Natural Limitation to Evolutionary Processes (2/14/05)

No, it hasn't.It hasn't been answered once.Will you try to answer it, or will you admit that you haven't a leg to stand on?Perhaps you think you have answered it. If so, please point out the post in which you believe you have done so, and I will point out your trivial error in reasoning.Cheers.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Find the post yourself. I don't care what you do with it. The thread is a disaster now with so many chiming in to remind me of things I've already answered. Yes answered. Nobody wants to think, you just want to regurgitate evo assumptions. Trash it all the way to the end now. Have the usual evo self-congratulatory blast.

So, you claim to have an answer but you can't say what it is.Creationist integrity at its very best.

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Find the post yourself. I don't care what you do with it. The thread is a disaster now with so many chiming in to remind me of things I've already answered. Yes answered. Nobody wants to think, you just want to regurgitate evo assumptions. Trash it all the way to the end now. Have the usual evo self-congratulatory blast.

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And this is why you should probalby not venture into the science fora, faith.You have a stroke any time your ideas are treated just like we would treat each others'.You do not appear to be listening.You appear to be repeating your initial claims and redefining terms and words into your own special meanings as fast as can be to keep up with all of the demolition of your objections.You may flail and shout and exasperate all you want, but it is simply not the case that you have adequately addressed any of the responses to your claims.If you can't take the heat of scientific inquiry, then maybe you should stay out of the Biology lecture hall, so to speak.

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"Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends! Well I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!"
- Ned Flanders"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." - Thomas Jefferson

I've had a quick trawl through your posts in this thread.Would you say that Message 154 and Message 155 are a fair summary of the position you are trying to get across? I want to be sure I understand your position before I make any further comment.

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Oops! Wrong Planet

While we're waiting, I'll point out that neither keratoconus and diabetes is "neutral" (nor, for that matter, entirely genetic in its etiology, but that is by the by.)Being ill is bad for you.

This is the very first thread I started at EvC when I started posting here over a year and a half ago. I have since learned to avoid the science fora because of the crabbed pro-evo / anti-creo mentality that lurks there. So I am now going to move this thread to the Theological Creationism and ID forum where any thread of mine on science topics should always be located.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Thread moved here from the Biological Evolution forum.

Weak. Edited by Clark, : No reason given.

So, you want to discuss "evolutionary processes" in a subforum devoted to "theological creationism".I'm intrigued by your mental processes. Do explain.

Thank you for taking the time to review the argument, and for your politeness.I lost track of the line of argument I was pursuing and lost interest in it thanks to the way everybody piled on saying the same old same old without bothering to try to understand the point I was trying to make, but if you have something you want to say about what you quoted, please do.It is certainly a quote that makes it clear the discussion belongs on this side of the EvC divide, since I bring in creationist assumptions in order to answer evo uniformitarianism.But maybe I'll take a stab at stating the complete argument again.The evolutionists here want to dismiss the idea that genetic mutations that cause disease have anything to say about the viability of evolution as a theory, because evolution couldn't care less what happens genetically or to the organism. All that matters is whether the gene is passed on or not.But I'm trying to argue that given the very high rate at which mutation is said to occur, and the fact that genetic diseases occur at quite a high rate in the population, the ToE is thrown into great doubt. (The rate was given back a few pages yesterday I believe, and I don't remember who said it, but if the rate is wrong a correction would be a welcome addition at this point.)This rate includes an enormously high percentage of destructive mutations {mutations which remove or "break" a gene that produces a useful protein, or substitute a gene that makes a protein that causes damage -- see Crash's Message 170 -- which high percentage is easily demonstrated by a list of currently recognized genetic diseases which I linked back there somewhere; as well as these "neutral" mutations that cause some degree of disease that doesn't interfere with reproduction or even quality of life in most cases (I see that Dr. A regards it as an error to call these "neutral"); and so far about three highly questionable examples of "beneficial" mutations in the lot.Evolution theory ASSUMES but has not proved that all the useful or beneficial genetic material that makes us what we are has also been created by mutation -- See Percy's Message 164 -- claiming that in fact the rate of beneficial mutations is extravagantly greater than either destructive or neutral mutations. But again, this is assumed, and so far there is not one shred of actual evidence for such beneficial mutations. The YE creationist assumption, by contrast, is that the basic genetic stuff is built in from Eden, and that all changes since then are destructive, even if they don't manifest in a flagrant disease in the early stages of gene destruction.Without such evidence, I think my point stands, that the observed preponderance of destructive mutations supports the creationist expectation of a gradual process of degeneration or devolution. Add this to the fact that all the other misnamed "evolutionary processes" (Natural Selection, Migration, Genetic Drift, Bottleneck, Founder Effect, etc. etc. etc.) tend ultimately to a decrease in genetic variability, and I'd say that this spells "curtains" for the ToE. Or should, though it will die very hard if it does, though more likely it will go on as if it weren't fatally flawed.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This is actually just the science of population genetics. It was the work of the population geneticists that revealed the evidence and the mathematical basic for forming the modern synthesis between Darwinian evolution and genetics. Prior to that work there was no evidence that Darwinian evolution and genetics were even consistent and compatible, let alone mutually supportive. I'm not sure what you mean when you conclude your paragraph with this. If this is an argument that mutations can only be harmful, then of course this isn't true, and this has been explained already, both generally by myself, and more specifically by Schraf with her wisdom tooth gene example.Or if it is an argument that only harmful mutations can spread through a population, then this is false, too. Parents pass their genes on to offspring, including mutations harmful or not. Schraf offered the example of her wisdom tooth gene and the HIV gene, and the general example of mutations in bacterial populations where mutations can be studied closely because bacteria provide many generations in a single day.You seem to be just declaring that beneficial mutations either don't exist or aren't really beneficial. I earlier explained how beneficial mutations are inevitable and provided one hypothetical example of a process by which they can happen. And people who don't die from infections caused by wisdom tooth infections produce more offspring than those who do, and people who don't die of HIV a few years after exposure produce more offspring than those who do. These are clearly beneficial mutations with an effect on reproduction. I just explained this in the very message you're replying to: Beneficial mutations that just keep people from getting sick or give them slightly greater endurance or strength or intelligence or attractiveness or charm are harder to notice and even when noticed don't rate the same level of scrutiny. Some have been caught in the act, and you've been provided a couple examples.--Percy

If this is what you think a neutral mutation is, then somebody didn't explain neutral mutations to you.Neutral mutations are mutations to genes that alter base sequences but don't change the ultimate protein product, or the function of that product, in any significant way. For instance, if a gene had "CGA" at one position, that sequence would encode a protein that had the amino acid alanine at that homologous position. If a mutation changed that portion of the gene to read "CGG", instead, it would be a neutral mutation because that gene would still encode alanine at that position. (You can see that there are multiple, synonymous codon sequences for each amino acid at: Genetic code - WikipediaNeutral mutations have no effect on the function of a gene. Mutations that cause even a slight disease effect such as you describe cannot be neutral, by definition.

Actually that's not strictly speaking accurate. Evolution is not just concerned with whether or not the gene is passed on but how often one gene is passed on relative to its allele(s). If one gene is not passed on at all, then its frequency in the population is reduced to 0. If those that posess the gene only produce an average of 1.9 reproductive offspring and those that posess its allele produce 2.0 reproductive offspring, then the frequency of the gene in the population will decrease and the frequency of its allele will increase.The less good gene may remain in the population for a long time, but it becomes less frequent than its alleles.Human evolution is complicated in that we are able to increase the potential reproductive capability of people with less than ideal genes.So, whilst our population is increasing the amount of genetic diseases also increases. Without intervention they might grow in size but still reduce in frequency. Once the population settles down to a set size (or begins to reduce) and competition for survival over resources we will then see those that are genetically less able to reproduce being the first subsets to be reduced and go extinct. In a population that is still growing, things are a little more complicated.

Thank you, that makes more sense.