"1,000 Scientists Sign Up to Dissent from Darwin"

BilliardsBall said:

Now that you've calmed yourself, let's ask you for the "rationale and support" you requested from me!

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Wait - do you really think that your bald assertion was an explanation or a rationale? What kind of college are you faculty at? Does Bill Dembski work there?

Explain how natural selection goes beyond enhancing survivability (mating, camouflage, etc.) to changing individual base pairs of DNA:

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Sure, dad, right after you EXPLAIN and provide documentation in support of your claims about the release of bacteria from the appendix via neurological/endocrine/enzymatic action.

But I will say that the question you asked is sufficient for one to conclude that not one second of your supposed higher education was spent in a science classroom.

BilliardsBall said:

You want statistics that natural selection (helps survivable traits of a species, like camouflage) doesn't have the power to affect individual DNA base pairs?

Are all skeptics insane?

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No, but I think all creationists are ignorant of the very things they try to 'argue' against.

Cool thing, guys - we've been going about this whole science and genetics thing all wrong - it is Natural Selection that causes mutations, not replication errors!
Amazing science from ol' triple degree boy!

BilliardsBall said:

No, I agree! After all, our species and others have the ability to target mutations and mutated cells and wipe them out, as most mutations are NOT beneficial.

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Where do you get this claim from? Most mutations are in fact NEUTRAL. CB101: Most mutations harmful?

Natural selection can certainly help furrier animals survive cold conditions. They are not a new species quite yet!

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So a small change like slightly more fur doesn't make a new species? Agreed. I wouldn't call it a new species either. But what if there are lots and lots and lots of small changes over a long period of time? Could all these changes together bring about a new species? If not, why not?

Next, explain how natural selections changes amoebas to people, showing steps taken, without hand-waving like "and then... organ systems form." Show the steps or some of the steps, so even a dolt like me can follow:

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Are you for real? You demand that I explain EVERY SINGLE PART to you or you will accept none of it? All you are doing is demanding that I waste my time, probably hoping that I won't bother (because you won't accept it anyway), at which point you'll claim victory, saying that since I couldn't explain it, no one can.

In any case, single celled organisms can come together to form colonies, like the Portuguese Man of War. This is likely how single celled creatures evolved into multi-cellular creatures.

The evolution of internal structures like bones is also fairly well understood, as is the development of lungs, limbs, etc.

Honestly, if this stuff is unknown to you, you are simply not well enough educated in the topic to have a rational discussion about this. You're like a kid saying 5+7 makes no sense because the answer is more than ten and you haven't learned to count without using your fingers yet.

BilliardsBall said:

What you've described is a culling or tightening of the gene pool--yes, basic theory--yet what others described is against statistical likelihood. One skeptic claimed 1 in 10 mutations moved apes to people! That's ridiculous.

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You use the word skeptic like it is a curse word.

Why is the claimed 1 in 10 mutations ridiculous?

BilliardsBall said:

Also, your point 1 above AGREES with my statement. They are random mutations. Evolution cannot sidestep your steps 2-6 to heighten the efficiency of individual random mutations at step 2!

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It was an enumerated summary of the change in allelic frequency of a population over time. Steps 1-6 are evolution with natural selection. Natural selection (the environment*) protects mutations beneficial to an organism under a set of environmental parameters where that mutation conveys a fitness benefit. Deleterious mutations reduce fitness. Some to the point of being lethal to the individual that has the mutation.

*The environment acting on an individual or a population includes both abiotic and biotic components. Abiotic components include, but are not limited to, temperature, solar radiation, pressure, humidity, altitude, substrate, nutrient availability, wind, lightning, rain, sand, water, iron, calcium, rocks, tiny pebbles, inorganic toxins, mountains and valleys. Biotic factors include, diseases, parasites, organ function, organ efficiency, size, color, vestiture, physiology, predators, prey, other members of the same or related populations or species, grass, trees, weight, types of organs, skeletal structure, biological toxins, and locomotion. The environment is not just the weather or the climate. It is the multi-dimensional space in which an organism, population or species exists. It is both internal and external.

Whether a mutation is beneficial or deleterious is often the result of context. Certainly, some mutations that impact highly conserved developmental genes or that cause extraordinary impairment are lethal regardless of the environment. Generally, however, whether a mutation is beneficial or deleterious is determined within the context of the environment acting on that mutation. If a mutation occurs that could provide a benefit under certain conditions, but those conditions do not exist, then natural selection does not take place to protect that mutation.

Another thing that you do not seem to understand regards the potential number of mutations that a population can undergo in a given period of years or generations.

This is a crude approximation that leaves out some detail, but provides the basis for an understanding of the material that others are presenting to you.

The mutation rate/individual X number of individuals in a population = estimate of the total number of mutations for that population.

For humans with the present population level and using 50 mutations/individual as the rate, the total number of mutations for the entire human population as a single generation is 350 billion. With the human genome approximately 3.2 billion base pairs, that the human genome has potentially been mutated in its entirety 109 times.

We will do this again with the next generation and the next and the next and the next. Of course, we are not doubling our population in each generation, but given reproduction rates, it is still an incredible amount of variation on which natural selection might act. And that variation is not happening in one geographic location. Natural selection could select a mutation in one geography that it does not favor in any other or while protecting completely different mutations in other geographies. Evolution and natural selection are complex processes.

Please stop pretending like you understand what is going on. Please stop using terms that are inappropriate and confusing. Do as you have chided others to do. Approach this honestly as if you were a child that knows nothing. Learn.

tas8831 said:

Cool thing, guys - we've been going about this whole science and genetics thing all wrong - it is Natural Selection that causes mutations, not replication errors!
Amazing science from ol' triple degree boy!

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I have alerted the Nobel committee.

BilliardsBall said:

My calculations are in the thread, feel free to reference my post, but do not again dare to twist what I wrote. POST what I wrote so we can all see your false claims.

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I do not think you have to worry about others twisting your posts.

BilliardsBall said:

If the Bible does not harmonize with science, you are saying that it's author is less intelligent than His creatures.

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The Bible does not harmonize with science. Since the authors were intelligent people from thousands of years ago, but ignorant and not possessing the knowledge we possess, that is completely understandable.

What is not understandable today are the numerous people that are purposefully ignorant and in denial of what they can see with their own eyes. That is sad.

Dan From Smithville said:

You use the word skeptic like it is a curse word.

Why is the claimed 1 in 10 mutations ridiculous?




It was an enumerated summary of the change in allelic frequency of a population over time. Steps 1-6 are evolution with natural selection. Natural selection (the environment*) protects mutations beneficial to an organism under a set of environmental parameters where that mutation conveys a fitness benefit. Deleterious mutations reduce fitness. Some to the point of being lethal to the individual that has the mutation.

*The environment acting on an individual or a population includes both abiotic and biotic components. Abiotic components include, but are not limited to, temperature, solar radiation, pressure, humidity, altitude, substrate, nutrient availability, wind, lightning, rain, sand, water, iron, calcium, rocks, tiny pebbles, inorganic toxins, mountains and valleys. Biotic factors include, diseases, parasites, organ function, organ efficiency, size, color, vestiture, physiology, predators, prey, other members of the same or related populations or species, grass, trees, weight, types of organs, skeletal structure, biological toxins, and locomotion. The environment is not just the weather or the climate. It is the multi-dimensional space in which an organism, population or species exists. It is both internal and external.

Whether a mutation is beneficial or deleterious is often the result of context. Certainly, some mutations that impact highly conserved developmental genes or that cause extraordinary impairment are lethal regardless of the environment. Generally, however, whether a mutation is beneficial or deleterious is determined within the context of the environment acting on that mutation. If a mutation occurs that could provide a benefit under certain conditions, but those conditions do not exist, then natural selection does not take place to protect that mutation.

Another thing that you do not seem to understand regards the potential number of mutations that a population can undergo in a given period of years or generations.

This is a crude approximation that leaves out some detail, but provides the basis for an understanding of the material that others are presenting to you.

The mutation rate/individual X number of individuals in a population = estimate of the total number of mutations for that population.

For humans with the present population level and using 50 mutations/individual as the rate, the total number of mutations for the entire human population as a single generation is 350 billion. With the human genome approximately 3.2 billion base pairs, that the human genome has potentially been mutated in its entirety 109 times.

We will do this again with the next generation and the next and the next and the next. Of course, we are not doubling our population in each generation, but given reproduction rates, it is still an incredible amount of variation on which natural selection might act. And that variation is not happening in one geographic location. Natural selection could select a mutation in one geography that it does not favor in any other or while protecting completely different mutations in other geographies. Evolution and natural selection are complex processes.

Please stop pretending like you understand what is going on. Please stop using terms that are inappropriate and confusing. Do as you have chided others to do. Approach this honestly as if you were a child that knows nothing. Learn.

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One in ten mutations being positive seems a bit much for me. The problem is that I showed in the time period given that there were over ten times the mutations needed even if only one in a million mutations were positive. And that one in a million figure would be a very pessimistic one. He had to divide my answer by a million AGAIN to get his claim.

BilliardsBall said:

No, I agree! After all, our species and others have the ability to target mutations and mutated cells and wipe them out, as most mutations are NOT beneficial.

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Most mutations are neutral and do nothing.

BilliardsBall said:

Natural selection can certainly help furrier animals survive cold conditions. They are not a new species quite yet!

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If a mutation for increased fur (greater coverage, thicker, more numerous hairs, longer hairs--lots of different changes could occur that might be beneficial) occurs in an environment where that increase impacts fitness, then that mutation can become fixed in that population. No one expects that it would result in a new species and the theory does not require a change in taxa to occur.

BilliardsBall said:

Next, explain how natural selections changes amoebas to people, showing steps taken, without hand-waving like "and then... organ systems form." Show the steps or some of the steps, so even a dolt like me can follow:

1)
2)
3)
4)
5)

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Is this supposed to be a joke? You cannot be serious. This silly demand has been presented so often and as quickly dealt with, I find it ridiculous, but perhaps, given the shape of your argument, it is not surprising to see you resort to it.

Descriptions of , the role, and the function of natural selection have been presented, both here and in the scientific literature for a very long time. Your demand acts as if this is untrue. You know it is not untrue. Show the rest of us some respect.

Stop mean-mouthing the rest of us with your 'hand waving' claim. It is inappropriate and also incorrect. Again, something you know. Where is that Christian love you claim to cling to?

To further illustrate how ridiculous your demand is, what you are asking for is more than could reasonably be presented in this forum. It is material already in existence in other formats easily available to you. It is also material that you should have already reviewed if you are being honest about your claims of understanding the subject. You should be able to give us a generalized list of some of the major steps in the evolution of life.

Finally, even if someone decided to write their own summary and did not mind spending weeks and page after page of this thread doing it and you actually read it. You would deny it all and make false claims against it as being 'ridiculous on the face of it'.

Subduction Zone said:

One in ten mutations being positive seems a bit much for me. The problem is that I showed in the time period given that there were over ten times the mutations needed even if only one in a million mutations were positive. And that one in a million figure would be a very pessimistic one. He had to divide my answer by a million AGAIN to get his claim.

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I agree with you and, like you, I saw what he did. It was my intention to get him to explain himself. He makes a lot of statements that he does little or nothing to back up. If he is going to make a claim, like you and the other folks here expect, I too expect him to back it up. And with more than his usual rhetoric or 'I already did that in another post'.

Also, you did not claim 1 in 10. As you point out, he did. What I do not recall is his reasoning for doing that. I would be interested to see that explained.

If he is going to take the position that he is honest, I am going to hold him to that standard very rigidly. Taking your 1 in a million and then dividing it again to get 1 in 10 is not your claim. It is his. He needs to be aware that people are reading what he posts and not just buying is ridiculous claims. I suspect that is the paradigm he is used to, since he normally deals with belief rather than evidence and probably more often with a very susceptible audience.

Your original work seemed OK to me. Pessimistic, perhaps, but within potential possibility. Not like you were claiming that it was statistically impossible for evolution to occur because a specific goal had an astronomically, unbelievably low probability of happening. I know someone has made that wild, much refuted claim.

Subduction Zone said:

One in ten mutations being positive seems a bit much for me. The problem is that I showed in the time period given that there were over ten times the mutations needed even if only one in a million mutations were positive. And that one in a million figure would be a very pessimistic one. He had to divide my answer by a million AGAIN to get his claim.

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Thanks again for pointing out who was the actual author of the 1 in 10 positive mutation claim. I totally forgot that it was not you. That is why the tactic of continually repeating an unsupported claim is a dangerous game that must be watched for and challenged quickly.

Dan From Smithville said:

Thanks again for pointing out who was the actual author of the 1 in 10 positive mutation claim. I totally forgot that it was not you. That is why the tactic of continually repeating an unsupported claim is a dangerous game that must be watched for and challenged quickly.

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I have seen this tactic before, wildly misinterpret a post and then try to use it as "evidence".

Subduction Zone said:

I have seen this tactic before, wildly misinterpret a post and then try to use it as "evidence".

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I have too and I still fell into the trap.

Subduction Zone said:

I have seen this tactic before, wildly misinterpret a post and then try to use it as "evidence".

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It is funny. I saw it and still fell for it. It is easy to see how well the tactic would work on more credulous people.

So I guess this is the 'calculation' you were referring to? Yo've made 110 posts in this thread as of 9 am Sunday morning - I am not going to go through all of them, so I limited the search to those with the number '300' in them, since that seemed relevant to you. That limited the number of posts to 6, and this one was the only one of those six with something like an equation in it. If you had another one in mind, I am all ears.

BilliardsBall said:

You have a source for 100 mutations per every individual per generation? You have a source for 100 mutations passed to the next generation? (You don't, these are binary pair matings between primates).

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Human mutation rate revealed : Nature News
"Every time human DNA is passed from one generation to the next it accumulates 100–200 new mutations, according to a DNA-sequencing analysis of the Y chromosome."


https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/04/why-microbes-are-better-people-keeping-dna-mutations-bay
"Every newborn's DNA carries more than 60 new mutations..."
"That has enabled researchers to measure mutation rates in about 40 species, including newly reported numbers for orangutans, gorillas, and green African monkeys. The primates have mutation rates similar to humans..."


Mutation and Human Exceptionalism: Our Future Genetic Load
"Thus, keeping in mind that some mutations in repetitive DNA likely go undetected owing to mapping difficulties in genome-sequencing projects, with a diploid genome size of ∼  6 billion bases, an average newborn contains ∼  100 de novo mutations."


That was SO HARD for me to find - I had to totally type the question 'how many new mutations per generation in each new human' into the Google, and then I had to, like READ half of the first page of returns to find several examples of answers in the literature!!! So hard - I guess you don't teach students to like, look things up at your 'college'?

6*10^13 divided by 2 million (your numbers) = 300 million mutations. Not bad! Since we need only 32 million to work, since the forensics shows the same, you know, the actual math. All we need now is for one of every 9.375 mutations you claim by your math to:

* Enhance survivability
* Take the species forward/alter DNA, without killing the species
* Spread throughout the entire population of 1,000,000, since all 32 million changes are required to forward the species, etc.

"Do you understand that the math looks like it totally goes against you?"

"Learn how to do odds correctly and you will not make such poor arguments."

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What is your educational/experiential background in genetics?
You seem to have the standard non-scientist, non-geneticist creationist view on this topic - in awe of the big numbers - I've seen it all before. Creationists good at things like computer programming, computer graphics, auto body repair, history, psychology, law, etc. - my gosh, these folks just seem to think that some HUGE number of SPECIFIC mutations had to have occurred to produce any new phenotype that is beneficial to us.

Just like you are implying here.

Let's take a look at your naive creationism in action, point by point:



Why do you think that such a constant supply of beneficial mutations would have been required?
What is you understanding of the effects of mutant alleles?
I once read where a creationist claimed that it would take more than a million beneficial mutations just to get obligate bipedality! This is absurd on its face, yet this creationist was convinced he was totally right - he had his own website, of course, so how could he be wrong? Yet, when asked for some examples of the sorts of effects he expected some of these million mutations to have on the anatomy involved in locomotion, he had nothing to say, because he was not only ignorant of the relevant anatomy, he was ignorant of the way genes work. But he was still totally convinced that it had to be a million. Because numbers.

My point is, to the layman, it may seem that because genomes are big, there must be a lot of changes that are required to alter phenotype.

And I'm sorry, but that is simply not true. There is NO 1-to-1 relationship between any mutation and any non-lethal phenotype. I am aware of a single point mutation in a receptor gene causing dwarfism, and I am also aware that it is looking like dozens of genes or more were involved in altering the size of the primate neocortex.

But let's continue...




What does that mean? What would it entail? Would making it easier to digest lactose enhance survivability? If so, that is a 1 gene deal. Would having bigger muscles? That, too, is linked to mutations in a single gene. Would having the neurlogical ability to cause the release of bacteria from the appendix of those animals that have one require some suite of beneficial mutations that those animals without an appendix didn't seem to need? Just kidding - there is no such thing as neurolgical control of bacterial release. That is foolish.
You will need to do better than some bland, naive assertion.



Any 2 humans differ by about ~80 million bps. All without killing the species of some 7 billion.
I think you can safely stop using this line of 'reasoning' as some kind of 'argument.'


Ah, there is that classic linear thinking of the creationist again. You probably also think that the question "If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" is like a totally great gotcha.

You see, evolution is a phenomenon of populations. Not all members of a population will necessarily be in possession of any particular suite of mutations, beneficial or otherwise, at any given time. Wait long enough, go through a sufficient number of generations (which will vary depending on things like strength of selection, population size, etc.), and what we get out of the other end, in your hypothetical scenario, is a population that will be in possession of all of those mutations (in this scenario, any way).

I get the feeling that creationists believe that evolutionists go about science the same way they do, and that is why they are so dismissive and skeptical.

BilliardsBall said:

Yes, you are clearly UNAWARE of the answer. I've cited a 10,000 telomere difference and given a source, now feel free to explain how "a few, select, guided mutations" accounted for 10,000 differences in a few tens of millions of years.

Oh, that's right--once every 300 posts or so, a skeptic who believes in evolution gives NUMBERS, instead of evolutiondidit claims.

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Is it really your position that all 10,000 'differences' in telomeres are each individual beneficial mutations?
Or even point mutations with no benefit?

I hope so...

BilliardsBall said:

Because they never account for the statistics that ARE known:

Example: Telomere structures. Apes/Primates have about 23,000 base pairs of DNA "repeats".

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Why is 'repeats' in quotes? Did you not bother to learn what telomeres are or what their structure is before pretending to have generated a real argument based on them?

Maybe try here:

What is a telomere?

So, no need to put 'repeats' in quotes.

Humans are unique among primates with 10,000 base pairs of telomeres. We are speaking of 13,000 changes, and we both realize 12,995 changes makes humans not humans!

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Um... .What?

Say we believe the very earliest primates evolved on a straight descent toward humans--telomeres only is 60 million years for 13,000 "right, not wrong" changes:

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There are no right or wrong changes in telomeres. Telomeres are merely repeats. They do not affect fitness in any great way.

Every 4,500 years or 450 generations, a change is made that works and spreads throughout the whole population--we are starting to stretch credulity here IMHO.

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Your honest opinion on issues relating to science is irrelevant due to the fact that most of the time you have no clue, even when it comes to easily understood and readily available information.
So - are you really saying that telomere length is relevant to human speciation?

How so?

Justatruthseeker said:

Therefore, they can not be a common ancestor, unless we are expected to believe that after the "missing" common ancestor split, humans no longer had teomere repeats......

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Um... Just fewer such repeats.

So cute when you try to pretend to be able to make informed comments.

Justatruthseeker said:

Exactly....... Shorter....... So if they evolved from a common ancestor they would have been equal at the split....... which means humans must have had almost no telomere repeats after the split to be 10,000 base pairs smaller, while the others continued to have those repeats at their normal rate. Or humans had them at the normal rate and all others were accelerated....

I.e. no inference of ancestry can be assumed.....

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HI-LARIOUS.....

You should have your grandkids proof-read your posts.