So if "most" means 90% (which is very charitable compared to the real world) this still leaves 1,000,000,000,000 x 10% = 100,000,000,000 undesired mutations. I don't think this math is so very hard. It might be harder if one couldn't afford to be off-the-top-of-one's-head charitable and had to quibble over which estimates to use. That's not the case. One can afford this luxury and more.
The mutations that aren't eliminated spread throughout the population. How many steps backward can one take for every step forward and still make progress? Even if the population only accumulated 2 bad mutations for every good mutation, extinction clearly must result; and it doesn't take a billion years either.
To help me better understand your discussion could you please define the following terms?
Ever hear the saying "the devil is in the details"? Well, we have quite the annoying devil at work here, in the wording of your request.
Had you said "To waste your time, could you..." I should have immediately recognized that as an honest request.
But you didn't. You said "To help me better understand...". History shows that any and all efforts I have ever made to help you understand have failed. I should set quite the poor example if I fail to learn the lessons of history.
Alternatively, we can view the situation as experimental science. All experiments involving myself helping LinearAQ understand have had negative results.
It would be unscientific for me to proceed as if this were not the case. The hype about creationists is that we're an unscientific sort, but even so, one shouldn't expect me to go
that far.
1. Mutation
2. Harmful Mutation
3. Beneficial Mutation
Like I said, had the request been worded "to waste time..." I would've taken it as honest. These terms have been used before many times. I doubt very much Linear is having trouble understanding them all of a sudden.
What do you mean by "The mutations that aren't eliminated spread throughout the population"? Are you saying that harmful mutations will spread throughout the population?
They will continue to do so, yes. Why do you even ask?
Subjective or no, I think we may need to consider some sort of rule about feigned stupidity. I question the wisdom of a no-limit policy on the practice. I should also find the arguments in favour either extremely interesting or funny; there is no third possibility. Naturally the rule wouldn't apply to newcomers, folks with only a handful of posts, unless they made claims about having obtained a level of education inconsistent with their posts.
But as long as there's no rule, I have a question for evolutionists: Is it accurate to say chickens come from eggs or is it an offensive lie?
*As a moderator, I'm duty-bound to refrain from stirring things up. It is a mistake to think that this makes me vulnerable to oh-so-typical evotactics. I have no duty to fall victim to junk tactics like this.*
My post has not been refuted. There has been no meaningful challenge to anything I said. Essentially it has been unopposed. Questions like this and appeals to magic and other utterly baseless assertions like LindaLou's do not constitute meaningful opposition, let alone refutation. There have been comments indicating "the ball is in my court"; but is it? How is my argument any less valid if I refuse to entertain questions of
this caliber? How does the bare assertion that I "don't understand natural selection" impact things?
Indeed, one need not label what really happens 'natural selection' in order to discuss it as I have. One can just talk about what happens when mutations are passed from ancestor to offspring. Better that evogods be left out when discussing reality, IMO.
As LindaLou's argument is essentially that the evogod of selection can function no matter what happens in reality, I don't know that it merits an additional response. Oh, and that I'm ignorant if I doubt it - can't overlook that. But I don't have a handy counter argument to the latter, so maybe she wins?
Oops! I just thought of a counter argument: Darwin claimed otherwise. She knows this. At one point she was prepared to give up Darwinism for earth-spirit-guided neo-Lamarckism. I wonder if she's confusing the selection god with the earth spirit... Hard to judge confusion in others sometimes, especially without cooperation on their part. I will confess I am pretty ignorant about the earth spirit espoused by fringe elements of the neo-Lamarckist community. Now that there's less peer pressure, it might be a good time for her to start a thread and educate us about the earth spirit. I'd also like to know how this is categorized as something other than ID; I suspect it's just politics.
At any rate, my point is that not just any old response is sufficient to refute something. Refutation requires a little more. Folks are entitled to their own opinion, but the type who accepts such as refuting what I said isn't going to care what else I might add anyway. Not at all. The mind of such is a tightly closed one.
