Nope - it's straw man arguments. 'Missing female'??? Come on, that shows a total lack of understanding. He's been in focusing on this long enough - he has no excuse for a phony argument like that.
Really? You don't think that asking if all of these species evolved, and then some how had a female with the exact opposite reproductive organs to produce offspring is a logical question? Please explain how this is a straw man and then please describe how you think each species which finally evolved into it's present form/state was then able to reproduce offspring without a female? It seems a bit of a stretch to think that through chance and random mutation and/or genetic drift etc... that a female would happen to have evolved at around the same exact time as the male with the exact necessary reproductive organs to produce life would actually occur and then for this to happen over millions of different species aside from organism's which currently reproduce A-sexually with no fossil evidence to support this claim. And even if one wanted to use that card, why would an organism become multi cellular? What is the driving force or reason an organism would do this? And why would it reproduce A-sexually and make competition for itself when it is clearly a new species trying to survive? Maybe I'm just confused.
First, here is a link that was on a blog today to another essay about species: http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/Why-Should-We-Care-about-Species-4277923 It is similar to the other one I sent, but maybe it has some different way of expressing the ideas that would be helpful.
Here’s what Comfort basically says in that video: he says, pretend he’s a believer in evolution – this means that the description that follows is what he’s presenting as what he thinks evolutionary biology says -- … millions of years, and the first dog evolves. It has a tail, teeth, legs, eyes – and it’s good that it has eyes because it’s been blind for millions of years… and it needs to find a female. The female has to have evolved at the right time, the right place, with the right reproductive organs and a desire to mate or there’s no species. And this scenario has to happen for all the other animals. And then he says, evolution is crazy! He says evolutionists lack common sense – that they don’t think very deeply. So he’s suggesting that this scenario – of the newly evolved dog being able to find what he implies is a SEPARATELY evolved female dog – is ridiculously unlikely, and that evolutionary biologists are fools because they think that could happen, when anyone with common sense should see that it’s ridiculous.
So what’s the straw man argument here? There are a few things being implied, I think, and since it’s a quick comment to Robertson, it’s not clear what he would have said if asked to go into more detail. The main thing is that I think he’s implying (and that you have said in your comment) that he thinks that evolutionary biology expects that a male and a female would have evolved completely separately.
The way he describes it I can’t even tell what organism he thinks the ‘first dog’ would have evolved FROM – you’d almost think he is suggesting that biology thinks the ‘first dog’, first horse, first giraffe, first mouse etc. would each have evolved totally separately from some primordial slime. His comment about the ‘first dog’ having a tail, legs, teeth, eyes, almost implies that this animal’s immediate parents were some tailless, legless, toothless, eyeless blob-like creature in the sea. He actually says that it hadn’t had eyes for millions of years, so it seems he thinks evolution would say that the ‘first dog’s parents were eyeless. Is this what you think, seriously? Do you think that according to evolutionary theory, an eyeless sea squirt gave birth to a dog with eyes which then swam to shore and looked around for some other separately-evolved female dog? Seriously – do you think evolutionary biology would say that the ‘first dog’s parents were EYELESS? And the same for the first mouse, giraffe, etc?
Of course they weren’t. These were all placental mammals, born to other placental mammals. The ancestors of the mammals had tails, legs, teeth, eyes, reproductive organs, male and female – all that was there already before mammals even evolved. (And BTW, what’s his weird idea about all these MALES evolving first and looking around for the missing female – kind of a limited view he has.) I think he should not have picked a dog as his example either. Dogs are no longer considered a separate species – they evolved and were domesticated from wild wolves, with the presence of people playing a role; they are now considered a subspecies of the wolf. So it would make more sense to talk about the first wolf rather than the first dog.
So let’s substitute ‘first wolf’. ‘First wolf’ implies that its parents were not wolves. So what do you think they were like? Jellyfish in the sea? Reptiles? Horses? No – they were some kind of carnivorous mammal, some kind of early canid with all the general organs and structures and features that the wolf has. But how would you decide if this animal was a wolf or not a wolf, and if its parents were wolves or not wolves? If you read that article I linked to at the top, it goes over some of the complications in deciding when something is a species or a subspecies. Let’s say it differed from its parents by a single mutation. How similar or different do you imagine it was it from its parents? A single mutation would not necessarily have caused much change. It would have been very similar to its parents and siblings and cousins, not some strange unrecognizable form. It would have been able to find a mate and reproduce with the animals in its population.
Suppose there is some ancestral form that is close to, but clearly different from, a wolf – let’s call it a proto-wolf. Between the proto-wolf and the wolf there have been some mutations which in each case have spread through the population, each making a small change, so that after enough generations and enough accumulated mutations, the difference is evident. The mutation which occurred in the ‘first wolf’ in addition to the other accumulated mutations would have separated the wolf from the proto-wolf, but it would only have been a small change from its parents. Maybe if the wolf and proto-wolf populations had been geographically separated and were now combined, they would choose not to mate, or not be able to mate, because the mutations had caused reproductive barriers. But at each step, the animals in that population were able to mate with the other animals in the population. There was no single change that was a 100% barrier to the animal with that mutation mating with its peers. If there had been then, yes, that mutation would have died out. If you think about it, most changes through mutation that contributed to differences in species would have had no limiting effect on reproduction, and others would only have had a small effect which did not prevent the gene from being passed on. (You might also look up ‘co-evolution’.) There could be some genetic changes which could affect reproduction, such as chromosomes breaks or joinings or duplications. Some of these events could have been barriers which ended that mutation, but not all of those events prevent reproduction; some chromosome changes can be passed on through the population.
So the answer is, there never was a ‘missing female’ – at every step of evolution an animal was able to reproduce with others in the population into which it was born. This is simple evolutionary biology. So what Comfort says or implies about evolutionary biology is false, and he uses this false version of biology as a straw man to be set up for ridicule, when he should know better.
(Here's another link to a discussion about the definition of species that someone posted on a blog I read. Although there's an audio, it's easier for me to read the transcript. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2009/2682256.htm
I can't tell if you are planning not to post my two long comments at all or whether you are planning to post them after you have written a response.
Here's a short version; see if you like this better (although I hope you'll post the other two comments too).
Comfort presents a picture of evolutionary biology in which an individual male and female of each species have to evolve totally independently, apparently from distant or different ancestors, before they are able to meet and reproduce. This is a straw man because it is completely counter to actual evolutionary biology. If a mutation happens in an organism, chances are that it will not affect its ability to reproduce with others in its community. If the mutation does partially affect its ability to reproduce, circumstances may still allow the mutation to spread through the population. At every step, the mating partner comes from an animal's existing community, from its immediate population. So there is no 'missing female' required by evolutionary biology. Since evolutionary biology does not require the evolution of a mating partner from some separate ancestry, when Comfort presents it as a feature of evolution, he is setting up a straw man.
I came across this 16-part youtube video series on evolution and creationism by Gordon Glover. He is a Christian who thinks the earth is old and that evolution is the way things happened. His video series talks about religion, science, and some of the creationist ideas and why he disagrees with them. As usual, I don't expect that watching the series would change your views, but it might help you to understand better the positions of some of the people who disagree with your views.
thanks for the comments. Sorry it's becoming more and more increasingly difficult to post things let alone reply to comments. We are expecting another baby soon so I think it will become even more challenging.
However, just so you know I spend more time debating Christians who try to integrate Macro Evolution and the bible more than I do Evolutionists and Atheist alike.
I am extremely familiar with their arguments and why they attempt to integrate the two. However, the two are irreconcilable. You cannot and will not understand this because you do not read the bible nor do you hold it as God's inspired word.
1 Corinthians 2:14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Anyone who professes to be a Christian but tries to state that the two are compatible will be unable to get around what the bible teaches and what evolution teaches.
Our presuppositions will never allow us to change our views. (you and I, I mean)
The man in your videos will be unable to reconcile things like evolution teaching that the earth came from the sun, but the bible teaches the earth came first and the sun came after. The bible says sin and death did not enter the world until after Adam (Rom 5:12) nothing died before that - but evolution teaches that things have been dying throughout the entire process of evolution in the garden for millions of years until finally Adam came and then for no reason whatsoever God made Eve overnight instead of through the evolutionary process. Evolution teaches birds evolved from dinosaurs - the bible teaches that flying birds came first then land animals. I can go on and on and on but I would just be repeating old posts. I know you think I'm just stubborn but because you don't understand or accept the bible as the authoritative inerrant word of God like we do you will never understand how it is a major problem and conflict for Christians because the two majorly contradict each other. Believe me, I love science and if I could integrate the two and the evidence fit I would have no problem believing in both.
I would again refer to these old posts if you want to see the major conflicts in true Christianity and Macro Evolution.
‘He could have done it that way … couldn’t He?’ (Operation: Refuting Compromise (ORC)) http://www.answersingenesis.org/us/newsletters/0204lead.asp
Why wouldn’t God use evolution? http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/feedback/2005/1223.asp
Did the Creator use Evolution? http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v11/i2/evolution.asp
What’s the problem with theistic evolution? http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/feedback/2005/0520.asp
How wonderful about your new baby! I hope everything goes smoothly!
I do understand that there's a conflict between the literal Bible and evolution. What bothers me is when I see misrepresentations of evolution (like some of the points in Ray Comfort's video). I've probably said this before, but since you believe in an all-powerful God, I don't understand why you can't decide that God did things as described in Genesis but made them appear to be the way scientists observe them. Since your God can do anything in any way, you have room to allow this possibility - that God did things one way but they appear another way - for reasons which God has not yet made clear. But no one seems to like this explanation, unfortunately. So we're left with the conflict. What I wish is that Christians who are committed to a literal Genesis would accept the fact that science does not agree with the Bible, for whatever reason. Not because scientists are brainwashed or stupid or lacking in common sense, but because the physical evidence just does not support the Bible. For whatever reason, God's intention or whatever.
I talked about Ray Comfort's missing female idea as a straw man. It turns out that he brought that up on his blog both in June '09 and January '09 and got answers from his readers. But he either ignored them or didn't understand them and didn't care enough to try to find out. It seems like it was more convenient for him to keep talking about the missing female than to understand that evolution did not propose a scenario where there was separate evolution of all the female mammals etc. I don't know when he made that video with Pat Robertson so it's possible it was before those blog posts. But by now, if he paid any attention to his blog and actually tried to understand the answers to his question, he should know that the missing female idea is a non-issue for evolution. If he continues to present it as a problem for evolution to naive young college students etc, when he now knows it is not, would be a form of dishonesty in my view, and I hope he isn't doing that. I got the idea from the video he was more interested in appealing to the emotions than in having logical (accurate) arguments. So my guess is that all the details about evolution are unimportant to him. My guess is that he doesn't care if he presents evolutionary biology fairly and accurately - he just wants to make people question it emotionally so they will be accessible to his emotional appeals.
If you are arguing with people about macroevolution, I hope you now also realize that the missing female idea is a non-issue. I hope you would not use it as an argument against evolution.
"I've probably said this before, but since you believe in an all-powerful God, I don't understand why you can't decide that God did things as described in Genesis but made them appear to be the way scientists observe them. Since your God can do anything in any way, you have room to allow this possibility"
Well firstly, if you read the bible you wouldn't make such a statement because then you would see the direct contradictions. Secondly, your implying that God misled his people for thousand of years by telling them he created in six literal days (in the Hebrew "day" with numbers and days as in the 1st day 2nd day etc.. always means a literal day) Anyone who denies this has to break proper Hebrew grammar. Why can't theistic evolutionist just admit that they don't or can't believe that God could do it in six literal days? It's an attempt to appease the scientific community, nothing more. And I do believe in scientist. Why don't you? I believe in Dr. Jason Lisle who has a P.hD in Astro Pysics, Dr. David Menton who has a Ph D. in molecular biology? So why don't you believe these scientists? Macro evolution would never stand a single day in a court room once evidence is called to be brought to light.
And I wish I had more time to reply to your "where are the females?" reply because it's peppered with tons of problems. Christians weigh an extremely valid point by asking such a question. Sorry, but you assumed that you gave a valid reply and so answered the question. I hope to do a posting on it soon.
Here's a quote from the evolution cruncher quoting other evolutionists:
"So, at present, we are left with neo-Darwinian theory: that evolution has occurred, and has been directed mainly by natural selection, with random contributions from genetic drift, and perhaps the occasional hopeful monster. In this form, the theory is not scientific by Popper's standards. Indeed, Popper calls the theory of evolution not a scientific theory but "a metaphysical research programme."
-Colin Patterson, Evolution (1978. p149
Thus, the experts tell us that there is no evidence for evolution. Yet, if any evidence could be found in defense of the theory, you can be assured the evolutionist would be quick to bring it forward and triumphantly declare their theory to now rank in the category of "science"
"According to their theory evolution is "not repeatable", By that, they mean that each species was made only one time. -But if evolution did not repeat itself at least twice, making male and female, how then did the new species reproduce?"
I hope you'll post about this eventually if time allows. The person who wrote the quote you put in,
"According to their theory evolution is "not repeatable", By that, they mean that each species was made only one time. -But if evolution did not repeat itself at least twice, making male and female, how then did the new species reproduce?"
clearly doesn't understand evolutionary biology, and if you think that's a valid point, then neither do you. I tried to explain it in my comments, but I guess I didn't do a good enough job. (I lost the two comments you didn't post and I don't remember exactly what I said in them.) If you want to bring up various situations I will think about them and try to answer. But I already gave you the basic answer - each genetic change had to allow the animal carrying the mutation to find a mate within the population of animals around it.
(The two comments I lost were about the missing female and the eyeless dog - maybe I just forgot to click on the publish button; it's happened before.
Ray Comfort talked about the first dog being able to see after millions of years without eyes. It might have just been a joke; I couldn't tell. I hoped you realized that the ancestors of the first dogs - really the first wolves - would have been carnivorous mammals similar to wolves which would have had eyes, teeth, tails, intelligence, males and females, all the usual functions of carnivores (and placental mammals). I hoped you knew that the parents of the first dog - really, the first wolf - had eyes. But the way Ray Comfort said it, I couldn't be sure if he meant it or not.)
Oh, thanks, now I can see what I wrote. I can't tell if it made sense to anyone though.
Here's one more website - I just got this off of another blog. The blogger at this website is apparently a young earth creationists and a baraminologist - a person who tries to research the biblical lifeform 'kinds' after they came off Noah's ark, so I think he does completely share your views on the Bible. See what he wrote about evolution: http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2009/09/truth-about-evolution.html
I haven't looked very far onto his blog. It seems like he keeps up with the latest research though, but still maintains his biblical beliefs, for what it's worth.
>>I am extremely familiar with their arguments and why they attempt to integrate the two. However, the two are irreconcilable. You cannot and will not understand this because you do not read the bible nor do you hold it as God's inspired word.
1 Corinthians 2:14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Anyone who professes to be a Christian but tries to state that the two are compatible will be unable to get around what the bible teaches and what evolution teaches. <<
Hey Joe, do you realise what logic demands of you given this statement? I think you've overlooked it.
Science concerns itself with knowledge, you are essentially saying you can't integrate science into your religion, and the science must be wrong. Your implied assumption is that nothing an contradict your religion, not even science. This is the text-book case of someone who is close-minded to everything but his own prejudice. The prejudice in this case is that your conclusion must be true in spite of anything that contradicts it. This is also a definition of faith.
Logically, if you have a conclusion (your religion) and you gain new knowledge (science) which contradicts that conclusion, then you must revise your conclusion to fit the knowledge. I should think that if an all-knowing, all-powerful god exists, and that god wrote a book, or made revelations, whatever the case, that that book would be in agreement with science, and in most agreement with the nature we observe.
Your way of getting around this is to say X isn't science, which is essentially a common thread among fringe groups and crackpot academics to try and legitimise their pet idea, at the expense of integrity.
"And I wish I had more time to reply to your "where are the females?" reply because it's peppered with tons of problems. Christians weigh an extremely valid point by asking such a question. Sorry, but you assumed that you gave a valid reply and so answered the question. I hope to do a posting on it soon."
I hope you'll find time to do a post on this soon, even a brief one. I have NO idea what problems you are imagining.
So no response yet - I know your life must be extremely busy right now, but still... I don't think you CAN point out any problems. Comfort's whole idea was ridiculous; you're just not going to find anything that supports his version of what evolution says or implies about 'missing females', especially among vertebrate species. He was talking nonsense.
Sorry yes, "busy" is an understatement. My life has taken some new turns so I can only get to the blog when I can. We are expecting a son in Feb and I just bought and moved into our new home.
As for your posts on this topic. I still feel however you don't have a leg to stand on here. It's been a while so I had to re-read your posting and what your suggesting for the account of how the missing females appeared are strictly non observational. there is no evidence for this. You are presenting here to me a possible outcome. It is pure speculation of how you think it could have happened. I think to accept your view this would take an incredible amount of faith and chance and coincidence to have happened in that way.
And in regards to mutations. You speak as though mutations occur on a regular basis to bridge your gaps. I'm reminded of an excerpt regarding this:
"Please keep this clearly in mind: Evolutionists say that mutation is absolutely essential to provide the inexorable upgrading of species which changed the simpler forms into more complex forms. BUT - the scientific fact is that mutation could NEVER accomplish what evolution demands of it, for several reasons. As all scientists agree, mutations are very rare. Huxley guesses that only about one in a hundred thousand, is a mutant. Secondly, when they do occur, they are almost certain to be harmful or deadly to the organism. In other words, the vast majority of such mutations lead toward extinction instead of evolution; they make the organism worse instead of better. Huxley admits: "The great majority of mutant genes are harmful in their effect on the organism." Ibid. p. 39."
I'm sorry I'm just not buying it. I think people just get upset with Comfort because he explains it in a simple logical way that a child could understand it. It's not "scientific" enough for them
It sounds like things are going very well for you and your family, and that is wonderful.
I just want to make a simple point right now about the missing female. Whether you think it could have happened the way I described or not is one question, but I'm going to ask a different simpler question.
Ray Comfort in the video says that a believer in evolution must believe that a male animal evolved and then must find a female which has just by chance evolved totally separately from the male. Can you at least agree that evolutionary biology does not say this?
You can think that the biological explanation is wrong, but can you at least agree that the biological explanation is different from what Ray Comfort said it was?
Are you suggesting that they (if they didn't "totally evolve separately from the male") that they reproduced A-sexually or mutated to the point where some of these creatures developed one set of reproductive organs while others developed the opposite and exact necessary reproductive parts?
Virtually all lifeforms have ways to exchange genetic information, even those species which normally reproduce asexually. This includes single-celled organisms like bacteria or yeasts. There has been a survival value in having a way to exchange genetic information and to pass that on to the next generation. So in the history of life (according to evolutionary biology) there has been a continuum of the ability to exchange genetic information. An ancestral species already has some mechanism for exchanging genetic information as part of reproduction. Any differences are modifications of the mechanisms of the predecessor species. The reeproductive systems were not invented separately for every species, just modified.
Instead of thinking it has to be a single dramatic change, try to imagine it being a series of small steps which happen back and forth in the two sexes.
At every point in time, any mutation that affects the reproductive organs of an animal must NOT prevent that animal from breeding with the other animals (or lifeforms) in its population, or else that mutation will not be passed on. If it is a mutation that gives that animal a slightly improved ability to pass its DNA on to the next generation, then that mutation will tend to get passed on through several generations, and get established in the population. (This can also happen for mutations which have a neutral effect, neither better or worse, but by genetic drift get established in the population.)
At any point in time, the kind of physical change which will improve an animal's reproductive success will be different from what it was at an earlier time in the history of that lifeform because of the accumulation of previous mutations. It's a form of coevolution. You don't get a dramatic change in one sex and then hope for a similarly dramatic change in the other sex. You get a series of small changes in both sexes that at every point in time must work together to produce healthy offspring (or the mutation would not be passed on). But the net result of a series of small co-ordinated (co-evolved) changes compared to the original ancestral animals could look like a big change.
I hope that makes sense. But even if it doesn't make sense to you the way I wrote it, and even if it didn't convince you, at least I hope you get the idea that evolutionary biology DOES have an explanation for the sexes that doesn't say there had to be a major change in one sex and then by chance a major change in an animal of the other sex which just happened to match up.
When Ray Comfort claims that that's what biology says, it is as wrong as if I were to tell people ignorant of the Bible that Christians think Noah built a submarine equipped with electricity and generators.
As far as the question of mutations, that's another topic - I can't go into that right now. But your source quoted Huxley - I think the book quoted was published in 1953. Do you realize that 1953 was the year that they finally worked out how DNA could carry information? So Huxley didn't know how DNA worked when he wrote that book. It was only recently that we have been able to actually look at mutations at the nucleotide level, rather that at gross visible changes in animals. There are many possible mutations that have either no effects or very small subtle effects.
Since I answered your question, I'm repeating my question:
Ray Comfort in the video says that a believer in evolution must believe that a male animal evolved and then must find a female which has just by chance evolved totally separately from the male. Can you at least agree that evolutionary biology does not say this?
You can think that the biological explanation is wrong, but can you at least agree that the biological explanation is different from what Ray Comfort said it was?
You asked whether they " mutated to the point where some of these creatures developed one set of reproductive organs while others developed the opposite and exact necessary reproductive parts". The answer is, yes that's what evolutionary biology says they did. But the mutations would have been a series of changes that allowed the animal with the newest mutation to mate with the animals around it. (If the animal couldn't find a mate, like Ray Comfort's hypothetical first dog, then that mutation wouldn't have been passed on.)
I hope you also agree that the parents of Ray Comfort's hypothetical first dog were not eyeless. I assume he was exaggerating there - but I don't actually know.
Sorry to some degree if not all I would agree with Rays anology (thogh simple I agree) what your suggesting has no merit and your missing that one little ingredient called evidence. Your pressupposition is that mutations occurred and at that, many many beneficial mutations occurred allowing for such complex advancement. We don't even see that today. Whether or not this is what biological evolution teaches today or not I don't fully know (in all circles anyway)
Sorry for the short and quick answer. I'm answering from my phone
Did you mean just that page, or the whole chapter? Here's a start:
The goal of the Evolution Cruncher book is not to explain and understand the science of evolution but to combat it with simple opposing statements. The statements are usually followed by quotes. There’s hardly any info given on the author, but it seems that he is/was a Seventh Day Adventist, probably a minister, and his education was probably not in a field of science (and was probably not recent). So when he provides you with these statements, you can’t assume they are accurate conclusions. You can use them as a starting point in argument if you like, but you shouldn’t expect them to end an argument. And you can use them as a starting point for your own learning, but for sure you shouldn’t stop with them. If you do, you will be arguing out of ignorance on the subject.
FWIW, the date on this ebook is 2001. But look at the dates on the quotes in the mutation section. A lot of them are earlier than 1970. That’s forty years ago! There are a number from the ‘50s, even a couple from 1942. So just from the quotes you can guess that the author was not in touch with current research, or that he just used old sources in compiling his material. The quotes seem to be mostly from books or popular magazines, not scientific journals. The author uses an asterisk to mark quotes from people who are not known to be ‘creationists’ – but some of those marked seem to be anti-evolution. I would be wary about his marking system. And when he uses quotes from scientists who accept evolution, what’s the message? You need to be very careful when you read these quotes because you don’t have the context of the quote and the way the words are being used in the quote. Are we supposed to assume from some of the quotes that the biologists are revealing big doubts about evolution? Or that they say things that are contradictory to evolution but are too blind to notice? And that you the non-biologist, can see some huge defect in their understanding just from a quote out of context? That’s very unlikely and an unjustified conclusion . What value can there be in taking someone’s words out of context, especially something written 50 years ago, and thinking it helps you make your point? It is useless.
Some more comments on the Evolution Cruncher mutation chapter:
”(2) RANDOM EFFECTS—Mutations are always random, and never purposive or directed.”
This seems okay, although FWIW it seems that some areas of the genome may have an increased structural susceptibility to mutations compared to others, if I understand correctly.
"Mutations are random, wild events that are totally uncontrollable. When a mutation occurs, it is a chance occurrence: totally unexpected and haphazard. >>>The only thing we can predict is that it will not go outside the species and produce a new type of organism.<<< >>> This we can know as a result of lengthy experiments that have involved literally hundreds of thousands of mutations on fruit flies and other small creatures.<<<"
Will a single mutation be able to make a change which produces a new type of organism? (not sure what he means by organism here, let’s say species.) I would guess not, but I am not positive. I think there would need to be more mutations and some reproductive barrier. There’s an example of a single mutation in color which caused a separation of two species or subspecies of a kind of bird. I forget the details.
However we don’t know this from the fruit fly experiments I think he is talking about. They don’t address this question.
------- “(3) NOT HELPFUL—>>>Evolution requires improvement.<<< >>>Mutations do not help or improve; they only weaken and injure.<<< “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.”
These are two unjustified claims. Evolution does not require improvement, whatever that means. It can be a result of drift in the population. And it is false to say that mutations do not improve, only weaken and injure. Here’s an example. I can’t give a reference at the moment, but some people especially Europeans have an ability to digest lactose which other people don’t. This mutation made it easier for them to use dairy products as food sources. How is this unhelpful?
The quote – first of all it is 60 years old. This is from before we even knew about DNA sequences. Second, from the title it is about radiation damage which is crude widespread damage. This is not the same as the range of types of mutations which might happen in nature. It is a gross assault on the organisms. You can’t make a jump from radiation damage to the effects of natural mutations, some of which will have no effect on the organism at all.
“(4) HARMFUL EFFECTS—(*#2/21 Mutations are Always Harmful*) Nearly all mutations are harmful. In most instances, mutations weaken or damage the organism in some way so that it (or its offspring if it is able to have any) will not long survive.”
This is confusing – first he says that mutations are Always Harmful? And then he says “in most instances”? “Nearly all”? which is it? I don’t have the numbers, but many types of mutations will have essentially no effect on the animals. For most amino acids there is more than one code for an amino acid so some mutations change the code without changing the amino acid. Some amino acids have similar biochemical effects, so some changes would have only have minor effects on protein function. Some parts of proteins are much less important to function than other parts; mutations in the less important parts could have little or no effect. A lot of the genome apparently has no purpose. Mutations in those areas will have no harmful effect.
---------- From page 326:
“NOT ONCE has there ever been a recorded instance of a truly beneficial mutation (one which is a known mutation, and not merely a reshuffling of latent characteristics in the genes), nor such a mutation that was permanent, passing on from one generation to another!”
Remember the example of the sheep, Solid Gold, that I gave you in the past? One single base change made the sheep more heavily muscled (callipyge mutation). The sheep was healthy and able to reproduce and pass on the trait. That example contradicts this statement.
Here’s an example of a problem with this ebook: From page 321:
“1 - FOUR SPECIAL PROBLEMS In reality, mutations have four special qualities that are >>>ruinous to the hopes of evolutionists<<<:
(1) RARE EFFECTS—Mutations are very rare. This point is not a guess but a scientific fact, observed by experts in the field. >>> Their very rarity dooms the possibility of mutational evolution to oblivion<<< …. >>>Mutations are simply too rare to have produced all the necessary traits of even one life-form, much less all the creatures that swarm on the earth.<<< Evolution requires millions upon millions of direct, solid changes, yet mutations occur only with great rarity. “Although mutation is the ultimate source of all genetic variation, it is a relatively rare event.”—*F.J. Ayala, “Mechanism of Evolution,” Scientific American, September 1978, p. 63.”
(I marked the author’s unjustified consclusions with arrows>>><<<.)
- - - - - “Mutations are very rare” – what exactly does this mean? First, figuring out the rates of mutations is a complicated question. What rates are being talked about, under what conditions? How were they measured? Just to say they are rare is useless. Rare does NOT mean the same thing as too rare to be a source of evolution! Ayala does not say that in either quote. His quotes do not support the author’s conclusions. The author gives no evidence to link the idea of rareness to the idea that mutations could not have been the source for variety in evolution. He takes one piece of information (unexplained) and jumps to a huge unjustified conclusion.
On mutation rate: there are different ways to measure it and lots of things to be considered. But this is a result that was in a recent article.
The authors took the DNA of two men who had the same ancestor - one 6 generations back, the other seven generations back. This means there were 13 generations of reproduction between the two men. They looked at a region of ten million nucleotides from the Y chromosomes of the two men. Because the Y chromosome doesn't recombine, the sequence should be identical between the two men except for any mutations. The researchers were able to sequence the whole 10 million base region and they found four nucelotides which were different between the men. This was a huge undertaking because their results had to be so precise in order to pick out single changes - they had to do many repetitions and controls. They found 4 mutations in 10 million bases over 13 generations. As genome sequencing gets increasingly cheaper and faster, there will probably be repeats of this kind of observation, with more analysis of variability, but for now this is a useful estimate and it is in the ball park of mutation estimates done with some other approaches. IF I understood correctly, these four were neutral mutations.
If there were four mutations in 10 million nucleotides in 13 generations, that's about 0.3 mutations per 10 million nucleotides per generation. Since we have about 6 billion nucleotides in our complete set of chromosomes, this number suggests that there would be around 180 mutations each time someone is born. Suppose the number from this study turned out to be ten times greater than the usual rate - we would still have 18 mutations on average with each reproduction. (I imagine most of these will be harmless mutations.)
Whether these numbers suggest to you that mutations are rare or not, I don't know. But they do happen.
30 comments:
Nope - it's straw man arguments. 'Missing female'??? Come on, that shows a total lack of understanding. He's been in focusing on this long enough - he has no excuse for a phony argument like that.
Really? You don't think that asking if all of these species evolved, and then some how had a female with the exact opposite reproductive organs to produce offspring is a logical question? Please explain how this is a straw man and then please describe how you think each species which finally evolved into it's present form/state was then able to reproduce offspring without a female? It seems a bit of a stretch to think that through chance and random mutation and/or genetic drift etc... that a female would happen to have evolved at around the same exact time as the male with the exact necessary reproductive organs to produce life would actually occur and then for this to happen over millions of different species aside from organism's which currently reproduce A-sexually with no fossil evidence to support this claim. And even if one wanted to use that card, why would an organism become multi cellular? What is the driving force or reason an organism would do this? And why would it reproduce A-sexually and make competition for itself when it is clearly a new species trying to survive? Maybe I'm just confused.
Joe
First, here is a link that was on a blog today to another essay about species:
http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/Why-Should-We-Care-about-Species-4277923
It is similar to the other one I sent, but maybe it has some different way of expressing the ideas that would be helpful.
Here’s what Comfort basically says in that video: he says, pretend he’s a believer in evolution – this means that the description that follows is what he’s presenting as what he thinks evolutionary biology says -- … millions of years, and the first dog evolves. It has a tail, teeth, legs, eyes – and it’s good that it has eyes because it’s been blind for millions of years… and it needs to find a female. The female has to have evolved at the right time, the right place, with the right reproductive organs and a desire to mate or there’s no species. And this scenario has to happen for all the other animals. And then he says, evolution is crazy! He says evolutionists lack common sense – that they don’t think very deeply. So he’s suggesting that this scenario – of the newly evolved dog being able to find what he implies is a SEPARATELY evolved female dog – is ridiculously unlikely, and that evolutionary biologists are fools because they think that could happen, when anyone with common sense should see that it’s ridiculous.
So what’s the straw man argument here? There are a few things being implied, I think, and since it’s a quick comment to Robertson, it’s not clear what he would have said if asked to go into more detail. The main thing is that I think he’s implying (and that you have said in your comment) that he thinks that evolutionary biology expects that a male and a female would have evolved completely separately.
The way he describes it I can’t even tell what organism he thinks the ‘first dog’ would have evolved FROM – you’d almost think he is suggesting that biology thinks the ‘first dog’, first horse, first giraffe, first mouse etc. would each have evolved totally separately from some primordial slime. His comment about the ‘first dog’ having a tail, legs, teeth, eyes, almost implies that this animal’s immediate parents were some tailless, legless, toothless, eyeless blob-like creature in the sea. He actually says that it hadn’t had eyes for millions of years, so it seems he thinks evolution would say that the ‘first dog’s parents were eyeless. Is this what you think, seriously? Do you think that according to evolutionary theory, an eyeless sea squirt gave birth to a dog with eyes which then swam to shore and looked around for some other separately-evolved female dog? Seriously – do you think evolutionary biology would say that the ‘first dog’s parents were EYELESS? And the same for the first mouse, giraffe, etc?
Of course they weren’t. These were all placental mammals, born to other placental mammals. The ancestors of the mammals had tails, legs, teeth, eyes, reproductive organs, male and female – all that was there already before mammals even evolved.
(And BTW, what’s his weird idea about all these MALES evolving first and looking around for the missing female – kind of a limited view he has.)
I think he should not have picked a dog as his example either. Dogs are no longer considered a separate species – they evolved and were domesticated from wild wolves, with the presence of people playing a role; they are now considered a subspecies of the wolf. So it would make more sense to talk about the first wolf rather than the first dog.
So let’s substitute ‘first wolf’. ‘First wolf’ implies that its parents were not wolves. So what do you think they were like? Jellyfish in the sea? Reptiles? Horses? No – they were some kind of carnivorous mammal, some kind of early canid with all the general organs and structures and features that the wolf has. But how would you decide if this animal was a wolf or not a wolf, and if its parents were wolves or not wolves? If you read that article I linked to at the top, it goes over some of the complications in deciding when something is a species or a subspecies. Let’s say it differed from its parents by a single mutation. How similar or different do you imagine it was it from its parents? A single mutation would not necessarily have caused much change. It would have been very similar to its parents and siblings and cousins, not some strange unrecognizable form. It would have been able to find a mate and reproduce with the animals in its population.
Suppose there is some ancestral form that is close to, but clearly different from, a wolf – let’s call it a proto-wolf. Between the proto-wolf and the wolf there have been some mutations which in each case have spread through the population, each making a small change, so that after enough generations and enough accumulated mutations, the difference is evident. The mutation which occurred in the ‘first wolf’ in addition to the other accumulated mutations would have separated the wolf from the proto-wolf, but it would only have been a small change from its parents. Maybe if the wolf and proto-wolf populations had been geographically separated and were now combined, they would choose not to mate, or not be able to mate, because the mutations had caused reproductive barriers. But at each step, the animals in that population were able to mate with the other animals in the population. There was no single change that was a 100% barrier to the animal with that mutation mating with its peers. If there had been then, yes, that mutation would have died out.
If you think about it, most changes through mutation that contributed to differences in species would have had no limiting effect on reproduction, and others would only have had a small effect which did not prevent the gene from being passed on. (You might also look up ‘co-evolution’.)
There could be some genetic changes which could affect reproduction, such as chromosomes breaks or joinings or duplications. Some of these events could have been barriers which ended that mutation, but not all of those events prevent reproduction; some chromosome changes can be passed on through the population.
So the answer is, there never was a ‘missing female’ – at every step of evolution an animal was able to reproduce with others in the population into which it was born. This is simple evolutionary biology. So what Comfort says or implies about evolutionary biology is false, and he uses this false version of biology as a straw man to be set up for ridicule, when he should know better.
Hi Joe.
I sent two comments in answer to your request for an explanation - are you going to post them?
(Here's another link to a discussion about the definition of species that someone posted on a blog I read. Although there's an audio, it's easier for me to read the transcript.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2009/2682256.htm
I can't tell if you are planning not to post my two long comments at all or whether you are planning to post them after you have written a response.
Here's a short version; see if you like this better (although I hope you'll post the other two comments too).
Comfort presents a picture of evolutionary biology in which an individual male and female of each species have to evolve totally independently, apparently from distant or different ancestors, before they are able to meet and reproduce. This is a straw man because it is completely counter to actual evolutionary biology. If a mutation happens in an organism, chances are that it will not affect its ability to reproduce with others in its community. If the mutation does partially affect its ability to reproduce, circumstances may still allow the mutation to spread through the population. At every step, the mating partner comes from an animal's existing community, from its immediate population. So there is no 'missing female' required by evolutionary biology. Since evolutionary biology does not require the evolution of a mating partner from some separate ancestry, when Comfort presents it as a feature of evolution, he is setting up a straw man.
I came across this 16-part youtube video series on evolution and creationism by Gordon Glover. He is a Christian who thinks the earth is old and that evolution is the way things happened. His video series talks about religion, science, and some of the creationist ideas and why he disagrees with them.
As usual, I don't expect that watching the series would change your views, but it might help you to understand better the positions of some of the people who disagree with your views.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fperp1Mezt0&feature=related
Highdesert;
thanks for the comments. Sorry it's becoming more and more increasingly difficult to post things let alone reply to comments. We are expecting another baby soon so I think it will become even more challenging.
However, just so you know I spend more time debating Christians who try to integrate Macro Evolution and the bible more than I do Evolutionists and Atheist alike.
I am extremely familiar with their arguments and why they attempt to integrate the two. However, the two are irreconcilable. You cannot and will not understand this because you do not read the bible nor do you hold it as God's inspired word.
1 Corinthians 2:14
The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Anyone who professes to be a Christian but tries to state that the two are compatible will be unable to get around what the bible teaches and what evolution teaches.
Our presuppositions will never allow us to change our views. (you and I, I mean)
The man in your videos will be unable to reconcile things like evolution teaching that the earth came from the sun, but the bible teaches the earth came first and the sun came after. The bible says sin and death did not enter the world until after Adam (Rom 5:12) nothing died before that - but evolution teaches that things have been dying throughout the entire process of evolution in the garden for millions of years until finally Adam came and then for no reason whatsoever God made Eve overnight instead of through the evolutionary process. Evolution teaches birds evolved from dinosaurs - the bible teaches that flying birds came first then land animals. I can go on and on and on but I would just be repeating old posts. I know you think I'm just stubborn but because you don't understand or accept the bible as the authoritative inerrant word of God like we do you will never understand how it is a major problem and conflict for Christians because the two majorly contradict each other. Believe me, I love science and if I could integrate the two and the evidence fit I would have no problem believing in both.
I would again refer to these old posts if you want to see the major conflicts in true Christianity and Macro Evolution.
‘He could have done it that way … couldn’t He?’ (Operation: Refuting Compromise (ORC))
http://www.answersingenesis.org/us/newsletters/0204lead.asp
Why wouldn’t God use evolution?
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/feedback/2005/1223.asp
Did the Creator use Evolution?
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v11/i2/evolution.asp
What’s the problem with theistic evolution?
http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/feedback/2005/0520.asp
How wonderful about your new baby! I hope everything goes smoothly!
I do understand that there's a conflict between the literal Bible and evolution. What bothers me is when I see misrepresentations of evolution (like some of the points in Ray Comfort's video).
I've probably said this before, but since you believe in an all-powerful God, I don't understand why you can't decide that God did things as described in Genesis but made them appear to be the way scientists observe them. Since your God can do anything in any way, you have room to allow this possibility - that God did things one way but they appear another way - for reasons which God has not yet made clear.
But no one seems to like this explanation, unfortunately. So we're left with the conflict. What I wish is that Christians who are committed to a literal Genesis would accept the fact that science does not agree with the Bible, for whatever reason. Not because scientists are brainwashed or stupid or lacking in common sense, but because the physical evidence just does not support the Bible. For whatever reason, God's intention or whatever.
I talked about Ray Comfort's missing female idea as a straw man. It turns out that he brought that up on his blog both in June '09 and January '09 and got answers from his readers. But he either ignored them or didn't understand them and didn't care enough to try to find out. It seems like it was more convenient for him to keep talking about the missing female than to understand that evolution did not propose a scenario where there was separate evolution of all the female mammals etc. I don't know when he made that video with Pat Robertson so it's possible it was before those blog posts. But by now, if he paid any attention to his blog and actually tried to understand the answers to his question, he should know that the missing female idea is a non-issue for evolution. If he continues to present it as a problem for evolution to naive young college students etc, when he now knows it is not, would be a form of dishonesty in my view, and I hope he isn't doing that. I got the idea from the video he was more interested in appealing to the emotions than in having logical (accurate) arguments. So my guess is that all the details about evolution are unimportant to him. My guess is that he doesn't care if he presents evolutionary biology fairly and accurately - he just wants to make people question it emotionally so they will be accessible to his emotional appeals.
If you are arguing with people about macroevolution, I hope you now also realize that the missing female idea is a non-issue. I hope you would not use it as an argument against evolution.
"I've probably said this before, but since you believe in an all-powerful God, I don't understand why you can't decide that God did things as described in Genesis but made them appear to be the way scientists observe them. Since your God can do anything in any way, you have room to allow this possibility"
Well firstly, if you read the bible you wouldn't make such a statement because then you would see the direct contradictions. Secondly, your implying that God misled his people for thousand of years by telling them he created in six literal days (in the Hebrew "day" with numbers and days as in the 1st day 2nd day etc.. always means a literal day) Anyone who denies this has to break proper Hebrew grammar. Why can't theistic evolutionist just admit that they don't or can't believe that God could do it in six literal days? It's an attempt to appease the scientific community, nothing more. And I do believe in scientist. Why don't you? I believe in Dr. Jason Lisle who has a P.hD in Astro Pysics, Dr. David Menton who has a Ph D. in molecular biology? So why don't you believe these scientists? Macro evolution would never stand a single day in a court room once evidence is called to be brought to light.
And I wish I had more time to reply to your "where are the females?" reply because it's peppered with tons of problems. Christians weigh an extremely valid point by asking such a question. Sorry, but you assumed that you gave a valid reply and so answered the question. I hope to do a posting on it soon.
Here's a quote from the evolution cruncher quoting other evolutionists:
"So, at present, we are left with neo-Darwinian theory: that evolution has occurred, and has been directed mainly by natural selection, with random contributions from genetic drift, and perhaps the occasional hopeful monster. In this form, the theory is not scientific by Popper's standards. Indeed, Popper calls the theory of evolution not a scientific theory but "a metaphysical research programme."
-Colin Patterson, Evolution (1978. p149
Thus, the experts tell us that there is no evidence for evolution. Yet, if any evidence could be found in defense of the theory, you can be assured the evolutionist would be quick to bring it forward and triumphantly declare their theory to now rank in the category of "science"
"According to their theory evolution is "not repeatable", By that, they mean that each species was made only one time. -But if evolution did not repeat itself at least twice, making male and female, how then did the new species reproduce?"
I hope you'll post about this eventually if time allows.
The person who wrote the quote you put in,
"According to their theory evolution is "not repeatable", By that, they mean that each species was made only one time. -But if evolution did not repeat itself at least twice, making male and female, how then did the new species reproduce?"
clearly doesn't understand evolutionary biology, and if you think that's a valid point, then neither do you. I tried to explain it in my comments, but I guess I didn't do a good enough job. (I lost the two comments you didn't post and I don't remember exactly what I said in them.) If you want to bring up various situations I will think about them and try to answer. But I already gave you the basic answer - each genetic change had to allow the animal carrying the mutation to find a mate within the population of animals around it.
(The two comments I lost were about the missing female and the eyeless dog - maybe I just forgot to click on the publish button; it's happened before.
Ray Comfort talked about the first dog being able to see after millions of years without eyes. It might have just been a joke; I couldn't tell. I hoped you realized that the ancestors of the first dogs - really the first wolves - would have been carnivorous mammals similar to wolves which would have had eyes, teeth, tails, intelligence, males and females, all the usual functions of carnivores (and placental mammals). I hoped you knew that the parents of the first dog - really, the first wolf - had eyes. But the way Ray Comfort said it, I couldn't be sure if he meant it or not.)
Oh, thanks, now I can see what I wrote. I can't tell if it made sense to anyone though.
Here's one more website - I just got this off of another blog.
The blogger at this website is apparently a young earth creationists and a baraminologist - a person who tries to research the biblical lifeform 'kinds' after they came off Noah's ark, so I think he does completely share your views on the Bible. See what he wrote about evolution:
http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2009/09/truth-about-evolution.html
I haven't looked very far onto his blog. It seems like he keeps up with the latest research though, but still maintains his biblical beliefs, for what it's worth.
>>I am extremely familiar with their arguments and why they attempt to integrate the two. However, the two are irreconcilable. You cannot and will not understand this because you do not read the bible nor do you hold it as God's inspired word.
1 Corinthians 2:14
The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Anyone who professes to be a Christian but tries to state that the two are compatible will be unable to get around what the bible teaches and what evolution teaches. <<
Hey Joe, do you realise what logic demands of you given this statement? I think you've overlooked it.
Science concerns itself with knowledge, you are essentially saying you can't integrate science into your religion, and the science must be wrong. Your implied assumption is that nothing an contradict your religion, not even science. This is the text-book case of someone who is close-minded to everything but his own prejudice. The prejudice in this case is that your conclusion must be true in spite of anything that contradicts it. This is also a definition of faith.
Logically, if you have a conclusion (your religion) and you gain new knowledge (science) which contradicts that conclusion, then you must revise your conclusion to fit the knowledge. I should think that if an all-knowing, all-powerful god exists, and that god wrote a book, or made revelations, whatever the case, that that book would be in agreement with science, and in most agreement with the nature we observe.
Your way of getting around this is to say X isn't science, which is essentially a common thread among fringe groups and crackpot academics to try and legitimise their pet idea, at the expense of integrity.
Joe, you said this:
"And I wish I had more time to reply to your "where are the females?" reply because it's peppered with tons of problems. Christians weigh an extremely valid point by asking such a question. Sorry, but you assumed that you gave a valid reply and so answered the question. I hope to do a posting on it soon."
I hope you'll find time to do a post on this soon, even a brief one. I have NO idea what problems you are imagining.
So no response yet - I know your life must be extremely busy right now, but still...
I don't think you CAN point out any problems. Comfort's whole idea was ridiculous; you're just not going to find anything that supports his version of what evolution says or implies about 'missing females', especially among vertebrate species. He was talking nonsense.
Highdesert,
Sorry yes, "busy" is an understatement. My life has taken some new turns so I can only get to the blog when I can. We are expecting a son in Feb and I just bought and moved into our new home.
As for your posts on this topic. I still feel however you don't have a leg to stand on here. It's been a while so I had to re-read your posting and what your suggesting for the account of how the missing females appeared are strictly non observational. there is no evidence for this. You are presenting here to me a possible outcome. It is pure speculation of how you think it could have happened. I think to accept your view this would take an incredible amount of faith and chance and coincidence to have happened in that way.
And in regards to mutations. You speak as though mutations occur on a regular basis to bridge your gaps. I'm reminded of an excerpt regarding this:
"Please keep this clearly in mind: Evolutionists say that mutation is absolutely essential to provide the inexorable upgrading of species which changed the simpler forms into more complex forms. BUT - the scientific fact is that mutation could NEVER accomplish what evolution demands of it, for several reasons. As all scientists agree, mutations are very rare. Huxley guesses that only about one in a hundred thousand, is a mutant. Secondly, when they do occur, they are almost certain to be harmful or deadly to the organism. In other words, the vast majority of such mutations lead toward extinction instead of evolution; they make the organism worse instead of better. Huxley admits: "The great majority of mutant genes are harmful in their effect on the organism." Ibid. p. 39."
I'm sorry I'm just not buying it. I think people just get upset with Comfort because he explains it in a simple logical way that a child could understand it. It's not "scientific" enough for them
Joe
Thanks for answering my question.
It sounds like things are going very well for you and your family, and that is wonderful.
I just want to make a simple point right now about the missing female. Whether you think it could have happened the way I described or not is one question, but I'm going to ask a different simpler question.
Ray Comfort in the video says that a believer in evolution must believe that a male animal evolved and then must find a female which has just by chance evolved totally separately from the male.
Can you at least agree that evolutionary biology does not say this?
You can think that the biological explanation is wrong, but can you at least agree that the biological explanation is different from what Ray Comfort said it was?
My I answer your question with another question?
Are you suggesting that they (if they didn't "totally evolve separately from the male") that they reproduced A-sexually or mutated to the point where some of these creatures developed one set of reproductive organs while others developed the opposite and exact necessary reproductive parts?
Virtually all lifeforms have ways to exchange genetic information, even those species which normally reproduce asexually. This includes single-celled organisms like bacteria or yeasts. There has been a survival value in having a way to exchange genetic information and to pass that on to the next generation. So in the history of life (according to evolutionary biology) there has been a continuum of the ability to exchange genetic information. An ancestral species already has some mechanism for exchanging genetic information as part of reproduction. Any differences are modifications of the mechanisms of the predecessor species. The reeproductive systems were not invented separately for every species, just modified.
Instead of thinking it has to be a single dramatic change, try to imagine it being a series of small steps which happen back and forth in the two sexes.
At every point in time, any mutation that affects the reproductive organs of an animal must NOT prevent that animal from breeding with the other animals (or lifeforms) in its population, or else that mutation will not be passed on. If it is a mutation that gives that animal a slightly improved ability to pass its DNA on to the next generation, then that mutation will tend to get passed on through several generations, and get established in the population. (This can also happen for mutations which have a neutral effect, neither better or worse, but by genetic drift get established in the population.)
At any point in time, the kind of physical change which will improve an animal's reproductive success will be different from what it was at an earlier time in the history of that lifeform because of the accumulation of previous mutations. It's a form of coevolution. You don't get a dramatic change in one sex and then hope for a similarly dramatic change in the other sex. You get a series of small changes in both sexes that at every point in time must work together to produce healthy offspring (or the mutation would not be passed on). But the net result of a series of small co-ordinated (co-evolved) changes compared to the original ancestral animals could look like a big change.
I hope that makes sense. But even if it doesn't make sense to you the way I wrote it, and even if it didn't convince you, at least I hope you get the idea that evolutionary biology DOES have an explanation for the sexes that doesn't say there had to be a major change in one sex and then by chance a major change in an animal of the other sex which just happened to match up.
When Ray Comfort claims that that's what biology says, it is as wrong as if I were to tell people ignorant of the Bible that Christians think Noah built a submarine equipped with electricity and generators.
As far as the question of mutations, that's another topic - I can't go into that right now. But your source quoted Huxley - I think the book quoted was published in 1953. Do you realize that 1953 was the year that they finally worked out how DNA could carry information? So Huxley didn't know how DNA worked when he wrote that book. It was only recently that we have been able to actually look at mutations at the nucleotide level, rather that at gross visible changes in animals. There are many possible mutations that have either no effects or very small subtle effects.
Since I answered your question, I'm repeating my question:
Ray Comfort in the video says that a believer in evolution must believe that a male animal evolved and then must find a female which has just by chance evolved totally separately from the male.
Can you at least agree that evolutionary biology does not say this?
You can think that the biological explanation is wrong, but can you at least agree that the biological explanation is different from what Ray Comfort said it was?
You asked whether they
" mutated to the point where some of these creatures developed one set of reproductive organs while others developed the opposite and exact necessary reproductive parts". The answer is, yes that's what evolutionary biology says they did. But the mutations would have been a series of changes that allowed the animal with the newest mutation to mate with the animals around it. (If the animal couldn't find a mate, like Ray Comfort's hypothetical first dog, then that mutation wouldn't have been passed on.)
I hope you also agree that the parents of Ray Comfort's hypothetical first dog were not eyeless. I assume he was exaggerating there - but I don't actually know.
Sorry to some degree if not all I would agree with Rays anology (thogh simple I agree) what your suggesting has no merit and your missing that one little ingredient called evidence. Your pressupposition is that mutations occurred and at that, many many beneficial mutations occurred allowing for such complex advancement. We don't even see that today. Whether or not this is what biological evolution teaches today or not I don't fully know (in all circles anyway)
Sorry for the short and quick answer. I'm answering from my phone
Really what it comes down to is the microevolution versus macroevolution argument that I think you've posted about in the past.
If you have time you may want to read Page 318 of the Evolution Cruncher
"Why mutations cannot produce
cross-species change"
http://www.worldincrisis.org/Harvestime-Books/Evolution%20CruncherP.pdf
Did you mean just that page, or the whole chapter?
Here's a start:
The goal of the Evolution Cruncher book is not to explain and understand the science of evolution but to combat it with simple opposing statements. The statements are usually followed by quotes. There’s hardly any info given on the author, but it seems that he is/was a Seventh Day Adventist, probably a minister, and his education was probably not in a field of science (and was probably not recent). So when he provides you with these statements, you can’t assume they are accurate conclusions. You can use them as a starting point in argument if you like, but you shouldn’t expect them to end an argument.
And you can use them as a starting point for your own learning, but for sure you shouldn’t stop with them. If you do, you will be arguing out of ignorance on the subject.
FWIW, the date on this ebook is 2001. But look at the dates on the quotes in the mutation section. A lot of them are earlier than 1970. That’s forty years ago! There are a number from the ‘50s, even a couple from 1942. So just from the quotes you can guess that the author was not in touch with current research, or that he just used old sources in compiling his material. The quotes seem to be mostly from books or popular magazines, not scientific journals.
The author uses an asterisk to mark quotes from people who are not known to be ‘creationists’ – but some of those marked seem to be anti-evolution. I would be wary about his marking system.
And when he uses quotes from scientists who accept evolution, what’s the message? You need to be very careful when you read these quotes because you don’t have the context of the quote and the way the words are being used in the quote. Are we supposed to assume from some of the quotes that the biologists are revealing big doubts about evolution? Or that they say things that are contradictory to evolution but are too blind to notice? And that you the non-biologist, can see some huge defect in their understanding just from a quote out of context? That’s very unlikely and an unjustified conclusion . What value can there be in taking someone’s words out of context, especially something written 50 years ago, and thinking it helps you make your point? It is useless.
Some more comments on the Evolution Cruncher mutation chapter:
”(2) RANDOM EFFECTS—Mutations are always random, and never purposive or directed.”
This seems okay, although FWIW it seems that some areas of the genome may have an increased structural susceptibility to mutations compared to others, if I understand correctly.
"Mutations are random, wild events that are totally uncontrollable. When a mutation occurs, it is a chance occurrence: totally unexpected and haphazard.
>>>The only thing we can predict is that it will not go outside the species and produce a new type of organism.<<<
>>> This we can know as a result of lengthy experiments that have involved literally hundreds of thousands of mutations on fruit flies and other small creatures.<<<"
Will a single mutation be able to make a change which produces a new type of organism? (not sure what he means by organism here, let’s say species.) I would guess not, but I am not positive.
I think there would need to be more mutations and some reproductive barrier. There’s an example of a single mutation in color which caused a separation of two species or subspecies of a kind of bird. I forget the details.
However we don’t know this from the fruit fly experiments I think he is talking about. They don’t address this question.
-------
“(3) NOT HELPFUL—>>>Evolution requires improvement.<<<
>>>Mutations do not help or improve; they only weaken and injure.<<<
“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.”
These are two unjustified claims. Evolution does not require improvement, whatever that means. It can be a result of drift in the population.
And it is false to say that mutations do not improve, only weaken and injure.
Here’s an example. I can’t give a reference at the moment, but some people especially Europeans have an ability to digest lactose which other people don’t. This mutation made it easier for them to use dairy products as food sources. How is this unhelpful?
The quote – first of all it is 60 years old. This is from before we even knew about DNA sequences. Second, from the title it is about radiation damage which is crude widespread damage. This is not the same as the range of types of mutations which might happen in nature. It is a gross assault on the organisms. You can’t make a jump from radiation damage to the effects of natural mutations, some of which will have no effect on the organism at all.
“(4) HARMFUL EFFECTS—(*#2/21 Mutations are Always Harmful*) Nearly all mutations are harmful. In most instances, mutations weaken or damage the organism in some way so that it (or its offspring if it is able to have any) will not long survive.”
This is confusing – first he says that mutations are Always Harmful? And then he says “in most instances”? “Nearly all”? which is it?
I don’t have the numbers, but many types of mutations will have essentially no effect on the animals. For most amino acids there is more than one code for an amino acid so some mutations change the code without changing the amino acid. Some amino acids have similar biochemical effects, so some changes would have only have minor effects on protein function. Some parts of proteins are much less important to function than other parts; mutations in the less important parts could have little or no effect. A lot of the genome apparently has no purpose. Mutations in those areas will have no harmful effect.
----------
From page 326:
“NOT ONCE has there ever been a recorded instance of a truly beneficial mutation (one which is a
known mutation, and not merely a reshuffling of latent characteristics in the genes), nor such a mutation that was permanent, passing on from one generation to another!”
Remember the example of the sheep, Solid Gold, that I gave you in the past? One single base change made the sheep more heavily muscled (callipyge mutation). The sheep was healthy and able to reproduce and pass on the trait. That example contradicts this statement.
I had sent one other section; I'll repeat it:
Here’s an example of a problem with this ebook:
From page 321:
“1 - FOUR SPECIAL PROBLEMS
In reality, mutations have four special qualities that are >>>ruinous to the hopes of evolutionists<<<:
(1) RARE EFFECTS—Mutations are very rare. This point is not a guess but a scientific fact, observed by experts in the field.
>>> Their very rarity dooms the possibility of mutational evolution to oblivion<<<
….
>>>Mutations are simply too rare to have produced all the necessary traits of even one life-form, much less all the creatures that swarm on the earth.<<<
Evolution requires millions upon millions of direct, solid changes, yet mutations occur only with great rarity.
“Although mutation is the ultimate source of all genetic variation, it is a relatively rare event.”—*F.J. Ayala,
“Mechanism of Evolution,” Scientific American, September
1978, p. 63.”
(I marked the author’s unjustified consclusions with arrows>>><<<.)
- - - - -
“Mutations are very rare” – what exactly does this mean? First, figuring out the rates of mutations is a complicated question. What rates are being talked about, under what conditions? How were they measured?
Just to say they are rare is useless. Rare does NOT mean the same thing as too rare to be a source of evolution! Ayala does not say that in either quote. His quotes do not support the author’s conclusions.
The author gives no evidence to link the idea of rareness to the idea that mutations could not have been the source for variety in evolution. He takes one piece of information (unexplained) and jumps to a huge unjustified conclusion.
On mutation rate: there are different ways to measure it and lots of things to be considered. But this is a result that was in a recent article.
The authors took the DNA of two men who had the same ancestor - one 6 generations back, the other seven generations back. This means there were 13 generations of reproduction between the two men. They looked at a region of ten million nucleotides from the Y chromosomes of the two men. Because the Y chromosome doesn't recombine, the sequence should be identical between the two men except for any mutations. The researchers were able to sequence the whole 10 million base region and they found four nucelotides which were different between the men. This was a huge undertaking because their results had to be so precise in order to pick out single changes - they had to do many repetitions and controls. They found 4 mutations in 10 million bases over 13 generations.
As genome sequencing gets increasingly cheaper and faster, there will probably be repeats of this kind of observation, with more analysis of variability, but for now this is a useful estimate and it is in the ball park of mutation estimates done with some other approaches. IF I understood correctly, these four were neutral mutations.
If there were four mutations in 10 million nucleotides in 13 generations, that's about 0.3 mutations per 10 million nucleotides per generation. Since we have about 6 billion nucleotides in our complete set of chromosomes, this number suggests that there would be around 180 mutations each time someone is born. Suppose the number from this study turned out to be ten times greater than the usual rate - we would still have 18 mutations on average with each reproduction.
(I imagine most of these will be harmless mutations.)
Whether these numbers suggest to you that mutations are rare or not, I don't know. But they do happen.
Post a Comment