ABSTRACT: After a bit of preamble, I append Walter ReMine's reply.
Please note I have promised Walter to keep him informed of any
arguments against his claims. I will take it that this is OK unless the
person posting states otherwise.
On Sat, 12 Apr 97 23:55:33 CDT, Wesley R. Elsberry wrote:
WE>The topic was discussed on talk.origins back in 1995, with Walter
>ReMine himself pressing the difficulties of Haldane's dilemma.
>Andy Peters and Chris Colby asserted that Haldane's dilemma only
>arose with a "hard selection" scenario; under "soft selection"
>it just wasn't the problem that ReMine claimed. ReMine, of course,
>remained unconvinced.
>
>ReMine had also asserted that Haldane's dilemma could be seen in
>the operation of evolution simulations. Upon this point, I
>challenged ReMine to name the simulation which showed the difficulties
>of HD, to specify how such difficulties were recognized or quantified,
>and basically to have the whole issue put to empirical test. I offered
>to modify an existing program to use the "soft selection" described
>by Peters and Colby, and then we would see if the problems went
>away as Peters and Colby asserted, or remained as ReMine asserted.
>
>ReMine did not produce the name of the simulation that he had claimed
>showed the problem, nor any indication of how one recognized the
>problem in a simulation. It seems to me that he missed a great
>opportunity to try out his idea.
------------------------------------------------------------
I responded to the above on Mon, 28 Apr 97 20:12:02 +0800 with:
------------------------------------------------------------
SJ>ReMine actually names one in his book, ie. Dawkin's "Methinks it
>is like a Weasel" simulation:
>
>"Thus, the simulation-with its numerous unrealistic assumptions that
>favor evolution-is less than five times faster than Haldane's estimate
>of 300 generations per substitution. Ironically, this suggests that
>Haldane was too optimistic about the speed of evolution.' (ReMine
>W.J., "The Biotic Message: Evolution Versus Message
>Theory", St. Paul Science: Saint Paul MN, 1993, p236).
>
>ReMine's failure to produce this simulation is hardly his fault - Dawkins'
>claims he has lost it:
>
>"The computer simulation that Dawkins used for his book is lost
>(Dawkins, 1991, personal letter)" (ReMine W.J., "The Biotic Message,
>1993, p235).
------------------------------------------------------------
Elsberry replied on Tue, 29 Apr 97 01:41:11 CDT and I responded
on Tue, 13 May 97 06:25:04 +0800:
WE>I would like nothing better than to have ReMine actually address
>the concerns that were raised by me repeatedly on talk.origins
>and cc'ed email.
[...]
WE>I had checked out "The Biotic Message" once before, but I did not
>have it in hand during the talk.origins discussion. If the "weasel"
>simulation is really the one that Walter meant, then that should have
>been dead easy for him to name. I suspect it was the call for a
>definite and programmable criterion for detection of a "problem"
>due to Haldane's dilemma that caused the silence.
SJ>I would have thought it would be fairly obvious that "the `weasel'
>simulation is really the one that Walter meant" since it is the one
>that appears in his "Haldane's Dilemma" chapter.
WE>I counted up to eight times that I asked for the name of the
>simulation and other associated support, and then presented
>it a few more times that I didn't count. The only response
>from Walter was "Hold your horses."
SJ>Presumably Walter thought you meant something over and above what he
>wrote in "The Biotic Message"?
-----------------------------------------------------------
Walter ReMine has kindly provided this response for me to post to the Reflector:
==================BEGIN FORWARDED MESSAGE==================
>Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 22:29:34 -0500
>To: "Stephen Jones" <sejones@ibm.net>
>From: "St. Paul Science, Inc." <science@minn.net>
>Subject: Post to ASA reflector -- Thanks Steve
>
Haldane's Dilemma -- talk.origins rehash
My book, _The Biotic Message_, (http://www1.minn.net/~science), has a
chapter on the forty year old unsolved evolutionary problem of Haldane's
Dilemma. In early 1995 I introduced talk.origins to that material. I gave a
number of claims from the book, and proceeded to argue the theoretical
issues. (One observer to the discussion archived much of it at
http://www.access.digex.net/~medved/evolution/reminevictory)
Andy Peters argued at length that sexual reproduction and truncation
selection could solve Haldane's Dilemma. I quoted leading evolutionary
geneticists, especially John Maynard Smith to show that sexual reproduction
will not lessen the problem. Peters conceded the point then. I also showed
that truncation selection is not a part of the evolutionists' standard model
of genetic evolution. For example, it does not show up in John Maynard
Smith's recent college textbook on evolutionary genetics. Neither Haldane's
Dilemma nor any of its alleged solutions is visible. That is a scandal.
Chris Colby took the lead in arguing for soft selection. I showed that it
contains nothing that can lessen Haldane's Dilemma -- nothing that can
lessen the cost of substitution or increase the reproductive payments.
Colby seemed to concede the point. He conceded that my calculated limit of
1,667 beneficial nucleotides for the ten million years of human evolution is
"within the ballpark". In other words, he had failed to identify how soft
selection could substantially ease the problem. At that concession, Wesley
Elsberry and most every other t.o. evolutionist became rather quiet. Colby
proceeded to claim that human evolution could be reasonably explained
within that limit of 1,667 beneficial nucleotide substitutions. Wowsers!
At that point it was clear I had made major headway in establishing my
claims: Haldane's Dilemma was never solved. Evolutionists themselves
cannot agree on the solution. The claimed solutions are typically absent
from textbooks, and at best incoherently presented. I closed out my two
month session on talk.origins tired but feeling good.
Throughout all this, Wesley Elsberry recklessly complained as though I were
keeping something secret. He demanded to know what computer simulation I
used. It's in my book! For crying out loud. Elsberry was apparently to
lazy to check it out.
He continues to complain about it, thus prompting this post as a response.
My book dismantles the most widely popularized computer simulation of
evolution, and shows how it actually supports my claims about Haldane's
Dilemma. It is appropriately located right in my chapter on Haldane's
Dilemma, with the name of the simulation emphasized by making it the name of
the entire section. The computer simulation is listed six different ways in
the index. In other words, Elsberry cannot have seriously examined my book
and missed it.
Elsberry advertises on talk.origins that he has read my book.
(For example see his Message-Id: <5et7r3$js4@news.tamu.edu>)
Yet to this day he continues to complain, "ReMine did not produce the name
of the simulation that he had claimed showed the problem". Elsberry cannot
be serious!
Elsberry pretends to have read my book. He is not the first such pretender,
that occurred right here on (the forerunner to) this ASA reflector, I
believe that person still manages this reflector. Often evolutionists
pretend to have read my book, when they have not.
Many questions fly on talk.origins. My session did not get to Elsberry's
particular one for several reasons: (1) His question was off topic, and on
talk.o maintaining a focus is half your task. I was discussing the
theoretical genetic issues of Haldane's Dilemma, but computer simulations
raise a new range of issues. Even the theoretical issues bifurcate in lots
of directions, and I was busy posting, night and day, to address those and
keep the discussion focused. My talk.origins material ran for over a
hundred pages. Elsberry has nothing to complain about. (2) I will not
re-type my book into the internet. I will not spoon feed it to each person
who has a question. Elsberry knew where to get the answer to his question,
he simply failed to pursue it. (3) My talk.origins session never intended
to supply all the answers from my book, instead my intention, which I
announced, was to serve notice about my book and its issues. My posts
argued sufficiently well to establish them as live issues worthy of further
consideration. My goal was to raise legitimate interest in my book. Since
Elsberry continually blustered that he was interested, there was nothing
further for me to do. The ball was entirely in his court.
In other words, Elsberry's complaining is typical talk.o antics and
posturing. Anything but deal with my book and the issues it raises.
Here are just a few claims from my book. Using theory and data supplied by
evolutionists themselves:
1) According to Haldane's Dilemma -- Selective evolution could substitute
no more than 1,667 beneficial nucleotides during the evolution of humans
over the past ten million years. That amounts to one three-hundredths of
one one-hundredth of one-percent of the human genome.
2) According to Motoo Kimura's theory of neutral evolution -- Neutral
evolution (during the same time as above) could substitute no more
than 25,000 *expressed* neutral mutations. That amounts to 0.0007 percent
of the human genome.
3) According to the standard model of genetic evolution and known mutation
rates -- The human population is in error catastrophe where harmful
mutations accumulate faster than they can be rid of. This is true even if
we allot the evolutionists' model the incredible advantage that a full 97%
of the human genome is inert and unavailable to suffer harmful mutation.
4) The phenomena of error catastrophe (from harmful mutations), and low
substitution rates (of beneficial mutations), show up even on computer
simulations (if not arbitrarily prevented by the programmer), and give
support to my claims above.
Those are astounding claims, don't you agree? That was three and a half
years ago. Yet no evolutionist has (in fixed form) published a refutation.
Even the transient and ephemeral internet evolution sites contain little
serious on these issues. It is good to see the ASA reflector finally beginning
a discussion.
When my book came out, I spent abundant time describing it on various
evolution forums. Evolutionists cannot claim they weren't notified.
-- Walter ReMine
wjremine@mmm.com
The Biotic Message -- http://www1.minn.net/~science
disclaimer: These thoughts are mine.
===================END FORWARDED MESSAGE===================
If natural selection "could substitute no more than 1,667 beneficial nucleotides
during the evolution of humans over the past ten million years", which is only
"one three-hundredths of one one-hundredth of one-percent of the human genome"
then that appears to rule out Neo-Darwinian (`blind watchmaker') evolution as
the cause of why humans are different from apes. Of course the same slowness
of natural selection affects the apes to, and so on down the evolutionary tree.
OTOH, this fits nicely with my Mediate Creation model that natural selection was
at strategic points directed by the Sighted Watchmaker!!
God bless.
Steve
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