Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
3 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 0/13 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   The evidence for design and a designer - AS OF 10/27, SUMMARY MESSAGES ONLY
kongstad
Member (Idle past 2870 days)
Posts: 175
From: Copenhagen, Denmark
Joined: 02-24-2004


Message 385 of 648 (587984)
10-21-2010 6:11 PM
Reply to: Message 373 by Damouse
10-21-2010 1:32 PM


Being pedantic about mutations
Damouse writes:
To get a positive change, any of those authors must find an improvement. Any negative changes will die off.
Actually negative changes will tend to impair the carriers, but they will not necessarily die off. That is very context sensitive, and assuming the negative aspect is not immediately life threatening, it could be some generations before any effect was seen.
The point being that neutral and mildly negative mutations can and will exist in the population, adding to the variability.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 373 by Damouse, posted 10-21-2010 1:32 PM Damouse has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 386 by Damouse, posted 10-21-2010 7:58 PM kongstad has replied

kongstad
Member (Idle past 2870 days)
Posts: 175
From: Copenhagen, Denmark
Joined: 02-24-2004


Message 412 of 648 (588049)
10-22-2010 4:50 AM
Reply to: Message 386 by Damouse
10-21-2010 7:58 PM


Re: Being pedantic about mutations
Damouse writes:
The concept of positive evolution is possible.
Absolutely - I am in no way denying that, just underscoring that evolution does not rule out that negative mutations might survive and indeed fix in the population. It doesn't have to be perfect, just good enough. an example might be our dependence on obtaining vitamin C from external sources, which I am told is a result of a mutation. Since we apparently lived in an environment rich in vitamin C this only marginally effected our fitness and the ancestral species first displaying this thrived long enough to split into many new branches.
That positive mutations happen and that they fix in the population is a certainty, which I would never deny.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 386 by Damouse, posted 10-21-2010 7:58 PM Damouse has not replied

Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024