reply to post by Cosmic.Artifact
So, I've been reading that "evolution is dead" link that you posted. Seeing as you (and Dawkins) make such a to-do about genetics, I thought I'd
report back when I'd got to and through that particular section.
1) mistake in the mode of mutation - mutations are largely not due to external factors but due to errors in DNA replication.
2) selection pressure from prior to the origins of life (viroids and other self-replicating non-living units) has selected against unstable genetics.
Note in particular that organisms with RNA-based genetics are exlusively single-celled and fast-reproducing, whereas most known organisms have
genetics based on the much more stable DNA.
3) Most organisms, and certainly vertebrate DNA has a great many DNA repair systems, such that deletion/insertion mutations rarely last long even
within an individual. In current vertebrate DNA, the only mutations which aren't HEAVILY corrected for by such DNA repair mechanisms are
pyramidine/pyramidine substitutions and pyrine/pyrine substitutions, which due to the nature of the (degenerate) 3-base coding system are very often
synonymous (i.e. as much as the change is observed, very rare for it to have an effect on the resultant protein, and even if it does, a large number
of amino acids can be changed before protein function is lost. Cystein is an exception).
4) Further to this, over-reproduction - typical of most "lower" animals (lower implies that we are better than them, and we ain't... just better at
being human) allows sexual reproduction, independent assortment, crossover and the death of a great majority of offspring (which fits with Josh's
assertions! wow!) allows "weeding out" - more like mowing out, in my opinion - of deleterious alleles. That's the great thing about deleterious
alleles. They remove themselves from the gene pool. The great thing about sexual reproduction, of course (other than the sex) is that deleterious
alleles can be lost without the gene-line being lost.
Another flaw - with this and the last link you posted - was the assumption of "survival of the fittest". This is not your fault - certainly,
evolution by natural selection is often advertised as this. More appropriately, it is survival of the satisficient - if you reproduce, your genes
survive to the next generation. Of course those that reproduce more have the greatest say in the next generation, but if you reproduce at all, you get
some say.
I have now worked my way through to the fossils section. He writes much as Ray Comfort and Kent Hovind talk - very engagingly, very wittily, and very
enthusiastically. Also like Hovind - less so Comfort - he uses a fair amount of reasonably plausible material (which upon further examination, is
misrepresented or flawed) to make his point before providing the "evolutionist" counter-point which, in light of the information he has presented,
seems to be valid. And then you look more closely.
So nothing new yet. But I do like his writing style. I think it was your previous link that talked about what they see as "leap of faith" involved
in evolution, and Josh (whatever his surname) uses pretty much the same thing for his arguments - he cites all his sources except the one that I would
take to be most fundamental to his argument, although I suspect that this is more to do with a difference between myself and him in understanding of
"obvious." I have lost a great many marks over the years by not citing sources where the idea seemed intuitive.
This will probably be my last post today, as it's past midnight and I was planning to get some lab work in this morning.