A test for claimed knowledge of how macroevolution occurs

I would love my IQ to get into double figures! Alas ...

Okay, thanks; I need to read up on this stuff - my ignorance is showing. (In the last few days I've been reading stuff on the talkorigins.org site - there's some really fascinating info there - the "tail" in humans embryos and ERVs in humans, for example. It strikes me as a very professional organisation.)Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

I can see how exposing your ridiculous fantasies could depress you.You claim to know all these facts? Where is the "rearrangement of existing alleles"? Where are those existing alleles hiding?I predict no substantive answer, because you have no idea other than vague hand-waving.

Name one of those "situations where multiple mutations would have to have occurred in a short period of time".

Tangle's right about the peppered moth mutation. Dark satanic wings | Nature:

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Extensive mapping has pinned it down to a 400-kilobase region containing 13 genes, none of which had any obvious role in wing coloration. Undeterred, scientists went on to isolate the gene responsible, and they describe their search in this week’s issue. It is called cortex, orthologous to a gene of the same name in Drosophila. The researchers have even gone further, and shown that the specific cause of the mutation is the insertion of a transposable element (popularly, a ”jumping gene’) into the first intron of the cortex gene.

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The insertion leads to increased transcription of the gene during a phase of development when the wing discs are forming. The cortex gene, then, is involved in wing development, but there is still no obvious association with coloration. In Drosophila, cortex is involved in cell-cycle regulation, in particular, marking proteins that are redundant in the cell cycle as being ready for disposal. What is going on?

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Work from a different group of Lepidoptera might offer a solution. In a study also in this issue, another group of researchers shows that cortex is a key player in the coloration of the wings of butterflies in the genus Heliconius, long a favourite for the study of mimicry. They show that cortex is a member of a fast-evolving scion of an otherwise conservative group of cell-cycle regulator genes known as the fizzy family, a name redolent of activity, growth and fervour, and possibly involved in the regulation of wing-scale development. This is important, because it is the size, density and surface properties of the wing scales that determine colour in butterflies and moths. Flies, such as Drosophila, lack these structures, perhaps explaining why it was initially hard to associate the cortex gene with wing development.

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There is a further, satisfying twist to the tale. Although it is possible that melanic mutants existed undetected at a very low level in the peppered-moth population for centuries, the specific mutation behind their coloration is relatively recent, appearing around 1819 ” in plenty of time for it to be noted down in Manchester a couple of decades later.

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The full article is at http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/...cortex_final_nfc2_figs.pdf.Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

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The subject is the peppered moth

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In the context of the wider issue.I’ll take your refusal to discuss it as an admission that you have no real case.

One approach that comes to mind is using the definitions instead of the words, that should add some clarity.Enjoy

Not how it works.As Tangle said in Message 210To expand on this, mutations occur, randomly. When they are non-deleterious they can be preserved (you get a mixed population of individuals 'with' and 'without' mutation). If they are beneficial the individuals with the mutation propagate more favorably than individuals without the mutation, because they survive/reproduce better with the mutation.This "just show up" concept is a typical mistake for people that do not know evolution processes.Enjoy

Seems to me if the mutation came along in time to save the population from extinction and start a new population to replace it, that's "showing up when needed" and that's too great a coincidence for me.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Seems to me if the mutation came along in time to save the population from extinction and start a new population to replace it, that's "showing up when needed"

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The species was not in danger of extinction, although it would have had it’s range curtailed quite significantly. As I understand it there were always areas where the light colouration dominated.The fact that this is a single mutation, that the moth population seems to have been large, that there was plenty of time for it to occur - and the fact that many species have not been saved - makes this a plausible coincidence. These things will happen on occasion - probability says so.

I'm always being told I've "been told" this or that in the past, and here's another case where I'm "being told" something, but why should I take it seriously? Why should I believe you about anything? Why should you have the definitive word?

The first thing to say is that it happened and there is an evidenced explanation for how.Secondly, for all we know the mutation is common but had it occurred when the trees where white the black moths would have died from predation. The predators would remove the mutation from the population. It was only when the trees turned black that the mutation could survive.This is shown beautifully when the pollution was cleared up and the black moths became visible to predators and the white moths took over.The problem you're having is that you ascribe purpose to everything so the coincidence is shocking to you because you only see the successful event not the failed ones. You do this all the time, the most notable was seeing everything as a potent of the rapture.But your alternative is what? God did it?

We're just reporting the research. You don't need to believe any of us.Read the research papers for yourself. See if you can fault it. That's the way it works.

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I'm always being told I've "been told" this or that in the past, and here's another case where I'm "being told" something, but why should I take it seriously?

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Why should we take your assertion that the species was in real danger of extinction seriously ?And you certainly refer to things you’ve heard and expect us to take it seriously.Feel free to check any claim I make. I check your claims often enough. But then we have to because you have a record is misrepresenting your sources.

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Why should you have the definitive word?

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If I wanted to have the definitive word I wouldn’t let people know I was relying on memory. I would check the facts and provide evidence.

I think it’s more to the point to consider the question of how many mutations might have provided the dark colouration. I would be surprised if it were only one. Melanism is not that uncommon.