The Origin of Novelty

OK, you are presenting this scenario in which we have a mutation that causes a small depression on the body, a "dimple", that can then better sense sunlight. This is now a given in this scenario.What you are questioning in this scenario is how this mutation could possibly be inherited by this organism's offspring. Well, that depends on what kind of mutation it is.You have body cells (somatic) and you also have gonads that produced gametes (germ cells). If the mutation is a developmental change caused by external factors (eg, the mother having ingested certain substances, such as alcohol), then that mutation would not be hereditary -- these are the gross mutations that are readily apparent and are the primary basis of the claim that all mutations are harmful. If the mutation is genetic, but is localized in a small area of body cells (eg, the development of skin cancers due to UV irradiation), then that mutation would not be hereditary. Only those mutations that happen in the gonads and/or the germ cells, which would then be passed on to that offspring to become part of the genes that develop into that offspring, would be hereditary. The only kind of mutation that is of any interest in evolution are those mutations that can be inherited.What kind of mutation are you proposing here? If it can be inherited, then it is a trivial fact that there is nothing to prevent it from being inherited. If it is a type that cannot be inherited, then it is of no interest to this discussion.So what's your problem?

I've actually heard this from creationists. Not the rank-and-file know-nothings like balderdash, but the top-level professionals. It was either Henry Morris in writing or Duane Gish on the radio. He actually said, that creationists' answers are better than "evolutionists'", because "evolutionists" claim to have all the answers that they don't, while creationists don't have the answers and they don't. No shit!Now, of course their "'evolutionists' claim to have all the answers" is a blatant creationist lie, just like balderdash's misrepresentations of what we say and think. But to claim that they, with no answers about the universe, have better answers than science does just because science has a very good understanding of the observable universe and yet doesn't have every single detailed answer. That is just plain ludicrous.BTW, balderdash is employing a very common fundamentalist proselytizing trick here. He demands that we provide an extremely detailed description of every single step of development and, when we cannot (Who could? Certainly not him!) then he attacks our position as being completely untenable. When that is deployed against a mark (the targeted victim of a confidence swindle) on the street, the intent is to unnerve him, to make him unsure of what he thinks and believes, and hence to prepare him for assimiliation into the Fundamentalist Collective. They have whole sets of tracts to train them in these vile techniques, complete with scripts that they will run through come hell or high water -- it's been observed that top creationists similarly have packaged spiels that they absolutely must deliver in debates and other public presentations. Even more to plug into the Matthew 7:20 Test.Creationists live on and depend on ignorance. The creationist argument is basically "God of the Gaps", that a naturalistic explanation disproves God while our inability to answer something is proof of God. So when there is a mystery to be solved, the scientist wants to try to solve it, while the creationist wants to keep it a mystery. And in the process, creationists reduce their god to little more than a cockroach that, when the Light of Knowledge shines upon it, immediately skitters off to the dark refuge of a narrow gap of ignorance. They tell us how immensely they love their god and yet this is what they do to it.Edited by dwise1, : added second and third paragraphs

Not really. That statement is true about the bases and "mechanisms" for creationism which, being supernatural, are indeed unfalsifiable and untestable. However, creationism does also make a very large number of claims about the real world. Those creationist claims about the real world are testable, have been tested, and have been found to be false. Somehow, I have great difficulty in understanding what meaning an unfalsifiable supernatural explanation for something that has been proven to be false could possibly have.