A creationist on twitter is pestering me to ‘debate’ her. Here’s a sampling of her arguments and style.
No way can we have a conversation about that in a 140 character limit. So I’m telling her to come here and expand on her ideas, if she can.
But first, I’d like her to answer a little quiz to see if she’s worth wasting time on.
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What is a typical mutation rate? (be specific about the units!)
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Are most mutations deleterious, neutral, or beneficial?
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What is the difference between phenotype and genotype?
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What is the difference between mutation and “deformity”?
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What is “elephant disease”?
That’s a start. I’m going to tell her on Twitter to come here and address these very simple questions. Anyone want to take bets on whether she bothers?
I’ll be patient and wait for Insectidyll to come and “debate” evolution here.
If a tiger bites your leg off. Is that an animal induced deformity? Do they think that would be a mutation?
Invite her to a google+ discussion. Would be interesting to have some of the usual confused people on there, trying to defend whatever quaint idea is roaming their heads and being disproven live.
Incoherence doesn’t do much to persuade others to take up creationism.
On the other hand, it does wonders to maintaining it in their own minds.
Glen Davidson
A tiger? In Africa?
Well, to us evilutionsticistismists, a lion and tiger are the same thing. After all, it only takes, what, fifteen minutes for a lion to decide to evolve into tiger, right?
This is going to be fun.
Brevity is not the friend of incoherent arguments.
So many idjits, so little time *yes dear*.
Oh my.
I’m supposed to be doing homework right now, but I think I’ll keep this tab open just in case anything happens.
So, it’ll just grow back then?
Elephant man:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Merrick
He may have suffered from this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteus_syndrome
Jerry Coyne is debating some random creationist commenter too. Is this a thing now?
Yeah.
Inviting Them™ here worked so well on the Youtube thread.
/snark
Is shingles a disease that deforms you into snake?
I know. I open the door, I invite them in, they run away.
if all you had to do to get rid of them was invite them in to bad no one thought of it earlier.
uncle frogy
Will chicken pox turn you into a chicken?
Steve84 #12,
Yes, but what is ‘elephant disease’?
Roof, actually.
Maybe insecidyll means
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephantiasis
Nothing to joke about, that.
Elephantiasis isn’t even heritable….
I am sure that evolution is true, but I don’t really think I could score well on your quiz. A quick set of google searches leads to the following probably wrong answers.
1. Looks line the number I keep finding is .003 mutation per generation.
2. Most are neutral.
3. Organisms are classified by scientists in different ways. One way is by a description of the DNA that the organism carries. The other is by the traits that the organism has, which would include both its behavior and its physical form. The genotype of an organism is the set to which it belongs when classified by its genes, the phenotype is the set to which it belongs when it is classified by its traits.
4. As noted in 2 most mutations are neutral, some are positive and some are negative. Deformity is probably not a term used much in evolutionary biology, because it is too vague and ill defined.
5. I think that “elephant disease” calls out for a clever definition.
This has been an interesting exercise and I welcome feedback about where my answers went wrong.
Perhaps she meant ‘elephant flu’? Is that a thing?
Maybe she is confused about the flu mutations popularized in the news (‘bird’ ‘swine’ etc.) I wonder if she argues with her TV when those are reported on the news.
I believe she’s referring to the dreaded elephant-ear worm.
naw, Steve’s right @#12.
Mutation = deformity = ‘Elephant Man’s disease’.
I see she is back on Twitter now…still waiting though. When is this “debate” going to happen? I haven’t seen a decent creationist around here in a while.
Just letting you know (I said as much on Twitter), you might not want to engage @insectidyll. Her name is Dawn Gordon, she’s from Brampton, Ontario and several people on Twitter/Facebook/various social media outlets can tell you she’s a pretty nasty little harassing stalker – @kaimatai can tell you just how obsessed and creepy she is. Just a warning :)
Cyberstalking by Dawn
Insectidyll is a freaking idiot. She has replied on twitter; I told her NO, I’m not going to debate her in 140 character chunks.
Now she wants to know if she can write her answers in Word and email them to me. NO.
She may be too stupid to appear here.
PZ you should read up on her
I’m starting to think that the trolls are afraid of this place… He he he!
I did read up on her. Small potatoes.
Seriously, you have no idea how much hate mail and whiny-ass shit people fling my way. One more causes me no trepidation at all.
There last person to leave a reply on the link that Chimp provided was Chthoniid. He provided a link to a blog post that recounts the ranting of Dawn Gordon over a twenty four hour period. She may be small potatoes but she is completely disconnected from reality. And too incoherent to be able to answer PZ’s question.
Instead, she will babble on about how GOD provided the answers to her. And that PZ is really a christian. And how he is defrauding every one around him.
Sorry, forgot to close the link.
I’m afraid I’m not so well versed in stupid; would someone mind translating this halfwit-speak into proper English? She isn’t really trying to say that evolutionary biology claims that people with this “elephant disease” are that way because they evolved from elephants is she? What the shit…
Fair enough
What is a typical mutation rate? (be specific about the units!)
A mutation rate most commonly experienced or commonly experienced. We are now not talking about the mean or the median, but the mode – and, perhaps, those mutation rates that have rates of occurence within one standard deviation of the rate of occurrence for the modal mutation rate. Frankly, this is true no matter what armed force one chooses to join (if any) or what battalian/company/troop to which one is assigned.
What are you talking about PZ?
Are most mutations deleterious, neutral, or beneficial?
Since most DNA is non functional and the DNA that is functional has a subset that cannot be mutated and still develop into a living individual of a species, most mutations are neutral. Some, however, have noticed a redistribution of enzymes within certain cells and cell types, not to mention resources like oxygen. A growing number of mutations are choosing to occupy one of the Wall Gyri in protest.
What is the difference between phenotype and genotype?
A geno type is your type at the moment god created you. Your pheno type is the type you approach, like Achilles chasing a rabbit, but never quite achieve. It’s a creationist parable for how impossible it is to truly change one’s kind.
What is the difference between mutation and “deformity”?
Duh – whether it occurs in me or in you (respectively).
What is “elephant disease”?
Symptomatic invasions of pachyderms by parasites, fungi, bacteria, or viruses.
=========================================================
I rock at this biology stuff. I should change careers.
“Seriously, you have no idea how much hate mail and whiny-ass shit people fling my way. One more causes me no trepidation at all.”
There is an old german proverb: Viel feind, viel Ehr’..
Poor Dawn, if she comes here, she will have to demonstrate with conclusive physical evidence, physical evidence that would pass muster with scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers as being of divine, and not natural, origin.
Should be interesting seeing the lies and evasions to avoid acknowledging her deity only exists between her delusional ears…
Nerd, Dawn Gordon will not even try to have conclusive physical evidence. It is beneath her. She gets her truth from GOD and GOD talks to her.
[A. R wonders how PZ could be defrauding himself, considering that we’re all sockpuppets of him.]
I don’t expect her to get it, any more than txpiper does. I do this for the lurkers, to make sure they understand godbots have nothing but their presuppositional delusions, which everybody should ignore and laugh at.
Am I supposed to be reading those tweets from bottom to top? Or, y’know, at all?
Looking at the various stuff she’s posted around the web, I’d be willing to bet she’s an unmedicated schizophrenic.
MarkNS: Can we avoid the armchair diagnoses please? No offense, but that’s something that the commentariat here doesn’t really appreciate.
@23:
I’m really not sure about mutation rates – one of the complicating things about such rates is that they are very different for different portions of the genome. We would expect sonic hedgehog to be conserved at a lesser rate compared to Hox genes, but at a greater rate compared to, say, eye color genes. And even eye color genes would likely be conserved at a greater rate than the non-functional pseudogenes contained within the so-called “junk DNA” regions of our genome.
BUT…
You do have genotype and phenotype wrong. Genotype doesn’t refer to *genome*-type. Instead it refers to *gene*-type. In other words, it is the particular gene combination that gives rise to a trait. Phenotype is the trait itself. This is important because with dominant/recessive gene pairs (rather than interactive gene pairs) you could have DD, Dr, or rD pairs all leading to the same phenotype. On the other hand, only one pair, rr, leads to the recessive phenotype in question.
BTW, I’m pretty sure Insectidyll is male. Here’s the profile:
@48 – Lancefinney – no, she’s not. She created that account (like her 20th or so on Twitter) and was pretending to be someone that was in love with her. She’s given up that pretense now.
I had a run-in with Dawn a long while back. Lasted an incredibly short time because I wasn’t her primary target.
And while I’m as much against armchair diagnoses as anyone else…
Come on…
There’s something going on, here…
As far as Insectidyll is concerned… if it really is Dawn, why would she say she has a “wife”? I could be remembering wrong, but I thought Dawn was Homophobic?
@33lp – #5
Yes. A tiger in Africa. Well, not precisely a tiger. More a tiger costume. But from Africa! – I got it from a bicycle shop in Cairo.
Well, it probably escaped from the zoo.
It was summoned by voodoo
I would like to!
Sounds like a fun post. On a good hate mail day (or spread out over several days to get an average), come up with a half dozen or so categories of hate mail, and count the number in each (some may fall into more than one category). Give us an example of each one, because, you know, we like that shit.
PZ said in #16:
Well, try putting some clothes on BEFORE you open the door! You know how sensitive those godbots are.
@Crip Dyke, #47:
Regarding mutation rates, when it comes to variation across different loci you’re thinking mostly of the actions of natural selection, rather than variation in the mutation rate per se. Mutations are more or less random; they happen at approximately equal rates across loci. However, they are more likely to be purged by natural selection if they happen to disrupt genes necessary for survival.
If you look at something like hox genes, the mutation rate is about the same as elsewhere in the genome. The difference is that you don’t see most of those mutations, because they have been purged by selection… i.e., most zygotes carrying mutations in these genes probably die before we have a chance to look at them and don’t leave any descendants.
That said, it’s not uncommon to see post-selection rates of nucleotide change referred to as “mutation rates”… despite the fact that what we’re actually seeing is just what’s left of the mutation rate after natural selection takes a bite out of it…
A mutation rate is the speed of a mutation.
So if we consider the mutant ‘healing factor’ of the character Wolverine in X-Men, then our units would be ‘time’ and ‘amount regenerated’.
‘Amount healed’ is inherently problematic because it isn’t easily quantifiable. However, one technique could be to remove volumes of flesh from various parts of Wolverine’s body, presumably while he is held in an unconscious state.
The volume, mass and ‘damaged’ surface area of the portion removed would be recorded, and then the vacant portion monitored to see how long it takes for that section of the body to be fully restored.
Each of these may then be marked against time. Taking samples from various parts of the body and various types of tissue would reveal which among these measurements is the most consistent between tissue types.
I suppose that mass/second and surface area would be a factor. I propose that the rate of mutation would be proportional to:
r = km/ta
r = mutation rate
k = unitless constant – varies between individual mutant and their powers
m = mass
t = time
a = effective surface area over which the mutation takes place
Taking this approach, mutation rate could be meaningfully evaluated in units of mass per second per cubic cemtimeter. I name this unit a dan of mutation rate. The symbol for this unit is a suffix, lowercase dn.
Note that the dan unit of mutation rate may also use mass/energy equivalence to convert between energy-based mutations and physical ones.
This would provide an interesting basis for comparing the relative powers between mutants that does not depend on the consequences of those powers.
I’m not sure how to adjust the dan for characters such as nightcrawler whose powers are more often spatially based. I’ve heard from physicists like Lawrence Krauss that space and energy can be compared, but I’m not sure if that translates into a technique that is consistent with that of a dan.
Suggestions greatly appreciated.
Really PZ, how can you not tell that this person is mentally ill?
Wow.
They™’re all taking this real serious-like.
Oh my, that one looks persistent.
Because she is nuts / stupid is my guess.
Regarding this ‘debate’: we already know this will be an utter fizzle. Regulation issue apologetics will ensue, followed by standard apologetics retreat and much ‘hurt’ in the ‘butt’. She will declare herself the victor because the naughty heathens ‘don’t get it’ and that we are biased against, or hate, Jesus and co.
So on, so forth, ad nauseum, etc. etc. etc.
Sounds like a case of “legitimate” nuttery: https://www.change.org/petitions/mental-health-assistance-for-dawn-gordon.
Dennis Markuze? Is that you?
Another vote for elephant disease meaning diseases that only elephants get here. Makes for decent “is this an elephant?” criteria I suppose. At the very least you would have to express similar membrane proteins and perhaps have have similar histocompatibility complex genes- I’m not sure how much those tend to impact the diseases of entire genera or family levels of organisms.
Dennis Markuze? Is that you?
indeed.
I looked at the list of people harassed, and what they had to say about Dawn Gordon.
whoever she is, I would bet money she has the same personality disorder that Markuze has.
the style of writing, the way she thinks god is telling her who is right and wrong…
so similar to markuze that it simply can’t be coincidence.
and, like markuze, I hope someone gets her the help she needs sooner rather than later.
Thorne
It’s not so much the nudity. It’s the war paint, and cow skull on his head that does it.
Ahh, you’ve had to deal with a Mormon infestation also?
After politely, then sternly, then angrily telling them not interested, the above* was the sure-fire cure to ending (for good) their “visits.”
* Didn’t have time to apply paint or skull :(
I don’t even understand why you’re even considering wasting your time with somebody that is obviously a troll and will only lead to an extremely unproductive debate. It seems a bit sadistic to me.
Everyone needs a hobby.
@50
I don’t think pharyngulites will ever agree about when it is appropriate to say someone is obviously having a mental health issue. Most seem to think it is never appropriate, even in the face of behaviors that simply do not occur in healthy people. I don’t know how else to characterize her behavior though, especially her emphasis on “imposter” identities and god revealing them to her.
instectidyll just wants free medical advice. She wants to know if she has turned into elephant man and become male, whether that is a mutation or a deformity, and if she is now afraid of mice.
@aspidoscelis #56
Okay, very fair point. But you can only measure mutation rates in organisms through comparisons to other living organisms. Genes mutated in such a way as to prevent a zygote from becoming an individual of a species won’t show up in the gene pool.
It may not be correct, but it certainly has reasons for being used… and it’s mainly how I’ve heard it used as a non-biologist (e.g. “DNA clock” studies, etc.).
Anyway, thanks for correcting me. It does make sense that in an era when we can (now) study DNA in random fertilized eggs that we can study mutation rates much more directly… and thus would want to distinguish mutation rate from, I don’t know, “post-selection mutation rate”.
What would be the accurate term, anyway?
After seeing that, I’m not willing to even bet on whether she can read and understand your invitation.
Usernames are smart:
Be prepared. If you don’t keep paint and a cow skull near your front door, you can hardly complain if they’re not there when needed.
@47 Thanks for the feedback.
I couldn’t figure out why she had such a thing for deformities, but after a bit of twitter-digging it became clear; she subscribes to the view that all the remains found of other human species were really H. sapiens all along, just with deformities and diseases.
See, there never was any Homo erectus or neanderthals or any of those. They were all just deformed human beings. And that’s why evolutionary theory is evil; it claims that deformed people are really animals. Or something.
It’s sort of interesting to try to uncover how a person gets to such a strange point of view. Like mental archaeology.
When she gets around to asking How is babby formed, let me know.
Which is why you should make this your standard response — with a variation taken from Randi’s Million Dollar Challenge. When those who claim paranormal abilities first apply, they do not deal with the Amazing One himself, but are given a preliminary test by one of the affiliated skeptic groups. IF they pass that, then the serious test takes place. So far, nobody has passed the preliminary.
Comments section is your preliminary. If they get through us, then you step in.
Of course, sometimes you might want to address something they say, anyway. But I suppose you can always step in when you want. It’s just that you’re clear up front you don’t have to.
Creationists will likely claim they “defeated” the Hoard. But at least we will teach them caution. Those who venture in, that is. My guess is that your guess that it will filter out most of them upfront, is correct.
PZ – she’s attempting to answer on Twitter (not realizing you’ve blocked her) and those answers are exceedingly pathetic. My 13 year old son has a better grasp of science, biology, human DNA, and evolution.
Question #2 is a trick question! There is no one-dimensional scale known, against which we can define at least three unambiguous points: deleterious, neutral, or advantageous. The way I see it, there is only survival or death. For example, a gene that permits/causes sickle-cell anemia seems to be bad- unless you live in anophelese territory! Was that genetic change deleterious, neutral, or advantageous? No way to say.
@ivarhusa #81
I’m no expert and I don’t remember the specifics.
There are some amino acids that can be produced by different ‘words’ in the genetic code. Some of these words are the same.
For example, say that amino acid Alpha is produced by both ACT and ACG.
If the base organism has ACT, but then the daughter mutates at that particular location to become ACG, then nothing in the protien itself will change, and there will be no effect whatsoever on the phenotype of the animal.
That’s just one horrendously oversimplified example of a neutral mutation. Note that I made up the names and sequences due to poor memory – but I recall from previous reading that this is a scenario that does happen often, and that variation these kinds of ‘free’ markers are often used to evaluate the degree of variation between species.
Back me up here with specifics, guys.
* ‘Some of these words are the same’
That is a sentence that I butchered with copy/paste and should have deleted before posting. Ooops.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_code
Check out the diagram at the end.
Valine, alanine, glycine, serine, arginine, threonine are four-fold degenerate for the third base, ie, the third base could mutate to ANYTHING and the amino acid won’t change.
And Leucine is not only four fold degenerate for the third base, it is two fold degenerate for the first base, giving it six potential mutations without changing.
In fact, arginine and serine also have six variants in the genetic code.
@ivarhusa
All the more reason why this subject cannot be reasonably discussed within a 140 character limit.
Was that genetic change deleterious, neutral, or advantageous? No way to say.
well, actually you DID say the way to gauge this:
it’s relative to the selective pressures of any given environment.
but then, this IS the way mutations are always judged; they are only relevant to the fitness of individuals within a given population, period.
but then, knowing this would also be part of how PZ would judge the answer to the question.
Oh no, I just realized she’s a New Zealander.
Now I’m ashamed.
Actually, it appears she’s Canadian but likes to harass people in NZ and email every member of parliament. Wierd.
Sure there is. If individuals possessing the genetic change produce more offspring on average than individuals not possessing the genetic change, with the overall population subject to the same environment, then the genetic change is advantageous. If they produce less, it is deleterious. If they produce the same amount, it is neutral.
We even have a formal term that quantifies this for the purposes of mathetmatics: selection (or fitness) coefficient.
The only restriction is that you can’t tell right away when the genetic change first appears, but only after at least one generation has passed.
But in real life you virtually never actually identify a genetic change the moment it first appears, and usually you won’t have found it until at least several generations have already passed, so this isn’t a problem.
Did you try saying “why don’t you wait till I die and baptize me afterwards, when you’re going to do that anyway”?
That’s a diagnosis that should be made more carefully.
In my experience, trolls sooner or later brag about being trolls: “I’m just trying to get you upset so I can laugh at you, and look how well it’s working! LOL!”
Sure there is – it just depends on the environment. No mutation is universally deleterious, neutral or advantageous. Sickle-cell anemia is a good example.
@amphiox:
I think you missed the point a tiny bit. What ivarhusa was trying to convey, I think, is that blanket statements about the fitness value of a mutation can’t be made because they’re dependent on that specific population’s success on that specific environment. Hence the sickle cell example. Another example would be the altered jaws (correct me if I’m mistaken) that made cave fish blind as a side-effect. Deleterious outside of caves, advantageous inside of them.
There is an absolute mutation rate independent of the effects (deleterious, neutral, beneficial) on the organism or species. This is simply the DNA copy error rate inherent in the DNA replication mechanism within the organism, measured in # miscopied bases per total bases (usually counted as #/hundred-thousand or #/million bases. Viruses have very poor error detection and correction, so they have a high error and mutation rate. Mammals have multiple complicated DNA mismatch detection and repair pathways, so the mutation rate is much lower than the simple error rate in the DNA polymerase which copies the chromosome. I’m several years away from learning and working on this kind of research, but that should be the basic info. Corrections gratefully accepted (be polite, please).
Re. #74, Crip Dyke:
Oh, bugger, I screwed up the blockquotes. Let’s try that again.
Re. #74, Crip Dyke:
Generally, what you do is measure the mutation rate in regions that are under very little or no selection pressure (e.g., non-coding regions). Deviations from that rate in coding regions can be attributed to selection.
There are some further complications, mostly beyond me…
Yeah, for most studies, you can’t separate mutation rates from purging by selection, so you’ve got just the one number. “Observed mutation rate” should work, but it’s important to keep in mind that some or most mutations may not be observed!
(This is often a problem in phylogenetics, which is mostly what I know. One of the old bits of wisdom in the field is, “Well, if you’re studying deeper relationships, you pick a more slowly-evolving locus.” Uh… no… that “slowly-evolving” locus is just one in which more of the potentially informative mutations have been selectively purged. Not good. You want a locus under as little selective pressure as possible. “Slowly-evolving” probably means “biased”. This source of possible error may be compounded in model-based phylogenetic methods–the model needs an estimate of the mutation rate, but this is not a trivial problem! Give any model-based method a coding locus, and its model is likely to be severely out of whack.)
But those under too little selective pressure have already mutated beyond recognition; saturation, too, is a real problem in molecular phylogenetics. Loci under strong selection will still accumulate neutral mutations that are phylogenetically informative.
Anyway, what’s usually a good idea is a total-evidence approach: take everything and throw it into the same matrix. The signal will add up, the noise will cancel itself out.
Face it. Your soul won’t be worth it.
totalretard
Do you look at the time-stamps?
This thread is dead.
BRAAAAAAAINS!
Daniel Schealler #99
HA!