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Author | Topic: A test for claimed knowledge of how macroevolution occurs | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17912 Joined: Member Rating: 6.7 |
quote: Millions of years is a fact. And if mutations are random the only thing stopping them from creating “healthy alleles” is probability. Thus it is at least possible in principle - unless you assume a non-random mechanism that prevents it - and even to say it is too unlikely requires evidence.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 6076 Joined: Member Rating: 7.0 |
And if mutations are random the only thing stopping them from creating “healthy alleles” is probability. Thus it is at least possible in principle - unless you assume a non-random mechanism that prevents it - and even to say it is too unlikely requires evidence. Plus it is important to use the applicable probability model. I'm more than a few decades rusty on proper terminology. Most of us are familiar with the problem of finding the probability, P(), of multiple independent events all succeeding:
P(A and B and C and D) = P(A)P(B)P(C)P(D)
A classic example is a coin toss (P = 0.5) in which you figure the probability of tossing 5 heads in a row:
P(5 heads in a row) = P(heads)5 = (0.5)5 = 0.03125 P(10 heads in a row) = (0.5)10 = 0.0009765625 But that does not model this problem. You have a population all mutating simultaneously and in parallel with each other and all you need is for one, just one, of them to succeed; ie, P(A or B or C or D). How would you do that? I encountered that problem when calculating the probabilities for my version of Dawkins' WEASEL, which I named MONKEY -- read my MONKEY PROBABILITIES (MPROBS) page for that analysis. I ended up applying De Morgan's Theorem from Boolean Algebra (streamlining it a bit here):
P = Probability of success
Now for example, let's assume that the probability of each event is one in 10, 0.1. And let's assume 4 events:
Q = Probability of failure = (1 - P) P = P(A or B or C or D) By De Morgan, Q = Q(A)Q(B)Q(C)Q(D) Ergo: P(A or B or C or D) = (1 - Q) = (1 - (Q(A)Q(B)Q(C)Q(D))) Q = (1 - 0.1)4 = (0.9)4 = 0.6561
Notice that it is more likely, 3.5 times more likely, for at least one event to succeed than for any single event to succeed. Now let's test for 100 events:
P = (1 - Q) = (1 - 0.6561) = 0.3439 Q = (1 - 0.1)100 = (0.9)100 = 2.65614e-5
Now that rather low individual probability yields virtual certainty that at least one of 100 unlikely events will succeed.P = (1 - Q) = (1 - 2.65614e-5) = 0.9999734 In my MONKEY, to probability for a single individual mutated string to advance towards the target is rather low. But since I was working with a population of 100 strings, the probability of at least one of them advancing is high. To put it in other words, the only way for the system to fail to advance would be if every single string were to fail every single time and that event was so unlikely as to be virtually impossible.
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Dredge Member Posts: 2855 From: Australia Joined: |
Sorry, ignore this post
Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.
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Dredge Member Posts: 2855 From: Australia Joined: |
edge writes:
I understand your point now ... I was playing by my rules and not those of ToE.
But there IS NO MUTATION in Dredge's scenario. Animal breeders do not induce mutations.
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Dredge Member Posts: 2855 From: Australia Joined:
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Tanypteryx writes:
I get it now.
More bullshit. The evidence shows you are never going to get it. Breeding is not a surrogate for evolution. Okay, I understand that now. Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.
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Dredge Member Posts: 2855 From: Australia Joined:
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Thanks for that explanation. I take your point.
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Dredge Member Posts: 2855 From: Australia Joined: |
Percy writes:
Okay, thanks; I get that now.
You keep repeating the same mistake. Breeding is not the artificial version of evolution. You'd have to combine breeding with genetic engineering to have an accurate analogy of the artificial to the natural. That is: (Artificial selection + genetic engineering) == (natural selection + mutation) Breeding by itself, which can't change the genetics, could never produce a whale from a now extinct ungulate
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Dredge Member Posts: 2855 From: Australia Joined: |
Percy writes:
Okay, but hypothetically speaking and according to ToE, given millions of years, wouldn't enough mutations occur that could eventually lead to the breeding of a new species?
That is, breeding cannot create a new species because any new breeds would still be the same species.
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Tangle Member Posts: 9580 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 6.6 |
Faith writes: I think the idea that mutations create healthy alleles is also nutz. You may well think that but it doesn't prevent it being true does it? The example of the mutation in the peppered moth changing its colour is a perfect example of a beneficial mutation - but only when the environment that they lived in changed. The mutation got the moth killed by predators in the wrong environment.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona "Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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Taq Member Posts: 10297 Joined: Member Rating: 7.1 |
Faith writes: I just want to know how the B and the b show up in the DNA. That's exactly what is illustrated in the post on meiosis.
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Taq Member Posts: 10297 Joined: Member Rating: 7.1
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Dredge writes: Okay, but hypothetically speaking and according to ToE, given millions of years, wouldn't enough mutations occur that could eventually lead to the breeding of a new species? If you are dealing with just a single population through time, how do you determine when they have become a new species? It's a bit like trying to determine when some goes from being skinny to being fat. It's easy to see the differences between the end points, but there isn't a single microsecond in time where they go from being skinny to fat. This is a bit different for two populations of sexually reproducing organisms that split off from one another. In this case, we can determine if they are different species by looking at gene flow and divergence. If there isn't any significant interbreeding between the two populations resulting in the genes of the two populations diverging then they are separate species. Obviously, we can't see if fossils can interbreed with other fossils or with living populations.
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Taq Member Posts: 10297 Joined: Member Rating: 7.1 |
Just a bit on eye color for Faith:
quote: These are the two genes that affect eye color the most, and they are right next to each other. OCA2 produces a protein that affects how much melanin is produced in the iris. Different variations in the OCA2 gene sequence affect how much melanin is produced in the iris. The HERC2 gene just upstream of OCA2 controls how strongly the OCA2 gene is turned on. This also affects the amount of melanin produced in the iris. Having one allele that causes higher levels of melanin to be produced can result in darker eyes which makes that allele a dominant allele. If you have two alleles for low melanin production then you have low melanin in the iris which results in blue eyes. If little to no melanin is produced then light scatters in the iris without being absorbed by melanin, and the result of this diffraction is the color blue. People with blue eyes don't have a blue colored protein or dye in their eyes. Instead, the blue comes from light scattering in the iris. The same thing happens in some birds. For example, the bluebird isn't actually blue. The color you see is due to the scattering of light in its feathers. added in edit: Another great resource for the genotype-phenotype relationships for eye color:
quote: Edited by Taq, : No reason given. Edited by Taq, : No reason given. Edited by Taq, : No reason given.
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edge Member (Idle past 1958 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined:
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If you are dealing with just a single population through time, how do you determine when they have become a new species? It's a bit like trying to determine when some goes from being skinny to being fat. It's easy to see the differences between the end points, but there isn't a single microsecond in time where they go from being skinny to fat.
And so, as usual, it's a little more complex than the comic-book version of evolution that anti-evos frequently peddle.
This is a bit different for two populations of sexually reproducing organisms that split off from one another. In this case, we can determine if they are different species by looking at gene flow and divergence. If there isn't any significant interbreeding between the two populations resulting in the genes of the two populations diverging then they are separate species. Obviously, we can't see if fossils can interbreed with other fossils or with living populations.
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Taq Member Posts: 10297 Joined: Member Rating: 7.1 |
Faith writes: I would expect it to alter it, but not in any beneficial way. Reality doesn't care about your expectations. What you need to do is show how mutations could not result in beneficial changes using actual evidence and facts instead of your expectations. Let's do a bit of math. There are 6 billion bases in the human genome if we are considering both pairs of chromosomes. There are 3 possible substitution mutations at each position in the human genome since there are 3 other bases that can be substituted. This means there are 18 billion possible substitution mutations in the human genome. Each human is born with ~100 substitution mutations. This would mean that in 10 births there are 1,000 mutations. In 1 million births there are 100 million mutations total. In 180 million births there are 18 billion mutations. This would mean that we only need 180 million births to have an even chance of creating all possible substitution mutations at every position in the human genome. There are about 7 billion humans alive right now. This means that every possible substitution mutation has happened about 40 times over in the current population. So can you please tell me why random mutations could not produce beneficial changes in the human genome when every possible mutation has happened 40 times over in the current population? Edited by Taq, : No reason given. Edited by Taq, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1696 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
What I "expect" isn't about my own guesses, it's about what I've picked up from YOU GUYS by reading various web sites and so on.
So I gather genetics is getting more complicated, which is as it should be I'm sure. Where I used to think a single trait such as eye color was probably governed by many genes, it seems now that it's governed by different regions of a single gene?????? How that works I don't yet grasp since I thought a whole gene made a particular protein, which protein is what brought about the trait. I've been trying to find the best book on basic genetics for some time and none of them seem to cover enough of what I want to learn, or they add a whole bunch of stuff about human inheritance which I'm not interested in at the moment, and so on. And I'd suppose it doesn't explain enough of the things you are talking about to be useful in this discussion either. Yes???? I did get Genetics for Dummies for the PC Kindle but now I can't open that page for some reason. If it isn't one thing it's another....
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