Without DNA samples from the various populations throughout geological time, it isn't possible to pinpoint actual mutations. All we have are the fossils of the various species, where we can see the changes that took place to the body.
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Natural Selection or Luck
- Thread starter Micaiah
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Without DNA samples from the various populations throughout geological time, it isn't possible to pinpoint actual mutations. All we have are the fossils of the various species, where we can see the changes that took place to the body.
Would someone like to explain how the supposed evolution of the two creatures above ties in with your description of the chance of survival. For example, how did the changes occur in the foot. Was this a sudden do or die change, or did this happen over a large number of years with many small changes along the way. I don't believe even evolutionists say such changes would occur in one generation. If not, then there must have been a number of small changes. Why would the rest of the population die along the way if they did not have a certain beneficail mutationof the foot.
My original point was to attempt to quantify the percent increase in an animals chance of survival resulting from a beneficial mutation. Others have asserted this will be 100 % because without the mutation, the animal would die. I do not see this demonstrated in the supposed evolution of the horse.
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A mutation doesn't have to provide benefit at the time it enters a population. The benefit can come later, even generation later, when selective pressure is applied.
The foot for example. If one of the protohorses has a mutation that can be passed on for a stronger foot, and it passes it on to its offspring, offspring from that line will continue to have a stronger foot than the rest of the herd. Once selective presssure is applied such as a new predator, those in the lineage of the stronger foot will survive while the lineages without it will slowly die as they are picked off by the new predator because he either run slower or get more broken ankles when they do run.
Looking at the teeth, the same type of scenario could affect lineages without a mutation for stronger, broader teeth, if environmental changes required the source of food to become desert grasses instead of the softer buds and fruits. The mutation that allows a certain group or lineage of the horses to eat more food because they can eat a larger variety of food when the normal food source is scant.
If selective pressure came to bear on the human population tommorrow that killed off all of those who were over 5 1/2 feet tall, it wouldn't take long for there to be less babies being born who would grow to over that because lineages that produce tall people would produce less and less over time until the norm would be to have babies who would not grow up to be 5 1/2 feet tall.
The mutation for "shortness" wouldn't have been identified as beneficial before the selective pressure is applied.
Immunity is another good example of this. You can't tell who is immune to a disease and who has a beneficial advantage, until the selective pressure is applied. Nature has probably already come up with immunity to AIDS (in fact some research has already been done to show that certain lines are less suceptable) but we won't know who has the beneficial mutation, until AIDS affects all populations.
Why are polar bears white?
Why do tigers have stripes?
Why can antelope run fast?
Why do giraffes have long necks?
Similar scenarios of mutations in a population that provided a survival benefit and an applied selective pressure can explain these physical features.
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Most populations are stable. In fact, it is only rare instances where overall populations aren't stable.
Now, to you examples:
1. Fire. "just happens" means that the horse didn't choose the correct escape path. This is a behavioral algorithm under the control of natural selection. A beneficial mutation giving an ability to choose the correct path to escape a fire would have allowed that horse to survive.
2. Dingo kills a foal. Again, the distance a foal strays from its mother is a behavioral trait genetically controlled. Those foals that don't wander from their mother have an increased chance of survival.
3. Falling in a ditch. Poor eyesight that it couldn't detect the ditch? Or poor jumping ability to jump the ditch? Again, this is not totally chance as you portray.
In all the cases, survival would indeed be related to small beneficial mutations.
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The fitness coefficient (increased chance of passing on genes to next generation) can be quantified. That is W in the equations above. And there is no minimum number. As long as the trait has any benefit, no matter how small, it will increase in the population from generation to generation until it is "fixed", that is, all the individuals in the population have that mutation.
W is defined as the ratio of the actual alleles in the population to the expected alleles in the population. Notice that this has no judegement on "beneficial". It is a quantitative term.
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In your scenario, it's not luck. For instance, there are 5 foals all clustered around the mother. It is the one that wanders farther away that gets eaten by the dingo. Not chance, but determinism. Those foals that did not wander that far were not caught. This is part of the struggle for existence.
Take your "falling into a ditch". You have all 5 foals jumping the ditch. One of them can't jump that far and misses the other side, falling into the ditch. Again, that's not chance. That is determined by the jumping ability.
At the end of your scenario, we have the foal with the genes that 1) allow it to avoid a fire, 2) avoid a predator, 3) has the genes to allow it to jump that ditch.
The problem here is that what you call "chance" isn't.
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No. That is documented. For instance, the mutation in the FOXP2 gene is a point mutation. Results in increased speech ability and was one of the mutations that made H. sapiens H. sapiens.
Another example:
5: J Bacteriol 1999 Jun;181(11):3341-50. Isolation and characterization of mutations in Bacillus subtilis that allow spore germination in the novel germinant D-alanine. Paidhungat M, Setlow P
Bacillus subtilis spores break their metabolic dormancy through a process called germination. Spore germination is triggered by specific molecules called germinants, which are thought to act by binding to and stimulating spore receptors. Three homologous operons, gerA, gerB, and gerK, were previously proposed to encode germinant receptors because inactivating mutations in those genes confer a germinant-specific defect in germination. To more definitely identify genes that encode germinant receptors, we isolated mutants whose spores germinated in the novel germinant D-alanine, because such mutants would likely contain gain-of-function mutations in genes that encoded preexisting germinant receptors. Three independent mutants were isolated, and in each case the mutant phenotype was shown to result from a single dominant mutation in the gerB operon. Two of the mutations altered the gerBA gene, whereas the third affected the gerBB gene. These results suggest that gerBA and gerBB encode components of the germinant receptor. Furthermore, genetic interactions between the wild-type gerB and the mutant gerBA and gerBB alleles suggested that the germinant receptor might be a complex containing GerBA, GerBB, and probably other proteins. Thus, we propose that the gerB operon encodes at least two components of a multicomponent germinant receptor.
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Sorry, Micaiah, we seem to have confused you. There are two ways of looking at beneficial mutations. One is from the population perspective, and the other is from the individual. Looking at it from the pov of the individual, the beneficial mutation helps its survival by 100%. That is, it survives where otherwise it would have died.
However, from the population, the fitness differential might only be 1% or even less. That is, the old allele would allow survival in the same situation 99% of the time, but 1% would not make it. Therefore, the increase in survival of the mutation for the population is only 1%. Do you understand now?
Now, remember that natural selection is cumulative. Because of inheritance, you don't have to start from scratch each generation. So, as the generations progress, since the new mutants have a 1% better chance of survival than the old allele, you would start with 99 old, 1 mutant in the first generation. In the next generation, you will have 98 old, 2 new. The third generation, 97 old, 3 new. And this progresses. The rate of substitution starts to decrease. By generation 60, you have 50 old, 50 new. But the next generation, you have 49.5 old, 50.5 new. Of course, since you can't have 0.5 of an individual, that will fluctuate for a few generations before the balance tips.
In the case of horse evolution, the middle toe gradually enlarged over thousands of generations. The difference is that a larger toe allows better running on hard ground. So, when the climate started to dry out and the forests were replaced by grassland, the individuals with larger toes were better able to escape predators. Since this didn't happen in a single generation, small increments could build up over thousands of generations.
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Actually, that has already been done. An allele in European population has been identified that confers immunity to HIV. This was a neutral mutation and, by Hardy-Weinberg, is present is a small percentage of Europeans. Now, should HIV sweep the contintent, then within a few generation all the people will be descended from only these individuals and all will have the mutation. The mutation will have become "fixed".
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We are looking from the point of the individual. The question is "What is the increase in the likelihood of an individual surviving from a single point mutation."
Evolutionists do not suggest that changes in the hoof resulted from one point mutation. These changes supposedly occured in a number of steps. The survival advantage resulting from each step would be minimal. It is hard to conceive one mutation resulting in a change that resulted in the animal surviving where all others died.
As stated previously, the actual chances of an individual surviving in this scenario is down to about 20% on average. So even if an individual did carry a mutation, its chance of survival regardless would start off at 20%. (The causes of death in the animals above were essentially independent of the mutation under discussion. Survival in those cases was essentially a matter of luck.)
How many nucleotide changes would need to occur in the genes for hoof configuration, and what is the percent increase in an animals chance of survival from one such change.
There are no known mutations that parallel the assumed genetic change for the hoof.
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So Micaiah, Are you asserting that the differences in the hoof configuration and teeth construction we see in the fossil record on different individuals are all from separately created "kinds"? Does each individual we find in the fossils record that has large physical differences in foot and teeth represent a group of separately created horse like animals that share no relation?
Why don't we find them mixed together in the fossil record if they all were alive at one time and killed at the same time?. Why the progression of changes from lower to higher strata? How does "flood sorting" account for all of the mutli-toed animals being below the single hoofed animals?
Why don't we find them mixed together in the fossil record if they all were alive at one time and killed at the same time?. Why the progression of changes from lower to higher strata? How does "flood sorting" account for all of the mutli-toed animals being below the single hoofed animals?
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Today at 09:29 AM Micaiah said this in Post #50
We are looking from the point of the individual. The question is "What is the increase in the likelihood of an individual surviving from a single point mutation."
"We" are not. You are. Evolution happens to populations, not individuals.
Evolutionists do not suggest that changes in the hoof resulted from one point mutation. These changes supposedly occured in a number of steps. The survival advantage resulting from each step would be minimal. It is hard to conceive one mutation resulting in a change that resulted in the animal surviving where all others died.
You have a jump of 20 feet. If you have the old allele, 99 of them would make the jump. But one would not. Now, if you have the mutation, you will make the jump 100% of the time. Now, sometime in the course of its life, a horse is going to face a jump of 20 feet. What this means is, that in the course of a thousand generations, all the animals that could not make such a jump are going to be eliminated and only the animals that could are going to be around. Thus, eventually what used to be a mutation in one animal is now the gene in all the animals.
So, now you have another mutation that allows the animal to make a jump of 21 feet. Again, the old allele may have made that jump 99 times out of 100, but the new allele makes it 100% certain to make that jump. That's only a 1% improvement, but it adds to the improvement that went before.
As stated previously, the actual chances of an individual surviving in this scenario is down to about 20% on average. So even if an individual did carry a mutation, its chance of survival regardless would start off at 20%. (The causes of death in the animals above were essentially independent of the mutation under discussion. Survival in those cases was essentially a matter of luck.)
That part in the parentheses is where you are going astray. What you are calling "luck" is actually selection. Yes, it is "luck" that only 1 individual had the allele that had it wander 20 meters from mom instead of only 10, so that the dingo could get it. Bad luck for that individual, but deterministic selection for the population.
How many nucleotide changes would need to occur in the genes for hoof configuration, and what is the percent increase in an animals chance of survival from one such change.
It doesn't matter what the exact percent increase in fitness is. Look at the equation. As long as the increase in fitness is positive, eventually that mutation will come to replace all other alleles in the population. So, even if on the population level the new mutation was only 0.001 better than the old, it will replace the old one.
One demonstration of the power of cumulative change is looking at a directional selection change that would increase the size of a mouse by 0.01% per generation (that's 0.0001). Far too small to measure. But, in the course of just 60,000 years, it would convert a mouse to the size of an elephant! Just 60,000 years.
There are no known mutations that parallel the assumed genetic change for the hoof.
That's like saying there are no known chairs in my den. Since you haven't looked at my den, you don't know. In order for that statement to be meaningful, Micaiah, you have to go look at the genetics and no one has done so. In areas where people have looked -- like mutations to convert scales to feathers -- they have found them.
We are looking from the point of the individual. The question is "What is the increase in the likelihood of an individual surviving from a single point mutation."
"We" are not. You are. Evolution happens to populations, not individuals.
Evolutionists do not suggest that changes in the hoof resulted from one point mutation. These changes supposedly occured in a number of steps. The survival advantage resulting from each step would be minimal. It is hard to conceive one mutation resulting in a change that resulted in the animal surviving where all others died.
You have a jump of 20 feet. If you have the old allele, 99 of them would make the jump. But one would not. Now, if you have the mutation, you will make the jump 100% of the time. Now, sometime in the course of its life, a horse is going to face a jump of 20 feet. What this means is, that in the course of a thousand generations, all the animals that could not make such a jump are going to be eliminated and only the animals that could are going to be around. Thus, eventually what used to be a mutation in one animal is now the gene in all the animals.
So, now you have another mutation that allows the animal to make a jump of 21 feet. Again, the old allele may have made that jump 99 times out of 100, but the new allele makes it 100% certain to make that jump. That's only a 1% improvement, but it adds to the improvement that went before.
As stated previously, the actual chances of an individual surviving in this scenario is down to about 20% on average. So even if an individual did carry a mutation, its chance of survival regardless would start off at 20%. (The causes of death in the animals above were essentially independent of the mutation under discussion. Survival in those cases was essentially a matter of luck.)
That part in the parentheses is where you are going astray. What you are calling "luck" is actually selection. Yes, it is "luck" that only 1 individual had the allele that had it wander 20 meters from mom instead of only 10, so that the dingo could get it. Bad luck for that individual, but deterministic selection for the population.
How many nucleotide changes would need to occur in the genes for hoof configuration, and what is the percent increase in an animals chance of survival from one such change.
It doesn't matter what the exact percent increase in fitness is. Look at the equation. As long as the increase in fitness is positive, eventually that mutation will come to replace all other alleles in the population. So, even if on the population level the new mutation was only 0.001 better than the old, it will replace the old one.
One demonstration of the power of cumulative change is looking at a directional selection change that would increase the size of a mouse by 0.01% per generation (that's 0.0001). Far too small to measure. But, in the course of just 60,000 years, it would convert a mouse to the size of an elephant! Just 60,000 years.
There are no known mutations that parallel the assumed genetic change for the hoof.
That's like saying there are no known chairs in my den. Since you haven't looked at my den, you don't know. In order for that statement to be meaningful, Micaiah, you have to go look at the genetics and no one has done so. In areas where people have looked -- like mutations to convert scales to feathers -- they have found them.
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The ancestors are hypothesised by evolutionists from fossils they find. I'm using their ancestors for the point of the argument. I seek to show the inconsistencies of the evolutionists position. The Scriptural version of events is unaffected if they find the ancestors didn't exist.
I do not wish to get off topic here.
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Although this doesn't apply to horses, lets take a look a mutation creating a beneficial change through a physical change. This change is drastic, and distinct.
Tuskless elephants.
Although generally, not having tusks would not be beneficial for an individual elephant, with recent poacher activity, it becomes quite adventageous to their survival. This change in environment (introduction of poachers) has caused selection to favor tuskless animals for survival. This means that more tuskless elephants are alive to reproduce, and that the mutation that causes elephants to be tuskless is becoming more prominent in the population. If the selective pressure continues, the mutation would move through the entire population and the population would become tuskless (and may not get back their tusks any time soon if the trait is dominant in breeding!)
Here is a modern example of a mutation that was either harmful or neutral becoming a beneficial mutation for survival with the change in environment.
The story below deals with African elephants that are showing this change due to the spread of the mutation due to recent poaching. The "tuskless" phenomena is alread prominant in male Asian elephants, most likely due to ivory use in the past and the hunting of the population.
You will notice that although a tuskless elephant is at risk because it can't get food as well or defend itself, that the mutation is still moving through the population because it provides an advantage over the other risks to the population to overcome the biggest risk - poachers.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/180301.stm
World: Africa
Elephants 'ditch tusks' to survive
Elephants are beating the ivory poachers, but at a high price. An increasing number of elephants have no tusks, according to a survey. Research at the Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda, showed that 15% of female elephants and 9% of males in the park were born without tusks. In 1930 the figure for both male and female elephants was only 1%.
Genetic accident
Elephants appear to be losing their tusks. Experts say the reason why some elephants are tuskless is a result of a chance genetic mutation. They say elephants are losing their tusks as a rapid and effective evolutionary response to escape slaughter by ruthless and resourceful poachers who kill elephants for their ivory trophies. The BBC's Science Correspondent, John Newell, says the continuing change shows how rapidly evolution can react in response to pressures that threaten the survival of a species. This allows them to live, breed more freely and produce more offspring without tusks.
Growing trend
Evidence of a trend in tuskless elephants has been reported elsewhere. Mark and Delia Owens recorded an unusual number of such elephants in 1997 while carrying out research in Zambia's North Luangwa National Park. Published on the National Wildlife Federation's Website, they write: "Our research indicates that more than 38% of Luangwa elephants carry no tusks. "Other researchers have reported that in natural, unstressed populations, only 2% of the animals are tuskless."
Crippled creatures
Tuskless elephants are paying a heavy price for survival. Tusks are used to dig for food and water, to dig up trees and branches and move them around, for self defence and for sexual display. Conservationists say an elephant without tusks is a crippled elephant. They say that while being tuskless is better than being dead, they hope that less drastic ways can be found to protect elephants against poachers.
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Okay, you say it does happpen, I say it doesn't. For the purposes of this discussion, I am running with your hypothesis, and checking out the consistency of claims that are made. One claim is that the process of evolution is not random, but is the result of the natural selection seive.
These discussions make it clear that when considering a single beneficial mutation in an individual, the percent increase in the chances of survival is low. Lucaspa has suggested 0.001 or 0.1% as a posssible increase in the chance of survival of a single point mutation. If enough of these are cobbled together, then evolutionists say we end up with the change that is postulated. That is a big IF!. In the case of the horse discussed above, it was the change from for digits to a single hoof. The chances of the required number of mutations occuring in the required order is very low. I consider the chances are so low, and the survival benefit gained from each step is small enough that we can say the changes are essentailly spontaneous and random.
Edit - Delete last paragraph
These discussions make it clear that when considering a single beneficial mutation in an individual, the percent increase in the chances of survival is low. Lucaspa has suggested 0.001 or 0.1% as a posssible increase in the chance of survival of a single point mutation. If enough of these are cobbled together, then evolutionists say we end up with the change that is postulated. That is a big IF!. In the case of the horse discussed above, it was the change from for digits to a single hoof. The chances of the required number of mutations occuring in the required order is very low. I consider the chances are so low, and the survival benefit gained from each step is small enough that we can say the changes are essentailly spontaneous and random.
Edit - Delete last paragraph
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Lucaspa, you must accept that many deaths occur mainly as accidents.
Even if you don't , you should recognise the causes may often be unrelated to the development of the hoof. Some of these are evident in the examples I gave above. Another would be diseases. The beneficial hoof mutation would have little impact on the horses chance of surviving in these cases.
We are talking about two things here. One is the chance of the animal surviving, and the other is the gain in the animals chance of survival as a reult of a single mutation, such as could cause a change to the hoof.
Even if you don't , you should recognise the causes may often be unrelated to the development of the hoof. Some of these are evident in the examples I gave above. Another would be diseases. The beneficial hoof mutation would have little impact on the horses chance of surviving in these cases.
We are talking about two things here. One is the chance of the animal surviving, and the other is the gain in the animals chance of survival as a reult of a single mutation, such as could cause a change to the hoof.
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Where has this been said? The fully formed foot may not be necessary for survival but more inividuals with it will survive than without it in the overall population. It is certainly possible for an individual without the fully formed foot to survive, but out of 10000 individuals the ones that have the mutation and that survive the disease will have an advantage over those that don't against survival pressure where the mutation gives an advantage. Even if out of 10,000 individuals, half of them die of disease, out of the remaining individuals, more of them will survive if their physical attributes are beneficial to survival in their environment (no matter how slight). This leaves more breeding individuals who are better adapted to their environment, which means that in the next generation, there will be even more individuals with the benefit. Repeat.
The mathematics that have been presented show that no matter how slight, an advantage of the beneficial mutatin will move through the population. This is a mathematical certainty. This is how anti-biotic resistant strains of bacteria come about. It is a mathematical certainty.
There certainly could be many possibly beneficial mutations that never get expressed in the population because the individual that carries it is killed before it breeds by an unrelated cause. This doesn't mean that other beneficial mutation in other individuals meet the same fate.
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If you read back through your posts, you will notice that you assigned a percent increase in the survival resulting from a beneficial mutation as 100%. As Lucaspa has indicated, that is only a valid assumption in certain cases.
You have not offered any valid new arguments. Could we consider your last point in more detail.
Notto:
The mathematics that have been presented show that no matter how slight, an advantage of the beneficial mutatin will move through the population. This is a mathematical certainty. This is how anti-biotic resistant strains of bacteria come about. It is a mathematical certainty.
What is the chance of an animal with a mutation surviving. What is the chance of this mutation surviving in future generations. How do you calculate these probabilities.
In this case, we've used the following parameters:
- Chance of survival without mutation - 20%
- Inproved chance of survival with mutation - 0.1%
You have not offered any valid new arguments. Could we consider your last point in more detail.
Notto:
The mathematics that have been presented show that no matter how slight, an advantage of the beneficial mutatin will move through the population. This is a mathematical certainty. This is how anti-biotic resistant strains of bacteria come about. It is a mathematical certainty.
What is the chance of an animal with a mutation surviving. What is the chance of this mutation surviving in future generations. How do you calculate these probabilities.
In this case, we've used the following parameters:
- Chance of survival without mutation - 20%
- Inproved chance of survival with mutation - 0.1%
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