks to PZ.
I’m living for the present and future, one where you hopefully make your position clear by answering my basic questions in post 520 one by one with clear simple answers.
Still waiting for Kohl to explain how this pheromone stuff is generalizable from “microbes to man” when an entire clad of mammals have no known functional pheromone receptors at all….
@792
One of my award-winning publications was a review that led to this comment about my by neuroanatomist and gay activist Simon LeVay.
Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why: The Science of Sexual Orientation
http://www.amazon.com/Gay-Straight-Reason-Why-Orientation/dp/0199737673/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1305424382&sr=1-1#reader_0199737673
Excerpt:”James Kohl, an independent researcher who also markets “human pheromones” to the general public, believes that pheromones may have a primary influence in setting up a person’s basic sexual orientation. Other, more consciously perceived aspects of attractiveness, such as facial appearance, are attached to a person’s basic orientation through a process of association during early postnatal life, according to Kohl.
This model is attractive in that it solves the “binding problem” of sexual attraction. By that I mean the problem of why all the different features of men or women (visual appearance and feel of face, body, and genitals; voice quality, smell; personality and behavior, etc.) attract people as a more or less coherent package representing one sex, rather than as an arbitrary collage of male and female characteristics. If all these characteristics come to be attractive because they were experienced in association with a male- or female-specific pheromone, then they will naturally go together even in the absence of complex genetically coded instructions.
Still, even in fruit flies, other sensory input besides pheromones — acoustic, tactile, and visual stimuli — play a role in sexual attraction, and sex specific responses to these stimuli appear to be innate rather than learned by association [36.]. We simply don’t know where the boundary between prespecified attraction and learned association lie in our own species, nor do we have compelling evidence for the primacy of one sense over another.”
If there’s anything my colleagues from the Society for the Scientific Society of Sexuality know about me, it’s that I am not homophobic. Most of them also know, however, about the primacy of olfaction, since there are examples of its primacy in all vertebrates and invertebrates.
Kohl (2012) concludes: “Socioaffective neuroscience and psychology may progress more quickly by keeping these apparent facts in mind: Olfaction and odor receptors provide a clear evolutionary trail that can be followed from unicellular organisms to insects to humans (Keller et al., 2007; Kohl, 2007; Villarreal, 2009; Vosshall, Wong, & Axel, 2000).”
http://www.socioaffectiveneuroscipsychol.net/index.php/snp/article/view/17338/20758
Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why: The Science of Sexual Orientation
http://www.amazon.com/Gay-Straight-Reason-Why-Orientation/dp/0199737673/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1305424382&sr=1-1#reader_0199737673
Excerpt:”This model is attractive in that it solves the “binding problem” of sexual attraction.”
In many species, sexual attraction is important to avoid extinction. Why has there been no discussion here of the model that solved the “binding problem” of sexual attraction?
It seems that the atheistic evolutionary theorists and biology teachers who are touting a ridiculous theory must avoid comparison of my model with their ridiculous theory and focus on everything else: my academic credentials, my commercial involvement, my employment history, my spirituality — anything and everything except my model.
We’re approaching the #800 blog post to this “Kohl is a crank thread” and we’ve still seen nothing but “cranks” respond to my posts, even after I linked to evidence that supports the ideas Davison (another crank per PZ Myers) had about the importance of chromosomal rearrangements, which also isn’t being discussed.
Arguably, PZ Myers will be forced to shut down this discussion thread because there has been no discussion of evolution or biology; just comments by cranks about me: the award-winning medical laboratory scientist that he told others is a crank at the same time he reminded others that Davison was a crank. Davison, as you recall, was the zoologist whose ideas about the importance of chromosomal arrangements have since been repeatedly supported by experimental evidence. If Davison is survived by family members, they should probably sue the university that continues to employ PeeZee Myers.
Instead, PeeZee will soon shut down this discussion because it has become clear that he is the crank, because both Davison and I have exposed that fact in the context of presenting facts about the basic principles of biology and levels of biological organization that PeeZer never learned.
@81 ChasCPetereson wrote:
There has been no response to my post to the SICB Facebook page. Do you think that’s because the evolution of physiology, endocrinology, morphology, biochemistry, and behavior is not important in the context of integrative and comparative biology?
———————————————————————————–
A question for the membership of SICB:
Is it acceptable to not consider ecological factors in attempts to clarify the roles of mutation and selection in the evolution of … well, anything
Article excerpt:
“…we will not consider geographical and ecological factors because of space limitation. Our primary purpose is to clarify the roles of mutation and selection in the evolution of reproductive isolation and show that the molecular basis of speciation is more complicated than generally thought at present.”
http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/3/812.abstract
—————————————————————————————————————–
Let’s cut the crap, shall we? The only way to continue touting the nonsensical theory of mutation-driven evolution is to avoid discussion of ecological epigenetics because epigenetic effects of sensory input link the epigenetic landscape to the physical landscape of DNA in the organized genomes of species from microbes to man. That biologically based cause and effect relationship does not involve mutations, because mutation perturb the stability of the genome, which is how they prevent ecological adaptations!
http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/3/812.abstract
“…population geneticists such as Wright (1941) showed that the probability of fixation of these chromosomal rearrangements is so low that they would not be easily established in the population unless population size is very small (say less than 10). For this reason, the idea that new species are formed by chromosomal rearrangements was almost abandoned.”
Almost abandoned? PZ Myers called Davison a “crank” for encouraging discussion of that idea, which has since been fully supported by experimental evidence. Why does an atheistic biology teacher want others to think that someone else is a crank because that person doesn’t agree with the ridiculous idea of mutation-driven evolution?
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/01/08/1317165111.abstract
“The evolution of behavior relies on changes at the level of the genome; yet the ability to attribute a behavioral change to a specific, naturally occurring genetic change is rare in vertebrates. In the white-throated sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis), a chromosomal polymorphism (ZAL2/2m) is known to segregate with a behavioral phenotype. Individuals with the ZAL2m haplotype engage in more territorial aggression and less parental behavior than individuals without it. These behaviors are thought to be mediated by sensitivity to sex steroids, and the chromosomal rearrangement underlying the polymorphism has captured a prime candidate gene: estrogen receptor 1 (ESR1), which encodes estrogen receptor α (ERα). We therefore hypothesized that the behavioral effects of the ZAL2m rearrangement are mediated by polymorphism in ESR1. We report here that (i) the ESR1 promoter region contains fixed polymorphisms distinguishing the ZAL2m and ZAL2 alleles; (ii); those polymorphisms regulate transcription efficiency in vitro and therefore potentially do the same in vivo (iii); the local expression of ERα in the brain depends strongly on genotype in a free-living population; and (iv) ERα expression in the medial amygdala and medial preoptic area may fully mediate the effects of genotype on territorial aggression and parenting, respectively. Thus, our study provides a rare glimpse of how a chromosomal polymorphism has affected the brain and social behavior in a vertebrate. Our results suggest that in this species, differentiation of ESR1 has played a causal role in the evolution of phenotypes with alternative life-history strategies.”
This kohlslaw smells funny. I think it’s gone off.
The Cabbage Head is actually a creationist chat bot. Or at least indistinguishable from one. Someone unplug it please? It’s as boring as fuck.
Who gives a shit what somebody unable to do science concludes. IT IS NOTHING BUT LIES AND BULLSHIT.
Example:
Real working scientists, not cranks, have responded to your posts. They criticized your crank ideas, they criticize your lack of evidence, your quotemining decptions, and your “evidence” that proves that which you are railing against. YOU ARE THE CRANK.
Gee, why don’t you try to sue PZ? Remember though, if PZ tells the truth, it isn’t libel, and you will be counter sued and lose. Look hard in the mirror egotist crank.
The only way for you to continue your screed is to refute the million or so papers found in the peer reviewed scientific literature, one by one, that back Modern Synthesis and genomics. They are only refuted by more peer reviewed scientific papers. Which you aren’t doing. Therefore your claims are dismissed as CRANKDOM.
A CRANK is a delusional fool like yourself who believes in imaginary creators and books of mythology being true. A CRANK refuses, like you to acknowledge the level of SCIENTIFIC evidence against their idea. A CRANK yells at those who show him to be a STUPID PRESUPPOSITIOINAL CRANK. A CRANK can’t evidence their ideas. James Kohl, you are a CRANK.
James Kohl is still here?! Wow. Well, he is persistent, I’ll give him that. Also, his complete lack of any kind of reading comprehension is kind of impressive, in a bizarre sort of way.
Oy, Kohl, will you please get this through that thick skull of yours: all those scientific papers you think support your weird claims actually say the opposite of what you think they say. I don’t even know how it’s possible, but you’ve got everything – and I do mean everything – completely backwards. Seriously, learn to fucking read, crank.
I think we’ve achieved sauerkraut. And shitty sauerkraut at that.
Kohl, you really do have a reading problem. Maybe it is that you read too fast, and just skim off a few words. Your comprehension is very, very poor.
Most of the excerpts you paste in here are substantially the opposite of what you think they are. Often, they mention an effect, and you think it is a cause. I would give examples, but I know you won’t comprehend.
Kohl, it is a shame you didn’t get the counseling you needed earlier in your life. You can get counseling now, and you really should. I am not a counselor, but my wife is one (I work with the learning-disabled) and I know enough to say that by hanging out here you are reinforcing your problems. You need to change behaviors, or get help working through your problems.
You freely admit that there are cranks in the scientific world, but you refuse to consider that you might be one. You need help looking at yourself. Go get help.
Denis Noble, president of the International Union of Physiological Sciences, did that. His “global” approach was summarized in this sentence: “If you learnt evolutionary biology and genetics a decade or more ago you need to be aware that those debates have moved on very considerably, as has the experimental and field work on which they are based.” — in Neo-Darwinism, the Modern Synthesis and selfish genes: are they of use in physiology? http://jp.physoc.org/content/589/5/1007.abstract
In his 2013 presidential address he said “…all the central assumptions of the Modern Synthesis
(often also called Neo-Darwinism) have been disproven.” http://ep.physoc.org/content/early/2013/04/12/expphysiol.2012.071134.abstract
He is too polite to come here and argue, and PZ Myers would not dare invite him to comment by referring to Noble as a crank. But Myers has done that indirectly by portraying me and Davison as “cranks” so that anonymous fools and identifiable idiots could join him in supporting the ridiculous theory and atheistic beliefs that run rampant among the scientifically under informed.
More than 800 posts now attest to the ignorance here, and many of them specifically attest to your ignorance. Overall, however, as I’ve said and inferred before, this is the most ignorant group of people I have ever encountered.
Now that even PZ must realize that, I continue to be amazed that he has not shut this discussion down. The quality of the comments that come from people like you, who seem to come out of the woodwork as the discussion progresses, is so low and largely repetitive, that you should consider starting your own blog. If PZ is fired, as he obviously should have been several years ago, that would be great! Anyone who wanted to know about “evolution for dummies” could quickly find the most ignorant people who have ever lived — after PeeZer’s blog life comes to its inevitable end.
Fixed that for your incomprehensible fuckwitted idjit. Your ignorance is almost as massive as your overblown ego.
Gee, maybe PZ should invite him so he can call you a crank too. Real scientists don’t have a problem here. You do, because you pretend to be sciency, but you are presuppositonal. And you haven’t fact-checked your presuppositions, and they are fallacious.
@791 Tony the QUEER asked
I don’t know what a queer shoop is, and do not address people with ridiculous nyms by their ridiculous nyms when I don’t know what their nyms mean, especially when the nyms incorporate “fucking.” Have you considered using the simplifie nym Tony the QUEER, so that everyone here would know who they were addressing?
Do you know if the OM in “Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls” has any meaning, or if the nym might make sense to anyone other than the idiot who uses it? If “Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls” and Tony! The Fucking Queer Shoop! mated and produced a red-headed male, would he be called Dancing Tony’s Redheaded Nerd, or the Fucking Queer Nerd of Tony and the Dancing Redhead.
Okay, so now it’s not kohlslaw, but flat-out homophobic slurs.
Would someone please activate the Squid-Signal?
James Kohl:
Please take your bigoted homophobic arse with you and get the fuck out of here.
James Kohl #809
Now that can get you banned.
@808. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
Do you seriously think that the man who said the two things I told you he said (below) would call me a crank?
“If you learnt evolutionary biology and genetics a decade or more ago you need to be aware that those debates have moved on very considerably, as has the experimental and field work on which they are based.” — in Neo-Darwinism, the Modern Synthesis and selfish genes: are they of use in physiology? http://jp.physoc.org/content/589/5/1007.abstract
In his 2013 presidential address he said “…all the central assumptions of the Modern Synthesis
(often also called Neo-Darwinism) have been disproven.” http://ep.physoc.org/content/early/2013/04/12/expphysiol.2012.071134.abstract
I don’t think it could be much clearer that he is calling all of you cranks, and that after more than 4000 downloads of his presidential address (linked below), many people now agree with him (that you are the cranks).
http://www.voicesfromoxford.org/video/evolution-and-physiology-a-new-synthesis/355
YES. Your quotes are meaningless, and context is important. Arguments from false authority (yours) are always dismissed as fuckwittery, homophobic CRANK.
Now, see, Kohl, there you do it again. You answer the obvious and true statement that you need to refute each of millions of papers, with your claim that some other guy said one thing that effectively did so. But he didn’t.
Denis Noble wasn’t trying to refute the rest of science, he was trying to drag physiology back to reality. “Achieving this goal could also be a route through which physiology can reconnect with developmental and evolutionary biology. ”
You take someone you regard as an authority, misunderstand them completely, and plop their words in here like a steaming heap of mumbo-jumbo. Over and over and over.
Kohl, listen to me. The people here do not care about authority. Richard Dawkins came here once, made some lofty pronouncement, and got his ass kicked. He had not made a good case. You do not make a good case.
Part of the reason for the anonymity here is so that assertions stand on their own merits. An argument must be valid, no matter who makes it. The science must be sound.
But you keep saying that the impressively-titled people say we are wrong, as if that is all it takes to make a case. You fundamentally misunderstand this blog, and all of science. Then, when we look at your people, they aren’t very impressive, and they weren’t saying what you said they were.
Kohl, you keep coming up wrong, and you keep coming back, and you keep cranking away.
You need to change.
From Rational Wiki:
Mere stupidity I will tolerate, but I really don’t need to give a platform to homophobes. Kohl has been banned.
Kohl, Nerd’s nym makes perfect sense, and can easily be copied and pasted, or shortened.
Tony’s nym …..
Kohl, you are so stupidly offensive that it is pointless to try to communicate with you. Apologize and go away.
Stupidly offensive AND offensively stupid!
b’bye
Weird how nearly every time you scratch a crank, you find a bigot underneath. Must be part of that crank magnetism.
Kohl, you never picked up your Order of the Brassica, First Class.
Goodbye, and good riddance.