Beneficial MutationS

[rmwilliamsll]

The underlined section above is misleading.

Sickle-cell anemia is a recessive trait, meaning your need to have two genes inherited from both parents in order to have that trait. When a person has only one copy of that gene, the person does not only have sickle-cell anemia, but also resistant from malaria.

Also, you are underestimating how serious malaria is. Many children die from malaria before reaching puberty.

sickle cell is only one of several hundred hemoglobin variants or thalassemias.
There are Hb mutations and thalassemias clustered all around the Mediterranean where malaria was endemic for thousands of years. It is not just one mutation of hemoglobin(HbS), but hundreds. All directed at the same disease-malaria.


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[pinqy]

And last year, in Germany, there was a confirmed case of a young boy with a mutation where he lacks the myostatin gene (GDF-8). His mother lacks one copy, the boy (now 5 1/2 years old) lacks both. Creationists would claim that this is a lack of information (which it certainly is) and therefore not beneficial and not evolution. But myostatin is a muscle growth inhibitor and the effect on the child is "unusually well-developed muscles." Experiments in mice, which have been conducted since 1997, show no detrimental effects; they have a normal lifespan and reproduce normally. Beneficial mutation, then.