Empirical Evidence for Evolution

P: This is simple addition. In the case of walking, if one step nets you 2 feet, then 2 steps nets you 4 feet, 3 steps nets you 6 feet, and so forth. You can keep doing this endlessly. On the walk from the US to Australia the limit is the US shoreline. In evolution the steps are mutation and gene selection. If we keep this simple and just consider mutations at the rate of one per generation, first you have one mutation, then you have two, then you have three, and so forth. What keeps an organism from accumulating mutations endlessly?Death.That is the problem with your model. You assume evolution is moving upward, and refuse to consider the alternative side of the coin. I suspect it is because the wealth of evidence points to this other side of the coin.Take your example, except replace steps with dimes. Each transaction earns you 10 cents. After 6 transactions, you have 60 cents. Sounds good. The problem is, you are not telling your audience about the quarter it costs you for each transaction. So after 6 transactions you have earned 60 cents, but spent 150 cents. You are 90 cents poorer than when you started. You are going in the opposite direction!Evolutionists invariably fail to mention the other side of the coin (where all the evidence resides), which casts the illusion of ever-upward evolution (where the evidence is missing).

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Larry: Except that mutations occur in every generation and so they are passed on if beneficial on a probabistic basis and on probabalistic sense for neutral evolution as well.

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No, at best 1 in 50 beneficial mutations will survive to eventually become fixed in a population. Regardless, you miss the point. Percy’s scenario, like so many others evolutionists propose, does not allow for error catastrophe and eventual extinction.

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ME: That is the problem with your model. You assume evolution is moving upward,

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Larry: Wrong. Evolution doesn't have a direction except towards better fitness.

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No, you are wrong. We are debating whether or not large-scale evolution has occurred. In order for large-scale evolution to be true, the net movement must be upward. Sure, there can be sideways movement here, downward movement there, but overall the movement must be upward to get new genetic information that turns a scale into a feather, a protocell into an eye, an arm into a wing, etc.

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Larry: For there to be an alternative side of the coin there must be an alternative theory. Provide one with testable hypotheses, confirming evidence and potential falsificaitons.

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The alternative side of the coin I am referring to is deterioration, or de-evolution. Regarding creation, there is a wealth of evidence, the evidence is powerful and overwhelming. Its you free choice to continue beleiving in a fairytale. I’ve already given one compelling example - it is impossible to have a code without a sender. It is impossible to have a code outside the presence of intelligence. It is impossible to produce a code via randomness and blind selection. There are no known violations to these laws of nature in all of recorded history. Maybe you can produce one and win the nobel prize!

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Larry: What evidence? Please be specific and provide supporting citations to the scientific literature.

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I’ve written an article dealing with the deterioration problem. You can find it here: http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/articles_debates/mutation_rate.htmLet me note here the Addendum:Dr. James Crow, whom I cited in the article, graciously commented on the article soon after I wrote it. Via personal email he replied "Yours is a serious letter and it deserves a serious answer". He acknowledged it was a "serious problem" for the theory, but not "fatal" (for the record, he made it clear he still believes evolution has overwhelming evidence from other sources). All these mutation rate studies that come out continue to show a high mutation rate among humans. This is POWERFUL evidence that man & chimp do not share common ancestry, since these studies determine the rate by comparing monkey & human sequences. This tears down the illusion that 99% DNA similarity is evidence for decent. Evolutionists have no answers for this problem. They can only whip up stories like truncation selection (see article), something that has absolutely NO evidence for it. None. It’s not science. It’s story-telling.

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[This message has been edited by Fred Williams, 12-19-2001]

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Me: Regardless, you miss the point. Percy’s scenario, like so many others evolutionists propose, does not allow for error catastrophe and eventual extinction.

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Lbhandli Evolution is quite capable of explaining extinction from many causes.

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Yes, evolution is capable of explaining EVERYTHING, that is one reason why it is a bad theory (in fact it doesn’t even deserve theory status, at best it’s a low-grade hypothesis).Regardless, you continue to evade the point. Percy’s particular analogy did not ALLOW for extinction. It doesn’t matter if evolution can EXPLAIN extinction. Since The fact that Percy’s analogy does not ALLOW for extinction invalidates its application to this debate.

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Lbhandli: New genetic information is called a mutation. We observe them all of the time. Perhaps you need to be precise in what you are talking about.

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Mutation is NOT new genetic information. If you think this is true, you need to find someone qualified in information science to support you. I assure you you won’t find anyone to come to your aid (if you do, you have done the scientific community a favor by exposing a quack).

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Except the sender is the organism itself and the environment receives the code and determines with feedback if the code is adequate. You have demonstrated that you can assert there is no sender, but not eliminated the sender being the organism's genetic code.

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You went off the deep end here. How does the environment receive a code? What code does the environment receive?There is no known example in the history of man of a code originating without an intelligent sender. Not one single example. You must have an intelligent sender to create a code. Period. Information science is a dagger in the heart of NeoDarwinism. Fre Hoyle knew it, Francis Crick knows it, but many other evos remain in denial about it because if the implications. It’s 21st century Galileo-ism.

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Edge: Wow, I only intended to lurk here but this is just too rich. Fred thinks that because a theory explains "everything" it's a bad theory. So Fred, tell us how evolution explains "everything" and then tell us why it is bad to have things explained.

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Edge, I never said it is bad to have things explained. I said it is bad if the theory explains EVERYTHING. Do you understand the difference?Why is it bad for a theory to accommodate and explain everything? It means it is not *falsifiable*, a classic criterion for the validity of a theory. Very few, if any, tests puts the theory at risk. The most common prediction you get from an evolutionist is that you won’t find a mammal in Cambrian strata. The problem is, 1) vertebrate fossilization is very rare, 2) due to its rarity such a find, if it ever occurred, would be explained away as a local flood within the appropriate geologic time (its quite convenient for the evolutionist that stasis, a creationist expectation which has been borne out by the evidence, comes to their rescue here). Even from a creationist POV it would be extraordinarily lucky to find such a fossil buried with a bunch of cambrian animals. There are plenty of examples already of out-of-place fossils that have been explained away by evolutionists. The test is toothless.I also hear that finding evidence of a modern day dino, or evidence of dinos with man, would falsify evolution. However, I also have heard from many evolutionists that this would not falsify the theory because it would be explained as a living fossil.Like I said, the theory is set up to explain everything, which means it explains nothing.Things that would put creation theory at risk:* Clear cut lineages and clear cut ancestor-descendant relationships in the fossil record
* Large-scale transposition
* Lararckian inheritance
* Concrete examples of increases in complex information in rapid reproductive cycle organisms such as bacteria & fruitflies.

This is a good segue to an article I just completed. It's at: http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/articles_debates/fossil_illusion.htmI will start a new thread...

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[This message has been edited by Percipient, 01-11-2002]

Sorry to burst your bubble - I meant large-scale transposition of genetic material between species via lateral gene transfer. If this pattern were rampant, evolutionists would enthusiastically endorse it as evidence for their theory since it would greatly simplify evolutionary processes.Remine does a good job of explaining this in his book. You can order it here: http://www.creationresearch.org/cgi-bin/checkitout/checkitout.cgi?creationSTORE:CKIE src="http://www.evcforum.net/Images/Smilies/tongue.gif">rodBK-BIO1+