Evolution

Contention 1 - Mutations Con claims that 90-99% of mutations are deleterious with 1-10% being being neutral and only a very few being beneficial going on technicalities his own second source refutes this [1] where it's more like 90% neutral and 10% deleterious with only a very small number being beneficial but this is meaningless to the overall debate given that . The thing is that that is how evolution works it's not random what mutations are passed on and what are not, that's the whole point, its why it's often called "random mutation with no random selection" those very small number of mutations are selected for within the population due to the organisms carrying beneficial mutations having an increased chance of reproducing and therefore an increased chance of distributing their genes through the population. Deleterious mutations leave the gene pool and beneficial ones spread out within it. Also there are plenty of examples of beneficial mutations just in humans [2]. DNA-error checking system Yes that happens most of the time however I can just site source [2] again listing a bunch of cases where there were both beneficial mutations and these mutations survived the various error checking processes. The Cambrian Explosion If my opponent is to accept the dating methods that show the reality of the Cambrian explosion then they must also accept the relatively slow change in organisms during and after the Cambrian explosion and their precursors seen before that. In addition my opponent would have to recognise that during the Cambrian explosion most forms of animal life we see today were not present largely due to the fact that there was no land life and would not be for another few hundred million years [3]. In addition an integral part of evolutionary theory is something called punctuated equilibrium, the idea being that when a niche opens up a species will very quickly fill it, when a very large number of niches opened up in the Cambrian explosion they were filled in a relatively short period of time (that relatively short period of time being 20 million years) the Cambrian explosion does not conflict with the theory of evolution but in fact it might count as evidence against the theory of evolution if there wasn't a Cambrian explosion. Various quotes These quotes are without an exception quotemined, Stephen Jay Gould [4], Mark Czarnecki [5] Richard Dawkins [6] Stephen M. Stanley [7] Lyall Watson [8] Charles Darwin is a bit more complicated but as should have been obvious from the quote he was setting up an opposing argument to then knock it down as a form of simple rehtorical technique and then goes on to explain this later which can be found in source [9] Supposed Fabricated Evidence Lucy: my opponent presents evidence that a single bone of the hundreds of fragments comprising the "Lucy" fossil and that this was identified by examining the skeleton and comparing the baboon vertebrae to those of "Lucy" who was clearly not a baboon based on being able to differentiate between "Lucy" and the baboon bone. Also "Lucy" is far from the only Australopithecus afarensis ever to be discovered there are in fact at least 9 [10] Piltdown man: a forgery ignored by most scientists by the 1950s for not fitting in with the clear trend and eventually proved by scientists to be a forgery [11] this is not a case against evolutionary science but a case for it given that the forgery was exposed by evolutionary scientists for reasons specifically related to it being a forgery. Nebraska man: pig teeth and human teeth look very similar, a pigs tooth was incorrectly labled and dismissed by scientists until new evidence could be provided, eventually being retracted by the person who postulated it as a forgery, again this is more evidence for evolutionary science given that it's high standards prevented a mistake being made [12]. Peking man: it's difficult to work out exactly what is actually meant by the source but it seems that it claims that Peking man was misidentified as a dragon when it was really a homonid. I mean I really don't know what con wants me to think with this. Fundamentally though peking man was another homo erectus, a species that has been well documented in the fossil record [13]. Neanderthal: The story that my opponent cites shows a person making fraudulent fossils and getting caught, there's no real relationship to the many other neanderthal fossils that have been found. Archeopteryx: My own opponents source acknowledges the existence of archeopteryx merely questioning if it has feathers this is simply the public voicing of academic dissent, not an accusation of forgery. "Living fossils" Coelacanth: the Coelacanth is an order not a species, there are significant differences between the ancient form of Coelacanth and the modern one. Damselfly: again the damselfly is not a single species but an order containing multiple different species which share common ancestry [14] Speciation My opponent claims that in the experiment I sited there was not evolution because the fruitflies remained fruitflies, of course that is the case seeing as you are observing two very closely related species. However in my first source it should have been obvious that they speciated by the fact that they could not interbreed. Drug Resistant Bacteria Con correctly points out that certain forms of antibiotic resistance have been around for a very long time however con fails to mention that they have not become widespread in the population until recent times with the rates of antibiotic resistance skyrocketing in response to the commonplace use of antibiotics in a clear example of natural selection [15]. Human Ancestral Tree Should the human family tree be real it would prove evolution. To prove the human family tree I provided you with fossil-morphological and genetic evidence. That is not a circular argument. Neanderthals (again) My opponent asserts that only one distorted fossil has been found as evidence of Neanderthals (it would have been nice if he showed a source to this affect), the problem is that there are more than 300 Neanderthal specimens that have been found with each one showing the clear morphological evidence of being a Neanderthal [16]. Furthermore genetic information from Neanderthal fossils has been extracted proving that they are a separate species [17]. Homo Denisova My opponent is incorrect in his assertion that the genome of homo denisova was mapped through the use of molecular clocks when in fact it was mapped with homo denisova DNA extracted from fossils [18] this more or less renders con's argument invalid. On Homo eragster and Heidelbergenesis I made no claims about the genome of homo eragster or homo heidelbergensis. I'm not sure if there was some misunderstand here, it would be good if con explains his position in the next round so that I can address it. On Carl Linnaeus I think my opponent may have misunderstood my argument, my argument was that the branching tree pattern of taxanomic classification is similar to other single ancestor or single ancestor comparable situations and therefore is indicative of evolution, especially when paired with genetic/molecular clocks and phylogenetics and especially so when genetic/molecular clocks and phylogenetics can be cross referenced with the fossil record. Vestigial features I don't think any evolutionary biologist claims that there is only one vistigial organ in humans. I explained this earlier when I pointed out that an organ does not need to be useless in order to be vesigial but just to have a diminished or changed task. To this end the coccyx can be clearly seen as a readapted tail especially given the fossil record and the fact that the genetics tails and the coccyx are intimately related as well as the morphology. Also con did not respond to the only vestigial organ that I showed being what I think is the best example becuase it is so clearly both vestigial and entirely useless. [1] http://www.cs.unc.edu... [2] http://editthis.info... [3] http://www.nature.com... [4] http://www.talkorigins.org... (quote 50) [5] http://www.talkorigins.org... (quote 26) [6] http://www.talkorigins.org... (quote 40) [7] http://www.talkorigins.org... (quote 7) [8] http://stonesnbones.blogspot.co.uk... [9] http://www.literaturepage.com... [10] https://en.wikipedia.org... [11] https://www.theguardian.com... [12] https://en.wikipedia.org... [13] https://en.wikipedia.org... [14] https://www.britannica.com... [15] http://i5.asn.im... [16] https://en.wikipedia.org... [17] http://humanorigins.si.edu... [18] https://www.nature.com...