Random Mutation as Driver of Evolution

That may have been your point, but it wasn't Darwin's point in this quote. You were either disingenuous or sloppy in appropriating Darwin's quote for your rhetorical purposes. Darwin's quote, if read in the context Wandel provided and you didn't, isn't about admitting for the possibility of error. Rather, it introduces his point that evolution can account for phenomena that at first seem "absurd in the highest degree" for it to account for. Far from hedging his bets by downplaying the explanatory power of his new theory, Darwin forcefully asserts it. His point, in other words, couldn't be more different than yours.

Fine. I retract everything I said and distance myself from this thread.

Good call Intrepid, I got the point you're making, but obviously it's turned into a war of semantics as opposed to getting to the heart of what you were trying say. That said, I did prefer the full quote, as opposed to your abbreviation. I read Darwin quote to say he could be wrong and displayed a certain amount of humility (a quality lacking in the vast majority of intellectuals--aka Mensa and their ilk). I find people who worship knowledge tend to be arrogant and proud.

You're entitled to your opinion, but that is clearly not what Darwin was trying to convey with that quote. Darwin was pointing out the discontinuity between common sense appearances, and actual reasoning.

OK, fine... Darwin was not humble.

"I tried to be humble once by my evolved superiority made that choice deterministically impossible."

Since most all evolution seems to be adaptive, the "driver" is what the organism isw trying to adapt unto.
Ros had it right since mutation is most often a mere self corrected STR allele, most of the "genetic material " occurs from the fertilization process, either apomyxis, hemaphroditic congress or sex. Using sexual congress as a model, at least half of the new genetic complement occurs merely from the unwinding and rewinding of genetic marterial from male or female. ALSO, since most all genes are pleiotropic (They each have many functional possibilities, not just one), the adaptive material is already there and the "hopeful monster" either makes it in a new environment or dies, or evolves.

As Gould said, "genes are only bookkeeping" Im gonna keep beating on that point .

Pleiotropy is explained very well by Dawkins in "Greatest Show on Earth" One of his best books and least assholey.

What did he mean by that exactly? You seem to think it's important, but I don't know why exactly.

Genes only record the adaptation, they dont drive anything.
Assume that there were mice all with different genetic complements from the same two parents. Each mouse has a slightly different complement of genes (since even masses of sibling offspring dont have identical genetic complements). Assume a new environment presents itself and only one mouse is able to succeed in living by some minor morph change. The genes of that mouse are merely that "bar cose" which has marked the successfully adapted one. The genes merely record the lucky adaptation.

Since pleiotropy means that many morphological and /or behavioral changes are often controlled by a single gene trait, selection for one trit (like The example of Dmitri Belyaev's artificial selection of one trait , by breeding wild foxes for "tameness"), Balyeaev discovered that , after about 30 or so generations of tamer and tamer foxes, the "wi;ldness appearances" of the foxes began to disappear. The foxes became more like border collies in appearance and developed floppy ears, and what Balyeaev described as a certain "cuteness' . (His motives were not to breed "pet foxes" but to breed a race of fox that could be more easily handled as they are raised for fur.

The genetic complements of the piebald foxes seemed to (as Dawkins presented it) "ride on the evolutionary coat tails of the gene(s )that control tameness".

"Random Mutation" has always been a assertion of those who havent studied the process of nat selection very closely. They always write it as if some magical mutation suddenly confers the trait on a "clean slate animal waiting to evolve".

Actually, adapting , by some Genetic lottery, to an environment already in flux, is more of a method to achieve extinction , not evolution.

Ok. I guess I knew all that. It seemed obvious that genes weren't driving anything. I wasn't sure why Gould had to make a point of it.

But thanks for the explanation I remember the Silver Fox experiments. I actually did a thread on that several years ago. I think that story was the first good example I had ever seen which explained why the selection for one set of traits often results in another set of (seemingly unrelated) traits.

Here's the Silver Fox thread: http://able2know.org/topic/88389-1

yeh, there they are, little bastards. I still wpuldnt turn my back on em, no matter how cutesy they act.

I think that Gould, in presenting that little bumper sticker, was trying to call some sense into the runaway oversimplification of the DNA/evolution relationship.

<scratching my head> I have no clue what you wrote, but you replied to me so I'm replying to you. (only to be polite you understand)

Because I have no clue what you said and I'm too lazy to verify your comment in terms of the latest science myself (or even call my microbiologist (gnome project) brother, or my microbiologist grad student son), and also I tend to write off a lot of long prose of scientific jargon, because I've begun to stereotype scientists into atheist preachers.

Boring. I don't find sock-puppet people (those who parrot dogma) that interesting. (I know my prejudice is socially wrong, and I try to be polite, but honestly I find it hard to maintain authentic interest. My brain just shuts down on me. I honestly fear that I might be loosing IQ points.)

Anyway here is how I take evolution: Evolution to some degree is self evident, but it isn't going to save my soul, and if everything is self determined then I want to enjoy my hedonistic nature to the degree society lets me.

Basically hedonism and eternal salvation are far more exciting to me then microbiology.

(OK, I'm slightly lying, not about enjoying being hedonistic, or worrying about my soul, that's all true, but I'm way fascinated by things like mitochondrial DNA, the endocrine system, viruses, prions, and a bunch of other stuff like that. And weirdly I think moles are fascinating. I mean doesn't it seem weird to anyone else that we should grow moles from our DNA? Why do moles make evolutionary sense?)

(I hope I'm not being too rude, and apologize if you find this post rude. It's late and I'm tired and feisty.)

You seem to convey a sense of anger in your posts (I suggest that, should you not wish to sound so, reread your posts before hitting "send").

whatever gives you comfort dude. Im sure Jesus would approve of your dismissiveness.

You seem to contradict yourself here. What is it you want? we cant have Jesus and Hedonism (He wouldnt approve and if "saving your soul" is most important to you then I wouldnt join in conversations like these. Anyway, Im not certain but I think that "WWJD" wasnt on anybody's mind in this converstaion (welll, maybe Intrepid , but even he tries to cloak his "stealth Evangelism" with some science).

NOpe, youre just rude enough, not Too rude. Im just getting up so, My fesitiness is at its lowest titer at this time of morning.

I hope that's not a problem for you, because there's no obligation on anything in the universe to save your soul. If your soul remains unsaved, that's just tough.

Just for its trivia value, the way Intrepid played this quote about the eye is a classic example of what Richard Dawkins calls "mining the Eddington concession" Arthur Eddington, an expositor of science, once wrote the following:

"If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations—then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation—well these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation. "

"Mining the Eddington concession", says Dawkins, would be if a journalist used that quote---to assert that Eddington disagreed with Maxwell's equations, or that experimental physicists were bunglers. His talk goes with an example where he makes an Eddington concession, and a Catholic activist mines it to assert that he has been converted to deism. Events like these are a major reason I don't buy arguments along the lines of "Richard Dawkins said ___, therefore he must be evil." Anyway, the video of the talk is kind of funny. Here's the section on "mining the Eddington concession." (The muzak intro and extro aren't part of the talk. They were added by whoever posted it to YouTube.)

Evolution is quite efficient, since nature is in no rush, and time is longer than we can conceptualize.

Actually evolution is totally inefficient, repetitive, opprotunistic, and blind as a bat. Little changes over lotsa time, thats its only means to move entire species.

Great clip, Thomas. There must be a thousand websites now which are filled with snips and clips of quotes from people which are designed to show them in a bad light. (For more fun: look up Thomas Jefferson. There are sites which practically make the old boy into a fire-breathing preacher of the Holy Word.)

I think we need to start calling this kind of snipping for political effect Sherrodism or Sherroding your opponent.

For the scientific pruners, we'll leave them with the Eddington label.

Joe(So much nicer than just calling them frauds.)Nation