No its much worse than that. If you even mention something other than evolution you get black listed. Journals don't accept papers that prove evolution wrong regardless of how scientific and rigorous they are. Here is an example, though it only deals with intelligent design scientists..

It would be like someone writing an article about the earth not being flat and proving it with the pendulum test and being black listed from jobs and journals. Oh wait that did happen...

Actually if you read my posts in this thread every instance where a claim is made of a new trait being found, it turns out it was a loss of genetic data or cross breeding in the case of the lizards (as I explained 10 lizards is not enough genetic diversity to sustain a population you would need around 44 lizards minimum and even then you would have to selective breed for the first few generations).

Also I'm not advocating they teach something else, just stop teaching false hoods and claiming the theory of evolution holds up under scientific scrutiny.

One of the problems I have is people get all upset and say something can't come from nothing, then go on later to show support for the big bang theory where the entire universe just exploded into existence from nothing or even worse support the idea that matter and non-matter are opposites and caused each other to exist (hint anti-matter is the opposite of matter, not the lack of matter).

When they actually try to argue with data, I show it to be misunderstood or false. I'm still waiting for an actual factual scientific explanation of how new genetic data is added to a species.

The articles have not been debunked. The article you referenced (Bozorgmehr, Joseph Esfandiar Hannon. 22 December 2010. Is Gene Duplication a Viable Explanation for the Origination of Biological Information and Complexity? Complexity, published online, DOI 10.1002/cplx.20365, pp. 1-14), does nothing to debunk the theory of gene duplication. In fact, just reading the Abstract for it on http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 5/abstract shows that this article is in SUPPORT of it! Here's the quote:



The only thing it states is that, while it's good enough for EVOLUTION, it is not good enough for origin of the genome.

Your facts are wrong Lokiare.

Sure. Religious authorities had problems with it and they were highly powerful organizations with motives apposed to the science. Your comparison fails.
Now you're comparing something I've got no idea what you're talking about to my statement about objective facts.
...No, you're going to have a hard time doing so because the content of your case is stupid. Of course, I may be wrong. Care to cite an example of something like that happening in modern times?

The phrase "in other words" is used to mean "another way of saying the same thing." But what you've said here is somthing different. Per the article you cite, there is a mutation in the the gene—a change in just one DNA letter that changes one of the amino acids. The change in the phenotype, the lack of red-yellow melanin, could be missunderstood as a loss of data. But it isn't. It is a change, as evidenced by the italicized quote above (please note the word "change" as well.) This is new data. You can say it is a change that doesn't matter, or that it is a negative change, but whatever else you have to say, it is a change in the data and not a loss of data. This is explicit from what you quoted. This isn't my data.



You need to "see above" yourself. There was no loss of a protein. There was a change in the protein that affected a change in the tiger. This is exactly what you keep missing. You tell people to read their own citations. You need to do the same. This isn't just a part of the citation you missed, this is the part that you yourself quoted.



Since you missed the most important part of my post, I'll say it again:



No, read your cited article on white tigers, above. Not a loss of genetic data. A change. And for a second time I'll ask you to explain how 10 lizards is not enough but "around 44" is. You haven't explained how you arrived at these numbers, or provided any evidence that there were more than 10 beyond saying "it isn't enough."



The reason they are taught is that they do hold up. You've not only failed to debunk anything, but you can't support your own claims, and when people point this out, you ignore them.



Please show me my false data or why anything I've asserted above is invalid or unsound. In the example of the tiger above, you've provided the data yourself. You can't argue with the source, because it is a reputable publication, as well as your own citation. The language is simple and clear, and there is no misunderstanding it.



Hahahahahahaha wait, what? What? You literally just blew my mind. My brain has just exploded out of my head, and is probably flying somewhere over Mexico right now.

this thread isn't about pokemon

I really wanted it to be.

What's wrong with a little digital Satanic cock-fighting?

EDIT: Peta showed me how it's done!

No sorry. If we are talking about the moths, its widely known that the different colors are recessive and dominant traits.

If we are talking about the lizards, I've already talked about how the gene pool wouldn't have been big enough to support them let alone for them to magically grow an organ in just a few generations (hint: not even serious evolutionists will claim creating a new organ in just 30 generations).



That article simply pokes holes in the validity of the research process used. It doesn't need to be a scientist pointing out the flaws like the assumption of birds eating the moths or the fact that he only observed a few hundred and that is not enough to do a reliable statistical analysis. However later on down the article he quotes scientist authored books on the subject. Here are some samples:

" I recommend the chapter that explains the actual parameters to Kettlewells experiment (chpt 6), it is fascinating, and would mute any further discussion. Just two “unnatural” examples can also be found in the popular press:

“The moths filmed being eaten by the birds were laboratory-bred ones placed onto tree trunks by Kettlewell; they were so languid that he once had to warm them up on his car bonnet (hood).” Calgary Herald, p. D3, 21 March 1999.

“University of Massachusetts biologist Theodore Sargent helped glue moths onto trees for the famous NOVA documentary. He says textbooks and films have featured ‘a lot of fraudulent photographs’.” J.A. Coyne, Nature 396(6706):35–36. & The Washington Times, p. D8, 17 January 1999."

"The Nitty Gritty – Sargent’s Work (from Of Moths and Men)
In a series of experiments between 1965 and 1969, Sargent tried to replicate Kettlewell’s background-preference work. He got contradictory results, and concluded that the moths’ resting places were genetically predetermined, not selected, as Kettlewell believed, by individual moths noting whether their “circumocular tufts” matched the background. Sargent has also found that the plants eaten by the larvae may induce or repress the expression of such “melanism” in adult moths (see Sargent T.R. et al. in M.K. Hecht et al, Evolutionary Biology 30:299–322, Plenum Press, New York, 1998)."

So it is a valid article because it talks about and quotes peer reviewed studies in books.



See above. I quoted a few. There is a very long one toward the middle that proves the original experiments were very poor and contradict later findings. In fact to avoid confusing I'll just quote it here:

"The following point is important to the understanding of how these moths change color and how this may have also impacted the population change in coloration:

[Sargent] noticed that the caterpillars eating the new-growth pine were growing more slowly that the ones in the other container, and they pupated and eclosed later. In both groups all the male moths were melanics, and among females overall there was a fifty-fifty ratio of typicals and melanics. This meant that, assuming the melanism was controlled by a sex-linked dominant allele, the melanic female had mated with a heterozygous melanic male. However, there was a statistically significant difference between the two groups. More than two-thirds of new-growth-fed female moths were melanic, while two-thirds of the group fed on old-growth needles were typical. A second experiment on 8 July yielded similar results. Sargent believed he had hit paydirt. “Something in the new-growth needles was favouring the expression of adult melanism,” Sargent explains….

…. Although Sargent would undoubtedly be described by nine out of ten eyewitnesses as “quiet and unassuming” – a mild, grandfatherly figure frequently overlooked by waiters in restaurants – he is a dangerous iconoclast in the eyes of the industrial melanism establishment. He finally published, with two co-authors, a devastating analysis of the classic industrial melanism story in 1998 (see below), concluding that “there is little persuasive evidence, in the form of rigorous and replicated observations and experiments, to support [the classical] explanation at the present time.” Although it enraged the community of his peers – Bruce Grant called it a “dreadful review” and a “hatchet job” – Sargent’s article was not the decisive confrontation of the peppered moth wars. That erupted in the 5 November 1998 issue of Nature, in a review written by Jerry A. Coyne, professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, of a new book by Michael E.N. Majerus. The book, called Melanism: Evolution in Action, was a watershed event. Methodologically and incisively analyzing every flaw in Kettlewell’s experiments and in the industrial melanism paradigm, Majerus’s book left no doubt that the classic story was wrong in almost every detail. [I separated it here for ease]:

a. Peppered moths, if left to their own devices, do not rest on tree trunks;
b. bird vision is nothing like human vision [referring to Kettlewell's vision scale that were part of his original thesis];
c. Kettlewell was wrong about how peppered moths choose their resting sites;
d. the high densities of moths he used may have skewed the results;
e. the method of release was faulty, and on and on.

The various predation have not replicated his results particularly well, and other “factors” kept having to be invoked to squeeze the data into the standard industrial melanism model. “The findings of [scientists since Kettlewell],” Majerus concluded, “show that the précised description of the basic peppered moth story is wrong, inaccurate, or incomplete, with respect to most of the component parts.”

The reader who makes his way through Majerus’s mountains of evidence is rather stunned to arrive at his verdict: that the basic story, while “undoubtedly more complex and fascinating than most biology textbooks have space to relate”, is perfectly fine. “My view of the rise and fall of the melanic peppered moth is that differential bird predation in more or less polluted regions, together with migration, are primarily responsible, almost to the exclusion of other factors.”

Jerry Coyne (who reviewed Majerus’s book), however, was “horrified.” The sheer magnitude of the problems itemized in the book filled him with dismay and something like shame. After all, he too had been teaching the “standard Biston story” for years. When he dug out Kettlewell’s original papers he found that things were even worse than he thought. How was it that the experiment that Coyne called the “prize horse in our stable of examples” had been accepted unquestionably all this time? …(continued below)"

That was a quote from a peer reviewed scientist's book.



No, sorry I did not cite evidence that debunks my stance. Inbreeding mutations are not new traits. They are recessive traits that are not desirable for survival. Not new genetic data.



Let me make it clearer then. That is impossible by any means, even if we assume new neutral or positive genetic mutations are added during each of the 30 generations.

After looking around for a bit, it turns out that these lizards do have the organ that was supposedly evolved. They just have it at a younger stage of life.

They also note that the changes occurred with a change in population density. As everyone knows when cricket and grasshopper population density swells they undergo physiological changes and become locusts.

So what we have here is zero evidence for evolution until someone sequences the DNA to tell if it was a genetic loss or a new gene that caused the cecal valves to remain to adulthood. In short "Not enough information".



Citation:
"The "50/500" rule of thumb initially advanced by Franklin (1980) and Soule (1980) comes the closest of any to attaining "magic number" status (Wilcox 1986). This rule prescribes a short-term effective population size (Ne) of 50 to prevent an unacceptable rate of inbreeding, and a long-term Ne of 500 to maintain overall genetic variability. The Ne=50 prescription (termed "the basic rule" by Soule 1980) corresponds to an inbreeding rate of 1% per generation, approximately half the maximum rate tolerated by domestic animal breeders (Franklin 1980). The Ne=500 prescription is an attempt to balance the rate of gain in genetic variation due to mutation with the rate of loss due to drift, and is based on a genetic study of bristles in Drosophila (Franklin 1980)."

You need way more than 10 lizards. 10 lizards 5 being male and 5 being female would equal an inbreeding rate of way over 1%.



Yes, I can't be 100% sure because I can't read the article. However every single article I've been able to access with a little bit of research turns out to be a recessive gene or a loss of genetic traits.



Yep, that one has been debunked for awhile. The article erroneously claims that this bacteria can't metabolize citrate, when in fact they have the ability to metabolize citrate in an non-oxidized environment.

Here is a better article that explains it more fully, though with the same 'evolution' slant.

Here is the Wikipedia article on the subject, and here is a quote that shows that it wasn't new genetic data but simply a gene duplication:

"In 2012, a team of researchers working under Lenski reported the results of a genomic analysis of the Cit+ trait that shed light on the genetic basis and evolutionary history of the trait.[5] The researchers had sequenced the entire genomes of twenty-nine clones isolated from various time points in the Ara-3 population's history. They used these sequences to reconstruct the phylogenetic history of the population, which showed that the population had diversified into three clades by 20,000 generations. The Cit+ variants had evolved in one of these, which they called Clade 3. Clones that had been found to be potentiated in earlier research were distributed among all three clades, but were over-represented in Clade 3. This led the researchers to conclude that there had been at least two potentiating mutations involved in Cit+ evolution. The researchers also found that all Cit+ clones sequenced had in their genomes a duplication mutation of 2933 base pairs that involved the gene for the citrate transporter protein used in anaerobic growth on citrate, citT. The duplication is tandem, resulting in two copies that are head-to-tail with respect to each other. This duplication immediately conferred the Cit+ trait by creating a new regulatory module in which the normally silent citT gene is placed under the control of a promoter for an adjacent gene called rnk. The new promoter activates expression of the citrate transporter when oxygen is present, and thereby enabling aerobic growth on citrate. Movement of this new regulatory module (called the rnk-citT module) into the genome of a potentiated Cit- clone was shown to be sufficient to produce a Cit+ phenotype. However, the initial Cit+ phenotype conferred by the duplication was very weak, and only granted a ~1% fitness benefit. The researchers found that the number of copies of the rnk-citT module had to be increased to strengthen the Cit+ trait sufficiently to permit the bacteria to grow well on the citrate, and that further mutations after the Cit+ bacteria became dominant in the population continued to accumulate that refined and improved growth on citrate. The researchers conclude that the evolution of the Cit+ trait suggests that new traits evolve through three stages: potentiation, in which mutations accumulate over a lineage's history that make a trait accessible; actualization, in which one or more mutations render a new trait manifest; and refinement, in which the trait is improved by further mutations."

In other words an already existing process was duplicated which allowed the bacteria to better process citrate while in an oxidated environment.



Unfortunately no one has as yet shown in the lab that this has happened. You are talking about imagining unverified speculation based on what you know. Its important to note that you can extrapolate incorrectly just as well as you can correctly.



You and others don't seem to grasp what I'm saying. Not only does it require hundreds of mutations, they have to be specific mutations and if they aren't they end up making the protein harmful to the organism. Scientists have admitted that they can't find a path of one protein evolving into another because during that path the mutations would kill the organism or render it unsuitable for its environment.



Loss of functionality. It turns a useful protein into a harmful or non-useful protein. Thus its a loss.

Your second sentence is pure nonsense and isn't what I was saying. Straw Man.



They are two different system. Its as simple as that. A factory that produces a specific set of gears is an open system. As soon as you go to put those gears together it is a closed system because the only thing that is happening is the placing of the gears together. You aren't adding new gears or modifying old gears by adding paint or whatever.

I understand it perfectly fine. Where has anyone shown that I don't?

I posted it in an earlier post, but people get fired and/or blacklisted for mentioning the opposition. So its a very real phenomenon.

I agree. Good thing none of that is going on in this thread. Well except for the repeated claims by the evolutionists for things that have been proven wrong over and over and over...

My goal posts haven't moved a bit. Go back and read my early posts. I'll summarize here:

The theory of evolution is a mishmash of provable theories and speculative hypothesis that are either unprovable, non proven, or proven false. The main one I have a problem with is the introduction of new genetic data through mutation. As I've shown its not only impossible, its been proven impossible.

I've gone through and actually shown in linked articles where those studies have been debunked. If you didn't read them that's on you not me...

The theory of evolution as a whole is made up of sub theories one of which is new traits added to cause change. Without that one foundational piece, the whole thing falls apart. Organisms could not have evolved from each other in the way they speculate.

Let me highlight the part that you missed. when you read those you realize that this vague statement actually indicates that the author can mean that there is not proof that gene duplication adds new genetic data (as well as several other possible meanings) you are simply reading your personal viewpoint into the summary.

I bow to your superior semantic skills and cede that I didn't explain it as well as I should have.



Again your semantics are superior to mine. The loss of the 'function' of the protein did happen though.



Actually, they don't and if you have any questions on specific articles or studies I'd be glad to run down the scientific proof that they aren't what they appear.



I'm not talking about your data. The misleading or false data of the scientists and article writers that people are quoting.



Hopefully you don't think that was a quote from me. If not and you still feel that way: Many scientists are black listed from journals and jobs if they so much as mention opposition or question some of these studies. I posted a link in an earlier post with a bunch of examples...

By looking at each study and seeing other scientists that have shown how they don't prove evolution even lay people like us can form an opinion. Its even easier when the pro-evolution crowd throw in logical fallacies left and right so we can disqualify their arguments without having to know a bit of science...

You should write a book.

Everyone has a hard time bringing up evidence to support a theory that goes against the grain of established scientific opinion, even if that theory later turns out accurate. If you can't admit that the scientific community, as a group of people, is weighed down by its own established biases, you should really consider whether you belong in the same community.

It's clear in your own response to Lilan, who posed a hypothetical situation of someone opposing evolution with or without quality evidence. You do realize you passed a judgment of "stupid" on a non-existent set of hypothetical evidence, right? There was not even evidence presented and you're prejudiced against it. Caveating that you are willing to accept yourself as incorrect doesn't diminish the barrier of your own bias -- what would it take for you to even get so far as such an admission? Read the Psychology of Intelligence Analysis for serious discussion of instilled bias.

In any case, I'm fine observing the discussing, and I think Lokiare is at least being slightly more respectful than he was with Glasir, which is too bad, because Glasir is a great person. I only piped up because "entropy" was being used very incorrectly, which would indeed be a red herring to Lokiare's primary assertion (but I wasn't arguing against his primary assertion, which is something I think he missed). I personally don't have the authority to discuss the theory of evolutionary biology in any seriously intellectual fashion, (unlike physics and biases).