A test for claimed knowledge of how macroevolution occurs

Why do people allow themselves to impute motives to others that can't possibly be known? It creates noise in a conversation having to deal with all that error and the error may persist for pages and pages and in fact never be corrected and it comes to be taken for truth no matter how many times it may be corrected.Oh well.No, the "problem" I'm having is that I've LEARNED from YOU EV-OS that mutations are RANDOM and beneficial ones VERY RARE. So when I hear that one has conveniently turned up "just in time" to save the day as it were, I have a "problem" thinking of this as a mutation.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You, the most prolific practitioner, don't know? Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

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No, the "problem" I'm having is that I've LEARNED from YOU **** that mutations are RANDOM and beneficial ones RARE. So when I hear that one has conveniently turned up "just in time" to save the day as it were, I have a "problem" thinking of this as a mutation.

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I’m not convinced it was “just in time” and I don’t think you have a good idea of the time available either. Besides your extreme bias against mutations has been demonstrated here quite sufficiently.

Now there's another perfect example of nothing but "noise." You put out a lot of it.
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Uh? Why would it matter to the basic claim (that mutations can be beneficial and be selected for) which gene mutated?We also know exactly which gene did. Read the paper.

It's very rare for a mutation to show up and save the day. Well over 90% of species are extinct.Stunningly improbable events happen all the time. State lotteries are sucker bets with horrible odds against winning. Yet people win.

But Faith we KNOW it was a mutation. We have the proof. We can show you the gene that mutated. Your choice is to accept the science of show where it's wrong. You can not just have an opinion that it's wrong based on nothing but incredulity.

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Now there's another perfect example of nothing but "noise." You put out a lot of it.
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I will point out first that if the “just in time” is part of your assessment it is valid to question that. Compare my reaction to your similar point above.And it is a fact that you are biased against mutations - to the point where you tried to suggest actual mutations weren’t mutations.

The problem is that the explanations aren't convincing. Why aren't YOU skeptical of the timing? Not that it could be something other than a mutation but it doesn't fit the usual idea of a mutation and yet you are all just accepting it anyway.

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The problem is that the explanations aren't convincing. Why aren't YOU skeptical of the timing?

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I’m not because I am not convinced the timing was that tight, because melanism is fairly common (so likely there are other ways for it to happen) and because unlikely events do happen.

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...it doesn't fit the usual idea of a mutation and yet you are all just accepting it anyway.

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But it does fit the “usual idea of a mutation”.

Do you understand the difference between "rare" and "non-existent"? You seem to keep saying that evolution by beneficial mutation is "impossible" when the truth is that even you understand that it's rare. I think everybody here agrees that it's rare but like lottery wins, it does happen..

So you maybe think the genome knew back in 1811 that this mutation was going to be needed in 40 years? And that by 1895 it would cover 95+% of the population?I suppose that is the kind of majik religionists believe.

How would we know what "your usual idea of a mutation" is? Half the time you insist that mutations do not even exist. And why would we pay any attention to what "your usual idea of a mutation" is, when we have data from scientists who study and understand genetics and biology and evolution.In the papers I have read about it, it fits my idea of mutation perfectly.Until your fantasy scenario actually describes and explains what is actually seen in the genetics of various organisms no one is going to pay any attention to it.

95% of the population where? It was 98% in Manchester - a heavily industrial area. I really doubt that it was 95% of the national population.

I was kind of wondering if that was going to come up. A mutation that occurred so much earlier than it was needed raises the question how it could have survived the years when the other color characterized the entire population.I guess it survived in the two or five percent?But then I'm back to thinking no mutation was needed at all, just the usual built in variant.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.