Problems with Mutation and the Evolution of the Sexes

The author of any thread can change the title himself by editing Message 1.--Percy

TYVM.Any chance ur related to the admin? You both do "--Percy" at the ends of ur messages.And, you said you would change the forum title when it says that the admin changed it...Edited by Lyston, : More evidence.

Your right, it's not "possible" to demonstrate. However, there is something pretty close. I have a pamphlet that talks about EvC (not this website) that talks about something close to this specific topic.The pamphlet (AKA not my words!) says: Although it exaggerates with the "thousands others", I think the eye thing might hold some truth to it. I looked up Trilobites on Wikipedia, and while I skimmed through most of it, I read the part about eyes. It's pretty interesting.Can someone counter this (or show the mutational evolution of these) please?

I see.We've moved on now, have we?The evolution of the eye, now, is it?Done with the sexes, now, are we?Yes, I suppose we are.To the eye, then.Fortunately for you, the eye is a very well-documented case of evolution!How exactly do you figure that a trylobyte eye is a problem for evolution?It's progress is as follows:Holochroal, Schizochroal, and Abathochroal.Got any problem with that, M'sieur?

Yes, I'm Admin.--Percy

The evolution of the eye is a very complex and well-researched topics. Eyes have evolved not once on this planet, but many, completely separate times (meaning multiple branches of the evolutionary tree have developed eyes independently, and in different ways).However, that would be completely unrelated to the topic of this particular thread, which regards the evolution of sexes. You're more than welcome to start a new thread about the evolution of eyes, though. Weve gone over it a few times, but I always find it to be a fascinating topic.(The reason we try to keep topics narrowly defined is that there is a 300-ish limit on the number of posts in a thread. Topic drift means that those posts get taken up by things unrelated completely to the title - creating a new thread for a new topic is generally the way we do things here)

The evolution of the eye is not the topic. Please propose a new thread for that.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Hi Lyston,I think the important point to note is that fossilisation is a very rare event. It's even rarer that we actually find them. Nonetheless, there are huge numbers of fossils around and they show gradual changes, taking place over time. The claim in your pamphlet is just false, we do see transition, as noted in the wiki article you mentioned, with later trilobite species displaying more complex eyes.The reason that complex forms seem to "appear suddenly" is because we only get a tiny glimpse of the entire story of life when we look at fossils. Each fossil shows us just one individual, at one stage in its evolution, at a single point in time, so the glimpses we get are just fragments of the whole story. Gradual changes are taking place all the time, but we only see the results in the fossil record intermittently.It is a bit like trying to get an idea of a movie just by looking at a handful of disparate frames.The wiki article on the Evolution of the Eye is pretty good, give it a read. Luckily, there is a wealth of material out there debunking creationist objections to the evolution of eyes.Added by Edit; As has been noted above, we are off-topic here, but I too would be happy to discuss this with you, should you care to open a thread. What I said about the fragmentary nature of the fossil record could apply to the evolution of many traits though.Edited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

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Mutate and Survive

Alright, the new thread for the eye is found at...
EvC Forum: Evolution of EyesI hope the link comes out right.Edited by Lyston, : The new link.

It's always nice to know that someone's listening.---Eyes ... oh good.* rubs hands *See you on the other thread.

It is, indeed reasonable to ask how to get from one to the other, but my response dealt with discussing the sexes without discussing sexual or, at least, non-asexual, forms of reproduction. Reproduction can occur without sexes, but sexes (as we know them and as I believe Lyston was referring to) cannot occur without non-asexual reproduction and the evolution of sexual reproduction (in all of its forms) is crucial to understanding the evolution of the sexes (as we know them).Reproduction can occur without distinguished sexes (which you said), but distinguished sexes are a product of the evolution of reproduction from asexual to sexual and cannot be discussed without the discussion of it (in the context of this thread).The new title change narrows it down, but does not make the discussion of the evolution of reproduction from asexual to sexual off-topic, as it is essential.

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"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -The Iron Heel by Jack London"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea

Lyston, did you get a satisfactory answer as to how sexual reproduction may have easily evolved (and is supported by the evidence we see)? I don't have time to read 10 pages of this thread, and can write a concise, understandable description if it will help.However, if I had to guess, I'd guess that some of the well-informed people here have already done that, and if they have I won't waste the time doing so.If you understand how sexual reproduction likely evolved, let me know so I won't type it out.Have a fun day-Equinox

Yeah, I roughly got it. Thanks though.

that I'd like to point out is if by chance, something can come into existance from nothing, than how less of a chance does someone of intelligence need to create it?I mean, if a simple cell can all of a sudden appear out of a blob of goo, then shouldn't we or some very intelligent scientist somewhere be able to create a living cell out of nothing but let's say, a blob of goo??Don't come back at me with the amino acids are the building block and we've managed to create that arguement...it isn't actual life and doesn't hold water.

"Specifically, we self-replicate imperfectly. As did the first forms of life. It's these imperfections in the copying process that allow mutation and evolution to occur - otherwise all life would simply be cloned duplicates of the first life form."Ok, I read up to this part and I had to laugh. Sorry, but which part of this sentence makes sense to you??We self-replicate imperfectly, culminating in a perfect replication??But then again, we are no longer a replication of the original being but a completely different mass of tissue with functions that just happened to perfectly form.Do you guys ever seriously believe what you say?? Or do you even bother to read what you say??