Re: my little essay on the evolution vs. intelligent design case


donaldsau...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Here are a few more comments following on the thread "my little
> essay on the evolution vs. intelligent design case", which has
> gone cold. Starts off kind of boring and gets, well, maybe
> somewhat less so. Maybe.

............... snip #1 .......

> ds:
> We're at loggerheads. I'm sure knowing what we're talking about
> is crucial. I will make a stab at what the the masses take
> "evolution" to mean: thousands and thousands of tiny biological
> mistakes occurring sequentially over eons giving rise to new and
> more sophisticated body parts, each tiny mistake along the way
> giving precisely one member of the species such a huge survival
> advantage that only his descendants survive.


There are *several* misunderstandings in just this one passage.

Whatever do you mean by "mistakes"?

Is that what you are thinking of when you hear the
term "mutation"? Since when does a mutation become
a mistake, anyway? Do you know what a "polymorphism"
is, by chance? A polymorphism is simply a mutation that
is found at a frequency of greater than 1% in a population.

A mutation is therefore a polymorphism that is found at
a frequency of less than 1% in a population.

What about gene duplications? If a gene is duplicated,
would you call that "a mutation"? Is it then a "mistake"?
There may in fact be "gene dosage" issues, but otherwise
it is just a perfectly fine, working gene that now has two
copies where there was just one before. Such duplication
is "the major source of new genes and consequently the
central force affecting genome evolution" (Davis & Petrov,
in "Trends in Genetics" vol21, Oct. 2005, pg 548).


The next misunderstanding is in the term "sequentially".

Mutations DO NOT have to happen in some sequential
order. Why ever should they? Is it so that they can fit
a simplistic model you have in mind for how they function?
(Since you feel they are "mistakes", your view of their
function is already a bit skewed.) Mutations to different
genes can (and do) happen quite independently of each
other within a population and can be brought together by
independent assortment of chromosomes between the
generations with crossing over between chromosomes that
acts to "shuffle the deck" with each generation. The deck,
as such, knows not where the genes are and where the
non-coding sequences are, so different mutations in the
different parts of a gene can be brought together without the
mutations having to have happened one after the other in
just the one family tree.

The next misunderstanding in your rant is that there are
"thousands and thousands of tiny biological mistakes" in
this process. Beside gene (and genome region) duplications
there is also "exon shuffling" to switch parts of genes with
each other and to bring together interesting domains. With
both of these models, further individuals basepair changes
(the "mistake" mutations we would now call SNiPs or single
nucleotide polymorphisms, also known as "point mutations")
can readily alter one of the duplicated genes without the need
for massive numbers of changes.

The final misunderstanding of your passage above, and
certainly one of the most impressive misunderstandings,
is that (to quote you)

> each tiny mistake along the way
> giving precisely one member of the species such a huge survival
> advantage that only his descendants survive

Oh, where to start.... There are probably *no* mutations
that have ever happened anywhere in any species such that
only those offspring survive, where the mutations happen in
the manner you suggest - one change and then selection
and then one more change and further selection. Most of the
mutations are really just doing nothing for or against survival
and selection forces are very often not a complete "all or
nothing" function. Think about "gene pools" and populations
and stop thinking about the individuals along the way.

I really don't know where to start in explaining all of this
to you, especially if you are locked into such a perspective.


............... snip some more stray thinking gone astray......

> And even if he could, he couldn't have predicted senses,
> intelligence, and emotions, all of which fall outside of our
> current science. Show me the science laboratory that has jars of
> thoughts sitting on the shelves, or pain, happiness, itchiness,
.............. snip ........

Read this please:
(I posted this the other day... it suits your comments
to suggest it in reply. It is VERY interesting and does
suggest that you are not quite correct in your comment.)

If you are not sure about calling humans a type
of animal or if animals can be described as having
"personality", then you may not want to read this
fascinating New York Times Magazine article by
Charles Siebert.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/magazine/22animal.html

One quote:

"But more and more now, we are recognizing ourselves and our
ways to be recapitulations of the rest of biology. And as scientists
track these phenomena, they are also beginning to unravel such
core mysteries as the bioevolutionary underpinnings of personality,
both animal and human; the dynamic interplay between genes and
environment in the expression of various personality traits; and why
it is that nature invented such a thing as personality in the first
place."


........... snip some very long rambles...........


> And if you enjoyed these thoughts, there are more in the previous
> thread that didn't receive due recognition, IMHO. (Yes, another
> straight line!)
>
> Donald Sauter


Perhaps the thoughts in the previous thread can be
left to dissociate into component electrons over time.

Rather than try to bring your old, highly error-prone
arguments back to life you could perhaps do a fair bit
more in the way of reading. And thinking. (Before posting.)


(signed) marc


M. Buhler
North Parramatta
New South Wales

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Mutation rates, now and then
    ... with splitting and re-combining to reduce the chance of mistakes does it ... has a working copy of every gene. ... the chances of mutations resulting in increased diversity happened at a rate ... serious mistakes in the whole genome - not the number of mistakes per gene ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Mutation rates, now and then
    ... with splitting and re-combining to reduce the chance of mistakes does it ... has a working copy of every gene. ... the chances of mutations resulting in increased diversity happened at a rate ... serious mistakes in the whole genome - not the number of mistakes per gene ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Mutation rates, now and then
    ... with splitting and re-combining to reduce the chance of mistakes does it ... has a working copy of every gene. ... the chances of mutations resulting in increased diversity happened at a rate ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Science Disproves Evolution
    ... Mutations are the only known means by which new genetic material ... We have seen genomes irreversibly and heritably altered by numerous phenomena, including gene flow, random genetic drift, natural selection, and mutation. ... Observed mutations have occurred by mobile introns, gene duplications, recombination, transpositions, retroviral insertions, base substitutions, base deletions, base insertions, and chromosomal rearrangements. ...
    (uk.philosophy.atheism)
  • Re: Minimization principal for evolution
    ... Many biologists seem to me to attribute the diversity of life on Earth to ... The causes of some gene copying errors ... Some of the "causes" of mutations are known. ... Electrons traveling down an insulated wire ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)