Kleinman confuses probability with informal statistics

[Peter Nyikos]

Years ago, when I first encountered Dr. Dr. Alan Kleinman,
a whole crowd of his opponents were hoping that I would
catch him in a mathematical error or two.

That time has finally come, but it wasn't about an error of
the sort most were expecting. It was about a confusion
of the mathematical theory of probability with a certain
kind of applied statistics.


There is a widespread misconception that statistics is a
branch of mathematics, but it is actually a whole other
discipline. In many ways, physics and parts of chemistry are
closer to mathematics than statistics is.


Kleinman's confusion came in the middle of a long post
replete with unsupportable jeers about how little (he
thinks!) I know about the mathematics of probability theory.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/ffonUPN_ISQ/JnRCDdhBBQAJ
Subject: Re: Predictions: Carlip on Theoretical Physics, Nyikos on Evolutionary Theory
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2018 16:59:10 -0800 (PST)


Even that middle was quite long, and so my reply to it
will come in two installments, the first setting the
stage for the second. It will be on this thread, because
the topic has strayed far from the one the original
thread was about.


Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

[John Harshman]

On 1/24/18 11:37 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> Years ago, when I first encountered Dr. Dr. Alan Kleinman,
> a whole crowd of his opponents were hoping that I would
> catch him in a mathematical error or two.
>
> That time has finally come, but it wasn't about an error of
> the sort most were expecting. It was about a confusion
> of the mathematical theory of probability with a certain
> kind of applied statistics.
>
>
> There is a widespread misconception that statistics is a
> branch of mathematics, but it is actually a whole other
> discipline. In many ways, physics and parts of chemistry are
> closer to mathematics than statistics is.
>
>
> Kleinman's confusion came in the middle of a long post
> replete with unsupportable jeers about how little (he
> thinks!) I know about the mathematics of probability theory.
>
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/ffonUPN_ISQ/JnRCDdhBBQAJ
> Subject: Re: Predictions: Carlip on Theoretical Physics, Nyikos on Evolutionary Theory
> Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2018 16:59:10 -0800 (PST)
>
>
> Even that middle was quite long, and so my reply to it
> will come in two installments, the first setting the
> stage for the second. It will be on this thread, because
> the topic has strayed far from the one the original
> thread was about.

My advice: lose the self-importance. Nobody was hoping you would catch
him in an error. All his math is high-school level, not requiring a
professional to catch the errors, which are conceptual rather than
strictly mathematical. That is, he isn't modeling what he claims to
model. Leaving out all the self-puffery would have left room for you to
actually say what his error is rather than hint at its nature and
announce that you would be doing it in the future.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Monday, January 22, 2018 at 8:00:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> On Monday, January 22, 2018 at 3:25:05 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Monday, January 22, 2018 at 4:35:03 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:

> > > and you can't recognize when events are independent.
> >
> > Like Ray Martinez, you use unsupported insults to "support" earlier
> > unsupported insults.

> So you deny what you said about the incidence of the Down's mutation?

What I deny is your amateurish take on what I write about it, and especially
your false accusation above.


> You made the mistake of thinking that if the frequency of an event changing
> somehow made it not random independent.

I challenged you to define "random independent" in a way that
makes anything I wrote about it a mistake.

And you ignominiously waffled on that challenge.

Besides, you aren't quoting my exact words, so I cannot assent to my having
made a mistake in what I wrote even if you HAD defined the term.


<elementary claim about dice deleted here since it is superseded below by coin flips>


> > Will you, like Ray, at some point claim that the back-and-forth has
> > become too complicated for anyone to follow, and run away?

> Hell no. Anyone who can figure out vector calculus should be able to figure out probability theory.

This taunt reminds me of a taunt you made elsewhere on the original thread:

> > > And the joint probability of two independent events occurring
> > > is computed using the multiplication rule.
>
> > Do you REALLY think I haven't known this since my undergraduate
> > days, half a century ago?

> If you do know, you are really good at hiding your understanding.

I am also good at hiding my understanding of how to fix a
garage door opener with a broken spring, and of thousands of other things
I am good at, ON talk.origins. This calculated insult of yours shows what a
bizarre virtual reality you have created in your mind about what I know
and don't know.


> Where the light came on for me on this subject occurred when I understood
> that a probability is nothing more than a relative frequency of outcomes

You are getting into experimental statistics, not the mathematical theory
of probability.

And like so many popularizers of it, you are inaccurate even there:
what is involved is a RANGE of frequencies, and the statistical theory
behind it.

> if you perform the random experiment many times.
> So for a coin tossing experiment, 1000 tosses will give you about 500 heads and 500 tails.

Note the word "about": you are talking statistics, a subject quite distinct
from mathematics, with its talk about 95% etc. confidence intervals,
and various rival "tests for randomness."


Concluded in next reply, where I reveal what the *mathematical* theory
of probability has to say about "independent" in connection with
Down's syndrome. I also show how you waffled on my challenge.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina

http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

Peter, you don't know the difference between probability theory and statistics.

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

John, you can't do high school level probability theory.

[*Hemidactylus*]

I was hoping Peter would take DrDr’s self-importance down a notch or two.
Good luck and good day.

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 12:05:03 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Monday, January 22, 2018 at 8:00:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > On Monday, January 22, 2018 at 3:25:05 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Monday, January 22, 2018 at 4:35:03 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
>
> > > > and you can't recognize when events are independent.
> > >
> > > Like Ray Martinez, you use unsupported insults to "support" earlier
> > > unsupported insults.
>
> > So you deny what you said about the incidence of the Down's mutation?
>
> What I deny is your amateurish take on what I write about it, and especially
> your false accusation above.

So explain youself so we call all understand what you mean.

>
>
> > You made the mistake of thinking that if the frequency of an event changing
> > somehow made it not random independent.
>
> I challenged you to define "random independent" in a way that
> makes anything I wrote about it a mistake.
>
> And you ignominiously waffled on that challenge.

If you can't predict the outcome from the experiment, it is the event is random. Just like you can't predict what the outcome of a coin toss is, you can't predict when a Down's mutation will occur from any particular conception. Understand rubberband?

>
> Besides, you aren't quoting my exact words, so I cannot assent to my having
> made a mistake in what I wrote even if you HAD defined the term.
>
>
> <elementary claim about dice deleted here since it is superseded below by coin flips>
>
>
> > > Will you, like Ray, at some point claim that the back-and-forth has
> > > become too complicated for anyone to follow, and run away?
>
> > Hell no. Anyone who can figure out vector calculus should be able to figure out probability theory.
>
> This taunt reminds me of a taunt you made elsewhere on the original thread:

That response wasn't intended to make you angry, it was to provoke you to look at the mathematics of probability theory again. Whoever taught your probability theory class clearly confused you.

>
> > > > And the joint probability of two independent events occurring
> > > > is computed using the multiplication rule.
> >
> > > Do you REALLY think I haven't known this since my undergraduate
> > > days, half a century ago?
>
> > If you do know, you are really good at hiding your understanding.
>
> I am also good at hiding my understanding of how to fix a
> garage door opener with a broken spring, and of thousands of other things
> I am good at, ON talk.origins. This calculated insult of yours shows what a
> bizarre virtual reality you have created in your mind about what I know
> and don't know.

The mathematics I've presented is focused on reality. You would realize this if you understood how to correlate this mathematics with reality. It's not hard, master the mathematics of coin tossing and dice rolling, rmns works in a totally analogous way.

>
>
> > Where the light came on for me on this subject occurred when I understood
> > that a probability is nothing more than a relative frequency of outcomes
>
> You are getting into experimental statistics, not the mathematical theory
> of probability.

So let's see you reveal your understanding of the difference between probability theory and statistics (if you can).

>
> And like so many popularizers of it, you are inaccurate even there:
> what is involved is a RANGE of frequencies, and the statistical theory
> behind it.

Did Professor Irwin Corey teach you probability theory?

>
> > if you perform the random experiment many times.
> > So for a coin tossing experiment, 1000 tosses will give you about 500 heads and 500 tails.
>
> Note the word "about": you are talking statistics, a subject quite distinct
> from mathematics, with its talk about 95% etc. confidence intervals,
> and various rival "tests for randomness."

Go on Professor Corey.

>
>
> Concluded in next reply, where I reveal what the *mathematical* theory
> of probability has to say about "independent" in connection with
> Down's syndrome. I also show how you waffled on my challenge.

We are sitting on the edge of our chairs.

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

Do you think it is self-importance that I don't let the reptiles grow feathers crowd continually bungle the mathematics of rmns? You can believe in your theory of DumbAndDumberDesign but stop indoctrinating naive school children with this mythology.

[Öö Tiib]

I think Kleinman is not self-important but very well knows that he is
fake since he dodges every attempt of substantial discussion with
repetitive and boring insults, jokes or changes of subject.
Lately I only understand the point of replies of jillery to him.

[erik simpson]

Peter, you've got to do better than this. Alan's full of shit, you know it, and
you know the subject. But if it goes on like this, he's winning the argument.
Be succinct and finish it.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Monday, January 22, 2018 at 8:00:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> On Monday, January 22, 2018 at 3:25:05 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> > But I know that the word "random" has no meaning in probability
> > theory (as opposed to statistics) except that it talks about
> > "random variables" in a sense having nothing to do with our
> > everyday ideas of "random".

> Whoever taught you probability theory did a terrible job.

Correction: when I taught myself statistics from a textbook, I realized that
it was something very different from the mathematical theory of probability.


> What differentiates a random experiment from a deterministic experiment
> is that you cannot predict the outcome of a random experiment.
<snip>

Of course, this sheds no light on the concept of "random independent",
on which I next challenged you as follows:

> > Let's see you define "random independent" in a way that makes
> > the following claim by you actually refute anything I said:
> >
> > increasing frequency of the Down's mutation with age
> > [does not change the mutation from being]
> > a random independent event.

You waffled on this challenge below, talking around the subject just as
Jonathan talked around the subject of what an integral is.


> > There is a correlation between age and frequency of the mutation,
> > that prevents the age of a "randomly picked" woman and the
> > probability that her next child will have Down's syndrome
> > from being independent events. If you deny this, your own words
> > above apply to you:

[Quoted from further back in the post:]

> > you can't recognize when events are independent.

You didn't address my statement above directly. Here is how
I would put it to a class in mathematical probability:

X = the probability space consisting of all women living now who will have least one more child.

E = the event, "all women over 40 in the space X living now"
D = the event, "all women whose next child will have Down's syndrome"

The DATA very strongly suggests that P(E and D) is substantially more than
P(E)P(D).
If D and E were independent, the two expressions would be equal, according
to one of your favorite mantras, "the multiplication rule of probabilities".

And so D and E are NOT independent events, by all available evidence.


> What makes the Down's mutation random and independent is that you cannot predict
> which conception will have that mutation.

You aren't defining "random and independent," but only contrasting a
"random experiment" with a deterministic experiment.

You are as bad about definitions as Jonathan was about the definition
of "the Integral".

I asked him, "which Integral"? Then I rattled off six DIFFERENT integrals,
ranging from the most restrictive (the Riemann integral, the one typically taught in freshman calculus) to the least restrictive one in common use
(the Denjoy integral).

In reply, he insulted me, claiming that I knew damn well what HE meant
by "the integral." Then he directed me to a quote from Wikipedia which
didn't even pretend to be a definition, but just made some high school
level comments on it so that students at that level would know that
the integral is more than "a tall aneroxic capital S with a bunch of
symbols swarming around it."

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

You almost did the mathematics for two beneficial mutations to occur but then bailed out. Did you find it too boring or an insult to complete your work correctly?

[Peter Nyikos]

So were a lot of others, contrary to the self-important divining of
the past by Harshman above.

> I think Kleinman is not self-important but very well knows that he is
> fake since he dodges every attempt of substantial discussion with
> repetitive and boring insults, jokes or changes of subject.
> Lately I only understand the point of replies of jillery to him.

I agree. If you click on the url above, you will find Kleinman
showering me with boring insults, jokes, and changes of subject,
sometimes all three in the same post, and always at least one.

I have likened this kind of behavior to a practice, well known in medieval
and perhaps ancient times, of people who were fleeing pursuers
who posed a deadly danger to them.

They would shower their path with gold coins, tempting the
pursuers to stop and pick them up, during which time they
would make good their escape.

Similarly, people who behave like Kleinman are hoping that
people will get so caught up in countering their "gold coin
analogues" that they would lose the train of thought in
countering their highly flawed *substantive* assertions.

Peter Nyikos

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

If Bart Simpson's dumber brother thinks that Peter can be succinct, he's been smoking too much wacky tabacky.

[Ernest Major]

You might notice that no-one is disputing your calculations of the
probability of one or more simultaneous mutations. You haven't shown any
ability to handle the more complex situations where people agree that
your extrapolation is invalid. That you resort to a transparently false
ad hominem rather than making a case leads your readers to conclude that
you are unable to defend your claims.

--
alias Ernest Major

[Peter Nyikos]

I carelessly copied and pasted below.
Brackets mark corrected text.

On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 3:40:03 PM UTC-5, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> X = the probability space consisting of all women living now who will have least one more child.
>

> E = the event, "all women over 40 in the space X []"
> D = the event, "all women [in the space X] whose next child will have Down's syndrome"

>
> The DATA very strongly suggests that P(E and D) is substantially more than
> P(E)P(D).
> If D and E were independent, the two expressions would be equal, according
> to one of your favorite mantras, "the multiplication rule of probabilities".
>
> And so D and E are NOT independent events, by all available evidence.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 12:40:03 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Monday, January 22, 2018 at 8:00:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > On Monday, January 22, 2018 at 3:25:05 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
> > > But I know that the word "random" has no meaning in probability
> > > theory (as opposed to statistics) except that it talks about
> > > "random variables" in a sense having nothing to do with our
> > > everyday ideas of "random".
>
> > Whoever taught you probability theory did a terrible job.
>
> Correction: when I taught myself statistics from a textbook, I realized that
> it was something very different from the mathematical theory of probability.

Have you figured out the difference? Now be succinct, Bart Simpson's dumber brother is demanding it.

>
>
> > What differentiates a random experiment from a deterministic experiment
> > is that you cannot predict the outcome of a random experiment.
> <snip>
>
> Of course, this sheds no light on the concept of "random independent",
> on which I next challenged you as follows:

If the occurrence of one random event does not affect the probability of the other random event occurring, the events are independent. Understand rubberband?

>
> > > Let's see you define "random independent" in a way that makes
> > > the following claim by you actually refute anything I said:
> > >
> > > increasing frequency of the Down's mutation with age
> > > [does not change the mutation from being]
> > > a random independent event.
>
> You waffled on this challenge below, talking around the subject just as
> Jonathan talked around the subject of what an integral is.

You are confusing the concept of random and the concept of independence. An event if random if you can't predict the outcome of a random experiment. Independence pertains to two or more random events occurring where the occurrence of any one event doesn't have an effect on the occurrence of the other events. You should have studied probability theory before you studied statistics.

>
>
> > > There is a correlation between age and frequency of the mutation,
> > > that prevents the age of a "randomly picked" woman and the
> > > probability that her next child will have Down's syndrome
> > > from being independent events. If you deny this, your own words
> > > above apply to you:
>
> [Quoted from further back in the post:]
> > > you can't recognize when events are independent.
>
> You didn't address my statement above directly. Here is how
> I would put it to a class in mathematical probability:
>
> X = the probability space consisting of all women living now who will have least one more child.
>
> E = the event, "all women over 40 in the space X living now"

That's not an event, that's a subset.

> D = the event, "all women whose next child will have Down's syndrome"

Again, that's not an event, that's another subset.

>
> The DATA very strongly suggests that P(E and D) is substantially more than
> P(E)P(D).
> If D and E were independent, the two expressions would be equal, according
> to one of your favorite mantras, "the multiplication rule of probabilities".
>
> And so D and E are NOT independent events, by all available evidence.

Peter, I think you are totally confused on this subject. Try drawing the Venn diagrams of your problem. Then it might more sense of the intersect or union of your subsets.

>
>
> > What makes the Down's mutation random and independent is that you cannot predict
> > which conception will have that mutation.
>
> You aren't defining "random and independent," but only contrasting a
> "random experiment" with a deterministic experiment.

Not at all. I'm showing you how to determine if an outcome is random. If you can predict the outcome of an experiment, it is not a random experiment. Predicting the outcome of a Down's mutation occurring is no more deterministic than predicting the outcome from a coin toss.

>
> You are as bad about definitions as Jonathan was about the definition
> of "the Integral".

I have no problem with defining what an integral is. I do seem to be having a problem defining what random is and what independence is to someone who has studied statistics but not probability theory. I suspect the problem is with the one who hasn't studied probability theory. Think about it for a while, the notion might sink in.

>
> I asked him, "which Integral"? Then I rattled off six DIFFERENT integrals,
> ranging from the most restrictive (the Riemann integral, the one typically taught in freshman calculus) to the least restrictive one in common use
> (the Denjoy integral).
>
> In reply, he insulted me, claiming that I knew damn well what HE meant
> by "the integral." Then he directed me to a quote from Wikipedia which
> didn't even pretend to be a definition, but just made some high school
> level comments on it so that students at that level would know that
> the integral is more than "a tall aneroxic capital S with a bunch of
> symbols swarming around it."

Peter, do you have ADD?

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

What you reptiles grow feathers crowd don't get is that as the selection conditions become more complex, the probabilities of that evolutionary process occurring drop off multiplicatively. That's why combination therapy works for the treatment of hiv. Now if you think that a more complex situation makes the theory of DumbAndDumberDesign somehow have any realistic probability, post your math and real, measurable and repeatable empirical examples. You won't because they don't exist.
>
> --
> alias Ernest Major

[Peter Nyikos]

On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 3:30:05 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:

> The mathematics I've presented is focused on reality.

You're wrong, as will be seen below.

>You would realize this if you understood how to correlate this mathematics with reality.

You think you know it better than I do, because you haven't begun
to see what I can do with it.

On the original thread, you outright LIED when you claimed to have
caught the renowned biologist Gerd Muller in an elementary blunder
about rmns, then had to shamefacedly admit that you had not seen
anything that would justify this brazen insult:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/ffonUPN_ISQ/rdvDyMd_BQAJ

Correction: You didn't do it "shamefacedly"; quite the contrary:

Muller makes no explanation on the subject of rmns.
And Muller is not the only one ignorant on this subject.

> It's not hard, master the mathematics of coin tossing and dice rolling,

How condescending can you get? And how foolish, having said the
following in the one place where I wrote <snip> without explanation:

Perhaps you think you can predict the outcome from a coin toss
but about half the time you will be wrong.
And the more times you toss the coin, the closer to one half
your accuracy in prediction.

Here you are referring to a PURELY THEORETICAL concept called
"a fair coin" and in a prediction about it which is correct
almost always in one sense of the word "random" and
is wrong almost always in a very different sense which
Richard Norman understood.

In reality, it turns out that there is a very small preference
for heads in most US coins.

So much for your claim about how you are focused on reality.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina

http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

PS I only addressed your second sentence in the part I've quoted.
I think readers can judge for themselves what the first sentence
reveals about you.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 4:25:05 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 12:40:03 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Monday, January 22, 2018 at 8:00:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > > On Monday, January 22, 2018 at 3:25:05 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> > > What differentiates a random experiment from a deterministic experiment
> > > is that you cannot predict the outcome of a random experiment.
> > > <snip>

I restored the above snip in the immediately preceding reply to you.

> > Of course, this sheds no light on the concept of "random independent",
> > on which I next challenged you as follows:

> If the occurrence of one random event does not affect the probability of the other random event occurring, the events are independent.

...in the everyday sense of the word. But the thing is, "the probability"
of a single OUTCOME (not "event", mathematicians have different meaning
for "event") coming out in a certain way is something that defies
definition. You can only trot out DATA saying how things behave
everywhere, and it is useless for gambling your money on how the
very next outcome will happen if the odds are calculated according
to the overall DATA.

<snip>

> > > > There is a correlation between age and frequency of the mutation,
> > > > that prevents the age of a "randomly picked" woman and the
> > > > probability that her next child will have Down's syndrome
> > > > from being independent events.

> > You didn't address my statement above directly. Here is how
> > I would put it to a class in mathematical probability:
> >
> > X = the probability space consisting of all women living now who will have least one more child.
> >
> > E = the event, "all women over 40 in the space X "

> That's not an event, that's a subset.

Subset = event in *mathematical* probability theory. Did you ever read a
mathematical textbook in probability?


> > D = the event, "all women [in the space X] whose next child will have Down's syndrome"

> Again, that's not an event, that's another subset.
> >
> > The DATA very strongly suggests that P(E and D) is substantially more than
> > P(E)P(D).
> > If D and E were independent, the two expressions would be equal, according
> > to one of your favorite mantras, "the multiplication rule of probabilities".
> >
> > And so D and E are NOT independent events, by all available evidence.

> Peter, I think you are totally confused on this subject.

Then you don't think, full stop.

> Try drawing the Venn diagrams of your problem. Then it might more sense of the intersect or union of your subsets.

If you think that will change the truth of what I wrote, you
are a simpleton. The intersection is denoted "E and D" above and if
you write union as U we have the well known rule,

P(E U D)= P(E) + P(D) - P(E and D).

Would you like to see more formulas?

Will you ever stop insulting me?

Will Pope Francis convert to Islam?

Which of the preceding three questions is most likely to have
a Yes answer, and which is most likely to have a NO answer?

I think most readers can guess the answer to the last question. :-)

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

nyikos "at" math.sc.edu

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 1:45:05 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 3:30:05 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
>
> > The mathematics I've presented is focused on reality.
>
> You're wrong, as will be seen below.
>
>
> >You would realize this if you understood how to correlate this mathematics with reality.
>
> You think you know it better than I do, because you haven't begun
> to see what I can do with it.

On this subject, I do know better than you. I wrote the papers. The challenge for you is to understand the papers.

>
> On the original thread, you outright LIED when you claimed to have
> caught the renowned biologist Gerd Muller in an elementary blunder
> about rmns, then had to shamefacedly admit that you had not seen
> anything that would justify this brazen insult:

Muller's blunder is to think that the mathematics of survival of the fittest is adequate to describe evolution. Actually, that math only describes the removal of less fit variants. You haven't figured it out yet.

>
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/ffonUPN_ISQ/rdvDyMd_BQAJ
>
> Correction: You didn't do it "shamefacedly"; quite the contrary:
>
> Muller makes no explanation on the subject of rmns.
> And Muller is not the only one ignorant on this subject.
>
>
> > It's not hard, master the mathematics of coin tossing and dice rolling,
>
> How condescending can you get? And how foolish, having said the
> following in the one place where I wrote <snip> without explanation:

Apparently not enough to describe your understanding of this topic.

>
> Perhaps you think you can predict the outcome from a coin toss
> but about half the time you will be wrong.
> And the more times you toss the coin, the closer to one half
> your accuracy in prediction.
>
> Here you are referring to a PURELY THEORETICAL concept called
> "a fair coin" and in a prediction about it which is correct
> almost always in one sense of the word "random" and
> is wrong almost always in a very different sense which
> Richard Norman understood.

Instead of thinking of it as a "fair coin", try thinking of it as symmetric outcomes. rmns, on the other hand, is highly asymmetric. Most of the time, the mutation doesn't occur in any given replication (random trial or experiment).

>
> In reality, it turns out that there is a very small preference
> for heads in most US coins.

It depends on how big the head is.

>
> So much for your claim about how you are focused on reality.

Do you want to talk about the primordial soup? Do you think that's a little closer to reality?

>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> University of South Carolina
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/
>
> PS I only addressed your second sentence in the part I've quoted.
> I think readers can judge for themselves what the first sentence
> reveals about you.

So you only want to address a subset of my sentences. Any other random thoughts?

[*Hemidactylus*]

To the extent he puffs up his rmns as some very important thing that shakes
the foundations of evolutionary biology he is self-important.

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 2:10:05 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 4:25:05 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 12:40:03 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Monday, January 22, 2018 at 8:00:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > > > On Monday, January 22, 2018 at 3:25:05 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
> > > > What differentiates a random experiment from a deterministic experiment
> > > > is that you cannot predict the outcome of a random experiment.
> > > > <snip>
>
> I restored the above snip in the immediately preceding reply to you.
>
>
> > > Of course, this sheds no light on the concept of "random independent",
> > > on which I next challenged you as follows:
>
> > If the occurrence of one random event does not affect the probability of the other random event occurring, the events are independent.
>
> ...in the everyday sense of the word. But the thing is, "the probability"
> of a single OUTCOME (not "event", mathematicians have different meaning
> for "event") coming out in a certain way is something that defies
> definition. You can only trot out DATA saying how things behave
> everywhere, and it is useless for gambling your money on how the
> very next outcome will happen if the odds are calculated according
> to the overall DATA.

Tell that to the owners of the casinos in Vegas. They know how to gamble. Play a game where the odds are always in your favor and it is as good as having a printing press for money. Go watch the movie "21" and see what happens if you figure out a way to change the odds.

>
> <snip>
>
> > > > > There is a correlation between age and frequency of the mutation,
> > > > > that prevents the age of a "randomly picked" woman and the
> > > > > probability that her next child will have Down's syndrome
> > > > > from being independent events.
>
> > > You didn't address my statement above directly. Here is how
> > > I would put it to a class in mathematical probability:
> > >
> > > X = the probability space consisting of all women living now who will have least one more child.
> > >
> > > E = the event, "all women over 40 in the space X "
> > That's not an event, that's a subset.
>
> Subset = event in *mathematical* probability theory. Did you ever read a
> mathematical textbook in probability?

I stand corrected on this terminology. I find it easier to think of collections of elements as sets or subsets, not as events.

>
>
> > > D = the event, "all women [in the space X] whose next child will have Down's syndrome"
> > Again, that's not an event, that's another subset.
> > >
> > > The DATA very strongly suggests that P(E and D) is substantially more than
> > > P(E)P(D).
> > > If D and E were independent, the two expressions would be equal, according
> > > to one of your favorite mantras, "the multiplication rule of probabilities".
> > >
> > > And so D and E are NOT independent events, by all available evidence.
>
> > Peter, I think you are totally confused on this subject.
>
> Then you don't think, full stop.

So let's start thinking. You have said that "The DATA very strongly suggests that P(E and D) is substantially more than P(E)P(D)." Which of course, makes sense because the union of E and D will form a larger set than the intersection of E and D. If E and D are mutually exclusive, the intersection of E and D will be the null set. But you still haven't proven that the Down's mutation is not random.

>
>
> > Try drawing the Venn diagrams of your problem. Then it might more sense of the intersect or union of your subsets.
>
> If you think that will change the truth of what I wrote, you
> are a simpleton. The intersection is denoted "E and D" above and if
> you write union as U we have the well known rule,
>
> P(E U D)= P(E) + P(D) - P(E and D).

Sure, the addition rule for arbitrary events. And as I pointed out above if E and D are mutually exclusive, then P(E and D)=0

>
> Would you like to see more formulas?

Yea, show me you understand the formulas from my paper, Dilbert.

>
> Will you ever stop insulting me?

You are a whining crybaby.

>
> Will Pope Francis convert to Islam?

Didn't he already say he worships the same god?

>
> Which of the preceding three questions is most likely to have
> a Yes answer, and which is most likely to have a NO answer?

That's like asking Peter will he ever admit that the Down's mutation is random even when the frequency of occurrence changes with age.

>
> I think most readers can guess the answer to the last question. :-)

Are those guesses random?

[*Hemidactylus*]

You’re a one trick pony and it’s not a very good one. Intelligently
targeted synchronic selection pressures are not the sort of thing one sees
in non-anthropogenic situations and in the field outside controlled lab
conditions bacteria enjoy the interpopulational flow (=migration) of LGT.
That fact gfns demolishes rmns in the wild. We had already established that
problem as a problem not long ago.

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

We'll see.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Dr Dr monomanically pushing his hobbyhorse rmns at us provoking 1000+ reply
threads is the epitome of self importance. But since you are an alienist*
who is able to diagnose me and others with sociopathy maybe I should defer
to your math doctorate in this matter.

* aka psychiatrist

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 3:30:02 PM UTC-8, *Hemidactylus* wrote:

And a very good trick it is. It explains all real, measurable and repeatable examples of rmns. Hemi, you never tell us where those genes come from that are flowing all over the place. Wait, I know where they come from, they come from the gene pool and the gene pool is filled from the primordial soup. It's an hmm hmm good explanation.

[*Hemidactylus*]

I always thought synchronic and diachronic to be different things. I guess
I am wrong. The spread time series of a long term character transformation
is exactly the same as an HIV cocktail. If you gave one retroviral long
enough for a viral subset to adapt and then gave another antiviral and
reiterated over time that’s the same as hitting HIV with each drug at the
same time.

And character transformation has nothing to do with shift in function or
exaptation. Feathers could have originated for display or thermoregulation
then eventually fortuitous for flight. As Gould held historical origin and
current utility are not the same thing.

Did feathers originate from scales?

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

It's hard to teach the reptiles grow feathers crowd about the multiplication rule and its effect on evolution. Empirical examples don't work, mathematics doesn't work, let's try repetition. And don't pick on poor Peter just because he thinks R2D2 took the starship Enterprise from the planet Krypton and brought DNA here to Earth. It really came here from gene flow from the gene pool which originated from the primordial soup. You could really teach Peter a lesson in science (fiction).

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

Of course, rmns only works efficiently when a single selection pressure targets a single gene. That's what the math and empirical evidence shows.

>
> And character transformation has nothing to do with shift in function or
> exaptation. Feathers could have originated for display or thermoregulation
> then eventually fortuitous for flight. As Gould held historical origin and
> current utility are not the same thing.
>
> Did feathers originate from scales?

That's your speculation. So do you want to tell us the selection pressure, genes targeted and mutations required? Then you can do the same for pneumatic bones, flight muscles, wings, beaks,...

[*Hemidactylus*]

So do these features need to appear simultaneously to make a bird out of a
“reptile” in your view? Why?

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

This is your tale. But I can tell you, if you want to have any connection with the reality of the physics of rmns, the genes need to be transformed sequentially, something like the formation of MRSA. But then, what are these sequential selection pressures that would do something like this? How good is your imagination? I think as people like Lenski and Kishony do more experiments, especially if they do their experiments with sexually reproducing replicators (such as yeasts, etc.) or with phages to allow for gene flow that it will become even more apparent that these kinds of genetic transformations cannot be done by rmns.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Do the lowly evolutionary scientists take the mighty DrDr rmns
multiplication of improbabilities incredulity move to heart when they find
genetic connection between scales and feathers?

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42082489

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/06/human-hair-bird-feathers-came-reptile-scales

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

Do you know what a keratosis is? And do you think they can turn into feathers?
>
> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/06/human-hair-bird-feathers-came-reptile-scales
Can you find a link that doesn't use the words "seem" and "appear"?

[jillery]

On Wed, 24 Jan 2018 17:54:14 -0600, *Hemidactylus*
<ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:

>Did feathers originate from scales?

IIUC Harshman says no.

According to Richard Prum:

<http://ncsce.org/PDF_files/feathers/Prum feather.pdf>

**********************************
I propose that feathers originated with the evolution of the first
feather follicle—a cylindrical epidermal invagination around the base
of a dermal papilla.

[...]

Except for differences in their shape, spacing, and biochemical
composition (Sengel ’76; Brush ’93, ’96), feathers and scales
develop by essentially the same mechanisms from the origin of the
placode through the growth of an elongate papilla with an established
anteriorposterior axis (Fig. 2A, B). However, with the origin of the
epidermal invagination that defines the follicle (Fig. 2C), feathers
have distinct and derived mechanisms of development that are not
homologous with scales
*********************************

--
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Attributed to Voltaire

[jillery]

On Wed, 24 Jan 2018 12:30:27 -0800 (PST), Öö Tiib <oot...@hot.ee>

wrote:

>On Wednesday, 24 January 2018 22:15:03 UTC+2, *Hemidactylus* wrote:

>> I was hoping Peter would take DrDr’s self-importance down a notch or two.
>> Good luck and good day.
>

>I think Kleinman is not self-important but very well knows that he is
>fake since he dodges every attempt of substantial discussion with
>repetitive and boring insults, jokes or changes of subject.
>Lately I only understand the point of replies of jillery to him.

Better late than never 8-)

FWIW my impression is I say substantially the same as other posters. I
might say it more often, almost certainly too often for some people's
tastes. IMO what I say to posters like the good DrDr can't be said
often enough.

[Öö Tiib]

To that extent everybody with an idea and a dream that they hope to fulfill
are self-important.

[Peter Nyikos]

I have an end of the month deadline looming, so the two replies
I do to this post by Kleinman may be the only posts I do today.

On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 6:25:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 2:10:05 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 4:25:05 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 12:40:03 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > On Monday, January 22, 2018 at 8:00:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > > > > On Monday, January 22, 2018 at 3:25:05 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >
> > > > > What differentiates a random experiment from a deterministic experiment
> > > > > is that you cannot predict the outcome of a random experiment.
> > > > > <snip>

The operative word here is "you." In principle, unless you think
quantum indeterminacy makes a difference in the outcome of your
experiment, or you fall back on the metaphysical doctrine of free will,
all experiments are deterministic.

And "you" might vary from one person to another, because some physicist
might know enough about the initial conditions to predict the outcome,
while the average person might not.

<small snip>

> > > If the occurrence of one random event does not affect the probability of the other random event occurring, the events are independent.
> >
> > ...in the everyday sense of the word. But the thing is, "the probability"
> > of a single OUTCOME (not "event", mathematicians have different meaning
> > for "event") coming out in a certain way is something that defies
> > definition. You can only trot out DATA saying how things behave
> > everywhere, and it is useless for gambling your money on how the
> > very next outcome will happen if the odds are calculated according
> > to the overall DATA.

<snip sterile repartee by you>

> > <snip>
> >
> > > > > > There is a correlation between age and frequency of the mutation,
> > > > > > that prevents the age of a "randomly picked" woman and the
> > > > > > probability that her next child will have Down's syndrome
> > > > > > from being independent events.
> >
> > > > You didn't address my statement above directly. Here is how
> > > > I would put it to a class in mathematical probability:
> > > >
> > > > X = the probability space consisting of all women living now who will have least one more child.
> > > >
> > > > E = the event, "all women over 40 in the space X "
> > > That's not an event, that's a subset.
> >
> > Subset = event in *mathematical* probability theory. Did you ever read a
> > mathematical textbook in probability?

> I stand corrected on this terminology. I find it easier to think of collections of elements as sets or subsets, not as events.

Kolmogoroff put the mathematical foundation of probability theory
on a firm footing early in the 20th century. I'm curious to see
whether your use of the word "event" makes sense in this theory.
How do you define it?


Concluded in next reply.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --

U. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

> >
> > > > D = the event, "all women [in the space X] whose next child will have Down's syndrome"
> > > Again, that's not an event, that's another subset.
> > > >
> > > > The DATA very strongly suggests that P(E and D) is substantially more than
> > > > P(E)P(D).
> > > > If D and E were independent, the two expressions would be equal, according
> > > > to one of your favorite mantras, "the multiplication rule of probabilities".
> > > >
> > > > And so D and E are NOT independent events, by all available evidence.

You've blown a lot of smoke below to evade this conclusion.

> > > Peter, I think you are totally confused on this subject.
> >
> > Then you don't think, full stop.

> So let's start thinking. You have said that "The DATA very strongly suggests that P(E and D) is substantially more than P(E)P(D)."
> > Which of course, makes sense because the union of E and D will form a larger set than the intersection of E and D.

"makes sense because" is illogical because the union does not enter into
anything that appears above.

Below, I snipped your insulting taunt about Venn diagrams,
which was pure obfuscation on your part, trying to bring
"union" in where it didn't belong.

> But you still haven't proven that the Down's mutation is not random.

The bone of contention was "random independent", not "random". Like
Ron Okimoto, you love to leave off modifiers when it suits you
and restore them again when it suits you.

> > The intersection is denoted "E and D" above and if
> > you write union as U we have the well known rule,
> >
> > P(E U D)= P(E) + P(D) - P(E and D).

> Sure, the addition rule for arbitrary events.

You may need to have your short-term memory examined. Here you
actually realize what I meant by "E and D" above, making your
"makes sense because" look pretty idiotic.

<snip of you going off on a tangent>

> >
> > Would you like to see more formulas?

> Yea, show me you understand the formulas from my paper

How come you aren't posting long excerpts from it to show
that they DO model natural selection? This has long been a bone
of contention between yourself and a number of other people.

When you e-mailed those pdf's to me, you warned me that they
were copyrighted. Since you keep so tight-lippped about what is
in them, I took this to mean you wanted to hamstring me if I
DID agree with your critics that you hadn't modeled natural
selection. I thought I would be in the bind of knowing you were wrong
yet not being able to show it in talk.origins.


<snip shower of "gold coins" by you>


That was an allusion to a centuries-old tactic I described in my
exchange on this thread with Mr. Tiib:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/cUFAn6vukD4/-iTm66puBgAJ

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --

U. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

[Peter Nyikos]

On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 6:25:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 2:10:05 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 4:25:05 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 12:40:03 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:

I've repeated a bit from my first reply, for context.

> > > > Here is how I would put it to a class in mathematical probability:
> > > >
> > > > X = the probability space consisting of all women living now who will have least one more child.
> > > >
> > > > E = the event, "all women over 40 in the space X "

> > > > D = the event, "all women [in the space X] whose next child will have Down's syndrome"

> > > > The DATA very strongly suggests that P(E and D) is substantially more than
> > > > P(E)P(D).
> > > > If D and E were independent, the two expressions would be equal, according
> > > > to one of your favorite mantras, "the multiplication rule of probabilities".
> > > >
> > > > And so D and E are NOT independent events, by all available evidence.

You've blown a lot of smoke below to evade this conclusion.

> > > Peter, I think you are totally confused on this subject.
> >
> > Then you don't think, full stop.

> So let's start thinking. You have said that "The DATA very strongly suggests that P(E and D) is substantially more than P(E)P(D)."
> > Which of course, makes sense because the union of E and D will form a larger set than the intersection of E and D.

"makes sense because" is illogical because the union does not enter into
anything that appears above.


Below, I snipped your insulting taunt about Venn diagrams,
which was pure obfuscation on your part, trying to bring
"union" in where it didn't belong.

> But you still haven't proven that the Down's mutation is not random.

You are deliberately confusing the issue, by leaving off the word
"independent" at the end. Like Ron Okimoto, you omit modifiers
when it suits you and include them when it suits you.

> > The intersection is denoted "E and D" above and if
> > you write union as U we have the well known rule,
> >
> > P(E U D)= P(E) + P(D) - P(E and D).

> Sure, the addition rule for arbitrary events.

You may need to have your short term memory examined. Here you show that
you know that "E and D" refers to the intersection. ABOVE, you
treated it as though it were the union and P(E)P(D) were the intersection.

> > Would you like to see more formulas?

> Yea, show me you understand the formulas from my paper

Why haven't you quoted at length from it to show people
that you DO model natural selection in it? This has been a
bone of contention between you and several others for a long time.

When you sent me a copy of your paper, you warned me that
it was copyrighted. Since you are so tight-lipped about its
contents here, I took that to mean that if I did
find that your paper did NOT model natural selection,
you would consider it a breach of copyright to post the
paper in talk.origins to show that NOWHERE did it model
natural selection.

Was I wrong?

<snip shower of "gold coins" by you>

That's an allusion to a millennia-old sneaky trick that
I talked about in reply to Mr. Tiib on this thread:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/cUFAn6vukD4/-iTm66puBgAJ


Peter Nyikos
Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --

U. of South Carolina in Columbia
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

On Thursday, January 25, 2018 at 2:25:03 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> I have an end of the month deadline looming, so the two replies
> I do to this post by Kleinman may be the only posts I do today.
>

> On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 6:25:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 2:10:05 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 4:25:05 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > > > On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 12:40:03 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> > > > > On Monday, January 22, 2018 at 8:00:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > > > > > On Monday, January 22, 2018 at 3:25:05 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > >
> > > > > > What differentiates a random experiment from a deterministic experiment
> > > > > > is that you cannot predict the outcome of a random experiment.
> > > > > > <snip>
>
> The operative word here is "you." In principle, unless you think
> quantum indeterminacy makes a difference in the outcome of your
> experiment, or you fall back on the metaphysical doctrine of free will,
> all experiments are deterministic.

The "you" includes all who observe the random experiment.

>
> And "you" might vary from one person to another, because some physicist
> might know enough about the initial conditions to predict the outcome,
> while the average person might not.

So how much do you need to know to predict the outcome from a coin toss?

>
> <small snip>
>
> > > > If the occurrence of one random event does not affect the probability of the other random event occurring, the events are independent.
> > >
> > > ...in the everyday sense of the word. But the thing is, "the probability"
> > > of a single OUTCOME (not "event", mathematicians have different meaning
> > > for "event") coming out in a certain way is something that defies
> > > definition. You can only trot out DATA saying how things behave
> > > everywhere, and it is useless for gambling your money on how the
> > > very next outcome will happen if the odds are calculated according
> > > to the overall DATA.
>
>
> <snip sterile repartee by you>
>
>
> > > <snip>
> > >
> > > > > > > There is a correlation between age and frequency of the mutation,
> > > > > > > that prevents the age of a "randomly picked" woman and the
> > > > > > > probability that her next child will have Down's syndrome
> > > > > > > from being independent events.
> > >

> > > > > You didn't address my statement above directly. Here is how

> > > > > I would put it to a class in mathematical probability:
> > > > >
> > > > > X = the probability space consisting of all women living now who will have least one more child.
> > > > >
> > > > > E = the event, "all women over 40 in the space X "

> > > > That's not an event, that's a subset.
> > >
> > > Subset = event in *mathematical* probability theory. Did you ever read a
> > > mathematical textbook in probability?
>
> > I stand corrected on this terminology. I find it easier to think of collections of elements as sets or subsets, not as events.
>
> Kolmogoroff put the mathematical foundation of probability theory
> on a firm footing early in the 20th century. I'm curious to see

> whether your use of the word "event" makes sense in this theory.
> How do you define it?
The definition used for "event" in probability theory is a subset of a sample space. I haven't been using the term "event" but finding the word "subset" as a better term because the common definition of "event" is something which happens. And a single outcome is also a subset of the sample space and this is distinguished as an elementary "event". And even the entire sample space is an "event". But if you want to use the term "event" in your discussion, I'll do a better job understanding you.
>
>
> Concluded in next reply.

>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --

> U. of South Carolina at Columbia
> http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

>
>
>
> > >
> > > > > D = the event, "all women [in the space X] whose next child will have Down's syndrome"

> > > > Again, that's not an event, that's another subset.
> > > > >

> > > > > The DATA very strongly suggests that P(E and D) is substantially more than
> > > > > P(E)P(D).
> > > > > If D and E were independent, the two expressions would be equal, according
> > > > > to one of your favorite mantras, "the multiplication rule of probabilities".
> > > > >
> > > > > And so D and E are NOT independent events, by all available evidence.
>
> You've blown a lot of smoke below to evade this conclusion.
>
>
> > > > Peter, I think you are totally confused on this subject.
> > >
> > > Then you don't think, full stop.
>
> > So let's start thinking. You have said that "The DATA very strongly suggests that P(E and D) is substantially more than P(E)P(D)."
> > > Which of course, makes sense because the union of E and D will form a larger set than the intersection of E and D.
>
> "makes sense because" is illogical because the union does not enter into
> anything that appears above.

Don't you recall posting the addition rule for arbitrary events? You have to subtract the intersection of the two subsets to compute the correct probability.

>
> Below, I snipped your insulting taunt about Venn diagrams,
> which was pure obfuscation on your part, trying to bring
> "union" in where it didn't belong.

You are a thin-skinned crybaby. There is nothing wrong with using Venn diagrams to help understand a probability problem. You posted the addition rule for arbitrary events and the Venn diagram makes it clear that you have to subtract out the intersection of the two subsets to obtain the correct probability when computing the union. When the events are mutually exclusive, there is no intersection of the two subsets.

>
>
> > But you still haven't proven that the Down's mutation is not random.
>

> The bone of contention was "random independent", not "random". Like
> Ron Okimoto, you love to leave off modifiers when it suits you
> and restore them again when it suits you.

So are you admitting that the Down's mutation is random? If you do admit this which you should, then the contention is whether it is independent or dependent. And that depends on the other probability which you have associated this event with.

>
>
> > > The intersection is denoted "E and D" above and if
> > > you write union as U we have the well known rule,
> > >
> > > P(E U D)= P(E) + P(D) - P(E and D).
>
> > Sure, the addition rule for arbitrary events.
>

> You may need to have your short-term memory examined. Here you
> actually realize what I meant by "E and D" above, making your
> "makes sense because" look pretty idiotic.

The only thing idiotic is your contention about the Down's mutation. The first thing you need to understand about the Down's mutation is that it is a random event. Once you realize this, then you need to determine whether it is an independent or dependent event. That depends on the probability that you associate with that mutation.

>
> <snip of you going off on a tangent>
> > >

> > > Would you like to see more formulas?
>
> > Yea, show me you understand the formulas from my paper
>

> How come you aren't posting long excerpts from it to show
> that they DO model natural selection? This has long been a bone
> of contention between yourself and a number of other people.

You don't need long excerpts to show that it models natural selection. (n*nG) is the variable which is the measure of natural selection. It is the measure of absolute fitness to reproduce and determines the probability of the next beneficial mutation occurring.

>
> When you e-mailed those pdf's to me, you warned me that they
> were copyrighted. Since you keep so tight-lippped about what is
> in them, I took this to mean you wanted to hamstring me if I
> DID agree with your critics that you hadn't modeled natural
> selection. I thought I would be in the bind of knowing you were wrong
> yet not being able to show it in talk.origins.

If you think that natural selection can only be modeled as differential reproductive fitness, you are wrong. Differential reproductive fitness is the measure of natural selection for survival of the fittest. But the mathematics of improving fitness is not dependent on the differential reproductive fitness to reproduce, it is dependent on the absolute fitness to reproduce.

>
>
> <snip shower of "gold coins" by you>
>
>

> That was an allusion to a centuries-old tactic I described in my
> exchange on this thread with Mr. Tiib:
>

> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/cUFAn6vukD4/-iTm66puBgAJ
>
>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --

> U. of South Carolina at Columbia
> http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

First, you need to understand that the Down's mutation is random. Then you need to determine when it is dependent or independent with some other associated probability. Do you think the Thalassemia mutation and the Down's mutation are dependent or independent events? And would it be appropriate to use the multiplication rule to compute the joint probability of someone getting both those mutations?

>
>
> > > The intersection is denoted "E and D" above and if
> > > you write union as U we have the well known rule,
> > >
> > > P(E U D)= P(E) + P(D) - P(E and D).
>
> > Sure, the addition rule for arbitrary events.
>
> You may need to have your short term memory examined. Here you show that
> you know that "E and D" refers to the intersection. ABOVE, you
> treated it as though it were the union and P(E)P(D) were the intersection.
>
> > > Would you like to see more formulas?
>
> > Yea, show me you understand the formulas from my paper
>
> Why haven't you quoted at length from it to show people
> that you DO model natural selection in it? This has been a
> bone of contention between you and several others for a long time.
>
> When you sent me a copy of your paper, you warned me that
> it was copyrighted. Since you are so tight-lipped about its
> contents here, I took that to mean that if I did
> find that your paper did NOT model natural selection,
> you would consider it a breach of copyright to post the
> paper in talk.origins to show that NOWHERE did it model
> natural selection.
>
> Was I wrong?

You are wrong. My papers do model natural selection but not as differential reproductive fitness but as absolute reproductive fitness. That's what is required to do the mathematics of improving fitness.

[Peter Nyikos]

I've used up almost all the time I could spare today
in the "parent" thread about predictions in physics
and evolution. I made two long two posts exposing what a
charlatan Kleinmn is, and one highly on-topic post
in reply to Hemidactylus. This is the last post I can spare
the time for today, also in reply to him.

Ever since you did that April Fool's Day rant a number of
years ago about how I supposedly make your head want to explode,
I have not seen anything you said about or to me to be anything
more than a "gold coin", with maybe one or two or three exceptions.
That post on the "parent" thread today qualifies as "maybe one".
This one doesn't even do that.

Peter Nyikos

>
> * aka psychiatrist

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 1:55:03 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> I've used up almost all the time I could spare today
> in the "parent" thread about predictions in physics
> and evolution. I made two long two posts exposing what a
> charlatan Kleinmn is, and one highly on-topic post
> in reply to Hemidactylus. This is the last post I can spare
> the time for today, also in reply to him.

Whatever. Bart Simpson's dumber brother asked you to be succinct, instead you are circumlocutory and wrong. I wondered what your students think of you:
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=80994

[Peter Nyikos]

On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 3:05:03 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:

> On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 11:40:05 AM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > Years ago, when I first encountered Dr. Dr. Alan Kleinman,
> > a whole crowd of his opponents were hoping that I would
> > catch him in a mathematical error or two.
> >
> > That time has finally come, but it wasn't about an error of
> > the sort most were expecting. It was about a confusion
> > of the mathematical theory of probability with a certain
> > kind of applied statistics.
> >
> >
> > There is a widespread misconception that statistics is a
> > branch of mathematics, but it is actually a whole other
> > discipline. In many ways, physics and parts of chemistry are
> > closer to mathematics than statistics is.
> >
> >
> > Kleinman's confusion came in the middle of a long post
> > replete with unsupportable jeers about how little (he
> > thinks!) I know about the mathematics of probability theory.
> >
> > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/ffonUPN_ISQ/JnRCDdhBBQAJ
> > Subject: Re: Predictions: Carlip on Theoretical Physics, Nyikos on Evolutionary Theory
> > Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2018 16:59:10 -0800 (PST)
> >
> >
> > Even that middle was quite long, and so my reply to it
> > will come in two installments, the first setting the
> > stage for the second. It will be on this thread, because
> > the topic has strayed far from the one the original
> > thread was about.
> >
> >

> > Peter Nyikos
> > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > University of South Carolina
> > http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/
>

> Peter, you don't know the difference between probability theory and statistics.

I've shown you that I do know the difference, and your problem
is that you don't know the difference between mathematical
probability theory and your own homespun non-theory in which you
use the terms "random," "independent," and "random independent"
interchangeably, and sometimes in cryptic ways.

Here is an example from the other thread:

On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 5:30:05 PM UTC-5, in
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/ffonUPN_ISQ/Z6cD_wl3BQAJ

Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:

> On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 1:40:04 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 9:40:04 AM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > > On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 4:55:05 AM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > I see there has been some new activity, on-topic too, since I
> > > > began a new thread in which I am in the process of demonstrating
> > > > how little Kleinman really knows about the mathematical theory
> > > > of probability:
> > > >
> > > > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/cUFAn6vukD4/Yx9RlZNqBgAJ
> > > >
> > > > Kleinman has been too wrapped up in obfuscating on the new thread
> > > > to participate in this new activity.
> >
> > And now you are too busy obfuscating in reply to me to even acknowledge
> > the new activity.
> >
> >
> > > If you call doing the math obfuscation, then I'm obfuscating.
> >
> > Not on that thread. I've been doing all the math there, while
> > you have been talking about theoretical concepts such as
> > fair coins, which exist only in the imagination of people.

> Probability theory works just fine with asymmetric outcome random experiments.

"random experiments" is not a concept in *mathematical* probability theory,
and I'd like to see you give the definition in The Alan Kleinman Dictionary.


<snip for focus>

> > Can you give me a definition of how a randomly behaving coin acts?

> I already have, you cannot predict the outcome of any given random experiment.

I have never been able to predict your reaction to anything I say. You
literally always surprise me, including with this response.

Does that make everything you write to me random?

On the other hand, I can predict the outcome of a coin flip
about half the time. Does that make your writing far more
random than coin flips?

See what happens when you don't define your terms?

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --

U. of So. Carolina at Columbia
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

You have not shown that you understand the difference between probability theory and statistics. You haven't even shown you understand the mathematics of probability theory. You don't understand that the Down's mutation is a random occurrence even though the frequency increases with age and whether that mutation is dependent or independent which depends on which probability you are relating this event to.

>
> Here is an example from the other thread:
>
> On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 5:30:05 PM UTC-5, in
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/ffonUPN_ISQ/Z6cD_wl3BQAJ
> Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 1:40:04 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 9:40:04 AM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > > > On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 4:55:05 AM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > I see there has been some new activity, on-topic too, since I
> > > > > began a new thread in which I am in the process of demonstrating
> > > > > how little Kleinman really knows about the mathematical theory
> > > > > of probability:
> > > > >
> > > > > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/cUFAn6vukD4/Yx9RlZNqBgAJ
> > > > >
> > > > > Kleinman has been too wrapped up in obfuscating on the new thread
> > > > > to participate in this new activity.
> > >
> > > And now you are too busy obfuscating in reply to me to even acknowledge
> > > the new activity.
> > >
> > >
> > > > If you call doing the math obfuscation, then I'm obfuscating.
> > >
> > > Not on that thread. I've been doing all the math there, while
> > > you have been talking about theoretical concepts such as
> > > fair coins, which exist only in the imagination of people.
>
> > Probability theory works just fine with asymmetric outcome random experiments.
>
> "random experiments" is not a concept in *mathematical* probability theory,
> and I'd like to see you give the definition in The Alan Kleinman Dictionary.

I don't have to give my definition. I use the definition used by Erwin Kreyszig in his Advanced Engineering Mathematics text.
"An experiment is a process of measurement or observation, in a laboratory, in a factory, on the street, in nature, or wherever; so “experiment” is used in a rather general sense. Our interest is in experiments that involve randomness, chance effects, so that we cannot predict a result exactly. A trial is a single performance of an experiment."
I'm sure you think you are a better mathematician that Erwin Kreyszig.

>
>
> <snip for focus>
>
> > > Can you give me a definition of how a randomly behaving coin acts?
>
> > I already have, you cannot predict the outcome of any given random experiment.
>
> I have never been able to predict your reaction to anything I say. You
> literally always surprise me, including with this response.
>
> Does that make everything you write to me random?
>
> On the other hand, I can predict the outcome of a coin flip
> about half the time. Does that make your writing far more
> random than coin flips?

You should be able to predict the frequency of my reactions but that requires you understand the principles of probability theory.

>
> See what happens when you don't define your terms?

Do you know that jillery thinks you and I are OTP? I actually think it is you and jillery that are OTP. I think you share much more with jillery than I do. You and jillery use 19th-century science, geometry, and a yard-stick to try to determine relatedness when 21-century science determines relatedness on a molecular level. You do know that DNA exists and you get that DNA from your parents.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 5:50:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 1:55:03 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > I've used up almost all the time I could spare today
> > in the "parent" thread about predictions in physics
> > and evolution. I made two long two posts exposing what a
> > charlatan Kleinmn is, and one highly on-topic post
> > in reply to Hemidactylus. This is the last post I can spare
> > the time for today, also in reply to him.

> Whatever. Bart Simpson's dumber brother asked you to be succinct, instead you are circumlocutory and wrong.

Look up the word "circumlocutory". It does not mean what you
seem to think it means. And there is nothing wrong with what I
wrote up there.

Or are you referring to what I added to the stuff from earlier
posts?


<snip and cut to the chase>


[addressed to Hemidactylus]:

> > Ever since you did that April Fool's Day rant a number of
> > years ago about how I supposedly make your head want to explode,
> > I have not seen anything you said about or to me to be anything
> > more than a "gold coin", with maybe one or two or three exceptions.
> > That post on the "parent" thread today qualifies as "maybe one".
> > This one doesn't even do that.
> >
> > Peter Nyikos

If you think this isn't succinct, you may be unduly influenced
by spending too much time in Tweeting and reading Tweets.

Peter Nyikos

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 12:05:04 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 5:50:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 1:55:03 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > I've used up almost all the time I could spare today
> > > in the "parent" thread about predictions in physics
> > > and evolution. I made two long two posts exposing what a
> > > charlatan Kleinmn is, and one highly on-topic post
> > > in reply to Hemidactylus. This is the last post I can spare
> > > the time for today, also in reply to him.
>
> > Whatever. Bart Simpson's dumber brother asked you to be succinct, instead you are circumlocutory and wrong.
>
> Look up the word "circumlocutory". It does not mean what you
> seem to think it means. And there is nothing wrong with what I
> wrote up there.

It means exactly what I mean. And if you think your two long posts are succinct, I think we have found a non-medicinal cure for insomnia. Now if you want to talk about charlatans, let's talk about people who look at fossils and use geometry with a yardstick to define relatedness.

>
> Or are you referring to what I added to the stuff from earlier
> posts?

Do you think you could write the mathematics which governs the Kishony experiment? Try to be succinct. You are a pro, you should be able to do that.

>
>
> <snip and cut to the chase>

Does anybody think that Peter ever gets to the point?

>
>
> [addressed to Hemidactylus]:
> > > Ever since you did that April Fool's Day rant a number of
> > > years ago about how I supposedly make your head want to explode,
> > > I have not seen anything you said about or to me to be anything
> > > more than a "gold coin", with maybe one or two or three exceptions.
> > > That post on the "parent" thread today qualifies as "maybe one".
> > > This one doesn't even do that.
> > >
> > > Peter Nyikos
>
> If you think this isn't succinct, you may be unduly influenced
> by spending too much time in Tweeting and reading Tweets.

Never done that. But don't they limit the number of words you can use? It doesn't seem to be the format for someone as skilled in circumlocution as you.
>
> Peter Nyikos

[*Hemidactylus*]

Is this your fucking superiority complex rearing its ugly head again? I
hope you and Allie mutually self-destruct. You deserve each other. Good
luck and good day.

[Andre G. Isaak]

In article <47695156-0476-4f84...@googlegroups.com>,

Alan Kleinman MD PhD <klei...@sti.net> wrote:

> I don't have to give my definition. I use the definition used by Erwin
> Kreyszig in his Advanced Engineering Mathematics text.

I've notice that this particular text is the *only* maths book you ever
reference, either in this forum or in your papers.

If your entire mathematical background comes from a single undergraduate
engineering text, then your claim of expertise in probability is hardly
well-founded. Now admittedly I don't have access to the 1972 edition
which you keep citing, but in the 2011 edition which I consulted, the
relatively short chapter on probability is almost entirely concerned
with accounting for different types of statistical distributions. It is
not an introduction to actual probability theory and hardly puts you in
a position to argue with Peter over the difference between statistics
and probability.

Andre

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

[Joseph]

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

I'm only destroying the TOE. But I am correctly explaining how rmns works. And how could anyone think that the reptiles grow feathers crowd has a superiority complex. They have the ArchieDumbtrex fossil to justify their beliefs.

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 3:55:04 AM UTC-8, Andre G. Isaak wrote:
> In article <47695156-0476-4f84...@googlegroups.com>,

> Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
>
> > I don't have to give my definition. I use the definition used by Erwin
> > Kreyszig in his Advanced Engineering Mathematics text.
>
> I've notice that this particular text is the *only* maths book you ever
> reference, either in this forum or in your papers.

I have several mathematics texts on my shelf. If you ever studied the Kreyszig text, you would find it to be an incredibly well written applied mathematics text. When I was in graduate school, I was the teaching assistant for the upper division engineering mathematics course which used that text.

>
> If your entire mathematical background comes from a single undergraduate
> engineering text, then your claim of expertise in probability is hardly
> well-founded. Now admittedly I don't have access to the 1972 edition
> which you keep citing, but in the 2011 edition which I consulted, the
> relatively short chapter on probability is almost entirely concerned
> with accounting for different types of statistical distributions. It is
> not an introduction to actual probability theory and hardly puts you in
> a position to argue with Peter over the difference between statistics
> and probability.

The 1972 edition covers probability and statistics in just a single chapter. So probability theory is only half of one chapter in that edition. But in that half chapter, all the important fundamentals of probability theory are covered. And the point you don't get is that the mathematics of rmns is governed by the binomial probability distribution. And that evolutionary trajectories are made up of nested binomial probability equations where each equation is linked to the others by the multiplication rule. It is that simple. You don't need a PhD in mathematics with a major field in probability theory to understand this problem. The Kreyszig text is more than adequate to solve the mathematics of rmns. In fact, you could solve the mathematics of rmns with a high school level text on probability theory if you understood what you are doing, but you don't.

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 5:25:05 AM UTC-8, Joseph wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 2:40:05 PM UTC-5, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > Years ago, when I first encountered Dr. Dr. Alan Kleinman,
> > a whole crowd of his opponents were hoping that I would
> > catch him in a mathematical error or two.
> >
> > That time has finally come, but it wasn't about an error of
> > the sort most were expecting. It was about a confusion
> > of the mathematical theory of probability with a certain
> > kind of applied statistics.
> >
> >
> > There is a widespread misconception that statistics is a
> > branch of mathematics, but it is actually a whole other
> > discipline. In many ways, physics and parts of chemistry are
> > closer to mathematics than statistics is.

Joseph, you haven't posted a comment but only repeated what Peter has said. This statement above written by Peter shows his confusion and misunderstanding of this topic. A probability is a theoretical counterpart of the empirical relative frequency. Probabilities have mathematical axioms which govern the properties of these numbers. We assume that these properties of probabilities have the same nature as those relative frequencies of empirical experiments. The problem in statistics is to determine the probability distribution. But often times, the experiment is so costly or each data point is too difficult to measure that the statistician must make a determination whether the data falls within a specified confidence interval. That is, the statistician must determine whether the chosen probability distribution gives close enough fit to the measured data. The mathematics I've presented is not a statistical model, it is a probabilistic model. This mathematical model of rmns is based on the axioms of probability theory and the theoretical values for the probabilities of a particular mutation occurring. The test of this model is whether it matches the behavior of empirical models, which of course, it does.

[jillery]

Not to put too fine a point on it, it hardly puts him in a position to
argue with anybody about anything. Just sayin'.

[Peter Nyikos]

What's behind this bolt out of the blue, except a superiority
complex of yours that has led you to belittle me regularly
since that April 1 day? Are you secretly fond of Alan, replying to
a comment by me to him rather than addressing my comment about YOU?

Could it be that you realize that you haven't got a leg to stand
on where those "gold coins" are concerned?

> I hope you and Allie mutually self-destruct.

Also that Jonathan and I mutually self-destruct, eh? Don't think I
didn't notice that your flaming of Jonathan was instigated by
a comment by Wolffan in which he said I was "only the second worst _______"
in talk.origins.

That fed your superiority complex, didn't it? Would you even be holding
Jonathan's feet to the fire if Wolffan hadn't said anything derogatory
about me when (justifiably) attacking Jonathan?

> You deserve each other.

Actually, it is you and Alan who deserve each other. Both of you
resort to flippancy and surrealism when you are in a tight spot,
and both of you think that MS is the be-all and end-all of
evolutionary theory. The only difference is that you have a
quasi-religious faith that it explains the history of life
on earth, while Alan thinks he has shown it is so flawed
that he can cheerfully invoke a God of the Gaps.


You, on the other hand, are content with:

Darwin of the Gaps

This is the default, one-size-fits-all, totally unfalsifiable
naturalistic explanation for any and all biological phenomena:

"Well, it's natural selection, y'know. The __________ that did/could/
are __________ had a survival advantage over the ones that didn't/
couldn't/weren't and so they are the ones we see today."

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --

Univ. of So. Carolina
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

[Peter Nyikos]

Not in talk.origins, not in sufficient detail for us to see just
how you model natural selection. Harshman would long ago have been
silenced if you had done that rather than shower him with insults.

> And how could anyone think that the reptiles grow feathers crowd

Oh, so now you are claiming that *I*, who shot down your flippant
evasion of what you MEAN by that verbal phrase, am one of the
(nonexistent, for all that your evasions have told us about it) crowd?


> has a superiority complex.

The way *I* use the term, it has to do with people who THINK they are
superior to others, and act the part.

Now THAT's a crowd into which you and Hemidactylus both fit comfortably.

> They have the ArchieDumbtrex fossil to justify their beliefs.

You've posted a lot of inchoate insults about THEM [1], and it's time
for you to come clean.

Do you, like most creationists, point to biological papers a century
or more old, that say Archie was "a full-formed bird"?

If so, do you also consider Microraptor to be a full-formed bird
even though its hind legs also seemed to qualify as wings?

If so, do you simply DEFINE a bird as something with genuine [2] feathers?

[1] Actually, fossilS. We now have fossils of over half a dozen individuals,
at least four of which are essentially complete skeletons.

[2] Careful: kiwis have genuine feathers, even though they lack barbules
and hooks.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

PS On the other hand, I still can't get over how ignorant Ron Okimoto
was to flame you for not "admitting" that mere hairlike growths,
like on Sinosauropteryx, were feathers.

I wonder how many feathers Okimoto has growing out of his scalp. ;-)

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

I have many times. Natural selection for rmns is measured by the absolute fitness to reproduce. And the number of replications is that measure. Harshman believes the only way you can measure natural selection is by the relative fitness to reproduce. That measure only applies to the mathematics of survival of the fittest, not the mathematics of improvement of fitness.

>
>
> > And how could anyone think that the reptiles grow feathers crowd
>
> Oh, so now you are claiming that *I*, who shot down your flippant
> evasion of what you MEAN by that verbal phrase, am one of the
> (nonexistent, for all that your evasions have told us about it) crowd?

You think it is not in the cards.

>
>
> > has a superiority complex.
>
> The way *I* use the term, it has to do with people who THINK they are
> superior to others, and act the part.
>
> Now THAT's a crowd into which you and Hemidactylus both fit comfortably.

When it comes to rmns, I do know far more about this topic than you, both the mathematics and physics. Of course, if you have a publication on the topic, let us know. The medical field is in dire need to understand this subject and the reptiles grow feathers crowd has done nothing to explain this phenomenon. You haven't done much either.

>
>
> > They have the ArchieDumbtrex fossil to justify their beliefs.
>
> You've posted a lot of inchoate insults about THEM [1], and it's time
> for you to come clean.
>
> Do you, like most creationists, point to biological papers a century
> or more old, that say Archie was "a full-formed bird"?

I'm not the one using geometry and a yard-stick to determine relatedness of fossils. Comparative anatomy is the 19th-century version of science. We now have genetic sequencing.

>
> If so, do you also consider Microraptor to be a full-formed bird
> even though its hind legs also seemed to qualify as wings?
>
> If so, do you simply DEFINE a bird as something with genuine [2] feathers?
>
> [1] Actually, fossilS. We now have fossils of over half a dozen individuals,
> at least four of which are essentially complete skeletons.
>
> [2] Careful: kiwis have genuine feathers, even though they lack barbules
> and hooks.
>
>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> University of South Carolina
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/
>
> PS On the other hand, I still can't get over how ignorant Ron Okimoto
> was to flame you for not "admitting" that mere hairlike growths,
> like on Sinosauropteryx, were feathers.
>
> I wonder how many feathers Okimoto has growing out of his scalp. ;-)

Ron thinks that mutations are not random independent events. And it appears that you might think that as well.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 4:40:05 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 12:05:04 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 5:50:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > > On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 1:55:03 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > I've used up almost all the time I could spare today
> > > > in the "parent" thread about predictions in physics
> > > > and evolution. I made two long two posts exposing what a
> > > > charlatan Kleinmn is, and one highly on-topic post
> > > > in reply to Hemidactylus. This is the last post I can spare
> > > > the time for today, also in reply to him.
> >
> > > Whatever. Bart Simpson's dumber brother asked you to be succinct, instead you are circumlocutory and wrong.
> >
> > Look up the word "circumlocutory". It does not mean what you
> > seem to think it means. And there is nothing wrong with what I
> > wrote up there.

> It means exactly what I mean.

Prove it, by showing how my two short paragraphs qualify.

> And if you think your two long posts are succinct,

Referent for "two long posts" missing. You sometimes post individual
paragraphs in LONG (300 or more lines) posts that are longer than
either of the two short paragraphs from the earlier posts that
are still in plain view.

> I think we have found a non-medicinal cure for insomnia. Now if you want to talk about charlatans, let's talk about people who look at fossils and use geometry with a yardstick to define relatedness.

You falsely accused me of beingone of these people,
and you had better tell us all what
"people who...use geometry with a yardstick to define relatedness"
is code for, or be branded a liar.

> >
> > Or are you referring to what I added to the stuff from earlier
> > posts?

> Do you think you could write the mathematics which governs the Kishony experiment? Try to be succinct. You are a pro, you should be able to do that.

Red herring.

You duck like a quack.

> >
> > <snip and cut to the chase>

> Does anybody think that Peter ever gets to the point?

If you weren't as unpopular as I am, you would get a chorus
of cheers from the peanut gallery for this last comment.

Are you observant enough of what goes on around you in talk.origins
to see why this is so? I don't think you are.

> >
> > [addressed to Hemidactylus]:
> > > > Ever since you did that April Fool's Day rant a number of
> > > > years ago about how I supposedly make your head want to explode,
> > > > I have not seen anything you said about or to me to be anything
> > > > more than a "gold coin", with maybe one or two or three exceptions.
> > > > That post on the "parent" thread today qualifies as "maybe one".
> > > > This one doesn't even do that.
> > > >
> > > > Peter Nyikos
> >
> > If you think this isn't succinct, you may be unduly influenced
> > by spending too much time in Tweeting and reading Tweets.

> Never done that.

So what's your excuse for picking just about the worst possible
post by me to accuse me of circumlocution?

<snip silly repetition of accusation>


Peter Nyikos

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 1:50:03 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 4:40:05 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 12:05:04 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 5:50:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > > > On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 1:55:03 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > I've used up almost all the time I could spare today
> > > > > in the "parent" thread about predictions in physics
> > > > > and evolution. I made two long two posts exposing what a
> > > > > charlatan Kleinmn is, and one highly on-topic post
> > > > > in reply to Hemidactylus. This is the last post I can spare
> > > > > the time for today, also in reply to him.
> > >
> > > > Whatever. Bart Simpson's dumber brother asked you to be succinct, instead you are circumlocutory and wrong.
> > >
> > > Look up the word "circumlocutory". It does not mean what you
> > > seem to think it means. And there is nothing wrong with what I
> > > wrote up there.
>
> > It means exactly what I mean.
>
> Prove it, by showing how my two short paragraphs qualify.

So two long posts have become two short paragraphs, point made.

>
>
> > And if you think your two long posts are succinct,
>
> Referent for "two long posts" missing. You sometimes post individual
> paragraphs in LONG (300 or more lines) posts that are longer than
> either of the two short paragraphs from the earlier posts that
> are still in plain view.

You need at least two long posts to explain this paragraph. When did you abandon mathematics?

>
>
> > I think we have found a non-medicinal cure for insomnia. Now if you want to talk about charlatans, let's talk about people who look at fossils and use geometry with a yardstick to define relatedness.
>
> You falsely accused me of beingone of these people,
> and you had better tell us all what
> "people who...use geometry with a yardstick to define relatedness"
> is code for, or be branded a liar.

What else is comparitive anatomy and palentology? Try using genetics to determine relatedness.

>
>
> > >
> > > Or are you referring to what I added to the stuff from earlier
> > > posts?
>
> > Do you think you could write the mathematics which governs the Kishony experiment? Try to be succinct. You are a pro, you should be able to do that.
>
> Red herring.

So you don't think the Kishony experiment is an example of rmns? Then what is it an example of? There is more than mathematics to this. You need to learn some physics.

>
> You duck like a quack.

You are daffy.

>
>
> > >
> > > <snip and cut to the chase>
>
> > Does anybody think that Peter ever gets to the point?
>
> If you weren't as unpopular as I am, you would get a chorus
> of cheers from the peanut gallery for this last comment.

Science is not a popularity contest. So get over it.

>
> Are you observant enough of what goes on around you in talk.origins
> to see why this is so? I don't think you are.

You think this resistance to the facts only occurs on talk.origins? I'm pushing to change the standard of care in the medical system that has dominated for more than half a century. I wonder if physicians are as stubborn as the reptiles grow feathers crowd.

>
>
> > >
> > > [addressed to Hemidactylus]:
> > > > > Ever since you did that April Fool's Day rant a number of
> > > > > years ago about how I supposedly make your head want to explode,
> > > > > I have not seen anything you said about or to me to be anything
> > > > > more than a "gold coin", with maybe one or two or three exceptions.
> > > > > That post on the "parent" thread today qualifies as "maybe one".
> > > > > This one doesn't even do that.
> > > > >
> > > > > Peter Nyikos
> > >
> > > If you think this isn't succinct, you may be unduly influenced
> > > by spending too much time in Tweeting and reading Tweets.
>
> > Never done that.
>
> So what's your excuse for picking just about the worst possible
> post by me to accuse me of circumlocution?

How long do I have to wait for a good post from you?

[*Hemidactylus*]

The Alienist dost project weirdness.

>
> Could it be that you realize that you haven't got a leg to stand
> on where those "gold coins" are concerned?
>

I haven’t a clue what gold coins even means in this convoluted context.

>
>> I hope you and Allie mutually self-destruct.
>
> Also that Jonathan and I mutually self-destruct, eh? Don't think I
> didn't notice that your flaming of Jonathan was instigated by
> a comment by Wolffan in which he said I was "only the second worst _______"
> in talk.origins.
>
> That fed your superiority complex, didn't it? Would you even be holding
> Jonathan's feet to the fire if Wolffan hadn't said anything derogatory
> about me when (justifiably) attacking Jonathan?
>

You think I am chummy with jonathan?

>
>> You deserve each other.
>
> Actually, it is you and Alan who deserve each other. Both of you
> resort to flippancy and surrealism when you are in a tight spot,
> and both of you think that MS is the be-all and end-all of
> evolutionary theory. The only difference is that you have a
> quasi-religious faith that it explains the history of life
> on earth, while Alan thinks he has shown it is so flawed
> that he can cheerfully invoke a God of the Gaps.
>

Is EES your talisman?

>
> You, on the other hand, are content with:
>
> Darwin of the Gaps
>
> This is the default, one-size-fits-all, totally unfalsifiable
> naturalistic explanation for any and all biological phenomena:
>
> "Well, it's natural selection, y'know. The __________ that did/could/
> are __________ had a survival advantage over the ones that didn't/
> couldn't/weren't and so they are the ones we see today."
>

Please tell us again the compelling story for the EES Papa Pete as we toast
mallows on the campfire. Does it vanquish the evil MS ogre in your
narrative? Are Mayr, Dobzhansky and Huxley truly dead or do they haunt you
at night as zombies growling in your backyard bent on eating your oh so
magnificently mathy brain?

[John Harshman]

On 1/31/18 1:24 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 10:35:04 AM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:

>> I'm only destroying the TOE. But I am correctly explaining how rmns works.
>
> Not in talk.origins, not in sufficient detail for us to see just
> how you model natural selection. Harshman would long ago have been
> silenced if you had done that rather than shower him with insults.

If you would just read his papers, you would be able to see for yourself
whether he models natural selection (and if he does, how). Of course he
doesn't, though he clearly thinks he does. He's very confused about what
his own math does.

>> They have the ArchieDumbtrex fossil to justify their beliefs.
>
> You've posted a lot of inchoate insults about THEM [1], and it's time
> for you to come clean.
>
> Do you, like most creationists, point to biological papers a century
> or more old, that say Archie was "a full-formed bird"?
>
> If so, do you also consider Microraptor to be a full-formed bird
> even though its hind legs also seemed to qualify as wings?
>
> If so, do you simply DEFINE a bird as something with genuine [2] feathers?
>
> [1] Actually, fossilS. We now have fossils of over half a dozen individuals,
> at least four of which are essentially complete skeletons.

I believe the current total is 10. Yes, 10 is "over half a dozen", but
that phrase minimizes the number.

> [2] Careful: kiwis have genuine feathers, even though they lack barbules
> and hooks.

Are you sure that's true? No barbules?

> PS On the other hand, I still can't get over how ignorant Ron Okimoto
> was to flame you for not "admitting" that mere hairlike growths,
> like on Sinosauropteryx, were feathers.

Sinosauropteryx doesn't have "mere hairlike growths"; that would be
stage 1, while those structures would appear to be at least stage 2. You
should stop the gratuitous attacks on others not present.

So, has Alan said anything new yet?

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 3:55:02 PM UTC-8, John Harshman wrote:
> On 1/31/18 1:24 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 10:35:04 AM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
>
> >> I'm only destroying the TOE. But I am correctly explaining how rmns works.
> >
> > Not in talk.origins, not in sufficient detail for us to see just
> > how you model natural selection. Harshman would long ago have been
> > silenced if you had done that rather than shower him with insults.
>
> If you would just read his papers, you would be able to see for yourself
> whether he models natural selection (and if he does, how). Of course he
> doesn't, though he clearly thinks he does. He's very confused about what
> his own math does.

I don't model natural selection in the limited way that you understand natural selection. And if confusion were required to get a paper published, you should have a stack a mile high.

>
> >> They have the ArchieDumbtrex fossil to justify their beliefs.
> >
> > You've posted a lot of inchoate insults about THEM [1], and it's time
> > for you to come clean.
> >
> > Do you, like most creationists, point to biological papers a century
> > or more old, that say Archie was "a full-formed bird"?
> >
> > If so, do you also consider Microraptor to be a full-formed bird
> > even though its hind legs also seemed to qualify as wings?
> >
> > If so, do you simply DEFINE a bird as something with genuine [2] feathers?
> >
> > [1] Actually, fossilS. We now have fossils of over half a dozen individuals,
> > at least four of which are essentially complete skeletons.
>
> I believe the current total is 10. Yes, 10 is "over half a dozen", but
> that phrase minimizes the number.

10 biased misinterpretations which don't take into account the mechanisms of genetic transformation. Confusion + misinterpretation = published papers.

>
> > [2] Careful: kiwis have genuine feathers, even though they lack barbules
> > and hooks.
>
> Are you sure that's true? No barbules?

Get out your yardstick and measure. I'm sure you will figure out the genome sequence based on you highly accurate measurements.

>
> > PS On the other hand, I still can't get over how ignorant Ron Okimoto
> > was to flame you for not "admitting" that mere hairlike growths,
> > like on Sinosauropteryx, were feathers.
>
> Sinosauropteryx doesn't have "mere hairlike growths"; that would be
> stage 1, while those structures would appear to be at least stage 2. You
> should stop the gratuitous attacks on others not present.

Do your stages add up? Of course in your mind they do, there is no multiplication rule in your fantasy world.

>
> So, has Alan said anything new yet?

I've got another paper out for review. It describes the difference between the mathematics of rmns in the competitive and non-competitive environments. But since you can't to the mathematics which governs the Kishony experiment, you wouldn't get that paper either.

[Peter Nyikos]

I have not seen a demonstration of that. Kindly repost one for me,
if you have provided one in the past.

> And the number of replications is that measure.

With the number of replicated ones measured in adulthood, or after they too
have reproduced?

> Harshman believes the only way you can measure natural selection is by the relative fitness to reproduce.

Can you provide a quote to that effect?

> That measure only applies to the mathematics of survival of the fittest, not the mathematics of improvement of fitness.

Improvement of fitness can take place without any additional mutations
or even recombinations. Unlike in the controlled environment of laboratories,
or even within the human body where your iconic 3-cocktails do their thing,
fitness in the big outside world can change drastically. Consider mammals
before and after the KT (a.k.a. KP) event that spelled *finis* to the
dinosaurs.

Or are you one of those YECs who think dinosaurs and early humans
were contemporaties? If not, does your model take such changes
into account?


Continued in next reply, to be done soon after I see that this one has
posted.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --

University of So. Carolina at Columbia
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

[Peter Nyikos]

On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 4:40:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 1:25:04 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 10:35:04 AM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:

> > > And how could anyone think that the reptiles grow feathers crowd
> >
> > Oh, so now you are claiming that *I*, who shot down your flippant
> > evasion of what you MEAN by that verbal phrase, am one of the
> > (nonexistent, for all that your evasions have told us about it) crowd?


> You think it is not in the cards.

You duck like a quack.

> >

> > > has a superiority complex.
> >
> > The way *I* use the term, it has to do with people who THINK they are
> > superior to others, and act the part.
> >
> > Now THAT's a crowd into which you and Hemidactylus both fit comfortably.

<flagrant red herring (and "gold coins") by you snipped here>

> > > They have the ArchieDumbtrex fossil to justify their beliefs.
> >
> > You've posted a lot of inchoate insults about THEM [1], and it's time
> > for you to come clean.

> > Do you, like most creationists, point to biological papers a century
> > or more old, that say Archie was "a full-formed bird"?

Again you duck like a quack:

> I'm not the one using geometry and a yard-stick to determine relatedness of fossils.

Nor am I, and the following "explanation" of what you mean by "geometry and a yardstick"
misses me by a country mile:

> Comparative anatomy is the 19th-century version of science. We now have genetic sequencing.

You are like a fox telling a farmer how to design his henhouse. You know damn well
that genetic sequencing is a much more indirect evidence of evolution than
fossils.

The horse sequence is the iconic example, and comparative anatomy is
invaluable in making it clear that a God that poofs each of the successive species
into existence is deplorably lacking in imagination, like someone designing next
year's Toyota after thoroughly studying this year's model.

You were cagey enough not to commit yourself on whether "poofings" take place
on the horse sequence, but now you are too cowardly even to commit yourself
to answers to my next questions.

> >
> > If so, do you also consider Microraptor to be a full-formed bird
> > even though its hind legs also seemed to qualify as wings?

<crickets>

> > If so, do you simply DEFINE a bird as something with genuine [2] feathers?

<crickets>

> > [1] Actually, fossilS. We now have fossils of over half a dozen individuals,
> > at least four of which are essentially complete skeletons.

I was being extremely conservative here: there are TWELVE essentially complete
known skeletons, and I can post a link to a research paper comparing them.

But you would be a traitor to your fellow LumpenCreationists if you dared
suggest they may be wrong if they insist that all of them are forgeries,
wouldn't you?

> > [2] Careful: kiwis have genuine feathers, even though they lack barbules
> > and hooks.


Peter Nyikos

Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --

University of So. Carolina in Columbia
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

On Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 8:20:05 AM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 4:40:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 1:25:04 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 10:35:04 AM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irnc6w_Gsas&t=118s

>
>
> > And the number of replications is that measure.
>
> With the number of replicated ones measured in adulthood, or after they too
> have reproduced?

The random trial is the replication, the possible outcomes, does the beneficial mutation occur or not.

>
>
> > Harshman believes the only way you can measure natural selection is by the relative fitness to reproduce.
>
> Can you provide a quote to that effect?

From the thread, "The reason John Harshman is unwilling to accept the basic science and mathematics of rmns" on 9/2/17, John wrote in response to my post to Ernest Major:
.
"> That's not quite right Ernest, in fact, my paper on multiple
> simultaneous selection pressures addresses your scenario 2 and under
> what circumstances there is a reasonable probability to evolve to two
> simultaneous targeted selection pressures. This is the Bill Rogers'
> emergence of drug resistant Malaria to 2 drug therapy problem. It is
> going to take 3 targeted drugs to have durable treatment for malaria.
> This is analogous to the successful use of 3 drug therapy for HIV.

Nope, can't model that without some parameter for the strength of
selection, i.e. fitness coefficients for the various genotypes. You
model mutation only, and in a population of fixed size at that."
.
John is describing "survival of the fittest" where on the other hand, I'm modeling the evolutionary trajectory for "improving fitness" which is not dependent on selection coefficients for the various genotypes. The Kishony experiment which I've linked you to above illustrates exactly what my model simulates. On the other hand, the Lenski experiment superimposes "survival of the fittest" upon "improvement of fitness". The math I've presented is still applicable but is not as readily seen as with the Kishony experiment because of the competition. The lesson to be learned from the Lenski experiment is that competition markedly slows rmns.

>
>
> > That measure only applies to the mathematics of survival of the fittest, not the mathematics of improvement of fitness.
>
> Improvement of fitness can take place without any additional mutations
> or even recombinations. Unlike in the controlled environment of laboratories,
> or even within the human body where your iconic 3-cocktails do their thing,
> fitness in the big outside world can change drastically. Consider mammals
> before and after the KT (a.k.a. KP) event that spelled *finis* to the
> dinosaurs.

You are confusing the concept of physical fitness and reproductive fitness. Bill Rogers make the same mistake. He thinks that competition should improve fitness. That idea may apply in sports and chess where competing against stronger opponents makes you a better player but when it comes to reproductive fitness, the competition is for the limited resources of the environment. The most efficient user of these limited resources will ultimately take over the population. But that is not an improvement in fitness.

>
> Or are you one of those YECs who think dinosaurs and early humans
> were contemporaties? If not, does your model take such changes
> into account?

Can't you keep your ADD under control and stay on topic? Then perhaps you can learn something about the mathematics of rmns.

>
>
> Continued in next reply, to be done soon after I see that this one has
> posted.
>
>

> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --

> University of So. Carolina at Columbia
> http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

[Peter Nyikos]

On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 6:55:02 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> On 1/31/18 1:24 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 10:35:04 AM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
>
> >> I'm only destroying the TOE. But I am correctly explaining how rmns works.
> >
> > Not in talk.origins, not in sufficient detail for us to see just
> > how you model natural selection. Harshman would long ago have been
> > silenced if you had done that rather than shower him with insults.
>
> If you would just read his papers,

All in good time. I'm trying to get him just to post enough
of what he claims to have done in talk.origins in the past.

If he can't repost any such thing, or even post some of it for
the first time, then we will know he is not much better than
Ray Martinez, who has claimed (for how long? a decade? more?)
yet refuses to post any excerpts from any drafts.

I have challenged him directly in the first of two replies I
made to his reply to the above, less direct challenge.
And I expect him to duck like a quack again, like he did
several times already -- I point them out in my two replies.

> you would be able to see for yourself
> whether he models natural selection (and if he does, how). Of course he
> doesn't, though he clearly thinks he does. He's very confused about what
> his own math does.

We'll see. If he doesn't duck the question at the end of my first
reply to him today, but answers YES, then I will take a good long
look at his paper some time in February.

> >> They have the ArchieDumbtrex fossil to justify their beliefs.
> >
> > You've posted a lot of inchoate insults about THEM [1], and it's time
> > for you to come clean.
> >
> > Do you, like most creationists, point to biological papers a century
> > or more old, that say Archie was "a full-formed bird"?
> >
> > If so, do you also consider Microraptor to be a full-formed bird
> > even though its hind legs also seemed to qualify as wings?
> >
> > If so, do you simply DEFINE a bird as something with genuine [2] feathers?

Alan ducked the first question like a quack, then
left the crickets chirping after the other two.

> > [1] Actually, fossilS. We now have fossils of over half a dozen individuals,
> > at least four of which are essentially complete skeletons.

> I believe the current total is 10. Yes, 10 is "over half a dozen", but
> that phrase minimizes the number.

Even more: if you had read Pandora's post on Archie (Jan. 26) in
sci.bio.paleontology, you could have put 12 instead of 10.the
total is a dozen.

> > [2] Careful: kiwis have genuine feathers, even though they lack barbules
> > and hooks.
>
> Are you sure that's true? No barbules?

Yup, a better part of a whole thread was about kiwi feathers
back around 2015. And just last October the following excerpt
appeared in a reply by me to you:

____________________________________________________________________
> >>> But wait! we are seeing MODERN FEATHERS in the picture near the bottom,
> >>> in A and B with C showing Prum's theory. Long, well developed
> >>> rachises with individual barbs coming off them just like the
> >>> detached ones in the other pictures!
> >>
> >> No, those are not modern feathers. The rachis is not well developed,
> >> being no thicker than the barbs in all but the most proximal bits.

The rachis is long and is exactly where it is in modern birds.
What makes you think a 90 million year old specimen would
necessarily have a thick rachis?

Also, take a look at the kiwi feathers in the illustration on
the side of the following webpage:

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

The ratio between barb thicknesses and rachis thicknesses seem to
agree pretty well with what you see in the bottom B picture
that we are talking about here, in:

http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/feathered-dinosaur-tail-burmese-amber-04437.html

======================= end of excerpt from reply to an October 9 post
of yours.

Do you agree that the feathers in the Wiki picture lack barbules?
You can click on the picture to get a full page magnification.

> > PS On the other hand, I still can't get over how ignorant Ron Okimoto
> > was to flame you for not "admitting" that mere hairlike growths,
> > like on Sinosauropteryx, were feathers.
>
> Sinosauropteryx doesn't have "mere hairlike growths"; that would be
> stage 1, while those structures would appear to be at least stage 2.

Hairlike growths in small clusters still don't qualify as feathers.

> You
> should stop the gratuitous attacks on others not present.

You call an accurate description of what went on a "gratuitous
attack"?

The irony is, I kept after you to say something about
Okimoto's insistence that those were feathers, on a thread
where he did the OP, and you ran away every time.


But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume
that you are trying to make amends for that display of
cowardice, by actually saying something about those "feathers".

[That's your cue to whine about how I am making
a "gratuitous" attack on you.]

> So, has Alan said anything new yet?

I don't think so. He said some four or five letter symbol
is supposed to model natural selection, but he didn't
explain how.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics

U. of S. Carolina, Columbia -- standard disclaimer--
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

On Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 8:35:04 AM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 4:40:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:

> > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 1:25:04 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 10:35:04 AM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
>

> > > > And how could anyone think that the reptiles grow feathers crowd
> > >
> > > Oh, so now you are claiming that *I*, who shot down your flippant
> > > evasion of what you MEAN by that verbal phrase, am one of the
> > > (nonexistent, for all that your evasions have told us about it) crowd?
>
>
> > You think it is not in the cards.
>
> You duck like a quack.
>
> > >
> > > > has a superiority complex.
> > >
> > > The way *I* use the term, it has to do with people who THINK they are
> > > superior to others, and act the part.
> > >
> > > Now THAT's a crowd into which you and Hemidactylus both fit comfortably.
>
> <flagrant red herring (and "gold coins") by you snipped here>
>
>

> > > > They have the ArchieDumbtrex fossil to justify their beliefs.
> > >
> > > You've posted a lot of inchoate insults about THEM [1], and it's time
> > > for you to come clean.
>
> > > Do you, like most creationists, point to biological papers a century
> > > or more old, that say Archie was "a full-formed bird"?
>

> Again you duck like a quack:
>
> > I'm not the one using geometry and a yard-stick to determine relatedness of fossils.
>
> Nor am I, and the following "explanation" of what you mean by "geometry and a yardstick"
> misses me by a country mile:

Trying to use comparative anatomy to determine relatedness when relatedness is actually determined on the molecular level is the point I'm making.

>
> > Comparative anatomy is the 19th-century version of science. We now have genetic sequencing.
>
> You are like a fox telling a farmer how to design his henhouse. You know damn well
> that genetic sequencing is a much more indirect evidence of evolution than
> fossils.

Tell that to Charles Brenner. And I'm not arguing that evolution does not occur. In fact, I'm showing correctly how rmns works. Any attempt at interpreting the fossil record in the way paleontologists do is rank speculation.

>
> The horse sequence is the iconic example, and comparative anatomy is
> invaluable in making it clear that a God that poofs each of the successive species
> into existence is deplorably lacking in imagination, like someone designing next
> year's Toyota after thoroughly studying this year's model.
>
> You were cagey enough not to commit yourself on whether "poofings" take place
> on the horse sequence, but now you are too cowardly even to commit yourself
> to answers to my next questions.
>
> > >

> > > If so, do you also consider Microraptor to be a full-formed bird
> > > even though its hind legs also seemed to qualify as wings?
>

> <crickets>

>
> > > If so, do you simply DEFINE a bird as something with genuine [2] feathers?
>

> <crickets>

>
>
> > > [1] Actually, fossilS. We now have fossils of over half a dozen individuals,
> > > at least four of which are essentially complete skeletons.
>

> I was being extremely conservative here: there are TWELVE essentially complete
> known skeletons, and I can post a link to a research paper comparing them.

Unless you have the DNA, you can only speculate about these skeletons.

>
> But you would be a traitor to your fellow LumpenCreationists if you dared
> suggest they may be wrong if they insist that all of them are forgeries,
> wouldn't you?

I'm not arguing whether these are forgeries or not. Look at the debate you started with Janis, there is no lack of opinion or interpretations of the fossil record. This fossil record topic is a waste of time in understanding how evolution works.

>
>
> > > [2] Careful: kiwis have genuine feathers, even though they lack barbules
> > > and hooks.
>
>

> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --

> University of So. Carolina in Columbia
> http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

On Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 9:25:03 AM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 6:55:02 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> > On 1/31/18 1:24 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 10:35:04 AM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> >
> > >> I'm only destroying the TOE. But I am correctly explaining how rmns works.
> > >
> > > Not in talk.origins, not in sufficient detail for us to see just
> > > how you model natural selection. Harshman would long ago have been
> > > silenced if you had done that rather than shower him with insults.
> >
> > If you would just read his papers,
>
> All in good time. I'm trying to get him just to post enough
> of what he claims to have done in talk.origins in the past.

First, you need to understand introductory probability theory. Then you have a chance to understand that my model is not a statistical model but a probabilistic model.

>
> If he can't repost any such thing, or even post some of it for
> the first time, then we will know he is not much better than
> Ray Martinez, who has claimed (for how long? a decade? more?)
> yet refuses to post any excerpts from any drafts.
>
> I have challenged him directly in the first of two replies I
> made to his reply to the above, less direct challenge.
> And I expect him to duck like a quack again, like he did
> several times already -- I point them out in my two replies.

I'm not interested in discussing yours or anyone elses misinterpretations of the fossil record.

>
>
> > you would be able to see for yourself
> > whether he models natural selection (and if he does, how). Of course he
> > doesn't, though he clearly thinks he does. He's very confused about what
> > his own math does.
>
> We'll see. If he doesn't duck the question at the end of my first
> reply to him today, but answers YES, then I will take a good long
> look at his paper some time in February.

Survival of the fittest is not an exercise program.

>
>
> > >> They have the ArchieDumbtrex fossil to justify their beliefs.
> > >
> > > You've posted a lot of inchoate insults about THEM [1], and it's time
> > > for you to come clean.
> > >
> > > Do you, like most creationists, point to biological papers a century
> > > or more old, that say Archie was "a full-formed bird"?
> > >
> > > If so, do you also consider Microraptor to be a full-formed bird
> > > even though its hind legs also seemed to qualify as wings?
> > >
> > > If so, do you simply DEFINE a bird as something with genuine [2] feathers?
>
>
> Alan ducked the first question like a quack, then
> left the crickets chirping after the other two.

If you are interested in the mechanisms of genetic transformation, I'll discuss this topic with you. If you want speculation, I leave that for those who have made a profession of that behavior.

It's in my papers. And this math fits all the real, measurable and repeatable example of rmns.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 12:45:03 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> On Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 9:25:03 AM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 6:55:02 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> > > On 1/31/18 1:24 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 10:35:04 AM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > >
> > > >> I'm only destroying the TOE. But I am correctly explaining how rmns works.
> > > >
> > > > Not in talk.origins, not in sufficient detail for us to see just
> > > > how you model natural selection. Harshman would long ago have been
> > > > silenced if you had done that rather than shower him with insults.
> > >
> > > If you would just read his papers,
> >
> > All in good time. I'm trying to get him just to post enough
> > of what he claims to have done in talk.origins in the past.

> First, you need to understand introductory probability theory.

Translation: "first you need to read my paper."

> Then you have a chance to understand that my model is not a statistical model but a probabilistic model.

I doubt that your paper is as informal as the polemic you
carry on in talk.origins. It is here that you keep using "random,"
"random independent," and "independent" interchangeably.

Can you quote Kreyszig using them interchangeably? I don't think
you can.

Now, I HAVE said that your model may be sound AS FAR AS IT GOES.
But does it go as far as modeling natural selection?

In order to answer that, you at least have to answer the
question I pose at the end of my first reply to you of
today. Your failure to do so will continue to haunt you
until you answer it.

> > If he can't repost any such thing, or even post some of it for
> > the first time, then we will know he is not much better than
> > Ray Martinez, who has claimed (for how long? a decade? more?)
> > yet refuses to post any excerpts from any drafts.
> >
> > I have challenged him directly in the first of two replies I
> > made to his reply to the above, less direct challenge.

That was the first "haunting" of which I wrote above.

> > And I expect him to duck like a quack again, like he did
> > several times already -- I point them out in my two replies.

And for the first time ever, I successfully predicted your
first response to that question:

> I'm not interested in discussing yours or anyone elses misinterpretations of the fossil record.

The question at the end of my first reply had NOTHING
to do with the fossil record. And so you have ducked IT like a quack.


But, as "Henry Drummond" said to "Matthew Harrison Brady" in "Inherit
the wind, I'll play in your ballpark:

Calling them misrepresentations, while letting us know
in advance that you are not interested in explaining
why you call them misrepresentations,
is yet another sign that you and Hemidactylus are
birds of a feather.

You don't even have the minimal backbone to claim what
these misrepresentations are supposed to BE. Your taunts
about "yardsticks" and "reptiles growing feathers"
are not revelations of misrepresentations, but are
THEMSELVES misrepresentations.

> >
> > > you would be able to see for yourself
> > > whether he models natural selection (and if he does, how). Of course he
> > > doesn't, though he clearly thinks he does. He's very confused about what
> > > his own math does.
> >
> > We'll see. If he doesn't duck the question at the end of my first
> > reply to him today, but answers YES, then I will take a good long
> > look at his paper some time in February.

And again you duck like a quack:

> Survival of the fittest is not an exercise program.

I'm still waiting for your reply to my question at the
end of my first reply to you today, you lover of empty polemic.

Continued in next reply, to be done soon after I see that this one has
posted.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --

U. of So. Carolina in Columbia
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

[Peter Nyikos]

On Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 12:45:03 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> On Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 9:25:03 AM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 6:55:02 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> > > On 1/31/18 1:24 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 10:35:04 AM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > >
> > > >> I'm only destroying the TOE. But I am correctly explaining how rmns works.
> > > >
> > > > Not in talk.origins, not in sufficient detail for us to see just
> > > > how you model natural selection. Harshman would long ago have been
> > > > silenced if you had done that rather than shower him with insults.

At the end of this reply, gentle readers, Alan Kleinman seems
to reveal that the comment you see from me above was right on target.

Now, to pick up where I left off in my first reply:

> > > >> They have the ArchieDumbtrex fossil to justify their beliefs.

Hold that pose for a moment, please.

<CLICK>

Thank you. Now readers will see how empty that pose is.

> > > > You've posted a lot of inchoate insults about THEM [1], and it's time
> > > > for you to come clean.
> > > >
> > > > Do you, like most creationists, point to biological papers a century
> > > > or more old, that say Archie was "a full-formed bird"?
> > > >
> > > > If so, do you also consider Microraptor to be a full-formed bird
> > > > even though its hind legs also seemed to qualify as wings?
> > > >
> > > > If so, do you simply DEFINE a bird as something with genuine [2] feathers?
> >
> >
> > Alan ducked the first question like a quack, then
> > left the crickets chirping after the other two.

And you will never dare to answer either question at the
rate you are going.

> If you are interested in the mechanisms of genetic transformation, I'll discuss this topic with you. If you want speculation,

...like everything about the history of life on earth put out by
creationists that I have ever seen...

> I leave that for those who have made a profession of that behavior.

The behavior you make a profession of is that of a LumpenCreationist
who prefers ridicule to reasoned discussion/debate.

Case in point: the "picture I took of you" up there:

They have the ArchieDumbtrex fossil to justify their beliefs.

You couldn't even bear to write "Archaeoopteryx," LumpenCreationist
that you are.


As I told your kindred spirit Hemidactylus less than an hour ago,
in reply to his polemical taunt, "Is EES your talisman?" :

_______________________________

On the contrary, I think it is very deficient, only less so than
MS, and I even told Kleinman why: there is a glaring weakness
in one of the short sections.

But I don't think you are the least bit interested in finding
out about it. Like Kleinman and so many others here, you prefer
ridicule to rational argument.

If you tried to argue rationally against a creationist
or DP or EES claim, you would be conceding that the claim
is something worth arguing against. That's the reason
for your preference, isn't it?
=============================================

For "creationist" substitute "macroevolutionary" and
the shoe fits you. It even fits you when one substitutes

"answer the question `Do you think Archaeopteryx was a bird?' "

for "argue rationally against a creationist or DP or EES claim."

And you showed you aren't the least bit interested in
why EES is glaringly deficient -- another thing I believe
Hemidactylus shares with you, as I guessed above.

<snip and cut to the chase>

> > > So, has Alan said anything new yet?
> >
> > I don't think so. He said some four or five letter symbol
> > is supposed to model natural selection, but he didn't
> > explain how.


> It's in my papers.

But never posted to talk.origins, eh?

Until you post an explanation to talk.origins,
my comment at the very beginning of this post is
thoroughly vindicated.

HLVB.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --
U. of So. Carolina

http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

[John Harshman]

> Do you agree that the feathers in the Wiki picture lack barbules?
> You can click on the picture to get a full page magnification.

Yes.

>>> PS On the other hand, I still can't get over how ignorant Ron Okimoto
>>> was to flame you for not "admitting" that mere hairlike growths,
>>> like on Sinosauropteryx, were feathers.
>>
>> Sinosauropteryx doesn't have "mere hairlike growths"; that would be
>> stage 1, while those structures would appear to be at least stage 2.
>
> Hairlike growths in small clusters still don't qualify as feathers.

What qualifies? Do you agree that they're homologous to feathers? That
they're "protofeathers"?

>> You
>> should stop the gratuitous attacks on others not present.
>
> You call an accurate description of what went on a "gratuitous
> attack"?

Even assuming it's an accurate description, yes. It wasn't relevant to
the thread.

>> So, has Alan said anything new yet?
>
> I don't think so. He said some four or five letter symbol
> is supposed to model natural selection, but he didn't
> explain how.

It's because he thinks that if you have a factor for population size and
another for number of generations, that's a model of natural selection.
Anyway, you've now seen his math. That was it.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 6:55:02 PM UTC-5, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> Peter Nyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 12:25:03 AM UTC-5, *Hemidactylus* wrote:

> > What's behind this bolt out of the blue, except a superiority
> > complex of yours that has led you to belittle me regularly
> > since that April 1 day? Are you secretly fond of Alan, replying to
> > a comment by me to him rather than addressing my comment about YOU?


> The Alienist dost project weirdness.

I see you (pretend to?) think that the DP hypothesis of Nobel Laureate
biochemist Francis Crick and world-class biochemist Leslie Orgel
was a display of weirdness by them.

You continue to add to the evidence that you think of
talk.origins as a forum for displaying your polemical talents,
and don't give a damn about such issues as how life on earth began.

> > Could it be that you realize that you haven't got a leg to stand
> > on where those "gold coins" are concerned?
> >
> I haven't a clue what gold coins even means in this convoluted context.

You would if you aclly READ the posts that you reply to.
You even left the whole description in when you replied
the first time upstream, and you've waited until
I deleted the description before chiming in again downstream.


[NOTE TO THOSE WHO MAY HAVE MISSED IT OR FORGOT:]
In brief, "gold coin" is an allusion to a sneaky tactic over
a millenium old. In this context, it is something (usually a
belittling personal comment) that you drop in a polemical
reply, in order to divert someone from talking rationally
about issues.

These issues could be substantive to the forum (in this case, talk.origins)
or even off-topic issues. The distinction is between rational
discussion/debate and polemical diversions.

> >> I hope you and Allie mutually self-destruct.
> >

> > Also that Jonathan and I mutually self-destruct, eh? Don't think I
> > didn't notice that your flaming of Jonathan was instigated by
> > a comment by Wolffan in which he said I was "only the second worst _______"
> > in talk.origins.
> >
> > That fed your superiority complex, didn't it? Would you even be holding
> > Jonathan's feet to the fire if Wolffan hadn't said anything derogatory
> > about me when (justifiably) attacking Jonathan?
> >
> You think I am chummy with jonathan?

No, I think -- and always have thought since you kept badgering
me to watch a gross video -- that you have a totally irrational
and unexplainable hatred for me, and that you were very pleased
to see that Wolffan stuck that description into his justifiable
attack on jonathan.

I also think you are too close to being an ethical nihilist
to be able to explain to jonathan just why that "gold coin"
of his was so offensive. You had no good comeback to his
"rebuttal," but I do, and I told him so.

> >> You deserve each other.
> >
> > Actually, it is you and Alan who deserve each other. Both of you
> > resort to flippancy and surrealism when you are in a tight spot,

> > and both of you think that MS is the be-all end-all of

> > evolutionary theory. The only difference is that you have a
> > quasi-religious faith that it explains the history of life
> > on earth, while Alan thinks he has shown it is so flawed
> > that he can cheerfully invoke a God of the Gaps.
> >
> Is EES your talisman?

On the contrary, I think it is very deficient, only less so than
MS, and I even told Kleinman why: there is a glaring weakness
in one of the short sections.

But I don't think you are the least bit interested in finding
out about it. Like Kleinman and so many others here, you prefer
ridicule to rational argument.

If you tried to argue rationally against a creationist
or DP or EES claim, you would be conceding that the claim
is something worth arguing against. That's the reason
for your preference, isn't it?

> > You, on the other hand, are content with:
> >
> > Darwin of the Gaps
> >
> > This is the default, one-size-fits-all, totally unfalsifiable
> > naturalistic explanation for any and all biological phenomena:
> >
> > "Well, it's natural selection, y'know. The __________ that did/could/
> > are __________ had a survival advantage over the ones that didn't/
> > couldn't/weren't and so they are the ones we see today."

I see you implicitly concede the above point:

> Please tell us again the compelling story for the EES Papa Pete as we toast
> mallows on the campfire.

That's another "gold coin," made so by the deliberate misrepresentation
"again". And it's another illustration of your preference for ridicule
over rational argument.


<additional "gold coins" and illustrations of preference snipped>


Peter Nyikos

Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

University of South Caoltna
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

PS This post was piggybacked after posts that were made
after it appeared, but this one didn't.

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

On Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 11:25:04 AM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 12:45:03 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:

> > On Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 9:25:03 AM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 6:55:02 PM UTC-5, John Harshman wrote:
> > > > On 1/31/18 1:24 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 10:35:04 AM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >> I'm only destroying the TOE. But I am correctly explaining how rmns works.
> > > > >
> > > > > Not in talk.origins, not in sufficient detail for us to see just
> > > > > how you model natural selection. Harshman would long ago have been
> > > > > silenced if you had done that rather than shower him with insults.
> > > >
> > > > If you would just read his papers,
> > >
> > > All in good time. I'm trying to get him just to post enough
> > > of what he claims to have done in talk.origins in the past.
>

> > First, you need to understand introductory probability theory.
>
> Translation: "first you need to read my paper."

So you skill set goes beyond misinterpreting fossils. You can also misinterpret language.

>
>
> > Then you have a chance to understand that my model is not a statistical model but a probabilistic model.
>
> I doubt that your paper is as informal as the polemic you
> carry on in talk.origins. It is here that you keep using "random,"
> "random independent," and "independent" interchangeably.

More misinterpretation of language.
>
> Can you quote Kreyszig using them interchangeably? I don't think
> you can.
Why don't you see if I did my math incorrectly? When you find that I've done the math correctly then you can see if I made an error in the physics. You won't find an error in the physics either.

>
> Now, I HAVE said that your model may be sound AS FAR AS IT GOES.
> But does it go as far as modeling natural selection?

If the model takes into account the absolute number of replications (which it does) then it does take into account natural selection.

>
> In order to answer that, you at least have to answer the
> question I pose at the end of my first reply to you of
> today. Your failure to do so will continue to haunt you
> until you answer it.

How many times do I have to answer your same questions?

>
>
> > > If he can't repost any such thing, or even post some of it for
> > > the first time, then we will know he is not much better than
> > > Ray Martinez, who has claimed (for how long? a decade? more?)
> > > yet refuses to post any excerpts from any drafts.
> > >
> > > I have challenged him directly in the first of two replies I
> > > made to his reply to the above, less direct challenge.
>

> That was the first "haunting" of which I wrote above.
>
>

> > > And I expect him to duck like a quack again, like he did
> > > several times already -- I point them out in my two replies.
>
>

> And for the first time ever, I successfully predicted your
> first response to that question:
>
> > I'm not interested in discussing yours or anyone elses misinterpretations of the fossil record.
>
> The question at the end of my first reply had NOTHING
> to do with the fossil record. And so you have ducked IT like a quack.

Why get into a debate which no one can prove their point?

>
>
> But, as "Henry Drummond" said to "Matthew Harrison Brady" in "Inherit
> the wind, I'll play in your ballpark:
>
> Calling them misrepresentations, while letting us know
> in advance that you are not interested in explaining
> why you call them misrepresentations,
> is yet another sign that you and Hemidactylus are
> birds of a feather.
>
> You don't even have the minimal backbone to claim what
> these misrepresentations are supposed to BE. Your taunts
> about "yardsticks" and "reptiles growing feathers"
> are not revelations of misrepresentations, but are
> THEMSELVES misrepresentations.

The scientific way of determining relatedness is through the genetic code. Claiming that fossil specimens are related because they have the same size sinus cavities is nothing more than crude speculation. Before you start making these kinds of claims, it should be required that you understand the mechanisms of genetic transformation. But the EES folks think you can explain this away with mishmash.

>
> > >
> > > > you would be able to see for yourself
> > > > whether he models natural selection (and if he does, how). Of course he
> > > > doesn't, though he clearly thinks he does. He's very confused about what
> > > > his own math does.
> > >
> > > We'll see. If he doesn't duck the question at the end of my first
> > > reply to him today, but answers YES, then I will take a good long
> > > look at his paper some time in February.
>
>

> And again you duck like a quack:
>
> > Survival of the fittest is not an exercise program.
>
> I'm still waiting for your reply to my question at the
> end of my first reply to you today, you lover of empty polemic.

My mathematics if full of factual detail. You would know this if you read my papers. But first you need to understand introductory probability theory.

>
>
> Continued in next reply, to be done soon after I see that this one has
> posted.
>
>

> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --

> U. of So. Carolina in Columbia
> http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

I derived the equations here on talk.origins about 5 years ago. If you go back and look at my posts, you will find the equations. But you certainly are circumlocutory.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Argument from authority by you duly noted. Are you done with the gratuitous
name dropping? Next you will be touting the wonders of ascorbic acid
because Linus Pauling.

>
> You continue to add to the evidence that you think of
> talk.origins as a forum for displaying your polemical talents,
> and don't give a damn about such issues as how life on earth began.
>

Says the master polemicist.

>
>>> Could it be that you realize that you haven't got a leg to stand
>>> on where those "gold coins" are concerned?
>>>
>> I haven't a clue what gold coins even means in this convoluted context.
>
> You would if you aclly READ the posts that you reply to.
> You even left the whole description in when you replied
> the first time upstream, and you've waited until
> I deleted the description before chiming in again downstream.
>

I cannot be expected to psychically grok your bizarrely idiosyncratic
lexicon. You are akin to Ray in this peculiarity.

>
> [NOTE TO THOSE WHO MAY HAVE MISSED IT OR FORGOT:]
> In brief, "gold coin" is an allusion to a sneaky tactic over
> a millenium old. In this context, it is something (usually a
> belittling personal comment) that you drop in a polemical
> reply, in order to divert someone from talking rationally
> about issues.
>

And I thought it might be gold stars.

>
> These issues could be substantive to the forum (in this case, talk.origins)
> or even off-topic issues. The distinction is between rational
> discussion/debate and polemical diversions.
>

So stop with your polemic diversions and convey the purported substance of
EES.

>
>>>> I hope you and Allie mutually self-destruct.
>>>
>>> Also that Jonathan and I mutually self-destruct, eh? Don't think I
>>> didn't notice that your flaming of Jonathan was instigated by
>>> a comment by Wolffan in which he said I was "only the second worst _______"
>>> in talk.origins.
>>>
>>> That fed your superiority complex, didn't it? Would you even be holding
>>> Jonathan's feet to the fire if Wolffan hadn't said anything derogatory
>>> about me when (justifiably) attacking Jonathan?
>>>
>> You think I am chummy with jonathan?
>
> No, I think -- and always have thought since you kept badgering
> me to watch a gross video -- that you have a totally irrational
> and unexplainable hatred for me, and that you were very pleased
> to see that Wolffan stuck that description into his justifiable
> attack on jonathan.
>
> I also think you are too close to being an ethical nihilist
> to be able to explain to jonathan just why that "gold coin"
> of his was so offensive. You had no good comeback to his
> "rebuttal," but I do, and I told him so.
>

Me an ethical nihilist? Because I have the temerity to stand strongly
against your continued gaslighting assault against me?

>
>>>> You deserve each other.
>>>
>>> Actually, it is you and Alan who deserve each other. Both of you
>>> resort to flippancy and surrealism when you are in a tight spot,
>>> and both of you think that MS is the be-all end-all of
>>> evolutionary theory. The only difference is that you have a
>>> quasi-religious faith that it explains the history of life
>>> on earth, while Alan thinks he has shown it is so flawed
>>> that he can cheerfully invoke a God of the Gaps.
>>>
>> Is EES your talisman?
>
>
> On the contrary, I think it is very deficient, only less so than
> MS, and I even told Kleinman why: there is a glaring weakness
> in one of the short sections.
>
> But I don't think you are the least bit interested in finding
> out about it. Like Kleinman and so many others here, you prefer
> ridicule to rational argument.
>

So Waddington didn’t quite make the MS cut. If his genetic assimilation and
developmental landscapes warrant incorporation into evolutionary biology do
we gotta rename it and jettison the foundations of the MS? Do we gotta
embroider an EES emblem on a new flag and run it up the pole to see if
people salute it? Sounds too much like the revolution the ev psychers wish
to unfurl in the social sciences. Much polemic and less substance.

>
> If you tried to argue rationally against a creationist
> or DP or EES claim, you would be conceding that the claim
> is something worth arguing against. That's the reason
> for your preference, isn't it?
>

I would prefer entertaining parts of the EES view over DP. The only way
aliens could have tweaked earthbound life would be from a close by planet
with a very eccentric orbit. That way lies Reptoids and Illuminati. Your
alternative is too far flung from our solar system to merit anything more
than dismissive scorn and ridicule.

OTOH phylotypic periods (as developmental hourglass sensu Raff) and some
aspects of niche construction (beaver dams and human dairying leading to
lactase persistence) are more salient than starter probes flung from
Throom. But you haven’t demonstrated any familiarity with EES thinking. It
sounds to me you latched onto something because it cuts against the grain
and makes you sound more knowledgable than you actually are.

>
>>> You, on the other hand, are content with:
>>>
>>> Darwin of the Gaps
>>>
>>> This is the default, one-size-fits-all, totally unfalsifiable
>>> naturalistic explanation for any and all biological phenomena:
>>>
>>> "Well, it's natural selection, y'know. The __________ that did/could/
>>> are __________ had a survival advantage over the ones that didn't/
>>> couldn't/weren't and so they are the ones we see today."
>
>
> I see you implicitly concede the above point:
>

Don’t be putting hyperadaptionist words in my mouth bucko. I know better
than that. From spandrels to neutral alleles to historicized archetypes
(=bauplane) I know where all the non-MS skeletons with merit are buried.

I’m just not sure I wanna be latching onto this EES mumbo jumbo. I am not
quite as acerbically dismissing as Coyne:

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2018/01/19/laland-at-it-again-touts-a-radically-different-account-of-evolution/

>
>> Please tell us again the compelling story for the EES Papa Pete as we toast
>> mallows on the campfire.
>
> That's another "gold coin," made so by the deliberate misrepresentation
> "again". And it's another illustration of your preference for ridicule
> over rational argument.
>

You still offer no compelling account for EES. Not surprised. I flat out
asked albeit sarcastically and you evaded. Not surprised. All fluff from
you yet again.

[*Hemidactylus*]

*Hemidactylus* <ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:
>
[snip]

>
> Don’t be putting hyperadaptionist words in my mouth bucko. I know better
> than that. From spandrels to neutral alleles to historicized archetypes
> (=bauplane) I know where all the non-MS skeletons with merit are buried.
>
> I’m just not sure I wanna be latching onto this EES mumbo jumbo. I am not
> quite as acerbically dismissing as Coyne:
>
> https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2018/01/19/laland-at-it-again-touts-a-radically-different-account-of-evolution/
>

Larry has opined:

http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2018/02/kevin-lalands-view-of-modern.html

Evolutionary thought has already evolved from MS thanks to Kimura and
others. Any warranted thought on the matter has already broken that mold.
Why push some huge Kuhnian paradigm shift when anything worthwhile can
merely add to our cumulative knowledge base. As Larry says:

“Most of the proponents an Extended Evolutionary Theory (EES) share
Laland's out-of-date views on modern evolutionary theory. They missed the
revolution that took place 50 years ago.”

So EES are polemically shooting at long outdated targets.

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

I'm going to disagree with one of his points:
"It's been known for many years that both selection and drift play important roles in adaptation". Drift is what populations due when subject to many simultaneous selection pressures but are not driven to extinction. The population cannot improve fitness to any of the particular selection pressures because the variant cannot amplify to improve the probability of the next beneficial mutation occurring. The response of hiv to three-drug therapy is a good example of this. Drift is not a form of adaptation, directional selection is. And directional selection only works efficiently when a single selection pressure is acting on the population at a time. You can get fixation of a particular variant based on drift but it does not occur because that variant is more fit than any other variant in the population. Drift is a random process.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 12:20:03 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> On Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 8:20:05 AM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 4:40:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 1:25:04 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 10:35:04 AM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:

> > > > > I'm only destroying the TOE. But I am correctly explaining how rmns works.
> > > >
> > > > Not in talk.origins, not in sufficient detail for us to see just
> > > > how you model natural selection. Harshman would long ago have been
> > > > silenced if you had done that rather than shower him with insults.
> >
> > > I have many times. Natural selection for rmns is measured by the absolute fitness to reproduce.

IOW, population of strain times average fitness of the strain....

...with fitness measured by the number of offspring that grow to either

1. adulthood or

2. reproduce, themselves

These give slightly different answers but the math can be adjusted
to fit either definition and give the same results.


<snip of YouTube reference-- my laptop is being fixed and my computer
at work doesn't give the sound for videos>

> > > And the number of replications is that measure.
> >
> > With the number of replicated ones measured in adulthood, or after they too
> > have reproduced?

You duck even simple questions like this, hence my explanation above
had to be complicated.

> The random trial is the replication, the possible outcomes, does the beneficial mutation occur or not.

You need to know the size of the population for that. But if you
do the math correctly for absolute fitness, that datum can be
recaptured.

> >
> >
> > > Harshman believes the only way you can measure natural selection is by the relative fitness to reproduce.
> >
> > Can you provide a quote to that effect?
> From the thread, "The reason John Harshman is unwilling to accept the basic science and mathematics of rmns" on 9/2/17, John wrote in response to my post to Ernest Major:
> .
> "> That's not quite right Ernest, in fact, my paper on multiple
> > simultaneous selection pressures addresses your scenario 2 and under
> > what circumstances there is a reasonable probability to evolve to two
> > simultaneous targeted selection pressures. This is the Bill Rogers'
> > emergence of drug resistant Malaria to 2 drug therapy problem. It is
> > going to take 3 targeted drugs to have durable treatment for malaria.
> > This is analogous to the successful use of 3 drug therapy for HIV.
>
> Nope, can't model that without some parameter for the strength of
> selection, i.e. fitness coefficients for the various genotypes. You
> model mutation only, and in a population of fixed size at that."
> .

I don't know about the "fixed size" bit. In all your volumnous polemic,
which Internet Jackal Hemidactyus tried to project onto me, you
haven't even clarified this detail. But it is hugely important.

> John is describing "survival of the fittest" where on the other hand, I'm modeling the evolutionary trajectory for "improving fitness" which is not dependent on selection coefficients for the various genotypes.

I used the word "strain" up there for "genotype". You're so informal
about things like "random" and "independent" that I thought you
might approve of a bit of formality by me.


But on to substantive matters. If you aren't doing something dependent
on selection coefficients, then your trajectory involves an ever-increasing
population.

But there are limits to that, as even the rabbits in Australia
eventually found out.

How does your model take care of that?


Remainder deleted, mostly to be replied to on a thread I am going to
set up once this has been posted.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --

Univ. of So. Carolina
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 6:35:04 AM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 12:20:03 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > On Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 8:20:05 AM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 4:40:04 PM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > > > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 1:25:04 PM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 10:35:04 AM UTC-5, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
>
> > > > > > I'm only destroying the TOE. But I am correctly explaining how rmns works.
> > > > >
> > > > > Not in talk.origins, not in sufficient detail for us to see just
> > > > > how you model natural selection. Harshman would long ago have been
> > > > > silenced if you had done that rather than shower him with insults.
> > >
> > > > I have many times. Natural selection for rmns is measured by the absolute fitness to reproduce.
>
> IOW, population of strain times average fitness of the strain....

Not so. The absolute fitness to reproduce is simply measured by the total number of replications of that variant. How can you compute an "average fitness" and what does this number mean physically?

>
> ...with fitness measured by the number of offspring that grow to either
>
> 1. adulthood or
>
> 2. reproduce, themselves

The ability to reproduce is strongly dependent on the environment and selection pressures associated with that environment. You cannot a priori compute an "average fitness" because there are so many different possible environments and selection pressures. You can only after the fact know which mutations will give improved fitness. And you will know what mutations are required because those variants will be able to amplify.

>
> These give slightly different answers but the math can be adjusted
> to fit either definition and give the same results.

If you think you can do the mathematics of rmns by your approach, go for it. But you still don't understand the physics of the rmns phenomenon.

>
>
> <snip of YouTube reference-- my laptop is being fixed and my computer
> at work doesn't give the sound for videos>

You don't need sound to watch this video. This video consists of a large Petri dish with the east and west edges having bands of no drugs and as you go to the center of the dish, increasing bands of drug concentrations. Each band of increasing drug concentration requires a mutation for the variant to grow in that band. So stop making excuses.

>
>
> > > > And the number of replications is that measure.
> > >
> > > With the number of replicated ones measured in adulthood, or after they too
> > > have reproduced?
>
> You duck even simple questions like this, hence my explanation above
> had to be complicated.

If a member of a population is able to replicate, it must have reached a level of maturity necessary to achieve this. It is the replication which is the random trial for that particular mutation. If you want to think I'm ducking your question with that answer, that is your prerogative. But it is also my prerogative to think that you don't understand rmns. The question is, will you ever?

>
>
> > The random trial is the replication, the possible outcomes, does the beneficial mutation occur or not.
>
> You need to know the size of the population for that. But if you
> do the math correctly for absolute fitness, that datum can be
> recaptured.

Natural selection determines that size of the population for that variant. And the environment in which that variant is increasing in population size determines how natural selection works. You are going to have difficulty with this mathematics without understanding experiments like the Kishony experiment and the Lenski experiment.

>
>
> > >
> > >
> > > > Harshman believes the only way you can measure natural selection is by the relative fitness to reproduce.
> > >
> > > Can you provide a quote to that effect?
> > From the thread, "The reason John Harshman is unwilling to accept the basic science and mathematics of rmns" on 9/2/17, John wrote in response to my post to Ernest Major:
> > .
> > "> That's not quite right Ernest, in fact, my paper on multiple
> > > simultaneous selection pressures addresses your scenario 2 and under
> > > what circumstances there is a reasonable probability to evolve to two
> > > simultaneous targeted selection pressures. This is the Bill Rogers'
> > > emergence of drug resistant Malaria to 2 drug therapy problem. It is
> > > going to take 3 targeted drugs to have durable treatment for malaria.
> > > This is analogous to the successful use of 3 drug therapy for HIV.
> >
> > Nope, can't model that without some parameter for the strength of
> > selection, i.e. fitness coefficients for the various genotypes. You
> > model mutation only, and in a population of fixed size at that."
> > .
>
> I don't know about the "fixed size" bit. In all your volumnous polemic,
> which Internet Jackal Hemidactyus tried to project onto me, you
> haven't even clarified this detail. But it is hugely important.

John is confused by my mathematics. When I derived the equations which describe rmns, as an expediency, I used a fixed population size times the number of generations that population can reproduce to determine the total number of replications. What John doesn't understand is the sample space is not dependent on how the replications are accumulated, it is the total number of replications which determines the sample space. You can have linear growth of a population, exponential growth of the population, constant size of the population (which I used in my equation derivation), or any other pattern of population growth but it will always be the total number of replications of that variant over generations which will determine the probability of that beneficial mutation occurring.

>
>
> > John is describing "survival of the fittest" where on the other hand, I'm modeling the evolutionary trajectory for "improving fitness" which is not dependent on selection coefficients for the various genotypes.
>
> I used the word "strain" up there for "genotype". You're so informal
> about things like "random" and "independent" that I thought you
> might approve of a bit of formality by me.

I also use the term "variant", these are synonymous with "stain" and "genotype". These terms have no relationship to the terms "random" and "independent". But feel free to meander.

>
>
> But on to substantive matters. If you aren't doing something dependent
> on selection coefficients, then your trajectory involves an ever-increasing
> population.

Not so. It is an ever-increasing number of replications which determines the probability of that beneficial mutation occurring. You can have a constant small population size that replicates for many generations and increase the probability of that beneficial mutation occurring. A large constant population size will need fewer generations to increase that probability.

>
> But there are limits to that, as even the rabbits in Australia
> eventually found out.
>
> How does your model take care of that?

If you understood the sample space for rmns, you would understand how my model takes care of that. n*g is simply the total number of replications. If you want to plug in a different term to compute the total number of replications, be my guest. But what you will find is the probabilities will be the same if the total number of replications are the same.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Peter Nyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
[snip]

>
> I don't know about the "fixed size" bit. In all your volumnous polemic,
> which Internet Jackal Hemidactyus tried to project onto me, you
> haven't even clarified this detail. But it is hugely important.
>

Internet Jackal Hemidactylus would be happy to hear more details about your
juicy love affair with EES. Is DP jealous? You’ve transitioned from
resident alienist diagnosing me with sociopathy to resident zoologist
naming a new species. All in a days work evading the important stuff.

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/1/18 9:30 AM, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> On Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 8:35:04 AM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:

>> [...]

>> I was being extremely conservative here: there are TWELVE essentially complete
>> known skeletons, and I can post a link to a research paper comparing them.
> Unless you have the DNA, you can only speculate about these skeletons.
>>
>> But you would be a traitor to your fellow LumpenCreationists if you dared
>> suggest they may be wrong if they insist that all of them are forgeries,
>> wouldn't you?
> I'm not arguing whether these are forgeries or not. Look at the debate you started with Janis, there is no lack of opinion or interpretations of the fossil record. This fossil record topic is a waste of time in understanding how evolution works.

Good point. When you already are certain how something works, more data
can only get in the way of your preconceived conclusion. Best we do
away with evidence completely.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can
have." - James Baldwin

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 10:25:03 AM UTC-8, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 2/1/18 9:30 AM, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> > On Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 8:35:04 AM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >> [...]
> >> I was being extremely conservative here: there are TWELVE essentially complete
> >> known skeletons, and I can post a link to a research paper comparing them.
> > Unless you have the DNA, you can only speculate about these skeletons.
> >>
> >> But you would be a traitor to your fellow LumpenCreationists if you dared
> >> suggest they may be wrong if they insist that all of them are forgeries,
> >> wouldn't you?
> > I'm not arguing whether these are forgeries or not. Look at the debate you started with Janis, there is no lack of opinion or interpretations of the fossil record. This fossil record topic is a waste of time in understanding how evolution works.
>
> Good point. When you already are certain how something works, more data
> can only get in the way of your preconceived conclusion. Best we do
> away with evidence completely.

You want real, measurable and repeatable evidence, study the Kishony and Lenski experiments, not the reading of fossil tea leaves. Perhaps you think phrenology and astrology are science.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 1:10:02 PM UTC-5, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> Peter Nyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >
> [snip]
> >
> > I don't know about the "fixed size" bit. In all your volumnous polemic,
> > which Internet Jackal Hemidactyus tried to project onto me, you
> > haven't even clarified this detail. But it is hugely important.
> >
> Internet Jackal Hemidactylus would be happy to hear more details about your
> juicy love affair with EES.

Nonexistent, you Internet Jackal. I already told you that, but you
don't give a damn about the truth.

The reason for the description: you hope Kleinman and I mutually
destroy each other so you can pick up the scraps, like a jackal.

> Is DP jealous? You've transitioned from
> resident alienist diagnosing me with sociopathy to resident zoologist
> naming a new species. All in a days work evading the important stuff.

When did you ever care about the important stuff? I keep calling your
bluff, and you keep coming back with more "gold coins" [sarcastic,
but also a historical allusion].

But I can see where you are coming from: the "important stuff" is
between me and Kleinman (see above) so you can go on not caring
about the actual issues.

Peter Nyikos

[jillery]

On Fri, 2 Feb 2018 11:04:17 -0800 (PST), Alan Kleinman MD PhD
<klei...@sti.net> wrote:

>On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 10:25:03 AM UTC-8, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 2/1/18 9:30 AM, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
>> > On Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 8:35:04 AM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>> >> [...]
>> >> I was being extremely conservative here: there are TWELVE essentially complete
>> >> known skeletons, and I can post a link to a research paper comparing them.
>> > Unless you have the DNA, you can only speculate about these skeletons.
>> >>
>> >> But you would be a traitor to your fellow LumpenCreationists if you dared
>> >> suggest they may be wrong if they insist that all of them are forgeries,
>> >> wouldn't you?
>> > I'm not arguing whether these are forgeries or not. Look at the debate you started with Janis, there is no lack of opinion or interpretations of the fossil record. This fossil record topic is a waste of time in understanding how evolution works.
>>
>> Good point. When you already are certain how something works, more data
>> can only get in the way of your preconceived conclusion. Best we do
>> away with evidence completely.
>You want real, measurable and repeatable evidence, study the Kishony and Lenski experiments, not the reading of fossil tea leaves. Perhaps you think phrenology and astrology are science.

Yet more of your non-sequitur spam. You don't even try to explain
what you think experiments with bacteria have to do with feathers and
fossils.

--
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Attributed to Voltaire

[*Hemidactylus*]

So you were totally full of shit invoking EES. Thanks for the confirmation.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Alan Kleinman MD PhD <klei...@sti.net> wrote:

> On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 10:25:03 AM UTC-8, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 2/1/18 9:30 AM, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
>>> On Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 8:35:04 AM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>> [...]
>>>> I was being extremely conservative here: there are TWELVE essentially complete
>>>> known skeletons, and I can post a link to a research paper comparing them.
>>> Unless you have the DNA, you can only speculate about these skeletons.
>>>>
>>>> But you would be a traitor to your fellow LumpenCreationists if you dared
>>>> suggest they may be wrong if they insist that all of them are forgeries,
>>>> wouldn't you?
>>> I'm not arguing whether these are forgeries or not. Look at the debate
>>> you started with Janis, there is no lack of opinion or interpretations
>>> of the fossil record. This fossil record topic is a waste of time in
>>> understanding how evolution works.
>>
>> Good point. When you already are certain how something works, more data
>> can only get in the way of your preconceived conclusion. Best we do
>> away with evidence completely.
> You want real, measurable and repeatable evidence, study the Kishony and
> Lenski experiments, not the reading of fossil tea leaves. Perhaps you
> think phrenology and astrology are science.
>

The fossil record is a result of evolution and aids understanding the
diversity and disparity of life. Your tiring bullshit rhetoric about rmns
and drug cocktails does nothing to aid understanding. Instead it is a case
of chronic misunderstanding verging on misinformed anti-evolution
propaganda.

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

Any interpretation of the fossil record which does not take into account the mechanisms of genetic transformation is gross speculation. Why should I take seriously any of these misinterpretations when you can't tell us the selection pressures, genes targeted and mutations required to make these transformations. Save your claims for Hollywood.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Genes indirectly lead to structure through something known to real
biologists not mentally masturbating monomanically on usenet as
development. Structural features are indicated in the fossil record. These
features can help ground said fossil organism in the phylogenetic spectrum
of life (eg- hominid fossils). Narrowly focusing on how medical doctors
approach treatment of infectious disease blinkers your view of life and
makes you a very dull boy. You should follow your newfound mentor Nyikos
into the paleontology newsgroup and break the rmns chains that bind you.
They would really enjoy you there.

[John Harshman]

On 2/2/18 2:41 PM, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> You should follow your newfound mentor Nyikos
> into the paleontology newsgroup and break the rmns chains that bind you.
> They would really enjoy you there.

Try not to be an asshole. Try harder.

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

So where did the genes that were laterally transferred to reptiles to make them grow feathers come from?

[erik simpson]

Oh no, please don't refer that awful bore on the just-barely alive paleontology
group. His interminable chanting is bad enough here, where there's lots of
almost equal or worse crap flung around.

[*Hemidactylus*]

You are a jackass.

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

That's the thanks you get when you try to find John a new job. Since you are so good at reading fossil tea leaves, maybe we can get you a job in a fortune cookie factory.

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

Maybe so, but a jackass who knows how rmns works. And reptiles can't grow feathers by rmns.

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 3:40:03 PM UTC-8, erik simpson wrote:
> On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 2:45:04 PM UTC-8, *Hemidactylus* wrote:

Maybe it was the big bang that made reptiles grow feathers!

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/2/18 11:04 AM, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
> On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 10:25:03 AM UTC-8, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 2/1/18 9:30 AM, Alan Kleinman MD PhD wrote:
>>> On Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 8:35:04 AM UTC-8, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>> [...]
>>>> I was being extremely conservative here: there are TWELVE essentially complete
>>>> known skeletons, and I can post a link to a research paper comparing them.
>>> Unless you have the DNA, you can only speculate about these skeletons.
>>>>
>>>> But you would be a traitor to your fellow LumpenCreationists if you dared
>>>> suggest they may be wrong if they insist that all of them are forgeries,
>>>> wouldn't you?
>>> I'm not arguing whether these are forgeries or not. Look at the debate you started with Janis, there is no lack of opinion or interpretations of the fossil record. This fossil record topic is a waste of time in understanding how evolution works.
>>
>> Good point. When you already are certain how something works, more data
>> can only get in the way of your preconceived conclusion. Best we do
>> away with evidence completely.
> You want real, measurable and repeatable evidence, study the Kishony and Lenski experiments, not the reading of fossil tea leaves. Perhaps you think phrenology and astrology are science.

Fossils are real and repeatedly (and objectively) measurable. I guess
someone who spends their life lost in fantasy would not realize that.
Phrenology, astrology, and even the reading of tea leaves can be studied
scientifically, too; and the first two, at least, have been. That's how
we know they don't work as commonly advertised.

Science is not a set of topics; it is a set of procedures. Do those
procedures right, and you can have a science of tea leaf reading (not
that it would tell you much). Do them wrong as you have been doing, and
no amount of physics, mathematics, biology, or anything else will make
what you're doing into science.

[Alan Kleinman MD PhD]

So you think that measuring anatomical structures with a yardstick takes the place of sequencing DNA to determine relatedness. In case you didn't know, science has advanced since the 19th century.

[*Hemidactylus*]

So what if morphological character analysis gave results not so different
than newer molecular phylogenetic techniques for resolving relationships?
DNA sequences are but another source of data. And for some fossils
morphology is all that’s available. Plus fossils indicate what creatures
actually looked like. DNA cannot do that.

Have you ever taken a comparative anatomy course or a vertebrate zoology
course? Herpetology? Ornithology? Would you devalue such studies that focus
on morphology and habitat over such trivialities as rmns and the
multiplication rule?

When I was a biology undergrad the premed students whined the loudest about
getting hot, sweaty and dirty in field classwork. Pretentious scrubs
wearing wimps.

[jillery]

On Fri, 2 Feb 2018 15:10:20 -0800 (PST), Alan Kleinman MD PhD
<klei...@sti.net> wrote:

>So where did the genes that were laterally transferred to reptiles to make them grow feathers come from?

Since you asked, and as I pointed out before, from the same place your
MRSA got its antibiotic-resistant genes. You're welcome.

Apparently you think repeating your asinine questions makes you sound
intelligent. Think again.

[jillery]

On Fri, 2 Feb 2018 15:51:56 -0800 (PST), Alan Kleinman MD PhD
<klei...@sti.net> wrote:


>> > So where did the genes that were laterally transferred to reptiles to
>> > make them grow feathers come from?
>> >
>> You are a jackass.
>
>Maybe so, but a jackass who knows how rmns works. And reptiles can't grow feathers by rmns.

Only a jackass would say that.