The MYTH of Random Mutations

[LightHorseman]

Dude, the changing between the major families of animals (reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, mammals, for example) only happened a scant few times over hundreds of millions of years. Of course we don't expect to see these things happen in our miniscule lifetimes. And yet, we do see animals alive today that seem to be between these things, such as the lungfish:

And platypuses and echidnas... (monotremes, or egg laying mamals)

 

[Schroeder]

Yes, it does.


I'll leave trilobites, as I do not have any knowledge on them.

sure, it is true though isnt it.

Chimps are apes. They are modifications of ancestral apes.

yes we call that SPECIATION.

Again, we wouldn't expect them to. However, alligators have come from an ancestor which was not an alligator. Not from scratch, but as a modification of this ancestor.

why not. because they didnt. again SPECIATION.

Yes, they did. The bodyplan of animals of the land is a modification of the bodyplan of the original animals from the sea. The bodyplan of birds is a modification of the bodyplan of dinosaurs. The bodyplan of bats is a modification of the bodyplan of mammals. They are all modifications, nothing new.

no kidding GOd isnt stupid. maybe because it works so well on this earth and as i said they are on the same planet with the same restriction and Laws. They most certainly would be similiar in many ways.

That sentence does not make sense. Could you please first calm down before typing and check your grammar? Your posts are extremely hard to follow.

i am saying God created many types of creatures and they all speciated out. there very well could have been only ONE type of ape or alligator or cat and it changed over time into the many types or species we have now.

But there is. Plenty of it.

dont see it anywhere. all i see is SPECIATION and never out of its "kind" or class or whatever you call it. genus maybe.

Like special creations.

what other alternative is there. if it is not the theory it cant be anything else.

How can we show it if it isn't there?

you havent because it is SO CALLED.

But why do birds and bats have wings developed in a completely different way if what you say is true? Why do the blood circulations of mammals and birds differ, while they have to accomplish the same? That doesn't make sense from the perspective of a single designer.

accomplish what the same. why does it not. who are you to question how a God creates anything. doesnt make sense because you cant or wont look at it that way. i do not know much about how you all say bats come from. but sounds interesting i might try to look it up. give a site if you know of one.

Why would we. It isn't. It's extremely good and detailed.

well if you say that i can see why you say the theory is so well shown.

No, the reason it is held is that it adds up, not only when looking at the fossils in a broad perspective, but also when taking an extremely detailed look. Add to that the molecular and embryological evidence, and the picture becomes even more persuasive.

NOt really if you look at it correctly without assumptions. and there is a thing called being blind to the facts. which is what you say i do. the Fact is no evidence given proves the theory only proves SPECIATION which is stretched to make the theory stand up.

 

[Schroeder]

And platypuses and echidnas... (monotremes, or egg laying mamals)

yet they are still CLASSED AS WHAT. Why do you assume this group of mammals was JUST a transitional between reptile and mammal or amphipian to reptile or reptile mammal. why not say they had a large group of these at one time and they went mostly exstinct because the environmental changes.

 

[Schroeder]

OK, so if nothing changes into anything but another variety of the same thing... where are all the ape fossils from the same period as the trilobites?

maybe in the layers not there or in the fact they never were around each other seeing how one was a land animal the other in the ocean. Or maybe the dating system is wrong or flawed. And are you just getting around this fact. seeing how bacteria is the same as well and has NEVER changed either into someother thing. just to be curiouse were did Apes come from what is there ansestor. i have heard a lot of apes to man but not much in way of whatever to apes.

 

[Chalnoth]

Or maybe the dating system is wrong or flawed.

You might possibly be able to argue how one specific dating system is wrong or flawed. But you cannot possibly explain how we have so many completely independent dating systems that agree with one another.

seeing how bacteria is the same as well and has NEVER changed either into someother thing.

Except single-celled organisms mutating to start forming colonies instead of singular cells has been observed in the laboratory:

Boraas (1983) reported the induction of multicellularity in a strain of Chlorella pyrenoidosa (since reclassified as C. vulgaris) by predation. He was growing the unicellular green alga in the first stage of a two stage continuous culture system as for food for a flagellate predator, Ochromonas sp., that was growing in the second stage. Due to the failure of a pump, flagellates washed back into the first stage. Within five days a colonial form of the Chlorella appeared. It rapidly came to dominate the culture. The colony size ranged from 4 cells to 32 cells. Eventually it stabilized at 8 cells. This colonial form has persisted in culture for about a decade. The new form has been keyed out using a number of algal taxonomic keys. They key out now as being in the genus Coelosphaerium, which is in a different family from Chlorella. "

http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html

So there goes that little argument right out the window.

just to be curiouse were did Apes come from what is there ansestor. i have heard a lot of apes to man but not much in way of whatever to apes.

Well, first of all, that ancestor is no longer around. The population would have not been quite like any of the great apes today (humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and bonobos), but we can see commonalities between all five modern species and our ancestors. For example:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/11/1118_041118_ape_human_ancestor.html
In the news article is an artist's rendition of what the ape might have looked like.

Here's a site that has a description of apes in general:
http://www.factmonster.com/spot/ape1.html

 

[Loudmouth]

yet they are still CLASSED AS WHAT.

As vertebrates, just like their ancestors.

Why do you assume this group of mammals was JUST a transitional between reptile and mammal or amphipian to reptile or reptile mammal. why not say they had a large group of these at one time and they went mostly exstinct because the environmental changes.

They were a large group, and they did mostly go extinct. This doesn't stop them from having intermediate characteristics between placental mammals and reptiles. Besides, it's just microevolution since monotremes, eutherians, and reptiles are all in the vertebrate kind.

 

[Schroeder]

You might possibly be able to argue how one specific dating system is wrong or flawed. But you cannot possibly explain how we have so many completely independent dating systems that agree with one another.

they all use the same assumptions. being a assumption of what it was like in the beggining and a consistant environment that did not change.

Except single-celled organisms mutating to start forming colonies instead of singular cells has been observed in the laboratory:

http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html

So there goes that little argument right out the window.

that is not a bacteria. and i think they would have known such a thing would happen. And why or how do they know it was a mutation.

Well, first of all, that ancestor is no longer around. The population would have not been quite like any of the great apes today (humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and bonobos), but we can see commonalities between all five modern species and our ancestors. For example:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/11/1118_041118_ape_human_ancestor.html
In the news article is an artist's rendition of what the ape might have looked like.

Here's a site that has a description of apes in general:
http://www.factmonster.com/spot/ape1.html

well that did not answer my guestion. we can find the same similiarites all through ALL organsim. That would HAVE to happen when they ALL live on the same planet.

 

[Schroeder]

As vertebrates, just like their ancestors.[/QOUTE] of course keep it VERY vague.

They were a large group, and they did mostly go extinct. This doesn't stop them from having intermediate characteristics between placental mammals and reptiles. Besides, it's just microevolution since monotremes, eutherians, and reptiles are all in the vertebrate kind.

again VAGUE and as i KEEP saying they ALL will be similiar in many ways because they all live on the same planet with the same LAWS and types of environments.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

they all use the same assumptions. being a assumption of what it was like in the beggining and a consistant environment that did not change.


1. C14 dating talks about things back to around 50Kya, there are NO assumptions here about what it was like in the beginning at all, assuming of course you mean either the beginning of the world or the beginning of the universe. if you mean another beginning then you need to be more specific.

2.i really really wish people could understand the difference between an assumption and a conclusion.

if we examine the time period from today back 50Kya, the idea that cause and effect in the physical world is uniform is not an assumption but due to evidence like tree rings, ice cores, varves etc, all well discussed here, the uniformity is a conclusion not an assumption.

3. no one assumes a constant environment, what is assumed is that the forces we see today acted pretty much yesterday in the same way. in fact, we know that there are lots of changes even in the last 10Ky depending on where you look. North Africa was forested and supplied wheat to Rome. The human population was considerable less and CO2 levels were lower. this constant environment is a well refutted strawmen, the right terms are something like uniformity or uniformitarianism etc., certainly not a "constant environment"

 

[SLP]

Thus, the theory is wearing an intellectual dunce cap because it has no mechanism for creating beneficial information blah blah blah

How many forums did you spam with this?

What is beneficial information?

Dr. J.C Sanford -- Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome

Dr. Lee Spetner -- Not By Chance

Dr. Giuseppe Sermonti -- Why is a Fly Not a Horse

Ah - the three S's...

The trifecta of creationist irrelevance.

 

[SLP]

You obviously don't get it. The fossil record does not show gradualism.

Does it show a 6-day creation?

 

[Chalnoth]

they all use the same assumptions. being a assumption of what it was like in the beggining and a consistant environment that did not change.

No, not at all. Different radioactive dating methods use entirely different radioactive elements that decay in different ways, have different half-lives, have different chemistry, and so on.

Given the significant differences between different radioactive elements, then, it becomes very easy to test if radioactive decay rates are constant: one doesn't expect any change to affect all radioactive elements to behave exactly the same from a change in the fundamental forces. Thus the fact that different radioactive elements give the same answer for radioactive decay rates is really strong evidence that decay rates haven't changed over time.

Stronger evidence comes from supernovae. Supernovae would change dramatically in brightness if radioactive decay times changed. There is no evidence of this, as supernovae are highly consistent with radioactive decay times.

The assumption of initial conditions isn't needed at all for isochron dating, where if you can find multiple rocks that were formed at the same time, you can completely correct for different starting amounts of various decay elements.

When some crystals are formed, the radioactive element can take a position within the crystal, but the decay element cannot. Thus one doesn't need to know the initial amount of the radioactive element: all of the element it decayed into is still there for measurement!

But regardless, we're talking about dozens of radioactive decay elements that are measured to be consistent with one another in hundreds to thousands of experiments. There's no way you can just explain that away.

that is not a bacteria. and i think they would have known such a thing would happen. And why or how do they know it was a mutation.

What? They had never observed this sort of thing happening before. It was a pure accident! The original organism was single-celled. It has little in the way of holding information except for its genetic code, and has no method of sexual reproduction. Thus it must have been a mutation (actually, a series of them) that produced the multicellular forms.

well that did not answer my guestion. we can find the same similiarites all through ALL organsim. That would HAVE to happen when they ALL live on the same planet.

That does not follow. Observing the natural world doesn't just show similarities, it shows hierarchically-nested similarities. Every single organism is a modified version of its parent organism. This is an explicity prediction of evolution, and cannot be explained by creation or intelligent design.

 

[Schroeder]

No, not at all. Different radioactive dating methods use entirely different radioactive elements that decay in different ways, have different half-lives, have different chemistry, and so on.

Given the significant differences between different radioactive elements, then, it becomes very easy to test if radioactive decay rates are constant: one doesn't expect any change to affect all radioactive elements to behave exactly the same from a change in the fundamental forces. Thus the fact that different radioactive elements give the same answer for radioactive decay rates is really strong evidence that decay rates haven't changed over time.

Stronger evidence comes from supernovae. Supernovae would change dramatically in brightness if radioactive decay times changed. There is no evidence of this, as supernovae are highly consistent with radioactive decay times.

The assumption of initial conditions isn't needed at all for isochron dating, where if you can find multiple rocks that were formed at the same time, you can completely correct for different starting amounts of various decay elements.

When some crystals are formed, the radioactive element can take a position within the crystal, but the decay element cannot. Thus one doesn't need to know the initial amount of the radioactive element: all of the element it decayed into is still there for measurement!

But regardless, we're talking about dozens of radioactive decay elements that are measured to be consistent with one another in hundreds to thousands of experiments. There's no way you can just explain that away.

i will not argue hear because i do not know enough to. but if you created a planet would you not need it to seem aged for it to work. all the elements would need to be in place for it all to work together proberly. and some i would geuss would need to be aged. of course like i said i dont know enough to argue.

What? They had never observed this sort of thing happening before. It was a pure accident! The original organism was single-celled. It has little in the way of holding information except for its genetic code, and has no method of sexual reproduction. Thus it must have been a mutation (actually, a series of them) that produced the multicellular forms.

SO your saying they had a mutation or more then one in this breif time, and they all were helpful not harmful. SO what you all say takes millions of years happened quite guickly.

That does not follow. Observing the natural world doesn't just show similarities, it shows hierarchically-nested similarities. Every single organism is a modified version of its parent organism. This is an explicity prediction of evolution, and cannot be explained by creation or intelligent design.

which is the same thing. useing fancy terms doesnt change the meaning. sure AFTER the fact of observing you say this is what the theory WOULD predict.

 

[Chalnoth]

SO your saying they had a mutation or more then one in this breif time, and they all were helpful not harmful. SO what you all say takes millions of years happened quite guickly.

No, there were many harmful mutations in there, too. They just got selected out. And it happened more quickly than it did in nature because:
1. Today's single-celled organisms are much more complex and capable than those in the young Earth.
2. The experimenters happened to set up a perfect situation for selecting for multicellular organisms. It might have taken some time for a similar situation to have occurred on the young Earth.

which is the same thing. useing fancy terms doesnt change the meaning. sure AFTER the fact of observing you say this is what the theory WOULD predict.

No scientist would take the theory seriously if this were true. The fact remains that Darwin made the prediction of this nested hierarchy long before we had most of the evidence we have today, particularly genetic evidence.

Here's the Darwin idea:
First, you have on species (species A). It gets geographically separated into two regions that can't intermingle for a time. Eventually, the two populations can no longer interbreed, and become separate species (species B and C). Later, species C gets two populations physically separated, and becomes species D and E.

Today we have species B, D, and E running around, let's say. Today's B, D, and E all share characteristics that were within the original species A. Species D and E share characteristics with their parent species C that differ slightly from species B.

Thus Darwin's idea of speciation directly predicts a nested hierarchy. When we look out at the natural world, this is exactly what we find. What's more, we find genetic markers that don't have much of any effect on the organisms carrying them also show the same nested hierarchy, which is much stronger support for common descent.

 

[c'mon sense]

Here's the Darwin idea:
First, you have on species (species A). It gets geographically separated into two regions that can't intermingle for a time. Eventually, the two populations can no longer interbreed, and become separate species (species B and C).

Darwin also pointed out that competition is at its harshest between members of the same species. I'm sure this is also what creates enough selection pressure for specialization and eventually speciation.

 

[Schroeder]

No, there were many harmful mutations in there, too. They just got selected out. And it happened more quickly than it did in nature because:
1. Today's single-celled organisms are much more complex and capable than those in the young Earth.
2. The experimenters happened to set up a perfect situation for selecting for multicellular organisms. It might have taken some time for a similar situation to have occurred on the young Earth.

of course more assumption. i wouldnt expect anything less.

No scientist would take the theory seriously if this were true. The fact remains that Darwin made the prediction of this nested hierarchy long before we had most of the evidence we have today, particularly genetic evidence.

Here's the Darwin idea:
First, you have on species (species A). It gets geographically separated into two regions that can't intermingle for a time. Eventually, the two populations can no longer interbreed, and become separate species (species B and C). Later, species C gets two populations physically separated, and becomes species D and E.

Today we have species B, D, and E running around, let's say. Today's B, D, and E all share characteristics that were within the original species A. Species D and E share characteristics with their parent species C that differ slightly from species B.

Thus Darwin's idea of speciation directly predicts a nested hierarchy. When we look out at the natural world, this is exactly what we find. What's more, we find genetic markers that don't have much of any effect on the organisms carrying them also show the same nested hierarchy, which is much stronger support for common descent.

sure