[_ Old Earth _] The Swallows of Capistrano

[Asyncritus]

THE SWALLOWS OF CAPISTRANO

There’s a lovely little legend about these birds, the cliff swallows.

Every year on March 18th – Time has newsreel footage of this actually happening some years ago - the swallows return to the town of San Juan Capistrano in California. Many people flock to see the sight, apparently. A song has been written about this: ‘When the Swallows return to Capistrano.’

The previous day, the 17th, the scouts of the flock come sweeping in, then fly back out to sea. On the 18th itself, they come in clouds, to nest and breed. Then, on October 23rd, they fly up, circle the town, saying goodbye it seems, and then fly away.

One fascinating thing is that they are reputed to fly to Capistrano from Goya in Argentina, a distance of some 7000 miles! and back again. The migration does take place – that is a fact, and the legendary bit now follows:

The flight is mostly over water – and swallows can’t swim. They sleep on the wing, according to some accounts – but each one carries a twig in its mouth, and when fatigued, drop the twig into the water, and rest on it as it floats.

Whether the legend be true or not, the astonishing feats of bird navigation and migration defy belief. The star of this particular show must, I think, be the Arctic tern, which flies from its northern breeding grounds in the arctic, to the Antarctic (some 19,000 km) and back again every year!

A bit of imagination soon makes these feats quite unbelievable. Imagine flying at 500 - 2000 feet, clouds below, temperature low, not a landmark in sight, ploughing bravely on for 7000 miles in the case of the swallows, right down the western coast of the whole of South America. Finding food somehow, finding rest somehow, driven by some mysterious urge to do this marvellous thing.

Whatever the reason for these flights, they speak in the most powerful way imaginable of the Creator’s powers. That they should do this, heading for a destination they cannot see, with terrible problems they must meet, navigating only with a heavenly guide – it can be nothing else – they do it, unflinchingly, unquestioningly, and heroically.

And in doing so, they cast the gauntlet into the faces of evolutionists everywhere.

Consider the requirements:

1 Some kind of GPS navigation system in their brains, capable of taking them accurately the whole 7000 miles from Goya to Capistrano and 7000 more miles back again.

That alone finishes any hope any evolutionary theory may have.

A single degree off course, and they are all belly up in the ocean somewhere. That means species extinction - because they all go.

Yet, the species is still here, doing the same miraculous thing every year. Therefore, from the very first time they made this journey, and ever since, they had the mechanism implanted into their little heads.

How? How could such a thing have evolved gradually? How did the information arise, and how did it enter the genome?

It did so all at once, and is still there.

2 The second requirement, together with the first, makes the whole thing completely, unbelievably miraculous.

They arrive in Capistrano, after the 7000 mile flight, ON THE SAME DATE EVERY YEAR, on March 18th. I've been unable to check whether the leap years alter this.

They leave Capistrano exactly six months after their arrival, on October 23rd.

Therefore, somewhere, somehow, in their little heads, is a calendar, in addition to their GPS.

How could these things occur TOGETHER? At the same time? What statistical monstrosity do we have to invoke? 1 chance in how many googols?

This is the phenomenon of instinct in full flood, sweeping away the dams of evolutionary theory. How did it originate?

Before you start talking about a zillion articles on the subject on google, please recall the question, and cite only those articles which account for the ORIGIN OF THE INSTINCTS.
(You'll find some on my blog: Asyncritus' How Does Instinct Evolve?')

Points such as 'it is a good idea to migrate because of..food, temperature etc' are not answers to the question HOW DID THE INSTINCTS ORIGINATE, and will be dealt with sharply.

At this point, if I were an evolutionist, God forbid, I would give up my theory.

How about it chaps?

Any explanations?

 

[lordkalvan]

Oh dear, here we go again. Asyncritus finds something he cannot conceive of (or understand) a naturalistic explanation - it is 'beyond belief', 'quite unbelievable' - for and therefore invokes as the only credible alternative a supernatural creator - hence evolution is impossible and God is proven. This is getting a bit tired.

 

[Rhea]

Alas,

In recent years, the swallows have failed to return in large flocks to the Mission.[121] Few birds were counted in the 1990s and 2000s. The reduction has been connected to increased development of the area, including many more choices of nesting place and fewer insects to eat.[122][123]

 

[Asyncritus]

Oh dear, here we go again. Asyncritus finds something he cannot conceive of (or understand) a naturalistic explanation - it is 'beyond belief', 'quite unbelievable' - for and therefore invokes as the only credible alternative a supernatural creator - hence evolution is impossible and God is proven. This is getting a bit tired.

Sorry, it's not.

What's your credible explanation? Doesn't the mighty google help with this one?

 

[Asyncritus]

Alas,

The tourists have ruined it or are in the process thereof.

The explanation of the phenomenon (which is very well documented), is what we're seeking here.

 

[lordkalvan]

Sorry, it's not.

Eh, yes, it is.

What's your credible explanation? Doesn't the mighty google help with this one?

Perhaps when you return to provide reasoned and evidenced replies to the several outstanding points, questions and arguments that you have ignored, trivialised or dismissed with nothing more substantial than personal incredulity and imaginary maths on other threads, it may be worthwhile explaining the misunderstandings and misrepresentations that litter this one.

 

[Rhea]

The tourists have ruined it or are in the process thereof.

The explanation of the phenomenon (which is very well documented), is what we're seeking here.

So you're saying what, "God 0, Tourists 1"? That seems so unlike god.

The explanation is out here, and Lord Kalvan is right - your ability to process the reasons given in other threads disinclines one to make an effort on this one, too.

It's migration, Asyncritus. It is unlikely that it was actually the same date every year, but the mechanisms for migration would support that for birds that operate by sun zenith signals and magnetism navigation, wouldn't it.

Go ahead and look at the fascinating work being done to study the mechanisms by which migrations (and hibernations) happen. What you'll find will handily explain repeated, timed migrations.

It's quite cool.

 

[Asyncritus]

So you're saying what, "God 0, Tourists 1"? That seems so unlike god.

The explanation is out here, and Lord Kalvan is right - your ability to process the reasons given in other threads disinclines one to make an effort on this one, too.

It's migration, Asyncritus. It is unlikely that it was actually the same date every year, but the mechanisms for migration would support that for birds that operate by sun zenith signals and magnetism navigation, wouldn't it.

Go ahead and look at the fascinating work being done to study the mechanisms by which migrations (and hibernations) happen. What you'll find will handily explain repeated, timed migrations.

It's quite cool.

In case you missed it, I am asking two, and only two questions.

1 How did the instinct originate

2 How did it enter the genome.

I am totally uninterested in how it WORKS. Some of the tripe one reads is dismaying.

For example, the green turtle migrates some 2,000 miles to Easter Island. How? They SAY, by detecting some chemicals in the water.

I think that's funny - but maybe you don't.

But supposing they're right - and I'm always prepared to concede that, given some intelligent work and thinking.

Let's suppose it's chemical X.

The turtle can detect it - but presumably so can a thousand other species. Why don't they all end up on the shores of Easter Island?

Because somewhere, somehow, the turtle has learned to respond to that stimulus, and somehow uses it to travel 2,000 miles to Easter Island.

The questions get nasty.

HOW did that information get learned?

HOW did it enter the genome?

Mutation, says Barbarian and LK, presumably.

Well, if you can believe that, you can believe anything. I personally see a conditioned reflex kicking in there, in the absence of thought and evidence.

But you, of course, can think whatever you like.

 

[lordkalvan]

Why do animals migrate? Animals migrate over different distances and for different reasons. Amongst some species, only some of the animals migrate and others don't. In other species, migratory behaviour has been observed to cease entirely (Wyoming pronghorn antelope for around 50 years) and then to begin again. Asyncritus thinks all of these and similar questions are of no importance when discussing the evolution of migratory behaviour (i.e. how it originated). Indeed, he has expressly stated that he is only interested in his own questions, presumably because he believes that only questions that he can think of have any importance and that they pose some sort of fatal problem for evolutionary theory. As we have seen elsewhere, none of his questions or examples from personal incredulity pose any such threat, but he remains convinced that they do.

 

[Asyncritus]

I repeat the two simple questions LK.

1 How did the instinct arise? (Swallows, eels, whatever)

2 How did it enter the genome?

I am not interested in diversionary tactics, merely in straight answers.

If you can't or won't provide them, then we can move on, but please say one way or the other.

 

[Asyncritus]

Now it's becoming obvious that I am flogging a very dead horse, here.

There are no answers to be had, none are forthcoming, and the proponents of evolution are reduced to ad hominem statements.

What this goes to prove is that this phenomenon of migration in the avian world has no evolutionary origin.

Which is remarkable, given the extensiveness of the phenomenon.

'Half of the world's species migrate' says the Natural History Museum authoritative book Atlas of Bird Migration.p10, 2007 edition. How many species is that?

Estimates obviously vary, but the true figure is somewhere near to 10,000. Therefore c. 5,000 species migrate, and the migrations vary in size from 'a few hundred yards to flights that circumnavigate the globe.'

That is an enormous phenomenon, involving as it does, multimillions of birds - and yet, evolution, that theory which began with the optimistic title 'On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection' has no idea as to HOW THAT BEHAVIOUR EVOLVED, and HOW IT ENTERED THE GENOME.

It cannot account for any one of these questions.

Therefore, it is invalidated, invalided out and should be abandoned. Any theory incapable of accounting for such widespread, and the kingdo. phenomena, should be thrown to the dogs.

So says the Atlas.

 

[lordkalvan]

I repeat the two simple questions LK.

1 How did the instinct arise? (Swallows, eels, whatever)

2 How did it enter the genome?

I am not interested in diversionary tactics, merely in straight answers.

If you can't or won't provide them, then we can move on, but please say one way or the other.

Again, your apparent perception that the reasons why animals migrate isn't part and parcel of the question of origins only highlights the narrow limits through which you wish to view the question. That you then wonder how instinct 'enter the genome' further suggests that your understanding of evolutionary theory is even more limited than the remit you wish considerations of migratory behaviour to be limited to. And it is again illustrative of the position from which you are coming that you regard anything other than your restricted vision of the subject matter as 'diversionary tactics'. That you imagine others should dance to your tune when you have no interest in dialogue arising from fundamental questions that address the question of the evolution of migratory behaviour and why it is so different and variable across different species demonstrates again the closed-mindedness with which you approach the topic.

 

[lordkalvan]

Now it's becoming obvious that I am flogging a very dead horse, here.

No, what is apparent is that you have no interest in a discussion at all. What you seem to want to do is ask your various 'questions' and pose your selected examples over and over; ignore or simply dismiss important issues that arise as a result of the misunderstandings inherent in and limited extent of those questions and selected examples; disregard evidence and arguments that point up those misunderstandings and limitations; declare that no one can prove anything to your satisfaction; and then parade the downfall of evolutionary theory as if you have established anything other than your own personal incredulity about the subject.

There are no answers to be had, none are forthcoming, and the proponents of evolution are reduced to ad hominem statements.

This makes no sense. Barbarian has provided answers that you have simply denied the validity of. No one has engaged in ad hominems, unless you regard the simple pointing out that your arguments depend almost wholly on personal incredulity as constituting an ad hominem.

What this goes to prove is that this phenomenon of migration in the avian world has no evolutionary origin.

Eh, no, it proves no such thing. All it demonstrates is that you imagine that if you declare something to be impossible and no one proves otherwise to your satisfaction (an obvious impossibility, given your a priori assumption that it is impossible), then it must be impossible. The speciousness of this reasoning has been pointed out to you elsewhere more than once, but you still cleave to it. Why is that?

Which is remarkable, given the extensiveness of the phenomenon.

The remarkableness here is the extent to which you believe personal incredulity coupled with demands for evidence and arguments that you are obviously unwilling to accept the validity of amounts to a reasoned critique of evolutionary theory. Let me say this again, even if evolutionary theory was wholly unable to offer explanatory hypotheses for the various phenomena that you have proclaimed 'impossible' of naturalistic causes (which it isn't), this is insufficient to invalidate evolutionary theory: you need to offer a critique of the theory that explains why it is at fault and what alternative hypothesis you can advance that better explains the diversity of life we observe around us and in the fossil record. 'God did it' does not amount to any such better explanation.

'Half of the world's species migrate' says the Natural History Museum authoritative book Atlas of Bird Migration.p10, 2007 edition. How many species is that?

Estimates obviously vary, but the true figure is somewhere near to 10,000. Therefore c. 5,000 species migrate, and the migrations vary in size from 'a few hundred yards to flights that circumnavigate the globe.'

That is an enormous phenomenon, involving as it does, multimillions of birds - and yet, evolution, that theory which began with the optimistic title 'On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection' has no idea as to HOW THAT BEHAVIOUR EVOLVED, and HOW IT ENTERED THE GENOME.

Repeating your strawman questions does not amount to an effective critique of evolutionary theory. Do you regard migrations of 'a few hundred yards' as impossible of an explanation in terms of evolutionary theory? Do you regard the various reasons why animals migrate as impossible of an explanation in terms of evolutionary theory? Do you regard the reasons why some animals in a given population migrate and others don't as impossible of an explanation in terms of evolutionary theory? Do you regard the reasons why some animals cease migratory behaviour for periods of time and then begin it again as impossible of an explanation in terms of evolutionary theory? Do you regard observed changes in the migratory behaviour of certain animals over relatively short periods of time as impossible of an explanation in terms of evolutionary theory? If you answer 'yes' to any of these questions, can you then go on to explain why and to tell us what better explanation you can offer to account for this behaviour?

It cannot account for any one of these questions.

You have not shown this to be so. You have simply declared it to be so and discounted any arguments and evidence that show your various claims to be faulty (see Barbarian's posts in the 'Bats' and 'Birds' Lungs' threads for examples of this methodology).

Therefore, it is invalidated, invalided out and should be abandoned. Any theory incapable of accounting for such widespread, and the kingdo. phenomena, should be thrown to the dogs.

Your interpolated clause makes no sense, but then the rest of this assertion is so sweeping a generalization apparently founded on nothing more than your own self-satisfaction with the devastating nature of your 'questions' and examples that the fact that part of it makes no sense is neither here nor there. Tell us how you account 'for such widespread...phenomena', then.

So says the Atlas.

Perhaps you could explain what you mean, as I have no idea? Are you suggesting you are a primordial Titan supporting the heavens on your shoulders?

 

[Rhea]

For example, the green turtle migrates some 2,000 miles to Easter Island. How? They SAY, by detecting some chemicals in the water.

[...]Let's suppose it's chemical X.

The turtle can detect it - but presumably so can a thousand other species. Why don't they all end up on the shores of Easter Island?

Because somewhere, somehow, the turtle has learned to respond to that stimulus, and somehow uses it to travel 2,000 miles to Easter Island.

The questions get nasty.

HOW did that information get learned?

HOW did it enter the genome?

Mutation, says Barbarian and LK, presumably.

Here's a scenario for you to consider.
There are 100,000 turtles. Some of them contain a mutation that is sensitive to this chemical and feel mild pleasure when near it. So they follow it. Say this is 100 of the turtles.

So 100 follow the chemical scent that leads them to Easter island. The other 99,900 stay where they are all year.

Now, a shark population outgrows its range nearby the old grounds and moves into where the 99,900 turtles are, eating many of them, stressing the rest, devastating the population.

But the ones that went to Easter Island are out of range. They survive and multiply because each year when the sharks are pressured to range further for food, the Easter Island mutants are "out of town".

After several millenia, the Easter Island turtles continue to thrive, and the old location population becomes extinct (or, possibly, a mutation that yields a different, harder to eat shell survives better there, making them very different from the old Easter Island variety).

Basically, a mutation occurs that confers some survival advantage. The ones who have it happen to survive and multiply, the mutation becomes widespread and perhaps ultimately it becomes a defining feature.


Evolution doesn't care. It is an effect, not a cause. Changes happen in the genome through mutation or mating selection or interbreeding. And the ones that turn out to be useful provide animals with an improved ability to make more of it.

That's simplified, but you seem to be asking for simplified; and I am really answering for others reading who are actually interested in the answer.

Evolution has no plan. It's what happens when external forces pressure a population. The best suited tend to do the best. They aren't trying to, they just ended up that way. No one ever talks about the 99,900 turtles that got eaten by sharks because they didn't have a yen for statues (that's a joke), but they we right there doing their thing, laughing at the islanders for their weird quirk, right up to the moment they got munched while the islanders were off doing their inexplicable walkabout.

 

[lordkalvan]

Interestingly, of course, green sea turtles nest at sites other than Easter Island and in most of the world's southern oceans. Ascension Island is another breeding location, but many are also sited on the continental land masses. Loggerhead turtles migrate over even longer distances than green sea turtles. Research indicates that they are sensitive to magnetic fields and may well use the Earth's magnetic field to help them navigate.

 

[Asyncritus]

Again, your apparent perception that the reasons why animals migrate isn't part and parcel of the question of origins only highlights the narrow limits through which you wish to view the question. That you then wonder how instinct 'enter the genome' further suggests that your understanding of evolutionary theory is even more limited than the remit you wish considerations of migratory behaviour to be limited to. And it is again illustrative of the position from which you are coming that you regard anything other than your restricted vision of the subject matter as 'diversionary tactics'. That you imagine others should dance to your tune when you have no interest in dialogue arising from fundamental questions that address the question of the evolution of migratory behaviour and why it is so different and variable across different species demonstrates again the closed-mindedness with which you approach the topic.

If you were writing a paper on the mechanism of the origin and inheritance of the migratory instincts of the cliff swallows, you would be unable to drag questions as to WHY the birds migrate.

As an introduction - perhaps - but the meat of your paper could certainly not be devoted to these irrelevancies.

You would be expected to produce factual explanations of the mechanisms of the origin and inheritance of the observable phenomena.

That, in essence is what you are being called upon to do.

Now stop stonewalling, or admit that there is no explanation available.

 

[Rhea]

You would be expected to produce factual explanations of the mechanisms of the origin and inheritance of the observable phenomena.

That, in essence is what you are being called upon to do.

Now stop stonewalling, or admit that there is no explanation available.

Did you read the replies above yours?

Seriously, he has provided the answer aGAIN AND AGAIN. (caps-lock got stuck there, but I looked back and realized it was divinely appropriate).

Again and again your question HAS been answered. Can you please stop stonewalling and read the response and comment on it and stop parrotting the question again as if no one has taken the time to answer?

It gets into the heritable genes by mutation. It stays there because it confers reproductive advantage.

No animal has to "learn" an instinct. They don't have to be "taught" to follow an urge. Once the chemical/hormonal/neural "urge" is introduced by mutation, if it happens to create a survival advantage, then more creatures with that urge will be present, possibly out-reproducing those without it and replacing the population with all urge-present examples.

People with autism don't have to be "taught" to not look at your eyes, by the way. People with obsessive-compulsive disorder do not have to be "taught" to repeat tasks. People with angel-face syndrome do not have to be "taught" to smile. People with extremely large lungs do not have to be "taught" to breath more air.

You seem to be stumbling on this idea that all instincts are a matter of learning a new skill from a teacher and adopting it. That the urge to swim along a magnetic field isocline is something that needed to be "taught" and since you can't see any way to teach outside of a god, it must be god. But the urge to follow a magnetic (or hormonal, or chemical or optical) isocline no more needs to be taught than the urge for little toddlers to run laughing from mama needs to be taught (believe me - we'd all decline to teach that one if we could!!)

The urge can develop through mutation. The urge is followed. If the urge is dangerous, that mutation dies before it can reproduce, and there aren't very many of them. If the urge is favorable, it will exist in more and more copies of the the one who survived well using it.

(btw, Kalvan & Barbarian, if my simplified explanation creates factual errors, please feel free to correct me - I'm not an expert in this field, just a fascinated lay reader)

 

[Asyncritus]

Did you read the replies above yours?

Seriously, he has provided the answer aGAIN AND AGAIN. (caps-lock got stuck there, but I looked back and realized it was divinely appropriate).

Again and again your question HAS been answered. Can you please stop stonewalling and read the response and comment on it and stop parrotting the question again as if no one has taken the time to answer?

It gets into the heritable genes by mutation. It stays there because it confers reproductive advantage.

Rhea, I know you're not a scientist. I am, and I can recognise nonsense when I hear/read it.

Let me explain.

Mutation - do you know what a mutation is? To keep it simple: it is damage or alteration of the chromosomes or genes. About 99% of mutations are either neutral or destructive. The one percent is not enough to produce the gigantic things we are discussing.

Here's Muller, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on genetics, and what he said about mutations. Not very hopeful, I fear for our friends:

“But mutations are found to be of a random nature, so far as their utility is concerned. Accordingly, the great
majority of mutations, certainly well over 99%, are harmful in some way, as is to be expected of the effects of accidental occurrences.”—*H.J. Muller, “Radiation
Damage to the Genetic Material,” in American Scientist,
January 1950, p. 35.

Here's another VERY FAMOUS evolutionist saying pretty much the same thing:

“A proportion of favorable mutations of one in a thousand does not sound much, but is probably generous, since so many mutations are lethal, preventing the organism from living at all, and the great majority of the rest throw the machinery slightly out of gear.”—*Julian Huxley,
Evolution in Action, p. 41.

It gets much more technical than that as you can imagine, but trust me, mutations cannot drive evolution anywhere but into hiding.

No animal has to "learn" an instinct. They don't have to be "taught" to follow an urge. ...

Excuse me, but that is the essential question that we are discussing here.

Bird A (the 'ancestor of Bird B') didn't have the urge or the know-how to fly to Capistrano.

Bird B does.

So where did the 'urge' come from?

I maintain that the bird was created with the instinct built in - as all instincts are.

Instincts, you see, are intangible things - and are not subject to evolutionary mechanisms, which attempt to deal with physical ones: like how did a scale on a reptile ever turn into about 10 different types of feather on a bird?

So there is no 'evolution' involved in the entry of instinct into any animal or plant.

Which is why mumbling about 'mutations' is as meaningless as saying that a computer program is developed by wrecking and damaging bits and pieces of the hardware.

In the bird, the program is the instinct, and the hardware is the physical animal.

Mutations ONLY affect the physical, and cannot be called upon to account for the origin of instinct.

Hence their enormous and insurmountable problems. I hope you can see that now.

That's why their answers are no answers at all.

 

[lordkalvan]

If you were writing a paper on the mechanism of the origin and inheritance of the migratory instincts of the cliff swallows, you would be unable to drag questions as to WHY the birds migrate.

And why would I be 'unable to drag' such questions into consideration of the origins of the mechanism? It is insufficient simply to assert this, you need to give your reasoning. It seems entirely relevant that if you wish to consider why migratory behaviour originated, you need also to reflect on the reasons that underlie that behaviour in the first place. Given the various impulses that lie behind migratory behaviour and the variability of that behaviour in the first place, it seems profoundly puzzling that you suggest it is of little or no relevance.

As an introduction - perhaps - but the meat of your paper could certainly not be devoted to these irrelevancies.

That you categorize these questions as 'irrelevancies' only reflects on the rather superficial approach you seem to wish to bring to the subject matter and your lack of interest in examining its deeper ramifications and implications..

You would be expected to produce factual explanations of the mechanisms of the origin and inheritance of the observable phenomena.

And those explanations would inevitably have to address the question of why animals migrate and why those migratory behaviours are so variable.

That, in essence is what you are being called upon to do.

Now stop stonewalling, or admit that there is no explanation available.

Again I am bemused that you regard addressing the limitations of your proposed questions and the misunderstandings and misrepresentations that they seem contrived towards promulgating as 'stonewalling'.

Do you regard migrations of 'a few hundred yards' as impossible of an explanation in terms of evolutionary theory? Do you regard the various reasons why animals migrate as impossible of an explanation in terms of evolutionary theory? Do you regard the reasons why some animals in a given population migrate and others don't as impossible of an explanation in terms of evolutionary theory? Do you regard the reasons why some animals cease migratory behaviour for periods of time and then begin it again as impossible of an explanation in terms of evolutionary theory? Do you regard observed changes in the migratory behaviour of certain animals over relatively short periods of time as impossible of an explanation in terms of evolutionary theory? If you answer 'yes' to any of these questions, can you then go on to explain why and to tell us what better explanation you can offer to account for this behaviour?

 

[lordkalvan]

Rhea, I know you're not a scientist. I am, and I can recognise nonsense when I hear/read it.

That's strange, because you are responsible for posting so much of it yourself.

Let me explain.

Mutation - do you know what a mutation is? To keep it simple: it is damage or alteration of the chromosomes or genes. About 99% of mutations are either neutral or destructive. The one percent is not enough to produce the gigantic things we are discussing.

And your evidence for these various assertions is what, exactly?

Here's Muller, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on genetics, and what he said about mutations. Not very hopeful, I fear for our friends...

As you failed to address my points arising from this reference the first time you presented it, perhaps you would like to do so now? Here they are again, just to remind you:

Do you have a reference a little more recent that six decades old and that does not so obviously seem to be addressing damaging agents introduced into the environment by ourselves, in this case ionizing radiation? Radiation-caused mutations may be overwhelmingly harmful, but this does not show that in general all mutations are overwhelmingly harmful. Did you source this reference from a creationist website, just out of interest?

Here's another VERY FAMOUS evolutionist saying pretty much the same thing...

Well, you're moving on, as this reference dates from 1953. Do you have anything more current on the 'lethality' of mutations? Can you present the full context of the Huxley quote, by the way, or is this another one you have sourced from a creationist website?

It gets much more technical than that as you can imagine, but trust me, mutations cannot drive evolution anywhere but into hiding.

You have given us no reason to trust your assertions in this respect. All cells in our body contain DNA and there are lots of places for mutations to occur, but - wait for it - not all mutations matter for evolution and, of those that do, some that are deleterious for the individuals concerned can be advantageous for the populations that they affect (think sickle-cell mutation, for example). So the picture isn't as simple and black-and-white as you try to suggest.

Excuse me, but that is the essential question that we are discussing here.

Bird A (the 'ancestor of Bird B') didn't have the urge or the know-how to fly to Capistrano.

Bird B does.

So where did the 'urge' come from?

Again, what is your hypothetical 'Bird A' and, again, are you aware that evolution manifests itself in populations rather than individuals? Your question is akin to stating that Gaul A (the ancestor of Frenchman B) didn't know how to speak French, but Frenchman B does, so where did the French language come from? There was no first 'Bird B' that could fly to Capistrano and all birds before it couldn't.

I maintain that the bird was created with the instinct built in - as all instincts are.

You can maintain what you like, but so far you have presented no evidence to support this idea, simply demanded that others 'prove' to your satisfaction that evolutionary theory can offer an explanation, decide in advance that this is impossible, and then declare that evolutionary theory is therefore false and whatever you care to assert in its place is a better explanation.

Instincts, you see, are intangible things - and are not subject to evolutionary mechanisms, which attempt to deal with physical ones: like how did a scale on a reptile ever turn into about 10 different types of feather on a bird?

Whoops, there you go again. If instincts 'are not subject to evolutionary mechanisms', what are they subject to given the variability and observed change we see actually occurring in them?

So there is no 'evolution' involved in the entry of instinct into any animal or plant.

And you know this how? other than by expressing disbelief that evolution could be involved in instinctive behaviour, that is?

Which is why mumbling about 'mutations' is as meaningless as saying that a computer program is developed by wrecking and damaging bits and pieces of the hardware.

A poor analogy: a computer program does not have the evolutionary algorithm driving its development.

In the bird, the program is the instinct, and the hardware is the physical animal.

A 'program' developed by the evolutionary algorithm, if you wish to pursue this analogy.

Mutations ONLY affect the physical, and cannot be called upon to account for the origin of instinct.

Nonsense. Instincts are heritable traits, the only mechanism that we know of that provides for traits to be inherited is the gene. Unless, of course, you wish to argue that instinct is not inherited in the genes and provide evidence for your alternative hypothesis?

Hence their enormous and insurmountable problems. I hope you can see that now.

The only insurmountable problem here is your propensity to substitute personal incredulity for evidenced reasoning.

That's why their answers are no answers at all.

In other words, all you can do is handwave them away.