The End of Evolution By Means of Natural Selection

I didn't like the way I worded #7 as it was and you all are making something of it that has nothing to do with what I was trying to say. Don't take "goal" so literally, I just couldn't find the best way to express what I'm after.What's wrong with answering all the questions? It would help me understand where we are miscommunicating.I would like to improve the list and try to reword #7 but there's no point if nobody is going to answer them anyway.PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE answer the questions? Subbie, Rahvin, Taz, Bluejay, Dr. A., nwr, RAZD, Percy, Wounded King, and whoever else has posted on the thread plus anyone else who hasn't.But thanks very much to Paul K that he did answer them and if I don't get any more answers, eventually I'll respond to his at least.Edited by Faith, : To add "PLEASE" paragraph.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Thanks to Dr. A for answering my questions too.I could continue the discussion from this point or I could go back through the posts -- I still haven't read them all -- or I could take up the most recent posts as Percy suggested, or at least the particular two he suggested. I'm trying to take this thread very slowly to keep the frustration level down but I also wanted to get some answers to these questions first, before going back to the posts, hoping I'd have a different way to approach them, to avoid the usual repetitiveness. But it didn't happen that way.I learned a few things about what's happening psychologically on this thread, though, as I skimmed through some of the posts I haven't answered yet. I'd like to say thanks to nwr for his civil and objective way of dealing with this thread, and his comment to that effect in answer to someone here, I forget who, saying he's just responding to what I'm saying, assuming I'm being honest, and not reading ulterior motives into it, and I much appreciate that.It does seem that some others are responding more to their own ideas about my beliefs as a creationist than to what I'm actually arguing, that is, to what they think are my ulterior motives. That does make conversation difficult. I'm not arguing any of this from my creationist presuppositions. If I were I'd have stated them. Of course any argument I make is going to be consistent with them, but I'm arguing honestly, what I say is what I mean -- or at least what I'm TRYING to say is what I mean since I'm probably not saying things as accurately as I'd like. But there's nothing hidden in it that I know of.It would take a LOT of conversation with each individual here to get some of us talking on a level of honest straightforward discussion. It would be great if there were time and opportunity to do that to dispel whatever suspiciousness is skewing the topic. I know I get touchy too and misread people's intentions, Percy's for instance most recently, oh and Dr. A's. I want to keep that to a minimum.I'm going to sleep on it but I think tomorrow I'm going to go read those posts Percy thinks I should have answered next already and try to answer them, hoping it won't just be the same old, then come back to these questions.===============================
OOPS, sorry, I didn't intend this as a reply to you, Dr. A, intended it as a General Reply. Hit the wrong button.Edited by Faith, : To add last statement

I VERY much appreciate the posts in answer to my questions, thank you all very much, and I really wanted to get back to this thread but I am finding it hard to deal with some of the attitudes and pressures at this forum after all and need to prolong my break, not only from this thread but from EvC altogether. How long I don't know. Maybe only over night. Have to see where my frame of mind goes. I'll at least ponder your input while I'm away. The thread isn't going to disappear I assume.Sorry, I really thought I'd be back soon to this thread.(Theodoric that's a conclusion that follows from my observations -- which you would despise anyway of course -- not a premise or article belief I just picked up somewhere. )Thanks again.Edited by Faith, : add last thought

I think I've blown it. I think I'm going to be suspended. I'm going nuts here. I don't belong here.I did want to deal with this thread. I'll deal with it on my blog alone but I did want to keep getting input. The problem is that I still believe what I started out believing, I believe there is a logical progression in what I'm saying, that all the objections raised to it seem to me to miss the point, and some of them are angry put downs of the sort I get wherever I put my opinions on this forum, which is very hard to take, and there's NO hope of getting anyone here to take anything I say seriously. I can pursue what YOU think to clarify things up to a point but the basics are going to stay the same and I don't want to keep writing into such fury.I'm sorry I went to other threads. It's just got me furious at the basic attitudes here.If I'm not suspended I'll still try to focus on this thread. Otherwise so long.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What's a PM?

Got it, thanks.

I don't know. I'm in a foul mood and I'm surprised I'm still here.If I'm still here start the thread. I have NO idea if I want to do this or what will happen if I do, but start it. Maybe it will at least get me off the madness at this place.I don't really want to "debate" I want to sort things out.

I'm really really sorry since I know that is the consensus on this thread, that I need to think more about mutations, and because it IS the consensus I will have to do that.But I disagree. What I want to sort out more is the relation of speciation to evolution.

It's what I've been trying to argue all along, Percy. When is it that a trait attributed to a new "mutation" shows up in a domestic breed? Isn't it when the breed is already highly inbred, which allows new (or formerly suppressed) alleles to get expressed? (Many of these new traits are unhealthy as breeders know and have to take into account in choosing mates for their breeds, but sometimes it's a new desirable trait or "mutation") All along I've pointed to domestic breeding as an example of this process where you get new breeds by eliminating the alleles for competing traits. If those alleles remain the selected traits can't get expressed -- or more accurately, there isn't any selection happening, new traits aren't emerging if the competing alleles remain. Selection OF a trait means you are isolating it from competing types and their alleles. I've simply extended this principle to natural selection and the related processes of genetic drift and bottleneck and migration which also isolate a population so that new traits can emerge -- as competing alleles are reduced or eliminated.What I'm so arrogantly and cheekily doing is arguing against the common evolutionist assumption that change simply builds on change in a linear or additive fashion.I'm SURE I'm not getting this said clearly. I'm sure I'm leaving out some essential part of the description and that without it the scientists here can't follow me. But it's not mutations.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I know I'm supposed to stick to the other thread now (but I still do feel this is my thread) -- and I will but I almost cried for gratitude that someone here would say as much as it seemed at times I might be onto something, AND characterize what I'm up against as a "storm of derision." Now I hope my gratitude won't sour you against me but I have to say thank you for your open mindedness and willingness to concede anything at all to a creationist.Beyond that I sincerely wish you would spell out just what studies you believe have fully answered me and what points you think Bluejay is making that overturn my argument.Thank you.

Your overview on the scientific endeavor sounds very interesting and I hope you have written about it somewhere here or will.I'm no scientist but I have books on evolution and population genetics and a thick binder full of printouts from the web on these and related subjects, and Hardy-Weinberg was among the very first concepts I encountered when I got onto this particular argument I'm trying to make so many years ago.I've also watched the occasional You Tube lecture on these subjects but I'll check out your link. Done!Thanks again.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Are you saying that creationism -- or religion? -- might have something to offer the human race even if you don't believe in it?I've had that You Tube page open and minimized ever since you mentioned it. It's been fourth on my list of must-do-today projects for that long now but the Marxism thread keeps me hopping.Sounds like something I absolutely HAVE to get to before I come back here, thanks.

Not having a grasp of the whole process doesn't mean that I don't know that mutation refers to various ways parts of the DNA strand are switched around during duplication.

I didn't spend the last five years studying evolution, of course, but I did do quite a bit of it, WK, read Dawkins books, read Jerry Coyne's book, listened to a lot of Dawkins on You Tube, mostly his atheism though, but also his blind watchman bit with the computer biomorphs model, looked up tons of stuff and printed it out from various science sites as well as Wikipedia.In all that I've simply been more convinced of what I'm trying to say here. Sorry about that, but nothing has changed my mind about it. Bluejay thinks he can, Cosmic Chimp linked a lecture at You Tube I still haven't had time to listen to, and I'm willing to see if they can show me where I'm wrong. But I've got to be SHOWN, just screaming at me that I'm ignoring mutations isn't going to do it.I have a rough idea of mutation although it's complicated and I'm not terribly interested in it and don't see its relevance for what I'm talking about. I've seen all those little diagrams of pieces of DNA being switched around in gene duplication, put in different places, turned upside down or whatnot. I'm aware it's considered a mistake in that process.All I need to know about mutation is that according to you all it is the source of alleles. So I have to keep allowing for the possibility that the alleles I'm talking about are mutations. I've been doing that.But I simply don't see its relevance for the project I'm involved in here. Sorry, I don't. I guess you're going to browbeat me about how I should until I just go away, but if I do it will be with the same opinion I arrived with, probably more solidly entrenched. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I want to have listened to the You Tube lectures before I go back there. I'm just taking a little break from my work now.There's no rush is there?Cheers.