Zebra stripes part 4

[jillery]

Apparently Jerry Coyne has a fetish for equines in striped pajamas.
This is his 4th article on the topic:

<https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/01/18/the-secret-of-zebra-stripes-solved-or-so-scientists-say/>

<http://tinyurl.com/hsvzpez>

Short version: stripes help keep away biting flies.

I hope this article satisfies Larry Moran's lust for disproving the
null hypothesis, that zebra stripes are due to drift.
--
This space is intentionally not blank.

[RSNorman]

On Wed, 18 Jan 2017 23:22:03 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
wrote:

The biting fly hypothesis has been around for almost three years now.
This is nothing new, although the book about it ("Zebra Stripes" by
Tim Caro) is.

My question, though, is where Larry Moran ever wrote that zebra
stripes are due to drift. I did very recently start a thread,
"Against adaptationism in evolution" which cited a paper that argued
that the null hypothesis for any discussion of evolution of genomes
should be neutral evolution or drift. I also argued that discussing
evolution of phenotypes in living, breathing organisms was something
quite different. Still, drift as a null hypothesis for everything can
be very useful. It is just that I can't believe anybody, and that
includes Larry Moran, would say seriously that fully formed, clearly
demarcated, zebra stripes are due to drift even if some early mottled
sort-of stripey coloration pattern was indeed due to drift.

[eridanus]

I suppose it is a damn question we have not idea how did occur.
eri

[jillery]

Real skeptics do experiments, in order to find out. It's called
science. You might have heard of it.

[jillery]

On Wed, 18 Jan 2017 21:58:27 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>
wrote:

>On Wed, 18 Jan 2017 23:22:03 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>Apparently Jerry Coyne has a fetish for equines in striped pajamas.
>>This is his 4th article on the topic:
>>
>><https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/01/18/the-secret-of-zebra-stripes-solved-or-so-scientists-say/>
>>
>><http://tinyurl.com/hsvzpez>
>>
>>Short version: stripes help keep away biting flies.
>>
>>I hope this article satisfies Larry Moran's lust for disproving the
>>null hypothesis, that zebra stripes are due to drift.
>
>The biting fly hypothesis has been around for almost three years now.
>This is nothing new, although the book about it ("Zebra Stripes" by
>Tim Caro) is.

That's what the article claims is new.

>My question, though, is where Larry Moran ever wrote that zebra
>stripes are due to drift. I did very recently start a thread,
>"Against adaptationism in evolution" which cited a paper that argued
>that the null hypothesis for any discussion of evolution of genomes
>should be neutral evolution or drift. I also argued that discussing
>evolution of phenotypes in living, breathing organisms was something
>quite different. Still, drift as a null hypothesis for everything can
>be very useful. It is just that I can't believe anybody, and that
>includes Larry Moran, would say seriously that fully formed, clearly
>demarcated, zebra stripes are due to drift even if some early mottled
>sort-of stripey coloration pattern was indeed due to drift.

You posted yet another stupid manufactured argument. Nowhere did I
write or imply:

"anybody, and that includes Larry Moran, would say seriously that

fully formed, clearly demarcated, zebra stripes are due to drift".

Instead, I wrote that Moran said as you say you posted:

"that argued that the null hypothesis for any discussion of evolution
of genomes should be neutral evolution or drift."

So your "question" is not even wrong. Based on your past posts, the
facts won't stop you from building mountains from your imaginary
molehills.

If you want me to take your replies seriously, focus on the point you
claim you made, and the point I said Larry made, that drift needs to
be treated as the null hypothesis for zebra stripes. For example, you
could explain how to treat drift as the null hypothesis for zebra
stripes. Alternately, you could cite where Moran explained how he
treated drift as the null hypothesis for zebra stripes. No, it
doesn't count to just claim that you or he already did.

Of course, you have replied to me with stupid manufactured arguments
almost continuously for years now. So don't be insulted that I have
no expectation you want me to take your replies seriously.

[RSNorman]

On Thu, 19 Jan 2017 05:32:12 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>

wrote:

>On Wed, 18 Jan 2017 21:58:27 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>
>wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 18 Jan 2017 23:22:03 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>Apparently Jerry Coyne has a fetish for equines in striped pajamas.
>>>This is his 4th article on the topic:
>>>
>>><https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/01/18/the-secret-of-zebra-stripes-solved-or-so-scientists-say/>
>>>
>>><http://tinyurl.com/hsvzpez>
>>>
>>>Short version: stripes help keep away biting flies.
>>>
>>>I hope this article satisfies Larry Moran's lust for disproving the
>>>null hypothesis, that zebra stripes are due to drift.
>>
>>The biting fly hypothesis has been around for almost three years now.
>>This is nothing new, although the book about it ("Zebra Stripes" by
>>Tim Caro) is.
>
>
>That's what the article claims is new.
>

If you read Coyne's blog you would know that the claim is not new. Tim
Caro, the author of the new book under discussion, published a paper
on April 1, 2014 (almost three years, now) titled "The function of
zebra stripes" that made the conclusion which Caro repeated in his new
book. http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms4535

Your hiding behind your usual excuse of "manufactured argument"
doesn't work. It never has. Nor does your seeming hysterical rant
about it here.

You wrote "I hope this article satisfies Larry Moran's lust for

disproving the null hypothesis, that zebra stripes are due to drift."

It appears (of course I may be wrong about this) that you wrote that
Larry Moran had a null hypothesis that zebra stripes are due to drift.
The reason I say that is because it is classic scientific procedure to
present evidence for something like an adaptive role for zebra stripes
in the form of rejecting the null hypothesis that there is no adaptive
role. So if Larry Moran's "lust" was simply for disproving null
hypotheses in general, then that just shows he is following standard
scientific practice. Otherwise I have absolutely no idea what Larry
Moran "lusts" after or why you would make such a ludicrous statement
about him with no introduction or explanation.

Perhaps you would like to indicate now just why you brought Larry
Moran into the subject preferably basing it on something Larry
actually wrote about zebra stripes or null hypotheses.

I can manufacture more arguments if you wish. However I claim that
what I manufacture is actually both pertinent and cogent.

[Bill]

Zebras have stripes because they're zebras.

Bill

[Don Cates]

Is there any convincing evidence that it is *not* due to drift? Assume
that the conclusions in the paper about the flies and stripes is true,
where is the evidence that this has an influence on reproductive
success? That step seems to be missing from most (all?) of the zebra
stripe adaptive explanations.

--
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)

[jillery]

On Thu, 19 Jan 2017 10:59:31 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>

wrote:

>On Thu, 19 Jan 2017 05:32:12 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 18 Jan 2017 21:58:27 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>On Wed, 18 Jan 2017 23:22:03 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>Apparently Jerry Coyne has a fetish for equines in striped pajamas.
>>>>This is his 4th article on the topic:
>>>>
>>>><https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/01/18/the-secret-of-zebra-stripes-solved-or-so-scientists-say/>
>>>>
>>>><http://tinyurl.com/hsvzpez>
>>>>
>>>>Short version: stripes help keep away biting flies.
>>>>
>>>>I hope this article satisfies Larry Moran's lust for disproving the
>>>>null hypothesis, that zebra stripes are due to drift.
>>>
>>>The biting fly hypothesis has been around for almost three years now.
>>>This is nothing new, although the book about it ("Zebra Stripes" by
>>>Tim Caro) is.
>>
>>
>>That's what the article claims is new.
>>
>
>If you read Coyne's blog you would know that the claim is not new. Tim
>Caro, the author of the new book under discussion, published a paper
>on April 1, 2014 (almost three years, now) titled "The function of
>zebra stripes" that made the conclusion which Caro repeated in his new
>book. http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms4535

You just contradicted yourself "The claim" above is that the book
is new, which you pointlessly repeated previously. Let me know when
you figured out which way you finally decide to argue this stupid
irrelevant point.

Your hysterical rants disqualify you from complaining about my
allegedly hysterical rants.

>You wrote "I hope this article satisfies Larry Moran's lust for
>disproving the null hypothesis, that zebra stripes are due to drift."

Which is not what you previously said I wrote, which I previously
pointed out and corrected, which you simply ignored. This is one way
to identify your stupid manufactured arguments.

>It appears (of course I may be wrong about this) that you wrote that
>Larry Moran had a null hypothesis that zebra stripes are due to drift.
>The reason I say that is because it is classic scientific procedure to
>present evidence for something like an adaptive role for zebra stripes
>in the form of rejecting the null hypothesis that there is no adaptive
>role. So if Larry Moran's "lust" was simply for disproving null
>hypotheses in general, then that just shows he is following standard
>scientific practice. Otherwise I have absolutely no idea what Larry
>Moran "lusts" after or why you would make such a ludicrous statement
>about him with no introduction or explanation.
>
>Perhaps you would like to indicate now just why you brought Larry
>Moran into the subject preferably basing it on something Larry
>actually wrote about zebra stripes or null hypotheses.
>
>I can manufacture more arguments if you wish. However I claim that
>what I manufacture is actually both pertinent and cogent.

Your claim above would be more convincing if you actually explained
how to treat drift as the null hypothesis for zebra stripes. My (lack
of) expectations about your posts remain unchanged.

[jillery]

What do you think such evidence should look like?

>Assume
>that the conclusions in the paper about the flies and stripes is true,
>where is the evidence that this has an influence on reproductive
>success? That step seems to be missing from most (all?) of the zebra
>stripe adaptive explanations.

My impression is biting flies carry parasitic diseases, suck
significant fractions of animals' blood volume, and distract animals
to the point they can't eat. I would be surprised if biting flies
didn't also reduce reproductive success.

The cited book is new, so my guess is you haven't read it. I haven't
either, so don't you think it would be wise for neither of us to
speculate about what is or isn't in it?

[RSNorman]

On Thu, 19 Jan 2017 18:43:50 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Don Cates' comment is exactly when demonstrating that some
characteristic is adaptive is so difficult. Your comments about the
effect that biting flies has certainly does sound reasonable so that
the adaptive hypothesis has tremendous credibility. So much so that
this kind of "arm-waving" argument is generally accepted as "as good
as we can do." However your surprise or lack thereof is not the kind
of thing that produces definitive results.

No, I have not read the book. But I have read Tim Caro's published
papers and I have noted several seemingly rather thorough descriptions
of the major comments in the book. Had Caro actually demonstrated
that striped zebras outreproduce unstriped ones over a number of
generations (or even over one generation) then I believe it would
certainly have been mentioned in those book reviews, not to mention it
would certainly have been a publication of major importance.

[RSNorman]

On Thu, 19 Jan 2017 18:42:43 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>

Sorry about the incomplete post.

If you actually read what I wrote you would find out that all I
claimed was that the biting fly hypothesis is not new and that I
really did claim that the book is new. Where is the contradiction?

You used a pronoun without antecedent and it is anybody's guess just
what your "that" refers to.

My claim is perfectly convincing as to why in the world you even
brought up Larry Moran, let alone what he lusts after. Please explain
that. No sidetracking.

Are you so ignorant of both the scientific process and the nature of
neutral evolution/drift contra adaptiveness as to require a statement
on how to formulate a null hypothesis?

[jillery]

On Thu, 19 Jan 2017 17:16:43 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>

If you actually understood what you read you would recognize the
contradiction for yourself, which I copy below to accommodate your
convenient amnesia:

****************************************************
YOU: This is nothing new, although the book about it ("Zebra Stripes"
by Tim Caro) is.

ME: That's what the article claims is new.

YOU: If you read Coyne's blog you would know that the claim is not
new.

****************************************************
QED

>You used a pronoun without antecedent and it is anybody's guess just
>what your "that" refers to.

Your "this" disqualifies you from complaing about my "that".

Of course, people less interested in making mountains out of imaginary
molehills would recognize that my "that" refers to what Coyne's
article claims is new, which is exactly what I wrote, as proved in the
quoted text.

What sidetracking? What are you ranting about? What am I supposed to
explain? Is this another pedantic complaint about my choice of words?
Do you think I need your permission to mention Larry Moran? Why does
any of this even matter so much to you? Have you appointed yourself
assistant noisemaker?

Apparently you lost interest in your mangled misrepresentation of what
you originally claimed I wrote, which I copy below to accommodate your
convenient amnesia:

***********************************************

It is just that I can't believe anybody, and that includes Larry
Moran, would say seriously that fully formed, clearly
demarcated, zebra stripes are due to drift even if some early mottled
sort-of stripey coloration pattern was indeed due to drift.

**********************************************

>Are you so ignorant of both the scientific process and the nature of
>neutral evolution/drift contra adaptiveness as to require a statement
>on how to formulate a null hypothesis?

There it is, the finishing touch to your Ignoratio elenchi.

[jillery]

On Thu, 19 Jan 2017 17:07:24 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>

Fair enough. See how coherent you are when you drop your manufactured
arguments?

[Don Cates]

[piggybacking]

Evidence of differential reproductive success linked to the genetically
determined phenotype.

>>
>>> Assume
>>> that the conclusions in the paper about the flies and stripes is true,
>>> where is the evidence that this has an influence on reproductive
>>> success? That step seems to be missing from most (all?) of the zebra
>>> stripe adaptive explanations.
>>
>>
>> My impression is biting flies carry parasitic diseases, suck
>> significant fractions of animals' blood volume, and distract animals
>> to the point they can't eat. I would be surprised if biting flies
>> didn't also reduce reproductive success.
>>

And yet there are many other herding herbivores that inhabit the same
environment as zebras, often adjacent to or even mingled with them that
seem to be doing quite well. Some even have faint striping. Unless it
can be shown that the effects you describe are particularly a problem
for equids as opposed to these other animals, I don't find the argument
compelling.

>> The cited book is new, so my guess is you haven't read it. I haven't
>> either, so don't you think it would be wise for neither of us to
>> speculate about what is or isn't in it?
>
> Don Cates' comment is exactly when demonstrating that some
> characteristic is adaptive is so difficult. Your comments about the
> effect that biting flies has certainly does sound reasonable so that
> the adaptive hypothesis has tremendous credibility. So much so that
> this kind of "arm-waving" argument is generally accepted as "as good
> as we can do." However your surprise or lack thereof is not the kind
> of thing that produces definitive results.
>
> No, I have not read the book. But I have read Tim Caro's published
> papers and I have noted several seemingly rather thorough descriptions
> of the major comments in the book. Had Caro actually demonstrated
> that striped zebras outreproduce unstriped ones over a number of
> generations (or even over one generation) then I believe it would
> certainly have been mentioned in those book reviews, not to mention it
> would certainly have been a publication of major importance.
>

I understand that strong evidence for adaptation is very difficult to
obtain in this case (and many others) and so some kind of proxy may be
the best we can do. But absent knowing how biting flies affect zebra
reproductive success, I don't think this proxy is a strong as it seems
to some people. The idea that such a striking colouration *must* be
adaptive has meant that the question being asked is '*why* (what
adaptive pressure) does the zebra have stripes' rather that 'are the
zebras' stripes adaptive'.

[jillery]

On Fri, 20 Jan 2017 00:35:16 -0600, Don Cates

Ok.

>>>> Assume
>>>> that the conclusions in the paper about the flies and stripes is true,
>>>> where is the evidence that this has an influence on reproductive
>>>> success? That step seems to be missing from most (all?) of the zebra
>>>> stripe adaptive explanations.
>>>
>>>
>>> My impression is biting flies carry parasitic diseases, suck
>>> significant fractions of animals' blood volume, and distract animals
>>> to the point they can't eat. I would be surprised if biting flies
>>> didn't also reduce reproductive success.
>>>
>
>And yet there are many other herding herbivores that inhabit the same
>environment as zebras, often adjacent to or even mingled with them that
>seem to be doing quite well. Some even have faint striping. Unless it
>can be shown that the effects you describe are particularly a problem
>for equids as opposed to these other animals, I don't find the argument
>compelling.

All species necessarily live and die with the genes their ancestors
and random chance deal them. Mutations don't appear just because
they're beneficial, that's a Creationist fantasy. Further, different
species use different strategies in coping with the environment. So
it's invalid to conclude that the lack of other species with stripes
should be a compelling point.

According to my cited article, the assumption that zebra stripes are
adaptive has led to the discovery of real phenomena, ex. that stripes
aid in cooling in certain environments; ex. that some biting flies
avoid landing on striped regions. So even if that assumption is
factually incorrect, it has been useful.

OTOH I am unaware of any new discoveries based on the assumption that
zebra stripes are not adaptive, or more specifically, that zebra
stripes are but an artifact of some other process, which itself may or
may not be adaptive.

The larger debate here is not about making assumptions as such; all
investigative inquiry necessarily starts from one or more assumptions.
Instead, the larger debate has been framed to be about *which*
assumption is to have that privileged epistemologically default
position, the null hypothesis, the one which is assumed true until
evidence demonstrates otherwise.

IIUC some parties, whom I won't specify here lest I again
unintentionally trod on overly sensitive toes, argue that many, or
even most, biologists use as a null hypothesis that morphological
features are adaptive. These parties argue that adaptation is an
incorrect null hypothesis, that a more correct null hypothesis is
genetic drift, that morphological features have no particular adaptive
advantage.

I recognize these argument are relevant to the larger debate. I claim
no particular expertise to have an informed opinion about any of these
arguments. OTOH nothing I have written or implied in this topic
relies on any opinions about these arguments. OTGH I am aware of
these arguments and I am interested in them. I claim sufficient
expertise to support my opinion that discussion which avoids injecting
meaningless noise, irrelevant asides, and personal insults, would
better help in creating informed opinions. Apparently some posters
disagree about that, too.

[RSNorman]

On Thu, 19 Jan 2017 23:48:37 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>

So you still will not explain why you brought up the subject of Larry
Moran's lusts nor explain how they might apply to zebra stripes?

[Pro Plyd]

Chasing down some of the links in that link of yours...


http://jeb.biologists.org/content/215/5/736
Polarotactic tabanids find striped patterns with brightness and/or
polarization modulation least attractive: an advantage of zebra stripes

Here, we present the first experimentally supported explanation for the
underlying mechanism for one of the possible advantages of zebra stripes.
The reduced attractiveness to tabanids (and more generally of other biting
insects, e.g. tsetse flies and mosquitoes) alone might not explain the
striped coat pattern in zebras, but we demonstrate here its important role
in parasite avoidance.


Other animals there seem to survive well enough without striping. This
looks more a happy consequence.

Perhaps, like North American antelopes still having the speed to outrace
cheetahs that are no longer there, the striping was for something that
likewise is no longer there.

[jillery]

On Fri, 20 Jan 2017 09:45:56 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>
wrote:


<mercy snip all points ignored by rnorman>

>So you still will not explain why you brought up the subject of Larry
>Moran's lusts nor explain how they might apply to zebra stripes?

So you will still will not explain what your interest is in yammering
about irrelevant issues?

[jillery]

On Fri, 20 Jan 2017 21:52:13 -0700, Pro Plyd <inv...@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

>jillery wrote:
>> Apparently Jerry Coyne has a fetish for equines in striped pajamas.
>> This is his 4th article on the topic:
>>
>> <https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/01/18/the-secret-of-zebra-stripes-solved-or-so-scientists-say/>
>>
>> <http://tinyurl.com/hsvzpez>
>>
>> Short version: stripes help keep away biting flies.
>>
>> I hope this article satisfies Larry Moran's lust for disproving the
>> null hypothesis, that zebra stripes are due to drift.
>
>Chasing down some of the links in that link of yours...
>
>
>http://jeb.biologists.org/content/215/5/736
>Polarotactic tabanids find striped patterns with brightness and/or
>polarization modulation least attractive: an advantage of zebra stripes
>
>Here, we present the first experimentally supported explanation for the
>underlying mechanism for one of the possible advantages of zebra stripes.
>The reduced attractiveness to tabanids (and more generally of other biting
>insects, e.g. tsetse flies and mosquitoes) alone might not explain the
>striped coat pattern in zebras, but we demonstrate here its important role
>in parasite avoidance.

Given Coyne's habit of linking relevant citations to his articles,
that was a very short chase.

Your cited passage shows the authors acknowledge there are likely
other factors to the existence of zebra stripes. Is that your point?
My impression is that's the case for all adaptations. I don't see
anybody suggesting zebra stripes arose from a single cause, or that
stripes are the only strategy against biting flies.

>Other animals there seem to survive well enough without striping. This
>looks more a happy consequence.

Apparently this is a common fallacy, that the appearance of a feature
in one species necessarily requires its appearance in other species.
As I pointed out elsetopic, the existence of such features depend on
mutations, which don't appear ex nihilo simply because they might be
beneficial. Warthogs survive without being fleet of foot, and gazelle
survive without sharp tusks.

>Perhaps, like North American antelopes still having the speed to outrace
>cheetahs that are no longer there, the striping was for something that
>likewise is no longer there.

I agree that's another possibility, one which also represents an
adaptive advantage of zebra stripes.

[Jonathan]

Tell me, which zebra stripe comes first?
Black or white? How many stripes do they
have and why not horizontal?

(sarcasm alert~)

The whole natural world stands in the balance
to such burning questions.

But it's lousy science. The reason we want to know
has more to do with the fact zebra stripes are
pretty to look at, they are unusual and visually
striking. Reasons having more to do with a child
wanting to know why his new toy is so shiny.

In the 'jungle' our /instinct/ are to notice
the threats, what moves quickly, what changes
or what stands out - the differences.

Not the common or little changing background.

Good science understands that the secrets to
nature are not found in the differences, but
in what all have in...common.

It's the forest, not the one-off changes
that provide the secrets to nature.

This zebra stripe fixation is our /instincts/
talking, not reason. And that's bad science.



Jonathan


s

[Andre G. Isaak]

In article <df6dnYgYJoi5yB7F...@giganews.com>,

Jonathan <wr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Tell me, which zebra stripe comes first?
> Black or white? How many stripes do they
> have and why not horizontal?

Have you ever looked at a zebra? They do in fact have horizontal stripes.

Andre

--
To email remove 'invalid' & replace 'gm' with well known Google mail service.

[RSNorman]

On Sat, 21 Jan 2017 03:44:25 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On Fri, 20 Jan 2017 09:45:56 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>
>wrote:
>
>
><mercy snip all points ignored by rnorman>
>
>
>>So you still will not explain why you brought up the subject of Larry
>>Moran's lusts nor explain how they might apply to zebra stripes?
>
>
>So you will still will not explain what your interest is in yammering
>about irrelevant issues?

You are the one who raised the subject of Larry Moran's lusts in the
context of zebra stripes in your initial post on this thread. Such a
post is usually taken to set the subject matter considered "on topic."
In fact you seemed to think that Larry Moran's lust so important that
it was the subject of your concluding paragraph constituting, by word
count not counting url's, almost 1/2 of your post.

So why do you now claim the issue is irrelevant? It is your subject
so explain what you mean by it.

[Burkhard]

Andre G. Isaak wrote:
> In article <df6dnYgYJoi5yB7F...@giganews.com>,
> Jonathan <wr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Tell me, which zebra stripe comes first?
>> Black or white? How many stripes do they
>> have and why not horizontal?
>
> Have you ever looked at a zebra? They do in fact have horizontal stripes.
>
> Andre
>

JOnathan doesn't have to do something as redcutionistically primitive as
looking at a zebra to KNOW how zebras are striped, the answer follows
easily form complexity theory. And if that answer is vertical, well,
just you see and wait until the unstable chaotic system turns them 90
degree in the blink of an eye sometime soon.

[RSNorman]

This post demonstrates how little you know about anything, especially
about emergence and complexity theory.

First, as Andre Isaak has already pointed out, zebras stripes indeed
run horizontally among other directions.

More important, were you at all aware of complexity theory and
emergence, you would quickly point out that the whole issue of general
patterning in animals was first treated by Alan Turing in 1952 in his
paper "The chemical basis of morphogenesis."
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/237/641/37

Here is a paper on exactly the subject you like, how some fundamental
mathematical development has connections to many fields of research:
"Forging patterns and making waves from biology to geology"
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/370/1666/20140218

Here is a nice summary of the mathematics of reaction diffusion and
its applicability to animal patterns, derived from the work on
mathematical biology of James Murray
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/murray.htm

That stripes are an "emergent property" resulting from the "chaotic"
dynamics of diffusion is well illustrated by the fact that the stripe
patterns is unique to each individual (according to Wikipedia), much
like fingerprints. The dynamics of the mathematical equations produce
stripes but slightly different initial and boundary conditions produce
variations in the pattern.

[jillery]

On Sat, 21 Jan 2017 07:33:06 -0500, Jonathan <wr...@gmail.com> wrote:

Your question above is a non sequitur, in a lame attempt to show the
issues above are trivial if not irrelevant. In fact, all you show is
that your understanding is irrelevant.

>(sarcasm alert~)
>
>The whole natural world stands in the balance
>to such burning questions.
>
>But it's lousy science. The reason we want to know
>has more to do with the fact zebra stripes are
>pretty to look at, they are unusual and visually
>striking. Reasons having more to do with a child
>wanting to know why his new toy is so shiny.
>
>In the 'jungle' our /instinct/ are to notice
>the threats, what moves quickly, what changes
>or what stands out - the differences.
>
>Not the common or little changing background.
>
>Good science understands that the secrets to
>nature are not found in the differences, but
>in what all have in...common.
>
>It's the forest, not the one-off changes
>that provide the secrets to nature.
>
>This zebra stripe fixation is our /instincts/
>talking, not reason. And that's bad science.
>
>
>
>Jonathan

Good science deals with what's common *and* what's different. Good
science eliminates ad hoc commonalities, ex. earth, air, fire, water;
ex. created kinds. Good science explains how what appears different
are just different aspects of the same thing, ex. motion on Earth vs
motion in the heavens; ex. living forces vs inanimate forces. Good
science reduces apparent differences, to distill from them what they
really have in common, ex. standard model of particle physics.

My impression is you ignore the differences because they're too
complex for you to understand. Throwing away information you don't
like is not a way to do good science.

[jillery]

On Sat, 21 Jan 2017 10:49:28 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>
wrote:

>On Sat, 21 Jan 2017 03:44:25 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 20 Jan 2017 09:45:56 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>><mercy snip all points ignored by rnorman>
>>
>>
>>>So you still will not explain why you brought up the subject of Larry
>>>Moran's lusts nor explain how they might apply to zebra stripes?
>>
>>
>>So you will still will not explain what your interest is in yammering
>>about irrelevant issues?
>
>You are the one who raised the subject of Larry Moran's lusts in the
>context of zebra stripes in your initial post on this thread.

Of course, I did no such thing. Rather it is you who first insisted
the above is relevant, when an honest reading of my OP shows those
words are subordinate to the actual issues raised, whether zebra
stripe are consequence of genetic drift, and whether genetic drift is
a more correct null hypothesis than adaptation, issues which you have
ignored in preference to your stupid manufactured argument.

And even though I have corrected your error more than once, you
continue to assert it, and continue to build on your false assertion
to rationalize criticisms about me personally. These are
characteristic of your stupid manufactured arguments, which are
characteristic of your replies to me.

One can only wonder why you waste your time posting stupid
manufactured arguments.

>Such a
>post is usually taken to set the subject matter considered "on topic."
>In fact you seemed to think that Larry Moran's lust so important that
>it was the subject of your concluding paragraph constituting, by word
>count not counting url's, almost 1/2 of your post.
>
>So why do you now claim the issue is irrelevant? It is your subject
>so explain what you mean by it.

Explain what your interest is in yammering about irrelevant issues.

[RSNorman]

On Fri, 20 Jan 2017 21:52:13 -0700, Pro Plyd <inv...@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

Or perhaps "none of the above" is the reason for the striping. See
"How the zebra got its stripes: a problem with too many solutions"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4448797/
(full text free)

This reports: " In contrast to recent findings, we found no evidence
that striping may have evolved to escape predators or avoid biting
flies. Instead, we found that temperature successfully predicts a
substantial amount of the stripe pattern variation observed in plains
zebra. As this association between striping and temperature may be
indicative of multiple biological processes, we suggest that the
selective agents driving zebra striping are probably multifarious and
complex."

As I just explained to jonathan elsewhere in this thread, various
patterns in the visual appearance of animals arise through the
dynamics of particular diffusion equations. There are all sorts of
animals with stripes: mollusc shells, snakes and lizards, tigers,
caterpillars, butterflies...

There are several kinds of questions to be addressed. First, is
having a striking visual pattern at all of any adaptive value? Second,
is having the pattern in the specific form of striping, as opposed to
patches, spots, zig-zags..., of any adaptive value? Third, given that
a particular pattern has arisen in the evolution of a species by
neutral mutations and drift, can evolution then use it as an
exaptation and fine-tune it to develop some perhaps small adaptive
value? This latter is what Koonin called "constructive neutral
evolution" in the paper I described in the thread "Against
adaptationism in evolution".
Message-ID: <ggvl7c5ngemtucmvs...@4ax.com>

[RSNorman]

On Sat, 21 Jan 2017 13:21:59 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>

Sorry, I just read what you write and take it at face value. You
wrote a post consisting of under 50 words of which 20 related to Larry
Moran's lust. It also refers to Jerry Coyne's fetish. So well over
half your words dealt with either fetish or lust. What was I to
think?

[jillery]

On Sat, 21 Jan 2017 11:38:51 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>

Your statement is based on an obvious misrepresentation of what I
wrote, which I have pointed out and corrected numerous times. That
you continue to press your stupid manufactured argument, while
ignoring the actual issues I raised, shows your lack of interest in
thoughtful discussion.

> What was I to think?

My impression is thinking is not a skill you apply in this thread.

>>>Such a
>>>post is usually taken to set the subject matter considered "on topic."
>>>In fact you seemed to think that Larry Moran's lust so important that
>>>it was the subject of your concluding paragraph constituting, by word
>>>count not counting url's, almost 1/2 of your post.
>>>
>>>So why do you now claim the issue is irrelevant? It is your subject
>>>so explain what you mean by it.
>>
>>
>>Explain what your interest is in yammering about irrelevant issues.

Since you're not interested in answering the above, I have no interest
in treating your replies as anything other than part of your stupid
manufactured argument.

[RSNorman]

On Sat, 21 Jan 2017 15:44:37 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>

So you bring up Larry Moran out of the blue and mention his lust but
never once have you ever even hinted at what Larry Moran has to do
with this whole discussion about zebra stripes. I note that you are
not capable of explaining why you mentioned Larry in the first place.
Is questioning a statement you, yourself, made somehow a "manufactured
argument" when you refuse to state why you made it?

Incidentally, I have thoroughly discussed in specific scientific terms
plus citations information about neutral evolution/drift in the
context of forming striped patterns in animals such as zebras. I gave
a recent (2015) paper that indicated that protection from tabanid
flies was not a suitable explanation for the adaptive significance of
zebra stripes. I also introduced a thread referring to and summarizing
the content of a paper that described in some detail why the
assumptions of adaptationists are misguided. Is this all what you
consider "manufactured argument".

[Jonathan]

On 1/21/2017 11:31 AM, Andre G. Isaak wrote:
> In article <df6dnYgYJoi5yB7F...@giganews.com>,
> Jonathan <wr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Tell me, which zebra stripe comes first?
>> Black or white? How many stripes do they
>> have and why not horizontal?
>
> Have you ever looked at a zebra? They do in fact have horizontal stripes.
>

Definition of rhetorical question

: a question not intended to require an answer


rhetorical

: of, relating to, or concerned with rhetoric
: employed for rhetorical effect
: asked merely for effect with no answer expected



> Andre
>

[Mark Isaak]

But I bet nobody yet has investigated whether the stripes on cone shells
serve as defense against biting flies!

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"We are not looking for answers. We are looking to come to an
understanding, recognizing that it is temporary--leaving us open to an
even richer understanding as further evidence surfaces." - author unknown

[Jonathan]

This is too easy~!


Biting flies eh? Is that the reason a
Zebra fish has stripes too - flies?



Super Turing Pattern T
video (11:06)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwfd_ezBKMY



How the zebra got its stripes, with Alan Turing

Where do a zebra’s stripes, a leopard’s spots and
our fingers come from? The key was found years ago –
by the man who cracked the Enigma code, writes Kat Arney.
12 August 2014

The beauty of it is that Turing systems are completely
self-contained, self-starting and self-organizing.

While studying elegantly striped marine angelfish, Japanese
researcher Shigeru Kondo noticed that rather than their
stripes getting bigger as the fish aged (as happens
in mammals like zebras), they kept the same spacing
but increased in number, branching to fill the space
available. Computer models revealed that a Turing pattern
could be the only explanation. Kondo went on to show
that the stripes running along the length of a zebrafish
can also be explained by Turing’s maths, in this case
thanks to two different types of cells interacting
with each other, rather than two molecules.
http://ideas.ted.com/how-the-zebra-got-its-stripes-with-alan-turing/





Bird flocks, zebra stripes, honeybee swarms:
Self-organization in biological systems

• What is self-organization?
• Self-organized patterns in nature
• A more detailed view of social insect nest architecture
• Mechanisms of pattern formation

From simple rules to complex structures?
Self-organization

• Self-organization and evolution
http://order.ph.utexas.edu/Camazine.pdf



Exploring Reaction-Diffusion and Pattern Formation



1 Introduction

The first steps toward the sciences arose out of the
recognition of patterns and structures. Patterns are
all around us in the living and the non-living world.

Formation of galaxies, mountains, rivers, crystals,
zebra stripes, flower petals and butterfly wings are
all examples of ordered structures and regular patterns.
While it seems likely that evolution plays the major role
in creating, selecting and exploiting features in
living organisms, there can be no denying the role of
physics in nature. Physical structures can emerge naturally
without the selection pressure of natural evolution:
sand dunes, snow flakes, clouds and cracks in the ground
can all self-organise into ordered and repetitive forms
with clearly defined patterns.

The existence of such natural pattern has led many researchers
to hypothesise that in some of the features of life, natural
evolution has exploited the automatic pattern formation
machinery provided by physics instead of creating her
own from scratch. In this article we focus on this class
of patterns, namely pattern formation of living organisms.

We explore an understanding of reaction-diffusion systems
and see how they may enable the emergence of pattern
formation in living organisms.
http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/lcs/previous/LCS2003/83.pdf






Turing patterns in development: what about the horse part?
Luciano Marcon1,2 and James Sharpe1,2,3

In summary, after many years as a neglected hypothesis,
Turing-type reaction–diffusion models are now being
taken more seriously by mainstream developmental
biology. This is partly a reflection of the increased integration
of theoretical and experimental approaches in
biology, as Turing models were traditionally the domain
of mathematicians, while experimentalists tended to
prefer the more intuitive concept of positional information.

This increased interest in Turing models is
resulting in a wider range of model systems being studied,
and the field is now growing to include more structural
examples (lungs, ruggae and digits) in addition to the
more traditional models of coat colour patterns. It is
gradually becoming clearer that the relevance of Turing
patterns is not restricted to the zebra’s stripes, but will
increasingly explain ‘the horse part’ as well.
http://marconlab.org/papers/LM2012-2.PDF




Please note the statement..."explain 'the horse part' as well".




s

[RSNorman]

On Sat, 21 Jan 2017 20:06:48 -0500, Jonathan <wr...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 1/21/2017 12:49 PM, Burkhard wrote:
>> Andre G. Isaak wrote:
>>> In article <df6dnYgYJoi5yB7F...@giganews.com>,
>>> Jonathan <wr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Tell me, which zebra stripe comes first?
>>>> Black or white? How many stripes do they
>>>> have and why not horizontal?
>>>
>>> Have you ever looked at a zebra? They do in fact have horizontal stripes.
>>>
>>> Andre
>>>
>> JOnathan doesn't have to do something as redcutionistically primitive as
>> looking at a zebra to KNOW how zebras are striped, the answer follows
>> easily form complexity theory. And if that answer is vertical, well,
>> just you see and wait until the unstable chaotic system turns them 90
>> degree in the blink of an eye sometime soon.
>>
>
>
>
>This is too easy~!
>
>
>Biting flies eh? Is that the reason a
>Zebra fish has stripes too - flies?
>
>
>
>Super Turing Pattern T
>video (11:06)
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwfd_ezBKMY
>
>
>
>How the zebra got its stripes, with Alan Turing
>

<snip remainder>

I find it interesting that you "discovered" this some seven hours
after I pointed out Turing's work on animal patterns and carefully
explained to you how it applied to complexity theory.

I guess you are a slow learner.

[Jonathan]

I stopped reading your posts since they just
parrot what I've been saying for years.

Oh, of course there is one difference
you include the word 'real'. Which of
course only means applied instead of
abstract, and you know I like to remain
abstract so the concept can be applied
universally. Something above your pay
grade it appears.

But talking about a slow learner, please
define the 101 of complexity theory.

Define the terms complexity and emergence?

I'm asking someone professing to be
knowledgeable about calculus to define
the integral, or someone posing as
knowledgeable about physics to define
F=MA.

And this is an open book quiz too~

I've yet to see you define either in any
way, shape or form. Come on, show me you
can do more than spout terms and cite
links?

I won't be holding my breath.


s

[jillery]

Rhetorical questions are best demonstrated by the author answering
them, especially when said author is known for asking irrelevant
questions. Just sayin'.

[jillery]

Really? You're stretching a point just to get a laugh. Even you
should be able to recognize the possibility that stripes might have
other benefits besides repelling flies.

[jillery]

On Sat, 21 Jan 2017 14:09:34 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>

Is questioning your reasons for ranting about obviously irrelevant
questions somehow evidence that I refuse to support the actual issues
I raised?

>Incidentally, I have thoroughly discussed in specific scientific terms
>plus citations information about neutral evolution/drift in the
>context of forming striped patterns in animals such as zebras. I gave
>a recent (2015) paper that indicated that protection from tabanid
>flies was not a suitable explanation for the adaptive significance of
>zebra stripes. I also introduced a thread referring to and summarizing
>the content of a paper that described in some detail why the
>assumptions of adaptationists are misguided. Is this all what you
>consider "manufactured argument".

What you refer to above was not in reply to my posts, but in separate
threads in reply to others. In your replies to me, you have
completely ignored any such comments, and instead focused on your

[Burkhard]

Jonathan wrote:
> On 1/21/2017 12:49 PM, Burkhard wrote:
>> Andre G. Isaak wrote:
>>> In article <df6dnYgYJoi5yB7F...@giganews.com>,
>>> Jonathan <wr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Tell me, which zebra stripe comes first?
>>>> Black or white? How many stripes do they
>>>> have and why not horizontal?
>>>
>>> Have you ever looked at a zebra? They do in fact have horizontal
>>> stripes.
>>>
>>> Andre
>>>
>> JOnathan doesn't have to do something as redcutionistically primitive as
>> looking at a zebra to KNOW how zebras are striped, the answer follows
>> easily form complexity theory. And if that answer is vertical, well,
>> just you see and wait until the unstable chaotic system turns them 90
>> degree in the blink of an eye sometime soon.
>>
>
>
>
> This is too easy~!
>
>
> Biting flies eh? Is that the reason a
> Zebra fish has stripes too - flies?

Nope. You can test that hypothesis and pretty easily falsify it.

>
>
>
> Super Turing Pattern T
> video (11:06)
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwfd_ezBKMY
>
>
>
> How the zebra got its stripes, with Alan Turing
>
> Where do a zebra’s stripes, a leopard’s spots and
> our fingers come from? The key was found years ago –
> by the man who cracked the Enigma code, writes Kat Arney.
> 12 August 2014
>
> The beauty of it is that Turing systems are completely
> self-contained, self-starting and self-organizing.

Yes, "we" all know that. Which is why RNorman helpfully explained all
this to you with appropriate links and references only a short while back.

What all these folks are doing though is proper science - that is they
complement painstaking observations that lead to lots of data on the
specific case, and then complement and add to the causal account of
natural selection and adaptation. Which is light-years away form the
travesty that you make it look to be, and as your own source shows,
directly in conflict with your ideology that tries ot create a convlict
between these modes of theorizing.

[Jonathan]

Well here is where most of the horizontal stripes
on a zebra are~

http://bit.ly/2jNvISI

[Jonathan]

He never even heard of complexity theory until I told him
about it. And even now he still can't grasp the
most basic concepts. Just cites links and proclaims
himself master of the universe.

And anyways, how is someone agreeing with me turn into a flame?

It's like Norman says over and over..."I agree with
everything you say, you idiot".

He can't seem to grasp the irony.

> What all these folks are doing though is proper science - that is they
> complement painstaking observations that lead to lots of data on the
> specific case, and then complement and add to the causal account of
> natural selection and adaptation. Which is light-years away form the
> travesty that you make it look to be, and as your own source shows,
> directly in conflict with your ideology that tries ot create a convlict
> between these modes of theorizing.
>

And if you can't understand F=MA it's rather silly to start
talking about the details of a specific example of say
a falling body.

If one can't use an integral it's rather silly to start
talking about designing say a specific bottle.

One must walk before running and I see ZERO evidence
the basic concepts of this new science is understood
in the least.

There are a million examples of how complexity
science is being used for specific problems.

But without understanding the abstract concepts
that underly THEM ALL, one can't possibly
apply the concepts as easily to one discipline
as to another.

Which is their primary advance, their /universal/
application.

By understanding the abstract concepts one can see
FOR THE FIRST TIME what all evolving systems
physical or otherwise have in common
- WHAT ALL THINGS HAVE IN COMMON.

And therein lies the Theory of Everything.

Emergence is where the debate is currently
taking place, and I clearly favor emergence
as the better idea, as does now the bulk
of the scientific community. Or will soon
enough.



Theory of everything
From Wiki


Lack of fundamental laws

There is a philosophical debate within the physics community
as to whether a theory of everything deserves to be called
the fundamental law of the universe.[47] One view is the
hard reductionist position that the ToE is the fundamental law
and that all other theories that apply within the universe
are a consequence of the ToE.

Another view is that emergent laws, which govern the behavior
of complex systems, should be seen as equally fundamental.
Examples of emergent laws are the second law of thermodynamics
and the theory of natural selection. The advocates of emergence
argue that emergent laws, especially those describing complex
or living systems are independent of the low-level,
microscopic laws. In this view, emergent laws are as
fundamental as a ToE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything



Join the modern world and study this link....


Emergence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence



s

[jonathan]

Looks to me Norman that you have a fetish for, or
even lust after a debate win so badly you'd
seize on any trifle to get that victory.


figure of speech
noun
a word or phrase used in a non-literal sense
for rhetorical or vivid effect.



Is English your second language?


s

[Jonathan]

Does physics search for the laws which apply everywhere?
Or does it spend it's thinkers grunting away at
each and every unique splash/collision or event?

The countless details of reality, since they exist
already, represent events that occurred in the past.

You fail to grasp the significance that the past
represents only the chosen paths, and ignore the
paths...not taken.

Those paths not taken represent the possibility
space, or context within which the actual came
to pass. It's the realm of possibilities, or
the environment, which decides which event occurs.

The possibilities decide which path is taken and
define the actual.

The actual, or history all of objective science
details represent the OUTPUT...the effect, NOT
THE INPUT or causes.

The realm of possibilities, or unchosen paths
define reality, not the actual events.

You have it all backwards.

Studying the past is grunt work that leads nowhere
as the unchosen possibities can't be seen there.

Extrapolating the present into the future restores
the all important context or possible paths
within which reality is chosen. Our imagination
of the future defines our fundamental laws and
shows us the simplicity and beauty of nature.

It's the possibility space which all have in
common, the output or actual is unique in
every single instance.

What all things have in common show us fundamental
laws.

[jillery]

Apparently that's your selfie.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Friday, 20 January 2017 06:34:59 UTC, Don Cates wrote:
> On 2017-01-19 6:07 PM, RSNorman wrote:
> > On Thu, 19 Jan 2017 18:43:50 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, 19 Jan 2017 15:24:09 -0600, Don Cates
> >> <cate...@hotmail.com.invalid> wrote:

> >>
> >>> On 2017-01-18 10:58 PM, RSNorman wrote:
> >>>> On Wed, 18 Jan 2017 23:22:03 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Apparently Jerry Coyne has a fetish for equines in striped pajamas.
> >>>>> This is his 4th article on the topic:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> <https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/01/18/the-secret-of-zebra-stripes-solved-or-so-scientists-say/>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> <http://tinyurl.com/hsvzpez>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Short version: stripes help keep away biting flies.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I hope this article satisfies Larry Moran's lust for disproving the
> >>>>> null hypothesis, that zebra stripes are due to drift.
> >>>>
> >>>> The biting fly hypothesis has been around for almost three years now.
> >>>> This is nothing new, although the book about it ("Zebra Stripes" by
> >>>> Tim Caro) is.
> >>>>
> >>>> My question, though, is where Larry Moran ever wrote that zebra
> >>>> stripes are due to drift. I did very recently start a thread,
> >>>> "Against adaptationism in evolution" which cited a paper that argued
> >>>> that the null hypothesis for any discussion of evolution of genomes
> >>>> should be neutral evolution or drift. I also argued that discussing
> >>>> evolution of phenotypes in living, breathing organisms was something
> >>>> quite different. Still, drift as a null hypothesis for everything can
> >>>> be very useful. It is just that I can't believe anybody, and that
> >>>> includes Larry Moran, would say seriously that fully formed, clearly
> >>>> demarcated, zebra stripes are due to drift even if some early mottled
> >>>> sort-of stripey coloration pattern was indeed due to drift.
> >>>>

> >>> Is there any convincing evidence that it is *not* due to drift?
> >>
> >>
> >> What do you think such evidence should look like?
> >>
> [piggybacking]
>
> Evidence of differential reproductive success linked to the genetically
> determined phenotype.
>
> >>
> >>> Assume
> >>> that the conclusions in the paper about the flies and stripes is true,
> >>> where is the evidence that this has an influence on reproductive
> >>> success? That step seems to be missing from most (all?) of the zebra
> >>> stripe adaptive explanations.
> >>
> >>
> >> My impression is biting flies carry parasitic diseases, suck
> >> significant fractions of animals' blood volume, and distract animals
> >> to the point they can't eat. I would be surprised if biting flies
> >> didn't also reduce reproductive success.
> >>
>
> And yet there are many other herding herbivores that inhabit the same
> environment as zebras, often adjacent to or even mingled with them that
> seem to be doing quite well. Some even have faint striping. Unless it
> can be shown that the effects you describe are particularly a problem
> for equids as opposed to these other animals, I don't find the argument
> compelling.
>
> >> The cited book is new, so my guess is you haven't read it. I haven't
> >> either, so don't you think it would be wise for neither of us to
> >> speculate about what is or isn't in it?
> >
> > Don Cates' comment is exactly when demonstrating that some
> > characteristic is adaptive is so difficult. Your comments about the
> > effect that biting flies has certainly does sound reasonable so that
> > the adaptive hypothesis has tremendous credibility. So much so that
> > this kind of "arm-waving" argument is generally accepted as "as good
> > as we can do." However your surprise or lack thereof is not the kind
> > of thing that produces definitive results.
> >
> > No, I have not read the book. But I have read Tim Caro's published
> > papers and I have noted several seemingly rather thorough descriptions
> > of the major comments in the book. Had Caro actually demonstrated
> > that striped zebras outreproduce unstriped ones over a number of
> > generations (or even over one generation) then I believe it would
> > certainly have been mentioned in those book reviews, not to mention it
> > would certainly have been a publication of major importance.
> >
> I understand that strong evidence for adaptation is very difficult to
> obtain in this case (and many others) and so some kind of proxy may be
> the best we can do. But absent knowing how biting flies affect zebra
> reproductive success, I don't think this proxy is a strong as it seems
> to some people. The idea that such a striking colouration *must* be
> adaptive has meant that the question being asked is '*why* (what
> adaptive pressure) does the zebra have stripes' rather that 'are the
> zebras' stripes adaptive'.

Down at my level:

Zebras are so strongly, and relatively uniquely
striped, that there "must" be a "reason" for it.

Presumably you could breed non-striped zebras
if they were inclined to cooperate. It seems to
be difficult to breed stripes into animals that
don't have them. So the stripe genes are
difficult to produce.

If the null hypothesis is that there isn't a
reason for zebras to have stripes, just "drift",
then it doesn't seem likely.

On the other hand, nature doesn't guarantee
that scientists can find out the reason.
Reasons may be several and complicated.

Nature makes you guess. Then you do an experiment
to tell if you guessed right.

If you can't think of a reason and prove it, then...
nature wins, you lose, I suppose.

And it seems to be not yet perfectly clear whether
this is a black animal that has white stripes, or
a white animal that has black stripes?

[jillery]

Zebra stripes are an effect. Unless one assumes it's the result of a
Designer's whims, the question is not *if* that effect has a cause,
but *what* that cause is.

>Presumably you could breed non-striped zebras
>if they were inclined to cooperate. It seems to
>be difficult to breed stripes into animals that
>don't have them. So the stripe genes are
>difficult to produce.

Pedantically, non-stripe zebra have been observed in the wild, both
nearly all white and nearly all black versions:

<https://www.quora.com/Are-zebras-black-with-white-stripes-or-white-with-black-stripes-2>
<http://tinyurl.com/hn2aqvx>

>If the null hypothesis is that there isn't a
>reason for zebras to have stripes, just "drift",
>then it doesn't seem likely.

ISTM "just drift" is a reason, just not an adaptational one. The cite
above says that zebra populations tends to have less striping
correlated with southern latitudes. This suggests to me there is a
selection pressure related to environment.

>On the other hand, nature doesn't guarantee
>that scientists can find out the reason.
>Reasons may be several and complicated.

I second that.

>Nature makes you guess. Then you do an experiment
>to tell if you guessed right.
>
>If you can't think of a reason and prove it, then...
>nature wins, you lose, I suppose.
>
>And it seems to be not yet perfectly clear whether
>this is a black animal that has white stripes, or
>a white animal that has black stripes?

The consensus among those who posted comments in my cited article is
that zebra are black with white stripes, because zebra have black skin
with normally activated pigment for black fur, and the white stripes
have their pigment deactivated.

But I agree with you that it's not perfectly clear. One could as
easily say that the fur pigment is normally deactivated, and the
pigments in the black stripes are activated. But I suppose by saying
that someone will baldly assert I don't know what I talking about, so
please ignore this paragraph.

[Don Cates]

Why?

> Presumably you could breed non-striped zebras
> if they were inclined to cooperate. It seems to
> be difficult to breed stripes into animals that
> don't have them. So the stripe genes are
> difficult to produce.
>

Do you have a cite for this? I was under the impression that stripes
were relatively 'easy'.

> If the null hypothesis is that there isn't a
> reason for zebras to have stripes, just "drift",
> then it doesn't seem likely.
>

It would be nice to have some actual data.

> On the other hand, nature doesn't guarantee
> that scientists can find out the reason.
> Reasons may be several and complicated.
>

True.

> Nature makes you guess. Then you do an experiment
> to tell if you guessed right.
>

But you need the right guess for your hypothesis. Do stripes reduce the
number of fly bites? Probably true. Is that adaptive? Nobody knows.

> If you can't think of a reason and prove it, then...
> nature wins, you lose, I suppose.
>
> And it seems to be not yet perfectly clear whether
> this is a black animal that has white stripes, or
> a white animal that has black stripes?
>

My guess: probably brown where some areas got darker and some lighter.

--
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)

[RSNorman]

On Mon, 23 Jan 2017 04:51:43 -0800 (PST), Robert Carnegie
<rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

First, zebras are, indeed, strongly patterned. However, as I
indicated elsewhere, there are several separate questions. First, is
the fact that there is a color pattern of any sort, very dark vs. very
light, adaptive? Second, if so, is the fact the pattern is stripes
instead of spots or zig-zags adaptive? Third, if the pattern is
adaptive at all, is that a result of exaptation from an original
striped pattern that developed by drift/neutral evolution?

Your argument that the "must" be a reason is exactly what is called
the "Panglossian paradigm" from the famous Gould-Lewontin paper on
"The Spandrels of San Marco". It is the adaptationist assumption that
is not always a valid starting point to consider a phenomenon in
evolution.

The fact is that there do exist in nature zebras with limited
striping, with spots instead of stripes, with various very strange
mixed patterns. Just do a google images search for "spotted zebras".
You say it is difficult to produce stripe genes. Yet stripes appear
with great frequency in all sorts of animals, as I already pointed
out: fish and snakes and lizards and tigers and mollusc shells and
caterpillars and butterflies.

>If the null hypothesis is that there isn't a
>reason for zebras to have stripes, just "drift",
>then it doesn't seem likely.

There most definitely is a reason for zebras to have stripes. However
a selective advantage (incrase in evolutionary fitness) need not be
the reason. There do exist molecular biological mechanisms that
produce patterns during development. Turing first described a
diffusional reaction based system that has been much developed to
investigate the particular details of how it works. You can't do the
genetic or embryological work on zebras and mice, the standard
laboratory animal in which you can do such work, don't produce coat
pigmentation patterns. However the zebrafish, Danio, is another now
standard laboratory model which does produce stripes and the genetic
and molecular biology there is pretty well known. Jonathan will be
elated to know that there is a complexity theory type paper on the
subject: "Modelling stripe formation in zebrafish: an agent-based
approach"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4685853/
Jonathan will also be very displeased to see that it is based on an
analysis of the mechanisms underlying the process: the details of the
melanophores vs. the xanthophores.

>On the other hand, nature doesn't guarantee
>that scientists can find out the reason.
>Reasons may be several and complicated.

I did also cite a paper that reports " we suggest that the

selective agents driving zebra striping are probably multifarious and
complex".

"How the zebra got its stripes: a problem with too many solutions"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4448797/

To the extent that there is any adaptive significance to having
stripes, it is most likely a combination of many rather weak
advantages of many varieties. I suggest that this is all imposed on a
neutrally generated pattern of stripes to intensify the pattern and
maintain it.

>Nature makes you guess. Then you do an experiment
>to tell if you guessed right.
>
>If you can't think of a reason and prove it, then...
>nature wins, you lose, I suppose.
>
>And it seems to be not yet perfectly clear whether
>this is a black animal that has white stripes, or
>a white animal that has black stripes?

It is generally agreed that the original status was a dark colored
animal. Melanism is the general pattern for mammals and horses (zebras
are in the genus Equus) are generally dark. White color, albinism, is
generally a result of subsequently inhibiting melanin production and
distribution.

[RSNorman]

On Mon, 23 Jan 2017 11:03:00 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>

Drift is, indeed, a reason but not adaptational just as you say.
However that striping correlates with temperature does not necessarily
indicate a selection pressure. Many developmental processes are
temperature sensitive, sexual determination in many turtles and lizard
for example. Many genes are temperature sensitive, the dark feet,
tail,and ears are because these are at a cooler temperature than the
rest of the body. So there is a change related to environment but it
need not be selective.

>>On the other hand, nature doesn't guarantee
>>that scientists can find out the reason.
>>Reasons may be several and complicated.
>
>
>I second that.
>
>
>>Nature makes you guess. Then you do an experiment
>>to tell if you guessed right.
>>
>>If you can't think of a reason and prove it, then...
>>nature wins, you lose, I suppose.
>>
>>And it seems to be not yet perfectly clear whether
>>this is a black animal that has white stripes, or
>>a white animal that has black stripes?
>
>
>The consensus among those who posted comments in my cited article is
>that zebra are black with white stripes, because zebra have black skin
>with normally activated pigment for black fur, and the white stripes
>have their pigment deactivated.
>
>But I agree with you that it's not perfectly clear. One could as
>easily say that the fur pigment is normally deactivated, and the
>pigments in the black stripes are activated. But I suppose by saying
>that someone will baldly assert I don't know what I talking about, so
>please ignore this paragraph.

Sometimes you do know what you are talking about. The only problem is
that it is not always.

[Robert Carnegie]

No cite. but dog breeders, horse breeders,
and guinea pig breeders must have tried for
stripes, and the best that they seem to do is
"brindle", and that rarely.

You also can get a dog with stripes simply drawn
on. In the nasty version of the story, the indelible
dye is also toxic (why?) and the animal will lick
the stripes off itself (they're indelible?) and
then it will die. I don't believe this but I
wonder how you get the animal to sit still for
this.

Cats - well, cats do have stripes in their
family tree...

> > If the null hypothesis is that there isn't a
> > reason for zebras to have stripes, just "drift",
> > then it doesn't seem likely.
> >
> It would be nice to have some actual data.
>
> > On the other hand, nature doesn't guarantee
> > that scientists can find out the reason.
> > Reasons may be several and complicated.
> >
> True.
>
> > Nature makes you guess. Then you do an experiment
> > to tell if you guessed right.
> >
> But you need the right guess for your hypothesis. Do stripes reduce the
> number of fly bites? Probably true. Is that adaptive? Nobody knows.
>
> > If you can't think of a reason and prove it, then...
> > nature wins, you lose, I suppose.
> >
> > And it seems to be not yet perfectly clear whether
> > this is a black animal that has white stripes, or
> > a white animal that has black stripes?
> >
> My guess: probably brown where some areas got darker and some lighter.

By the way, is "sexual selection" included in the
"drift" hypothesis - since it seems that any odd
feature can be ascribed to sexual selection, as a
marker of mate fitness.

I suppose, anyway, that the following ideas were
already disposed of:
Stripes are so that other zebras can see you are a zebra.
Stripes are so that predators think you are a tiger.
(Some obvious points to quibble at there.)
Stripes are so that you look SEXY. (As I said.)

[jillery]

On Mon, 23 Jan 2017 12:03:52 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>

Here are examples of how you mangle what I write and then use that to
jump to conclusions and go off on irrelevant tangents. I specifically
wrote "latitude", which correlates with many environmental factors
besides temperature. Also, I wrote "this suggests", which you then
mangled into "necessarily indicates".

>>>On the other hand, nature doesn't guarantee
>>>that scientists can find out the reason.
>>>Reasons may be several and complicated.
>>
>>
>>I second that.
>>
>>
>>>Nature makes you guess. Then you do an experiment
>>>to tell if you guessed right.
>>>
>>>If you can't think of a reason and prove it, then...
>>>nature wins, you lose, I suppose.
>>>
>>>And it seems to be not yet perfectly clear whether
>>>this is a black animal that has white stripes, or
>>>a white animal that has black stripes?
>>
>>
>>The consensus among those who posted comments in my cited article is
>>that zebra are black with white stripes, because zebra have black skin
>>with normally activated pigment for black fur, and the white stripes
>>have their pigment deactivated.
>>
>>But I agree with you that it's not perfectly clear. One could as
>>easily say that the fur pigment is normally deactivated, and the
>>pigments in the black stripes are activated. But I suppose by saying
>>that someone will baldly assert I don't know what I talking about, so
>>please ignore this paragraph.
>
>Sometimes you do know what you are talking about. The only problem is
>that it is not always.

Yes, I am fallible. Someone like you who never makes mistakes would
better help someone like me by focusing on what you think I don't
know, and why you think I don't know it, instead of yammering on and
on about pointless pedantic distinctions.

[RSNorman]

On Tue, 24 Jan 2017 03:07:39 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>

The reason I substituted "temperature" for "latitude" was that
temperature is a major enviornmental parameter that varies with

latitude and I had previously on this thread cited a paper that says:
"" In contrast to recent findings, we found no evidence
that striping may have evolved to escape predators or avoid biting
flies. Instead, we found that temperature successfully predicts a
substantial amount of the stripe pattern variation observed in plains
zebra."

The important part of what I wrote is "that striping correlates with
temperature does not necessarily indicate a selection pressure." You
can readily substitute latitude for temperature and the same holds. I
cannot imagine how an environmental factor that may or may not
influence striping could suggest that selection is involved. Of
course my imagination is very limited.

[jillery]

On Tue, 24 Jan 2017 09:01:51 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>

Since that post to which you refer above, and that paper, have nothing
to do with the "arguments" and assertions you made in your replies to
me, your shift from "latitude" to "temperature" is a non sequitur.
Even so, you still rely on your mangled shift from "suggests" to "not
necessarily".

You and many others seek to reframe my argument to stripes being
"necessarily" selective. I neither wrote nor implied any such thing.
Replacing words with different meanings is a characteristic of stupid
manufactured arguments. That you fail even now to admit your mangling
puts the lie to your implications of innocence.

>I
>cannot imagine how an environmental factor that may or may not
>influence striping could suggest that selection is involved. Of
>course my imagination is very limited.

To accommodate your limited imagination, simply remove your
over-reactive obsession about zebra stripes:

"I cannot imagine how an environmental factor that may or may not

influence [skin color] could suggest that selection is involved."

Of course, we know that skin color is selective, but we didn't always
know that. So does my rephrased statement make any sense to you? If
so, that would *suggest* to me your reaction *in your replies to me*
is specifically and pedantically about zebra stripes, as opposed to
important concepts about science, which you may have mentioned
elsewhere.

[RSNorman]

On Wed, 25 Jan 2017 04:51:22 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>

wrote:

>On Tue, 24 Jan 2017 09:01:51 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>
>wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 24 Jan 2017 03:07:39 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>>>
>>>>>

The notion has occurred to me that an "important concept about
science" which you quite specifically raised in this thread is whether
or not some phenotypic feature like zebra stripes should be assumed to
be adaptive, positively selected for, or whether a "null hypothesis"
of neutral evolution or drift should be the default.

You also raised the question of " a selection pressure related to
environment" due to latitudinal distribution.

Here are two comments about the problem with assuming that local
selection is responsible for clinal variation. No, it is not exactly
about latitudinal variation but the concept still applies.

"Among numerous research strategies developed to infer the evidence of
selection in natural populations at the molecular level (reviewed by
Nielsen 2005; Vasemägi and Primmer 2005), associations between
environmental variables and molecular marker polymorphisms are
commonly taken as strong support for the hypothesis that natural
selection maintains single-locus clinal variation (e.g., Eanes 1999;
Baines et al. 2004). However, it has often been overlooked that
single-locus clines can also be the result of various neutral
evolutionary processes, such as hybridization of previously isolated
populations, founder events, and migrational patterns, such as
spatially restricted gene flow"

The Adaptive Hypothesis of Clinal Variation Revisited: Single-Locus
Clines as a Result of Spatially Restricted Gene Flow
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1569722/

"It is important to demonstrate that correlations between traits and
abiotic or biotic environmental factors are due to spatially varying
natural selection that leads to local adaptation, rather than due to
demographic processes. Clinal patterns of variation are often ascribed
to selection. Examples of this include the latitudinal clines for body
size in Drosophila subobscura158, the circadian rhythm in Drosophila
littoralis159 and the phenology (flowering time, bud set and bud
flush) of many plant species84, 160 that has been detected in common
garden experiments. However, in complex environments it may be
difficult to disentangle the roles of demographic history and
selection. For example, a recent re-analysis98 of a classic case of
local adaptation in grasses, and the mesic and xeric ecotypes of wild
oats (Avena barbata) in California, USA161, indicated that there was
no evidence of local adaptation, but that one of the genotypes may be
spreading throughout the northern parts of the state."

Box 3: Local adaptation and studies of clinal variation
From: Ecological genomics of local adaptation
http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v14/n11/box/nrg3522_BX3.html

The important concept about science is that a default assumption that
selection or adaptation is responsible for phenotypic variation is not
warranted; there must be positive evidence to support that assumption.

The important concept about responding to your post is that it does
not make sense to say that phenotypic variation associated with any
environmental variable, latitudinal or whatever, "suggests" selection.
Any variation naturally raises the question about whether selection or
neutral factors are the source. The problem, as I said just above, is
that selection has generally been the default assumption. And there
are complex interactions whereby a factor is initially the result of
neutral evolution but that subsequent changes result in an exaptation
that does have selective value.

[jillery]

On Wed, 25 Jan 2017 09:15:55 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>

How white of you to notice. Better late than never, I suppose,
especially when it helps you evade the point you raised above and to
which I replied.

I fail to see how it makes less sense to say "suggests selection" than
it does to say "isn't necessarily selective", as you prefer. Your
paragraph above only reinforces my impression that your comments here
are just a series of pointless pedantic arguments.

But let's go back to the my point you only just now acknowledged
above. In the case of zebra stripes, if one assumes drift as the null
hypothesis, then how would one go about disproving it, according to
the scientific method? As you noted so many times in your replies to
me, I am flawed, while you are apparently perfect, but ISTM that means
one would *not* try to prove zebra stripes are *not* the result of
drift. Instead, one would look for ways zebra stripes might be caused
by some mechanism other than drift, let's say, oh just for example, by
natural selection. So I disagree with the premise of many authors,
that those who seek natural selection mechanisms have necessarily
assumed natural selection as the cause, but are instead correctly
attempting to disprove drift as the null hypothesis.

As other posters pointed out, it would be expensive and time-consuming
to directly show natural selection with zebra, so it's reasonable to
look for reasonable proxies, of effects which reasonably infer
selection. An effect which potentially reduces the impact of biting
flies is IMO such a reasonable proxy. Whether or not you agree with
my opinion, doesn't change the fact that seeking out such evidence,
does *not* imply anyone assumed natural selection, "necessarily" or
otherwise.

[czeba...@gmail.com]

Why is drift the null hypothesis? What evidence supports that conclusion?

gregwrld

[Don Cates]

On 2017-01-26 7:24 PM, czeba...@gmail.com wrote:
> Why is drift the null hypothesis? What evidence supports that conclusion?
>
> gregwrld
>

Because drift is *always* happening and selection is a spacial case
which must be strong enough to overcome drift.(simplified, but you get
the drift)

[RSNorman]

On Thu, 26 Jan 2017 17:24:08 -0800 (PST), czeba...@gmail.com wrote:

>Why is drift the null hypothesis? What evidence supports that conclusion?
>

Because drift is what happens if there is no specific mechanism. And
it happens even when there is a mechanisms unless the mechanism is
strong enough to overcome drift.

The problem is that biologists have traditionally not used drift as
the null hypothesis but rather assumed that any specific feature must
necessarily be the result of selection.

[jillery]

On Thu, 26 Jan 2017 20:43:13 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>
wrote:

I don't dispute the veracity of your assertion, that biologists have
traditionally not used drift as the null hypothesis, but I am curious
about your basis for it. Is this your personal impression? A shared
consensus among a certain school of thought? A result confirmed by
actual survey of biologists? Or what?

IIUC you say biologists traditionally used selection, as opposed to
drift, as a null hypothesis. If so, how do you think they went about
attempting to disprove selection, as the scientific method requires?

[RSNorman]

On Fri, 27 Jan 2017 07:14:27 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>

I did start a thread about that "null hypothesis" notion called
"Against adaptationism in evolution"
Message-ID: <ggvl7c5ngemtucmvs...@4ax.com>
My rather long discourse on the subject attracted only one response,
from Ray.

I will repeat some of that information here because it is very
pertinent. My post begins:

>Eugene Koonin has a fascinating and important paper in a recent BMC
>Biolgy titled "Splendor and misery of adaptation, or the importance of
>neutral null for understanding evolution."
> http://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12915-016-0338-2
>It is available full-text free (open access) and I strongly recommend
>it to one and all who are interested in the basis of evolution.
>
>It is strong argument against adaptationism: the abstract reads:
>"The study of any biological features, including genomic sequences,
>typically revolves around the question: what is this for? However,
>population genetic theory, combined with the data of comparative
>genomics, clearly indicates that such a “pan-adaptationist” approach
>is a fallacy. The proper question is: how has this sequence evolved?
>And the proper null hypothesis posits that it is a result of neutral
>evolution: that is, it survives by sheer chance provided that it is
>not deleterious enough to be efficiently purged by purifying
>selection. To claim adaptation, the neutral null has to be falsified.
>The adaptationist fallacy can be costly, inducing biologists to
>relentlessly seek function where there is none."

The paper (and my discussion of it) refer back to the classic Gould
and Lewontin paper of 1979 titled "The Spandrels of San Marco and the
Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme".
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royprsb/205/1161/581.full.pdf

That paper opens commenting on the fact that "an adaptationist
programme has dominated evolutionary thought in England and the United
States during the past 40 years." That essentially puts the origin of
this way of thinking back to the origin of the "Modern evolutionary
synthesis."

You ask " I am curious about your basis for it. Is this your personal

impression? A shared consensus among a certain school of thought? A
result confirmed by actual survey of biologists? Or what?"

I answer that this is an topic that has been argued by prominent
biologists for a very long time, now. The alternative adaptationism
was labelled "Non Darwinian Evolution" that posited neutral change and
was initiated by a paper by King and Jukes in 1969 along with one by
Kimura on "Evolutionary Rate at the Molecular Level" in 1968. The
neutralist/selectionist debate has a very long history. The argument
persists, in my way of thinking, because although the molecular people
have long recognized neutral evolution as the dominant theme in
evolution the organismal/ecological people have long failed to even
think about it.

At to the notion of testing the "null hypothesis", science is not
really formulated or conducted in those general terms. The question
about zebra stripes, to give a concrete example, is always framed in
the form "What is THE specific reason for stripes?" So you ask "are
stripes protection from biting flies?" In that case the null
hypothesis becomes "do flies bite equally striped vs. unstriped
subjects"? Demonstrating that flies avoid striped hosts then "proves"
that stripes have that function, of protecting from bites.

A more general way of thinking about this is to consider the question
"why are humans, Homo sapiens, now the dominant species on earth?" You
can say that there is something about the way that vertebrates are
built gives them (us) an advantage over other (sub)phyla. That there
is something about amniotes, about mammals, about primates that gives
them (us) an advantage over other groups. There is something about
hominids that gave them (us) an advantage. So it was pretty much
inevitable from the start that we or something very much like us would
end up dominating our world. On the other hand you can say it was
just dumb luck that mammals survived the K-T extinction and flourished
and that some early protoprimate managed to spread its influence. It
could as easily been something else. Historical contingency dominates
the pattern of evolutionary development. Which is it? Is it proper
to simply assume that we are "superior" and "better fit" and look for
the specific reason why? Is it our brains, our language, our use of
tools? What is THE specific thing that makes us "better"? Or did we
just luck out and some other kind of thing could also have ended up
with large brains, language, culture, etc.?

[czeba...@gmail.com]

Thanks, RN! That's a bit clearer now. I can Wiki the rest (I think my question was more general, anyway).

gregwrld

[jillery]

On Fri, 27 Jan 2017 10:44:40 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>

It's important to remember that the post which you cite above was
*not* in reply to me, or in response to any points about which I
posted. After all, we mustn't forget that we've wasted a lot of time
through an unfortunate disagreement for which I was not to blame.

I acknowledge the facts to which you refer above. Further, I also
recognize the concept of artifacts, of coincidental results. Since
you repeatedly noted I am flawed, in apparent contrast to your
perfection, which I do not dispute, I hesitate to point out the
question here is not about those facts, but is instead whether those
facts support your asserted *opinion* that the conclusions of
biologists was, and is, based on an adaptive null hypothesis, as
opposed to one of drift.

Gould in particular was famous for making bold sweeping
generalizations, which on reflection turned out to be only narrowly
valid, ex. punk eek. In your quote above, he argues as if adaptation
doesn't exist at all, which is absurd. Even if there is an
"adaptationist fallacy", he doesn't say what is the actual "cost" of
seeking function where there is none. As the specific example of
zebra stripes shows, research identified previously unknown benefits.
ISTM even if zebra stripes aren't selective, those researchers are
doing what is needed to disprove a drift null hypothesis.

[RSNorman]

On Sat, 28 Jan 2017 07:57:41 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>

You asked some perfectly reasonable questions about the origin of the
"adaptationist-neutralist" argument in evolutionary biology although
you didn't use those specific terms. I tried to write about the
history of that issue naming and dating some of the key players and
papers. That was my attempt to answer the specific questions you
asked.

I assumed your questions were an honest attempt to get into a
discussion of the real science leaving behind all the personal baggage
we seem to have accumulated and I tried to respond in kind. Obviously
I failed.

[jillery]

On Sat, 28 Jan 2017 09:34:23 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>
wrote:

<I can delete text too>

At the very least, you are I are talking past each other. The
questions I asked, I asked specifically to return the discussion back
to the topic of the OP, about the cited research on zebra stripes. The
history you described is interesting enough, but not something I'm
going to devote much time with when it appears to me to not address my
questions and that topic.

And since you mentioned it, my understanding is that a good way to
avoid dealing with baggage is to not bring it on board. Just sayin'.

[RSNorman]

On Sat, 28 Jan 2017 21:27:16 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Then maybe you should investigate the very closely related question:
what advantage do tabanid flies gain by avoiding stripes?

[jillery]

On Sat, 28 Jan 2017 19:51:27 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>

But as you noted so many times, I am notably flawed, apparently unlike
you. So you already know the "correct" answer to that, too.

[Bill Rogers]

On Wednesday, January 18, 2017 at 11:59:58 PM UTC-5, RSNorman wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Jan 2017 23:22:03 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Apparently Jerry Coyne has a fetish for equines in striped pajamas.
> >This is his 4th article on the topic:
> >
> ><https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/01/18/the-secret-of-zebra-stripes-solved-or-so-scientists-say/>
> >
> ><http://tinyurl.com/hsvzpez>
> >
> >Short version: stripes help keep away biting flies.
> >
> >I hope this article satisfies Larry Moran's lust for disproving the
> >null hypothesis, that zebra stripes are due to drift.
>
> The biting fly hypothesis has been around for almost three years now.
> This is nothing new, although the book about it ("Zebra Stripes" by
> Tim Caro) is.

It was around in 1985 when I was a grad student in parasitology. I heard it from an entomologist, Jose MC Ribeiro.

[jillery]

On Sun, 29 Jan 2017 03:28:36 -0800 (PST), Bill Rogers
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Wednesday, January 18, 2017 at 11:59:58 PM UTC-5, RSNorman wrote:
>> On Wed, 18 Jan 2017 23:22:03 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >Apparently Jerry Coyne has a fetish for equines in striped pajamas.
>> >This is his 4th article on the topic:
>> >
>> ><https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/01/18/the-secret-of-zebra-stripes-solved-or-so-scientists-say/>
>> >
>> ><http://tinyurl.com/hsvzpez>
>> >
>> >Short version: stripes help keep away biting flies.
>> >
>> >I hope this article satisfies Larry Moran's lust for disproving the
>> >null hypothesis, that zebra stripes are due to drift.
>>
>> The biting fly hypothesis has been around for almost three years now.
>> This is nothing new, although the book about it ("Zebra Stripes" by
>> Tim Caro) is.
>
>It was around in 1985 when I was a grad student in parasitology. I heard it from an entomologist, Jose MC Ribeiro.

And how 'bout them Mets.