I read both papers. Thanks for the cites.

These are not new processes or structures, the are variations on already existing processes or structures. How do we get from no flowering plants to flowering plants? Darwin offerd only a huge “leap of faith”.

As stated before “The modern synthesis is remarkably good at modelling the survival of the fittest, but not good at modelling the arrival of the fittest.”

These are not “new processes” they are fine-tuning forms that originate due to other processes.”
There is not one shred of empirical evidence, either observational or experimental that establishes a plausible nexus, even a hypothetical one between RM+NS and the emergence of new structures, processes or systems.
For example, in the Jurrasic period (206 to 144 Million Years Ago) there were no flowering plants. The structure of the flower and seed as well as their associated processes did not exist.
The apparently sudden appearance of relatively modern flowers in the fossil record posed such a problem for the theory of evolution that it was called an “abominable mystery” by Charles Darwin.
However, the fossil record has grown since the time of Darwin, and recently discovered angiosperm fossils such as Archaefructus, along with further discoveries of fossil gymnosperms, suggest how angiosperm characteristics may have been acquired in a series of steps. Several groups of extinct gymnosperms, particularly seed ferns, have been proposed as the ancestors of flowering plants but there is no continuous fossil evidence showing exactly how flowers evolved. Some older fossils, such as the upper Triassic Sanmiguelia, have been suggested. Based on current evidence, some propose that the ancestors of the angiosperms diverged from an unknown group of gymnosperms during the late Triassic (245-202 million years ago). The relationship of the earlier gigantopterids to flowering plants is still enigmatic.

“Go here (http://www.cs.laurentian.ca/badams/evolution/EvolutionApplet102.html) to see how natural selection, equivalent to how it occurs in nature, can be used to demonstrate how quickly you can arrive at something meaningful. You should try it.”

I have. I’d really like to talk about this some more but I’m kind of busy at the
moment. Why don’t you give me a call? My phone number is ***-***-****.
It shouldn’t take you too long to get me. Just start dialing randomly
and sooner or later my phone will ring. Or, if you don’t want to wait
that long, just dial any ten digits and discuss the matter with whomever
answers the phone!
I’d like to meet the guy who started that. “Genetic” algorithms have
nothing at all to do with genetics or evolution. It sounds like they
might, but they don’t. They aren’t used to model evolution and cannot be
used to support any kind of evolutionary scenario. There is nothing
random about using these algorithms. They only work because of the
thoughtful and rigorous input provided by the investigator, and there is
nothing haphazard or accidental about them.

“We know for a fact that gene duplication occurs.”

Gene duplication is not a significant contributing factor in
evolution. Theorists would like to believe that gene duplication
provides a significant amount of raw material for new evolutionary
traits, but the evidence shows that these kinds of duplications almost
always become quickly silenced by degenerative mutations, (what Lynch
and Conery refer to as “nonfunctionalization). They are also unable to
explain how the duplicate gene gets from being just an exact,
redundant copy of the original gene to a stable entity in which both
copies are maintained by natural selection. Lynch and Conery admit (Lynch, M. and Conery, J.S., 2000 (Nov. 10). The evolutionary fate and
consequences of duplicate genes. Science, v.290, p.1151-1155. )
that duplicate genes rarely evolve new functions and make the
unsupportable suggestion that the stochastic silencing of these genes
may play a significant role in the passive origin of new species. I
think this is really stretching the imagination. There are also some
significant defects in their interpretation and analysis of the data,
not the least important being the fact that they readily admit that
“we cannot be certain (in the absence of actual expresssion pattern
data) that all of the genes that were included were functional.

By the way, I DO enjoy the debate but you should know that in the past 14 years I have posted thousands of messages and answered thousands of questions, mostly on talk.origins. My body of work is enormous. Bottom line? I have an answer for everything!

——————————-

If you’ve interacted with people on talk.origins that long and still come up with incorrect analogies like a blind man playing rubik’s cube…I don’t see a fruitful conversation ahead. Therefore I’ll say goodbye, given your very representation of evolution theory has already been undermined…there isn’t much left to do.

As for you having an “answer for everything,” having an answer is easy, a dime a dozen, it’s having GOOD ANSWERS that counts. Creationists share with christian apologists in general rather lax standards for answers, as if merely “having an answer” were good enough. Doesn’t matter if it’s a crap answer, or that it doesn’t make sense of a larger body of evidence, doesn’t cohere with other things they believe etc. Just “having an answer” is fine…no discretion between good answers and just “answers.” This is the problem with the types of “critiques” and replies you have been giving.
They don’t come from any coherent stance in terms of making better sense of a wide body of evidence. You might want to begin adopting a more discretionary approach to answers.

Cheers,

Prof.

Charlie, you must have to work really hard to stay that ignorant (not in the pejorative sense) on a subject you’ve debated, as you claim, for 14 years. Only this past summer we’ve seen evidence that natural selection has demonstrated precisely what you claim it hasn’t. In one case a new process (one of the things in your list) was demonstrated in a lab using E. coli bacteria. In another, a new structure (the second on your list) was demonstrated to have developed in two populations of lizard on islands in the Adriatic.

see here for the first: http://www.pnas.org/content/105/23/7899.abstract

see here for the second: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080417112433.htm

And in an earlier post, you claim that natural selection is random and cannot yield anything meaningful. Heck, a simple genetic algorithm can be used to demonstrate precisely the opposite. Go here (http://www.cs.laurentian.ca/badams/evolution/EvolutionApplet102.html) to see how natural selection, equivalent to how it occurs in nature, can be used to demonstrate how quickly you can arrive at something meaningful. You should try it. It’s actually a fun little program. Computer scientists have been quick to catch on to the possibilities of employing genetic processes to arrive at solutions to problems that would be impossible or impractical to solve using overt human design.

And please, spare me the noise about how no new information is generated with natural selection. We know for a fact that gene duplication occurs. You have no qualms about mutation (do you???). Then all it takes is for the duplicated genes to mutate and you have net new information at the genetic level. If those genes code for traits, then you have new phenotypes.

Forgive me, but I think you are being trollishly obtuse.

I thought I recognized your name…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melissa-lafsky/sarah-palin-and-the-julia_b_126468.html

Nice work !!!

check out my website:

www.charliewagner.com

and my blog:

enigma.charliewagner.com

“Keep the faith, baby.” - Adam Clayton Powell

I thought I recognized your name…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melissa-lafsky/sarah-palin-and-the-julia_b_126468.html

Nice work !!!

check out my website:

http://www.charliewagner.com

and my blog:

http://enigma.charliewagner.com

What’s wrong with quote mining?
People are responsible for their own words and sometimes they have to eat them.

Of course, if you deliberately change the meaning of the quote by removing it from its context then you are liable for this transgression. But a clear, unambiguous quote has value and should not be demonized.

It doesn’t matter if natural selection is random or not. This whole
line of reasoning is a red herring. It was designed to answer the charge
that darwinian evolution was a random process and that function cannot
arise from a random process. So the claim was made that while mutation
was indeed random, selection is not. But it’s irrelevant and draws
attention away from the real issue. Natural selection is a trivial
effect that has nowhere near the power vested in it by evolutionists.
True, it can change the frequency of alleles in populations under
selection pressure, but no evolutionist has ever demonstrated that these
changes in gene frequency can ever lead to new processes, structures or
organisms. This is simply a story, a leap of faith, with no evidenciary
basis in reality. My contention is that natural selection, whether you
believe it’s random or not, has no creative power. It cannot create new
structures, new processes or new organisms. Until someone demonstrates
that this is possible, it’s not right to ask people to believe it. They
may as well believe that wooly mammoths live on Pluto, or that sitting
by a drafty window causes colds.

By the way, I DO enjoy the debate but you should know that in the past 14 years I have posted thousands of messages and answered thousands of questions, mostly on talk.origins. My body of work is enormous. Bottom line? I have an answer for everything!

Prof.

So (quibbles aside with some of what you wrote), your answer exposes the inconsistency of your replies and exposes how your appeal to a blind man doing Rubik cube was a FALSE analogy to evolution.

As Bart Mitchell rightly pointed out, you portrayed evolution as entirely random insofar as your rubiks cube analogy ignored the role of Natural Selection in evolution theory. It’s NOT random - evolution is the opposite of random, due to natural selection.

Bart Mitchell presented a more accurate analogy to evolution theory: wherein the blind man, representing populations reproducing over time in an environment that applies selection pressure FOR newer fitter variations and selection pressure AGAINST other variations. This represents the NON-RANDOM element of selection pressures, which nudge and influence the change of populations over time toward new phenotypes better suited to the environment.

But you simply dismissed the point of the analogy, denying natural selection could work in such a way.

But then, asked by me how pathogens evolve you appeal to EXACTLY THE PROCESS YOU IGNORED in your rubiks cube analogy and in your response to Bart Mitchell. You acknowledged the process of natural selection. Which explains the NON-RANDOM way in which adaptive mutations are selected for and change the phenotype of populations over time to new forms.

And..btw…quote mining experts is a particularly low, unconvincing tactic. Try showing SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH that supports your case, not quote mining.

Prof.

If you define evolution as “change over time” then they are clearly “evolving”

“By what process does this adaptation occur?”

Mutation and natural selection. The “mutations” are not necessarily random, however. They may be directed (adaptive) or they may be acquired or they may already be present in the genome in an inactive state.

“Oh, yes, I don’t deny it happens at the micro level in things like bacteria, but it’s ridiculous to say this process can account for the diversity of life on earth or support Common Descent.”

That would be part of my answer.

* “When the public thinks about evolution, they think about the origin of wings and the invasion of the land,” says Graham Budd, a palaeobiologist at the University of Uppsala, Sweden. “But these are things that evolutionary theory has told us little about.”
* Scott Gilbert, an evo-devo researcher at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania comments, “The modern synthesis is remarkably good at modelling the survival of the fittest, but not good at modelling the arrival of the fittest.”
* Stuart Newman, a developmental biologist at New York Medical College, comments “You can’t deny the force of selection in genetic evolution, but in my view this is stabilizing and fine-tuning forms that originate due to other processes.”
* To explain the sudden appearance of turtles, Scott Gilbert suggested, “all the genes are probably there already….”