Problems with evolution? Submit your questions.

So we could test your "theory" by ... finding an alternate universe without apples in it?And we could test Carl Sagan's invisible dragon if God gave us a magic dragon detector.And we could test the Omphalos hypothesis if only we owned a time machineYour "theory" is right up there with textbook examples of things which are not really theories.It can also be handily removed from consideration by Occam's Razor, since I can account for people's behavior (other then a tendency to say "Hey, I smell apples") without reference to the fragrance of apples.---Unless you are certain that your reserves of obtuseness are unlimited, perhaps you had better save them for something that you really need to misunderstand, such as evolution.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Its complete lack of predictive power, on the other hand, affects the question of whether it is a theory. Because the fact that you can think of no testable predictions of your "theory" cannot be remedied by me knowing more about apples.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Apparently you think a lot of dumb stuff.However, indulging in silly fantasies about the people who disagree with you won't make your nonsense about apples scientific any more than it makes your nonsense about creationism scientific.Come to think of it, creationism also involves dumb unevidenced ideas about fruit, doesn't it? I'm seeing a theme here. All you need now is some sort of talking reptile in the mix and your novel "theory" of human emotions could be right up there with creationism.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

If you throw two dice, you're more likely to throw a seven than any other particular number, but that doesn't mean the result isn't random.

Surely these must have been bacteria, not viruses. This might help you to find the link.

It might be clearer if your imaginary dice were two different colors.Ways to make 7: 1 & 6
2 & 5
3 & 4
4 & 3
5 & 2
6 & 1Ways to make 6: 1 & 5
2 & 4
3 & 3
4 & 2
5 & 1Ways to make 8: 2 & 6
3 & 5
4 & 4
5 & 3
6 & 2

Ah ... RNA species. Which aren't bacteria or viruses.Thanks.

If you believe that this mishmash of lies and nonsense was in any way a reply to my post, which read, in full, "Surely these must have been bacteria, not viruses. This might help you to find the link", then perhaps you will say why.

This is not only false, but contrary to your admission that mutation is a "documented scientific process". Clearly a new mutation adds information to the gene pool. And we have in fact observed novel mutations in fruit flies. Spot anything new about the mutant type? And incipient speciationThat was an odd thing for him to say. No-one supposes that a single point mutation is at all likely to produce speciation.

But the rate of mutation seems more closely linked to time elapsed than number of generations.This is because a mutation in a germ-line cell such as an ovum or a cell in the testes can happen any time; it doesn't have to happen at the moment of conception.

You know, a lie is still a lie even if you disguise it as a question.

He was right, you didn't understand it. And apparently you suck at medicine too.

A mutagen only increases the mutation rate, it doesn't actually have magical powers.And there is, of course, a background level of his operon repair in the absence of a mutagen, as a few seconds' thought would have suggested to you and a few seconds' research would have confirmed. Have I vexed you in some way? Tsk tsk.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

No, I did. 'Cos it's obviously true. If you have a population all with the same allele of a gene, and then a mutation occurs introducing a new allele, you now have more information in the gene pool, because you have two alleles where previously you had one. Is any further comment necessary?It is manifestly the case that dog breeding has increased the information in the gene pool of Canis lupus, because the information to make wolves still exists, but has been supplemented by the information to make dalmatians and dachsunds and poodles and bulldogs and Old Enlish sheepdogs ... and so forth ... But this is not true. In the genetic experiments on fruit flies, the numbers of each new strain where entirely at the whim of the experimenters. Also, they were not selecting for mutations which conferred an advantage, but for any mutation which was visible. And they still did not all go sterile and die, you made that up. But this is not what has been seen in Drosophilia. It's not what's been done in Drosophilia.Your claim of 400 mutations makes it plain. If you take the natural mutation in primates and do the math, you find that since the divergence of humans and chimps (for example) there must have been about 35 million mutations fixed in the two gene pools: which agrees with observation of the genomes.Rifkin has simply misunderstood the fly experiments. This is not surprising, he's made a career out of misunderstanding things. In the words of Stewart Brand: "Among scientists who have read his work, Rifkin is regarded as America's leading nitwit."I've come across him before, he used to write for the Guardian. Once in an article he explained that people who produce raw materials must always be poorer than people who produce finished products, because finished products cost more. I wrote him an email, but I don't think he understood it. But this cannot be true. Breaking a control gene would only take a single point mutation, and in that case all Lenski's populations would have gained the ability to metabolize citrate by now. That would be two mutations, that's why they happened at different times. But this is not true. That's just all you've heard about. In fact, lots of mutations have occurred in Lenski's experiments, many of which are demonstrably beneficial. The citrate adaptation has received an especial amount of publicity because it is claimed to be experimental evidence of the role of contingency in evolution, making it the "ONE" that you've heard of.As for human mutation, as I say, we can measure the mutation rate. The average person has about a hundred mutations not acquired from their parents. And this is demonstrably enough to account for our divergence from chimps in the time available --- I can show you the math if you like. It is indeed strikingly in line with the predictions of evolution that a lineage will not produce a new species every sixty years.

Mutation.Any questions? Details of the way you'd like to measure the information in DNA.That is, we want an algorithm where you put in a string of As, Gs, Cs, and Ts and get out a number which is the measure of the amount of information in the string.I would also suggest that your measure should have the following two common-sense properties:* The "null string" consisting of no letters at all ( which mathematicians denote by λ ) should have an information content of 0.* Two absolutely identical strings should have the same information content.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.