Nothing is Beyond the Ability of Random Mutation

[Chalnoth]

I think the original post makes an excellent point, you just need to understand that it is an argument towards coherence and away from prediction following evidence.

Many predictions of evolution were made long before the evidence appeared. An example was the distribution of ERV's: Darwin predicted common ancestry from his theory of evolution long before anybody even knew about DNA. From common ancestry and the specific knowledge of ERV's comes a very specific prediction as to how ERV's can be used to detect speciation events.

Why is it, do you think, that biologists ever became interested in ERV's at all?

Edit:
Oh, and as for another, similar field, observe how many predictions about the cosmic microwave background, which is pertinent to the age of the universe measued at ~13.7 billion years, were made year before the measurements were made:
http://www.christianforums.com/t3288145-a-brief-history-of-cosmology.html

 

[random_guy]

What does "a life of purpose" have to do with biology?

I think what he was saying was that evolutionists will find skulls and think that this implies they were once living creatures. They don't consider the other possibility that there may have an ancient race of floating talking skulls.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Good grief, this isn't even a reasoanble thing on which to debate. It is IMPOSSIBLE for mutations to only ever be harmful. If they can cause harm, then they can cause benefit. It's the EXACT same process: it can't just do one and not the other.

Uncommon Descent's clais ludicruous. There are many many many different ways in which genetics could change that are utterly and totally inconsistent with random mutation. We don't observe any of these in actual life: that's telling. But just because something is never falsified in practice doesn't mean that it isn't falsifiable. Just because every Terminator is a murderer doesn't mean that it's impossible to prove that Terminators are murderers. That's idiotic.

readable English counts.