"we observe what appear to be beneficial mutations in the field"

You cannot observe beneficial mutations in the field. They only 'appear to be' beneficial mutations because you are interpretting what you actually observe with the assumption that your theopry is correct. If you have to first assume your theory is correct in order to interpret observations as being supportive of your theory, then you are using circular logic. The same circular logic could be used to support the opposite hyopothesis, by assuming that beneficial mutations to not occur, in which case your actual observations would equally support the opposite theory because you would interpret your observations as not being beneficial mutations. It is not the observations at all that support the theory, but assumptions about them.

It is by avoiding such theories that science has progressed and why the theory of evolution escapes scientific scrutiny and falls into the same evidentiary quagmires of all historical theories. There will never be a concise empirical resolution to the issue like there is with genuine scientific theories, only perpetual arguments over the interpretation of vast volumes of evidence.

"also we are able to recreate these mutations in the laboratory"

Then it is not a mutation at all but pre-existing information. Mutations are by definition rare and spontaneous, not something you can recreate at will. If you can recreate it, it just means there is some as yet undiscovered mechanism within the DNA that produces the necessary change as needed.

How have I misrepresented your argument?

I hadn't finished yet. oh well.

Other patterns that evolutionary theory predicts, such as biogeographical distribution of organisms as well as patterns of their genetic variation has been supported by many scientific fields including taxonomic biology and geology and genetics. They are corroborative.
If you think a 'prediction' is just what will happen in the future, and/or when, then you probably don't have much of a career in science (take up astrology).

One example of a 'prediction' is that given the observations X, the theory predicts that pattern Y should be observed. If Y does not occur then the theory becomes weaker, if Y does occur the theory becomes stronger.
Now given the outcome of observations of Y, the theory must be updated to account for the new data.
You seem to think that this is 'unscientific'. Good luck with that.

Your assertion that "Mutations are by definition rare and spontaneous, not something you can recreate at will. If you can recreate it, it just means there is some as yet undiscovered mechanism within the DNA that produces the necessary change as needed", is completely false.
What is done (like for the insecticide resistance example) is to challenge them with a mutagenic compound or treatment. Random mutations are generated all over the genome and then can be selected for by a known mechanism (resistance to insecticide in this case).
"undiscovered mechanism" LOL, there are plenty of known mechanisms that produce mutations, including environmental stresses, chemical stresses, viruses, transposons and more both intrinsic and extrinsic to the genome.

These comments appear to me that not only are you misrepresenting evolution, you don't actually understand much of it and your dinosaur experiment page is an excellent example of a strawman. Given any alternative explanations to evolution, it's the most scientific one that explains the origin of species.

Lastly, I also have no intention of contributing to your blog, what needs to be said can be said here. And that's my post limit for the night.

Boaz.

Any news of Hicks, and that darned Photon of his?

Pericles - Oh, beautifully done!

CONFESSION TIME.... :)

Pericles.. you could have asked me 'where did you get the info about 'hiCKS'.... and I would have told you.

The accuracy of his name and particle are not dominant to the point I was making.
I simply HEARD an interview on ABC national, where he himself said words to the effect that initially his work was regarded as I described it. Clearly my hearing is as bad as I've long supected it to be.

I did a bit of a search on HiCK's and that's why I was not able to get much more on him. But you have generously filled in the gaps and also provided the obligatory 'whack a boaz' barb on the end.. I think you must have taken up residence in CJ's front yard and are sharing 'that little room and those little dolls and pins' with him 0_^

BUGSY.. you have to be applauded for your in depth and very educational posts there(seriously). I don't see any great threat in them to "In the Beginning, God created the heavens and the earth", if anything, they simply describe more of the wonder of His methods.

I suppose the first order of business really in attributing a level of 'faith' to the idea of spontaneous origins of life, are to find the right questions. There seems to be so much to consider.
If the processes of life were not as flexible and complex as Bugsy has described, I hardly see how it would have survived this long.
It seems 'survival' is built into us.

"Abstract: Beneficial mutations are the driving force of evolution by natural selection. Molecular biology has provided insights into the causes and types of mutations, as well as the biochemical and functional bases of specific beneficial mutations. Yet, relatively little is known about the distribution of the fitness effects of beneficial mutations in populations. Recent work of Gillespie and Orr suggested some of the first generalizations for the distributions of beneficial mutations and, surprisingly, they are partially biology independent. In particular, the theory suggests beneficial mutations obey an exponential distribution of fitness effects, with the same exponential parameter across different regions of genotype space, provided only that there are few possible beneficial mutations available to that genotype. Here we tested this hypothesis with a quasi-empirical model of RNA evolution in which fitness is based on the secondary structures of molecules and their thermodynamic stabilities. The theory was supported in local regions of genotype space when mildly beneficial mutations were ignored. However, the theory neither generalized to the full distribution of beneficial mutations in local regions of genotype space nor did the theory generalize across genotype space. Although in conflict with the current theory, these results suggest that more complex statistical generalizations about beneficial mutations may be possible."

- Matthew C. Cowperthwaite, J. J. Bull, and Lauren Ancel Meyers

The above would seem to represent the affects of beneficial mutation and does seem to argue for falsification across genotype space.

Moreover, forecasts [prefer to predictions] are made about why conflict exists. Suspect here it has to do with populations of mutation within the ecology, like bugs benefically mutating enmass to become resistant to antbiotics.

A possible catch in generalising a closed model is missing-out on a third-party catalyst [waiting to be discovered], analagous to titration in Chemistry: i.e., the change could be external to the DNA/RNA model. Experimental design should allow for a testable and falsifiable model, say by altnerating potential catalysts and observing outcomes