Questioning The Evolutionary Process

.... now please open the envelope and let us know what is the normal number of unique mutations that a person has ...thanks

The paper I linked to calculates it at 128 --- a rather overprecise figure. I don't think you'd go far wrong saying "probably more than 100 and less than 200".Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I'm being lazy, and a bit busy with good and bad these days, and haven't read the paper but...How do we determine "unique"? If I have 100 mutations in my genes how do we know that a few 100 million others don't happen to have the same ones?

That's (~)100 new ones that you did not inherit from parent genomes. The probability of any one being duplicated is low.You have a lot of others that you do share.Enjoy.

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I don't get that as an answer to my question. It wasn't about uniqueness from my parents but the whole generation alive while I am. The search through the genome space by mutations/natural selection if the genome is getting lots of nice, shiny, new mutations but if all the individuals of a generation have the same "new" mutations there are only 100 to go around. But if each have "unique" mutations there are over half a trillion to work with.

How could that happen? They're random, remember. Although there are hotspots and coldspots in the genome, which would make exact calculations difficult, I doubt if any two individuals in our entire generation, even considering our large modern population, would have received the exact same 100 new mutations.And if you took two individuals at random, it's unlikely that they would share even one from the 200 they have between them, although they would have overlaps with plenty of others in the world. It sounds as though most of the genome would have mutated somewhere in a generation of 1 billion individuals, but I've probably got something very wrong.Edited by bluegenes, : missing quote

I get you now. The paper was # of new (since parents) mutations per individual, not the whole population. Given the (current) size of the human population, it is not unreasonable that some are duplicated, true. But, you are still dealing with many more mutation possibilities than the (# gene locations) x (# population). Not all mutations in the same location need to be the same kind of mutation.There is also the issue of the similarity of the genomes being mutated to begin with: is it the same mutation if the next sequence is already different (inherited)? In a very real sense each persons genome is unique, so any change to it is different from a similar change to a different person's genome: it can have an entirely different result due to interaction between genes.But also given the (current) size of the human population, the chance of two people that do just happen to have the same mutation in identical sections of DNA coming into contact and mating and producing offspring are truly remote (the original point regardless of uniqueness of the mutations).That's the way I understand it anyway.Enjoy.

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Nosyned wrote: Uniqueness may not be the best measure of allelic importance, or of the meaning of generational cohorts of alleles. I don't really know what "unique" means in the digital world of alleles. Better measures of alleles, I think, determine if they are beneficial, neutral, or harmful, and if they are favored or not by selection.In this regard, I defer to what Daniel Hartl & Elizabeth Jones say about mutations of alleles in their book Essential Genetics/A Genomic Perspective (2002, p. 523):

quote:

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It is apparent . that selection tends to eliminate harmful alleles from a population. However, harmful alleles can never be eliminated totally because recurrent mutation of the normal allele continually creates new harmful alleles. These new mutations tend to replenish the harmful alleles eliminated by selection. Eventually the population will attain a state of equilibrium in which the new mutations exactly balance the selective eliminations.

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So, it would be fair to say that any state of "uniqueness" amongst mutating alleles is actually a state of utility flux, or a state of dynamic equilibrium in a digital context, owing to the fact that this whole serade takes place among the just four digital nucleotides, wherein analogues of selection moderate the digits of mutation.Hope this helps more than confounds the isxue.”HM

The current theory does not suggest any benefits of mutations.
Evolutions doesnt have a purpose nor the mechanism involved claims any benefit over a large period of time. It is a zero sum game and any perceived benefit is local to evolution timescale.

Welcome to the fray dkv,Another way to think of it is that evolution is an opportunistic response mechanism.

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No Sir there is no sense of opportunity involved.
According to current theory the local sense of opportunism can not be translated into Group opportunism.
The local opportunistic behaviour of mutation can lead to global catastrophy for the species.

I disagree. The mutations currently in existence in any population are opportunities for evolution to build on. Organisms can take opportunity to move into new ecologies and expand.When ecology changes around an organism it has to take the opportunity provided by the mutations currently in existence in the population to change to match or suffer.Enjoy.

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I disagree.The mutations currently in existence in any population are opportunities for evolution to build on.
REP: There is nothing to build on from evolutionary prespective.
It is simply a case of random chance. The world is like big casino(including the owners of the casino).This analogy works from the point of view of gene and physicists.
Who wins and who looses is matter of chance.
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Organisms can take opportunity to move into new ecologies and expand.
REP:The chance which made them move into some favourable conditions
can also throw them back into the misfortune.
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When ecology changes around an organism it has to take the opportunity provided by the mutations currently in existence in the population to change to match or suffer.
REP:As I said no opportunity can guarantee success.
Humans and animals are gene carriers and any attempt to attach any MEANING to existence is useless and undesirable from scientific point of view.
The question is if there is no meaning then why to ask any question?
If there are some local advantages then what is the gurantee that the individual will remain in advantageous position.
It is purposeless existence with random consequences in everyday life.

type [qs]quotes are easy[/qs] and it becomes: or type [quote]quotes are easy[/quote] and it becomes:

quote:

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quotes are easy

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also check out (help) links on formating questions when in the reply window.These formating procedures help distinguish what you say from what you are quoting from others. False. Who survives and passes on their genes and who doesn't is a matter of selection. That is when natural selection comes into operation. Of course not, nobody said it did. What increased diversity through a variety of mutations or inhabiting a variety of ecologies does in increase to possibility, the opportunity for survival. Humans and other animals are populations of individuals with a diverse plethora of mutations in their genomes that provide opportunities for greater diversity.Meaning to existence is not what science is looking for -- if you want to look for that try philosophy. Religion is also not looking for finding the meaning of existence, it is too busy telling you. Because we have brains that can ask questions, and because asking them in a scientific process helps develop answers to increase knowledge. Nothing. Evolution occurs in populations through the change-over in individuals from one generation to the next. If that is your belief, that is your concern.Enjoy.

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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Welcome to EvC dkv.Please use the quoting dbcodes to improve the readability of your posts.For example: The dbCodes help to the right of the edit window shows you how to do this. You may also use the peek button on the bottom right of any post to see the raw text that someone entered.
some help on posting quotes:type [qs]quote boxes are easy[/qs] and it becomes:you can also type [quote]quote lines are easy[/quote] and it becomes:(with thanks to RAZD for the code for the above)I like to use the first for quoting people I am responding to and the second for quoting text from outside sources.I'd also like you to spend more time making your posts clearer and explaining your position. So far your posts are a bit short and cryptic. If English isn't your first language most people here will attempt to help you get it straight.

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