and produced this interesting bit of text: Ray: Major said the agency of natural selection (and other processes) is responsible for modification evolution. I said nothing about modification of individuals by natural selection. Natural selection modifies populations, not individuals. For someone who boasts that he's writing a paper that will refute evolution you are remarkable lacking in an understanding of what evolution is. In Ray's defense (am I really saying that?) it's hard to divorce the concept of individual from population .  After all, a population is composed of individuals.  Genetic modifications happen to individuals, do they not?  I understand that those modifications get passed on to the population.  But the modification starts in an individual, right?  But from what you and Dana are saying (and I'm not disputing this, just pointing out my confusion) is that modifications happen in a population.   To me that sounds like some magic force is changing a bunch of organisms at once.  Obviously, this isn't so, but what's happening? Mutations can be divided into two types (there are other ways of classifying mutations, such as according to the sort of change to the DNA, rather than according to which cells get mutated): somatic mutations, and germ-line mutations.  Somatic mutations are changes to body cells: you accumulate these over time, causing different parts of your body to have slightly different genomes.  Each mutation starts in a single cell, and spreads as that cell multiplies, so that your entire body can be thought of as a genetic mosaic, with (very slight) differences among different regions grown from different embryonic  cells or, later, repaired or added to by tissue grown from different cells.  This can be thought of as modification of an individual, but unless it gives you cancer, it's unlikely to be important.  Note that the environment can modify you as well, in ways ranging from muscles built up by exercise, to suntanning, to the effects of malnutrition or lost limbs, but while these changes may affect your ability to reproduce, they can't be passed on directly to your descendants. Germ-line mutations affect sperm cells or eggs (for animals; other kingdoms have their differences, and in bacteria I wouldn't think there'd be a difference).  These don't affect the individual, but do affect its offspring.  Note that such a mutation doesn't represent a modification of the offspring, since the offspring never existed before it inherited the mutation: the mutation is its unmodified state.  However, the mutation affects, in some small way, the population as a whole: one trait (that produced by the new mutation) is commoner in the population than it was before, by some infintismal fraction, and another (whatever the mutation replaced) is rarer. If the mutation helps the mutant survive and reproduce, then it will become more common in the population: more members of the next generation will have that trait.  In time, if it is sufficiently beneficial, it will spread through the entire population until it completely replaces the original trait (of course, for various reasons, it might not completely replace the original trait: perhaps it is not that beneficial, or perhaps it is beneficial only until it reaches a certain fraction of the population).  Note that once further germ-line mutations are happening all the time.  As a new trait spreads through the population, other beneficial mutations are popping up, either in descendants of the original mutant, or in potential mates of those descendants, so that mutations are combined. Thus, e.g. if a population of foxes moves into arctic conditions, one individual may be born with lighter fur, which camoflages it better, so it survives better and leaves lots of light-furred offspring.  One of these offspring mates with a different mutant, one with thicker fur, and they leave more offspring than their neighbors, offspring which tend to have both thicker fur and whiter fur.  One of these offspring mates with another successful mutant, one with stocky limbs (helping it conserve heat better in the cold), and so you get a litter which includes several white, thick-furred, stocky offspring (who do better than their longer-limbed offspring).  Over time, the foxes that combine all these traits outbreed and outsurvive their neighbors, until over time

That is what evolution claims: NS modifies an organism, then the modified organism breeds passing the modification into the population. The next generation inherits the modification (= gradualism). More evidence of not only your ignorance, but your inability to learn. If I select the fastest race horse from a group of them for breeding, do you believe the very act of me *selecting* that horse from the group modifies the horse? Lee Jay

Germ-line mutations affect sperm cells or eggs (for animals; other kingdoms have their differences, and in bacteria I wouldn't think there'd be a difference).  These don't affect the individual, but do affect its offspring.  Note that such a mutation doesn't represent a modification of the offspring, since the offspring never existed before it inherited the mutation: the mutation is its unmodified state.  However, the mutation affects, in some small way, the population as a whole: one trait (that produced by the new mutation) is commoner in the population than it was before, by some infintismal fraction, and another (whatever the mutation replaced) is rarer. And I understand this as well.  If I understand correctly, in sexual reproduction new traits can be created because of the new combination of genes.  This isn't necessarily a mutation since no genes were altered; it's just a new combination of genes, although not a very significant difference from either parent.  (I suppose if the differences are large enough you're more likely to have a miscarriage.)  Or is this considered mutation as well even though the genes themselves have not been altered? <rest snipped because I don't have questions involving that stuff.

This attack, like I said, is a great compliment, which is a recognition that the paper I am writing can only be defeated this way. Your paper is obviously self defeating.   It's no compliment to point out why you are wrong. DJT