A test for claimed knowledge of how macroevolution occurs

No, it isn't. Your model doesn't explain the pattern of differences between the genomes of species where transitions outnumber transversions and differences at CpG sites has the greatest number of differences relative to available bases. Your model also doesn't explain why we see more differences in introns than in exons when comparing genomes from many species. Your model also doesn't explain why we see a nested hierarchy.Your model can't explain the observations we see, so it isn't coherent.

I’ll just note that the evidence is strongly against some points - indeed we can say that the assertion that there are no useful mutations is definitely untrue - and there are a lot more details needed.I don’t think you have any idea of how you could get the same range of disease resistance with only two alleles per locus, for instance. Don’t forget that in that case half the population would be homozygous at any given locus.Nor do I think you have any sensible explanation for why the genetic difference in the peppered moth would look like a transposition (which is a known mechanism of mutation).A coherent model which is at odds with the evidence and heavily relies on ad hoc assumptions to try and cope with that is scientifically worthless and doesn’t deserve consideration. I don’t think that a single point in your model can be shown to be true or even likely.

Another big one is she cannot explain the pattern of endogenous retroviral (ERV) insertions seen in genomes of most organisms that also matches the nested hierarchy.

I don't see a need to be able to explain that pattern of differences. It fits your model, not mine. Same answer as above. It has never made any sense to me why evolution should form such a coherent pattern as a nested hierarchy anyway, so I don't see why I have to account for that either.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Same answer as above. None of it applies to my model though it may apply to evolution, though in the case of the nested hierarchy that doesn't even make much sense.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Great answer!

Not Faith's fault. I mistyped the wildcarding at the end of one word, "\S?*" instead of just "\S*". The "\S" is any non-white-space character, so "\S*" mhatches 0 or more of non-white space characters, in other words, all the characters until the end of the word, include characters like "-" that Faith was using to avoid the filter. The erroneous "\S?*" matches one non-white-space character followed by 0 or more of any other character, i.e., it matches the entire message.It's fixed now. Again, apologies to Faith. I'll try to be more careful in the future, but when proofreading one can easily miss mistakes in regular expressions.

So much love I always get from you, and the Cheers section too.

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I don't see a need to be able to explain that pattern of differences. It fits your model, not mine.

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That’s an admission that the evidence is on our side.

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It has never made any sense to me why evolution should form such a coherent pattern as a nested hierarchy anyway, so I don't see why I have to account for that either.

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It is quite simple really. When a population splits into two or more species both populations will - in general - retain the ancestral traits, while developing new traits of their own. A nested hierarchy is the expected outcome of evolution. And I have to point out that your are not absolved of explaining the evidence just because you don’t understand your opponent’s explanation.The nested hierarchy speaks very strongly against separate creations which can’t be expected to neatly fall into that pattern.

The pattern of differences are observations. If your model can't explain what we see in nature then it isn't a coherent model. It makes sense to anyone with a basic understanding of how genetics and inheritance works. For complex eukaryotes you can only inherit DNA vertically, from ancestor to descendant. Therefore, mutations that happen in a lineage stay in that lineage. This produces a pattern of shared DNA inherited from a common ancestor and lineage specific mutations. This is a nested hierarchy.

Why wouldn't the observation of ERV's in different genomes apply to your model? If your model can't incorporate the facts of biology, then it isn't a coherent model.

It's meaningless in my model. There are all kinds of facts that can be ignored in contexts where they are irrelevant. I guess it means something in your model, but not in mine.

If observable facts are meaningless in your model then it isn't a coherent model. Can you explain why the genetic differences between species is irrelevant in your model? Don't the genetic differences between species explain the physical differences between species within your model?

That's silly. There are lots of observed facts that have no relevance whatever to a particular context.

Why don't DNA sequences have any relevance in your model?Are you saying that your model can't explain anything about genetics?