We would expect to see similarities in the genetics of similar looking creatures.
Ah, no. Although there are fundamental similarities in the genetics of all creatures, those that look similar, or have similar features, are not necessarily closely related. When an different (e.g. isolated) ecosystems provide similar niches for exploitation, similar looking creatures with similar lifestyles may evolve independently. For example, the marsupial mammals of Australia; as well as unique marsupials like wallabies & kangaroos, there are (or were) marsupial dogs, cats, rats, etc., that looked and behaved similarly and occupied similar niches to non-marsupial dogs, cats, rats, etc., in other ecosystems. Also, some physical solutions are particularly well-suited for their job - like
camera eyes, or flippers. It's called
convergent evolution.
Like I said there have been many incidences where fossils have been said to be one thing only to be found out later that they were wrong. Similar looking fossils found in the wrong place are then made into new species because they couldn't have been the same creature in that particular time zone. Even though they virtually look the same. The thing about the line of ape skulls is that they can find a perfect line of transitions for this but never for much else. If there were so many transitions for all life then there would be millions everywhere.
The transitions aren't 'perfect' because you only ever get occasional snapshots with fossilization, and paleontologists working with very limited data will inevitably get some things wrong until more data becomes available; genetic information has been a great help. However, pruning or re-arranging a few branches on the tree doesn't make it any less a tree.
There are cases of animals that are closely related through their genetics that don't look like they have morphed from each other as well.
That can happen too, though it's unusual among complex animals. Which ones do you find troubling?
So because of all this it makes you wonder if the picture isn't being selectively picked to build it that way.
Bear in mind that paleontology is a particularly competitive field because of the scope for major discoveries and career-making. This means that scepticism and challenge is the default approach to new claims and finds, and so frauds and errors are usually found out fairly quickly (particularly after some of the infamous attempts of earlier times), and there is huge incentive to overturn existing paradigms.
But I come back to the best evidence and that's the test done to actually verify random mutations being able to create new functions and complexity. And from what I understand they don't show any evidence that mutations can do this. If anything its the opposite and they cause more harm than any good.
Please provide the relevant references or links to these tests.
Even if a very rare mutation that incurred some benefit could happen it has to keep on happening.
What makes you think so? If the originator of that mutation has viable offspring - and by definition, it has a better than average chance
because of the mutation - it will propagate through them. That's a gross over-simplification, but the principle applies.
And in between that happening there would be many sick creatures that didn't make the grade all over the place.
That's partly how evolution works; the badly maladapted ones die without reproducing. Do remember that
ALL creatures eventually die - and nearly all get sick. 99% of all species are now extinct.
Test have shown to just make two steps with point mutations in complex organism by first inactivating a binding cite that controls how a gene is expressed and then create a new binding cite in its place. This would convert gene regulation from one type to another but it doesn't actually change the gene.
I'm afraid that's too garbled to make sense of.
OK, having watched the video (8 wasted minutes of my life I won't get back), I see what you're talking about. They're implicitly assuming that all genetic evolutionary change depends on a kind of two-point mutation they say is rare; a claim that needs support - even assuming their calculations are correct - and for which no evidence is supplied.
The rest of the video is one long argument from incredulity, and the whole thing ignores all the painstaking lab studies that have traced mutations through breeding experiments, and through comparative examinations of genomes in the wild - many chains of mutations that have caused phenotypic variations have been traced.
We may not understand all the complexities of gene regulation and expression, but it's clear that if the claim about the point mutation mechanism described in the video is correct (although I've seen no evidence to support that), then changes due to mutations in the real world occur via different mechanisms. In other words, empirical evidence suggests that either they're wrong, or they've shown that the two-point mutation they describe is not the only mechanism for genetic evolution - and frankly I doubt anyone else thought it was.