Dan Drake is doing a good job here. I'm just going to try to
fill in a few more pieces. There's a lot of material, so I'm
simplifying a lot; follow the links for more detail.

rjbjr <rjburnsjr@comcast.net> wrote:

"Dan Drake" <dd@dandrake.com> wrote in message news:vhIsdqY67dTD-pn2-

[Snip stuff about abiogenesis; Dan covered it.]

On the Cambrian explosion:

Actually, evolutionary theory is pretty clear on "adaptive radiation",
which is the name given to the _fast_ proliferation of new forms into a
space that's not already occupied. As you doubtless know, there are

examples at the start of the Triassic and the Tertiary after major
extinctions.

But, as I understand it, adaptive radiation doesn't imply the creation of
new species from genetic mutation. The ability to adapt already existed

the genome. To convince me adaptive radiation is part of the Darwinian
explanation, don't you have to demonstrate there was a change in the

that produced these new forms? If there is no genome change, just
adaptation of creature to it's environment there is no refutation of the
Genesis story.

Whatever source told you that, throw it away. Adaptive radiation
certainly *does* imply changes in the genome and *does* imply
speciation as an ancestor population splits into a bunch of different
descendants. A canonical example is, of course, the Darwin's finches.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_radiation

[Snip sequence of Genesis; Dan covered it.]

On evolution continuing to apply to humans:

If the theory
applies to humans, then why haven't I seen any evidence in the

population on earth? We have 7 billion humans alive now. But, I've

never

met anyone with any really unusual features that might be an example

evolution at work to produce a better version of a human.

Never? You've never met any adults who could drink milk without
digestive upset? That's a relatively recent evolutionary change.
I'll give some more examples and more detail below.

Seems like a human that could fly and walk would be a good

for man. ...

Here is the big thing, and your question about "evolutionists' view of
things" is very much to the point.The very first thing to understand is
that evolution has no purpose and no end point and no goal of improving
the species. ...

Keep reading that paragraph over, because it's *really* key!

Dan. I was using an aburd example. You haven't adequately answered the
basic question. Let me try another way. If evolution happens from some
process that changes the genome of an existing species (man), then

we see SOME examples of those changes in a population of 7 billion?
I'm not concerned about the direction of the change. I'm concerned about

genetic change in any direction that would improve man's survival over

members of the species. I see plenty of examples of gene changes that
deform humans, but I've never heard of an example of a genetic change

might produce a positive influence and lead to a new species. Why not?

Because you don't read a lot of best-selling diet books? It seems
pretty well established now that the modern western industrialized diet
is not what evolution has adapted us to, and that's one reason we get
so much obesity, heart disease, osteoporosis etc., which were *not*
prevalent until the 20th century. Go to any bookstore and check out
titles like NeanderThin, Origins Diet, Paleo Diet, Evolution Diet, The
Zone. The basic idea is that agriculture is very recent in
evolutionary terms and *most* humans do not yet have the genetic
changes that would let them eat a diet heavy in grains and sugar
without getting fat and diabetic. *Some* do, especially Europeans, and
those changes will presumably continue to spread.

And this is an example of how there's no such thing as "improvement".
What's "better" depends on the environment. If the food supply is
uncertain, it's better to be able to deposit a lot of fat whenever
possible so you can survive the next famine; but if the supermarket is
always full, suddenly that's a liability and you get diabetes. This
has happened over and over in Third World populations. Search on
"thrifty gene hypothesis" or "Pima Indians".

We don't usually see evolution happening within a human lifetime, but
here's a possible example from an intriguing article "The double puzzle
of diabetes", by Jared Diamond, _Nature_, 5 June 2003. (Any academic
library will have this; if you can't get it, I'll e-mail you the text,
it's well worth reading!) On Nauru Island, people were subject to
severe famines until after World War II, followed by a sudden extreme
shift to imported food and a lot of sugar -- and diabetes became the
commonest cause of non-accidental death. Then, Diamond writes, "Within
the past decade, prevalence of the disease has begun to fall ...
presumably because those who are genetically most susceptible have
died. If this interpretation is correct, then Nauru provides the most
rapid instance known to me of natural selection in a human population
-- an occurrence of detectable population-wide selection within less
than 40 years."

A few further, very well-known examples of evolutionary change in
humans:

1. Skin color. You need enough ultraviolet light to produce vitamin D
in your skin, but not so much that you get skin cancer. Therefore,
humans who migrated to the far north lost their melanin in order to let
through enough ultraviolet. But white skin is only "better" if you're
in Sweden, not if you go to Australia.

2. Lactose tolerance, as I mentioned above. No other animal drinks
milk past infancy. That ability is only useful if your culture has
domesticated cows, otherwise it's a waste of energy. Lactose tolerance
arose through mutation and spread within the last 10,000 years, but
only among people with cows.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactose_intolerance

3. Sickle-cell anemia, which is due to a single mutation. Isn't this a
"bad" mutation? Again, "better" depends on your environment. If you
live where there is a lot of malaria, e.g. West Africa, having one copy
of this gene provides some protection against it, and thus it became
common in the population even though it's deleterious to the unlucky
who get two copies. If your descendents then move to America where
there isn't malaria, then it's purely "bad", and the incidence among
African Americans is dropping -- an evolutionary change.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle_cell_anemia
http://sickle.bwh.harvard.edu/malaria_sickle.html (also provides a simple

...
I don't get it. Why not predict the pace of evolution? You have lots of
fossils.

Why not predict tomorrow's stock market? You have records from every
day for decades, why can't you always predict what will happen tomorrow
and next year?

So, you have a historical record of
change and should come up with some kind of time scale for changes.

at any point, you should be able to estimate how many mutations are
observable in a population. Can't you count them in a large groups of
bacteria? From that, seems like you should be able to predict the number

mutations we would expect in our 7 billion human population. Please

me to the research.

People do count these things. Search on "molecular clocks". But
molecular biologists I know are pretty skeptical of them. It simply
isn't a perfectly regular process that always happens at the same pace.

[snip other stuff that Dan answered]

Please give me some more references. Until I understand, I guess the

will continue to provide the best explanation I have.

Thanks,
Bob

In addition to the links I already gave you, some recent books for the
layman:
_Genome_ by Matt Ridley, and other titles by the same author
_Genes, Peoples and Languages_ by Luigi Cavalli-Sforza (I haven't
actually read this yet, but it's supposed to be good)