Simple Questions For Those Who Believe That Evolution Is The Answer For Everything

originally posted by: MarsIsRed
From all these replies, I can confidently state that I'm no longer rational! Creationism has won!

If micro evolution equals one, and macro evolution = 1000, then it's clear that millions of generations of micro evolution still equals one, because there are only ones! It's all about founding logic in tooth faery belief! 1+1+1+1+1 = 1! Stunning logic which dumbfounds me! GRRRRR

Well, prove all the articles wrong then. Take it up with the scientists who performed the experiments. Macroevolution can't even be tested by science, therefore it remains assumption.

Please, you are making the claim of macroevolution, prove it.

what you call "macro evolution" has been observed, kinda rendering you're entire argument defunked!

At least you realised the obvious sarcasm in my post.

For the record, "Macro evolution" doesn't need to be tested, it's observed! The theory (ies) of evolution only try to describe what is observed, not what is expected.

a reply to: WarminIndy

Um, information functions the way information functions.

Quite.

But not the way that Dembski talks about. DNA is not hardware, DNA is wetware. There is information stored in DNA, to be sure, but the mechanisms are biochemical not electrical. The biosphere is not a closed system, information IS added all the time. Every day, 24 hours a day, every nanosecond of every minute.

a reply to: WarminIndy

Why can't the "micro" evolutionary changes add up over time leading to greater change?

You can post non sequitur after non sequitur, but it's not going to make this question go away.

So if one single hypothesis was proven wrong, then every process he hypothesized surround it, are now null and void, the hypothesis is wrong, find another one.

And? What does that have to do with your questions and the conversation? Are you suggesting evolution has been proven wrong because of a single lesser known hypothesis about competition within groups? What are you getting at? Evolution is a theory, not a hypothesis. Which other hypotheses are you referring to?

a reply to: WarminIndy
What? How on earth have you come to this conclusion? Are you just pulling these arguments out of your a@#?

originally posted by: rnaa
a reply to: WarminIndy

Um, information functions the way information functions.

Quite.

But not the way that Dembski talks about. DNA is not hardware, DNA is wetware. There is information stored in DNA, to be sure, but the mechanisms are biochemical not electrical. The biosphere is not a closed system, information IS added all the time. Every day, 24 hours a day, every nanosecond of every minute.

Thank you, it is not a closed system.

Where does the original information come from? That was one of the questions. Information doesn't make itself up.

originally posted by: Barcs
a reply to: WarminIndy

You keep asking "Why can't they?" Well, do they?

Small variations are not massive changes. Even Darwin conceded this, and his book On the Origin of Species By Natural Selection is based in selective breeding, which I have proposed since the beginning of the thread. Have you actually read the book? It is available on Gutenberg.org and you can download it to your pc and read it on any ereader device.

Here is in his introduction

This Abstract, which I now publish, must necessarily be imperfect. I cannot here give references and authorities for my several statements; and I must trust to the reader reposing some confidence in my accuracy. No doubt errors will have crept in, though I hope I have always been cautious in trusting to good authorities alone. I can here give only the general conclusions at which I have arrived, with a few facts in illustration, but which, I hope, in most cases will suffice.

Errors will have crept in, because it is not perfect. That's because he didn't know anything beyond selective breeding. The first chapter deals with horticulturists breeding flowers and animal husbandry.

To begin with, he immediately proposes that changes are made from embryo to adult.

There are many laws regulating variation, some few of which can be dimly seen, and will be hereafter briefly mentioned. I will here only allude to what may be called correlation of growth. Any change in the embryo or larva will almost certainly entail changes in the mature animal.

The whole first chapter deals with plants and domesticated animals and mentions nothing about humans except for the selective breeding that man does.

Let us now briefly consider the steps by which domestic races have been produced

Here, domestic races is merely referring to domesticated animals that are indigenous to an area, and here is Darwin on creation

. On the other hand, if we look at each species as a special act of creation, there is no apparent reason why more varieties should occur in a group having many species, than in one having few.

And this variation is much less than differences overall.

And what are varieties but groups of forms, unequally related to each other, and clustered round certain forms—that is, round their parent-species? Undoubtedly there is one most important point of difference between varieties and species; namely, that the amount of difference between varieties, when compared with each other or with their parent-species, is much less than that between the species of the same genus. But when we come to discuss the principle, as I call it, of Divergence of Character, we shall see how this may be explained, and how the lesser differences between varieties will tend to increase into the greater differences between species.

This is Darwin and his abstract that started the whole arguments, with people never reading the book and only teaching the cherry-picked quotes. Darwin himself said to look at creation on the other hand and consider it.

The struggle for existence by competition has now been proven wrong. And he states all of this in the metaphorical sense.

I should premise that I use the term Struggle for Existence in a large and metaphorical sense, including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny

Metaphorical | Define Metaphorical at Dictionary.com
dictionary.reference.com/browse/metaphorical
Dictionary.com
a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance,

If he says that he uses it in a metaphorical sense, it is not literally applicable. In other words, where the lack of empirical evidence is, he makes a metaphor for his comments.

Environment plays a role

Climate plays an important part in determining the average numbers of a species, and periodical seasons of extreme cold or drought, I believe to be the most effective of all checks

What are these checks he refers to? They were obscure to him, but we know them as gene repression and environmental changes.

Adaptation?

That climate acts in main part indirectly by favouring other species, we may clearly see in the prodigious number of plants in our gardens which can perfectly well endure our climate, but which never become naturalised, for they cannot compete with our native plants, nor resist destruction by our native animals.

A species can only adapt to its natural environment, not the other way. They can survive but never become naturalized.
Oh, but he's talking about plants, right? He is talking about species, so apply it to humans.

All he is asking in this book is whether or not nature can do the same thing man does in selective breeding, that's all. But people took the writing as meaning man is subject to the same laws of selective breeding. And the modifications come in the same parent-child age.

As we see that those variations which under domestication appear at any particular period of life, tend to reappear in the offspring at the same period;—for instance, in the seeds of the many varieties of our culinary and agricultural plants; in the caterpillar and cocoon stages of the varieties of the silkworm; in the eggs of poultry, and in the colour of the down of their chickens; in the horns of our sheep and cattle when nearly adult;—so in a state of nature, natural selection will be enabled to act on and modify organic beings at any age, by the accumulation of profitable variations at that age, and by their inheritance at a corresponding age

Modifications only appear at the correct age, in the same period of time. Longhorn cows can only grow long horns at the appropriate age, the same as was for their parent, but it occurs in the same period of time. What modification is he talking about? The fact that horns grow on adult cows and not infant cows.

Those modifications in humans would be boys and girls entering puberty. Their structure is modified to exhibit the characteristics of their parents. The ages of primates compared to humans are vastly different. Therefore, the human structure is modified as characteristics of their parents, not a common ancestor. All generations must exhibit the same characteristics of their parents in structure, but the structure is modified at a certain age, and that modification is not to becoming a new species, but remaining the species. The embryo of a human is human, but through its time, its structure is modified by adult hood. That's what modification means to Darwin.

a reply to: WarminIndy

Arrrrrrrrrgh. I had a rather verbose reply just about ready to publish when it went 'poof' due to a bad mouse click. Such is life. I'll try to do it better this time...

Thank you, it is not a closed system.

Thank you. You have just explained the fundamental logical flaw in Dembski's hypothesis of "Conservation of Information".

Where does the original information come from? That was one of the questions. Information doesn't make itself up.

As has been explained over and over and over and over: via random mutation filtered through natural selection.

Information comes from applying context to data. Random mutation provides data; natural selection supplies context.

If you insist on using a 'DNA as information' metaphor (NOT a good metaphor, but I know it is very tempting), you really MUST understand the difference between DATA and INFORMATION. Data is entirely useless without context; Data with context is information. '15' is just a number with out context. Add context (my son is 15 years old) and it becomes information. Random Mutations are DATA; natural selection applies context and the biological system has gained INFORMATION.

Since this topic is a favorite of William Dembski, I am assuming here that your push on this topic is highly influenced by his ideas. While it is nice to be able to claim some intellectual rigor on what is an otherwise psuedo-scientific pursuit, it is important for you to understand that Dembski's mathematics are bogus - just a bunch of hand waving which looks impressive to the uninitiated who cannot read mathematical papers; but transparently wrong to those who can.

ON DEMBSKI’S LAW OF CONSERVATION OF INFORMATION

Information Theory, Evolutionary Computation, and Dembski's \Complex Speci¯ed Information"

Furthermore, as you noted above, Dembski's attempt to misuse concepts from other disciplines fall flat due to simple schoolboy logic errors. A summary of the so called "Law of Conservation of Information" (never mind that Dembski's idea of what constitutes a 'law' is simply not correct and marks him as suspect before he even starts) is here: Information Theory and Creationism:

"This strong proscriptive claim, that natural causes can only transmit CSI but never originate it, I (Dembski) call the Law of Conservation of Information"

which he holds has the following corrolories:

(1) The CSI in a closed system of natural causes remains constant or decreases.

(2) CSI cannot be generated spontaneously, originate endogenously, or organize itself (as these terms are used in origins-of-life research).

(3) The CSI in a closed system of natural causes either has been in the system eternally or was at some point added exogenously (implying that the system though now closed was not always closed). >

(4) In particular, any closed system of natural causes that is also of finite duration received whatever CSI it contains before it became a closed system.

Dembski is here admitting that the his rules apply only to a closed system (biosphere), and that apparently the system (biosphere) opens and closes in order to make his rules come out right.

The problem is, as you agree above, that the system (biosphere) is ALWAYS open, it is never closed, and has never been closed.

Dembski's ideas on information theory and biology are flawed. If you absolutely must insist on using the metaphor, at least understand the proper meaning of DATA and INFORMATION in real Information Theory.

a reply to: WarminIndy

You keep asking "Why can't they?" Well, do they? ...

What does any of that have to do with 2014? Human knowledge has advanced far beyond what Darwin could anticipate. He published in 1859 for crying out loud. On the Origin of Species is not Holy Writ; there is no requirement that everything Darwin wrote be the last word on any subject.

Darwin's breakthrough was the concept of natural selection. Period.

He didn't know what the mechanism was, he didn't know about genetics or DNA, he didn't know whether natural selection was slow and irresistible, he didn't know about 'punctuated equilibrium'. What Darwin DID NOT know is irrelevant; what we have learned about natural selection in 155 years is what is relevant (and quite frankly, awe-inspiring).

Newton didn't know about the matter/energy link or the limit on the speed of light. Are you going to hold that against Einstein in a discussion about relativity? Or are you going to use Einstein's distaste for the implications of Quantum Physics as an argument against the possibility of transistors? Of course not.

a reply to: WarminIndy

The struggle for existence by competition has now been proven wrong.

Please expand on this assertion.

What do you mean by 'competition' and what do you mean by 'proven wrong'.

Do you mean 'natural selection'? Nothing about natural selection has been proven wrong.

Or are you talking about 'Social Darwinism', a perverted misapplication of natural selection that had absolutely nothing to do with Darwin? That has certainly been consigned to the dung heap where it belongs (except by certain people descended from the John Birch Society of course - cough, koch, cough ).

This is ridicules, every time I come and check out this thread WarminIndy has moved the goalpost.. yet again. So..now we are talking about Darwin's descent with modification and how he went on to tell us how he (thought) it worked by natural selection.

As others have mentioned Darwin lived an awfully long time ago. Modern biology has come a long way since then. For all that Darwin may have gotten wrong... he got so much more absolutely right..

Every single time a new species is found, it fits into the nested hierarchy of evolution. Every single new fossil that is found fits into that pattern. Even If evolution is disproved completely tomorrow, the classification of living organisms by their morphological characteristics would still be valid.
Every new genome described provides an opportunity to falsify evolution...it never happens.
Instead, we see Darwin's most important predictions verified. Darwin predicted a hereditary mechanism that allowed for descent with modification. If evolution were not true, there would be no reason for such a mechanism to exist. The discovery of genetics was an enormous vindication of Darwin's theory.

The funny thing is that WarminIndy can't even grasp the fact it's not necessary to believe in a single origin of life to accept the general principles of evolution. The evidence is very much behind a single origin, but if WarminIndy wants to believe that some groups of organisms were created separately, then there is nothing in that belief that would stop them from being subject to random mutation and natural selection...LOL!

a reply to: rnaa

Mouse frustrations...lol. That happens. At least it wasn't double, triple or quadruple posted.

Again, I didn't say that DNA IS the information, DNA simply contains the information, but the information is shared across the network through the process. RNA is a transcriber and messenger.

DNA then acts on the information and adjusts itself accordingly to the information. But it is a constant work that is being carried out.

But the cell itself, is it an open or closed system? I am talking about the cellular level within the organism itself, and not the entire biome.

If information comes from without, then it is open. This we agree on, because information is constantly being fed into the system from without. Hence, you get sunburn if out in the sun and then for most lighter skinned people, they develop melanomas. Obviously this is information from outside.

But why do those of dark skin not have the same rate of sun induced melanomas? Light skin therefore is not a protective mutation or adaption. Light skin cannot be beneficial.

But African Americans tend to express more melanin, even though they are adapted to the climate of the United States. They have been removed from the environment of their ancestral sources. Is their dark skin beneficial in this climate? Well, we could say it has only been 400 years, but through breeding, if they continue to breed with light skinned people then eventually they will produce less melanin. We know that this can happen in seven generations, so long, vast eons of time aren't necessary.

Every genealogist that I know will all tell you the exact same thing, and genetics prove it, that if you have Colonial American ancestry and at some point during that Colonial ancestry, you might have one Native American ancestor introduced to your otherwise European line or you might have an African ancestor. But the percentages that ever show up, barring any more interbreeding, it might only be represented as .1% and isn't even enough to consider as real, only noise, so genealogists say that you must have documented evidence to prove that ancestry. And seven generations have passed in 400 years.

It could still be expressed in 3 or 4 generations, but by the seventh, there is very little evidence. So this breeding of people groups continue, and melanin is either expressed greatly or very little, depending on the genetic and environmental factors. And it happens in seven generations, not vast millions of years.

I asked someone why I am 2.9% Neanderthal and they said it must apparently be the cause of my ancestors breeding with other people who also have high percentages of Neanderthal. But at 2.9%, it is still greater than the .1% Native American.

I must conclude then that Neanderthal isn't extinct if the genes are still expressed in the descendants, because no extinct species has descendants. That's what qualifies them as extinct.

I have no outward phenotypical expressions of Native American ancestry. It isn't even found within my genome and is considered "noise" in the calculators. As there can only be so much room on my chromosomes, all information must then be either accepted or rejected within the genome, and according to natural selection, then that information must be either positive or negative to keep my ancestral genome fixed, in my phenotypical expression. But the original information came from somewhere outside the original organism, because according to many evolutionists, that original organism was actually a non-living carbon atom.

The non-living carbon atom came to life at some point and then had to have information in order to replicate. Information doesn't create itself. Without the information to replicate, it would have never happened, and that's the biggest issue of all. Now whether it happened in the abiogenesis soup, there is no evidence to support that. So then the common ancestor of humans and primates arose elsewhere. If it happened on dry land, then the same thought applies, how did the carbon atom get the information to replicate?

This is the basis for evolution, right? That the single cell organism was mere atoms that forged into each other and then began to replicate. Well, that's what happens at conception. However, the egg and spermatozoa both contained genetic codes and they were living organisms.

But the egg has to die before fertilization and the sperm doesn't morph into something else. But both sets of genetic information are fused together. So the information came from the parents, but taking it back to the very beginning, how did this happen without sexual interaction?

The cell doesn't just replicate itself, it has divisions in which those cells for the heart develop along the same rate and speed of lung cells. So then, an error comes along, you might say it is random, but if one particular code is beneficial then it will override the less beneficial, except in cases of certain illnesses. For reasons that we don't know, that information is passed on without checks.

Transcription errors do occur. But this is at the individual level, because not every descendant of Down's Syndrome has Down's Syndrome. But other conditions, such as Sickle Cell Anemia or Tay-Sacks, are passed to descendants. There can be nothing beneficial in either of those mutations. But if a person breeds with someone who does not have those conditions, then it can be gone in seven generations, as long as no descendant breeds with another who has that condition.

But the species remains as a species regardless of variation and mutation. Your chromosomes can only contain so much information and you will never get every bit of information from all of your ancestors. Now you can say that we share genetic information with chimpanzees, however, you don't look like a chimpanzee in your genome. If you were anonymously tested, your results would be 100% human. And because ATGC is a code, that code is applied by geneticists across the board. In fact, T2b is also an mtDNa haplotype of certain cattle in Italy. Does that mean because we have the same letters that I am related to the cow in Italy? Certainly not.

But it would be interesting if I were descended from cow jumpers from Knossos. What I am saying is that phenotypical variation can be bred out in seven generations. Proven to be fact.

And it didn't take a ghastly billion years for it to happen. And your chromosomes cannot carry all the information from your ancestors, because if it did, then you would still be able to express certain phenotypical traits of ancestors who were plants. Your species has been fixed, since the first parents of humans.

I have already stated that our common ancestor was carbon, but that carbon got the information from outside. Not all carbon has that information, so those particular carbon atoms in the beginning had information from the outside put into them.

a reply to: flyingfish

Would you care to just go back to my original statements?

1: I do not believe in young earth.
2: I accept evolution through selective breeding.
3: If there can be several origins, then ID can be one of them.
4: I keep quoting from geneticists.
5: Darwin's original theory is still taught as is, without accommodating further hypothesis. (Does a teacher ever say "Darwin was wrong on this particular thing and here is why"?)
6: Darwin didn't predict a mechanism, he said the mechanisms were obscure.

I have never denied the process of evolution through selective breeding and variation, what I did say was that I do not believe it to be a purely random process and that a non-living atom suddenly got the idea to replicate.

a reply to: WarminIndy

The basic idea in Intelligent design is the so-called irreducibly complex system is one that requires several parts and which stops functioning if any one of those parts is removed. Because such systems have no function unless all of the parts are in place, evolution, which works step-by-step, could never have produced irreducibly complex systems. And, if evolution didn't produce them, they must have been designed. There you have it: proof of the intelligent design of the basic biochemical machinery of life. THe idea was first promulgated by Prof Behe, a biochemist from the U.of Pennsylvania. They mirror the classic "Argument from Design," articulated so well by William Paley nearly 200 years ago in his book Natural Theology. Darwin was well aware of the argument, so much so that he devoted special care to answering it when he wrote On The Origin of Species. Darwin's answer, in essence, was that evolution produces complex organs though a series of fully-functional intermediate stages. If each of the intermediate stages can be favored by natural selection, then so can the whole pathway. Is there something different about biochemistry, a reason why Darwin's answer would not apply to the molecular systems that Behe cites?

In a word, no.

a reply to: WarminIndy


1: So.
2: Yes yes, but only a part of the picture.
3: Sure..Aliens, gods, panspermia, abiogenesis, There are a large handful of competing hypotheses, but none of them is supported by enough evidence.
( review your earlier Miller-Urey experiment fallacies)
4:"I keep cherry picking from quoting from geneticists."
5: Perhaps in a 3rd grade setting, however serious pursuit of academic education in biology goes well beyond Darwin hypothesis.
6: So..

I have never denied the process of evolution through selective breeding and variation, what I did say was that I do not believe it to be a purely random process and that a non-living atom suddenly got the idea to replicate.

This shows the differences in your ideas and observed reality. You have been shown time and time again throughout this thread and still...You ignore evidence over silly semantics like "atoms getting ideas to replicate." We have already discussed the whole random Junkyard fallacy a thousand times.
You just keep believing there WarminIndy, we all have beliefs. The difference is some people demand evidence for theirs...

originally posted by: navisos
a reply to: WarminIndy

The basic idea in Intelligent design is the so-called irreducibly complex system is one that requires several parts and which stops functioning if any one of those parts is removed. Because such systems have no function unless all of the parts are in place, evolution, which works step-by-step, could never have produced irreducibly complex systems. And, if evolution didn't produce them, they must have been designed. There you have it: proof of the intelligent design of the basic biochemical machinery of life. THe idea was first promulgated by Prof Behe, a biochemist from the U.of Pennsylvania. They mirror the classic "Argument from Design," articulated so well by William Paley nearly 200 years ago in his book Natural Theology. Darwin was well aware of the argument, so much so that he devoted special care to answering it when he wrote On The Origin of Species. Darwin's answer, in essence, was that evolution produces complex organs though a series of fully-functional intermediate stages. If each of the intermediate stages can be favored by natural selection, then so can the whole pathway. Is there something different about biochemistry, a reason why Darwin's answer would not apply to the molecular systems that Behe cites?

In a word, no.

I am arguing that the entire system, from beginning to now was intelligently designed to function the way it does. If the Designer is left out of the equation, then nature itself must do this and it hasn't been proven that nature itself has ultimately designed itself to function this way.

Nature must then create itself with all the information contained even to further motivate life. There is intelligence in the design, and no one could argue that there is no design, because nature itself is a pattern of events, operating through those patterns, with the checks and balances in place. I don't think it is a "learn as you go" process.

We know there is design pattern in everything. The earth hums along at Bb minor, 12 octaves below the human hearing, light is a spectacular show but in patterns. The audio and visual patterns are in waves that can be measured. Fractals are patterns and cymatics produces patterns.

If you can, with your own voice, produce patterns, then that is a designed pattern. You might not say that the pattern is your own creation, but you certainly can exhibit this by singing or speaking. And if you can do this by your own effort, then why could an Intelligent Designer not do the same thing in the universe?

The Fibonnaci Sequence is also the mathematics of patterns. We learned to come up with a formula to explain that. It cannot be by accident that all the universe operates on the Fibonnaci Sequence. Music is also a pattern, it is measured mathematically, and yet music presents patterns. We are listening to radio waves from across the universe, from what we want to be aliens. But nonetheless, if we could hear the music from the universe then we would probably be amazed. So humans didn't invent music, humans merely learned the pattern and how to manipulate sound.

And because the universe is musically inclined, then how did the ancient writer know "the heavens declare His majesty"?

Sounds of the universe How did the ancient writer know that when he said "And God said". I don't know any other ancient text that makes the proclamation that the universe came into being through audio. The Bible is the only one that makes the comment.

The Music of Earth's Magnetosphere

This can be heard by humans. If sounds of the universe are in a pattern, then it would not be random. We know that people use music to increase intelligence, because it makes the plasticity of neurons less flexible, allowing more movement and thus can open more neurotransmitter pathways. That's why people listen to classical music before taking tests and why some forms of music actually dumb down people.

Sure, a car crash might be an incidental and random accident, but it doesn't design anything.

a reply to: flyingfish

Well now, it would be really hard to quote entire articles on ATS, because the TOS asks us to present quotes and our opinions of said quotes, and we are required to post links to articles.

So forgive me for following the TOS of ATS.

No, you might have discussed the whole junkyard fallacy, but sure, why not? What are the mathematical odds that 100 hurricanes can blow through 100 junkyards and over time make a 747? I am sure that happens in your world.

I am sure that it happens in your world also that a group of monkeys can eventually type out the complete works of Shakespeare, given enough time. How many monkeys and how much time do they have to produce the entire volume of just one person in several decades? But hey, maybe monkeys function that way in your world.

According to your view of evolution, monkeys might not even be monkeys in a billion years. So we can't give them any more time than that. And hey, what is this I heard about males going extinct? Aww, that means females must be adapting to not needing males for procreation. Wait, we don't need males, we can just go down to the clinic and have a zygote implanted into us. Would that be a positive or negative adaptation? We only need your genetic contribution. But hey, you don't need us for procreation either. All you have to do is donate down at the clinic. But isn't it amazing that we still have the functioning parts for procreation and have forever? I think we still will have that in the future.

But I did hear that on another thread, that males are going extinct. Sorry guys, we will miss you. (or maybe not, we can always adapt to life without you).

a reply to: WarminIndy

But the cell itself, is it an open or closed system? I am talking about the cellular level within the organism itself, and not the entire biome.

First thought

The cell itself is an open system.

Not only it is bombarded by cosmic rays and local radiation from outside the larger body, it is also affected by the chemical environment surrounding it. Cells eat, starve, are invaded by viruses, subjected to foreign chemicals like drugs, etc, etc, etc.

You are trying so hard to indicate that you understand biology well enough to interpret some of these advance research papers to back your opinion. This is 8th grade biology that you demonstrably do not have a clue about; please leave off trying to convince us you understand cutting edge science.

a reply to: WarminIndy

But why do those of dark skin not have the same rate of sun induced melanomas? Light skin therefore is not a protective mutation or adaption. Light skin cannot be beneficial.

Correct, light skin is not protection against melanoma. That is not the only possible benefit, however.

Light skin allows the body to produce more Vitamin D. This is a big benefit for people who live north of the equatorial regions where sunshine is weaker and the skin is covered more because of the weather. In populations where the ability to overcome the Vitamin D deficit issue is more important than preventing melanoma, the light skin mutation will dominate the population (fewer dark skinned people will die early due to lack of vitamin D than light skinned people will die due to melanoma). In equatorial regions, melanoma does become a more dominate problem for light skinned individuals.

Many mutations have BOTH benefits and detriments. The mutation that produces protection against malaria when one parent contributes the mutation also produces sickle cell anemia if both parents have the mutation. Tay-Sachs is another terrible genetic disease produces when both parents are carriers of the mutation. The carrier of Tay-Sachs (contributed by one parent) appears to offer protection against tuberculosis. As Dembski would say, there is no free lunch.

a reply to: rnaa

I never claimed to be an expert. But as far as that goes, even the experts disagree.

All I do is ask questions and then tell you what I think. If one scientist disagrees with another on the same thing, then apparently the hypothesis needs investigation more, not just a quick full stop acceptance by one side.

Yes, I know the discussion about Vitamin D. But that answer you just gave gives no answer for people with Multiple Sclerosis, our light skin does not provide the necessary function to absorb Vitamin D. As you can say that is what light skin is for, then please, tell me why people have MS? Remember, I am a Caucasian female of Northern European and Sephardi ancestry, but I am still Caucasian with very light skin. I have heard the Vitamin D debate for a long time since I was diagnosed. My light skin apparently isn't sufficient. For every pro, there's a con when it comes to biological answers.

Listen, scientists even have trouble coming to terms with formerly held a priori doesn't come true in the lab. I've already shown examples of that. But are you asking that I simply accept a particular scientific view, because that's what you would like for the world? A world in which children aren't allowed to ask questions or people treat the scientific community with kid gloves, to pat scientists on the head and stoke their egos?

Do you want a world where the scientific community becomes omniscient beings with every answer, when not every answer is correct or true? You do seem to be very disgruntled with the articles that I post and instead of addressing the disagreements among scientists, you want to believe that I don't know anything.

I understand enough to disagree. Does it bother you to put the scientific community under the microscope?