Originally posted by Proper Knob
[b]I just cannot see how the 'non-random selection of random variants' can occur without some form of intelligent mechanism driving the process.
How hard have you looked? Richard Lenski's 20yr ecoli expermiment show just that.
Depends what exactly you mean with 'macro evolution'? Do you mean a frog growing wings and flying, for example? ...[text shortened]... speciation occurring. For example cetaceans, mammals that have evolved back into the water.[/b]
So what exactly does Lenski's experiment prove? First, most mutations are deleterious, if not fatal, to the organism, which therefore is not evolving, but devolving. Granted, on occasion a mutation may improve the immediate chance of survival, but it always involves a loss of genetic information—which in the long run is not helpful, but harmful. The late Hermann J. Muller, Nobel laureate in genetics, said: “Accordingly, the great majority of mutations, certainly well over 99%, are harmful in some way, as is to be expected of the effects of accidental occurrences” (1950, 38:35, emp. added). Evolutionary geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky candidly admitted that favorable mutations amount to less than 1% of all mutations that occur (see Davidheiser, 1969, p. 209). Dr. Dobzhansky even remarked that “most mutants which arise in any organism are more or less disadvantageous to their possessors...” (1955, p. 105). C.P. Martin, also an evolutionist, wrote in the American Scientist: “Accordingly, mutations are more than just sudden changes in heredity; they also affect viability, and, to the best of our knowledge, invariably affect it adversely. Does not this fact show that mutations are really assaults on the organism’s central being, its basic capacity to be a living thing?” (1953, p. 102, emp. added).
Neither mutations nor DNA transposition has altered the fact that bacteria remain exactly what they have always been—down to their very genus and species. No true (organic) evolution has occurred, or been proved. Mutations result in a loss of genetic information in the organism. And the loss of genetic information cannot be used as evidence for the ascendance of a “lowly” creature to a “higher” creature—something that, by definition, would require an increase of information. Scientists like Lenski, Rice, and Salt (to whom Quammen referred in his National Geographic article) have not produced anything “new.” E. coli still remains E. coli, and Drosophila still remains Drosophila. The organisms may be mutated strains of E. coli or Drosophila, but they are still E. coli and Drosophila nevertheless. As Sarfati noted: “If evolution from goo to you were true, we should expect to find countless information-adding mutations. But we have not even found one” (2002a, emp. in orig.).
http://www.trueorigin.org/ng_ap01.asp