Is there really such a thing as a beneficial mutation?

The "overwhelming evidence" is an illusion. But there is no point in arguing this with a dozen people who are only going to use their numbers and their being on the side of the "right" opinion, plus ridicule, to win their point, instead of arguments, and who just can't bear it when we aren't persuaded.But maybe it's just that the positions on both sides are clear and this is an impasse. I doubt it though. I don't think anybody here grasped what mjfloresta or I was trying to say.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Great. Instead of a continuation of the back and forth about the creo interpretation vs the evo interpretation, maybe you could launch this thread in the direction of a discussion of the actual particulars of some of the mutations known as beneficial. Perhaps a list of all known ones at some point. Or maybe Crash could offer that.

I have NO idea why you are informing me of these obvious things.

Thank you, that's at least an explanation, but the trade-offs I had in mind weren't adaptations, they were active diseases vs. active diseases.

Another thing is that you are apparently assuming, as per the ToE, that all "traits" are the result of mutation. This is understandable, it is what the ToE dictates. But creationists question this of course. Traits are simply the selected product of the variety of alleles already present in a population, which were designed into the creature, not created by mutation.So I was not talking about traits, but only about the supposedly beneficial mutations that are currently claimed to have been observed, more than one of which is like the Sickle Cell genetic disease which is strongly selected because of its protection against malaria.

You have the usual fanciful and totally hypothetical scenario about how everything came about according to the ToE. I'm trying to talk about actual evidence, not the standard evo fantasies. I address the specific examples given, such as the sickle cell mutation and people answer with standard ToE hypotheses. Not kosher.Again, I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW already that evolution doesn't give a fig about long healthy lives or anything else except survival and propagation. Good grief, this is tiresome. But it is not anthropomorphizing anything to suspect that what is observed of what IS healthy could not possibly have come about by a system that pits disease against disease, and that calling that "beneficial" flies in the face of reason. Such a system is not a viable system even for survival let alone evolution.But since this logic is not convincing to anyone who is stuck on the ToE, that's fine, I'm ready to stop discussing this since it is going nowhere.

Adaptations of the sort described ARE elegant and precise by the terms I was using, they are NOT "compromises" of the sort of disease vs. disease. I'm questioning the very idea that such adaptations could ever have come about by such a process as mutation as described in the few examples so far given.

If scientists weren't so besotted with the ToE we might be able to come up with some answers to such questions. They'll never stand a chance when people's minds are turned in the opposite direction. I have no idea. The fact appears to be that they don't, that's all, but instead produce all kinds of useless or deleterious alleles in some amazing proportion, and besides that, I know you think the short list of beneficial mutations so far discussed on the other thread is sufficient evidence that this could be the cause of all traits, but I simply despair of anyone's seeing how obviously it can't possibly be so. And I know you despair of my seeing how it is. You have to be somehow dismissing the implications of the enormous preponderance of deleterious mutations and supposedly functionless mutations that simply snuff out alleles right and left to who-knows-what ultimate end. Yes, I know selection supposedly weeds all this out, but but that's just theory, not actual fact. There's a lot of useless junk and various less-than-desirable mutations in all our genomes so obviously a lot didn't get weeded out. Well, this is where I'd like to see a really comprehensive list of these so-called novel traits you have actually seen develop de novo that are viable or beneficial. I'm not impressed with the short list so far. This isn't about my assumptions, it's just about the claims for this list against what actually exists. I suppose my assumptions make it possible for me to think against the ToE of course.

All fossil evidence can show is a variety of designs of the ear. The idea that one is related to another genetically is a purely hypothetical assumption imposed on the data.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What is "denial mode?" What am I denying? Your personal characterization of my motives is unwelcome. Please take it back.

I myself have complained about the turn this thread took, and have blamed it on the way I ended up writing my OP. There is no denial involved. The thread started going back in the old direction and there seemed to be no way to rescue it and I just started answering people according to their arguments. If those arguments stop coming up, all will be well. If you have a way to rescue the thread, then do so.However, my intention was not to understand how evolution views anything, but what science has to say about mutations.

Another restatement of the evo definition. I understand it already. I've understood it all along. Let's get the thread off the creo-evo argument and this will not be a problem any more. As long as that argument is alive I'm going to continue to challenge this tunnel-visioned definition as simply obscuring the fact that evolution can't happen. Drop it now and let's get on with the actual science of mutations. I never said it did and I already answered your die analogy. Perhaps a misunderstanding. I don't remember where. From something Crashfrog said I think. If false, then let it be corrected. Let me reword it. I gave examples of how it doesn't appear that enough weeding is going on. I'm not sure what this proves. I've accepted the bacteria examples. I simply don't like the human examples. They aren't of the same sort of thing. I don't have a problem understanding this. I simply see it as a system that can't work for what it's supposed to account for. BUT I DO NOT WANT TO ARGUE THIS ANY MORE. In fact why are YOU arguing it since you want to get this thread back onto science? I understand it just fine. I don't see why you think I don't. I disagree with the role it is given to play in being the driving force of evolution. BUT AGAIN, if you really want to get this thread off this argument and onto a simple discussion of the scientific facts, then stop arguing this.I suppose I should rewrite the OP because it is only going to invite more of same.

Science is phenomena, is facts. Evolution is theory, is interpretation.

How long have YOU been posting here? The same old canard about how the theory of evolution IS science. Fine, it's science the way any working interpretation of the data is science in some sense. The ToE is under debate here, remember? This habit of treating the ToE as the open and shut explanation of the data is offensive in this context. The scientific facts are open to other interpretations and keeping some degree of an open mind about that is what SHOULD be going on here.

For crying out loud, Percy, do you regard the explanations of its supposed benefits that have been put forward here as being on a TECHNICAL level? You mean those wild imaginative hypotheses about how it is good for small jaws, and because they get impacted a lot and so on?What sort of technical answer could there be to that anyway? I'm sure there are lots of things we can do without that once had a function. The appendix probably once had a function. We probably had all kinds of disease protections we no longer have. How could I guess the probable role of wisdom teeth in our ancestry? Just because losing them is no felt loss now, and in some cases (how many? Nobody has said) may be a relief from crowded teeth and other ills, doesn't mean it isn't REALLY a deleterious mutation, perhaps accommodating to who-knows-how-many previous losses by mutation. Is that technical enough for you? It's at least equivalent to the imaginative ideas about how it's a benefit.{edit: OK, here's my theory. It's not evo theory for sure. EVEN IF it spreads in the population, by my theory it may still be deleterious. Evo theory DEFINES it as beneficial if it spreads in the population, but this is why the definition is a problem. That's how you get the definition of sickle cells as a beneficial mutation. The loss of wisdom teeth may be positive in relation to previous deleterious mutations that brought about the smaller jaw perhaps. Evolution theory doesn't care. Evolution theory is optimistic about everything that gets spread in the population. That's supposedly how evolution came about. But what if Biblical creationism is true instead? Then everything is deteriorating, human beings are deteriorating, and we may get adaptations TO our deteriorated condition but the overall effect is still deterioration. This is why the nicely streamlined evolutionist definition of survival and propagation of a trait just doesn't cut it. It hides the possibility that devolution may be in fact what is happening. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.