I'm a scientist---I do that for a living. Based on thirty years of experience in science, I have yet to see any scientific evidence that contradicts evolution (and I include all the "evidence" that shows up on the evolution/creationism threads here).
DNA is a chemical system (I'm a chemist). Chemical systems are influenced by the environment in which they happen. Stress changes the chemical environment within living systems--therefore, the rate at which DNA changes SHOULD change. I have long felt that the idea of a "constant" molecular clock was not valid (based on chemical considerations). The best one can do is develop an AVERAGE rate of change of DNA change based on kinetic rates in systems we have evidence for today. I also expect that they will find (when enough evidence has been collected), that the "clock tick rate" will vary from one species to another.
Doesn't that make "clock" a meaningless term.
Have you ever (in your 30 years experience) created anything useful by randomly mixing chemicals?
As you suggest, Wonder Warthog, evolution/gene mutation does seem to go hand in hand with added stress. A microbial evolutionist here at MSU separated a culture of bacteria into three separate cultures a decade or so ago and has followed their evolution/ gene mutation through about 30,000 generations. Their evolution does seem to be punctuated and stress-induced. Interestingly, the three separate cultures of the same bacteria have had different gene mutations that allow it to cope with the same stressor. The different cultures are evolving in different ways to deal with stresses to their environment. Pretty amazing.
Yada, yada, yada.
How exactly DOES one predict the fluctuations in
the molecular clock in time to come?
How specific does a change in the environment have
to be before the mutations "notice" ? On what
time scale and geographical scale does the inhomogeneity
exhibit itself?
Or alternatively, going back in the past, can one
correlate periods of environmental stress in a
geographical region, and the specific type of stress:
long-term drought, "Ice Ages", layers of iridium-rich
particulates billowing upwards :-)
to specific changes in the speed of the molecular clock?
Do all species in a region have their clocks thrown
off by a similar or corresponding amount?
More details, please.
Perspiring minds want to know.
PS Please do not rely on ad hominem defense to back up
your claims ("thirty years in science...") Science was supposed to have replaced scholasticism ("because I'm the parish priest; because he's Mohammed; "Galen says. . ." etc.) with observation, long ago. Try to be more consistent.
PPS If thirty years of consistency on the part of a model
were long enough to establish it irrefutably, we'd
all be breathing phlogiston :-)
We've done all kinds of "laboratory" mutation management over the history of the development of livestock. We've selected out in Europe for a sheep that cannot shed its wool, thereby making for a very long "staple" of wool. Some sheep (hundreds of generations bred in Australia, in isolation from Iceland)--have deeply wrinkled skin to allow for many more follicles, and much more wool. Then there're all the sheep selected for twinning (meat sheep). All are still sheep.
At the same time, we have large goats in India which have long and floppy ears to help with managing the heat. Also, they have an amazingly high butterfat content in their milk. There are goats in the arctic regions bred to have no ears at all!! There are dainty little angora goats, barely bigger than cats, to produce mohair--these enchanting creatures have long silky, snowy ringlets--they always make me think of unicorns. Alpine goats. Goats in South America. Goats in South Africa. Same old goat.
Of course, then the Hans Vavink Protocol comes into play--"time, the fullness of time... "Fullness of time"--not enough millions of years.
Well, why not fruit flies? We've been breeding the insect, blessed with a short generation (24 hrs) since we started studying genetics three hundred years ago. Still no new fruit flies, despite the extravagant promises of PhDs at the University of Chicago (who recently claimed to have created a new species of fruit fly through the advances in microsurgery.)
You speak of not having any evidence of any good alternative to the reasonable theory of evolution.
Keep in mind that this theory depends on millions of fortuitous accidents happening in fortuitous order--and every time someone (some fundamentalist hick, maybe?) observes that the whole scenario is absurd, we hear about how "millions of years" explains away the difficulties.
Millions of years, or God, what difference? Both theories are unprovable and utterly unaccountable.