Where is the evidence for evolution?

My apologies, I may have been more specific the first time I posted the information. Look on page 8, where you'll find this: There was quite a lot in your post to disagree with, but I think I'll choose to stay on topic and note that you failed to address the signal point, namely that the creation of new alleles through base subtitution mutations represents the creation of new information. If an old allele is information, then how is a new allele not information? If somebody/something can read/understand an old allele, then the same somebody/something can read/understand the new allele.--Percy

You keep trying to divert attention from the original point. We weren't discussing whether or not the mutation is random (I know this is a hot topic for you, but that's not what we're talking about right now), but whether a base substitution mutation could cause a change in phenotype. It not only can, which was obvious in the first place, but it has been observed and published in the literature. As is the new allele - see the previously mentioned reference where the base substitution mutation in yeast is expressed as a change in chromatin structure. Since a base substitution change can cause a unique allele to arise, and since the allele can be expressed in the phenotype, and since allele's represent information, therefore base substitution mutations give rise to new information.--Percy

Not that they don't have anything to do with each other, but that they are not the same thing. When a Creationist says, "Evolution is impossible because life couldn't come from non-life," then it must be explained that evolution and abiogenesis are separate theories. But of course they're related to one another, they're even both within the same science of biology. A clarifying example might be physics and chemistry - two difference sciences, but they *are* related to one another.Anyway, Scott was only pointing out that his probability explanation applies equally to both evolution and abiogenesis. And not in evolution, either. Spiderman and The Hulk "evolved" as individuals. In evolution individuals do not evolve. It is in the production of progeny, ie, reproduction, that evolution occurs. This is where genes are mixed (in sexual reproduction and gene sharing) and where mutations resident in the parents sexual gametes are passed on (only sexual reproduction, of course).The point being made about beneficial mutations is that they are relative to the environment. If the first person who received the mutation causing sickle cell anemia lived in the northern regions then the mutation would not have been beneficial, but if he lived in equatorial Africa it would have been very beneficial since it confers some protection against maleria.In other words, beneficial mutations are beside the point. Which mutations occur will be random, and whether the mutation is beneficial in the current environent will also be random. The important point is that each mutation represents an experiment by nature to fine-tune the organism to the environment. Most of the time the experiment fails, but every once in a while it succeeds, which is sufficient since these experiments are performed with every reproductive act, ie, quadrillions of times a day across the planet, at least.--Percy

Others have already addressed this point, but if it's not beating a dead horse too severely let me address it in my own words. There's no concession. It is simply a fact that evolution tries to explain how new species arise from old species, which is life arising from life, while abiogenesis tries to explain how life arose from non-life. Once this is understood then it becomes clear why the statement "Evolution is impossible because life couldn't come from non-life" is nonsensical. You've misunderstood what was said. Scott was only pointing out that his probability explanation applies equally to both evolution and abiogenesis.By the way, while you are probably correct to say that forms of non-life on their way to being life didn't experience mutations, you should qualify that to be "mutations in the sense of what we see in life". Life most likely did not arise from non-life in a single step, but through a long process of successive steps characterized by change and selection. You began the paragraph with statements about populations, but completed it with this extended non-sequitur focusing on the individual. You needed to stick with populations if you're going to apply what I said about quadrillions of experiments per day across the planet. The genetic information for a species is represented by the genome of the species, which in a simplistic way can be thought of as the sum of all alleles across all genes of all individuals of the entire population. Each act of reproduction in the population represents a genetic experiment where, if we can stick to just asexual cell division reproduction for the sake of brevity and simplicity, errors in copying can occur. The offspring with copying error in an allele may be better suited, equally suited, or less suited to the existing environment. If better suited he'll have more offspring than those with the original allele, and the new allele will increase in representation in the genome of the population. If equally suited he'll have no better or worse change to reproduce than others of his species. And if less suited then he'll have less offspring than those with the original allele, and the new allele will be infrequently represented in the population, perhaps even become extinct. Indeed, if the new allele is fatal then it becomes extinct in its very first generation. When does a boy become a man? Where do the mountains meet the plain? As forms of non-life gradually changed over time they came to more and more resemble what we might identify today as life. At what point did it actually become life? Who could say for sure? Certainly there will be many opinions, and my own opinion is that anyone who attempts to draw a specific line is wrong. Hopefully by this point the "millions of chances each second" issue has been answered for you, but in case not, consider a population of some species of bacteria in a petri dish, say a million of them. Each cell division of one of our bacteria represents a genetic experiment because of the possibility of copying error. Let's say that on average this bacteria reproduces (ie, cell divides) every 4 hours. That would work out to around 280 cell divisions (genetic experiments) per second. Now add all the cell divisions/second of all the rest of the bacteria in the world outside our petri dish. You can also add all the acts of reproduction of all other non-bacterial species, but they probably won't contribute a significant amount more. I bet my guestimate of quadrillions per day is low.But it isn't the specific numbers that are important. I only used specific numbers to improve clarity. What's important is the principles involved. While mutations that improve the ability of an organism to produce offspring are rare, the low probability is dwarfed when considered across the huge total number of mutations across all the acts of reproduction, making favorable mutations not only common but inevitable.Look at it this way. If the odds of winning the lottery are 1 in a billion, and if you play the lottery a trillion times, how many times will you win? Answer: about a thousand times. What are the odds of you never winning? Pretty tiny!--Percy

First, Zephan didn't deal with it. Unsupported assertions based on personal incredulity do not deal with anything. If you think he "dealt" with it then try reproducing his argument in your next post.Second, since we don't know how abiogenesis happened, how could he address how possible/impossible it was?Third, you've drifted off topic. Do you now understand that Scott was only saying that his probability explanation applied equally to both evolution and abiogenesis, not that evolution and abiogenesis are the same theory? In other words, you're asking for examples of beneficial mutations again. Does this mean that you now grant the possibility in principle of favorable mutations and are just looking for examples of it in the real world? Because if so then Scott's link (Are Mutations Harmful?) should complete this discussion for you.--Percy

It doesn't matter what labels you place on the alleles. They're only names. A rose by any other name, etc.Your premise is that the genome represents information, and further that information can not be created by random processes, and that therefore mutation cannot create anything new. But we've provided you descriptions of how the simple process of copying error causes this very thing to happen, and given you examples (yeast, see page 8; nylon bug from wj) of this very thing happening with actual biological organisms. You can argue till the cows come home that information theory says this is impossible, but with the impossible object sitting disdainfully in front of you, who's going to listen to you? And by the way, information theory doesn't say this is impossible. Read Shannon's original paper some time, it's very accessible (http://cm.bell-labs.com/...s/what/shannonday/shannon1948.pdf).Your letter example is a good one. You mentioned milk as being mentioned in your letter, so let's say that your letter includes a recipe for sausage soup. Your secretary makes ten copies of your letter, but makes many mistakes, and you cook up ten batches of sausage soup following the recipes in the ten different letters. A battery of gourmets samples the batches of soup and chooses one as best. You take the letter for that batch of soup and have your secretary make ten more copies, and you again brew a batch of soup from the recipe in each letter. The gourmets again sample and select. Repeat this process ad infinitum, and after a while you'll have some pretty fantastic sausage soup, or some pretty fantastic something that the gourmets really like, since the process of change is random. Hopefully the secretary never substitutes the word "cyanide" for "salt" or your panel of judges will be kaput.Now let's view your argument in terms of soup. Your claim is that each nearly but not quite correct copy of the letter is not new information. But your new soup recipe is better than your old. You now have two different recipes. Does the old recipe represent information, while the new one does not?Using your misunderstanding of information theory you can use whatever words you like to describe the soup evolution process, but at the end of the day the process still happened, and making claims that information theory says it can't happen will not change that.--Percy

Hi Zephan,There have been a number of posts here, some lengthy, trying to clarify for you why abiogenesis and evolution are not the same thing. I'm going to explain this once again, but if you still don't accept it it would be very helpful if you could explain why by responding more specifically. To this point your responses have been of the general sort, in essence saying, "I still don't accept your explanation," but providing little reason why. Well, let's follow your line of logic using my earlier explanation where I said, "When does a boy become a man? Where do the mountains meet the plain?" According to you, since there is no line of demarcation, a boy is a man and a mountain is a plain. Since that makes no sense, your logic must be invalid.As has already been explained, it is thought that life developed from non-life by a long series of small graduated steps. At what step during that process non-life became life will be as impossible to say as when mountains become plains. One wouldn't normally find peer-reviewed papers about basic definitions. Normally dictionaries aren't too helpful in the definition of scientific terms, so understand that what follows are only approximate definitions, but they're sufficient in this case to indicate for you that abiogenesis and evolution are different things. This is the abiogenesis definition from the Merriam-Webster website (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?abiogenesis): And this is the appropriate definition of evolution for biology (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?evolution): Moving on to your last point: This is absolutely true for the evolutionists here, but not for some categories of Creationists. Some Creationists believe God created the first life, and that evolution took over from there. So you see, abiogenesis is *not* an imperative for all perspectives.--Percy

I'm not participating in the discussion, so I reserve my right to moderate this thread. I'm only posting a clarification since my name was mentioned. I love the language analogy because of its explanatory power, but no analogy is perfect, and this one is no exception, as Scott and PaulK point out. The only perfect analogy to something is the thing itself. All other things produce imperfect analogies and break down at some point.Analogies are used not because they are proof or evidence, but because they help explain by putting a difficult concept into a familiar context. A common mistake that you see made here at EvC Forum is for something to be explained using an analogy, and then for the analogy to be attacked, as if breaking the analogy has any effect on the concept itself. That's not to say that false analogies can't be drawn, but even when that mistake is made it only means a mistake has been made in explication and doesn't mean the underlying concept is wrong. It certainly doesn't say it is right, either, but I just thought it was important to point out that I've seen a lot of false conclusions being drawn in discussions where analogies are used.--Percy

If it helps, rmwilliamsjr had a book recommendation for human evolution in this message:http://EvC Forum: Let us reason together. -->EvC Forum: Let us reason together.--Percy

[message deleted - there was no intent to participate in this thread. --Percy][This message has been edited by Percipient, 03-06-2003]

Scott,Board adminstration is addressing the forum guideline issues and politely requests that you let us do our job. Sonnikke is probably perplexed enough already and doesn't need you piling you. Thanks!------------------