Darwin and Mendel

[mark kennedy]

The NSTA offers this:

The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) strongly supports the position that evolution is a major unifying concept in science... (The Teaching of Evolution)​

The natural phenomenon really comes down to populations changing traits over time. The way things change are best unified with the Laws of Inheritance Meiosis and Mitosis but for some reason Mendelian Genetics isn't mentioned, only some nebulous concept of evolution.

Try another, less obscure example. What did you really learn in Algebra and how did you 'profit' from it?

Getting to the point, it's a unified theory of biology, it has been since the Modern Synthesis of Mendelian Genetics and Darwinism. What they profit is a matter of conjecture, what they should be learning is Biology and Genetics.

In short, we shall have to treat species in the same manner as those naturalists treat genera, who admit that genera are merely artificial combinations made for convenience. This may not be a cheering prospect; but we shall at least be freed from the vain search for the undiscovered and undiscoverable essence of the term species. (Darwin, On the Origin of Species: Chapter 14 - Recapitulation and Conclusion)​

Darwin is often accused of being racist but for his time he was actually more of a moderate. He is not trying to draw some definitive line indicating superior to inferior races, as a matter of fact he is trying to get away from those kind of distinctions. What he is most interested in are classifications that are assigned for the sake of convenience, this he says is best done at the level of genus. When it comes to human beings since we are all of the same genus the subcategories would be more like demographics then anything remotely resembling species.

All this talk about evolution, which when you get right down to it's variation resulting in bigger changes over time. One of the things that biology should be teaching us is what all the members of a genus, like say humans, have in common. Strangely enough, as convoluted as the use of expressions like 'favorable races' Darwinian evolution has helped to demonstrate just how meaningless a term like 'race' can be.

The father of modern genetics did a series of hybrid experiments that propelled the science of genetics for the last hundred years, did his work in the heart of the Austrian Hungry Empire.

"Some day the world may be as indebted as it is to Isaac Newton for physics. They may be as indebted to the City of Brno for its contributions to inheritance." (CF Napp, Brno)​

That actually happened, his name was Gregor Mendel and if you asked a thousand university students if evolution happened you would probably get a thousand affirmative responses. If you ask them how it happens the vast majority would say something vaguely Darwinian and all of them would be wrong. The Germans, notably the warlike Prussian national socialists like Hitler, were all enthusiastic evolutionists but they didn't have a clue how meaningless a phrase like 'survival of the fittest' is in biochemistry.

Mendelian genetics was not considered a science for a hundred years after Mendel had completed the work that was the foundation for modern genetics. It was not until Watson, Crick and their associates unveiled the DNA double helix model that the biochemical cause and genetic external allele effects were finally synthesized, graduating it to a true science. In the wake of this century of discovery it has become the world's newest and arguably, the most important scientific research of the modern world.

The expression, 'Survival of the fittest' is a gross misnomer. Evolution is the change of alleles (traits) in populations over time. The traits, in order to be adaptive over time have to make it past the normative screening of the genome. Hybrids have a strong tendency to revert back to the grand parent form according to Mendel and according to Darwin, infertility is the bane of horticulture. Indeed, producing adaptive traits in progeny is what has come to be known as differential selective success. However, Mendel discovered a pattern, a 3:1 ratio of dominant to recessive genes expressed as traits. Unfortunately for the Soviet Union they promoted Darwinian evolution to the exclusion of Mendelian Genetics which was a costly mistake for them in the Life Sciences:

They were not receiving Western journals. And Western ideas were considered bourgeois, erroneous and that they had to be abandoned, including - and this is what shocked Monod - 50 years of genetics. So this - there was a public announcement in the Soviet Union that Mendelian genetics, the genetics of Gregor Mendel and the chromosomal theories of genetics...It gutted Soviet biology, I would say, really, since that time; that Soviet biology never really recovered from this long episode of genetics being suppressed in the Soviet Union. ( 'Brave Genius': A Tale of Two Nobelists NPR)​

The Human Genome Project in their landmark paper tell us about the history of their science:

The rediscovery of Mendel's laws of heredity in the opening weeks of the 20th century sparked a scientific quest to understand the nature and content of genetic information that has propelled biology for the last hundred years. The scientific progress made falls naturally into four main phases, corresponding roughly to the four quarters of the century.​

• The first established the cellular basis of heredity: the chromosomes.
• The second defined the molecular basis of heredity: the DNA double helix.
• The third unlocked the informational basis of heredity, with the discovery of the biological mechanism by which cells read the information contained in genes and with the invention of the recombinant DNA technologies of cloning and sequencing by which scientists can do the same.
• The last quarter of a century has been marked by a relentless drive to decipher first genes and then entire genomes, spawning the field of genomics. (Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome. Nature, 15 Feb 2001)

I think it's pretty clear that Soviet Russia rejected Mendelian Genetics for 50 years and it hurt them in the Life Sciences. Lamark is a Zoologist Darwin mentions in the Preface: '

"In these works he upholds the doctrine that species, including man, are descended from other species.He first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition." (Darwin, On the Origin of Species)​

The statement pertains to lineage, from the concept of common descent Darwin would form what he called 'The Tree of Life'. It is the only illustration in the book. That's one of the reasons Darwinism became so controversial, the premise of On the Origin of Species was that life evolved by means of 'Natural Law' rather then being created by some 'miraculous interposition'. Darwin's inaugural book on natural selection can be described as one long argument against special creation.

Basically there were two issues with the Modern Synthesis:

At its heart was the question of whether Mendelian genetics could be reconciled with gradual evolution by means of natural selection. A second issue was whether the broad-scale changes (macroevolution) seen by palaeontologists could be explained by changes seen in local populations (microevolution).

Modern evolutionary synthesis

In Mendelian Genetics they are cyclical, a 3:1 ratio of dominant to recessive traits. Darwinism tries to resolve this by means of random (spontaneous) mutations, one of the ultimate sources of variation in living systems. There is just one problem with that, mutations are neutral the vast majority of the time and when strong enough for selection to act they are usually deleterious (harmful). In rare instances they can be beneficial, those rare instances Darwinians believe are the source of adaptive evolutionary history.

I'm not getting Mendelian Genetics from the article, Galton starts his eugenics ideas without reference to Mendelian Genetics since it was barely introduced to chromosome theory at the time. The rise of eugenics came about oblivious to Mendelian Genetics:

Three generations of imbeciles are enough." This decision opened the floodgates for thousands to be coercively sterilized or otherwise persecuted as subhuman. Years later, the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials quoted Holmes's words in their own defense...In Mein Kampf, published in 1924, Hitler quoted American eugenic ideology and openly displayed a thorough knowledge of American eugenics. "There is today one state," wrote Hitler, "in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of immigration] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States." (HNN article)​

There is mention in the article of the Human Genome project and a push by some in the field to do a kind of DNA profiling. What the article failed to mention is that Francis Collins, the director of the Human Genome Project was opposed to this kind of discrimination and testified on Capitol Hill to that effect. Mendelian Genetics has never been associated with eugenics, Darwinism is famous for it.

This is something you don't see everyday, a scientist quoting a politician and saying he got something right. Francis Collins quoting George Bush:

...who got it exactly right when he said, "Genetic discrimination is unfair to workers and their families. It is unjustified. To deny employment or insurance to a healthy person based only on a predisposition violates our country's belief in equal treatment and individual merit. In the past, other forms of discrimination have been used to withhold rights and opportunities that belong to all Americans. Just as we have addressed discrimination based on race, gender and age, we must now prevent discrimination based on genetic information."​

Testimony of Francis S. Collins, see Genetic Discrimination

I've never had much interest in the age of the earth, even though I'm pretty much a young earth creationist. What interests me is genetics.

The NSTA advocates teaching evolution as a unifying theory of science, I don't think they are talking about biology and genetics here. I think a better word here would be Darwinism, Mendelian genetics and the modern synthesis is what is in mind here.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[Dizredux]

Very interesting post. Thanks for posting it.

A pedantic add on.

Stalin was a follower of Lysenko who was a follower of Lamarck and rejected Darwinian evolution much to the detriment of Russian agriculture.

A point that comes up every so often with statements about the atheist Stalin being a follower of Darwin.

Dizredux

 

[mark kennedy]

Very interesting post. Thanks for posting it.

A pedantic add on.

Stalin was a follower of Lysenko who was a follower of Lamarck and rejected Darwinian evolution much to the detriment of Russian agriculture.

A point that comes up every so often with statements about the atheist Stalin being a follower of Darwin.

Dizredux

If the Communists had bothered to do some of the reading they would have realized there was a better way of doing hybrids. That's what was coming out of Genetics, better hybrids and the Soviet Union was oblivious to the developments, communist China was just as stand offish. It's a shame really but I'm sure that by now they have become more open to Genetics. They just about have to be in the Medical sciences. It's just that it was so unnecessary.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[Notedstrangeperson]

A pedantic add on.

Stalin was a follower of Lysenko who was a follower of Lamarck and rejected Darwinian evolution much to the detriment of Russian agriculture.

A point that comes up every so often with statements about the atheist Stalin being a follower of Darwin.

Not quite. It's probably more accurate to say both Stalin and Lysenko rejected Mendellian genetics rather than Darwinist evolution (since Mendel's theory of genetics was only added to evolutionary theory several decades after Origin of Species was written).

The reason? Because Mendel was a priest.

Lysenko won the support of Joseph Stalin, the ruthless Soviet dictator, and Mendel's rules were officially outlawed in the Soviet Union and the Eastern European Countries that it controlled at that time. Under Communism, the Mendel Museum in his monastery was closed.

- Gregor Mendel: And the Roots of Genetics
(Edward Edelson)​

Unfortunately for the reputation of genetics in the Soviet Union, there have been two clerics, Malthus and Mendel, who have played important parts in developing its theoretical ideas. 'Engels, according to Komarov, attributed what he considered the deficiencies in Darwin's own ideas to his following Malthus, an Anglican clergyman, on population questions, an opinion reiterated by Serebrjakov in 1939. The fact that Mendel was a priest has been similarly used to discredit his ideas. Lysenkol repeats Timirjazev's innuendo that Mendelism represents the attempt of clerical reactionary elements to replace the materialistic biological system of Darwin by a veiled form of idealism. It will be remembered that Lenin put forward a similar explanation with regard to Mach, whose idealistic philosophy of science was regarded as a comparable movement by reactionary elements against nineteenth century materialistic physics. It is true that Prezent sometimes excuses Mendel from full responsibility for Mendelism, but this does not prevent Lysenko and his followers from bringing forward on many occasions the accusation that genetics is the product of reactionary clericalism.​

- The New Genetics in the Soviet Union
(Isis, Volume 37, 1947)​

That said, Darwinism itself was also rejected because it was a "Western" theory.

 

[Dizredux]

Not quite. It's probably more accurate to say both Stalin and Lysenko rejected Mendellian genetics rather than Darwinist evolution (since Mendel's theory of genetics was only added to evolutionary theory several decades after Origin of Species was written).

The reason? Because Mendel was a priest.

Lysenko won the support of Joseph Stalin, the ruthless Soviet dictator, and Mendel's rules were officially outlawed in the Soviet Union and the Eastern European Countries that it controlled at that time. Under Communism, the Mendel Museum in his monastery was closed.

- Gregor Mendel: And the Roots of Genetics
(Edward Edelson)​

Unfortunately for the reputation of genetics in the Soviet Union, there have been two clerics, Malthus and Mendel, who have played important parts in developing its theoretical ideas. 'Engels, according to Komarov, attributed what he considered the deficiencies in Darwin's own ideas to his following Malthus, an Anglican clergyman, on population questions, an opinion reiterated by Serebrjakov in 1939. The fact that Mendel was a priest has been similarly used to discredit his ideas. Lysenkol repeats Timirjazev's innuendo that Mendelism represents the attempt of clerical reactionary elements to replace the materialistic biological system of Darwin by a veiled form of idealism. It will be remembered that Lenin put forward a similar explanation with regard to Mach, whose idealistic philosophy of science was regarded as a comparable movement by reactionary elements against nineteenth century materialistic physics. It is true that Prezent sometimes excuses Mendel from full responsibility for Mendelism, but this does not prevent Lysenko and his followers from bringing forward on many occasions the accusation that genetics is the product of reactionary clericalism.​

- The New Genetics in the Soviet Union
(Isis, Volume 37, 1947)​

That said, Darwinism itself was also rejected because it was a "Western" theory.

This is more or less as I understand it although I was not as familiar with the priest issue. I have also read that part of the rejection was because it did not fit the Communist Dialectical.

Most things like usually have a number of factors in its genesis.

Dizredux

 

[Loudmouth]

The NSTA offers this:

The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) strongly supports the position that evolution is a major unifying concept in science... (The Teaching of Evolution)​

The natural phenomenon really comes down to populations changing traits over time. The way things change are best unified with the Laws of Inheritance Meiosis and Mitosis but for some reason Mendelian Genetics isn't mentioned, only some nebulous concept of evolution.

Which of those laws covers the emergence of a new trait due to mutation?

That actually happened, his name was Gregor Mendel and if you asked a thousand university students if evolution happened you would probably get a thousand affirmative responses. If you ask them how it happens the vast majority would say something vaguely Darwinian and all of them would be wrong.

They would be right. Mendel discovered that genes are passed on as discrete units, not how populations change over time through mutation and natural selection.

The Germans, notably the warlike Prussian national socialists like Hitler, were all enthusiastic evolutionists but they didn't have a clue how meaningless a phrase like 'survival of the fittest' is in biochemistry.

The endless smears by association get tiring. You might as well accuse Nazis of being enthusiastic Newtonists since they used his equations for aiming their artillery.

The traits, in order to be adaptive over time have to make it past the normative screening of the genome.

That sentence is meaningless.

Hybrids have a strong tendency to revert back to the grand parent form according to Mendel and according to Darwin, infertility is the bane of horticulture. Indeed, producing adaptive traits in progeny is what has come to be known as differential selective success. However, Mendel discovered a pattern, a 3:1 ratio of dominant to recessive genes expressed as traits. Unfortunately for the Soviet Union they promoted Darwinian evolution to the exclusion of Mendelian Genetics which was a costly mistake for them in the Life Sciences:

How can you have hybrids to begin with? Mendel never explained that. Darwin did.

I think it's pretty clear that Soviet Russia rejected Mendelian Genetics for 50 years and it hurt them in the Life Sciences. Lamark is a Zoologist Darwin mentions in the Preface: '

They rejected Darwinian evolution. That is what hurt them.

 

[mark kennedy]

Which of those laws covers the emergence of a new trait due to mutation?

Which trait would that be LM?

They would be right. Mendel discovered that genes are passed on as discrete units, not how populations change over time through mutation and natural selection.

Dominant vs. recessive traits, it became the basis for Chromosome theory.

The endless smears by association get tiring. You might as well accuse Nazis of being enthusiastic Newtonists since they used his equations for aiming their artillery.

They got their ideas about Eugentics from the same place they got their ideas about rockets, from the US.

How can you have hybrids to begin with? Mendel never explained that. Darwin did.

No, Darwin never explained hybrids, he used them as an example of selected traits. He called it artificial selection.

They rejected Darwinian evolution. That is what hurt them.

They were staunch Darwinians, they missed out on the technology that came out of 50 years of Genetics.

In the mid-1930s, the agronomist Trofim Lysenko started a campaign against genetics and was supported by Stalin. If the field of genetics' connection to Nazis wasn't enough, Mendelian genetics particularly enraged Stalin due to its founder Gregor Mendel's being a Catholic Christian priest, a fact that flew in the face of the Soviet Union's official atheism and antitheism. (Suppressed research in the Soviet Union)​

That's right LM, it could be as simple as a bias based on religion.

 

[Loudmouth]

Which trait would that be LM?

The new traits produced by mutations. We could talk about melanism in rock pocket mice:

The genetic basis of adaptive melanism in pocket mice

We could also talk about the emerging hemoglobin C allele in humans:

Estimation of relative fitnesses from relative risk data and the predicted future of haemoglobin alleles S and C - Hedrick - 2003 - Journal of Evolutionary Biology - Wiley Online Library

Dominant vs. recessive traits, it became the basis for Chromosome theory.

Right. It only describes traits as being discrete units instead of mixing together and diluting each other. This is one of the problems that Darwin's theory ran into early on. It was thought that any new trait would be diluted with each generation, like black fur becoming less black with each generation because of mating with individuals with white fur.

Mendel discovered how traits are inherited in sexual species. Mendel did not discover how species evolve.

They got their ideas about Eugentics from the same place they got their ideas about rockets, from the US.

Where in the theory of evolution does it say to kill jews, or kill anyone for that matter? Is it like the laws written by Newton that tell us to drop bombs?

No, Darwin never explained hybrids, he used them as an example of selected traits. He called it artificial selection.

In order to produce hybrids you need two divergent populations. That is what Darwin explained, how you can get two divergent populations from a shared ancestral population. Mendel never explained that.

They were staunch Darwinians, they missed out on the technology that came out of 50 years of Genetics.

Just the opposite is true. They were Lamarckists. They rejected Darwinian evolution, and the Modern Synthesis which combined Darwinian evolution and Mendelian genetics.

That's right LM, it could be as simple as a bias based on religion.

I think your posts are really good examples of the bias that religion can produce.

 

[mark kennedy]

The new traits produced by mutations. We could talk about melanism in rock pocket mice:

The genetic basis of adaptive melanism in pocket mice

rock pocket mice....seriously....

We could also talk about the emerging hemoglobin C allele in humans:

Estimation of relative fitnesses from relative risk data and the predicted future of haemoglobin alleles S and C - Hedrick - 2003 - Journal of Evolutionary Biology - Wiley Online Library

Maybe we could if we had something besides a link.

Right. It only describes traits as being discrete units instead of mixing together and diluting each other. This is one of the problems that Darwin's theory ran into early on. It was thought that any new trait would be diluted with each generation, like black fur becoming less black with each generation because of mating with individuals with white fur.

Darwinism was always short on the particulars.

Mendel discovered how traits are inherited in sexual species. Mendel did not discover how species evolve.

Mendel determined after 10,000 experiments over 3 years that certain traits were dominant and some were recessive. The famous 3:1 ratio. What Mendel had built was a model based exclusively on the expressed traits.

Where in the theory of evolution does it say to kill jews, or kill anyone for that matter? Is it like the laws written by Newton that tell us to drop bombs?

I was talking about Genetics and why Stalin suppressed it.

In order to produce hybrids you need to two divergent populations. That is what Darwin explained, how you can get two divergent populations from a shared ancestral population. Mendel never explained that.

Because of the strong tendency to revert back to the grandparent form.

Augustine Brannigan has argued that Mendel was not completely forgotten, but that his contemporaries understood him to be talking about species hybridization, and claiming that the descendants of hybrids tend to revert to ancestral types. Around 1900 the “rediscoverers” of Mendel instead picked up on his mathematical laws of transmission of particular traits. (Mendel, Johann Gregor, Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography)​

Just the opposite is true. They were Lamarckists. They rejected Darwinian evolution, and the Modern Synthesis which combined Darwinian evolution and Mendelian genetics.

Because Stalin didn't like Mendel, it had nothing to do with Darwinism. Being an atheist doesn't make you scientifically astute.

 

[Loudmouth]

rock pocket mice....seriously....

You are running away from reality on post 8. New record?

Maybe we could if we had something besides a link.

Linking to a peer reviewed paper is not good enough?

I am only referencing examples of mutations producing new traits which is completely non-controversial, at least among those who have a firm grasp of reality.

I am asking which of Mendel's laws deal with the emergence of new traits through mutation. Do you know?

Darwinism was always short on the particulars.

You do realize that it has been added to over the last 150 years, right?

Mendel determined after 10,000 experiments over 3 years that certain traits were dominant and some were recessive. The famous 3:1 ratio. What Mendel had built was a model based exclusively on the expressed traits.

He also found traits that did not fit those perfect ratios, and there are other examples of traits that do not have the exact types of relationships that Mendel describes for traits in pea plants.

I also find it strange that you idolize experiments done in pea plants, but then mock experiments done in mice. Care to explain?

I was talking about Genetics and why Stalin suppressed it.

"They were staunch Darwinians . . . "--mark kennedy

That is simply false. They were Lysenkoists who embraced Lamarckism. They rejected Darwinian mechanisms as the cause of adaptation in species.

Because of the strong tendency to revert back to the grandparent form.

Then how do you get two different populations that you need to produce a hybrid? If they always rever to the grandparent form, then there are no divergent populations to breed in order to get hybrids.

Because Stalin didn't like Mendel, it had nothing to do with Darwinism.

"They were staunch Darwinians . . ."--mark kennedy

That is what you said in relation to Stalin and Soviet Russia.

 

[mark kennedy]

You are running away from reality on post 8. New record?

No just refusing to chase it in circles.

Linking to a peer reviewed paper is not good enough?

The question was about a mutation resulting in a beneficial trait, not effect but trait. Then you post some random link and I'm not chasing it in circles.

I am only referencing examples of mutations producing new traits which is completely non-controversial, at least among those who have a firm grasp of reality.

None of the details, not even a quote and you get a mutation producing a new trait. I won't bother with it but I'll guarantee is based on comparisons. All the times we have done this and you never got that fundamental concept.

I am asking which of Mendel's laws deal with the emergence of new traits through mutation. Do you know?

There's no such thing.

You do realize that it has been added to over the last 150 years, right?

You do know a condescending attitude only gets you so far.

He also found traits that did not fit those perfect ratios, and there are other examples of traits that do not have the exact types of relationships that Mendel describes for traits in pea plants.

The traits he selected were either on separate chromosomes are far enough apart on the same chromosome that they could cross over. So much time spent on the subject matter, don't you get interested in the history once in a while?

I also find it strange that you idolize experiments done in pea plants, but then mock experiments done in mice. Care to explain?

You never actually discussed either.

"They were staunch Darwinians . . . "--mark kennedy

They were.

That is simply false. They were Lysenkoists who embraced Lamarckism. They rejected Darwinian mechanisms as the cause of adaptation in species.

Except you have no source for that except yourself.

Then how do you get two different populations that you need to produce a hybrid? If they always rever to the grandparent form, then there are no divergent populations to breed in order to get hybrids.

You just can't see the connection of hybrids to adaptive evolution can you? I mean it's Darwin's whole argument, it's not surprising you missed that.

"They were staunch Darwinians . . ."--mark kennedy

That is what you said in relation to Stalin and Soviet Russia.

I'm pretty much a Democrat but one thing I've never understood is why liberal love evolution. It's no secret that they don't care much for Biblical Christianity but why are they invariably rabid evolutionists?

Stalin didn't like Mendel because he was Catholic

In the mid-1930s, the agronomist Trofim Lysenko started a campaign against genetics and was supported by Stalin. If the field of genetics' connection to Nazis wasn't enough, Mendelian genetics particularly enraged Stalin due to its founder Gregor Mendel's being a Catholic Christian priest, a fact that flew in the face of the Soviet Union's official atheism and antitheism. (Suppressed research in the Soviet Union)​

So you can just say they rejected Darwinism to and thats ok, even though it's obviously not true. LM, it's just you and me here, if you have noticed the crowds have thinned out considerably. Stalin and Hitler were both Darwinian but for different reasons and most of them were political. It's called social darwinism and it's one of the reasons evolution is actually dangerous when you equivocate evolution with things like social darwinism.

What puzzles me is that you haven't taken an interest in the philosophy, history or even the relevant theology. All this time with some many interesting things that are coming out these days and you think it's all about arguing against creation.

Have a nice day
Mark

 

[USincognito]

The Germans, notably the warlike Prussian national socialists like Hitler, were all enthusiastic evolutionists but they didn't have a clue how meaningless a phrase like 'survival of the fittest' is in biochemistry.

Mark's hit parade of error continues...

Hitler wasn't Prussian. He was Austrian.

Germans didn't embrace evolution and if anyone was to blame for the Holocaust, it would be Joseph Lister, not Charles Darwin.

 

[Loudmouth]

No just refusing to chase it in circles.

What circles?

In pocket mice, we see a mutation that produced the emergence of a new trait.

How do Mendel's laws of heredity deal with this?

The question was about a mutation resulting in a beneficial trait, not effect but trait. Then you post some random link and I'm not chasing it in circles.

I posted a peer reviewed paper that contains a beneficial trait caused by a mutation. You know, exactly what you are asking for.

Identifying the genes underlying adaptation is a major challenge in evolutionary biology. Here, we describe the molecular changes underlying adaptive coat color variation in a natural population of rock pocket mice, Chaetodipus intermedius. Rock pocket mice are generally light-colored and live on light-colored rocks. However, populations of dark (melanic) mice are found on dark lava, and this concealing coloration provides protection from avian and mammalian predators. We conducted association studies by using markers in candidate pigmentation genes and discovered four mutations in the melanocortin-1-receptor gene, Mc1r, that seem to be responsible for adaptive melanism in one population of lava-dwelling pocket mice.
The genetic basis of adaptive melanism in pocket mice
​

You do know a condescending attitude only gets you so far.

Another irony meter just exploded.

The traits he selected were either on separate chromosomes are far enough apart on the same chromosome that they could cross over. So much time spent on the subject matter, don't you get interested in the history once in a while?

You do understand that not all traits follow the perfect 3:1 ratios, right? You do understand that some alleles are not dominant and recessive, but have additive effects, right?

You never actually discussed either.

You have not discussed any of the experiments in pea plants. When will be seeing them?

They were.

That is a flat out lie.

Lysenkoism (Russian: Лысе́нковщин&#1072, or Lysenko-Michurinism was the centralized political control exercised over genetics and agriculture by Trofim Lysenko and his followers. Lysenko was the director of the Soviet Union's Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Lysenkoism began in the late 1920s and formally ended in 1964. . .

Lysenko did not apply actual science. He was a proponent of the ideas of Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, a well-known and well-liked Soviet horticulturist, and practiced a form of Lamarckism, insisting on the change in species among plants through hybridization and grafting, as well as a variety of other non-genetic techniques. With this came, most importantly, the implication that acquired characteristics of an organism — for example, the state of being leafless as a result of having been plucked — could be inherited by that organism's descendants.
Lysenkoism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia​

Does Google not work in your part of the interwebs?

You just can't see the connection of hybrids to adaptive evolution can you? I mean it's Darwin's whole argument, it's not surprising you missed that.

Papers? Evidence?

I'm pretty much a Democrat but one thing I've never understood is why liberal love evolution. It's no secret that they don't care much for Biblical Christianity but why are they invariably rabid evolutionists?

99.9% of biologists accept the theory of evolution, independent of any political leanings.

So you can just say they rejected Darwinism to and thats ok, even though it's obviously not true.

"Lysenko did not apply actual science. He was a proponent of the ideas of Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, a well-known and well-liked Soviet horticulturist, and practiced a form of Lamarckism, insisting on the change in species among plants through hybridization and grafting, as well as a variety of other non-genetic techniques. With this came, most importantly, the implication that acquired characteristics of an organism — for example, the state of being leafless as a result of having been plucked — could be inherited by that organism's descendants."
Lysenkoism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's called social darwinism and it's one of the reasons evolution is actually dangerous when you equivocate evolution with things like social darwinism.

You still haven't shown me the part of the theory where it says to kill jews. When will you be doing this? Is the theory of gravity also dangerous because it tells us to throw people off of tall buildings?

Do you understand why you are wrong?

What puzzles me is that you haven't taken an interest in the philosophy, history or even the relevant theology. All this time with some many interesting things that are coming out these days and you think it's all about arguing against creation.

Have a nice day
Mark

I don't lie about the history of science, like you do.

 

[bhsmte]

.

 

[Vaccine]

In Mendelian Genetics they are cyclical, a 3:1 ratio of dominant to recessive traits. Darwinism tries to resolve this by means of random (spontaneous) mutations, one of the ultimate sources of variation in living systems. There is just one problem with that, mutations are neutral the vast majority of the time and when strong enough for selection to act they are usually deleterious (harmful). In rare instances they can be beneficial, those rare instances Darwinians believe are the source of adaptive evolutionary history.

Hi Mark, I liked your post and thought it was very informative. Good point about where Darwinian's current hopes for macro-evolution lie, rare mutations. It seems to me mutations point a species toward extinction rather than macro-evolution. I don't have enough faith to believe rare mutations account for the diversity we see, but to each their own.
I saw this referenced by a recent creation.com article and thought it was relevant:
Contamination of the genome by very slightly deleterious mutations: why have we not died 100 times over?

Contamination of the genome by very slightly deleterious mutations: why have we not died 100 times over?

The NSTA advocates teaching evolution as a unifying theory of science, I don't think they are talking about biology and genetics here. I think a better word here would be Darwinism, Mendelian genetics and the modern synthesis is what is in mind here.

Grace and peace,
Mark

I agree, that's quite the task trying to unify Darwinism, Mendelian genetics, and the modern synthesis. Koonin said in a recent peer-reviewed article:
"So, not to mince words, the Modern Synthesis is gone. What’s next?"
The Origin at 150: is a new evolutionary synthesis in sight?

Since trying to unify Darwinism and Mendelian genetics would violate the principle of genetic homeostasis and "the modern synthesis is gone", I don't think the NSAT is going to succeed. What will we see in the future? Going where the facts lead hopefully. Some people just don't want to face the fact of design yet, IMHO.

 

[Loudmouth]

Hi Mark, I liked your post and thought it was very informative.

Which of the 40 million indel and substitution mutations that separate humans and chimps could not have been produced by the known processes of mutation?

 

[mark kennedy]

What circles?

In pocket mice, we see a mutation that produced the emergence of a new trait.

How do Mendel's laws of heredity deal with this?

That's the question you would be answering if you had one. Were you paying attention you would realize that adaptive evolution isn't an issue for me and certainly not a good argument against creation. It's anecdotal at best and you have yet to identify the trait that is responsible for the adaptation.

I posted a peer reviewed paper that contains a beneficial trait caused by a mutation. You know, exactly what you are asking for.

Identifying the genes underlying adaptation is a major challenge in evolutionary biology. Here, we describe the molecular changes underlying adaptive coat color variation in a natural population of rock pocket mice, Chaetodipus intermedius. Rock pocket mice are generally light-colored and live on light-colored rocks. However, populations of dark (melanic) mice are found on dark lava, and this concealing coloration provides protection from avian and mammalian predators. We conducted association studies by using markers in candidate pigmentation genes and discovered four mutations in the melanocortin-1-receptor gene, Mc1r, that seem to be responsible for adaptive melanism in one population of lava-dwelling pocket mice.
The genetic basis of adaptive melanism in pocket mice
​

All you have there is a random color change and a naturally occurring variation of the gene. I've tracked this one down before and as I recall there is a regulatory gene involved. It makes no sense for this to be the result of a random mutation, does the color change at random until the population finally get a color that provides a selective advantage?

You do understand that not all traits follow the perfect 3:1 ratios, right? You do understand that some alleles are not dominant and recessive, but have additive effects, right?

I understand that you at least read something I wrote, yes Mendel's famous 3:1 ratio is the proportion of recessive to dominant traits. I'm not sure how you are trying to work in the mutant allele but so far you have a random mutation as the cause and adaptive evolution as the effect with nothing substantive in the middle. It's called begging the question of proof.

You have not discussed any of the experiments in pea plants. When will be seeing them?

When and if we ever actually get on that subject. Or you could always do it the old fashion way and read up on Mendelian Genetics for the sake of being more knowledgeable on the subject.

That is a flat out lie.

Lysenkoism (Russian: Лысе́нковщин&#1072, or Lysenko-Michurinism was the centralized political control exercised over genetics and agriculture by Trofim Lysenko and his followers. Lysenko was the director of the Soviet Union's Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Lysenkoism began in the late 1920s and formally ended in 1964. . .

Lysenko did not apply actual science. He was a proponent of the ideas of Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, a well-known and well-liked Soviet horticulturist, and practiced a form of Lamarckism, insisting on the change in species among plants through hybridization and grafting, as well as a variety of other non-genetic techniques. With this came, most importantly, the implication that acquired characteristics of an organism — for example, the state of being leafless as a result of having been plucked — could be inherited by that organism's descendants.
Lysenkoism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia​

Does Google not work in your part of the interwebs?

They rejected Mendelian Genetics, that doesn't mean Soviets were not interested in hybrids. Your using your own ignorance of the subject matter as an argument.

In the mid-1930s, the agronomist Trofim Lysenko started a campaign against genetics and was supported by Stalin. If the field of genetics' connection to Nazis wasn't enough, Mendelian genetics particularly enraged Stalin due to its founder Gregor Mendel's being a Catholic Christian priest, a fact that flew in the face of the Soviet Union's official atheism and antitheism. (Suppressed research in the Soviet Union)​

Papers? Evidence?

You just really don't read much about this sort of thing do you?

Stalin after the war - after World War II really began a process of sort of the Sovietization of science. And the idea was to sort of strip science and the Soviet Union of Western influences. Soviet scientists were becoming barred from publishing in the West. They were not receiving Western journals. And Western ideas were considered bourgeois, erroneous and that they had to be abandoned, including - and this is what shocked Monod - 50 years of genetics.

So this - there was a public announcement in the Soviet Union that Mendelian genetics, the genetics of Gregor Mendel and the chromosomal theories of genetics that were the Nobel Prize-winning work of T.H. Morgan in the 1930s in the United States, that these were to be abandoned and that there was another theory being promoted by a complete charlatan in the Soviet Union.'Brave Genius': A Tale of Two Nobelists​

Mendelian genetics was categorically rejected by the Soviet Union because Mendel was ordained. The concept of a teaching professor with a ministry undergraduate degree didn't occur to them because it was more important to attack belief systems they knew nothing about and cared nothing about, they just wanted them deprecated.

Your a prime example, you attack creationists but you never actually learn the science. I open a fairly mild thread on Mendelian genetics and you not only struggle with the basics your actually demanding I tutor you on the subject.

99.9% of biologists accept the theory of evolution, independent of any political leanings.

Who cares, 99% of creationists are going to agree with evolution as it is defined scientifically.

"Lysenko did not apply actual science. He was a proponent of the ideas of Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, a well-known and well-liked Soviet horticulturist, and practiced a form of Lamarckism, insisting on the change in species among plants through hybridization and grafting, as well as a variety of other non-genetic techniques. With this came, most importantly, the implication that acquired characteristics of an organism — for example, the state of being leafless as a result of having been plucked — could be inherited by that organism's descendants."
Lysenkoism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Was there a point to this quote?

You still haven't shown me the part of the theory where it says to kill jews. When will you be doing this? Is the theory of gravity also dangerous because it tells us to throw people off of tall buildings?

Do you understand why you are wrong?

I'll tell you what I understand, the culture wars are over and the crowds have cleared. Your using the same tired, fallacious arguments you always have and expect that just because I'm a Creationists and your opposed to that you have the stronger argument.

I've brought this up before and you have demonstrated a zero comprehension of how genetics relates to the origins debate. I'll bet you never even made that actual insight, all we are talking about is origins, evolution is something that happens after life has started.

I don't lie about the history of science, like you do.

Flames this early? You must be desperate since things started slowing down in here. Its fun to watch you fall so fast, makes a difference when you don't have half a dozen trolls flaming you at once and in case you didn't notice, your one of the few trolls left.

Have a nice day
Mark

 

[Loudmouth]

That's the question you would be answering if you had one. Were you paying attention you would realize that adaptive evolution isn't an issue for me and certainly not a good argument against creation. It's anecdotal at best and you have yet to identify the trait that is responsible for the adaptation.

I already gave you that info. They found the mutations in the Mc1r gene responsible for the change in fur color. The human homolog and its alleles are also involved in determing human skin color.

All you have there is a random color change and a naturally occurring variation of the gene.

That naturally occuring variation was caused by mutation.

I've tracked this one down before and as I recall there is a regulatory gene involved. It makes no sense for this to be the result of a random mutation, does the color change at random until the population finally get a color that provides a selective advantage?

Let's see . . . the theory of evolution says that random mutations produce new variation that is then filtered through selection. With this example, we have random mutations producing a new fur coat variant that was then selected for. Can you please explain why this is not an example of evolution?

I understand that you at least read something I wrote, yes Mendel's famous 3:1 ratio is the proportion of recessive to dominant traits. I'm not sure how you are trying to work in the mutant allele but so far you have a random mutation as the cause and adaptive evolution as the effect with nothing substantive in the middle. It's called begging the question of proof.

Nothing substantive in the middle of what?

A mutation causes a fur color change.

That color provides better camoflage on black basalt rocks.

The new mutation spreads through the population of mice that are living near the black basalt rocks, allowing them to occupy territory that they previously were not adapted to.

What is missing?

Or you could always do it the old fashion way and read up on Mendelian Genetics for the sake of being more knowledgeable on the subject.

I know way more about genetics and Mendelian genetics than you do. Perhaps you should read up. I have actually done real experiments mapping genes in the fruit fly genome using Mendelian genetics. Have you?

They rejected Mendelian Genetics, that doesn't mean Soviets were not interested in hybrids. Your using your own ignorance of the subject matter as an argument.

They rejected Darwinian evolution. I see that you still can't admit that.

You just really don't read much about this sort of thing do you?

Stalin after the war - after World War II really began a process of sort of the Sovietization of science. And the idea was to sort of strip science and the Soviet Union of Western influences. Soviet scientists were becoming barred from publishing in the West. They were not receiving Western journals. And Western ideas were considered bourgeois, erroneous and that they had to be abandoned, including - and this is what shocked Monod - 50 years of genetics.

So this - there was a public announcement in the Soviet Union that Mendelian genetics, the genetics of Gregor Mendel and the chromosomal theories of genetics that were the Nobel Prize-winning work of T.H. Morgan in the 1930s in the United States, that these were to be abandoned and that there was another theory being promoted by a complete charlatan in the Soviet Union.'Brave Genius': A Tale of Two Nobelists​

Still waiting for scientific papers on hybrids. That is what I asked for.

Mendelian genetics was categorically rejected by the Soviet Union because Mendel was ordained.

They also rejected Darwinian evolution.

Your a prime example, you attack creationists but you never actually learn the science.

I am not the one getting the science wrong. Want to go over ERV's again?

How many ERV's are in the human genome? How many of those human ERV's have orthologs in the chimp genome? Bet you can't produce the correct answer to those two questions.

I open a fairly mild thread on Mendelian genetics and you not only struggle with the basics your actually demanding I tutor you on the subject.

The basics? I'm sorry, but Soviet rejection of Darwinian evolution is not the basics of Mendelian genetics, and that seems to be the only thing you want to talk about. You also refuse to admit that a mutation in the mouse Mc1r gene results in a new phenotype that was selected for.

Why don't you learn the science and get back to us.

Was there a point to this quote?

The point is that the Soviets rejected Darwinian evolution. When are you going to admit that?

I'll tell you what I understand, the culture wars are over and the crowds have cleared. Your using the same tired, fallacious arguments you always have and expect that just because I'm a Creationists and your opposed to that you have the stronger argument.

I am not the one getting the science wrong. You keep claiming that I am using a homology argument when I am acutally using a phylogenetic argument. When will you get the science right?

I've brought this up before and you have demonstrated a zero comprehension of how genetics relates to the origins debate. I'll bet you never even made that actual insight, all we are talking about is origins, evolution is something that happens after life has started.

Flames this early? You must be desperate since things started slowing down in here. Its fun to watch you fall so fast, makes a difference when you don't have half a dozen trolls flaming you at once and in case you didn't notice, your one of the few trolls left.

Have a nice day
Mark

The flame war started when you dropped the Godwin card.

 

[Dizredux]

Loudmouth

That is simply false. They were Lysenkoists who embraced Lamarckism. They rejected Darwinian mechanisms as the cause of adaptation in species.

Mark

Except you have no source for that except yourself.

Oh good grief. This has been well and long established. Here is just two tidbits supporting Loudmouth.

Lysenko's genetic theories were grounded in Lamarckism. His work was primarily devoted to developing new techniques and practices in agriculture. But he also contributed a new theoretical framework which would become the foundation of all Soviet agriculture: a discipline called agrobiology that is a fusion of plant physiology, cytology, genetics and evolutionary theory. Central to Lysenko's tenets was the concept of the inheritability of acquired characteristics

Scientific dissent from Lysenko's theories of environmentally acquired inheritance was formally outlawed in 1948.

Trofim Lysenko - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dizredux

 

[sfs]

Hi Mark, I liked your post and thought it was very informative. Good point about where Darwinian's current hopes for macro-evolution lie, rare mutations. It seems to me mutations point a species toward extinction rather than macro-evolution. I don't have enough faith to believe rare mutations account for the diversity we see, but to each their own.

Why rare mutations, and why difficult to believe? We know that mutations happen all the time. We know that some of them are beneficial to the organism. We know that beneficial mutations are naturally selected for and spread in the population. We can observe all of this in the lab and in the wild. Where is faith required?

I saw this referenced by a recent creation.com article and thought it was relevant:
Contamination of the genome by very slightly deleterious mutations: why have we not died 100 times over?

Contamination of the genome by very slightly deleterious mutations: why have we not died 100 times over?

A classic example of someone extrapolating a mathematical model into domains where it makes no physical sense. Kondrashov didn't observe large numbers of very slightly deleterious mutations; he simply formulated a model that had them and assumed the model reflected reality. In reality, evolutionary theory does not predict that such mutations should occur more frequently than very slightly beneficial mutations, and the entire problem doesn't exist.

I agree, that's quite the task trying to unify Darwinism, Mendelian genetics, and the modern synthesis.

What are you talking about? The modern synthesis is the unification of Darwinism and Mendelian genetics.

Koonin said in a recent peer-reviewed article:
"So, not to mince words, the Modern Synthesis is gone. What’s next?"
The Origin at 150: is a new evolutionary synthesis in sight?

The article is exactly right: the modern synthesis has been replaced with much more realistic, nuanced and complex evolutionary models, since we now know far more about the subtleties of genetic processes. And you're quoting this article because . . . why, exactly?

Since trying to unify Darwinism and Mendelian genetics would violate the principle of genetic homeostasis

Don't be ridiculous. The "principle of genetic homeostasis" is violated all the time. Sure, most functional elements in the genome are under purifying selection, but that does nothing at all to inhibit positive selection when a better genetic variant comes along.

and "the modern synthesis is gone", I don't think the NSAT is going to succeed. What will we see in the future? Going where the facts lead hopefully. Some people just don't want to face the fact of design yet, IMHO.

Nothing you've cited here leads in any way to the conclusion of design or in any way undercuts evolutionary biology. So what facts are you talking about?