Re: Challenge for Darwinists - Protein Synthesis


Wall Of Sleep wrote:
allanm wrote:
Wall Of Sleep wrote:

allanm wrote:

Wall Of Sleep wrote:


<snip>

Statistically, all variation in an initially varying population will be
eliminated (in the absence of mutation) in (4 * population size)
generations.

So looked at either way - the origin of a sequence or the fate of
variants in a derived population - the existence and persistence of
variation proves the historic reality of ongoing mutation.



It would seem to me that the forces of nature are working against random
mutation at every turn then. I'm still totally unconvinced that this
vehicle can be the driving force behind the millions of unique
biological systems we see today.


<snip>

I'm afraid you've missed my point then. What I described is not a
preservative force but part of the inexorable force for *change*. You
assume that mutants will *always* be eliminated. But they have (at
least) the same chance as every other allele of becoming the 'norm'
as variants are lost.

Consider this:

A population of just 4 individuals. A single diploid gene. Lets label
each gene individually, one from each parent:

Aa
Bb
Cc
Dd

If each different gene were a different variant, we would, by the
inexorable loss of variation I described, end up with all A, or all a,
or all B...... etc etc. Each ancestral gene has an exactly equal chance
of becoming the 'norm', and the other 7 will go. The existence of
variants is thus evidence of the historic action of mutation in
*opposition* to the tendency to homogenize.

Lets then take a theoretical future homogeneous population resulting
from this effect - all A, say.

A neutral mutation arises , A*. It too has an exactly equal chance of
becoming the 'norm' further down the line. So 1 in 8 random neutral
mutations will become 'fixed' - the population becomes all A*.

Then from that position, 1 in 8 times, a further mutation, A**, becomes
fixed..... How does a population manage to stay the same against this
backdrop of mutation and elimination of 'competing' variation?

And this is without any natural selection. Stick that in the picture
and we have a means by which a mutational change can buck the stats. It
no longer has to make do with an equal chance. Selection can work both
ways, of course. Good ideas get a bunk up. But equally, bad ones get
their chance knocked below equality - a preservative force, against
change but also against deterioration. (And, this slightly ups the
chances for the other variants that are 'better').

Multiply this argument up over the whole genome, factor in the
continual variation of the fitness 'landscape' due to external
factors, and you may (I hope) see that the combination of mutation,
statistical factors and selection renders stasis highly unlikely. Or at
the least, get some flavour why people who work in this field don't
seem to share your misgivings.


The problem with this scenario is that it doesn't work! Dog breeders
have been using artificial selection for hundreds of years now and have
never come up with anything that can be called a new species.


Try getting a Great Dane and a Chiwawah to breed.

The most intense experiments were done with Drosophila and nothing
viable came of their efforts - certainly nothing that resembled a new
species. After thousands and thousands of generations, with intense
mutation inducers, all they came up with were - Drosophila.

Except where they have, of course.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/101/33/12232




"In the best-known organisms, like Drosophila, innumerable mutants are
known. If we were able to combine a thousand or more of such mutants in
a single individual, this still would have no resemblance whatsoever to
any type known as a [new] species in nature." Richard B. Goldschmidt,
"Evolution, As Viewed by One Geneticist," American Scientist, January
1952, p. 94.

Wow! A reference from 54 years ago!
Of course, no work has been done in the field of genetics since then.
Or has it?


"Most mutants which arise in any organism are more or less
disadvantageous to their possessors. The classical mutants obtained in
Drosophila usually show deterioration, breakdown, or disappearance of
some organs. Mutants are known which diminish the quantity or destroy
the pigment in the eyes, and in the body reduce the wings, eyes,
bristles, legs. Many mutants are, in fact lethal to their possessors.
Mutants which equal the normal fly in vigor are a minority, and mutants
that would make a major improvement of the normal organization in the
normal environments are unknown." Theodosius Dobzhansky, Evolution,
Genetics, and Man (1955), p. 105.

Getting closer. This is only 51 years old. Hell, I was born by then!

Evidently they weren't aware of the paper published in 2004 which
showed them wrong.
How silly of them.

Mind you, perhaps it's this other 2004 paper they didn't know about:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15304653&dopt=Citation

Or this 2001 paper:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/98/23/13195

Or this 1993 paper:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0014-3820(199304)47%3A2%3C432%3AFSIDPA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L

Or even this 1982 paper:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0014-3820(198201)36%3A1%3C132%3AMEFISI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1

Or this 1995 paper:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/92/7/2519

Or this 2001 paper:
http://www.mamb.ru/lib/lib_ru/scienc11.pdf

Or this 1980 paper:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0014-3820(198007)34%3A4%3C730%3AAMGIOS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J

Or this 2002 paper:
http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/19/4/472

Or this 1993 paper:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0014-3820%28199312%2947%3A6%3C1637%3ALEOSWH%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T&size=LARGE

Or this 2004 paper:
http://evol.allenpress.com/evolonline/?request=get-abstract&issn=0014-3820&volume=058&issue=08&page=1856


Gee! How stupid of them not to know what was going happen in the next
half-century of genetic research!

Silly scientists!


"The clear-cut mutants of Drosophila, with which so much of the
classical research in genetics were done, are almost without exception
inferior to wild-type flies in viability, fertility,
longevity."-*Theodosius Dobzhansky, Heredity and the Nature of Man
(1964), p. 126.


Getting closer: this one is only 42 years old.


"Out of 400 mutations that have been provided by Drosophila
melanogaster, there is not one that can be called a new species. It does
not seem, therefore, that the central problem of evolution can be solved
by mutations."-*Maurice Caullery, Genetics and Heredity (1964), p. 119.


Still 42 years old

"The decisive step in evolution, the first step toward macroevolution,
the step from one species to another, requires another evolutionary
method than that of sheer accumulation of micromutations. "
-- Richard B. Goldschmidt
GOLDSCHMIDT, R.B. (1940) The Material Basis of Evolution. Yale
University Press, New Haven.



Oh dear! You've slipped: this is 65 years old.

"We have long been seeking a different kind of evolutionary process and
have now found one; namely, the change within the pattern of the
chromosomes. ... The neo-Darwinian theory of the geneticists is no
longer tenable. "
-- Richard B. Goldschmidt
GOLDSCHMIDT, R.B. (1940) The Material Basis of Evolution. Yale
University Press, New Haven.

As is this one

--
"Are we to believe that mere chance can accomplish that which has proven
quite impossible for the enlightened scientist to achieve? I regard
that notion as absurd!" John A. Davison, Ph.D. - AN EVOLUTIONARY
MANIFESTO: A NEW HYPOTHESIS FOR ORGANIC CHANGE
http://www.uvm.edu/~jdavison/davison-manifesto.html

Well bully for John A. Davison.
What a pity that this is simply an argument from incredulity.

Such an argument has no place in science.

Creationism couldn't exist without such arguments.

RF

.

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