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But what if mutations resulting in the alleles within heredity were not truly random with respect to fitness? What if alleles were not governed by their fitness in the current environment but instead are pre-adative in that they are favored more by the current environment then they should be (eg feathered wings on whales for an extreme example).
You definitely have to play devils advocate since this has been shown in laboratory experiments to be wrong
In any case, even pre-adaptive traits would not completely falsify the ToE as Mr.Jack's thread is postulating. If it turns out that heritable methylation patterns or histone position can cause non-random mutation, you still have descent with modification and changes in allele frequency over time. The problem with postulating this is that so much of this has already been shown to be false i.e. pre-adaptation.
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The genetic mechanism for dispersal of genetic content to the next generation could remain intact while the selection and producting of new genetic alleles could be under the control of non-evolutinary mechanisms. There would still be the appearance of common ancestory in the DNA of different species through currently observed hereditary mechanisms.
I don't get this. If the reason I am genetically similar to my parents is just an artifact of a non-evolutionary mechanism, then the hereditary connection to my parents is broken i.e. both genetics and evolution are falsified. If a chimp is more similar to human than any other primate or a dolphin to a whale merely because of some non-evolutionary statistical artifact, then relationships based on genetics and heredity itself is supported by the same artifact i.e. you are no more closely related to your parents as to a fruit fly. This is the leap of illogic creationists make in the micro macro evolution arguments. They wish to state that the mechanism of transmission and the mutations that distinguish a parent from its offspring work the way genetics claims based on the findings and the science of genetics. However, when it comes to species they claim said system is insufficient to explain the transmission of mutation by a normal hereditary mechanism..no reason other than religious zealotry is provided for the opposition to genetics of species versus populations.