Why I'm an evolutionist believer

[Job 33:6]

Here we go again with people referring to the ambiguos "information". Even though we have Gene duplications which increase genetic information. And denial that new species form as a product of these mutations and natural selection, even though speciation is readily observed by anyone who cares to look.

Ring species - Wikipedia

 

[The Barbarian]

I'm not going to get into a debate with anyone about creation vs evolution. Those days are past for me.

But I will point out to others that evolution is all about chance.

Nope. Natural selection is the antithesis of chance.

The Darwinian model of survival of the fittest, etc., and even today's neo-Darwinism, is entirely dependent on mutations being successful, and beneficial, and passing on new features -- thus increasing fitness in the population, as you say.

Mutations plus natural selection. Spetner's whole premise is based on ignoring natural selection. Which is why he doesn't talk publicly about it any more.

However, Spetner's whole premise is that mutations; which unquestioningly happen by chance, but only extremely rarely result in viable organisms

He messed that up, too. Each of us has perhaps a dozen mutations that neither of our parents had. He quite literally, doesn't know what he's talking about.

How many new mutations does a child have and did most of them come from mum or dad? The first answer is that each of us typically receives 60 new mutations from our parents. Remarkably, the number of mutations passed on from a parent to a child varies between parents by as much as tenfold. These striking answers come from the first-ever direct measure of new mutations using whole human genomes.
We are all mutants: First direct whole-genome measure of human mutation predicts 60 new mutations in each of us

and most-assuredly not in the numbers required for new genetic information to produce an entirely new species, is a statistical impossibility.

So then it's a testable claim. Let's see your numbers. Or is it possible that you have no idea how to calculate "information" in a population of living things? Let's see how you do.

Prediction: No such numbers will be forthcoming.

 

[The Barbarian]

Doesn't Lee spetner believe in guided non-random evolution?

He doesn't really sound like the best person to source, when attempting to refute evolution.

He's most notable for claiming Archaeopteryx is a fraud.

During the 1980s astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle proposed (with his colleagues Chandra Wickramasinghe, Lee Spetner and R. S. Watkins) that the London Archaeopteryx specimen [shown here: image by H. Raab] was a forgery, made by pressing chicken feathers into plaster laid about the skeleton of the small predatory dinosaur Compsognathus.
AUTHENTICITY OF BIRD FOSSIL IS CHALLENGED

The Hoyle team is notable for believing that insects might be intelligent as humans, that dinosaurs were transformed by alien microbes, and the like.

However if they were to tell their audience that this "leading scientist" also believes that insects might come from outer space; that they may be as intelligent as human beings but are hiding this fact us (Hoyle & Wickramasinghe 1981: 127-128)
Another way in which anti

Gilbert Shelton was on to something?

 

[_Dave_]

So then it's a testable claim. Let's see your numbers. Or is it possible that you have no idea how to calculate "information" in a population of living things? Let's see how you do.

Prediction: No such numbers will be forthcoming.

LOL! I haven't seen that kind of goading snark since leaving a different creation vs evolution website elsewhere. I actually had to do a double-take to make sure I was actually on Christian Forums. It's why I quit evolution debate in the first place. It seems to bring out the worst, most-unChristian behavior in its adherents.

So, yeah. Carry on without me. Your prediction is right on. LOL

 

[The Barbarian]

However, Spetner's whole premise is that mutations; which unquestioningly happen by chance, but only extremely rarely result in viable organisms, and most-assuredly not in the numbers required for new genetic information to produce an entirely new species, is a statistical impossibility.

Barbarian suggests:
So then it's a testable claim. Let's see your numbers. Or is it possible that you have no idea how to calculate "information" in a population of living things? Let's see how you do.

Prediction: No such numbers will be forthcoming.

LOL! I haven't seen that kind of goading snark since leaving a different creation vs evolution website elsewhere.

Asking people to substantiate their claims is pretty common practice on most forums. If you don't know how to do the numbers, why even make the claim?

It's why I quit evolution debate in the first place. It seems to bring out the worst, most-unChristian behavior in its adherents.

I would think that Christian behavior would include not saying things you don't know to be true.