Any and all data on mutations 
The data refutes genetic entropy. Period.
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I read through a good chunk of a thread here. I didn’t see anyone actually provide real data that proved him false.
There is no need to restart the conversation on genetic entropy. Its a bogus idea.
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It’s been a long, long time since I read Sanford’s book, and I forget just what this is referring to. I suspect my reaction to any claim that plant geneticists haven’t been able to create, identify, and use beneficial mutations would be to consider such a claim to be ludicrous. I would have to see a quote and context to understand just what Sanford may have been getting at. (For example, what is the rare exception in corn?)
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Could you describe what you understand a “beneficial mutation” to be?
@thoughtful, can you put some text here, since you have the book in hand? I don’t think I’ve seen anyone address that part of the book yet, and I didn’t look into it myself (there were plenty of other things I did look into).
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I’m sorry, but your sanctimony in this and some of your other posts on this tread constitute neither evidence nor sound judgement.
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Not necessarily. In popular usage, “evolution” is sometimes used to include more than what used to be called “organic evolution.” It can include “cosmic evolution” – the development of the cosmos from the Big Bang – and “chemical evolution of life” – the origin of life from unliving chemicals – as well as “organic evolution” – which is what Darwin and his followers wrote about. It’s not flat-out wrong to think of a greater process of “evolution” – but I agree that people should put qualifying adjectives in front of the word, where there is any danger of being misunderstood.
I was referring to the (admittedly widespread) misconception that biological evolution addresses the origin of life. It doesn’t. This is not a semantic issue; it is a fact.
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You’ve put “biological” in front of “evolution”, presumably meaning what the older writers meant when they said “organic” evolution. I agree with you that “biological evolution” does not address the origin of life. But if someone sees the origin of life as part of a wider process of “evolution” (without a qualifying adjective), that person is not wrong, but is merely using a broader meaning of “evolution” – one that has been in use in the English language for probably 100 years or more – to depict the broad sweep of change from clouds of hydrogen gas to homo sapiens.
If you want to expand on evolution, the word derives from the Latin evolvere - to roll out, as when reading a scroll.
That’s a perfectly valid point. In actual fact, I understand that Andrew Snelling did at least collect some samples from this particular rock formation to conduct such a study, though I don’t see any evidence that he has published the results of that study three years later.
However, the point about the gross features on the photographs is that Snelling made claims about them that are easily shown to be untrue. Furthermore, he had no excuse for making such untrue claims, as he has visited that particular outcrop on several occasions. If someone is knowingly making demonstrably false claims about gross features that can clearly be seen in photographs, how can they expect anyone to consider them reliable in their reporting or interpretation of fine details that can only be seen through a microscope?
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Yes, I am aware of that, having gone to school in the days when Latin was still available as a subject in most public high schools. It’s sad to see it gone, as it’s helpful for a whole range of other subjects, ranging from English grammar to legal and biological terminology, and of course the Romance languages, not to mention the classical literature that students encounter in translation work. I loved Caesar’s account of his wars in Gaul. And even my rusty Latin has helped me in the study of philosophy, theology, and history of science.
Just as a heads-up, the way we practicing scientists typically “read” papers in the fields we know is to look at the abstract, then the figures and tables. The text is the least important part; many of the most brilliant scientists are not good writers.
When scientists present papers in journal clubs, their slides are typically only of those journals and tables. I’ve found that the best way to write papers is to print the figures on individual pages, maybe with a paragraph describing them included, and lay them out on a conference-room table to look at the order in which they might be presented.
You might want to try concentrating more on the evidence itself instead of what anyone says about the evidence. The evidence is the part closer to God, too.
All of this applies to fields of science to which you haven’t objected yet AFAIK.
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I would say that you are not alone in this but I have seen the Holy Spirit indwelling in Christians from a multitude of perspectives/denominations. For example, Catholics often focus on silence and encountering God whereas Vineyard churches have focused on the worship aspect. Whether or not the Holy Spirit dwells in someone, does not mean that God doesn’t grant a diversity of views on matters. I think that it is awesome that God-loving people live out their faith and are YEC. I think that it is also awesome that God-loving live out their faith and support evolution. To claim absolute rigidity of Christianity to an aspect that the Holy Spirit does not is simply unfair and untruthful.
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I’ll type out some relevant sections from chapter 2:
So what does the real distribution of all mutations really look like? Figure 3a shows the naive bell-shaped curve view of mutations, with half of the mutations being beneficial and halfbeing deleterious. One of the founders of neo-Darwinian theory. R.A Fisher believed this was the actual distribution of mutational effects, and on this false premise he established what is called "Fisher’s Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection. His premise was clearly wrong, invalidating his entire mathematical analysis. It is easy to envision selective progress with such a distribution of mutations. Any level of selection, no matter how weak would obviously favor at least some good mutations and eliminate some bad. In fact if this distribution were correct, progressive evolution would be inevitable. But this view is clearly incorrect. Beneficial mutations are so rare that they are typically not show in such graphs…
Given the pivotal role beneficial mutations play in all evolutionary scenarios I was puzzled as to why Kimura did not represent them in any way in his graphs…In fairness I thought I should sketch them in…What is most interesting about this figure (and it came as a shock to me) is the realization that nearly all hypothetical beneficial mutations fall within Kimura’s “effectively neutral” zone. That means that essentially all beneficial mutations (to the extent they actually happen) must be “unselectable.” So selection could never favor any such beneficial mutations, and they would systematically drift out of the population. As we will see, there are some very rare beneficials that have a major effect, but they are anomalies - exceptions to the rule…
Everything about the true distribution of mutations argues against mutations leading to a net gain in information, as needed for forward evolution.
Because beneficial mutations are so central to the viability of the Primary Axiom, I need to say a little more about them. During the last century, there was a great deal of effort invested in trying to use mutation to generate a useful variation. This was especially true in my own area, plant breeding. When it was discovered that certain forms of radiation and certain chemicals were powerful mutagenic agents, millions and millions of plants were mutagenized and screened for possible improvements. Assuming the Primary Axiom, it would seem obvious that this would result in rapid “evolution” of our crops. For several decades this was the main thrust of crop improvement research. Vast numbers of mutants were produced and screened, collectively representing many billions of mutation events. A huge number of small, sterile, sick, deformed, aberrant plants were produced. However, from all this effort, almost no meaningful crop improvement resulted. The effort was for the most part an enormous failure, was almost entirely abandoned. Why did this huge mutation/selection experiment fail - even with a host of PhD scientists trying to help it along? It was because even with all of those billions of mutations, there were not significant new beneficial mutations arising. The exception proves the point. Low phytate corn is the most notable example of successful mutation breeding. Corn with low phytate has certain advantages in terms of animal feed. The low phytate corn was created by mutagenizing corn, and then selecting for strains wherein the genetic machinery which directs phytic acid production had been damaged. Although the resulting mutant may be desired for a specific agricultural purpose, it was accomplished through net loss of information…and the loss of biological function. Most of the other examples of successful mutation breeding are found within the area of ornamental plants, where dysfunctional anomalies are found to be novel and interesting to the eye.
Since I’m still at the basics of learning this subject, I did some searching and see now that he’s specifically referring to radiation and chemical mutagenesis here, not other types of plant genetics research.
This article was helpful and is saying something similar to what Sanford is I think - that if we think about natural, " forward" evolution, it would be comparable to this type of mutation.
He rolled the dice again. This time, he was mimicking what he and his colleagues have been doing quietly around the globe for more than a half-century — using radiation to scramble the genetic material in crops, a process that has produced valuable mutants like red grapefruit, disease-resistant cocoa and premium barley for Scotch whiskey.
“I’m doing the same thing,” he said, still toying with the dice. “I’m not doing anything different from what nature does. I’m not using anything that was not in the genetic material itself.”
“Spontaneous mutations are the motor of evolution,” Dr. Lagoda said. “We are mimicking nature in this. We’re concentrating time and space for the breeder so he can do the job in his lifetime. We concentrate how often mutants appear — going through 10,000 to one million — to select just the right one.”
The method was discovered some 80 years ago when Lewis J. Stadler of the University of Missouri used X-rays to zap barley seeds. The resulting plants were white, yellow, pale yellow and some had white stripes — nothing of any practical value.
But the potential was clear. Soon, by exposing large numbers of seeds and young plants, scientists produced many more mutations and found a few hidden beneficial ones. Peanuts got tougher hulls. Barley, oats and wheat got better yields. Black currants grew.
The process worked because the radiation had randomly mixed up the genetic material of the plants. The scientists could control the intensity of the radiation and thus the extent of the disturbance, but not the outcome. To know the repercussions, they had to plant the radiated material, let it grow and examine the results. Often, the gene scrambling killed the seeds and plants, or left them with odd mutations. But in a few instances, the process made beneficial traits.
Isn’t it just as hard to support that unless YOU’ve studied the data and demonstrated (science doesn’t do proof) that it does fit the model?
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How does quoting Paul indicate that Thoughtful is “placing Paul above Jesus”? I cannot perceive the logic of your thinking here.
Actually, I have the same problem with many of your remarks on theology. I am still trying to figure out why portraying God as taking an active, hands-on role in physical events is “bad theology,” a claim you made in a few other places. I wonder if you could direct us to some theological writers that you find persuasive, so that we could tell where you were “coming from” in your theological statements.
Yeah but clearly that doesn’t matter, since mutations are mutations regardless of whether they’re caused by chemicals, radiation, or tautomeric shifts. The effect is the same, which is that the sequence of DNA bases is altered.
You also haven’t explained what you understand a beneficial mutation to be. But that’s okay, because Sanford isn’t really using the word like evolutionary biologists are using the word (he has some very bad excuse for why). But a beneficial mutation is one that helps the mutant have increased survival and reproductive success in some environment. That’s it. So if humans find some plant mutant variant useful or attractive, and they decide to start culturing more of that plant, then that mutation is by definition a beneficial mutation, essentially no different than if bees find some flower more attractive than others then that plant will get to pollinate more and thus pass on more offspring.
I also note that Sanford’s claims are massively contradicted by the other articles you are quoting from. How does one square these?
Sanford: A huge number of small, sterile, sick, deformed, aberrant plants were produced. However, from all this effort, almost no meaningful crop improvement resulted. The effort was for the most part an enormous failure, was almost entirely abandoned. Why did this huge mutation/selection experiment fail - even with a host of PhD scientists trying to help it along? It was because even with all of those billions of mutations, there were not significant new beneficial mutations arising.
Dr. Lagoda: He rolled the dice again. This time, he was mimicking what he and his colleagues have been doing quietly around the globe for more than a half-century — using radiation to scramble the genetic material in crops, a process that has produced valuable mutants like red grapefruit, disease-resistant cocoa and premium barley for Scotch whiskey. (…) But the potential was clear. Soon, by exposing large numbers of seeds and young plants, scientists produced many more mutations and found a few hidden beneficial ones. Peanuts got tougher hulls. Barley, oats and wheat got better yields. Black currants grew.
Or the Wikipedia article you link has this list:
Clearly since humans are cultivating these mutants, they’re beneficial mutations by definition.
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