Why do people on here argue that evolution is entirely random (and therefore statistically unlikely)?

Question

The 'genetic mutation' part of evolution is random.
The 'natural selection' part, the environment in which we live in, is not.

That is absolute basic, simple, introductory knowledge.

For someone to argue that evolution is entirely random and has incredibly short odds of actually occuring because of that fact, cannot understand even the first thing about evolution - or they wouldn't have made that error in the first place.

If you've made this mistake in the past, how can you argue about something when you don't know the very, most basic, things about it?

Answer 1

Evolution claims, random change & natural selection make simple things spontaneously transform into more complex things. Chance and random changes simply do not produce higher levels of organization & complexity.

Successful production of a 200-component functioning organism requires at least 200 beneficial mutations. The odds of getting that many successive beneficial mutations is r to the power 200, where r is the rate of beneficial mutations. Even if r is 0.5 (and it is really much smaller), that makes the odds worse than 1 in 10 to the power 60, which is impossibly small.

Answer 2

You are clueless. Natural selection not random, then who planned it? What isn't random about the environment and weather patterns? Who controls it? It is time for you to wake up.

Just the randomness of genetic mutation makes evolution impossible. Let me use this example again. First you have to get a cell to grow and multiply, and several billion years later it might be some type of tissue, and even later a being of some sort that multiplies by division. What are the odds that you will have genetic mutations that result in a male and female of that new species at the same time. Under your theory, either one would die from old age waiting for a suitable mate, or they would be naturally selected our by their society because of the difference. Then apply this same possibility to every living thing including plants.

The premise that the environment and weather are not random is a false notion. If it is not random, what is the controlling force? Who makes it rain, snow, or causes a heat wave? You are implying that there might be a controlling power but you are too afraid to admit that there might be a creative power in the universe.

Without a controlling power, the environment is totally random, so then factor in this randomness with the genetic mutations and the possibilities become even smaller.

Also take a close look at the word "creature" that we use as a generic term for animal life, in it is the implication of "creation" because it is a reference to something that was created.

Answer 3

You are right that the genetic mutation part is random and the environment is not. However almost all genetic mutations are harmful or have no effect to the organisms in which they occur. For examples see cancer. Even if a mutation were beneficial. It would have to be extremely beneficial in order to increase the odds of survival. Even with an organism that does have a beneficial mutation it is totally possible that it could die before passing it on or a future mutation could undo it. Do you have any idea the number of mutations that would be required to go from a single celled organism to a human? It would be uncountable numbers of beneficial mutations. To me this seems very unlikely to occur.

By the way I am a scientist. Specifically I am a biologist.

Answer 4

I would like to take the last sentence you wrote and ask it right back to you, but regarding creationism.

BTW: you admitted in the first sentence that genetic mutation is random, do you realize that you actually admitted that?

As far as natural selection goes, apparently you don't understand how that works. Things may adapt to their environment and cause a change but they are always losing something in their genetic make-up. Natural selection does not cause something to get better, it actually is almost the opposite genetically.

Example: Dogs and all the different kinds of dogs as we know them today came from a common ancestor. The wolf being before the chihuahua etc. Now you can take a wolf and breed it down into a chihuahua, but the chihuahua will never become a wolf again.

Answer 5

it's convenient for their argument. rather than address evolution as it is actually understood by scientists, they address their cartoon version of it. rev einstein is a good example. his quotes are all irrelevant to the question of evolution being purely random, and besides are distortions of what those people actually said in many cases.

for instance one of those quotes by gould reads in full:

"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persist as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils ….We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study."

"the rest is inference, however reasonable" was left out of the version of the quote given. i wonder why?

source: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part3.html#quote3.2

it's nothing but smoke and mirrors, but they use such tactics because they often work - the aim is just to convince people who are already predisposed to distrust evolution and don't have a good grasp of science. they don't do it because they're stupid, or at least not always. sometimes they do it because they're intellectually dishonest, more interested in propagating their faith than telling the truth.

Answer 6

On this same topic astrophysicist George Greensteen wrote:

"There are three quite separate structures in this story-helium, beryllium, and carbon-and two quite separate resonances. It is hard to see why these nuclei should work together so smoothly…Other nuclear reactions do not proceed by such a remarkable chain of lucky breaks…It is like discovering deep and complex resonances between a car, a bicycle, and a truck. Why should such disparate
structures mesh together so perfectly? Upon this our existence, and that of every life form in the universe, depends." The Symbiotic Universe, p. 43-44

“As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency - or, rather, Agency - must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?” -George Greenstein

"The scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation...His religious feeling takes the form of rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals the intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection. - Albert Einstein (theoretical physicist)



"I am fascinated by some strange developments going on in astronomy....The astronomical evidence leads to a Biblical view of the origin of the world". -- Robert Jastrow (Astomomer) and former Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies

“The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I
find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming.” - Freeman Dyson (physicist)

“The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls
for the divine.” - Vera Kistiakowsky (physicist)

Answer 7

This is R&S. Did you really expect people to actually know anything about evolution before bashing it? The general idea is that it contradicts the Bible and so must be wrong.

If people have any genuine questions about evolution, I am sure that they would ask them in the Biology section.

Answer 8

I like the ones who think that individual organs can't evolve separately therefore evolution doesn't exist. It's sad how little they know or understand about science.

atheist

Answer 9

Because they don't know a damned thing about evolution further than the straw men the fundie authorities feed them.

Answer 10

Ummm.... Illiterate?

Meaning, they can read it, but not comprehend it.


REV,

Stop. Sodium and Chlorine are completely "unresonant" yet combine them and we have table salt.

Hydrogen and Oxygen,
The same

Need I go on or are you going to take every quote completely OUT OF CONTEXT?

NICE TRY< TROLL on George Greensteen. He wrote about other scientists that lived before him and you are quoting one of them out of context and attributing it to George. CLASSIC XIAN ARGUMENT