Mutations, bad not good (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, July 24, 2011, 08:06 (4872 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: Actually, and I hesitate to say it because it is really knit-picking language, one of the differences between the Fundamentalist and Evolutionist is exactly about whether speciation 'occurred'. [...] Did speciation occur, or are the fundamentalists right, and speciation was instituted from the beginning. In order to answer or argue that question the definition of 'species' and the mechanism by which it occurs MUST be defined.-Many of our discussions founder on language, since we are all ultimately bogged down by its inability to cope with reality. But I could respond to the above by saying that since we have living organisms as radically different as bacteria, mice and humans, speciation obviously 'occurred', only Fundamentalists say it 'occurred' at the beginning and not over the course of billions of years (and to hell with Darwin). I might also ask what you mean by 'instituted'. That too could = 'occurred', or perhaps 'was pre-programmed'. I agree with you ... it's nit-picking!-I also agree with your description of the article you referred us to as being "about as circular as they come", and I must confess it didn't help me one iota to understand what is meant by the term "species". The fact is that Darwin's comments on the problem, which I quoted in my post of 17 July at 22.43, remain just as valid today as they were 150 years ago. No-one has ever drawn a clear line of demarcation between species, subspecies and varieties, and unlike the author of the darwiniana article, I think this particular discussion does boil down to language. And in my view it's NOT necessary to establish clear borderlines, when every attempt to do so suggests that there are none. -In spite of this, lots of people have already made up their minds that a UI exists/doesn't exist, that it created or preprogrammed bacteria, mice and humans right at the start of the process, or that they evolved higgledy-piggledy over billions of years, and scientists are still able to search for and/or study the mechanisms that produced bacteria, mice and humans, and people can still decide whether it's likely that such mechanisms could assemble themselves by chance, etc....I needn't repeat all the questions humans strive to answer. Of course we cannot know the ultimate truth, but in order to continue the quest, why MUST we define a term which has been invented by humans to cover distinctions that ultimately seem impossible to cover? All the experts cite example after example to support their arguments on these subjects. Then let us focus on the process and the mechanisms illustrated by the examples. Do the answers to such fundamental questions really depend on whether we call the wolf and the coyote "species" or "subspecies" or "varieties"? -I proposed that we define evolution as "the process by which living organisms have developed from earlier forms." You suggest: "the process by which living organisms change over the course of generations", as this does not "presume a process or mechanism that we have not defined." I think both definitions do precisely this, as each entails changes in organisms, and change must automatically involve a process and mechanisms that remain the subjects of ongoing investigation. Otherwise, though, our definitions are very different. Mine looks back to a line from the respective present to the past, whereas yours is ambiguous to say the least, and could mean that no form of organism ever remains the same over the course of generations. Perhaps we should have another look at this, but what are the objections to my definition?-I'm touched by the comments you and DragonsHeart have made about the website. I regard it as a privilege to be involved in discussions like ours, and although inevitably we often find ourselves going over familiar ground, I'd like to think that each return visit yields enough new insights to make it worth everyone's while. Mercifully, we've been lucky enough to escape any permanent attention from those who prefer slanging matches to genuine exchanges of views.