Molecular Population Genetics and Diversity through Mutation

Wonderful. No difference between disease and health, no difference between healthy genetic diversity needed by the genetically impoverished seals and some kind of useless mutational diversity. This is science? HE WAS REFERRING TO PHENOTYPIC DIVERSITY WHICH MAKES HASH OUT OF MY ARGUMENT WHICH IS ALL ABOUT GENETIC DIVERSITY. If you can't grasp that much and obviously you can't just as he can't this discussion is hopeless. How do I keep trying to convince myself it's not when it so clearly is?All the more hopeless since I found out that polymorphic genes seem to be predominantly disease-causers and none of you bothered to mention that fact, just carrying on as if I somehow have to account for all those extra "alleles" that weren't on the ark. The deception in this discussion is worse than even I imagined. It's appalling, it's disgusting. There's far more needed than adjusting terminology. Which I can't do anyway because the terminology is skewed toward the in-sanity I'm trying to avoid. Why you can't see it is the puzzle.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Yeah sickle cell anemia exchange for malaria. Wonderful. The occasional fluke like the moths and the pocket mice, which is still not easy to explain despite the insistence here, doesn't save mutations from the opprobrium they deserve.And "neutral" mutations are killers of normal alleles. At least they set the stage for their complete killing when another mutation comes along. There is nothing benign about "neutral" mutations.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well this is interesting...Good alleles are part of the original created genome and bad alleles are due to mutation, so now you only need to account for good alleles. Well that certainly solves your problem of having to explain multiple alleles - just declare the additional alleles as 'bad' and then they don't count. Heck, you don't even have to know anything about what the alleles actually do because you know that if the allele came about due to mutation it is automatically bad.HBD

So you didn't bother to learn anything about the Runx-2 genes I brought up in Message 275? Runx-2 variants are not defective, they are different. They affect the length of the snout. Is there a "perfect" form for the length of the snout? No, there is variation. Variation is not "bad." The one who is being deceptive is you, Faith. You read a paragraph on Wikipedia about polymorphic alleles and it gives an example of a polymorphic locus that includes a disease allele and you extrapolate that to ALL polymorphic alleles. You are just looking for a reason to dismiss the study I presented and not have to address polymorphic loci. I did not present a study that looked at diseased alleles and the study was about dogs not bacteria or other "icky" organisms.Disease alleles are easy to identify since they produce a distinct phenotype. They also generate a lot of attention since lots of money goes into funding research into diseases. They don't represent ALL alleles out there.Which alleles in the Runx-2 series are the defective alleles and which are the original alleles?Which alleles in the Human ABO gene are the defective alleles and which are the original alleles?You have no way of knowing, but I bet you know for sure that several of them are indeed defective. You won't have phenotypic diversity without genetic diversity. So if there is phenotypic diversity that is a sure clue that there is also genetic diversity. Of course you know this, so I am not sure why you can't grasp the point. I am certainly not the one who has a hard time grasping genetics, Faith. But you are probably right that this discussion is hopeless. You are just incapable of defending your premise with any thing other than denial, obstinance and conjecture. The only argument you actually have is that you KNOW you are right and that evolution is wrong.HBDEdited by herebedragons, : No reason given.

Well, there is something benign about them, namely their complete benignity.

There is a difference, but it is not expressed by using the word "allele" only for beneficial alleles and some other word for the rest.That is not how the English language works, Faith. Instead, we modify nouns with adjectives in order to describe their qualities. So for example we speak of beneficial alleles and deleterious alleles. As I pointed out, the phenotypic diversity results from genetic diversity. For example, the reason that those chihuahuas have different coat colors is that they have different alleles for coat color. You should really learn to distinguish between things you find out and things you make up. Because we do not live in the insane fantasy-land that exists in your demented little head, Faith.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

You've been told this before but it is well worth repeating.Evolution is not directional. It is not better vs worse. Humans are not more evolved than chimpanzees or rats or puppy dogs or earthworms or pond scum.The test for evolution is change over time and just good enough to reproduce before dying.

An example which illustrates yet another principle. Deleterious and beneficial are terms which characterize mutations with respect to fitness and generally are meaningful in that context. Individuals carrying a single copy of the mutation are not affected by the sickle cell disease and are highly protected against malaria. In regions where malaria is common, for example in some regions of Africa, the sickle cell trait is actually beneficial.Of course there are some mutations that are not beneficial in any context, but clearly some mutations, can only be classified with respect to their specific environment.

That was certainly clear enough. Different chihuahuas are simply different phenotypes then.Faith, I'd like to introduce you to a poster arguing against the theory of evolution in this thread. Oh, wait... It appears you two do know each other.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

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Wonderful. No difference between disease and health, no difference between healthy genetic diversity needed by the genetically impoverished seals and some kind of useless mutational diversity. This is science?

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And now you are complaining that scientists haven't invented more jargon. Of course the sole reason for the complaint is that you got the definition wrong. But you have to blame other people as usual.

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HE WAS REFERRING TO PHENOTYPIC DIVERSITY WHICH MAKES HASH OUT OF MY ARGUMENT WHICH IS ALL ABOUT GENETIC DIVERSITY. If you can't grasp that much and obviously you can't just as he can't this discussion is hopeless. How do I keep trying to convince myself it's not when it so clearly is?

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But of course the two are not separate even in your argument. Selection - natural and artificial - is by phenotype. And if these phenotypic variations are all allowed within the breed, how can you say that a new mutation would automatically be rejected by a breeder ? Are you suggesting that new mutations must always fall outside the acceptable phenotypic range ? Because that is the only way it could happen.Even then the extension to evolution would be silly, because evolution does not have the artificial standards used by breeders - so expecting it to follow them is just plain daft.

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All the more hopeless since I found out that polymorphic genes seem to be predominantly disease-causers and none of you bothered to mention that fact,

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Are they, or is this something you made up ? I doubt that it is true for the many different alleles in the immune system or in the alleles for human eye colour for a start.

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The deception in this discussion is worse than even I imagined. It's appalling, it's disgusting

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Only in the sense that your lies are really, really silly. Maybe if you pray more, your God will give you some better ones.

There will be millions of examples of 'flukes' because there are trillions of examples of organisms and we know that every organism contains a few mutated genes. We have found 'flukes' that validate the ToE in viruses, bacteria, fruit flies, apples, flowers, lizards, mice and moths and they're only the ones we (I) know about. Molecular biology is brand new - you're going to have to get used to findings which you hate because they prove you wrong. Or change your mind based on the evidence in front of you.'Flukes' are easy to explain, you don't need advanced biological training to grasp the basic concepts - as has been shown here and you have been unable to refute. There's nothing contentious about them apart from your personal dislike of them which you have only for religious and dogmatic reasons, which IS hard to explain.Genetics like nature itself is a morality free zone - your God apparently made it that way.

I may yet come back and answer the rest of your post as originally planned, but for now I kind of got the wind knocked out of me. All the straw man misrepresentations of my argument after all this time are really disappointing. Then there was that Wikipedia article that pretty much defined polymorphic genes as disease-causers. Being so surprised by that is my own fault of course because I shouldn't have been assuming they were normal variants. Trusting you guys in a sense, not realizing that you don't distinguish between disease-causing alleles and normal variants. I should have realized it, it's been said before here, I guess I just couldn't believe it because it's too irrational -- wow, I guess I learned THAT lesson.In fact as I think about it now ALL mutations of alleles create polymorphic genes. That's what the mutations DO to alleles. Sort of flabbergasting that I hadn't put all that together before. That really is true. There is no point in taking mutations seriously at all knowing how very very few of them ever do anything beneficial. I don't know why it took that Wikipedia article to drive that home to me since it's what I've thought all along, but for some reason it clinched it. Nothing like an abrupt disillusionment to shake a person up.But as I said I do still want to try to consider the arguments for mutation, yours and Genomicus' at least, though nothing could be less interesting at the moment. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Then there was that Wikipedia article that pretty much defined polymorphic genes as disease-causers.

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The article obviously said no such thing. Try reading it. Or even the section you quoted.

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In fact as I think about it now ALL mutations of alleles create polymorphic genes.

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Mutations usually create new alleles (at least at the level of genetic sequences) but it is abusing the terminology rather to say that is creating a polymorphic gene.

You seem to have overlooked a key word in the paragraph you posted:

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A gene is said to be polymorphic if more than one allele occupies that gene’s locus within a population.[1] A polymorphic variant of a gene may lead to the abnormal expression or to the production of an abnormal form of the gene; this may cause or be associated with disease.

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I would write more, but I'm off out to watch the football, which Turkey may win. They may, but Croatia are the favourites.

You goddamned liar. You goddamned liar. Well, if this was coherent it might actually be true. Mutations cause alleles; a polymorphic gene is by definition one with more than one allele. Since this is true by definition, it would indeed be flabbergasting if you'd only just realized this.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.