Arkansas inflicts child abuse on its school children

[tas8831]

Oh, it sprang from energy which sprang from nothing!

Oh, humans sprang from dust which sprang from a deity 'speaking' or willing it to be or whatever the going story is - from nothing!

 

[tas8831]

Then you should be able to replicate it easily.

Have you replicated the creation of bio-organic molecules from silicates (dust of the ground) yet?

 

[tas8831]

... but it still happened by total chance

Whats this? A creationist making strawman assertions??? I'm aghast!

and even a beneficial mutation is often a loss of information, not a gain.

Please explain how this is the case.
Use all of the science you need - but EXPLAIN it. Just linking to Lee Spetner's joke of a book or the former DI Fellow who, despite him being the "Isaac Newton of Information Theory" was only gobbled up by a small unaccredited bible college in Podunk Texas will not do.
Be as specific as you can.

So, even calling it beneficial isn't really correct.

Right.
So mutations are due to The Fall, right?

 

[Jose Fly]

Wow, so you actually think the 'bang' was an 'explosion'... What is your science background again?

 

[tas8831]

That all happens with no new information added to their DNA.

Let me guess - no science background?

 

[tas8831]

Or maybe:

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Evolutionary biologists often assume that once mutations produce a functionally advantageous trait, it will easily spread (become “fixed”) throughout a population by natural selection.

You mean, it is likely that it will spread. Not certain.
And that's not an assumption.

But In the real world,merely generating a functionally advantageous trait does not guarantee it will persist, or become fixed.

Indeed, it's not guaranteed.
For example, someone who, through some mutation, gets immunity to an otherwise common fatal disease. Clearly that person has more chance of reaching breeding age then someone who doesn't have that mutation.

However, should that person fall of a cliff to his death before reproducing, then the mutation won't be spreading.

For example, what if by chance the animal to first develop the beneficial mutation breaks a leg, and gets eaten by a predator — never passing on its genes?

Then it doesn't pass on its genes.


This does not alter the fact that right out the gates, the person with the mutation that grants immunity to some nasty disease, has a better chance overall of surviving till breeding age.

It's like a soccer match. Right out the gates, the better team has the best chance of winning. They aren't guaranteed to win. It's pure probability. Add in big numbers, and the net result will follow the probability.

Brazil has an amazing soccer team. Put them up against, say... Russia. The vast majority of the time, they will win. Sometimes, they will lose anyway. They can have bad luck, their star players can be hurt or sick,... there's so much that can influence stuff.

The baseline probability however, is that Brazil most likely will win. And most of the time, they will.

Random forces or events can prevent a trait from spreading through a population, even if it provides an advantage.

Yes. But those random forces and events are the same for everyone.
So this doesn't alter the baseline probability of the better equipped outperforming the lesser equipped.

 

[SkepticThinker]

It's actually quite less then 29%, because a large part of that 29% of "not water surface" is permafrost at the poles, inhospitable mountains, deserts like the Saharah, etc. Quite hostile environments where it would be tremendously hard, and sometimes simply impossible, for settlements to survive - let alone thrive.

Yes, thank you!

 

[SkepticThinker]

Nope. It is perfect. But not ever inch is for living on. Just like you don't sleep on the toilet hopefully, but it still has a purpose.

Except that it's not perfect. Far from it.

But you are going to believe what you want to believe, no matter what the evidence may indicate. Thank you for making that clear.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Wow, so you actually think the 'bang' was an 'explosion'... What is your science background again?

Obviously, you didn't read my other posts.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Quote/cite a paper where an evolutionary biologist does that.

It's the whole basis for evolution even happening on a macro scale, although it still falls short as an explanation.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It's the whole basis for evolution even happening on a macro scale, although it still falls short as an explanation.

Repeating your claim in other words, does not answer the question, nor does it validate the claim.
Neither does the piling on of claims.

 

[SkepticThinker]

It's the whole basis for evolution even happening on a macro scale, although it still falls short as an explanation.

It should be easy to cite a paper that says as much then.

We'll wait.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Repeating your claim in other words, does not answer the question, nor does it validate the claim.
Neither does the piling on of claims.

If a mutation doesn't become fixed in a population, then no one evolved to another level. This is basic stuff.

 

[SkepticThinker]

If a mutation doesn't become fixed in a population, then no one evolved to another level. This is basic stuff.

What do you mean by "another level?"

Are you sure you understand evolution, because it doesn't seem like you do, which makes me wonder why you're talking about it?

 

[Jose Fly]

It's the whole basis for evolution even happening on a macro scale, although it still falls short as an explanation.

Then quote/cite a paper where a scientist does it.

 

[Wildswanderer]

What do you mean by "another level?"

Are you sure you understand evolution, because it doesn't seem like you do, which makes me wonder why you're talking about it?

Same old same old, no answer, just " You don't get it " A population cannot advance unless a change becomes fixed in the population. If it just dies out nothing changes.

 

[tas8831]

Obviously, you didn't read my other posts.

You are correct, I can only take so much!

 

[tas8831]

The stop is when an organism can not change past a certain point because it doesn't have the genetic information to do so.

And what would that "genetic information" have to be?

And what is your definition of "genetic information" in this context, because in my experience, the definition provided by anti-evolutionists varies from person to person and from situation to situation.

All of life’s complex features,, are said to be encoded in the DNA of living organisms. Building new features thus requires generating new information in the genetic code of DNA.

Why is that?
What kind of "new information"?
And how do you know this?
Can you give an example?

There are systems which require many parts — and therefore many mutations — to be present — all at once — before providing any survival advantage to the organism.

So says Behe...

How many mutations and how do you know? Give an example, please.

Random mutation and unguided natural selection

Natural selection is an outcome, not an act.

cannot generate the genetic information required to produce irreducibly complex structures.

That is quite an assertion - which creationist essay did you paraphrase that from?

In fact most mutations are shutting something off, not turning something on.

Most don't do anything.

So even if a mutation is beneficial, it can be a loss I'm genetic information, not a gain.

So you have thus refuted your earlier claim!
Ha!

Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne — a staunch defender of Darwinism, says that “natural selection cannot build any feature in which intermediate steps do not confer a net benefit on the organism."

Yeah, I saw that exact quote on lots and lots of creationist websites - which one did you get it from, just out of curiosity? In fact, EVERY return on the first Google page when I searched for it were to creationist websites or books. Weird how that works.
For surely, you did not read the source yourself (pretty sure you didn't see below)?

A little context will help (it is from a review of one of Behe's books), and formatting is mine for emphasis. I have only omitted unnecessary examples or tangents for length:

It is indeed true that natural selection cannot build any feature in which intermediate steps do not confer a net benefit on the organism. As Darwin wrote in On the Origin of Species, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case.” A century and a half later, there is still no such case. Behe certainly fails to make one. But he does try gamely, claiming that complex interactions between proteins are features that simply could not have evolved. Proteins represent strings of building blocks—amino acids—and the cooperation between some proteins requires that sets of amino acids in one protein interact rather precisely with sets in another....Such precise protein-protein interactions, says Behe, could not have been formed by “numerous, successive, slight steps,” because such Darwinian evolution would be wildly improbable.
To demonstrate the improbability, Behe does some math. He calculates the probability that such interactions between amino acids could evolve, assuming that a precise set of amino acids is required.
Not surprisingly, it turns out that getting by mutation a set of three to four amino acids required for only one protein-protein interaction is very low.... It is especially low because Behe requires all of the three or four mutations needed to create such an interaction to arise simultaneously. ...When you consider the thousands of proteins in a cell that interact with others, some with as many as five or six others, evolution looks impossible.
Wrong. If it looks impossible, this is only because of Behe’s bizarre and unrealistic assumption that for a protein-protein interaction to evolve, all mutations must occur simultaneously, because the step-by-step path is not adaptive. Yet Behe furnishes no proof, no convincing argument, that interactions cannot evolve gradually. In fact, interactions between proteins, like any complex interaction, were certainly built up step by mutational step, with each change producing an interaction scrutinized by selection and retained if it enhanced an organism’s fitness.... At the end, you get what we see today: many proteins interacting strongly and specifically.
What seems improbable in a single leap becomes much more likely when it evolves gradually, step by step. ...But now let us build the adaptation step by step, as evolutionary theory dictates. You start by rolling the first die, and keep rolling it until a six comes up.
When it does, you keep that die (a successful first step in the adaptation) and move on to the next one....This sequential way of getting twenty sixes is infinitely faster than Behe’s method. And this is the way natural selection and mutation really work, not by the ludicrous scenario presented by Behe....
Consider the evolution of whales from terrestrial animals, now documented by a superb fossil record. The fossils show a wolf-like creature gradually becoming aquatic, with the hind limbs being reduced and finally lost...How can anyone say that these changes (which of course look planned at the end) are unconnected or incoherent? They represent a case of natural selection eventually turning a land animal into a well-adapted aquatic one. Not surprisingly, Behe ignores the fact the evolutionists have indeed determined whether mutations are random. Instead, he asserts that randomness is simply assumed by biologists because “the dominant theory [evolution] requires it.” That is, all evolutionists are dupes. But for several decades molecular biologists have tested in the laboratory Behe’s assumption of non-andomness: that the probability of a mutation being useful increases when a species is exposed to a new environment. These experiments have all failed. As far as we can see, mutations really are random with respect to the “needs” of the organism. There is no reason to assume otherwise..."​

And unlike you or the 5 creationist essays I looked for links to the original in (and found none, other than broken links), here is the source.

Darwin apparently also recognized this problem, as he wrote in Origin of Species:

"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."

Little did he know just how complex DNA would be.

LOL!

Funny stuff - see above. So you DIDN'T read the source! Hilarious. AND you did the classic creationist editing trick! Classic!

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

If a mutation doesn't become fixed in a population, then no one evolved to another level. This is basic stuff.

"another level"? What does that even mean?

If a mutation doesn't become fixed, then it gets lost in the pages of genetic history.
So what?