Allele Frequencies

Here's a discussion of changes in allele frequencies at Wikipedia

Population genetics studies the different "forces" that might lead to changes in the distribution and frequencies of alleles -- in other words, to evolution. Besides selection, these forces include genetic drift, mutation and migration.

In other words, Richard Dawkins' repeated refrain, "Evolution by Natural Selection" isn't current any more, as I'd thought.

Dawkins at UC Berkeley

I'm now listening to a Richard Dawkins talk given at UC Berkeley. It's supposedly built around his book, The God Delusion, but his focus is mostly on evolution.

He's made it clear that to him Natural Selection is the driving force of evolution. In part two [5:19] he's saying that:

Natural Selection is cumulative. It starts from simple beginnings and works up by gradual degrees, incremental degrees, to the prodigious heights of complexity and improbability that we see in the living world.

Here are a couple of examples of the products of natural selection ... On the right is a rose thorn [5:48] an adaptation by roses to avoid being eaten and that thorn has been carved and shaped by natural selection over many generations.

On the left, those are not rose thorns, those are bugs. They too have been carved and shaped by NS into the shape of a rose thorn as protection against their own predators.

Now, obviously he really believes this, and he really seems to have no notion at all that what he's just described is pure fantasy without evidence, entirely an assumption based on the theory. If I were to say the whole scenario is conjured entirely from faith he'd strenuously object and insist that it's based on evidence and fact and is a really elegant example of natural selection in action.

Natural selection is not just an alternative to chance, it's the only ultimate alternative to chance that's ever been suggested. Design is a workable alternative but only in the short term because you still have to explain where the designer came from.

In the interview he did of Wendy Wright, Dawkins expresses frustration that nonscientists feel so free to disagree with scientists, but he quite blithely mischaracterizes matters that philosophers and theologians for centuries have studied all their lives without showing the slightest grasp of anything any of them have said. Christopher Hitchens does the same. They multiply straw man arguments out to absurdity, and unfortunately these arguments appeal to people just as ignorant as they themselves are.

This idea that the Designer must himself have been designed is an old and sophomoric notion and he should have studied enough of the history of religion to know that -- at least if the Designer is considered to be of the order of the Biblical God. Of course, if aliens from outer space seeded our planet they must themselves also have been designed, but this is really getting childish. Not only Biblical theology but philosophy has answered for a God who could have created the entire universe. The philosophical idea of the First Cause is an answer, a cause that itself has no cause. But if you're objecting to Christianity, you need to address what the Bible says, and the Biblical revelation is that God is the Self-Existent One, beginningless and endless, Alpha and Omega, complete in Himself and unchanging. God is not Himself like His creation. Everything in the universe has a cause, but God does not.

God is living spirit and can only be known by living spirit. But Dawkins makes the absurd statement that God's existence should be regarded as a scientific hypothesis. God isn't knowable through science because He is outside the physical universe (unless the obvious inference that design requires a Designer is admitted as science, as truly it should be). If you are going to criticize a religion you should at least know what that religion SAYS (something Pascal pointed out in his Pensees). Of course he's right that God COULD theoretically intervene in a way to convince everyone of His existence even during his lecture, but his ignorance of theology deprives him of any inkling that the sovereign majestic God would choose not to act to dazzle profane unbelievers who would never be brought to a proper respect by such a display.

But I'm getting into nonevolution questions too much now. So back to Natural Selection. It's really amazing how scientists will go on and on about something like that rose thorn example and the bugs that imitate rose thorns, AS IF such examples PROVE evolution. Sometimes such phenomena DO demonstrate natural selection -- I do believe the famous dark and light moths example demonstrates natural selection -- but in the rose thorn case it's hard to know if NS is how the bugs got to looking like rose thorns, or how the rose thorns got there in the first place (I've seen deer eat roses without balking at the thorns in the slightest, which kind of shoots down the idea that the thorns evolved because they succeeded at keeping the roses from being eaten). Wouldn't you have to show that looking like a rose thorn conferred some identifiable protective advantage to the bugs -- but does LOOKING like a thorn accomplish anything at all? These are questions, I don't know, it just seems that too much is being taken for granted here.

But none of this matters anyway because NATURAL SELECTION IS ONE OF THE PROCESSES THAT BRING ABOUT ORDINARY VARIATION OR "MICROEVOLUTION" AND PROVES NOTHING ABOUT THE CLAIM OF EVOLUTIONISTS THAT SPECIES EVOLVE INTO OTHER SPECIES, known as MACROEVOLUTION. In the case of the moths that are less visible against a tree of their same coloring, if they then took up residence on a tree of a different color they'd gradually change to accommodate that new coloring as all the visible types would be eaten. More and more moths with the tree's coloring would come to characterize the population. This isn't evolution, this is just built-in adaptive variation, microevolution, though it is driven by classical natural selection.

This is elementary creationism and it's just amazing that Dawkins completely ignores it.

Besides, I've posted at length here arguing that because of the way selection events (both adaptation-driven and accidental) work on populations, macroevolution cannot ever happen in any case.

[8:00+] He's pursuing the idea that Design is not the only alternative to chance, that the complexity and beauty of nature CAN be explained by Natural Selection.

I'm sure he believes this, but it's typical mystification nevertheless. He cannot prove it but he doesn't need to prove it, he needs only to assert it -- assert it even at the length of an entire book (that carries a lot of persuasive power in itself, however illegitimately) and trot out some homologies that he arranges in a graded series of genetic descent purely mentally, purely imaginatively, without the slightest reference to any actual factual evidence that this relationship has ever occurred in reality. The simple fact that he can come up with such an imaginative sequence is mistaken for evidence in itself. This is delusion. The whole analogy of the blind watchmaker is also nothing but such an imaginative construct about how it all COULD have come about according to natural selection, a mere mental construct also mistaken for evidence, although it exists only in the mind, it utterly defies reason (reason is solidly on the side of design's requiring a designer) and there is no actual evidence for it, but that doesn't stop them from claiming it is so, dogmatically pronouncing that it IS so.

PLEASE, Mr. Dawkins, rethink all this.

7:43 [still Part 2] The logic of creationist arguments is always the same: Some natural phenomenon is too statistically improbable, too complex, too beautiful, too awe-inspiring, to have come into existence by chance. Design is the only alternative to chance that the author can imagine. Therefore, design must have done it. And science's answer to this faulty logic is also always the same; Design is not the only alternative to chance. Natural selection is a better alternative.

Ah heck, we CAN TOO imagine natural selection, same as you can. We can follow out the same Rube-Goldberg sequence of improbable events, acting in a homologically graded series of imaginatively fleshed-out fossils that have never been observed in living reality, to the same preconceived conclusion you come to. Our problem is that we know it flies in the face of probability, reason, logic and any other law of rational inquiry and science that may exist, AND that there is no evidence for it, whereas design OBVIOUSLY implies a designer -- obviously, intuitively, rationally, logically, reasonably and probabilistically -- and I'd add "absolutely" if I could get away with it.

8:18 Notice what rotten logic it is. [This is projected as a numbered list on a screen] [1.] We have Theory A and Theory B.

Ooo, this oughta be good.

[2.] Theory A is supported by loads of evidence.

Well, that sure as heck isn't evolution, as I've been arguing at some length lately. LOADS of what is taken for loads of evidence simply is not evidence but imaginative castle-building -- speculation, hypothesizing, analogizing, computer modeling of mental constructs floating ten feet off the ground, etc.

[3.] Theory B is supported by no evidence at all.

Um, now THAT would be evolution, of course, right? Oh, uh, sorry, yeah, you were going somewhere else with Theory B. But, hm, yoo hoo...

Now here's the key step in the argument: [4.] "I can't understand how Theory A explains phenomenon X. [5.] Therefore Theory B must be right. I bet you don't know how the elbow joint of the lesser spotted weasel frog evolved. You don't? Right then, God did it." This kind of argument is a failure of the imagination. I've described it as the Argument from Personal Incredulity.

Well, I'm not going to claim that all creationist arguments are models of logic, lucidity and fairness, and I'll grant that you've probably been driven crazy by this sort of thing on too many occasions, but really, Mr. Dawkins, this is an awful caricature that ought to be beneath you. I'm sure you must also have seen some doozies offered on behalf of evolution by some similarly confused laymen. (Of course I think you've offered quite a few yourself, though of a more sophisticated kind.)

A metaphor for extreme improbability is a combination lock, a very good high-quality combination lock of the kind they put on bank vaults. A bank robber could theoretically get lucky and hit upon the right combination ... but in practice [such] locks are designed with enough improbability to make this tantamount to impossible, as unlikely as Fred Hoyle's spontaneous coming-into-existence of a Boeing 747.

(what are you working up to, here? That Natural Selection KNOWS the combination perhaps? -- Naaa)

[Part 3/6] But now imagine a badly designed combination lock, one that gives little hints, a bit like the childhood game of hunt-the-slipper where you say "getting warmer, getting warmer, getting cooler, getting warmer, getting warmer." Suppose that each time you turn the dial you get a little bit closer to the correct combination. Suppose that the bank vault door creaks open just a chink and a little bit of money spills out -- The Dribbling Combination Lock ... is a better analogy for Darwinian evolution than the real bank lock which offers only two possibilities, the jackpot or nothing.

Oops, haven't we got a sort of teleological model going here now? Either an all-or-none jackpot-producing system OR a dribbling-bits-of-money system is teleological -- that is, there is a GOAL both are aimed at -- the "CORRECT combination??" But evolution supposedly HAS no goal, right?

And the trouble with creationist arguments is that they all think that Evolution by Natural Selection is a jackpot-or-nothing argument. Nothing could be further from the truth.

You've lost me completely now. Who thinks this? What exactly does it mean, anyway?

But God, the God theory on the other hand, really is a jackpot-or-nothing argument. Because God is postulated as being there from the beginning, before the process of evolution got going. I can imagine god-like beings ... such that if we ever met them, and if they came here, for example, and in order to get here they would have to be god-like, because for sure we couldn't get there -- I mean they'd need to be technological wizards of a sort that we have no comprehension of. We would worship them as gods, but they would not be gods because ultimately they would have evolved by a gradual process. But the God of the Old Testament, the God of the New Testament, the God of the Muslims who's always been there, He is the Ultimate 747.

Wow, WHO suffers from "a failure of imagination?"

This analogy is absolutely crackpot. Only created things fit the model of the Boeing 747 that couldn't be assembled from a junkyard of random parts by chance, but God is uncreated, First Cause, Prime Mover, Beginning and End, Alpha and Omega. If you can't imagine Him, Mr. Dawkins, that's because nobody can exactly literally IMAGINE such a Being who is so utterly outside our normal frame of reference, but we can "intuit" or "sense" Him by these definitions, though no words are adequate here. No PICTURE can even come close. He's not picturable.

You REALLY need to read some theology, this is ridiculous.

2:00 Well, why not teach the controversy?

Okey-doke, I can see we're now in for some more lame straw-man humor and there's no hope in sight at this point that he's going to get around to explaining that odd combination lock thing, but maybe he will eventually. Nevertheless I think I'll take a break here and post what I've got. Sigh. I did hope for something more meaty, a little closer to reality.

But to be as fair as I can be at this point, perhaps he really HAS been driven bonkers by some bad creationist arguments. Unfortunately no evolutionist I've ever run across has ever recognized a GOOD creationist argument and there are plenty of them.

============

I thought this was going to be Part 1 of a series of posts but I've listened further and there's no point in continuing. He makes more lame jokes, he doesn't get back to the faulty combination lock so how it relates to natural selection or evolution and why he thinks it matters I still haven't a clue, he carries on and on about people referring to children as "Catholic" or "Muslim" saying we should protest because children can't be either just as they can't be postal workers or philosophers and so on. What's the point? We know it means "child of Catholic parents."

=============

I have one last thought. "Evolution by Natural Selection" is a near-mantra with Dawkins, a phrase he uses frequently, but it has an old-fashioned ring to my ear, as if evolutionism had moved on to other definitions but he's still stuck back with this oldie. It's a phrase I haven't heard experssed in such a pointed way in a long time.

DOES evolution REALLY proceed by natural selection? Do evolutionists believe that any more? Seems to me it's acknowledged that natural selection is only one of many influences on populations that lead to change in gene (allele) frequency which leads to new phenotypes. Not all changes that stick are adaptive in the strict sense that natural selection requires. They aren't even necessarily driven by reproductive advantage. They may be simply the accidental result of migration or bottleneck. The change may be quite dramatic, adaptable enough too, from such occurrences. It is such accidental factors that are responsible for creating the different subspecies in ring species, not natural selection.

And how is it that when they compare natural selection to domestic selection, as Darwin also did, since domestic selection was his inspiration for natural selection, they manage not to notice that domestic selection always reduces genetic diversity. Isolated populations formed by selection inbreed among fewer genetic possibilities. As in domestic selection, highly inbred types may be especially vulnerable to certain diseases. The reduced genetic diversity can bring about inability to interbreed with other subspecies of the same Species, which is supposedly the definition of macroevolution though it occurs because of this extreme reduction of genetic possibilities which spells dead end for change, and at the extreme an inability to change further at all, none of which bodes well for evolution theory. I guess they just don't think at all, they just toss "mutation" into the mix and ASSUME it all works out to prove evolution.

Dawkins again: Hallucination?

Don't really have a place to put this thought so I'm giving it a post of its own for the moment. Just caught a brief You Tube clip of a Dawkins event, in which a questioner declares his personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and Dawkins answers with the dogmatic assertion that human beings are highly susceptible to hallucination and he judges the man's experience to be just that.

I dunno, which is more "arrogant," as a nonscientist to question the conclusions of scientists and do so with an explanation that at least purports to be scientifically thought through, or as an atheist to dismiss a man's statement of his personal experience as an hallucination without any more evidence than that he the atheist doesn't believe in such things?

Anyway. If we're all so susceptible to hallucination, isn't it a little suspicious if it's only beliefs he disagrees with that he judges to be hallucinations? And, if we're all so susceptible to hallucination, may I ask if he's ever had an experience himself that he would describe as such?

These supposedly rational scientific types really aren't, you know.

Richard Dawkins' new book: an inadequate attempt to supply the needed evidence

I had a sinking feeling as it occurred to me that MAYBE I should read Dawkins' latest book (The Greatest Show on Earth. See ad at his website) because it's intended to be a mustering of the evidence for evolution. (His other books have merely assumed evolution). What we want IS a thorough mustering of the evidence and I would very much like to read a book that promised to do this, but that sinking feeling is a forboding, based on much experience in the effort to find just such a compendium of evidence, that this book is not likely to live up to its promise -- because evolutionists really do not understand fully what evidence is (I MUST conclude this from their strange inability to produce much that really fits the requirement) or what sorts of evidence we need. This in itself is testimony to their own sloppy thinking that amounts to faith rather than reason in their embrace of evolutionary theory, but be that as it may, I was very happy to run across this wonderfully insightful and articulate review of his book at Amazon, which has spared me the expense and frustration of finding out for myself that it's not worth my time:

183 of 224 people found the following review helpful:
A good book, but didn't live up to its subtitle, September 28, 2009
By The Agnostic Apatheist

This book is the latest among a long list of evolutionary texts by Dawkins. By his own admission, this book differs from his previous works. While his other books assume the truth of evolution, and thus, sought to answer specific and common criticisms against evolution (often espoused by creationists), this is the first time Dawkins has attempted to lay out the actual evidence for its acceptance by the scientific community.

His book was well written, articulated in a readable style, and quite enjoyable. In fact, I found it difficult to put the book down. Dawkins provides a good general view of why scientists accept evolution and a good case for the plausbility of natural selection as the vehicle for adaptive change. However, I do have some criticisms of his book, which prevented me from giving it 5 stars, especially if I view it from the mindset of a biblical literalist (a view I once shared many decades ago... and these are the people who need the most convincing).

My number one complaint is that he did not provide much in evidence, and where he did provide evidence it was short on detail. For instance, in Chapter 2, Dawkins mentions that all dog breeds are descended from the wolf. Similarly, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and other commonly distinct vegetables today are all descendants of the wild cabbage. While this might seem evident to the scientifically literate, if you don't accept evolution, you might need some convincing to show that this is true. But he doesn't provide evidence or even an explanation of how we know that dogs descended from wolves or broccoli from cabbage. He merely asserts this as evidence and then moves on to chapter 3, which concerns natural selction.

In chapter 3, he discusses flowers and insects (and birds) and presents this as evidence for evolution (specifically by natural selection). But he doesn't provide much explanation of how we know this to be true. For instance, why should we conclude that this arrangement between pollen producing flower and pollinating insect to be the result of co-evolution? How do we know that the pollen producing flower was not always the way it is and that the pollinating insect was not always the way it is and that these two merely "found" or discovered one another, in essence, falling into and exploiting a niche that was always present? [This might seem crazy, but this was actually used in an argument by a creationist]

Another criticism. He was careful to define the distinction between a scientific theory and a mere hypothesis or conjecture. Yet through much of the first few chapters of his book, he is short on evidence and long on speculation. For instance, he mentions the Heika japonica crab, with the resemblance of a samurai warrior on the back of its shell. While Carl Sagan states that this was the result of natural selection, Dawkins states it probably was not; it was likely coincidence. But this very case has often been cited as evidence for evolution (by selection). Is this evidence of evolution or not? And if not, then why is Dawkins' mentioning this in his book. If anything it calls into question how we determine that something is the result of evolution (and therefore qualified as evidence), as opposed to coincidence or something else? From this example, it seems almost arbitrary.

His review of the fossil record is compelling but rehashes the same information presented in other books. And he doesn't explain how we know that the discovered fossils represent a history of the same clad, as opposed to distinct, unrelated organisms. This is particularly important since we are often comparing fossils from different time periods, from different geographical locations, and don't have access to the entire skeletal remains (let alone genetic information) of the organisms that we are claiming are descended from one another. For example, how do we know that we aren't merely pattern seeking when we look at Pakicetus, Ambulocetus, and Basilosaurus? Or Australopithecus and Homo? Moreover, he spends most of the chapter on human evolution explaining why paleontologists feud over the specific genus (or species) of particular fossils and why such arguments would be predicted under evolution precisely because they represent intermediates. But his explanation could've been condensed into 1 paragraph. It would've been far better if he spent the time to present more evidence among the mountains of evidence that are claimed to exist.

His chapter, "You did it yourself in nine months", was spent explaining by analogy that matter is capable of self assembly from the bottom-up, rather than a top-down approach as espoused by creationists. He presents his hypothesis that this is possible via "local rules" and uses the analogies of the starling and origami as examples, but this is not evidence. In fact, while analogy can clarify and improve understanding, it does not constitute evidence. Dawkins forgets that the "local rules" are functioning from a template coded in our genome. Thus, can we truly say that it is the "local rules" that create the appearance of design when a recipe is necessary for determining these "local rules"? He needs to show that the genome is capable of self assembly by local rules and that a complex organism can be created from this base. While he implies that possibility during his discussion of viruses, he does not provide much detail. Thus, the reader is left unconvinced and with more questions. Thus, if you get to this point, you will have read 50% of the book and realize that much of the book has been devoted to explanation, speculation, hypotheses, and very few presentation of actual evidence. He uses computer models to illustrate or make his points. But once again, while these models may help explain concepts, they do not constitute evidence.

The last few chapters of the book are better (beginning around page 285), but by this time he's likely to have lost most of his readers, that is, those who have not already accepted evolution prior to reading this book.

My final criticism is in regard to his reference section. Most good books concerning scientific topics contain plenty of references to primary articles. But there are very few primary articles listed in this book. In fact, you'll find more scientific literature referenced in a pop diet book than here. And I am not joking! Go to a bookstore and look at the "Notes" section of Dawkins' book yourself. He does include a bibliography, but most of the entries represent secondary or tertiary sources. This doesn't mean the information is inaccurate, but it would've been nice to have citations to primary sources for those wanting to do further research.

There are some experiments mentioned in the book (rather clever ones too), but given the fact that evolutionists are always touting the volumes of evidence (and not just from fossils) for the fact of evolution, I was disappointed to find that only a handful are mentioned in the book. As mentioned earlier, most of the book is either providing background information (about rudimentary chemistry or biology), providing explanation, or tearing down common creationist arguments or criticisms against evolution, rather than focusing on positive evidence favoring evolution. Moreover, Dawkins practically ignores the evidence from molecular biology and glosses over genetics.

In short, Dawkins writes his book as if he is talking to a fellow evolutionist (preaching to the choir). But such a person does not need convincing or evidence of evolution. You can merely point or mention the "obvious" and expect the person to understand. You don't need to go into detail or explain much. On the other hand, if you do not accept evolution or require convincing, then you will likely find that Dawkins assumes too much and does not provide sufficient data or detail as to why evolution is the best explanation for the observations under discussion.

Needless to say, I was disappointed with the book since it failed to live up to its subtitle - "The Evidence for Evolution". A more apt title would've been "The Plausbility of Evolution". He makes a good case for the reasonableness of evolution but does not provide much compelling evidence. If you are a creationist contemplating whether there is sufficient evidence for evolution, you will not be convinced by reading this book. Two far superior books (that provide better and more compelling evidence) can be found in "Why Evolution is True" and "Making of the Fittest". It isn't that Dawkins' book is bad; it provides sufficient information (on a high level) to be useful and entertaining, but don't expect it to arm you for a debate with a creationist or use it as a reference. And don't expect your creationist friend to read it and walk away a convert.

[my emphases throughout] Yup, my forboding is anticipated and articulated in this review as only too prescient. This same reviewer thinks this is a better book and I might consider getting this one, though I suspect it's going to be only a more sophisticated defense of faulty reasoning and denial of the obvious.

[Later: a look at the Table of Contents suggests that it might be more interesting than that. He touches on issues that aren't usually part of the debate that I think I may have some good creationist answers to, such as vestigial organs and other examples of supposed "bad design," the implications of tectonic plate movement, pseudogenes (also known as junk DNA) and so on].

--CJA

Richard Dawkins and Wendy Wright, continued: an exercise in frustration

Here's Part One of my response to the debate -- or discussion or maybe it's an interview, Dawkins interviewing Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America. I figured since this discussion is specifically about evolution it should be continued at my evolution blog.

Unfortunately her manner is annoying. She's really not getting what he's trying to say, so she's not getting across the points that matter to a creationist. She smiles wildly and mockingly at times and she talks over him and evades his questions -- I think she's nervous and afraid of being railroaded, but he's simply trying to find out if she's actually seen what he considers to be evidence. This is in part 2 of the video series. She's saying she thinks THEIR talking over "us" comes out of a frustration that so many still don't believe in evolution, and of course his answer is that yes, he's frustrated but that's because he's given the evidence she claims is lacking and she refuses to acknowledge it. "Why do you keep saying 'Present me with the evidence' when I've done so?" he says.

But the evidence he's given is exactly the sort of thing that is not evidence and she isn't getting it across how it isn't, how the museum models of Australopithecus and homo habilis et. al. are not evidence but merely imaginative constructs that are meaningless without specific and detailed information about the facts they are based on. They are exactly what evolutionists always give us, mystifying mental constructions with NO way to track down how they arrived at them and no recognition that their interpretation of the facts may not be the only possible interpretation.

But she just keeps going on about how the evolutionists can't be all that confident in their beliefs or there wouldn't be this effort to silence creationists, which is a highly questionable proposition, and unfortunately that is not what is going on here if it's ever valid. He's simply saying she's ignoring the evidence he's given her. I'm beginning to despair of this ever getting clarified and it's going to go on for another five parts after this one. Oy.

She's just rambling on from one topic to another, how evolution is an ideology now etc. etc. etc. This is a mess.

RICHARD DAWKINS DOES NOT NEED TO HEAR ALL THIS WILD STUFF, WENDY, HE NEEDS TO UNDERSTAND WHY THE MUSEUM MODELS AND THE BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS ARE NOT EVIDENCE. OY.

Ah finally, she does repeat the concern that these illustrations are not the material evidence we need. And then he says there are casts in the museums of the exact fossils for each model if we want to see them and I wish she hadn't changed the subject at that point -- it would be important to know to what extent these fossil casts DO amount to the sort of evidence we are asking for: I suspect very little but I also suspect we're not going to get to hear enough about them to find out.

...because she changes the subject again, asks why it matters so much to him that everybody believe as he believes, and actually, that's a decent question -- but for some other time, not at this point in the conversation, and of course his answer is going to be predictable.

Haeckel and racism he dismisses as Victorianism, mistakes that have since been discarded, denying their still-important implications for the theory itself. This is something to answer later.

He asks, Can we point to any positive evidence for creationism? She says DNA shows individuality. Shows that there is intervention at the point of each person's creation. Then that annoying smile. She may have a point here but it's a weak one.

He says there HAS to be individual variation or Darwinism wouldn't work.

She says Hm.

That's a whole area I've discussed here at great length. The first answer of course is that this is microevolution that nobody disputes.

But I've had to stop watching this, it's just too frustrating.

Later: I'm listening to the end but there isn't much more I want to comment on.

It's frustrating that she introduces concepts such as the soul and other evidences for God when what I think needs to be done is to show the falseness of the claims for evidence of evolution.

Any concession to evolution is too much for me. There's NO real evidence for it. What they are calling evidence is not evidence, it really isn't -- it's speculation, conjecture or argument from analogy and so on, and what IS factual is subject to other interpretations that they overlook -- but it seems hopeless to make that case.

He really does believe what they've got is factual evidence that creationists are simply refusing to look at. For instance "Lovely fossils of fish coming out onto the land." Evidence of transition from the reptilian jaw to the mammals. He really believes that fossils are evidence, that mere morphological comparisons can provide some kind of proof of descent. He really believes that. What a monumental illusion.

---CJA