Hi Jay,
Bluejay writes:
First, do you really think DNA needs to be given orders to mutate?
You lost me there.
I thought an accident was required for the DNA to mutate.
My understanding which is probably flawed.
The information stored in DNA as a code is made up of four chemical bases.
There are about 3 billion base pairs of which 99% of those base pairs are the same in all people.
The information stored in these base pairs determines the information available for building and maintaining an organism.
Nearly every cell in a person's body has the same DNA.
DNA can replicate and make copies of itself.
Errors can be made in this process.
Very few of these errors are not corrected by the DNA correction processes.
The one that gets through is a mutation.
There are beneficial, determential, and netural mutations.
The famous fly Drosophila melanogaster study suggest that a protein change by a gene will be harmeful about 70% of the time, having damaging results even death. The remaining 30% will either be netural or weakly beneficial.
In this particular study a leg was produced in the place of an antenna as well as an eye in a leg.
How am I doing so far?
In the fly study it is discovered that a particular sequence is required for the eye to be produced. That means that specific information is required to build an eye.
Bluejay writes:
There are always mutations happening. They are a normal part of the background chemistry of life. They happen because chemical reactions are messy and subject a large number of environmental gradients that will impact the products that the reaction produces.
Your understanding is much different from the information that I have been able to find on mutations. Do you have some studys that back up this particular statement?
Bluejay writes:
And, there is also always selection happening.
I understand living organisms die. That is just a fact of life.
Bluejay writes:
The result was organisms with lots of knobs of mineralized bones and lots of lobes of contractile muscles, and all that was required was for natural selection to amplify those organisms whose bones were arranged in such a way that muscle action was more efficient.
If that is the case, why does the fossil record not verify this information?
The Coelacanth that was supposed to have lived in shallow water and finally walked up on land and became the first living land creature has remained basically the same for the past 410 million years. Where is the mutations?
The Horseshoe crab has been around for 425 million years and remains the same today. Where is the mutations?
The cockroach is the oldest winged insect in the world and appears some 350 million years ago, and remains the same today. Where is the mutations?
The fossil record does not support evolution by mutation and natural sellection.
The observation of the fossil record supports that species are amazingly conservative and stasis for long periods of time.
Since this is a fact some scientist developed the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria.
Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I. (1982) in "The Myths of Human" Evolution Columbia University Press, p. 48 says: "The record is there, and the record speaks for tremendous anatomical conservatism. Change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record."
Gould, S.J. (1977) in "Evolution's Erratic Pace" Natural History, vol. 86, May says:
"The history of most fossil species include two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism:
1) Stasis - most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless;
2) Sudden appearance - in any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and 'fully formed'."
A species appearing fully formed all at once supports creation, not evolution.
Bluejay writes:
It really isn’t that difficult to envision this process. Just remember that, at every step, there is variation in anatomy and behavior; and that this variation is different from the variation that existed at the last step, because messy chemistry is continually causing changes; and that the most successful, most efficient and most reliable features and behaviors tend to be amplified in the next generations due to the advantages they bestow on their owners.
It is very difficult to envision such a process considering the evidence observed in the fossil record. Unless a person is living in a fantasy world.
Do you have supporting documentation for your statement?
God Bless,
"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."
™ Version 4.2
