Random mutations

CabVet

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You are completely wrong they mention exactly what you are talking about. Did you read that article? Please let’s stay honest here.

You are either misunderstanding the article or misunderstanding what I am saying. I don't have access to Scientific American, so can't read the article you mention. But here is a quote from the Nachman and Crowell 2000 paper that estimates your U=3:

The average mutation rate was estimated to be ∼2.5 [FONT=ariel,helvetica]x[/FONT] 10-8 mutations per nucleotide site or 175 mutations per diploid genome per generation...... Using conservative calculations of the proportion of the genome subject to purifying selection, we estimate that the genomic deleterious mutation rate (U) is at least 3.
(Emphasis mine) So, for every 3 deleterious mutations, there are 172 neutral ones.
 
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A very interesting read, and quite a breakthrough in our fight to treat genetic illnesses. Genetics is so fascinating.

However, I'm afraid the importance of this research will be lost on "young earth creation scientists," and I use the word scientist rather loosely in this context. They'll tune out right when the article delves into natural selection and mutations. After all, according to Kent Hovind, natural selection and mutations the work of the devil.
 
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CabVet

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Haven't finished reading it yet, but see the very interesting quote below. He describes mutations that change protein structure and goes on to say they are "silent", which, by definition, is not the case, and then lumps it all with codon usage bias.

"Single-letter changes to the DNA, known as point mutations, can therefore change a codon to one that specifies the wrong amino acid (known as a missense mutation) or to a stop sig- nal (nonsense mutation), causing the final pro- tein to be truncated. A single-base change can also alter a stop codon so that it then encodes an amino acid (sense mutation), resulting in a lengthened protein. And a final change is pos- sible: a mutation that alters a nucleotide but yields a synonymous codon. These mutations are the ones termed “silent.”
 
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GrowingSmaller

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Yeah, when you compare something that you can actually observe in nature (random mutation) to something not only never confirmed, but also impossible to observe even if it happened (reincarnation), there is not much I can do. Might as well not believe in gravity, magnetism, relativity, etc.
Thats probably right. But I would still like to know how secure in science the random mutation idea is, although I am aware it is taught as standard. I recall hearing somewhere about the evolution of mutation rates, as if there was a optimal frequency for mutation. Also I am not sure (not having studied this much) that there are no feedback mechanisms that pressure certain mutations in a non-random fashion. All it would take is a mintue interference and there would be non-randomness. Is that actually ruled out by hard evidence? How advanced is the genetic reading technology that helps us to know this stuff?
 
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Zaius137

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This is what I believe.

The information in DNA can not originate or be stored by agents of chance. Chance working on original programming can cause adaptation (chance working on established rules) but chance working by itself is antithesis to organism fitness.
In other words mutation by itself does not produce new information that can promote fitness; in fact evolution adds no “new” gene sequences at all (never been observed or a mechanism hypothesized). The fitness gain in any mutation is a byproduct of altering original programming. (God is the designer of all life)
The second law of thermodynamics denies the presence of intrinsic Teleonomy in matter.

All these articles that I have quoted speak from the evolution paradigm. Some very different conclusions can be drawn if you just drop the nonsense.
 
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Loudmouth

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Actually CabVet I just showed how the new genetics is finding silent mutations in locations once thought to be harmless to actually be the reason for severe genetic dieses (50 now confirmed), Scientific American June 2009 volume 300 Number 6, A must read.

Is every silent mutation detrimental?

You carry between 50 and 200 mutations of your own. Do you suffer from 50 to 200 genetic diseases that your parents did not have?
 
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Loudmouth

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This is what I believe.


It would be more helpful if you could show us what you can DEMONSTRATE. You can believe that the Moon is made of green cheese if you want, but that doesn't make the Moon turn into green cheese.

The information in DNA can not originate or be stored by agents of chance.

Evidence please.

Chance working on original programming can cause adaptation (chance working on established rules) but chance working by itself is antithesis to organism fitness.

Good thing there is selection working as well which is non-random with respect to adaptation.

In other words mutation by itself does not produce new information that can promote fitness;

Evidence please.

in fact evolution adds no “new” gene sequences at all (never been observed or a mechanism hypothesized).

Evidence please.

The fitness gain in any mutation is a byproduct of altering original programming. (God is the designer of all life)

Evidence please.

The second law of thermodynamics denies the presence of intrinsic Teleonomy in matter.

The second law of thermodynamics allows for a reduction in entropy if energy is added to a system. Last I checked, there is this huge fireball in the sky dumping massive amounts of energy into Earth's ecosystems. Therefore, negative entropy is allowed by the laws of thermodynamics.
 
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Loudmouth

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But I would still like to know how secure in science the random mutation idea is, although I am aware it is taught as standard. I recall hearing somewhere about the evolution of mutation rates, as if there was a optimal frequency for mutation. Also I am not sure (not having studied this much) that there are no feedback mechanisms that pressure certain mutations in a non-random fashion. All it would take is a mintue interference and there would be non-randomness. Is that actually ruled out by hard evidence? How advanced is the genetic reading technology that helps us to know this stuff?

There has been a lot of study in this area over the last 20 years, especially in bacteria. The ultimate findings are that mutations are still random with respect to fitness. Mutations may not be random with respect to time, rate, or genomic features such as CpG islands, but they are random with respect to fitness.

Think of it like the lottery. Most would consider the lottery to be random. However, it isn't random with respect to the day it occurs, the time it occurs, the number of balls in the hopper, etc. There are a lot of non-random features in the lottery, but the one feature that is random is the selection of the numbers with respect to the tickets. This is just like mutations. Mutation rates may change with time or environment, but the mutations themselves are random with respect to the specific needs of the organism.

One specific case to consider is the oft cited lactose revertant mutants. It was found that the rate of these mutations increased when glucose was absent and lactose was present. However, what was really occuring was an SOS response where the bacteria upregulated error-prone polymerase genes which increased the overall mutation rate. Not only did the lactose mutation occur more often, but mutations throughout the genome also increased, even neutral and detrimental mutations.
 
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Loudmouth

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Good enough my friend… But let us keep the conversation open and honest as I hope to endeavor to do.

It can only be open and honest when you refrain from using calculations that rely on hard selection to reject mutation loads produced by soft selection.
 
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Loudmouth

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I think if I were to be sure mutation was randon, then I would have to be a specialist in the field of genetics and have clearly demonstrated scientific proofs.

I know the science, and even use it in the lab. I would be happy to explain why scientists continue to say that mutations are random with respect to fitness if you are interested.

As a sneak peek, let's use the lottery as an analogy again. What can happen is that organisms will increase the number of lottery tickets they buy. This increases the chances that they will "win". However, the lottery drawing is still random. That is, there are mechanisms that increase the mutation rate, but these mutations are still random, be it the SOS response in bacteria or increased retrotransposon activity in mammals.

My reasonable doubt is not earth shattering though, because I am not an expert in the field. A certain level of doubt may well be more rational to me because I don't actually claim to know that much, and anything else might be pretentious, because I don't actually hold the credentials or qualifications which would possibly lead me to a rationally warranted degree certainty.

To put this a different way, if mutations were not random then nothing in biological sciences from the last 70 years would make sense. We observe that there is no meaningful connection between the mechanisms that produce mutations and the needs of the organism. We also see differences between genomes in areas that do not affect phenotype. That is, we see divergence in junk DNA where such changes are meaningless. We also see animals born with deleterious mutations. So we see the entire gamut from exceedingly beneficial to lethal mutations, and they are all caused by the same mechanisms.
 
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CabVet

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Ok thatnks for that but is randomness actually verified statistically or is it implied by a lack of apparent direction?

It is verified statistically, in many organisms.

Evolution however, as mentioned many times, is not random.
 
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Loudmouth

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Ok thatnks for that but is randomness actually verified statistically or is it implied by a lack of apparent direction?

Both, actually. If you google "Luria Delbruck flucutation experiment" you can find the statistical description of the randomness. In this experiment they demonstrated that mutations confering bacteriophage resistance occurred in the absence of bacteriophage. That is, these beneficial mutations occurred when they were not needed. They used statistical tests to show this relationship.

As to direction, it is observed that needing a specific mutation does not increase the occurrence of that mutation as compared to background mutation rates.
 
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Zaius137

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“You carry between 50 and 200 mutations of your own. Do you suffer from 50 to 200 genetic diseases that your parents did not have?”

Mutations are mischievously unpredictable and since we are diploids and have about 20,000 genes most mutations may be recessive.

“That is, like the hemophilia ("bleeder's disease") gene in England's Queen Victoria, the mutant can be carried, undetected by selection, in a person (or plant or animal) with a dominant gene that masks the mutant's effect.”

That does not mean they are harmless but just recessive in the individual. The real issue is the rate of mutations; too many and the genetic load is not tolerable too few and evolution time frames are pushed way back. What is this? Another twist in the evolution fairytale…

“This means that we are accumulating new genetic mutations — the foundation of evolution — about a third as quickly as previously thought. If this mutation rate has been steady throughout human evolution, it pushes the fork between humans and chimps back 7 million years earlier. Some earlier evidence indicates that chimps may be evolving quicker than humans, though Awadalla said they would like to see how they stack up using this whole-genome sequencing method.”

http://www.livescience.com/14620-humans-evolving-slower-expected.html



New evidence shows that far fewer mutations are passed along to the offspring than previously thought, about 30 from each parent. This is about 1/3 the predicted mutation rate by the evolutionist. The problem for the evolutionist is they have only one third the needed mutation rate to make a monkey into a man; this fact alone is enough to put the nail in the coffin of the evolutionist.

http://www.geneticarchaeology.com/research/Family_genetic_research_reveals_the_speed_of_human_mutation.asp

Now how do you fit a deleterious rate of “U = 4.2” into the equation. Well actually it won’t fit in because now the genetic load is over 99% for humans.
 
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Blayz

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My Xmas wish for you Z is that you find a forum in which your impact and views are above irrelevant, and are on a topic you know something about.

New evidence


from evolutionists....
shows that far fewer mutations are passed along to the offspring than previously thought, about 30 from each parent. This is about 1/3 the predicted mutation rate by the evolutionist.

The same ones that found the new evidence.

The problem for the evolutionist is they have only one third the needed mutation rate to make a monkey into a man; this fact alone is enough to put the nail in the coffin of the evolutionist.

The problem for the creationist is that it is so desperate it has to use evolutionists in an unintenionally hilarious effort to discredit evolutionists...because creationists don't do, they just whinge.
 
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CabVet

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New evidence shows that far fewer mutations are passed along to the offspring than previously thought, about 30 from each parent. This is about 1/3 the predicted mutation rate by the evolutionist. The problem for the evolutionist is they have only one third the needed mutation rate to make a monkey into a man; this fact alone is enough to put the nail in the coffin of the evolutionist.

http://www.geneticarchaeology.com/research/Family_genetic_research_reveals_the_speed_of_human_mutation.asp

Now how do you fit a deleterious rate of “U = 4.2” into the equation. Well actually it won’t fit in because now the genetic load is over 99% for humans.

Oh, so you spent 4 pages of this topic discussing how mutation rates were too high and now you say they are too slow? Can you pick one? If mutation rates are as low as you claim (to bring back divergence between human and chimps to 12-15 million years), your U drops to less that 1.5. Which one is it?

In other words, if your U=4.2 is remotely correct, if anything divergence between humans and chimps will be less than 6 million years. If divergence is higher than 12 million like you claim, U has to be much less than 2. But of course, why would you listen to logical arguments?
 
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Phred

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Time has always been the magic ingredient of evolution but now it is just becoming real nonsense. Chimp Human divergence is now at 12 to 15 million years…. Fossil evidence please. Oops there was none in the first place.
Wow, are you full of nonsense.

Humans Evolving More Rapidly Than Ever, Say Scientists


Look out, future, because here we come: scientists say the speed of human evolution increased rapidly during the last 40,000 years — and it’s only going to get faster.

The findings, published today by a team of U.S. anthropologists in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, overturn the theory that modern life’s relative ease has slowed or even stopped human adaptation. Selective pressures are still at work; they just happen to be different than those faced by our distant ancestors.

"We’re more different from people 5,000 years ago than they were from Neanderthals," said study co-author and University of Utah anthropologist Henry Harpending.

In the study, researchers analzyed genomes from 270 people belonging to four disparate ethnic groups: Han Chinese, Africa’s Yoruba tribe,
Japanese and Utah Mormons. By comparing areas of difference and similarity, they determined that about seven percent of the genome has undergone significant change since the end of the last Ice Age.


If human beings had always evolved at such a rapid clip, said the researchers, genetic differences between people and chimpanzees would be 160 times greater than they are.

Driving the changes are environmental fluctuations and population growth. As the number of people swells, so do the number of mutations generated by random chance. Further selecting for disparate genetic inheritances are the diverse terrains, climates and social structures inhabited since the glaciers retreated.


The findings contradict the hypothesis that evolution must be slowing down because people who once would have died are sustained by modern medicine and social safety nets. They also suggest that genetic differences between different ethnic groups can be significant.

"The actual genes that are sweeping have not been thoroughly identified in all cases, but we can see interesting patterns," said Harpending.
"There are something like 6 genes, all broken African genes, responsible for European light skin, blue eyes, blonde hair, etc. They are evolving fast in Europe. Meanwhile, other genes responsible for light skin are sweeping in Asia, and they are different from those in
Europe."

Asked about James Watson’s controversial claims that intelligence evolved less effectively in people of African descent, Harpending said the study wasn’t designed to test such characteristics. He also cautioned against interpreting the findings as suggesting that people are becoming fundamentally better.

"Some of the mutations let us do better. We can eat simple carbohydrates, which hunter-gatherers never did. But we may also be accumulating damaging stuff," said Harpending.

He wondered whether social changes might not cultivate unfortunate tendencies.

"Evolution is a double-edged sword," he said. "What evolution cares about is that I have more offspring. If you can do it by charming and manipulating, and I’m a hardworking farmer that’s going to feed the kids ten years down the road, then you’re going to win. Hit-and-run, irresponsible males are reproducing more. That isn’t good for anyone except those males, but that’s evolution."

The study’s ultimate message, said Harpending: "Whatever changes are happening, they’re happening faster."


Recent acceleration of human adaptive evolution [PNAS]
 
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