Summations Only

Percy, From the Merriam-Webster: (Novel)

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1) new and not resembling something formerly known or used
2) original or striking especially in conception or style
Novel Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

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I would say that this adaptation was not novel because of definition one. The adaptation resembled something formally known or used.

Zaius,You're not being very helpful. You offer two definitions instead of one, and you don't explain how your definitions lead to the conclusion that the ability to digest citrate in the presence of oxygen is not novel while a fin becoming a leg is. The citrate example that involves the difference between life and death for an E. coli with the misfortune to be involved in the experiment certainly seems new, original and striking to everyone here but you.--Percy

Can you offer an example of something that you would consider novel?

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From the Merriam-Webster: (Novel)

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1) new and not resembling something formerly known or used
2) original or striking especially in conception or style

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Novel Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
I would say that this adaptation was not novel because of definition one. The adaptation resembled something formally known or used.

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What compels you to apply that definition to evolution? Especially when considering the fact that many major morphological changes necessitate the alteration of existing features.Edited by Solstice, : No reason given.Edited by Solstice, : No reason given.

The Catholic Scientist A novel adaptation would have to include an entire population where that population becomes homozygous to that trait. An individual organism variation would not constitute a novel trait, in other words that trait must be fixed in a population and homozygous to all individuals with new trait substituting into the original genome of the species. That is the heterozygosity completely being cleansed in the resulting genome (a classic sweep in evolution).Can a real biologist chime in.Edited by zaius137, : A clear misspeak

Well that's a fairly typical switch, you're asked what novel is and you reply with a requirement for a second condition that has nothing to do with any definition of novel. Cute.But never mind, what do you think would happen to a mixed population of of citrate and non-citrate eating bacteria with nothing to eat except citrate in the presence of oxygen? I'm guessing that you'd be left with a replicating population of citrate eaters only. Wouldn't you?Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Isn't that what happened to the bacteria with the citrate? The ones who had the mutations to be able to digest it survived and the ones who couldn't died. Therefore, the entire population that survived had that homozygous trait. As a whole, that population became heterozygous to what it was. The population is made up of individuals, so the trait has to start somewhere. When it spreads to the population that survives the condition, i.e. citrate, and then the ones who don't have it die, then you end up with just individuals who have the novel trait. This is Evolution 101. Right, by the lethality of the citrate killing off all the individuals who don't have the novel trait. Nigga please. This is high school level stuff.

Tangle pointed out that this new criteria has nothing to do with novelty, so you haven't answered the question about how you're defining novelty.And CS pointed out that citrate digesting bacteria already fulfill your new criteria, so if you really believe this new criteria defines novelty then you have in effect just conceded that citrate digestion is an example of novelty.I assume that wasn't your intention, so your only path out of this quandary is to introduce yet more criteria. What is it to be this time? That it can't happen in a lab? That it can't be single-celled organisms?This thread is about how evolution produces novelty. Naturally some traits are more novel than others. There must inevitably be a spectrum from slight to extreme novelty, but there will always be novelty. Changing environments impose demands for change in organisms, and random mutations guarantee that many new traits offered up to natural selection will be novel.Again, this thread is about how evolution produces novelty. Evolution produces change one little mutation at a time, and citrate digestion is a prime example of how this process of gradual change produces novelty. Whether or not citrate digestion is novel, the process that produced citrate digestion is the same one that produces novelty. Whatever features you eventually decide to concede are novel, they are produced in the same way as citrate digestion, one little step at a time.By the way, I chanced across a mention in the Wikipedia article on citrate-digesting bacteria that these E. coli are larger and more rounded, so there *is* a morphological difference. This is as irrelevant as it was when you first raised it as an issue, but I just thought I'd mention that yet another of your objections has disappeared. Perhaps these morphological differences are in your mind insufficient to qualify as real differences, but in that case it would just be a further demonstration of your constant recourse to inventing criteria as you go along.--Percy

I'm a senior studying Environmental Biology, is that close enough? At least I'm not a fake biologist. You have this completely backwards. You have merely defined adaptation. An example of this would be brown bears/ polar bears. White fur is an adaption of brown bears to polar conditions. The trait was there in brown bear populations but selected for when they were subject to polar conditions. The trait then became "homozygous" in the polar bear population.Which brings me to the second point: You are misusing the terms heterozygous and homozygous. Homozygous means that both copies of a gene are the same allele, heterozygous means that both gene copies are different alleles. There is no need for an entire population to be homozygous, that is a completely unrealistic expectation and sets up nothing more than a straw man. If a trait is not completely homozygous then it is not novel? Geez, that disqualifies just about everything. And I would suspect that if a trait could be shown to be completely homozygous, that still wouldn't qualify it as a novel trait, would it?Another problem is that it is often difficult to distinguish morphological features of bacteria species. What is it you are expecting? For the bacteria to grow arms or legs? To turn into a Paramecium or Euglena? Would that be novel enough? Bacteria are tiny, tiny specks even under 1000X magnification. Most of the characteristics of bacteria are microbiological in nature, you just can't expect a novel feature to produce significant morphological changes.Below is a picture of some significant morphological characteristics of cocci bacteria. Notice they are all round, small, and "still bacteria". Nothing novel here right? But the arrangement of the cells is a very morphologically significant feature and is caused by unseen, microbiological processes during replication. It allows us to separate these bacteria into different genera. So if you are looking for morphological differences in bacteria, this is about it. What about going from a cocci to a rod shape, or from short rods to long rods? Would that be novel? I think you are expecting way to much in the way of morphological changes from bacteria.In the case of citrate, yes wild-type e-coli can process citrate, what they cannot do is transport it into the cell. This mutation allows the cell to transport citrate into the cell so that it can be processed. I am not sure of the exact nature of this mechanism but, it took two mutations, one that built upon a previous mutation, to build this transport mechanism. Are you familiar with molecular transport systems? If not I suggest that you do some research on the subject. They are not simple systems, but are highly specialized molecular processes.Inventing bogus definitions of novel is not sufficient to disqualify this as a novel trait. You would have to show that this trait already existed in the parent population and was simply selected for, which is not the case.HBD

To the Catholic Scientist, but it is shaped as a general reply to several participants.I believe I have more than met the request made that I define what I believe is a novel innovation of a new trait or novel Phenotypic Variation.Concerning the E. coli exampleBy definition, I showed that the transport of citrate trough the cell wall of E. coli was not a novel innovation because under anaerobic conditions it could already take place. Point of fact concerning the definition of novel

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1) new and not resembling something formerly known or used

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This is because the transport of citrate through the cell wall under anaerobic conditions was adapted to aerobic conditions via a newly promoted recessive gene. The transport of citrate already occurred but was enhanced (adapted), in that strict sense the qualification of resembling was satisfied.Now was there a novel transporter mechanism in the genome that suddenly appeared. The answer is no. The transport of citrate in aerobic conditions (Cit+) appeared because of a tandem duplication that acted as an aerobic promoter of a previous silent transporter.

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The Cit+ trait originated in one clade by a tandem duplication that captured an aerobically expressed promoter for the expression of a previously silent citrate transporter. Genomic analysis of a key innovation in an experimental Escherichia coli population | Nature

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It is noteworthy that this silent transporter was in the genome all along never being pruned by evolution. If you can explain this please do.Rather than being an example of evolution producing a new and novel trait this research only shows that there is front loading of adaptation in the genome. A genome designed by a all powerful Creator.

(herebedragons)Since I have shown that E. coli using citrate is not a new novel trait, I would like to address the polar bear. Something bothers me hereCan selective pressure cause an evolutionary like change? In the case of bears, apparently it does not, so you rightly label it as adaptation. In fact, scientific experiments have come to the same conclusions; particularly in fruit flies. Massive selective pressure has only produced adaptation (not new novel traits). In all cases, there is a limit to adaptation; in other words, there is a limit to phylogenic change in a species that never really produces a truly novel trait. Adaptation is always a better definition, as you seem to verify.Interesting that Polar Bears and Grizzlies can and do interbreed (Pizzlys). Supposedly, the two groups diverged about 5 million years ago, about the same time as the chimp human divergence. There is an extraordinary environmental pressure rift between the two bears yet they remain bears. Awkwardly the environmental pressure on pre-human hominids is not as well defined as in bears. In one case, you call natural selection as a force for adaptation in bears but what about human evolution.Is there a consistent expectation in the theory of evolution or is it on a case-by-case basis. If the latter is true, do you have a theory or just a philosophy? You did not mention the classic sweep (an important omission).I do not think you have a grasp on what I am actually claiming. For the record:There is no evolution, only adaptation. Therefore, when you say, you have it completely backwards I say to you that you miss the point. I addressed this in a previous post Heterozygous in terms of per capita I will let you figure that one out.

Hi Zaius,You're failing to engage what anyone is telling you, e.g.: No one else thinks so, so why are you ignoring their requests for clarification? Everyone else is telling that the novelty is the ability to do this is the presence of oxygen, so why are you ignoring this? Why don't you explain to us how transportation in the absence of horses was not an innovation since stuff was already being transported anyway? Evolution frequently works by taken advantage of what is already there. If you disallow these types of innovations then indeed novel differences will never emerge in experiments that can actually be performed. All you're doing now is insisting on a definition of novelty so large and significant that it would require several human lifetimes even using rapidly reproducing bacterial species.This doesn't change the facts of how novel features evolve, which is one little evolutionary step at a time. That thirty some thousand generations of the Lenski experiment produced insufficient novelty for your criteria doesn't change the fact that it is a perfect illustration of how evolution produces novelty, for certainly if allowed to continue for a number of human generations the novelty would be so considerable as to be acceptable as novelty to anyone.Anyway, the important point is that you still haven't provided a definition of novelty that we can use. How would we use your definition of novelty to decide whether a fin evolving into a leg is sufficiently innovative?--Percy

Now you're repeating earlier mistakes. Is that to be your strategy, just cycling through your errors until the thread ends.Again, adaptation is what evolution does. Is it perhaps speciation that you're thinking of and not evolution?--PercyEdited by Percy, : Fix typos.

Percy, The definition you can use does not exist. Fins evolving into legs are complete and utter fantasy. Now you need to make scientific arguments that support your speculation. The science is clearly on my side while wild speculation seems to be your only arguments.

So your contribution to this entire thread has been a sham. You've ruled out all changes as impossible before you even started.