The Problem with Christians

[Esquilax]

That, or the quantity of mutations need to be large. Or hell, not even that: small mutations that intensify over time would eventually become these big, massive mutations, without ever mutating a whole lot in a single generation. Like, say you have an ancient giraffe with a short neck, and one has a minor mutation that means its neck is longer and it can feed off of higher branches. If that's a survival advantage such that it gets passed on, then the genes for that longer neck are already present, and having a slightly longer neck is also an advantage that would get passed down. But then in that second generation, the genes for the longer neck are already present and can be built on, generation by generation, inch by inch, until eventually you have a modern giraffe. At no point in that process do you have a huge mutation, you just have a series of small-yet-advantageous ones accumulating over time, but the end result is still a dramatic difference.

Concerning the evolution of the giraffe's neck, there are a number of tissues that have to lengthen significantly. This includes  the muscles, bones, nerves, arteries, veins and connective tissue. The heart also needs to be significantly bigger to pump the blood. And the higher blood pressure requires stronger blood vessels, valves and thicker arterial walls to cope. Thus we have to have positive DNA mutations in a large number of tissues at the same time, otherwise the survivability of the animal will be threatened. In addition, the multiple positive mutations in the DNA must occur in the sex cells, not just the somatic cells, otherwise the trait won't be passed down.

So do you just not listen to responses anymore? Because I feel like I just explained this to you in the post you quoted: the supporting tissues would only have needed to grow and alter a tiny bit each generation. It's not crazy to think that the muscles etc would extend like an inch or two each time, potentially even less than that. You keep phrasing this like all those mutations would have had to happen all at once, over the complete Giraffe neck, but you know that's not the case, so why do you keep doing that? Why so dishonest?

Also? The entire construction of your "argument" here is little more than an argument from personal incredulity: "I don't believe this could have happened naturally, therefore it didn't." Do you have anything more substantial than your opinion- uneducated as it is- that it can't have happened? Do you have any positive evidence for your god at all, or are you still reduced to poking holes in other people's positions? You are aware that doing that doesn't do anything to prove your position, right?

To make matters worse, the fossil record shows no intermediate length giraffe necks. If the evolution of the long neck took millions of years, where are the intermediates?

It took Nestor less than an hour to find one for you. And you keep wittering on about intermediates, as though I haven't explained to you, twice now, how rare fossil formation is. So the question is: how much research did you do into this subject before you decided there weren't any intermediates?

You avoid this question every time I ask it, such that I've taken to asking it every time now. Could it be that the answer, every time, is "no research at all"?