Todd Moody wrote: > The question is whether mutations are the source of the variations that natural selection selects. That's the point that lacks empirical > evidence. Many domestic animals exihibit traits that are not found in their wild counterparts and are not explainable by neoteny (a form of mutation itself)alone. A good recent example is a new breed of very short-legged cat that was bred from one individual cat that first exhibited this mutation that had never been seen before. Several breeds of plants have also been bred from individual mutants in recent history and prior to recent genetic splicing techniques mutations were the principle source of new plant variants. That natural selection wouldn't be able to duplicate the efforts of Man grossly underestimates God's abilities The lack of "missing links" in the fosil record is explained by the statical improbality of such a small population being preserved. Species that existed for millions of years in large numbers may be represented by only a few individuals. Variants existing in far fewer numbers for far less time have scant chance of being preserved at all. One thing that is becoming clear from chaos theory and fractal geometry is that only randomness produces designs as complex as those found in nature. Ray Audette Author "NeanderThin"