The End of Evolution By Means of Natural Selection

No, no correction coming, you're perfectly correct. I mentioned these processes later in the message, they're the terms with links to their Wikipedia pages.--Percy

Hi Nwr,There are probably a variety of views, but for myself I never expect agreement on issues related to the creation/evolution debate, but when I characterized Faith as irrational I had in mind things like what words mean and not saying one thing one day and another thing another. For example, for Faith speciation does not result in a new species, but only in the inability to interbreed. For another, if you can't make sense of that it's your fault, not hers. To me it seems that the problems encountered with Faith go way beyond those of someone who merely holds a different opinion.--Percy

We might be thinking of different things. When I said I meant word meanings, an example of what I had in mind is when she said speciation does not create new species, it just results in inability to interbreed. Call it what you will, but I call it irrationality, others might call it being illogical or contradictory. But however you characterize it, you can't carry on a discussion with someone like this, and this thread and the other two make this very clear. Behavior like this is very troll-like, and even if unintentional as with Faith is a very unconstructive approach to discussion.Keep in mind that you're also only seeing the tip of the iceberg. As I mentioned in the public post I finally made to Faith, I had been exchanging PM's with her. She refused to listen to any moderation requests and finally stopped responding. That's when I posted the public message to her, and when she didn't even listen to that I suspended her for 24 hours. That's when she finally responded to my PMs, but only to say I couldn't tell her what to do and she had the right to respond as she saw fit. So I changed the suspension to be permanent.I am seeking ways that Faith can return to participation, but she still has to follow the Forum Guidelines. Rule 10 means people are to be treated with respect, not that we pretend someone isn't talking nonsense. The goal here is to have *constructive* discussions. I'm looking for ideas for how to do that with Faith.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

This is from Faith's Message 681: There was no mention of what she actually thought she had suggested.--Percy

I think the broader context was lost because of the focus on technical details. The Zhang and Saier (2009) paper focuses on a process that is entirely natural. While it takes place there is no evidence of any outside intervention by an intelligence. It's just another very complex biochemical process like much life chemistry.The process itself must also have had a natural origin driven by random mutation and natural selection. In a rapidly changing environment, any mutations that increased the rate at which possible solutions could be explored would be strongly selected for. Wherever adaptation is involved natural selection must by necessity be the most influential factor, and mutations provide the grist for the mill of natural selection. Natural selection must have the variation provided by mutation in order to function. But none of this was the topic of the paper, so naturally WK didn't mention it.I think your erroneous conclusion that WK sees that "his theory is in tatters" might have its beginnings in this passage from WK in Message 781: This does indeed have this feel that behind the scenes WK actually does see problems for evolutionary theory in the Zhang/Saier paper but is stubbornly refusing to admit it publicly. But what I think he meant was that the paper is narrowly focused on the biochemistry of a specific mutational mechanism and was not in any way ever intended to focus more broadly on the whole process of evolution, but that it is fully consistent with modern evolutionary theory.--Percy

This belief is leading you far astray in many discussions here. The label of "natural" is a key part of your misunderstanding. The focus is actually on evidence. We don't care what label you put on the observed evidence, we don't care how the observations were carried out, we don't care if it was seen, heard, tasted, smelled or touched, we don't care if complex instrumentation was involved, but there must be evidence. We postulate no mechanisms for which there is no evidence.Whether the IDer is labeled natural or not is beside the point. If he's manipulating genes then he's observable and there should be evidence of him. In the absence of evidence he cannot be included as a possible mechanism.No one here is casting accusations at you that you actually realize your beliefs are in tatters but can't bring yourself to admit it. It would have nothing to do with the topic. If you've got evidence for anything you're advocating please focus on that, just please realize that things we don't know aren't evidence of anything. There have always been things we don't know and there always will be, but the history of science is one of unknown things becoming known, and not one unknown thing has ever become known by pointing to things unknown.Behind all your thinking lies this mistaken belief that if we can't explain it then God (or the IDer in this case) was responsible, but though he was purportedly responsible for the creation of every species throughout all time, he is nowhere in evidence. Put him in evidence, then claim him as a mechanism. Until you have evidence there cannot be anything that we're ignoring, except your claims that your religious beliefs somehow constitute evidence.By the way, there's nothing special about your religious beliefs that causes science to ignore them. Science ignores the unevidenced religious beliefs of all other religions, too.--Percy

Uh, yes, this is a public forum, and you were going way off topic. If you'd like to have a private conversation with WK then use the private messaging system.What you said in Message 792 that I was responding to was this: I responded that the issue is actually one of needing to evidence your assertions. You've misunderstood. There's no claim of direct evidence that the mechanisms driving directed mutations were themselves the result of mutation and natural selection. The claim is that the same mechanisms of mutation and natural selection that have been observed operating in the world today were also in operation throughout the history of life on this planet, and that they are sufficient to explain the appearance of mechanisms for directed mutations. There is no need to invoke unknown and unevidenced non-natural mechanisms. The claim is that processes and mechanisms that we actually know can happen and have happened were involved, and not ones that are made up. Yes, you did bring up your religious beliefs, when you accused me of making natural explanations the "desired conclusion." Or are you going to claim that wasn't an argument for the supernatural?The topic of the thread is the validity of natural selection as part of evolutionary theory. I suggest you talk about that instead of accusing people of being afraid to admit that their theory is in tatters or that they're driving toward inappropriate desired conclusions.I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but your patten is to take a short vacation, then return and debate rationally for a while but followed by going off the deep end after a few days. Could we break the pattern this time?--Percy

Hi Bolder-dash,Have you thought ahead to how your line of questioning might somehow provide support for your position? There's so much science doesn't know that you should have little problem coming across things we don't know, but everything we didn't know and later figured out turned out to have natural causes. Nothing has ever been traced to an IDer or the supernatural. For this reason things we don't know cannot be evidence of an IDer or the supernatural.When we study transposons there is no evidence of anything going on except matter and energy following the physical laws of the universe. Even if we had no idea how the transposon process originated it wouldn't help your cause.If you're looking for things we don't know then I don't understand why you're bothering with questions buried in the details of microbiological processes. Why don't you just go straight to the big items for which science has developed no consensus. While there are plenty of ideas, we don't know what caused the Big Bang, and we don't know how life originated. If our lack of knowledge in these areas doesn't help your cause, how in the word is any lack of knowledge about details like transposons or epigenetics or endosymbiosis going to help you?You need to find a strategy that might actually work. Could I suggest searching for evidence for your favorite theory, ID?--Percy

The beginning was Darwin, so evolution didn't even have random mutation when first formulated, only "descent with modification." We only learned about random mutation with the discovery of the structure of DNA, which didn't happen until the 1950's.Evolutionary research seeks all the mechanisms that contribute to evolution, which is the term we use for what causes life to change over time. Random mutation and natural selection are merely the most prominent. They aren't the only mechanisms. For example, a scientist named Kimura developed the neutral theory of evolution. It explored the possibilities of evolutionary change due to neutral or nearly neutral mutations not affected by natural selection.If tomorrow someone discovers a new mechanism causing life forms to change over time, it would become part of evolutionary theory (hint, hint, IDists - find a mechanism!). That's because evolution isn't a theory of random mutation and natural selection. It's a theory of the causes of the changes in life over time.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

Hi Bolder-dash,The answer you seek was in the message you just replied to where I said: --Percy

Feel free to fill in more detail, there's lots I don't know here. When did the term mutation first come into use? If prior to the discovery of the structure of DNA, what was the definition of mutation at that time? Did the population geneticists of the 1920s think in terms of mutations?--Percy

Bluegene and Taq,Neat! Thanks!--Percy

Not sure where the month/day/year confusion you mention stems from, but if it's the way dates are rendered here at EvC Forum then you can change them to the European style. Just go to your profile (link is near the top left of the page) and scroll down to the Date Format line. A bunch of European formats are available, just pick your favorite, then click on Submit Changes.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Spelling.