And herein lies the source of the problem.
In order for you to maintain your beliefs, you have to make God necessary, and you have convinced yourself that in order to do that you have to believe that God put all the genes in at the beginning. So lets explore that notion.

Lets take a look at a lovely japanese plant called Paris japonica. It has nearly 150 billion base pairs and its genome is 50 times the size of the human genome. Its genome is so big that it would be taller than Big Ben if stretched end to end.

Then lets look at the earth. The deepest (and therefore, oldest) layers of sedimentary rock that contain life contain simple prokaryotic cells. The notion that this tiny, simple cell was bursting with enough DNA for even just that one plant is absurd on so many levels. With such a massive genome, why did it only produce simple cells? Where did these genes go? Did these prokaryotes magically travel through time planting 20,000 protein-producing genes in humans, twice that amount in rice, a million in Paris japonica, and so on through all the species? Did God give them time-travel machines?

The reason prokaryotes are as simple as they are is because they have so little DNA. Prokaryotes (simple cells) replicate in about 20 minutes and eukaryotes (complex cells) take about a full day to replicate because they have more complex DNA. The amount of DNA something has makes a big difference.

The idea that 'all the genes were there in the beginning' is so ridiculous that it is difficult to talk about without sounding patronizing.

These responses are so ridiculous that its difficult to comment. Clearly you ignore the very simple explanations provided by myself and others. There's no point in explaining it further since honesty plays no role in how you form beliefs.

1) mutations, obviously.
2) all the time.

Are you just making stuff up now?
Humans have about 20,000 good protein-coding genes and about 100 broken ones. Please explain why you think the number 100 is larger than the number 20,000.
http://www.livescience.com/18518-humans-broken-genes.html

Because its not? lol

Do you view these duplications as redundant, unchanging, nearly useless segments of DNA?
Personally, I see them as excess genetic material, perfect for providing the tools for future mutations. You seem to be asking for a mutation that both provides new DNA and provides a benefit - I'm no evolutionary biologist but it seems reasonable to me to think that it would be more likely that one mutation would provide increased genetic material and further mutations result in changes in that material.

It seems strange to me that you seem willing to accept that mutations can result in new genetic material and genetic changes yet you still ask where all the new genes came from.

Although I don't believe that personally, I have no problem with it either.

In fact I rather like the idea. Imagine the first cell that was able to replicate itself. If it was perfect, then it would make perfect copies of itself and the world might have been overrun with cells that never change. But when errors are made during the copying phase, differences occur, and when these differences accumulate over time they become big changes. In essence, all the beauty and wonder of the world are the result of imperfections. Kinda neat when you think about it.


It's not that its the only possible way, its simply the way that is supported by what we see in the world.
Imagine that someone was shot to death on the street and a security camera caught the murder on tape.
There is more than one possible way that the victim died - unicorns could have done it, santa claus, easter bunny, but the evidence points at the guy with the gun so that's what we go with. This is what its like when you argue with creationists - they scold us for looking at the video tape and suggest the unicorn as an equally valid alternative.

Furthering this example, you are essentially arguing against the video tape. You ignore the thousands of frames that prove what happened, then ask for some obscure, unnecessarily complicated, difficult-to-prove detail. Its like saying the frames of the film, shot at one second intervals, don't prove anything and that I have to provide more snapshots between those frames and if I can't, then the video tape is no good as evidence. And although the tape shows a natural explanation that makes perfect sense, you don't provide any better alternative explanation than a supernatural being with magic powers casting spells. When I see hoof-prints in the dirt, I assume its a horse not a unicorn.

When a person focuses on the evidence that isn't there, and ignores and denies the evidence that is there, that isn't an objective person.

Reduced complexity hey? Lets compare this with what we see in the fossil record.
In the oldest (deepest) layers we have simple prokaryotic cells. After they 'reduced in complexity' they were followed by complex (eukaryotic) cells. After those cells lost complexity they resulted in simple multicellular animals. As more and more complexity was reduced we see the rise of shell-bearing animals, then fish, then amphibians, then reptiles, then mammals like the highly complex humans we have today. It would seem that according to your claim, the more reduced complexity there is, the more complex that creatures become.
...doesn't really make sense does it.

I somewhat agree. I feel that the strongest evidence for evolution lays in the field of genetics. And I feel that it is accessible, you can purchase any article you want from pubmed for example, but it can be dry, complicated, and require much study to understand.

However, the fossil record is ample evidence of evolution, it is easily accessible, and it is quite simple to understand.

75-80% of the earth's land area is covered in sedimentary rock. This rock has layers called strata. Strata is created when material is deposited on the surface (via air, water, gravity, etc) and is eventually covered up by more layers above it. The lower areas gradually get pressed under enormous weight of the layers above and as the sediments are compacted and liquids are expelled it eventually becomes rock. Naturally, each layer of this rock (in an undisturbed area) is older than the layer above it.

We have many ways to date these layers. Since we know how old the layers are, we know how old the fossils are that are inside the layers. The oldest fossils, 3500 ma (million years ago) are simple prokaryotic cells. Next came more complex (eukaryotic) cells (2000 ma). The first multicellular animals were 670 ma. Shell bearing animals were 540 ma, the first vertebrates (simple fish) were 490ma, the first amphibians 350 ma, reptiles 310 ma, mammals 200 ma, nonhuman primates 60ma, earliest apes 25 ma, australopithecine human ancestors 4 ma, and modern humans around 150 000 years ago. If someone wants to argue the ages of these things it doesn't really change anything because it still shows that the fossil record is ordered from very simple to increasingly complex over time.

That's pretty simple I'd say.

I have no qualms with theistic evolutionists if that's what you're refering to. If God/Allah/whoever made the first life on earth that doesn't influence evolution at all.

In fact I consider that belief system to be far more elegant. I shudder to think what its like to believe in a god that creates things in a way where sightless creatures have eyes, gave us disease on purpose, designs creatures to give birth to thousands of babies where only a few survive, and countless idiotic imperfections that would make any self-respecting engineer cringe. I would much rather relish the notion of a god that provided the basic materials for life to begin on its own, and to flourish without the need for further intervention.

They don't have computers where they live? Books?
Or perhaps its the incentive to honestly and objectively understand their god's creation that they lack.
If a creator did gift us with the tools for logic and reason, I see no reason why He would prefer us to discard those gifts in favor of blind dogma spoonfed to us from the pulpit.

I think you're right. Thank you for the correction; it was late and I was reading something by Dembski, a creationist, whom was commenting on Lenski's work and I mixed up the names Lenski and Dembski.

Of course it does. The creation of new genes is not the creation of new genes? That's news to me.

And this would be relevant..how?
Implicitly, you just admitted that some beneficial mutations are due to added genes.
The most common way of adding new genes appears to be gene duplication.

In fact, here is an article you can check out - it discusses how new genes are created via gene duplication, transposable element protein domestication, lateral gene transfer, gene fusion, gene fission, and de novo origination.
http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/origins-of-new-genes-and-pseudogenes-835

You couldn't find it? Strange.
Here's his paper on pubmed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11572987
You don't need to buy it though, the abstract says enough: "In this study, we measured the fitness in four environments of 26 genotypes of Escherichia coli, each containing a single random insertion mutation...Beneficial mutations are generally thought to be rare but, surprisingly, at least three mutations (12%) significantly improved fitness in maltose..." etc.

Beneficial mutations reveal that biological systems were not fully developed. They also reveal that a creator is not required for change to occur.
And natural selection is self evident so when one accepts that beneficial mutations occur and natural selection occurs, then they essentiall accept that evolution occurs.

The evidence for evolution is lacking? lol. It was overwhelmingly strong a century ago, and has been proven stronger every day since.


You have repeatedly stated that you accept that beneficial mutations occur. It is common knowledge that mutations result in new genes and I explained how in very simple terms. So you're wrong.
(being wrong is not very good because then you end up being wrong)

I see you chose only the examples that do not refute your argument. How surprising.

The problem with christian creationists is that they have no interest in the truth, they're interested in holding on to their archaic interpretation of Genesis.
The ones who grudgingly accept the existence of beneficial mutations only do so by convincing themselves that all the genetic material was there to begin with (ie, God was still necessary to create it in the first place). Therefore, any evidence that shows how new useful genes are created simply "doesn't count" because they can't accept the idea that their beliefs are wrong.

The sad irony is creationists don't respect God either. If they did, they would be more honest in attempting to understand His creation. Do they really think that God will reward them for lying about His creation their entire life?

I often hear creationists demand evidence of bacteria being observed to evolve into a higher life form and I chuckle every time since that would be evidence against evolution, not for it. I don't think that's what you were doing, just making an observation.

Andrew Lenski, a staunch creationist who spends his entire life lying about evolution and promoting creationism, wrote a paper that explained that an addition mutation in E coli increased its fitness in certain environments (mainly, in maltose). He of course spun it in a way where the evidence for evolution sounds like evidence against it. Its not like his audience is very discerning or knowledgeable after all. But still, even creationists admit that addition mutations can be beneficial.

Speaking of E coli, an insertion mutation was observed to allow it to utilize salicin in another experiment as well.

Not that it should matter. A beneficial mutation of any kind makes the idea of creationism look pretty silly.

According to you there is no boundary because you already realize that beneficial mutations (which result in an increase in 'good' genes) does happen.

Actually I wouldn't call it DNA (which is double-stranded) since it more likely began as single-strand genetic material. But I digress.

Simply put, mutations + natural selection + time = evolution. That's how.
Asking for added genes but denying beneficial mutations is like asking someone to add 2+2 together and denying the answer 4.

The rungs of the DNA 'ladder' are made of 4 different bases - these are often abbreviated as the letters A,C,G, and T. The arrangement of these 4 letters determines our genes. Changes (mutations) are often made in this sequence and these changes in sequence changes our genes. So new genes does not require the appearance of new structures or materials, the reality is it merely requires a change in sequence - and this happens all the time. We are born with 100+ mutations and acquire more over our lifetime. Therefore, new genes are produced all the time. 'New genes' have made certain peoples muscles stronger, reduced fat, or provided high cholesterol tolerance. New genes have provided resistance to AIDS. New genes enabled flavobacterium to digest nylon and apple maggots to digest apples (they used to eat hawthorn).

As for how your simple cell acquired a greater amount of genetic material, I think you already accept that mutations can result in increased amount of DNA so what's the problem?

It sounds like you are saying that there must be a greater number of beneficial mutations to arise than harmful mutations in order for us to evolve and (as is often the case) to increase in complexity. Please correct me if I'm wrong in my interpretation.

Spontaneous beneficial mutations could be vastly outnumbered by harmful mutations and still be more predominant overall simply because harmful mutations are weeded out of the population faster. For example, harmful mutations that make you infertile, dead, sickly, etc are quickly selected out of the gene pool because they don't get passed on. Beneficial mutations, such as ones that make you stronger, healther, or attractive, are more likely to be passed on generation after generation.


You seem to equate the number of genes an organism has with its complexity. This is simply not the case. For example, humans have about half the genes that rice does.

I applaud you for accepting the evidence that beneficial mutations occur. There are many types of mutations, some of which result in an increase in genetic material, and since you understand that beneficial mutations do happen I don't think I understand what your argument here is exactly.