Why is evolution so controversial?

Well, there are a number of things wrong with this. Most obvious is your apparent assumption that every mutation in protein-coding DNA must be deleterious, which is known to be false.

As their estimate for U is between 1.5 and 4, and your estimate is 10.7, it is you who is rejecting their calculation, and you who should take this up with Nachman and Crowell. If you think you know better then them, you should say why, rather than referring me to a paper which says you're wrong and pretending that it says you're right.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

As has been pointed out, that is not a new finding. Nor is your substitution legitimate --- they can count the point mutations, you haven't counted the indels. Knowing how big they are isn't the same as knowing how many of them there are.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This appears to be gibberish. r is, obviously, not a constant. Well, your apparent belief that r can be taken to be constant is screaming twitching lunacy. That's a 10 on the silly scale. Sadly, creationists lie about numbers.

And yet it is trivial to prove that this cannot always have been the case. Unless you have proof otherwise. Show us a 50,000 year old lightbulb and we'll rethink that. Otherwise, we evolutionists will just go on believing what all the evidence shows.

Your argument consists of vague disjointed rambling without any actual math. To the extent to which it is meaningful, it is obviously false: "near extinction events" would, obviously, not make the population more heterogeneous.

Let's do some real math, if only to demonstrate what it looks like.So, let T = [T₁,T₂], and define a set F of functions T → R⁺, where each function in F represents one possible function of population with respect to time over the time interval [T₁,T₂].Note that for any n in the natural numbers, there is a function k_n in F given by k_n(t) = n for all t in T.We may define a function H : F → [0,1] given by saying that H(f) is the (average, statistically expected) heterozygosity of the population at time T₂ if the population over the time interval was given by f(t).For convenience, let us write that for any f, g in F we have f < g if and only if f(t) < g(t) for all t in T. It is evident that if f < g then H(f) < H(g), and in particular if f(t) < n for all t, i.e. f < k_n, then H(f) < H(k_n); similarly if k_n < g(t) then H(k_n) < H(g).Choosing any such f, g in F, we can of course construct a function j_λ in F given by j_λ(t) = ( 1-λ )f(t) + λg(t), which is well-defined, indeed sensibly defined, for λ in [0,1].Now it is evident that H(j_λ) is a function of λ and that this function is well-defined, continuous, and in fact monotonic over the domain [0,1]. By the intermediate value theorem, there is a value of λ such that H(j_λ) = H(k_n).Now it is trivially the case that we can choose an infinite number of pairs of functions fitting the bill for f and g as given above, such that the two functions are themselves linearly independent, and such that they do not form a basis for any member of any other pair on the list. And for any two such functions, as we have seen, there will be a linear combination such that H of that combination is equal to H of kn.

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It follows that: for any constant population size n, there exists an infinitely large number of distinct functions of population size with respect to time which will produce the same heterozygosity as though the population had been at that constant size over the same interval.

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So instead of saying "That is like balancing a bowling ball on the head of a pencil", zaius should have written: "This is like 'balancing' a bowling ball anywhere on an infinitely large and completely flat plain."

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(A pedant might object that the codomain of the functions in F should have been N, and that our conclusion should have read "very very large". On the other hand, T is not discrete, since time is not neatly broken up into generations for our convenience, and this would justify "infinitely large" after all. But all this is splitting hairs: zaius is completely wrong, and that's what matters.)

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Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Summary: you're completely wrong. The one that shows that the logistic equation has a stable equilibrium? Er ... what we're looking at here is something saying that a population of zero is unstable, but that logistic growth necessary is stable around the population K --- i.e. it's not like a pencil balanced on its end, but like a marble at the bottom of a hemispherical pit.When you yourself cite things that show that you're completely wrong, this is maybe a sign that you don't understand them.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Let's try to communicate the same point in a more intuitive manner. Zaius claims that the data for heterozygosity depend on the population holding exactly steady over a given period, that a "bumpy" population graph would not achieve the same effect. Intuitively this is obvious nonsense, and I've tried to bring that out. So, consider the three graphs of population with respect to time given below. The graph of k(t), you will note, shows the population holding steady at 10,000, and so in zaius' opinion represents the One True Graph.Each of these graphs will have associated with it a figure for the final heterozygosity of the population. Now you can see that since f(t) is always smaller than k(t), the heterozygosity associated with it will be less than that associated with k(t); and because g(t) is always larger than k(t), it must be associated with a greater heterozygosity.Now the point is that it is possible to construct a whole range of compromises, of weighted averages, between the graphs f and g. This will of course correspond to a range of heterozygosities between that associated with f and that associated with g. So we can choose one compromise between them associated with just the same heterozygosity as k.This is necessarily bumpy, since f doesn't go down where g goes up, and so the weighted average can't cancel out the bumpiness of the curves from which it's constructed. So we have at least one "bumpy" population curve which has the same effect on heterozygosity as the flat one.And there is nothing so special about f and g that we can't pull this same trick an infinite number of times using different curves to construct our compromise from.So there is, literally, an infinite number of things the population can do which will result in the same heterozygosity as though the population had stayed exactly the same over the same time period.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

No. This is why the things you yourself have cited say that you're talking crap. Explaining the phenomena in terms of established theories is exactly what scientists do. All the time. Haven't you noticed? Being an evolutionist, he does know exactly what evolutionist arguments have to do with. You, on the other hand, don't. Yeah, what actually deters you from carrying out a logical examination is that you have the same capacity for logic as an avocado. But when their tools were rocks, their ability to do so was rather limited. But it can't always have been.

Perhaps you could expand on this gibberish, both to clarify your point and because it promises to be extremely funny.

Oh, he's not applying Occam's razor. He's just mentioning it, as though the words "Occam's razor" were a magical incantation for making reality disappear.

The "final hope" rests on the overwhelming, crushing evidence of the fossil record, genetics, morphology, etc. And yeah, it seems pretty damn final. This is why the opponents of evolution are reduced to posting gibberish about clowns. Apparently that's their final hope.Let us know how that works out for you. Oh, there's no lack of creationists. It's just that all their arguments turn out to be stupid. Some of them involve driveling about clowns. Can you explain what you think the word "but" is doing in there?---I notice that none of this sad silly nonsense was a reply to my post. May I take it you find my point unanswerable?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Quite.Perhaps you should aspire to something more.

Well, surely the onus is on you. I mean, there aren't going to be any recent papers titled (for example) "The Logistic Equation STILL Has A Stable Equilibrium At K". Because no-one gets published asserting that truisms are still true. If you think that the existence of stable equilibrium is one of those axioms that's been thrown out (and your argument seems to depend on it) then it would be your job to find a recent paper saying so. Here is Velhurst's original paper on the subject, published in 1844. If you think it has been superseded, let us know where.