A test for claimed knowledge of how macroevolution occurs

They aren't facts, they are bald assertions that leave no room for any further discussion, they just cut it off. All my examples remain good examples that never get discussed because evos ha te creationism and that's all they are capable of.

You denying they're facts doesn't affect reality. You saying they're assertions and ignoring the evidence we post also doesn't affect reality.There are only four possibilities for the source of a human's gene alleles.

• One copied from the mother and one copied from the father
• Both copied from the mother
• Both copied from the father
• One of the above three except one or more changes in one (or both alleles, but unlikely) that create a brand-new allele (or alleles, but very rare) that never existed before

Those are facts. Note that there's no "rearrangement of existing alleles" other than the recombination.Your vague hand-waving descriptions are worthless. To convince anyone who hasn't already drunk your Kool-aid you need rigorous operational definitions of all your terms, detailed descriptions of the steps in the process to establish plausibility, and experimental data to demonstrate that it happens.A million Faiths couldn't do that in a million years. Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

Oh pardon me, of course they are "facts" though the bald assertion of expertise is just that, and annoying. But the facts are irrelevant facts because I already know all that and it's only a distraction from the discussion to assert the evo position without the slightest regard to the other point of view. It's depressing to be treated this way. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I tend to agree. I believe this to be an understatement. "Steel-jacketed" might be a better word than "coloured". Ummmmm, ... yyyyyyeaaaah .... Good luck on that.And after reading the last couple pages of posts, how is any other approach likely to work out?I honestly admire your equanimity here along with your knowledge base, but I think that most of us have given up on a rational discussion in the face of hard-core denial.

Assertion.So show your evidence of mutations in the case of the Pod Mrcaru lizardsOr the Jutland cattle or sheep or whatever they wereOr the black versus blue wildebeestsOr any case of "speciation" of your choice.Or dog breedsOr cattle breedsOr the Amish or the Hutterites

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You all cannot change my mind by asserting your own beliefs and your expertise to determine their truth. You are so sure of yourselves you aren't interested in entertaining anything I say or how I arrived at it, I'm just wrong and that's the end of it. I don't find that at all convincing, you're just being arrogant know-it-alls, and yes, of course, I'm going to continue with my own beliefs, you've affected nothing, you're just being offensive and arrogant. So the conversation is over, you think you won and that's where it always goes.

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And what is the point of falsely accusing us of acting like you ?You claim your tactics wouldn’t work on you, so why do you get upset when they don’t work on us ?At least this shows that you know you have no case.

It took scientists 15 years of dedicated study to track down the mutation that caused a single change in the peppered moth phenotype. Eventually I'm sure many more causal mutations will be found, meanwhile the facts of evolution where proved long before modern day molecular genetics existed.You can't legitimately ignore facts while inventing your own beliefs without evidence. I think even you know that declaring yourself the winner is the act of the loser.

Even though it seems unlikely that a random mutation would just show up to turn a moth or a mouse a different color under the pressure of need, I don't have as much of a problem with that single event as I do with situations where multiple mutations would have to have occurred in a short period of time as would have to have been the case in the examples I gave. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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But we know it happened. Moreover it was predicted by the ToE that it happened and then has been proven to have happened. That's a prophecy fulfilled. So you can no longer claim that it doesn't. Never-the-less I fully expect you to forget that and claim again in a month's time that such a thing can't happen. That's another prophecy. So now the game has been changed from 'can't happen at all' to 'can't happen more than once in a short period of time'.Why not?What will you say when we eventually show empirically that they did? Here's another prophecy; you'll decide it's all too complicated for you and you'll put it to one side claiming that it'll all be debunked in due course like you do with radiodating.

Since it really makes no sense to me at all, and contradicts what I've always thought defined a mutation: random mistake in replication, beneficial mutation very rare etc., I may very well forget this as I do forget stuff that makes no sense. I rather doubt that you understand it yourself. Well, if a mutation is a random mistake in replication, and beneficial mutations are extremely rare, yet somehow or other the moth situation has been explained as a mutation although it makes no sense to me how it could have been a mutation, nevertheless since they insist they can prove it I have to accept it as a single event, at least for now, somehow or other. But a complex event involving many random mistakes in replication over a short period of time, and of course all beneficial ones, which are supposed to be very rare, is either impossible or mutations are no longer being defined in the way I'm familiar with. They are now being described in terms that suggest they aren't so random, could even be predictable, aren't mistakes but have a purpose, and beneficial ones are far from rare any more. So which is it?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Even though it seems unlikely that a random mutation would just show up to turn a moth or a mouse a different color under the pressure of need

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So do we. That is why none of us believe it.But let us get to the real point.It doesn’t matter if, in principle, speciation - or at least the appearance of speciation - could occur without mutations. That makes no real difference to either of our positions.The question is the degree of involvement of mutation.Now we have evidence. We have proof that mutations occur. We do have examples of useful phenotypic changes caused by mutation. We know of genes with large numbers of alleles - notably in the immune system where variety is an advantage.We also have plenty of evidence that evolution has occurred on a scale that would be completely impossible without mutations playing a significant role. Even Darwin had enough for a string case. And that is what you are arguing against.It follows then that if you want to claim that mutations do not play a significant role, you need an equally strong case. And the theoretical possibility that speciation might occasionally occur without mutation playing a significant role is nowhere near that. Especially when it is backed up by ”examples” - like “ring species” or the wildebeests- which are only assumed to be examples.Denying that mutations are mutations does not help. Nor does asserting the the small differences between human and chimp keratin is somehow a problem for evolution. Neither does your refusal to even admit that you have been given serious answers - better than anything you have contributed to the discussion.This discussion is going nowhere because you have no worthwhile case. Blaming us for not believing you anyway only escalates the hostility without helping anyone (especially you).

The subject is the peppered moth, and Tangle is giving the current claim that it's been proved that the change was due to a mutation. I find this hard to believe but what he's saying has been said by others and supposedly proved. So you are disagreeing with this or what?

Well I see you've already started the process of forgetting it as you're still actually denying it. Despite the absolute proof provided. I certainly don't understand the molecular genetics underlying the discovery but the discovery itself is very easy to understand. Genes mutate and make a change to the organism. If that change creates a benefit for the organism it will be carried on to future generations. This is what happened with the moth and has been proven. It's very easy to understand isn't it? Do you recognise in all that the process of denial and forgetting at work? A couple of points.Something that can happen once can happen often. There's nothing preventing it and, as you've been told, for example, that there are about 100 mutations in every human individual and there are 8bn of us it is actually a certainty that it will continue to happen. Umpteen trillions of insects and billions of microbes in a handful of dirt etc etcIt's not a 'short' period of time, it's millions of years. Your denial of this for religious reasons does not change the facts.They're not all beneficial mutations - we only see the ones that survive and make a change.Mutations are defined as science defines them. You've been taken through this many times. But you 'forget' and apply whatever you prefer it to mean. No one is defining mutations as non-random, predictable, non-mistakes or purposeful. NO ONE. That would be unscientific and plain wrong. This is your own interpretation and imposition of an erroneous belief onto an unguided process. You really, really should know this by now - even if don't agree with it, there's absolutely no excuse for not understanding the position you're arguing against.

The moth did not change colour under 'pressure of need'. It changed colour because of a random mutation. The random mutation coincided with change in the environment that favoured it. It was all random, not purposeful. A coincidence. Forget purpose. Purpose has no part in the evolutionary process.