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Author Topic:   A Creationist's view of Natural Limitation to Evolutionary Processes (2/14/05)
Wepwawet
Member (Idle past 6108 days)
Posts: 85
From: Texas
Joined: 04-05-2006


Message 136 of 218 (331818)
07-14-2006 7:01 PM
Reply to: Message 132 by inkorrekt
07-13-2006 11:37 PM


Re: Considering rapid rate of mutation
Take for example, any text book on biology. Man is the current listing in the hierarchy. Everyone here who has questioned me regarding the hierarchy does not seem to have noticed the scale in basic text books on biology where man is listed on the top.
I thought about asking you to provide a reference, but in this case it really doesn't matter. Even if a textbook displayed a hierarchy of species with man at the top they would merely be wrong, just like you. But you say any textbook on biology, so I only need show one reference where man is not on top (as I did in my previous link although it wasn't from a textbook) to show that you simply don't know what you're talking about.
Applying the above quote, I would like to ask everyone who demanded prediction from those who believe in ID to explain why they are not predicting the future of man as to whom he will EVOLVE into?
the general premise for any theory to be approved is its PREDICTABILITY. How does evolution fit in interms of prediction??
And I explained why you can't demand that answer from the ToE. Asking that question only shows that you have either no understanding of the ToE or are unwilling to discuss it honestly. Which is it?

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 Message 132 by inkorrekt, posted 07-13-2006 11:37 PM inkorrekt has not replied

Nighttrain
Member (Idle past 3993 days)
Posts: 1512
From: brisbane,australia
Joined: 06-08-2004


Message 137 of 218 (331825)
07-14-2006 7:38 PM
Reply to: Message 129 by Nuggin
07-10-2006 2:58 AM


Bacteria Buddies
Hi, Nug. My take

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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 138 of 218 (331828)
07-14-2006 7:44 PM
Reply to: Message 132 by inkorrekt
07-13-2006 11:37 PM


Re: Considering rapid rate of mutation
why they are not predicting the future of man as to whom he will EVOLVE into?
See if you can find After Man: A Zoology of the Future by Dougal Dixon - I think that it's out of print, sadly. It's a wonderful fantasy treatment of what (vertebrate) life on earth will look like in 50,000,000 years after we humans have polluted ourselves to death.
The rat clade figures rather prominently in that world.

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Belfry
Member (Idle past 5085 days)
Posts: 177
From: Ocala, FL
Joined: 11-05-2005


Message 139 of 218 (331832)
07-14-2006 8:09 PM
Reply to: Message 138 by Coragyps
07-14-2006 7:44 PM


Re: Considering rapid rate of mutation
We had After Man in the house when I was growing up! My siblings and I enjoyed it until the binding disintegrated.
Still findable used on Amazon!

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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 140 of 218 (331838)
07-14-2006 8:20 PM
Reply to: Message 139 by Belfry
07-14-2006 8:09 PM


Re: Considering rapid rate of mutation
Heh! I got my excellent copy used for maybe $8 Canadian one time in Calgary, and now they're $55 US and up!
But I'm not selling - I love that book!

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inkorrekt
Member (Idle past 6081 days)
Posts: 382
From: Westminster,CO, USA
Joined: 02-04-2006


Message 141 of 218 (334323)
07-22-2006 5:55 PM
Reply to: Message 135 by nwr
07-14-2006 8:39 AM


What will man evolve into?
None of thee proponents of Evolution came up with any prediction of who Man will Evolve into. Therefore, my prediction is : The political LEFT (Godless) will support the terrorists. EG: New York times and LA Times. The wars will continue. The political LEFT will support all enemies of America till this country is destroyed.This will not stop here. The entire planet earth will be destroyed by man. When this happens, there will not be any more forum like EVC. No human will be alive. Bottom line is Man will not evolve into anything. But, he will destroy himself. That is the end of our civilization.
Edited by inkorrekt, : There was no flow of ideas.
Edited by AdminNosy, : Topic warning.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 142 of 218 (334690)
07-24-2006 12:34 AM


the general premise for any theory to be approved is its PREDICTABILITY. How does evolution fit in interms of prediction??
To be precise, the test of a theory is whether the predictions derived from it are accurate, not whether it predicts some particular future event of interest to you. (For example, the theory of gravity does not allow you to predict the fall of dice, nor does the theory of aerodynamics allow you to predict the weather more than a few weeks ahead.)
The theory of evolution makes many testable predictions in morphology, embryology, paleontology, and genetics, all of which are confirmed by observation, but it does not predict what the human race will be a million years hence, and if it did, this would be of no interest to the EvC debate, since we could not test such a prediction by observation.

Archer Opteryx
Member (Idle past 3597 days)
Posts: 1811
From: East Asia
Joined: 08-16-2006


Message 143 of 218 (340437)
08-16-2006 6:10 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by Faith
02-14-2005 5:37 PM


Re: Considering rapid rate of mutation
You asked:
First, are you accepting the rest of what I said, that is, that except for mutation and immigration all the "evolutionary processes" produce decreased variability, or less ability to change, which would seem highly incompatible with the theory of evolution?
'Except for mutation and immigration', I might. But that's the catch.
'Except for the fact that the sun comes up every day, Mr Copernicus, isn't it night all the time--and doesn't a never-ending night cause a problems for the theory that the earth revolves?'
Well, uh, yeah.
But most of us would say Copernicus can rest easy.
You have two big fallacies, as I see it, to iron out.
The first you know: the fallacy of ignoring facts that falsify, or at least materially complicate, the conclusion you want to demonstrate. 'Except for mutation'...'except for the sun coming up'... You see. Mutation is a fact. Any argument concerning biological change over time has to deal with that fact. (Socially speaking, you also have an obligation not to shunt aside a subject your heading says you intend to consider.)
The second fallacy is your woolly use of the word 'variability.' You use it to mean two different things: anatomical variety in a single population and as a synonym for 'ability to change,' by which you mean potential for genetic mutation across generations. Using the same word for two different ideas can give the illusion of a connection. But until you establish one, no logical argument exists.
The good news is that you can overcome both problems in the same post. All you have to do is address--directly--the subject of mutation.
Mutation has been observed. It has also been observed that small mutations can add up to substantial changes over time. On that basis scientists see no reason to doubt that, given enough time, mutations can add up to create changes sufficient to explain all the biodiversity we see.
You seem to believe there is good reason for scientists to doubt this. If so, state the reason. If you believe a boundary exists on the extent to which genes mutate, state where the boundary is. Propose a test.

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 Message 5 by Faith, posted 02-14-2005 5:37 PM Faith has replied

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Equinox
Member (Idle past 5141 days)
Posts: 329
From: Michigan
Joined: 08-18-2006


Message 144 of 218 (341066)
08-18-2006 12:44 PM


I’ve never understood why creationists try to use this “argument”.
It’s clear that mutations provide a continual new supply of variation, especially since mutation rates have been estimated based on simple copying errors. For a human genome of around 6 billion base pairs, even an extremely good copying accuracy of 99.999% would still give thousands of mutations with each birth. I’ve read estimates of the mutation rate in humans, and it is generally somewhere around 1 to 200 mutations in every birth. Wow! If most of our DNA was needed for life, this would be a terrible rate! But, most of our DNA is not essential, so many changes in it are irrelevant.
A good site for this is here: NO REDIRECT
Of course, depending on the environment, any change can be good or bad. For instance, say a mutation makes one a little taller. If you live in an environment were everyone is well fed and where women like good basketball players, this mutation could be selected for and be good. However, if you live on a small island (say, Flores . ), where food is scarce and where there are no big predators, then this will be a “bad” mutation.
So with all this variation constantly coming in, the “no variation outside of a kind” seems to make little sense. This is especially clear when we measure difference with real numbers. Using actual numerical measurements usually makes any science discussion much clearer, and biology is no exception.
So looking at the differences in the genome between animals, we can see how this all works. The genetic variation between humans of different races is less than half a percent (0.5%). I hope no one disputes the idea that mutation and selection in different environments (such as sunlight favoring dark skin) can demonstrably cause 0.5% genetic difference over time. So what about dogs? The genetic difference is around 1%. OK, could a chimp evolve into a human? Only around 3% of our DNA differs from chimps.
So if the constant introduction of mutations (which we’ve observed), coupled with environmental changes can lead to a change of 1% in 20,000 years (which I think nearly all creationists agree with), then couldn’t another 20,000 years give us another 1% change, for a total of 2% change? Using a rough number of 6 years for a dog generation (feel free to use any number between 2 and 8 if you prefer), then that’s 20,000/6 = 3,000 generations, or around (25 X 3,000=) 75,000 years for humans. At that rate, we could get from a chimp like ancestor to a human in less than 200,000 years! Of course, our evolution hasn’t been nearly as fast since our selective pressures weren’t as strong. And of course, that means that 500 million years is plenty of time for something like a roundworm to evolve into a human (roundworms and humans share only 21% of their DNA, so that’s 79% different). This is especially apparent when one takes into account the much shorter generation time as one goes back in our ancestry (for instance, roundworms certainly don’t wait 25 years to reproduce!).
When using numbers for the genetic difference like this, it seems that anyone who imagines some arbitrary “kind” boundary hasn’t tried their hand at the math. I know that there are more sophisticated ways of doing this math, but this rough back of the envelope kind of calculation shows that we have orders of magnitude of room for evolutionary change. It’s just a rough estimate.
Have a fun day-
Equinox

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 145 of 218 (341070)
08-18-2006 12:51 PM
Reply to: Message 143 by Archer Opteryx
08-16-2006 6:10 AM


Re: Considering rapid rate of mutation
The second fallacy is your woolly use of the word 'variability.' You use it to mean two different things: anatomical variety in a single population and as a synonym for 'ability to change,' by which you mean potential for genetic mutation across generations.
Actually I don't use the term mutation in my conceptualization on this very old thread at all, and I only MEAN to use the term variability as in GENETIC variability, or genetic potential, and I doubt I've confused it with anatomical variety.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 146 of 218 (341073)
08-18-2006 1:00 PM
Reply to: Message 144 by Equinox
08-18-2006 12:44 PM


The problem is that most changes by mistake are not desirable ones. "Genetic difference" in itself is not at all desirable in other words. This is how we get all the genetic diseases. What does "a change of 1% in 20,000 years" mean? You assume a positive change that can facilitate evolution, but all your examples are hypothetical and you give no statistics on the percentage of USEFUL mutations as compared to undesirable ones -- meaning those that NO environment is going to favor. The (Biblical) creationist view that Things Are Getting Worse is still the better explanation than evolution for all these phenomena.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Replies to this message:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 147 of 218 (341079)
08-18-2006 1:17 PM
Reply to: Message 143 by Archer Opteryx
08-16-2006 6:10 AM


mutation and immigration
First, are you accepting the rest of what I said, that is, that except for mutation and immigration all the "evolutionary processes" produce decreased variability, or less ability to change, which would seem highly incompatible with the theory of evolution?
'Except for mutation and immigration', I might. But that's the catch.
'Except for the fact that the sun comes up every day, Mr Copernicus, isn't it night all the time--and doesn't a never-ending night cause a problems for the theory that the earth revolves?'
Thank you for acknowledging that the majority of the so-called evolutionary processes do the opposite of furthering evolution, but in fact lead to decreased genetic variability which works against evolution.
As for mutation and immigration, given the creationist assumption that all life started from original kinds, immigration adds absolutely zero to the overall gene pool, it merely makes up for losses in variability accrued through the other "evolutionary processes" and allows for a temporary stall in the inevitable trend to less and less.
Mutation has been observed. It has also been observed that small mutations can add up to substantial changes over time. On that basis scientists see no reason to doubt that, given enough time, mutations can add up to create changes sufficient to explain all the biodiversity we see.
"Change" is often undesirable. You have to be able to specify USEFUL changes through mutation at a rate to overcome the effect of the other "evolutionary processes" that decrease genetic variability.
You seem to believe there is good reason for scientists to doubt this. If so, state the reason. If you believe a boundary exists on the extent to which genes mutate, state where the boundary is. Propose a test.
Rate and extent aren't the point. The point is whether or not this process is normal or a disease process. Since it is caused by an error in replication, a mistake, there is a big question about this. But also, I'm not sure that all mutations are the same thing. I don't have enough grasp of this area to be able to say, but discussions I've read leave it open in my mind as to whether some of them ARE normal, that is, part of the normal genetic processes (involved in sexual reproduction at any rate), not creating something novel but merely producing something chemically expected to happen and therefore useful, as opposed to a mistake that is only destructive. If destructive, even if thousands of them don't produce a clear disease or something lethal or threaten the life of the organism in some number of generations, it is still a destructive process that tends ultimately in that direction.

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ramoss
Member (Idle past 611 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 08-11-2004


Message 148 of 218 (341096)
08-18-2006 2:20 PM
Reply to: Message 146 by Faith
08-18-2006 1:00 PM


The problem is that most changes by mistake are not desirable ones. "Genetic difference" in itself is not at all desirable in other words. This is how we get all the genetic diseases. What does "a change of 1% in 20,000 years" mean? You assume a positive change that can facilitate evolution, but all your examples are hypothetical and you give no statistics on the percentage of USEFUL mutations as compared to undesirable ones -- meaning those that NO environment is going to favor. The (Biblical) creationist view that Things Are Getting Worse is still the better explanation than evolution for all these phenomena.
You are making a couple of mistakes in your reasoning. 1) most mutations are 'neutral' . 2) Unless there is some survival reason for a genetic disease, it tends to become less over time. For example, the gene for diabeties. You would think that it would get less as generations went by, but they found that when one parent had that gene, and the other didn't, there was a bigger perceptange of children born with the gene than expected. Since most pregnancies end in miscarriage, the conclusion that can be drawn from this is that the gene that might cause health problems later in life gave a survival characteristic to a fetus in the womb. There were less spontanous miscarrages with fetus's that carried the gene than did not.
You are also ignoring the filtering of natural selection. "bad" mutations are more likely to be 'filtered' out than neutral or "good" mutations.
As for the 'things are getting worse' senerio from the creationsist... there is no objective evidence for it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 146 by Faith, posted 08-18-2006 1:00 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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Equinox
Member (Idle past 5141 days)
Posts: 329
From: Michigan
Joined: 08-18-2006


Message 149 of 218 (341119)
08-18-2006 3:25 PM
Reply to: Message 145 by Faith
08-18-2006 12:51 PM


Re: Considering rapid rate of mutation
quote:
Re: Considering rapid rate of mutation
Archer O wrote:
quote:
The second fallacy is your woolly use of the word 'variability.' You use it to mean two different things: anatomical variety in a single population and as a synonym for 'ability to change,' by which you mean potential for genetic mutation across generations.
Faith replied:
Actually I don't use the term mutation in my conceptualization on this very old thread at all, and I only MEAN to use the term variability as in GENETIC variability, or genetic potential, and I doubt I've confused it with anatomical variety.
No, you are still using the same term to mean two different things. Does "variability" = genetic variability (meaning the gene pool of a population, the sum total of all the alleles), or instead do you mean that "variability" = genetic potential (by which I’m not sure what you mean, but if you mean anything having to do with future generations, then you must mean something like “the possible gene pool at some point in the future”, which, due to evolution, is very large. For instance, with that definition the future "variability" or “genetic potential” of a theropod dinosaur would include everything from a penguin to a parrot.
I'm glad we are getting our meanings straight, since that is a prerequisite to any good conversation.
-Equinox

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Equinox
Member (Idle past 5141 days)
Posts: 329
From: Michigan
Joined: 08-18-2006


Message 150 of 218 (341131)
08-18-2006 4:01 PM
Reply to: Message 147 by Faith
08-18-2006 1:17 PM


Re: mutation and immigration
quote:
What does "a change of 1% in 20,000 years" mean? You assume a positive change that can facilitate evolution, but all your examples are hypothetical and you give no statistics on the percentage of USEFUL mutations as compared to undesirable ones -- meaning those that NO environment is going to favor..
I’m talking about net change (see below) - notice that I used the dog example, there is a 1% difference between, say, a dog and a wolf (depending a bit on the breed, of course).
The labels “good” vs. “bad” mutations, as I mentioned, are misleading. The vast majority of mutations (over 90%) are neutral - they don’t do anything at all. For instance, say your instruction book contained pages of random gibberish - randomly changing a word of that doesn’t change the instructions.
OK, now, let’s think about the mutations that do change something. Most changes could be either “good” or “bad”, depending on the environment. Take a second to step back and look in a mirror. Consider changing any aspect of your body. Darker skin? Is that “harmful”? Well, it is if you are a female living in northern areas, and you need to get enough sunlight to provide vitamin D when pregnant. Or instead do you live in Africa, where it is a good mutation, since you need protection from too much sunlight, which can cause skin cancer? Larger nostrils? Do you live in a windy desert, where larger nostrils will allow more sand into your lungs (ouch)? Or instead do you live in a forest, where being able to pull in more air when running from a predator will help you escape?
We could look at examples like this all day - the point is that mutations aren’t usually inherently “good” or “bad” - that depends on the environment, which will either cause them to help the bearer have more kids, (hence, “selected for”) or not (“selected against”).
OK, now look at the 1% I mentioned for dogs. I meant the net total of the mutations that WERE SELECTED FOR over 20,000 years. The number of mutations selected against is completely irrelevant, since those mutations all disappeared with their unfortunate owners. See why the ratio is unimportant? If half of the mutations that have an effect are selected for, then the ration you want is 1:1, and you end up with only the "selected for" mutations. If there is only 1 helpful, "selected for" mutation in 5, then you ratio is 1:5, and you still have exactly the same number of mutations at the end of the day, since the ones that weren’t selected for are gone anyway. That's why the number of non-selected for mutations is irrelevant.
If you want to discuss extremely harmful mutations, such as those that cause an quick death or some such, that's fine. Again, they are completely irrelevant, since that animal dies, the mutation (new allele) is gone, and we are back to square 1.
In fact, “harmful” mutations are very often selected for by humans. Look at the pathetic bulldog. We have selected the mutations that slowly made his snout all smashed in, resulting in hampered breathing. Have you ever been near a sleeping pug? It sounds worse than Darth Vader! Whether a mutation is “good” (selected for) is a function of the environment as much as it is a function of the mutation.
So, the % is the net change in the genome due to the accumulation of mutations that were selected for. It took thousands of beneficial mutations to get to a poodle from a wolf - and that change is only “beneficial” if you keep the poodle out of the wolfpack.
You mentioned how mutations work. Here are some basic types of mutations and how they work:
Duplication of a stretch of DNA. This is like accidentally copying part of a book twice. Example - when making a copy of a book that has chapters 1, 2, 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11, 12, you end up with a book that has chapters 1, 2, 3,4,5,6,7,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11, 12
Deletion of a base pair. AATCTGTC becomes ATCTGTC
Addition of base pair AATCTGTC becomes ACATCTGTC
Transposition (like a mirror) AATCTGTC becomes CTGTCTAA
All of these can have no effect, an effect which is selected for, or an affect which is selected against.
To add information, first, take a functional gene, and make an extra copy using the duplication mutation. That won’t hurt the organism, since the second copy is simply redundant. Then use any of the other mutation methods so as to make the second copy do something new. The organism still has the original copy doing whatever it is supposed to do, but now has the added ability of whatever the new gene does (such as digesting nylon, as in a species of bacteria).
The process can also add entire chromosomes, that’s how, over time, the total number of chromosomes changes. For that, simply copy a whole chromosome twice (it happens), then the rest of the process is the same as above.
I don't understand what you mean by "a mistake which is only destructive". Do you mean that all mistakes have to be harmful? Why? Many inventions have been found by people making mistakes. In genetics, if a group of animals is living in a valley and the climate changes to make it colder, then wouldn't a genetic "mistake" which made their hair grow a little longer be helpful?
Oh, I'll be out until next week. Have a fun weekend-
Equinox
Edited by Equinox, : No reason given.

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