Summations Only

Hi Kleinman, and welcome to the fray. And your problem is that evidence shows convincingly that it can and has done it.The problem you have is that math is only a modelling technique, and like any model it is good only as long as it predicts reliable results (see Hurricane track projection models for instance) and that when the results are at odds with the model it is the model that is faulty, not reality. That is when scientific modellers tweak their models to agree with reality.I've discussed this type of problem before on the old improbable probability problem.Now if you would like to present your model, we'll be happy to help you find where your errors are.Enjoy

Those are behind a paywall. I'm retired and have no access. Perhaps you can email copy? IM me for email address.From reading the abstracts they appear to be devoted to specific case studies, and not generalized to the level of a theorum that could show evolution does not work.Meanwhile you have not addressed the issue of evidence that shows it does work.Enjoy

You found it. Email addy sent.Enjoy

Excuse me for coming in late in the discussion. I have received your pdfs but not had time to look them over yet. Can you answer a simple question for me, even if it has already been asked?What is the probability that a mutation will be beneficial?I think we can all agree that mutations are random -- leaving aside for the moment that the probability of mutations varies with the section of DNA involved -- and that some are immediately deleterious or immediately beneficial, while others are immediately neutral and their relative deleterious\beneficial value can be important later.We also have cases where a mutation is somewhat deleterious but leads later to beneficial results because of changing environmental conditions.So how can we predict the probability of a mutation being beneficial?Enjoy

If you don't know then you cannot invalidate evolution with your calculations. Evolution works by beneficial mutations being selected by natural processes -- success in living and breeding. The probability of a mutation being beneficial would seem to be central to any mathematical approach trying to show that evolution is broken. Which leaves the door open to later mutations that can build on them. Yet every individual in every species has several. For individuals that survive from zygote to born young. All those that die from birth defects are because of less than sufficient fidelity. This is confused. There is one mutation, it occurs randomly, and that means both location and format\type are part of the same mutation, not two separate problems. The same type in a different location would be a different mutation.There is no "correct mutation" -- the mutation happens and then selection operates on that mutation, whether it is in location A or location B, whether it is type K or type L. Whether or not it is beneficial is that probability discussed above that you admit you don't know.This seems to be the root of your problem, trying to make a single mutation event into a two event process.It also seems from this that you are calculating the probability of a given mutation occurring in a second individual. Certainly when you go to two mutations occurring independently in different individuals the maths would give an extremely low probability for occurrence, but that is not how evolution works. Yet we know that they all occur every generation of every species. All natural selection needs are some beneficial mutations and a low rate of death/fertility problems (where selection pressure enters the picture). This too is confused. If I take a coin and toss it 53 times I end up with a pattern of heads and tails, and the probability of my getting that specific pattern is 1.If I try to match that pattern with another 53 tosses the probabilities are, by the multiplication rule, extremely minute. You only use multiplication when the same steps need to be reproduced. Evolution does not work that way. Again, we get back to the question of the probability that a mutation will be beneficial, which you admitted you don't know ... certainly then you can't know the probability of a second mutation being beneficial, but that isn't the worst of your problem.There are actual documented experiments (one involving E. coli) where a neutral mutation occurs in one generation and then in a later generation a second mutation occurs where the combination is beneficial, meaning that the original mutation is now beneficial. Calculating the probability that those two specific mutations would occur (the "correct mutations" at the "correct locations") would result in a very small number, but the probability that it occurred is 1: it happened.Your model is wrong because there is an assumption of structure to the mutation process being necessary to evolution, and that assumption is false.Enjoy