More tributes to Phillip Johnson and Darwin on Trial

6 Replies to “More tributes to Phillip Johnson and Darwin on Trial”

1. 1
   noam_ghish says:

   November 19, 2011 at 1:15 am

   an UD article was published recently about an author who did a search of the word mutation in the scientific literature and found something like only 180 had the word beneficial in it but of those 180 many of them were not really beneficial. does anyone know where it is?
2. 2
   bornagain77 says:

   November 19, 2011 at 6:26 am

   noam_ghish,

   John Sanford writes in “Genetic Entropy & the Mystery of the Genome”: “Bergman (2004) has studied the topic of beneficial mutations. Among other things, he did a simple literature search via Biological Abstracts and Medline. He found 453,732 ‘mutation’ hits, but among these only 186 mentioned the word ‘beneficial’ (about 4 in 10,000). When those 186 references were reviewed, almost all the presumed ‘beneficial mutations’ were only beneficial in a very narrow sense–but each mutation consistently involved loss of function changes–hence loss of information. While it is almost universally accepted that beneficial (information creating) mutations must occur, this belief seems to be based upon uncritical acceptance of RM/NS, rather than upon any actual evidence. I do not doubt there are beneficial mutations as evidenced by rapid adaptation yet I contest the fact that they build meaningful information in the genome instead of degrade preexisting information in the genome.” (pp. 26-27)
   http://www.trueorigin.org/evomyth01.asp

   Interview with Dr. John Sanford [Nov. 30 and Dec. 7/08]
   http://www.evidence4faith.com/shows/e4f-113008.mp3
   http://www.evidence4faith.com/shows/e4f-120708.mp3
   http://hort.cals.cornell.edu/c.....anford.cfm
3. 3
   bornagain77 says:

   November 19, 2011 at 6:34 am

   OT: This Week on Unbelievable : Stephen Meyer vs Keith Fox
   http://www.premier.org.uk/unbelievable
4. 4
   bornagain77 says:

   November 19, 2011 at 7:36 am

   of related interest:

   Stephen Meyer – The Scientific Basis For The Theory of Intelligent Design – video
   http://vimeo.com/32148403

   Epistemology – Why Should The Human Mind Even Be Able To ‘Deeply’ Comprehend Reality? – Stephen Meyer – video
   http://vimeo.com/32145998
5. 5
   noam_ghish says:

   November 19, 2011 at 1:57 pm

   thanks for the stephen meyer link. where is the bergman article published. i want to read it.
6. 6
   bornagain77 says:

   November 19, 2011 at 2:45 pm

   here’s the Bergman link;

   Darwinism and the Deterioration of the Genome – Jerry Bergman, Ph.D.
   In order to locate all alleged examples of beneficial mutations, I carried out a computer search of the literature. My review covered all published scientific studies that dealt with beneficial mutations. The definition of beneficial mutation used was a mutation that was regarded as beneficial by the authors surveyed. Key words used in the computer search included synonyms of beneficial, such as “favorable, helpful, usable, valuable, adaptive, good, advantageous, supportive, positive,” etc. The search of two data bases totaling 18.8 million records found that, of all articles discussing mutations, only 0.04 percent, or 4 in 10,000 articles on mutations, were located that discussed beneficial or favorable mutations. Some overlap exists in the data bases searched, consequently the actual total number of records searched was less than 18.8 million. The overlap in the search was estimated by extrapolating from the records found. Assuming that the same level of overlap exists in the entire database, a total of approximately 16 million records was searched. These searches may have missed some relevant articles but are useful to indicate trends.

   All of the 126 examples located were then reviewed, focusing on evidence for information-gaining beneficial mutations. It was found that none of them contained clear, empirically supported examples of information-gaining, beneficial mutations. Most “examples” of actual, beneficial mutations were loss mutations in which a gene was disabled or damaged, all of which were beneficial only in a limited situation.
   http://www.trueorigin.org/mutations01.asp