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To: js1138
I will donate a hundred dollars to FR in your name if you can find me a PhD biologist who is on record as expecting a boxwood to evolve into something that is not a boxwood in one person's lifetime.

I never said anyone said this is possible. Which is why evolutionist wave the magic wand labeled "time" and solve the problem without regard to the science.
204 posted on 04/15/2006 3:38:42 PM PDT by Old_Mil (http://www.constitutionparty.org - Forging a Rebirth of Freedom.)
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To: Old_Mil

So if paint doesn't dry in thirty seconds it isn't going to dry, and any reference to time in invoking magic?

Darwin used observed rates of variation in domestic plants and animals to calculate the minimum age of the earth. His estimate was not surpassed in accuracy for many decades. That is the power of an explanatory model. The need for time is not going to argue in your favor.


207 posted on 04/15/2006 3:46:09 PM PDT by js1138 (~()):~)>)
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To: js1138; Old_Mil
Why don't you just point out an instance where CG's logic is faulty? You know, provide some evidence for your claim?

Evolution is premised upon the basic propositions of mutation of organisms and environmental natural selection of those mutated organisms for enhanced survival and/or propagation.

Mutations can only be one of three possibilities in terms of natural selection: beneficial, detrimental, or benign.

There is a possibility that a benign mutation could become beneficial at a later time. However, it is an equal probability that it could become detrimental, as well. Consequently, a benign mutation must also ultimately be classed as either beneficial or detrimental.

The premise of natural selection must also be classed as a non-static, probabilistic mechanism, e.g., ice ages come and go, earthquakes disrupt local micro-environments, volcanoes erupt, etc. Consequently, there is a finite probability that a potentially beneficial mutation in one set of environmental natural selection conditions might occur when environmental natural selection pressures dictate that it is detrimental, or a best, benign. Since the geological record indicates the occurrence of environmental disruptions on frequent basis (in relative terms), the probabilities of a change in natural selection pressures must be rated as high. As a result the probability of a favorable mutation remaining favorable becomes even smaller.

The rate of mutation in organisms is "one mutation per locus per 10^5 to 10^6 gametes"(Campbell, 1990, p. 445). This rate must be multiplied by the probability that the mutation is beneficial (vice detrimental or benign) in terms of the natural selection environment at the time of its occurrence. This number, in turn, must be multiplied by the probability that the natural selection environment remains favorable for a long enough period of time for the “favorable” mutation to become established in a large enough population segment to ensure its adequate propagation to enough succeeding generations. Additionally, that probability must be multiplied by the probability that natural selection environment remained favorable even after a species-wide mutation is established.

Of course, the above probabilities are for a single favorable mutation to occur and become species-wide. One must now address the probability that a favorably mutated species undergoes a second favorable mutation and that the second mutation becomes species-wide and so forth until enough favorable mutations have accumulated to result in a completely new species.

Even, given the number of genes and number of alleles per gene in a typical organism, the number of zeroes after the decimal required for probabilities to combine to produce a new species is a number staggeringly small (astronomically small is not an adequate description). Even using the argument of “geological time,” i.e., millions of years for an event to occur, does not drive the probability to a point where more than a few (at best) new species could appear even under the most generous of assumptions.

In summary, evolution driven solely by mutation and natural selection appears to be an extremely implausible (mathematically speaking) explanation of the number different species observable. If mutation and natural selection are insufficient to explain the probability of observing the current number of known species, then the theory of evolution must be judged as an inadequate explanation.
209 posted on 04/15/2006 3:48:50 PM PDT by Lucky Dog
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