Let’s get straight to the point shall we.

You say you don’t believe that complex life could organise itself. Well what you really have to look at here is the very first, simple, primitive single-celled organisms, different from anything alive today (which would outcompete or eat them), because as millions and even billions of years went by they evolved into more complex structures.

Amino acids and other complex molecules are known to form even in space. I like to keep abreast of the latest astronomy news and I know that just recently some of these discoveries have been reported. Some good information has also come from space probes that crashed into comets or that brought back samples from them. Be as incredulous as you like, it’s the truth. (I truly hope you come up with an original or even rational response to this, rather than the usual “you don’t know what you’re talking about,” or “it’s all a hoax”.)

Nobody denies that the origin of life on earth is an extremely difficult problem. That it has not been solved, though, does not mean it is impossible. There are all kinds of fascinating ideas and research going on regarding this. I, too, stand in awe of the very nature of life; but not fully understanding something piques my interest for investigation; it does not lead me to decide that the only explanation must be divine in origin. No good scientist thinks we know it all. Many creationists seem to think this though, and like to claim that every admission that science doesn’t understand something is proof that science is wrong. Not logical folks.

Also, no one would claim that Darwin’s theories explain how life actually began, though they do a very plausible job of explaining the rich diversity of creatures that have existed on the earth since then.

You have repeated your roulette analogy here. What you seem to be saying is that the odds of beneficial mutations, leading to the evolution of successful new species, are very small, is that right? You are looking at this process as one of pure chance, and that is where you are mistaken about how the process actually works. Firstly, linking to what I just said, it is rather specious to say that DNA organised itself into complex structures procuding human beings. Once life on earth began, it gradually became more complex as it evolved. It literally took billions of years for single-celled organisms to become arranged in the first simple soft-bodied life forms. There must have been a lot of mutation and natural selection going on during that time. Natural selection and genetic variation are not chance, properly understood, so the roulette analogy becomes meaningless in this context. Do you actually have On the Origin of Species to refer to when checking your understanding of evolutionary vocabulary, and the actual source of many of the ideas you are debating?

You said: “This concept of ‘time’ is added to confuse the issue to those who don't understand how this works.” Would you explain what you meant by this please?

Saying that chimps changed into humans is surprisingly simplistic for someone who says he’s been “researching” this for years. Evolution doesn’t quite work that way. You said the changes from ape to human are statistically impossible. Again, genetic variation and natural selection are not pure chance, so this argument is meaningless. Do you want me to define natural selection and genetic variation for you?

You go on to list all sorts of organs and systems that you say are too complex to have evolved. You seem fond of expressing your incredulity, but this is not exactly a scientific or logical approach to any subject. Evolutionary mechanisms do account for the evolution of complexity, since non-lethal mutations tend to add more components to simple systems than they remove (Soyer and Bonhoeffer 2006). This is from an abstract of Lenski et al. (2003, 139) and should hopefully dispel some of your incredulity. I trust you will therefore have the patience to read it:

***A long-standing challenge to evolutionary theory has been whether it can explain the origin of complex organismal features. We examined this issue using digital organisms -- computer programs that self-replicate, mutate, compete and evolve. Populations of digital organisms often evolved the ability to perform complex logic functions requiring the coordinated execution of many genomic instructions. Complex functions evolved by building on simpler functions that had evolved earlier, provided that these were also selectively favoured. However, no particular intermediate stage was essential for evolving complex functions. The first genotypes able to perform complex functions differed from their non-performing parents by only one or two mutations, but differed from the ancestor by many mutations that were also crucial to the new functions. In some cases, mutations that were deleterious when they appeared served as stepping-stones in the evolution of complex features. These findings show how complex functions can originate by random mutation and natural selection.***

Let’s take just one example from your list, because this is going to be another book at this rate. The eye. Darwin himself said that the evolution of the eye seemed “absurd” at first glance (pardon the pun), but he then went on to follow that statement with a three-and-a-half-page proposal of intermediate stages through which eyes might have evolved via gradual steps:

·photosensitive cell
·aggregates of pigment cells without a nerve
·an optic nerve surrounded by pigment cells and covered by translucent skin
·pigment cells forming a small depression
·pigment cells forming a deeper depression
·the skin over the depression taking a lens shape
·muscles allowing the lens to adjust

All of these steps are known to be viable because all exist in animals living today. The increments between these steps are slight and may be broken down into even smaller increments. Natural selection should, under many circumstances, favour the increments. Since eyes do not fossilise well, we do not know that the development of the eye followed exactly that path, but we certainly cannot claim that no path exists.

I could give some examples of these steps from comparative anatomy and genetics if you like, or is this enough?

If this post is getting too long for peoples’ liking, I would add that I am just responding to the points Russ raised, many of which I’ve seen bounced around all over this forum without challenge, and it’s about time they were. I don’t like writing long posts myself and would ask again that people posting points for discussion would limit them to one or two at a time.

I do like your list though, Russ. It implies an appreciation of the wonder of life, which we both share.

OK, massive numbers of small changes in fossils. Why exactly are you wanting “massive numbers”? Look at how fossils came to be in the first place. (No, not all as hoaxes put together by the Chinese.) Certain conditions are required for a carcass to fossilise. That fossil then has to stay intact for many years, in some cases millions or even billions, without ending up being pulled into the mantle by subduction of the earth’s crust, without being eroded away by wind or water, without being destroyed as the crust buckles and crumples into hills and mountains, or fuses rocks together in its depths. We haven’t even found all of the fossils in the world; there must be many more buried under the earth, under ice or under lakes and oceans that no one has by chance come across. I’ve said elsewhere that there are transitional forms, though creationists don’t seem to like to admit that this is what these are, or always seem to want an extra “step” between two of these forms. Some changes do take place rapidly and this can be explained in a number of ways, one of them being punctuated equilibrium. PE doesn’t attempt to explain anything away, it is a workable hypothesis. Even if the whole thing were completely discredited tomorrow, it would not invalidate all of evolution. Scientists coming up with ideas, and testing them, in order to explain the evidence at hand is what science it all about. I suspect you made the “explain it away” remark because that is what a creationist sets out to do for as many concepts of evolution as possible, but that’s by-the-by. PE itself has not been discredited, though there are some major difficulties with phyletic gradualism – is this what you were referring to?

You say we should see millions of malformed fossils representing the “bad” mutations. This expectation springs more from nuclear disaster scenarios than the true concepts of evolution. You need to look at how mutations happen and how they actually work, in the animal and in the species. Whole books have been written on this topic. It is true that in modern nuclear disasters, we have seen some horrific mutations in life which has been exposed to radiation. Are you wanting to see fossils that also show these kinds of horrific mutations? Very unlikely, for a number of reasons:

Nuclear disasters don’t happen in nature. These can cause extensive damage throughout the body. Natural mutations don’t work like that.

Most mutations occur at a molecular level. Most of the time they have no perceptible effect at all, or are fatal (thus the animal would not survive to reproduce). If the animal does not reproduce, you are asking for a one-off unique fossil of a “bad” mutation showing perceptible “flaws,” like 5 legs? Like I said, this is something you might see in a film or in Chernobyl, but you’d be very lucky indeed to find such a fossil.

Almost all mutations which aren’t “silent” and which aren’t eliminated immediately are neither completely advantageous or deleterious. The mutation produces a slightly different protein, and the cell and the living organism work slightly differently. Whether the mutation is helpful or harmful depends on the environment. It could be either.

Right, the “population problem” now. What sort of a model are you looking at Russ, when you claim that the math doesn’t work? I can only conclude that you are making a lot of assumptions, such as the growth rate of the human population was always constant, which is a false. Wars and plagues would have caused populations to drop from time to time. In particular, population sizes before agriculture would have been severely limited and would have had an average population growth of zero for any number of years. Human hunter-gatherer numbers were limited by available resources and competition for them.

Finally, this quote from H. H. Newman. You could selectively quote any scientist and say that those quotes support your arguments. I have no idea of the context from which this was extracted. Giving the book and the page number only supports the likelihood that these words were indeed lifted from the book, do you expect me to go out and buy it to verify what is really being said? I would want to see the whole page, or preferably the whole chapter. The quote I gave above from Darwin? You could lift that out of context too, quote Darwin as saying that the idea of eyes evolving is “absurd,” and leave it at that. Lots and lots of people use this tactic but it’s just plain dishonest.

Right, I think that’s everything for now. Please PLEASE can we try to keep posts briefer. It’s doing my cortisol in and frankly there are more important things I should be doing with my time. Shorter posts here and there are surely preferable for most people.

I’ll start. Archaeopteryx. Discuss.

Linda.