Re: West Virginia creationism

On Sun, 14 Apr 2024 07:31:35 +0200, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Arkalen <arkalen@proton.me>:

On 14/04/2024 01:24, Ron Dean wrote:

Bob Casanova wrote:

On Fri, 12 Apr 2024 11:04:15 -0700, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Vincent Maycock
<maycock@gmail.com>:
>

On Fri, 12 Apr 2024 12:41:29 -0400, Ron Dean
<rondean-noreply@gmail.com> wrote:
>
<snip>

In the most cases where adaptations and minor evolutionary changes are
observed it's not because new information is added to DNA, but rather
there is a loss of information.
>
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-57694-8
>
Bad mutations seems to be the rule.

>
*Most* mutations are harmful, but to disprove evolution you need to
show that *all*  mutations are harmful -- those rare beneficial
mutations can be selected by and amplified through natural selection,
resulting in better-functioning organisms.
>

As I understand it, most mutations are neutral; the
beneficial and harmful ones are (approximately) equal in
number, and are far outnumbered by the neutral ones. But
don't expect your correspondent to accept any of that.

 >
I disagree. Beneficial mutations are rare, far more so than harmful
ones. The evidence is that mental and physical diseases and defects
resulting from defective genetics are far more often _observed_ than
mental or physical betterment, enrichment or improvement we see
resulting from beneficial mutations. You almost never observe any that
can be attributed to beneficial mutations.
 
I would not be surprised if neutral mutations outstripped both the
beneficial or the harmful ones. I would think though that any change in
the coded information no matter how small would be a informational
change that could over time gradually_add_up_ one way or the other, more
likely than not, towards the degeneration.

>
>
OK. Now imagine we add a process - one that get rids of harmful
mutations every generation, preventing them from adding up, and
amplifies the beneficial mutations, increasing their odds of reaching
fixation far beyond their base frequency and therefore allowing them to
add up (because once a mutation has reached fixation every subsequent
mutation gets added to it regardless, there is no "what are the odds of
these two mutations occurring together" issue)
>
Two separate questions: 1) what would the resulting informational change
be? and 2) is such a process possible, and if not why not?
>

Be aware that Ron knows what he knows, and facts don't sway
him.

>

--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
 the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov