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Author Topic:   Disadvantageous Mutations: Figures
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 16 of 93 (794578)
11-17-2016 12:13 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Pressie
11-17-2016 7:42 AM


Pressie. You know how much I owe to you, and how deeply I respect you --- but shut up. Why should we mind if someone asks questions about a matter of fact? We have the answers. Sit down.
What if he did start asking questions about the creationist nonsense about "genetic information"? --- which he might, now you've tipped him off. The greatest single destruction ever of that line of argument was written on these forums, by me. I am ready and willing to answer any questions he may ask on that subject.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by Pressie, posted 11-17-2016 7:42 AM Pressie has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 17 by NoNukes, posted 11-17-2016 12:22 PM Dr Adequate has replied
 Message 22 by Pressie, posted 11-18-2016 6:59 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 17 of 93 (794581)
11-17-2016 12:22 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by Dr Adequate
11-17-2016 12:13 PM


Why should we mind if someone asks questions about a matter of fact?
We should not mind. However it is noteworthy that this poster has made a total of five posts to these forums, with two of those posts being requests to start new threads. He does not seem to be very big on participating in the discussions he starts.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend. Thomas Jefferson
Seems to me if its clear that certain things that require ancient dates couldn't possibly be true, we are on our way to throwing out all those ancient dates on the basis of the actual evidence. -- Faith

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by Dr Adequate, posted 11-17-2016 12:13 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 18 by Dr Adequate, posted 11-17-2016 12:34 PM NoNukes has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(3)
Message 18 of 93 (794582)
11-17-2016 12:34 PM
Reply to: Message 17 by NoNukes
11-17-2016 12:22 PM


We should not mind. However it is noteworthy that this poster has made a total of five posts to these forums, with two of those posts being requests to start new threads. He does not seem to be very big on participating in the discussions he starts.
Well, he does follow up to a certain extent. But yeah, he doesn't follow up so much. Which is what makes me think that he's asking perfectly honest questions. When I answer his questions, in detail and at length, then a creationist would unleash a Gish Gallop and this thread would keep us all entertained for the next three months. But if he is, as he appears to be, a genuine seeker after facts, then he's got 'em, so he can leave it at that.
This worry about why he's asking questions does not show our side at all in a good light. The fact that we can answer them all does.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 17 by NoNukes, posted 11-17-2016 12:22 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 19 by NoNukes, posted 11-17-2016 2:44 PM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 19 of 93 (794585)
11-17-2016 2:44 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by Dr Adequate
11-17-2016 12:34 PM


then a creationist would unleash a Gish Gallop and this thread would keep us all entertained for the next three months.
He may be an honest creationist who does not pretend to have a response that is not full of holes. But even if that is the case, I agree with you that answering his questions really is not a problem.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend. Thomas Jefferson
Seems to me if its clear that certain things that require ancient dates couldn't possibly be true, we are on our way to throwing out all those ancient dates on the basis of the actual evidence. -- Faith

This message is a reply to:
 Message 18 by Dr Adequate, posted 11-17-2016 12:34 PM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
AnswersInGenitals
Member (Idle past 150 days)
Posts: 673
Joined: 07-20-2006


(3)
Message 20 of 93 (794604)
11-17-2016 7:01 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Gregory Rogers
11-16-2016 5:33 AM


There are no disadvantageous mutations.
From the OP:
1. The vast majority of mutations in evolutionary history are said to be disadvantageous.
A pine tree in the forest has 100 branches; each branch has 100 cones; each cone has 100 seeds. Every few years the tree releases one million seeds. If all these seeds germinated and produced trees that produced and released one million seeds. the universe would by now be chuck full of pine trees. But the pine tree population is quite stable because on average only one of the seeds progresses to a productive mature tree. One seed out of one million! So, even if 99.99% of the seeds had disadvantageous mutations that prevented germination or maturation or seed production, the pine forest would still thrive.
Disadvantageous mutations might be bad for an individual seed, but individuals do not evolve - populations evolve and those disadvantageous mutations are irrelevant to the success and evolution of populations because of fecundity. Fecundity renders genetic mishaps a nonissue for species survival and evolution. Another example: human females are born with about 200,000 eggs in their ovaries. During their approximately 40 years of fertility they can release about 500 eggs that may be fertilized. They only need a small fraction of these (two to three in modern times, five to eight in previous times when mortality rates were much higher) to reach reproductive age for the human race to maintain viability.
A third and final example: you. In the few minutes it take you to read this post you body will produce many million new cells to replace the many million that have died. Each of these cells will have a newly replicated set of chromosomes made of six billion base pairs. That replication is amazingly accurate, but not perfect. Each cell will have one to two dozen random replication errors. No two of the ~40trillion cells in your body have exactly identical chromosomes. They are all mutants. You are a mutant. Many thousands of those mutant cells will be nonviable or dysfunctional. But so what? There are thousands to take their place. And many of those dysfunctions will be inconsequential, such as a faulty insulin gene in a skin or muscle cell where they wouldn’t be expressed anyway.
would we not expect to find a high degree of examples of these {mutational} failures in the fossil and skeletal records?
No need to go digging in the muck and mire to discover the prevalence or effects of mutational failures. There are currently 130million humans born every year (goggle on ‘human birth rate’). According to The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, there are ~150,000 babies born each year with serious birth defects (google on ‘birth defect rate). Most of these are due to gestational, not genetic mutational problems, (but does not include naturally aborted or still born fetuses). So we see that the rate of mutational defects that might show up in a fossil (or extant species) record is very small, less than 0.1%!
Also, consider this: dinosaurs roamed this planet from about 245million years ago to about 65MYA, a total of 180 million years. Assuming a reasonable estimate of an 18 year life span that gives 10million generations of dinosaurs. Since they were quite prevalent on all continents as well as the oceans we can conservatively estimate that there were about 100million of the buggers running/swimming about at any one time. That gives a grand total of 1,000trillion dinosaurs, give or take. Even if I’m off by one or two orders of magnitude, that’s a buttload of dinosaurs. (It’s estimated that a total of about 100million humans have been born since modern humans emerged 200,000 years age). The total number of dinosaur fossils that have been discover in sufficiently good shape to characterize their morphology is a few 10’s of thousands, a very minuscule fraction. So the likelihood of finding a dinosaur with a recognizable mutational defect is somewhere between zilch and nada.
_______________________________
If your interest is in the foibles and foolishness of man, then study theology.
But if you wish to view the greatness and glory of God, then study Science.
Antoneo Strombonius of Loire; c. 742CE.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Gregory Rogers, posted 11-16-2016 5:33 AM Gregory Rogers has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by Dr Adequate, posted 11-17-2016 9:49 PM AnswersInGenitals has not replied
 Message 25 by Taq, posted 11-18-2016 11:03 AM AnswersInGenitals has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 21 of 93 (794607)
11-17-2016 9:49 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by AnswersInGenitals
11-17-2016 7:01 PM


Re: There are no disadvantageous mutations.
Nonetheless the title of your post is somewhat ... rhetorical, shall we say? As in not true?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by AnswersInGenitals, posted 11-17-2016 7:01 PM AnswersInGenitals has not replied

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


Message 22 of 93 (794609)
11-18-2016 6:59 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by Dr Adequate
11-17-2016 12:13 PM


Thanks, Doc. To me it's just unbelievable that someone would read a few creationist tracts and then think that it's 'scientific'. Then repeat untruths and all that.
I'll shut up.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by Dr Adequate, posted 11-17-2016 12:13 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by Dr Adequate, posted 11-18-2016 10:34 AM Pressie has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(3)
Message 23 of 93 (794614)
11-18-2016 10:34 AM
Reply to: Message 22 by Pressie
11-18-2016 6:59 AM


To me it's just unbelievable that someone would read a few creationist tracts and then think that it's 'scientific'.
That's not unbelievable at all. That's what the tracts are for! It would be strange if none of them ever fulfilled its exact function.
Try and imagine you don't really know anything about the "controversy". (This is a worthwhile effort. One of the hardest things for someone who wishes to teach a subject is to remember what it was like to know nothing about it.) Then you read a creationist tract. Here you find someone making confident statements about genetics, and the fossil record, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and so on. It is on the face of it hard to believe that a grown man sat down and wrote this stuff, with bland, confident assurance, and had it published to instruct the general public, and yet had never researched any of the topics sufficiently to even be using the vocabulary correctly. That is hard to believe! It is more plausible on the face of it to think that there must be arguments on both sides, or one side wouldn't be arguing.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by Pressie, posted 11-18-2016 6:59 AM Pressie has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 24 by jar, posted 11-18-2016 10:47 AM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 24 of 93 (794617)
11-18-2016 10:47 AM
Reply to: Message 23 by Dr Adequate
11-18-2016 10:34 AM


who do you trust
It is particularly true when you also factor in the trust consideration. One side belongs to your club while the other side does not; one side comes from sources you have been taught to trust while you have been taught not to trust the other side.

My Sister's Website: Rose Hill Studios My Website: My Website

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by Dr Adequate, posted 11-18-2016 10:34 AM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9972
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.5


(1)
Message 25 of 93 (794618)
11-18-2016 11:03 AM
Reply to: Message 20 by AnswersInGenitals
11-17-2016 7:01 PM


Re: There are no disadvantageous mutations.
AiG writes:
No need to go digging in the muck and mire to discover the prevalence or effects of mutational failures. There are currently 130million humans born every year (goggle on ‘human birth rate’). According to The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, there are ~150,000 babies born each year with serious birth defects (google on ‘birth defect rate). Most of these are due to gestational, not genetic mutational problems, (but does not include naturally aborted or still born fetuses). So we see that the rate of mutational defects that might show up in a fossil (or extant species) record is very small, less than 0.1%!
It is also worth adding that 25-50% of fertilized zygotes naturally terminate in the 1st month of pregnancy, usually without the mother ever knowing. Any fetuses carrying strongly deleterious mutations will not make it past this first month.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by AnswersInGenitals, posted 11-17-2016 7:01 PM AnswersInGenitals has not replied

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


(1)
Message 26 of 93 (794780)
11-25-2016 10:33 AM


Hi,
I must admit, I am a little bereft after reading the more recent posts.
What can I say? I assure you I am not a ‘covert, devious creationist’ bent on the surreptitious blindsiding of the group. I cannot even be called a creationist at this point (or evolutionist) for, as I have indicated, I am unsure what to make of the subject myself — hence my various postings.
Uncomfortable as it may be ‘on the fence’, I am Trying to be as Open-Minded as I can on the matter. I would like to think that a totally honest, open-minded Christian in these matters is not so foreign to one’s worldview that one sees hidden agendas in my postings. I assure all, moreover, that I have no intention of ‘launching a creationist tirade’ at any point — I certainly would not have the knowledge.
And yes, my quest for truth necessarily involves going into the ‘lion’s den’ as it were, and risking any manner of abuse. This is, in fact, how I have approached all manner of issues in the past, in somewhat 'bulldog' fashion, not giving up until I have my answer. And yes, I do open myself up to a certain amount of flack that way.
Why don’t I respond more? To be honest, science is not my strong suit, and much of the terminology is foreign to me; thus I persistently find myself reaching for google or Wikipedia, first of all to define such terms, and second to understand the science for which they are employed. I am compiling an ever-growing glossary of terms as we speak.
I am saddened that my ignoring of the more ‘hostile’ posts (yes, Prezzie...) is interpreted as ‘lulling the group into a false sense of security’. More conventionally, my response might be regarded as ‘turning the other cheek’.
Regarding Prezzie’s post about ‘tracts’, it is precisely this sort of ‘quick fix’ stuff I am trying to avoid. I have learned in my long time as a Christian that the way to obtain truth about anything is to cut to the core of the matter, sit down with professors, exerts, etc.
I am, as a matter of fact, already a little embarrassed at my original post above and its wording: I had thought it to be a legitimate question after I had asked it of a (evolutionist) biology teacher, who seemed genuinely stumped. Ah well, I stand corrected.
As I say, I am a little bereft at the recent turn on this thread. I was actually getting an Enormous amount of data out of replies thus far, and am learning a great deal. It would be enormously frustrating if I were to have to find another group or forum as a source of information. I also post to the creation-evolution section at the ‘Christianforums’ site, as well as another forum I have just joined, but the response is not as deep as here.
Those who feel disenchanted, by all means discontinue, but I would really appreciate further input from all.
Pax vobis, and regards,
Greg

Replies to this message:
 Message 27 by jar, posted 11-25-2016 12:26 PM Gregory Rogers has not replied
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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


(2)
Message 27 of 93 (794783)
11-25-2016 12:26 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by Gregory Rogers
11-25-2016 10:33 AM


Creationism is simply a con job.
Uncomfortable as it may be ‘on the fence’, I am Trying to be as Open-Minded as I can on the matter. I would like to think that a totally honest, open-minded Christian in these matters is not so foreign to one’s worldview that one sees hidden agendas in my postings.
Speaking as a Christian the very idea of an honest creationist seems an oxymoron almost as large as the concept that there might be a Creation Scientist.
The subject really has been settled for hundreds of years and Creationism is DOA.

My Sister's Website: Rose Hill Studios My Website: My Website

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by Gregory Rogers, posted 11-25-2016 10:33 AM Gregory Rogers has not replied

  
Dogen
Junior Member (Idle past 2678 days)
Posts: 1
From: Indianapolis, IN
Joined: 05-24-2015


Message 28 of 93 (794812)
11-26-2016 9:31 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Gregory Rogers
11-16-2016 5:33 AM


Mutations that are negative are selected against. The more negative the mutation the faster it will be selected against. Mutations that are positive will be selected for. The more positive the mutation is the more it will be selected for.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Gregory Rogers, posted 11-16-2016 5:33 AM Gregory Rogers has not replied

  
Taq
Member
Posts: 9972
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.5


(1)
Message 29 of 93 (794822)
11-28-2016 10:43 AM
Reply to: Message 26 by Gregory Rogers
11-25-2016 10:33 AM


Gregory Roberts writes:
Why don’t I respond more? To be honest, science is not my strong suit, and much of the terminology is foreign to me; thus I persistently find myself reaching for google or Wikipedia, first of all to define such terms, and second to understand the science for which they are employed. I am compiling an ever-growing glossary of terms as we speak.
At this point I think we are all very curious as to what questions you may have. Is there any terminology we can help you with? Are there concepts you have questions about?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by Gregory Rogers, posted 11-25-2016 10:33 AM Gregory Rogers has not replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


(2)
Message 30 of 93 (794826)
11-28-2016 3:39 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by Gregory Rogers
11-25-2016 10:33 AM


Regarding the frequency of disadvantageous mutations
Imagine a hypothetical individual creature, PERFECTLY adapted to its environment as a result of its genes. This perfectly adapted creature has offspring, the genetic replication process is imperfect and errors occur.
By definition 100% of these mutations will be neutral or disadvantageous.
When you are at the summit of a mountain any movement either way keeps you at the same height or lowers you.
Now these children have children who again have mutations. It may be true that there are more ways to go down the mountain than up it (the lines converge as you go up, that is: the amount of area immediately up is less than the amount of area immediately down - another way of saying there are more ways to break a well designed machine than improve it), but by chance some offspring will be closer to their grandparent's 'perfect state'. If it transpires that offspring higher up the mountain of perfection have more offspring, then we would expect that the population would climb and hover around the summit. Those that are born too far down, don't have children that have children nearly as much as those above, and struggling for the same pool of resources, eventually their bloodline goes extinct.
Imagine the creature was at the bottom of said mountain. It's able to survive long enough to have children, but only because the competition for food is weak. However, at the foot of the mountain it might be the case that half of all offspring have mutations that are advantageous - there's much more mountain, there are more paths available that lead up.
Evolution is something like this with complications. The mountains have thousands of dimensions, and are constantly shifting in height based on what other mountains are doing.
And so, it is difficult to say whether a certain fossil has a beneficial or disadvantageous mutation, not just because generally only hard features such as bone are preserved - but also because we don't know the shape of the mountains. We don't know the exact challenges faced by the creature, and we can't compare it with the population at large.
How many mutations are beneficial is determined by how 'fit' the population is to its environment. The more specially adapted it is, the easier it is for small perturbations to disrupt the adaptation. An example: Humans are built under the assumption that we'll have four limbs. It is possible to live with fewer, but even with communal assistance, the survival/birth rate is likely inhibited in the very long term. Trying to add more limbs is even worse. Our physiology is 'fine tuned' by evolution {or God if you insist} so any mutation that results in extra limbs is likely to cause problems elsewhere even if they are improbably useful limbs. Blood flow management, the nervous system, balance and so on are all likely to be impaired by the new structures.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by Gregory Rogers, posted 11-25-2016 10:33 AM Gregory Rogers has not replied

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