tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post3659441302017260847..comments2024-03-16T21:32:23.088-04:00Comments on A Sure Word: Natural Selection is the Opposite of Evolution!RKBentleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566375018731000081noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-82162913687592956812013-01-23T08:32:14.990-05:002013-01-23T08:32:14.990-05:00Mr. Roberts,
Mine is a free theme available on Bl...Mr. Roberts,<br /><br />Mine is a free theme available on Blogger. I've tweaked it a little by adjusting the widths and mixing one-column and two-column side bars. I've been through a couple of themes over the last few years but I think I'll stay with this one. Some themes are so busy that it takes away from the content.<br /><br />Good luck on your blog. God bless!!<br /><br />RKBentleyRKBentleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00566375018731000081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-21440108487847551722013-01-23T06:36:20.690-05:002013-01-23T06:36:20.690-05:00Hi, you have such a cool blog, on this one! Will y...Hi, you have such a cool blog, on this one! Will you be so kind and give an answer to my question. Is it a paid blog theme that you purchase or a regular one?Mr. Roberts bloghttp://funkyforlife.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-39985995544104042312012-12-11T11:46:01.441-05:002012-12-11T11:46:01.441-05:00Well, good for her! Evolution needs to be taught ...Well, good for her! Evolution needs to be taught in the classroom for what it is, not what materialists want it to be. If it's so unassailable, then why is there so much reluctance to scrutinize it at the academic level? You get in more trouble than a Baptist asking for a beer.Todd Williamshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16154677141382393275noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-84802464235631431492012-12-10T21:25:30.005-05:002012-12-10T21:25:30.005-05:00Todd,
I have an employee who is a college freshma...Todd,<br /><br />I have an employee who is a college freshman and whose intended major is pharmacology. She knows about my religious and scientific leanings. Though she doesn't share my views, she often asks my opinion on her school assignments. She was recently writing an English paper on natural selection and I gave her a thumbnail explanation of what I covered here, namely how natural selection is the opposite of evolution. She seemed very interested in what I said and could see how the selection of traits isn't the same as evolution. It seemed like a revelation to her.<br /><br />A couple of weeks later, she came to me and told me she had since read several examples of “evolution” and had noticed that EVERY ONE of them was really an example of natural selection! I was very happy that she could see with her own eyes how the theory of evolution is perpetuation by intentionally conflating evolution and natural selection. Natural selection is observed and evolution is imagined.<br /><br />Evolutionists purposely use the real phenomenon of natural selection as evidence for their untenable concept of evolution. They intentionally prey on the ignorance of young students to not understand the difference.<br /><br />God bless!!<br /><br />RKBentleyRKBentleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00566375018731000081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-72922146500730176622012-12-10T15:27:32.876-05:002012-12-10T15:27:32.876-05:00I don't understand the complete reluctance to ...I don't understand the complete reluctance to scrutinize the ToE. It is truly a faith-based system, since evos are believing in something they have not observed.<br /><br />They take observable phenomena such as rapid speciation and natural selection and extrapolate the concepts to form the theory of common descent. I admit as a high school student that common descent seemed feasable at first glance, but the more I studied it, the less plausible it seemed to the point now where it really does appear absurd. And the thing is, I was even open to it being true as a Christian, so I can say that I studied it with an open, objective mind.<br /><br />But I understand, as a materialist, it's the only game in town. To those who don't believe in God, it really is a scary thing to say, "I really don't have a clue why we're here or how we got here."Todd Williamshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16154677141382393275noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-2598982261539677512012-08-02T13:51:24.905-04:002012-08-02T13:51:24.905-04:00Ahmed,
Thanks for your words of encouragement.
...Ahmed,<br /><br />Thanks for your words of encouragement. <br /><br />I do have a twitter account but I haven't yet started to tweet. You can follow my blog on FaceBook by clicking the "follow" button on the right, under "followers." Also, please help me get the word out and share my posts on your FaceBook page. <br /><br />As it stands right now, I pretty much only write on my blog. I occasionally engage in other online discussions but nothing formal. I do have an archive of over 500 posts. If you would like to read more of what I've written, I invite you to stop there.<br /><br />I really love comments so please feel free to add your thoughts on any subject. <br /><br />God bless!!<br /><br />RKBentleyRKBentleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00566375018731000081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-78367098707329233932012-08-01T23:45:27.354-04:002012-08-01T23:45:27.354-04:00Thank you for this very factual and entertaining A...Thank you for this very factual and entertaining Article! and I also enjoyed your replies! Do you have any facebook or Twitter pages? I need to keep up with what your writting.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03257731045263334752noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-58168802306823539812012-06-05T23:19:41.414-04:002012-06-05T23:19:41.414-04:00JJK,
Thanks for visiting my blog and for your com...JJK,<br /><br />Thanks for visiting my blog and for your comments.<br /><br />Like you said, the idea that natural selection removes traits while evolution requires populations to acquire traits is a “very simple concept.” Yet no matter how simple or obvious, evolutionists still adamantly refuse to acknowledge it.<br /><br />You also raised a very relevant point: the tendency of DNA is to suppress mutation. And given that the rare “beneficial” mutation is swamped many times by “harmful” mutations, the rate of evolution would necessarily be staggeringly slow. Keep in mind too that humans take more than a decade to reach sexual maturity and usually only have 1 child at a time. Even two million years since our supposed split from our common ancestor with apes doesn't seem like long enough to allow for the enormous differences between us and chimps.<br /><br />Thanks again for your comments and your encouragement. Please keep visiting. God bless!!<br /><br />RKBentleyRKBentleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00566375018731000081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-84599389029526370572012-06-05T17:55:12.253-04:002012-06-05T17:55:12.253-04:00Looks like you touched a nerve there with your hea...Looks like you touched a nerve there with your heading :)<br />The truth shall set you free or put you on the defensive.<br /><br />Good job, keep at it. It's a very simple concept, selecting from what is available, sometimes in abundance some times not. Evolution and natural selection are indeed opposites, not neccessarily mutual exclusives, but opposites nonetheless.<br /><br />If evolution was possible, natural selection would only serve as a hindrance and even slow down the process further. That "new" trait that finally "evolved" after millions of years is suddenly not selected to be carried forward, and dies out again, resulting in only the previous already present traits to carry on, possibly, if it was to be selected.<br /><br />-jjkAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-54473086014519254292012-06-05T07:14:42.993-04:002012-06-05T07:14:42.993-04:00Steven J,
It would not surprise me if the black c...Steven J,<br /><br />It would not surprise me if the black color moth arose via mutation (though I'm not conceding that it did). Pigment is not novel among moths. If a mutation caused the overproduction of melanin, it could turn a light peppered moth into a dark peppered moth. It's just like the mutation in Jo Jo the Dog Faced Boy that caused the overproduction of hair. If hair arose among reptiles, I'd be impressed but too much hair on a mammal isn't novel and too much pigment in a moth isn't evolution.<br /><br />If you want to be absolutely technical, every square square millimeter of the peppered moth is mutation just as every square inch of the human body is. According to evolution, every trait that has turned amoebas into us came about via mutation. However, in the peppered moth example of evolution, it was allegedly birds eating one color of moth that changed the ratio of light/dark moths. And birds eating one color moth will never create new colors of moths. <br /><br />And are you saying that variation arises ONLY by mutation? Surely you don't mean that. Is the variation seen in a litter of mutts only the result of mutations or is it also the combination of genes already possessed in the parents? <br /><br />I see that you're still standing by your failed engine/gas analogy. Like I said, I'm seeking to clarify terms and those of your stripe seek to blur them. You can call yourself “scientifically literate” if you'd like but you blatantly seek to conflate evolution and natural selection. Repentance is optional but if you want to save face as one who is scientifically literate, you might want to at least acknowledge that you know “natural selection” and “evolution” are different things.<br /><br />I saw a PBS special about the selective breeding of foxes and, yes, the “foxes” ended up looking like dogs. That's because they are dogs. The traits they inherited from the ancestral dogs endured in the fox genes and became expressed again when selective pressures changed. Like you said, this wasn't due to mutation but was already present. <br /><br />By the way, the fox to dog “evolution” occurred at an “astonishing” rate (the PBS documentary used some term along those lines). Rapid speciation is part of the creation model.. The video even claimed that creationists must believe in “super evolution.” This may not have been a new species but we still saw how rapidly the animals adapted to new selective pressures. The video suggests such “super evolution” doesn't exist so it's they who are in denial.<br /><br />Traits that are present in the genes, even if they aren't expressed, ARE STILL PRESENT IN THE GENES. I'm not sure why you bring up these points because it's been my point all along. For evolution to be plausible, creatures must acquire novel traits. God created genetic potential in the various kinds. There can be a lot of variety among cats but a cat will never become a horse.<br /><br />Thanks for visiting. God bless!!<br /><br />RKBentleyRKBentleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00566375018731000081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-4113174314528503972012-06-02T01:58:13.399-04:002012-06-02T01:58:13.399-04:00“Natural selection” CANNOT combine traits.
When G...<b>“Natural selection” CANNOT combine traits.</b><br /><br />When Gregor Mendel first described the genetics of pea plants, he picked seven traits that were inherited independently from one another (whether peas were green or yellow was not correlated with whether they were wrinkled or smooth), inherited simply (the famous 3:1 Mendelian ratio), and did not affect one another (a wrinkled green pea was the same color as a smooth green pea). At the same time, Mendel noted that some traits in his plants were not so simply predictable; he explained this by attributing these traits to the interaction of multiple "factors" (genes).<br /><br />Modern geneticists agree with him. Many genes are "pleiotropic" (they affect more than one phenotypic trait), and many traits are "polygenetic" (more than one gene influences how they differ in different individuals). Skin color is a notorious example, but even eye color is not the simple result of "a gene for eye color" that is discussed in introductory biology texts.<br /><br />I've mentioned quinine-resistance in <i>Plasmodium falciparium</i> -- there are at least two separate mutations that confer partial resistance and that can combine to produce much greater resistance. Take your blue and pink critters. Suppose that, among your fifty pink critters, there are one or two that have an allele (not shared, at first, with any blue ones) that has no effect on pink critters' color but combined with the gene for blue makes a green critter. This sort of "cryptic variation" is commonplace in nature; recombining genes even without new mutations can turn up traits that you couldn't see in the original population.<br /><br />Take, for example, the silver-fox breeding program carried out in Russia for decades by Dmitry Belyaev. The original breeding stock looked like silver-grey foxes; the end result were mostly black-and-white splotched individuals with tails that, like those of dogs, curled up, and often folded ears. These were not traits that were occasionally visible in the wild foxes, nor do they appear to be the result mutations (even though mutations surely occurred). Such changes are seen in every mammal species humans have domesticated, and seem somehow to be side effects of the traits (willingness to abide human contact and accept human leadership) that were bred for (many seem to be a side effect of breeding for retention of youthful traits). Combining genes that had not previously occurred in the same organism, and getting rid of genes that had usually occurred alongside them, can have odd and counterintuitive effects.Steven J.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15638850493907393069noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-90492084087371170462012-06-02T01:42:15.437-04:002012-06-02T01:42:15.437-04:00In the famous example of the peppered moths, the b...In the famous example of the peppered moths, the black color morph was unknown prior to the 19th century, despite being genetically dominant, and appears to have originated as a mutation near the start of the industrial revolution (presumably, this mutation had occurred before but never persisted). Natural selection depends on variation ("variation" means "differences among individuals at any given time," <i>not</i> "population changes small enough for a creationist to believe in"), and variation arises through mutations. Present variation is like leftover gasoline in the tank, a product of mutations in earlier generations; new mutations are like filling the tank up at the pump again. <br /><br />Or, consider Lenski's experiments with <i>E. coli</i>. These started as monoclonal colonies: each grown from a single bacterium, and genetically identical. Every change in the different cultures that subsequently appeared was the result of natural selection operating on mutations that appeared spontaneously as the bacteria fed, grew, and bred. Given the ubiquity of mutation (every vertebrate born or hatched probably carries, based on observed rates of mutations, dozens of mutations, mostly neutral and often to non-coding DNA), you really aren't going to have natural selection acting for very long on a population that isn't experiencing mutations.<br /><br />Oh, and stop asking me to repent of not using words the way you do. You use them incorrectly and misleadingly, and have the chutzpah to project your own vices onto the scientifically literate.Steven J.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15638850493907393069noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-29424138007642230892012-06-01T09:07:18.097-04:002012-06-01T09:07:18.097-04:00Steven J,
You said, “Yes, and gasoline is the opp...Steven J,<br /><br />You said, “Yes, and gasoline is the opposite of internal combustion engines. If I point out that gasoline, by itself, will not move you across town (at least not in any way or condition you'd like to be moved), and then point out that a car engine is totally useless without fuel, these combined points do not constitute a proof that automobiles do not work. Yet that is exactly analogous to the argument you are presenting and planning.”<br /><br />I did say that evolution requires natural selection but you're analogy fails because natural occurs very well WITHOUT evolution. In the famous example of peppered moth “evolution,” there were NO mutations. An engine must have gasoline to run but natural selection does not need mutations. What's worse is that evolutionists conflate the terms: that would be like saying the engine IS the gasoline and the gasoline IS the engine. <br /><br />You said, “You cannot argue that natural selection is very limited without mutations, and that mutations are even more limited without natural selection, and act as if this disposes of evolution. You need to consider what happens when both of them occur together.”<br /><br />I would not suggest that natural selection is very limited without mutations. Natural selection does a fine job and does not need mutations AT ALL to work. Still, I understand the evolutionists' need to conflate natural selection with evolution because natural selection is real and observed while evolution is not; therefore, you leverage what occurs to prop up what does not occur.<br /><br />You need to consider that even though evolution requires natural selection, not all examples of natural selection are evolution. When I hear examples of “evolution” like the peppered moth, I realize all the more that evolutionists either don't understand how their theory works or they're lying about it.<br /><br />You said, “You are, by the way, wrong that natural selection can only eliminate traits. Obviously, if a population is staying at roughly the same size (as individuals who fail to pass on their genes leave more resources for more offspring from individuals who succeed), then as some traits become rarer, others will become more common. Two traits that start off rare and occur in separate individuals will, as they both become common, occur more and more often in the same individual.”<br /><br />If you have a diverse population of 100 critters where 50 are pink and 50 are blue, natural selection can only work to eliminate one color or the other. In the end, you could have 100 blue critters. Blue is more common but there are now fewer traits in the population. It is less diverse. This is why all the members in a species tend to look alike – they are less diverse due to natural selection. What natural selection cannot due is “add green” to my population of critters.<br /><br />You said, “So natural selection can combine traits.”<br /><br />“Natural selection” CANNOT combine traits. The traits must already be present in the population. In sexual reproduction, the offspring inherit features from both parents. Suppose there are 2 dogs – one with long brown hair and one with short white hair – their pups could have long brown, short brown, long white, or short white hair (actually, the dogs would also carry traits from their parents that could be expressed in the pups so more combinations are possible). The traits could combine in different ways due to genetics and only then can natural selection pick which traits are successful and which are not. <br /><br />Evolutionists need to come clean about the difference between natural selection and evolution. You yourself have not lifted one finger to distinguish between the two but have done what I've seen all of your partners in crime do – you've worked hard to conflate the two even further. Repent!!<br /><br />I'll get to mutations in my next two posts. God bless!!<br /><br />RKBentleyRKBentleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00566375018731000081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-70652045451757465292012-06-01T01:47:02.089-04:002012-06-01T01:47:02.089-04:00Yes, and gasoline is the opposite of internal comb...Yes, and gasoline is the opposite of internal combustion engines. If I point out that gasoline, by itself, will not move you across town (at least not in any way or condition you'd like to be moved), and then point out that a car engine is totally useless without fuel, these combined points do not constitute a proof that automobiles do not work. Yet that is exactly analogous to the argument you are presenting and planning.<br /><br />You cannot argue that natural selection is very limited without mutations, and that mutations are even more limited without natural selection, and act as if this disposes of evolution. You need to consider what happens when both of them occur together.<br /><br />You are, by the way, wrong that natural selection can only eliminate traits. Obviously, if a population is staying at roughly the same size (as individuals who fail to pass on their genes leave more resources for more offspring from individuals who succeed), then as some traits become rarer, others will become more common. Two traits that start off rare and occur in separate individuals will, as they both become common, occur more and more often in the same individual. <br /><br />So natural selection can combine traits. Often, this will simply give individuals unrelated advantages (e.g. an arctic mammal will acquire both a heat-conserving stocky build and a camouflaging white color). But two traits that yield similar advantages may combine to produce a synergistic advantage that did not previously exist in the population (e.g. two mutations for resistance to a poison combine to yield a much stronger resistance to that poison: this seems to have been the case in quinine-resistant malaria parasites).Steven J.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15638850493907393069noreply@blogger.com