Originally Posted by Russell2
Hi RAZD and CTD

Those bacterial experiments I explained earlier are a prime example where only one DNA strand was present at the initiation of the experiments yet we can now count mutations (as any variation from that original DNA pattern is a mutation) and we can observe their effects.
Assuming changes weren't the result of pre-programmed information, they'd be mutations. This is the factor that some evolutionists would have us overlook.

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For evolution to work there has to be some beneficial mutations, that’s it. If you could show that there were no beneficial mutations, ever, you would have disproven ToE.
Which is just another way of saying it's unfalsifiable. We can only observe in the present, and have no access to ever.


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Vestigial organs are very interesting and much misunderstood by creationists in particular and many others in general. A vestigial organ in evolutionary terms is not an organ with no current function, if it had no function today it would probably have disappeared altogether or would at least be in the process of doing so. The correct definition of a vestigial organ is one that has lost its primary function.
Yes, we know the definition's been changed in order to lower the bar. Old news. And the new definition's not much use because the "primary function", rather than being a fact, is a conclusion/assertion of the evolutionist.

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The appendix is an organ used for cellulose fermentation in the vast majority of creatures who possess one and, in creatures who actually use it, it contains a high concentration of cellulose digesting bacteria. It is in effect a bacterial nursery. In humans it has lost this previously primary function.
Just as I said.

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Like most organs the appendix housed more than one function but in humans at least its primary function is no longer necessary and the organ has shrunk significantly as a result. That is the definition today of vestigial.
And yesterday's definition? It must be discarded on the say-so of talkdeceptions?

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R2 omits to mention that DNA can be read more than once. It is sometimes read forwards, then again backwards and/or skipping every so many letters.

I omitted to mention many things that may in time come to be relevant to this discussion. I’m not writing a text book on the subject here. When such things are relevant I’ll discuss them. How is any of that relevant to what I said? Does it change the understanding I have presented in any way?
I explained how it is very much relevant. If a text contains two or more messages, rendering any of them illegible is not 'neutral'.

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And the only way for a typo to fail to degrade a text is if an optional letter or a placeholder is involved. For example, potatoe can lose the e on the end and still be potato. Both spellings are correct. Also, a partially degraded text can be read sometimes, but further deterioration will make it useless.

Yes I understood already CTD that you don’t know how DNA works so let’s look at how it actually works. It’s not a language like English so your analogy fails.
It is a language written with letters. I didn't invent the analogy - it's already been used by scientists.

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If you wanted to write Leucine (a protein base) in DNA you could write UUA or UUG or CUU or CUC or CUA or CUG for instance. Now obviously any mutation that changes one of those codes say corrupting UUA to UUG would be silent and so Neutral as they both spell Leucine.
Really? You assume CUU is a synonym for CUC, but who's to say it isn't a misspelling which can still be read? Unless you know the correct spellings, you have no idea if the information has degraded or not.

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And the fact remains: not all functions of any given stretch of DNA code are known.

That’s true, for non coding DNA, DNA that does not contain start/stop codons and so does not get transcribed into mRNA. Some such DNA stretches have been shown to have regulatory functions so it’s not easy to determine if a given stretch of DNA has no function though much of it does not appear to. Knockout experiments have shown that perfectly healthy organisms can be created with some large stretches of ‘silent’ DNA removed so that’s at least suggestive that it lacks function.
See what I said about hotkey code in a word processor. And 'suggestive' is a far cry from 'conclusive' outside of evospeak. I venture to say all arguments from ignorance are the result of abusing "something suggestive" in this manner.

Dark Matter + Dark Energy = Dark Truth

"We find that such evidence demonstrates that the ID argument is dependent upon setting a scientifically unreasonable burden of proof for the theory of evolution." - Judge Jones Kitzmiller case
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/Falsify.cfm

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