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Author Topic:   Is there any proof of beneficial mutations?
Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3630 days)
Posts: 983
From: China
Joined: 11-14-2009


Message 14 of 166 (579483)
09-04-2010 9:38 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by frako
09-04-2010 7:15 PM


If everyone who thinks that bacteria are good examples of evolution in action, how do you explain the fact that we have studied billions upon billions of generations of bacteria, and they haven't evolved at all, they are still the same old bacteria, over and over and over again. if it takes billions of generations and nothing changes, what makes people so readily fantasize that with enough time anything is possible-we have already seen enough time.

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Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3630 days)
Posts: 983
From: China
Joined: 11-14-2009


Message 16 of 166 (579505)
09-04-2010 10:52 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by jar
09-04-2010 10:00 PM


That aren't new and they aren't really even new bacteria. They generally tend to revert back to their same old ways of doing things as soon as the diet changes again. And so what is this telling us?
In a zillion billion generations we know we can go from bacteria not eating nylon, to bacteria eating nylon, to bacteria going back to not eating nylon.
So what inferences can we make about future evolutionary changes based on this model? The answer is that in another zillion billion generations they might still be eating nylon or not eating nylon. We are not getting very far for a zillion zillion, billion billion generations.

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 Message 15 by jar, posted 09-04-2010 10:00 PM jar has replied

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Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3630 days)
Posts: 983
From: China
Joined: 11-14-2009


Message 18 of 166 (579513)
09-04-2010 11:02 PM
Reply to: Message 17 by jar
09-04-2010 10:56 PM


Some people can drink milk and some can't, I think its stretching it to say they are new people.
Besides, where doe the inference lead us? It leads us away from the likelihood of new structures arising in a given period of time, not towards it. If we study a gazillion billion trillion million generations and the most novel thing is they eat different food, what can we extrapolate with time? That there is not enough time or generations during the entire existence of the planet to do what you are claiming, that's what.

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Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3630 days)
Posts: 983
From: China
Joined: 11-14-2009


Message 20 of 166 (579541)
09-05-2010 12:13 AM
Reply to: Message 19 by jar
09-04-2010 11:09 PM


Time? A zillion billion generations to maintain the exact form, the exact same structure? How much time do you want?
If you use bacteria to prove your theory works, you fail. Bacteria proves that all the mutations in the history of time are not enough to do anything more than keep a bacteria a bacteria. Now matter how many generations we study they never do anything more than change their diets. People who don't drink milk are still people, and bacteria that eat nylon are still bacteria.
The laws of probability say that every mutation that ever could happen to bacteria has already happened many times. Bacteria proves the theory must be wrong.

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Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3630 days)
Posts: 983
From: China
Joined: 11-14-2009


Message 23 of 166 (579554)
09-05-2010 12:43 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by crashfrog
09-05-2010 12:32 AM


Once a microbe species was observed to evolve true multicellularity.
Full disclosure, please show your evidence.

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Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3630 days)
Posts: 983
From: China
Joined: 11-14-2009


Message 109 of 166 (580605)
09-10-2010 9:06 AM
Reply to: Message 95 by greyseal
09-10-2010 3:01 AM


Re: Cause of mutation?
Greyseal,
Do you know specifically what does the mutation that makes one immune to Aids do?
My understanding is that there is not even a clear definition of what Aids actually is, so I think to say that one mutation can make someone resistant to something we can't define seems a little unclear.

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Replies to this message:
 Message 110 by Wounded King, posted 09-10-2010 9:58 AM Bolder-dash has not replied
 Message 112 by Dr Jack, posted 09-10-2010 10:37 AM Bolder-dash has replied
 Message 126 by greyseal, posted 09-10-2010 12:51 PM Bolder-dash has not replied

  
Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3630 days)
Posts: 983
From: China
Joined: 11-14-2009


Message 116 of 166 (580626)
09-10-2010 11:44 AM
Reply to: Message 112 by Dr Jack
09-10-2010 10:37 AM


Re: Cause of mutation?
This is quite wrong. AIDS is well understood in terms of what it is, and what causes it. In fact, compared to most diseases, it is extremely well studied.
So what do you think when people such as Rebecca Culshaw (a PHD mathematical biologist, whose work involves mathematical models of HIV) and others say things like "phrases like "the AIDS virus" or "an AIDS test" have become part of the common vernacular despite no evidence for their accuracy."
and:
"The classification "AIDS" was introduced in the early 1980s not as a disease but as a surveillance tool to help doctors and public health officials understand and control a strange "new" syndrome affecting mostly young gay men. In the two decades intervening, it has evolved into something quite different. AIDS today bears little or no resemblance to the syndrome for which it was named. For one thing, the definition has actually been changed by the CDC several times, continually expanding to include ever more diseases (all of which existed for decades prior to AIDS), and sometimes, no disease whatsoever. More than half of all AIDS diagnoses in the past several years in the United States have been made on the basis of a T-cell count and a "confirmed" positive antibody test — in other words, a deadly disease has been diagnosed over and over again on the basis of no clinical disease at all. And the leading cause of death in HIV-positives in the last few years has been liver failure, not an AIDS-defining disease in any way, but rather an acknowledged side effect of protease inhibitors, which asymptomatic individuals take in massive daily doses, for years.
The epidemiology of HIV and AIDS is puzzling and unclear as well. In spite of the fact that AIDS cases increased rapidly from their initial observation in the early 1980s and reached a peak in 1993 before declining rapidly, the number of HIV-positive individuals in the U.S. has remained constant at one million since the advent of widespread HIV antibody testing. This cannot be due to anti-HIV therapy, since the annual mortality rate of North American HIV-positives who are treated with anti-HIV drugs is much higher — between 6.7 and 8.8% — than would be the approximately 1—2% global mortality rate of HIV-positives if all AIDS cases were fatal in a given year.
Even more strangely, HIV has been present everywhere in the U.S., in every population tested including repeat blood donors and military recruits, at a virtually constant rate since testing began in 1985. It is deeply confusing that a virus thought to have been brought to the AIDS epicenters of New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles in the early 1970s could possibly have spread so rapidly at first, yet have stopped spreading completely as soon as testing began. "
Do you think people who say this are lying?

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 Message 112 by Dr Jack, posted 09-10-2010 10:37 AM Dr Jack has replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 123 by Dr Jack, posted 09-10-2010 12:40 PM Bolder-dash has not replied

  
Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3630 days)
Posts: 983
From: China
Joined: 11-14-2009


Message 118 of 166 (580629)
09-10-2010 12:06 PM
Reply to: Message 117 by Taq
09-10-2010 11:53 AM


Re: Cause of mutation?
I am saying that there are people whose job it is to study these diseases who say that the links between Aids and HIV are not so simply defined, and that plenty of uncertainty exists-so I find it to be imprecise and misleading when Wounded King or Mr. Jack make these kind of blanket statements that the disease is perfectly understood.

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 Message 117 by Taq, posted 09-10-2010 11:53 AM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 119 by Taq, posted 09-10-2010 12:10 PM Bolder-dash has replied
 Message 121 by Wounded King, posted 09-10-2010 12:23 PM Bolder-dash has replied

  
Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3630 days)
Posts: 983
From: China
Joined: 11-14-2009


Message 120 of 166 (580633)
09-10-2010 12:21 PM
Reply to: Message 119 by Taq
09-10-2010 12:10 PM


Re: Cause of mutation?
I answered this in post 116, start by reading that and refute it is you wish.
I see a similar pattern of posting here, where people want to just say things like 'It is a known fact..." when the only fact is that people here like to say it is a known fact a lot.

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 Message 119 by Taq, posted 09-10-2010 12:10 PM Taq has not replied

  
Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3630 days)
Posts: 983
From: China
Joined: 11-14-2009


Message 122 of 166 (580636)
09-10-2010 12:34 PM
Reply to: Message 121 by Wounded King
09-10-2010 12:23 PM


Re: Off Topic AIDs discussion
Well so far you have given one mathematician who did a PhD,...
Is it a numbers game? if it is then I guess I am ahead one to zero.
Instead of making some off the cuff comment immediately attempting to discredit someone you know nothing about, wouldn't it be a more beneficial use of your debate strategy time to simply refute the things that she said that you disagree with and why, instead of just guessing that she must be an unworthy authority? What's your authority?
Bolder-Dash - 1
Woundedking-0
Also, its a bit late in the game to call this off topic, when others have used the Aids situation to comment on beneficial mutations and thus the entire status of Aids disease becomes part of that conversation, to question the conclusions drawn from its evidence.
Bolder-dash-2
Woundedking-0

This message is a reply to:
 Message 121 by Wounded King, posted 09-10-2010 12:23 PM Wounded King has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 124 by Admin, posted 09-10-2010 12:41 PM Bolder-dash has replied
 Message 125 by Wounded King, posted 09-10-2010 12:45 PM Bolder-dash has replied

  
Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3630 days)
Posts: 983
From: China
Joined: 11-14-2009


Message 127 of 166 (580643)
09-10-2010 12:56 PM
Reply to: Message 125 by Wounded King
09-10-2010 12:45 PM


Re: Off Topic AIDs discussion
Edited by Admin, : Hide off-topic content.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 125 by Wounded King, posted 09-10-2010 12:45 PM Wounded King has not replied

  
Bolder-dash
Member (Idle past 3630 days)
Posts: 983
From: China
Joined: 11-14-2009


Message 128 of 166 (580645)
09-10-2010 12:58 PM
Reply to: Message 124 by Admin
09-10-2010 12:41 PM


Oh, sorry I didn't see that.
Got it.

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