[_ Old Earth _] Medical Schools and Evolution

[Barbarian]

All this is beside the point which I repeat it for emphasis.

There is NO UPWARD MOVEMENT.

Horizontal transfer occurs - no problem there. However, we are seeking, according to the type of evolution I am discussing, a great deal of upward movement.

Show us what necessary step you consider to be upward movement, and we'll see if we can find the transitional form.

For example, the sort of movement that would create a bird from a reptile

What do birds have that no dinosaur ever had? Tell us what you think, and let's see what the evidence says.

or worse yet, a unicell from a bacterium

The great jump there were organelles, but there are proto-organelles in many bacteria. So that's not a problem. The existence of organelles with their own, bacterial DNA in almost all eukarotic cells is an issue, but since we directly observed the evolution of endosymbiosis, (I would show you again, if you like) that's not an issue. What do you think could not have evolved in this step?

But at the end of the day, the fossils are the final arbiters of evolution's destiny, not molecular genetics

No, that's wrong. As you know, the huge number of fossil transitionals (and even more convincing, the total lack of such transitionals where there shouldn't be any) makes it clear that evolution is a fact. But molecular genetics can show us many things that the fossil record cannot. These are just two, equally important sources of information about evolution. But of course, they aren't the only sources.

which can and will be interpreted in any number of ways before the day is over.

As you see, even people you cited as opposed to the idea of a tree of life for non-eukarotes, agree that the evidence for common descent is overwhelming.

Remember the 'junk DNA' fiasco

Yep. It must have seemed like a golden opportunity to creationists. Only later did they learn that scientists had already determined that much of non-coding DNA (the scientific term) had functions. When I was an undergraduate in the 60s, biologists were writing papers about it.

which has been comprehensively wrecked many times over now?

I'm not unsympathetic. But a quick literature search could have saved them a lot of embarrassment.

The fossils are still speaking loudly, that evolution did not occur.

Even Stephen Gould, the author of punctuated equilibrium, admits that fossil transitionals are "abundant." So that's easily refuted.

 

[Asyncritus]

Speciation?
So all life is within one evolutionary tree?
Might each type been created within their own "evolutionary tree".

I believe every species was created, with the potential for enormous variation WITHIN THE SPECIES or FAMILY BOUNDARIES.

Think of the dogs or pigeons as examples. There is enormous variation WITHIN THE GROUPS. But all the breeding that has gone on since man has been on the earth has never changed a dog into, say, a bear, or a pigeon into an eagle.

It simply does not, and cannot happen. Lenski's 55000 generations of bacteria (see comments below) have produced no new species.

Luther Burbank said as much:

I am willing to admit that that it is hopeless to try to get a plum the size of a small pea or one as big as a grapefruit. I have daisies on my farms little larger than my fingernail and some that measure six inches across, but I have none as big as a sunflower and never expect to have. I have roses that bloom pretty steadily for six months in the year, but I have none that will bloom twelve, and I will not have. In short there are limits to the development possible, and these limits follow a law. [Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried, Dell Publishing 1973, p. 36] - See more at: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/04/natural_limits058791.html#sthash.p9GT7rts.dpuf

That 'law' was enunciated by Galton, Darwin's cousin:

Darwin's cousin Francis Galton, an early eugenicist and statistician, formulated the law of "regression to the mean." Tall parents probably have tall children, but probably not as tall as their parents. The very idea that there is a "mean" fits uncomfortably with the idea of progressive evolution.

Lane P. Lester and Raymond G. Bohlin:

What is the use of their [E. coli] unceasing mutations if they do not change? In sum the mutations of bacteria and viruses are merely hereditary fluctuations around a mean position; a swing to the right, a swing to the left but no final evolutionary effect.

Richard Lenski's experiments at Michigan State University are of interest. Michael Behe has discussed Lenski's work here at ENV and elsewhere in various articles. Lenski has raised E. coli bacteria in jars for 55,000 generations, or 22 years. The bacteria are subject to selection pressure from each other. News from his experiments is always likely to be reported in the New York Times, which is watching closely and perhaps realizes what's at stake. Nonetheless, Lenski's E. coli have to date remained E. coli; no new species have been reported. Meanwhile mutations have subjected the bacteria to loss of function. - See more at: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/04/natural_limits058791.html#sthash.p9GT7rts.dpuf

Therefore 'evolutionary tree' may not be a good description - 'tree of variation' might be better, but it sounds clumsy.

Given all those thousands of years of selective breeding experiments by farmers of all sorts, all with one voice as a result of their observations, practical,rock solid observations, say that change of species simply does not happen.

It's about time to call 'time' on evolution.

It has not worked, does not work, and all these unjustified and wild claims about phyla changing into other phyla (like the fish into amphibians, amphibians into reptiles, reptiles into birds) are baseless and unsupported by the facts of selective breeding.

 

[Asyncritus]

Show us what necessary step you consider to be upward movement, and we'll see if we can find the transitional form.

For example, the sort of movement that would create a bird from a reptile​

What do birds have that no dinosaur ever had? Tell us what you think, and let's see what the evidence says.

Birds have working wings. Dinosaurs ?

Just as a matter of interest, what did dinosaurs evolve from?

 

[Rick W]

I believe every species was created, with the potential for enormous variation WITHIN THE SPECIES or FAMILY BOUNDARIES.

Think of the dogs or pigeons as examples. There is enormous variation WITHIN THE GROUPS. But all the breeding that has gone on since man has been on the earth has never changed a dog into, say, a bear, or a pigeon into an eagle.

It's not simply one "chain" or one "tree" of the classic evolution charts.
Somewhere around here it was mentioned that a created species would have all the genes/dna for all the others. One canine, many species. This makes sense for the account of Noah.
As time progresses something is lost, never to return. For example the "prime" canine has the genes for both long and short fur. Some travel north and through successive breeding lose the genes for short fur. Likewise those going into warmer climates lose the genes for long fur.
I honestly believe speciation is nothing more than the lose or retention of certain genes from the prime type.
Instead one "tree" in those charts there are many. Adam named them, Noah preserved the prime and from Noah came the various species.
But evolution refutes this because of age. Yet, the fish Christ created to feed the 5,000 would have no age and still appear quite mature. For those who knew not what was going on by all power of observation and reasoning the fish they held in their hands had age since it was a well known fact fish like any other lifeform must be /born/hatched then grow to maturity. In reality the fish they beheld wouldn't have been more than a few hours old in reality.

Not one chain, but many.

 

[Barbarian]

It's not simply one "chain" or one "tree" of the classic evolution charts.
Somewhere around here it was mentioned that a created species would have all the genes/dna for all the others. One canine, many species. This makes sense for the account of Noah.

Not possible. Any one individual can have, at most, two alleles for each gene locus. So (for example) Adam and Eve could have had between them, no more than four alleles. Yet most human genes have dozens of alleles. All the rest had to have evolved by mutation. So it is with the other animals. Moreover, we know specific new alleles have evolved; there are a good number documented for humans as well as for other animals.

As time progresses something is lost, never to return. For example the "prime" canine has the genes for both long and short fur. Some travel north and through successive breeding lose the genes for short fur. Likewise those going into warmer climates lose the genes for long fur.

This isn't what the evidence shows. The evidence from genetics is for the ur-canine to have had short fur with a dense undercoat. Long, wooly, corded, and all the other alleles appeared later by mutation.

I honestly believe speciation is nothing more than the lose or retention of certain genes from the prime type.

It can't work that way, for the reason mentioned above.

Instead one "tree" in those charts there are many. Adam named them, Noah preserved the prime and from Noah came the various species.
But evolution refutes this because of age.

Genetics refutes it, for the reason I mentioned.

Yet, the fish Christ created to feed the 5,000 would have no age and still appear quite mature. For those who knew not what was going on by all power of observation and reasoning the fish they held in their hands had age since it was a well known fact fish like any other lifeform must be /born/hatched then grow to maturity. In reality the fish they beheld wouldn't have been more than a few hours old in reality.

God does miracles to teach, not because He has to do it that way. As genetics shows, He didn't create species that way.

 

[Asyncritus]

Not possible. Any one individual can have, at most, two alleles for each gene locus. So (for example) Adam and Eve could have had between them, no more than four alleles. Yet most human genes have dozens of alleles. All the rest had to have evolved by mutation. So it is with the other animals. Moreover, we know specific new alleles have evolved; there are a good number documented for humans as well as for other animals.



This isn't what the evidence shows. The evidence from genetics is for the ur-canine to have had short fur with a dense undercoat. Long, wooly, corded, and all the other alleles appeared later by mutation.



It can't work that way, for the reason mentioned above.



Genetics refutes it, for the reason I mentioned.



God does miracles to teach, not because He has to do it that way. As genetics shows, He didn't create species that way.

As genetics and breeding shows, however He did create species in the way I described: with huge amounts of inherent variability.

What He didn't do was to produce them by evolution.

Go back and reread Luther Burbank's opinion, and Dobzhansky's total failure to generate new species by irradiation. Remember Hiroshima and Chernobyl, and the total absence of viable organisms produced by that irradiation.

Then think: if those gentlemen and reactors are speaking the truth, then all this change, claimed to have been produced by mutations + natural selection (which doesn't work, as you've been shown very clearly) is mere phantasmagoria: with no basis in reality.

Why do you keep on supporting it?

 

[Milk-Drops]

I don't really care about all the nonsense being brought up that has nothing to do with medical school, or the accuracy of the theory of Evolution. I know that the theory of evolution states organisms adapt to their surroundings, and the ones that can survive in an ecosystem will carry the genes that will be transferred to their offspring. The genes that don't transfer are moved out of the gene pool, and new genes, neutral or positive, will remain in the gene pool and positive traits will become more common as the organisms continue to compete in the ecosystem.

That is useful for medial research to understand heredity and immunology. Not all aspects of Evolutionary Biology is meant for medical science. However, when evolutionary biologists discover pathways and relationships for viruses, bacteria, etc. Its very useful for Medical science.

I don't why this is so hard to understand.

 

[Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
Any one individual can have, at most, two alleles for each gene locus. So (for example) Adam and Eve could have had between them, no more than four alleles. Yet most human genes have dozens of alleles. All the rest had to have evolved by mutation. So it is with the other animals. Moreover, we know specific new alleles have evolved; there are a good number documented for humans as well as for other animals.

As genetics and breeding shows, however He did create species in the way I described: with huge amounts of inherent variability.

See above. As you learned, an individual organism can have no more than two alleles of "inherent variability" for any give gene locus. All the dozens of others found in most amimal genomes could only have evolved later by mutation. That's what genetics says. Breeding likewise shows that new mutations appear regularly, and some of them are useful and are retained by breeders.

What He didn't do was to produce them by evolution.

Note the evidence from breeders and genetics. I'm not unsympathetic, but at some point, there's reality to contend with. It is impossible for any two organisms to have any more than 4 different alleles. From whence do you suppose all the rest came?

Go back and reread Luther Burbank's opinion,

Opinions are worth as much as the evidence supporting them. And as you see, the evidence swamps any denial of observed evolution by mutation.
In the history of crop domestication, several important advances have involved a mutation in a crop plant that reduced shattering — instead of the seeds being dispersed as soon as they were ripe, the mutant plants retained the seeds for longer, which made harvesting much more effective.

A particularly important mutation that was selected very early in the history of agriculture removed the "brittle rachis" problem from wheat.[1] A ripe head ("ear") of wild-type wheat is easily shattered into dispersal units when touched, or blown by the wind, because during ripening a series of abscission layers forms that divides the rachis into short segments, each attached to a single spikelet (which contains 2–3 grains along with chaff).

A different class of shattering mechanisms involves dehiscence of the mature fruit, which releases the seeds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shattering_(agriculture)

Endorsements don't mean much, if they contradict observed facts. However:

Burbank was born on March 7, 1849, in Lancaster, Mass., the son of a farmer and maker of brick and pottery. He attended the district school until he was 15 and then spent four winters at the Lancaster Academy. Most of his scientific education, however, was obtained from reading at the public library in Lancaster. According to his own account, his reading of Charles Darwin's Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication in 1868 proved the turning point in his career, causing him to take the production of new species and varieties of plants as his life's work.

Burbank's work with plants convinced him that the key to good breeding was selection and environment, and he, like so many others of his time, tried to apply his concepts to human society. The product of his thinking on this subject was first published in 1907 as The Training of the Human Plant. Yet despite his vast experience in plant breeding, this book revealed his firm belief in the then-discredited theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics; accordingly, unlike most eugenists of the period, he stressed education and the provision of a good environment generally as the best way to remake human society.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Luther_Burbank.aspx

It appears that you may have been misled about Burbank's ideas. He wasn't much in genetics, but remember, Mendel's work was still not firmly established in Burbank's lifetime.

and Dobzhansky's total failure to generate new species by irradiation. Remember Hiroshima and Chernobyl, and the total absence of viable organisms produced by that irradiation.

You've been misled about that. Oil is required for your car to go. Adding extra oil won't make it go faster. Indeed, it's likely to harm your engine. However...

Drosophila miranda, a New Species
TH Dobzhansky
http://www.genetics.org/content/20/4/377.full.pdf

Then think: if those gentlemen and reactors are speaking the truth, then....

Someone convinced you that if some mutation was necessary for evolution, a whole lot of it would be even better. Thing about the oil and the car, when they try again. Maybe they even believed that they were actually talking about the real process. But they had it completely wrong.

all this change, claimed to have been produced by mutations + natural selection (which doesn't work, as you've been shown very clearly)

It's directly observed. I showed you some examples. Would you like me to show you some more?

Why do you keep on supporting it?

It's that "E" word again. Evidence. It's why even many YE creationists have finally concluded that evolution is a fact:

But eventually, by 1994 I was through with young-earth creationISM. Nothing that young-earth creationists had taught me about geology turned out to be true. I took a poll of my ICR graduate friends who have worked in the oil industry. I asked them one question.

"From your oil industry experience, did any fact that you were taught at ICR, which challenged current geological thinking, turn out in the long run to be true? ,"

That is a very simple question. One man, Steve Robertson, who worked for Shell grew real silent on the phone, sighed and softly said 'No!' A very close friend that I had hired at Arco, after hearing the question, exclaimed, "Wait a minute. There has to be one!" But he could not name one. I can not name one. No one else could either. One man I could not reach, to ask that question, had a crisis of faith about two years after coming into the oil industry. I do not know what his spiritual state is now but he was in bad shape the last time I talked to him.

And being through with creationism, I very nearly became through with Christianity. I was on the very verge of becoming an atheist.Former YE creationist and ICR graduate, Glenn Morton on his efforts to justify creationism
http://www.oldearth.org/whyileft.htm

 

[Barbarian]

Barbarian suggests:
Show us what necessary step you consider to be upward movement, and we'll see if we can find the transitional form.

For example, the sort of movement that would create a bird from a reptile

As we discussed earlier, the flying motions of bird wings are identical to the motions of a running bipedal reptile. Since we now know that dinosaurs had avian feathers, respiratory system, and many other things formerly thought to be true of birds, I guess your next task is to tell us what structures do birds have that no dinosaur had.

Tell us what you think, and let's see what the evidence says.

Birds have working wings. Dinosaurs ?

Yep.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ssils-China-shed-new-light-birds-evolved.html

Just as a matter of interest, what did dinosaurs evolve from?

Thecodonts. Herrerasaurus is a pretty good transitional. Thecodonts were the basal group for all archosaurs.

 

[Asyncritus]

Barbarian observes:
Any one individual can have, at most, two alleles for each gene locus. So (for example) Adam and Eve could have had between them, no more than four alleles. Yet most human genes have dozens of alleles. All the rest had to have evolved by mutation. So it is with the other animals. Moreover, we know specific new alleles have evolved; there are a good number documented for humans as well as for other animals.

The amount of nonsense in this bald, presumptuous, unevidenced claim defies measurement.

So you know that Adam and Eve had '4 alleles between them'!

That is startling new information. Should be published somewhere, you know. Since Eve was a clone from Adam, then that reduces the number of alleles by one!

(Quite incidentally, as we're on the subject. how do you account for the evolution of the sexes? There are enormous differences, as you probably know - so how did they evolve, and from what?)

And in any case, where did you get the figure of 2 or 4 from? I don't read of that anywhere in Genesis, so do enlighten us.

See above. As you learned, an individual organism can have no more than two alleles of "inherent variability" for any give gene locus. All the dozens of others found in most amimal genomes could only have evolved later by mutation. That's what genetics says. Breeding likewise shows that new mutations appear regularly, and some of them are useful and are retained by breeders.

As you should have been taught by now, I've said it often enough, THERE HAVE BEEN NO NEW SPECIES OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS PRODUCED AFTER THOUSANDS OF YEARS OF INTELLIGENT SELECTION.

We know that mutations occur regularly, some damaging, most neutral, and some (?) beneficial. It must be obvious that the damaging ones and the beneficial ones cancel each other out. leaving a net movement of zero.

As Galton said it, there is a reversion to the mean, and experience shows that this is precisely so.

Experimental evidence also confirms this practical finding by the animal breeders. As I pointed out, Dobzhansky had nothing to show after thousands of generations of irradiation experiments, and the miserable ones you keep pointing out is a pretty pathetic sample, both numerically and taxonomically.

Talkorigins does a lot better than you at proving just how rare new species, genuine new species, that is, really are.

And as you should have learned by now, that rate of production of new species cannot conceivably account for the numbers of new species present in the Cambrian explosion.

Which leaves evolution both high and dry, or perhaps deep and sunk.

Creation. direct creation, by God, is the only possible way of explaining the sheer volume of numbers present there.

Note the evidence from breeders and genetics. I'm not unsympathetic, but at some point, there's reality to contend with. It is impossible for any two organisms to have any more than 4 different alleles. From whence do you suppose all the rest came?

Your sympathy is not required. Your acceptance of the facts is what we need.

Those animal breeders are the only ones whose evidence is worth a fig. They aren't stuck away in the ivory towers, spinning endless nonsensical theories because of the 'findings' in the bottoms of test tubes.

They're out there, trying to make a living by breeding animals of one kind or another. They need to make money from their practical efforts, not misuse the taxpayers' dollars to write evolutionary tripe.

And with one voice, they say exactly what Luther Burbank said in that quote.

There is an absolute limit to variability, and species/family boundaries cannot be crossed.

Therefore, crossing major boundaries, such as from reptiles to birds, is plain nonsense, nothing more.

As I pointed out, and perhaps you weren't listening, anybody who can say that your great grandaddy in the Cambrian was a crablouse, on the basis of 'genetic evidence', needs his head looking into. That is extrapolation of paternity tests by several dozen orders of magnitude.

I am amazed that you can support such fanciful nonsense.

Opinions are worth as much as the evidence supporting them. And as you see, the evidence swamps any denial of observed evolution by mutation.
[...]

This is further proof of nothing of any evolutionary significance - and wikipedia is scraping the bottom of the barrel: and I'm confident that you know it. If you don't then you really ought to get back to basics and read some elementary textbooks on the subject.

Do you know what dehiscence means? Can you see that improved 'dehiscence' has nothing to do with the production of new species of wheat. New variety, perhaps, or maybe a new cultivar.

But a new species???? Absolutely not.

A new genus perhaps? Not a chance.

A new family, maybe? You gotta be kidding me.

Come Barbarian, give it up. The only observed evidence you have is of such low value in establishing your case that 'bottom scraping' is perhaps too exalted a description of its valuelessness

Endorsements don't mean much, if they contradict observed facts. However:

[...] According to his own account, his reading of Charles Darwin's Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication in 1868 proved the turning point in his career, causing him to take the production of new species and varieties of plants as his life's work.

That may be so - but his judgment, as I quoted before, was that he could only go so far and no further in producing new varieties. And it wasn't for lack of effort. His greenhouses occupies acres and acres.

But he had this to say, which you seem to have either forgotten or are ignoring. He wasn't 'endorsing' anything, but confessing failure, and since he was a practical plant breeder, you really ought to listen to what he actually said, unless, of course, practical experimental results mean nothing to you:

Burbank:

I am willing to admit that that it is hopeless to try to get a plum the size of a small pea or one as big as a grapefruit. I have daisies on my farms little larger than my fingernail and some that measure six inches across, but I have none as big as a sunflower and never expect to have. I have roses that bloom pretty steadily for six months in the year, but I have none that will bloom twelve, and I will not have. In short there are limits to the development possible, and these limits follow a law. [Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried, Dell Publishing 1973, p. 36] - See more at: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/04/natural_limits058791.html#sthash.p9GT7rts.dpuf

Burbank's work with plants [...] [...] unlike most eugenists of the period, he stressed education and the provision of a good environment generally as the best way to remake human society.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Luther_Burbank.aspx

I'm not sure why you bothered to quote this, except perhaps to blacken the man's good name. But you can't make him a poor plant breeder, no matter how much mud you may dig up. He was the pre-eminent plant breeder of his generation, and as such, his opinion on plant breeding must carry substantial weight.

You may ignore it if you wish, but that is bad news for an alleged scientist.

Someone convinced you that if some mutation was necessary for evolution, a whole lot of it would be even better. Thing about the oil and the car, when they try again. Maybe they even believed that they were actually talking about the real process. But they had it completely wrong.

You're relapsing into gibberish, and I haven't a clue what you're talking about. Oil in cars? Pardon me, but what are you on about?

It's directly observed. I showed you some examples. Would you like me to show you some more?

Again, I don't know what you're on about. But I do wish you'd stop asking this silly question. If you've got something to say, please say it. You don't need my permission to do so.

I'm deleting this irrelevant quote from whoever you wished to quote. How many times do I have to tell you that I am an OEC, not a YE creationist?

 

[Asyncritus]

As we discussed earlier, the flying motions of bird wings are identical to the motions of a running bipedal reptile. Since we now know that dinosaurs had avian feathers, respiratory system, and many other things formerly thought to be true of birds, I guess your next task is to tell us what structures do birds have that no dinosaur had.

I'll tell you one. It had the flight instincts: you know, the ones that powered its flight. Where did it get those from?

Secondly, a bird id warm-blooded. A reptile by definition is cold blooded. Why did it change, if it did at all?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ssils-China-shed-new-light-birds-evolved.html

Heh heh heh. You really swallow this stuff, don't you? Don't you know that the chinese are the best fossil bird fakers on the planet? Ever heard of Archaeoraptor?

Thecodonts. Herrerasaurus is a pretty good transitional. Thecodonts were the basal group for all archosaurs

You're sadly mistaken. Herreresaurus occurs, like all the known dinosaurs, AT THE END of the tree branch.

It is not a transitional.

Go here, to see the truth:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=avpVUs7AtmkC&pg=PT144&lpg=PT144&dq=Chicago Field Museum Diagram of dinosaur evolution&source=bl&ots=TVI5N5zblO&sig=ZCk6ZyRaXnVGh9HBYMuO-pevPnw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=zuCdUrTlGuWv7QaGr4GQAw&ved=0CEQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Chicago Field Museum Diagram of dinosaur evolution&f=false

Even more striking is the fact on the diagram immediately following that one, is another diagram, revealing the fact that of the 200,000+ dinosaur fossils found, NOT ONE IS A TRANSITIONAL!!!!!!

So you have been badly misled, and are in grave danger of misleading others who aren't as particular as I am in investigating your claims.

Just to knock another nail in the coffin, here's a quote from Dr David Weishampel who is Anatomist and Palaeontologist at Johns Hopkins, and Lead Editor of The Dinosauria.

"From my reading of the fossil record of dinosaurs, NO DIRECT ANCESTORS HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED for any dinosaur species. Also, my list of dinosaurian ancestors is an empty one".

 

[Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
Any one individual can have, at most, two alleles for each gene locus. So (for example) Adam and Eve could have had between them, no more than four alleles. Yet most human genes have dozens of alleles. All the rest had to have evolved by mutation. So it is with the other animals. Moreover, we know specific new alleles have evolved; there are a good number documented for humans as well as for other animals.
The amount of nonsense in this bald, presumptuous, unevidenced claim defies measurement.

So you know that Adam and Eve had '4 alleles between them'!

For each gene locus, yes. Humans are diploid. We have only two sets of chromosomes, so no human can have more than two alleles for any gene locus.

That is startling new information.

Less than 150 years old. One hundred and 48 years, to be precise. You didn't know that? Mendel discovered it.

Should be published somewhere, you know.

First, here:
http://www.mendelweb.org/Mendel.html

A more modern, but layman-accessible article is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ploidy

Since Eve was a clone from Adam, then that reduces the number of alleles by one!

Two, actually, but perhaps more, since she was missing Adam's Y chromosome. Or maybe it's just what most Chrstians think it is; an allegory for how they came to be.

(Quite incidentally, as we're on the subject. how do you account for the evolution of the sexes?

The most primitive form of sexual reproduction is in bacteria. Conjugation. More complex organisms, frequently reproduce asexually, but sexual reproduction is an option. For most (but not all) modern vertebrates, it's no longer an option;sexual reproduction for them is now the only way.

There are enormous differences, as you probably know

So what structures do you think a male has, without the same structure, in a modified form, being present in the female, or vice versa?

And in any case, where did you get the figure of 2 or 4 from?

Humans are diploid. So they can have at most, 2 alleles for each gene locus. You see, we only carry two different copies, one for each chromosome.

I don't read of that anywhere in Genesis

How odd, Genesis being a textbook on genetics, and all. (WFTH-I)

enlighten us.

I was joking. Genesis isn't really a genetics textbook.

See above. As you learned, an individual organism can have no more than two alleles of "inherent variability" for any give gene locus. All the dozens of others found in most amimal genomes could only have evolved later by mutation. That's what genetics says. Breeding likewise shows that new mutations appear regularly, and some of them are useful and are retained by breeders.

As you should have been taught by now, I've said it often enough, THERE HAVE BEEN NO NEW SPECIES OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS PRODUCED AFTER THOUSANDS OF YEARS OF INTELLIGENT SELECTION.

Horses are now a separate species. So are dogs. But of course, as you admitted, there are some speciations we happened to be around to directly observe, and they are more than enough to account for the observed rate of speciation in the fossil record.

We know that mutations occur regularly, some damaging, most neutral, and some (?) beneficial. It must be obvious that the damaging ones and the beneficial ones cancel each other out.

If there were no such thing as natural selection, damaging ones would rapidly drive a species to extinction. But of course, natural selection tends to remove the bad ones and preserve the good ones. That was Darwin's great discovery.

As Galton said it, there is a reversion to the mean, and experience shows that this is precisely so.

No, that's wrong. So far, we note that populations tend to become more fit with time, in a constant environment, until they are at an optimum.

Experimental evidence also confirms this practical finding by the animal breeders. As I pointed out, Dobzhansky had nothing to show after thousands of generations of irradiation experiments

You're still thinking that adding more oil to a car will make it go faster. Mutations are necessary for evolution, but increasing the rate of mutations will usually not make evolution go faster. Common misconception, that. As you know, Dobzhansky found a number species to have evolved from older species.

and the miserable ones you keep pointing out is a pretty pathetic sample, both numerically and taxonomically.

As you saw, the numbers indicate that even with the tiny sample we happened to be present to document, there would be millions of speciations over the time of the Cambrian explosion. Would you like me to show you again?

Talkorigins does a lot better than you at proving just how rare new species, genuine new species, that is, really are.

I used only a fraction of those mentioned by talk.origins, and yet that very conservative estimate would give millions of speciations. Sounds like a lot to me.

And as you should have learned by now, that rate of production of new species cannot conceivably account for the numbers of new species present in the Cambrian explosion.

I'd be open to your evidence that there were much more than millions of new species in that time. Show us.

Which leaves evolution both high and dry, or perhaps deep and sunk.

As I said, a million is a lot bigger number than you think.

Creation. direct creation, by God, is the only possible way of explaining the sheer volume of numbers present there.

That God did it is not at issue. We're trying to figure out why you don't approve of the way He did it.

Barbarian observes:
Note the evidence from breeders and genetics. I'm not unsympathetic, but at some point, there's reality to contend with. It is impossible for any two organisms to have any more than 4 different alleles. From whence do you suppose all the rest came?

Your sympathy is not required. Your acceptance of the facts is what we need.

I showed you the facts, and you seemed rather displeased.

They're out there, trying to make a living by breeding animals of one kind or another. They need to make money from their practical efforts, not misuse the taxpayers' dollars to write evolutionary tripe.

Animal husbandry often predicts the fitness of new varieties, based on evolutionary theory, and they are more often than not, correct.

And with one voice, they say exactly what Luther Burbank said in that quote.

As you learned, Burbank thought that acquired characteristics can be inherited. His concept of evolution was shown to be invalid by the rediscovery of Mendel's work.

There is an absolute limit to variability, and species/family boundaries cannot be crossed.

I suggested that you show us a species at the limit of its variation, and was incapable of any new mutations. You declined to do that. I don't think it was because you forgot.

Barbarian observes:
Opinions are worth as much as the evidence supporting them. And as you see, the evidence swamps any denial of observed evolution by mutation.

This is further proof of nothing of any evolutionary significance - and wikipedia is scraping the bottom of the barrel: and I'm confident that you know it. If you don't then you really ought to get back to basics and read some elementary textbooks on the subject.

Publishers allow me to review new textbooks from time to time. No biology textbook from any established academic publisher supports your ideas.

(Denial that any useful new trait in domesticated organisms could come about by favorable mutation)

(Barbarian notes the mutation that made non-shattering wheat)

(sound of goalposts being frantically repositioned)

Do you know what dehiscence means? Can you see that improved 'dehiscence' has nothing to do with the production of new species of wheat. New variety, perhaps, or maybe a new cultivar.

Perhaps you lost track of the conversation. But I'm pleased you now admit that such new traits do evolve.

You're relapsing into gibberish, and I haven't a clue what you're talking about. Oil in cars? Pardon me, but what are you on about?

It's your assumption that more mutation should mean more evolution. It's like oil in a car. You need oil to make your car go, but too much oil won't make it go faster.

all this change, claimed to have been produced by mutations + natural selection (which doesn't work, as you've been shown very clearly)

Barbarian observes:
It's directly observed. I showed you some examples. Would you like me to show you some more?

Again, I don't know what you're on about.

As you know, mutation and natural selection has been directly observed to increase fitness in a population. I showed you some examples. If you like, I can show you some more.

But I do wish you'd stop asking this silly question.

Just checking. If you don't want to see more, it's O.K. But by now, I think you realize why many creationist organizations admit natural selection works to increase fitness. The facts are obvious even to them.

 

[Barbarian]

Barbarian suggests:
As we discussed earlier, the flying motions of bird wings are identical to the motions of a running bipedal reptile. Since we now know that dinosaurs had avian feathers, respiratory system, and many other things formerly thought to be true of birds, I guess your next task is to tell us what structures do birds have that no dinosaur had.

I'll tell you one. It had the flight instincts

Sorry, not a structure. So, unless you can find one, we'll have to conclude that there isn't one.

And as you learned, "intinct" just means "I don't know why they do it." Your assertion that plant phototropism is "instinct" was wrong; it's a rather straightforward chemical reaction.

you know, the ones that powered its flight.

The flight of birds is powered by the same muscles, bones, and joint movements that were used by the bipedal dinosaurs to control movement when running.

Where did it get those from?

The advance dromosaurs. They also had feathered wings, but their shoulder joint shows that they used them the same way ostriches use their wings today; to control movement while running. The same motion also lets birds fly.

Secondly, a bird id warm-blooded. A reptile by definition is cold blooded.

The feathered dinosaurs ran down prey. Some of them leaped to strike with hind feet, and one was even capable of flight. They had a lifestyle completely out of reach of any cold-blooded organism. Oh, and they had Haversian canals, found in warm-blooded animals but not in cold-blooded ones. So there we are.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ssils-China-shed-new-light-birds-evolved.html

Heh heh heh. You really swallow this stuff, don't you?

I'm always swayed by evidence. That's how it works in science.

Don't you know that the chinese are the best fossil bird fakers on the planet?

That's what they have peer-review for. And you don't buy fossils from some unknown source. Hard to fake them while they're still underground. Scientists unearthed this one directly. So that story won't fly.

Ever heard of Archaeoraptor?

Yep. Quite instructive. You see, a magazine bought an alleged feathered dinosaur, and published a story about it, before peer review. Scientists urged them to wait, but they wanted the scoop. Then peer review showed it to be two different (and very valuable) fossils, but not a feathered dinosaur.

Barbarian observes:
Thecodonts. Herrerasaurus is a pretty good transitional. Thecodonts were the basal group for all archosaurs

You're sadly mistaken. Herreresaurus occurs, like all the known dinosaurs, AT THE END of the tree branch.

You're merely confused. Herrerasaurus is a transitional because it's very close to the actual species that gave rise to dinosaurs, and has both dinosaur and thecodont characteristics. Just as Archaeopteryx is a transitional between birds and dinosaurs, because it has apomorphic characters of both groups. It would be an amazing coincidence if any of those fossils were the very organism that gave rise to modern birds.

It is not a transitional.

By definition, it is. Learn why it is, here:

http://www.dinopit.com/dinosaurs/herrerasaurus/

Even more striking is the fact on the diagram immediately following that one, is another diagram, revealing the fact that of the 200,000+ dinosaur fossils found, NOT ONE IS A TRANSITIONAL!!!!!!

You've been misled on that one...

A basal ceratopsian with transitional features from the Late Jurassic of northwestern China
Xing Xu
Proc. R. Soc. B 7 September 2006 vol. 273 no. 1598 2135-2140

and...

As you see, there's numerous known transitionals in almost every lineage. Would you like to see some more? You have been badly misled, and are in grave danger of misleading others who aren't as particular as I am in investigating your claims.

Just to knock another nail in the coffin, here's a quote...

Sorry, no quotes allowed in this one. Evidence, if you have it. If not, then my work is done here. As you can see, the evidence is clear and unambiguous. But if you want to object that this is not enough, I'll find you some more. Do you need more?

 

[Asyncritus]

Barbarian observes:
Any one individual can have, at most, two alleles for each gene locus. So (for example) Adam and Eve could have had between them, no more than four alleles. Yet most human genes have dozens of alleles. All the rest had to have evolved by mutation. So it is with the other animals. Moreover, we know specific new alleles have evolved; there are a good number documented for humans as well as for other animals.

The amount of nonsense in this bald, presumptuous, unevidenced claim defies measurement.

For each gene locus, yes. Humans are diploid. We have only two sets of chromosomes, so no human can have more than two alleles for any gene locus.

Less than 150 years old. One hundred and 48 years, to be precise. You didn't know that? Mendel discovered it.

As I said: bald, presumptuous, and unevidenced.

What effect if any, did the curse have on their genomes? Do you think that and the other curses just might, possibly might, have had some effect on what was actually there? Which. of course, you know nothing about, and it is presumptuous to think that you do.

No, that won't do barbarian. Unevidenced is the correct description. Among other things.

The most primitive form of sexual reproduction is in bacteria. Conjugation. More complex organisms, frequently reproduce asexually, but sexual reproduction is an option. For most (but not all) modern vertebrates, it's no longer an option;sexual reproduction for them is now the only way.

John Maddox, ex-editor of Nature shows that the above is not an answer to the question:

The overriding question is when (and then how) sexual reproduction itself evolved. Despite decades of speculation, we do not know.

The Cooperative Gene, evolutionist Mark Ridley wrote (under the chapter title of “The Ultimate Existential Absurdity”):

Evolutionary biologists are much teased for their obsession with why sex exists. People like to ask, in an amused way, “isn’t it obvious?” Joking apart, it is far from obvious.... Sex is a puzzle that has not yet been solved; no one knows why it exists (pp. 108,111, emp. added).

However, as you seem to know the answer, perhaps you might like to seek publication. Nobody else does, and you should get your Nobel for it.

So what structures do you think a male has, without the same structure, in a modified form, being present in the female, or vice versa?

A Y chromosome. That's a structure.

And further, we'd all like to hear how the instincts powering sexual reproduction arose by evolution.

See above. As you learned, an individual organism can have no more than two alleles of "inherent variability" for any give gene locus. All the dozens of others found in most amimal genomes could only have evolved later by mutation. That's what genetics says. Breeding likewise shows that new mutations appear regularly, and some of them are useful and are retained by breeders

.

That is correct, but fails to recognise the non-production, after thousands of years of artificial selection, of any new species. Variants aplenty - but new species? Not a chance. As I have told you before.

That resurrects the question previously asked.

Given that intelligent selection practices have been unable, after thousands of years (and let's not forget poor Lenski's 55000 generations of E coli), to produce any new species, then what produced the million or so new species in the Cambrian?

Horses are now a separate species. So are dogs. But of course, as you admitted, there are some speciations we happened to be around to directly observe, and they are more than enough to account for the observed rate of speciation in the fossil record.

See the previous paragraph, and do attempt an answer.

If there were no such thing as natural selection, damaging ones would rapidly drive a species to extinction. But of course, natural selection tends to remove the bad ones and preserve the good ones. That was Darwin's great discovery.

As you've been taught, natural selection either does not work, or is totally inadequate to produce the numbers of species currently in existence, Mike Lynch said so. Do you want the quote again, or will that reminder do? Here:

the uncritical acceptance of natural selection as an explanatory force for all aspects of biodiversity (without any direct evidence) is not much different than invoking an intelligent designer (without any direct evidence).

Lynch:
For the vast majority of scientists, evolution is nothing more than natural selection. This view reduces the study of evolution to the simple documentation of differences between species, proclamation of a belief in Darwin, and concoction of a superficially reasonable tale of adaptive divergence.

Sounds very much like what you're doing!

You're still thinking that adding more oil to a car will make it go faster. Mutations are necessary for evolution, but increasing the rate of mutations will usually not make evolution go faster. Common misconception, that. As you know, Dobzhansky found a number species to have evolved from older species.

IF, and I underline the word, mutations produce anything useful, then the products are balanced off by the damaging mutations that also occur. Result? 0.

As you saw, the numbers indicate that even with the tiny sample we happened to be present to document, there would be millions of speciations over the time of the Cambrian explosion. Would you like me to show you again?

See above remarks.

I used only a fraction of those mentioned by talk.origins, and yet that very conservative estimate would give millions of speciations. Sounds like a lot to me.

You must be joking. You wilfully forget that not only are there a million new species in the Cambrian, but also numbers of new phyla, many of which have disappeared. Not a single such claim has been, or could have been claimed by talkorigins or you (I hope).

I'd be open to your evidence that there were much more than millions of new species in that time. Show us.

I've never seen an estimate. If you have, perhaps you could give us a reference.[/quote]

 

[Asyncritus]

That God did it is not at issue. We're trying to figure out why you don't approve of the way He did it.

I don't approve of your fanciful concoctions (Lynch's word) - that's the fact of the matter: and it is a totally different proposition to what you say above.

Animal husbandry often predicts the fitness of new varieties, based on evolutionary theory, and they are more often than not, correct.

You clearly didn't read Skell or Chain, as I quoted previously. I wondered if you hadn't read the quotations. It's now obvious that you didn't. Please go back and see what they say. It certainly isn't favourable to your fabrication above.

As you learned, Burbank thought that acquired characteristics can be inherited. His concept of evolution was shown to be invalid by the rediscovery of Mendel's work.

Isn't it time you read what Burbank actually said about the limits of variation? When are you going to listen to what the man said about his breeding experiments results?

I suggested that you show us a species at the limit of its variation, and was incapable of any new mutations. You declined to do that. I don't think it was because you forgot.

See Burbank's quotation. He gives several limits. Does that answer the question?

I am willing to admit that that it is hopeless to try to get a plum the size of a small pea or one as big as a grapefruit. I have daisies on my farms little larger than my fingernail and some that measure six inches across, but I have none as big as a sunflower and never expect to have. I have roses that bloom pretty steadily for six months in the year, but I have none that will bloom twelve, and I will not have. In short there are limits to the development possible, and these limits follow a law. [Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried, Dell Publishing 1973, p. 36]

Barbarian observes:
Opinions are worth as much as the evidence supporting them. And as you see, the evidence swamps any denial of observed evolution by mutation.

Julian Huxley:
Julian Huxley, the grandson of Darwin's keenest supporter, also found that breeders encounter limits:

In spite of intensive and long continued efforts, breeders have failed to give the world blue roses and black tulips. A bluish purple and a deep bronze in the tulip are the limits reached. True blue and jet black have proved impossible. [J. Huxley, Evolution: the Modern Synthesis, London, Allen and Unwin, 1942, p. 519] -

Will that do?


I'm afraid the evidence of practical breeders' experience sinks your carping.

Publishers allow me to review new textbooks from time to time. No biology textbook from any established academic publisher supports your ideas.

Of course they don't. They are all toe-ers of the party line, as you are. They wouldn't sell anything otherwise.

(Denial that any useful new trait in domesticated organisms could come about by favorable mutation)

This is an out and out lie, Barbarian. My training is in Animal breeding and Husbandry, and I categorically deny making any such statement. I think you should withdraw it.

I reject the idea that selective breeding over of thousands of years has produced a new species of any domestic animal. You have twisted that appallingly in the above sentence.

(Barbarian notes the mutation that made non-shattering wheat).

Ah yes. Non-shattering WHEAT. STILL WHEAT, STILL NO NEW SPECIES.

Perhaps you lost track of the conversation. But I'm pleased you now admit that such new traits do evolve.

You do seem to have some difficulty in following me. Perhaps I don't express myself very clearly, and if so, I do apologise. If not, then the fault is yours.

Just checking. If you don't want to see more, it's O.K. But by now, I think you realize why many creationist organizations admit natural selection works to increase fitness. The facts are obvious even to them.

Strange. Now that people like Kimura, Lynch and Kingsolver have expressed severe reservations about the value of natural selection (and the numbers of doubters are growing), that creationists should be taking up that particular cudgel.

Or of course, it may be that you misunderstand them, as you have misunderstood me.

 

[Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
Any one individual can have, at most, two alleles for each gene locus. So (for example) Adam and Eve could have had between them, no more than four alleles. Yet most human genes have dozens of alleles. All the rest had to have evolved by mutation. So it is with the other animals. Moreover, we know specific new alleles have evolved; there are a good number documented for humans as well as for other animals.

The amount of nonsense in this bald, presumptuous, unevidenced claim defies measurement.

They are simple facts, Async. Humans only have two sets of chromosomes, so they can't have any more then two different alleles for each of the genes along those chromosomes. No way around that. You could suppose that Adam and Eve were polyploid, except that polyploidy is almost invariably fatal for mammals and would mean that Adam and Eve were of a different species than modern humans. Humans are diploid. We have only two sets of chromosomes, so no human can have more than two alleles for any gene locus.

(suggests this is recent news)

Less than 150 years old. One hundred and 48 years, to be precise. You didn't know that? Mendel discovered it.

As I said: bald, presumptuous, and unevidenced.

Humans are diploid. A human somatic cell contains 46 chromosomes: 2 complete haploid sets, which make up 23 homologous chromosome pairs. However, many organisms have more than two sets of homologous chromosomes and are called polyploid.
http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Ploidy.html

As you see, with only two copies of each gene on the chromosome, humans can have no more than two alleles for each of them. It's very easy to understand.

What effect if any, did the curse have on their genomes?

"The Curse" isn't a magic wand to erase any logical problems one might have. If they were polyploid, then they were a different species than humans. No way to get around that.

Do you think that and the other curses just might, possibly might, have had some effect on what was actually there? Which. of course, you know nothing about, and it is presumptuous to think that you do.

Do I suppose God could have loaded them with chromosomes and then magically altered humans later to make an entirely new species. Sure, He could do anything. But given that Scripture does not support such a new doctrine, and evidence clearly shows that mutation would be more than adequate to account for the large number of alleles, it seems pointless to argue that He did.

(asks how sex evolved)

Barbarian observes:
The most primitive form of sexual reproduction is in bacteria. Conjugation. More complex organisms, frequently reproduce asexually, but sexual reproduction is an option. For most (but not all) modern vertebrates, it's no longer an option;sexual reproduction for them is now the only way.

John Maddox, ex-editor of Nature shows that the above is not an answer to the question:
The overriding question is when (and then how) sexual reproduction itself evolved. Despite decades of speculation, we do not know.

Maddox agrees with me. He acknowledges the evidence for the evolution of sexual reproduction, but since it evolved long before hardened body parts evolved, and in very small organisms, we may never know the details. We do, however, see in living organisms, the a complete line of transitional forms, which shows that it did evolve gradually.

Evolutionary biologists are much teased for their obsession with why sex exists. People like to ask, in an amused way, “isn’t it obvious?” Joking apart, it is far from obvious.... Sex is a puzzle that has not yet been solved; no one knows why it exists (pp. 108,111, emp. added).

Turns out, we do know why it was selected for. We even know why it didn't evolve in certain kinds of organisms:

Asexual organisms, would seem to have a huge advantage in reproduction, but there are some things that make sexual reproduction useful. The classic reason is that variation is more quickly achieved by sexually reproducing organisms. Useful new mutations can be more quickly spread by sexual recombination, than by simple asexual means. However, an unexpected benefit emerged, the ability to maintain advantageous genes in a stable environment, with strong selective pressures.

SIMULATION STUDY TO EXPLAINSEXUAL REPRODUCTION’S PREVALENCE
ROBERT J. LIN and FENG LIN
Department of Biological Sciences
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202
Abstract:
...In this paper, we use computer simulation to show that sexual reproduction can also lead to another effect: genetic homogeneity, which leads to the maintenance of
adaptational advantages. Sexual reproduction maintains adaptational advantages of organisms, and in stable conditions with strong selective pressures, the mainte
nance of desired adaptational advantages warrants the dominance of sexual reproduction.

Sexual reproduction is also an effective way of removing harmful (but not lethal) genes. If the average rate of such harmful mutations is about one per organism, then sexual reproduction has an advantage over asexual reproduction. And it turns out that the average rate is just about one per organism. So that's another. However, as this study shows, it's an important factor, but cannot be the only factor:

Selection Against Deleterious Mutations and the Maintenance of Biparental Sex
R. Steven Howard
Theoretical Population Biology 45 313-323 1994

And then, there's the fact that it can more effectively build resistance to parasites.

From our experiment, we found support for the Red Queen hypothesis and demonstrated its application to small spatial scales in nature. We showed that parasites are adapted to the snail populations where sexuals and asexuals coexist in shallow water.


In a related study, Lively and Jokela demonstrated that as parasites adapt to infect asexual snails in the shallow water, they indeed favor sex as predicted by the Red Queen Hypothesis. Snails that were genetically common and highly infected by parasites were rare. Snails that were genetically uncommon, and previously resistant to parasites, became common and infected. All the while, sexual snails persisted in the shallow water. This was the first time anyone demonstrated that Red Queen dynamics maintained sexual reproduction.


Despite the costs of sexual reproduction, it seems to have use against parasites. Sexual organisms are genetically rare, and consequently, parasites cannot adapt to them. Evidence from the New Zealand snails show that parasite adaptation to infect common asexual individuals prevents asexuals from eliminating sexuals from the population.
http://www.livescience.com/5773-sex-fend-parasites.html

However, as you seem to know the answer, perhaps you might like to seek publication.

As you see, a lot of other guys have published ahead of me. Drat.

Nobody else does, and you should get your Nobel for it.

Someone beat me to that, also...
Scientists like Joshua Lederberg don’t think this is mere rhetoric. He should know. Lederberg won the Nobel Prize in medicine at age 33 for his discoveries in bacterial evolution. Lederberg went on to become president of Rockefeller University. “Some people think I am being hysterical,” he said, referring to pandemic influenza, “but there are catastrophes ahead. We live in evolutionary competition with microbes—bacteria and viruses. There is no guarantee that we will be the survivors.”3147

There is a concept in host-parasite evolutionary dynamics called the Red Queen hypothesis, which attempts to describe the unremitting struggle between immune systems and the pathogens against which they fight, each constantly evolving to try to outsmart the other.
http://birdflubook.com/a.php?id=111

 

[Barbarian]

Barbarian suggests:

So what structures do you think a male has, without the same structure, in a modified form, being present in the female, or vice versa?

A Y chromosome. That's a structure.

Hmm...
Until recently, the X and Y chromosomes were thought to have diverged around 300 million years ago. However, research published in 2010, and particularly research published in 2008 documenting the sequencing of the platypus genome, has suggested that the XY sex-determination system would not have been present more than 166 million years ago, at the split of the monotremes from other mammals. This reestimation of the age of the therian XY system is based on the finding that sequences that are on the X chromosomes of marsupials and eutherian mammals are present on the autosomes of platypus and birds. The older estimate was based on erroneous reports that the platypus X chromosomes contained these sequences.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_chromosome

Sorry, you have it wrong. A worthy try, though.

And further, we'd all like to hear how the instincts powering sexual reproduction arose by evolution.

Mutation and natural selection. As you see, the evidence is for a very early, but very gradual evolution of sex. First as a rarely-used and optional way in very simple organisms, and only later as the main or required way.

See above. As you learned, an individual organism can have no more than two alleles of "inherent variability" for any give gene locus. All the dozens of others found in most amimal genomes could only have evolved later by mutation. That's what genetics says. Breeding likewise shows that new mutations appear regularly, and some of them are useful and are retained by breeders .

That is correct, but fails to recognise the non-production, after thousands of years of artificial selection, of any new species.

As you know, there are a number of new species by artificial selection, but most of the speciations we know about happened in the wild.

Given that intelligent selection practices have been unable, after thousands of years (and let's not forget poor Lenski's 55000 generations of E coli), to produce any new species, then what produced the million or so new species in the Cambrian?

As you saw, even a very conservative listing of observed speciations means that millions of new species would have evolved during the Cambrian Explosion. It's in the discussion above, but if you like, I can show you again.

Horses are now a separate species. So are dogs. But of course, as you admitted, there are some speciations we happened to be around to directly observe, and they are more than enough to account for the observed rate of speciation in the fossil record. Do you want to see the numbers one more time?

If there were no such thing as natural selection, damaging ones would rapidly drive a species to extinction. But of course, natural selection tends to remove the bad ones and preserve the good ones. That was Darwin's great discovery.

As you've been taught, natural selection either does not work,

It's directly observed. You've been shown that, too. Want to see, again?

or is totally inadequate to produce the numbers of species currently in existence,

Even your rather restricted idea of speciations, means that in a million years there would be hundreds of thousands of new species. More than enough.

Mike Lynch said so.

If so,too bad for him, then. Facts shoot down anyone's opinion.

Do you want the quote again

If you have some evidence, it might help you. Carefully-edited bits of text won't help you.

the uncritical acceptance of natural selection as an explanatory force for all aspects of biodiversity (without any direct evidence)

If that's all he said, it wouldn't matter. I don't know any biologist who thinks that natural selection is the sole cause of biodiversity. I just showed you that sexual reproduction is one effective source. But clearly, he didn't think that the numbers showing hundreds of thousands of speciations in a million years, is impossible.

Barbarian observes:​

You're still thinking that adding more oil to a car will make it go faster. Mutations are necessary for evolution, but increasing the rate of mutations will usually not make evolution go faster. Common misconception, that. As you know, Dobzhansky found a number species to have evolved from older species.

IF, and I underline the word, mutations produce anything useful,

You're still skeptical that there are favorable mutations, even after I showed you a long list of them?

hen the products are balanced off by the damaging mutations that also occur.

If there was no such thing as natural selection. But of course, there is.

As you saw, the numbers indicate that even with the tiny sample we happened to be present to document, there would be millions of speciations over the time of the Cambrian explosion. Would you like me to show you again?
I used only a fraction of those mentioned by talk.origins, and yet that very conservative estimate would give millions of speciations. Sounds like a lot to me.

You must be joking.

If you think the math is faulty, show us.

You wilfully forget that not only are there a million new species in the Cambrian

Millions is bigger than a million. So that's not really a problem, is it?

 

[Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
That God did it is not at issue. We're trying to figure out why you don't approve of the way He did it.

I don't approve of your fanciful concoctions

Comes down to evidence. An it supports the fact.

Barbarian oberves:
Animal husbandry often predicts the fitness of new varieties, based on evolutionary theory, and they are more often than not, correct.

You clearly didn't read Skell or Chain, as I quoted previously.

If you tried finding evidence for your position, you'd do much better. Quotes, as we have repeatedly seen here, are often edited in a way that does not reflect the ideas of the author.

Barbarian observes:
As you learned, Burbank thought that acquired characteristics can be inherited. His concept of evolution was shown to be invalid by the rediscovery of Mendel's work.

Isn't it time you read what Burbank actually said about the limits of variation?

I'd be pleased to see some evidence. Burbank's rejection of genetics makes his opinion on the subject less than reliable.

Barbarian observes:
Opinions are worth as much as the evidence supporting them. And as you see, the evidence swamps any denial of observed evolution by mutation.

(more quotes without context)

Will that do?

Nope. Facts will do. Evidence. As we've seen, too many quotes presented here turned out to be contrary to the author's actual intent.

Barbarian observes:
Publishers allow me to review new textbooks from time to time. No biology textbook from any established academic publisher supports your ideas.

Of course they don't. They are all toe-ers of the party line, as you are. They wouldn't sell anything otherwise.

Sorry, that story won't fly. There are millions of creationist books sold annually. It's just an excuse.

(Denial that any useful new trait in domesticated organisms could come about by favorable mutation)

This is an out and out lie, Barbarian.

Well, let's take a look. You said:

Then think: if those gentlemen and reactors are speaking the truth, then all this change, claimed to have been produced by mutations + natural selection (which doesn't work, as you've been shown very clearly) is mere phantasmagoria: with no basis in reality.

An emphatic and categorical denial, given that you asserted that those individuals were right. I noticed that later, you softened that to mere skepticism:

IF, and I underline the word, mutations produce anything useful,

But I was referring to your earlier denial.

I reject the idea that selective breeding over of thousands of years has produced a new species of any domestic animal.

Dogs, horses, maize, etc. So that's not true, either.

Strange. Now that people like Kimura, Lynch and Kingsolver have expressed severe reservations about the value of natural selection (and the numbers of doubters are growing), that creationists should be taking up that particular cudgel.

As you know, Kimura wrote that natural selection was an essential part of evolution. So that kind of "reservation" would have pleased Darwin.

This is why snipping out bits of text is so dangerous; if you don't completely understand what the author said, it is very likely to embarrass you. Hence my suggestion to rely on evidence, not quotes. Quotes will often backfire on you.