On 8/24/23 4:35 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 25.8.2023. 1:14, John Harshman wrote:
>> It's true that the "mutations" De Vries noted were not actually
>> mutations in the modern sense. Oenothera just has unusual genetics.
>> But the idea was extended quickly to things we would call mutations.
>> Still nothing to do with Mendel, and nothing relevant to the discussion.
>
>         The only thing you need mutations for is to explain the
> uniqueness of humans. And this is what all those people tied to church
> wanted, and nothing else.

I'm pretty sure that mutations can explain a lot of things. For example,
antennipedia in fruit flies. Differences in the sequence of beta
fibrinogen intron 5 between Dendrocygna arborea and Dendrocygna
autumnalis. Blood antigen alleles A, B, and O. And so on.

On 25.8.2023. 1:42, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/24/23 4:32 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 24.8.2023. 23:05, John Harshman wrote:
>>> On 8/24/23 1:28 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>> On 24.8.2023. 19:56, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>> On 8/24/23 8:59 AM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>> On 24.8.2023. 15:34, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>> On 8/23/23 11:07 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 24.8.2023. 3:45, Glenn wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On Saturday, August 19, 2023 at 7:49:29 PM UTC-7, John Harshman
>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On 8/19/23 7:28 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>          Ok, I figured this out. Definitely 20 years ago it
>>>>>>>>>>> is known
>>>>>>>>>>> that Genetic Mutation Theory was Mendel's (at least, this is
>>>>>>>>>>> how this
>>>>>>>>>>> came to me), but maybe somebody misunderstood it, because it
>>>>>>>>>>> is based on
>>>>>>>>>>> Mendel's work.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Conceivably there is some kind of translation problem here.
>>>>>>>>>> But no, you
>>>>>>>>>> are wrong. Mendel's theory has nothing to do with mutation.
>>>>>>>>>> You admit at
>>>>>>>>>> times that you're ignorant of evolutionary biology and
>>>>>>>>>> genetics. In
>>>>>>>>>> this, if in nothing else, you are correct.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Ayala:
>>>>>>>>> "The rediscovery in 1900 of Mendel's theory of heredity by the
>>>>>>>>> Dutch botanist and geneticist Hugo de Vries and others led to
>>>>>>>>> an emphasis on the role of heredity in evolution. De Vries
>>>>>>>>> proposed a new theory of evolution known as mutationism, which
>>>>>>>>> essentially did away with natural selection as a major
>>>>>>>>> evolutionary process."
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> "The controversy between mutationists (also referred to at the
>>>>>>>>> time as Mendelians) and biometricians approached a resolution
>>>>>>>>> in the 1920s and 1930s through the theoretical work of
>>>>>>>>> geneticists."
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/mutationism
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Mario appears more accurate about history than you.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>          Thanks very much. I know that at the time I was seeking
>>>>>>>> info about it, it was called Genetic Mutation Theory in
>>>>>>>> Wikipedia (I believe), and they wrote that all this originates
>>>>>>>> from Mendel, and later this was "re-discovered" by three
>>>>>>>> independent guys, in a matter of two months.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> No, the quote from Ayala says nothing of the sort. Note:
>>>>>>> "Mendel's theory of heredity" says nothing about mutation. And
>>>>>>> "De Vries proposed a *new* theory of evolution". The only
>>>>>>> connection between Mendelism and mutationism is that De Vries
>>>>>>> subscribed to both of them.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>          Hm, when I read it in the past it was said that de Vries
>>>>>> rediscovered Mendel, and that he introduced the term 'mutations',
>>>>>> and that was all. But Mendel was the originator and the only
>>>>>> important person in the whole story back then, when I have read
>>>>>> about it. Now, I will definitely not waste my time to research it
>>>>>> further because the idea is utterly stupid, and the fact that the
>>>>>> ones who follow the idea search for Adam and Eve only supports my
>>>>>> view on this.
>>>>>
>>>>> I get the idea you're really talking about something else. What
>>>>> idea is utterly stupid, and who searches for Adam and Eve?
>>>>
>>>>          Everybody. Everybody searches for this moment when some
>>>> mutation happened, and like, the original owner of it would be,
>>>> either Adam, or Eve. I cannot believe that you never heard those
>>>> terms, they are all around. They are connected to mutations, because
>>>> the Adam/Eve is the one who first got it.
>>>
>>> Wait, are you talking about mitochondrial Eve and Y chromosome Adam?
>>> Those are just fanciful names attached to real things, the most
>>> recent ancestor of everyone's mitochondria and the most recent
>>> ancestor of all current Y chromosomes. Nothing to do with the
>>> biblical characters of the same names. Nor are they attached to
>>> mutations. It's quite likely that mt-Eve's mother had an identical
>>> mitochondrial genome, and likely several prior generations too.
>>> Mitochondria do have a high mutation rate but the genome is also tiny.
>>>
>>>>> But again, Mendel never said anything about mutations, using that
>>>>> term or any other. De Vries rediscovered Mendel *and* De Vries was
>>>>> a mutationist. There is no connection between those two things
>>>>> other than that De Vries entertained them both.
>>>>>
>>>>>>          There *is* a *system* (it is so obvious, because it works
>>>>>> on each and every species on this planet, each and every species
>>>>>> improves, even if it eventually goes extinct it *improves* before
>>>>>> that point) that makes things to better adapt, and the idea of
>>>>>> mutation cannot work, because mutations are harmful, in order to
>>>>>> have only useful mutations you would need to win lottery each and
>>>>>> every time, this, simply, doesn't work, although so many would
>>>>>> like it to work.
>>>>>
>>>>> Not true. Most mutations are neutral, some are harmful, and some
>>>>> are beneficial. Which ones are which depends quite a bit on the
>>>>> environment. And you completely ignore natural selection, which
>>>>> eliminates the harmful ones and fixes the beneficial ones.
>>>>
>>>>          Mutations cannot be eliminated by natural selection, there
>>>> is no time for it.
>>>
>>> That makes no sense. Of course there's time for it.
>>
>>          So, you will carry all the negative mutations along with one
>> positive for considerable amount of time, until natural selection
>> somehow figures out that you have one positive as well?
>
> Natural selection doesn't figure out anything. Why must you
> anthropomorphize everything? Now, the fitness of a particular genome is
> composed of the sum (or more complicated function) of the fitnesses of
> all the genome's various parts. So if a beneficial allele at some locus
> is accompanied by deleterious ones at many other loci, that genome won't
> have a very high fitness. But if that were generally true, populations
> would become extinct.

This is why I am telling you that organism has to get rid of all the
mutations. The ratio of harmful mutations per those "useful" ones should
be enormous. This cannot work per your mechanism.

>>>> Since the waste majority of them are harmful, because they are
>>>> mutations, there is no place for them in the system, they are not
>>>> systematic, as you try to imply, they are pure errors, they have to
>>>> be eliminated.
>>>
>>> And that's gibberish.
>>
>>          Hm, in your world there are only positive mutations, or what?
>> As I see it, you get, by chance, one positive out of million negative.
>> I don't get how you are imagining all this? One positive, one
>> negative? Or what?
>
> No. But that's a number you just made up, and let's recall that both
> deleterious and beneficial mutations are fairly rare, so anyone is
> unlikely to have very many of either, perhaps not even one. Thus the
> mutations that do happen can be exposed to selection individually.

On 25.8.2023. 1:47, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/24/23 4:35 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 25.8.2023. 1:14, John Harshman wrote:
>>> It's true that the "mutations" De Vries noted were not actually
>>> mutations in the modern sense. Oenothera just has unusual genetics.
>>> But the idea was extended quickly to things we would call mutations.
>>> Still nothing to do with Mendel, and nothing relevant to the discussion.
>>
>>          The only thing you need mutations for is to explain the
>> uniqueness of humans. And this is what all those people tied to church
>> wanted, and nothing else.
>
> I'm pretty sure that mutations can explain a lot of things. For example,
> antennipedia in fruit flies. Differences in the sequence of beta
> fibrinogen intron 5 between Dendrocygna arborea and Dendrocygna
> autumnalis. Blood antigen alleles A, B, and O. And so on.

The only thing that cannot be done by natural selection is human
uniqueness, because it isn't natural. Of course, if you think that
humans really are unique. I don't think so, but it looks like I am the
only person on the whole planet who don't think so, this is why all the
other persons on this planet are desperately searching for a way to
explain human uniqueness, it is of the most importance to them. They
write numerous books about it, and you read them all, of course.

And, BTW, if you knew about four pipelines, then you would understand
why five lionesses can overcome one lion, and things like that.
This can probably, have some other implications, also.

On Thursday, August 24, 2023 at 4:15:02 PM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/24/23 3:20 PM, Glenn wrote:
> > On Thursday, August 24, 2023 at 11:41:49 AM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >> On Wednesday, August 23, 2023 at 9:45:27 PM UTC-4, Glenn wrote:
> >>> On Saturday, August 19, 2023 at 7:49:29 PM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>> On 8/19/23 7:28 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>>> On 20.8.2023. 3:06, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>>> On 8/19/23 5:22 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>>>>> On 20.8.2023. 1:56, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>>>>> On 8/19/23 2:17 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>>>>>>> 20 years ago situation was like this, Genetic Mutation
> >>>>>>>>> Theory was all over the place.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> I have no idea what you're talking about. I suspect you don't either.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Then I noticed that authors of both, the Big Bang Theory and the
> >>>>>>>>> Genetic Mutation Theory are Catholic priests, and I started to
> >>>>>>>>> write about this, I wrote about it here a few times.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> You're right about the Big Bang, but Mendel had zero to do with
> >>>>>>>> mutations.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Of course, that's why his theory is called Genetic Mutation
> >>>>>>> Theory.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Nobody calls it that.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Ok, I figured this out. Definitely 20 years ago it is known
> >>>>> that Genetic Mutation Theory was Mendel's (at least, this is how this
> >>>>> came to me), but maybe somebody misunderstood it, because it is based on
> >>>>> Mendel's work.
> >>>
> >>>> Conceivably there is some kind of translation problem here. But no, you
> >>>> are wrong. Mendel's theory has nothing to do with mutation. You admit at
> >>>> times that you're ignorant of evolutionary biology and genetics. In
> >>>> this, if in nothing else, you are correct.
> >>
> >>> Ayala:
> >>> "The rediscovery in 1900 of Mendel's theory of heredity by the Dutch botanist and geneticist Hugo de Vries and others led to an emphasis on the role of heredity in evolution. De Vries proposed a new theory of evolution known as mutationism, which essentially did away with natural selection as a major evolutionary process."
> >>>
> >>> "The controversy between mutationists (also referred to at the time as Mendelians) and biometricians approached a resolution in the 1920s and 1930s through the theoretical work of geneticists."
> >>>
> >>> https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/mutationism

Nothing to say about this it appears.
> >>>
> >>> Mario appears more accurate about history than you.
> >> It's a fascinating history that your link brings to light, but it seems that "Mendelian"
> >> is one of those misnomers that have confused people since time immemorial.
> >>
> >> Ripley collected an impressive number of them in the very first (and by far the most interesting, despite
> >> a number of bad mistakes) of his "Believe It or Not" books. Here are two of the ones that
> >> stuck in my mind after all the decades since I last saw the book.
> >>
> >> "Dresden china" (porcelain) is manufactured in Meissen.
> >>
> >> "Panama hats" are produced in Ecuador.
> >>
> >>
> >> Here is a pair of scientific ones that come to mind.
> >>
> >> "Bode's law" of planetary spacing was due to Titius. [Also, Neptune disproved it by
> >> being a lot closer to the sun than the "law" states.]
> >>
> >> "Darwin's theory of natural selection" was independently discovered
> >> by Wallace, and also by an obscure person well before Darwin formulated it.
> >>
> >> There are also a lot of misnomers in chess and mathematics,
> >> but I don't want to get into them now.
> >>
> >>
> >> Also, there are innumerable cases of famous people being credited
> >> with sayings that are not due to them. One that Ripley himself mentioned
> >> in that first book was "Let them eat cake," supposedly in reaction to
> >> news of a bread shortage. It was falsely attributed to
> >> Marie Antionette, but that attribution was thoroughly discredited from
> >> several directions here:
> >>
> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake
> >>
> > Here's another:
> > "Genetic algorithm (GA) is an optimization searching algorithm based on the theory of evolution and the genetic mutation theory of Mendel (Atmar, 1994, Chaudhry et al., 2000, Fogel, 1994, Srinivas and Patnaik, 1994)
> >
> > https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0957417411001114
> Note that none of the references used in support of this sentence are
> about biology or its history, just genetic algorithms and simulations. I
> don't know whether any of them mention Mendel, but even if so they are
> not reasonable sources for information about Mendel's theories.

> >>> https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/mutationism

You are not a reasonable source for information about anything.

"Mendelian-mutationism: the forgotten evolutionary synthesis "

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24811736/

You must be aware of the fact that mutationism was sometimes referred to as Mendelism, since you seem to think you are an authority on the subject.

On Thursday, August 24, 2023 at 4:47:25 PM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/24/23 4:35 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> > On 25.8.2023. 1:14, John Harshman wrote:
> >> It's true that the "mutations" De Vries noted were not actually
> >> mutations in the modern sense. Oenothera just has unusual genetics.
> >> But the idea was extended quickly to things we would call mutations.
> >> Still nothing to do with Mendel, and nothing relevant to the discussion.
> >
> > The only thing you need mutations for is to explain the
> > uniqueness of humans. And this is what all those people tied to church
> > wanted, and nothing else.
> I'm pretty sure that mutations can explain a lot of things. For example,
> antennipedia in fruit flies. Differences in the sequence of beta
> fibrinogen intron 5 between Dendrocygna arborea and Dendrocygna
> autumnalis. Blood antigen alleles A, B, and O. And so on.

This from one who claimed and argued that "evolution" does not require mutations and allows for speciation, and so macroevolution. This was in context to a discussion about Common Ancestry. The word salad this guy spews sometimes may confuse some. Don't be misled.

On 8/24/23 5:15 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 25.8.2023. 1:42, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 8/24/23 4:32 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>> On 24.8.2023. 23:05, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 8/24/23 1:28 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>> On 24.8.2023. 19:56, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>> On 8/24/23 8:59 AM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>> On 24.8.2023. 15:34, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 8/23/23 11:07 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 24.8.2023. 3:45, Glenn wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On Saturday, August 19, 2023 at 7:49:29 PM UTC-7, John
>>>>>>>>>> Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> On 8/19/23 7:28 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> Ok, I figured this out. Definitely 20 years ago it
>>>>>>>>>>>> is known
>>>>>>>>>>>> that Genetic Mutation Theory was Mendel's (at least, this is
>>>>>>>>>>>> how this
>>>>>>>>>>>> came to me), but maybe somebody misunderstood it, because it
>>>>>>>>>>>> is based on
>>>>>>>>>>>> Mendel's work.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Conceivably there is some kind of translation problem here.
>>>>>>>>>>> But no, you
>>>>>>>>>>> are wrong. Mendel's theory has nothing to do with mutation.
>>>>>>>>>>> You admit at
>>>>>>>>>>> times that you're ignorant of evolutionary biology and
>>>>>>>>>>> genetics. In
>>>>>>>>>>> this, if in nothing else, you are correct.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Ayala:
>>>>>>>>>> "The rediscovery in 1900 of Mendel's theory of heredity by the
>>>>>>>>>> Dutch botanist and geneticist Hugo de Vries and others led to
>>>>>>>>>> an emphasis on the role of heredity in evolution. De Vries
>>>>>>>>>> proposed a new theory of evolution known as mutationism, which
>>>>>>>>>> essentially did away with natural selection as a major
>>>>>>>>>> evolutionary process."
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> "The controversy between mutationists (also referred to at the
>>>>>>>>>> time as Mendelians) and biometricians approached a resolution
>>>>>>>>>> in the 1920s and 1930s through the theoretical work of
>>>>>>>>>> geneticists."
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/mutationism
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Mario appears more accurate about history than you.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Thanks very much. I know that at the time I was
>>>>>>>>> seeking info about it, it was called Genetic Mutation Theory in
>>>>>>>>> Wikipedia (I believe), and they wrote that all this originates
>>>>>>>>> from Mendel, and later this was "re-discovered" by three
>>>>>>>>> independent guys, in a matter of two months.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> No, the quote from Ayala says nothing of the sort. Note:
>>>>>>>> "Mendel's theory of heredity" says nothing about mutation. And
>>>>>>>> "De Vries proposed a *new* theory of evolution". The only
>>>>>>>> connection between Mendelism and mutationism is that De Vries
>>>>>>>> subscribed to both of them.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hm, when I read it in the past it was said that de Vries
>>>>>>> rediscovered Mendel, and that he introduced the term 'mutations',
>>>>>>> and that was all. But Mendel was the originator and the only
>>>>>>> important person in the whole story back then, when I have read
>>>>>>> about it. Now, I will definitely not waste my time to research it
>>>>>>> further because the idea is utterly stupid, and the fact that the
>>>>>>> ones who follow the idea search for Adam and Eve only supports my
>>>>>>> view on this.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I get the idea you're really talking about something else. What
>>>>>> idea is utterly stupid, and who searches for Adam and Eve?
>>>>>
>>>>> Everybody. Everybody searches for this moment when some
>>>>> mutation happened, and like, the original owner of it would be,
>>>>> either Adam, or Eve. I cannot believe that you never heard those
>>>>> terms, they are all around. They are connected to mutations,
>>>>> because the Adam/Eve is the one who first got it.
>>>>
>>>> Wait, are you talking about mitochondrial Eve and Y chromosome Adam?
>>>> Those are just fanciful names attached to real things, the most
>>>> recent ancestor of everyone's mitochondria and the most recent
>>>> ancestor of all current Y chromosomes. Nothing to do with the
>>>> biblical characters of the same names. Nor are they attached to
>>>> mutations. It's quite likely that mt-Eve's mother had an identical
>>>> mitochondrial genome, and likely several prior generations too.
>>>> Mitochondria do have a high mutation rate but the genome is also tiny.
>>>>
>>>>>> But again, Mendel never said anything about mutations, using that
>>>>>> term or any other. De Vries rediscovered Mendel *and* De Vries was
>>>>>> a mutationist. There is no connection between those two things
>>>>>> other than that De Vries entertained them both.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> There *is* a *system* (it is so obvious, because it
>>>>>>> works on each and every species on this planet, each and every
>>>>>>> species improves, even if it eventually goes extinct it
>>>>>>> *improves* before that point) that makes things to better adapt,
>>>>>>> and the idea of mutation cannot work, because mutations are
>>>>>>> harmful, in order to have only useful mutations you would need to
>>>>>>> win lottery each and every time, this, simply, doesn't work,
>>>>>>> although so many would like it to work.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Not true. Most mutations are neutral, some are harmful, and some
>>>>>> are beneficial. Which ones are which depends quite a bit on the
>>>>>> environment. And you completely ignore natural selection, which
>>>>>> eliminates the harmful ones and fixes the beneficial ones.
>>>>>
>>>>> Mutations cannot be eliminated by natural selection, there
>>>>> is no time for it.
>>>>
>>>> That makes no sense. Of course there's time for it.
>>>
>>> So, you will carry all the negative mutations along with one
>>> positive for considerable amount of time, until natural selection
>>> somehow figures out that you have one positive as well?
>>
>> Natural selection doesn't figure out anything. Why must you
>> anthropomorphize everything? Now, the fitness of a particular genome
>> is composed of the sum (or more complicated function) of the fitnesses
>> of all the genome's various parts. So if a beneficial allele at some
>> locus is accompanied by deleterious ones at many other loci, that
>> genome won't have a very high fitness. But if that were generally
>> true, populations would become extinct.
>
> This is why I am telling you that organism has to get rid of
> all the mutations. The ratio of harmful mutations per those "useful"
> ones should be enormous. This cannot work per your mechanism.
But it doesn't have to get rid of all the mutations, just the
deleterious ones. Most mutations are neutral, and a few are beneficial.
The few that are deleterious can be taken care of by selection.

On 8/24/23 5:24 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>         And, BTW, if you knew about four pipelines, then you would
> understand why five lionesses can overcome one lion, and things like that.
>         This can probably, have some other implications, also.

Could you explain?

On 8/24/23 5:19 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 25.8.2023. 1:47, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 8/24/23 4:35 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>> On 25.8.2023. 1:14, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> It's true that the "mutations" De Vries noted were not actually
>>>> mutations in the modern sense. Oenothera just has unusual genetics.
>>>> But the idea was extended quickly to things we would call mutations.
>>>> Still nothing to do with Mendel, and nothing relevant to the
>>>> discussion.
>>>
>>>          The only thing you need mutations for is to explain the
>>> uniqueness of humans. And this is what all those people tied to
>>> church wanted, and nothing else.
>>
>> I'm pretty sure that mutations can explain a lot of things. For
>> example, antennipedia in fruit flies. Differences in the sequence of
>> beta fibrinogen intron 5 between Dendrocygna arborea and Dendrocygna
>> autumnalis. Blood antigen alleles A, B, and O. And so on.
>
>         The only thing that cannot be done by natural selection is
> human uniqueness, because it isn't natural. Of course, if you think that
> humans really are unique. I don't think so, but it looks like I am the
> only person on the whole planet who don't think so, this is why all the
> other persons on this planet are desperately searching for a way to
> explain human uniqueness, it is of the most importance to them. They
> write numerous books about it, and you read them all, of course.

Sure, humans are unique in various ways. So is every species. Whatever
are you talking about?

On 8/24/23 6:00 PM, Glenn wrote:
> On Thursday, August 24, 2023 at 4:47:25 PM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 8/24/23 4:35 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>> On 25.8.2023. 1:14, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> It's true that the "mutations" De Vries noted were not actually
>>>> mutations in the modern sense. Oenothera just has unusual genetics.
>>>> But the idea was extended quickly to things we would call mutations.
>>>> Still nothing to do with Mendel, and nothing relevant to the discussion.
>>>
>>> The only thing you need mutations for is to explain the
>>> uniqueness of humans. And this is what all those people tied to church
>>> wanted, and nothing else.
>> I'm pretty sure that mutations can explain a lot of things. For example,
>> antennipedia in fruit flies. Differences in the sequence of beta
>> fibrinogen intron 5 between Dendrocygna arborea and Dendrocygna
>> autumnalis. Blood antigen alleles A, B, and O. And so on.
>
> This from one who claimed and argued that "evolution" does not
> require mutations and allows for speciation, and so macroevolution.
> This was in context to a discussion about Common Ancestry. The word
> salad this guy spews sometimes may confuse some. Don't be misled.
You should realize that you understand almost nothing of what I say, and
I don't think it's my fault. You just look for ways to misunderstand so
as to make me seem stupid. And of course you ignore every explanation I
offer.

Yes, it's possible for evolution to happen in the absence of new
mutations as long as there's enough standing variation in the
population. Of course that won't happen because mutations happen all the
time in every population. But it's conceptually possible.

Any contradiction is solely inside your head, and that's a place I would
never like to be.

On 8/24/23 5:57 PM, Glenn wrote:
> On Thursday, August 24, 2023 at 4:15:02 PM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 8/24/23 3:20 PM, Glenn wrote:
>>> On Thursday, August 24, 2023 at 11:41:49 AM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>> On Wednesday, August 23, 2023 at 9:45:27 PM UTC-4, Glenn wrote:
>>>>> On Saturday, August 19, 2023 at 7:49:29 PM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>> On 8/19/23 7:28 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>> On 20.8.2023. 3:06, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 8/19/23 5:22 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 20.8.2023. 1:56, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On 8/19/23 2:17 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> 20 years ago situation was like this, Genetic Mutation
>>>>>>>>>>> Theory was all over the place.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I have no idea what you're talking about. I suspect you don't either.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Then I noticed that authors of both, the Big Bang Theory and the
>>>>>>>>>>> Genetic Mutation Theory are Catholic priests, and I started to
>>>>>>>>>>> write about this, I wrote about it here a few times.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> You're right about the Big Bang, but Mendel had zero to do with
>>>>>>>>>> mutations.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Of course, that's why his theory is called Genetic Mutation
>>>>>>>>> Theory.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Nobody calls it that.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Ok, I figured this out. Definitely 20 years ago it is known
>>>>>>> that Genetic Mutation Theory was Mendel's (at least, this is how this
>>>>>>> came to me), but maybe somebody misunderstood it, because it is based on
>>>>>>> Mendel's work.
>>>>>
>>>>>> Conceivably there is some kind of translation problem here. But no, you
>>>>>> are wrong. Mendel's theory has nothing to do with mutation. You admit at
>>>>>> times that you're ignorant of evolutionary biology and genetics. In
>>>>>> this, if in nothing else, you are correct.
>>>>
>>>>> Ayala:
>>>>> "The rediscovery in 1900 of Mendel's theory of heredity by the Dutch botanist and geneticist Hugo de Vries and others led to an emphasis on the role of heredity in evolution. De Vries proposed a new theory of evolution known as mutationism, which essentially did away with natural selection as a major evolutionary process."
>>>>>
>>>>> "The controversy between mutationists (also referred to at the time as Mendelians) and biometricians approached a resolution in the 1920s and 1930s through the theoretical work of geneticists."
>>>>>
>>>>> https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/mutationism
>
> Nothing to say about this it appears.

A little more patience would be good for you.

>>>>> Mario appears more accurate about history than you.
>>>> It's a fascinating history that your link brings to light, but it seems that "Mendelian"
>>>> is one of those misnomers that have confused people since time immemorial.
>>>>
>>>> Ripley collected an impressive number of them in the very first (and by far the most interesting, despite
>>>> a number of bad mistakes) of his "Believe It or Not" books. Here are two of the ones that
>>>> stuck in my mind after all the decades since I last saw the book.
>>>>
>>>> "Dresden china" (porcelain) is manufactured in Meissen.
>>>>
>>>> "Panama hats" are produced in Ecuador.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Here is a pair of scientific ones that come to mind.
>>>>
>>>> "Bode's law" of planetary spacing was due to Titius. [Also, Neptune disproved it by
>>>> being a lot closer to the sun than the "law" states.]
>>>>
>>>> "Darwin's theory of natural selection" was independently discovered
>>>> by Wallace, and also by an obscure person well before Darwin formulated it.
>>>>
>>>> There are also a lot of misnomers in chess and mathematics,
>>>> but I don't want to get into them now.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Also, there are innumerable cases of famous people being credited
>>>> with sayings that are not due to them. One that Ripley himself mentioned
>>>> in that first book was "Let them eat cake," supposedly in reaction to
>>>> news of a bread shortage. It was falsely attributed to
>>>> Marie Antionette, but that attribution was thoroughly discredited from
>>>> several directions here:
>>>>
>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake
>>>>
>>> Here's another:
>>> "Genetic algorithm (GA) is an optimization searching algorithm based on the theory of evolution and the genetic mutation theory of Mendel (Atmar, 1994, Chaudhry et al., 2000, Fogel, 1994, Srinivas and Patnaik, 1994)
>>>
>>> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0957417411001114
>> Note that none of the references used in support of this sentence are
>> about biology or its history, just genetic algorithms and simulations. I
>> don't know whether any of them mention Mendel, but even if so they are
>> not reasonable sources for information about Mendel's theories.
>
>>>>> https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/mutationism
>
> You are not a reasonable source for information about anything.
>
> "Mendelian-mutationism: the forgotten evolutionary synthesis"
>
> https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24811736/

Note that the synthesis is between Mendel and mutationism, two separate
things. Makes my point again.

> You must be aware of the fact that mutationism was sometimes referred
> to as Mendelism, since you seem to think you are an authority on the
> subject.

The question isn't whether something was associated with Mendel's name.
It's whether Mendel had any sort of theory of mutation. He didn't.
Darwin wasn't an advocate of Social Darwinism. Lamarck had nothing to do
with Neolamarckism. Stop playing with words.

On 25.8.2023. 3:00, Glenn wrote:
> On Thursday, August 24, 2023 at 4:47:25 PM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 8/24/23 4:35 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>> On 25.8.2023. 1:14, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> It's true that the "mutations" De Vries noted were not actually
>>>> mutations in the modern sense. Oenothera just has unusual genetics.
>>>> But the idea was extended quickly to things we would call mutations.
>>>> Still nothing to do with Mendel, and nothing relevant to the discussion.
>>>
>>> The only thing you need mutations for is to explain the
>>> uniqueness of humans. And this is what all those people tied to church
>>> wanted, and nothing else.
>> I'm pretty sure that mutations can explain a lot of things. For example,
>> antennipedia in fruit flies. Differences in the sequence of beta
>> fibrinogen intron 5 between Dendrocygna arborea and Dendrocygna
>> autumnalis. Blood antigen alleles A, B, and O. And so on.
>
> This from one who claimed and argued that "evolution" does not require mutations and allows for speciation, and so macroevolution. This was in context to a discussion about Common Ancestry. The word salad this guy spews sometimes may confuse some. Don't be misled.

If this warning is for me, thankfully I am not confused by the word
salads, thanks, :) .

On 25.8.2023. 3:53, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/24/23 5:15 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 25.8.2023. 1:42, John Harshman wrote:
>>> On 8/24/23 4:32 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>> On 24.8.2023. 23:05, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>> On 8/24/23 1:28 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>> On 24.8.2023. 19:56, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>> On 8/24/23 8:59 AM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 24.8.2023. 15:34, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 8/23/23 11:07 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On 24.8.2023. 3:45, Glenn wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> On Saturday, August 19, 2023 at 7:49:29 PM UTC-7, John
>>>>>>>>>>> Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> On 8/19/23 7:28 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>          Ok, I figured this out. Definitely 20 years ago it
>>>>>>>>>>>>> is known
>>>>>>>>>>>>> that Genetic Mutation Theory was Mendel's (at least, this is
>>>>>>>>>>>>> how this
>>>>>>>>>>>>> came to me), but maybe somebody misunderstood it, because it
>>>>>>>>>>>>> is based on
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Mendel's work.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Conceivably there is some kind of translation problem here.
>>>>>>>>>>>> But no, you
>>>>>>>>>>>> are wrong. Mendel's theory has nothing to do with mutation.
>>>>>>>>>>>> You admit at
>>>>>>>>>>>> times that you're ignorant of evolutionary biology and
>>>>>>>>>>>> genetics. In
>>>>>>>>>>>> this, if in nothing else, you are correct.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Ayala:
>>>>>>>>>>> "The rediscovery in 1900 of Mendel's theory of heredity by the
>>>>>>>>>>> Dutch botanist and geneticist Hugo de Vries and others led to
>>>>>>>>>>> an emphasis on the role of heredity in evolution. De Vries
>>>>>>>>>>> proposed a new theory of evolution known as mutationism, which
>>>>>>>>>>> essentially did away with natural selection as a major
>>>>>>>>>>> evolutionary process."
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> "The controversy between mutationists (also referred to at the
>>>>>>>>>>> time as Mendelians) and biometricians approached a resolution
>>>>>>>>>>> in the 1920s and 1930s through the theoretical work of
>>>>>>>>>>> geneticists."
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
> https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/mutationism
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Mario appears more accurate about history than you.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>          Thanks very much. I know that at the time I was
>>>>>>>>>> seeking info about it, it was called Genetic Mutation Theory in
>>>>>>>>>> Wikipedia (I believe), and they wrote that all this originates
>>>>>>>>>> from Mendel, and later this was "re-discovered" by three
>>>>>>>>>> independent guys, in a matter of two months.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> No, the quote from Ayala says nothing of the sort. Note:
>>>>>>>>> "Mendel's theory of heredity" says nothing about mutation. And
>>>>>>>>> "De Vries proposed a *new* theory of evolution". The only
>>>>>>>>> connection between Mendelism and mutationism is that De Vries
>>>>>>>>> subscribed to both of them.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>          Hm, when I read it in the past it was said that de Vries
>>>>>>>> rediscovered Mendel, and that he introduced the term 'mutations',
>>>>>>>> and that was all. But Mendel was the originator and the only
>>>>>>>> important person in the whole story back then, when I have read
>>>>>>>> about it. Now, I will definitely not waste my time to research it
>>>>>>>> further because the idea is utterly stupid, and the fact that the
>>>>>>>> ones who follow the idea search for Adam and Eve only supports my
>>>>>>>> view on this.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I get the idea you're really talking about something else. What
>>>>>>> idea is utterly stupid, and who searches for Adam and Eve?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>          Everybody. Everybody searches for this moment when some
>>>>>> mutation happened, and like, the original owner of it would be,
>>>>>> either Adam, or Eve. I cannot believe that you never heard those
>>>>>> terms, they are all around. They are connected to mutations,
>>>>>> because the Adam/Eve is the one who first got it.
>>>>>
>>>>> Wait, are you talking about mitochondrial Eve and Y chromosome Adam?
>>>>> Those are just fanciful names attached to real things, the most
>>>>> recent ancestor of everyone's mitochondria and the most recent
>>>>> ancestor of all current Y chromosomes. Nothing to do with the
>>>>> biblical characters of the same names. Nor are they attached to
>>>>> mutations. It's quite likely that mt-Eve's mother had an identical
>>>>> mitochondrial genome, and likely several prior generations too.
>>>>> Mitochondria do have a high mutation rate but the genome is also tiny.
>>>>>
>>>>>>> But again, Mendel never said anything about mutations, using that
>>>>>>> term or any other. De Vries rediscovered Mendel *and* De Vries was
>>>>>>> a mutationist. There is no connection between those two things
>>>>>>> other than that De Vries entertained them both.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>          There *is* a *system* (it is so obvious, because it
>>>>>>>> works on each and every species on this planet, each and every
>>>>>>>> species improves, even if it eventually goes extinct it
>>>>>>>> *improves* before that point) that makes things to better adapt,
>>>>>>>> and the idea of mutation cannot work, because mutations are
>>>>>>>> harmful, in order to have only useful mutations you would need to
>>>>>>>> win lottery each and every time, this, simply, doesn't work,
>>>>>>>> although so many would like it to work.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Not true. Most mutations are neutral, some are harmful, and some
>>>>>>> are beneficial. Which ones are which depends quite a bit on the
>>>>>>> environment. And you completely ignore natural selection, which
>>>>>>> eliminates the harmful ones and fixes the beneficial ones.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>          Mutations cannot be eliminated by natural selection, there
>>>>>> is no time for it.
>>>>>
>>>>> That makes no sense. Of course there's time for it.
>>>>
>>>>          So, you will carry all the negative mutations along with one
>>>> positive for considerable amount of time, until natural selection
>>>> somehow figures out that you have one positive as well?
>>>
>>> Natural selection doesn't figure out anything. Why must you
>>> anthropomorphize everything? Now, the fitness of a particular genome
>>> is composed of the sum (or more complicated function) of the fitnesses
>>> of all the genome's various parts. So if a beneficial allele at some
>>> locus is accompanied by deleterious ones at many other loci, that
>>> genome won't have a very high fitness. But if that were generally
>>> true, populations would become extinct.
>>
>>          This is why I am telling you that organism has to get rid of
>> all the mutations. The ratio of harmful mutations per those "useful"
>> ones should be enormous. This cannot work per your mechanism.
> But it doesn't have to get rid of all the mutations, just the
> deleterious ones. Most mutations are neutral, and a few are beneficial.
> The few that are deleterious can be taken care of by selection.

On 25.8.2023. 3:54, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/24/23 5:24 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>          And, BTW, if you knew about four pipelines, then you would
>> understand why five lionesses can overcome one lion, and things like
>> that.
>>          This can probably, have some other implications, also.
>
> Could you explain?

Simple, four lionesses cannot fight a lion, it takes five lionesses
to fight lion. If there are five of them, lionesses will win, if there
are four of them, lion will get his way. I am not inventing things, it
was in one documentary. You cannot fight five people around you, doesn't
matter how strong or smart you are. If there are four of them, you will
get the exact sense where each of them is, and what he is doing, you
will keep an "eye" on each of those four. If there are five of them
suddenly you will not be able to control any of them, unless you
consciously decide to be blind about one of them.
And this goes for lions, this goes for humans, and the same goes for
amoeba. No amount of "intelligence" will help you to overcome this
obstacle. You are just as "smart" as amoeba is.

On 25.8.2023. 7:55, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 25.8.2023. 3:54, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 8/24/23 5:24 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>          And, BTW, if you knew about four pipelines, then you would
>>> understand why five lionesses can overcome one lion, and things like
>>> that.
>>>          This can probably, have some other implications, also.
>>
>> Could you explain?
>
>          Simple, four lionesses cannot fight a lion, it takes five
> lionesses to fight lion. If there are five of them, lionesses will win,
> if there are four of them, lion will get his way. I am not inventing
> things, it was in one documentary. You cannot fight five people around
> you, doesn't matter how strong or smart you are. If there are four of
> them, you will get the exact sense where each of them is, and what he is
> doing, you will keep an "eye" on each of those four. If there are five
> of them suddenly you will not be able to control any of them, unless you
> consciously decide to be blind about one of them.
>         And this goes for lions, this goes for humans, and the same
> goes for amoeba. No amount of "intelligence" will help you to overcome
> this obstacle. You are just as "smart" as amoeba is.

And yes, having five pipelines would be the decisive factor. A
mutation which will give you five pipelines will win everything else.
During the first three billion years animals evolved that way, and we
still are like that, no "mutation" changed that. There are no mutations
that work.

On 25.8.2023. 3:55, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/24/23 5:19 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 25.8.2023. 1:47, John Harshman wrote:
>>> On 8/24/23 4:35 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>> On 25.8.2023. 1:14, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>> It's true that the "mutations" De Vries noted were not actually
>>>>> mutations in the modern sense. Oenothera just has unusual genetics.
>>>>> But the idea was extended quickly to things we would call
>>>>> mutations. Still nothing to do with Mendel, and nothing relevant to
>>>>> the discussion.
>>>>
>>>>          The only thing you need mutations for is to explain the
>>>> uniqueness of humans. And this is what all those people tied to
>>>> church wanted, and nothing else.
>>>
>>> I'm pretty sure that mutations can explain a lot of things. For
>>> example, antennipedia in fruit flies. Differences in the sequence of
>>> beta fibrinogen intron 5 between Dendrocygna arborea and Dendrocygna
>>> autumnalis. Blood antigen alleles A, B, and O. And so on.
>>
>>          The only thing that cannot be done by natural selection is
>> human uniqueness, because it isn't natural. Of course, if you think
>> that humans really are unique. I don't think so, but it looks like I
>> am the only person on the whole planet who don't think so, this is why
>> all the other persons on this planet are desperately searching for a
>> way to explain human uniqueness, it is of the most importance to them.
>> They write numerous books about it, and you read them all, of course.
>
> Sure, humans are unique in various ways. So is every species. Whatever
> are you talking about?

But all those scientist are Christians, they are sure that humans are
made after God's picture, that humans aren't lik otehr animals, that
there is something more in humans, "intelligence", "spirituality", who
knows what. Until somebody gave them a platform upon which they would
exercise their believes, they wouldn't know what to do with this, how to
fit this in. Well, Mutationists gave them platform on which they will
work, and this is what they are doing, they want to work only on this
platform, because this platform gives them what they need.