Problems with evolution? Submit your questions.

What does your theory predict if you:(a) Isolate people from the fragrance of apples by putting them in an environment where they only breathe "scrubbed" air, as in a clean room?(b) Expose them to extra-large quantities of the esters in question?(c) Put them in scuba suits breathing an artificial oxygen-helium mix and send them diving?(d) Observe an anosmic person to see if they have emotions?Bear in mind that for an idea to count as a theory at all it must be falsifiable. Bear in mind also that a theory is judged by the sum total of its predictions --- obviously one is not allowed to cherry-pick.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

You do realize they must be falsifiable predictions, yes? Yours aren't.What would be a falsifiable prediction for your theory is that the more "apple fragrance" one inhales, the more emotional one becomes. That would be a prediction that can be tested.

Wouldn't matter, because they already were exposed to the apple fragrance Humans have already evolved a tolerance to large quantities of apple fragrance. It might have effected them more at a much earlier time in history, but we can't check that now. There are mechanisms by which people in scuba suits are also effected. Those mechanisms haven't been identified yet, but we predict we will identify them one day. Some aspects of the theory are still unknown. But just because they are unknown, it is no reason to assume it is not true. And anyway, anyone who assumes that it is not the apples that are producing the effects, probably is only doing so because of a irrational affection for oranges, and as such their judgment is compromised.

So, your "theory" is not a theory, because it makes no testable predictions whatsoever.Thank you for playing.

Of course it is falsifiable. If you can find someone who has never been exposed to apple fragrance, and never had an ancestor who was exposed to apple fragrance, and yet still has emotions, that would be a problem for the theory.

Well, fortunately your ignorance of apples does not affect the validity of the theory.Why don't you try to go read some books about apples.

So we could test your "theory" by ... finding an alternate universe without apples in it?And we could test Carl Sagan's invisible dragon if God gave us a magic dragon detector.And we could test the Omphalos hypothesis if only we owned a time machineYour "theory" is right up there with textbook examples of things which are not really theories.It can also be handily removed from consideration by Occam's Razor, since I can account for people's behavior (other then a tendency to say "Hey, I smell apples") without reference to the fragrance of apples.---Unless you are certain that your reserves of obtuseness are unlimited, perhaps you had better save them for something that you really need to misunderstand, such as evolution.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Its complete lack of predictive power, on the other hand, affects the question of whether it is a theory. Because the fact that you can think of no testable predictions of your "theory" cannot be remedied by me knowing more about apples.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I think you simply love oranges-so you refuse to accept reality.

Apparently you think a lot of dumb stuff.However, indulging in silly fantasies about the people who disagree with you won't make your nonsense about apples scientific any more than it makes your nonsense about creationism scientific.Come to think of it, creationism also involves dumb unevidenced ideas about fruit, doesn't it? I'm seeing a theme here. All you need now is some sort of talking reptile in the mix and your novel "theory" of human emotions could be right up there with creationism.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

There are some experiments, however, that do show how selective pressures work to influence the genome. The results of these experiments can lend weight to certain predictions.I know there was one experiment (I've searched and failed to find the link), where viruses were grown in an media containing all of the necessary amino acids for life. After many generations, pathogenic and other extraneous genes had been shed (through random mutation and selective pressure) in favour of an extremely small genome optimized for replication. Darwinian theory of evolution would suggest that organisms with higher replicating rates will prosper in areas with abundant resources. This experiment lends weight to that prediction.

That mutations occur? Ok, sure. I performed this experiment myself so I can recount the results.I had liquid culture of an "Ames strain", a strain of bacteria that cannot biosynthesize the amino acid histidine, which is necessary for life. They're grown in special broth that supplies histidine, which they cannot synthesize for themselves because they have a frameshift mutation that knocks out the operon for histidine synthesis.Also I had phenylamine, a compound suspected of being a mutagen. I took a portion of the Ames strain culture and exposed it to phenylamine, then attempted to culture on so-called minimal media - a solid media in petri dishes that does not contain histidine (or any other amino acid, or basically anything at all but glucose.)The prediction is that, if phenylamine is mutagenic, then some of the Ames strains will be mutated by it; among some of those individuals, the mutation will take the form of an insertion or two deletions that will restore the proper reading frame and reactivate the His operon. Therefore some of these individuals will be able to grow and thrive on minimal media because they can synthesize their own histidine.My plate was inoculated and incubated for 48 hours at the optimum growth temperature for E. coli. The result was approximately 80 discreet colonies, substantiating the existence of mutations and the capacity of phenylamine to cause mutations (in bacteria at least.) When they're not random we usually don't call them "mutations." If you insert a specific sequence at a specific site that's recombinant genetic engineering, not mutation. Frequently specific mutants, like the Ames strains, are produced not by any means of genetic engineering but by causing lots of random mutations and then selecting the ones you want by some means (replica plating, in the case of the Ames strains.)"Mutation" is largely synonymous with "random mutation." And mutations are random because chemistry is stochastic. Causing random changes in DNA is much, much easier than causing specific ones. If you're trying to hang your hat on the notion that mutations aren't random at all, there's just no evidence at all that's true.

Correct me if I'm wrong (and there's a not insignificant chance that I am since I'm simply relying on my memory of something I thought I heard once), but isn't there some evidence to show that mutations are more likely to occur at certain locations than others? If that's true, doesn't that mean that there is an element of nonrandomness in mutations?

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- PhatIt has always struck me as odd that fundies devote so much time and effort into trying to find a naturalistic explanation for their mythical flood, while looking for magical explanations for things that actually happened. -- Dr. Adequate

If you throw two dice, you're more likely to throw a seven than any other particular number, but that doesn't mean the result isn't random.

Surely these must have been bacteria, not viruses. This might help you to find the link.