The Electric Eel - more evidence against evolution

As is the electric eel, when you take into account account accumulative change over time, with the filter of the environment the eel was in.

Click the "peek" button at the bottom right of any message with quotes and you'll see how they did it.--Percy

Unfortunately, I'm not much help here.Maybe we both need to learn a bit more before drawing any conclusions :]

Nonsense.Advantageous changes don't get selected; seriously disadvantageous changes that prevent reproduction get selected.

I disagree with the statement. It expresses the situation from only one point of view. If an individual is born with a mutation that will be fatal before it can reproduce then expressing it as you have seems to be the most sensible way to describe it. But it is just as true that an individual without the mutation has been selected positively. It's a filter. Both things which fall through it and things which don't have been selected. Some positively and some negatively.So you don't use the word selected all naked like that. It is selected for or selected against.

As I understand your statement it is wrong. Genomicus is also not quite correct for different reasons.Changes that enhance the chances of generating viable offspring do enhance the prospects of a population dominating over those without the advantage.Selection is both a negative (purifying selection) as well as a positive process.

Correct -- if there is an evolutionary pathway that consists of steps that provide a selective advantage, there is no real problem for the evolution of that system.

Again, yes, some changes may give some critters an advantage BUT only in a very limited sense.It is only when those critters in a population don't reproduce that a trait gets filter out.Sexual selection is a good example.

Yes, I should have been clearer.See Message 68.

Others have already responded to this. I advise you to study the theory you subscribe to. There is positive selection and purifying selection. This is pretty basic, and actually there are ways to compare DNA sequences and see if purifying or positive selection has dominated their evolution.

And I responded to them.see Message 68.

I don't mind being wrong, but I'm interested in where you think my arguments above have been flawed.

Citation, please. Positive selection can be weak or it can be strong; so, too, can purifying selection be weak or strong. Where does this "but only in a very limited sense" come into play? Not necessarily. A trait can be lost from a population through genetic drift, or it can be replaced by another, more advantageous trait (positive selection).

I think I explained already.A good example is sexual selection. In some animals for example a dominate male may become the only male reproducing and so his genes are the ones that get passed on, but only until that dominate male gets replaced. But in other animals species and even in the case above, other males do "get a little strange" at times and so their genes too remain in the population.Dominate a population is not synonymous with exclusivity.And this is important in the example of this thread. Traits that are not seriously advantageous or disadvantageous get passed on. Filtering is only at the extremes.

Traits that offer neither an advantage or a disadvantage don't all get fixed in the population. This is not the same thing, of course, as merely being passed onto offspring, but fixation (at least the general spreading of the trait throughout much of the population) in a population is hugely important when it comes to the evolution of biological systems. Simply getting the trait passed onto your offspring won't necessarily do the trick since that trait can be lost in the population. Beneficial traits can get lost, too. Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.