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Author Topic:   Extent of Mutational Capability
herebedragons
Member (Idle past 858 days)
Posts: 1517
From: Michigan
Joined: 11-22-2009


(1)
Message 76 of 279 (793198)
10-23-2016 10:11 PM
Reply to: Message 70 by RAZD
10-22-2016 12:54 PM


A "kind" would then be a clade with no previous ancestor.
This is definitely the best definition of a kind I have ever seen. It is exactly what a "kind" would be. I don't think creationists will be too likely to adopt it though since it is too unambiguous and they need the definition to be adaptable to be able to fit any preconceived notions they have - such as humans which clearly have ancestral populations and so would not be considered a "kind" without including some very "non-human" hominoids.
HBD

Whoever calls me ignorant shares my own opinion. Sorrowfully and tacitly I recognize my ignorance, when I consider how much I lack of what my mind in its craving for knowledge is sighing for... I console myself with the consideration that this belongs to our common nature. - Francesco Petrarca
"Nothing is easier than to persuade people who want to be persuaded and already believe." - another Petrarca gem.
Ignorance is a most formidable opponent rivaled only by arrogance; but when the two join forces, one is all but invincible.

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Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 77 of 279 (793199)
10-23-2016 11:21 PM
Reply to: Message 76 by herebedragons
10-23-2016 10:11 PM


...I don't think creationists will be too likely to adopt it though since it is too unambiguous and they need the definition to be adaptable to be able to fit any preconceived notions they have - such as humans which clearly have ancestral populations and so would not be considered a "kind" without including some very "non-human" hominoids.
Right! That's their problem, isn't it?
Any definition creationists come up with for "kind," which makes the "cat kind" and the "dog kind" come out the way they want, also makes the "ape kind" work as well, an idea which most of them absolutely reject!
But then, they are relying on belief rather than evidence, so they can pick and choose what they believe and evidence be damned!
Creation "science" -- the exact opposite of real science. Same as always.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
In the name of diversity, college student demands to be kept in ignorance of the culture that made diversity a value--StultisTheFool
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle
If a religion's teachings are true, then it should have nothing to fear from science...--dwise1
"Multiculturalism" demands that the US be tolerant of everything except its own past, culture, traditions, and identity.

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Replies to this message:
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PaulK
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Member Rating: 2.2


(1)
Message 78 of 279 (793201)
10-24-2016 3:44 AM
Reply to: Message 73 by CRR
10-23-2016 4:53 PM


Re: What is a "kind"?
quote:
RAZD has also proposed a definition "A "kind" would then be a clade with no previous ancestor." I think this is workable so long as you suspend the inherent assumption of cladistics that all clades are subsets of the LUCA clade. (Please note that RAZD does not accept that such kinds actually exist.)
Unless you plan to argue about bacteria and nothing else, that is hardly workable.
Common ancestry is less an assumption of cladistics and more of a conclusion. If dogs and cats were entirely separate creations than cladistic analysis would be expected to show that.
So really, if you want to stick to creationist views of "kind" boundaries you have to insert arbitrary divisions not supported by cladistics.
So, again we see that the creationist definition of macroevolution is, as I said, a creationist invention.

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Pressie
Member
Posts: 2103
From: Pretoria, SA
Joined: 06-18-2010


Message 79 of 279 (793202)
10-24-2016 5:56 AM
Reply to: Message 77 by Coyote
10-23-2016 11:21 PM


Coyote writes:
Any definition creationists come up with for "kind," which makes the "cat kind" and the "dog kind" come out the way they want, also makes the "ape kind" work as well, an idea which most of them absolutely reject!
Not only that, hyenas are fatal to that "definition" of "kind".
In the end, the creationist definition of "kind" is: hey, look mommy, a doggie! Then pointing towards a hyena...

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Gregory Rogers
Junior Member (Idle past 2660 days)
Posts: 7
From: South Africa
Joined: 10-15-2016


Message 80 of 279 (793213)
10-24-2016 9:44 AM


Proposition: Another Angle
Hi all.
Thanks once again for the overwhelming response to my original posting.
The current thread direction re: precise definitions of kinds, etc., is no doubt important, and I would like to see common consensus on the issue.
However, tying back to my original question about the extent of mutational 'elasticity', I would like to make an additional proposition to illustrate this another way:
Namely: let us hypothesize that there is another extinction event and
man, homo sapiens, under extreme environmental pressures, now begins to adapt or change (mutate).
Let us say, for example, there is a worldwide nuclear war. 90 percent of homo sapiens is wiped out, and the only option is to go miles underground, into deep tunnels and caverns.
To make it interesting, let us say that these caverns have virtually no light, are only three feet high, and that a massive landslide blocks re-entry to the surface.
My question, then, is: what direction would the new mutational tendencies take? Ultimately legs and arms would grow smaller, he would crawl like a large reptile; he would perhaps develop sonar technique like a bat for sensing direction, and the eyes would fall away almost completely.
Further to this, how long might it take before homo sapiens evolves into a whole new organism — i.e., comparable to dinosaurs evolving into birds, which in that case involved scales becoming feathers, a mouth with teeth becoming a beak, wings developing, etc.
In perhaps a different hypothetical instance, how long might it take for human flesh to evolve into another substance — reptilian skin, let us say, or else for arms and hands to become claws, or what have you?
Breaking it down, how many mutations would be required for such a transition? How long would each mutational change take, and how long would be required altogether for the transition?
Once again, I would appreciate all input.
Regards,
Greg
Edited by Gregory Rogers, : No reason given.

Replies to this message:
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Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 81 of 279 (793215)
10-24-2016 9:53 AM
Reply to: Message 73 by CRR
10-23-2016 4:53 PM


Re: What is a "kind"?
Hi CRR,
This refers to my Message 45, and so I think you might have written it before you saw my Message 61:
CRR writes:
I have provided a definition of kind as per Percy's request Message 45 and in response to others. The definition I favour is "those animals/plants that could interbreed immediately following creation". You might not agree with it but you now have one.
I tried to describe a few of the problems with this definition in my Message 61, and HereBeDragons describes the most significant problem here in this paragraph from his Message 75:
herebedragons in Message 75 writes:
But Greg's question is essentially "are there genetic limits that prevent one kind of creature from becoming another kind?" So without a useful definition of "kind" it is pretty hard to really address that question. For example, are wolves and foxes different kinds? Well, lets see... were they able to interbreed immediately after the creation? How could you possibly determine that?
You need to provide a workable definition of kind. You say you think RAZD's definition is "workable," and a couple other people have endorsed it as well, but it still leaves open the same unanswered question, and the one I think most important: How do we recognize kinds today?
Edited by Admin, : Slight reformat.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 82 of 279 (793221)
10-24-2016 11:06 AM
Reply to: Message 73 by CRR
10-23-2016 4:53 PM


Parentless Clades
... The definition I favour is "those animals/plants that could interbreed immediately following creation". ...
When was creation and how do we know?
RAZD has also proposed a definition "A "kind" would then be a clade with no previous ancestor." I think this is workable so long as you suspend the inherent assumption of cladistics that all clades are subsets of the LUCA clade. (Please note that RAZD does not accept that such kinds actually exist.)
Cladistics does not make that assumption, rather it is evidence that shows whether or not clades have ancestors. Thus whether or not there is a previous ancestor is a testable hypothesis, ie a scientific theory, not an assumption. A good definition is one that can be tested against what it is trying to define.
Now I will try to get back to Greg's question about the extent of mutational capacity.
It may interest you and Greg to read Dogs will be Dogs will be ???. This uses the variation in dogs as an approximation of degree of variation that can occur in any species and applies that to horses.
Enjoy

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 73 by CRR, posted 10-23-2016 4:53 PM CRR has not replied

Replies to this message:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 83 of 279 (793222)
10-24-2016 11:13 AM
Reply to: Message 80 by Gregory Rogers
10-24-2016 9:44 AM


Re: Proposition: Another Angle
Breaking it down, how many mutations would be required for such a transition? How long would each mutational change take, and how long would be required altogether for the transition?
Well, this is an interesting question, but the fact is we don't know. For example, we can measure the genetic distance between two groups (let's say chimps and humans). But all biologists acknowledge that a huge majority of the differences are neutral mutations that really make no difference, and that their accumulation means nothing except that a lot of time has passed since chimps and humans diverged from our common ancestor.
So then you would naturally ask: but how many mutations are not neutral, and account for the stuff that makes us special --- our bipedalism, large brains, ability to use true language?
And no-one has the faintest idea. We simply don't understand what all the stuff in the genome is doing well enough to estimate that figure confidently. I would guess somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 mutations would account for it, but what do I know? (If it turned out to be 1,000,000, then I would think that the theory of evolution was in trouble.)
And, of course, it's even worse trying to figure this out with your hypothetical future scenarios. There's no way we can look at the hypothetical genome of future cave-humans and figure out how many hypothetical mutations it would take to produce an organism that doesn't even exist, based only on your description of its phenotype. It may well be that sometime in our lifetimes scientists will be able to answer the first question, about the past, but I think we will be long dead and buried before we can answer your question about hypothetical future evolution.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 84 of 279 (793226)
10-24-2016 11:19 AM
Reply to: Message 73 by CRR
10-23-2016 4:53 PM


Re: What is a "kind"?
The definition I favour is "those animals/plants that could interbreed immediately following creation".
In science, it is not proper to consider fictional events to be evidence or facts.
This goes for "the flood," "young earth," and "the fall" as well. These are beliefs with no scientific support.
What you can do is include those beliefs as assumptions in models, and test the models. But so far every such test has shown those assumptions (beliefs) to be invalid.
You are seeing the same thing with "kinds." When tested against real-world evidence, the concept of kinds is shown to be invalid.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
In the name of diversity, college student demands to be kept in ignorance of the culture that made diversity a value--StultisTheFool
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle
If a religion's teachings are true, then it should have nothing to fear from science...--dwise1
"Multiculturalism" demands that the US be tolerant of everything except its own past, culture, traditions, and identity.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 73 by CRR, posted 10-23-2016 4:53 PM CRR has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 85 of 279 (793227)
10-24-2016 11:37 AM
Reply to: Message 80 by Gregory Rogers
10-24-2016 9:44 AM


Re: Proposition: Another Angle
Now, given my previous post you may wonder how we are so sure that (to continue with my example) evolution from more basal apes to humans did take place. Well, we can look at the fossil record, and we can see lots of intermediate forms. And (see my first post on this thread) we can see that in no case in the transition can we say that mutation can't have achieved that (because, as I pointed out in my first post, mutation as such can do anything); nor can we say that natural selection would have prevented the transition, because all the intermediate forms look very plausible as intermediate forms.
So while it is theoretically possible that one day we might acquire such a profound knowledge of genetics that we will be able to say: "What appears to have happened, based on molecular phylogeny and the fossil record, nonetheless can't have happened", this seems very unlikely. In our present state of ignorance the burden of proof would lie on the person who claims that.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Stile
Member
Posts: 4295
From: Ontario, Canada
Joined: 12-02-2004


Message 86 of 279 (793232)
10-24-2016 12:03 PM
Reply to: Message 80 by Gregory Rogers
10-24-2016 9:44 AM


Super happy guessing fun time!
Ha ha... interesting questions.
Although the right answer is more along the lines of what Dr. Adequate has said... that we don't know.
I'm gonna have a crack at it anyway in the name of fun
Gregory Rogers writes:
Namely: let us hypothesize that there is another extinction event and
man, homo sapiens, under extreme environmental pressures, now begins to adapt or change (mutate).
Let us say, for example, there is a worldwide nuclear war. 90 percent of homo sapiens is wiped out, and the only option is to go miles underground, into deep tunnels and caverns.
To make it interesting, let us say that these caverns have virtually no light, are only three feet high, and that a massive landslide blocks re-entry to the surface.
Fair enough.
First point - Evolution is random with no goal or future-thought. It's quite possible that humans don't get a mutation that's helpful for them soon enough... and we just all die. Horrible, dark, lonely deaths. Such is the fate of 99% of all species that have ever evolved to exist on this planet. They just weren't able to keep up with the change in their environment fast enough and... poof... dead.
But, we're having fun... so let's say we have some sort of food storages and renewable water sources and such that we're able to keep on keeping on and we're protected from the radiation 'cause we're so deep and we get lucky with some useful adaptations and all the weak people die off in a morally-acceptable way such that the new adaptations can flourish in the population.
what direction would the new mutational tendencies take?
Again, evolution doesn't have a direction. But with natural selection (dark environment, damp soil, filtered air...) we can take some guesses on what sort of possible adaptations might get kept in the population. Again... given that we stop having sex with the peeps who do not have these adaptation 'cause they're holding everyone else back. In a morally-acceptable way, of course
Ultimately legs and arms would grow smaller, he would crawl like a large reptile; he would perhaps develop sonar technique like a bat for sensing direction, and the eyes would fall away almost completely.
You definitely can't use the word "ultimately." There's nothing definitive about evolution.
What if we developed claws and just dug bigger tunnels so that there was no more pressure to be smaller?
What if getting smaller made for smaller lungs and those people all died because they couldn't get enough air through the dirt from the surface?
What if we were to discover a way to create fire again and no longer had pressure to lose our eyes. And, in fact, had pressure to develop even greater eye-sight in low-light conditions?
Maybe what you say would happen.
Maybe not.
It all depends on exactly what the pressures are, if they're constant, if we (as humans who use tools and morality) don't circumvent them in some other way anyway... so many factors.
But, yes. If we're going to treat us surviving humans as "animals" and assume these selection pressures you've described actually exist and have an affect on us... then yes. Given enough time, we would adapt to the environment. Perhaps not in exactly the way you describe, but in some way.
Maybe we don't develop sonar at all. Maybe we develop some kind of temperature-heat-detection-radar that allows us to "see" (sense our environment) using that method. Maybe vision becomes unimportant and we survive just fine feeling our way around in the dark. Maybe we start growing longer and longer hairs/tendrils/whiskers from our body in order to physically sense things before we run into them.
The point is we don't get to choose.
We might not develop anything and die off.
We may develop something... but it's is likely to be something "good enough" instead of something "perfectly right" or "cool."
Further to this, how long might it take before homo sapiens evolves into a whole new organism — i.e., comparable to dinosaurs evolving into birds, which in that case involved scales becoming feathers, a mouth with teeth becoming a beak, wings developing, etc.
About 100 million years.
Not kidding.
All this time, we'll have to stay in the tunnels/underground with the same selection pressures working on us.
In perhaps a different hypothetical instance, how long might it take for human flesh to evolve into another substance — reptilian skin, let us say, or else for arms and hands to become claws, or what have you?
Skin to another substance? 10 million years.
Arms/hands to become claws or 'what-have-you'? 50+ million years.
Breaking it down, how many mutations would be required for such a transition? How long would each mutational change take, and how long would be required altogether for the transition?
Apologies, questions are even above my "for fun" pay-grade
Hope this sheds a little light. And remember... Dr. Adequate's answer is even more right: We don't know.

This message is a reply to:
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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(1)
Message 87 of 279 (793237)
10-24-2016 1:26 PM
Reply to: Message 73 by CRR
10-23-2016 4:53 PM


Re: What is a "kind"?
CRR writes:
I have provided a definition of kind as per Percy's request [#45] and in response to others. The definition I favour is "those animals/plants that could interbreed immediately following creation". You might not agree with it but you now have one.
I am more than happy to use this definition. If we define a kind as a group of species that share a common ancestor then all animals (and all sexually reproducing eukaryotes) are in the same kind. Problem solved. It is microevolution all the way back to the common ancestor of all sexually reproducing eukaryotes when we use your definition.
RAZD has also proposed a definition "A "kind" would then be a clade with no previous ancestor." I think this is workable so long as you suspend the inherent assumption of cladistics that all clades are subsets of the LUCA clade. (Please note that RAZD does not accept that such kinds actually exist.)
It isn't an assumption. It is a conclusion drawn from evidence. For example, the congruence of independent phylogenies is smoking gun evidence for shared ancestry:
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 1

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 88 of 279 (793238)
10-24-2016 1:28 PM
Reply to: Message 77 by Coyote
10-23-2016 11:21 PM


Coyote writes:
Any definition creationists come up with for "kind," which makes the "cat kind" and the "dog kind" come out the way they want, also makes the "ape kind" work as well, an idea which most of them absolutely reject!
Don't forget that the mammal kind works as well, which demonstrates that dogs, cats, and apes are all in the same kind.

This message is a reply to:
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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(2)
Message 89 of 279 (793239)
10-24-2016 1:33 PM
Reply to: Message 85 by Dr Adequate
10-24-2016 11:37 AM


Re: Proposition: Another Angle
Dr Adequate writes:
Now, given my previous post you may wonder how we are so sure that (to continue with my example) evolution from more basal apes to humans did take place. Well, we can look at the fossil record, and we can see lots of intermediate forms. And (see my first post on this thread) we can see that in no case in the transition can we say that mutation can't have achieved that (because, as I pointed out in my first post, mutation as such can do anything); nor can we say that natural selection would have prevented the transition, because all the intermediate forms look very plausible as intermediate forms.
We also have genome sequences for all the ape species (including humans). If apes (i.e. chimps, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans) evolved from a single ancestor not shared with humans then we can predict what we should see from a genome comparison. What we should see is humans as an outgroup from the ape phylogeny. That isn't what we see. We see that humans are IN the ape phylogeny.
Comparative and demographic analysis of orang-utan genomes | Nature
Chimps share more DNA with humans than they do with gorillas and orangutans. This puts humans in the ape clade.
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 85 by Dr Adequate, posted 10-24-2016 11:37 AM Dr Adequate has replied

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 90 of 279 (793240)
10-24-2016 1:37 PM
Reply to: Message 39 by CRR
10-21-2016 2:16 AM


CRR writes:
Yes changes requiring multiple neutral mutations can happen such as chloroquinine resistance in malaria (due to a fault in a transport protein). This required only 2 neutral or near neutral mutations and took a long time to occur in a large population with short reproduction times. In small populations with long reproduction times, such as humans, the waiting time becomes prohibitive, especially when larger numbers of neutral mutations are required to get a benefit.
Until you can actually show that these barriers exist between two species, your are just whistling Dixie.
For example, of the differences between humans and chimps, how many are beneficial differences that required multiple neutral mutations? If you can't point to a single one, then you have no argument against evolution.

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