Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
i certainly appreciate newhopes posts
they are always backed up by scientific articles and the information she presents gives the other side of the coin...the side that most of you keep ignoring
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Creationist - What about Evolution you disagree with?
- Thread starter Big_TJ
- Start date
i certainly appreciate newhopes posts
they are always backed up by scientific articles and the information she presents gives the other side of the coin...the side that most of you keep ignoring
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
i disagree with the assumption that one creature will slowly change into an entirely different creature
EG:
the reason being that there is simply not enough time for this sort of evolution to have occured.
Please show your math. thank you.
Jose Fly
Fisker of men
The problem NewHope, is you totally ignore substantive rebuttals and direct questions, as I will now demonstrate.
Don't confuse your poor understanding with the state of the actual science. Documented mutations that increase fitness are a dime a dozen...
Mutations That Increase the Life Span of C. elegans Inhibit Tumor Growth
evolution resistance HIV - Google Scholar
Herbicide Resistant Weeds
Extraordinary Flux in Sex Ratio
A Retrotransposon-Mediated Gene Duplication Underlies Morphological Variation of Tomato Fruit
Evolutionary adaptation to temperature. VIII. Effe... [Evolution. 2001] - PubMed result
You want to keep going?
Genetic drift is simply a result of mathematical sampling error. When an allele arises in a population, it may or may not be fixed not only due to selective pressures, but simple random sampling.
The mathematics behind genetic drift have been around for literally decades. The famous population geneticist Sewell Wright first coined the term "drift" in 1929! So your suggestion that it is only now being proposed is incorrect.
You're disputing that alleles can be fixed in a population? Really? Before I post examples of exactly that, I want to make sure that's truly what you're arguing.
　
How about you tell us exactly what these debates are? Don't just copy and paste, tell us in your own words what you think they're about.
If that's the case, then are examples of geologically rapid evolution and speciation contradictory to Sanford's arguments?
And we have examples of increases in genetic variation in populations. So what?
What exactly do you mean here? And again, don't respond with yet another copy and paste; tell us in your own words what you're talking about.
Right, there are differing views among paleontologists about the evolutionary history of birds, i.e. whether they're descended from dinosaurs, some other group, or share a common ancestor with them.
Again, so what? What exactly is your point?
No there aren't, and no they haven't. Simply writing something up and posting it on a website is not "refuting the ToE". If that were the case, then heliocentrism has been refuted as well, because there are credentialed scientists who have posted material on the web that they claim refutes it.
If bone fide scientists have refuted evolutionary theory, why haven't they published it in the professional literature? And don't baldly assert grand conspiracies unless you can provide direct evidence of them. Show the paper these researchers submitted and the rejection letters they received from the journals. Anything less, and you're just making up conspiracy theories to excuse away inconvenient reality.
Now, I'm betting that you're going to ignore this post or at least won't directly answer the questions in it. So the ball is in your court...are you going to confirm the general impression folks have formed of you here (i.e. a stereotype of the worst kind of creationist) or are you going to step up to the plate and address the data and answer questions?
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Jose Fly
Fisker of men
Again, I fail to see how stubbornly refusing to even recognize reality is a positive attribute, especially when someone claims the longer they do it, the more it's a virtue.
But if she keeps it up, you apparently think that's something to be admired?
Jose Fly
Fisker of men
Can you show an example of a published scientific paper where that "one creature will slowly change into an entirely different creature" is merely an assumption?
Why not?
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
I hope I will not be violating forum rules by sharing this excerpt from a wonderful essay by Sir Isaac Asimov, which sheds light on our discussion. Although long, anyone who has not read it can benefit from it.
newhope argues that since recent research shows that the earth has a slight bulge, the theory that it is round is wrong, and the earth is actually flat. I will allow Mr. Asimov to explain why this is incorrect.
In the early days of civilization, the general feeling was that the earth was flat. This was not because people were stupid, or because they were intent on believing silly things. They felt it was flat on the basis of sound evidence.
...
Another way of looking at it is to ask what is the "curvature" of the earth's surface Over a considerable length, how much does the surface deviate (on the average) from perfect flatness. The flat-earth theory would make it seem that the surface doesn't deviate from flatness at all, that its curvature is 0 to the mile.
Nowadays, of course, we are taught that the flat-earth theory is wrong; that it is all wrong, terribly wrong, absolutely. But it isn't. The curvature of the earth is nearly 0 per mile, so that although the flat-earth theory is wrong, it happens to be nearly right. That's why the theory lasted so long...
Mind you, even a tiny difference, such as that between 0 and 0.000126, can be extremely important. That difference mounts up. The earth cannot be mapped over large areas with any accuracy at all if the difference isn't taken into account and if the earth isn't considered a sphere rather than a flat surface. Long ocean voyages can't be undertaken with any reasonable way of locating one's own position in the ocean unless the earth is considered spherical rather than flat.
Furthermore, the flat earth presupposes the possibility of an infinite earth, or of the existence of an "end" to the surface. The spherical earth, however, postulates an earth that is both endless and yet finite, and it is the latter postulate that is consistent with all later findings.
So, although the flat-earth theory is only slightly wrong and is a credit to its inventors, all things considered, it is wrong enough to be discarded in favor of the spherical-earth theory.
And yet is the earth a sphere?
No, it is not a sphere; not in the strict mathematical sense. A sphere has certain mathematical properties--for instance, all diameters (that is, all straight lines that pass from one point on its surface, through the center, to another point on its surface) have the same length.
That, however, is not true of the earth. Various diameters of the earth differ in length.
What gave people the notion the earth wasn't a true sphere? To begin with, the sun and the moon have outlines that are perfect circles within the limits of measurement in the early days of the telescope. This is consistent with the supposition that the sun and the moon are perfectly spherical in shape.
However, when Jupiter and Saturn were observed by the first telescopic observers, it became quickly apparent that the outlines of those planets were not circles, but distinct eclipses. That meant that Jupiter and Saturn were not true spheres.
Isaac Newton, toward the end of the seventeenth century, showed that a massive body would form a sphere under the pull of gravitational forces (exactly as Aristotle had argued), but only if it were not rotating. If it were rotating, a centrifugal effect would be set up that would lift the body's substance against gravity, and this effect would be greater the closer to the equator you progressed. The effect would also be greater the more rapidly a spherical object rotated, and Jupiter and Saturn rotated very rapidly indeed.
The earth rotated much more slowly than Jupiter or Saturn so the effect should be smaller, but it should still be there. Actual measurements of the curvature of the earth were carried out in the eighteenth century and Newton was proved correct.
The earth has an equatorial bulge, in other words. It is flattened at the poles. It is an "oblate spheroid" rather than a sphere. This means that the various diameters of the earth differ in length. The longest diameters are any of those that stretch from one point on the equator to an opposite point on the equator. This "equatorial diameter" is 12,755 kilometers (7,927 miles). The shortest diameter is from the North Pole to the South Pole and this "polar diameter" is 12,711 kilometers (7,900 miles).
The difference between the longest and shortest diameters is 44 kilometers (27 miles), and that means that the "oblateness" of the earth (its departure from true sphericity) is 44/12755, or 0.0034. This amounts to l/3 of 1 percent.
To put it another way, on a flat surface, curvature is 0 per mile everywhere. On the earth's spherical surface, curvature is 0.000126 per mile everywhere (or 8 inches per mile). On the earth's oblate spheroidal surface, the curvature varies from 7.973 inches to the mile to 8.027 inches to the mile.
The correction in going from spherical to oblate spheroidal is much smaller than going from flat to spherical. Therefore, although the notion of the earth as a sphere is wrong, strictly speaking, it is not as wrong as the notion of the earth as flat.
Even the oblate-spheroidal notion of the earth is wrong, strictly speaking. In 1958, when the satellite Vanguard I was put into orbit about the earth, it was able to measure the local gravitational pull of the earth--and therefore its shape--with unprecedented precision. It turned out that the equatorial bulge south of the equator was slightly bulgier than the bulge north of the equator, and that the South Pole sea level was slightly nearer the center of the earth than the North Pole sea level was.
... the pearlike deviation from oblate-spheroid perfect was a matter of yards rather than miles, and the adjustment of curvature was in the millionths of an inch per mile.
In short, my English Lit friend, living in a mental world of absolute rights and wrongs, may be imagining that because all theories are wrong, the earth may be thought spherical now, but cubical next century, and a hollow icosahedron the next, and a doughnut shape the one after.
What actually happens is that once scientists get hold of a good concept they gradually refine and extend it with greater and greater subtlety as their instruments of measurement improve. Theories are not so much wrong as incomplete.
This can be pointed out in many cases other than just the shape of the earth. Even when a new theory seems to represent a revolution, it usually arises out of small refinements. If something more than a small refinement were needed, then the old theory would never have endured.
Copernicus switched from an earth-centered planetary system to a sun-centered one. In doing so, he switched from something that was obvious to something that was apparently ridiculous. However, it was a matter of finding better ways of calculating the motion of the planets in the sky, and eventually the geocentric theory was just left behind. It was precisely because the old theory gave results that were fairly good by the measurement standards of the time that kept it in being so long.
Again, it is because the geological formations of the earth change so slowly and the living things upon it evolve so slowly that it seemed reasonable at first to suppose that there was no change and that the earth and life always existed as they do today. If that were so, it would make no difference whether the earth and life were billions of years old or thousands. Thousands were easier to grasp.
But when careful observation showed that the earth and life were changing at a rate that was very tiny but not zero, then it became clear that the earth and life had to be very old. Modern geology came into being, and so did the notion of biological evolution.
If the rate of change were more rapid, geology and evolution would have reached their modern state in ancient times. It is only because the difference between the rate of change in a static universe and the rate of change in an evolutionary one is that between zero and very nearly zero that the creationists can continue propagating their folly.
Since the refinements in theory grow smaller and smaller, even quite ancient theories must have been sufficiently right to allow advances to be made; advances that were not wiped out by subsequent refinements.
The Greeks introduced the notion of latitude and longitude, for instance, and made reasonable maps of the Mediterranean basin even without taking sphericity into account, and we still use latitude and longitude today. The Sumerians were probably the first to establish the principle that planetary movements in the sky exhibit regularity and can be predicted, and they proceeded to work out ways of doing so even though they assumed the earth to be the center of the universe. Their measurements have been enormously refined but the principle remains.
Naturally, the theories we now have might be considered wrong in the simplistic sense... but in a much truer and subtler sense, they need only be considered incomplete.
newhope argues that since recent research shows that the earth has a slight bulge, the theory that it is round is wrong, and the earth is actually flat. I will allow Mr. Asimov to explain why this is incorrect.
In the early days of civilization, the general feeling was that the earth was flat. This was not because people were stupid, or because they were intent on believing silly things. They felt it was flat on the basis of sound evidence.
...
Another way of looking at it is to ask what is the "curvature" of the earth's surface Over a considerable length, how much does the surface deviate (on the average) from perfect flatness. The flat-earth theory would make it seem that the surface doesn't deviate from flatness at all, that its curvature is 0 to the mile.
Nowadays, of course, we are taught that the flat-earth theory is wrong; that it is all wrong, terribly wrong, absolutely. But it isn't. The curvature of the earth is nearly 0 per mile, so that although the flat-earth theory is wrong, it happens to be nearly right. That's why the theory lasted so long...
Mind you, even a tiny difference, such as that between 0 and 0.000126, can be extremely important. That difference mounts up. The earth cannot be mapped over large areas with any accuracy at all if the difference isn't taken into account and if the earth isn't considered a sphere rather than a flat surface. Long ocean voyages can't be undertaken with any reasonable way of locating one's own position in the ocean unless the earth is considered spherical rather than flat.
Furthermore, the flat earth presupposes the possibility of an infinite earth, or of the existence of an "end" to the surface. The spherical earth, however, postulates an earth that is both endless and yet finite, and it is the latter postulate that is consistent with all later findings.
So, although the flat-earth theory is only slightly wrong and is a credit to its inventors, all things considered, it is wrong enough to be discarded in favor of the spherical-earth theory.
And yet is the earth a sphere?
No, it is not a sphere; not in the strict mathematical sense. A sphere has certain mathematical properties--for instance, all diameters (that is, all straight lines that pass from one point on its surface, through the center, to another point on its surface) have the same length.
That, however, is not true of the earth. Various diameters of the earth differ in length.
What gave people the notion the earth wasn't a true sphere? To begin with, the sun and the moon have outlines that are perfect circles within the limits of measurement in the early days of the telescope. This is consistent with the supposition that the sun and the moon are perfectly spherical in shape.
However, when Jupiter and Saturn were observed by the first telescopic observers, it became quickly apparent that the outlines of those planets were not circles, but distinct eclipses. That meant that Jupiter and Saturn were not true spheres.
Isaac Newton, toward the end of the seventeenth century, showed that a massive body would form a sphere under the pull of gravitational forces (exactly as Aristotle had argued), but only if it were not rotating. If it were rotating, a centrifugal effect would be set up that would lift the body's substance against gravity, and this effect would be greater the closer to the equator you progressed. The effect would also be greater the more rapidly a spherical object rotated, and Jupiter and Saturn rotated very rapidly indeed.
The earth rotated much more slowly than Jupiter or Saturn so the effect should be smaller, but it should still be there. Actual measurements of the curvature of the earth were carried out in the eighteenth century and Newton was proved correct.
The earth has an equatorial bulge, in other words. It is flattened at the poles. It is an "oblate spheroid" rather than a sphere. This means that the various diameters of the earth differ in length. The longest diameters are any of those that stretch from one point on the equator to an opposite point on the equator. This "equatorial diameter" is 12,755 kilometers (7,927 miles). The shortest diameter is from the North Pole to the South Pole and this "polar diameter" is 12,711 kilometers (7,900 miles).
The difference between the longest and shortest diameters is 44 kilometers (27 miles), and that means that the "oblateness" of the earth (its departure from true sphericity) is 44/12755, or 0.0034. This amounts to l/3 of 1 percent.
To put it another way, on a flat surface, curvature is 0 per mile everywhere. On the earth's spherical surface, curvature is 0.000126 per mile everywhere (or 8 inches per mile). On the earth's oblate spheroidal surface, the curvature varies from 7.973 inches to the mile to 8.027 inches to the mile.
The correction in going from spherical to oblate spheroidal is much smaller than going from flat to spherical. Therefore, although the notion of the earth as a sphere is wrong, strictly speaking, it is not as wrong as the notion of the earth as flat.
Even the oblate-spheroidal notion of the earth is wrong, strictly speaking. In 1958, when the satellite Vanguard I was put into orbit about the earth, it was able to measure the local gravitational pull of the earth--and therefore its shape--with unprecedented precision. It turned out that the equatorial bulge south of the equator was slightly bulgier than the bulge north of the equator, and that the South Pole sea level was slightly nearer the center of the earth than the North Pole sea level was.
... the pearlike deviation from oblate-spheroid perfect was a matter of yards rather than miles, and the adjustment of curvature was in the millionths of an inch per mile.
In short, my English Lit friend, living in a mental world of absolute rights and wrongs, may be imagining that because all theories are wrong, the earth may be thought spherical now, but cubical next century, and a hollow icosahedron the next, and a doughnut shape the one after.
What actually happens is that once scientists get hold of a good concept they gradually refine and extend it with greater and greater subtlety as their instruments of measurement improve. Theories are not so much wrong as incomplete.
This can be pointed out in many cases other than just the shape of the earth. Even when a new theory seems to represent a revolution, it usually arises out of small refinements. If something more than a small refinement were needed, then the old theory would never have endured.
Copernicus switched from an earth-centered planetary system to a sun-centered one. In doing so, he switched from something that was obvious to something that was apparently ridiculous. However, it was a matter of finding better ways of calculating the motion of the planets in the sky, and eventually the geocentric theory was just left behind. It was precisely because the old theory gave results that were fairly good by the measurement standards of the time that kept it in being so long.
Again, it is because the geological formations of the earth change so slowly and the living things upon it evolve so slowly that it seemed reasonable at first to suppose that there was no change and that the earth and life always existed as they do today. If that were so, it would make no difference whether the earth and life were billions of years old or thousands. Thousands were easier to grasp.
But when careful observation showed that the earth and life were changing at a rate that was very tiny but not zero, then it became clear that the earth and life had to be very old. Modern geology came into being, and so did the notion of biological evolution.
If the rate of change were more rapid, geology and evolution would have reached their modern state in ancient times. It is only because the difference between the rate of change in a static universe and the rate of change in an evolutionary one is that between zero and very nearly zero that the creationists can continue propagating their folly.
Since the refinements in theory grow smaller and smaller, even quite ancient theories must have been sufficiently right to allow advances to be made; advances that were not wiped out by subsequent refinements.
The Greeks introduced the notion of latitude and longitude, for instance, and made reasonable maps of the Mediterranean basin even without taking sphericity into account, and we still use latitude and longitude today. The Sumerians were probably the first to establish the principle that planetary movements in the sky exhibit regularity and can be predicted, and they proceeded to work out ways of doing so even though they assumed the earth to be the center of the universe. Their measurements have been enormously refined but the principle remains.
Naturally, the theories we now have might be considered wrong in the simplistic sense... but in a much truer and subtler sense, they need only be considered incomplete.
McBell
Unbound
Based on what time line?
Skwim
Veteran Member
And I would agree if I too was a creationist, but unlike yourself I'm not bound by a literal reading of Genesis and required to fit the whole of history into 6,000 ± years.
RitalinO.D.
Well-Known Member
And yet, you have still not answered why you a self proclaimed OEC puts so much stake, to the point of downright defending, a self-proclaimed YEC. I even posted the source showing the data disproving YEC theory, and you still ignore it. Oh, I know why, because you have no answer for it. So you pick and choose the topics you can refute (poorly), skip the rest, and then pretend that you knew all along how they were going to refute your lies.
SO I'll ask once again, although I think I can predict the outcome, why do you defend a person who's beliefs are so contradictory to yours?
Dirty Penguin
Master Of Ceremony
I wish I had figured out this pattern long ago. I would have wasted my time with them.
I think I keep the dates going because I hate it when the last word is an ignorant last word from a creationist/IDer.... :sad:
Dirty Penguin
Master Of Ceremony
Maybe it's just easier to repeat from the script? Honestly that is how it feels sometimes.
wa:do
Yes.....I feel that way too. It's like all her arguments are save in a word document or something.....
The Neo Nerd
Well-Known Member
Actually if you go back and look you will find that a lot of her posted articles have been rebutted and she is the one that ignores the rebuttal.
I think now they dont bother rebutting because there's no point she wont respond.
The Neo Nerd
Well-Known Member
Again, I fail to see how stubbornly refusing to even recognize reality is a positive attribute, especially when someone claims the longer they do it, the more it's a virtue.
But if she keeps it up, you apparently think that's something to be admired?
Maybe not a positive attribute but fascinating.
I'm a psych student this type of behaviour is of incredible interest to me.
Alceste
Vagabond
You should read the True Believer by Eric Hoffer. Although it is purely speculative, it shed some light on this sort of behavior for me.
Alceste
Vagabond
i disagree with the assumption that one creature will slowly change into an entirely different creature
EG:
the reason being that there is simply not enough time for this sort of evolution to have occured.
How much time would it take, Pegg?
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
i am quoting from Dr Gerald Schroeder's book 'the science of God'. This sets up the context of what the statistical calculation is based on: (next post will be the statistics themselves)
page 108
"Life can be seen as a combination of proteins...for life form to persist in this environment we call our home, a very special combination of proteins is required.
Humans have approximately 30,000 genes (the number of genes reported varies according to the analytic technique used, between approx 20,000 to in exess of 80,000.)
All mammals have a similar number though not necessarily the same genes. 30,000 genes implies approximately 30,000 proteins. Proteins are strings and coils of between a few hundred and in excess of 1,000 amino acids. The 30,000 genes would then be organizing some thiry million amino acids into specific structures. These make up to 30-70 trillion cells of a healthy human. Can this arrangement be the result of random selection? Lets look at a few numbers."
He looks at the possiblity of the eye being formed and looks at the statistical improbability of it occurring unguided.
Page 111
Let us assume in the most optimistic case that all the genes needed for the complexity of eye development and function were neutrally present in some once celled eyeless organism that was an ancestor common to all animal phyla. Mutations would then "merely" need to activate these preexisting, non expressed genes and the eye would form in the new animal. Although this stretches the credibility of the argument to its limit, it would certainly simplify the convergent process.
The gene that controls the development of all eyes has been found to be the same in all phyla. This implies it originated in a putative pre-Cambrian ancestor. The puzzle arises as to why these ancestral eyeless forms of life would have harbored a gene that was eventually to direct eye development in higher organisms. If the gene was used for another purpose in the ancestor, the puzzle deepens when we consider that not only has the structure of the gene been retained in the all visual system of all the diverse phyla, but also its function in these diverse phyla is the same. Lets take a very conservative guess at what it takes to make an eye. Assume there are just 1,000 mutational steps that led to an eye in the formerly light-sensitive but sightless species. If each mutation reflected a change of one nucleotide base on the DNA molecule, the `1,000 mutation would represent a change in less then one millionth of the total number of nucleotides present in the genome.
A bundle of nerve fibers must extend from the brain...The surface at which the light sensitive cells are located must invaginate. Thsi probably occurs gradually, not as a single massive recession of that spot. The structures ofthe eye must all develop. A thousand steps is probably a minimum but in this analysis, if I err, I want to err "in favor of" evolution.
If the evolutionary model that we choose is such that each of the thousand steps in our hypothetical mutation must be in sequence and any erroneous or out of order mutation is fatal, the number of trials required in the process is 4~1000 or in the usual decimal notation 10~600. That is one with six hundred zeros after i! And that is just to get the information of an eye to the brain. We didnt start the processing of that information by the brain. But this model is too strict. All "erroneous" mutations, for example, may not be fatal. It is possible to envision a sequence in which the thousand steps can be accomplished with far fewer then the 10~600 random trials.
With the statics of probability, it is not the mathematics that is difficult. The difficulty is choosing a model that reasonably approximates the real world. If we take the most "optimistic" or forgiving set os assumption in the thousand mutation sequence, then the difficulty of achieving the desired organ fades to triviality. Allow mutations to occur in any order with no fatalities for incorrect mutation. Assume that the correct mutations are retained (that is they are locked into the DNA and never muted away) and allow all of the thousand potential sites which do not yet have the correct nucleotide base to mutate each generation. Of course with such a high mutation rate there is no change that there would be no fatalities, but for this 'forgiving' model we will assume there are none. We want to calculate the likelihood (probability) that a mutation will successfully cause the correct nucleotide to occupy the correct site on DNA molecule and so produce the correct amino acid. The probability of success (p) is one minus the probability of failure (q), or: p=1-q
In our extraordinarily optimistic mode3l, each of the thousand sites acts independently. Only one of the four nucleotides is correct for each site. Therefore, three of the four are incorrect. Hence in one trial
p = 1 - 3/4 = 1/4 = 0.25
There is a 25 percent probability that we will have a succesful mutation with the first try.
With mulitple trials, p = 1 - qr (r is the number of trials)
With this model, after a mere ten generations, there is a 94 percent probability that the goal will have been reached. With twenty generations, the probability of success is 99.7 percent. Quite a difference from our former 10~600 trials.
Obviously this overly forgiving model bears no resemblance to reality. Nonetheless, Dawkins uses a similar model to demonstrate the power of random mutations in the evolutionary process. Dawkins took a random string of twenty eight letters and then had a computer randomly change them into any one of 27 variations....in a mere 45 generations, the letter string 'mutated' into a previously selected verse from Shakespeare, "methinks it is like a weasel". With all the letter slots mutating independently, each generation and all 'correct' mutations locked into place, the probability equation shows that Dawkins 45 trials give an 80 percent certainty of successfully producing the chosen sentence...Dawkins model had a known goal and worked toward that goal, knowing which letters it wanted in each of the twenty eight slots. It is an ideal demonstration of 'directed' evolution. yet he parades this model as proof for the effectiveness of random mutations reaching a desired end. It is pure deception."
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
Now he looks at reality and the statistical probability for convergent evolution...the figures come up quite different when the reality of nature is included in the sum.
"I want to learn the statistical probability that nature will produce independently by random mutations, two structures that are externally similar, although they may use different proteins in their construction. The parameters of this development are speculative. Here I choose a plausible though quite forgiving or lenient model... There will be no fatalities or wrong mutations. Each mutation will provide a 1 percent benefit..Population size is 100,000 individuals. ...mutations must be in sequence (eg. no lens before we have a light sensitive region). Each beneficial mutation will be permanently stored on the DNA. ...These mutations are significant only if they occur in sexually mature reproductive cells, that is, in gametes. A mutation in, for example, an individuals skin will not be passed on to that individuals progeny.
If we take data applicable to existing animals, reported mutation rates of gametes range from one mutation in ten matings to one per 100,000 matings. Of course that mutation might not occur within the thousand bases we are seeking to change. If the entire genome contains 3 x 10~9 base pairs in humans, is vying for the one mutation, then there is only approximately one chance in a million that the mutation will occur within the thousand bases of interest here.
With a population of 100,000 individuals, even assuming the high reported mutation rate of one mutation in 10 matings, there will be 5,000 base mutations per generation. If the genome of interest contains 10~8 base pairs, there will be only one mutation within 1,000 bases of interest for each 100 generations. If the genome contains 10~9 base pairs as in humans, 1,000 generations are required on average. And this mutation may not be correct.
In the simplest model, each point of the thousand DNA sites under consideration has one of four base possibilities, and all but one (ie 3,999) are incorrect. Again the probability of success is one minus the probability of failure. The probability of success is the first of the thousand sites is
P = 1 - [(3999/4000)n]r (p is the probability of success in r generations having n random mutations per generation)
In our example, n = 0.01, that is one mutation in the region of interest per one hundred generations. For these conditions of one mutation per ten matings and 100,000 matings per generation, a million generations are required to attain a 92 percent probability that the first of the thousand sites will be successfully filled. To achieve an 80 percent probability that all thousand slots will be filled with the mutants required to produce the convergent organ (in this example, the eye of the human mating, morphologically, the eye of the octopus), we require a trillion generations.
Generation times of protozoans are measured in days. The multi cellular forms of life observed five hundred million years ago in the early cambrian, if judged by their currently existing cousins, have a generation times of weeks or months. These rates provide the opportunity for multiple generations each year. Even so, with the above model, the thousand mutations required to orchestrate already existing genes would require in excess of hundreds of million of years. In contrast the fossil record indicates that the cambrian explosion occurred in five million years or less.
The era of the Cambrian explosion represents a time approximately of hundred million years after the molecular oxygen concentration in the atmosphere rose to a level able to support large multi-celluar animals. The increased availability of oxygen produced a tenfold improvement in the efficiency of energy extraction from the consumed foods. This may have been one of the missing ingredients that had helped keep life single-celled for the previous three billions years. With the newly found energy, life could develop larger, more complex structures....
If we increase the assumed mutation rate a hundred fold, the population of 100,000 individuals will experience one mutation per generation within a one thousand DNA spaces of interest. This would be equivalent to ten mutations within the entire genome for each animals mating. The convergent organ will now become dominant in the entire population after five to ten million generations. This includes the generations required for each mutation to spread throughout the population.
With the short generation times of thees relatively simple animals, the convergent organ appears within the time frame presented by the fossil record. But keep in mind that to achieve this convergence we have boosted the rate of gamete mutations a hundredfold over the highest rates currently reported while maintaining the conditions that no mutations were fatal and all proper mutations were locked in - that is , they could not be lost by subsequent detrimental mutations. With a hundredfold increase in mutation rate, retaining these favorable mutations stretches plausibility beyond its limits.
More significantly , we assumed the genes were already present in an ancestor and merely needed to be activated by these mutations. If the genes themselves had to be formed by random reactions, the number of needed mutations increases by more then a hundredfold.
Convergent evolution by random mutations of the DNA nucleotides becomes statistcally so highly improbably as to be functionally, impossible.
The implications of this have led researchers to report in the journal Science, "the concept that the eyes of invertebrates have evolved completely independently from the vertebrate eye has to be reexamined"
An article in this most highly respected journal has asked for a reexamination of the process of evolution! The significance of this statement must not be lost. This genetic similarity is so extensive that it "strongly argues for a common developmental origin" Convergent traits among animals of different phyla have challenged the very basis of evolutionary theory: the hypothesis
that traits develop independently, initiated at the molecular level by random-point mutations.
...In these speculations we investigated changing one organ. But in the five-million year transition from pre-Cambrian to Cambrian life, the basic anatomy of every animal alive today developed. Massive morphological changes were required in every part of the ancestral genome. Even more confounding to the traditional logic of evolution, there is no evidence of evolution within the five million year span of the Cambrian explosion. Each animal in this era makes its appearance fully developed.
"I want to learn the statistical probability that nature will produce independently by random mutations, two structures that are externally similar, although they may use different proteins in their construction. The parameters of this development are speculative. Here I choose a plausible though quite forgiving or lenient model... There will be no fatalities or wrong mutations. Each mutation will provide a 1 percent benefit..Population size is 100,000 individuals. ...mutations must be in sequence (eg. no lens before we have a light sensitive region). Each beneficial mutation will be permanently stored on the DNA. ...These mutations are significant only if they occur in sexually mature reproductive cells, that is, in gametes. A mutation in, for example, an individuals skin will not be passed on to that individuals progeny.
If we take data applicable to existing animals, reported mutation rates of gametes range from one mutation in ten matings to one per 100,000 matings. Of course that mutation might not occur within the thousand bases we are seeking to change. If the entire genome contains 3 x 10~9 base pairs in humans, is vying for the one mutation, then there is only approximately one chance in a million that the mutation will occur within the thousand bases of interest here.
With a population of 100,000 individuals, even assuming the high reported mutation rate of one mutation in 10 matings, there will be 5,000 base mutations per generation. If the genome of interest contains 10~8 base pairs, there will be only one mutation within 1,000 bases of interest for each 100 generations. If the genome contains 10~9 base pairs as in humans, 1,000 generations are required on average. And this mutation may not be correct.
In the simplest model, each point of the thousand DNA sites under consideration has one of four base possibilities, and all but one (ie 3,999) are incorrect. Again the probability of success is one minus the probability of failure. The probability of success is the first of the thousand sites is
P = 1 - [(3999/4000)n]r (p is the probability of success in r generations having n random mutations per generation)
In our example, n = 0.01, that is one mutation in the region of interest per one hundred generations. For these conditions of one mutation per ten matings and 100,000 matings per generation, a million generations are required to attain a 92 percent probability that the first of the thousand sites will be successfully filled. To achieve an 80 percent probability that all thousand slots will be filled with the mutants required to produce the convergent organ (in this example, the eye of the human mating, morphologically, the eye of the octopus), we require a trillion generations.
Generation times of protozoans are measured in days. The multi cellular forms of life observed five hundred million years ago in the early cambrian, if judged by their currently existing cousins, have a generation times of weeks or months. These rates provide the opportunity for multiple generations each year. Even so, with the above model, the thousand mutations required to orchestrate already existing genes would require in excess of hundreds of million of years. In contrast the fossil record indicates that the cambrian explosion occurred in five million years or less.
The era of the Cambrian explosion represents a time approximately of hundred million years after the molecular oxygen concentration in the atmosphere rose to a level able to support large multi-celluar animals. The increased availability of oxygen produced a tenfold improvement in the efficiency of energy extraction from the consumed foods. This may have been one of the missing ingredients that had helped keep life single-celled for the previous three billions years. With the newly found energy, life could develop larger, more complex structures....
If we increase the assumed mutation rate a hundred fold, the population of 100,000 individuals will experience one mutation per generation within a one thousand DNA spaces of interest. This would be equivalent to ten mutations within the entire genome for each animals mating. The convergent organ will now become dominant in the entire population after five to ten million generations. This includes the generations required for each mutation to spread throughout the population.
With the short generation times of thees relatively simple animals, the convergent organ appears within the time frame presented by the fossil record. But keep in mind that to achieve this convergence we have boosted the rate of gamete mutations a hundredfold over the highest rates currently reported while maintaining the conditions that no mutations were fatal and all proper mutations were locked in - that is , they could not be lost by subsequent detrimental mutations. With a hundredfold increase in mutation rate, retaining these favorable mutations stretches plausibility beyond its limits.
More significantly , we assumed the genes were already present in an ancestor and merely needed to be activated by these mutations. If the genes themselves had to be formed by random reactions, the number of needed mutations increases by more then a hundredfold.
Convergent evolution by random mutations of the DNA nucleotides becomes statistcally so highly improbably as to be functionally, impossible.
The implications of this have led researchers to report in the journal Science, "the concept that the eyes of invertebrates have evolved completely independently from the vertebrate eye has to be reexamined"
An article in this most highly respected journal has asked for a reexamination of the process of evolution! The significance of this statement must not be lost. This genetic similarity is so extensive that it "strongly argues for a common developmental origin" Convergent traits among animals of different phyla have challenged the very basis of evolutionary theory: the hypothesis
that traits develop independently, initiated at the molecular level by random-point mutations.
...In these speculations we investigated changing one organ. But in the five-million year transition from pre-Cambrian to Cambrian life, the basic anatomy of every animal alive today developed. Massive morphological changes were required in every part of the ancestral genome. Even more confounding to the traditional logic of evolution, there is no evidence of evolution within the five million year span of the Cambrian explosion. Each animal in this era makes its appearance fully developed.
David M
Well-Known Member
This is one of the most laughable claims you see from creationists. This is especially true for literalist YECs who need multiple species to evolve from a single ancestor in mere centuries subsequent to Noah's flood.
David M
Well-Known Member
And what is his source of this claim? Because it is established fact that for humans there are over 100 mutations per offspring.
As one of his opening premises is demonstrably wrong his results are worthless.
Would you like to try again with a more reliable source?
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Alceste
Vagabond
Pegg, he assumes his conclusion. IOW, his calculations rest on the assumption that (for example), the eye was desired or intended, rather than just what we happened to end up with. If we had ended up with radar-emitting antenna instead of eyes, he would still be saying they were "intended" or "desired" and using the same calculations.
Also, probability calculations, though adored by creationists, are fundamentally flawed. This is because in order to calculate probability you need to know the exact number of possible mutations, the exact impact of each mutation on the reproductive success of every single organism in the universe, living and dead, accounting for their exact environmental circumstances, and an endless number of other factors. IOW, anyone who tells you they have "calculated" the exact probability of an eyeball is a charlatan, a madman or a fool.
Also, as he uses the term "random selection" it can be safely assumed he does not understand evolution at all.
Also, probability calculations, though adored by creationists, are fundamentally flawed. This is because in order to calculate probability you need to know the exact number of possible mutations, the exact impact of each mutation on the reproductive success of every single organism in the universe, living and dead, accounting for their exact environmental circumstances, and an endless number of other factors. IOW, anyone who tells you they have "calculated" the exact probability of an eyeball is a charlatan, a madman or a fool.
Also, as he uses the term "random selection" it can be safely assumed he does not understand evolution at all.