Always talking about micro-evolution?

Why do you think that question makes any sense? Could you explain what you think would have to go on?It shows a very limited understanding of the very nature of change with selection (either fitness derived or sexual).

I'm just not nearly as smart as you Ned. I'm just so easily confused, as you've already pointed out.The questions may not make sense to you, but it would help me if you answered them, pretty please?

How does that question even make sense?Let me put it to you this way. Let's say that you're at a track meet, and you're attracted to fast runners. In fact you want fast children so you've agreed to mate with the fastest runner.The question you're asking is akin to "how fast do they have to run before I'll mate with one of them?" It doesn't matter. "Fastest" is relative - most handsome is relative. So long as the ducks actually have feathers, one of them will have more handsome feathers than the others.The females have to mate. They're driven to do this. They'll choose the best mate they can find, but you're not going to find many ducks that are going to hold out forever. (That line of ducks doesn't last very long, you see.)It's not a question of "how handsome do you have to be to mate?" Evolution doesn't optimize. I don't have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you. (I don't have to be the handsomest possible duck to mate. I just have to be more handsome than you.) The fact that the duck doesn't have to have perfect plumage to mate. It just has to not have the ugliest plumage around.

Had to edit this post because I incorrectly added code for images that wound up causing and "infinite copy" function. Sorry about that. But noseyned says that crashfrog just answered my question, before I asked it, so I won't ask it again here. I'll go on to the next post.[This message has been edited by Skeptick, 02-11-2004]

Your question was answered by loudmouth in the previous post. Now it is your turn to think about it a bit.

You need to repost the information, of the message this is a reply to. I think the message in question might require deleting, for technical reasons.I went to try to edit it, to fix the code errors, and somehow I'm getting a preview that is very, very, very, very, very, very long, and very, etc., etc. repetitive. I didn't even get the whole thing to display.Apparently this page display is only show part of this.When you close a URL code link, you need to use [/url]. You were ommiting the "/".In closing, I must congratulate you. I've never seen something even close to this kind of a mess.Cheers,
AdminnemooseusAdded by edit - By the time I got this posted, Skeptick had already taken care of the mess - I thank him.[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 02-11-2004]

Yes, please send the award to my office address so I can display it proudly. It's taken about 30 minutes to fix it because it took so long for the edit screen to finally display, after the system reached its copy limit. I was afraid it would crash the system, but luckily not. Wow. I came close to going down in history.

Yes. Now I understand. Except that I knew a guy once, who tried that very same thing. Just before our lady's man could get down to actual business, some big ugly lookin' character came over and beat the tar out him, decisively eliminating his chances of passing on his good looks. I once thought that natural selection was a "stronger" overpowers the "weaker", and the weaker ones don't get to pass on genes. I'm glad you've cleared up the confusion. "Agreement". Negotiating. Intelligence. Yes, I never would have thought of that.So, help me again.
You have demonstrated that the colored feathers of the woodduck are a simple mathematical inevitability. How long would it take natural selection to develop these colors and then arrange each feather as they are on the woodduck's skin?Also, how did natural selection keep the good lookin' ducks from getting beat up by the ugly ducks while they were waiting on a satisfactory arrangement of their feathers?And one other question that my pitiful existence can't figure out. Please help me. If the good lookin' guys were better able to convince the ladies, why is the rock pigeon's color scheme so haphazard? Or maybe I understand now; the rock pigeon hasn't been evolving as long as the woodduck, and there's a secret society of good lookin' rock pigeons out there somehwhere hiding from the rough, tough, big and ugly ones until they one day look good enough to reveal themselves and take on the ladies. I'm trying real hard to learn this material.

Cute. Not sure what your point is, though. The fight doesn't always go to the strongest, though it is a good way to bet. Yes. Selection isn't a process where only the victor gets the spoils. It's a process where the loser definately doesn't get any spoils. Who cares? Why do you presume the ugly ducks are physically superior? I don't see that "good lookin' ducks" getting "beat up" is in any way an inevitable outcome. Which one is the rock pidgeon? The drab one?Clearly female rock pidgeons have no plumage preference. Sexual selection is always based on the preference of the limiting reproductive resource, which is almost always the female (because the female is able to parent so many less offspring than the male, usually.) It doesn't show. When we point out how your questions are based on misapprehensions, you turn around and ask them again. That doesn't look like learning to me.You still haven't looked up the terms I told you about, I see.

I repeat my questions because you maneuver around them and don't answer.
In another post, someone from your camp claimed that life was a mathematical inevitability, as any gambler could explain.But I'm NOT asking about what the "odds" are of life evolving from non-life through random processes because my little brain (as you continue to point out directly or indirectly) can't comprehend numbers that large.But I'm still struggling to formulate a question that you can't dodge, and just give me the numbers that show the probability of random processes (mutations are random, right?) arranging something as simple as feathers on a woodduck's skin, in a way that seems peculiarly as if it had been done by intelligence of some kind. I'm trying hard to come up with something simple for you, but you keep cutting-and-pasting sound bites like "it doesn't show", etc., rather than spending your time calculating or finding someone in your camp to calculate the odds. Your camp refers to creationists as "nitwits" (earlier post) so I wouldn't think of looking to my camp for any realistic numbers.Just give me the odds of it happening the way the feather sequencing turned out on the woodduck's skin. Certainly someone in your camp is sharp enough to figure out the odds of something so inevitable.But your pattern of behavior predicts that you'll once again resort to pasting sounds bites and commenting on those, than just focusing in on the question. Could you please make an effort to break your pattern of behavior just once. For me?

Well, the plumage coloration and pattern is probably governed by the interactions of maybe 3-4 genes. I can't give you the "odds" of this arrangement: because I don't see what about wood duck plumage you find particularly intelligent. As you correctly pointed out, it's mal-adaptive, and only persists because the females, for whatever reason, prefer to mate with the colorful males. Why would an intelligent designer saddle wood ducks with a mal-adaptive coloration? I guess I don't see why you're so hung up on the odds. I can't calculate them because I don't know which genes control the pigmentation and arrangement of feathers. I don't know how many alleles there are for each gene. I don't know how the genes interact. And I especially don't know what plumage patterns resulting from these interactions you're likely to find more significant than others.It would be much more useful to ask "what are the odds that female wood ducks would come to prefer bright plumage?" but I can't even answer that, because I don't know the sample space - the enumeration of all possible wood duck brain states that would be relevant to their behavior in regards to plumage.You're asking for odds without being able to define the sample space. Answering your question isn't going to be possible, which you would know if you were really thinking about this stuff. If you want odds, then figure out these numbers:k: How many possible plumage configurations could be represented in the wood duck genome?
n: Out of those, which ones do you consider significant?The "odds", then, should be somewhere around n out of k.

I happen to be on the east coast right now having just gotten the internet in my room. life has taken me throught a recent turn of events that strengthens my response to your conversation. a reply pertaining to "why" you are bantering on this subject...succinctly...may help filter my intrusion and rectify my involvement. I would love, and feel I can, be an undeterminable resource of insight. Please pardon the seeming arrogance. Typing is not my m.o..[This message has been edited by valle, 02-11-2004]

Why...what?Why we're talking about the genetic basis of wood duck plumage? Because Skeptick brought it up, presumably hoping to catch us evilutionists in a contradiction.Why we're talking about evolution in general? Because that's what the forum is for.

the forum has serious merit. I agree. Wood ducks on the other hand...(I guess atheist) may seem to be less the primary issue than the point. I like wood ducks. I should do some back-reading...
Look, the battle that rages between the forces is natural. that being said, God "can" always be the buffer in the middle of either pure science and pure spiritulism. At any point of reason one of you can counterpoint the other...as long as neither of you concede that both of your points (of view) are, in fact, valid. So, numbers become moot for the creationists and conjecture for the evolutionist. The closer, or more inward, you look, the more infinite, or distant existance presents itself. That, I believe, is a fact...Universally, cosmologically, spiritually...it resonates.
Goodnight...[This message has been edited by valle, 02-11-2004]

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As you already pointed out, you're almost infinitely ahead of me on this stuff.

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Actually, my point was that I am ahead because I have bothered to be ahead. None of this area of research is inaccessible. There are even books for non-specialists available. If you wish to make assertions about biology, it would behoove you to do so with some knowledge of the field rather than reiterating baseless tripe. I am not a physicist. If I wished to debate quantum mechanics I would make damn sure that I had my basics in tip top shape before charging in and making the kind of statements that you have. So again, I am not calling you stupid. I am accusing you of being willfully ignorant which is different.

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So, what percentage of DNA is "non-coding"?

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Approximatley 97%. The number is only approximate because, less than 50% of identified open reading frames (potential protein coding sequences) are of known or potentially known function. There are also a lot of functional RNAs and important sequences even among the "junk DNA" sequences that are turning up. An example are two genes called Syncytin 1 and Syncytin 2 which are human endogenous retrovirus envelope genes (HERV-W class specifically) which are crucial for placental formation in humans through old world monkeys but not in other mammals (yet another example of shared ancestry among higher primates).

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Also, what percentage of DNA has been identified as functional?

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Just as above, 3% of the genome is comprised of classical genes. But this number will continue to change as more of the non-coding DNA function is elucidated. There are also structural components to DNA that are non-coding like the centromeres and telomeres. They are critical but they do not produce proteins.
Another problem with giving one specific number is that there is variation in copy number of many sequences even among individual humans.

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Just short, simple, and direct answers are fine. I'm not nearly as smart at noseyned, so please work with me here.

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Let me know if the above is what you were looking for or you wanted something else.