Potential falsifications of the theory of evolution

gzip -d -c name-of-gziped-tarball | tar -xf ---Percy

Boo I say! Pipe the output to tar?Why not just ... ?TTFN,WK

The -z option isn't available in all versions of tar, so I played it safe.--Percy

through genetic drift. It is well documented. You may want to learn about it. Yes, agreed. But you are confused. We are not talking about "deleterious combinations of mutations". I am talking about nearly neutral mutations. Mutations that are barely deleterious or barely advantageous. They do become fixed in the population all the time. So climate has no impact on selection? LOL Look, you are focusing on selection. Selection workks well for delterious and advantageous mutations. It does not work well for nearly neutral mutations. This is rather a red herring isn't it? When talking about the cost of selection, there are three factors that determine an organisms ability withstand higher costs of selection. This should be abundantly clear to you in a moment with your polar bear example. What a strawman! I said nothing about selection not operating on any animals. Selection clearly operates on all animals. now look at your beloved polar bear example. A clear example of genetic entropy. You chose a species that is endangered. Close to going extint. So selection takes out half the cubs. What if it took out 90% of the cubs? Can they afford that cost? Of course not. The answer is obvious. So strong selection which would weed out the many nearly neutral deleterious mutations that all the bears carry. So half the bears survive under reduced selection as I said. Those cubs have more mutations than their parents. It is a fact. Most of those mutations are deleterious. And those cubs will pass them on to the next generation. Well what do you think protection of endangered species is? It is a reduction of selection. And no that reduction is not caused by mother nature. She is an idiot. That reduction comes from the will and intelligence of man. Dittos

Let's try one more time:The genetic entropy argument is falsified by life having existed for 2-3 billion years. If the proposed entropy hasn't led to extinction of life in that time, we don't need to worry about it: it doesn't exist.Your belief if a young earth, leaving just ca. 6,000 years for genetic entropy to have operated (e.g., since the mythical fall) is contradicted by the evidence. The earth is over four billion years old.The age of the earth and origin of life some 2-3 billion years ago falsifies the notion of genetic entropy all by itself.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

You realize that the population size is also an incredibly important consideration when talking about nearly neutral/fixation theory, yes?As population size grows - selection effects become more pronounced, to the point where selection 'notices' the nearly neutral deleterious mutations (and the nearly neutral beneficial ones too) and their frequency begins to alter accordingly.

I'm convinced that having to remember the combination of switches to make tar unzip your tarballs (Jesus Christ) is the single largest obstacle to the widespread adoption of Linux as a desktop platform.

And so what if it can't? Your position seems to be that if polar bears can't withstand the selection, natural selection takes pity and cuts them a break.That's abundantly false. If polar bears undergo more selection than the population can bear (er, no pun intended) then they'll go extinct. Natural selection doesn't cut anyone any breaks. It's an activity human beings engage in to protect certain species. It's not a feature of natural selection. The Endangered Species Act is only about 50 years old. What happened before then?

Thanks, It's nice to be remebered. OK, I accept your argument. I wasn't intending to generalize. So to clarify.....YEC's believe in descent from the original created kinds of animal and plants. Let's not get sidetracked on "kinds" for now. I recognized that it is not defined in a scientific way. Well there is "lack of agreement" in all kinds of the sciences. YEC's do agree that the creation account is predominantly historical and that groups of plants and animals were created on certain days of creation. I agree that there is alot of evidence. However, there is more evidence for biogenesis which TOE needs, yet scientists still hope and pray for abiogenesis.

That was a strange sentence in many ways.

Hi AOk, I understand that. However, I believe that you are still generalising even now. I agree with that, but I still think that you are papering over the cracks somewhat. I suspect that the vast majority of those who might legitimately be described as creationists have never heard of "created kinds" or baraminology. Those creo's who, like yourself, have chosen to become involved in the debate, on the internet or elsewhere, will be aware of such arguments. Most creo's, the laity if you like, will not be aware and will have a naive belief that species were created in their currant form.This is backed up by polling. A 2005 poll by Pew Research asked whether species had "...existed in their present form since the beginning of time,", a position clearly incompatible with baraminology. 42% were happy to agree with that. A Gallup poll that same year had 45% for the same question. SourceNow you can argue that the polls had limited options and that the answer given was the closest to a creationist position. I agree with that to a point, but it still seems to me that a lot of ordinary creationists, who are not engaged in creo apologetics are completely unaware of "created kinds" and imagine that species were created in Eden, just as they appear today.Your position is held by many creo's, but it is not universal, not even amongst YECs. Need I drag out the rantings of YECs who deny microevolution? I can assure you, they do exist. What scientists hope for is to be able to answer interesting questions. Abiogenesis is one example of such a question.You claim that there is "evidence for biogenesis", but I can only suppose that you are making the same absurd argument here that you have made on these forums before; that the "law" of biogenesis disproves abiogenesis. That was a false argument then and it is still wrong now.Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

Thanks, I'm a masochist looking for some punishment. I made no mess, but you have....
I was trying to prevent equivocation which evidently you want to promote. Nope. I did no such lumping as you accuse. I separated definitions and did so accurately. Nope. What I labeled TOE was the part that Darwin was wrong about. Darwin had no clue of genes and alleles. The TOE came many years after Darwin.Now Darwin proposed NS as a mechanism of evolution. That part he got right. But Darwins' main theory and the title of his book was the Origin of the Species (or OOS). The NDTOE is a reconciliation of TOE and OOS. The NDTOE is an extrapolation of TOE into all of life's history. It is really that simple.The TOE is a falsifiable theory on it's own. The NDTOE is a falsifiable theory on it's own. I believe that TOE is correct. I am not arguing that gene frequencies in populations don't change. They do. It is central to my argument that TOE is correct. However, I also believe that NDTOE is incorrect. Gene frequencies in populations can change and lead the future populations to higher levels of relative fitness, or they can change and lead to lower levels of relative fitness. I believe the evidence is showing the latter. And that is what I am defending.By defining these terms acurately at the beginning, it prevents equivocation. Now you wouldn't want to equivocate by equating these two terms as you did above now would you?

But knew about inheritance and variation. Geneticists merely filled in the details, on which, as Darwin was not dogmatic, he could not be wrong as such, any more than Kepler could be wrong about the inverse square law. And yet direct observation shows the former.The only way anyone has found to produce genetic meltdown is to force populations through artificially small bottlenecks. Without them doing that, we see adaptive evolution increasing fitness.

Click on the "Search" link at the top of the page. For "Search Terms" enter "genetic drift" between double quotes. For "Search Forum or Category" select "Search All Open Forums". For "Search by Author Name" enter "Percy". Click on Search. Peruse the results going back to 2001. Evidently I've been familiar with the term for a long time.Now change "genetic drift" to "Kimura" and repeat the search. Peruse the results going back to 2002. Evidently I've been familiar with Kimura's work for a long time, too.So since I'm familiar with genetic drift and Kimura, you must have misunderstood my answer. Where you've gone wrong is that you've forgotten what you're defending. Back in my Message 104 I quoted Sanford, saying: Let me explain the contradiction again. Sanford says these mildly deleterious mutations are "too subtle" individually to be subject to the natural selection filter, and that they accumulate over time and degrade fitness. When deleterious mutations have aggregated to the point where they degrade fitness then this aggregation is not "too subtle" to be subject to natural selection. Natural selection would operate against aggregations of deleterious mutations degrading fitness. Sorry if I wasn't clear. Of course climate change of any sort affects selection. The scenario was supposed to be one of rapid climate change within a single generation, causing previously advantageous traits like hairlessness to become deleterious. Let me illustrate this another way. Say you transported hairless creatures from the desert to the North Pole. Their advantageous alleles for hairlessness would suddenly be deleterious. What is advantageous or deleterious is often a function of environment.The point I was making is that genetic processes will not cause aggregations of deleterious mutations to spread throughout a population and degrade fitness. Natural selection would operate against this. And if you want to argue that such aggregations have too subtle an effect for natural selection to operate on, then since there is no effect on survival to reproduce there cannot have been any degradation in fitness. There you go talking about reduced selection again. What in your imagination is causing this reduction in selection pressure? You do sort of attempt an answer here: But Sanford's Mendel program has nothing to do with artificial changes in selection pressures caused by man. Sanford is making claims about how evolution in nature works, not about man's impact on selection.So leave human interference out of the equation and explain to us what is responsible for this "reduction of selection" for large mammals.--Percy

Well so far, you haven't pointed out any, but to the contrary, I have pointed out a bunch of yours. LOL. Except that's exactly what a "kind" is ...a grouping.Blunder # 1 Failure to logically recognize synonymous language. Oh? Really? Then you should have no trouble producing fossil evidence of these common ancestors. And population genetic evidence of these common ancestors. So I specifically ask for you to bring it forth. Wow! Sounds like there are alot of these common ancestors. Well then I know now, that you are extremely confident that you can produce the fossil and population genetics evidence of these commoners. I will anxiously await your reply! Great! I love science. I learn from it all the time. My job is in the "science" world. So, show me. I would say that I am from Missouri, but I'm not. Show me the population genetics evidence that you claim to have delineating these lineages of critters.Oh? What's that? You mean these common ancestors are theoretical critters? You don't have any fossils of them? And you really only have population genetic info from extant organisms? Well that's a little disappointing isn't it. Are these common ancestors like angels? You've read about them. Someone who penned the books told you about them. Therefore, you believe they exist, but you really don't have any evidence for them? Especially population genetic information?Any way, for now, I will assume that you have an abundance of evidence about these commoners. But I am anxiously waiting to see it! But just in case you don't provide any fossil evidence or genetic evidence of these common ancestors, then unfortunately, I will have to let you know that will count as ....Blunder # 2: Failure to support main premise of argument. Oh mercy! I agree! (sarcasm) That's like saying...".Except for the evidence that we can see the sun, feel its heat, measure its EMR etc., etc., etc., there is no evidence that the sun exists!"Blunder #3: Failure the second time thru to recognize self refutation and contradiction.Now, even excluding humans there is evidence of design in nature. I challenge you to logically argue that a beaver's dam is not intelligently designed.Blunder #4: False premise. Failure to recognize design in nature. No one has asserted that "only extant species are descended from LUCA". Only you have made this statement/ argument.Blunder #5: Failure to recognize a strawman argument, which leads to .....Blunder #6: Failure to recognize that in a strawman argument, you are arguing with one's self. There are hospitals for that activity. How can such a blundering rationality make any meaningful argument about any design? Let alone a divine one.