In addition another report suggested a split in the evolutionary tree that made Europeans their own species.

Can anyone concur?

Thank you

This led me to be so glad that I am vegan. The reason is — it is hard to say what is the difference between cow and pig or dog and cat. We decide that dogs or cats are so lovable so we spare their lives and make them our friends. While we eat the cows and pigs where many scientific reports saying that pigs are smarter than dogs.

Likewise, it is hard to say what is the difference between us human beings and the Chimps.

Shi has claims of a conspiracy of evolutionary ‘specialists’ to keep things quiet.. Claims ot have disproven some well-supported concept… Quotes Leigh VanValen’s 1974 paper…. claims sane people will agree with him. – looks like somebody has been reading Walter ReMine…

People often stretch their theory way beyond its real scope and power. They refuse to be satisfied with settling for a 100% correct theory in a small domain of relevance and always want to push their theory into a larger domain while sacrificing 100% certainty, and feel more important and influential as a result. Totally understandable. But, there is no such thing as a 99% correct theory. The reality is of course that people will always use their micro theory to explain macro reality in a mistaken way as long as we don’t yet have a 100% correct macro theory. It is okay to do that before we have a macro theory and it is even constructive to do as it just exposes the problems of the micro theory and hastens the end of it in the macro domain and the birth of a true macro theory. But once we do have a 100% correct macro theory, it would be foolish to stick with the micro theory or the stupid faith in the existence of a 99% correct theory.

In this day and age, few theories do not explain some things or are not 100% true in some small domain of nature. But it is foolish to call a theory correct in domains where it fails to explain a contradiction. In evolution, the last thing people do is to define where the theory should work and where should not. Instead of saying we have a microevo theory that is 100% correct, we prefer to say that we have an evolution theory that we are not 100% certain (because of contradictions in the macro domain). But don’t bother to look for a replacement that is 100% certain because evolution is such that we can never be 100% certain. Well, this classic self-serving may fool themselves and some people but not all people can be fooled in such a stupid way.

A method is flawed if its assumptions are wrong. The results of a flawed method are meaningless regardless whether they happen to be consistent with reality or not. If you are not a professional scientist, you may not appreciate what I just wrote. But that is where I will leave it. I never intended to communicate scientific details, except the common sense axiom involved, directly with non-professionals as it is not the most productive use of my time. That is why I wrote papers not books. Evolution as I know it is much more complex. I don’t expect lay people or even scientists not in the field to have any role in studing/understanding it one way or the other. The true theory should be resolved among a small number of professionals. The lay people can then just trust the experts and learn as second hand knowledge. How many lay people really understand relativity? Why should evolution be simpler than relativity when the brain for understanding relativity is a product of evolution? It was a bad start for Darwin’s book to target a lay audience. A science that is so simple that a lay person could feel and talk in forums like he knows all about it can hardly be called science.

Building complex and robust machine may have more ways than just one. To have backups or overlapping systems is one way of doing it, the most stupid and awkward way. Instead of a single engine in a small plane, a more complex large plane may have 4 engines with 2 of them as backups. But is that the nature’s way for using DNA to build complex life? Do we have an extra heart or brain or any organ as pure backups? We don’t. If we don’t do it at the phenotype level, do we do it at the genotype level? Mostly not. Our gene numbers are much smaller than any one had predicted because complexity is not linked to an increase in gene numbers or in back up genes. Nature is smarter and does it by combinations of genes and by inventing novel and complex ways of using the same set of genes. And by giving extra functions to an existing gene. We create music not by inventing more notes, and the ways of using the existing notes are already infinite.

To add back up or overlap system is not really an increase in complexity. A four engine plane and a one engine plane has the same level of complexity as far as the engine is concerned. To have a back up brain, we still need to have a complex brain in the first place. For that to happen, disorder and random mutation must be suppressed. Who can imagine a brain capable of infinite order like mathematics could tolerate a level of disorder/randomness in its building blocks like that of a flu virus or any simple virus like early life forms at the beginning of evolution?

The backup way is also not sound for DNA based lives because, in my thinking, it increases the size of the genome and hence the target size for mutations. The backup copy is not expressed or functional in normal situations and therefore not maintained by natural selection and can easily lose its function due to accumulation of mutations. Thus, it is safe to predict that most paralogs of a gene in a complex organism have unique functions and are not just backups (plenty of data for this). Your claim of complex organisms have more backups is simply wishful thinking and not supported by facts. Don’t we have a lot of single mutation diseases in humans?

For both genotypes and phenotypes, nature follows the rule of use it or lose it. Backups may have been invented once but would simply be lost due to disuse. Which is more effective in advancing complexity: to decrease mutations or to use backups? All facts of nature say the first. It is simply a reality that a theory based on that notion explains all facts whereas any theory that ignores it meets with countless contradictions.

On the statement “For any gene with a biological function, certain mutations that destruct the function will not be tolerated by the organism while those neutral or beneficial ones will.” It is about a general major pattern. Special cases can happen that has special explanations, which still does not violate in principle the main pattern. One can easily argue that the sickle cell mutation is a good version in the fight against malaria.

Yours is a common mistake in the evolution field that has infected the lay public. It is to ignore the main pattern and use whatever trivial pattern/facts to suit our theory and to invalidate the main pattern when our theory does not predict it. Given the infinite amount of data/facts of nature, any stupid theory can find some factual support, if the goal is not to account for the major patterns or is not to explain all without contradiction. The advance with time in complexity is the dominant pattern in evolution that is so obvious that it is hardly worth stating. (The best ancient Chinese thinkers from 5000-7000 years ago had always placed man above all else in nature and as equal in status to the creative power of nature namely yang/heaven and yin/earth as written in I-ching, which has been the foundation for the most long lasting civilization as well as the world view of the largest population on Earth. Ancients have much better intuitive sense than moderns simply because their focus is less distracted by trivial things or man-made artifacts, and intuition is the foundation of science.) But since our theory does not predict that, we ignore it and cite trivial cases of randomness to support no direction towards complexity. Or we use trivial and much less common cases of complexity loss like loss of limbs in snakes as evidence for no direction towards higher complexity. Or we cite abundant cases of no change in complexity during microevolution. But all these merely indicate that in addition to complexity increase, there is also another trend for stability or no change. One cannot use a single mechanism to explain two opposite major trends, which is what we are doing.

We ignore the order/beauty/complexity of our big brain, and cite examples of imagined imperfections in some organs as evidence for the imperfections of nature or evolution. We ignore the general perfection of the human body and cite examples of rare diseases to fault the power of nature/evolution. In every case, the main pattern says that nature/evolution is all good, order, and beauty. The existence of disorder, randomness, and ugliness are all trivial and minor patterns. It is simply nonsensical to focus on the minor patterns and to turn blind to the main patterns. We should not explain the trivial at the expanse of the main but that has become a habitual behavior to most followers of evolution, another simple indication that we are not on the right path in understanding the main pattern.

Oh Huang-jin Shi-zi! So many interesting ideas, but so much over-optimism for them!
At the end of ‘1.’:
“But our standard of science is that we cannot and should not allow a phylogeny to have any chance to be untrue, no matter how small a chance.” That clashes with the principle that theories should be preferred based simply on their power to predict/explain. If we insist that no theory could ever have the possibility of being untrue/disproved, we’d never even temporarily be happy with a theory.

Start of 2:
“2. Any theory or method that can give the correct phylogeny should and must give the correct dating.” I don’t know why you say that. However what you say next sounds promising…
“This is because nature is a coherent whole rather than disconnected.” But what you say next is wrong…
“A theory that only explains less than 100% of the domain of nature for which it is relevant is by definition incomplete or false” ..because theories can be useful if they merely predict/explain some things. It’s when they predict the wrong thing that they get into trouble – but you say they need merely fail to explain/predict everything! That’s far too strict!
Later you say:
“4. If the assumptions are false, the methods are automatically false” Although I consider people who forge their own detailed philosophies and theories are more valuable than those who just follow the crowd and never construct daring theories, I think your Philos. of Sci. is generating huge problems for you. The methods you refer to in 4 could be fine, and indeed the conclusions might conceivable also be “right”, even though assumptions and/or methods were wrong. You tend to coin valuable insightful statements that are ruined by being inaccurately stated, and being subsequently overladen. This goes beyond possible inaccuracy in the language.

For example, in your definition of MGD on your blog:

“1) The reality of maximum genetic distance/diversity (MGD):
For any gene with a biological function, certain mutations that destruct the function will not be tolerated by the organism while those neutral or beneficial ones will.”
Sort of, but actually mutations that destroy the utility of the gene, or much of it, may well be tolerated. Other aspects of the creature may be used. And look at sickle-cell anaemia. Each subsequent statement also cannot bear the weight further steps in your argument place on it. For example, the claim that more complex creatures have greater need for genes to stay unmutated. Unfortunately more complex creatures also have more spare or overlapping systems to help out a suboptimal allele.

Perhaps you can check your steps & statements, and weed out those that have too great a chance of being false.

I invited Tim White to work on the Hadar hominid collection, including the Lucy skeleton. He was not a member of the team that FOUND the skeleton.