Zero probability for Evolution

[Revoltingest]

Natural selection is an oxymoron. Nothing is selecting.

Wrongo pongo.
I suspect a definition of "select" that doesn't always apply.

natural selection - definition and meaning
Excerpted....
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The process in nature by which, according to Darwin's theory of evolution, organisms that are better adapted to their environment tend to survive longer and transmit more of their genetic characteristics to succeeding generations than do those that are less well adapted.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun evolutionary biology A process by which heritable traits conferring survival and reproductive advantage to individuals, or related individuals, tend to be passed on to succeeding generations and become more frequent in a population, whereas other less favourable traits tend to become eliminated.
• noun quantitative genetics A process in which individual organisms or phenotypes that possess favourable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce: the differential survival and reproduction of phenotypes.

 

[Revoltingest]

That's the theory. But it doesn't work on a macro scale.

Crucial to the TOE (theory of evolution) is Earth being
around for billions of years. YECs don't accept this
premise, so I can understand why "God did it" makes
sense to them, ie, insufficient time for evolution to work.

 

[Altfish]

I'm an entity. I can react, I have intelligence. Are you trying to say a single cell has intelligence?

You haven't a clue about evolution and what it says, have you?

Imagine a species of animal living on an island. For whatever reason the climate changes and the temperature drops by 10 degrees.
Many of the species cannot survive this but those with the longer coats do survive and successfully breed. Their off-spring have long (er) coats and soon the species has adapted and changed to a long haired version of the original species.
This changed was not an accident, neither was it planned. It has nothing to do with intelligence.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Of course you can have order without planning. Look what happens to water when the temperature drops: it freezes. And ice crystals are more orderly than liquid water.

Or, look at the formation of stars due to gravity. Or any number of examples where the basic laws of physics and chemistry push things in one way as opposed to another.

Those physical laws are NOT random. And they quite often produce order with nobody planning it.

For that matter, look at the flat surface of a body of water. That is produced by gravity. Or look at the orderly waves on the water when something falls in. Those are orderly and nobody planned them.

I can go on and on.

Thanks for proving my point. The fact that the universe has laws and order proves it was designed that way.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Really? Why not? Little changes add up over generations, leading to large changes.

Micro changes are often actually losses of information, gene switches turned off. That doesn't get us from one life form to another. You can't add on what isn't there. It's like saying you can make a jet from a unicycle if you just rearrange the parts enough.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Wrongo pongo.
I suspect a definition of "select" that doesn't always apply.

natural selection - definition and meaning
Excerpted....
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The process in nature by which, according to Darwin's theory of evolution, organisms that are better adapted to their environment tend to survive longer and transmit more of their genetic characteristics to succeeding generations than do those that are less well adapted.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun evolutionary biology A process by which heritable traits conferring survival and reproductive advantage to individuals, or related individuals, tend to be passed on to succeeding generations and become more frequent in a population, whereas other less favourable traits tend to become eliminated.
• noun quantitative genetics A process in which individual organisms or phenotypes that possess favourable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce: the differential survival and reproduction of phenotypes.

Uh huh. The strong mutations win, right?
Only it doesn't actually work that way. Even a beneficial mutation can be lost due to random events, the animal gets taken out by predator, that mutation doesn't get passed on to anyone. Besides which, these are just adaptations within the DNA, they aren't new information. They can not magically transform the host into a new kind of animal.

 

[McBell]

Sure because life just formed from magic fairy dust, no agent needed ...

The only thing "GodDidIt" adds is another layer of questions.
It doesn't explain anything.

 

[ratiocinator]

The strong mutations win, right?
Only it doesn't actually work that way.

No, it's the best fit to the environment that 'wins' (tends to survive and produce more offspring).

Even a beneficial mutation can be lost due to random events, the animal gets taken out by predator, that mutation doesn't get passed on to anyone.

Totally irrelevant. This is a process that depends on time and on statistics. Of course some beneficial mutations will be lost, but many will survive and those will spread through the population.

Besides which, these are just adaptations within the DNA, they aren't new information.

Another baseless creationist claim. How do you define information and why, exactly, do you think mutations can't result in more of it?

They can not magically transform the host into a new kind of animal.

Lots and lots of small changes can add up to arbitrarily large ones. What do you think would limit that process?

 

[Wildswanderer]

You haven't a clue about evolution and what it says, have you?

Imagine a species of animal living on an island. For whatever reason the climate changes and the temperature drops by 10 degrees.
Many of the species cannot survive this but those with the longer coats do survive and successfully breed. Their off-spring have long (er) coats and soon the species has adapted and changed to a long haired version of the original species.
This changed was not an accident, neither was it planned. It has nothing to do with intelligence.

The information to adapt to their environment was already encoded in their DNA. I know a little about fur primeness. It's not what I would call evolution at all. Fur doesn't just change because of a colder environment, it's a result of photosynthesis. It changes as the days get shorter and darker.
Also body mass, etc, will change due to environmental conditions. No creationists are denying adaptation. So you're just throwing out a straw man.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Another baseless creationist claim. How do you define information and why, exactly, do you think mutations can't result in more of it?

" Information" is pretty self-explanatory.

DNA may become corrupted, but the basic information package, built into the original genome of every plant and animal, guarantees descendant generations will replicate the unique living organisms of ancestor parents. Mutations generally degrade DNA, they don't add to it. It's like saying the fact that you can turn off a light in a room in your house explains how the house was built.
How can the DNA of a fish become transformed into the DNA of a mammal?

 

[McBell]

DNA may become corrupted, but the basic information package, built into the original genome of every plant and animal, guarantees descendant generations will replicate the unique living organisms of ancestor parents.

I bet all the extinct species will be happy to hear that.....

 

[ratiocinator]

" Information" is pretty self-explanatory.

It isn't, actually and if you're going to make claims about it, you need to define it properly.

Mutations generally degrade DNA, they don't add to it.

Actually most mutations have little or no effect. A mutation is a change. It doesn't have a direction. Anything a mutation can do, it can also undo, so if (say) an AACTGT can mutate to ACCTGT and you insist that that is 'degrading' it or that it is less information, then the (equally probable) reverse mutation must be an upgrade or increase information.

See also: CB102: Mutations adding information

How can the DNA of a fish become transformed into the DNA of a mammal?

One tiny change at a time.

 

[Revoltingest]

Uh huh. The strong mutations win, right?

"Strong" doesn't apply. I'd say "beneficial".
When mutations are selected for by the "fitness function"
of natural selection, they're passed on in the gene pool.
Ref...
Fitness function - Wikipedia

Only it doesn't actually work that way. Even a beneficial mutation can be lost due to random events, the animal gets taken out by predator, that mutation doesn't get passed on to anyone. Besides which, these are just adaptations within the DNA, they aren't new information. They can not magically transform the host into a new kind of animal.

It's all about probability. Sure, a beneficial mutation can be
snuffed out. But there are many many lives over many many
years. There will be the tendency for mutations to survive &
propagate when they increase the specie's survivability &
procreation.
In short....
It's all about what's likely to happen
more than what can possibly happen.

 

[Wildswanderer]

One tiny change at a time.

Yes time! The magic wand in the ToE!
Throw in enough time and people will believe anything is possible.

 

[McBell]

Yes time! The magic wand in the ToE!
Throw in enough time and people will believe anything is possible.

Throw in a god and even more people with think anything is possible...

 

[Altfish]

The information to adapt to their environment was already encoded in their DNA. I know a little about fur primeness. It's not what I would call evolution at all. Fur doesn't just change because of a colder environment, it's a result of photosynthesis. It changes as the days get shorter and darker.
Also body mass, etc, will change due to environmental conditions. No creationists are denying adaptation. So you're just throwing out a straw man.

Please read up on evolution, and not from AiG

 

[Wildswanderer]

Throw in a god and even more people with think anything is possible...

But we don't pretend that we can explain God.
Athiests in particular, scoff at God, when they have no explanation for why they even exist.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Please read up on evolution, and not from AiG

I have, and it falls far short as an explanation of how different kinds of animals supposedly become other kinds.

 

[McBell]

I have, and it falls far short as an explanation of how different kinds of animals supposedly become other kinds.

Try again.
Only this time strive for comprehension....

 

[McBell]

But we don't pretend that we can explain God.
Athiests in particular, scoff at God, when they have no explanation for why they even exist.

So it is fine to make god claims with no explanation but atheists are to explain everything?
Are you seriously that proud of your double standards?