Subject: Stephen E. Jones : Creation/Evolution Articles: Colin Patterson: address to the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, 1981
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Stephen E. Jones

Creation/Evolution Articles

Colin Patterson's address to the American Museum of Natural History, New
York City, 1981, pages 6-10:

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page 6

SECOND PARABLE

Now I'd like to go on to the second parable and return again to this same
diagram but I'd like you now to think of the way in which it was previously used
by Ernst Mayr in his 1969 book with his 1974 paper on "Systematics." At that
time it looked like this:

15%
10%
70%

Now, that's how Mayr tried to put some precision into evolutionary
systematics. Then he said, "Let A be the common ancestor of BCD and suppose the
genome of B is diverged from the ancestral genome by l5%, that of C diverged by
10%, and D has moved off rapidly into some new adaptive zone diverged by 70%."
Then he said we should be quite wrong to classify C with D which appears towards
its nearest relative by common ancestry because relationship means inferred
amount of shared genotype not the inferred recency of common ancestry. Here is
the very simple sum:

B and C share 75% of the ancestral genotype
C and D share only 30%

..... show the kind of mistakes that might be made, Mayr said that
systematists might group crocodiles with birds rather than other reptiles or
might group African ape with man rather than with the orangutan. So Mayr in his
knowledge of evolution is making predictions about the genotype of crocodiles
and African apes.

In the first example crocodiles, birds, and reptiles, he predicts that the
proportion of genotypes shared by C, the crocodile and B, another reptile be
greater than proportion shared by C, the crocodile and D, the bird. He predicts
that in some shared genotypes BC will be greater than CD.

Now next is Mayr ..... demonstrating the explanatory power here of a
hypothesis of common ancestry, something that I've [said] scarcely had zero
explanatory power. He is also demonstrating a knowledge of evolution, writes a
theory, makes a prediction and is going to test it.

Last month in Ann Arbor, a student of Morris Goodman gave me the amino acid
sequences for alpha and beta hemoglobin of 3 crocodilians: a caiman, a Nile
crocodile the Mississippi alligator. We already knew the alpha and beta
hemoglobin sequences of 2 birds, a chicken and a goose but the problem is
finding another reptile. As far as I know the only other reptile available at
the moment is the alpha hemoglobin sequence of a snake, the viper. Alpha
hemoglobin is 143 amino acids long so there 3 times that or 429 nucleotides
long. That is a very small part of the genotype but at least it is worth
checking. The prediction is that the amino acids common to B the viper, C the
crocodile and D the chicken, that BC would be greater than CD. And here of
course are his findings:

BC =

8 out of 143

5.6%

CD =

25 out of 143

17.5%

BD =

15 out of 143

10.5%

(Patterson C., "Evolutionism and Creationism," Transcript of Address at the
American Museum of Natural History, New York NY, November 5, 1981, p.6) [Top of
page]

page 7

Here we are. The theory makes a prediction, we've tested it and the
prediction is falsified precisely. CD far outweighs BC so something is wrong
with the prediction. Something is wrong with the theory. But, of course, we know
that falsification is never absolute, for you're never sure what it is you have
falsified.

And here we see only three possibilities. First, we've falsified the data;
there is something wrong with alpha hemoglobin. Second, we've falsified the
diagram; there is something wrong about the physical relationships of the snake,
bird and crocodile. And third, we've falsified Mayr's knowledge of evolution,
either the particular stuff about rates and adaptive zones or something more
general.

We can check one of those pieces of data by taking another sample of the
genome: a crocodile, bird including chicken and two other reptiles a lizard and
turtle. Myoglobin is 153 amino acids long.

BC

16 out of 153

10.5%

(B is lizard)

CD

13 out of 153

8.5%

(C is crocodile)

BD

16 out of 153

10.5%

(D is chicken)

This time the BC proportion of the genotype is larger than the CD, slightly
larger, as Mayr predicted. What happened here? What fits BD? It ought to be by
far the smallest proportion of the genome, yet it is exactly the same as the BC.
Something has gone wrong again. Again there are 3 possibilities: data, diagram
or the theory

In fact, when you think about the diagram and this data but yet a different
diagram BC same as BD, and possibility of dichotomy, like that. Perhaps the
diagram is wrong.

Let's check again with the turtle, turtle myoglobin. B is the turtle
(terrapin as I remember), C is crocodile and D is chicken.

BC

11.8%

(B is turtle)

CD

5.2%

(C is crocodile)

BD

5.9%

(D is chicken)

Now we're getting closer to what Mayr expected. BC is much larger than BD
here. Again there is another problem. The BD portion (turtle-bird) should be
tiny [but] is larger than the CD. Again, something is wrong. This data suggests
a different diagram like this where BC go together, D is separate.

So it seems with these three examples, either we get the right diagram as we
did with the first sample .... with the viper and alpha hemoglobin but we had
the wrong proportion, or we get the right proportions as here but the wrong
diagram or we get a set of data that is just agnostic that gives us a
trichotomy. So what is it we are falsifying? There aren't any more lizard
sequences available, no more reptile sequences.

Two things we might do: One is to accept Mayr's assumption that reptiles are
a group and to sum up the data and take averages. You add together 3 kinds of
beings: the turtle, viper or the lizard; 3 kinds of crocodiles; 3 kinds of
chickens - when you do that, the 3 summations are for BC you get 27.9, for CD
you get 30.9 and BD 26.9. They are virtually identical...

(Patterson C., "Evolutionism and Creationism," Transcript of Address at the
American Museum of Natural History, New York NY, November 5, 1981, p.7) [Top of
page]

page 8

The creationist makes one assumption - that there are some groups in a set of
data. The evolutionist, I think, has to make another assumption - that there
some groups in there and that the groupings tell us something about the history
of groups.

Someone from audience says: "Which creationist?"

Patterson: "Alright, me."

Audience member: "You don't mean Duane Gish?'

Patterson: "No, I don't. I mean a creationist systematist."

Audience member: "Duane Gish doesn't make any assumptions."

Other member: "Oh, yes he does."

Patterson continues lecture

I think I am able to treat that DNA .... data, taking all of it as saying
something, but I only find two signals in it. In order to get a tree out of it,
you have to infer that some of it is good data - the stuff that gives you that
(at board) and some of at is bad data - the stuff that gives you that (at
board). Sounds like [in] this case the stuff that gives you BC and AB is more
than twice as numerous as the stuff that gives you BC is inferred. Now what is
it that is being paired here? These are all identities at the nucleotide level,
the ones that gives you AB are identities. The ones that give you .... - they
are all identities at the nucleotide level. Yet somehow you'll have to say that
some of those identities are ...... the same. Some of them are not the same,
because the theory demands that. It seems to me somehow nonsensical.

There is one more problem with homology at the DNA level and that is this
business of plurality, or inferred duplication. There is a similar problem
coming in beside ...A. A couple of weeks ago Roger Lewin had a piece in
Science (Oct. 23, 1981) on globin genes and in it he touched on a model
of DNA that is now factual among molecular geneticists. He called it the
"Vesuvian" model and a simple description of it by Roger Lewin and others is
that every gene is constantly bombarding the rest of the genome with pseudogenes
which are more or less perfect copies of itself. Now if this is so, and the
model does have empirical support, then the problem of plurality of duplication
of DNA is even more pressing.

In order to do DNA sequencing, you mix up the genome and clothe [clone?] a
bit that you think is right that you can get out. If there really are all these
bombarding pseudogenes lying, around I see no possible way of knowing whether
you've got the right one or not.

Well, I'm sorry to have on so long about that and the point of it is that I
think it has something to say about evolution because of all the discussion in
the last few years whether evolution is tastable, and by evolution here I mean
the general theory, the descent with modification, that species are mutable and
related by descent rather than a specific theory about mechanisms.

If the general theory of evolution is testable, it must have some function
...... that can be confronted with reality. In other words, it must make

(Patterson C., "Evolutionism and Creationism," Transcript of Address at the
American Museum of Natural History, New York NY, November 5, 1981, p.8) [Top of
page]

page 9

some predictions. As far as I know only one sensible prediction has been
offered. Niles Eldredge put it like this in a letter to Science.

"If evolution is descent with modification, the hierarchical array of
organisms defined by nested sets of evolutionary novelties must result. This is
evolution's grand prediction."

Then Niles went on to say that whatever organism you look at, whatever aspect
of it you study, you find the same hierarchy. I've heard this same point made
repeatedly, at meetings. There really is a hierarchy and there can be no
hierarchy without history and therefore the prediction of evolution is met.

The first thing that strikes me about this is that it seeps [steps?] inside
of evolution as a deductive inference from the systematic hierarchy. The people
like Cuvier, Linneus, Hooker and a thousand other pre- Darwinians were merely
fore- thinkers but they failed to see the necessary...

The second thing concerns the prediction of whatever aspect of organisms you
look at, you find the same hierarchy. Not everyone wants to agree with that.
Here's Ernst Mayr again in Science. Different types of characters:
morphological characters, chromosomal differences, enzyme genes, regulating
genes, and DNA matching made these a rather different groupings. Different
stages in life cycles result in different groupings.

Here's Arnold ...... with the conclusion of his cladistic study of apes and
men. His study denotes a clear lack of congruence between molecular and other
more traditional kinds of data. Notice they are both saying the same. Mayr is
saying that molecular data or whatever level you look at it, it doesn't seem to
matter, morphology and Arnold are saying the same thing.

Now, the prediction. of evolution, according to Niles is that hierarchy and
congruent hierarchy is what we'll find no matter what aspect of the species you
look at. ...... the experience of Mayr and Arnold that there is no such thing as
congruence. In particular, molecular data are incongruent with morphology.

Well, is that so? I'm not sure but I think there are other signs of it among
protein sequences. For example, that cladogram that I was building up earlier is
one of the congruents with everything that we know about morphology. Now there
are published cladograms that have bird with sister group of mammals, Nile
crocodiles, snakes and sister groups of all other amniotes. Never mind the
details of it.

Let me put the question at the most basic level. How is it you recognize a
hierarchy? At the level of the phenotype I think you have no real problem. We
have a fairly rational concept of homology and I agree with Gary that the
organizing principle is ontogeny and Von Baer's* law in particular. And as Gary
suggested we can analyze phenotypification that way and get a hierarchy by a
method that has no evolutionary implication at all. There is a history ahead but
the history is on the genetics. The history is a what gives you the direction in
Von Baer's law. We don't have to infer anything more about the geological
[genealogical?] history, for example.

So what about this molecular level or the level of protein and DNA sequences?
How do we recognize a hierarchy there? First of all, the concept of homology
is

* Note: the original has "Conbear's"

(Patterson C., "Evolutionism and Creationism," Transcript of Address at the
American Museum of Natural History, New York NY, November 5, 1981, p.9) [Top of
page]

page 10

estimates of the old autapomorphies we derived. The gibbon has 66
autapomorphies, 53 orang, 21 gorilla, chimp 19 and man has only 14. Notice that
is the exact reverse of Mayr's prediction... So we get no useful grouping out of
that.

The next set of characters is the one that picks out 3 of the 5.

ABC

30

ABD

11

ACD

10

CDE

10

ADE

9

ABE

7

BCD

7

BDE

4

ACD

3

BCE

3

One signal here - ABC form a group. Since there are 10 ways of picking 3
species out of 5, the probability of a repetition by chance in that sort of data
is 1 in 10. This group has 19 repetitions over its nearest competitor, so far as
I understand it; you can't be getting a signal like that. The probability of
getting a signal like that purely by chance is 10-18.

The last set of characters pick out 2 from the 5. Again there are 10 of them.
I won't list them all. There is only one that gives a signal .... E. The rest of
them are grouped very much like this with as far as I can see no distinguishable
differences between them and here the probability according to my calculation is
10- 17.

So as I understand this data, the information that is in there, is there are
2 groups ABC ... DE; together they form a larger group and that's all the data
says. It also gives an estimate of the number of autapomorphies to be
grouped...

So what about the tree here and the numbers on the branches? As Steve said,
it is produced by a program. Those numbers don't pop out of the data in any way,
so I suppose those come from massaging the data with evolutionary theory. It is
a program that assumes evolution to be true and tells the computer to find a
tree. So my question will be: What is the tree telling us about? Is it telling
us something about nature or something about evolutionary theory?

One last thing, at this level of DNA, the level of DNA, we also have a
problem of homology. What does homology mean in terms of DNA? The alignment
procedure is the same with protein sequences, its a purely statistical business
but because in DNA we only have 4 possible nucleotides in any one position, we
expect a 25% match by chance alone. Amongst these 5 very closely related species
there is only a 7% match, that leaves a 45% variation to accommodate all other
eukaryotes. I think that the problem with aligning DNA...will be
extremely...

Then in the level of individual nucleotides we have to assume that a match of
one position, say an adenine in the same position of all these, is homology. A
mismatch is a non-homology. So bearing that notion in mind, let's look again at
the tree. The tree tells us that - no, I'm going to forget all that. I was going
to talk about the effects of putting data through a tree generation program.

(Patterson C., "Evolutionism and Creationism," Transcript of Address at the
American Museum of Natural History, New York NY, November 5, 1981, p.10)

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