[gallo]

Quote by: loser Cancers are examples, thalidomide is another. Radiation exposure is another cause of genetic mutation. The causes are endless.

While all mutations have a cause, they are still all random. I explained before but it seems that the simple idea is a bit beyond you. Random does not mean uncaused. Whatever the cause, specific mutations cannot be predicted - they are random. I even gave you examples of random mutations for which we know the cause. For example, chromosomal transpositions are caused by crossover during mitosis and meiosis. But it is impossible to predict when such events will occur or what the effects will be. Such events, though having a cause, are purely stochastic.

If you come home to find the fender of your car smashed in, I hope that you don't buy your teenage son's explanation that it was just a random event with no explainable cause.

While the smashed fender has a cause, without a doubt, it still may be random. Perhaps the old oak tree fell on it for no apparent reason. The car just happened to be parked there when the oak tree fell over. We could investigate and find causes for every event in the series, but that does not mean that it was not random.

Like everything in life, there is a cause for every effect. This is one of the basic tenets of physics, though it is more often relegated to the realm of philosophy (which indeed includes physics).

Don't know much about physics, do you. There are events in physics that are not only random, but apparently uncaused. Once again I feel I should explain that random does not mean uncaused and uncaused does not mean random.

The point being made is that absolutely nothing that happens is ever just a random event. We live in a world of causality; it's what defines life.

Again, random does not mean uncaused.

Given the aquatic nature of our planet, this isn't really surprising.

The aquatic nature of the planet has little to do with it. It has more to do with the burial of the remains before they can be scavenged. Another method is if the organism falls into anoxic water, then only anaerobic bacteria can work on it while it is covered with silt.

Also, the age of the planet might have something to do with the scarcity of fossils.

Yes, that is true. The longer a fossil is in the ground, the less chance that it will survive. The surface of the earth changes and as it does it destroys previous traces of life. For example, several T. rex fossils have been found in the hillsides of the Hell Creek formation in eastern Montana.

There's nothing bold in that remark.

You are correct. A claim that evolution is without support is ignorant, not bold.

Even well-known evolutionists have said as much.

Then they were wrong.

You've heard it all before, surely. Lamarck actually had it right, even though he has been mostly dismissed since the false assumptions of Darwin have been promoted.

Again, a statement without support. Please state the false assumptions.

The environment does indeed effect genetic change and the new research field of epigenetics investigates this.

You don't know what epigenetics is, do you?

Also, the adaptation of finches' beaks due to weather changes in the Galapagos brought on by the La Nina currents observed in the span of a season (in just several months) verified the truth of epigenetics. Once again, simply cause and effect.

The changes were not caused by the weather. Did you read the book?

It really isn't enough to latch on to new words that you don't understand and then claim that they mean what they do not. Epigenetics is Lamarckism only to the ignorant. Neither is it evolution.