[pepsi_junkie]

What I was taught is that because of radiation and other environmental influences, random mutations in genes occur, and if these random mutations result in a biological advantage, the mutated plant thrives and reproduces the mutation.

I was taught that as well and it makes good sense for small incremental changes. There are complex organs in the body that are hard to imagine evolving all at once, yet individual bits make no sense to evolve seperately. That's where I think some other idea is needed.

Scientists explain the cambrian explosion (where thousands of new and novel organisms sprang up virtually overnight in evolutionary terms) by saying that it was an evolutionary process they call "punctuated equilibrium". Meaning a burst of evolutionary changes, then nothing for a time. Another burst, then nothing for a time. Great, so evolution isn't necessarily slow and it can yield large changes in short times. Cool but then if they aren't gradual mutations that each interdependently show some advantage to survival then what's the mechanism again? This is where I begin to scratch my head.

[alstewartfan]

Some other idea is already there: Creation.

[Triple]

Having studied Gould and other genetics, the reasoning behind punctuated equilibrium is mutation or change in the genes that regulate gene expression. These people are smart...

However, the issue of how chlorophyll or rhodopsin evolved is a really tough one. A whole complex system has to be in place for there to be any value in chlorophyll development. It really does not lend itself to a slow gradual build-up. And the idea that the nucleotides coding for chlorophyll randomly assembled creating an advantage through this mutation is nonsense. The interim time and energy spent on non-working chlorophyll variants would be very deleterious mutations, IMO.