4 ms·

John Sanford is one I know of. He is inventor of the gene gun and his work on population genetics convinced him that the genome must be devolving, something he

by yters 6y ago

John Sanford is one I know of. He is inventor of the gene gun and his work on population genetics convinced him that the genome must be devolving, something he called genetic entropy. This led him to reject atheism and adopt YEC.

eesmith 6y ago
As https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Sanford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Sanford notes: > This idea is unsupported by available evidence. In laboratory experiments, viruses saturated with mutations do not go extinct.[10] Sanford also misuses Kimura's mutation distribution; Kimura excludes beneficial mutations because they would have too large an effect, not an insignificant one.[11] Sanford has refused to acknowledge this problem, even after being directly confronted with Kimura's own words.[12] Further, Sanford's assertion that there are virtually no selectable beneficial mutations is contradicted by examples of exactly that, such as lactase persistence in humans,[13] or tetherin antagonism in HIV-1 group M Vpu.[14]
- yters 6y ago
  So what do you conclude per our discussion?
- yters 6y ago
  To elaborate on my comment, per our original question whether there are respectable scientists who hold non status quo positions for scientific reasons, my example of Sanford as a YEC who holds the position for scientific reasons seems to still stand. It is not uncommon for scientists to disagree, so I am unsure what your quote is demonstrating regarding our original question. Just to outline the discussion up till now, I maintain that even non status quo views should be given a hearing, if they proceed by well established criteria for good argumentation. You questioned whether any such people/arguments exist, and if so whether they are in fact being unduly censored. I offered the biological fine tuning paper and Sanford as ID and YEC (in turn) examples to support my claim there are well argued minority views held by otherwise highly intellectually respectable individuals that are currently being censored, unjustly in my opinion.
  - eesmith 6y ago
    You wrote "honest intellectual reasons". I pointed out that Sanford's reasons do not seem to fall into that category, in that they have been refuted, and he continues. Once they are given a hearing, and found wanting, do they get another hearing? And another? And another? How many hearings is enough before we say it's no longer an honest reason? You answer seems to be "as many as they want, otherwise it's censorship."
    - yters 6y ago
      It is really not clear to me from that wiki article you posted that Sanford's view has been refuted. I took a look at Kimura's paper, and it seems the wiki author either didn't read it or didn't understand Kimura's argument. "Sanford also misuses Kimura's mutation distribution; Kimura excludes beneficial mutations because they would have too large an effect, not an insignificant one." This makes it sound as if Sanford is excluding beneficial mutations because otherwise they would disprove his 'genetic entropy' thesis since they are very beneficial and outweigh the amassing of negative mutations. However, from what I can understand of the original paper, Kimura actually excludes beneficial mutations from his model because they do not match the empirical data, and thus must be much less beneficial or common than his model requires. Here's the cite from his paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC383841/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC383841/ From the abstract: "The situation becomes quite different if slightly advantageous mutations occur at a constant rate independent of environmental conditions. In this case, the evolutionary rate can become enormously higher in a species with a very large population size than in a species with a small population size, contrary to the observed pattern of evolution at the molecular level." From the beginning: "Note that in this formulation, we disregard beneficial mutants, and restrict our consideration only to deleterious and neutral mutations. Admittedly, this is an oversimplification, but as I shall show later, a model assuming that beneficial mutations also arise at a constant rate independent of environmental changes leads to unrealistic results." And near the end of the article: "To make our analysis complete, let us investigate how the evolutionary rate is influenced by assuming that a certain fraction of mutations are advantageous....This means the rate of evolution can become enormously high in very large populations, kg being directly proportional to Ne, contrary to actual observations." Kimura is saying that beneficial mutations do not follow his model, because they must be much less common than his model requires, so he excludes beneficial mutations. This sounds to me consistent with what Sanford is saying, unless I am misunderstanding something. If you come to a different understanding of Kimura, please let me know. At any rate, it is not intellectually dishonest for scholars to disagree. There is no requirement that scholars must agree with the status quo. In fact, that's anti thetical to the entire scientific project. Intellectual dishonesty consists of things like knowingly making logically fallacious arguments and falsifying evidence, none of which it is obvious, at least to me from the wiki article you posted, that Sanford is doing. So it is unclear to me why he should not be regarded as an intellectually honest YEC, and have his views respected as such. I am happy to be convinced otherwise.
- deleted 6y ago
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by yters 6y ago

eesmith 6y ago

As https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Sanford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Sanford notes: > This idea is unsupported by available evidence. In laboratory experiments, viruses saturated with mutations do not go extinct.[10] Sanford also misuses Kimura's mutation distribution; Kimura excludes beneficial mutations because they would have too large an effect, not an insignificant one.[11] Sanford has refused to acknowledge this problem, even after being directly confronted with Kimura's own words.[12] Further, Sanford's assertion that there are virtually no selectable beneficial mutations is contradicted by examples of exactly that, such as lactase persistence in humans,[13] or tetherin antagonism in HIV-1 group M Vpu.[14]

yters 6y ago
So what do you conclude per our discussion?
yters 6y ago
To elaborate on my comment, per our original question whether there are respectable scientists who hold non status quo positions for scientific reasons, my example of Sanford as a YEC who holds the position for scientific reasons seems to still stand. It is not uncommon for scientists to disagree, so I am unsure what your quote is demonstrating regarding our original question. Just to outline the discussion up till now, I maintain that even non status quo views should be given a hearing, if they proceed by well established criteria for good argumentation. You questioned whether any such people/arguments exist, and if so whether they are in fact being unduly censored. I offered the biological fine tuning paper and Sanford as ID and YEC (in turn) examples to support my claim there are well argued minority views held by otherwise highly intellectually respectable individuals that are currently being censored, unjustly in my opinion.
- eesmith 6y ago
  You wrote "honest intellectual reasons". I pointed out that Sanford's reasons do not seem to fall into that category, in that they have been refuted, and he continues. Once they are given a hearing, and found wanting, do they get another hearing? And another? And another? How many hearings is enough before we say it's no longer an honest reason? You answer seems to be "as many as they want, otherwise it's censorship."
  - yters 6y ago
    It is really not clear to me from that wiki article you posted that Sanford's view has been refuted. I took a look at Kimura's paper, and it seems the wiki author either didn't read it or didn't understand Kimura's argument. "Sanford also misuses Kimura's mutation distribution; Kimura excludes beneficial mutations because they would have too large an effect, not an insignificant one." This makes it sound as if Sanford is excluding beneficial mutations because otherwise they would disprove his 'genetic entropy' thesis since they are very beneficial and outweigh the amassing of negative mutations. However, from what I can understand of the original paper, Kimura actually excludes beneficial mutations from his model because they do not match the empirical data, and thus must be much less beneficial or common than his model requires. Here's the cite from his paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC383841/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC383841/ From the abstract: "The situation becomes quite different if slightly advantageous mutations occur at a constant rate independent of environmental conditions. In this case, the evolutionary rate can become enormously higher in a species with a very large population size than in a species with a small population size, contrary to the observed pattern of evolution at the molecular level." From the beginning: "Note that in this formulation, we disregard beneficial mutants, and restrict our consideration only to deleterious and neutral mutations. Admittedly, this is an oversimplification, but as I shall show later, a model assuming that beneficial mutations also arise at a constant rate independent of environmental changes leads to unrealistic results." And near the end of the article: "To make our analysis complete, let us investigate how the evolutionary rate is influenced by assuming that a certain fraction of mutations are advantageous....This means the rate of evolution can become enormously high in very large populations, kg being directly proportional to Ne, contrary to actual observations." Kimura is saying that beneficial mutations do not follow his model, because they must be much less common than his model requires, so he excludes beneficial mutations. This sounds to me consistent with what Sanford is saying, unless I am misunderstanding something. If you come to a different understanding of Kimura, please let me know. At any rate, it is not intellectually dishonest for scholars to disagree. There is no requirement that scholars must agree with the status quo. In fact, that's anti thetical to the entire scientific project. Intellectual dishonesty consists of things like knowingly making logically fallacious arguments and falsifying evidence, none of which it is obvious, at least to me from the wiki article you posted, that Sanford is doing. So it is unclear to me why he should not be regarded as an intellectually honest YEC, and have his views respected as such. I am happy to be convinced otherwise.
deleted 6y ago
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