TOE and the Reasons for Doubt

Jacorinta, do you know what "tacitly" means? If so, why do you think they agreed "tacitly"?

Well, absolutely. And it's so easy to prove they are incompetent, isn't it? Simple problem. A one in four chance occurring 1000 times in succession.What's the real answer, Iyx2no?

Not so fast, Jacortina. I haven't apologised because it wasn't dishonest."Tacitly" Means silently or covertly (interesting way for scientists to behave). So what was it that paleontoligists "tacitly" agreed with zoologists? "that the fossil record was TOO POOR TO DO MUCH beyond supporting, IN A GENERAL SORT OF WAY, the BASIC thesis that life had evolved." (Emphasis mine).That's a statement that is so laden with attenuating qualifications that it's almost unintelligible. But that's what they tacitly agreed, and you can understand why when their only other alternative was to (first part of the quote) "challenge well-entrenched evolutionary theory"Which ever way you slice it, Jacortina, this quote is not a glowing endorsement of the fossil record as evidence for evolution.

Terrific post, brother. Have you read John Sanford's "Genetic entropy-Mysteries of the Genome?" I've read some reviews and I'm trying to get my hands on a copy.

G,day, Mr Jack.If the vowels were wrong the meaning would be garbled and the entire Bible would be incomprehensible. Precisely my point. If the neucleotides are jumbled the gene won't function. They have to be placed in the correct order if the gene is to function, and the probability of that is the aforementioned laughingly-tiny number.According to your logic the Bible would be composed of an entirely random collection of characters, from which readers would try to extract meaning, with each successive edition containing more and more of their guesswork until you finally wind up with a completely random and totally mindless collection of unrelated guesses.Compare that to the real bible, in which the prophet Daniel pinpoints the exact years of Jesus Christ's ministry and execution 400 years before He was born.

Kicked in after a 0.5% improvement on the duplicated gene. Didn't you understand this? No I didn't. It wouldn't matter if the mutations were happening to an individual or a population until natural selection kicks in. The only difference in a population is that the incident of mutations would be greatly accelerated, which means that until natural selection kicks in THE GENE WOULD DETERIORATE FASTER. It's pretty simple:Works towards the enabling of Natural Selection = "good".Works away from the enabling of Natural Selection = "bad".

Thank you so much. That was the probability of the gene NOT evolving.

G'day Bluejay.Thank you for a reasoned and detailed post. This is "negative" selection. It is the process Kimura was almost exclusively concentrating on. As a Creationist I have absolutely no problem with it- it is logical that those organisms most damaged by mutations will be selected out. What is the difference between selection being "enabled" and selection "striking"? If you don't like the verb "to be enabled", then fine. Call it natural selection "coming into play". Once again, if the changes to your phenotype make it easier for natural selection to get you, that's negative selection. If harder, that's positive selection.Creationists have no problem with negative selection. It is positive selection we refute, with the attendant idea that mutation can create a superior phenotype (not just a "less damaged" phenotype) from the formation of new genetic material resulting in a feature or function additional to all those enjoyed by the original organism. That's why this exercise focussed on the statistical impossibility of the creation of a new gene. Let's see. You have a population of fruitflies with no antennae (it was an antenna originally, it sort of evolved into a wing at some point, but I think that was my fault!)So, fruitflies without antennae. The gene mutates "in multiple different directions simultaneously in different individuals in a population. This will result in multiple phenotypes in a single population."Which gives us fruitflies with a host of interesting new phenotypical features, one of which may or may not be an antenna?That is NOT observed!Edited by Kaichos Man, : typos

I wasn't aware that you can quote-mine yourself!

---

"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

Firstly, neither is good or bad, but each is the skin colour best suited to the respective climates. Skin colour is caused by mellanin (spelling?) which protects us from ultraviolet radiation.I am not sure whether the ToE would suggest that dark-skinned Africans came about through the natural selection of people who produce more mellanin. I somehow doubt this. Human beings are too sophisticated to die out because their skin is the wrong colour (lilly-white Europeans have lived in sun-soaked Africa and Australia for 200 years without many problems). Also, there doesn't seem to be an advantage to white skin- dark skin should also be a plus in cold climates because it absorbs heat.I'm guessing that you were asking for predictions, as without consulting a dictionary predications probably means "basings". I rather think that the ToE would agree with me that humans are too sophisticated to be selected out on skin colour, so it probably wouldn't make any predictions.Edited by Kaichos Man, : avatar

---

"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

"Does not deny" is pretty faint praise, isn't it. The fact is that Kimura's research showed that the vast majority of selection is negative, weeding out nearly neutral mutations that had accumulated through genetic drift.As I have said before Kimura found "beneficial" mutations to be so rare he didn't even factor them into his comprehensive calculations on "fitness". Because evidence can be a cumulative thing. I have heard evolutionists on this forum talk about "all the other evidence" when challenged on a given point. The same rules apply for those of us on the other side of the debate.Darwin asserted that the Cambrian explosion could be used as a valid objection to his theory. Haldane showed mathematically that 300 times a population had to die out to fix a single mutation. Eldredge and Gould demonstrated that the fossil record did not exhibit gradualism and further observed that species spend 90% of their time in stasis. Kimura showed that the vast majority of natural selection is negative in nature; absolutely useless for molecule-to-man evolution.All of these men are, or were, evolutionists. But each have also, probably unwittingly, contributed significant ammunition to the Creationist side.

---

"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

Wow- how fascinating. Can you give me reference for this, Mr Jack?

---

"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

"The number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed must be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory." (Darwin, Charles, Origin of Species, 6th edition, 1902 p. 341-342)" Do you know how retarded that sounds?

Ah, yes, the text book. In there with embryonic recapitulation and the evolution of the horse, is it? Science based on artist's impressions... Common organs. An argument for common descent. Oh, and, um, common design. This is a fairly obvious diversionary tactic, Mr Jack. Have it your way. The antenna did not emerge with the fruitfly. Now, will you agree that a 1000 base pair gene contributing to the antenna (or any other organ) on a fruitfly (or any other organism of your choice) would occur at odds of 1 in 4¹⁰⁰⁰?Edited by Kaichos Man, : html

---

"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin

Precisely my point, Perce. This statement would make no sense without the word "distortions". That's a pretty serious charge and I will ask you to substantiate it. In what ways have I distorted the views of these scientists? If by "mischaracterizations" you mean Creationists arguing that these scientists spoke out against evolution, I would agree with you. As I have stated, all of these men were/are evolutionists.But my point is this; if you take the problems posed by each of them and add them all together the ToE, rather like an organism bearing too many slightly deleterious mutations, is doomed. That was not the intention (or indeed, belief) of any one of them, but it could well be the cumulative effect of all of their observations.

---

"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin