Access Research Network question of the month: May

An idea from Salvador Cordova: fatal mutations become exponentially more likely as the genome length increases, therefore natural selection will inhibit increase in genome length. I created a number of simulations and mathematical equations to demonstrate the concept over at Cordova's Creation Evolution University forum: http://creationevolutionuniversity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=169 EricMH

That's not an argument. It is not even an attempt at an argument. Anyone having an argument would have made one. "Hope springs eternal ... " ScuzzaMan

Scuzzaman: "In these enlightened times few realise that Darwin was not the inventor of the concept of natural selection. It had in fact been around for quite some time prior to him, and it had from the beginning been held to be a conservative force in nature, because if you understand that nothing is free (“TANSTAAFL!”) then you understand that a half-formed organ is a cost without a benefit and any kind of selection based on fitness will weed the carrier out, not promote them. And this is indeed how natural selection works; all mutations represent loss of information and therefore ultimately of function, and thus all mutations are subject to natural selection (in whatever guise one proposes it operates today, be it at the phylogenic, genetic, or what-have-you level). So natural selection, understood prior to Darwin, stabilises a species around its norms – it does not change it from one species into another. Darwin’s innovation was to propose natural selection as half of the engine of speciation when it had hitherto been assumed to operate in the opposite manner." A wonderful series of unsupported assertions. Each of which is demonstrably and factually wrong. Well done! timothya

In these enlightened times few realise that Darwin was not the inventor of the concept of natural selection. It had in fact been around for quite some time prior to him, and it had from the beginning been held to be a conservative force in nature, because if you understand that nothing is free ("TANSTAAFL!") then you understand that a half-formed organ is a cost without a benefit and any kind of selection based on fitness will weed the carrier out, not promote them. And this is indeed how natural selection works; all mutations represent loss of information and therefore ultimately of function, and thus all mutations are subject to natural selection (in whatever guise one proposes it operates today, be it at the phylogenic, genetic, or what-have-you level). So natural selection, understood prior to Darwin, stabilises a species around its norms - it does not change it from one species into another. Darwin's innovation was to propose natural selection as half of the engine of speciation when it had hitherto been assumed to operate in the opposite manner. ScuzzaMan