Extent of Mutational Capability

Micro- and macroevolution are not so-called. The terms were coined by an evolutionist and I have found them in common use even at university level. However there is no precise universally agreed definition. Treat them as general rather than exact terms.There is nothing that will actively stop mutations, although we also know that in some circumstances mutations are actively promoted in hot spots. There is however a passive barrier and that is the extreme rarity of beneficial mutations within the space of all possibilities. A change that requires several mutations before a benefit is produced are essentially beyond the reach of [neo-]Darwinian evolution.Indeed there is considerable variation possible within the dog kind. Similarly from hybrids we can infer that all cats, from tabby to tiger, are all part of the cat kind. However we have never observed evolution from one kind into another.Gene merging or gene duplication and conversion has never been observed. The closest they have come is identifying a family of similar genes that are assumed to have evolved from a common ancestor.

So you agree that it has not been observed.

Hello, Dwise1.
Gene merging was used by the OP and I wasn't too worried about it. One example I can think of is in human chromosome 2 the supposed fusion site is within an active gene which therefore should have existed in two separate halves before the fusion.The phrase should have been read as "gene duplication and conversion" and perhaps I should have phrased that better. Certainly gene duplication happens although even in the example you quote about hair colour I believe the presence of multiple alleles is interpreted as duplication and conversion rather than and actual observation.The smallest to largest cats can be linked by interbreeding as follows: Domestic cats can be crossed with the 3—9 kg margay, Leopardus weidii, which readily interbreeds with the 11—16 kg ocelot, Leopardus pardalus, which has been crossed with the puma (35—100 kg), Puma concolor, which has been hybridized with the leopard (30—85 kg), Panthera pardus, which can be crossed with the lion (120—250 kg), Panthera leo, which can readily interbreed with the tiger, Panthera tigris, with adult tigers ranging from 110 kg to a massive 320 kg.This is an ongoing area of research and may need revision in the future, just like any scientific theory.Who claims that one kind can evolve into another? Evolutionists, that's who! The doctrine of universal common ancestry means that whatever level you think the kind might be, say it's the family level, each one must have first appeared as a subset of something else.

dwise1, If you look back you'll see coyote1 was responding to my statement "However we have never observed evolution from one kind into another."That's the "it" I was talking about. I might need to be more explicit in future.Edited by CRR, : No reason given.

Hello PaulK,The terms micro and macroevolution are usually credited to evolutionist Yuri Filipchenko, and they are certainly not exclusive to evolutionists. Check out for instance Evolution 101 - Understanding EvolutionYes 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.Gene duplication has certainly been observed in bacteria, but I'm not sure about conversion. Perhaps if you want to count Nylonase but that was a small variation to an existing enzyme that changed the target but not the function.

I think my previous answer covered both these topics, and please keep your language civil.

How do you do those block quotes?

I've had several responses so please excuse me for not replying individually.First I'd like to ask what is a species?
Although some people may wish for a black-and-white criterion for defining species, this is unrealistic. [ Encyclopedia of Life ]
The biological species concept is popular but many use the phylogenetic concept and it is often difficult to precisely define boundaries between species. There are many cases where animals classified as separate species can produce viable and fertile offspring, e.g. lion-tiger, although their offspring is more often infertile. There are also cases of cross genera offspring such as the wholpin. Only partly as a joke, one definition is that a species is "whatever a competent taxonomist says is a species."I think this shows that current taxonomic classifications are only an approximation to biological reality.Similarly there is no universally accepted definition of kind. The definition I favour is "those animals/plants that could interbreed immediately following creation". There has been much speciation and differentiation since then and it is often difficult to precisely define boundaries between kinds. For example there is good evidence from hybridization within the cats that all from tabby to tiger are one kind. However further research could show differently; that the big cats are separate from the other cats. It is the nature of scientific research that sometimes (often) we have to adjust what we think to be true.

So, Gregory, you've come here to learn rather than debate. At least this suggests you are open minded. I hope my responses have been of interest to you.btw ID is not synonymous with Creationism. Many Intelligent Design proponents are evolutionists. Many creationists have reservations about some ID.

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.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.)Now I will try to get back to Greg's question about the extent of mutational capacity.

What is the mutational capability of evolution.The mutation-selection process is quite limited in what it can achieve. A section of DNA is a string of coded information and a random change will probably damage that information; far more likely than producing an improvement. Like making a random change to a software subroutine there are many more ways to do damage than to improve it. Similarly a random mutation is far more likely to damage the genetic code than to add beneficial genetic information.Occasionally however a mutation that damages the normal function can have specific benefits. Blowing up a bridge you might want to cross in the future is a dis-benefit but can provide short term benefits if it prevents the advance of an attacking enemy. Most cases of antibiotic resistance are like this. If an antibiotic requires a particular channel through the cell membrane or attaches to a specific site then destroying those will sometimes provide a benefit greater than the harm they do; but only when exposed to antibiotics.Wild populations of bacteria often have a very small proportion of resistant individuals and the reason it is so small is that normally the mutation is harmful and is constantly being removed by selection. Only when exposed to antibiotics do these mutations give a net benefit allowing their proportion to increase and antibiotic resistant strains to develop. When antibiotics are removed the bacteria tend to revert to the original proportions. How quickly bacteria become resistant and how quickly they lose it depends on the selection coefficients in different environments.Similarly sickle cell trait damages the haemoglobin and is harmful but can provide some net benefit when malaria is prevalent. In this case even in high risk malaria areas the proportion of sickle cell trait doesn’t get to 20% before the harm outweighs the benefit.But what about nylonase (and similar examples)? Adaptations like this appear to be part of the genetic toolkit of bacteria. E. coli have been found to develop the ability to eat nylon reliably and quickly, sometimes within days. This is relatively simple mutation and bacteria have the advantage of very large populations and rapid reproduction.Is this information adding? Genes that are programmed to be adaptable have the information pre-loaded into their design, and in gaining the ability to eat nylon it loses the previous function; so No.Consider Chloroquinine resistance in malaria parasites. One of the most effective anti-malarial drugs because the parasite took longer to develop resistance to this. Behe shows that chloroquine resistance likely involves two specific mutations occurring together in the one gene. This explains why resistance to chloroquine took a long time to develop. Behe also points out that the chloroquine-resistant parasites do worse than the non-resistant ones where there is no chloroquine. This suggests that the double mutation is informationally downhill, as usual.When a chain of beneficial mutations lead to a favourable result we can expect evolution to find this fairly easily. A single point mutation is the easiest and can be readily achieved. When multiple non-beneficial mutations are required the probability is the multiplication of individual probabilities. This rapidly becomes prohibitive. Bacteria can compensate for this to some extent due to large populations and rapid reproduction but even then the waiting time can become excessive. For higher animals with small populations and long reproduction times, such as humans, waiting times can exceed all the time available since the beginning, even if you think that is billions of years.Now look at it from another point of view. How frequent are functional proteins in the sequence space of all possible combinations. Ann Gauger offers a neat analogy about the rarity of functional protein folds, calculated by her colleague Doug Axe. Hitting upon one is akin to standing outside the Milky Way and trying to strike a single quark held in the hand of a bather lying on the shore of Lake Michigan. It's that specific, mind-bogglingly beyond the reach of blind, unguided evolutionary groping. http://www.evolutionnews.org/...biologist_ann_g_2103194.html . Where there is a chain of beneficial mutations a result is achievable but a chain of a few neutral steps will blow the waiting time out of practical possibility, even for bacteria let alone humans.This is not a case of we don’t know; therefore God. We have the data and we can say we do know; therefore not Evolution.Evolution can achieve the trivial but is inadequate to achieve changes of even moderate complexity.

The Wright brothers intelligently designed the Kitty Hawk. An intelligent design team designed the A380.

Yes. Just what I said. Are you sure you read my post? Seriously? This is basic stuff. It's why Lenski is using bacteria and not elephants for his experiment.

It's known as Haldane's Dilemma. A clear exposition is given in http://saintpaulscience.com/CostTheory1.pdf ."Briefly. Haldane's Dilemma establishes a limit of 1,667 beneficial substitutions (where a substitution is almost always one nucleotide) over the past ten million years of the lineage leading to humans. The origin of all the uniquely human adaptations would have to be explained within that limit." [http://users.minn.net/science/Haldane.htm]The generation time for chimps is similar to humans but even allowing a shorter time there should be no more than 5000 mutation differences separating chimps and humans if the evolutionary scenario is correct.

You say you don't trust my source without looking at it; without evidence
I on the other hand have read many articles on talkorigins and I don't trust it with good evidence on which to base my opinion.If you refuse to examine the evidence from one side you will naturally come to a biased opinion.Edited by CRR, : Typo corrected