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Author Topic:   From protobionts to living cells
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 11 of 48 (497277)
02-03-2009 9:10 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by Cedre
02-03-2009 8:04 AM


Re: From protobionts to living cells - a response to Huntard
neither process has been witnessed in the lab or in the wild to add new information to an indiviuals genome or to a population's gene pool. If I'm mistaken then present me with evidences to the contrary.
I'd be happy to do so, provided you can tell me precisely what you mean by information. There are multiple different possible metrics for measuring information content, some of them are easily applicable to genetics and some are highly subjective and almost impossible to use meaningfully.
There are several informational metrics by which it is trivial to show examples of increasing information in the genome as a result of mutation and/or natural selection.
it has never been observed to transform an indivual into something else so that it can no longer be called its former self.
Indeed, this isn't how evolution or natural selection work. It has been observed that individuals descended from the same ancestral population may diverge into distinct species, even in experimental populations.
Mutations are harmful,fullstop.
This is simply untrue. Nor is it true to say that only most mutations are harmful. Most mutations are neutral, they change the genetic composure of an organism in such a way as to have no effect on it at all. Either the occur in stretches of DNA where they have no functional effect, due to the region they occur having no functional significance or because the change in the DNA doe not cause any functional change in the gene/region it occurs in, in the case of non-synonymous mutations in protein coding genes they may simply exchange one amino acid for an equivalent amino acid having no functional effect on the protein product.
Harmful mutations certainly do outweigh beneficial mutations but to deny the existence of beneficial mutations requires ignoring a vast body of evidence, not to mention imposing some magical barrier for which there is no evidence to prevent certain specific mutations arising.
How can anything random and sudden be beneficial especially when it comes to life-forms
Winning the lottery? I admit there is an argument to be made against sudden wealth being generally beneficial but I think you get my point.
A mutant cell is out of control and wayward it violates regulation and disturbs normal body function and growth.
This is not true. The most obvious forms of cellular mutation to us, those leading to cancers are obvious precisely because they do this. This doesn't prevents every child from having roughly a hundred de novo mutations which distinguish them genetically from their parents but which do not cause them to become an uncontrollable cancerous growth.
Other than this what other evidences have been used to back the theory of evolution? close to nothing.
Multiple lines of evidence from paleontology to comparative embryology and genetics.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by Cedre, posted 02-03-2009 8:04 AM Cedre has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by Cedre, posted 02-03-2009 9:33 AM Wounded King has replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 14 of 48 (497290)
02-03-2009 9:56 AM
Reply to: Message 13 by Cedre
02-03-2009 9:33 AM


Mutations
Hi Cedre,
Would you be prepared to discuss mutation on another thread? Or would you continue to make vague statements saying that my arguments are wrong but not giving any details. Then again, if your arguments are just going to be cut and pasted from answers in genesis it wouldn't actually be a discussion.
If you are prepared to make your own arguments in your own words, preferably with some actual evidence involved, let me know and I'll start a new thread.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by Cedre, posted 02-03-2009 9:33 AM Cedre has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 18 by Cedre, posted 02-04-2009 1:13 AM Wounded King has not replied

Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 46 of 48 (497440)
02-04-2009 6:40 AM
Reply to: Message 25 by Cedre
02-04-2009 4:41 AM


Straying from the theme?
And to set the record straoght, I am not the one who strays from the theme
Really? And yet your Message 9 is the first time anyone brings up the topics of mutation and information. It is also you that keeps trying to use the status of research into abiogenesis as some sort of disproof of evolution. If you want to debate origins-of-life research then do so, if you want to debate modern evolutionary theory then do that. It seems a bit obtuse however to claim to want to debate the origins-of-life to then say it disproves modern evolutionary theory and to complain of others going off topic when they address your misconceptions about modern evolutionary theory because they are not addressing the origins-of-life topic. Abiogenesis is arguably the origin of evolution as it is of life, but this is just as true if the abiogenetic event was god breathing life into clay as if it was a symbiosis of disparate protogenetic and protocellular elements around a hydrothermal vent. The particular form the abiogenetic event took is obviously interesting in and of itself, but largely irrelevant to evolutionary theory.
You have failed to address the single most important critique of your OP that was raised right at the start by Bluejay, that your description of the theory of abiogenesis was a strawman not representign a theory actually held by researchers. What you describe is not a theory ascribed to by anyone researching the origins of life that I am aware of, although it seems to borrow from a few. If you still contend that it is a specific origins hypothesis put forward by those in origins-of-life research then please give us an actual reference for a research paper or review paper putting forward such an hypothesis.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by Cedre, posted 02-04-2009 4:41 AM Cedre has not replied

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