The Origin of Novelty

The useless skin "webs" that some mutant humans have between their toes could be seen as a plausible example of a potential first step towards the webbed feet of semi-aquatic animals, if that's the kind of thing you mean. I like your use of the words "plausible" and "realistic". Don't you agree that any hypothetical scenario involving demonstrably real processes, like mutation and selection, easily meets the plausibility standards of those who believe that the source of animal features is magic?

Webbed mustelids, for example. Most mustelids don't have webs. No, I don't imagine that. I imagine that webbed toes could occur by chance in individuals from all species of mustelidae, just as they occasionally occur in humans, but that they were conserved by natural selection in the otters because they were swimming and catching fish for a living, but not in others, like weasels, because they have no use for them, and could be slightly impeded by them.The same with ducks, geese, swans, etc. How could your fellow creationists "see that the only example that I can imagine is a mutation for webbed feet" when (a) I did not actually imagine its known occurrence in humans and (b) they don't know whether or not I can imagine plenty of others. Surely you credit them with some minimal intelligence, at least.But have I got your O.P. wrong? I was replying to this paragraph.... .....in which you observe that mutations must be continuing today, and seem to be asking for examples that could conceivably contribute to future characteristics.Isn't that what you meant?

Why? Mutations can be observed to produce novelty in labs.

I'd guess at positive selection on a chance marking that added to the lure illusion, and negative selection elsewhere when such chance markings occurred in individuals, perhaps because of interference with its camouflage, or the way the opposite sex expects it to appear. If you know its name offhand, we could look for a picture.

Well, they're not nothing, but gill skeletons with gill rays might be a plausible answer, because those of primitive fish share the same "genetic toolkit" that controls their developmental pathways with fins and our own limbs. Looking for something developing from literally "nothing" might take you right back to the OOL, as genes seem to descend from other genes.So, how did gill skeletons originate? Presumably, to find out, we'd have to see what those genes are used for in more primitive vertebrates, and then possibly invertebrates. I have a hunch that they could have formed basic limbs back before the gills and fins. If so, our legs may represent a return to a very early function of the genetic architecture involved. If that sounds strange, think of creatures like penguins, whose ancestors hit the limb stage with ours (they were ours!), and have gone through wings to flippers (sort of fins) since.

For a start, the mechanisms and processes of evolutionary theory are demonstrably real (mutation, selection, drift etc.). That's not true of any supernatural creation "theory".If you go out of your door in the morning and find that the ground is wet as far as you can see, and that the trees and bushes are soaked and dripping, the natural explanation that it rained during the night is infinitely better evidenced than the hypothesis that choirs of angels have been pissing down from the sky.If you look at a genome, and see two genes which look exactly as a pair duplicate genes should look, and you know that gene duplication is a demonstrably real phenomenon, then the best explanation for these genes is that they are paralogs. Suggestions like "the fairies might have put them there" can't really compete unless we can establish the existence of gene making fairies, can they?Perhaps you are lucky not to be debating me in your great debate, because I'd be asking you for a demonstrably real way in which apparent paralogs could arrive in genomes other than duplication.Shall we have a thread in which you can present evidence to support your hypothesis that duplications of protein coding genes are always disadvantageous, and I'll present evidence for the opposite. Or, if that is no longer your claim, you could support the view that additional neofunctional protein coding genes can't come into existence, and I'll present evidence that they can.Would you like to start one, so you can state your view clearly in the O.P.? I see no reason for it not to be public, but if you'd like it to be one on one to avoid getting piled onto, that's fine by me.I think you'll agree from looking at the peanut gallery that I'll be good at understanding the points you're trying to make.

Do you disagree with the observation based theory that if chemical self-replicators vary randomly in any physical environment, that environment will favour what functions in it over dysfunction?If you agree, why do you say "there is no rational explanation using the confines of your theory, to account for this"? "This" being complex combinations of genes producing complex organs, like the eye.If you know that mutations can produce advantageous novelty, and you know that natural selection can operate, on what basis are you questioning the theory?

There are plenty of observations that show that to be the case. About how many research papers on the subject did you read before you came to your "not any observations" conclusion? I thought you might have bothered to find out about the subject before commenting on it on the internet. Perhaps you should look a little further into the subject. Or a lot further. Mutations certainly regularly cause disadvantageous novelty, which is what one might expect from randomness, isn't it? Are you claiming that mutations never produce advantageous novelty of any kind? Do you think I'd be likely to present that as an example? Unless you're in a population group that has ceased to use its feet (whale or snake ancestors, for example) that would almost invariably have a net disadvantage. That was your thinking, not mine, I'm glad to say. Well certainly, mutating feet away wouldn't tell you that a system of extremely complex and inter-dependent parts could be built. Is a research paper on mutating feet away the only one you've read concerning the novel effects of mutations? Perhaps you should continue your perusal of the research literature and see if there are any examples that help tell you how complex systems might be built. You would need to be very familiar with this literature in order to be able to reasonably establish your "no observations" claim that I quoted at the beginning of the post, wouldn't you?
Try looking for examples of advantageous mutation in general, and then for examples in which mutations build on other mutations to create an advantage (because that would have to happen in the build up of complex organs over time). You'll find that there's plenty of evidence for both. Many creationists know this, so I'm genuinely surprised that you don't.

In the post I was replying to, you claimed that there were no observations to support the view that mutations could produce novel function. The mystery is how you could think this is true. I asked you if you were claiming that there are never any advantageous mutations. You've avoided the question. But you're discussing biology on the internet, and criticizing its central theory. In order to even begin to do that, you should already be familiar with examples of mutations producing advantageous novel functions. Are you essentially admitting to knowing so little about the subject that your criticisms are meaningless? You're showing how robust it is as a best explanation. You do that every time you demonstrate a strong desire to criticise it, but fail to come up with any evidence based alternative. That means other explanations based on demonstrably real processes. Mutation, selection and drift are real.Speaking of information, you didn't actually base your claim that there were no observations to support the view that mutations could produce novel advantageous function on information at all, did you? Be honest, and admit that it was just desire based nonsense, which is why, of course, you've avoided telling me how many research papers you've read on the subject.So why are you expressing strong views on biology, while at the same time asking me for information that anyone expressing strong views on biology should already have?

Yes, I'm imagining hard. And if you've got any research papers which demonstrate examples of supernatural beings designing novel advantageous features in organisms, then why not make the suggestion? I'd willingly read them. I said more than that. I implied that it's entirely your fault. It's you who chooses to have strong opinions about biology while admitting to not knowing of one single example of mutations producing advantageous novel features. You've been on the board three years, and plenty of examples will have been posted. Is the problem that when you read them you don't understand them? Go through your 878 posts and find one which presents positive evidence for any theory of the origin of species other than evolutionary theory. Then assess your contribution. You can easily find examples of mutations producing novelty in my back posts.Here's the first question that I put to you on the thread, and which you avoided: Don't you agree? If not, tell us what the words "plausible" and "realistic" mean to you.

Or duplications of CCL3L1 in HIV areas (everywhere). Well, apart from the point I made above, and apart from the fact that it's blown out by the combined evidence of dating methods that crosscheck from archaeology alone, it doesn't actually fit what we see in genomes. Does your model have humans being created in separate groups on different continents 6,500 years ago? I ask because I'm wondering if you'd expect stone age skeletons (determined by their artifacts rather than dating that you don't want to believe in) on different continents to bear a greater genetic resemblance to each other than they do to modern humans indigenous to the same regions. What would your model predict? ???? There's nothing in physics or chemistry to suggest that chemical self-replicators can't form naturally. We don't currently have a strong theory of how the rings of Saturn formed, and of many other things, but it is irrational to infer supernatural causes on the basis of our ignorance of detail.There's infinitely more evidence for natural chemical processes forming chemical phenomena in general than there is for supernatural involvement in the earth's chemistry. Yes. Overwhelmingly. I'm not quite sure what you're getting at in the first two sentences, but I agree on the last.Edited by bluegenes, : inserted missing quote

For one thing, there's too much variation within species for the time scale, unless you're proposing the creation of large groups of each species. And your last sentence isn't true, because "god did it" is a flat statement unsupported by any evidence. How did these "races" come about? How does the first 200 generations produce "races"? Even more races! We were blessed with rapid diversificatoin. In which area of the world, if any, would your model predict the greatest genetic diversity amongst humans? It seems to be Turkey or the Middle-east in general. I ask, because if one area has had a large population for a long time, and populations in other areas descend from smaller founding populations later on, then the most genetic diversity should be in the former. If you have some ideas (as is the case with abiogenesis) then neither. If you don't have any ideas, then the first is clearly correct and honest. An unsupported hypothesis like "fairies did it" is not in any way equal to a supported hypothesis like "pairs of genes that look like the product of the known process of gene duplication are paralogs."If we see something that looks like a frog, the best explanation is that's it's a frog, and grew from a tadpole in the established way, although you can't build a time machine and conclusively prove the point. In your way of thinking, the claim that it is actually a Prince transformed into an apparent frog by a wicked witch deserves equal consideration.In relation to abiogenesis, I repeat, the evidence that natural chemical processes can create chemical phenomena is infinitely greater than the evidence of supernatural beings doing chemistry on this planet. That's because those natural processes go on all the time, but there is not one single established example of a supernatural being doing anything, let alone chemistry. What "original species"? Of course you could have a duplication that goes to fixation in a species, and a descendant species that has a deletion. But what has that got to do with anything? You identify paralogs because they look like duplicates. See the frog and the Prince above.

Many. Primates, for example. You were talking about different "races" moving out of Turkey. In 2000 years, they'd have the about same diversity that the Irish have developed over the last 2000 years. How many races would you describe the Irish as? And stone age people here are in modern European haplogroups. Shouldn't all stone age people everywhere be closely related to each other in your model? I said that there's infinitely more evidence for natural chemical processes taking place on this planet than there is for supernatural beings making things here. It's a statement of fact. You can see the former every day, and no-one has ever established an example of the latter. You're the one who's suggesting that a magical being can create fake paralogs. It is your idea to bring in magic as a supposed refutation of the examples of neofunctionalization in duplicates that I presented on the peanut thread. You suggest that they could have been created by a magical being. It's your fairy tale. If you can't support it, you have to agree that apparent paralogs are paralogs, not fairy creations, just as you should agree that apparent frogs are frogs, not magicked princes. What other than natural processes do we have evidence for? When are you going to establish the existence of the supernatural? If you can't, 100% of the evidence is on my side.

No. That map tells us interesting things about migration, but not overall genetic diversity. If it were demonstrated that the highest level of diversity was not in the Middle East, would you consider your model (and the Bilble!!!!!) falsified?You may have guessed that I originally asked the question for a reason.In relation to haplogroups, your clue as to where the most genetic diversity should be is where the oldest in the nested hierarchy of haplotypes are found.Oops!Try a new model and new scriptures.

No to the first part, but you're right about loss of diversity through spreading. The Middle-Eastern groups are sub-groups of other groups. Just in your model. They would have spread so quickly from the Middle East that they would be very homogeneous all over the world, surely.