This is depressing

[TeaBag420]

TeaBag420,

Why are you so hostile?

There is no need to begin calling people names, just because they ask you to defend and debate your claims. How difficult can it be, if you have such an impressive background?

If you are hostile because you find us oh-so-dumb, then teach us, instead of preach to us. If you find that we are not worth it, then perhaps you might be overestimating your own intellectual level just a wee bit?

On the other hand, if you simply aren't capable of explaining those "competing theories" to natural selection, say so. Admit that you were too quick. No harm in that.

But that you think that natural selection is evolution makes me think that you really have no idea just what the heck you are trying to say. It just sounds great, and makes a heck of a post. Yay, that'll show'em!

But that's just me.

This is a debating board, remember? If you want to merely assert something, without being questioned, then go to a board for believers.

Just don't be surprised to be questioned on a skeptics board.

Trust me, I have a realistic view of my own limitations.

Goddamn, there is a difference between "is" and "is the mechanism of".

I didn't say I could explain the competing theories about THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION, I simply said they existed. Why should I waste time clicking on those links? No one else seems to.

"This is a debating board, remember? If you want to merely assert something, without being questioned, then go to a board for believers.

Just don't be surprised to be questioned on a skeptics board."

That's a two-way street, Sluggo.

 

[CFLarsen]

Trust me, I have a realistic view of my own limitations.

That's the difference between you and I: I don't trust. I verify.

Goddamn, there is a difference between "is" and "is the mechanism of".

I didn't say I could explain the competing theories about THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION, I simply said they existed. Why should I waste time clicking on those links? No one else seems to.

You want to argue a point, don't you? Don't rely on links, argue your goddamn point!

That's a two-way street, Sluggo.

Yep, it sure is. So, when are you going to provide some evidence of your claims?

 

[Anders]

This is an oversimplification (for which read, "wrong"); there are a lot of ways for evolution to occur that don't involve mutation. The usual definition of evolution -- 'a change in allele frequency over time' -- starts out by assuming that there is variation in genes, and then explains how the frequency of the genes themselves changes in response to (among other things) selection pressure.

Mutation is one way (and a significant way) that genetic variation can arise, but there are others, and a lot of research since Darwin has been going on into identifying the exact role that mutation plays in evolution. But statements like "all evolution is <something way oversimplified>" play right into the hands of the creationists, because it's very easy to show that that oversimplification is wrong (which also explains why modern biologists don't believe that oversimplification), and if that really is what evolution IS, then evolution must be wrong, too.

Well, I am a modern molecular biologist to be. But anyways, how we look and how our body function or any living body fuction is gouverned by genes and genes alone. Changes in the genome is usuall called a mutation, but we have other ways as well. Such as gene dublication, gene deletion, exon shuffling (nice name) and of course, good old horizontal gene transfer which BTW hardly takes place in eucaryotes.

The reason to why I just mentioned mutations is because that is by far far far the most common way. Not a simplification in any way. Also, it isn't even certain that a SNP gives rise to any gene change as the gene code is degenerated.

[edited for bad bad spelling]

 

[Anders]

I didn't say I could explain the competing theories about THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION, I simply said they existed. Why should I waste time clicking on those links? No one else seems to.

Well, in the real world there is no competing theories about THE MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION. What you woo-woos say is not that interesting, just stupid...