Potential falsifications of the theory of evolution

There's kind of a disjunction, here. If it's your goal to falsify evolution, then you should be telling us what your three greatest supports for falsification are.Attacking our evidence doesn't falsify anything. Rather, you must show observations that could not be made if evolution was an accurate model.The greatest support for evolution is that the evidence all converges towards roughly the same thing - a pattern of common ancestry in living things - from multiple, independant directions.

We can take any DNA molecule and read its sequence of base pairs. We can take any sequence of base pairs and determine what polypeptide sequence will result. After that, it gets tricky... Research into protein folding models continues apace, however. I suspect the mysteries of proteinomics will be surrendered within the next decade or so. It's really just a modelling problem. All things we can currently do. Generating arbitrary sequences of DNA is not difficult; you don't even need to do it yourself. If you email the sequence to one of about a hundred labs, they'll do it for you at some price based on length.There's a physical limit on how long a sequence you can generate at any one time, though. Raw, unclad DNA isn't very strong so sequences longer than 10kbp (10 thousand base pairs) tend to break. It would be possible to generate the 5gbp (5 billion base pairs) of a human genome, for instance, piecemeal, and then rely on the pre-existing mechanisms of the cell to re-assemble it. Hard, but not impossible.Here's where the limit of our understanding is reached, though - we don't know how to generate functional proteins from whole cloth, at this point. We can specify arbitrary sequences of DNA but specifying DNA that results in a protein that has a specific desired function is currently beyond our knowledge. The best we can do right now is search the natural world for proteins that do what we want, already, and then identify their genetic sequence and then insert that into the target transgenic organism.

Quite the contrary - all available evidence in population genetics supports the common descent of organisms. To the extent that Sanford's computer program demonstrates the contrary, that's simply evidence that he's a bad programmer.

I don't understand this response.

Oh, I see, you simply misunderstood me (and have misunderstood the terms.) I was referring to common descent of organisms, inclusive - all organisms. The notion of created kinds is not "common descent" because the kinds do not have descent in common, they have it separate to each kind. It's an important part of the theory of evolution in any form. It's inherent to the idea that organisms descended from a single common ancestor, not that they were specially created by God. It's fruitless to simply muddy the terms as you insist on doing.Regardless, I'll repeat my point now that the axis of misunderstanding has been clarified - all available evidence from population genetics upholds the notion that organisms share common descent from a single most recent ancestor (the "Last Common Universal Ancestor", or LUCA.) Indeed population genetics is among the most powerful evidence for the above. Within population genetics alone there is more evidence for universal common descent than there is medical evidence for any medical diagnosis that has ever been made, physical evidence for any discovery of physics, or courtroom evidence for any finding by any court. That is the extent of the evidentiary basis for evolution from population genetics alone.

This makes no sense. What is the obstacle to selection occurring even if the population "can't afford it"?What you're suggesting is that natural selection somehow knows to stop happening on a population that is too small, that natural selection somehow gives them a break. But that doesn't happen. If natural selection poses too high of a "cost" on a population that is too small to bear it the population simply goes extinct. Natural selection doesn't cut anybody any breaks. Natural selection is only blind to recessive negative mutations in the heterozygous individuals. But the Hardy-Weinburg equation makes it clear that recessive negative traits will nonetheless show up in the homozygous individuals, which is where natural selection acts to take out those genes. When a homozygous individual is selected against as a result of his negative mutations, that's two copies of the negative allele gone in a single act of selection. That's how natural selection is able to prevent a "build-up" of negative mutations, even if they're recessive. (And few are. Classic Mendelian genetics is limited to a small number of species, not least of which because so few organisms on Earth are actually diploid.) Well, for the most part. There is actually intragenomic competition as well - competition between alleles that happens within a single organism.

With all due respect you don't seem to understand anything about biology. You're completely wrong. There is no support whatsoever in population genetics for the notion of "created kinds" or multiple ancestors. There is no support in any field of science for any form of biological design except for the biological designs human beings have succeeded in creating. Infrequently, we're actually able to collect genetic evidence from a small number of extinct species, and without fail that genetic evidence supports their common ancestry alongside all living species. The notion that common ancestry is shared by all living species and all extinct species we've been able to sample but not all the extinct species we've coincidentally not been able to sample is one hell of a coincidence. That's an ad-hoc explanation for your enormous scientific blunders, not a position that any thinking person could take seriously.Further, if that pattern were true - and it obviously is not - then it would indicate that not sharing common ancestry with all other species is one hell of a survival disadvantage, since all species that don't share common ancestry with living species are extinct, apparently. That's not much of a recommendation for the robustness of divine design of organisms.Still, though, you've succeeded in one thing, at least - your position is the best comedy I've seen all week.

The evidence are the abundant scientific blunders you make in each post. It's evidence of a grouping, but not of a "kind", because the common ancestor of dogs and wolves had itself a common ancestor with the creodonts, and that common ancestor had as an ancestor the common ancestor of all the placental mammals, and so on. This is the conclusion of the evidence from population genetics, and it directly contradicts the notion that dogs do not share a common ancestor with other mammals. The evidence is abundant that they do. I never said that there was not. What I said, if you'll read more closely, is that with the exception of the species that humans have designed there is no evidence of design in nature. Of course it does. Did you, or did you not say:

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Keep in mind there is no genetic evidence from all of those extinct species that leads you to LUCA.

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To assert that only extant species are descended from LUCA and, coincidentally, all extinct species are not is not only downright stupid and clearly false, but if it were true that would be a powerful pattern of evidence against the efficacy of divine design.And to repeat the point that you've completely ignored:

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What is the obstacle to selection occurring even if the population "can't afford it"?

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What you're suggesting is that natural selection somehow knows to stop happening on a population that is too small, that natural selection somehow gives them a break. But that doesn't happen. If natural selection poses too high of a "cost" on a population that is too small to bear it the population simply goes extinct. Natural selection doesn't cut anybody any breaks.

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I'm convinced that having to remember the combination of switches to make tar unzip your tarballs (Jesus Christ) is the single largest obstacle to the widespread adoption of Linux as a desktop platform.

And so what if it can't? Your position seems to be that if polar bears can't withstand the selection, natural selection takes pity and cuts them a break.That's abundantly false. If polar bears undergo more selection than the population can bear (er, no pun intended) then they'll go extinct. Natural selection doesn't cut anyone any breaks. It's an activity human beings engage in to protect certain species. It's not a feature of natural selection. The Endangered Species Act is only about 50 years old. What happened before then?

Where? Be specific. No, a "kind", according to creationists, is a family of organisms that share unique descent from a single pair of male and female organisms as created by God. Scientific cladistics has groupings, sometimes we call them "species" or "genus" or "phylum", etc., but "kinds", or baramins, is a concept unique to Biblical creationism. So, you're completely wrong. Sure. Cimolestes fossils, for instance. Bring it forth to where? I don't understand. Do you want me to mail you a Cimolestes fossil? I don't have any - you'll have to check with your local museum. Since we're just exchanging text on the internet, all I can do here is tell you that Cimolestes fossils exist. Sure. Tree of Life Web ProjectObviously I can't cut and paste the entire field of phylogenetics into a single forum post, nor get you up to speed on an entire field of science you've completely neglected. Did I say that? No, they're not "theoretical critters", they're Cimolestes. Did I say that? No, we have an abundance of fossils. No, that's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that, looking through the panoply of species on Earth, it's trivial to find species that bear the hallmarks of design. For instance, actor-creationist Kirk Cameron famously embarassed himself by pointing out the designed features of the Cavendish banana that made it so suitable for human consumption. His assumption was that the banana was designed that way by God. Quite quickly the banana breeders got back to him and informed him that, in fact, bananas are well-designed for human consumption because human beings designed them that way.This isn't a complicated or obscure point, Alpha. It's beyond me why you keep missing it. Sure, there's design in places in the biological world. Most species show absolutely no design of any kind, at all. And the few species that do - agricultural cultivars, livestock, de novo proteins, GM organisms, bespoke bacteria, and the like - were designed by human beings. Naturally, all these organisms are no older than human civilization. There are no examples of design in organisms prior to when humans began to design organisms. There's nothing about my argument that is contradictory. You just don't understand it. Some organisms appear designed and most do not. The few organisms that do were all designed by humans.It's not that hard to understand. This is the third time you've failed. A beaver's dam is not intelligently designed, it is beaver designed. Well, you asserted exactly that. I've quoted you making that assertion twice now. I don't know, Alpha, how can you? In fact, aside from a torrent of nearly-incomprehensible, sputtering name-calling, is there any argument you're capable of making?

False. 100% of the ancestral population is dead.The dead do not win fitness competitions, as a rule.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

We don't measure fitness relative to ancestral populations, because fitness is environment-dependent and the ancestral population is dead. The comparison is a necessarly invalid one - whose environment do you use? By definition the ancestral population has greater fitness in the ancestral environment, but conversely the modern population has greater fitness in the modern environment because the ancestral population has never lived there.Fitness is always a function of the organism's adaptation to its current environment, not to any environment in the past or future. That's what makes them more, not less fit - they've accumulated adaptational changes to the current environment that their ancestors would lack. Mutations are how a population of organisms increase in fitness. I think you mean a "field day", not a heyday.

Absolutely incorrect. As your citation proves, neither scientists nor anybody else measure fitness as relative to ancestral populations.

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Relative fitness is quantified as the average number of surviving progeny of a particular genotype compared with average number of surviving progeny of competing genotypes after a single generation

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See? Competing genotypes. Individuals don't compete with their distant ancestors because the distant ancestors are all long dead, and the dead don't win any fitness competitions.In addition to your profound ignorance of population genetics, you're also displaying an utter inability to read statements written in plain English. Why is that? Are you hoping that if you spew enough bullshit, we'll all be baffled and simply surrender?Sorry, friend, I've seen far better bullshit. You'll have to try a lot harder.

Look at all those words you spelled correctly, Alpha! Too bad the spelling is the only part of your post you got right. If you're teaching your kids that fitness comparisons are universally made against long-dead ancestors, then you're lying to your kids just as you're lying to me. Absolutely wrong. In population genetics, fitness is measured against the current population. There's no way to measure fitness against the ancestral population because it is dead, and the dead do not win fitness competitions as a rule. Relative to current, existing populations of wild trout. Not relative to their long-dead ancestors.How does that work, in your mind? Consider my great-grandfather, dead these 20 years or so. According to you, I'm somehow in competition with him - and losing, since you assert that fitness decreases over time with no exceptions. Funny - I just ate a meal, and I didn't have to fight off my great-grandfather, who has not left his grave. I've been a sexually active human being for some time now, yet not a single one of my mates or potential mates has ever even asked after my great-grandfather, and I've never had to chase him out of my wife's bedroom, since he's not left his grave. I'm not in competition with him for territory; I have a two-bedroom apartment and he occupies a two-by-eight plot in another state. Children? Well, all his children are dead, and I've never had any - I guess that's a tie. Of course, children might still be in my future; dead men sire children only infrequently.Indeed I'm at a complete loss to envision even a single instance where I'm genuinely in competition with my great-grandfather, much less an instance where I'm losing, as you insist.So, I'm forced to continue to conclude that you are entirely full of shit, and unable to read even the most simple sentences in English, much less between the pages of Science. My recommendation to you would be to stay clear of the scientific journals until you've mastered more appropriate reading, such as: This refers to captive breeding of trout by humans, a situation where we've all already agreed that a species can be insulated from some degree of selection pressure by man's intervention.You proposed that it occurs automatically, by nature. Captive breeding of trout can't be an example of that because they're being bred in captivity. You've yet to provide even a single piece of evidence in support of your assertion that natural selection cuts a poor species a break all by itself. The Science article is clearly one you were unable to read. Sanford's "research" has long been known to be bullshit. This latest post of yours only continues the pattern.