Potential falsifications of the theory of evolution

Molbiogirl writes; I could live with this statement. "mutations are non-random, but their effect on fitness are not yet fully known and may well be deterministic.And she writes; It would lend support to my positon on creation. That God, the Roman Catholic God created the Universe and all life in some way and that creation is Creatio Continium.I am also. I asked Percy for his definition of Creationist and he still has not given it to me.

Those are your words!!!
Jeezlooweez. Are you that thick? How? For the third time, HOW?And I still need the definition of "highly nondeterministic" v. "random".HINT: Generative learning structures and processes for generalized connectionist networks
Information Sciences
Volume 70, Issues 1-2, May 1993, Pages 75-108 Edited by molbiogirl, : No reason given.Edited by molbiogirl, : No reason given.

So the only one claiming that mutations are non-random with respect to fitness is you, and without any evidence to support the assertion.If you want to claim that mutations are non-random with respect to fitness then it is incumbent on YOU to cite the evidence necessary to conclude that mutations are, in fact, non-random with respect to fitness.What you have now constructed is a negative argument which is a logical fallacy. You have started with an assumption and until that assumption is completely ruled out you will not budge from this assumption. This is not how science works. How so, just out of curiousity? For the purposes of this question I am assuming that you are NOT an ID supporter so don't worry about getting your head bitten off.

Jar writes; My question is: May the mutations be non-random and in fact deterministic in regards to fitness?

How?Fitness is determined after the fact.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

From the viewpoint of an actual biologist, I would never call Shapiro's thesis "direct". It's a lot of showmanship. Frankly, there is nothing wrong with this per se. There needs to be a bit of salesmanship in every scientific paper. In fact, I have seen papers that are actually quite thin when it comes to actual scientific content but due to the style of the writing (aka showmanship) it was accepted for publication in a prestigious journal.What I see in Shapiro's papers is a lot of terms that were invented simply to make Shapiro's work seem more original. Everything he discusses is already known and described by terms already in general use amongst biologists. Instead of using these well known terms he invents his own (e.g. natural engineering systems). It would be like me describing the aerodynamics of a wing as the "fluidic engineered dynamos of turbulent lift", and then write an entire textbook as if I am describing a whole new field of physics. Why not just call it aerodynamics?At the same time, I don't want to discount Shapiro's contributions as it relates to his actual original research. He does quality lab work with well designed experiments.

The results of experiments are not consistent with non-random, deterministic mutations. The results are consistent with random, non-deterministic mutations. This is made clear in the two experiments I cited (twice) for you earlier. The mutations conferring phage and antibiotic resistance occur in a random generation in the absence of either phage or antibiotics. When these mutations occur they are either neutral or slightly deleterious (in the case of the tonB mutations conferring phage resistance). These mutations are not produced in response to the presence of either phage or antibiotics. In fact, these same mutations can be produced in the absence of the entire cell. They can be produced with nothing more than a DNA template and the required polymerases and cofactors.

Thanks again Taq. I have downloaded both papers and am in the process of trying to understand them.

The Luria-Delbruck paper is going to very hard to understand for the layman. That is why I linked to a webpage that boiled it down. However, the Lederberg paper is actually written in a very straightforward manner that you shouldn't have too much trouble understanding.It is also worth mentioning that Luria and Delbruck won a Nobel Prize primarily for the work described in that experiment.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

Taq writes; I apologize, I meant the term mobile DNA elements, as cited by Shapiro in his paper "Mobile DNA and evolution in the 21st century."

Jar writes; That is the understanding of science, my question goes to the possibility as to whether fitness is in fact determined by the non-random mutation itself.
Thereby questioning when in fact fitness is determined.

WK told you the same thing everyone else has been telling you. He was talking about probabilistic distributions, and that means there's something random going on.--Percy

Again, there seems to be a disconnect here. Of course an organism's fitness is determined by the mutations in it's genome. No one is arguing otherwise. What we are saying is that the processes that produce these mutations have no way of determining which of the mutations they produce will increase or decrease fitness. These processes are blind as to the effect of these mutations on fitness. This is what makes them random.

Taq writes; I am reading some papers now that seem to suggest that some non-random mutations may be such in re fitness.
One is by Barbara E. Wright in the Journal of Bacteriology, June 200, p.293-301, Vol. 182, No 11.
But right now I am not prepared to state that is what she means.
I will post what I think she means when I have reread it about 25 more times.Taq writes about my reply that I believe ID supporters would find Shapiro's work supportive to a degree of ID. .As I understand ID. They state that because of findings such as complexity etc. that there had to a Designer.
I would think Shapiro's talk of Natural Genetic Engineering, sentience in cells etc. that this would lead to a Designer. Just speculation on my part. I cannot speak for ID.

You seem to be suggesting that the cause of (a) mutation(s) is directed by some agency in order to compensate for a future event that would change the organisms fitness?Are you are suggesting that the mutation that allowed a strain of bacteria to be able to digest nylon was directed by some agency that had the foreknowledge of the discovery of nylon?