If evolution is true, where did flying creatures come from?

I did. Haven't had much sleep lately. Between hobbies, free lancing, and going back to working a regular gig last week. Sorry for the error. The more amusing thing is that she appears to be claiming to have proven such.

As I recall, Dr. A gave the example of the American Curl cat, a cat with cute curled ears that WERE the result of a mutation. This is hardly the typical situation I'm talking about. And I don't recall other examples but there may have been some, again exceptions when I'm talking about the rule.The American Curl was also developed by entirely different principles from those normally used in breeding programs. The normal method was the simple selection of traits toward developing a breed with those traits, but it eventually became apparent that the phenomenon I'm talking about here made that method undesirable when pursued through too many generations, because the fact IS that developing and maintaining a breed that way necessitates reduction in genetic diversity, and that eventually starts producing genetic diseases in your breed.Nobody in their right mind would try to get an American Curl breed that way. They selected healthy animals that didn't have the trait to breed with the one that did, and then selected those with the curl trait from the offspring. They continued to mate those with the trait with healthy animals without it to avoid the problems caused by reduced genetic diversity, selecting those with the trait to continue the same process until they had many cats with the trait. I don't think they ever produced an actual breed with the trait, that is, a type of cat recognizable by other traits than the curled ear alone, but instead have many types of cats with that trait. It's a completely different process. Standard breeds are now often bred with others to build up their health in the same way, sacrificing some of the breed's characteristics.Anyway, mutations sometimes crop up and sometimes are chosen, but this is NOT the normal way breeds and varieties have developed either through domestic selection or natural selection. And sometimes a new interesting trait isn't the result of mutation anyway, since highly bred animals can come up with unique genetic combinations from their built-in genetic store. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Incorrect.You are making stuff up again. Mutations account for new traits. Real geneticists and biologists have been studying this for over 100 years. What mechanism accounts for this? A particular trait picture? What does that mean? Maybe you are onto something....call the Nobel Committee!Faith, sitting at home fantasizing about life will never trump actual scientific research. The surprising thing is that one person can be so remarkably wrong about every subject she talks about.

Sorry but this is not so. All you need is genetic variability in a population to produce new traits, none of which came from mutation. Under the handicap of a bogus theory keeping them from recognizing the truth. The fact that any small number of individuals out of a large population will form a new population in which new gene frequencies develop their own group traits as they breed among themselves in isolation from other populations. Transplant a few hundred people from your own neighborhood to an isolated island where you have no contact with the outside world for a few hundred years and you will see this principle in operation. If the number is small enough the new population may not even carry all the alleles from the former population, and this would certainly be the case in the scenario I justdescribed. But over time even if all the alleles were represented the less frequent ones will die out of the population anyway. This is reduction in genetic diversity accompanying phenotypic change.This reduction can be quite drastic if the method isn't simple isolation of a migrating population but actual natural selection where say a predator picks off those with certain traits. Snake eats nonpoisonous newts, leaving only the poisonous ones to proliferate. Natural selection is a great reducer of genetic diversity, which is of course counter to the notion that it's the fuel for evolution; it has quite the opposite effect on a creature's ability to evolve. A particular trait picture: a population of wildebeests with brown coloring, large antlers, short stocky bodies and an aggressive disposition would be a trait picture for a wildebeest population; but there may be another population of wildebeests that are black with smaller anglers, long legs and a mild disposition etc etc etc, because they have a different combination of genes from each other. (I know there are at least two "races" of wildebeests, the black and the blue and I didn't try to get their characteristics right, just the principle of variation). Same of course with human races where a subpopulation may be characterized by blond hair, blue eyes and pale skin while another separate population has black hair, dark eyes and tannish skin. Just to pick a few traits out of the many that characterize isolated populations.Just as an aside, human skin color is governed by many different genes and comes in a huge variety of shades. In an article on Pygmies for instance this is said: It's interesting that different numbers of genes are postulated, but whatever the actual genetic picture involved, each group has its own combination of traits or what I called its "trait picture" Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What if none of the existing genetic variability could produce the new trait?For example, you can start with a bacterial population of just a single bacteria that has no resistance to antibiotics. Over time, mutants appear over time that are resistant to bacteria. How do you think that happens?Remeber that bacteria are haploid organisms. How do you explain features that develop over time that are not found in the initial gene pool of the population?

You have not demonstrated that there is any such rule. It is only the exceptions to the rule that have any support at all. The rest of the rule is something you made up and that has no support.We know that in breeding dogs over a few generations that only the current traits of the dog matter. That's predictable from the known rate of mutations. Your silly rule is simply not needed to explain anything that is observed. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Genetic variability is all derived from mutations. You go on and on and on with your made up claim that all the variability was built into the genomes when not one single scientist in the history of genetics has found it. All the evidence shows that variability is the result of past mutations and continuing mutations that happen in every mating event.If you, who has never studied genetics, could actually come up with a new principal of how it works, then people who actually know the subject would have discovered it and won the Nobel Prize already. You are clutching at straws.That is not how scientists think at all. I never met a single scientist who is single-minded like you believe. All the scientists I have known and worked with and read continuously question themselves, question their findings, ask their colleges for opinions, because no one wants the humiliation publishing something that they should have seen is incorrect.The only people who routinely labor under the handicap of a bogus belief that keeps them from recognizing reality are creationists.I should have known better than to think I could get you to consider that you might be mistaken.

I gave several examples. You have given none. So which is the rule, and which is the exception? You seem to have forgotten why we're talking about artificial selection at all. Surely it is for the light it sheds on natural selection. Now natural selection, when it favors a new phenotype, favors the genes that make that phenotype adaptive. It doesn't also try to standardize fur color and tail length and disposition and all the other things that breeders fuss about. It does not (metaphorically) try to produce a type which is uniform in every respect, and it could not try to do that at the cost of reducing the actual fitness of the population.So, yes, there are differences between the way that people bred the American Curl and how they bred the Siamese. But these differences are all such as to make the production of the American Curl a better model for natural selection than the production of the Siamese.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Actually you did not use of any statistics. You don't know enough mathematics to do that. In a typical debate in which statistics are used, you claim not to believe in statistics. I'd be happy to cite some examples of you doing just that.You don't recall the details of your arguments, and as you have demonstrated in this thread, you don't recall the rebuttals of others to your arguments. You simply remember winning the debate? Is that right?You don't recall, for example, storming off in frustration in the middle of rebuttals and staying away from EvC for several days?

duplicateEdited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well, that was Darwin's interest though it's not particularly mine. I'm interested in the fact that the processes are similar, involving the selection of traits along with the elimination of others, which over many generations, or especially over many separate selection or isolation events, reduces genetic diversity. Yes, of course. However I would point out that you can't change one single trait without affecting many others by the normal methods of breeding by elimination, so in the end natural selection tends to produce new varieties or races overall anyway. The American Curl does demonstrate a completely different approach to breeding by which you add other traits to the trait you want to preserve. That way you'll never end up with an identifiable breed, though you will preserve the trait and increase its presence in a Species. Hm Interesting thought, but I wonder."Hey Herr Natur [well, the author of bloody tooth and claw can't be a lady] Herr Natur I say, Dr. A here. I thought you might be interested to know that we human beings have come up with an improvement on your Natural Selection methods. Not that we don't appreciate your fine work in directing the course of evolution, but we think it might be time to consider a nicer, kinder method. More, ah, politically correct you might say. You'll get your desired trait but without all the --- *yech* -- carnage. No more killing off the poor little white moths that happen to land on the blackened tree; no more killing off the sweet little white mice that through no fault of their own scamper onto the lava. No, we will work to build up their health instead of culling them so viciously to produce our desired aim. I suggest you might want to retrain your predator birds, perhaps redirect them to worms. Worms are quite tasty and they don't evolve anyway. Thank you for your careful consideration of the New Improved Kinder Natural Selection."Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

So no, but yes. But you remember how this is something you made up? [citation needed]The American Curl is an identifiable breed. As are the the Scottish Fold, the American Wirehair, the LaPerm, the Selkirk Rex and the Munchkin, which (you seem to have forgotten) were the other examples of cat breeds I gave. I can attach no meaning to this.

Guess what: As you all love to say to me: There is NO evidence for this. It's all assumption, all merely an artifact of the ToE. The actual evidence of mutations shows very little in the way of anything that could further the wellbeing of a creature and therefore be desirable for its evolution. Well, it's not made up at all, it's the logical consequence of the Biblical Creation and the fact IS that the processes that bring about evolution DO bring about reduced genetic diversity as both breeders and conservationists know very very well. And that IS evidence for my argument. Until Darwin it was also the accepted understanding that a Species or Kind has its own characteristics to itself alone. Darwin then made an illogical logical leap you could say and pronounced them all related, WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE. Then of course eventually you had to have something genetic to make that possible so mutations were the next invention or assumption. That's all you have, you do not have evidence. This is simply not the case. You see some mutations and make a huge logical leap into thin air with the claim that they are the basis for normal genetics. The actual evidence is that for every slightly beneficial or interesting change they may produce, they produce thousands of disease processes along with thousands of "neutral" changes that do nothing more than kill off a perfectly good allele although not producing a negative effect at that point. But it isn't me, it's Creationism, which I'm simply pursuing in my own peculiar ways. And there is a reason the scientists won't come up with it and that is that their paradigm is inclusive enough with a little nudging here and there to accommodate their observations. And any scientist who found himself entertaining an interpretation that seemed to favor a creationist idea would be so incredulous and probably embarrassed he'd just rethink his work in more evolutionistically correct terms. Since it's an interpretive science this is quite possible. I do, however, think there are tests that could be done involving DNA sampling of a series of populations isolated from one another which should show the reduction in genetic diversity I'm talking about. Could possibly be done by creating the populations in a laboratory or by testing individuals of ring species in the wild. It is claimed this has been done and no loss of genetic diversity is seen, but that simply can't be so as the experience of both breeders and conservationists suggest. But they aren't looking for what a creationist sees. There is no accusation of ethical failure in anything I'm saying. Scientists quite naturally think within the parameters of the accepted paradigm, which is evolution. Any paradigm is a collection of interpretations that condition all the other interpretations. And any scientist who found himself entertaining a creationist interpretation of some finding couldn't live with himself if he didn't rethink it within the accepted interpretive system. The consequences of such an interpretation would indeed be humiliating. I'm often mistaken about a particular approach to something specific, but in this case I've been working on it a long time and it keeps getting clearer, so yes you aren't going to talk me out of it with the usual evolutionist objections. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Perhaps I didn't see your other examples because I don't remember them. And I'm using the term Breed in the usual sense of an animal that looks like all the others in the breed, not a variety of different breeds that all happen to have curled ears or long noses. If you are going to purloin the term for such cases then give me another one for the standard definition of a breed.Sorry my little excursion on natural selection didn't amuse you. The point is that the American Curl CAN'T be a model for natural selection.ABE: The American Curl was developed by ADDING traits to the selected trait, which is why there is no such thing as an identifiable American Curl Breed in the usual sense of the term. The method of addition is NOT Selection and therefore can't be used as a model for Natural Selection. The usual method of breeding, which is essentially by subtraction of the unwanted traits, by which you do get identifiable breeds that share all the same basic traits, IS selection and that's why it worked as Darwin's model.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

As I pointed out to you --- almost exactly a year ago, as it happens --- the Cat Fanciers Association calls the American Curl a breed. The International Cat Association calls it a breed. How do you think I found all these examples in the first place? I looked at lists of cat breeds.If you wish to redefine the term "breed" to mean "a group of animals which has intentionally had as much genetic diversity bred out of it as possible" then:(1) That would be you purloining the term, since that is not what animal breeders mean by the term "breed". It's their term of art, you can't redefine it just for the sake of your argument.(2) Your idea of what a "breed" is would hardly be relevant to any question about what happens in nature, since natural selection does not and cannot try to produce anything like a "breed"-as-redefined-by-Faith. The trait that defines the American Curl has been selected for. In this case, the trait of not-having-curly-ears. The other traits weren't unwanted.