no evidence for evolution

Jerry Smith · Jun 13, 2002

Originally posted by Lanakila

I never mentioned mutations, I was only talking about natural selection.

I'm sorry, I thought you were suggesting that all of the alleles that have ever existed must have existed in the common ancestor if evolution were true. Since that requires there exist no mechanism for adding genes or alleles to the gene pool, then I assumed you meant that there could be none.

Lanakila · Jun 13, 2002

It's ok. Mutation is the other vehicle of evolution. But I have many questions about it too.

RufusAtticus · Jun 13, 2002

Originally posted by Lanakila
The genetic information that makes up the individual organisms is what I mean by information.

Organisms are not made up of information. They are made up by molecules. DNA encodes information required to produce proteins and regulate protein production. It is these proteins which are mostly responsible for our growth and survival.

You can trace the modern dogs genetically back to the wolf, correct?

Modern dogs and modern wolves have a common ancestor which is not thought to be that much different than modern wolves.

...This explains adaptation, but the dogs with the long fur are adapted to the cool artic climate and the genetic code for short fur is "lost". Genetic drift can come from the long furred animal being isolated on an island. When all the cousins to that same animal have medium or short fur.

Are you refering to the founder effect? Genetic drift always occurs in real populations. Every new generation is formed by sampling the previous one(s). Because this sampling is finite, small variations will occur in gene frequiencies by chance alone.

Isn't this the opposite of evolution? The genetic information has been lost and if the long furred dogs environment changes they will be very hot or die off, instead of changing back.

Nope. Any change in gene pool is still evolution, whether it involves the loss of an allele or the addition of it. Selection does reduce the variation in the population but mutation restores it. Evolution would not occur if mutations didn't.

I can explain this better with blood types Mother has AB type blood Father has O the child will have the AO or BO alleles and could not be in AB blood group but would be in either A or B. Large populations do no necessarily lose genes because there are copies of the genes in the population, but when isolation occurs the genetic information can be lost. This explains the difference in animals in the Galapagos, Madagascar, Austrailia ect

You have just described the founder effect, which does play an important role in evolution. However, variation is not perminately lost because mutation can restore it. It does not matter whether or not the colonial population regains some of the same alleles that were present in the parent population.

Oliver · Jun 13, 2002

I see that others more knowledgable than me have already adressed this, so I'll let them go on and return to lurker mode

LiveFreeOrDie · Jun 13, 2002

Originally posted by Lanakila
Do you agree that natural selection could not account for all the species of living organisms on the earth?

I agree that natural selection alone could not account for all the species of living organisms on the Earth.

What is random mutation?

From http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html

The cellular machinery that copies DNA sometimes makes mistakes. These mistakes alter the sequence of a gene. This is called a mutation.

Is it beneficial?

Usually no, but sometimes yes.

Do we have evidence mutation is beneficial?

Yes. Check out the references article above. Also see http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mutations.html

Lanakila · Jun 13, 2002

If you aren't going to answer my questions I will just go to another forum. I don't enjoy having my questions answered by: goto this website. I can do that on my own quite well thank you. I was trying to have a discussion using Socratic method of asking questions of the specific evolutionists on this board. Since they don't seem to have the answers they direct me to a website that does. I don't want to discuss this with a website.

I know that natural selection cannot account for all the living organisms, I was trying to get an evolutionist to admit it is all.

What means does mutation have to produce beneficial change?

Jerry Smith · Jun 13, 2002

Originally posted by Lanakila
If you aren't going to answer my questions I will just go to another forum. I don't enjoy having my questions answered by: goto this website. I can do that on my own quite well thank you. I was trying to have a discussion using Socratic method of asking questions of the specific evolutionists on this board. Since they don't seem to have the answers they direct me to a website that does. I don't want to discuss this with a website.

As you say, you don't seem to be interested in learning the answers to the questions: you seem to be interested in having a "Socratic discussion." You may not have many takers here - this is a science forum, and the people you wish to debate are advocates of science - not philosophy. We believe in using the right tool for the right job, and rhetoric is not the right tool for the discussion of science.

If you have a question that will help you understand some point so you can discuss it more clearly, then by all means ask: and please be satisfied if, instead of re-inventing the wheel, we sometimes point you to a place where the question is already answered. Wouldn't you rather have the "best" answer than our personal versions of it?

I know that natural selection cannot account for all the living organisms, I was trying to get an evolutionist to admit it is all.

"Evolutionists: do any of you have a problem with the statement - natural selection by itself cannot account for the evolution of all organisms from a common ancestor?"

How many pages of back & forth "Socratism" could have been saved. The answer is no: there is no problem with that statement. Natural selection by itself cannot bring about sustained evolution.

What means does mutation have to produce beneficial change?

A mutation will usually affect how a cell develops, when a (stem) cell will differentiate, and what proteins it will produce. Any time a change of this kind enhances reproductive success (for instance by giving a lizard who lives on plants green skin instead of black), the change can be said to be "beneficial".

If you would rather the long explanation, I think someone has already pointed you to the full answer. If you already know, then why not skip straight to the point and ask us your "real" question?

Lanakila · Jun 13, 2002

How often do the beneficial mutations happen? I have some statistics here, I am just wondering if you all know its rare actually.

Jerry Smith · Jun 13, 2002

Why don't you share your statistics? If possible, you might want to share the methodology used to collect them, and the source you found them in.

npetreley · Jun 13, 2002

Originally posted by RufusAtticus

Organisms are not made up of information. They are made up by molecules.

True, but an irrelevant distinction. Hard drives are not made up of information, either, but they wouldn't be very useful if you couldn't store information on them. Organisms, likewise, would not exist without genetic information.

Modern dogs and modern wolves have a common ancestor which is not thought to be that much different than modern wolves.

Evolution would not occur if mutations didn't.

Methinks that was the whole point.

npetreley · Jun 13, 2002

Originally posted by Jerry Smith

We believe in using the right tool for the right job, and rhetoric is not the right tool for the discussion of science.

I'd love to respond to this but I've got to stop laughing first.

Jerry Smith · Jun 13, 2002

Originally posted by npetreley

I'd love to respond to this but I've got to stop laughing first.

The all-time champion hand-waver, the kind of sarcasm, and the semi-professional builder of straw men has something he wants to say about rhetoric?

Morat · Jun 13, 2002

I'm sure Mr. Petreley will share with us the loaded language and witty commentary he finds in such scientific journals.

I hear that Futyima's Evolution is chock full of sarcasm.

OneLargeToe · Jun 13, 2002

I find it amusing that people with obviously high-school level education are debating theories and facts developed by the world's top scientists and researchers.

kern · Jun 13, 2002

I find it more incredible that anyone would believe that 150 years or more of the Theory of Evolution and the work of tens of thousands of scientists is simply a bunch of hand-waving and guesswork. Yeah right, people spend their entire lives studying evolution and genetics, I guess they're just hand-waving.

-Chris

Lanakila · Jun 16, 2002

Spending your entire life does not necessarily mean you have come to the right conclusion. People spend their lives doing many things (that they suppose are correct) and may be way off center. This is an empty argument.

What is genetic mutation?

It is a scrambling or erasure of pre-existing information.

A beneficial mutation happens about one in 100,000 mutations. Or one per generation of a population.

Mathematician Marcel Schutzenberger, found that the odds against improving meaningful information by random changes were 10 to the thousand power and, astronomers Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe said that the probability that life would originate from nonlife as 10 to the 40,000th power and that the probability of added complexity arising by mutations and natural selection very close to this number.(Lester and Bohlin 85)

Mutations are mistakes or copyist errors in the DNA. Most mutations are either neutral or harmful to the organism.

Lane P. Lester and Raymond G. Bohlin The Natural Limits to Biological Change. Probe Ministries International. Christian Free University Books. Zondervan. 1984.

Jerry Smith · Jun 16, 2002

Originally posted by Lanakila
Spending your entire life does not necessarily mean you have come to the right conclusion. People spend their lives doing many things (that they suppose are correct) and may be way off center. This is an empty argument.

I don't think that was an argument. I think it was an observation. I think that the fellow was just noting that people who have taken ten-minutes to read a page from creationists literature are convinced that they know better than people who have spent their whole lives doing serious study of the matter, and who take pains to be sure that their work is accurate to the best possible degree.

What is genetic mutation?

Click to expand...

It is a change in genetic material.

It is a scrambling or erasure of pre-existing information.

Click to expand...

Oh, tell us more about your research into genetic mutation. Also, please give the definition of "information" you are using, and how it relates to biology.

A beneficial mutation happens about one in 100,000 mutations. Or one per generation of a population.

Click to expand...

Thats quite a lot!

Mathematician Marcel Schutzenberger, found that the odds against improving meaningful information by random changes were 10 to the thousand power

Click to expand...

Could you briefly post the method he used to calculate that? What definition of "information" was he using? How did it relate to biology?

and, astronomers Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe said that the probability that life would originate from nonlife as 10 to the 40,000th power

Click to expand...

How did astronomers come to know so much about chemistry and biology that they could accurately calculate this?

and that the probability of added complexity arising by mutations and natural selection very close to this number.(Lester and Bohlin 85)

Click to expand...

Is "added complexity" the same as "meaningful information"? If so, how did Hoyle & Wickramasinghe get an answer 40 orders of magnitude different(HIGHER! - we have chances better than 100%, we have them 10 to the 400th power percent according to these figures) than what the Mathematician Schutzenburger arrived at? Why the different answers? How did they get probabilities greater than 1 (Or did you mean 1 IN 10 ^4,000)? Which biologists did they consult to find out what the base probabilities were that each used in their calculations?

Mutations are mistakes or copyist errors in the DNA. Most mutations are either neutral or harmful to the organism.

Lane P. Lester and Raymond G. Bohlin The Natural Limits to Biological Change. Probe Ministries International. Christian Free University Books. Zondervan. 1984.

Click to expand...

You are correct on that! But, as you noted above, a whole LOT of them are BENEFICIAL!

See the thread I recently posted on "Why Bother" to learn more about whether "information" can be increased by mutation, from a creationists perspective...

Lanakila · Jun 16, 2002

Oh, tell us more about your research into genetic mutation.

Oh, so I have to be a genetic engineer to understand this information, huh? I thought that you were picking on creationists for not understanding scientific information. When someone comes on that has an understanding of genetics, without using the technical terms, your response is sarcasm.

quote:
A beneficial mutation happens about one in 100,000 mutations. Or one per generation of a population.

Thats quite a lot! Oh really!!!

Not if you consider what is actually meant by beneficial. Its not as beneficial as most evolutionists would have us believe. Flies having wings on their heads really serve no purpose, do they?

What is genetic mutation?

It is a scrambling or erasure of pre-existing information.

By information I mean the genetic code that makes up the DNA of the individual. This code I will call information from now on, k.

Mutations are mistakes or copyist errors in the DNA. Most mutations are either neutral or harmful to the organism and if only one out of 100,000 errors (mutations) is considered beneficial (using this term losely) then there are an awful lot of non-beneficial or harmful mutations.

Mutation is random reshuffling or loss of information, not new information added (where would it come from?).

You may want to check out the genetic portion of your Biology 101 textbook, because this information about mutations is there. You don't have to have a degree in Biology or Genetics to understand it either. I know I have simplified this for the benefit of those who may not be scientists.

Jerry Smith · Jun 16, 2002

Originally posted by Lanakila
Oh, tell us more about your research into genetic mutation.

Oh, so I have to be a genetic engineer to understand this information, huh? I thought that you were picking on creationists for not understanding scientific information. When someone comes on that has an understanding of genetics, without using the technical terms, your response is sarcasm.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. Yes, I was being sarcastic. You had made a statement as fact ("It is a scrambling or erasure of pre-existing information"), that I strongly believe reflected the errors in understanding genetics that come from a lack of training in the field. I think that you would have done better to give a meaningful definition of mutation and then show how it related to your non-biological concept of information (or vice-versa).
I do practice sarcasm sometimes. Not all the time, but usually only when dealing with "know-it-all" assertions of fact that reflect only a lack of comprehension.

A beneficial mutation happens about one in 100,000 mutations. Or one per generation of a population.

Thats quite a lot! Oh really!!!

Not if you consider what is actually meant by beneficial. Its not as beneficial as most evolutionists would have us believe. Flies having wings on their heads really serve no purpose, do they?

Who said a mutation that puts wings on the heads of flies was beneficial? I guess if you are counting the deleterious mutations, that would account for the high frequency of occurrence that you gave for them....

By information I mean the genetic code that makes up the DNA of the individual. This code I will call information from now on, k.

Fine. So you would agree with this:

Original sequence:
aacgc

mutated sequence 1:
accgc

mutated sequence 2:
aacgcaacgc

The first mutation has the same amount of information as the original, the second has increased information.

Right?

Mutations are mistakes or copyist errors in the DNA. Most mutations are either neutral or harmful to the organism and if only one out of 100,000 errors (mutations) is considered beneficial (using this term losely) then there are an awful lot of non-beneficial or harmful mutations.

Yes. Without natural selection, the harmful mutations would add up over several generations so that whole species went extinct. Without natural selection the beneficial mutations would not gain prevalence in a population's gene pool.

Mutation is random reshuffling or loss of information, not new information added (where would it come from?).

The order of a deck of cards has information. Reshuffling gives new information (at the expense of the old). Duplicating the deck & then reshuffling doubles the amount of infromation.

You may want to check out the genetic portion of your Biology 101 textbook, because this information about mutations is there. You don't have to have a degree in Biology or Genetics to understand it either. I know I have simplified this for the benefit of those who may not be scientists.

Thanks for simplifying it. Perhaps you would like to talk about it in strict terms with Rufus - he has a degree in biology and is working on his PhD in population genetics. He could go even money with you on the technical representation of the material, I'm sure.

npetreley · Jun 17, 2002

Originally posted by Jerry Smith
Why don't you share your statistics? If possible, you might want to share the methodology used to collect them, and the source you found them in...

...so we can ridicule them and do our best to discredit them as creationist propaganda.

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