Commentary on the so-called Creation/Evolution/Intelligent Design Debate and Right-Wing nuttery in general - and please ignore the typos (I make lots!)

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

If you want to see an ignorant pseudoexpert in action...

... go here.

See Warren Bergerson (aka "LifeEngineer") demonstrate yet again that he is just a nitwit.

See the stupidity, if you can stomach it:

The 'expressed' mutations generated by living systems are highly controlled rather than random. Roughly half of the genes in the human genome have only a single allele and thus no known mutatant form. If we assume a current population of 4 billion, a generation of 20 years and an 'average' population of 100,000 during most of human evolution, then the the 10,000 genes with no mutations is equivalent to (40,000*20*10,000)= 800,000,000 years of human evolution without a mutation. To suggest that such a result is random is to suggest that 800 million 3' in a row supports the 'theory' that the die throwig process is random.


The gibberish is laid bare, of course:

escherichia writes:
A lovely set of calculations - just where did you get your numbers from?
Lets look at your data:
Half of the human genes is 10,000?
Well according to reliable sources, i.e. HGP, the total number is 30,000-40,000 - so I don't think much to that calculation.
Half of human genes have only a single allele ? - says who?
According to the SNP Consortium they have so far found SNPs (i.e. DNA differences between individuals or "mutations") in 93% of human genes - please note that doesn't mean there aren't any in the other 7% just that they haven't found any yet.
How do you expect people to take you seriously if you can't even get the numbers vaguely right?


and Whimbrel writes:

I don't really like to keep these Life Engineer threads going, but this latest statement is too bizarre.

LE writes "The 'expressed' mutations generated by living systems are highly controlled rather than random. Roughly half of the genes in the human genome have only a single allele and thus no known mutatant form. If we assume a current population of 4 billion, a generation of 20 years and an 'average' population of 100,000 during most of human evolution, then the the 10,000 genes with no mutations is equivalent to (40,000*20*10,000)= 800,000,000 years of human evolution without a mutation. To suggest that such a result is random is to suggest that 800 million 3' in a row supports the 'theory' that the die throwig process is random. "

Well, even if we assumed that the current population is 4 billion, which would have been wildly off decades ago, and is inexcusably out of touch with current population
estimates of 6.5 billion, then the rest of his math makes no sense either. To calculate the number of years humans have evolved, you multiply what figures?
First where does the number 40,000 come from? Apparently, you take a really
inaccurate guess of the current world's population and divide it by a random
guess about the previous average population over the course of human evolution.
Think about this, the current population divided by the average of population
over time. This avarage is dependent on the value he is trying to calculate with
it. Even if it wasn't, what in the world would current population divided by
average pop represent that could have any meaning here? Then, you multiply this
by generation length in years, times the number of genes in the genome?????

What units of time would that be, population*gene*years? Too bad us dogmatists don't understand mathematical ineptitude when we see it.

By the way, apparently this whole predictive theory boils down to Life Engineer's confusion concerning the difference between the probabilities associated with mutations and those associated with different alleles. Holy cow.

But the megalomaniacal Bergerson will have none of it:

Your interpretation does not appear to be consistent with the study. According to the study, genetic differences are rare. But the important point is that it is possible to test whether mutations are 'random' or 'controlled' by formally analyzing the distribution alleles in the population. I stand by my claim that the evidence strongly supports the 'mutations are controled' theory. I don't think you will even find anyone in the Darwinist camp actually willing to produce an actual testable 'mutations are random' theory.


but wait - its gets better ( and by better I mean more pathetic):

I scanned the article presented and I did not see any support for the 93% claim. Second, for mutations to be random, there need to be hundreds or even thousands of known mutations per gene. The evidence still strongly supports the 'controlled mutation' theories. The evidence also strongly supports the assertion that DarwinDogmatists have a very difficult time actually interpreting data.

Wait - did not Bergerson previously write:

Your interpretation does not appear to be consistent with the study. According to the study, genetic differences are rare.


Why yes - yes he did!

So, Warren Bergerson, scientific expert on all things, hard science predictive theory monger, did not even read the 'study' before he declared the 'Darwin dogmatists' were misinterpreting it!

Pardon my French, but what a jack ass.

And after his declarations of idiocy in the darwinist camp, escherichia points out:


Page 929

“By this definition, 93% of gene loci contain at least one SNP, and 98% are within 5 kb of the nearest SNP; also, 59% of gene loci contained five or more SNPs, and 39% ten or more.”



Hmmm....

Apparently, Warren bergerson was not taught when he learned all about hard science predictive theories in undergrad (as he has claimed) that you actually have to read things before dismissing them and declaring that other folks are wrong.

Not to be outdone, Bergerson continues:

In other words, in order to produce the 93% figure, they intentionally included non-coding areas that are known to contain variations.


He quotes from the study to support that claim:

We also assessed the distribution of SNPs in the genomic locussurrounding each of the RefSeq mRNAs. We assigned the RefSeqexons to their genomic locations, restricting analysis to the 2,960RefSeq mRNAs mapping onto finished sequence. As we cannot define the extent of the noncoding (regulatory) regions of each gene, we arbitrarily defined each ‘gene locus’ as extending from10 kb upstream of the start of the first exon to the end of the lastexon. By this definition, 93% of gene loci contain at least one SNP,and 98% are within 5 kb of the nearest SNP; also, 59% of gene locicontained five or more SNPs, and 39% ten or more.

It would seem that hard science-boy does not understand much about genetics.
See - he doesn't know that there is regulatory sequence upstream and downstream of genes that can also influence their expression.
Musn't muck up a good ego-driven pseudoscientific position, though...

His support for his position?

If you have a testable predictive theory that claims mutations are random, then your theory will predict that an array of mutations will occur. The theory is not supported by the existence of one mutation but by the existence of a statistically approprate sampling of the predicted array.


You see, Warren Bergerson thinks that mutations only occur within genes, and therefore, there should be all sorts of alleles. He is an ignorant fool.

And he has access to internet discussion boards. No wonder folks who get their information from such sources are so confused.

Amazing...

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