See Message 36 for examples, one from 1915 that shows a mutation causing white eyes arising. Now in Jonathan Wells' view this may be "defective" but the eyes work as well as the red ones.
Drosophila collected from the wild have dark red eyes. That's all you need to know to conclude that "white eye" is a deleterious defect. If it worked "as well" then it would not be eliminated from wild populations.
Drosophila collected from the wild have dark red eyes. That's all you need to know to conclude that "white eye" is a deleterious defect. If it worked "as well" then it would not be eliminated from wild populations.
In creationist speak all mutations are defects, regardless of their benefits in different ecologies. This term means nothing when so used.
Drosophila collected from the wild have dark red eyes. That's all you need to know to conclude that "white eye" is a deleterious defect. If it worked "as well" then it would not be eliminated from wild populations.
Has it actually been tested in the wild or is this just a lie for the gullible readers? No, it is not "all you need to know" -- that is a lie.
Or it means they are better suited for twilight conditions, a different ecology. That is how evolution utilizes new traits -- whether or not they can expand into different ecologies -- such as the black pocket mice.
No, it looks like Jonathon Wells was not telling the whole truth. He was telling you what you wanted to hear and nothing more.
Nor does this argument show that the mutation was not a different trait that evolved in the lab, that it was not due to a mutation in the lab population, and that it therefore did not add to the diversity within the lab population -- which is Faith's claim.
Drosophila collected from the wild have dark red eyes. That's all you need to know to conclude that "white eye" is a deleterious defect.
This is just an attempt to label all changes as deleterious, no matter what they are. If you were given a time machine and got to see every generation in the human lineage starting with the common ancestor we share with chimps, you would call each and every change "deleterious" and label modern humans as hopelessly damaged.
That's all you need to know to conclude that "white eye" is a deleterious defect. If it worked "as well" then it would not be eliminated from wild populations.
You can't predict what evolution 'would do" like that. If lions eat the slow zebras then everything slower than a zebra "would" be extinct because the lions would eat them first. The facts don't support the conclusion.
The first sentence in the EN article you posted is:
quote:When fossils failed to demonstrate that animals evolved from a common ancestor, evolutionary scientists turned to another type of evidence — DNA sequence data — to demonstrate a tree of life.
The opening statement is so misleading and dishonest that there really is no need for me to examine the claims of the article further. Why do they do this? Obviously, the target audience wants to believe this statement to be true and so they accept it as true without scrutiny. And of course, you may in fact think the fossil record does not support common ancestry, but this statement makes it sound as if evolutionary scientists agree with that statement and so switched tactics in order to maintain their dogmatic position. Whether their conclusion about the fossil record is right or wrong, evolutionary scientists would maintain that the fossil record DOES support the conclusion of common descent and in fact is the primary reason for the acceptance of common ancestry.
But peruse the article I did and one thing I find conspicuously absent from the article... data! Where is the data? Instead of presenting the data, the author relies on quotes from articles that may not be accessible to the average reader. First off, based on the opening statement, I don't have much confidence in how the author uses quotes. Second, the claims he is making require evidence, not quotes.
Terrible article... written for the faithful.
But anyway...
quote:.when comparing the amino acid sequence of cytochrome C of a bacterium (a prokaryote) with such widely diverse eukaryotes as yeast, wheat, silkmoth, pigeon, and horse, all of these have practically the same percentage difference with the bacterium (64–69%). There is no intermediate cytochrome between prokaryotes and eukaryotes, and no hint that the ‘higher’ organism such as a horse has diverged more than the ‘lower’ organism such as the yeast.
The same sort of pattern is observed when comparing cytochrome C of the invertebrate silkmoth with the vertebrates lamprey, carp, turtle, pigeon, and horse. All the vertebrates are equally divergent from the silkmoth (27–30%). Yet again, comparing globins of a lamprey (a ‘primitive’ cyclostome or jawless fish) with a carp, frog, chicken, kangaroo, and human, they are all about equidistant (73–81%). Cytochrome C’s compared between a carp and a bullfrog, turtle, chicken, rabbit, and horse yield a constant difference of 13–14%. There is no trace of any transitional series of cyclostome → fish → amphibian → reptile → mammal or bird.
Well, this is the very thing I hope to explore in this thread. What could an "intermediate cytochrome" look like? Would you know one if you saw it? What should we expect cytochrome divergence between "a carp and a bullfrog, turtle, chicken, rabbit, and horse" to be under a common descent hypothesis and/or a independent creation hypothesis? What would a " transitional series of cyclostome → fish → amphibian → reptile → mammal or bird" actually look like?
But we will be working with data, not quote mining.
HBD
** My free time should be clearing up somewhat in the next couple weeks, so I should be getting back to this soon.**
Whoever calls me ignorant shares my own opinion. Sorrowfully and tacitly I recognize my ignorance, when I consider how much I lack of what my mind in its craving for knowledge is sighing for... I console myself with the consideration that this belongs to our common nature. - Francesco Petrarca
"Nothing is easier than to persuade people who want to be persuaded and already believe." - another Petrarca gem.
Ignorance is a most formidable opponent rivaled only by arrogance; but when the two join forces, one is all but invincible.
Yes there are thousands of studies on fruit flies. Embryologist Jonathan Wells sums up the research on fruit fly mutations. "There are only 3 possible outcomes: A normal fruit fly, a defective fruit fly, or a dead fruit fly." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0BdziP3HBs at 6:00
Youtube videos are not valid scientific references. You should know that.
The facts do support the conclusion. It is almost inevitable that the white eye mutation has occurred in the wild and it has not persisted so we can conclude that it is a deleterious mutation. This is further confirmed by the quote from the ncbi. I suppose we could release white eye fruit flies into the wild and see what happens, and my prediction is that the trait would not survive.
If we can't predict what evolution 'would do", then evolution has no predictive capacity; we just look at what happens and say evolution would predict that.
It is almost inevitable that the white eye mutation has occurred in the wild and it has not persisted so we can conclude that it is a deleterious mutation.
It's premature to conclude that white-eyed fruit flies don't exit in the wild BECAUSE of the mutation. Have you considered any other possible explanations?
CRR writes:
I suppose we could release white eye fruit flies into the wild and see what happens...
Why don't creationists ever DO that? Where are the experiments?
CRR writes:
If we can't predict what evolution 'would do", then evolution has no predictive capacity;
That isn't what predictive capacity is about. Evolution predicts, for example that dark moths on dark trees have a better chance of surviving to pass on the dark trait - and that is what we observe.
What you can NOT do is predict that there shoulda/woulda/coulda been white-eyed fruit flies and if there aren't then evolution is wrong.
It is almost inevitable that the white eye mutation has occurred in the wild and it has not persisted so we can conclude that it is a deleterious mutation.
It's premature to conclude that white-eyed fruit flies don't exit in the wild BECAUSE of the mutation. Have you considered any other possible explanations?
What I have trouble with is assuming that because this mutation occurred in the lab that it would also occur in the wild -- the probability of two such mutations occurring is really very very small. Saying they don't exist in the wild is like saying they don't have blue or gold eyed flies in the wild, so those would be deleterious in the wild. It's lying by omission.
What I have trouble with is assuming that because this mutation occurred in the lab that it would also occur in the wild
It's quite likely that if it happened in a short time in a small laboratory population then it will also have happened in a much longer time in a much larger wild population.
However the effects of this mutation have also been documented showing clearly that it is detrimental and not beneficial.
And even deleterious changes are additional evidence and confirmation of both the fact of evolution and the Theory of Evolution.
Deleterious changes which are removed by selection are called purifying selection and this is required in both the ToE and Creationism to prevent error catastrophy from destroying species. But since that acts to preserve the current allele frequencies it does not result even in microevolution!
But the Theory of evolution requires much more. Since it hypothesizes ascent from a microbial ancestor with a minimal genome (which appeared by unspecified magical means) the evidence must show that beneficial mutations that increase the genome can occur in a cumulative manner within the time available. Deleterious changes do not support that at all.
Darwin had sufficient evidence to propose this as a hypothesis but the evidence since then is predominantly against it.
It's quite likely that if it happened in a short time in a small laboratory population then it will also have happened in a much longer time in a much larger wild population.
Why?
What's the probability of a specified mutation occurring? (and isn't that a favorite IDologist argument?)
However the effects of this mutation have also been documented showing clearly that it is detrimental and not beneficial.
In one ecology. Has it been tested in all ecologies? When a black fur mutation occurs in a tan mouse population wouldn't that be clearly detrimental and not beneficial in the tan mouse ecology, but does that also mean it is clearly detrimental and not beneficial in a black lava bed ecology? It is the ecology that determines fitness, not the mutations.
Methinks you are assuming what you want to be without sufficient data\evidence.
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