UTEOTW
You are correct, it was Petrel that gave that answer. I did notice that myself a little while after I made my post. I started to make the correction and decided not to, I actually thought it would get a response from you.
Now, you didn't really address the numbers, but rather explained it away.
Also, please note that most of these quotes did not come from creationists at all, but fellow evolutionists, scientists, and geneticists.
As I wrote elsewhere, the greatest critics to evolution are not creationists, but those within your very field.
Now, since you were kind enough to answer, please answer these objections. They relate directly to your answer.
17 - INCONSEQUENTIAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS—A major problem here is that, on one hand, mutations are damaging and deadly; but on the other,—aside from the damage—they only directly change small features.
"Is it really certain, then, as the neo-Darwinists maintain, that the problem of evolution is a settled matter? I, personally, do not think so, and, along with a good many others, I must insist on raising some banal objections to the doctrine of neo-Darwinism . .
"The mutations which we know and which are considered responsible for the creation of the living world are, in general, either organic deprivations, deficiencies (loss of pigment, loss of an appendage), or the doubling of the pre-existing organs. In any case, they never produce anything really new or original in the organic scheme, nothing which one might consider the basis for a new organ or the priming for a new function."—*Jean Rostand, The Orion Book of Evolution (1961), p. 79.
*Richard Goldschmidt was the geneticist who first proposed miraculous multimillion, beneficial mutations as the only possible cause of species crossover. (More on this later.) This is what he wrote about the inconsequential nature of individual mutations:
"Such an assumption [that little mutations here and there can gradually, over several generations, produce a new species] is violently opposed by the majority of geneticists, who claim that the facts found on the subspecific level must apply also to the higher categories. Incessant repetition of this unproved claim, glossing lightly over the difficulties, and the assumption of an arrogant attitude toward those who are not so easily swayed by fashions in science, are considered to afford scientific proof of the doctrine. It is true that nobody thus far has produced a new species or genus, etc., by macromutation. It is equally true that nobody has produced even a species by the selection of micromutations."—*Richard Goldschmidt, in American Scientist (1952), p. 94.
Later in this chapter, we will briefly discuss *Goldschmidt’s "hopeful monster" theory, since it is based on mutational changes.
18 - TRAITS ARE TOTALLY INTERCONNECTED—Experienced geneticists are well-aware of the fact that the traits contained within the genes are closely interlocked with one another. That which affects one trait will affect many others. They work together. Because of this, all the traits, in changed form, would have to all be there together—instantly,—in order for a new species to form!
Here is how two scientists describe the problem:
"Each mutation occurring alone would be wiped out before it could be combined with the others. They are all interdependent. The doctrine that their coming together was due to a series of blind coincidences is an affront not only to common sense but to the basic principles of scientific explanation."—*A. Koestler, The Ghost in the Machine (1975), p. 129.
"Most biological reactions are chain reactions. To interact in a chain, these precisely built molecules must fit together most precisely, as the cogwheels of a Swiss watch do. But if this is so, then how can such a system develop at all? For if any one of the specific cogwheels in these chains is changed, then the whole system must simply become inoperative. Saying it can be improved by random mutation of one link . . [is] like saying you could improve a Swiss watch by dropping it and thus bending one of its wheels or axles. To get a better watch all the wheels must be changed simultaneously to make a good fit again."—*Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, "Drive in Living Matter to Perfect Itself," Synthesis I, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 18 (1977), [Winner of two Nobel Prizes for scientific research and Director of Research at the Institute for Muscle Research in Massachusetts].
I especially like this comment,
"Incessant repetition of this unproved claim, glossing lightly over the difficulties, and the assumption of an arrogant attitude toward those who are not so easily swayed by fashions in science, are considered to afford scientific proof of the doctrine"
This from someone in the field of genetics. He is 100% correct too.
