Make me an evolutionist

[random_guy]

I had planned on quoting people, but far too many made far too many different comments for me to note them all, so I will begin with this. Macroevolution does not equal speciation, even though many claim that macroevolution is simply speciation over long periods of time.
How can I make such a claim? Let me give evidence(not "proof", as I have been semantically corrected ). In any and every documented cause of speciation, there has been a loss of genetic information.

Let's just focus on this piece. Are you aware of a plant phenomenon called polyploidy? It's where a plant doubles, triples, or n-tuple it's chromosomes when an error occurs during fertilization (that or mitosis, I think). Anyway, this means that it adds more a duplicate chromosome to its DNA. This creates a new species with more "information".

You might counter that it really didn't add any information because it just duplicated already existing DNA. However, this new set of chromosomes can undergo mutations and allow it to create new proteins and such. Net effect is a new species with more genetic material to work with.

[size=-1] The mechanism for the multiple origination of species is “polyploidy.” Unlike “normal” species, which have two copies of each of their chromosomes, polyploid species have more than two copies of each chromosome. More than half of all land-plant species are polyploid, including wheat, corn, and cotton.

While normal evolution takes generations of genetic distinction to produce a new species, evolution via polyploidy is instantaneous, according to WSU professor of botany Doug Soltis. “It takes just one generation, and it doesn’t require that the new species be spatially separated from the old,” Soltis says. “It appears to be the rule rather than the exception that polyploid species evolve more than one time,” adds Soltis, who has found this to be the case in all polyploids tested.

Polyploidy appears to involve an error in a plant’s production of its pollen, or egg, which results in its containing too many copies of each chromosome. Thus the offspring of such a plant also have extra chromosomes. Polyploidy can occur in two ways. It can happen between individuals of two distinct plant species, a process termed “allopolyploidy.” Or it can happen between two individuals of the same species, a process termed “autopolyploidy.” The latter process was considered rare and maladaptive for many years, since it was thought autopolyploidy would result in a high proportion of sterile pollen.[/size]
[size=-1] But Soltis, along with his wife and collaborator, Pam Soltis, also a professor of botany at WSU, have found through molecular methods such as enzyme and DNA analysis that autopolyploidy is more common than previously thought. These methods also indicate that autopolyploidy is not maladaptive, for autopolyploids have more genetic variability than their parent plants. The Soltises have identified an ideal model system for their study of polyploidy in the Palouse country of southeastern Washington: a plant called goatsbeard, or salsify, that produces small yellow to purple flowers.[/size]

source

Well, I just gave evidence against your claim. The ball is in your court. Do you want to continue to deny that evolution can not create new information or that it only occurs through loss of genetic material?

 

[Jet Black]

Theory of Evolution:
"The processes and understandings explaining how life came to be through small changes over vast amounts of time, generally believed to be through natural processes."

no, the theory of evolution is more closely related to change in allele frequencies over time. there is no 1"how life came to be" (that is abiogenesis) not are vast lengths of time implied.

Evolutionist: "Someone who believes in the theory of evolution."
Creationist: "Someone who believes in special creation as described in the Bible."

no, a creationist is someone who believes that Genesis is literal. evolutionists are people who accept the evidence points to evolution.

Microevolution: "Small changes within a species, resulting in various changes through following generations, speciation."
Macroevolution: "The formation of new biologically distinct taxa.(Thanks mikeynov) The process through which one kind(see below) becomes another kind."

first part is fine, but what is that bit about kind? what is a kind?

I am sorry for my misunderstanding and I thank you for correcting them(in a mostly polite manner).

apology accepted.

Ok, back on task. I have another thing to clear up, because I feel that evolutionist are unaware of these things.

"evolutionist" is the singular. when you refer to more than one of us, we are evolutionists. with an s.

Species: The classification level below Genus(sorry, that's the best I could do).

the difficulty is due to the non-discrete nature of biology. species are artificial boxes that we put things in. natura is rather complex si it is difficult to come up with a perfect description. Search for Mayr's biological species concept.

I realize this seems to be a cop-out, but it brings up an interesting point.

principally because it is a cop out. try identifying two kinds. do what AIG does :

(1) two species are of the same kind if they can breed
(2) two species might be of the same kind if they cannot breed

then there is the problem that there is no evidence for isolated kinds.

Macroevolution does not equal speciation, even though many claim that macroevolution is simply speciation over long periods of time.

that is because you redefined macroevolution.

In any and every documented cause of speciation, there has been a loss of genetic information.

absolutely, totally and utterly false. If you are going to make claims like this, you really really need to back yourself up. what is worse is that you are claiming to have proved a negative.

In every case of fruit fly variation, regardless whether it be wing shape, eye or body color, or whatever, has resulted in a loss of genetic information. A vestigial fly would have to mate with a normal fly in order to regain the lost information.

what lost information? see the information still exists in the original species, and often in the new one. the new one has additional information. you seem to be assuming that all speciation events result from a loss of alleles i.e. that all species have a minor subset of the alleles of their parent species, and this is patently rubbish. others have already given evidence, so I will not go over it again.

FSTDT stated that supposedly dogs and cats share a common ancestor. I really have know knowledge of this, but were this the case, than a creature that contained all the different alleles for all modern cats, as well all the alleles for dogs, because if the parents do not have the alleles, the progeny cannot have the alleles.

nonsense. new alleles are commonly formed by mutations.

(In humans, it would be that two blue-eyed parents could not have a brown-eyed child, because they do not have the alleles for that phenotype.).

well that is fascinating. prior to my generation, nobody had a certain allele. now I have this allele. (tests have been done) so I am the first person with this particular allele.

Herein lies the problem, both of my understanding, and a point in which I feel evolution is unsatisfactory in it's explanation. First of all, you would need to not only lose alleles, but you would need to lose entire genes as well. I am unaware if variation in the number of genes occurs.

well then the problem is your understanding. alleles can be formed through mutation, this has been observed lots and lots and lots of times.

From whence then does the genetic information come? All the information for offspring must be contained within the parent;

wrong. remember that in the gametes, mutations occur, so some new information not present anywhere else in the gene pool is now contained within this one new member of the gene pool. your problem is that you are looking at information only in the individual, but this is a silly way to go about it. you have to look at the amount of information in the gene pool as a whole. There is far more info in the whole of the human gene pool than goes into making you, so if you have new alleles, and you do, then the information in the gene pool has increased, since other people will most likely have copies of the original alleles.

however, if everything is the descendant of a single celled organism from billions of years ago, from whence does the information come? Mycoplasma genitalium, a bacteria believed to have the lowest gene count of any living creature, has a mere ~470 genes, while man has ~25,000, a rather large difference. How were the extra genes added?

It is well worth noting at this juncture, that pretty much all genes are made up of domains, that slot together a bit like lego bricks. those domains can be grouped into families, which are all very similar to one another. the main difference we see in the "higher organisms" is more complex groupings of these domains. but these families exist in all life. so we have pretty much the same info as the mycobacterium and relatives, but just copied and rearranged alot with lots of additional mutations.

Mutations? While every documented account of mutations claims to detract from the genetic code in some fashion, let's assume it is possible.

utterly wrong. I don't know where you are getting your information from, but I am afraid your sources are either uninformed or simply lying to you.

Again, I don't think mutations actually add locus or genes, but I honestly don't know.

You can't add "locus" that is a nonsensical statement.

The problem of irreducible complexity then arises.

oh no.

Irreducible complexity, an idea arranged and championed by Michael Behe, states that certain structures can be reduced only to the point in which they must be complete or else they fail to work. This example is also his:
Think of a mouse trap. It has five basic components: the base, the catch, the hammer, the holding bar, and the spring. Take away one part, and you are not left with a mouse trap that works at 80% proficiency, you are left with a broken mouse trap.

right, first of all, we have to ignore that the mousetrap cannot reproduce. having ignored that, allow me to present, the reducibly complex mousetrap.

http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/mousetrap.html

His example in biology is that of a flagellum motor, a device remarkably similar to an outboard motor of an common fishing boat like any of you might have.

no it isn'T, but lets forget that for now.

This devise can be gradually taken apart and still work, but once you get so far, you must have all of the pieces or it will not work. The number of parts in the flagellum motor is 52(I think. I cannot remember what he said it was exactly.). Over fifty parts that must all be present or else it will not work.

wrong.

These parts could not gradually have evolved over time, regardless of whatever mutations would occur, since that assuming one part was added in, not only would that cell need to survive, it would have to pass down its mutation to its progeny. Since they reproduce asexually, making exact copies of themselves(mutations aside), this is not necessarily difficult, except that all of these mutations would need to be in this same line of cells,

also wrong. horizontal gene transfer is very common in bacteria. in fact it is so common in some bacteria, that they are in equilibrium with one another.

and that the new mutant cell would have to survive. Not an easy task, considering that it basically has a vestigial organ in/on it, which would hinder its chances of survival.

wrong. see the flagellum (incidentally it depends on which flagellum you are talking about here, there are at least 3 different flagellum types, independently formed) is an ion pump that has evolved to be a motor after it developed the ability, most likely accidentally, to propel the organism around the place. this sort of thing happens often in nature, so commonly that it has a name: exaptation.

incidentally, Behe's other little baby, the blood clotting system fully appears to be the result of gene duplications and alterations of the copies.

seems alot of the info you are getting here is flat out wrong. particularly about the whole information and speciation stuff.

 

[gluadys]

As I read over this, it is becoming increasingly clear that evolutionists and creationist have a completely different vocabulary system for the same terms.

You are quite right. Over time, creationist organizations have developed a complete parallel "creationist theory of evolution" that uses scientific terms in a different way than scientists do. This "creationist theory of evolution" is not the same thing as the scientific theory of evolution.

That is why you will hear evolutionists tell creationists time and time again that they are committing the strawman fallacy. The "theory of evolution" as presented by creationists is a fully developed and complex strawman. It is easy to disprove--after all that is why it was constructed. But it is not the theory of evolution which science presents, so when all is said and done, it is irrelevant.

I have only two minutes before I have to go get a bus, but I'll give a scientific definition for each of the creationist definitions you have assumed to be true and you can see the contrast for yourself.

Theory of Evolution:
"The processes and understandings explaining how life came to be through small changes over vast amounts of time, generally believed to be through natural processes."

The scientific theory of evolution does not discuss the origin of life. (Another field of biology, abiogenesis, makes this its study.) The theory of evolution assumes life already exists and studies the phenomena of species change and the emergence of bio-diversity.

Evolutionist: "Someone who believes in the theory of evolution."
Creationist: "Someone who believes in special creation as described in the Bible."

These are not about science, so I cannot give a scientific definition, but here are the definitions I would use.

Evolutionist: "Someone who is convinced, on the basis of observation and logic, that the theory of evolution best describes biological phenomena related to biodiversity and the temporal and geographical distribution of species."

Creationist: "Someone who believe the biblical account supports special creation, and that this account is truer than the scientific account. Some creationist also believe the biblical account accords better with the scientific evidence."

Microevolution: "Small changes within a species, resulting in various changes through following generations, speciation."

Since speciation is the formation of new biologically distinct taxa, science considers it to belong in the category of macro-evolution.

Macroevolution: "The formation of new biologically distinct taxa.(Thanks mikeynov) The process through which one kind(see below) becomes another kind."

There is no scientific definiton of "kind". As far as I can see, the nearest scientific term is "clade". But the theory of evolution forbids any change from one clade to another.

After further research, I have become even more confused, as it seems 'species' has a rather amorphous meaning.

This is exactly what we would expect if the theory of evolution is correct.

Therefore, it is with pain that I feel I must define what I mean by 'species'.
Species: The classification level below Genus(sorry, that's the best I could do).

For sexually reproducing organisms, the biologicial definition is a population which chooses its mates from within the group and does not normally breed with mates from outside the group. This does not necessarily mean it cannot hybridize, but that normally it will not.

Times up. Will get to the rest later.

 

[gluadys]

Ok. Finished my commute, and can take a few minutes to finish this response.

In Genesis 1, the Bible says that God created everything according to certain kinds. Simplistically, these were creatures that could interbreed.

Actually, it doesn't quite say that God created kinds. It says (e.g. in regard to vegetation) that the earth was commanded to produce all sorts of vegetation, including but not limited to herbs and trees and fruit trees, which bore seed that would reproduce according to their kinds. It does not go into detail into how the various kinds of vegetation were produced in the first place; it does not assert that each sort of vegetation was a special creation. What it focuses on is that each will reproduce after its kind. This is perfectly consistent with the theory of evolution which also requires that all species reproduce after their kind. Same goes for sea creatures, birds and terrestrial animals. (And no doubt for the sorts of life the bible does not mention as well.)

These "kinds" are NOT synonymous with "species". They are synonymous with... well, I can't think of anything with which they are synonymous.

Exactly. This is the famous bug-a-boo of creationism. I don't know if I can find it, but there is a paragraph in one of Duane Gish's books that lists various kinds. Taxonomically these range from a single species (human) to orders and classes (frogs, molluscs) to a grouping of several phyla (worms).

This is why I suggest "clade" as the scientific term that most closely approximates "kind".

I had planned on quoting people, but far too many made far too many different comments for me to note them all, so I will begin with this. Macroevolution does not equal speciation, even though many claim that macroevolution is simply speciation over long periods of time.

As noted above, the scientific definition of macro-evolution does include speciation, since this is, by definition, the formation of a new taxon.

How can I make such a claim? Let me give evidence(not "proof", as I have been semantically corrected ). In any and every documented cause of speciation, there has been a loss of genetic information.

Every change is both a loss and a gain. A fly loses its wings and gains stability of habitat on a wind-blown island. Also note that the loss of flight power, and even wings, does not imply loss of the capacity to grow wings and restore flight power. The genetic program for producing something found in one’s ancestors is often preserved, even though it is not expressed. Sometimes it is even regularly expressed during embryonic development and then repressed again before birth. Wing-claws and teeth appear in bird embryos, and in some species of birds the wing claws are still evident on infant birds. Tails appear and then disappear again in human and other ape embryos.

So you cannot tell from a phenotypic change whether genetic information has actually been lost.

FSTDT stated that supposedly dogs and cats share a common ancestor. I really have know knowledge of this, but were this the case, than a creature that contained all the different alleles for all modern cats, as well all the alleles for dogs, because if the parents do not have the alleles, the progeny cannot have the alleles(In humans, it would be that two blue-eyed parents could not have a brown-eyed child, because they do not have the alleles for that phenotype.).

It is absolutely not true that a common ancestor must have all the alleles of all its various descendants. The common ancestor of the Canidae and the Felidae need not at all have all the alleles found in every species of the modern dog family and cat family.

What it does need is all the alleles the two families have in common (this would include for example, alleles for canine teeth). It would need an allele for something that differs between the two families (e.g. snout shape) but it does not need both. It certainly does not need all the different alleles that produce all the different snout shapes found in dog breeds. E.g. it does not need all the alleles to produce the variations in snout shape found in Afghan hounds, terriers and bulldogs.

The alleles for such specific features are created through mutation. For example, the common ancestor might have had a dog-type snout. Then, after the separation of the population into what would eventually become the dog and cat families, a mutation occurred in the cat family that created the allele for the cat-type snout.

Since the canine and feline groups were already separated, this mutation was never passed on to any member of the canine lineage, but it was passed on to all surviving members of the feline lineage.

All alleles were once novel mutations. Alleles are mutations which have been permanently added to a species gene pool. Because mutations add new alleles to a gene pool, it is not necessary for a common ancestor to have all the alleles found in all its descendants.

However, the problem still lies that the theory of evolution explains it backwards. It claims (to my understanding) that information was added into the DNA structure to make a more complex creature, not that information was lost to make a less complex, while possibly more varied and distinct, creature.

Actually evolution does not require that information be added or that species become more complex. There are many examples of evolution going in the direction of simplification rather than complexification. Cave fish which have lost the ability to see, snakes which have no legs, though their ancestors did, birds that no longer fly. The idea that evolution must proceed toward more information and more complexity is again part of that “creationist theory of evolution”. It does not feature in the scientific theory of evolution. Therefore it is a strawman argument.

Mutations? While every documented account of mutations claims to detract from the genetic code in some fashion, let's assume it is possible. Again, I don't think mutations actually add locus or genes, but I honestly don't know. The problem of irreducible complexity then arises.

Mutations of all sorts have been directly observed. There are mutations which do add loci and genes. Duplications and insertions both do this. While the duplication of a whole gene is rare, it has been observed. Duplications of smaller sections of a gene are common as are insertions of DNA copied from elsewhere in the genome or picked up from viral infections.

Irreducible complexity, an idea arranged and championed by Michael Behe, states that certain structures can be reduced only to the point in which they must be complete or else they fail to work.

There are a number of situations in which irreducible complexity can be explained by evolution. A common situation is that of “scaffolding”. One begins by adding something to an existing structure. For sometime, the organism needs both pieces, the old and the new. But as the new develops, it becomes independent of the old, and the old “scaffolding” disappears and only the new, irreducibly complex, structure is left. Just as only the completed bell-tower or arch in a building is left after the scaffolding necessary to its construction is removed.

The appearance of many features in complex animals is often due to the co-optation and modification of former features used for different purposes. Wings, in vertebrates, are nothing but modified forearms. The whole skeletal structure is basically the same. Only the shape and placement of the bones have been modified.

If someone else hasn’t done so by the time I go home this evening, I will find some links that relate to what I have said, but I have stolen enough time from my employer today.

I do want to make one more point. That is the importance of using scientific terminology correctly. I began by saying that we now have in our culture effectively two theories of evolution. The standard theory of science, and the non-standard theory taught by creationist institutions and publications.

This is why many creationist can believe they are very well informed about the theory of evolution when in fact they really don’t know it at all. What they know, and may indeed know well, is the non-standard creationist theory of evolution—the theory that talks about needing new genetic information, about mutations always resulting in loss of information, about macro-evolution meaning a change from one kind to another, and so on.

None of this is part of the theory of evolution as science knows and teaches it. The whole thing is a carefully constructed strawman designed to convey the impression that the theory of evolution has no scientific basis. Indeed, if the theory of evolution were what creationists say it is, is really does not have any scientific basis.

The problem is that innocent and well-meaning people think that the arguments which knock down the strawman have something to do with the real, scientific theory of evolution. But it doesn’t at all.

If one wants to dispute evolution, the first step is to learn the actual scientific theory of evolution. And that means defining terms like theory, species, macro-evolution, etc. as scientists do. This is not optional. Terminology and definitions are not a matter of preference. Scientific terminology has been built up over decades, even centuries of study and has specific and specified meanings. If one is not using scientific terms as scientists use them, then one is inevitably committing the strawman fallacy.

The problem for the average creationist, is that they need to unlearn the creationist (strawman) theory of evolution and replace it with a genuine understanding of the scientific theory of evolution before they can begin to honestly evaluate it.

So here is hoping that you are willing to ditch the misleading strawman vocabulary and concepts and learn what science really says about evolution. In the long run you may still reject it, but you would understand what you are really rejecting.

There is a parallel here in evangelism. I have heard more than one evangelist who tells this story. A person comes to him/her and says “I don’t believe in God.” “Tell me,” says the evangelist, “about this God you don’t believe in.” And after hearing the unbeliever’s description of God, the evangelist replies, “I don’t believe in that God either.”

The question of evolution is not nearly as important as the question about God. But as a theistic evolutionist, I often find myself in the same place. Someone says “I don’t believe in evolution.” “Tell me”, I reply, “about the evolution you don’t believe in.” And when they finish describing it, I can honestly answer “I don’t believe that theory of evolution either. And neither do biologists.”

 

[Phred]

First, you must tell me why evolution is right. Second, you must back up your claims with proof. Thrid, you must convince me as to why I should want to become an evolutionist.

I'd like to address the last point first. You should want to understand what we have found out about our world. You use the benefits of science everyday... even to the point we couldn't be having this discussion if you didn't. Far too often people claim to care about the Truth then dismiss it if it doesn't agree with their belief. Truth is the holy grail of science. It's the data. So you should desire to understand science, and in doing so the Theory of Evolution, not for some cosmic reward, but because it represents truth.

Why is evolution right? Because evolution is the change in the frequency of alleles within a population over time. It's simply a fact. More of that pesky truth stuff. The evolution creationists argue against isn't truth... it's fantasy.

Now, since populations change (and they do) these changes will have one of three possible outcomes. They will be beneficial, they will be neutral or they will be harmful. But what mandates a change to be any of these? It's whether or not the change allows an organism to breed more successfully. So there is a measure by which changes can be graded.

If an organism is successful at breeding, it's genes will be passed along and become part of the overall population. If not, it's genes will disappear. This is Natural Selection.

The Theory of Evolution begins with these elements and thru observation, experiementation and prediction has shown that the diversity of life on Earth is because of evolution.

The proof. Before I begin to deluge you with articles, what would you accept as proof? Are you more familiar with genetics? Would ERVs suit you better? How about taxonomy? Paleontology? Anthropology? Simply specify an area and I'll provide you evidence from within that specialty. Proof for evolution is that vast.

Here... to start you off:

The Short Proof of Evolution
by
Ian Johnston
Malaspina University-College
Nanaimo, BC
​

We live, we are constantly told, in a scientific age. We look to science to help us achieve the good life, to solve our problems (especially our medical aches and pains), and to tell us about the world. A great deal of our education system, particularly the post-secondary curriculum, is organized as science or social science. And yet, curiously enough, there is one major scientific truth which vast numbers of people refuse to accept (by some news accounts a majority of people in North America)--the fact of evolution. Yet it is as plain as plain can be that the scientific truth of evolution is so overwhelmingly established, that it is virtually impossible to refute within the bounds of reason. No major scientific truth, in fact, is easier to present, explain, and defend.

Before demonstrating this claim, let me make it clear what I mean by evolution, since there often is some confusion about the term. By evolution I mean, very simply, the development of animal and plant species out of other species not at all like them, for example, the process by which, say, a species of fish gets transformed (or evolves) through various stages into a cow, a kangaroo, or an eagle. This definition, it should be noted, makes no claims about how the process might occur, and thus it certainly does not equate the concept of evolution with Darwinian Natural Selection, as so many people seem to do. It simply defines the term by its effects (not by how those effects are produced, which could well be the subject of another argument).

The first step in demonstrating the truth of evolution is to make the claim that all living creatures must have a living parent. This point has been overwhelmingly established in the past century and a half, ever since the French scientist Louis Pasteur demonstrated how fermentation took place and thus laid to rest centuries of stories about beetles arising spontaneously out of dung or gut worms being miraculously produced from non-living material. There is absolutely no evidence for this ancient belief. Living creatures must come from other living creatures. It does no damage to this point to claim that life must have had some origin way back in time, perhaps in a chemical reaction of inorganic materials (in some primordial soup) or in some invasion from outer space. That may well be true. But what is clear is that any such origin for living things or living material must result in a very simple organism. There is no evidence whatsoever (except in science fiction like Frankenstein) that inorganic chemical processes can produce complex, multi-cellular living creatures (the recent experiments cloning sheep, of course, are based on living tissue from other sheep).

The second important point in the case for evolution is that some living creatures are very different from some others. This, I take it, is self-evident. Let me cite a common example: many animals have what we call an internal skeletal structure featuring a backbone and skull. We call these animals vertebrates. Most animals do not have these features (we call them invertebrates). The distinction between vertebrates and invertebrates is something no one who cares to look at samples of both can reasonably deny, and, so far as I am aware, no one hostile to evolution has ever denied a fact so apparent to anyone who observes the world for a few moments.

The final point in the case for evolution is this: simple animals and plants existed on earth long before more complex ones (invertebrate animals, for example, were around for a very long time before there were any vertebrates). Here again, the evidence from fossils is overwhelming. In the deepest rock layers, there are no signs of life. The first fossil remains are of very simple living things. As the strata get more recent, the variety and complexity of life increase (although not at a uniform rate). And no human fossils have ever been found except in the most superficial layers of the earth (e.g., battlefields, graveyards, flood deposits, and so on). In all the countless geological excavations and inspections (for example, of the Grand Canyon), no one has ever come up with a genuine fossil remnant which goes against this general principle (and it would only take one genuine find to overturn this principle).

Well, if we put these three points together, the rational case for evolution is air tight. If all living creatures must have a living parent, if living creatures are different, and if simpler forms were around before the more complex forms, then the more complex forms must have come from the simpler forms (e.g., vertebrates from invertebrates). There is simply no other way of dealing reasonably with the evidence we have. Of course, one might deny (as some do) that the layers of the earth represent a succession of very lengthy epochs and claim, for example, that the Grand Canyon was created in a matter of days, but this surely violates scientific observation and all known scientific processes as much as does the claim that, say, vertebrates just, well, appeared one day out of a spontaneous combination of chemicals.

To make the claim for the scientific truth of evolution in this way is to assert nothing about how it might occur. Darwin provides one answer (through natural selection), but others have been suggested, too (including some which see a divine agency at work in the transforming process). The above argument is intended, however, to demonstrate that the general principle of evolution is, given the scientific evidence, logically unassailable and that, thus, the concept is a law of nature as truly established as is, say, gravitation. That scientific certainty makes the widespread rejection of evolution in our modern age something of a puzzle (but that's a subject for another essay). In a modern liberal democracy, of course, one is perfectly free to reject that conclusion, but one is not legitimately able to claim that such a rejection is a reasonable scientific stance.

 

[JimmyKoKoPop]

Mycoplasma genitalium, a bacteria believed to have the lowest gene count of any living creature, has a mere ~470 genes, while man has ~25,000, a rather large difference. How were the extra genes added?

One thing I thought worth mentioning... Isn't the most genetically complex organism existing today single celled? I guess that's getting a bit offtopic, but it seems to be worth mentioning. BTW, that bacteria you mentioned... I don't think it is considered the ancestor of any more complex life around now, but I know what you're getting at.

 

[Shadowseldil]

I will comment on all this tomorrow, except for phred, because he touches into my second problem, and I don't think I will get to that tomorrow. We'll see.

 

[FSTDT]

Shadowsedil,

In any and every documented cause of speciation, there has been a loss of genetic information.

If you believe small changes can decrease genetic information, why cant they also increase information as well?

Examples of large increases of genetic information are documented as Down's Syndrome where a person has one chromosome too many. But usually, DNA is added without having any effect whatsoever, which is just what "Junk DNA" is.

Junk DNA are the bits of DNA that are added and passed on over time, usually due to transcription error or viral in origin. Usually, these small changes are inert, you never notice them.

One good example of just how common these transcription errors are is by studying insects. If you took a sample of genetic information from one insect, and took another sample from another insect of the same species, you can see that the differences in both samples can differ widely (sometimes up to 70%). The thing about insects is that they breed very fast, so inert junk DNA accumulates very quickly, and two populations of the same insect isolated for a while begin to differ tremendously.

Another thing about insects is that given the rate at which insects breed, small changes are common. If these changes happen to affect the kinds of chemical messages that insects produce, then an entire insect population may stop breeding with an entire population of the same insect (think of this in the same way honeybees of a single comb give off a distinct scent to recognize members of its own comb). With how readily insect species will isolate and be on their merry ways adapting as needed, its really no surprise that insects that are more arthropod species than any other animal on the planet.

Here is a model of how insects have evolved, notice that most of the changes are small such as whether they have hard or soft wings, or whether they have strong forelimbs or hindlimbs:

(I cannot link to external sites yet due to the forum software, so to view this image you'll have to cut and paste the link into your browser)
geocities.com/pchew_brisbane/Evolution.htm

Therefore, let's carry this to a larger scale.
FSTDT stated that supposedly dogs and cats share a common ancestor. I really have know knowledge of this, but were this the case, than a creature that contained all the different alleles for all modern cats, as well all the alleles for dogs, because if the parents do not have the alleles, the progeny cannot have the alleles(In humans, it would be that two blue-eyed parents could not have a brown-eyed child, because they do not have the alleles for that phenotype.).

Your example suffers from a simple error, the composition fallacy - an informal error in induction which means you try to apply the properties of individuals to the group (this is the same error which is responsible for people saying things like "Bob is a plumber and he listens to jazz, therefore all plumbers listen to jazz").

Simple inheritance describes how genes combine among individuals. That model is too incomplete to describe changes in alleles in populations over time, because simple inheritance doesnt take into account mutations, changes in genes, or a number of other components important to evolution.

(By the way, everyone in my family has brown eyes, except for me and my fraternal twin sister. She has one blue and one brown eye, I have two green eyes. Even simple inheritance isnt so cut and dry.)

 

[random_guy]

(By the way, everyone in my family has brown eyes, except for me and my fraternal twin sister. She has one blue and one brown eye, I have two green eyes. Even simple inheritance isnt so cut and dry.)

Woah, I've never heard of someone with 2 different eye colors. Is it possible for you to put up a picture with everything cropped out but the eyes?

 

[Electric Sceptic]

Woah, I've never heard of someone with 2 different eye colors. Is it possible for you to put up a picture with everything cropped out but the eyes?

It's not that uncommon - I have a friend who has it. David Bowie has it, as well.

 

[corvus_corax]

Woah, I've never heard of someone with 2 different eye colors. Is it possible for you to put up a picture with everything cropped out but the eyes?

you never have?
Check out Kate Bosworth
and Mila Kunis (one green, one blue, but cant find a good pic right now to demonstrate that)
I believe that our very own Plan9 has two seperate eye colors (if Im not mistaken)

 

[random_guy]

you never have?
Check out Kate Bosworth
and Mila Kunis (one green, one blue, but cant find a good pic right now to demonstrate that)
I believe that our very own Plan9 has two seperate eye colors (if Im not mistaken)

Wow, that's weird. I've only seen that in video games and always assumed that it was just fantasy. That's so cool. Thanks for the picture.

 

[corvus_corax]

Wow, that's weird. I've only seen that in video games and always assumed that it was just fantasy. That's so cool. Thanks for the picture.

Null sheen

 

[Elduran]

An ex girlfriend of mine actually had 2 different colours in the same eye (blue and green). Was quite a stunning effect

 

[gluadys]

Woah, I've never heard of someone with 2 different eye colors. Is it possible for you to put up a picture with everything cropped out but the eyes?

It happens. I once saw a person with one brown and one blue eye. It was at a crowded party though & I never made her acquaintance. So no picture.

 

[AnEmpiricalAgnostic]

My eleven year old daughter was born with blue eyes. When she was about five months old one eye began to turn brown but the other one stayed blue. She now has one predominately blue eye with a touch of brown in one area and a predominately brown eye with a couple of little blue swirls. I have always been curious about what caused this.

What you have described is rare but not unheard of in humans (it is pretty common in some breeds of dogs). In fact, some famous people like David Bowie, Kiefer Sutherland and Christopher Walken have different colored eyes.

Where does it come from? To understand this, first let’s understand what eye color is. Eye color comes from a pigment called melanin; blue eyes have no melanin and brown eyes have lots in a part of the eye called the stroma. When babies are first born they usually have blue eyes. Light stimulates the eye to make melanin so that usually by age 3, a person has their final eye color.

So it isn’t that unusual that your daughter was born with blue eyes that changed to brown at 5 months. What is unusual is that only one of her eyes changed like they did. There are a number of ways to get two different colored eyes.

One well-documented possibility for changing one eye to a different color is some sort of trauma to that eye. For example, one of David Bowie’s eyes changed color when it was hit during a fight. Since the trauma can happen in the womb, this can be the explanation even if nothing obvious happened as a baby.

Other reasons are a little harder to explain. As you know, genes are an important part of determining eye color. Eye color is pretty complex and there are lots of genes involved.

So one way to get two different colored eyes is to have each eye have different genes. How is this possible? I can think of three ways this could happen off the top of my head.

First, it is possible that very early in the pregnancy, one cell of the developing fetus had a change or mutation in an eye color gene. As the fetus developed, that cell gave rise to parts of the body that included one eye while the “normal” cells developed the other eye. This condition is called somatic mosaicism.

Another possibility is that two fertilized eggs fuse together to form a single person (kind of like the reverse of twins). This is called chimerism after the mythological chimera. The difference between this and somatic mosaicism is that in chimerism, lots of genes are different instead of just the one.

Finally, for genes to work, they must be turned on or expressed (see the link below for an explanation). There are well known cases where a gene is turned on in one cell and turned off in another part of the body. A classic example is X inactivation which is more fully described in the link below. In this scenario, the pigment gene is shut off in one eye and is on in the other.

All 3 possibilities could also help explain the pattern of eye color in each eye. If various cells of the eye make different amounts of melanin, then you might get a “…brown eye with a couple of swirls.”

Well, this is probably WAY more than you wanted to know. Since there are some strains of dogs in which two different colored eyes is common, there may be a more conventional genetic explanation that we just don’t know about right now. Hopefully, some scientist somewhere will study these dogs, find the appropriate gene(s), and see if humans can get two different colored eyes the same way.

SOURCE: http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=26

 

[gladiatrix]

It happens. I once saw a person with one brown and one blue eye. It was at a crowded party though & I never made her acquaintance. So no picture.

Jane Seymour (Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman) has one green eye and one brown eye. She is what is known as a "genetic mosaic" .

HERE is an explanation on the genetics

In mammals, females get two copies of the X chromosome, while males get just one copy of the X (and one Y chromosome as well). Both females and males use genes on the X for all sorts of different functions, and males and females need the same level of proteins expressed from those genes. If females used both copies of their X chromosome at once, they would have twice the levels of those proteins, and protein interactions would be thrown out of whack. So to make sure they use only one X chromosome at a time, early in development a female's cells will randomly decide to turn off one of the X chromosomes. This chromosome condenses into an inactive state, and it is called a Barr body. As the female fetus develops, the single cells grow into patches of cells that have the same chromosome turned off. This makes every female mammal (even humans!) a genetic "mosaic" for the X chromosome. Being a "mosaic" means that a woman has some patches of cells that are using one of her X chromosomes, and other patches using the other X chromosome.

How might this lead to different-colored eyes? There may be a gene on one chromosome that helps make green eyes, and a different version (or "allele") of that gene on the other chromosome that helps make blue eyes instead. If one eye has the "green" chromosome turned off, then it will be blue, and vice versa. We don't often see the evidence of X-chromosome inactivation, so you're pretty lucky to have such an unusual trait!

You have probably seen another example of X-chromosome inactivation in the beautiful mottled coat color of calico cats. The reason calico cats are always female is because the patches of color represent patches of active X chromosomes that carry different genetic instructions for fur pigment.

The phenomenon described above is known as X-inactivation. Genetic females have what are known as "Barr bodies" (one condensed X-chromosome) in their cells. This fact is actually used to prevent countries from using males disguised as females during the Olympics. Barr bodies are only found in women and in men with too many X-chromosomes (Klinefelter's syndrome). They are easy to identify which makes screening atheletes for Barr bodies is a quick means of determining their genders

Read about how this got started HERE.

Image of Barr Bodies HERE Male (XY) with Klinefelter's (left) and a Female (right)


What I don't have is a picture of Jane Seymour without a "corrective" contact lens, here is a picture of this "odd-eyed" condition (heterochromic iridis).

This kind of odd-eyed (not meaning "odd" as in weird, only as not the "usual") is also a sign (in combination with others) of a form of deafness in humans called Waardenberg's syndrome

Picture of Heterochromia Iridis in Waardenberg's Syndrome

This kind of condition is also seen in animals, cats for one. If you were to be in the business of breeding and showing cats, there is even a special category for showing them. Here are a picture of just such a cat:

This is a portrait of "SouthPaws' Against All Odds" (Grand Champion Odd-Eyed White Persian)

While blue-eyed cats can be strikingly beautiful, there is a cost that often goes with it (many are deaf):

From HERE
There are also green-eyed white cats, the Russian Angora is green-eyed and white is a favorite color. Green-eyed white cats have a lower incidence of deafness than blue-eyed white cats because the gene for white they carry does not normally affect their eye color. It is similar for orange eyed whites; they rarely have congenital deafness. Genetic expression is very variable and orange-eyed/odd-eyed/blue-eyed whites are interbred in many breeds - hence up to 20% of non-blue-eyed, white cats may have some degree of hearing impairment depending on what gene is causing them to have a white coat.

So overall, blue-eyed white cats stand a higher than usual chance of being deaf; but they are not guaranteed to be deaf. Odd-eyed white cats may be deaf on the blue-eyed side. If you have a deaf white cat, it is not advisable to breed from it as this would pass the trait along. Deaf white cats are banned from exhibition or breeding by some fancies in Europe and there is a move to reduce or eliminate this trait from British breeding lines of various breeds. Deafness can cause problems because a cat cannot hear danger approaching. It can cause problems to breeders because deaf female cats cannot hear their kittens crying out and may neglect them. Deaf kittens cannot hear their mother calling to them and may get lost. Deaf cats also seem to have no volume control when meowing. For more information see Living With a Deaf Cat.

EDIT: I see that AnEmpiricalAgnostic has already beat me to it with a picture of David Bowie, who also is "odd-eyed".

 

[FSTDT]

random_guy,

Woah, I've never heard of someone with 2 different eye colors. Is it possible for you to put up a picture with everything cropped out but the eyes?

I dont have any good pictures of her, but fortunately others have posted some good images

 

[DJ_Ghost]

Woah, I've never heard of someone with 2 different eye colors. Is it possible for you to put up a picture with everything cropped out but the eyes?

Plan 9 mentioned she had 2 dif. eye colours a few months back I think.

Ghost

 

[DJ_Ghost]

It's not that uncommon - I have a friend who has it. David Bowie has it, as well.

If I recall correctly david Bowie has 2 odd eye colours due to damage to one eye sustained from a blow in his youth.

I may be wrong, but I think thats the case.

Ghost