Even though he appears to have left us for pastures filled with easier marks:
Dr. Adequate writes:
For example, it is estimated that as many as 50% of embryos fail in the first week or two due to genetic defects. Is that the sort of thing you're thinking of?
No. I'm referring to mutations which produce blue skin, and red eyes, and thicker hair, denser bones, more teeth, clawlike finger nails, more digits, less digits, more jointed arms, etc. And if we go back to the original creatures evolution say existed at some point, the original mammal from which all others developed, then it should've had all kinds of abilities to generate all kinds of what we see today. It should've constantly been producing offspring with longer noses, longer ears, shorter noses, shorter ears, more toes, fewer toes, thick hair, unthick hair, long nails, thick nails, nails on only two fingers or toes, nails further up its fingers, thicker skin, thinner skin, more legs, more arms, longer necks, etc.
Every possible trait should've been produced so that the offspring could go off and find their niche - were evolution true.
One of the deceptions that creationists employ is to confuse terms, such as "mutation". As you are here, they restrict the term to gross (ie, large-scale) changes in the body. Ie, the change has to be large enough and distinctive enough to be noticed and logged in as a mutation. The real mutations, the ones of interest, are rarely so noticable.
In evolution, the only mutations that are of any interest are the ones in germ cells (cells that produce eggs and sperm, as opposed to somatic -- body -- cells that make up the rest of the body). This is because a mutation must be capable of being inherited for evolution to be able to use it. If under radiation (eg, UV irradiation) a body cell mutates, then that is of no interest to evolution because it will never be inherited by the offspring. But if a germ cell is caused to mutate, then that would be of interest because it could be passed on to offspring.
At this point, we should also note that many of the mutations that you view as typical are of absolutely no interest to evolution (even though they can be of interest to genetic scientists, because they help them to map out what genes perform what functions). Many, if not most, of them are
developmental mutations rather than genetic mutations. Ie, they occur because of something that happened during embryonic development. Thalidomide babies, for example, who were born with stumps for limbs (phocomelia) or with extra appendages (polymelia) because their mothers had taken thalidomide, a sedative-hypnotic, during pregnancy.
Furthermore, the types of mutations which of interest in evolution are genetic in nature, in that they are descriptions of how the genotype is changed. Ernst Mayr listed four such types of mutations (listing them here from memory, since my book is at home). Bear in mind that most genes transcribe for a protein, so I'm writing in terms of the resultant protein; also keep in mind that groupings of three bases form a codon which encodes for a particular amino acid. Also, the assessment of the effect of each one is my own opinion:
1. Base substitution -- replacing one amino acid in the protein with another. Most amino acids in a protein can be replaced with a different amino acids -- either with any amino acid or with an amino acid of a certain type --, as is evidenced by the same protein in different species having different amino acid sequences.
This type of mutation is very likely to be neutral, but with the potential of producing a different protein.
2. Base insertion (frame-shifting) -- the insertion or deletion of a base. Since this causes the rest (or remainder) of the sequence to change, it's causing a really big change all at once.
I cannot see how this could not prove harmful in the vast majority of the cases, such that it would destroy that gene (giving rise to a pseudogene, such as we find in related species).
3. Gene duplication -- the splicing in of extra copies of a gene. This creates the multiple alleles that we find, multiple pairs of genes. This is why our hair isn't just black/white, but rather all possible shades inbetween, because we have multiple alleles that encode for hair color. This is also how a gene can mutate to produce a different protein and yet we can still produce the original protein (eg, lysozyme -> alpha-lactalbumin), because this mutation had first produced multiple alleles for the original protein before one of those mutated to produce the new protein.
I cannot think of any situation in which this could prove harmful.
4. Transposition -- the reversal of portions of a base sequence.
Again, as a large change, I would think that this would more often than not destroy the gene's functionality and produce a pseudogene.
So, of the four basic kinds of mutations that actually matter, two of them are most likely harmful while the other two are not. A far different picture than creationists try to paint.
BTW, the Wikipedia article on "Mutation" (
Mutation - Wikipedia) expands on these basic four and provides more details and some examples. The article also distinguishes between "germ line mutations" and "somatic mutations", though they point out that if the organism reproduces asexually by budding or cutting then that distinction becomes blurred.
Rick, your friend was right to advise against you visiting us, though for the wrong reasons. Let me explain by quoting from a different scripture:
quote:
31. Therefore I say: "Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.
32. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal.
33. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril."
(Scroll III (Offensive Strategy), "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu, translation by Samuel B. Griffith, Oxford University Press, 1963)
You view evolution and those who accept it as the enemy. But you are ignorant of that enemy, as you have amply demonstrated. OK, you might have still had a chance to hold your own. But you also demonstrated that you are ignorant of yourself -- you don't know about the glaring errors, lies, and outright deceptions of "creation science" and its current stealth-faade, ID, as evidence by your posting of creationist PRATTs that were soundly refuted nearly 30 years ago -- , so you have no chance of success whatsoever here. The only place where you have any chance of "succeeding" is against those who themselves know neither you nor themselves. We know you (ie, creationists) because most of us have been observing and studying this entire "issue" (ie, purely a fabrication by the anti-evolution movement in the wake of Epperson vs Arkansas, 1968) for several years, even decades. And even if only as a result of that study, we have also know ourselves. We also have the advantage of having the evidence on our side. Most creationists do not last anywhere near as long as most of us do, especially the honest creationists, because as they discover the truth about their side's claims they will either retreat from the fray so that they don't have to face the truth, adjust their beliefs to better fit the evidence in which case they'd drop from the creationist rolls (even sometimes to the point of coming over to the evolution side), or they will become even more fanatical and succeed in isolating themselves even more from reality.
Rick, if you really want to fight against evolution,
then learn it! Learn everything you can about evolution
itself, not the grossly misrepresentative caricature that the creationists teach you. Also start to research into those creationist claims; they really are lying to you.
TalkOrigins Archive: Exploring the Creation/Evolution Controversy has an excellent archive with many aricles and links that will help you both in learning about evolution and related sciences and in learning the truth about creationist claims -- correcting that leap-second deception that you had regurgitated barely scratches the surface of their deceptions.
Oh, and to dispell one of the really big lies that they've taught you: no, you do not need to choose between God and evolution. Rather, you need to choose between God and creationist lies.
PS
Rick, you've been put into the same situation as Scott Rauch (see bold portion at end of his quote). Also-former-creationist Glenn Morton posted the question on a newsgroup ( the complete questions and responses are posted on Morton's site at
No webpage found at provided URL: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/whocares.htm):
quote:
On another listserve, the issue came up as to who cares about Genesis being history. I mentioned that there are lots of former Christians, who are now atheists who did care that Genesis didn't seem to concord with science and history and because of this left the faith. What I would like to do is test that assertion. If you are an atheist, who was a Christian in the past, I would like the answer to a couple of questions.
1. How important were the problems between Genesis and Science to your decision to leave Christianity?
To this, Scott Rauch responded:
quote:
About a year and a half ago, I was a firm special creationist. I am now a believer in evolution; not even sure if God is required. In 1995, Glenn Morton wrote to Stephen Jones about Stephen's provisional acceptance of common descent (as quoted by SJ Sunday, January 11, 1998 5:16 PM), "I know exactly how difficult a paradigm shift like that is." Well, let me tell you, the shift is absolutely devastating. I'm still struggling with all this. I still hold some anger because I believe the evangelical Christian community did not properly prepare me for the creation/evolution debate. They gave me a gun loaded with blanks, and sent me out. I was creamed.
Rick, you have yourself experienced what it's like for evangelical Christian community to have given you a gun loaded with blanks and then sending you out to do battle. Now, after having been creamed, what are you going to do about it?
Edited by dwise1, : Added Scott Rauch quote
™ Version 4.2