Evolution for Drotar

[lucaspa]

First, let me start off by admitting that I was wrong.

Upon further reading, upon clear thinking and meditation on the topic, I thought about it, and realized that natural selection is an inescapable truth. In a sense, I'm glad that Darwin wrote that book, because of the true claims of natural selection and the Founder effect.

Those are both real life occurences, though extremely rare.

The Founder effect is rare. Natural selection is NOT.

My problem is in transpeciation. Natural selection is applicable to our lives. It is something we observe in nature. As in humans and the pepper moths, it is ipso facto.

What you have missed is that natural selection is an algorithm to give DESIGN.

Let me draw the line here: I believe natural selection leads to variation within species. I do NOT believe that natural selection leads to transpeciation, or the creation of a new species.

Variation within a species (variations among individuals) is caused by mutations and sexual recombination. Natural selection give CHANGES IN A SPECIES. That is, natural selection eliminates some alleles of a gene in a population and causes other alleles to be present in EVERY member of a population. Thus, over time, the genetic makeup of a population changes. Now, species are DIFFERENT populations. So, if natural selection CHANGES the genetic makeup of a population over time (and you admit it does), that means the population will be a DIFFERENT population from either the original population back in time OR the original population separated by space. Since differnt populations are different species, natural selection cannot help but transform one species to another.

There is ample evidence of natural selection in the world we live in. But where shall we draw the line in extrapolation? Should we safely camp on what we KNOW to be fact, or should we deduce SO far, so as to say that we evolved from time and ooze?

Since there is no way to stop diversification of a genome, and since new species have been observed, and since all "higher" taxa are simply groups of species, we have what you call a legitimate extrapolation. One which can be tested, has been tested, and which has failed all attempts to falsify.

Now, in sexually reproducing organisms, we recognize two species when two populations no longer interbreed. That is, are reproductively isolated so that they are separate gene pools. There are several isolating mechanisms and we can go into them later in detail.

For now, let me point out that transpeciation due to natural selection has been OBSERVED. It's not extrapolation. My favorite paper is:
G Kilias, SN Alahiotis, and M Pelecanos. A multifactorial genetic investigation of speciation theory using drosophila melanogaster Evolution 34:730-737, 1980.

THis paper tested whether new species formed from natural selection. An original population of fruit flies was split into a number of different populations and placed on different diets or temperatures. The different populations were maintained separately for 5 years, and of course there were 3 control populations, also separated but kept in the original environment.

At the end of that time, the populations in the different environments did not breed with each other or with any of the 3 control populations. The 3 control populations freely interbred with each other.

New species. A genetic difference was done between the temperature different population and one of the controls. The genetic difference was 3%. Remember that chimps and humans, by the same analysis, are less than 1% different.

But I AM saying that exaggerating natural selection to the point of speciation and accrediting us existing from cells that were randomly created from amino acids and electrical impulses, with all we know of DNA and RNA- this shouldn't even be debateable.

What's to stop the process of change via natural selection? Where are the barriers? Drotar, look at this diagram:
http://pages.britishlibrary.net/charles.darwin/texts/origin_6th/origin6th_04.html

This gives you the result of multiple speciations over time. The result is what we call genera. You can keep extending this and you get what we call families, orders, classes, phyla, and kingdoms. Why? Because all of those are simply GROUPS OF SPECIES. The ONLY biological reality is SPECIES. So once you explain how you get a new species, you have explained everything else back to a common ancestor or ancestors. All that diversification is simply multiple speciations spread thru time.

And BTW, carbon-dating is the Achilles Heel of evolution. It is the only support for Old Earth that is not based on relativity.

Drotar, an old earth was concluded from GEOLOGY, not relativity. By 1800 geologists realized that the geological features they were looking at
1. Couldn't have been formed by a world-wide flood.
2. Couldn't have formed in anything less than millions of years.

Young earth was dead by 1800.

I wasn't able to find this on the website. Does entropy, molecular decay, etc. have anything to do with half-lifes? I need to know if half-lifes are a form of entropy.

Half-lives are NOT a form of entropy. Half-lives are simply the amount of time it takes for ONE-HALF the amount of a particular radioactive isotope to decay.

Now, is radioactive decay a form of entropy? That is harder. Entropy is actually the measurement of the amount of energy available to do work. Radioactive decay can be harnessed to do work (nuclear batteries for instance) and therefore decay itself would seem to be an entropic process.

 

[lucaspa]

I am curious as to how far we can take the occurences of natural selection and apply it to modern-biology. Our genetics, I'm sure you know, have safeguards that PREVENT such transpeciation and changes. Gosh, it's been so long... DNA Polymerase? It is an enzyme that helps with the prevention of mutations. It's a double-checker, kind of like running Microsoft Word's spellcheck twice, except this is much more accurate. It prevents such mutations. Would we not expect to see the ABSENCE of these enzymes if we are the result of millions of benevolent mutations? When I say benevolent, I mean mutations that help the survival rate of a particular species.

There are no genetic barriers to speciation. In fact, the genes involved that change to produce reproductive isolation (speciation) by making the hybrids of two species not fertile have been found:

4. M Nei and J Zhang, Evolution: molecular origin of species. Science 282: 1428-1429, Nov. 20, 1998. Primary article is: CT Ting, SC Tsaur, ML We, and CE Wu, A rapidly evolving homeobox at the site of a hybrid sterility gene. Science 282: 1501-1504, Nov. 20, 1998. As the title implies, has found the genes that actually change during reproductive isolation.

Having error-prone duplication of DNA would NOT be what we would expect. There are still too many ways of having an organism NOT work than having it work. So copying DNA that did not try to keep the copy just like the original would quickly end up with all the copies not working and the species has gone extinct.

However, because of entropy, it simply isn't possible to get a COMPLETELY error free system. Such a system would require more entropy than the universe has. So, what has evolved is a VERY GOOD system, but not a perfect one.

Now, there is a balance between error-free copying and error-prone copying. In situations where the environment is stable, error-free copying is favored by natural selection. However, in situations where the environment is rapidly changing, error-prone copying is favored by natural selection! This has actually been studied and documented by looking at hyper mutant species where the favorable mutations were in the DNA polymerase such that more errors were introduced into the DNA.

3. D. Grady, Quick-change pathogens gain an evolutionary advantage.Science, vol.274: 1081, 1996 (November 15). The primary research articleis JE LeClerc, B Li, WL Payne, TA Cebula, High mutation frequencies among Eschericia coli and Salmonella pathogens. Science, 274: 1208-1211, 1996 (Nov.15).

 

[lucaspa]

That's another thing. Taxonomy only adds to the confusion.

I'll tell you that what I consider "different species" would be barriers in reproduction. Since the theory of natural selection (which I believe) depends on such reproduction, I would say that is the boundary.

But natural selection has been shown to actually PROMOTE the boundary to reproduction!! Natural selection leads to a barrier in reproduction simply because, if many of the genes are in really different forms, reproduction cannot take place.

BTW, the new avatar. Not so sure. Having an avatar of a cartoon boy that communicates with fairies and relies on magic to solve problems probably conveys a rejection of logic and reasoning. Since creationists suffer from that perception anyway, I'm not sure you are helping yourself.

 

[lucaspa]

Perhaps what I was taught was incorrect.

I am referring to cellular reproduction, specifically the process of DNA being copied. Does any logical mind really think that all this on a sub-cellular level just happened spontaneously?

The present form? No. It evolved from a simpler formthat did happen spontaneously thru chemistry.

Wheat does not become a new species though.

Bad choice. Really bad choice. Wheat hybridized with rye to form a new species -- triticosecale. That one species has diversified to a whole new genus of several species.
Muntzig, A, Triticale Results and Problems, Parey, Berlin, 1979.

Remember that these microchanges are random. They must BENEFIT the new group. Microevolution COULD occur, but more likely than not, micro-devolution.

The microchanges are NOT random. The VARIATIONS in the INDIVIDUALS in the population were random, but natural selection non-randomly picked among the individuals. So the change from dark to light-color happening now in the peppered moths is NOT random. The alleles for light color are non-randomly spreading thru the population.

Taxomony is key to the semantics here.

How so?

 

[lucaspa]

Please elaborate. You reason that these barriers develop over time or space. You presuppose that these barrier develop in the first place.

We observe the barriers.

And if these barriers DO develop, remember, they must have some sort of evolutionary benefit. ALL species have them.

And they do have benefit.

1. The prevent the favorable changes to THAT PARTICULAR ENVIRONMENT from being diluted by gene flow from individuals without the changes.

2. They allow more efficient mating by having those individuals with the new, favorable, changes to mate so that there offspring will more likely have the favorable changes. Also, most hybrids are less fit than pure members of either population. So the barrier prevents wasted effort producing less fit hybrids.

This is why natural selection actually works to select reproductive isolation in many cases.

Has microevolution that has helped a species actually ever been observed? I'm not talking about natural selection like the pepper moth, but rather of transpeciation. Have we observed any species in a transition towards another?

Yes to all of these. NYJ, I believe, mentioned ring species. These are species with intermediates spread in a ring around an environment. Each subspecies faces a slightly different environment and has changed a little bit. The changes accumulate to the point that where the two ends of the ring meet and the subspecies at that end try to breed with each other, they either don't or can't. These subspecies act as 2 separate species. If the ring would be broken anywhere by the extinction of one of the subspecies, you would have 2 species where you originally had one.

And doesn't the fact that there is a transition in the first place make the metabolic cost for the new traits that have not yet taken form LESS beneficial? Wouldn't animals that WERE in a transition never make it logically since that transition uses up metabolic energy, making them less favorable to survivial?

Remember, the individuals in transition are facing a NEW ENVIRONMENT. Either in a different place or in a new ecological niche in the same place. So, while they are not as fit in the OLD environment, they are MORE fit in the new. They don't have to be perfectly fit in the new since the individuals have no competition from any other members of their own species that are any more fit than they are!

 

[lucaspa]

That's the Founder effect. I'm aware that it does this.

This is NOT the Founder Effect. The Founder Effect is when 1-10 breeding pairs of a population are stranded in a new place. Noah and his family would have been a Founder Effect. By your application, those new races SHOULD BE new species. That they are not indicates that your interpretation of the Bible is wrong.

Now, the claim that horses and donkeys came from the Founder effect is very much an assumption.

It's also NOT what is stated. What is stated is that horses and donkeys have very recent common ancestor. So recent that both species can still form viable, but not interfertile hybrids: mules.

Donkeys are not horses. They are different and were created differently. The lack of a reproductive barrier should raise questions for BOTH of us. Why did it not develop/ why was it not created?

It's a problem for YOU, but not evolution. You say they are separate kinds. Well, by the Bible, donkeys and horses should not interbreed. Yet they do. The resulting mules can't mate with other mules to produce offspring, but they can backmate with either donkeys or horses to produce offspring that can continue to mate with EITHER (but not both) horses or donkeys. Mules are F1 hybrids. The backcrosses are examples of F2 hybrids.

Now, for evolution speciation is not an on/off switch. It is a PROCESS that takes dozens, hundreds, or thousands of generations to complete. Thus, there is ALWAYS going to be a gray area where we are not sure two populations diverging from a common ancestor are two species or still one. Special creation, of course, should have no such gray zone. Either they were created separate species or they were not.

Not likely. Remember that the only way that a new species can evolve is if the old trait dies out while a new one is introduced, and becomes more pronounced. The old trait will not die out. Because we will not let it. If ever there is a reason why a large number of people possessing the old trait that are dying out before they reach their teen years, we, as humans, will rush to the aid and offer medical assistance.

Sorry, Drotar, but this doesn't apply to the !Kung. A new trait doesn't become "more pronounced" but rather that allele (form of a gene) spreads thru the population. It turns out that, altho !Kung marry out of the !Kung and leave, no outsiders marry INTO the !Kung and live with them. Thus, all gene flow is OUT of the !Kung and no gene flow from outside going in. Thus, the !Kung in their very harsh desert climate are gaining alleles that NO OTHER POPULATION of humans possess. On a behavioral level, most other populations of humans the !Kung do not consider attractive enough to breed with. Choosing not to breed outside you population is one form of reproductive isolation -- speciation.

This new species will only be created if we let nature take it's course, supposedly, and never step in to prevent the death of the young teenagers.

Death of young teenagers is NOT how the new species is developing. You really shouldn't make these pronouncements until you know more! I thought you had learned that lesson by now!

What will have to happen is that gene flow INTO the !Kung will have to happen. That is, the !Kung would allow their young people to marry outside the tribe and for the new spouses to come into the tribe so the offspring of !Kung and outsider would be part of the tribe and mate among the next generation.

Let me see, for example, when some frogs in a nearby pond, for some reason, evolve a new leg, it does not happen immediately, but rather gradually.

That isn't how evolution happens. New species are going to look very similar to the old one. As Darwin said: Nature does not take leaps. You want a leap. What you are actually saying is that creationism is impossible because you can't go from a frog with 2 legs to one of 3 immediately. Such a change would be special creation.

Also, the developmental genes are fixed such that there is no way for a frog to develop another leg. That is why homologies happen: traits become fixed when under two or more selective pressures.

Or a beetle that develops a pair of wings. The wings become pronounced gradually through several generations.

Beetles HAVE wings. However, we have seen gradual changes to those wings being imprisoned in a new carapace so that they don't work.

 

[lucaspa]

Well, as for the horse issue, the pictures did not load up.

I am told that the climate was different for each of the horses, so that they survived better in a marshy environment over a field, etc.

We do not know for certain that the environment was this or that at this time. In fact, that claim was probably used to support and substiate the evolutionary benefit of the horse. There is no way that we could have assumed that at certain time frames, the horses lived in X environment. The claim was more likely than not DEDUCED.

It was INFERRED. You can infer an environment by looking at the types of plants around and looking at the type of teeth the horse has. Remember, horse bones are not found by themselves. There is pollen from plants, perhaps impressions from plants, etc. If you find pollen and spores of swamp dwelling plants, then you infer the environment was marshy. Right?

 

[Arikay]

Yep, What Jet said.

Basically, IF the current claims of YEC organizations were true, and could be shown true or false based on science (like they claims), they make a set of predictions. Most of what I wrote goes over those predictions. The prediction say that there are certain things that we Must find for their hypothesis to be true.

But we dont find those things. What we find Does Not fit with the YEC hypothesis. So, if we were to treat the YEC hypothesis like science (as so many people want to do, by putting it in science classrooms) we must conclude that the current hypothesis is false, and we need to come up with a new hypothesis that fits All of the current data.

Unless you can show us the evidence that even AIG missed.

Otherwise, this does show one of the many ways the YEC possition has been falsified.

I don't think he does... basically that site makes predictions based on the flood model... predictions that have not been seen.

 

[Drotar]

To start off my response, I want to ask,

When a population comes up with a favorable trait, is it an introduction of a new trait, or the reoccurence?

Were there already genetic precursors, or did the new traits sort of come up?

 

[Drotar]

I am wondering... that might be really important.

 

[Drotar]

You know, you really need to work on your temper though. Of course, when I'm reading your posts right now, I get what you might be saying, but later on, when I have forgotten what you wrote specifically and all the little acts and facts, all I'm going to remember is your attitude and the sting of your posts.

Just a note in the future. I'm able to look past it when I'm reading the entirety of your posts, but for other people here that's probably a big turn off. TTYL Jesus loves you!

 

[Drotar]

And please explain how recessive genes and dominancy can affect evolution. Genes aren't neutral. If green eyes were a little more favorable today than brown eyes, unless that benefit was really substantial, still over time, the fact that brown eyes are dominant will still cancel out that benefit.

Wouldn't it? I've studied how evolutionary adaptations that are hypothetically dominant, and graphed how the recessive gene diminished in frequency. But what if they happen to be recessive? What if the fact that they're recessive is a more important factor than the little benefit it might offer?

 

[ThePhoenix]

And please explain how recessive genes and dominancy can affect evolution. Genes aren't neutral. If green eyes were a little more favorable today than brown eyes, unless that benefit was really substantial, still over time, the fact that brown eyes are dominant will still cancel out that benefit.

Wouldn't it? I've studied how evolutionary adaptations that are hypothetically dominant, and graphed how the recessive gene diminished in frequency. But what if they happen to be recessive? What if the fact that they're recessive is a more important factor than the little benefit it might offer?

Sheesh, I can answer this one. Look at your hand. Count the number of fingers. How many do you see? Five? Well guess what? The six finger gene is dominant over the five finger one.

 

[Drotar]

You misunderstand.

What I'm speaking of a trait that has any sort of EVOLUTIONARY ADVANTAGE, that isn't dominant.

What if having that extra finger was helpful theoretically, BUT it was recessive? What if a trait that resulted from genetic recombination was recessive?

I know this is small potatoes, but it's something I don't know.

 

[lucaspa]

I am specifically wondering a few things about carbon-dating, but also about how dominant and recessive alleles tie into the theory. Every trait, with the exception of some rare occurences, are either dominant or recessive. What if the new trait is recessive? If the trait was recessive, it would probably, over time, return become less and less prominent right?

Uh, NO! Drotar, you are forgetting selection. Populuation geneticists have worked out the equations based on Mendelian genetics. As long as an allele (form of a gene) has a positive selection value, be it dominant or recessive, it will eventually be present in EVERY member of the population. This is known as "fixation". To be "fixed" means that the allele is present in every member of the population and the competing allele has been eliminated from the population.

The discipline of population genetics did the basic mathematical formulas. Remember that, in the absence of any outside influence, such as natural selection, the frequency of an allele does not change from generation to generation. That is, if you have a population and 100 and 10 individuals have allele A and 90 have allele a, the next generation will be exactly the same: 10 A and 90 a. This is called the Hardy-Weinberg Law. Frequencies are symbolized mathematically by p and q. W is the relative fitness value. So we have W(A), W(B), and W(AB). The last is the fitness of the heterozygote in a sexually reproducting population.

So, for the first generation the frequency p of A in the population is: p^2 +2pq + q^2. Straight Mendelian genetics.

The frequency of p in the next generation after selection is: p' = p^2W(A) + pq W(AB)/p^2W(A) + 2pq W(AB) + q^2 (WB).

Now, if W(A) and W(AB) are higher than W(B), it can be seen that p' will increase. Not chance, but pure determinism.

You can see all this and a lot more in Chapters 4 and 13 in Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology, 1999.

Notice that the equations don't matter if the allele is dominant or recessive.

 

[lucaspa]

To start off my response, I want to ask,

When a population comes up with a favorable trait, is it an introduction of a new trait, or the reoccurence?

Were there already genetic precursors, or did the new traits sort of come up?

It happens both ways.

1. Sexual recombination. In this genes are put together in a genome in novel ways. That is, you have alleleA of gene #1 on chromosome 1 in the sperm and allele Z of gene#25 on chromosome 15 in the egg. Sperm and egg get together and you now have allele A and allele Z together. In another kid you may have allele A and allele Y. Since most traits come from more than one gene, you now get a new trait because you have a new combination of genes. That's a little complicated. Do you follow?

2. Mutation. This introduces a different allele of a gene into the population. Originally just in one individual (the one with the mutation). Now, if the trait is favorable, natural selection will see that it spreads to every member of the population over the course of generations, because only those individuals lucky enough to be born with that allele will survive and reproduce.

BTW, mutations can do a lot more than introduce new alleles. For instance, whole genes and whole chromosomes can be duplicated. Since the original gene and chromosome (with all its genes) is still there, no function is lost. But now you have more DNA present so that smaller mutations in that extra DNA can give rise to new traits.

 

[Drotar]

Well, let me tell you what I'm thinking. You probably already know. I'm thinking that most traits that offer some selective advantage, don't offer it by MUCH. Most traits. Wouldn't the a recessive allele with some evolutionary benefit, and a dominant allele (that had no benefit), sort of compete. I understand that the recessive allele will be introduced by selection. But what if almost every animal in a population has AA? And, say, three are aa. Whomever they mate with, it'll be Aa. Meaning that that new trait WON'T EVEN SHOW UP. The evolutionary advantage of that trait will be, let's say hidden, since it's recessive. Well now, since it's recessive and it remains dormant, is Aa, that animal HAS NO advantage over an AA. Meaning there's no more chance that the Aa allele gets added than AA.

And the process repeats itself the next generation. Aa and AA are precisely the same phenotypically (not genotypically).

It's entirely possible, quite likely, that the Aa might lose out over the AA.

That those three aa 's that started, all the traits for their recessive allele might just be lost again. Since it is recessive, there is NO advantage to the trait UNLESS homozygous recessive. That would mean that since Aa and AA have the exact same dominant trait, neither have any advantage over the other, and both get introduced with the same frequency. So, it seems, in the case of a recessive trait, the burden of surviving to introduce the a allele is random, and difficult.

Do you see what I'm getting at? I'm not making objections, I just want to see how this problem is overcome in nature. TTYL Jesus loves you!

And I don't see how this avatar makes my image look any worse, lol. The last one was Cosmo Kramer!