The End of Evolution By Means of Natural Selection

Hi Faith -- nice thread overall. I admire your stamina. On the contrary, your arguments are "being fought tooth and nail" because you are overlooking the implications of everything that is normally, frequently observed, and even the implications of your own statements.As I reviewed this thread, it seemed to me that Phage0070 came closest to getting through to you -- you at least admitted that you were trying (but struggling) to understand what he said -- but his last post (at Message 23, with the neat graphics) is one of those you haven't managed to reply to yet. It may be that his first graphic doesn't quite capture the position you're trying to articulate here, but the second graphic clearly shows why your position is untenable.The point would be even clearer if that picture is extended to the size of the populations we usually look at, and is drawn to show the geographic and other divisions that separate sub-trees at lower levels, to demonstrate how speciation works.In your reply to Phage0070's first post (at Message 19), you repeatedly show the crux of your problem: The problem here is that, although you seem to recognize that mutations occur, and that this creates distinct blood-lines, you are basing your position about the "wrongness" of evolutionary theory on two mistakes:1. You apparently want to limit the scope of the theory, forcing its assertions to apply only within one or another small, specific sub-population (where, as commonly observed and agreed, there is in fact less variability than you find in a larger population). But the theory of evolution is supposed to cover the relationship between a common ancestor and all the varied descendants from that ancestor -- not just one of them at a time.2. You seem to be suggesting (especially in the third snippet of that last quote-box) that as you focus in on one or another specific sub-population, further mutations in the offspring of that set just stop happening, or can just be ignored, or something like that. This is ridiculous.I can understand that you need to be selective about the posts you respond to; if you have to choose between Phage0070 and me, I think I'd rather see you reply to him -- think of me as just an extension of him. (yes, us evolutionists tend to stick together... )Edited by Otto Tellick, : clarified reference to quotation in the paragraph labeled "2."

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autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.