Unintelligent Design?

[SkyWriting]

It was stated, then you contradicted it. Is the layout of the oesophagus and the urinary tract evidence of a perfect design we simply don't appreciate, or the result of the fall?

Not appreciated, as you say.

Odd then we have bigger brains and seem to be more intelligent than Austraopithicenes, Homo ergaster, and Homo erectus.

I don't think we can claim more intelligence than any other species that's ever existed.

You mean like Cystic Fibrosis, which protected people from to the Black Death if they had a single copy of the gene? Or sickle cell anaemia which does the same with malaria?How about ApoA-1 Milano which protects against heart disease. Very handy in our saturated fat and cholesterol soaked modern environment. I am not so sure X-men is really a the best place for you to learn about genetics and mutations.

I am SO glad you fully answered your own claim. Yes, there are mutations that help a species survive and cope with a deteriorating environment and limit the deaths of a species as things fall apart. That's what exactly what God designed evolution for. To sweep up the garbage and keep species going for a while. The x-men link was to illustrate the lack of even one single mutation that parents wish for their children. Your example is like throwing kids off a cliff and admiring the ones that bounce better.

 

[shernren]

So beneficial mutations aren't beneficial mutations because they happened after the Fall. Yup, got you.

 

[Assyrian]

Not appreciated, as you say.

So you are contradicting your fall argument now? You ok having two mutually exclusive arguements on the go?

I don't think we can claim more intelligence than any other species that's ever existed.

Certainly more intelligence than any species we know about, more intelligent than the earlier hominids we evolved from. Perhaps if you could come with the great works of Australopithecus poetry, or a Homo ergaster that has pondered the depths of quantum physics.

I am SO glad you fully answered your own claim. Yes, there are mutations that help a species survive and cope with a deteriorating environment and limit the deaths of a species as things fall apart. That's what exactly what God designed evolution for.

Interesting that you know the purpose God designed evolution for, when evolution isn't even mentioned in the bible. I would have though if you are going to accept the existence of evolution because of the scientific evidence, it would make more sense to accept what science actually tells us about evolution rather than trying to cobble bits and pieces into your world view.

To sweep up the garbage and keep species going for a while. The x-men link was to illustrate the lack of even one single mutation that parents wish for their children. Your example is like throwing kids off a cliff and admiring the ones that bounce better.

I did point out X-Men wasn't the best way to learn about genetics and mutations, but you still seem to think a beneficial mutation with turn a child into Rubber-Boy. You are assuming that a beneficial mutation will suddenly confer some great new ability rather than give a small incremental improvements like ApoA-1 Milano. It is an easy mistake to make when harmful mutations which break important genes and have drastic effect on people's health. Which of course is why we know so much more about harmful mutations and you could link to a list so many of them. People bring their children to the doctors if their bones don't grow properly or their lungs keep filling with mucus. They don't run anxiously to the doctor if Johnny is that little bit better at maths, runs that bit faster on the football pitch, or doesn't go on to die of heart disease like his grandad.

 

[SkyWriting]

I did point out X-Men wasn't the best way to learn about genetics and mutations, but you still seem to think a beneficial mutation with turn a child into Rubber-Boy.

They already do.
Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome


There are no beneficial mutations because that's an oxymoron. Mutations are associated with harmful deviations from the population. The one you mentioned has failed to produce any beneficial health treatments for people. Because it was researched by a drug company in hopes of making any money, odds are that some negative consequences of the mutation are under reported. But elevated triglyceride levels and reduced HDL levels are noted.

 

[Assyrian]

They already do.
Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

I doubt the children bounce the way you described.

There are no beneficial mutations because that's an oxymoron. Mutations are associated with harmful deviations from the population.

Sure if you only know about mutations that are harmful you might mistakenly think all mutation are harmful, or think mutation means a gentic change that produces a disease. It would be an oxymoron in that case. But not if you use mutation in the sense it is used in science, a change in the genetic code, these mutations can be harmful, neutral or beneficial. You can also have mutation that have beneficial effects along with harmful side effects. Then its being selected for will depend on which is the more powerful. Antibiotic resistance in bacteria is powerfully selected for where there are plenty of antibiotics in the environment, but where there aren't any antibiotics, the ordinary bacteria were able to reproduce more quickly. The beneficial effect came with a cost. At least that was the situation when antibiotic resistance was first discovered. But bacteria have mutated again and the new mutation compensates for the side effect, so that now antibiotic resistant bacteria can out compete the old variety even when there are no antibiotics around. So yes organisms can undergo beneficial mutations and no it is not an oxymoron.

The one you mentioned has failed to produce any beneficial health treatments for people. Because it was researched by a drug company in hopes of making any money, odds are that some negative consequences of the mutation are under reported. But elevated triglyceride levels and reduced HDL levels are noted.

The drug companies failed to produce a drug based on the mutation, that is a very different thing from the mutation being harmful.

 

[SkyWriting]

I doubt the children bounce the way you described.

I didn't provide any details.

Sure if you only know about mutations that are harmful you might mistakenly think all mutations are harmful, or think mutation means a gentic change that produces a disease. It would be an oxymoron in that case. But not if you use mutation in the sense it is used in science,

I'll provide HOW IT IS USED in the references below.
Evidently you were unable find anything to support your claim so I'll have to do it for you:
http://www.genetics.org/content/176/3/1759.full.pdf

The above link supports your claim. I really had to dig to find it. It also illustrates the effect of "world view" on science.
Only by assuming that "vast populations will die off" as normal, can one categorize mutants as good.

a change in the genetic code, these mutations can be harmful, neutral or beneficial. You can also have mutation that have beneficial effects along with harmful side effects. Then its being selected for will depend on which is the more powerful. Antibiotic resistance in bacteria is powerfully selected for where there are plenty of antibiotics in the environment, but where there aren't any antibiotics, the ordinary bacteria were able to reproduce more quickly. The beneficial effect came with a cost. At least that was the situation when antibiotic resistance was first discovered. But bacteria have mutated again and the new mutation compensates for the side effect, so that now antibiotic resistant bacteria can out compete the old variety even when there are no antibiotics around. So yes organisms can undergo beneficial mutations and no it is not an oxymoron. The drug companies failed to produce a drug based on the mutation, that is a very different thing from the mutation being harmful.

No, what I said was "that they all are harmful and that not one is an improvement."
The only examples in opposition to my claim is when observers "move the goal posts" and use a degrading and less than optimal environment to the equation. Lets say by adding sulfur dioxide fumes to the environment of the population. Then as the population dies off, evolutionists point to the 2 people standing with a mutant gene that doesn't allow for sulfur dioxide to be absorbed quite as quickly. By ignoring the information that they were already compromised in some other way, and moving the goal posts of the failing environment, they can call such a mutation "beneficial".

It's a very common theme in Science Fiction movies. The TV show HOUSE also hits on this effect almost every week. But it's much more realistic because the patients usually die or loose an organ or two before the solutions are found. I'll restate:

They all are harmful and that not one is an improvement.

Why would nature repair DNA changes if it was a good thing?

Mutation, DNA Repair, and DNA Integrity | Learn Science at Scitable

DNA Repair - Elsevier

DRIG - What is DNA repair?
"It was a very good year for DNA repair", J. E. Cleaver, Cell 76: 1-4, 1994.
"Molecule of the year: the DNA repair enzyme", D. E. Koshland, Science 266: 1925, 1994.
"DNA repair works its way to the top", E. Culotta and D. E. Koshland, Science 266: 1926-1929, 1994.
New colon cancer gene discovered", J. Marx, Science 260: 751-752, 1993.
Mismatch repair, genetic stability, and cancer", P. Modrich, Science 266: 1959-1960, 1994.
E. C. Friedberg, "Xeroderma pigmentosum, Cockayne's syndrome, helicases, and DNA repair: what's the relationship?", Cell 71: 887-889, 1992.
S. Buratowski, "DNA repair and transcription: the helicase connection", Science 260: 37-38, 1993.
D. Bootsma and J. H. J. Hoeijmakers, "Engagement with transcription", Nature 363: 114-115, 1993.
"DNA repair comes into its own", Science 266: 728-730, 1994
A. Sancar, "Mechanisms of DNA excision repair", Science 266: 1954-1956, 1994.
P. C. Hanawalt, "Transcription-coupled repair and human disease", Science 266: 1957-1958, 1994.
J. F. Crow, "How much do we know about spontaneous human mutation rates?", Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis 21: 122-129, 1993.

 

[SkyWriting]

SW wrote:Um, that seems a bit like moving the goalposts. The thread has been discussing if the designs we see in nature are what an omnipotent, omniscient God would have desigened if he had micromanaged every detail. I haven't claimed that humans have themselves made creatures with better designs (because we cannot manipulate flesh as would be needed to do so). Only that it is obvious from the flawed designs that a micromanaging God would have done a more competent job.

If it was OBVIOUS I wouldn't be asking you for examples of how we have or would improve the design. Now your saying only God could make a better design and man can't. My point exactly.

If you think otherwise, then look over the many previous examples like whales, giraffes, and sea turtles, and let me know how those are the optimal designs.

They are. Oh, you mean what one design is optimal for every environment. Ya, I can't tell you what one design could be optimal for millions of different environments. You have me cornered on that one.

Many, many instances in medicine are cases where we clumsily try to find some artificial work around to make a problem caused by stupid original design workable. The fact that even with little power or creative ability, that we can still often fix these problems caused by stupid design shows how pathetic the original design often is. For example - it's a common problem that our poorly designed prostate causes problems requiring surgery to fix. A less idiotic design would have routed the urethra around instead of through it, and no surgery would have been needed.

Please provide expert opinion on such claims.

Or a design without genes (left over from our fish ancestors) for making gill pouches, which often have to be surgically removed when that gene is partially expressed, as happened in my niece, and so on. Papias

I couldn't find any references to your niece in any medical journals or reference to that happening to any other human being in the history of mankind.

But horizontal gene transference does happen.
Horizontal gene transfer - encyclopedia article - Citizendium

 

[Assyrian]

I didn't provide any details.

"throwing kids off a cliff and admiring the ones that bounce better."
​

I'll provide HOW IT IS USED in the references below.
Evidently you were unable find anything to support your claim so I'll have to do it for you:
http://www.genetics.org/content/176/3/1759.full.pdf

The above link supports your claim. I really had to dig to find it.

Glad you have come around.

It also illustrates the effect of "world view" on science.
Only by assuming that "vast populations will die off" as normal, can one categorize mutants as good.

What I think you show here is that you can't get past your world view to look at the scientific evidence. A beneficial mutation is one that helps and organism reproduce more successfully, and keeps that strain of the species alive. And your only response is dying is bad so mutations must be bad too? Even though the beneficial mutation is one that helps the organism avoid dying off?

No, what I said was "that they all are harmful and that not one is an improvement."
The only examples in opposition to my claim is when observers "move the goal posts" and use a degrading and less than optimal environment to the equation. Lets say by adding sulfur dioxide fumes to the environment of the population. Then as the population dies off, evolutionists point to the 2 people standing with a mutant gene that doesn't allow for sulfur dioxide to be absorbed quite as quickly. By ignoring the information that they were already compromised in some other way, and moving the goal posts of the failing environment, they can call such a mutation "beneficial".

What exactly is 'degraded environment'? What we have are different environments, an environment with antibiotics available is actually a much better one if you are sick, though not so good for the bacteria... until they mutated and adapted. The Arctic is a great environment for polar bears, not so good for cold blooded crocodiles. sulphur dioxide wouldn't be great for us, but it would be wonderful for sulphide metabolising bacteria. You need to look at how evolution actually works in the real world, and if a mutation help organisms thrive in the environment they live in or adapt to new one, then it is a beneficial mutation and evolution works.

It's a very common theme in Science Fiction movies. The TV show HOUSE also hits on this effect almost every week. But it's much more realistic because the patients usually die or loose an organ or two before the solutions are found. I'll restate:

They all are harmful and that not one is an improvement.

So why do bacteria that evolved antibiotic resistance do better now than the old variety? I told you before, the existence of harmful mutations is no evidence you can't have beneficial ones.

would nature repair DNA changes if it was a good thing?

Mutation, DNA Repair, and DNA Integrity | Learn Science at Scitable

DNA Repair - Elsevier

DRIG - What is DNA repair?
"It was a very good year for DNA repair", J. E. Cleaver, Cell 76: 1-4, 1994.
"Molecule of the year: the DNA repair enzyme", D. E. Koshland, Science 266: 1925, 1994.
"DNA repair works its way to the top", E. Culotta and D. E. Koshland, Science 266: 1926-1929, 1994.
New colon cancer gene discovered", J. Marx, Science 260: 751-752, 1993.
Mismatch repair, genetic stability, and cancer", P. Modrich, Science 266: 1959-1960, 1994.
E. C. Friedberg, "Xeroderma pigmentosum, Cockayne's syndrome, helicases, and DNA repair: what's the relationship?", Cell 71: 887-889, 1992.
S. Buratowski, "DNA repair and transcription: the helicase connection", Science 260: 37-38, 1993.
D. Bootsma and J. H. J. Hoeijmakers, "Engagement with transcription", Nature 363: 114-115, 1993.
"DNA repair comes into its own", Science 266: 728-730, 1994
A. Sancar, "Mechanisms of DNA excision repair", Science 266: 1954-1956, 1994.
P. C. Hanawalt, "Transcription-coupled repair and human disease", Science 266: 1957-1958, 1994.
J. F. Crow, "How much do we know about spontaneous human mutation rates?", Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis 21: 122-129, 1993.

Because harmful mutations outnumber beneficial ones. What you need are offspring with beneficial mutations that don't die before they can reproduce due to the large number of harmful mutations they got at the same time. DNA repair doesn't get rid of all mutations, each of us was born with about 120 new mutations in our genome. What is really interesting is the way bacteria respond to environmental stress, they switch to a less accurate method of DNA copying which produces more copying mistakes, more mutations. When times get tough, bacteria respond by rolling the evolutionary dice. As we have seen, it works too.

 

[SkyWriting]

A beneficial mutation is one that helps and organism reproduce more successfully, and keeps that strain of the species alive.

Mutations are matched with their associated diseases.
The only way to claim one is beneficial is by killing off the remaining population and see if any are left standing.


HGVS - Disease Centered Central Mutation Databases
Home Page
Skin Disease Mutation Database
Parkinson Disease Knowledgebase

 

[shernren]

No, what I said was "that they all are harmful and that not one is an improvement."
The only examples in opposition to my claim is when observers "move the goal posts" and use a degrading and less than optimal environment to the equation. Lets say by adding sulfur dioxide fumes to the environment of the population. Then as the population dies off, evolutionists point to the 2 people standing with a mutant gene that doesn't allow for sulfur dioxide to be absorbed quite as quickly. By ignoring the information that they were already compromised in some other way, and moving the goal posts of the failing environment, they can call such a mutation "beneficial".

The observers moving the goalposts? May I remind you that your original claim was:

Name one beneficial disease. You know, one mutation that people hope their children have that makes them better suited for life. All families HOPE that this ONE mutation is present in their child so that it is a better fit for it's environment.

Good environment? Bad environment? No, you just said its environment. Now you may disagree with a room full of sulphur dioxide but I can assure you that the two happy campers who don't are quite happy to have the mutation that protects them.

And don't forget that there are plenty of microorganisms which do just fine without oxygen (including the ones that make your wine, cheese and bread), so by your argument, the trait of being able to use oxygen is not beneficial (replace "sulphur dioxide" with "oxygen"). If something as basic as aerobic metabolism is not beneficial, then what is? The mutation that codes for "unquestioningly accepts everything SkyWriting says", no doubt.

What's more, you even contradict yourself:

We were made in God's image. "Compromise" is not a Sin.
It's an element of Design where the engineer decides that a certain aspect of design is best suited for a particular use.

In other words, the engineer decides that a certain aspect of design is best suited in a certain environment. So if God's design gets to compromise and still be considered optimal, why don't mutations get to compromise and be considered beneficial?

 

[SkyWriting]

The observers moving the goalposts? May I remind you that your original claim was:
Good environment? Bad environment? No, you just said its environment. Now you may disagree with a room full of sulphur dioxide but I can assure you that the two happy campers who don't are quite happy to have the mutation that protects them.
And don't forget that there are plenty of microorganisms which do just fine without oxygen (including the ones that make your wine, cheese and bread), so by your argument, the trait of being able to use oxygen is not beneficial (replace "sulphur dioxide" with "oxygen"). If something as basic as aerobic metabolism is not beneficial, then what is? The mutation that codes for "unquestioningly accepts everything SkyWriting says", no doubt.
What's more, you even contradict yourself:
In other words, the engineer decides that a certain aspect of design is best suited in a certain environment. So if God's design gets to compromise and still be considered optimal, why don't mutations get to compromise and be considered beneficial?

Because the ideal design was for an ideal world that is no longer.
I agree that a failing environment requires a process for change to survive it.
That's what evolution is. A painful process for coping with environmental degradation,
which will pass and be forgotten. http://bible.cc/1_thessalonians/5-3.htm

http://bible.cc/matthew/24-8.htm

Revelation 12:2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.

Isaiah 65:17 "Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.

 

[Assyrian]

Mutations are matched with their associated diseases.

I did mention that you were born with about 120 new mutations in your genome. I hope you do not suffer from 120 new diseases associated with them.

The only way to claim one is beneficial is by killing off the remaining population and see if any are left standing.

That would be one way. Or you can simply look at the benefits they give, monitor the way the variant is reproducing faster than other forms or spreading through the population. You can see the way the strain is colonising new environments, new ecological niches the older variant never adapted to.

HGVS - Disease Centered Central Mutation Databases
Home Page
Skin Disease Mutation Database
Parkinson Disease Knowledgebase

I told you before, listing the diseases caused by harmful mutations tells us nothing about neutral and beneficial ones. Or have you just run out of arguments?

 

[shernren]

Because the ideal design was for an ideal world that is no longer.

I hope that statement actually means something. Is there any part of our bodies which you can point out as being perfectly designed for a world without sin and death but not fitting well into our current world?

 

[SkyWriting]

I did mention that you were born with about 120 new mutations in your genome. I hope you do not suffer from 120 new diseases associated with them.

Those that escape repair mechanisms are usually replaced as long as I don't mate with my sister or mom.

"a minimum of 1.6 harmful mutations occurs per person per generation, and the number is more likely close to three."
http://www.onelife.com/evolve/mutate.html

1 DNA damage
1.1 Sources of damage
1.2 Types of damage
1.3 Nuclear versus mitochondrial DNA damage
1.4 Senescence and apoptosis
1.5 DNA damage and mutation
2 DNA repair mechanisms
2.1 Direct reversal
2.2 Single-strand damage
2.3 Double-strand breaks
2.4 Translesion synthesis
3 Global response to DNA damage
3.1 DNA damage checkpoints
3.2 The prokaryotic SOS response
3.3 Eukaryotic transcriptional responses to DNA damage
4 DNA repair and aging
4.1 Pathological effects of poor DNA repair
4.2 Longevity and caloric restriction
5 Medicine and DNA repair modulation
5.1 Hereditary DNA repair disorders
5.2 DNA repair and cancer

I told you before, listing the diseases caused by harmful mutations tells us nothing about neutral and beneficial ones. Or have you just run out of arguments?

lol....I'm not screening the lists.
Just presenting the info as is.
You can't find a list "good" diseases?
Go figure.

 

[Assyrian]

Those that escape repair mechanisms are usually replaced as long as I don't mate with my sister or mom.
"a minimum of 1.6 harmful mutations occurs per person per generation, and the number is more likely close to three."
The Process of Evolution is Now Degenerating the Human.

So 120 or more new mutations in your genome and only one or two that are harmful? Doesn't that contradict your view that all mutations produce diseases?

1 DNA damage
1.1 Sources of damage
1.2 Types of damage
1.3 Nuclear versus mitochondrial DNA damage
1.4 Senescence and apoptosis
1.5 DNA damage and mutation
2 DNA repair mechanisms
2.1 Direct reversal
2.2 Single-strand damage
2.3 Double-strand breaks
2.4 Translesion synthesis
3 Global response to DNA damage
3.1 DNA damage checkpoints
3.2 The prokaryotic SOS response
3.3 Eukaryotic transcriptional responses to DNA damage
4 DNA repair and aging
4.1 Pathological effects of poor DNA repair
4.2 Longevity and caloric restriction
5 Medicine and DNA repair modulation
5.1 Hereditary DNA repair disorders
5.2 DNA repair and cancer

lol....I'm not screening the lists.
Just presenting the info as is.

You aren't choosing list of genetic diseases? Is there any point in telling you again that lists of diseases produced by harmful mutations tell us nothing about the effects of neutral or beneficial mutations?

You can't find a list "good" diseases?
Go figure.

I did figure, and I addressed your misunderstanding in post 43, you didn't come up with a response.

 

[SkyWriting]

So 120 or more new mutations in your genome and only one or two that are harmful? Doesn't that contradict your view that all mutations produce diseases?

It's not my call. I'm still looking for the ones that are deemed beneficial without killing off the rest of the population to pretend I see something good happening. And I don't see why you think diseases are a bad thing. Your complaint makes no sense to me.

You aren't choosing list of genetic diseases? Is there any point in telling you again that lists of diseases produced by harmful mutations tell us nothing about the effects of neutral or beneficial mutations?

I'm not at fault for not providing a list of beneficial mutations from a peer reviewed source. None exists. There is an occasional blog that makes such claims. The links I provided do give you what you seek though. It's not my fault if you can't find the info.

 

[Assyrian]

It's not my call. I'm still looking for the ones that are deemed beneficial without killing off the rest of the population to pretend I see something good happening. And I don't see why you think diseases are a bad thing. Your complaint makes no sense to me.

Well, of the 120 new mutations in your genome, your own link tells us only 1 or 2 are harmful. Why do you keep thinking every mutation produces disease? How is this so difficult to understand?

You aren't choosing list of genetic diseases? Is there any point in telling you again that lists of diseases produced by harmful mutations tell us nothing about the effects of neutral or beneficial mutations?

[snipped by skywriting]I did figure, and I addressed your misunderstanding in post 43, you didn't come up with a response.[/snip]

I'm not at fault for not providing a list of beneficial mutations from a peer reviewed source. None exists. There is an occasional blog that makes such claims. The links I provided do give you what you seek though. It's not my fault if you can't find the info.

you still can't address what I said in post 43. No matter how many lists of diseases you can linked to caused by harmful mutations, it still tells us nothing about neutral or beneficial mutations. As to the reason why harmful mutation are easier to find than neutral or beneficial mutations, I answered that in post 43, but all you can do is post lists of harmful mutations. I suppose if you haven't got a good answer, you can always keep repeating a bad one.

 

[Papias]

Skywriting wrote

If it was OBVIOUS I wouldn't be asking you for examples of how we have or would improve the design. Now your saying only God could make a better design and man can't. My point exactly.

No. Maybe it will help if I separate the "design" from the "production". For instance, say I design an airplane on my drafting board, but I don't happen to have a metal foundary in my drafting room. I can design the plane, but can't physically make it myself. Similarly, biologists can design creatures, but can't make the flesh into the given form. I'm saying that the flaws in the design are obvious, and that even a 6 year old kid could come up a better design. That's independent of the fact that the 6 year old, or anyone else can physically form the animal themselves.

Papias wrote

If you think otherwise, then look over the many previous examples like whales, giraffes, and sea turtles, and let me know how those are the optimal designs.

They are. Oh, you mean what one design is optimal for every environment. Ya, I can't tell you what one design could be optimal for millions of different environments. You have me cornered on that one.

No, I don't mean multiple environments. I only mean the one the animal lives in. Whales live in one environment, the ocean. So you are saying that having ocean living creatures have to breathe air is better than if they can breathe water? Really?

Or that for the giraffe, stringing a nerve through 15 extra feet in it's body is better than running the nerve directly from the brain to the destination? Or that a giraffe that has to practically do yoga to get a drink is a better design than simply making more neck vertebrae so it can bend it's neck to drink? One environment - the savanna.

Or that an optimal design for a fully aquatic sea turtle is to make it clamber onto land to lay land eggs? The same goes for sea snakes. (those are both in one environment - the ocean). And on and on through all kinds of stupid designs.

They are most obvious when an animal has "recently" evolved from one environment to another, as applies to all the examples above. This applies to humans in spades - for instance, why design humans to mature sexually at 14, when they have around another decade of school, when these sexual desires mostly cause problems? Why not design humans to mature sexually at 25, with the schooling out of the way? It didn't happen that way because for nearly all of our evolution from apes, we didn't have school, and marrying and having kids at 16 worked fine.

The same goes for our taste for fats and sweets, or the fear of the dark among children. All of them make perfect sense in the light of evolution, but don't fit our world today.



​

For example - it's a common problem that our poorly designed prostate causes problems requiring surgery to fix. A less idiotic design would have routed the urethra around instead of through it, and no surgery would have been needed.

Please provide expert opinion on such claims.
​

Doctors generally fix the problem through surgery, instead of explaining how a simple design change would have prevented the problem. However, here is a link describing the anatomy, and you can see for yourself that the urethra is routed through the prostate. http://education.yahoo.com/reference/gray/subjects/subject/256

Or a design without genes (left over from our fish ancestors) for making gill pouches, which often have to be surgically removed ....

I couldn't find any references to your niece in any medical journals or reference to that happening to any other human being in the history of mankind.

Of course my neice herself isn't in medical journals, as the problem caused by our gill cleft genes is common enough, happening in many births every year. Here is a link about it:
​

Medscape: Medscape Access

This is similar to the fact that baleen whales, which lack teeth, grow teeth in the womb, then reabsorb them before birth. That's a stupid design, but at least one with minimal impact besides wasted resources. Evolution shows why it makes sense (due to their toothed ancestors). Do you agree that evolution explains that, or do you think God micromanaged the design of the whale, including the growth of teeth in pre-natal toothless whales?


Papias

 

[Papias]

SW wrote:

I'm still looking for the ones that are deemed beneficial without killing off the rest of the population to pretend I see something good happening.

There are tons of documented beneficial mutations.

Here are 470 of them, which arose through frameshift mutations, causing new and useful cellular proteins to be produced.

Frequent appearance of novel protein-coding sequenc... [Genomics. 2006] - PubMed - NCBI

Here is a mutation resulting in larger muscles:
Double muscling in cattle due to mutations in the myostatin gene

digestion of nylon by bacteria (http://aem.asm.org/content/61/5/2020.long), and copper resistance by the monkeyflower (The Genetics of Copper Tolerance in the Yellow Monkey Flower, MIMULUS GUTTATUS. I. Crosses to Nontolerants). Here's a mutation giving a new ability, the ability to digest citrate: Historical contingency and the evolution of a key innovation in an experimental population of Escherichia coli

There are plenty of others too, not to mention the literally hundreds of beneficial mutations intentionally made using radiation, where seeds are irradiated to make many mutations, and the ones with good mutations kept, the others thrown out.

http://webapp.ciat.cgiar.org/biotec...ing/pdf_presentations/dia 12/Chikelu_Mba2.pdf

Those beneficial mutations save many thousands of human lives every year by preventing starvation.

I could go on........

Papias

 

[Notedstrangeperson]

I've only had a quick read through the thread so apologies if this point has been made already.

Those that escape repair mechanisms are usually replaced as long as I don't mate with my sister or mom.

"a minimum of 1.6 harmful mutations occurs per person per generation, and the number is more likely close to three."
The Process of Evolution is Now Degenerating the Human.

1 DNA damage
1.1 Sources of damage
1.2 Types of damage
1.3 Nuclear versus mitochondrial DNA damage
1.4 Senescence and apoptosis
1.5 DNA damage and mutation
2 DNA repair mechanisms
2.1 Direct reversal
2.2 Single-strand damage
2.3 Double-strand breaks
2.4 Translesion synthesis
3 Global response to DNA damage
3.1 DNA damage checkpoints
3.2 The prokaryotic SOS response
3.3 Eukaryotic transcriptional responses to DNA damage
4 DNA repair and aging
4.1 Pathological effects of poor DNA repair
4.2 Longevity and caloric restriction
5 Medicine and DNA repair modulation
5.1 Hereditary DNA repair disorders
5.2 DNA repair and cancer

What we need to realise is that these are disorders - they are symptoms of genes which have gone wrong. They do not represent the human genome as a whole.

We know this for two reasons: the first is sexual recombination, which helps filter out harmful genes. This explains why individuals degenerate over their lifetimes, but our species as a whole gets better.

The second reason is that we know what happens when harmful mutations are not erased with each generation. Experiments on genetically-modified mice showed that by removing a particular enzyme, with each generation their offspring grew old more and more quickly, until by the sixth generation they could no longer breed.

If mutations accumulated as quickly as you suggest and were not erased with each generation, our species would be dead not within a few thousand years or even a few centuries - we'd be extinct within a few generations.