Hi CTD

There is more than one way to define evolution but the following seems to me to be a concise yet accurate definition. Much more detail can be added to flesh out what exactly is going on but this gives a good basis for understanding how the term is currently understood in scientific circles

"[E]volution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next."
- Helena Curtis and N. Sue Barnes, Biology, 5th ed. 1989 Worth Publishers, p.974

OK that’s a bit short but it is accurate. Here’s a slightly longer version that fleshes out some of the detail. A full description could take pages with all the nuances that must be included to cover the full range of possibilities.

"Biological evolution ... is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution; individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportion of different alleles within a population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive alterations that led from the earliest protoorganism to snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions."
- Douglas J. Futuyma in Evolutionary Biology, Sinauer Associates 1986

Now from there we can discuss mechanisms etc but that’s what evolution is in a nut shell. The crucial part of the definition is inheritance. Mutations in all their forms, point mutations, insertions and deletions from whatever source, duplications, mixing, crossover etc all of these are mutations yet none are evolution. Evolution is the longer term effects of selection on the frequency of allele’s produced by mutation within the population. Allele variants are produced by mutation, selection then weeds out most of the variation, what remains becomes part of the future generations of the organism, the changes in the frequencies of those allele’s are evolution at its most basic level. Alleles are what is selected for or against in evolution. Most commonly it is the phenotypic products of allele’s that are selected for or against but not always.

It's really pretty simple: I accept legitimate science and I reject evolutionism.

It does sound simple but it glosses over the really important stuff. Most people would disagree with you about what ‘legitimate science’ is I would suggest including especially the vast majority of those who actually understand evolutionary biology.

We can discuss terms all day, I see a limited size in the intake manifolds as a control mechanism, all be it a passive one, while you don’t see it as a mechanism rather as a limiting factor. Either way I have shown you why a petrol engine is limited in its ability to rev beyond certain limits. Can you do the same for evolution?

The term 'neutral' is in this case not appropriate. 'Indeterminate' is the correct term, or 'unknown'. This would prevent erroneous arguments like RAZD's claim that mutations have been accurately counted and categorized, so we can clearly see why there is a preference for 'neutral'.

No the term neutral is in fact the most appropriate term for many of them. DNA produces (with help) mRNA which produces proteins. Changing the bases of DNA only sometimes changes the proteins that are produced at the end of that chain. Proteins do the work in our body while DNA is an information carrier. If the products of the information are not altered then the change in the information is correctly classified as neutral I would suggest. Not that any of that affects the argument just the percentages that happen to effect evolution. If every single mutation resulted in a phenotypic effect and so was selected for or against evolution would still occur just at a different rate to what we observe. Its like arguing about the arrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic. It’s irrelevant to the outcome in virtually every way.

Yet the category is labeled 'neutral'. Doesn't real science pride itself on accurate and precise language?

Yes neutral. Neutral because, to the best of our knowledgen such changes have no phenotypic effect. If we find out tomorrow that they do have an effect we will have learned that evolution has more data to act on. Evolution will still be true it will just work on a richer canvas that appears the case at this stage. So until information comes to hand to contradict it the correct term for changes in this DNA is neutral.

As for the links you’ll have to explain what that has to do with the arguments put here so far. There are a number of DNA repair mechanisms which remove DNA damage (insipient mutations). This can include removing point mutations and other forms of damage. That DNA can repair itself is well known, the only way it achieves such a high degree of fidelity in duplication is by self repair mechanisms. All of these mechanisms combined don’t get replication to 100% fidelity so some mutations remain, these are a largely but not completely random subset of the mutations that arose and they are what selection has to work with to drive evolution. There are even some instances of programmed DNA modification; these are the rare exception not the rule but they do exist. None of that challenges evolution. If all mutations were programmed that would be amazing, it would throw evolution as we currently understand it out the window at one stroke but that’s far from the truth. Even with all the known mechanisms of purposeful DNA modification or repair the vast majority of mutations are still uncontrolled random events and evolution, through selection, works on them to produce changes in allele frequencies over time from one generation to the next which is the definition of evolution. Some organisms have interesting ways of reproducing, even bacteria undergoes recombination of a sort. None of that challenges evolution again it’s just filling in the details of how evolution works.

In short there are mutations, selection removes some and so changes the frequencies of the allele’s that remain based on the environment the organisms inhabit in such a way as to ‘improve the fitness’ of future generations of that organism. That’s evolution in a nutshell and nothing you have said casts any doubt what so ever on that.

In Reason

Russell