Debunked: Anti evolution quotes

Jacob1989

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And as far as mutational changes being the "chief building blocks" of evolution, Hermann J. Muller, who won the 1946
Nobel prize for his contributions to the science of genetics, said
IN MORE THAN 99 PERCENT OF CASES THE MUTATION OF A GENE PRODUCES SOME KIND OF HARMFUL EFFECT, SOME DISTURBANCE OF FUNCTION. ... Most mutations are bad; in fact, good ones are so rare that we may consider them ALL as BAD."

To illustrate the effect of gene mutations on an organism, H. Kalmus stated in his book, Genetics, "A popular comparison would be with a watch; if a part of the mechanism is altered by some change, it is very unlikely that the watch will be improved by the accident."
http://www.davidjayjordan.com/EvolutionisaBIGLIE2.html
Does anyone think this is real?
 
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According to this page (one of many sources I got by googling some of the phrase), the source of the first part of the quote is H. J. Muller, a geneticist. Though even on that page the context is heavily implied to be cases of organisms being exposed to nuclear radiation, not natural genetic mutations.

So the quote itself is real, but the implications they're trying to make with it are not. They've disproven Spider-Man, not evolution.
 
the first quote is discussed here. havent verified it yet



The quote appears widely on creationist web sites in the following form:

It is entirely in line with the accidental nature of mutations that extensive tests have agreed in showing the vast majority of them detrimental to the organism in its job of surviving and reproducing, just as changes accidently introduced into any artificial mechanism are predominantly harmful to its useful operation . . Good ones are so rare that we can consider them all bad.

-- H.J. Muller,
"How Radiation Changes the Genetic Constitution",
in Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, 11 (1955), p. 331
The last sentence is sometimes emphasized in bold face type or capitals. However, that sentence simply does not appear anywhere in the cited reference. The correct context is as follows:
[full text of Mullers available in link]
.....
The additional sentence added to the quote by creationists is a direct conflict with Muller's own words, which make explicit reference to rare occasions when an advantageous mutation occurs, and goes on to explain that accumulation of these rare advantageous mutations leads to the superbly interadapted genes of the present day.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/muller.html
Content from External Source

edit here is the full text of the article online

dd.JPG
 
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Does anyone think this is real?

"Very unlikely" is not the same as "impossible". It is in the nature of beneficial mutations to propagate (this is what makes them beneficial), while harmful mutations are restricted or eliminated (likewise). Thus statistics ensures that, of the vast number of mutations that occur in a given population, the only ones that are retained in the long term are beneficial in some way.

Let's put it this way: if we take two mutations, one that provides a benefit of 1% (in simple terms it will translate to 1% more offspring having offspring of their own), and one that is equally harmful, and run them for 100 generations, the population with the beneficial mutation will increase by 170% compared to a population with no change in fitness, while the population expressing the harmful mutation will decrease by 73% comparatively.
 
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Does anyone think this is real?
I can find no reference to the Kalmus quote except from anti-evolution sources, so the only way to verify the quote is in the book is to buy it on amazon and read it. Still, im marking this thread as debunked since they botched the Muller quote so bad.. one can assume they 'took license' with the context of the last one as well.
 
In 1955, when H.J. Muller allegedly said/wrote this, the molecular basis of genetics was yet unknown. It was just two years since the publication of DNA structure and some six years before the elucidation of the genetic code. These discoveries have redefined the fundamentals of genetics: 'gene' and 'mutation'. In the modern terms, the Muller's quote is not correct; most of DNA 'point' mutations appear to be neutral, having little or no effect on phenotype.
 
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