What is the mechanism that prevents microevolution to become macroevolution?

Come on, Crash. Autopsies aren't done routinely when people die.

As I've said, it COULD be a mutation, but this simply has not been unequivocally proved. What's "a lot of scientific attention?" Since this is a very rare allele you have to be awfully thorough and even then how could you know you didn't just overlook it? Yes. And how many of his descendants who don't have this allele are known? My own grandfather has at least 100 living descendants now. The 18th century is 100 years before his time, so the number of descendants could be a LOT larger than 33.What do you know about Apo's descendants, their parents, their grandparents, their greatgrandparents. There are many branches of a family tree after 250 years or so. How do you know you didn't miss some who had the allele in Apo's sibling's lines? Yes, an easy target for a mutation; but that means that the good allele is just as easy a target as the bad allele, which is why it could very well have been the other way around and the bad allele is a mutation that happened WAY back there in the human race, from which only a few lines of the good allele escaped. OK I'll have to read the article carefully. Is it known for sure that there are some who are homozygous for this trait? I would hope so. So I've heard. I'm not sure you haven't overlooked some in Chicago. Maybe in the last generation. Or in Iceland, or in Tierra del Fuego. Or even in Italy for that matter. How can you be absolutely sure? Yes. More likely killed by a mutation, or mutations in several individuals over time. Since there is nothing about it to select for it or against it, I would suppose it could have been lost to the majority of human posterity through a severe population reduction at some point, that severely reduced its frequency simply at random. But that's silly. Obviously "Apo" got that allele, and passed it on to his descendants in that town. Nothing unlikely about that. The only question under consideration is how Apo got it and why other relatives apparently don't have it, if a reasonable number of them have actually been tested, which is a question. Sorry, you lost me in all this. I thought we were talking about a very short segment, a mere amino acid, which is why a mutation was considered to be such a likely explanation. I don't grasp what it is you are talking about having to match so perfectly. I really don't grasp this reasoning. Are there studies that prove that the long lives of grandparents contribute to reproductive success, which is "all evolution cares about" as I've been told SO many times, as if it were news. Parents makes sense, but then arteriosclerosis doesn't usually get to us until we're about grandparent age. All it means is that it got passed down in the proportions that accord with Mendel's formula in a normally healthy reproducing family line. No selection is implied, it just got passed along in the normal course of things. It could, but it just doesn't seem to me that you've covered enough territory. Just wait until a few years down the road the same allele is discovered in a family line in Turkey and it can be traced back to the 13th century or something like that. Well I gave a scenario above about how mutations could have zapped it here and there though it survived in some populations in very low frequency. There is nothing about it to select for or against that I can see, and again, I don't get the longevity-value argument since it seems to contradict the standard evolutionist formula of reproductive success. I'd simply expect that it was more frequent in earlier centuries and just got mutated out, or squeezed out by population decreases or some such. It's not as likely as your explanation, true. But again, wait until you discover someone out of that Apo family line with the same allele. In Italy. Nobody has argued that this is a uniform process. I would expect that there would still be people of extraordinary good health living here and there. If you want the spiritual explanation, it's all a matter of sin. Read the Book of Proverbs. Good health and long life are a matter of living according to God's Law. I believe the Tao gives the same advice in different words. Well, this isn't a crucial issue to me. I don't care if it's a mutation. I just seriously doubt that it is and really irrefutable evidence for it has not yet been given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Lemme tell you what. Any time you've heard about someone living to advanced age, on the news, somebody's collecting a blood sample for use in research on the genetic properties of aging.Like that guy who lived to be 127 or whatever eating nothing but eggs and sausage. Read it on Pharyngula the other day.I'm not saying that they get everybody. But everybody who lives long enough to attract any kind of attention, yes, they're getting a blood sample to do genetics research. It's not that hard to do, after all. Running genetic tests is fairly cheap.

In fact, autopsies are performed in more than 20% of American deaths.

I don't understand what kind of evidence could be presented to you that you wouldn't simply disagree with and consider it refuted.

I couldn't find the story. I guess he didn't have the allele in question though he survived all that fat so long.

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1. The allele in question has only been found in 33 people in the world, despite a lot of scientific attention.

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As I've said, it COULD be a mutation, but this simply has not been unequivocally proved.

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Um, I specifically DIDN'T call it a mutation in my post just to be nice. I called it an allele, even though the difference is just 1 generation.

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And how many of his descendants who don't have this allele are known? My own grandfather has at least 100 living descendants now. The 18th century is 100 years before his time, so the number of descendants could be a LOT larger than 33.

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What do you know about Apo's descendants, their parents, their grandparents, their greatgrandparents. There are many branches of a family tree after 250 years or so. How do you know you didn't miss some who had the allele in Apo's sibling's lines?

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First, the article says that everyone found has been heterozygous. A heterozygous person mating with someone who doesn't even have one copy will make only half of the kids with even one copy. Plus, with all this attention, I'm sure they've searched hard. The article even says they did genetic tests on every single person in the whole town. Sure, some bastard or something could have sneaked out in 1820, but I'd also guess that they've checked known lines, since they identified Apo. Wouldn't you think so too?

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Yes, an easy target for a mutation; but that means that the good allele is just as easy a target as the bad allele, which is why it could very well have been the other way around and the bad allele is a mutation that happened WAY back there in the human race, from which only a few lines of the good allele escaped.

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The other way around is extremely hard. For Apo to be a mutant, we are requiring 1 mutation. To eliminate it, you either have to have literally billions of mutations, all in the 1 nucleotide location, or you have to have a few mutations at very specific times (like mutate all of Adam's sons, and stop there). Both are extremely unlikely. It's like this - if I propose that 1 person out of the world's population will win the lotto, that's likely. But if I propose that Jim Jones will win the lotto on April 28th, 1964, that's unlikely. You are saying that either this mutation went one way and not the other at least hundreds of millions of times, or you are proposing that the mutation went from good to bad in very specifically times, chosen by Faith. Since the mutation can happen either way, why do you suppose going from good to bad is so much more likely than the other way? We impose no such illogical and baseless asymmetry.

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Is it known for sure that there are some who are homozygous for this trait?

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The article mentions that no humans are known (as expected since people don't usually marry their sisters), but that they've inserted the gene into mice, making them homozygous, and the mice are not just healthy, but better than the heterozygous mice. The human and mouse chemistry in these areas is nearly identical.

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I'm not sure you haven't overlooked some in Chicago. Maybe in the last generation. Or in Iceland, or in Tierra del Fuego. Or even in Italy for that matter. How can you be absolutely sure?

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We can be reasonably confident. If in the last generation, then it would probably show up in this generation, since that's where we got our genes. The key here is statistical sampling. I don't know how many have been tested for this, but it's a lot of people. First, as crash pointed out, autopsies have been done on literally millions of Americans. A simple genetic test would show it, and it's even easier than that. A simple protein test would probably show it too, since it makes a heart protein, and heart disease is a huge focus in medicine. Plus, there have been over a dozen high profile papers on this. A find of another population would make a Drs career - of course they are looking. Sure, it's quite possible that someone somewhere could be hiding it, but from basic statistics, if you take a large sample, then if something is hiding out there there is a certain probability it will happen to be in the sample. Thus our current situation doesn't prove that no one has it, but it does show that if it is out there at all, it is very rare. [quote]More likely killed by a mutation, or mutations in several individuals over time. Since there is nothing about it to select for it or against it, I would suppose it could have been lost to the majority of human posterity through a severe population reduction at some point, that severely reduced its frequency simply at random. [quote] Do you hear how silly that sounds? It will be selected for, since heart disease does kill parents (a friend of mine died of heart disease at 39), plus, as we've said, grandparents are relevant, though less relevant than parents. And yes that is in the literature, it's discussed and proven often. The gene will be selected for, and increase, and so killing it off will be like trying to put out a wildfire on a windy day. Plus, you still have to explain why mutations that kill it are so much more likely than ones that make it.

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But that's silly. Obviously "Apo" got that allele, and passed it on to his descendants in that town. Nothing unlikely about that. The only question under consideration is how Apo got it and why other relatives apparently don't have it, if a reasonable number of them have actually been tested, which is a question.

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Of course it's silly. That's my point. The same kind of calcuations show how unlikely it is that somehow this has been hiding in the human population since Adam, and Apo is the only one left in the 18th century who still had that allele, which then and only then grew to 33 people today. [quote]Sorry, you lost me in all this. I thought we were talking about a very short segment, a mere amino acid, which is why a mutation was considered to be such a likely explanation. I don't grasp what it is you are talking about having to match so perfectly. [quote] the GENE or the ALLELE is of regular length. The CHANGED PART OF THAT ALLELE is short.

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Nobody has argued that this is a uniform process. I would expect that there would still be people of extraordinary good health living here and there. If you want the spiritual explanation, it's all a matter of sin. Read the Book of Proverbs. Good health and long life are a matter of living according to God's Law.

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OK, now the degeneration isn't uniform, but is rather a function of how Christian someone is? Or how nice they are? It sounds awfully larmarkian at best to claim that someone can change the genes of themselves or their kids by reading the Bible. If anyone gave that even a shred of credibility, then wouldn't preachers be claiming that as a way to increase their flocks?

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Nobody has argued that this is a uniform process. ...... I don't care if it's a mutation.

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OK, I think both of these are significant changes in view that we need to remember. From now on the degeneration after the fall is not like the slowing down of an unplugged fan, but is rather something that goes up and down depending on your religion. If you are a good Christian, your genes are magically fixed or perhaps just preserved better. Muslim mutations happen all the time, but not as fast as those rapidly mutating Satanists! The genetic degeneration can go up or down depending on how it fits the creationists needs at the time. I know quite a few Christians who would be offended at seeing their religions used like that.Also, Faith no longer apparently cares if this clearly beneficial allele is a mutation.

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I just seriously doubt that it is and really irrefutable evidence for it has not yet been given.

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The probabilistic and actually tested points on this one are solid from every angle. What more could you want?Have a fun weekend, I'll be back probably monday.--EquinoxEdited by Equinox, : No reason given.

Equinox, this isn't a direct reply to your post.But...from what we know about genetics, they don't usually affect ideals or religions, such as Christianity or Satanism.And on the other hand, things such as age are affected by a person's genetic makeup.So far, throughout all the theories that I've looked at, none have successfully (and by successfully, I mean 100%) detailed the origin of the traits we have. OK, I'll explain that further. Basically, I want to know WHY we have the makeups we have, and why we're divided into races and such. Does it have to do with regional bounds? Does climate modify DNA itself so that your future generations develop the same attributes as your ancestors?And to actually be on topic, what actually denotes macroevolution? What makes macroevolution occur, and how long do these proposed changes take to happen? Thousands of years? Millions? The only changes currently observed have been changes of adaptation.I used to be both a creationist and an evolutionist, but both are bollocks as a whole. I just need answers.|the kid

Has nothing to do with being Christian. Has to do with obeying God's laws, which are taught by almost all the sages of all cultures in history. In the past. Nobody seems to have much of that kind of wisdom any more. The Biblical Book of Proverbs is a collection of wisdom sayings from many cultures. Nothing particularly Jewish about it OR Christian. And obeying the law is not Christianity. Christianity is knowing you are in trouble because you haven't obeyed the law and need a savior. Preachers preach the need of a savior. Living by the laws of the universe is a wise thing for anyone to do but it won't save you, merely make life easier on this planet, and it's not THE Christian message, as I say above. But read the Book of Proverbs. Many of them are cast in terms of cause and effect -- health and longevity from obedience. As I also said the Tao teaches as I recall. More like the inevitable degenerative trend can be put off longer by obedience by individuals. Eveybody is going to die. Nobody will ever be obedient enough to avoid death. That's why we need a savior. But life on this planet can be improved by living within the laws that govern the universe, which, again, as I said, have been recognized by many sages of many cultures. If I get anything across in this post at all, I'd like to get across that it has nothing whatever to do with being a Christian. Muslims may live by God's laws same as anyone else. I don't know about Satanists. I think they are rather committed to disobeying the moral laws of the universe, aren't they? Good thing I'm not using it like that. Just being misrepresented by a straw man position.And it was just an aside too. Oh well.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Sorry Faith, but this statement is dripping with mendacity. Your attempt to paint Christianity as a (rather covenient) umbrella for all the world's faiths certainly doesn't square with your stated views on Islam. Nor does it provide for polytheistic, dharmic or Mesoamerican belief systems to name but a few. Using general terms doesn't dodge this bullet, Faith.Anyway... Do you have any evidence that demonstrates the manner in which spiritual obediance is able to repress gene mutation? Do you have a hypothetical chemical process of some kind?Is a given individual more likely to pass on a degenerative "fall-mutation" to a child she conceives prior to learning "obediance"?Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.

We aren't divided into races and such. When you actually look at the physical traits that are viewed to constitute "race" in humans, there's no identifiable divisions. Rather, every one of those traits exists on a smooth continuum between individuals.Why do we have the makeups we have? Natural selection operating on random mutation. Future generations develop the same attributes as your ancestors because you inherit your genetics from your ancestors. There's no "modification" of DNA necessary, by climate or anything else, for that to happen. It's simple reproduction. Where else would you get attributes except from your ancestors? Who the hell knows? That's a word creationists made up to confuse the issue. Some scientists use it too, but it's never been clear what they mean by it, either.As far as I know, there's just "evolution." It's the model that explains why life on Earth is so diverse at present because of natural selection and random mutation. If you were both a creationist and an evolutionist, then you don't know what evolution is, or how it works. Or else you don't understand what is meant by "creationist", which is specifically someone who denies the accuracy of the scientific model of evolution.Evolution is an entirely accurate theory with amazing explanitory power. And it's more than sufficient to account for the diversity and history of life on Earth. There's far more than enough evidence to conclude that. To assert that evolution is "bollocks as a whole" is to be pretty ignorant of what evolution actually is.

I know it is fascinating to see such ideas but this should be taken to a separate thread.Try a title like "Disobedience as a Mutatgen". That will be a nice eye catching title.

Don't get me wrong.What I mean is that creationism has its good points, and evolution has its good points.And I DO know that we get our traits from our ancestors, and how. I want to know why a specified species, when mated with another of the same specified species, doesn't result in a random new species.I know what you're trying to say, but it's not answering my question. I already observe it happening. Random mutation happens; natural selection happens. I'm not debating the validity of those.I just want to know how it started. Like, why certain groups of people have a certain skin color, and others don't. I already know that it's a result of the amount of pigment in each respective "race," as we like to call it. But why?And, as a side note, don't always try to answer every question that I put out, as some of them are rhetorical.|the kid

Thought I better get to this before the thread is closed for the 300 limit. Only looking at the data that fits the trend you want to find? Isn't that begging the question? No, you need to look at all the evidence and if the trend is clear you have something, if it is a football shaped scatter of points you have an indication of a trend but it is obscured by other factors and it could be totally unrelated. That's what a strict relationship is -- a trend that clearly shows in the data.Otherwise you have some data that meets your trend and some data that doesn't meet your trend, and then you have to deal with the data that doesn't meet the trend in order to show that the trend has any predictive value. If you can't predict when a result will be on the {general sort of trendish kinda line maybe) trend and when it will be totally off in some other corner, then you can't predict a result from the trend you've selected. Denial of evidence does not make it go away. You can measure the frequency of alleles in a population before speciation and again several generations afterwards, after a series of mutations have occurred, and you get new alleles showing up, ones that were not in the original population: where do they come from? Mutations. We are not talking about situations where one end or the other of a distribution of alleles was selected by a survival event, but one where the survival was completely random and not based on any genetic advantage or disadvantage.And the probability is that the individuals will be randomly selected in proportion to their existing distribution of alleles, so the 'bottleneck' population will have the same distribution.Think of how public polls are conducted, and consider each question on a poll to be a gene and each possible answer is an allele variation.Pollsters claim (based on the mathematics of population distributions) to be able to sample a thousand people and represent the opinions of ~300 million (american) people with something like a 5% error, right?http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/pom/polling101.htmlIn other words, the allele distribution in the 'bottleneck' population (the thousand that were polled with the questions) represents 95% of the opinion allele distribution of the full population (of ~300 million americans) -- and the error doesn't mean that some opinions were NOT expressed, just that some of them were NOT expressed in the same proportion as in the total population -- they are still there in the 'bottleneck' population. Which then is why your thinking is not valid as a representation of all the possiblities. I'll make it simpler:

sometimes bottlenecks and speciations occur together, and sometimes they don't

when they do both occur, sometimes one comes before the other, and sometimes the other happens first

CONCLUSION: there is no relation whereby a bottleneck OR a speciation event - alone - can predict whether the other also occurs.

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There are other factors that are involved that have as much or more to do with whether speciation occurs or whether there is a bottleneck event.

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Hope that helps.

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You just aren't following, RAZD. ALL the data is included in my point about the trend, none is left out.1) Most of the population-altering processes don't change the number of alleles, merely change their proportions in relation to each other. This includes population splits where both populations are large enough to contain all the allelic possibilities.2) Some reduce the number of alleles, actually lose alleles from one population to the other, as in geographic isolation when the population is numerically small, and in bottlenecks, or may lose them altogether in drastic natural selection when much of a population dies.3) The only process (except for mutation) that adds alleles is immigration or hybridization and this adds nothing new, it merely reintroduces alleles that were formerly separated. And if such a population is then subjected to any of the reducing processes it too can lose alleles ...... and this is how I arrive at the clear overall trend of reduction of alleles over time. It is either simply reshuffling or it is reduction, genetic diversity is not increased by any of the above, only slowly reduced over time.All the data is accounted for.And that leaves mutation as THE ONLY process that MIGHT actually add new information. Which is what this thread has been focused on for the last few pages and will continue in the rest of this post.The trend otherwise is clear. Please get the point. Nothing is left out of the reckoning.========== Please supply evidence of this. You are talking data, let's see the data. It has been asserted many times. Show me these brand new alleles in this completely isolated population that has no gene flow with other populations of the same species. Numbers please. And remember, I expect some mutations. I want to see numbers that are going to offset the inexorable reducing factors I've been naming all along. You aren't really thinking about the situation of a sharply reduced population. Yes, for some genes there will be a similar distribution, but some genes have many alleles -- the more extreme the bottleneck the less the likelihood of getting all of them in the new population. When there is a severe bottleneck it's very possible that some alleles are just... gone, no longer part of the new population.Of course human beings have never "speciated" so you can always recombine our alleles, but just for an example, pick a cosmopolitan city and randomly choose 10 individuals to isolate completely from everyone else to start a new population. You won't even get all three of the alleles for blood type that way. Check the maps at this site. Pick 100 individuals. What will the frequencies be then? If you pick your individuals from the Americas you probably won't get any B alleles at all; in South America you most likely won't get any A's. Opinions aren't like alleles. Bottlenecks don't "sample" a population. They catch what happens to be in a particular place at a particular time. Sure, if you calculate where you are going to come up with a good mix of As, Bs and Os you can do it. But that's not how bottlenecks happen. I never said they were. Haven't I already answered this? I've said of course bottlenecks don't NECESSARILY eliminate alleles -- it depends on how large the bottlenecked population is (and even eliminating alleles may not constitute speciation). Counting ALL the alleles for ALL the genes in a population, in a severe bottleneck of some members of that population you are just about certain to eliminate some alleles. Some genes have more than three alleles -- depending on how small the bottlenecked population is, you could lose most of them.(But again, certainly a bottleneck is not going to increase alleles.) I never said there was, RAZD. Please quote where you think I said that. I remember saying clearly that of COURSE bottlenecks don't ALWAYS cause speciation -- or even always eliminate alleles.I already answered you sufficiently in the previous post.Again, please supply that DATA you keep talking about for increase in alleles in a completely isolated inbreeding population, at a rate that makes up the previously losses brought about by the speciation event -- it would be nice if the rest of this thread focused on this data. Thank you.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.